It seemed so easy now. So obvious. But it was too late to make changes.
His courage ebbed as if the rain was washing it away. The overprotective part of his brain, the part interested in self-preservation and continued survival, screamed at him to quit this nonsense immediately. Reasoning with him. They hadn’t spotted him yet. Quietly step back into the store, lock the door behind him, and call the whole thing off. There was still time.
Only there wasn’t. One of them turned and saw him. It was a little like being caught jerking off by his mother. For a moment, you just froze with your dick in your hand, looking at it and then at your mother as it went instantly flaccid, a look on your face that said, Where did this come from?
Taylor felt logic stripped away. “C’mon, motherfuckers! Come and get me! I don’t have all fucking day!”
He ran back into the store, pulling the door closed behind him, cursing at the pneumatic arm that caused it to close with agonizing slowness. He had the key in his hand to lock it. He yelled back to Carl and Lisa. “Go! Get the fuck out of here! Now!”
He turned the key and snapped it off in the lock.
Hands slammed into the glass, leaving slimy handprints. Taylor fell back, machete held out in front of him. He heard the sound of the back door slamming closed. He thought he heard the sound of Tina’s Escort starting but couldn’t be sure.
He picked himself up from the floor and made his way to the back room. Glass shattered behind him. It was a forced effort to keep from looking back; to keep moving to the back of the store. When Carl had handed him the machete, it had seemed like a formidable weapon. Now it just felt inadequate.
Taylor heard them come crashing through the glass, the store being destroyed as they pursued him.
He reached the back door and flung it open. The car was gone. Good, he thought. Thank God for that at least.
Cold rain bit into his skin as he ran up the alley. He reached the street and stopped. Dozens of the rabid things were still stuck at the entrance to Dave’s Hardware, attempting to shove their way in through the bottleneck that had formed. Yet another oversight in his plan. Despite this, they continued to force their way in, none of them noticing that he had appeared at the entrance to the alley.
He heard the sound of the back door, metal rebounding off of brick; feet splashing in puddles. He turned left and ran.
The pain in his legs was almost instantaneous, but it was easy to forget the feeling if he focused his mind. The rain made it hard to see too far ahead, but he could make out the reflective green surface of a street sign.
Red streaks reflected off of the rain slicked street. At first, Taylor wasn’t sure of what he was seeing. But as he moved closer, he recognized the red light as coming from the Escort’s brake lights.
He reached for the handle of the rear door and pulled. It was locked. He pounded on the window. Tina leaned over into the backseat and unlocked it.
“Go!”
Taylor jumped into the seat and pulled the door closed. The car rocked to the side as the first of the mob reached it and one of them jumped onto the trunk. He saw the face of utter insanity pressed up against the rear window, nose flattened against the glass, lips pushed back, its breath creating a foggy patch on the glass. And despite the heavy rain, he could read the name stitched on the thing’s work shirt: DAVE.
“Go!”
Carl punched the accelerator with disappointing results. The takeoff was sluggish; revealing the car’s lack of get-up-and-go that Tina had warned them about. Taylor watched in slow motion as the rest of the mob arrived and kept pace with them until the Escort gained momentum.
The car fishtailed and the inhuman thing that clung to the trunk went sailing away, sending up a spray of water as its body collided with the curb.
So long, Dave. Thanks for letting us hole up in your store, Taylor thought. I’ll take good care of your daughter.
Carl found the controls for the windshield wipers and turned them on. He glanced out the rearview mirror. Despite poor visibility, he kept the car at a steady forty-five, watching the mob grow smaller and smaller as the distance increased. After they had driven several blocks, he slowed at the intersection and said, “What now? If we go straight, we can get back on the highway.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Tina said. “Out of this town. It might be different somewhere else.”
She’s in denial, Taylor thought. She could be right and the radio could have been wrong, but I doubt it.
“I second that motion,” Carl said. “Let’s get the hell out’ve Dodge.”
Taylor said, “It’s gonna be a long drive. An hour-and-a-half at least.”
“I can get us there faster than that. Call me crazy, but I don’t think they’ll be handing out speeding tickets.”
“We could use some supplies.”
“Sitting right next to you. Everything you put in the tarp. What else do you want?”
“For starters? Food.”
Carl pondered this. His stomach rumbled at the thought. “Food would be good. But none of us are going to starve to death in the hour and a half it takes to get back home. I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry. Not enough to risk getting hung up in this town.”
“There’s nothing left for me here,” Tina said. “I just hope that my dad got out before things got bad.”
Taylor stared out the window. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, he thought, and wondered if he was breaking some law of morality by not telling Tina he had seen her father. Wondered if he would have wanted to know if the roles were reversed. He decided that in this case, the old saying held true: ignorance is bliss.
“It’s not a matter of how long we can hold out. I’m thinking about all the possibilities. Like the possibility that we hit a roadblock. What if we have to travel on foot at some point? What if we can’t get home? I can think of a bunch of them. It might be smart to stop off and find food here. Find a house and raid the fridge if we have to.” He turned in his seat so he could see out the back window. “Those things aren’t behind us anymore. Even if they try to follow us, it will take a little while for them to get this far. We can hide the car.”
“They could find us,” Tina said. “The way they found us in the store.”
Carl said, “Yeah, I don’t want to get boxed-in again.”
Taylor leaned forward. “Maybe we were too loud. That could be all it was. They got lucky. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have special abilities.” Taylor noticed Carl staring at him in the rearview mirror. “I’m not proposing we hole up here. We’ll just take some food and whatever else is useful. We can do that in less than twenty minutes. Then we leave.”
Carl stared into the rearview mirror again, and this time Taylor was certain that his brother’s attention was focused on him.
“Listen, guys, think about it. It’s the smartest thing.”
Carl sighed and tapped gently on the brakes. “Fine.” He gestured out the window at the houses lining the street. “So which one? Or are we gonna play eenie-meenie-miney-mo?”
Taylor put his hand on Tina’s shoulder. He could a tremor of fear running through her. “Are you okay with that?” he asked.
“Whatever you think is best. I asked to come along. The last thing I want to do is be demanding.”
“I appreciate that, but this is still a democracy. You still get a say in the decision-making process.”