Frankenstorm: Survivors (4 page)

Somewhere in the collapsed beams and crushed walls and broken furniture, she heard the deputy shout, “Now I gotta get outta
this
shit? Oh,
fuck
! Why can’t
something
be easy tonight, goddammit?”

The wind and rain were now inside the house, blowing things around and getting Latrice wet. But she kept moving forward, arms and legs shaking, muscles aching, and the inside of her head burning a deep-red rage.

 

 

What had begun as Tropical Storm Quentin made landfall as a hurricane and swept through Humboldt County like the rage of an angry deity and laid waste to neighborhoods and malls and bowling alleys and schools and churches and anything else that stood in its path.

Roofs were sheared from buildings large and small and trees and power poles were tossed around like Tinker Toys, flung into homes and shopping centers and churches. The storm surge took out most of the Eureka-Samoa Bridge, all of the Railroad Bridge, and both the North- and Southbound Highway 101 bridges that crossed the bay.

A category 4, Quentin made landfall at Eureka and pounded and slashed and ripped its way northeast, and as it moved on, it left nothing in its wake untouched.

 

 

In a quiet, darkened office, a man seated at his desk placed a call, then turned his chair around to look out the window at the sparkling view of San Francisco on a stormy night from the thirty-second floor of Four Embarcadero Center.

It was a spacious, expensively decorated office with lots of onyx and chrome, but the always shiny surfaces were dulled now by the lack of illumination. The only light in the office was a gentle, golden glow that came from behind the large corporate logo on one wall. It was a brass representation of the atomic symbol in which the oversized nucleus was the planet earth with a large gold V emblazoned on it.

The tinny squeak of a voice at the other end of the line came from the small cell phone the man held to his ear.

“Yes, our information says the storm is moving northeast and it’s on its way out of Eureka.”

More tinny sounds from the phone.

“I think we should get a team in there immediately and clean up this mess while we can. It’s a disaster, but it can be handled if it’s handled immediately. . . . Good. Do it now.”

He severed the connection, then turned his chair around and stood. He slipped the phone into his pocket, walked around his desk and crossed the room to a small closet. He got his coat and put it on.

He could go home now. He was done for the day.

5

For the first time since he was small boy, Dr. Jeremy Corcoran wet himself. He stood in the black corridor with his back pressed against the wall, unable to see anything in the dark. Wind howled down the corridor like angry ghosts, much louder and stronger since the loud rumbling he’d heard in the front of the building earlier. He was paralyzed with fear, unable to move, barely able to breathe, and his bladder, which he hadn’t even known was full, suddenly released and he felt the hot urine run down his thighs.

Only a minute earlier, he’d been waiting in what he was almost certain was a restroom. He’d paid little attention to anything in the old hospital that he did not use himself, and the only bathroom he used was the one in his quarters. But after being ejected from his quarters into the darkness of the corridor, he’d panicked. He’d walked and jogged along the wall, never losing touch with it, keeping one hand on it at all times, sometimes stopping to listen when he heard something close. When he’d heard footsteps hurrying toward him, he’d panicked and started groping for a door, any door, and he’d gone into the first one that came long. He’d assumed it was the restroom because of the tile wall, but it didn’t matter. He’d stayed there, just inside the door, for a long time, waiting, listening, trembling, trying not to breathe too loudly, trying to will his thundering heart to calm down. After hearing nothing for a while, he’d opened the door and listened, then stepped outside and listened. Nothing. He’d continued again, hurrying back the way he’d come, back toward Fara’s office. Until he’d heard something within the wind, movement that was steady and human, and . . . a voice. He’d frozen again and pressed his back against the wall.

And now, having wet his pants, he tried to determine if the sound warranted such a response. Was it just the wind?

He heard a gunshot somewhere in the hospital—there had been a few of those—and the clatter of detritus being blown along the corridor floor by the wind. He thought he’d heard the slap of bare feet on the tile and the secretive grumble of voices. But now, all he heard was the wind.

He continued along the wall, more cautiously now, and thought about what he would do once he got back to the safety of Fara’s office. He would get out of here. Somehow. He would pay money to someone to drive him away from Springmeier. He would
scare
someone into doing it if he had to, telling them that if they stuck around, they’d be cleaned up with the rest of this mess once Vendon’s team of problem-solvers arrived. He would
threaten
someone if he had to, steal a car, but he was getting out of and away from that building no matter what, storm or no storm.

