HOWLERS (34 page)

“Yes,” Howard said. “I’m on the main street right now, by the public library.”

“I need some medicine, for seizures. They’re in my office. It’s very close to where you are. Can you get it and bring it here?”

“But I thought—”

“Can you do it? It’s called Felbatol. I’ll text you the instructions, where to find it in my office.”

“All right, I’ll do it,” Howard said.

“Thank you. Turn to your right. What do you see?” Marvin asked.

“It’s a restaurant called The Copper Penny,” Howard said.

“Okay, three doors down, to the south, you’ll see my office door. It is unlocked, I’m sure. I’ll text you now which other medicines I need you to bring. What’s your name?”

“It’s Howard, Howard Price.”

“Thank you, Howard. Good luck. Call when you get to mailbox number 30. Take the eastern road out of town. You’ll pass the high school and a 7-11. You can’t miss it. That’s the direction you’re going to travel, and toward where we are now. I’ll come and meet you on the road
myself
. I promise. All right?” Marvin said. “You’ll be all right.”

“Yes. Okay,” Howard said. “How far am I from where you are?”

“Twenty minutes, probably even less,” Marvin said. “You’ll see Howlers on the road near us. But you’ll be okay. Stay in the car until you see me.”

   Marvin hung up. A text appeared from Miles’ cell with a list of drugs Poole needed and instructions on where exactly he would find them in the office.

Howard turned and looked down to his right and saw Poole’s office. He was afraid of getting out of the car. He remembered the pistol Jon had given him at the rest stop and picked it off the seat next to him. It was snowing hard, the sky dimensionless, the highest peaks of the Sierra Madre hidden in mist.

Before going to Poole’s office, Howard stopped in the Copper Penny to scavenge something to eat. The scene was horrifying, but nothing frightened him more than what he saw on a tablet computer he found on the floor.

It was a scene shot from a helicopter of an overpass on Highway 80, southeast of Timberline. The entire highway—all six lanes—was filled with creatures coming from the greater Los Angeles basin, tens of thousands of them heading toward the Sierra: a kind of strange mutant army on the march.

He found the tablet’s volume control and turned it up.

“Terrorist creatures are massing on this California highway heading away from Los Angeles and into the mountains. There is no explanation for this mass movement of creatures out of the LA area,”
a CNN newscaster’s voice said.

Howard pushed some cold French fries into his mouth. He looked at the dead people in the booth, their plates of food hardly touched. The food on the plates in front of them was ice cold, but, he hoped, still edible.

“In other news, the new Provisional Government is taking emergency measures to ensure citizens’ safety from this attack, which sources say may be linked to sleeper cells of terrorists based in Los Angeles. Colonel Terry Bent, spokesman for the Provisional Government, urges all Americans to continue to shelter in place. Local law enforcement and military police will be moving door-to-door with further instructions, and confiscating private firearms in order to prevent civil disorder.”

Howard reached over and took a turkey club sandwich from in front of a woman with a crushed face. She’d been hit so many times in the face that she was unrecognizable. He pushed the tablet computer to the side and ate the sandwich, picking up an iced tea that was cold to the touch.

CHAPTER 28

Lieutenant Bell stopped the limousine they’d taken from the hotel’s parking lot and turned in the driver’s seat. They’d found Rebecca some designer jeans and a black turtleneck sweater to wear. Her sweater had been torn in a melee on the hotel’s turnaround on the way to the limo.

Rebecca told them that Senator Prince knew all about the Phelps cabin, and exactly where it was located. She said Prince was planning to use it as his headquarters. Rebecca’s hair was down; she looked older. Something awful had happened to her eyes. Her expression had been girlish; now it was mean.

Rebecca held an automatic weapon across her lap. She’d picked it up off the ground as they were running out onto the turnaround. They’d run through a gauntlet of Howlers equipped with nothing but a fire ax that Patty had found in the hotel’s equipment room, and the pistol that Bell had taken in the fight. Prince’s men had been overrun and had retreated to the lobby. The trio had taken a chance and run out the back of the hotel, near the pool, and headed for the parking lot.

