She closed her eyes. God, she was a pretty woman. Hal had never looked at a woman and found her truly attractive. Not since his Sheila had died. But he thought Sally was a pretty girl. She kissed him on the forehead and said, “For Grant. For the others.”
“Mr. Hal,” Nitsy said.
“Hal,” he corrected her.
“Hal,” she replied. “I don’t imagine you’d remember this if you were turned into one of those things, but if you decide you need our help, use the code word…” She looked around the room and saw a music CD cover on Andre’s desk. It was Hank Williams Jr.’s ‘Family Tradition.’ She picked it up and showed it to him, pointing at the first word in the album title. “You yell out the word ‘family’ and we’ll come running. Guns blazing. You might not have a daughter or a wife, but we’re family now. Use that word. Family.”
Hal nodded. “Family.”
When he closed the door behind him, he felt his eyes welling up. Nitsy reminded him a bit of Susanna if Susanna had grown to her age. He needed to do this for the kids in that office. He wouldn’t yell out that word, family, unless he really thought there was a chance for them to help.
The door was so close to caving in. He doubted he had even a few minutes left. They’d come bursting in here, all manners of beast, ready to take his head off. He’d be waiting for them. He had a pistol in each hand, fully loaded.
He walked into the tent and looked around at the ladybugs. They were everywhere. He knew he was crazy for talking to them, but it felt wrong not to. “Hey little buddies. Listen up. I need your help. There are going to be some real bad things coming in here to get me. I need you to protect me. Can you do that? If we work together, I think we can end this here.”
Of course, there was no answer, but one of the ladybugs landed on his nose. He’d seen one do it to Nitsy earlier and he couldn’t help thinking maybe this was the leader of all these bugs. Maybe this was his or her way of saying, “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”
He laughed. It was a dumb thought.
To complete his plan, he only needed one thing from this room. He set his guns down on the grass, walked over to the one plant in the room he was familiar with, and started picking off its leaves. He held one up to his nose to make sure he was taking the right plant, and its scent was undeniable. It was definitely cilantro. The ladybugs were all over the leaves. He carried as much of the plant with him as he could when he made his way back to the biggest tree at the center of the room.
The ladybugs swarmed over the tree. It was definitely their home base. They looked like a blanket of red and black draped over the tree’s trunk. Only this blanket moved. It was truly a sight to see. The sheer number of them seemed impossible.
Hal was afraid of squishing them. He needed as many of them alive as possible, and he needed them on his side. So, he carefully pushed them away from the ground in front of the tree, and when he’d cleared a large enough spot, he sat down. He reached for his guns and brought them closer to him, so they’d lie on the ground at his sides. The ladybugs were already crawling on him.
If these had been any other kind of bug, he wasn’t sure he could handle it. If they’d been cockroaches, he would have been in that office with Sally and the kids. But these were the child-friendly bug from his youth. He was pretty sure they were supposed to bring good luck.
To make sure as many of them came to him as possible, he placed the cilantro leaves on top of him. Some on his lap, some on his shoulders, and the rest right on top of his head. The ladybugs responded as he hoped they would. They loved the stuff. If they didn’t, Andre wouldn’t have had it in here.
As Hal sat and waited, the overhead heat lamps caused him to sweat. It was either that or nerves. Quite possibly both.
The pounding outside continued. From where he sat, Hal could watch the door and would see if any of them entered.
Any second now.
He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but he could have sworn the door was starting to buckle. It almost looked like it was starting to dent inward. The shrieks grew louder in anticipation. They knew they were about to burst in here.
Hal could barely sit still. His heart threatened to rip through his chest and run away.
The sounds were the worst part.
It was like an entire zoo was outside that door waiting to kill him. Humans included. The ceiling crumbled in front of the door. Debris fell on the ground. It sounded like the horde of infected creatures outside had found a battering ram and were working in unison. Of course, that wasn’t the case, but the force with which they hit the door was so powerful it vibrated the floor beneath him.
When the door finally caved inward, it was like an ant hill bursting. He’d once seen a crowd of cockroaches fall out of a cabinet in a filthy apartment in Nashville. They seemed to stumble over each other as the door was pulled open. The creatures outside fell the same way, like a black tidal wave of death scattering through the small space.
Then the door fell all the way to the ground, and whatever was outside got so excited to enter, chunks of the cinderblock wall came down too. The clicking and skittering sounds fell toward Hal like an avalanche coming to decimate him.
Hal’s first instinct was to run, but he gripped his gun handles instead, and he waited. The smart thing to do would be to close his eyes, but he couldn’t do that either. Not seeing was worse than seeing.
And what he saw was terrifying.
A bear with its entire snout ripped to shreds pushed through the opening. It let out a growl that made Hal piss himself. His bladder actually let loose and filled his pants. The teeth on the thing were huge.
Climbing over it, as if it weren’t a bear at all, was a woman with long, stringy hair. One eyeball oozed out of its socket and one cheek was ripped open, quite possibly by the bear, so now her muscle and teeth showed through the side of her face.
A wolf came through the opening and was missing a leg. It dragged itself through the bottom of the crushed wall.
Were they out there fighting each other?
It seemed entirely possible. Everything coming through the wall seemed totally destroyed but still hellbent on finding victims or… new hosts.
None of them had seen him yet. As all these monsters came piling into the building, they were lost. They didn’t know which way to go. Some of them were headed toward the office where Sally and the kids were hiding. It was time to be a hero.
God, if it’s my time to go, please make this as painless as possible and please bring me home to see my wife and my baby girl.
Hal closed his eyes and yelled, “Over here! You want some fresh meat? Come in here and get it.”
The room went silent for a second. Almost like the creatures couldn’t believe their ears, like they couldn’t believe the audacity of this man.
A cow pushed its way into the room. It almost got stuck in the entrance, but it fought its way through, and one of the door hinges cut into its side and ripped along the length of its body. The cow mooed, breaking the silence. The long gash that now ran along its side barely leaked blood, and the cow hardly seemed to register the incision.
It was the human woman with the stringy hair that approached him first.
Behind her was the bear. Then the wolf and two other humans. Hal couldn’t quite tell what sex the first one was. His face was so badly mangled, and the front of his body was covered in blood. He thought it must be a man. The other one was definitely a guy. A tall, skinny man with his left arm nearly ripped all the way off.
“I said I’m in here, you pieces of shit! I’m right in here! You want some fresh meat? Here’s your chance.”