Cruel World (11 page)

Alice looked away at the wall and then back at him. “Keeping my son alive.”

“I can help. If there’s as many of those things as you say there are, then you’ll need backup. Especially once you get into town.”

“We don’t need anyone. Do you understand?”

She spun on her heel and was about to the leave room but stopped short as Ty entered the doorway, tapping the area in front of him with the dowel.

“I found this in the hall. Did you make this for me, mom?”

Quinn held his breath, looking from Alice to Ty’s small face. The boy moved the dowel around and prodded his mother’s foot with it.

“Mom?”

Her shoulders dropped, and she reached out, rubbing Ty’s damp hair with her fingers.

“No, Quinn made it for you.”

“Oh. Thanks, Quinn! It works really good!”

“You’re welcome, Ty.”

The boy felt his way out of the kitchen and disappeared into the living room. Alice stood like a statue for a long minute before she faced him again.

“Just to Portland. After that we’ll find another vehicle for us and we part ways. Got it?”

Quinn nodded, and Alice left him standing alone in the gentle sunshine of the kitchen.

~

He spent the rest of the morning gathering anything of use outside while Alice packed the Tahoe with blankets and towels as well as gallon jugs full of water she filled from the kitchen tap. Quinn brought the gas cans from the back of the Tahoe to Graham’s garage as well as a screwdriver and hammer. He laid beneath the small sports car and pounded a hole through the bottom of the gas tank, letting it drain slowly into a large bread pan he found in the house before transferring it to a can. When the cans were full, he hauled them out to the main drive, leaving them there for when they left. The wind rose and whistled through the bare branches of the trees, its touch chilling him as he walked down the drive. He was leaving his home for the very first time. The thought brought goose bumps to his arms. He rubbed them away, but there was no way to calm the excited knot that had formed in his stomach. Even with the layer of heavy grief covering him and the insecurity the outside world offered, the sense of freedom was tangible, like something he could almost grasp and pull out of the cool air.

Inside his father’s office, he found a full box of shells for the XDM and an extra magazine. He tucked them both into a small cloth bag that he slung over his shoulder and paused at the doorway before coming back to the desk. Inside the top drawer was his father’s leather day planner. At the very back was a list of phone numbers. Most were marked only with a first name or initials, all of which were unfamiliar to him. At the bottom of the page were two addresses. One was a strange jumble of Spanish with a city he had never heard of while the other was in English, a town listed that Foster had told him about several times.

“Newton, Pennsylvania,” he said to the empty room. With a tug, he pulled the piece of paper free and was about to stand when his gaze landed on a framed picture at the corner of the desk. It was of he and his father sitting side by side on the cliff facing the ocean. His father’s arm was slung around his small shoulders. The sea was white-capped and angry looking, but their posture was relaxed, at ease with nature and each other. He couldn’t have been more than ten in the picture. The memory of he and Teresa sitting in almost the exact same place only days ago washed over him, and he reached out to grasp the frame. He stopped, his fingers sliding against the smooth glass, tracing the memory for a long moment before he stood.

He rounded the desk and was about to leave the room but turned back and grasped the picture, placing it gently in the bag beside the shells. He hovered on the threshold for a long time, his eyes running over the surfaces and objects, each one spurring a memory that played out and bled into the next. When his vision began to cloud, he reached out and closed the door without a sound.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?”

Alice’s voice startled him, and he turned to find her watching him from down the hall.

“What?”

“Leaving. I got the same way on the last trip out of our shitty, little apartment. Can you believe that?”

He nodded and looked around the house. “I’m coming back though.”

“That’s what I told myself too.”

He made a last circuit through his home, stopping, remembering, if for only a moment. He avoided the solarium completely. The days spent with Teresa there were cherished memories, and he didn’t want to taint them with how the room looked now.

At last he followed Alice and Ty out to the garage, giving the hall one last look before closing the door.

“Want me to drive?” Alice asked, leading Ty to the rear driver’s side.

“Sure. I just need a minute,” Quinn said, stowing his bag in the open hatch before crossing the sunlit yard.

