HOWLERS (29 page)

Bell closed his eyes, the shotgun between his knees. His back was against the elevator’s silver doors.

“Not enough,” Bell said. “We’re short. He said ten thousand.”

“I’ll call my father. He’ll come. Let’s just go up to the roof.”

“Maybe he’ll come. If he’s still alive,” Bell said. “We don’t know if anyone will come. Can come.”

“Don’t say that,” Lacy said.

Bell looked at her. “There’s one more floor. That might be enough,” he said.

“Well, at least go down and get some more ammunition,” she said.

“There is no more. He only had one box for the shotgun.” Bell reached up and turned the elevator on. They both felt the motor start up, the gears clutch; it began its climb up to the hotel’s top floor. Bell stood up and loaded the shotgun with his last two shells.

“What if there’s too many of them?” Lacy said.

“Then take the damn money you’ve got there and ask for the limousine. I saw it had the key in it. It’s a heavy car; you might be able to make it in that. No matter what happens on the road, don’t stop. It’s got a full tank of gas, I checked,” Bell said.

The elevator door opened on the top floor. Bell stepped out and walked down the well-lit corridor. It looked so normal, Lacy thought. She reached her hand up and hit the elevator’s emergency off-button and tried her phone. It finally had a signal.

*   *   *

Miles slammed on the brakes. He recognized the figure in front of him. Patty had been yelling at him to hit the girl, but at the last minute Miles recognized Lacy Collier and couldn’t bring himself to run her down. He’d come within inches of killing her. She collapsed in a heap on the road, in front of the Cadillac.

“It’s Lacy Collier!” Miles said.

“We don’t know if she’s one of them,” Marvin said.

Miles turned to look at the doctor. Dr. Poole wasn’t smiling. He’d changed in the last twenty-four hours. His eyes looked cold and mean, aggressive.

“I’m going out there,” Miles said. He’d known Lacy Collier all his life and he wasn’t going to leave her out there.

“It’s his daughter? Quentin’s?” Patty asked, not having seen her clearly.

“Yes,” Miles said. He got out of the car before they could stop him. He walked to the front of the Cadillac and looked down at Lacy on her hands and knees in the snow.

“God, help me,” Lacy said. She was sobbing. She was looking down at the asphalt. She’d watched the car approach, and not knowing what else to do, she’d taken a chance and stepped out into the middle of the pitch-dark road and begun to wave her hands, knowing that, whoever was coming, they might decide simply to hit her and keep going. It had taken every bit of courage to keep waving and screaming as the headlights approached, the car bearing down on her, seemingly not going to stop.

“Lacy? Is that you?” Miles said.

“Miles?” Lacy exhausted from her run from the hotel looked up at Hunt. “Miles, thank God.” She stood up with his help. “You’ve got to help me, Miles. Please.”

“Get in the car!” Miles walked her back toward the rear of the Cadillac and helped her into the back seat, closing the door behind her. In the distance he could see headlights and red-blue flashing police lights coming down the road toward them.

“Thank God,” Miles said, watching the lights turn down the hotel’s driveway and come toward them.

“Your dad is hurt,” Rebecca said. “He was unconscious when I left.”

“Is he alone?” Lacy asked.

“No. There are people with him. Two guys.”

“Your dad?” Lacy asked.

“No. Somebody else. My dad—he didn’t make it,” Rebecca said.

“I’m sorry,” Lacy said. “I want to go to my father.”

They were all standing outside the cars near the hotel’s gated entrance. They’d all heard Lacy’s strange story about the two maniacs down the road. They’d also heard more howling in the woods. An old sixties-style motel was on fire up the highway nearby, its log cabins mostly burnt to the ground. The acrid smoke from the fire passed over their heads.

“Where is my dad?” Lacy said.

“At the Phelps Ranch,” Rebecca said.

“Where’s that?” Patty said.