Shouting. Someone was shouting angrily farther down the corridor. No, it was two voices. And footsteps running in the dark. Toward him. It was two men, and they were fighting. One seemed to be chasing the other, then they would stop and the shouting would go on. After some sounds of struggle, the chase continued, coming closer to Corcoran.

He pressed himself against the wall again and stopped breathing as they came closer. They stopped and began fighting again, shouting about something that made no sense to Corcoran. They were right in front of him now, in the dark, hitting each other and shouting at each other like children, moving around as they struggled, until—

—they slammed directly into Corcoran and he screamed.

In a hoarse voice, a man said, “Hey, who’s this? Huh? Who’re you?”

Corcoran slid along the wall to his left, trying to get away from them and move along, trying not to whimper, although small sounds were coming out of him involuntarily as he sidled along the wall. But they were aware of him now.

Two hands slapped onto his body, groping for purchase until they clutched the front of his corduroy coat.

“No,” Corcoran said in a high, breathy voice. “No, please, no.”

“I got him!” the man shouted. “I got the son of a bitch!
This
is the cocksucker!
He’s
the one, I bet! Mother
fucker
!”

The man slapped Corcoran’s face once, then again, repeatedly, back and forth, and Corcoran began sobbing as he slid down the wall, trying to block his attacker by lifting his arms.

Another hand grabbed Corcoran’s hair and pulled him away from the wall, flinging him to the floor. Corcoran immediately began crawling on hands and knees, even though he was no longer sure in which direction he was going. He just wanted to get away.

He crawled as fast as he could, nearly panting as he heard them closing in again.

“Where the fuck you think you’re goin’, asshole?” one of them said as he jumped on Hal’s back, straddling him like a horse and flattening him to the floor. “Come on, boy,
giddy up
!” One hand grabbed Corcoran’s hair while the other hit him repeatedly about the neck and shoulders. “Come on, there, boy, whatcha waitin’ for, anyway?” the rider said.

When the other man kicked Corcoran in the face, the world cartwheeled a few times and he found himself teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Blood ran from a cut on his upper lip and dribbled over his mouth and chin.

The rider got off of him and kicked him in the ribs. Both men were talking now, ranting about something Corcoran had done, or was going to do—none of it made any sense and he couldn’t follow it, anyway, because they were both kicking him now.

He felt a final surge of fear and panic and he willed himself to move, to flee. With speed that surprised even him, Corcoran rose up on hands and knees, then screamed his rage as he began to hit back, flailing his arms indiscriminately, hitting and scratching as he got to his feet, then ran forward. He stumbled, but he kept running.

They stayed with him. One of them shouted, “You wanna play, dickhead, huh? Is that it? You wanna play?”

One of them tripped him and he fell hard. His chin hit the floor and started bleeding. Then both of them were on him, but they didn’t just hit him.

Corcoran felt something hard and sharp pierce the flesh of his back just below his right shoulder blade. He let out a long scream of fear and pain that became words.

“Help me somebody! Help! Please!”

But that hard, sharp object stabbed into him again. And again.

They laughed and cursed him as they rolled him over onto his back. One of them straddled his legs and began to stab him repeatedly in the abdomen and chest.

Corcoran could not scream anymore. He could only make an involuntary grunting sound with each thrust of the weapon. He felt his blood leaking out of him, soaking into his clothes, warm against his skin.

He wondered how all of this would be reported in the media just a couple of seconds before he died.

6

Latrice’s right hand ached from pounding it on the steering wheel of her Highlander, but she was only vaguely aware of it. Her windshield wipers made rapid smacking sounds as they swept back and forth at top speed and the wind jostled the SUV as she drove, but all Latrice could hear was the grinding of her own teeth.

She had crawled and climbed out of Giff’s demolished house, reminding herself over and over that she wasn’t in a nightmare. But that was what it had felt like, a frustrating nightmare that was enraging her, making the inside of her skull vibrate with anger. Crawling through the rubble and climbing over beams and collapsed walls, soaking wet from the rain, she’d tried to ignore the agonizing screams of one of the children coming from somewhere in the wreckage.