He stopped beneath the tree at the foot of the three graves, one so much longer than the other two. He closed his eyes for a time and wavered there, an urge to return to the house and stay almost overpowering. But the invisible ties slowly broke as he knelt and put his hands in turn on the exposed dirt.

“I’ll be okay,” he whispered.

The sound of Alice backing the Tahoe from the garage pulled him to his feet. The three crosses stood silent in the shade of the tree. He slowly turned from his family, eyes not wanting to look away, and walked to the garage, shutting the door before rounding the house and turning off the generator. When he climbed inside the SUV, Alice gazed at him for a time before putting the vehicle into drive. Quinn watched the yard coast away and the house slide from view in his mirror.

They paused at Graham’s drive and picked up the gas cans before stopping at the broken gates. Quinn climbed out and opened one side, a strange sensation running through him as he walked on ground he never had before. The road was quiet beyond in either direction, and the air was cool, full of the scent of growing things. Alice pulled through the gate and waited for him to close it behind the Tahoe. When he climbed inside, she watched him again.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Ready!” Ty called from the back seat.

Quinn let out an unsteady breath. “Ready.”

Alice guided the SUV onto the open road, and he inhaled deeply as his home fell away behind them.

Chapter 11

Portland

The sun beat against the blacktop as they cruised between the blanketing forest on either side of the turnpike.

Quinn watched out the window, taking in each tree, each shadow, every animal that flitted between branches or rushed into dry grass. Ahead, the turnpike ran on in an unending line broken only by hills and the occasional curve. A few cars dotted its broad back, pulled neatly to one side or simply stalled in the center of one lane. After the first three they passed, Quinn quit trying to make out the occupants, the interiors of the cars blurred by the reflecting sun and the speed by which Alice drove. He was about to suggest stopping at the next stilled vehicle when Alice spoke.

“It’s better not to look.”

Ty sang to himself in the back seat, his voice a high falsetto that came out surprisingly beautiful. After a time, Quinn turned to Alice, tipping his head toward the melody that poured quietly out of the little boy.

“He’s singing OneRepublic.”

Alice nodded, her eyes never leaving the road. “He sings whatever I listen to or what’s on the radio. He’s got an unbelievable memory.”

“He’s got an unbelievable voice.”

“I can hear you talking about me up there. I’m blind, not deaf,” Ty said, as he paused between lyrics.

Quinn laughed and put a hand over his mouth while Alice’s eyebrows came up and she glanced in the rearview mirror.

“You watch that sassiness, mister.”

Ty giggled and began to sing again.

A stilt burst from the right-hand tree line and ran up the embankment toward the Tahoe.

“Shit!” Alice yelled, swerving hard to the left.

The stilt flew toward them. Its long, bony limbs pumping, broken teeth bared in its oblong face. Its eyes stared into Quinn’s, locking there with hunger. The driver’s side tires cut into the grass and gravel beside the turnpike as the stilt reached for the SUV.

They hit its outstretched arm at sixty miles per hour.

The appendage ripped off at the creature’s shoulder with a wet thump, spraying Quinn’s window with crimson and fleshy shrapnel. It spun once in the center of the highway and fell to its knees, a gout of arterial blood jetting out and coating the road. It stared after them, unmoving, until they crested the next hill and dropped down the opposite side.

Alice and Quinn let out a held, collected breath.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” she asked.

“From the woods. It was just there all of a sudden.”

“Fuck they move fast.”

“It was waiting,” Quinn said, shifting so he could see through the back window. Ty had quit singing and was staring straight ahead, fingers gripping his seat belt.

“Waiting? What did it think it was going to do, rip us out of the car?”

“I don’t know, but that’s very aggressive.”

“You can say that again.”

Quinn shifted his gaze to Ty, took in the boy’s stoic fear.

“It’s okay, Ty. We’re okay.”

Ty nodded once and swallowed as he continued to twist the seatbelt. He didn’t sing another note the rest of the ride to the city.