“About eight miles up the road,” Rebecca said. She was holding a Thompson, its muzzle pointed at the ground. She’d come alone, hoping she’d find Lacy at the hotel. “He needs a doctor,” Rebecca said, looking at Marvin Poole, who hadn’t spoken a word.

“What about the two in there?” Patty said.

“I’ll take care of them,” Rebecca said.

“You can’t go alone,” Patty said. “I’ll go too.”

“Miles, do you have enough gas to get to the Phelps place?” Rebecca asked.

“Yeah, half a tank, at least—a little more, I think.”

“You’ve got to take the doctor. You know where it is. You’ll have to walk in from the road. It’s a good half-mile to the cabin. Hard going in the dark. And there’s Howlers all over up there. It’s better if there’s at least three of you, if there’s trouble. I brought another Thompson. It’s in the patrol car,” Rebecca said. “I’ll go get your friend in there, and we’ll go back to the Phelps’s place in the patrol car. It’s low on gas, but I think it will make it back okay.”

“I said I’ll go with you. You can’t go alone,” Patty said.

“All right, thanks,” Rebecca said, looking at the ranger. “So there’ll be three of us too if there’s a fight. On the way back.”

“Are you Patty Tyson?” Lacy asked.

“Yes,” Patty said. Lacy gave her a queer look and headed toward the Cadillac.

“Show me how that thing works,
exactly
,” Marvin said. “The machine gun. I want to ride shotgun.”

“Sure,” Rebecca said. “Are you okay, Dr. Poole?”

Poole turned around, ignoring the question, and walked toward the patrol car, its lights flashing. He opened the passenger door and picked up the Thompson sitting on the seat.

“Marvin, are you okay?” Rebecca asked again. The doctor had a very strange look on his face. “Is Grace?”

“How do you fire this thing?” Poole asked mechanically, all the color out of his voice.

Rebecca looked at the doctor, then walked up to the patrol car and showed him how the Thompson’s safety worked, and how to rack and fire the weapon.

“It’s a good little killer,” Rebecca said. “You’ll see when you let her rip.” She handed it back to him.

Poole turned away without saying a word.

He’s gone crazy,
she thought, watching the doctor walk toward the Cadillac, the patrol car’s flashing blue and red lights painting the snow.

CHAPTER 23

The two young women stood by the patrol car and watched as the Escalade passed under the hotel’s lit-up gated entrance. It turned left toward Timberline and the Phelps Ranch. The Cadillac picked up speed and passed the burning old-school motel out on the highway. The motel’s cabins were shadowy black-and-burnt husks; the intense fire that had destroyed them was almost burnt out. They lost sight of the Escalade in a cloud of grey-white smoke pouring steadily out of the motel’s ruins, drifting toward them. One of the burnt cabins’ tiled roofs collapsed into the rooms below it, the sound horrible and strange. Devouring flames along with a huge spray of sparks, looking almost like fireworks, shot upward into the darkness.

“You have a plan?” Patty asked, turning toward the patrol car. “How are we going to get this guy out of there?” Patty looked at the younger woman standing in front of her.

The girl was wearing a brand new spotless blaze-orange hunting vest and matching hat and an old black down jacket. Her long blond hair, very thick, was spilling out of the cap. She looked like a young fashion model, and not anyone you’d take to a gunfight. The girl inspired no confidence, but it was too late to go back. Patty wished she had not volunteered to stay.

“Yeah, it’s pretty simple,” Rebecca said. “We go down and kill those two assholes, I guess.”

“That’s it?” Patty said. “What if there’re Howlers?”

“We kill them, too,” Rebecca said, giving her a smile. “You must be a city person. City people always make things more complicated than they need to be. Ready?”

“All I have is my service revolver,” Patty said. “And I’m out of ammunition.”

“I can fix that. .357, right? Wait. I don’t have any rounds for that, I’m afraid.” Rebecca walked Patty to the back of the patrol car and opened the trunk. The contents were illuminated by the hotel’s Greek Island lights strung along the gate. “Take your pick. I’d go for the AK and a Walther as a backup. The Walther is a chick’s gun, but, you know, they’re cool,
I guess
. I’m sticking with the short-barreled .45.”