Instead, she focused her thoughts on her own children and her mother waiting for her at home, probably worried sick, maybe following coverage of the hurricane on the news. Tamara and Robert were the reason Latrice had come to Eureka, especially Robert. If it weren’t for them, she wouldn’t have to crawl out of a tree-crushed house in a hurricane. She’d be safe at home, warm and dry, nice and relaxed in front of the TV, or sitting at the kitchen table talking quietly with Mama over tea. The kids should be in bed now, but they weren’t, she was sure, because Mama hated to be the villain by prying them away from the TV and making them go to bed.

If it weren’t for Robert’s mystery condition, she wouldn’t have needed that five thousand dollars Leland had promised her. It would have been useful, sure, but it wouldn’t be so desperately needed. She would have been able to pay so many bills with that money, would have been able to get some nasty, tenacious bill collectors off her back, have some much-needed repairs done on the Highlander and around the house. But it would have to go toward whatever tests Robert was going to need. And medical costs were so outrageously high that even then, five grand probably wouldn’t be enough.

If she’d never had the kids, of course, her life would be very different. Less stressful, for one thing. She wouldn’t be under such a load of debt. She’d have more time—hell, nothing
but
time for herself. And most important of all, she would not have to crawl out of the remains of a demolished house in a fucking hurricane! She would have a life, her own life, and she could do just about anything she wanted. She’d have no one to worry about but herself.

She’d thought of all the money and time spent catering to them, wrapping her whole life around them. Then what does Robert do? He gets sick with some kind of mystery illness and she would have to spend even
more
money on him.

“Little shit,” she’d muttered. “Don’t know who the fuck he thinks he is . . . like I got nothing better to do with my goddamned time and money . . . Jesus Christ.”

She had climbed out of what was left of a window. As strong as it was, the wind felt good on her face after crawling through that nightmarish obstacle course. She looked around and spotted her Highlander. The deputy’s car was still parked behind her, but she didn’t care. She’d take care of that.

She’d gotten into the Highlander then and fished the keys from her pocket. There was an unpleasant sound inside the SUV, a thick crunching sound. She was grinding her teeth together. When she became aware of it, she stopped, but seconds later, she was doing it again.

She’d started the engine, put her seat belt on, then put the Highlander in reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The SUV rocketed backwards and slammed into the deputy’s patrol car. With the gas pedal on the floor, the Highlander shoved the car over the mud. She’d turned the SUV around as soon as she had room, but not without hitting the rear of one of the other SUVs parked in front of the house.

“Cocksucker!” she shouted as she headed down the bumpy, narrow road. There was devastation on each side—trailers overturned, trees down. She had to drive off the road to go around a fallen tree. When she reached Emerald Canyon, she turned left.

She decided she would go home. Just drive back to Sacramento. She didn’t get the money, she’d nearly been killed, the whole thing was a waste of time and energy and money and it was all because she’d needed the money for that sick little fucker who was probably sitting on his ass in comfort right now while she risked her goddamned life to scrape up some money for the fucking tingling and numbness in his leg and arm and—

“You little shit box!” she shouted as she pounded a fist on the steering wheel repeatedly. “I’ll be home soon, fucker, and
then
we’ll see who gets to be comfortable, you goddamned waste of space!”

Memories flitted through her mind of the days when she had only herself to worry about, before she had children, when she had so much time and energy. She pressed harder on the gas pedal, telling herself she would have that again. Very soon.

“That looks like the end of the road for us,” Andy said as he stopped the SUV. He peered through the windshield at the mess up ahead. “In this direction, anyway.”

Just ahead, the road disappeared in what looked like a large pond. Just beyond that, a huge tree had fallen across the road.

“What are we gonna do, Dad?” Donny asked.

Andy was struck by how calm Donny was, while his own heart was still beating too fast and he was jumpy with tension. He put the SUV in park and it idled as he looked all around them through the windows.

The wind was still blowing detritus over the road and tossing the trees in what looked like throes of agony, and the rain was still pouring hard enough to decrease visibility, but the storm had lost some of its intensity.

“We passed a side road just a little bit ago,” he said as he put the car into gear again, made a U-turn in the road, and headed back.

“Where do you think it goes?”