~

Portland appeared on the edge of the ocean amongst a tangle of overpasses and onramps. Quinn leaned forward as the signs announcing the city’s distance counted down. The stalled cars became more prevalent here, but Alice was able to weave between them without slowing below thirty. A large cove opened up on the right and he surveyed the choppy, shining water. A half dozen boats bobbed there, tethered in place by anchors, and a long sailboat drifted past them, sails furled, its deck empty.

They took an off-ramp that pointed toward the first business district and pulled down a narrow street with dozens of cedar-shaked houses lining its sides. Ahead a small grocery store advertised lobster at eight dollars a pound. The sidewalks were deserted, the only movement a myriad of twisting pinwheels before a tourist shop. Alice took a right and drove down the street, passing dentist offices, a stone-sided restaurant, and a bakery with its front door hanging from broken hinges.

“How far to the facility where your mother lives?” Quinn asked.

“Another two miles.”

Quinn’s head swiveled from side to side, watching not only for the threatening movement of pale flesh but also drinking in the rich colors of the city. The houses, the storefronts, the signs of so many people and life, yet there was none. The city held a voided quality, dreamlike but so vivid he could not look away.

They came upon their first dead body while turning a corner where the street narrowed. Two cars had crashed and one had burned. The body of a partially charred man lay in the center of the street. One of his arms was charcoal-black and his scalp was blistered and purple. He faced mercifully away. Quinn was reaching toward his door handle and anticipating the cold touch of the body in his hands when Alice sped up.

“What are you—” he managed before Alice drove over the corpse.

There was a sickening double thump as the Tahoe’s wheels crushed the man’s skull and legs, and then they were speeding up again. Quinn’s stomach rolled and his mouth opened as Alice glanced at him.

“Listen, were you present back there when that thing came out of the woods? Did you see how fast it moved? I’m sure you wanted me to stop so you could get out and pull that dead guy out of the way, but I will not endanger my child or myself because of some intangible respect for the dead. Understand? The world in which we had that luxury is gone, got me?”

Quinn turned to face the street again and nodded once.

“Mama?” Ty asked in a small voice.

“Yeah, honey.”

“I gotta go potty.”

“Oh for God’s sake. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll have to wait a little bit. Can you do that?”

“I think so.”

“Good.”

They passed an immaculately trimmed park, tall oaks shading a playground, swings swaying without occupants. Another body was sprawled near the slides, long blonde hair ruffling in the breeze, its arms wrapped protectively around something small.

All at once Quinn could smell Graham’s clam chowder, hear Mallory singing in the living room, his father talking on his phone in his office, feel Teresa’s fingers brushing his face. He closed his eyes, shoving everything away, and then blinked until his vision cleared.

They rounded a curve and the road widened before encountering a bridge choked with vehicles. They stretched from one side of the small river to the other, some of them crashed into signposts while others nudged one another’s bumpers. A massive eighteen-wheeler had rammed an antique shop on their side, its front end completely hidden by the building’s sidewall.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alice said, slowing the Tahoe.

“Is there another way around?” Quinn asked, sitting forward.

“No. This street ends in another mile near the waterfront. Mom’s home is set back on the right, two blocks in on its own street.” Alice stopped the vehicle and scanned the pileup of cars. She slapped the steering wheel with her palm. “Damnit!”

Quinn waited. This wasn’t his decision to make, though everything he saw said to leave this place. The rows of trees seemed to grow inward as they idled in the street, the houses with empty windows staring at them. The breeze tugged at a small flag attached to the first car’s antenna blocking the bridge. It was a Boston Red Sox pennant.

“We’ll have to regroup and come back,” Alice said finally. She threw the Tahoe into reverse and backed into an empty drive before turning around.

“What do you mean, ‘regroup’?” Quinn said as they accelerated.

“I mean, figure something else out. We need better weapons, more ammunition. If we get that, we can go on foot across the bridge and make it to the facility.”

“So you won’t stop to pull a body out of the way but you’re going to go on foot out in the open?”

“It’s my mother. What would you do for your mother?”

“I never knew her.”

“Lucky you.”

Quinn shot her a look, and when she didn’t return his gaze, he went back to studying the various buildings scrolling by.

“We’ll need better firepower anyway. Here,” she said after a time, “use my phone’s browser to pull up all of the gun shops in the area. Hopefully the internet’s still working.”