Bell emptied his pistol as they left the hotel, before the parking lot was even in sight. The fight on the turnaround had been horrific. Twenty feet from the limousine, a new group of Howlers had attacked them, responding to the howling at the hotel. Only seven of Prince’s gunmen had survived the earlier battle, and their nervous commander ordered them inside. The gunmen had watched the un-armed trio from the lobby, sure they’d be killed.

Reaching the turnaround, Bell had been able to clear a path through ten or more of the thing with the red handled fire-ax, the girls standing behind him. One of the Howlers, a very tall woman, had grabbed the ax and torn it from his hand. He’d thought it was over, but Rebecca had seen a weapon lying only a few feet from them. She’d picked it up and run, screaming at Bell and Patty to hit the ground.

Rebecca had opened up with the short-barreled assault rifle, spraying fire into the gang of Howlers. She killed all but two of the things before the weapon stopped firing, out of ammo. Instead of giving up, Rebecca ran straight at the two remaining creatures: a young Latin man dressed gang-banger style, exposing his underwear, and a young girl. She used the rifle as a club, cold-cocking the girl with the butt of the rifle, hitting her in the face until the thing finally fell over.

The young man had loped up and grabbed Rebecca from behind, spinning her around. As he swung a skateboard at Rebecca’s face, Bell had picked the ax off the ground and sunk it into the top of the thing’s skull, using all his might. The ax head came straight down and split the kid’s head open all the way to its neck. The skateboard board tumbled out of its dead hands. Rebecca had pushed the still-standing thing over.

The two made it to the limousine, Bell jumping into the driver’s seat. They’d both failed to notice that Patty had been in her own hand-to-hand battle and was trapped standing on top of a car, unarmed. She’d been saved only because one of the gunmen, inside the hotel watching her, had decided he couldn’t let her die. He’d stepped outside, firing his weapon at the things surrounding her. Patty turned and looked at him as he walked toward her, firing.

“Get out of here,” the gunman said, changing clips as he spoke. She hopped off the car’s hood and ran toward the limo.

The gunman watched them drive off. “Fuck Prince,” he muttered. He’d seen enough of what the Senator had in mind for America. He walked away from the hotel and slipped into the woods.

On the way to Timberline, Bell spotted the abandoned car that he and Lacy had driven from her boyfriend’s house the day before. It was still parked in the middle of the highway, exactly where they’d left it. He drove on until he saw a driveway in the moonlight to his right and stopped the car. Not one car had passed them on the road since they’d left the hotel. It was a bad sign, Bell thought.

“This might be the place. Ryder and that bitch Sue Ling picked Lacy and me up just back there, where you saw the abandoned car. Ryder said they’d just left the mansion when they found us on the road.”

“Yeah, there’s a mansion up there,” Rebecca said. “A friend of mine worked a party there for Mr. Towler, the caterer. She said the old rich guy who gave the party was showing everyone his personal helicopter.

The pitch-black driveway was barely lit by the moonlight. Snow had started to pile in a small drift at the front of the mansion’s wide-open security gate. Bell doubted he could get the limo up the driveway, which was probably snow-covered and impassable.

“The place could be full of Howlers,” Patty said, looking at the open gate.

“Let’s find out. What’s the worst they can do to us?” Bell said. “Fuck it. We have no choice.”

Bell put the limo in Drive and sped straight toward the snow piled in front of the gate, turning the steering wheel hard as they bent the turn onto the driveway. He heard the bottom of the limo hit the asphalt, bottoming out. He raced through the snowdrift piled in front of the driveway and drove through it.