“I don’t know, but it would be a good place to park for a little while. What do you think? Shall we park and wait for the storm to die down a little more, then we can go back the way we came.”

Donny’s back stiffened and, with a note of alarm, he said, “You mean back to that house?”

“No, not there. We’ll go home.”

The boy slumped in the seat and smiled a little, relieved. “Oh. Yeah. That’d be nice.”

Up ahead, a set of headlights was driving toward them, with another set right behind it. The first car crossed Andy’s lane to turn onto a side road, followed by the second. They were two large, black SUVs, luxury gas guzzlers.

“That’s the road,” Andy said. “Where those two SUVs just turned in.”

Andy slowed as he approached the road. He turned right and his headlights passed over a road sign that read
OGDEN PASS.
He was just in time to see the two SUVs turning left up ahead and driving into the woods.

“Maybe they live here,” Donny said.

“There are no homes in those woods. There use to be an old mental hospital somewhere in there, but it’s been abandoned for a long time. I don’t even know if it’s still standing.”

“I wonder why they’re going into the woods.”

“I’m sure they have a reason.” Andy made a U-turn on Ogden Pass before reaching the road the SUVs had taken, then pulled over onto the shoulder. He turned off the engine and killed the lights. “Okay, we’re just going to sit here for a little while.”

“Why don’t we just keep driving?”

“Well, to be honest, I’m a little nervous about passing by that house again. Ram is going to be coming out of there, if he hasn’t already. I’m probably being too cautious and a little cowardly, but I’d rather wait here. For a little while, anyway. The storm is receding, and if we wait awhile, driving will be easier and safer. Okay, buddy?”

“Yeah, sure. Can I turn on the radio?”

“Yeah, let’s find some music.”

Donny found an upbeat song that he knew and sang along to. But Andy didn’t know it, and he didn’t feel like singing, anyway. He didn’t want Donny to know, but he was still feeling quite nervous. No, that wasn’t true. He was still afraid.

 

 

Ram couldn’t stop laughing as he crawled through the rubble with his flashlight guiding the way, because what else could he do when the night had gone so crazily wrong? It had started out with Ram trying to do a favor for an old friend, and somehow, it had collapsed into nightmarish slapstick comedy.

He found his gun on the floor. It was near the bloody body of the man named Marcus who had been killed by a shovel. He picked it up, shoved it in the holster, and moved on.

Somebody was hurt somewhere. It sounded like two people—an adult and a child. But he wasn’t interested in helping them, only in getting out of there. He wondered what had happened to Andy and Donny. Ram had promised to drive them home and he was a man of his word, so he intended to follow through.

With considerable struggle, after hefting aside pieces of the shattered house, Ram finally got out by climbing through what was left of the same window through which Latrice had exited. He stood up straight and got his bearings.

When he saw his car, he shouted, “Son of a
bitch
!”

One of the other vehicles obviously had gotten out by backing into his car and moving it. Most of the driver’s side of the car had been smashed in. It made Ram angry, but it was to be expected from the subhuman trash that lived here. He didn’t have time to worry about it now.

Standing in the rain and wind, he turned around, faced the house, and shouted, “Andy! Hey, Andy, are you in there? Donny? Andy?”

No answer. But he hadn’t really expected one. They’d probably been crushed inside the house.

He slopped through the mud to his car, went around to the passenger side and unlocked the door. He got inside and grabbed the radio microphone.

“This is one-oh-three, one-oh-three,” he said. He gave his location and said, “The Clancy house has been mostly flattened by a tree with people inside. I’m going to need an ambulance, and a ride out of here because my vehicle is out of commission.”

He listened for a moment and the reply came: “Copy, one-oh-three. We have a unit nearby on the way to Springmeier. One-oh-one has been injured at Springmeier and needs backup.”

“Springmeier? The hospital?”

“Ten-four. There’s trouble over there.”

“Well, have someone come by and pick me up and we’ll go over there.”

A moment later: “A unit should be there in minutes, as long as the way is clear.”

“Ten-four. I’ll be here.”

He replaced the mike and stared at the radio. What the hell was Kaufman doing at Springmeier? And what was going on over there?

He settled back in the seat and waited, searching the darkness for the oncoming headlights of his ride.