Quinn thumbed the phone on and opened the internet application, only knowing which one to touch by having played with Graham’s phone over the years. After typing in ‘gun stores’ he hit search and touched the map option when the results appeared.

“There’s one about a mile away, Thor’s Outdoors.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Quite the name.”

“How do we get there?”

Quinn read the directions off as Alice piloted the Tahoe through the quiet streets. Neighborhoods appeared, their lawns as well maintained as the park they’d seen. The ocean stretched away on their left, its expanse flat and calm beneath the sun. Too far out to see any details, a ship floated, only a dot amongst the blue.

After barely squeezing between another set of crashed vehicles, the green sign of Thor’s Outdoors came into view, its yellow letters backed by a row of simple pine tree silhouettes. The parking lot was nearly empty save for several cars pulled tight to the front of the wide building. As they neared, the round holes in the vehicle’s bodies became apparent. The glass doors of the entrance were shattered, transparent fangs hanging down in sharp points. The blaze of brass shell casings littered the ground. Alice coasted to a stop a dozen yards from the building.

“Looks like they had themselves a shootout,” she said.

“I suppose this was one of the first places people came when it started to get bad,” Quinn replied. “When the hospitals wouldn’t take them, they decided guns were the next best thing.” He studied the interior of the business. The lights were off and darkness shaded the inside after forty feet. The outlines of clothes racks and cardboard stands were the most prominent before the rest of the merchandise faded into obscurity.

“Okay, you two stay here and I’ll run inside to check it out,” Alice said, unbuckling her belt.

“No, mama,” Ty said from the back seat.

“No. We go together or not at all,” Quinn said. The finality in his voice gave him a start, and it must have surprised Alice also because she stared at him for a moment before looking past him to the waiting store.

“Okay, but the first sign of trouble, we run and get back in here, yeah?”

“Agreed.”

Alice shut the Tahoe off and complete silence rolled in. They waited for nearly a minute before climbing out. Shell cases crumpled and rolled beneath his feet when he stepped to the ground. A gull sailed overhead and in a graceful turn, landed on top of Thor’s sign. It leaned forward and screeched at them. Quinn drew his pistol as Alice rounded the vehicle carrying Ty on one hip while pointing the revolver with the other.

“Oh gross,” she said, stopping near the front of the Tahoe. Quinn took a step forward and followed her gaze.

A bloodless, elongated arm hung down over the bumper, it’s fingers snagged in the grill’s holes. The opposite end was a ragged stump, worn off from being dragged.

“That’s…” Quinn searched for the right word as he tried to control a bout of nausea. “…peculiar.”

“Peculiar? You’re an odd one, Quinn.”

With the barrel of the XDM, he pried the stiff fingers free from where they’d latched on in a death grip. The appendage fell to the ground with a dry slap.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Alice said, focusing on the storefront.

They moved together in a line past the bullet-riddled cars and stopped in the entryway. Glass crackled under their feet, and Alice was about to take a step inside when Quinn touched her arm.

“Wait.”

“Did you hear something?”

“No, but that’s the idea,” he said, reaching out with the XDM toward the door’s aluminum frame. He rattled the gun against it for a few seconds and then stopped, watching the gloom filling the rear of the store for movement. He did it one more time, and when nothing launched itself toward them, he glanced at Alice. Her lower lip scrunched up and she nodded once before striding into the store.

Quinn turned in a slow circle after stepping inside. The space was large, the biggest building he’d ever been in. The ceiling stretched away into steel support girders, and the walls were decorated with banners depicting smiling sportsmen casting into rivers with long poles or taking aim through scoped rifles at enormous deer. The first area was dedicated to outdoor clothing and camping gear. Next were shelves laden with fishing supplies, kayaks, trolling motors, and camouflage blinds. Most of the merchandise hadn’t been touched, but there were empty hangers as well as several displays overturned, their contents splayed across the shining floor.

Alice moved without sound between the racks of clothing, her handgun sweeping back and forth while Ty held tightly around her neck. Quinn walked behind them, the utter quiet adding to the eeriness enshrouding the store.