The limo’s rear power-wheel slipped and slid on the steep driveway, unable to get much traction. Bell punched the accelerator. The power tire spun loudly, then finally caught asphalt. The front of the limo plowed on past the stone portals. At times the big car felt as if it was going to fishtail right off the road, but the lieutenant, fighting the wheel for control, was able to get the huge limo up to the top of the mansion’s driveway. They crested the hill and the driveway opened up onto a huge dark snowless expanse in front of the mansion that was completely dark. To their right was another long driveway that led to a huge barn-like structure.

“Why no snow on the ground?” Patty said, looking at the expanse of pavers in front of the mansion.

  “It’s heated, I guess,” Bell said. “The driveway.”

“
Jesus
,” Patty said taking in the palatial “summer” house. She’d bumped up against the vacationing super-rich at the ranger station. They would send their bodyguards or personal assistants into the office to ask directions, or to make reservations for some of the hiking trails that were controlled. Sometimes, when she was out on patrol on horseback, she would pass them and their little armies: personal assistants, nannies, professional guides. She could tell the super-rich because they had porters and even cooks who would follow them into the back country. A family of four might have ten people in support. Quentin had told her about some of the fabulous places they’d built in the mountains around Timberline. The place in front of her looked as big as a hotel.

   “A lot of Fun Hogs have heated roadbeds. They’re solar powered,” Rebecca said. “My uncle Ken puts them in.  Maybe we can find some weapons, or whatever in the house. This thing is useless.” Rebecca tapped the ammunition-less weapon resting on her knees.

Bell saw headlights come up the driveway behind him. He looked in the rearview mirror. In a moment Johnny Ryder’s familiar stolen white Land Rover crested the hill going fast and almost rear-ended them.

“Ryder will think that weapon is loaded,” Bell said, turning to Rebecca. He could see she wasn’t afraid. She nodded.

*   *   *

Gary Summers was standing with the mountain bike he’d found at the bed and breakfast across from the Phelps cabin. Nothing lay in either direction in front of or behind him on the snow-covered, one-lane road. To his left was the road to Emigrant Gap, and beyond that Highway 50, which would take him to Sacramento. To his right was a ten-mile stretch, mostly uphill, that would take him into Timberline. He was so cold that he realized he couldn’t possibly bike to Sacramento—his plan—unless he was able to find some warmer winter clothes.

He wore only jeans and a light windbreaker that Rebecca had given him at her shop. He was cold in a way he’d never experienced before, to the very marrow of his bones. He’d sweated heavily while crawling down the long escape tunnel at the cabin, not sure whether he would be able to get out. He’d heard Dillon talking about the escape tunnel, but he’d not had time to look at the instructions in the control room. He’d been so frightened and ashamed of what he’d done, locking the trap door behind him, that he just wanted to keep moving to get away and save himself.

Looking at the hordes of Howlers running toward the cabin, Summers had realized that there was no way they could kill them all fast enough. When he’d seen them rushing the cabin carrying a battering ram, he’d lost his nerve. He’d stood up and stopped firing his weapon. He’d looked at the others firing theirs, the doctor helping load clips with a terrible expression on his face, and the horrific sound of the gunfire—five FALs firing at once. Terrified, he’d crawled toward the trapdoor on his belly and slid down the steep steps. Before he locked the plate down behind him, he’d hesitated; but he convinced himself they were all doomed upstairs. He wasn’t going to die there, in that cabin, torn apart by those things.  He’d rammed the bolt home, locking the trapdoor and sealing his comrades’ fate. He’d crawled down the escape tunnel in the dark while the others were upstairs fighting for their lives against the massive attack. In the darkness, like a rat, he’d crawled toward he didn’t know what.

When he got to the end of the tunnel, he panicked and cried like a little boy. He accidently touched the end of the rope Chuck had hung from the trap door. When he touched it, he stopped crying and pulled. At first it hadn’t moved. The second time he used both his hands and slowly the lid, its top piled with frozen snow, cracked open and early-morning light flooded the pitch-black tunnel.

