“Fuck!” Rebecca said. She hopped out of the patrol car, ran to the trunk and got out an orange plastic Orion flare gun she’d thrown into the random mix of weapons. She opened the flare gun as she stepped out and away from the back of the patrol car, checking to make sure the flare gun was loaded. The Howler, excited to see her standing in front of him, began to lope toward her.
Rebecca raised the flare gun and waited for the thing to get a few feet in front of her before she fired, aiming for its wide-open gob. She could see its icy blue eyes in the moonlight. The low-speed flare launched as soon as she fired; the fat plastic bullet hit the Howler dead in its mouth, sticking in its gob like a plug in a bottle. The thing’s face lit up like a pumpkin on Halloween. The lit flare, burning progressively hotter, began frying the thing’s throat and brains, making it dance in pain in front of Rebecca, almost comically. It stopped dancing and tried to howl, but couldn’t because of the plug in its throat. It made more of a human sound, little pain grunts. The flare’s chemical fire started to pour out of the thing’s ears and mouth like a horrible Roman candle.
In a stupid spasm, the Howler began hitting himself in the face as if it would do some good. The thing fell to the ground dead, its face puckered, burning and red as salmon flesh. Fire shot out a hole in the back of the thing’s skull and lit up the turnaround, tinting the lobby doors an eerie orange-yellow.
Rebecca climbed back into the patrol car. Patty gave her a startled look. Any question she’d had about the beautiful girl’s effectiveness in a fight now gone.
“Sometimes you just got to go for it, you know what I mean?” Rebecca said.
“Yeah. Right,” Patty said.
“Put your clothes on!” Bell barked at the naked couple having sex in the hotel pool, oblivious and lost in their pleasure.
Rebecca and Patty had walked into the lobby and found Bell hung upside down in the lobby, expecting to die. Johnny and Sue Ling had left him there, having reneged on their deal to allow Lacy to leave in the hotel’s limousine. Instead they’d taken the cash Bell had collected and thrown Lacy out of the hotel, either to freeze or be killed by Howlers on the road. Bell had misjudged their intentions; they had no rational plan.
The two had left Bell strung up as Howler bait so they could feel safe while they went for a swim in the hotel’s heated pool, both high as kites from coke and booze. They were screwing in the shallow end of the detritus-filled pool, a bottle of Dom Pérignon within easy reach.
Sue Ling’s legs were way up in the air, her ass hiked up onto a submerged step, when Bell dropped the barrel of the Walther on Johnny’s bobbing shoulder muscles, which were hardening for a climax. Bell wanted to pull the trigger right then and there, but couldn’t.
“Oh, fuck that’s good,” Ryder yelled. He felt the pistol. “Is that you, Bell?”
“Yeah, asswipe. It’s me.”
“Shit!” Johnny said. “I knew I should have killed you.”
“Step out of the pool,” Bell said. “Both of you.” He was trying not to kill them both. He’d tried to pull the trigger and couldn’t. He was not a cold-blooded killer.
“These are the two?” Rebecca said. “They look pretty harmless.”
“Yeah?” Bell said. “Well, they are most definitely not harmless.”
Sue Ling climbed out of the pool, stark naked, having pushed her boyfriend off. She ran to where she’d piled her clothes on a lounge chair and pulled on her panties and a pair of skinny designer jeans she’d ripped off. Johnny stood in the shallow end, his dick hard and his face expressionless. Then Ryder got out too and put his clothes on. Bell had picked up both their weapons and tossed them into the deep end of the pool while they’d been fucking.
“Now what?” Johnny said, getting dressed, his face red.
“Payback is a bitch,” Rebecca said.
* * *
Quentin opened his eyes. A pounding sound was coming from outside the cabin, very loud. It had woken him. Marvin, who’d been examining him, was staring down at him, shining a flashlight in Quentin’s eyes and sitting on Quentin’s narrow cot-style bed.
“What happened?” Quentin said.
“You were knocked unconscious,” Marvin said. “A few hours ago.”
“Where are we?”
“Some kind of doomsday-prepper’s cabin,” Marvin said. “We’re safe, I guess. For the time being anyway.”
“Where are Lacy, and Lieutenant Bell?”
“They went to get Bell. Patty and Rebecca Stewart,” Marvin said. He watched Quentin pull himself up in the narrow bed where they’d laid him. “Lacy is outside waiting to see you. I want to give you a shot of something first, so I’ve asked her to wait.”
“Shit.” Quentin said. “What a mess. Sharon—”
“Yes, I know.” Marvin said. “Lacy told me what happened.” The doctor turned off the flashlight. “You have a concussion, maybe slight, maybe not. Time will tell.”
“Great,” Quentin said.
“We found a medical room, believe it or not. It’s a huge closet with all kinds of drugs. I’m going to keep you awake. Give you a shot of something,” Marvin said.
“Awake.”
“Yes. I don’t want you to sleep. If you go downhill, we’ll be able to tell. If you’re going to have serious side effects, they’ll happen soon.”
“What will happen?”
“You could have swelling of the brain,” Marvin said. “You’ll vomit, feel dizzy, and you’ll want to sleep. If you’re lucky, coma and death will come next.”
“Am I going to die? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Marvin?”
“Well, there’s not too much I could do here for you, really. You’d have to go to a hospital. And that might not be possible.”
“I see,” Quentin said. He looked around the small bedroom. The cabin had been finished nicely with knotty-pine boards; the floors, too, were pine and waxed. The furniture was simple, but oddly tasteful, as if Chuck Phelps had expected a woman to live here with him. Chuck had had a girlfriend for a time in the ‘90’s, a nice girl from Sacramento, but she’d left him and moved on. Perhaps she’d helped with the furniture, Quentin thought.
“Are Grace and the kids here, too?” Quentin asked, wanting to change the subject. He remembered being hit by the Howler who’d come out of nowhere. He remembered looking into the thing’s dead eyes, and then the nothingness.
“No,” Marvin said. “They didn’t make it.” He stood up.
“I’m sorry, Marvin,” Quentin said. “I’m sorry.”
The doctor didn’t answer him, or even acknowledge what he’d said. He walked out of the room. He seemed to be acting strange, distant. It was, Quentin thought, to be expected. He’d lost his entire family.
Quentin looked across the room at his boots, which were sitting in a corner of the room. The horrible scene with Sharon played itself out again. The doctor slipped back into the room and told him to pull down his pants for an injection into his hip muscle. Marvin lifted the disposable syringe and waited for Quentin to pull down his jeans.
“This guy Phelps, he’s built a fort here,” Marvin said, watching Quentin struggle with his belt and pants, pulling them down, wiggling on the bed to expose his thigh. Marvin stabbed the needle into his thigh muscle unceremoniously.
“Yeah. He’d never let me in. He let my wife in years ago when she was pregnant with Lacy,” Quentin said, watching Marvin pull the needle out of his thigh. Quentin pulled his jeans up and buckled up his cowboy belt.