The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave (25 page)

Now for the pièce de résistance. He took careful aim with the pistol and hit the propane tank with the first shot.
Boom!
Hot air blistered the skin on his cheek. The explosion rocked the house, blowing the windows out and wrenching the front door off its hinges.

The air was suffused with the stench of cooked flesh.
Sorry Joe. Your stupid neighbor just set your home on fire and is about to cook himself inside it.

At least the explosion served as a distraction. Crawling under the billowing smoke, dragging the duffel bag behind him, Scott exited through the back door.

CHAPTER 44

B
ROTHER’S
L
ARGER
T
READ

I
n the late afternoon, the treehouse was like an oven set to broil. Katie was directly under the burning sun, no roof on the tree house to protect her from its merciless rays. The sagging walls absorbed sunlight and pushed even more heat onto the little girl. Sweat streamed from her forehead. Scott untied her and gently woke her, lifting her up to drink a mix of Advil and Tylenol in some water. Then he dampened one of the t-shirts, folded the frozen gel pack into it and placed it under her head before lowering her back to the floor.

She drifted off again.

Scott cleaned the blood off of Katie, taking special care when he treated her wounded ear. It hadn’t been gnawed on. It was a smooth cut from a sharp blade. The knife hadn’t stopped at the ear. It also carved a thin diagonal line that stopped at the angle of her jaw.

He glanced at the scar on his hand. Katie’s would be remarkably similar. He flashed back to when he was seventeen, seeing the massive elbow that appeared from the darkness, connecting with the side of his skull, knocking him unconsciousness. He awoke with a concussion, and his hand was cut and bleeding. A dead teen-aged boy stared sightlessly into Scott’s eyes. In his nightmares, he always saw those eyes.

As he applied antibiotic ointment and bandaged Katie’s wound, he fought to keep his mind from the growing number of miles that separated his family from him. They thought he was dead and could be heading anywhere.

Katie whimpered in her sleep. “No, Dad, no! So sorry, Chase. So sorry.” She jumped awake, afraid and disoriented. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“It’s Uncle Scott, Katie. You’re safe. Drink some water slowly, and tell me what you remember.”

The water was lukewarm. Probably everything drinkable would be lukewarm. They might as well get used to it.

“I was at my house asleep in my parent’s room. A fat man with grey hair came upstairs. He said his name was Mr. Koenig and that doctors had a cure and that we could save people, even my brother. I had a bad feeling about him. But I wanted to save Chase.”

She started to swoon and took another sip of tepid water. “He pushed me down and started yelling at me. Then it was like he fell asleep. I almost made it out of the house but he woke up. He was even angrier. He told me it was my fault that Mom and Dad were dead, and that I deserved to die too. I thought ‘maybe he’s right’ and closed my eyes. I wished that I could die.”

“I passed out for I don’t know how long. I woke up when Mr. Koenig was gone. I don’t know how this happened.” She pointed at the remains of her ear. “My foot was tied to the bed. screamed and screamed after I woke up. I hoped that you would come for me.”

Scott realized she must have been the one he heard screaming when he raced home from the hoarder’s house. He bitterly regretted not investigating before.

Katie continued her story, “I finally undid the knot and opened the door. When I sneaked out I saw the dead people had come inside. I didn’t see Mr. Koenig anywhere. One of the dead people kind of crawled up the stairs looking for me.”

“I hurried to the bedroom at the end of the hall. I tried to be quiet when I shut the door, but I accidentally knocked a glass off the dresser. I locked the door. It knew I was inside the bedroom and started hitting itself against it, making a lot of noise. I knew I wasn’t safe with just the lock. I pushed and pushed on a dresser. I didn’t think it would move but then it did. I got it to the door and sat down next to it. I fell asleep again.”

“When I woke up again, the dresser was sliding away from the door. They were trying to catch me through the opening. There were more of them than before. I ran over to the window hoping to get out. That’s when I saw you.”

Scott realized that as bad he thought Bill was, he hadn’t suspected just how twisted the man really was.
May he burn in hell.

“Were you bitten?” he asked.

