Bobby’s scream coincided with his father’s final shuddering breath. He lifted Fred in his arms and wailed in agony. He raised his head and looked back at the van. In an instant, he was standing, his father’s blood smeared across his shirt and pants.
“You fucking bastards! You murdered my daddy!”
He spotted George and Jason and saw his father’s rifle at their feet. He reached toward his belt and undid the snap holding his hunting knife. Pulling the large blade out, he walked toward them. As they moved into the van, he began to run, the knife clutched in his raised hand.
“Bobby!”
He barely heard his name as he picked up speed. He was almost to the van.
“Bobby, stop! I don’t want to shoot you!”
He howled and raised his weapon above his head, his eyes trained on George’s back.
Megan’s first shot spun Bobby sideways, but he didn’t feel it. He staggered but righted himself, his eyes never leaving his target. Her second shot went wild, missing him by a foot. He began to move forward again when she pulled the trigger for the third time. Teeth and shards of bone disintegrated as the.357 slug tore through his jaw. Bobby’s head twisted sharply away from his body, and he collapsed to the ground.
Shaking violently, Megan rounded the van and kept the gun pointed at the fallen boy. He had dropped his knife, and his face was buried in the dirt. He shuddered spasmodically and then went still.
Megan stared down at Bobby, watching his blood form a distorted halo around his head. She stared at him for a few more seconds, wiping a bitter tear from her eye before she moved to where George was comforting Jason inside the van.
“Could you help me with Jeff? We need to get out of here.”
George looked at her and nodded. The dullness in her eyes was far too familiar; it was the same look Jason had.
He did his best to ignore the bodies, especially the young boy’s. He strode purposefully past the first corpse, his eyes locked on Jeff’s prone form. Fred’s torn body was next to him. The smell of coppery blood was overpowering, and George had to turn away and bend over to quell his rebellious stomach.
When Megan spoke from directly behind him, George felt like jumping twenty feet straight up. “Can you get Jeff? He’s too heavy for me, and I’m going to get the rifles and any bullets they had.” Megan shoved the handgun into her pocket as George stared back at her with confusion in his eyes.
“George?” She touched him delicately on the shoulder, and he recoiled. Her dead-eyed stare had diminished, and Megan was registering concern for him, but he was still trying to comprehend what she had just done.
“It’s…I’m okay. No, really, I am. I just…I just need a minute.” He stuttered and stumbled his way through the words. It appeared to placate her.
Jeff came to much more easily than George thought he would. He had been clocked pretty good, but the bleeding had stopped. He asked about Megan, so George gave him a shorthand account of what had happened. Jeff was too dazed to react but seemed to understand. He got to his feet with George’s help, and they climbed into the back of the van, where Jason sat quietly.
Megan forced herself to do a quick search of the two bodies. She did not move them, but patted their pockets and found a few rounds of ammunition but not much else. She looked over at the small house but decided not to bother with it.
She walked the perimeter of the van, shutting the doors and settling in behind the steering wheel. Everyone else was in the back seats. Megan glanced over at the bullet hole in the passenger door and studied it for a moment before looking out the window.
“I guess all that noise stirred up the neighbors.”
George leaned over to look out the windows. Off in the distance, closing in from various directions, were several staggering figures. The shots had woken them from their slumber, or whatever it was that they did when no one was around to irritate them.
Some were closer than others, coming from the direction of the houses and even through the dense woods to the north. Farther off, from the opposite direction, there were more making their slow and determined march toward the cottage.
“Should we bury the bodies?” Megan asked.
George shook his head. “It would be the decent thing to do, even though…but no, there’s no point. I think they could still smell them, and I wouldn’t put it past them to dig up a body, especially if it’s…fresh.”
They watched the slowly approaching shapes for a few more seconds before George spoke again.
“Let’s just go.”
Megan looked at him in the rearview mirror. “You want to sit next to me?”
She could see the discomfort her question caused. “Nah, I think I’ll stay back here with these two and make sure they’re okay.”
Megan nodded and shifted the van into drive. “Sounds good.” She didn’t look back as she drove past the arms reaching out for them and turned onto the main road.
After a few moments, she felt relieved that George had rejected her invitation to sit up front as she wept silently.
Chapter 21
Megan kept driving east. Sticking with the road they were on would lead them to Manchester, the next town on the map. She did not relish the idea of getting near another town of any size, so she began looking for another place they could hunker down for the night.
Her tears dried as rows of corn flowed by the van. There was a mix of gravel and asphalt routes leading off to obscure back roads between the crops. Manchester was straight ahead, less than five miles away and looming on the horizon.
“Eeny, meeney, miney, mo…” she mumbled.
Taking a left down a random road, she didn’t bother looking at the sign that told her its name. They were surrounded by crops taller than the van with a thin strip of asphalt heading off into the distance.
Megan saw a smaller gravel lane creeping up on them and slowed to study it. For no real reason, she turned right and headed down the rough path. On the passenger side, crops went on to the horizon, but on Megan’s side of the road, they cut off maybe a mile or less from where they were.
“Where are we going?” Jeff asked from the back seat, his voice slightly slurred.
“Just trying to find us someplace for the night,” Megan tossed over her shoulder.
As the corn stalks fell away, trees took their place. Split-rail fencing surrounding someone’s land popped up, and the trees continued behind it. After a hundred feet, there was a break, and a long driveway split off through a large yard. Megan stared down the path and saw a modest farmhouse. It was old and rustic looking with a grassy expanse of at least three or four acres surrounding it. The grass had grown wild, but it was obvious the place had been cared for. Large, mature trees populated the yard, and woodlands dropped off behind the house. The gravel drive hit the traditional two-story house at the attached garage. A tire swing was off to the left, and an above-ground pool was set back in the giant backyard.
“So is this where we’re staying tonight?” George inquired.
Megan looked back at him. He was sitting between Jeff and Jason, ostensibly to tend to both of them. “Not sure,” she said, and looked back at the house. “It looks okay, doesn’t it?”
“Looks fine to me. Let’s check it out.”
Megan kept staring at the house. It was far back from the road. The property line ran for a good distance. They were surrounded by farmland, and it was relatively remote. Still, she felt some doubt.
“Megan?”
She ignored George as she kept scouring the landscape and house with her eyes, watching for movement. After a few seconds, she looked down at the fuel gauge. They had plenty of gas to keep moving, but where could they go that would be any better than this?
With a sigh, she moved the van forward until there were several large trees between it and the house before she shut off the engine. Reaching over, she grabbed her revolver, then she opened the door and stepped outside.