“I’ll shoot you if you disobey that order, soldier,” Bell said. He’d taken out the side arm he’d made the other MP give him as soon as he got in the van.
“Can’t do it, sir. Not going to run over civilians. Go ahead and shoot.”
“I’m going to tell you one more time: YOU DRIVE THROUGH THOSE THINGS, SOLDIER!” Bell lifted the pistol. He felt himself getting off the back seat. He saw the hairs on the driver’s scalp where he’d rested the barrel. Bell looked down at the speedometer. They had slowed down to thirty miles an hour. In front of them, across all five lanes of the freeway, a mass of Howlers was coming toward them. They were walking down the freeway—a hundred, maybe two hundred strong.
“I’m not running over civilians, sir. You’re crazy. That’s why you were down here. I’m not taking orders from a crazy man,” the young man said.
“You think those things are regular people, soldier? Look at them. Take a good look. Do regular people walk down the middle of a freeway like that? HUH!”
“I don’t know, sir. Maybe there was some kind of accident.”
Bell felt the van slowing down even more. He glanced at the other soldier.
“They’re dragging something, on the left, there—look at them,” the other MP said.
Bell felt the van brake hard. They were going only about fifteen miles an hour, and slowing, the van only about a hundred yards from the mass of Howlers.
“Do regular people drag a dead man down the road with them, soldier? Do they?” Bell said. One of the children near the front was dragging a man by the neck. “How many children you seen strong enough to drag full-grown men like that?” Bell felt his finger close down on the trigger. He saw the white skin, the blue color of a blood vessel under the young soldier’s skin. He couldn’t shoot the man in cold blood.
“God damn you! Stop the fucking van!” The MP slammed on the brakes. The van skidded and came to a stop.
Bell hopped out. The driver was fixed on the Howlers, which were walking quicker now. One of them started to howl. It was the sound Bell had heard that morning with the sergeant. They were trotting only fifty yards from the van. Bell started to run in the opposite direction. He ran like he’d never run before, the pain in his side forgotten, running in terror away from the van. He heard the howling become louder and the pounding start on the van’s sides as they pulled the MPs out. The driver tried, too late, to pull into reverse, but his escape was over before it started.
As Bell ran, he heard something behind him. He held the pistol at his side, his legs working as fast as they could. The shoulder of the road, to his left, was a high white wall of snow cut by the plow. He recognized the sound; it was the sound of shoes hitting the pavement. The sound was gaining on him. He was afraid to stop and afraid not to. The wall of snow to his left looked icy and hard, almost clear. He tried to pick up his pace. He heard himself scream at the point he heard the howling start up right behind him. The howling was loud and ugly; the sound covered up the sound of heavy boots hitting the pavement just behind him.
Lieutenant Bell, running as fast as he could, realized that he was going to die here on this empty stretch of freeway. The howling behind him reached a kind of hypnotic level. He knew that the Howler chasing him must be close, only a few feet behind him, and gaining.
He looked down the great expanse of highway. In the distance he saw a car in the fast lane, its lights on. It was too late. He dove into the snow bank to his left.
Unlike what he expected, the snow bank gave way. He fell into it, turning to fire his weapon. He felt himself tumbling backwards, inside the snow bank. He could see the Howler in front of him, only a few feet away, as he fell into the gloomy snow-tunnel firing at the thing. It was a man’s face, only heavier, and it wore a uniform, a highway patrolman’s uniform. The thing’s face seemed apelike, the brows heavy, its forehead anvil-like and thick, its lips wet and cracked, spit-laced.
Bell fell backwards into the whiteness, continuing to fire his weapon into the Howler as it came after him, its arms reaching for him.
Bell pulled himself out of the snow, crawling over the body of the dead Howler. He looked up the hill toward the van. The Howlers were moving again, walking quickly. They’d finished with the van and were mindlessly trotting toward the howling they’d heard, thousands of them.
Bell looked down at the thing he’d killed. This one was slightly different from the ones he and the sergeant had seen earlier.
He heard honking. The car he’d seen a few moments before, while he’d been chased, had swung over to his side of the road and slowed. Its headlights flashed. Bell waved his hands over his head in an attempt to get them to stop and pick him up. The car moved into the middle lane and began to slow.
Bell turned and looked up the hill. The Howlers were trotting down the road in a line that stretched across the freeway, like some kind of primitive tribe, filling all the lanes.
A young Chinese girl rolled down the window on the passenger side of the car as it slowed. Bell heard a voice. “Get in!” He ran to the back of the car and jumped into the back seat. Almost before he got in the car, the driver whipped around and they were moving the wrong way down the freeway in the fast lane, a whistling sound coming from an empty ski rack on the top of the car.
Bell turned around and looked behind him as the line of Howlers started to fade. Then he turned back to the couple in the front seat.
“You got any money?” the young man driving asked.
“What?” Bell said
“I said: Do you have any money?” the man said. The man driving glanced into the rear view mirror. He had a day-old growth of beard and was younger than Bell, about twenty-three or -four. Bell wanted to laugh. He looked at the girl. She was holding a gun on him; she had it propped on the top of the seat.
“Sorry, but that’s the way it is. We’re from Los Angeles and we’re about out of cash,” the young man said.
Bell started to laugh. He couldn’t help himself. The couple watched and waited. The girl, chewing gum, elbowed her partner as if she was in on the joke.
“I just got out of jail. I don’t have any money,” the Lieutenant said finally. He felt the car start to slow. He looked at the girl. She was petite and attractive; she was wearing an over-sized T-shirt that read Disneyland, with a drawing of Daffy Duck on the front. The pistol didn’t move.
“Oh, Johnny, let’s take him down the road a little ways,” she said. “He’s kind of cute. And the Howlers will just fuck him up. It’s such a waste. What’s your name, honey?”
“Bell,” the lieutenant said. He looked down the road. Cars were coming toward them on the freeway, in their direction. It didn’t seem to matter. The car didn’t slow. The driver looked for a way over onto the other side of the freeway, but a concrete barrier blocked the way. Bell heard the driver speed up. They were doing a hundred miles an hour. The cars in front of them were coming up quick. The girl seemed oblivious to their imminent death by front-end collision.
“Is it bad, in L.A.?” Bell said. He looked past the girl at the oncoming cars and wondered if they would make it past them, or if he would be killed.
“Oh, shit yes,” the girl said, and turned around and faced forward. “If the Howlers don’t kill you, the looters will. Won’t they, Johnny?” she said.
The young man nodded, intent on the oncoming cars.
The girl turned around again, oblivious to the danger, and smiled at Bell. “I think it would be better to have the things get you. At least it’s quicker than the looters,” she said.