“I don't know. I don’t think so.” Then fearfully, “Please don’t leave me here, Uncle Scott!”

Scott motioned for her to lie back down. “If I had to bet, I’d put my money on you being OK. Either way, I will never leave you. You are safe now. I gave you some medicine a while ago. You should be feeling better and better. Rest while I think of a way to get us out of here.”

“Uncle Scott? What happened to Chase? It’s all my fault.” She started crying again. She looked so delicate.

The truth was he didn’t know what had happened to Chase. His own voice cracked when he answered her, “None of this is your fault. A lot of bad things happened today. A lot more are going to happen. Here is the one thing you need to remember: it wasn’t just you, Katie. He saved us. Your brother saved all of us.”

CHAPTER 45

G
OODBYE,
G
OODBYE
!

A
quarter mile outside of the neighborhood, Chase stumbled onto the road from the woods. Laura could see his clothes were tattered and bloody. He limped heavily on his shredded right leg. He’d made it!

“Maddy! Chase is still OK!” Laura exclaimed, pointing to Chase. Maddy looked eagerly through the windshield. Their hope was threefold: that Chase had hung on a little longer, that he might have news of Scott, and that Scott, too, somehow escaped.

At the sound of the approaching van, Chase turned around. His lips were stretched in a toothy grin that wasn’t a smile at all. His entire cheek had been taken, leaving no flesh to cover his perfectly straight white teeth. He shuddered as he stared at the occupants of the van.

Whatever Chase might have known about Scott’s fate was lost. The boy was gone; the monster remained.

He dragged his right foot forward, then his left. His plodding shifted to an awkward skip. The urge to feed propelled him onward with more urgency.

Laura wouldn’t think of it as killing this boy she cared so much about. Intellectually, clinically, she knew it was a mercy to end things for him. She gritted her teeth, hit the gas and steered toward him, achieving a surprising forty-five miles per hour in such a short distance.

She steeled herself for the wet thud of Chase’s body when the van folded him over the hood or dragged him under the wheels. She was committed to finishing the nightmare for him even if she had to back up and roll him over again.

“Thank you for saving us. Forgive us for not saving you. Say hello to your mom and dad when you see them,” Laura whispered as she closed the final distance to the mindless zombie.

Maddy twisted the wheel at the last second, causing them to barely miss Chase. Laura temporarily lost control of the van, finally bringing it to a controlled stop six hundred yards beyond him. In the rearview mirror, Laura saw him turn their way and take up his dogged pursuit of them.

“Mom, can we please not do it? I know he’s not Chase anymore, but…I just can’t.” With tears in her eyes, she pleaded with her mom, who had succumbed to her emotions, too. Laura couldn't violate the boy's body even though it was the merciful thing to do.

She depressed the accelerator, throwing gravel behind them as they accelerated away. Laura held her daughter close with one arm and kissed the side of her head. Maddy rested on her mom’s shoulder and cried herself to sleep.

The heat from the sun peaked in the late afternoon. Fifteen miles from the carnage, they were surrounded by empty fields and distant forests. It was as if they were the last living people on Earth.

Laura stopped the van underneath a big billboard to let the kids out of the sweltering tunnel and to find some comfort in being together with them. Everyone was shaky after several hours of intense horror and their terrible losses.

They all shed the extra layers of clothing and gulped water while they pulled themselves together. Even though the idea of food revolted them, Laura pushed them to refuel their weakened bodies.

Physiologically, the needs of the flesh won, and they chewed into their lunch like a squad of starving Marines at chow time. They ate in silence, each of them lost in her own thoughts, processing what had happened as best she could.

Sobs forcing their way into her throat, Laura left the girls and carried the baby to the front seat. Autumn buried her face in Laura’s breast, tugging hungrily at her, reopening the painful sores from the night before. She moaned faintly and shuddered as the baby fed. Laura closed her eyes in worried concentration. She still had a major decision to make.

Where would they go?

