Pitch (6 page)

“Fine,” I said tightly, thrusting my arm towards him before I could change my mind. “Do it. Cut them out.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Parting of the Ways

Maximus looked down at my hand. Back up at my face. Down at my hand again. “Are you CRAZY?” he shouted. I snatched my hand away.

“But you said –”

“If I told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that too? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You’re an odd duck, aren’t you?”

I stiffened. “I’m not odd. It was your stupid idea and since you seem to actually know what’s going on I thought – ”

“Oh you thought, did you?” he mocked. “You thought you would just let me cut your hand open? Why not simply douse yourself in blood and parade through the street naked? At least that would get their attention faster.”

“I’m leaving.” I decided abruptly. I jumped down from the table and almost made it to the door before Maximus slipped in front of me and blocked it with his body. I glared at his chest, not trusting myself to look into those brooding eyes of his. “Get out of the way.”

“Lola, I can see I have upset you and for that I apologize…” He paused. “But you can’t leave.”

Outraged by the command, I jerked my chin up and growled, “Listen pal, you don’t get to tell me anything, got it? If I want to leave I leave. Now
move
.” I curled my hand into a fist and punched his chest as hard as I could. I might as well have tried to topple over a stone wall with my pinky.

“It’s not safe out there. You will have to wait until sunrise.”

“Sunrise?” I choked out. “I’m not waiting for the damn sun to rise. I need to make sure my dad is all right which means you have to get out of my way!”

“If you go out now you won’t make it to morning,” he said flatly. “They will tear you to shreds.”

I slammed my hands on my hips and glared. “What do you care?”

For the first time, Maximus’s veneer of arrogance appeared to crack. His mouth opened but no words came out as his eyebrows nettled together in confusion. “I – I don’t know why. I just… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“What about all the people out there?” I said, gesturing with a broad sweep of my arm. “What about everyone I know? My dad? My mom? My sister? My best friend Travis?”

His expression turned vaguely pitying. “Lola, it is likely that they’re all –”

“No,” I hissed. “Don’t you dare say it. Don’t you say anything else, you hear me? You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know
anything
.”

“I know if you go out there you won’t survive the night.”

It was a risk I willing to take to save the ones I loved. Folding my arms across my chest I waited silently for Maximus to step aside. We both knew he couldn’t stand there forever. He was only delaying the inevitable.

Finally he shifted to the right. I shoved past him and unlocked the door. I started to push it open, to step out into the cool night air and forget Maximus had ever existed, but something stopped me. Something I could not define, yet something tangible nevertheless. 

“You could… come with me, you know. Safety in numbers and all that.” 

“No,” he said without hesitation. “I can’t.”

I peeked over my shoulder. His face looked like it could have been carved from granite. Only his eyes showed any life as they burned into mine with cold disapproval.

“You are making a mistake,” he said.

“Staying in here, when there are people out there who could use your help… That’s the mistake.”

Maximus reached inside his leather jacket and yanked something out. “Take this,” he snapped, holding out his gun. I stared at it dumbly.

“What would I do with that?”

He forced the butt of the gun into my hand. My fingers closed around it automatically. “When a Drinker tries to rip your head off you shoot it. Simple enough. Hit it between the eyes or dead center of the chest. Anywhere else will wound it, but not kill it. If you’re not sure if it’s dead just keep shooting until you are.”

“Like a video game,” I murmured, staring down at the gun. I had never held one before. It was a lot heavier than I imagined it would be. Heavy and awkward. How was I going to carry the damn thing? Left with little choice, I jammed it down in my left back pocket. Now, along with everything else, I would have to worry about shooting my own ass off. Better that, I supposed, than to be left completely defenseless. “What about you?” I asked. “Won’t you need a gun?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

Sure you will, hiding out in an abandoned storage unit
. I almost said it out loud. Almost. One thought stopped me. The thought that if Maximus was staying here, it meant he had nothing worth risking his life for out there. No dad. No mom. No sister. No best friend. I cleared my throat and shifted anxiously from foot to foot. I had never been good at goodbyes. Thankfully, Maximus wasn’t either.

“Either stay in or get out, but either way shut the door,” he scowled.

A faint smile touched my lips, saying everything I couldn’t put into words.
Nice to meet you. Thanks for the gun. Have a nice life. Hope you don’t die.
And then, mustering what little courage I had left, I stepped out into the night.

CHAPTER NINE

Pop a Top Again

Nothing tried to kill me on the way to the apartment complex, which I took to be a good sign. My temporary sense of hope quickly faded, however, when I found Mr. Jacobson, the door man. He was slumped against the door he had guarded for the past twenty five years (something I knew because we had just thrown him a party). The glass leading down to his head was streaked with red. He might have been sleeping, if he slept with his eyes wide open. Looking away, I gave him a wide berth and hurried inside.

The lobby was dark. I tried hitting the light switches, but nothing came on. The power must have been cut, which meant the elevator wasn’t working, but then again it never was. I took the stairs two at a time, making an effort to keep my footsteps quiet as possible. The air stank of sweat and cigarettes and something too sweet. Mrs. Dobbs in 32C must have been smoking again. I wondered if she was still alive. If any of them were. The fat cat lady whose name I didn’t know who lived across the hall from us. Old Mr. Graham two units down who pulled a lawn chair into the middle of the hall every Sunday to read his newspaper. Sue and Livvy, married last spring, who always waved when they saw me.

I thought of them, all of them, as I passed by their doors to get to my own, using the light from my cell phone to guide me. Some of the doors were ajar, but I didn’t look inside. I couldn’t. The blood that had leaked from their rooms to stain the beige carpet a dull brown told me everything I needed to know.

