“And his dogs,” Robby said. “They must be around too.”
“So where would he go, Robby?” Sam asked his son.
“I’m sorry?” Robby asked. He stared at the little drift of snow, which now had a big clean arc drawn through it from the travel of the door.
“If you’re right about this local extinction, where would the people go?" Sam asked.
“I couldn’t really say,” Robby said.
“Now c’mon, Robby, this is no time to be coy,” his father said. “I’m not asking for rock solid, I’m asking for your best guess. Fire up your thinker and give me a guess.”
“Well… It’s the why more than the where,” Robby said. He sensed his father’s frustration at his answer and quickly amended—“Most extinctions are gradual, and based on resources, environment, habitat, or predators. If this is really a local extinction, then it’s more likely some pathogen, since we can rule out volcano or meteor strike.”
“If it’s a disease, then why haven’t we got it?" Sam asked.
“We may yet,” Robby said. “Or we may have a natural immunity. Maybe we haven’t been exposed to the wrong combination of things yet.”
“Or maybe we’re just overreacting,” Paulie said.
“That’s always a possibility, Paulie,” Sam said. “But I vote we treat everything as the worst case, just so it doesn’t surprise us if it is.” He turned back to his son—“So where do you figure the sick people are then?”
“It could be like brodifacoum,” Robby said. His dad raised his eyebrows. “You know, that stuff you use for rats.”
“Oh, d-Con,” Sam said. “The rat poison. Draws them to water?”
“Yeah,” Robby said. “It’s an anticoagulant that’s used as a rat poison. It makes the rats so thirsty that they…”
Sam finished the sentence for him, “Leave the house just before they die. So whatever’s making people sick could also be making them disappear before they die.”
“If it’s a water thing, that would explain why all those people disappeared off the ferry today,” Paulie said.
“It would also explain why we were almost mowed down by that herd of deer trying to get to the shore,” Sam said. “So that’s what’s going on you think?” he asked Robby.
“It’s just a working theory,” Robby said. “We don’t have enough evidence to support or refute it, but it’s something we can test against.”
“Maybe we’ll find some tracks outside then, give us an idea of where he went. Let’s go check upstairs first, just to be sure,” Sam said. He led the way back into the dining room. First they looked in the little privy, off the back hall, and in the den. Upstairs, they found two bedrooms and a bathroom. They were all empty. After making a quick check of the rooms, Sam led them back into each one so they could poke around in the closets, just to be sure.
Sam stood at the top of the stairs, shining his light at the access panel to the attic.
“He couldn’t be up there,” Paulie said. “There’d have to be a ladder here somewhere. Irwin wasn’t exactly a gymnast.”
“I’m just thinking,” Sam said. “There’s a panel like this under the rug in the privy. I saw it when I helped Irwin snake out his shitter.”
“Can’t be much more than a crawlspace under here,” Paulie said. “This place is right on ledge.”
“We might as well be thorough,” Sam said. “No sense in turning out the whole house just to stop now.”
They found the living room as they had left it, but the lantern started to sputter. Sam gave it a couple of pumps and adjusted the valve until it burned silently again. The two men and the boy collected in the back hallway and opened the door to the small bathroom. It contained only enough room for a toilet and a vanity.
Sam reached for the thick throw rug which sat between the toilet and the sink.
He paused just before his hand touched the rug. “Corner is turned under,” Sam said. He grabbed the corner of the rug and pulled. The thick rug hid a panel set in flush with the floor. Sam pulled a metal ring and lifted the panel open. Cold air seeped up from the hole. Sam propped the panel against the vanity.
Sam shone his light down into a shallow cellar. It had a rough ladder built in to the left side, but the dirt floor was only four or five feet down. A light switch was mounted on the right side of the opening. Forgetting the power was out, Sam flipped the switch on and off, expecting lights to come on below.
Paulie leaned over Sam’s shoulder, trying to see down into the cellar.
“Irwin?” Sam called down the hole. Sam swept his flashlight around, trying to see as much of the cellar as he could without committing to going down into the shaft.
He suddenly straightened up, kept his eyes locked on the access hole, but addressed his son—“Robby, I want you to go stand by the front door. You hear me give the word and you dash home, okay?”
“Yes sir,” Robby said. He turned and walked back down the hallway to the living room. He didn’t obey completely, he stayed near the door to the hall so he could listen to his dad talk to Paulie.
“You think that’s blood?" Paulie asked. “Could just be motor oil or something. Hard to tell on a dirt floor.”
His dad replied to Paulie, but Robby couldn’t make out the words.
“Oh, no shit,” whispered Paulie. Robby heard that part, loud and clear.
Sam yelled out to his son—“By the door, Robby.”
Robby moved to the front door, wondering how his dad knew. Robby’s eyes danced from the swinging door to the kitchen, then to the hallway, the staircase, and back again to the kitchen door. The living room was bright enough, with the lantern throwing off sharp shadows, but the doorways were gaping black holes. Anything could come out of those doorways. Robby backed up until his elbows pressed back again the front door. He took off his glove and rested his hand on the door knob behind him.
It felt like forever, waiting for his dad and Paulie. As soon as he took his post at the front door, he decided he had to pee. With every second he stood with his back to the door, his need to urinate grew exponentially until he could think of nothing but peeing and monsters coming out of the kitchen doorway, or zombies lumbering down the gloomy staircase.
The lantern on the coffee table began to sputter again. With each pop it flared a little brighter, but then dimmed even more when it fizzed. Robby knew what to expect—they kept nearly the same lantern at home. It took liquid fuel, white gas, and required pumping it up to keep it going. But his dad pumped it earlier, so it would need a refill to stay lit. He knew he only had a few more minutes of light before it would sputter out.
At least the failing light gave him something other than his bladder to worry about. Robby almost welcomed the distraction. The shadows throbbed with each sputter of the lamp; they became deeper, like they were gaining strength. The ebb and flow of the shadows made the door to the kitchen look like it was swinging slightly.
Pop-hissssss-POP-hiss-pop-hisss, Robby felt himself swaying with the rhythm of the lantern. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the kitchen door. It looked like the swinging gained momentum. Robby imagined that soon it would swing open all the way, and Irwin would be standing there.
Robby shook his head and tried to look away from the door. It had to be an optical illusion making it look like the door was swinging; just a trick of the wavering shadows cast by the failing lantern. When he first heard the squeak, he almost ignored it. It made perfect sense—it sounded like the squeak of a rusted hinge, in perfect time with the apparent movement of the door. But that would mean the door was moving. Robby tried to remember if the door squeaked when they entered the kitchen earlier. He couldn’t recall.