“Hey,” the big man with the rifle said as he grabbed Thomas by both shoulders and shook him gently. “You need to snap out of it. Those things will be on us soon.”
“Ma?” Thomas asked. “Pa?”
He pushed past the big man and looked at the bodies lying on the ground behind the truck. His mother and father were both there. They were crushed and almost unrecognizable. When the truck flipped, it had whipped right over the crowd of infected people.
“Holy shit!” one of the teenage boys said. “He took out all the animals.”
“Not all of them,” the big man said, and finally Thomas felt his head clear completely. He remembered what he’d seen. What he’d done. This was his handy work. He’d taken out most of the animals, but some had gotten out of the way.
“Andre, we need to go,” one of the teenagers said to the big man.
Andre nodded and replied, “We need to get to my truck. It’s right over there.”
He pointed to a red pickup truck parked not far away.
“Go ahead,” Andre commanded. “I’ll stay here and watch your back. Take this guy with you.”
Thomas didn’t argue when Andre pointed at him. He didn’t have it in him to fight. His entire right side was drenched in his father’s tobacco spit and blood was dripping from other places. He’d snapped out of his haze, but he still didn’t feel entirely right.
“The gas can,” Thomas managed, talking to Andre.
“What?” Andre asked.
By now, infected teenagers were making their way through the heavy front gate at Stonewall Forge. They’d be on them soon.
Thomas looked at the contents that had fallen from the bed of the truck. The riding lawnmower lay on its side. The push mower had gotten flung pretty far away. It was a red metal gas can he was pointing at.
“Set them on fire,” Thomas said.
Andre smiled and nodded. “That’s a damn fine idea, ain’t it?”
Thomas returned his smile and followed the other teenagers while Andre slowly backed toward them, keeping his gun trained on the fallen pickup truck and its contents littered all over the ground. He kept his aim on that gas can and waited for the infected teenagers to stumble out of the Stonewall Forge gates and toward the truck.
Many of the animals were still making noises, still crying, still whining, and that was loud enough to draw the students from inside the campus. Soon, five, ten, twenty, thirty students were making their way to all that ruckus.
And Andre kept his aim on the gas can.
When it was clear no more students were going to leave the campus gates, Andre dropped to a knee, steadied his rifle, and pretended that gas can was the head of a deer. He relaxed and focused on his breathing like he always did on a hunt. After closing his eyes for only a few seconds to calm his nerves, Andre held his breath, and he pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck the gas can dead center, and the can exploded, catching every teenager and animal in its vicinity on fire. The infected students screamed, and a God-awful sound followed. Those tiny head lice screeched. They wailed as they were consumed by the flames.
26
Hal and Grant sat in the rear of Clementine’s truck, weapons ready, waiting on the chance to shoot anything that moved. The road out to Stonewall Forge was a long, dirt-covered path for the most part. Dust clouds swarmed the truck, making it nearly impossible to see. Hal was exhausted. He had to wipe the dirt from his eyes and blink constantly to keep them open.
So far, they’d encountered nothing. The woods were eerily quiet. Only the drone of the truck engine broke the silence.
Hal hated facing the rear of the truck. He wanted to turn around and face the front but knew if he lost his balance, he’d end up on the forest floor with a broken leg or worse.
“Does this seem dumb to you?” he finally said aloud.
Grant shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“The bad guys will be up there.”
“Bad guys? These are parasitic head lice, man.”
“You know what I mean. If we’re pointed to the rear, we ain’t gonna be able to shoot the things Clementine passes.”
Grant nodded, seeming to finally understand what Hal meant.
“But unless we’re going to ask her to drive in reverse,” Hal added, “I guess there ain’t much more we can do about it.”
This left him feeling like an asshole, presenting problems with no potential solutions. He realized he’d probably only voiced his frustration out of a need to bring some life into the situation. Or, quite possibly, to ease his nerves. Sitting in silence was enough to drive him mad.
“You could always lay over the cab of the truck,” Grant joked.
“Or you could!”
“With her driving, we’d get bucked right off!”
Both men were laughing when the first sign of trouble hit. Clementine slowed down and yelled through the window back at them, “There’s something on the road up ahead.”
“Run it over!” Grant yelled.
“And fuck up my truck?” Clementine asked. “If you boys want to walk the rest of the way there, I’ll go ahead and run it over.”
“Nah,” Hal replied, “don’t you be fuckin’ up this truck. Not yet.”
He turned and stood slowly. Grant did the same so that both men were looking out at the road over the roof of the cab. Hal squinted his eyes and could barely make out a shadowy figure sitting in the center of the road. It was wide, short, and had no interest in moving out of their way.
“Is it a person?” Grant asked, pointing his gun at it.
“Don’t look like any person I’ve ever seen,” Hal replied.
He supposed it could’ve been a small man sitting naked on the ground if he were curled up in a ball and looking away from them.
Clementine stopped the truck.
Hal didn’t like this.
They were out here in the open now, trees to both sides, in total darkness. The forest was too quiet. None of the usual insect sounds brought the night to life. Hal didn’t like sitting here one bit. Every second that passed seemed to bring the trees and all the blackness behind it closer to them.
Hal slapped the roof with an open palm and called out, “Drive closer to it. If you have to, run that sumbitch over.”
Clementine inched forward, and the thing in the road didn’t budge.
From Hal’s estimate, they were only about halfway to the Stonewall Forge campus. If Clementine gunned it and swerved right, it was possible they’d be able to drive around it, but it would be awfully close. Trees hugged both sides of the road. The risk of swiping one was too great.
“Hey!” Hal yelled at the thing in the road. “Get the fuck outta the way!”
If he wasn’t worried about waking up everything in the forest, he would have told Clementine to lean on her horn.
She moved the truck closer. The thing in the road twitched a few times and then it unraveled and stood upright. A huge man wearing a bear-skin coat stood up, and as he did, the front of his body came into view. He stood over six feet tall and was completely naked beneath his fur.
His mouth was twisted in a toothy, wicked grin.
One eye looked toward the sky. The other was missing from its socket altogether and dangled down over his cheek with what looked like fleshy yarn.
At his stomach was a giant gash that seeped blood. The wound pulsated with his heartbeat and crimson fluid pumped out with each jerk of his chest.
His flaccid cock dangled and seemed to dance with the same rhythm while one hand went to his scalp and scratched. The other reached out to them with one finger raised as if to say, “Hang on a minute. Wait for it.”
“He ain’t right,” Grant whispered.
“Clementine, drive around him,” Sally called out from the passenger seat.