With my heart lingering somewhere in the vicinity of my throat I reached my own door. It was closed, but not locked. The knob turned easily under my hand and I held my breath as I walked inside.

Air came out of my mouth in a whoosh of pain when my shins collided with something hard. I stumbled, arms wind milling for balance. The phone slipped out of my hand and went clattering across the floor. Reaching out blindly I managed to grab hold of something solid and steadied myself. 

It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I realized why I had stumbled. Nothing was where it should have been. Furniture had been overturned. The television was smashed. Desk drawers had been ripped open and the contents scattered about. The apartment was always a little untidy but this… this was a disaster.

“Dad?” I whispered as loud as I dared. “Dad, are you in here?”

Nothing… and then…

A quiet, familiar pop. A little hiss of air. The sound of slurping.

I charged through the living room like a crazed rhinoceros, kicking things out of my way as I went. “Dad, where are you? Dad? DAD!”

I found him in his bedroom closet. He was slumped next to a box of shoes and was using a case of beer to hold him upright. When I threw back the closet door he lowered the beer he had just opened and squinted up at me, his watery eyes bloodshot and unfocused.

“Aiko? Honey, is that you?”

“No Dad,” I gritted out. “It’s Lola. Your daughter.”

Relief went hand in hand with anger as I leaned over him and ripped the beer can out of his hand. Everyone was dead and my dad was getting drunk. At least only one of those things was abnormal. “Dad, something has happened. You have to get up. It isn’t safe here.”

“Aiko?” he said again.

I drew my hair back and pushed my bangs up so he could see my eyes were gray instead of brown and not slanted at the corners like my mother’s. “No, not Aiko. Lola. It’s Lola, Dad.”

“Lola?”

“Yes! Now come on.” I grabbed his arm and tugged. He collapsed forward and rose unsteadily, swaying back and forth.

My dad had started drinking before my mom left him. I don’t know if the drinking triggered the divorce or the divorce triggered the drinking. It didn’t matter, really. Either way, the results were the same.

He wasn’t a mean drunk. Just a careless and forgetful one. He had never once raised his hand to me in anger, or even his voice, for that matter. I should have considered myself lucky – I knew other kids didn’t have it so easy – but how is cooking dinner for yourself every night of the week because you dad is passed out on the sofa by seven o’clock lucky?

Then again, he has paid a heavier price than I have. He lost his job. His wife. His family. All he has left is a belligerent sixteen year old teenager who doesn’t obey her curfew and thinks hot wiring cars is an acceptable extra curricular activity.

“Dad.” I touched his arm and he startled. “Dad, I don’t think we should stay here. It’s not safe. We should try to get to the police station.”

He turned his head to look at me. His face was pale. There was a cut above his left eyebrow that had dried blood crusted in it. He blinked once, twice, and his gaze focused on me. “Lola, I thought they got you too,” he said.  

The hug was unexpected and awkward. I returned his embrace hesitantly, patting his shoulder before drawing back. “I’m fine. I was on the East side when it started. With Travis. I ran back here and found a boy. Maximus. He seems to know a lot about what is going on. He gave me this.” I pulled out the gun and held it flat. My dad’s eyes widened.

“A gun? Why would a boy give you a gun? Is it loaded?”

“I hope so.”

He took a few steps forward and tripped. Taking his arm I guided him to the edge of the bed. He sat with a little sigh and stared down at his hands. “I thought they got you too,” he repeated quietly.

I crouched down in front of him. “They didn’t get me, Dad. I’m right here. I’m okay. Have you heard from Mom or Gia? Do you have your cell phone?”

His head jerked to the side. “No. No. I forgot to charge it. The… the power is out. The TV isn’t working. The radio. The computer. I can’t… I can’t reach them.” He closed his eyes. “Everyone was screaming so loud. Doors were slamming. Someone came in here. They knocked everything over. They broke everything. I hid in the closet but… I don’t know what’s happening. Lola, what’s happening?”

“It’s okay. Everything is going to be fine.” I soothed him like I would a small, frightened child as I reconsidered what to do. If the Drinkers had already passed through here maybe the best idea would be to simply lay low until sunrise. Stock up on supplies. Try to sleep. Wait and see if the electricity came back on. It wasn’t an ideal plan, but it sure sounded better than going back outside.

I was confidant that in the light of day things would make sense. Part of me still wasn’t ready to accept Maximus’s explanation for what was happening. I was certain at some point the military would have to show up. I was positive this couldn’t be happening across the entire world.

I was so wrong.  

CHAPTER TEN

Bodies, Blood, and Burning Cars

Bodies. Blood. Burning cars. It had been a massacre. With a mix of horror and morbid fascination I stared out my bedroom window to the street below. Bodies littered the pavement like broken dolls, their necks ripped open, their limbs twisted in horrible angles. A police car had crashed through the drug store. The cop who had driven it there was mangled almost beyond recognition. Even Barnabus, the gray cat that lived in the alley, had not survived the night.

I lurched away from the window and covered my mouth to contain the scream that threatened to burst free. Keeping my hand firmly in place I rushed into the bathroom, collapsed in front of the toilet, and was sick for the first time since my parents sat me down and told me about the big D.

My dad was still sleeping off his hangover. I took a quick shower – so cold it instantly cleared my head – and got dressed in cropped off jeans and a plain black t-shirt.

Before falling into a restless sleep last night I had packed a green duffel back I found in the back of my closet chock full of things I thought would be useful for an apocalypse: clothes, an extra pair of sneakers, sun screen, toothbrush, little bottles of shampoo and conditioner, peanut butter (it never went bad), batteries, and all the flashlights I could find, which only ended up being three.