Sounds of humanity, bugle call of his brothers and sisters in the resistance.
The resistance. That made him smile.
Knowing it was probably a mistake but not giving a ripe shit since he had the gun now, Lou lit up a cigarette. He lit it quickly, then cupped the cherry, waiting to see if it drew any attention.
As badly as he wanted out of this nightmare, he also wanted answers. He needed to know what had happened here. He knew that during the past week or so the area had been nailed by storms and that within the last couple days they’d been severe, bad enough to wipe out telephone poles and their attending lines without mercy.
But what else had happened?
What took possession of this town when the light failed? Was it a plague or a contagion and, if so, what kind? Was it in the soil? The air? The water? And better yet, was he already contaminated?
Jesus, it was all such madness.
He kept watching the big building up ahead.
Very gothic with the moon washing it down in a ghostly ambiance. It sat on a low, sloping hill, surrounded by denuded elms and craggy oaks. Three rambling stories of stone and brick, domed belfries, widow’s walks, drooping eaves, gabled roof dormers, all capped by a jutting expanse of sheer-pitched roofs and rusting weather vanes. It had lots of scrollwork, a marble-cut frieze wrapping around it like a scarf, too many oblong and oval windows that glared out, dead eyes in a stone face. There was a huge clock set in the facade of a rectangular tower, telling him it was nearly half past nine.
Quite a place. About as inviting as mausoleum at midnight.
He thought maybe he saw some lights on in there… but couldn’t be sure with moonlight the color of cornsilk turning the windows to somber reflecting pools. He dragged from his cigarette, knowing that now, this moment, more than ever before in his life, was not the time for impulsive action. Whatever he did had to be plotted out carefully.
He looked around.
Nothing but the town everywhere he looked—buildings and homes and church spires and leaning chimneys painted the color of coal dust, all frosted by the moon. Black, patchy clouds above and cold, mean streets below.
Or maybe not.
To the right of the big building was an open expanse like a park and beyond that what looked to be a cemetery. Same one he saw earlier, but from a different perspective now. A mutiny of stones and marble vaults… and beyond, nothing but dark woods, empty meadows.
So there it was.
He could either take his chance with the building or he could just do the smart thing and slip out of town. Through the boneyard and into the fields beyond. Easier than promises in the dark. Maybe they were out there, too, but probably very few, he figured, the best hunting being here in Cut River.
Grinding his cigarette beneath his heel, he moved out.
Across the street, past the monolithic building, into the park. He didn’t like it there too much, either: too many dark hiding places, dank little holes where the monsters could spring out at him like trapdoor spiders from their webby lairs. He hid behind a war monument, listened, watched, kept the .38 in his hand. Okay.
Go!
Through a perimeter of stout pines and across a winding dirt drive.
So far, so good.
The cemetery was right before him now. Low stone wall, irregular and mounded, encircling it. He hopped over it, nearly flipping himself into the dirt. Just inside the wall, he crouched down, panned the night, looked for anything that reeked of danger.
Nothing.
The cemetery was laid out over hilly, grassy turf crowded with manicured shrubs and ancient oaks. The tombstones seemed to glow under the eye of the moon. Silent, jutting sepulchers trimmed in dead ivy were cut from charnel shadow. This was worse than he thought, more places to hide than he could’ve imagined—everywhere gravestones, markers, biers, marble shafts, leaning funerary crosses. A maze of stone and foliage and knife-edged shadow.
Lou darted forward, his legs pumped with concrete from all the unaccustomed exertion.
Headstone to headstone to headstone.
Silence, waiting and pregnant with sinister possibility.
He was thinking that he was perfectly safe. Chances were he was wasting his time with these cat-and-mouse evasion tactics. Too many old movies coming home to roost in the rotting rafters of his panicked brain. Yeah, it was cool, it was—
Up ahead, movement.
He stayed put, the gun trembling in his sweaty grip.
Shadows were everywhere out there, throngs and multitudes created by the moon, the trees, and the stones.
But then he saw, yes, they were here, too.
Dim forms threading slowly through the monuments in his direction. His heart skipped a beat, skipped another, kicked with a sharp pain in his chest.
Why here?
Were they waiting for him? Were they part of some group consciousness, knowing and thinking and acting as a single entity, but composed of hundreds of parts? Ridiculous. Again, too many late night movies vomiting drivel into his head. No, not that, but something, something…
He could hear muted thuddings now, muffled clangings.
Terror then, flooding through him like icy creek water, horror. The revelation was grisly. They weren’t out here looking for the living, they were out here after the dead. Rooting through graves and burial vaults and crypts like grave robbers, hungry ghouls.
But maybe they did know he was here.
Some of them were getting closer, moving in his direction with less than casual interest. He could see their eyes now, flat and yellow like the eyes of rabid dogs.
They were spreading out now, six or seven of them. He could hear the wet sounds of their breathing, the chattering of teeth.
Lou’s heart was literally in his throat, flabby and fibrillating uneasily, choking off his air and squirting sour bile onto his tongue. He sprang from his crouch and ran with everything he had out of the cemetery and into the little park and away until he was in the cyclopean shadow of the building.
Behind him, it was quiet.
They hadn’t followed. He fell to his knees in the wet grass.
After a time, his panic lessened. He saw a sign.
CUT RIVER MUNICIPAL COMPLEX
City Hall Offices
Hall of Records
Public Safety Department
Bingo!
And, yes, he saw, studying the recessed windows, that there were lights on in there. Not all of them, but some. He licked his lips, calming himself. He could see a parking lot now in the back with a couple police cruisers and a few city trucks. If there was still law here, why weren’t they doing something?
No time for that, no time for reasoning and analysis. That was the province of civilized men and civilization had now become something of an abstract concept here in the Devil’s backyard.
Wiping a sheen of icy sweat from his brow, Lou got to his feet.
Move!
He was running again, galloping through the courtyard of the municipal building like a fox with a pack of slavering hounds at his tail. Through the wet grass, over glistening pavement, ducking into shadows, becoming shadows. And above, always, that huge and full moon, that hunter’s moon, brushed by dark clouds like scars across a blind eyeball.
Lou’s breath was misting sludge in his aching lungs, his brain raging with storm clouds.
He jogged up the steps to the entrance.
Huge double doors. He turned the knob, pushed, his heart going off like a cluster bomb, and then he was inside. Dark corridors, stairs climbing off to the left, a bank of elevators. A few panels of overhead lights were on, enough to see and navigate by. There were doors studding the hall, windows set in them. CITY TREASURER. CITY MANAGER. COUNTY CLERK. UTILITIES DEPT. There was a directory on the wall. Lou studied it, seeing that what he wanted was on this floor.