He raised himself up in the opening and saw, almost immediately, Howlers running through the forest toward the cabin, some crouching on the ground and calling. He gazed out, frozen with fear. If he could make it across to the road, he might escape and live. He scrambled out the opening and fell into the snow, crawling on his hands and knees through the fresh powder snow toward the county road only fifteen yards away. He could hear the gunfire coming from the cabin behind him, heard rounds smacking the pine trees around his head.

He lay in the snow, the heat of his body melting it and soaking his skin. He waited, too afraid to crawl, listening to the bullets whack pine-tree bark, making it fly off the tree just a few feet from his face.

A few Howlers were on the road in front of him. Most had run toward the cabin. He spotted the bed and breakfast on the other side of the road; it seemed to be deserted, but he was too frightened to risk standing up and running across the road, afraid that Howlers would spot him. He watched the road and urinated on himself, making the cold worse. He started to shake uncontrollably. If he didn’t get up out of the snow, he’d die of hypothermia.

Piss-stained and freezing, Gary Summers stood up as soon as the shooting stopped. He ran through the thigh-deep snow until he broke out of the woods. Without stopping he turned and ran toward the bed and breakfast, sure he was going to be chased down by one of the things and murdered. But he wasn’t. Gary Summers ran down the Country Bride Inn’s empty driveway and into the Inn full of dead guests and warm clothes he took from their open suitcases.

*   *   *

Bell got out of the limo. He raised the empty automatic and pointed it at the Land Rover. “Get the fuck out of the car,” Bell said.

Ryder slipped out from behind the wheel his hands up. “Okay, I know you’re pissed at me,” Johnny said. “I don’t blame you. But hear me out, Bell.”

Rebecca opened the back of the limo. Pointing her weapon at Ryder, she walked up to the passenger side of the Land Rover and dragged Sue Ling out, throwing her onto the driveway roughly.

“I’m going to kill this bitch in two seconds if you don’t throw out all your weapons,” Rebecca said. She held the short barrel of the assault rifle against Sue Ling’s cheek. The girl lay on the ground, terrified.

“Okay, okay!” Johnny said. “For
fuck
sake, on the backseat!” He nodded toward the Land Rover. Rebecca reached in and pulled out a Marine AA 12 shotgun. “And my pistol,” Johnny said. He lifted his jacket and showed the butt of an automatic. Bell had him toss the pistol to him by the barrel. It landed on the pavers in front of him.

Patty, who’d gotten out behind Rebecca, picked it up. She immediately checked to see if it was ready to fire, then pointed it at Ryder.

“I got a deal for you,” Ryder said.

“Yeah?” Bell said.

“Yeah,” Ryder said, smiling as if nothing was wrong in the world.

“What is it, asshole?”

“You help us move something, and I’ll show you where there’s another Prepper cabin—one that the Senator and those crazies don’t know about.”

“What are you doing here? Why did they let you go?”

“The senator—the crazy fucker—wants Sue Ling and me to run a whorehouse for them. The New American Army, or whatever the hell it’s called, is going to need one up here in the Sierras. I told them they should use this old rich guy’s place.”

“I’ll ask you one more time, Ryder, and you’d better tell me the truth. What are you doing here?”

“I came for the gold we hid,” Ryder said. “I want to get it and split before the New American Army get here. They’re sending some Comfort Girls here, to this mansion, and some men to guard the whorehouse.”

“What gold? What are you talking about?” Bell said.

“This old fucker. He had a lot of it. We hid it here. I told them I would work the whorehouse just so Sue Ling and I could get up here and get our goods and split. The New Freedom Army is about an hour behind me. Like I said, the Senator is sending some men and a few girls they collected already. I don’t want anything to do with it. All we want is to get our gold and get the fuck out of here. I’m not working for them. Johnny Ryder works for himself. Fuck these people.”

“Is there a helicopter here, or was that all bullshit?” Bell said.