Something of the Night (6 page)

“It’s not the tyre I’m worried
about,” he retorted. “It’s them.” Using one of his oily fingers, he drew
Alice
’s
attention to the edges of the highway. She squinted through the gloom and
caught a glimpse of moving shadows. Something appeared to be stalking their
right flank. A second set of outlines loped along the embankment to their left.

The truck slowed down
alarmingly.

And the wolves moved in.

Chapter Ten

The pack of wolves continued to stalk the stricken
vehicle. And even from this safe distance, they could smell the rank scent of
fear. One of the wolves broke away, crossed the black tarmac and closed in on
the truck. A thunderous boom sounded and the beast was split in two. Two or
three wolves descended upon the downed animal. Within seconds it had been
devoured.

“They’re closing in,”
Squirrel told her. He pumped another round into the shotgun, leaned through the
window and fired. Shadows scattered.
Alice
jammed her foot down, injecting gasoline into the
engine. The truck roared with approval and pushed them both into their seats.

“Come on,”
Alice
urged.

“Easy – easy,” Squirrel
warned. “You’ll blow the transaxle...”

As if on cue, the engine
coughed and spluttered, and then cut out.

“SHIT!”
Alice
moaned,
feeling the truck slow again. The vehicle managed to claw its way upward for
another ten feet before it stopped dead.
Alice
pulled on the handbrake. The truck came to rest near
the crest of the hill.

The mechanic peered through
the windshield. He saw they were only feet away from the summit. “Maybe I
should get out and push?”

“Yeah – good idea,”
Alice
said.
“And maybe you could ask them if they’d like to offer a hand.”

“Okay, not a good idea,”
Squirrel admitted. “What do you suggest?”

Alice
twisted in her seat. The vague outline of the town
stood out below. “What if we head back into town?”

“Town?” Squirrel asked.
“We’ve just come from there.”

“Yeah well, we’re going
back,” she said.

“Can’t we just stay in here?”

“And wait for what?”

“Until they leave.”

“And what time do they
leave?” she asked.

“Shit,” Squirrel snapped.
Dismayed, he shoved the shotgun through the window and fired into the night.

“Save your ammo,”
Alice
warned
him.

“Yeah, okay,” he said,
regaining his composure.

Alice
popped the gears, slipped into reverse and then
dropped the handbrake. The truck stayed firmly rooted to the highway. “What the
...?” She grabbed the shift-stick and began to yank it backwards in an attempt
to drive it home.

“Wait! Wait!” Squirrel told
her. “Drop into neutral.”

“Right,” she agreed.

She slipped the gears into
neutral. The truck stood stationary for a second, but eventually it succumbed
to gravity, and slowly it began to roll backwards. Squirrel slid over to
Alice
’s side
in an attempt to ease the weight off the punctured side. The loss of weight
allowed the vehicle to gain speed.
Alice
steered the truck backwards and towards the shadows
of the ghost town.

With a hollow boom the
windshield shattered in an explosion of glass. Hundreds of square-shaped
crystals covered the interior of the cabin. Bloodied jaws clamped themselves
around the steering wheel. They missed flesh and bone by mere inches. In
reflex,
Alice
snatched her hands away from the beast’s fangs. Jaws
ripped away plastic as the wolf shook its head violently from left to right.
The truck pitched sideways, first one way and then the next.

Under this constant
buffeting, Squirrel struggled to raise the shotgun. Once he had, he fought with
the weapon as it clattered dangerously around the cabin. Somehow he managed to
steady it. He aimed it at the beast’s head and then pulled the trigger. The
cabin erupted with the sound of gunfire. A huge chunk of black fur was ripped
away from the wolf’s head. A single crimson eye stared back. Yet even in its
death-throes the beast held on. Two streams of red liquid burst from its
nostrils, covering both in a layer of blood.

“AGAIN! SHOOT IT AGAIN!” she
screamed.

Squirrel pulled on the
shotgun’s loading mechanism. He heard a hollow, callous clunk. “Shit, I’m out!”
he moaned. Wasting no time, he spun the weapon around and began to hit out at
the beast’s muzzle. Teeth and bones snapped, but still the wolf hung on. He
pulled the shotgun back and rammed the weapon down as hard as he could,
crushing the wolf’s skull. A pitiful groan escaped from peeled-back lips. In
the end, the jaws opened and the bloodied body slipped silently off the hood.

Alice
gripped the torn steering wheel. She turned her head
and looked out of the rear window. A scream threatened to form. The shell of an
abandoned car lay directly in their path.

“Look out,” Squirrel warned.

Too late.

The truck hit the wreckage.
It came to an abrupt halt and both Squirrel and
Alice
were thrown back
violently in their seats. Scratch found himself pushed unexpectedly up against
the rear seat.

“Are you okay?” Squirrel
asked
Alice
.

“Yeah … Yeah …”
Alice
responded, slightly dazed.

“Jeez, the truck’s totalled,”
he said.

The mechanic turned his
attention to the outside world. An eerie silence had fallen all about them.
“Where’d they go?”

Alice
peered through the shattered window. She could find
no sign of the dark horde. “Maybe the sound of the crash scared them away.”

