He started down the narrow access street that ran between the school and the administrative parking lot, cutting between the buildings and a row of a dozen or so school buses. It felt good to walk through the shadow cast by the gym and get out of the heat of the day. He thought they could hang out in the coolness under the baseball stands again, give Puffing Bill a chance to calm down, then go back to Elliot and his parents before the end of the parade.
Puffing Bill growled. Kevin couldn’t see anything. Just the empty street, the silent buses, the side of the gym. School was closed for the holiday. There was no one around. “What?” he asked the dog. “What is it?”
Puffing Bill growled again and pulled away from the shadow cast by the gym. He backed up to the buses, barking at the side of the building. Kevin didn’t understand. He couldn’t see anything. He dropped Puffing Bill’s leash and took two steps toward the side of the gym. The dog didn’t run, but his barking grew louder, more insistent.
Kevin couldn’t hear anything over the barking, but movement caught his eye. He’d been keeping an eye on the double doors to the gym and had missed it at first. Down in the old leaves that coated the three or four storm drains that stretched along the gutter, he caught a flash of something. Something like a snake, maybe? Whatever it was, something was moving underneath the leaves.
When it came crawling out of the storm drain, Kevin thought it was some kind of big furry spider. Then it kept coming, endless rows of scrabbling small legs, scurrying at them with surprising speed. Kevin froze. He thought he could see the legs of cats, some small dogs, raccoons, and others that he couldn’t identify, as if some sadistic taxidermist had sewed them into two long rows on either side of a long gray tube.
Another one squirmed out of the next storm drain farther down.
Puffing Bill turned and was now barking at the other side of the street. More of the things were climbing out of those drains. The tendrils stayed low, moving from side to side the same way a sidewinder skims across sand, keeping to the shadows.
Kevin unclipped the leash from Puffing Bill so it wouldn’t catch on anything. They both turned and ran.
Sandy stopped at the police station on the outskirts of town and tried the front door. It was locked. She pulled out her keys, then saw the chain wrapped around the push bars on the inside. Same thing for the back door. She knew Liz would have had a fit, and hoped she was smart enough to not get in too much trouble with Sheriff Hoyt.
She thought about trying to break a window, see if she could trigger the alarm, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. It wouldn’t help her get inside. She climbed back into the Suburban and drove a few blocks to her house.
Kevin was not there.
She sat in the kitchen for a while, trying to think. She got back in the Suburban and drove out to Highway 67 and turned north, stopping at the Korner Kafe.
The CLOSED sign was up in the window. She was surprised; she couldn’t ever remember a time when it wasn’t open during the day. Her dad used to bring her here for the lunches. He’d get a BLT, and she’d get the mac and cheese. For some reason, she always remembered coming here with him during the winter, when the farmers had too much time on their hands. He must have brought her here during the summer, when there was no snow, but the only images that came to her were sitting at the counter while the winter winds howled outside, sheeting the big windows in intricate spiderwebs of ice.
Sandy tried the front door. It was unlocked, which didn’t make much sense. She went around the register and set the phone on the counter. She tried calling the FBI and CDC one more time, but got the same hollow, echoing message that told her the call could not be completed at this time. She called Randy and Patty. Their answering machine picked up and she hung up without saying anything. Just for the hell of it, she tried to call her house. It went through and rang until the answering machine picked up. “Kevin, if you get this, stay there and wait for me. I will find you.”
She dug around under the counter and found the phone book, turned the pages until her finger stopped at the Fitzgimmon number. She dialed it and waited as it rang a long time.
Finally, a woman with some kind of accent answered. “Yes?”
“I need to speak with Purcell. Immediately.”
The woman put the phone down for a moment. When she came back, she asked, “Who is calling, please?”
“This is Sandy Chisel.”
Again, the phone went quiet. Sandy could hear low talking in the background. A man picked it up. “Yeah?”
“Purcell?”
“What do you need, Chief? Kinda busy right now.”
“I know you have at least four firearms registered with the county. I need you and your boys to meet me in the Korner Kafe parking lot right away and bring as many shotguns to as you can.”
Purcell took a moment, asked, “Why?”
“It’ll be easier if I show you.” Inside, Sandy was praying that she was wrong, that the sick fear that gripped her when Sheriff Hoyt had mentioned a situation in town had nothing to do with the fungus.
He was quiet again, so she said, “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. I need help to get to my son.”
This time, she waited through the silence.
Finally, he spoke. “Do you want me to bring those guns I registered or do you want me to bring as many shotguns as I can?”
“I want you to bring as many shotguns as you can.”
“See you in a few.” He hung up.
The door to the church basement was stronger than Sandy expected. She’d known it would be locked, but figured it was a simple door to the basement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not Fort Knox. She figured a well-placed kick would be enough to crack either the doorframe or the door itself. So far, she’d given it three or four kicks, but it held fast. She looked around for something she could use, but found nothing but a well-manicured lawn and tasteful landscaping surrounding the church.
She ran back to the empty parking lot to check the back of the Suburban. She didn’t think there was a lot of room in the back because of all the rows of seats, but maybe Albert had a toolbox or something back there. She didn’t see a toolbox, but found something better.
A goddamn chainsaw.
It wasn’t huge, just a 38cc orange Husqvarna with a sixteen-inch bar. She checked the gas. It was full. She started it on the run back to the door and it burst into life with a terrific, mean little purr. Even better, Albert had taken off the tip protector, so she could plunge the entire bar straight into the door.
Sandy was tired of wasting time and simply sawed the entire door in half and kicked the bottom half down the basement stairs. She ducked under and hit the lights. As she went down the stairs, she went to kill the engine, but remembered the basement in the Einhorn house. She decided to keep the engine idling for now, at least until she got back into the Suburban.
After Cochran had panicked over his own gas mask being removed, he’d explained that the fungus could infect you with spores that floated in the air. She’d immediately thought about how she’d helped Troop 2957 with their disaster drill and knew where she could find at least a dozen gas masks. She still had no idea why the church needed them, and had never wanted to deliberately make waves by asking.