His breath froze as it left his mouth. It then floated away in miniature crystals and fought to pass through the deluge falling from the sky. The air was cold as it bit at the exposed skin on his face and arms. With each passing minute, the temperature continued to drop and although the jacket he’d given her was more than double her size, he knew she’d be needing it much more than he ever would.
Standing behind the bus as it continued to be pulled toward the steep slope at the edge of the road, Griffin again looked back at Cora. She sat in the shadows of the massive tree line at the opposite side of the road as quarter sized flakes floated down and kissed the top of her head. He watched as she rubbed her hands together, blew into them, and then repeated the process again and again.
The last several hours had blown by in the blink of an eye, even as the last five minutes seemed to play out in slow motion. Studying the landscape as the bus teetered at the edge of the forest, Griffin counted aloud. “Six… seven… eight. Wait no, there’s another two or three over there.” They needed to move and it had to be now.
Hurrying back across the street as Cora stood and dusted herself off, Griffin said, “Who was sitting at the back of the bus?”
“What?”
“It looks like ten, maybe fifteen people got out after the crash. You can see their tracks heading down that hill. I’m not sure what those other markings are, possibly someone with a broken leg. Looks like they were dragging themselves through the snow.”
“It was women, just other women.”
“Yeah, okay. But what I’m asking, I mean, do we need to watch for these other women? If we come across them. Do we need to be ready to defend—”
Interrupting, Cora said, “No, they weren’t like that. If they got out and didn’t stay around to help, they’ll probably do anything they can to avoid us.”
“You sure?”
“No, but I think we’re gonna have bigger problems just getting off this mountain.”
“How many of you on the bus?”
“Thirty-five—exactly thirty-five. Four guards, twenty-five inmates and six of those men that were dressed in the yellow biohazard suits.”
“Biohazard suits? Why would they be transporting—”
“I don’t know who they were or why they were at our facility, but they all evacuated with the rest of us. I think this was the third or fourth bus out.”
“Evacuating? Why were they evacuating?”
“I’m not really sure. We had some women come in and I think they were sick; it spread really quickly. They said more and more people were showing symptoms. They didn’t know what else to do.”
“Seems like a bit of an overreaction,” Griffin said. “For only a few sick people.”
“They didn’t tell us very much, I just followed the others and got on the bus.” Looking back up the road and then at the bus that again pitched forward, Cora nodded toward the trees. “Shouldn’t we get going? It’s coming down pretty hard.”
Griffin stared into her eyes, paused for a moment, and then looked down to the discarded cuffs at the edge of the road. “Staying along the highway is gonna take too long. We need to go straight through. If we don’t stop, I’ll bet we can make it to that town within a few hours.”
Cora didn’t respond. She only nodded and continued rubbing her hands together.
“Listen,” Griffin said. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Once we get into that town, we can go our separate ways and you can be whoever you want to be. But let’s just get there first.”
“What about you?”
“The first thing I’m doing when we get down there is find a coffee shop.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Cora looked down at the jacket he’d given her. “I can’t take this and watch you freeze to death. Because, if you think you’ll make it all that way with what you’re wearing, you’re—”
Holding up his index finger, Griffin smiled. “Give me a second.” He turned and strode off across the lightly dusted road. Just as he rounded the front of the bus and disappeared inside, it lunged forward and down, taking the SUV with it.
As the rear end of the bus moved by her, Cora felt the heat generated by the dying flames on her face and hands. She turned and ran toward where both vehicles left the side of the road, slowing as she reached the edge. “Griffin?”
The bus stayed connected to the SUV as the two slid down the short slope and quickly into a massive boulder just before the edge of the forest. What few windows were left intact from the initial collision, exploded on impact, sending tiny slivers of glass out into the air that were indistinguishable from the shards of snow falling to earth.
As her view of the area came clear, she focused on the front end. From where she stood, it appeared that the bus had pulled the SUV in and closed off the hole Griffin had entered multiple times.
Cora stepped quickly through the trail of shrapnel left behind, and called for him once more. “Griffin?” She turned the corner near the front and confirmed her suspicions. Both the drivers and passenger doors were torn off and the front end of the SUV had plugged the hole in the front of the bus. “Damn it.”