Rebecca pulled a new looking AK-47 from the messy pile of ordinance she and Dillon had thrown into the trunk of the sheriff’s car earlier in the day. She made sure the assault rifle’s two taped-together banana clips, pulled from the tangled mess of guns and holsters, were loaded. She explained how to change the tape-together clips, how you simply reversed them when Patty needed to reload. When Rebecca finished her quick tutorial on the weapon, she shoved the setup into the rifle and chambered a round, double-checking the safety.

“Okay, you’re open for business,” Rebecca said, handing her the weapon.

Patty, impressed, looked down at the pile of handguns in the patrol car’s trunk and picked up the Walther Rebecca had pointed to.

   “Well, I’m a chick—so the Walther it is, then,” Patty said.

“The Walther is loaded. We kept it behind the counter at the store. The AK is a fully-auto model. My dad was a gunsmith and made a few adjustments I think you’ll appreciate. Please promise not to tell ATF, or any tree-huggers either. And expect it to twist when you fire it. That’s the problem with full auto.” Rebecca winked at her. “My name is Rebecca Stewart, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

“Patty Tyson.” The two shook hands.

“Might as well be on a first-name basis if we’re going to have each other’s backs and shit,” Rebecca said. They both got into the patrol car, Rebecca behind the wheel. Patty placed the AK-47 between her legs.

Rebecca drove the road at a crawl. She flipped off the police lights and turned off its headlights. They made their way down the long driveway, finally stopping in the hotel’s huge turnaround. The hotel’s generators kept the entire property lit up and elegant. The normalcy seemed strange, Patty thought, given what had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

The turnaround was scattered with luggage, dead bodies, random bits of clothing, and personal items. A red Hermes handbag sat near a dead woman. A Howler at the bell captain’s station was beating an obviously already dead man. The thing dropped the dead bell captain he was beating and lurched toward them, out into the turnaround.

Patty felt the patrol car stop. She saw the thing’s lips dripping its signature ribbons of saliva. It let out a ripping howl, one of the loudest Patty had heard. It was so loud it made her want to bolt from the car and run. It was demon loud, almost like a bark, like a mad dog/monkey might make, piercing. Patty started to get out of the patrol car ready to shoot the thing, raising the AK-47, but Rebecca stopped her.

“
No
! They’ll hear the shots inside—the two crazies,” Rebecca said. Patty turned away and got back into the car beside her.

“So what do we do?” Patty said. The girls watched the thing come toward them, the ribbon of saliva hanging from its open mouth, the silver-like string almost touching the ground.

“
Fuck
!” Rebecca said. She hopped out of the patrol car, ran to the trunk and got out an orange plastic Orion flare gun she’d thrown into the random mix of weapons. She opened the flare gun as she stepped out and away from the back of the patrol car, checking to make sure the flare gun was loaded. The Howler, excited to see her standing in front of him, began to lope toward her.

Rebecca raised the flare gun and waited for the thing to get a few feet in front of her before she fired, aiming for its wide-open gob. She could see its icy blue eyes in the moonlight. The low-speed flare launched as soon as she fired; the fat plastic bullet hit the Howler dead in its mouth, sticking in its gob like a plug in a bottle. The thing’s face lit up like a pumpkin on Halloween. The lit flare, burning progressively hotter, began frying the thing’s throat and brains, making it dance in pain in front of Rebecca, almost comically. It stopped dancing and tried to howl, but couldn’t because of the plug in its throat. It made more of a human sound, little pain grunts. The flare’s chemical fire started to pour out of the thing’s ears and mouth like a horrible Roman candle.

In a stupid spasm, the Howler began hitting himself in the face as if it would do some good. The thing fell to the ground dead, its face puckered, burning and red as salmon flesh. Fire shot out a hole in the back of the thing’s skull and lit up the turnaround, tinting the lobby doors an eerie orange-yellow.