Squirrel nodded hopefully.
“What the hell do we do now?”

“I’m not sure, but we can’t
stay in here. It’s too exposed.”

“We’ll never reach the
underground on foot. They’ll tear us to pieces before we get over that hill.”

“You’re right, but we may be
able to make it into the town,”
Alice
said, looking in the opposite direction, and at the
nearer, desolate streets.

“The town? I don’t like the
look of the town.” The words came out like a plume of vocalised dread.

“It’s our only hope,”
Alice
explained. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to be scared of. I’ve scouted through
it many times on salvage runs. It’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“You know what I mean.”

Squirrel breathed out a sigh
of resignation. “Okay, you’re right. Wait a minute.” He reached across her,
popped open the glove-box and retrieved a handful of shotgun shells.
Alice
slid
along the cabin, then climbed out from the passenger side after Squirrel. She
bent back inside, ran her hand under the passenger’s seat and retrieved a
pistol.

“This may come in handy,” she
said.

They left Old Betsy to lie in
peace.

They moved away from the
stricken vehicle and headed towards the outskirts of town. Squirrel stayed in
the lead. The shotgun traced left and right, as the mechanic watched out for
any sudden movements. None came. “Where the hell have they all gone?”

“I don’t know,”
Alice
replied.
“It doesn’t make any sense.”

They entered the town and
left the highway behind them. Dark structures stood on either side. Instead of
taking refuge in one of the first uninhabited buildings,
Alice
led them
into the heart of the settlement. The heart was still. Nothing moved,
thankfully.

“Let’s get inside,” Squirrel
suggested.

“Just a little bit further,”
Alice
insisted.

“Where are we going exactly?”
he enquired.

“The jailhouse.”

“What?”

“We’re going to the
jailhouse. It’s the strongest structure. Plus, there’ll be provisions inside.”

“Provisions?”

“Trust me.”

“So what happens once we’re
there?” he asked.

“We wait.”

“For what?”

“For our rescue. I hope,” she
said.

“You hope?”

“Nobody knows we’re here,
remember?”
Alice
explained, dismally.

He remembered how he had
talked her into taking him on Old Betsy’s secret test run, and groaned
miserably. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he apologised, realising it was
his
eagerness to escape the confinement of the underground that had put them here.

“It’s not your fault,”
Alice
reassured him.

Woof!
Scratch disagreed.

After a short while they
turned onto the street where the jailhouse stood.

“Almost there,”
Alice
said.
She led them across the empty road onto the opposite sidewalk before climbing a
short flight of stone steps.

The squat, square-shaped
building of the jailhouse stood at the top. Although all the glass from the
windows had been blown out long ago, they were still secured by rows of iron
bars. As Squirrel approached the first step, he noticed that some of the bars
had been worked on from the outside, as if someone had actually wanted to break
in, instead of out. In some places, one or two open cracks had appeared at the
point where the bars and cement met.

“Looks like someone was real
desperate to get inside,” he commented.

“Yeah,”
Alice
agreed.

She reached the top step
first, leaving Squirrel and the mutt at the bottom.

Yap
!
Yap
!
Scratch
barked an urgent warning. In the next instant, two dark shapes flanked
Alice
. A third
shape appeared and, before Squirrel could take aim, the wolf bounded down the
steps and snatched the little dog from his feet.

“NO!” he cried, watching the
wolf disappear with the mutt between its teeth. He ran into the road, but the
wolf had already disappeared.

Yap..! Yap..!

“SCRATCH!”
he yelled.

He had barely a second to
feel grief before his peripheral vision was filled by two dark shapes. He
twisted left and right and watched the wolves close in. Bastards were following
us all along, he thought. They were waiting until we’d split up! He heard a
sharp crack from behind, and then a high-pitched yowl as
Alice
dropped
the nearest wolf. A second crack sounded, followed by another howl of pain.

The beast to Squirrel’s left
darted in, aiming for the mechanic’s thigh. Expecting a mouthful of flesh, the
wolf instead got a mouthful of lead. A second set of jaws snapped at Squirrel’s
legs and this time they found purchase. Squirrel cried as he felt sharp fangs
slice their way through his skin. Luckily though, the wolf had made only a
cautious attack. It released his leg and quickly skittered away. Nevertheless,
with the taste of blood hot on its tongue, the beast became more daring; and
with a howl it darted back in. Squirrel wasted no time in taking aim. Instead,
he simply fired the weapon from his hip. The recoil jolted his arm back, which
threw the buckshot wide of its mark. The wolf hit the mechanic and both dropped
to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. With a metallic clatter the shotgun
bounced away from Squirrel’s fingers. He balled his fists and began to pound on
the animal’s flanks.

“NO!”
Alice
screamed. She jumped over a large shape and bounded down the steps. With the
pistol out in front of her, she closed in on the two writhing forms. “HEY!
FUCKER!” she yelled.

For a second, the wolf
stopped its attack and looked up. It fixed
Alice
with two scarlet eyes. Then its jaws opened as it
positioned itself over Squirrel’s throat, ready to deliver the fatal blow.