Attempting to see over the top of the smaller vehicle and into the bus, Cora leaned on the hood and pushed herself up. Nothing—no Griffin and no movement of any kind. The massive grave was dark, save for the few spot fires toward the back. There was also no sign of Trish.
Sliding back down and moving around the opposite side of the SUV, Cora tripped as she stepped on a rock that slid out from under her. She ended up on her backside, both arms covered to the wrist in upturned earth and wet snow.
Pushing back to her knees, his throttled voice found her before she turned to see the two bodies fighting to get to Griffin. He had them at arm’s length with the larger man’s knee in his throat. His mouth moved, but no sound pushed through.
Only having seen him for a few brief moments as she boarded the bus and then again on her way out, Cora thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. The bus driver was dead. How he was battling with a slightly younger, albeit much larger man, wasn’t just curious, it was impossible.
“Griffin, are you alright?”
Both men turned their attention away from Griffin and faced her. Their eyes glassed over in a shade not all that different than the snow plastered in patches along their blood-soaked faces. The bus driver pushed off Griffin’s legs and limped toward her as the other also started to stand.
Furrowing her brow, Cora looked back at Griffin as he found his voice. She began to speak, but not before he cut her off.
“Cora… RUN!”
The signal at Third Street had cycled through two greens before Ethan turned away from the scene playing out in the parking lot of the Red Moose. His left arm slung over the door handle, and nudging David with the other, he said, “Billy Ralston, what do we do about him?”
Since noticing their vehicle sitting alone in the street, the man covered in blood had turned back to his victim. He clawed furiously at the motionless body below and came away with handful after handful of shredded flesh. Impulsively, he continued shoveling his reward quickly into his mouth, only pausing briefly to turn and survey the area.
Again, Ethan turned to his friend. “DAVID, LET’S GO. THIS IS SERIOUS.”
His head buried in his phone, David scrolled through one message in particular as he continued to get notifications every few seconds. He read through while only briefly looking back at the parking lot and up to Ethan. “Yeah, I know.”
“Okay,” Ethan said. “What’s the plan?”
His thumbs rattling off a response to the multiple texts he was receiving, David spoke but did not look up. “Not sure just yet. Whatever is happening with Ralston is nothing compared to what’s going on back in town.”
“Where?”
Glancing away from his phone for a moment, David looked out the passenger window and into the side mirror, before quickly returning to his texts. “According to Carly it’s going on everywhere.”
“What… what do you mean? We haven’t seen anything, or for that matter anyone, in the last five minutes?”
“Check your mirrors.”
Dense black smoke sat somewhere in the distance. Below that, pulsing flames that stretched for what looked like two city blocks. “Looks like Saul’s place or maybe out as far as Travers field.”
“No, Carly says it’s Saint Mark’s. She’s hearing that there are people inside and she can’t get ahold of anyone at the firehouse. I guess the landlines keep going in and out. The boys are either already there or on another call.”
Shaking his head, Ethan said, “This doesn’t make any sense. How is this thing spreading so fast? This is the first we’ve heard about any of this.”
David smiled. “That’s true, but when was the last time you watched the news, or actually read a newspaper?”
With his attention pulled back out into the street, Ethan didn’t respond.
“Ethan, I think we need to maybe put off today’s run—”
His focus shifting between the street, the parking lot, and his mirrors, Ethan removed his seatbelt and sat forward, resting his forearms on the steering wheel. He looked past David, out the opposite window, and then again back into the street. “Hey, uh… where’d Ralston go?”
David fired off another text and looked up. Nodding toward the parking lot across the street, he said, “Better question, where’s Lamar?”
Both men were now gone. The only thing remaining from the vicious attack was a speckled trail of bloody mucus, which led out into the street and disappeared behind the vacant building nearest the driver’s side.
Setting his phone aside as it again beckoned for his attention, David also removed his seatbelt and sat forward as Ethan pulled slowly out into the intersection. “This can’t be happening; nothing about this make sense. Even Carly is scared and you know nothing freaks her out.”