She had gotten used to the idea of going to the old family cabin. She was reluctant at first, and then her husband had won her over. She had the map and GPS on her phone to find it, but there was a major problem. Scott was the wilderness man, the only one who knew how to kill squirrels and find edible roots. He was also probably the one person on earth who could convince them to eat those things.

Her head said to go to her sister’s farm in Pennsylvania or to her brother’s cabin in Vermont. She also thought about Tom’s idea. After all, it was his plan she’d liked best in the beginning. Making the decision was agonizing for her.

While she sorted through her own arguments, she rallied her daughters to help her throw some things out of the van. They needed room and there were several things they either didn’t know how to use or no longer needed.

She barely kept herself together when she threw Scott’s clothes on the side of the road.

Emily had been moving things around to create room for her and the baby to ride “above ground”, closer to the air conditioning vents. When she saw her mom dispose of her dad’s clothes, she shouted, “What are you doing, Mom? Dad is alive. I just know he is. He’ll need his clothes!” and clambered out of the van.

Laura herself had a difficult time believing her husband was gone. She had always believed they shared a special kind of connection that enabled their souls to whisper to each other. She hadn’t
felt
him die. She yearned to believe he was fine and searching for them even now.

However, she’d seen the zombies surrounding her husband, saw the resignation in his expression, spotted his jacket, and saw the patch of blood where he must have fallen. He was dead and she needed to accept it, no matter how painful.

Stern-faced, Laura climbed into the van to finish reorganizing their supplies to make room for her girls.

As soon as Emily popped out of the van, she rummaged through her dad’s big toolbox until she discovered a can of neon pink spray paint. She laughed softly, remembering him showing pictures of himself in high school wearing shirts that color.
White jeans and pink shirts. Ha.

She waited until her mom was deep in the van, and then she climbed the high pole to reach the billboard. Heights didn’t scare her. She planned to be up and back before her mom looked for her. Standing on the catwalk and stretching her arms to make the painting as big as she could, she sprayed the letters
V B C
with a big heart around them.

Whenever she and her dad went to the library, he would take her to Dunkin Donuts for a vanilla-bean coolatta with whipped cream. She knew her dad would recognize her code and know that she counted on him to follow them.

Laura climbed out of the van, red-faced and sweaty. She marveled that the girls managed to survive in there for even a minute. “OK girls, let’s go.” Maddy came from the front of the van holding a sleeping Autumn.

She shifted her from her arms to her shoulder. The baby stirred only slightly, making sucking noises with her lips.

Maddy asked, “Where is Emily? I thought she was in the van with you.”

Laura was frantic when she didn’t see Emily anywhere. “Put the baby in the van and help me look for her!”

“Emily? Emily!” Laura called, looking wildly in every direction. The smell of the paint aerosol wafting reached her from above. Laura looked up frantically and spied her stoic little girl climbing down the metal rungs attached to the pole of the giant billboard. She saw the big note Emily had left for her dad.

If not in this life, Scott will see it from heaven.

She didn’t care whether or not it was wise to take the time. She leaned against the van for several minutes in the quiet. Time to reconcile herself to the knowledge that this was the first of many traumatic days, perhaps a lifetime of them. For the moment, they were safe.

Their respite couldn’t last forever. In the distance, she saw a group of living dead slogging their way to her little family. She again called for the girls to get back in the van.

Emily approached her mom with her iPhone in hand. She’d opened her maps app. “So, where are we going, Mom?” Her expression showed complete trust in her mom’s answer.

As much as she wanted to protect Emily’s hopes, Laura couldn’t afford to let it sway her decision. They would not go to the family cabin.

“Emily, I’m sorry but I’ve decided to go to Pennsylvania to be with Aunt Sarah. The back roads will be clearer. She lives in the middle of a huge farm. We’ll have food and with some luck and work, we can stay hidden there.”

She searched her daughters’ eyes for signs of tears or anger. Instead, she was the surprised recipient of a big hug. “Thanks for saving us, Mommy. I’ll go wherever you think we should go. I know that Dad will find us, somehow.”

She joined Maddy and the baby in the car. Laura decided to let Emily paint notes on signs everywhere they went. A little hope never hurt.