It was, he decided, not an altogether unpleasant feeling.
10
As Rudy watched them go, he also wondered if he would ever see them again. The odds, he supposed, were about a thousand to one. He looked at Pam Dawley’s face, at the toll the night had taken on it, and wondered if there would be anything left for them to come back to.
Feeling depressed, he turned to shepherd his wife and children back toward the safety of the house, the buzz of the motorcycle distant, already fading into memory.
Perhaps Larry was right, he ruefully reflected. All their plans and efforts…
Perhaps they were nothing but folly.
11
The plan, as it had originally been proposed, was for Shane and Larry to follow a route similar to that Rudy and the others had taken to 7-Eleven, along Kennedy down to where it met Valley View, then navigating that arterial past the former convenience mart to Long’s drugstore, six blocks further on 4th.
This, however, was debated and discarded as too risky due to the densely populated neighborhoods they would have to pass through along the way, not to mention the large apartment complex directly across from the shopping center itself.
Long’s had always been convenient; it was where most of them had gone to have their prescriptions filled, but now it was likely a deathtrap, if not a burned-out cinder.
Pam had then suggested they take a right instead of a left at Kennedy and go west over the ridge and down the other side, where they could hook up with County Road 27 and then the old highway. The land out that way was mostly ranches and farms, with only a few new housing developments clustered amid the empty pastures.
If they stuck to the outskirts and navigated around the congested streets of the city, there were any number of smaller drugstores they might reach.
Consulting the yellow pages, they found three that might prove relatively easy to access. The first was the Medicine Shoppe in the Summertides shopping center on 27 next to the Summertides golf course. A small pharmacy sandwiched between a hair salon and a pizza parlor; small but specialized, exceedingly well-stocked.
The shopping center itself was small and somewhat isolated. Built in the early 60’s (at the same time as the golf course), it drew its lifeblood from the upscale RV park and condominiums which had sprung up around the fringes of the links. Getting in and out would not be a problem.
The second option was Hoilman’s Drug in the tiny neighboring community of Brace, three or four miles further on. Brace itself was little more than a bump on the old highway; a bump which just so happened to have a drive-in burger stand and a Mom and Pop grocery. The drug store (also a Mom and Pop affair) clung like a concrete parasite to the side of the grocery store; not exactly promising — no one on Quail Street had ever found occasion to step inside — but once again, it was small and easy to approach.
This wasn’t the case for the third option if both Summertides and Brace fell through. If that happened, Larry would have to turn the bike south toward the state highway, which in turn would bring them back toward the city and the Fred Meyer supercenter off Columbia Avenue. Fred Meyer was likely to stock the items they needed, but as large as it was, positioned at the northwest corner of the city, it would naturally attract more people. Worse still, the pharmacy counter lay deep within the store.
Both Larry and Shane agreed that feeling their way about the darkened aisles of a dead and windowless supercenter didn’t hold much appeal. Dead or not, it was apt to be full of surprises, most of them unpleasant.
Nevertheless, it would be a last-ditch effort before turning back to Quail Street or coming up with something on their own. To that effect, Pam reminded them of the clusters of medical buildings further up Columbia. Doctor’s offices and clinics that might be worth considering, to which Rudy shook his head and put forth the opinion it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Larry concluded the discussion, stating simply that he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
12
The first dead man came stumbling at them along Kennedy.
They’d covered less than a quarter mile, seeing nothing more unusual than a Fed-Ex van turned on its side in the grassy ditch. There was a bloody handprint smeared against the bright white panel of the door, a cracked cataract where the windshield had been, but these were in no way conclusive. There was no body so they continued on after a cursory glance, only to encounter a man with a matching Fed-Ex patch on his grass-stained blouse around the next bend. He was peering into a battered mailbox.
Larry slowed the bike to a walk and the man turned, close enough to read the name stitched above his left breast pocket. Leo. Leo had an ugly gash on his forehead and an angry slash down the side of his face. Neither of them looked particularly deep, but there was no mistaking the fever of Wormwood in his eyes.
Shane glanced into the mailbox in passing and saw something that looked dark and sticky. A piece of liver or kidney, his mind whispered; something pulled from a torn abdominal cavity. No telling what Leo was trying to do; mail it, perhaps. It was impossible to say.
Shane felt a strong urge to use his father’s 9mm on the man; snuff him out of existence like a spider poised in the bathroom sink; but the fact was they were likely to come across a great many such victims on the road ahead and their ammunition was extremely limited, so he held on to Larry and let Leo slip away.
It was a decision he’d later come to regret.
13
Half a mile past Hudson Pond, at the crest of the ridge, there was a wide gravel turnabout off the shoulder of the road where drivers could pull off and enjoy a panoramic view of the city. It was a popular place for teenagers to come and park, isolated enough to drink beer and grope one another while the city lights sparkled below.
Larry and Shane found a car parked there as they approached, its front bumper right up to the battered and graffiti-covered guardrail. An old Impala with a torn vinyl roof and a lone silhouette propped up behind the wheel. Larry nosed the Yamaha in well away from it and let the engine sputter to a halt.
The wind rose to fill the silence. A hazy, yellow-colored wind.
Shane eased himself off the back of the bike and Larry swung his leg over, both of them assessing the shape in the Impala before stepping to the guardrail and turning their attention to the city.
“Would you look at that,” Larry whispered, awed by the sight, to which Shane could only shake his head.
The city lay in a wide valley and spread itself out to them like a corpse on an examination table. Whole sections of it were frantically burning, the flames visible to the naked eye even from four or five miles away. Other areas, now stunted and withered, seemed content to smolder, an eerie mist lying over the streets in an unsettling veil. The hand of God descending, only this time it wouldn’t be placated with a splash of lamb’s blood on the door, no more than it would be content with the first-born son. Wormwood, they could see, played no favorites. It simply opened its jaws and devoured everything. No one was safe because no one had built up an immunity to death.
Still, there were large portions of the city that looked untouched by the disease, though this was likely not the case, no more than Quail Street had escaped it. They were simply host to quieter horrors, those content to remain indoors and out of sight. The kind that Larry had left behind in his basement.
All it took was one dead body. A single viable corpse to take root…