The rabid turned towards her, a black grin on his dead white features.
She brought up the Browning .380 and pumped two rounds into him.
The first struck him squarely in the chest and spun him around in a complete circle. The second opened up a third eye in his forehead. Dark blood bubbled over his snarling face.
He screamed at her, bleeding profusely, but still on his feet.
He took one stumbling, drunken step forward, his hungry eyes scanning her like a cut of beef.
She shot him in the mouth and he went over stiffly, slamming flatly against the pavement. He twitched and flopped, making horrible gurgling sounds and going still.
Ruby Sue said, “Well, ain’t that just the shits?”
Joe started laughing, amazed as always by her choice of words and her incredible durability in the worst possible situations. “We better let the car rest a minute,” he managed. He turned and opened the back door to get his guns.
“Yeah, I’m for that,” Ruby Sue said, studying the orange horizon as the fire spread. She sat on the curb, gun in her lap.
Joe turned his head slightly, hearing a roar, thinking maybe it was the fire.
But then knowing with a dread certainty it was not.
A car raced out of the darkness at them.
Lights off, it was on him before he could do much more than move a foot or two. Ruby Sue was on her feet, up against the GTO, mouth open, attempting to say something, but it was too damn late.
Joe saw a radiator grill winking at him like a silver eye.
And beyond it, a few white, grinning faces pressed to the windshield.
The impact was sudden and irresistible, the black Lincoln traveling at well over seventy miles an hour. Joe was sandwiched momentarily between the front end of the Lincoln and the open door of the GTO.
But only momentarily.
The hinges snapped free and Joe and the driver’s side door were dragged fifty feet in a shower of sparks and smoking flesh before they went tumbling across the pavement.
The Lincoln continued along, swerving frantically from side to side, seeming to pick up speed. It crossed an intersection and leaped a curb, slamming into a stout oak with a screech of twisted metal and shattering glass.
It came to rest there, nearly ripped in half, the front end crushed back into the driver’s compartment. The hood was detached and driven through the windshield. There was a stink of gas and it went up in flames. Not a dramatic movie explosion this, but a gentle, almost casual engulfment by flame.
The impact of the Lincoln striking the GTO had sent Ruby Sue careening to the street. Her head smacked the curb and her left wrist was twisted sickly beneath her body. Moments later—her face smeared with red from a gash in her head and her left arm clutched limply at her side—she was on her feet, stumbling up the road.
Joe was lying in a tangled heap, blood pooling out from him.
The air was ripe with the stench of scorched metal and flesh.
He was moaning.
Alive, but just.
28
They were throwing themselves against the bus.
The progeny of Cut River, the children of the night.
But with the bi-fold door safely locked down and the emergency hatch in the back only accessible from the inside, Lou wasn’t worrying about them. Not yet. When the evil bastards started busting through the windows, yes, but not right now.
He was staring at the guy in the driver’s seat.
He felt a wave of gooseflesh go up his back. If he’d have been a cat, he would’ve raised his hackles. He’d made a good run of it, found safety here… and now this.
Shit.
He kneeled there on the floor of the rocking bus, breathing, trembling, waiting for the moonish face of the driver to turn towards him, look at him with hollow eyes.
But it did not happen.
Because the guy was dead.
Lou prodded him with the barrel of the shotgun and he slid down further in the seat.
Dead, all right.
Lou muttered something about it not being personal and pulled him unceremoniously from behind the wheel. He slumped over and fell onto the steps, his face mashing against the door window. This drove the children outside into a veritable feeding frenzy. They began fighting for space at the door, licking and biting at the glass, trying to dig through it with their fingers.
The keys were in the ignition.
The seat and wheel were sticky with what Lou figured was old blood. The driver must have slit his wrists or throat.
Sweating profusely, barely able to keep his fingers steady, Lou turned the key.
The bus roared into life.
The gauges lit up and told him he had half a tank. He pushed down on the clutch and threw the shift lever into gear, pressing down gently on the accelerator and easing off the clutch. Last thing he needed was for the bus to stall.
It began to move.
He gave it some gas and most of the rabids fell away from it.
Others clung like leeches and still others (he could hear) were clinging to the roof.
No matter now.
He kept shifting gears until he was doing an easy forty-five miles an hour, speeding through what passed for an industrial sector in Cut River. He veered wildly from side to side, throwing off the little monsters. But there were still more on the roof, banging and screeching.
A white hand snaked down from over the driver’s cabin and took hold of a wiper blade, snapping it off like a twig.
In five minutes, Lou made Chestnut, the main drag.
He took the corner barely bothering to slow down until he was into the turn, then riding the brake for all it was worth. He popped a curb, smashed a little Ford Escort out of the way, knocked a STOP sign over, and thudded back into the street, the bus careening unpleasantly to one side like maybe it was going to roll over. But it didn’t.
In the rearview, he could see that he’d shed the remaining children.
He could see them crab-crawling off into the darkness.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he slowed down.
Shotgun at his side, he felt kind of like Dirty Harry in that one movie, plowing through the streets in his bus. Rabids popped out from behind parked cars from time to time, but scattered when he veered towards him. After awhile, he saw none, so he turned onto a side street looking for victims like a teenager trying to run down dogs or squirrels.
It was about that time that he heard a series of explosions and saw the eastern side of town light up with fireballs rolling above the treeline. Whether it was to his benefit or not, he let out a battle cry as the glow of flames not only didn’t die down, but raged with new life.
He’d heard gunfire off and on for some time now.
But what was this?
Had the Marines landed and called in an airstrike? The image of canisters of napalm incinerating Cut River made him grin ferociously.
That’ll put those rabids on the run.
His hi-beams illuminating the blackened streets, he saw rabids everywhere, hiding and skulking and sticking to the shadows. Only a few dared cross his path. Maybe it was the bus they were afraid of and maybe it was just the headlights.
He heard more explosions as he tooled around an avenue of brooding, dark houses and that’s when he saw two figures coming right up the middle of the street, waving their arms wildly.
Jesus, it couldn’t be.
Not again.
He slowed down and yes it was!
He skidded to a halt.
Johnny Davis and Lisa Tabano.
They came up to the folding door, weapons drawn. He took a good look at them before he pulled the lever and opened the door. He wanted to be sure their eyes were normal.