Rebecca climbed back into the patrol car. Patty gave her a startled look. Any question she’d had about the beautiful girl’s effectiveness in a fight now gone.

“Sometimes you just got to go for it, you know what I mean?” Rebecca said.

“Yeah. Right,” Patty said.

“Put your clothes on!” Bell barked at the naked couple having sex in the hotel pool, oblivious and lost in their pleasure.

Rebecca and Patty had walked into the lobby and found Bell hung upside down in the lobby, expecting to die. Johnny and Sue Ling had left him there, having reneged on their deal to allow Lacy to leave in the hotel’s limousine. Instead they’d taken the cash Bell had collected and thrown Lacy out of the hotel, either to freeze or be killed by Howlers on the road. Bell had misjudged their intentions; they had no rational plan.

The two had left Bell strung up as Howler bait so they could feel safe while they went for a swim in the hotel’s heated pool, both high as kites from coke and booze. They were screwing in the shallow end of the detritus-filled pool, a bottle of Dom Pérignon within easy reach.

Sue Ling’s legs were way up in the air, her ass hiked up onto a submerged step,
when Bell dropped the barrel of the Walther on Johnny’s bobbing shoulder muscles, which were hardening for a climax. Bell wanted to pull the trigger right then and there, but couldn’t.

“Oh, fuck that’s good,” Ryder yelled. He felt the pistol. “Is that you, Bell?”

“Yeah, asswipe. It’s me.”

“Shit!” Johnny said. “I
knew
I should have killed you.”

“Step out of the pool,” Bell said. “Both of you.” He was trying not to kill them both. He’d tried to pull the trigger and couldn’t. He was not a cold-blooded killer.

“These are the two?” Rebecca said. “They look pretty harmless.”

“Yeah?” Bell said. “Well, they are most definitely
not
harmless.”

Sue Ling climbed out of the pool, stark naked, having pushed her boyfriend off. She ran to where she’d piled her clothes on a lounge chair and pulled on her panties and a pair of skinny designer jeans she’d ripped off. Johnny stood in the shallow end, his dick hard and his face expressionless. Then Ryder got out too and put his clothes on. Bell had picked up both their weapons and tossed them into the deep end of the pool while they’d been fucking.

“Now what?” Johnny said, getting dressed, his face red.

“Payback is a bitch,” Rebecca said.

*   *   *

Quentin opened his eyes. A pounding sound was coming from outside the cabin, very loud. It had woken him.  Marvin, who’d been examining him, was staring down at him, shining a flashlight in Quentin’s eyes and sitting on Quentin’s narrow cot-style bed.

“What happened?” Quentin said.

“You were knocked unconscious,” Marvin said. “A few hours ago.”

“Where are we?”

“Some kind of doomsday-prepper’s cabin,” Marvin said. “We’re safe, I guess. For the time being anyway.”

“Where are Lacy, and Lieutenant Bell?”

“They went to get Bell. Patty and Rebecca Stewart,” Marvin said. He watched Quentin pull himself up in the narrow bed where they’d laid him. “Lacy is outside waiting to see you. I want to give you a shot of something first, so I’ve asked her to wait.”

“Shit.” Quentin said. “What a mess. Sharon—”

“Yes, I know.” Marvin said. “Lacy told me what happened.”  The doctor turned off the flashlight. “You have a concussion, maybe slight, maybe not. Time will tell.”

“Great,” Quentin said.

“We found a medical room, believe it or not. It’s a huge closet with all kinds of drugs. I’m going to keep you awake. Give you a shot of something,” Marvin said.

“Awake.”

“Yes. I don’t want you to sleep. If you go downhill, we’ll be able to tell. If you’re going to have serious side effects, they’ll happen soon.”

“What will happen?”

