RABID
By J.W. Bouchard
For Josh Brown
Who schooled me on bloodhounds
“There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer.”
“Death’s gang is bigger and tougher than anyone else’s. Always has been and always will be. Death’s the man.”
“No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.”
Chapter 1
Crowd Control
“The water will stop them. Take it!”
Taylor handed Carl a spray bottle partially filled with water. “If they try to come close, spray them with it.”
“Because they have rabies, right? They’re scared of water because of rabies. That’s what you said,” Carl said. He wielded the plastic spray bottle in both hands, pointing it at the mob in front of him as though he was getting ready to fire a gun.
“I said it was like rabies.”
Taylor also had a spray bottle. He squeezed the long trigger, sending a misty cloud of water at the thriving crowd of people. The mob would move back to avoid the cloud and then surge forward again after it had dissipated. The water in the bottles wouldn’t last forever. In fact, it wouldn’t last much longer at all. He stood with his back against Carl’s, suppressing the urge to scream. Something as simple as water. Something so simple yet, at this moment, in dangerously short supply.
Carl said, “They’re trying to surround us.”
“No shit. Keep spraying them.”
And then what, he wondered. What advice would he have after the water was gone and the bottles were empty? His mind ran frantic, unable to form a single cohesive thought because they all collided together into useless randomness. They needed to find a way out. He needed to save Carl. And he needed to save himself.
Beyond the mob, Taylor could see more of them coming out from between the buildings. It was like watching pests crawl out of cracks in a wall; like watching insects swarm. The wind picked up, and when he squeezed the trigger, the mist that spread from the nozzle was blown back into his face. Thank God we ran out of gas in a small town, he thought. It could have been so much worse. Carl had informed him on numerous occasions that he was the only remaining optimist left in the world, and although Taylor usually denied this, he supposed that anyone who could point out the bright side of things with a mob of crazies coming towards them had earned that title.
The crowd was all spittle and gnashing teeth. The sound was like fifty people munching on Captain Crunch with their mouths open.
Carl said, “I can’t keep this up much longer, bro. Water’s almost gone.” Carl’s voice was the high-pitched whine of a small child in hysterics.
Taylor pulled his arm back just before one of the things in the mob was able to grab it. He sprayed a cloud of mist and took a step back.
“Level with me,” Carl said. “We’re not going to make it out of this one are we? We’ve been through some real shit together, you and me, but this takes the cake. Remember when you rolled the Bronco when you were sixteen? I used to think that was some crazy shit. Not anymore.” Carl was almost shouting.
“I don’t know, but I can tell you we’re not going to die standing here.” He removed one of his hands from the bottle and pointed to their right. “You see that building? The brownstone that’s kind of kitty-corner to us?”
“Yeah, I see it.”
“On my say, we’re going to make a run for it. I want you to head for that building. You don’t stop and you don’t look back.” The crowd had moved closer again and Taylor spritzed them with the water and they backed off a few feet. “Around it actually. I don’t see anything useful here, but maybe we’ll find something over there. If we have to, we’ll try to hole up in one of the buildings. You okay to run?”
“Remember who was on the track team?”
“You never let me forget it.”
“The question is, can you keep up?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you.”
Together, they started to shift to the right so that there was a cleaner opening in the mob in the direction they wanted to go. Taylor glanced at the brick building and tried to judge the distance. Had to be nearly a hundred yards; about a football field’s length away. Carl was fast enough. He believed that without a doubt. But he had close to forty pounds and four years on his younger brother, and he had never been on the track team. He had been on the football team one year in junior high and that had satisfied his interest in sports.
“We gonna do this anytime soon?”
Carl didn’t see it, but Taylor nodded. “I’ll count to three. On three, squeeze off a few sprays and then make a break for it.”
The mob was closing in. Taylor felt a greedy hand grab the sleeve of his shirt. He sprayed the thing – Taylor figured it had to be a businessman judging by the suit and tie - and the man let go, clutching his face and screaming. You’d think it was acid in these things instead of water.
“One other thing,” Taylor said.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t wait for me. You got that? I don’t care if you leave me in the dust, but don’t you dare slow down. Or the last thing that’s going to happen before these things get us will be me kicking your ass.”
“Promises,” Carl said and smiled. For a moment, he felt that familiar burst of adrenaline. The same feeling as when they had rolled the Bronco all those years ago; the same feeling he had had countless times when they were on one of their escapades. They were older, and those times were few and far between now, but this was one of them. For the first time in ten minutes, Carl thought they might just stand a chance. Not a great one, maybe not even a good one, but any chance was better than no chance. His father had once said, You never know until you try. This had been in response to Carl asking if he should try out for the wrestling team. Armed with his father’s simplistic wisdom, he had tried out and went all the way to State. In his mind, he could see his father’s face, and he judged the distance between where they now stood and the five story brownstone that appeared so very far away, and he imagined his father saying, “You never know until you try, Carl.”
Chance was chance, hope was hope.
“Just do what I say this one time,” Taylor said. “Okay?”
“All right. I’ll wave at you when they’re eating your ass.”
They were shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a right angle with their bodies, each of them misting the crowd that seemed to grow larger and larger by the second.
Taylor shouted, “One!”
Carl glanced at the remaining water in his bottle. Enough for five or six more squirts. Maybe more, maybe less.
“Two!”
Let this fucking work, Taylor thought.
“Three!”
Taylor squeezed the trigger on his bottle a final time and then turned and ran. Carl was slower off the mark, pausing to chuck his bottle at one of the things in the crowd and watching it glance off its head before hightailing it out of there. But after he started to run, he had passed his brother within several seconds.