“No, sir. I don’t think I would have been standing out here shouting at people if I intended to rob you, would I?”
“No, I guess not.”
In the store window’s reflection, Dillon saw three Howlers coming around the corner. They wore gym shorts and t-shirts, but he could tell right away what they were because of the spit hanging from their open mouths.
One of the Howlers stopped in the middle of the street, threw its head back and began to make their sound, half human and half animal/monkey scream.
“You better shoot them,” Dillon said.
The man holding the shotgun looked at Dillon, then at the Howlers in the middle of the snow-covered street. “What did you say?”
“I said you better shoot those—those things,” Dillon said. The Howler stopped calling. “He’s calling more of them. There’ll be a whole bunch of them up here in a minute if you don’t stop him from calling like that.” Dillon bent down to pick up his pistol.
“Touch that, boy, and I’ll cut you in two,” Stewart said.
The protesters were looking at the Howlers standing in the street. All three Howlers squatted in the middle of the road. It was the first time Dillon had seen them do that, wait for more Howlers to show up. They were learning. They were learning fast. They had also changed a little bit since he’d seen them in Elko. Their arms were somehow longer than human arms, and their faces heavier, the jaws slightly thicker, like something Dillon had seen in a book.
“Boys, get out of that street!” Mr. Stewart yelled. “Hey, boys! I said get out of the street, that’s not funny. We got a lunatic here.”
Dillon waited as long as he could, but when the older man turned to look at the Howlers again, Dillon made his move. He elbowed the shotgun barrel away from him and with his other hand he swung out and caught the older man with a right to the jaw. The man crashed to the ground, out cold. Dillon held the shotgun by the barrel and then took it in hand, looking down at the man on the sidewalk. He pushed through the crowd of kids and stepped down into the snowy lane.
The three Howlers were crouched together like apes in a zoo. Dillon looked down toward the main drag, then kept walking. He raised the shotgun. One of the Howlers sprang in the air at him. Dillon fired. The other two stood up. Dillon shot a fat one in the head, took it clean off at the shoulders in a red haze. He leveled the shotgun on the other that had charged, running along the ground on all fours. Dillon held his fire. He hated Howlers and wanted this one in close before he killed it. He waited while the thing charged him.
The Howler used its arms to propel itself into the air. Dillon waited for it to get only inches from the shotgun barrel before he fired. Screams of horror echoed behind him. Bits of Howler sprayed Dillon’s face. It was splattered and bloody when he walked back up to the sidewalk, all three Howlers dead, their bodies lying in the lane behind him.
The protesters, running away, were halfway down the block. Dillon called after them, but it was too late. They’d all run toward Main Street, the exact wrong direction, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“Jesus, what did you do that for?” The old man was holding Dillon’s pistol on him. Dillon watched the protesters running toward certain death.
“God damn it, why doesn’t anyone wake up?” Dillon said. He turned around to face the pistol leveled at him by the older man.
“You’re an animal.” The man was pointing the gun at Dillon’s face. He pulled the hammer back and wanted to pull the trigger.
Dillon watched him, unmoved. He knew the gun was empty. “It’s not what you think, old man. Those weren’t teenage kids you saw, they were Howlers, and they don’t give a shit about humans. You understand? They’ll kill us, or we kill them, it real simple. That pistol is empty. You better go get some ammo for it. Those things howled to their friends, and once they howl like that, more of them will show up very soon.”
“I can’t kill you, you’re a lunatic,” Mr. Stewart said. He put the gun down “You’re a lunatic!” A sheriff’s car pulled up the street and stopped in front of the shop. Quentin got out of the car holding the M-16 by its handle. He had his bulletproof vest on. There was a dead body of a Howler, a woman, on the hood of the car; he’d hit her as he’d left Main Street and turned up the lane.
“The vest is a waste of time,” Dillon said. “They can’t shoot back.”
“Mike, I need all the ammo you got for this thing. And you’ll have to leave. You and Rebecca. You can come with me. You’ll have to leave the store, right now.”
“God damn, Sheriff, I’m glad to see you. This lunatic just killed three boys in cold blood. Out there in the street.”
Dillon turned and looked at the bodies in the snowy lane.
“What’s your name?” Quentin said.
“Dillon.”
“Is that the money you stole from the bank?”
“Sure is.”
“Thanks—I mean, for saving my ass back there. You could have let him kill me.”
“Didn’t see any point to it,” Dillon said. “I was in Nevada when they overran Elko. I hate ’em. Worse than the law.”
“Sheriff, have I gone crazy, or didn’t you hear me? This lunatic—”
“Shut up, Mike. It’s not what you think. Those weren’t boys, not anymore. They were something else. I know. They’re down on Main Street right now, hundreds of them. They killed everybody in the K-Mart an hour ago. Everyone in the Copper Penny. They’re all over the state and there’s no law to help us. All we got is each other. You understand? Him included,” Quentin said, nodding at Dillon.
“You better stop the chin wag. They’re coming now.” Fifty or sixty Howlers were trooping up the street, looking for their brothers. “They’re changing,” Dillon said. “Changing from the way they were in Elko. Their arms and faces are different, maybe.”
“Holy shit!” Stewart said.
“You got anything fully automatic?” Dillon asked. “Anything in there like what he’s got?”
“Well? Do you, Mike? For God’s sake, man, get it, if you do!” Quentin said.
Stewart looked at Quentin, then went back into the store.
“It’s better if we fight them from inside,” Dillon said. “If they get behind us we won’t have a chance. You won’t be able to kill them fast enough.”
“Look, I got to go get my daughter,” Quentin said, looking at Dillon, then at the troop of Howlers coming at them. “Can you help me? I can’t do it alone. Some assholes have her in a house down on the other side of town. I need back-up. I’ll help you get that money out of town if you come with me. If you help me get my daughters back.”
“What about the old man in there? We can’t leave him,” Dillon said. “He won’t stand a chance.”
The Howlers had stopped at the beauty parlor and were swarming it. One of the old ladies was passed out of the parlor and torn apart as if she were made of paper instead of flesh.
“Can’t let that happen to him,” Dillon said, watching.
They’d been making out in the semi-dark, just a candle lit, when Rebecca noticed the light from the top of the stairs. Very stoned, she heard her father calling to her. She got off the couch and faced the narrow gun range they’d built into the store’s basement. She reached over and snapped on the range lights. Piles of old National Geographic magazines were stacked up on either side of the couch where Summers was lying, a shocked look on his face.
“Rebecca! God damn it! Get up here!” Something about the tone of her father’s voice froze her blood.
Gary looked up at her. A post blocked his view of her father. Terrified her father had caught them, Summers jumped up off the couch.