Both men craning their heads to the left, Ethan pulled even with the edge of the abandoned building and stopped. They spotted a red trail that ran up onto the sidewalk and disappeared into the reassessed frontage of what was once a vintage clothing shop.
“They’re gone, and I really don’t see the point in trying to find—”
David shook his head. “No, we’re not making this run today. I’ll take full responsibility. I can’t tell you what all of this is or what it means, but I do know the people of this town are going to need us here today. We have to do what we can to make sure that everyone is safe from whatever this is.”
“Do we? Do we really have an obligation to the same people that—”
“Let’s just allow the past to stay in the past, at least for today. Let’s make sure everyone is safe and then tomorrow you can go back to feeling however you want about the residents of Summer Mill. But I’ll bet you may just have a change of heart.”
“You sure you want to deal with my sister? You gonna be the one to call her later?”
“Emma loves me,” David said. “I’ll bet she even gives me a raise.”
“A raise? I thought you knew my sister?”
“If she finds out I actually convinced you to do something to help someone other than yourself, she may just nominate me for a Nobel Prize, and I may just win.”
“I swear, I don’t know why I put up with your crap.”
“Because,” David said, “who else you gonna find to drag your sorry ass to work every day and then help you find your way home every night. You need me more than you need that weapon on your hip.”
Still looking out the window to the left, although unable to find where the two disappeared into the building, Ethan removed his foot from the brake. “Okay, I’ll let you take the fall for this. And you’re buying the first round later—”
A flash of red and then they were rocketed sideways, Ethan slamming headfirst into the roof and then falling violently back into his seat. David was forced against the door at his right, and as the armored truck moved up onto two wheels, he bit down hard into the meaty part of his tongue.
The jarring impact tore free the passenger side quarter-panel on the armored truck as the massive vehicle they’d collided with came into view. Engine two, one of only three emergency vehicles to service Summer Mill, rolled to a stop not more than thirty feet away.
Ethan cut the engine and paused as Engineer Stratton opened the driver’s door and stepped out into the street. He and David also exited their truck and began to make their way over to the damaged fire engine.
Ethan was familiar with every single man who wore a Summer Mill Fire Department uniform and his least favorite was the man he’d just cut off. Engineer Thomas Stratton, or Tommy to most anyone else, walked faster toward Ethan and David with each step. He swung his arms and pointed as the men drew near.
“Ethan Runner, I should take your head off. You have to be the dumbest—”
From out of the shadows afforded by the former antique shop came the men who’d disappeared moments earlier. The first and smaller of the two, tackled Tommy Stratton without warning and shoved him back-first onto the asphalt.
As Tommy struggled to get free, the second and much more massive of the two men came in on top. Tommy’s arms became a blur, moving side to side as he attempted to stave off their advances. He called out for help as the captain and firefighter moved in quickly on both sides, each grasping for one of the two attackers.
David started into a dead sprint heading toward the chaos as Ethan came in from behind. They both arrived as the men in blue fought to free their colleague from the bottom of the pile. The eldest of the city employees, Captain Faust, pulled at the larger of the two attackers. And upon losing his grip, the father of five stumbled backward and tripped over the curb.
Sliding into his spot, David reached out for the same attacker, although he was jerked from behind by Ethan. And as the two crazed men continued their assault, he turned to Ethan and threw up his hands. “What the hell are you doing?”
Pointing at the attack taking place three feet from where they stood, Ethan said, “What are
YOU
doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“Ethan, damn it, we need to help.”
“It’s too late,” Ethan said, pointing toward the pile of bloodied bodies. “Tommy’s gone.”
Stepping to the right, David turned away as the smaller of the two attackers pressed his hand into his victim’s eye sockets and pulled free a majority of his face and nose. Tossing aside his trophy, the crazed individual lunged forward and took a massive bite out of Tommy’s throat.
Frozen in place, David hadn’t noticed that the firefighter had also moved away and circled in from behind. He was caught off guard as the younger man grabbed his weapon from his hip and pushed him to the side.
The firefighter stepped to the two men taking apart his friend, raised the weapon, and put one round into the back of each of their heads. He then walked calmly back to David, turned the weapon on its side, and handed it back. “They don’t die—they just keep coming and they kill everything in their path, unless you take out the head.”