“You could have swelling of the brain,” Marvin said. “You’ll vomit, feel dizzy, and you’ll want to sleep. If you’re lucky, coma and death will come next.”

“Am I going to die? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Marvin?”

“Well, there’s not too much I could do here for you, really. You’d have to go to a hospital. And that might not be possible.”

“I see,” Quentin said. He looked around the small bedroom. The cabin had been finished nicely with knotty-pine boards; the floors, too, were pine and waxed. The furniture was simple, but oddly tasteful, as if Chuck Phelps had expected a woman to live here with him. Chuck had had a girlfriend for a time in the ‘90’s, a nice girl from Sacramento, but she’d left him and moved on. Perhaps she’d helped with the furniture, Quentin thought.

“Are Grace and the kids here, too?” Quentin asked, wanting to change the subject. He remembered being hit by the Howler who’d come out of nowhere. He remembered looking into the thing’s dead eyes, and then the nothingness.

“No,” Marvin said. “They didn’t make it.” He stood up.

“I’m sorry, Marvin,” Quentin said. “I’m sorry.”

The doctor didn’t answer him, or even acknowledge what he’d said. He walked out of the room. He seemed to be acting strange,
distant
. It was, Quentin thought, to be expected. He’d lost his entire family.

Quentin looked across the room at his boots, which were sitting in a corner of the room. The horrible scene with Sharon played itself out again. The doctor slipped back into the room and told him to pull down his pants for an injection into his hip muscle. Marvin lifted the disposable syringe and waited for Quentin to pull down his jeans.

“This guy Phelps, he’s built a fort here,” Marvin said, watching Quentin struggle with his belt and pants, pulling them down, wiggling on the bed to expose his thigh. Marvin stabbed the needle into his thigh muscle unceremoniously.

“Yeah. He’d never let me in. He let my wife in years ago when she was pregnant with Lacy,” Quentin said, watching Marvin pull the needle out of his thigh. Quentin pulled his jeans up and buckled up his cowboy belt.

“We just found a second level,” Marvin said. “Underground bunker complex. And a map.”

“What is it? What you used on me?”

“Amphetamine—it’s past its sell date, so it may not work too well. But there are a couple hundred of those things out in front of the cabin now trying to get in. We’re going to need your help. Your daughter is in the hall.”

“Is that the pounding sound, them?”

“Yes,” Marvin said.

Lacy rushed into the room, threw herself on her father and burst into tears. “Oh, Daddy—Daddy!”

  They held each other for a long time without speaking.

*   *   *

Pregnancy had changed Marie Collier. Only nineteen in her eighth month, she had become touchy, hypersensitive to odd things: loud cars, or loud people in restaurants, especially the loud new City types who were starting to come up from New York and LA, building outrageously expensive summer mansions. The locals called them Fun Hogs. Pregnancy had made her extremely volatile, as it did some women. She would burst out crying for odd reasons, once because she and Quentin had driven past a kid in a wheelchair who was trying to keep up with his brothers and sisters on a dirt road. The profound unfairness of life overwhelmed her. And she was physically restless, so she would walk out after lunch that summer—sometimes straight down the quiet country road that led to town, and sometimes toward the mountains behind the Collier ranch, taking a trail that had an inch of soft dust from horse’s hoofs.

Sometimes, when she was lonely, she’d cross the fields that separated their place from Chuck Phelps’s place. Phelps had shown her a complete understanding of all her fears: fears that their child would be born with a congenital illness (because her sister was autistic), or ugly (a secret irrational fear). The more she visited, the more she chose to visit. No matter what she told Chuck, he understood and never judged her, or acted surprised. She’d sworn him to secrecy about her visits. When she and Quentin had crossed Chuck’s path in town that summer, he’d never once mentioned them. It was as if they’d been having an affair—a sexless one.

*   *   *

“Now,” Chuck said, “I’ll probably never have kids. I’m getting old.”

“Yes, you will,” Marie had said. “You’ll find someone. I know you will.”