Instinct (9 page)

“You want to fetch? You want to go get it?” the young man asked. He turned and hurled the ball towards the lake. Cedric tore across the yard, passing within arm’s length of the girl. She paused with a piece of fruit halfway to her mouth and watched the dog run. She laughed.

The ball splashed in the water about ten feet out. Cedric barely slowed when he hit the water. He swam out with a few quick strokes, snatched the ball between his teeth, and turned. When he climbed back onto the shore, he dropped the ball and shook from head to toe. He grabbed the ball and jogged back towards Tim.

The young man caught Cedric by the collar and jerked him to the side before he could run by.
 

“Give me that,” he said pulling the ball from the dog’s mouth. “Give it.”

“Hey,” Tim said. “Be gentle.”

“He’s fine,” the young man said.

Tim wasn’t talking to Cedric, but he kept that information to himself. Tim took a couple of steps forward. He had his hands turned open, showing they contained no threat. The boy’s attention was towards the lake. He threw the ball again and watched Cedric run. The girl was watching Tim. She stopped chewing when he began to walk forward. She elbowed her friend.

“Stop right there, asshole,” the boy said.

“Hey, I just want my map. You can keep the bag and the food. We’ll leave you alone. I can tell you want your privacy,” Tim said.

“I’ve killed bigger guys than you,” the boy said. His tone didn’t sound boastful or threatening. It sounded more like he was just stating a fact that had just occurred to him. The tone sent a chill down Tim’s spine. A cold weight settled into Tim’s stomach as the boy reached down to the grass. His hand came up with Cedric’s red leash. The boy clipped the leash to the collar. Cedric looked up at the boy. The dog grabbed the ball from the ground when the boy stood.

“We’re keeping the map. It has the location of our house, so it’s ours now,” the boy said. “You can go.”

“If we see you again,” the girl said, “we’ll kill you.” She had found one of the little bags of salty crackers that Tim carried. She was chewing them on one side of her mouth. The other side hung open with a sneer.

Tim shook his head. “You know what? Fine. At some point you’re going to need people again. You might break an arm and need a doctor. At that point, this anti-social behavior is going to come back and bite you in the ass.”

“Shut the fuck up,” the girl said. “You don’t know our business.”

Tim inched his way to the side. He had given up on the bag, and food, and the maps. Those things were all replaceable. With each step he assessed his legs and their ability to run. He had run all the way over here and then stood around for a while. That was a bad combination. He could feel the hot acid deep in his muscles. He would have to pick up his feet carefully with each stride. It would be easy to trip and fall with his worn out legs.

The collar around Cedric’s neck would never hold. He only kept it on the dog so that he had a place to clip the harness. It prevented the harness from slipping down around the dog’s shoulders, but it was easily big enough to slip over Cedric’s ears. Tim was paranoid about choking the dog, so he kept it loose. It was also one of those breakaway collars that would snap if Cedric got tangled up in something. With one good jerk from the boy, the collar should give up.

Still, Tim waited until he had put some more distance between himself and the rude youngsters. He turned as he walked, keeping his shoulders square to the young couple. Cedric watched him carefully. The dog seemed to understand the game.

“If we even see you,” the girl called, “we’ll kill you. Remember that.”

“No problem,” Tim said. “I wouldn’t dream of coming back here.”

“What’s my new dog’s name?” the young man asked?

“He said Cedric or something,” the young woman said to her friend. “Don’t worry. We’ll change it. I know where we can find some dog food.”

Tim was taking big strides at this point. He wanted a good lead. Cedric looked like he was gathering his legs beneath him—practically wiggling with anticipation. Tim was almost to corner of the long building. He glanced over his shoulder at his escape route. He had the whole access road to cover before he would get to some woods. It was chilly for a swim, but he might have to take to the water to get away. The young man was distracted by his conversation about dog food, so Tim took the chance. He let out a quick, shrill whistle. Cedric broke into a sprint.

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

He didn’t need to pull off or break the collar. The young man was so distracted that the leash pulled right from his hand. Tim hadn’t counted on how quick the young man would be. In an instant, he turned and dove after the dog, catching both of his back legs. If the dog hadn’t been wet, he would have been ensnared by the young man’s grip. Because of the lake water, the dog’s legs slipped between the young man’s fingers and the young man collapsed to the grass, empty-handed.

Cedric reached full speed in two strides.

Tim turned to run. The dog caught up with him by the first maple tree. Tim turned to look back. The young man was just getting off the ground. The woman held his elbow and helped him to his feet. Tim smiled. The couple wasn’t even giving chase.

His legs burned by the time he reached the end of Sunset Point Road. He slowed his sprint as they rounded the corner. The dangling leash caught Tim’s eye. He slowed to a stop, letting his feet slap against the pavement.

“Give me that,” he panted. He removed the leash and the collar. He stuffed the collar in his back pocket and tied the leash around his waist. Cedric looked up at him with his tongue lolling. He looked anxious to move on. Tim nodded at him. They ran down the road.

Before they reached the first turn, Tim heard the distant whine of an engine. The way it revved and shifted, he knew it was a motorcycle. It sounded like something with a small engine—maybe a dirt bike.

Tim threw his arms out to the sides for balance and launched over the little gully next to the road. He climbed into the scrubby bushes and whistled for Cedric. A low fence separated them from a big lot filled with parked boats. They were covered in shrink-wrapped plastic for the winter and left there by owners who wouldn’t be returning. Tim and Cedric ran along the fence until they found a spot where the sections of chain-link weren’t joined particularly well. Tim dropped down to squeeze through the gap. He held it open for Cedric.

