The man was on one knee, holding his rifle steady, when he whispered, “Bang.”
He pulled the trigger and Bradley heard the grunt before looking behind him to see Lance fall. The man calmly turned his rifle, ejected his cartridge, and fired again. This time he nailed Yasmin in the forehead. Beau went down just as easily.
Nitsy, Robbie, and Eggo stood outside the cafeteria door, in awe, watching the mysterious hero shoot down each of the infected students. For a second, and only for a second, Bradley felt a twinge of guilt. These were kids, like him, who’d only come to the conference for the experience and to help them get into a good college. It was a bragging right. Now, they were dead.
And I was almost one of them. If not for…
“Come with me,” the hero said as he stood and held out his hand to Bradley.
Bradley accepted it and climbed to his feet.
The man turned toward Nitsy and the others. “Y’all need to come with me. I can get you out of here. If you stay, I do believe y’all are fixin’ to die.”
“Go with you where?” Nitsy asked.
“I’ll tell you about it on the way,” the man said. “We need to get goin’ now. Are there any more of you alive?”
“Not that I know of,” Nitsy replied.
“Holy shit,” Robbie said from behind her.
“What’s your problem, boy?” the man asked.
“You’re not planning on taking us out that way, are you?” Nitsy asked.
Bradley and the man turned toward the front gate. On the other side of it, standing in the tree line fifty feet or so beyond, was a long line of animals.
Side by side they stood.
Quiet.
Intense.
Unmoving and watching.
A variety of West Virginian mammals. Large animals like bears, wolves, mountain lions, stray dogs, and boars. Smaller ones were mixed in. Tomcats, foxes, beavers, possums, raccoons, and more.
Bradley had never seen some of the animals out there on the tree line. All with fur. Each taken over by these… these head lice.
“Well this ain’t good,” the man said.
“Slowly move back into the building,” Nitsy said.
The man nodded his head, agreeing, and never taking his eyes off the beasts beyond the gate. If even one of them moved, all of them would. If one pounced, they’d all pounce.
Bradley and the man backed up into the cafeteria. Once they were inside, Eggo shoved the rake through the door handles and held his hand out to the man.
“Eggo,” he said.
The cafeteria was dark, but Bradley could see the man had bandages on his head.
“Andre,” the man said as he shook Eggo’s hand. “Andre Pete.”
24
Grant remembered the scene at the end of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre when the woman made it into the bed of the truck and looked maniacally back at Leatherface swinging his chainsaw around in the middle of the street. He thought Hal wore the same expression as they both watched the crowd of asshole monsters running toward them, none of them standing a chance at actually reaching them. Clementine was driving too damn fast.
Sally. Wow. Sally pulled the trigger and saved his rump.
The spray bottle hadn’t worked. They’d risked their lives for something so damn dumb.
It couldn’t hurt to try.
It almost hurt, but it didn’t. They’d all made it out of there alive.
No thanks to you, you jackass. You almost got Sally killed and yourself along with her.
Clementine drove around Clydesville with seemingly no purpose. She drove past the bingo hall, which Hal said was already infested. Sure enough, those things were bumbling around inside, smacking into the glass window.
“They sure are stupid,” Grant said.
“Yeah, but they’re vicious too,” Hal replied. “Kind of like hair piranhas. They don’t know what to do until they find somebody to chase.”
“Think they’re aliens?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“Think that’s what got Andre Pete?”
Hal thought about it for a second and nodded. “I suppose so.”
Grant hadn’t known Andre, but he’d seen the news, and he knew the story of the man whose truck flipped off the side of the highway, and his body had gone missing.
“I guess he could have been wandering out in the woods and nobody would have found him,” Grant said. “If they did… they would have wished they didn’t. He might have been one of the first infected.”
Clementine pulled into the police station parking lot. The window was shattered and inside looked to be void of life.
“They got the cops too?” Clementine called out from the front seat. “That’s impossible.”
“Not in a town where the cops aren’t used to anything but drunk drivers,” Hal replied.
That was true, he supposed, but then again, who would be prepared for something of this magnitude? Grant was never much of a conspiracy theorist, but he’d heard a few things on the news and on some of the YouTube videos he saw on his phone.
“It’s the chemtrails,” Grant declared. “It has to be. Those bastards flying overhead, spraying God-knows-what down over us. They could have been dropping these parasitic head lice bastards all along. Maybe it only took this long for it to reach people.”
“And animals,” Hal told him. “I’ve seen dogs with it too.”
“The damn chemtrails,” Grant repeated.
“You think the government did this?”
“Don’t you? They do all kinds of other shady shit.”
“Nah, Grant. Not the U.S., man. We take care of ours.”
“Population control, Hal.”
“No. We didn’t do this. I’d say it’s either alien, or this is something that’s been around for a long time, maybe buried in the soil, and someone dug it up. Someone or something. Could be a damn animal was digging a hole in the ground out in the woods and stumbled on a nest of these things.”
“That would be one hell of a find. Can you imagine? Sitting there, maybe having a picnic out in the woods. Your family’s enjoying their food, but the damn dog won’t stop barking at something it found. It keeps yapping until you get up to take a look. There’s a hole in the ground. The dog’s been picking at it. You lean over to see what’s in it and BAM!”
Hal jumped, shook his head, and closed his eyes. Grant had spooked him, and he knew Hal was ready to slap the hell out of him.
“Sorry, bud,” Grant said, “but can’t you imagine it?”
Hal was quiet for a moment. Grant realized Hal was quiet most of the time. He was too, he supposed, in regular day to day life. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that he talked quite a bit when he was nervous. He wondered how Sally was doing with all this. A quick glance through the small window between the bed and the cab of the truck showed Sally was focused on the road ahead of them. She was quiet. After tonight, she would never be the same. None of them would. Nightmares were sure to come.
Sally glanced back at him and smiled.
God, she’s an angel.
He vowed to himself to do anything it took to keep her safe. With a nod of his head, he returned her smile, and she turned around in her seat to face the windshield once again.
Clementine drove slowly, and for the first time since leaving the store, Grant was calm. In truth, the town was always quiet, but knowing those creatures were everywhere made things different. The silence wasn’t peaceful like it once was. Now, it was eerie.
The truck rolled slowly through the hospital parking lot. The infection couldn’t have spread to here. Surely, the hospital would be a safe place with doctors ready to wipe out this head lice virus tearing through Clydesville.