When he heard the approaching motorcycle, he said, “Down!” Cedric dropped to the ground and looked at Tim with wide eyes, rimmed with white. “Hush,” Tim whispered. He crouched low, holding the dog’s head down as the motorcycle zipped by on the road. He stayed low for several more seconds before he edged away from the fence and the road. They moved between the rows of parked boats to the other end of the lot. They left through the gate and found their way to a side road.

Tim relied on his memory and sense of direction to navigate. The sound of the motorcycle disappeared in the distance.

Tim ran when he could, but they spent a lot of time ducking and hiding every time Tim thought he heard a noise. It took hours to finish the trek back to airplane. When he figured they were within a hundred yards, Tim moved off the road and guided Cedric on a slow trip through the woods. His navigation was accurate. They saw the plane through the scraggly weeds.

Tim watched the plane for several minutes and then began to slowly creep towards it. He didn’t see any movement. The sun was starting to go down. If he was going to get in the air—and he really wanted to put some distance between himself and Sunset Point—he would have to do it soon. Tim broke from cover and ran towards the plane.
 

He didn’t make it far before he slowed and stopped. The tires were flat. There was a spiderweb of cracks across the windshield. Sooty black marks stained the fuselage just above the door. Tim crawled up on the wing to look inside. It was worse than he imagined. The interior had been splashed with gas and burned. He could smell it. The limited air inside the cabin had put the fire out, but everything was destroyed.

Tim looked around. He wondered if they were watching him right now.
 

Cedric seemed to sense something was wrong. He didn’t even jump up on the wing to get inside. He stayed on the pavement. Tim joined him.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. They ran.

CHAPTER 7: NEW HAMPSHIRE

B
RAD
RAN
FOR
THE
door and pushed through it. He reached the corner of the house as Robby got to the center of the yard and stopped.

“Robby!” Brad whispered. He started towards the boy.

“Stop!” a voice yelled from the trees. “Come any closer and we will kill him.”

Brad stopped. He backed up and put the corner of the building between himself and the voice. A dark shape began to emerge from the dark tree line. Robby stood in the middle of the yard. Inside the house, Brad heard an interior door swing open. He looked through the window, but couldn’t see anything except Lisa and Romie pressed against the windows from the inside.

“Why did you leave me?” the voice called from the darkness.

If Robby answered, Brad couldn’t hear it.

“We could have been such good friends.” The owner of the voice took another step forward. Brad’s eyes tried to make sense of the shadows. They didn’t look right. “I followed that other group for a while, thinking you were with them. When I realized you weren’t, I decided to stay here to wait for you. I had the feeling you would be along eventually. I’m so glad you came.” The man’s voice got softer as he talked.

Robby took a step closer to the woods.
 

Brad clenched his teeth, wondering if the threat was real. Did they really have a weapon pointed at Robby, or was there a chance to dart out and save him? He hoped Pete was moving through the house to circle around on the dark man’s position. He hoped Pete had a plan.

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

Robby smoothed his hands down the pockets of his pants. It took him a second to realize what he was looking for. The last time he had confronted Lyle, he had been in a dark rest stop by the side of the highway. That night, his salvation had depended on a can of pepper spray. His hands were looking for that can once more. Of course it wasn’t there. Robby could barely remember how he had gotten to this suburban back yard. He had no idea who had dressed him in the stiff jeans that he wore. Of course there was no pepper spray.

“I’ve thought about you,” Lyle whispered from the dark.

Robby’s brain ticked through the possible outcomes to this confrontation. He was pretty sure that Lyle was alone, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t dangerous. Robby was close enough to see the faint glow coming from Lyle’s head. He was likely wearing some kind of night vision apparatus. That’s how he was able to track them so easily. He likely carried multiple weapons. Even with superior numbers, Robby’s group could be eliminated, one at a time. That’s why he had come forward to confront Lyle.

Robby needed to engage Lyle and lure him out into the open. He hoped that Brad and Romie, or maybe even Pete, were working to circle around Lyle while Robby distracted him.

“I know what you like to do to bodies,” Robby said. “I’ve seen it.”

“You never told me your name,” Lyle whispered. “I told you mine. That hardly seems fair.”

“Robby. I want people to call me Rob, but they still call me Robby.”

“I know,” Lyle whispered. Robby’s nerves jangled when Lyle suddenly yelled. “I know what you’re doing over there. I told you—if you come any closer, we’ll kill Robby.”

“They won’t come,” Robby said. He glanced over his shoulder and was disappointed to see Brad’s face near the corner of the house. “They’re afraid of you.”

“They should be,” Lyle said.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Robby said. In the black shadows under the trees, he couldn’t see any distinct shapes. Still, he sensed some movement there. Robby took a step back.

Lyle emitted a low chuckle.

“You know nothing of yourself. How could you know anything about me?”

“You can’t become them, Lyle,” Robby said. “You can try to do the things they do, but it won’t make you immune to them.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lyle forgot to whisper. That was good. Robby needed Lyle to forget himself.

“You were making bodies disappear, just like the invaders. You thought that if you could reproduce what they did, it would make you as powerful as them.”

“That’s silly.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Do what?” Lyle asked.
 

Robby turned his body. When he turned back, he had moved back another half step. He spoke quietly, so Lyle would move closer.
 

“Why did you eat people?”

“I choose the best atoms the world has to offer,” Lyle said. “I choose the most powerful materials to construct my body.”