J. Bouchard - Rabid

“How’s your car doing for gas?”

“I think I’ve got half a tank.”

Taylor opened the back door a crack and froze. Tina’s Escort was less than three feet in front of them, but beyond that stood the mob of crazies. They stood there still and silent as though they were in a kind of mass trance. He scanned their faces.

What are they doing?

“Shut the door!” Carl yelled.

The mob rushed forward. Carl nudged Taylor aside and pulled the door shut, holding the handle with both hands. “Lock it for God’s sake!”

Taylor stood there looking at him until he remembered that he had the keys. He looked at them and handed them to Tina. “I don’t know which one it is.”

Tina sifted through the keys, her hands shaking so violently that Taylor was certain she was going to drop them.

The door shuddered. The pounding of many hands on metal. Carl was yanking back on the handle, one leg up with his foot braced against the wall.

“ Hurry! I can’t hold this thing forever! ”

Tina fumbled with the lock, aiming for the keyhole and missing on her first two tries. On the third, she managed to insert the key and twisted it. “Got it!”

Carl removed his weight from the door slowly, making sure it would hold on its own. “Will it hold?”

“I don’t know. It is for now.”

“What do we do?”

“They don’t seem to be very smart,” Tina said. “They must lose something during the change. That might work in our favor.”

Taylor said, “How long before they give up and find their way around front and smash in the glass? Those windows aren’t going to keep them out.”

“You heard her,” Carl said. “They’re not very smart.”

“They found us in here didn’t they? They may be dumb, but they obviously don’t quit.”

“What if we boarded up the windows?”

“They’re huge. It would take forever. And the minute we started hammering nails in they’d hear it and come running.”

The pounding continued. The sound of it was almost deafening; flesh on metal.

“I saw one of those things catch a squirrel. When I first got back into town. Mr. Sullivan was standing on the sidewalk, just staring at this tree. At least that’s what I thought he was staring at. When I got closer, I saw that there was a squirrel next to the tree. And then he pounced. It happened so fast. He caught it and had this squirrel in his hands, squeezing and twisting it like he was trying to wring out a wet sponge. Then he tore its head off. I screamed. My window was down and he heard me scream and looked right at me. He yelled back at me and all this spit flew out of his mouth. I slammed on the gas and got out of there. They’re all like that now. The entire town.”

“I think whatever’s happening goes beyond this town.”

“I hope not.”

“Does your dad sell lumber?” Carl asked.

“Maybe. A little, I think. Most of it he keeps at the warehouse.”

“We could use the lumber up front,” Carl said. “We’ve got everything we need to board them up.”

“It’ll make too much noise. That’s a guaranteed way to bring those things around to the front.”

“They could figure out to do that anyway.”

“What do you want me to do? I said leave them for now. We need to think about this.”

Taylor wheeled the chair from the office into the back room. He sat down in it.

“That’s your answer? To sit down?” Carl said.

Taylor nodded.

“I think he’s right,” Tina said. “Trying to board the windows would only bring them around to the front.” She sat down on the linoleum, positioned so she could still see down one of the aisles to the front of the store.

Carl followed suit. “I can’t believe this is your answer. That we’re just going to sit here. Especially while we have to listen to that. ” He motioned at the metal door and then covered his ears with the palms of his hands for a moment.

“Wait a minute.” Tina hopped up and disappeared into the office. They could hear her shifting things around, and when she returned she was holding an old-fashioned kerosene lantern. “Believe it or not, this thing actually works. It belonged to my grandparents. It’s kind of an antique, but my dad liked to use it whenever the power went out.”

She pulled a lighter from her front pocket and lit the wick of the lantern. She adjusted the metal dial on the side of the lantern and watched the flame lengthen. The room was filled with a flickering orange glow. Carl turned off his flashlight and rested it upright next to the wall. He laid the machete across his lap, gazing at the blade.

Taylor said, “Right now I’d prefer them banging on the door rather than tearing up the only working car we’ve seen since getting stranded in this town. He held Tina’s keys in his hand, sorting through them until he found one with the Ford logo on it. “You said you’ve got half a tank?”

“Close to it, I think.”

“That’s enough to get us where we’re going. There are a few small towns like this scattered along the way once we hit the Nebraska border. Some of them have gas stations. If one of them looks safe, we can stop off and fill up. That’s if it looks safe. Otherwise we keep going. I’m not taking any chances.”

Carl looked up at him inquisitively. “Imagine that. You not taking any chances? That’s a first.”

Taylor waved a dismissive hand at his brother and then turned his attention to Tina. “What he really means is that I’ve learned more than one lesson the hard way.”

“Do the two of you bicker like this all of the time?” Tina asked.

“Situations like this bring out the best in us,” Carl said. “I’m just giving him shit and he knows it.”

“I read this book not too long ago,” Taylor said. “It was about survival. Like who lived and who died in bad situations, but mostly about why certain people were more likely to survive than others.”

Carl glanced at Tina, cocking his thumb toward his brother. “He reads a lot. A real bookworm.”

“Anyway, a lot of the book spent its time dealing with the ingredients of survival. How you could take the same situation and the same circumstances, and one man might die while another might come out of it. Some of the prerequisites were obvious. You know, staying calm, being a leader, setting goals, stuff like that. The part that caught my attention was the one that said having a sense of humor can be a tool for survival.”

“That’s not surprising,” Tina said. “A lot of people use humor as a coping mechanism.”

“So,” Carl said, “is this the part where we go around the room taking turns telling knock-knock jokes?”

Taylor looked at Carl sternly and then continued. “Say what you want, but you’re doing it right now without knowing it. We’ve both been doing it since we’ve been stuck in this mess.”

“Okay. Maybe. But what’s your point?”

Taylor shrugged and stared at the kerosene lamp. The flickering orange flame performed its own kind of hypnotism, lending a certain degree of peacefulness to the situation. “Sharing knowledge? I don’t know. I’m not sure I was trying to make a point. Talking to talk I guess.”

“I think it’s cool,” Tina said. “I like learning stuff like that. It seems like I have my nose crammed in school books all the time lately. It’s nice to hear something different.”

Taylor smiled at her.

Carl said, “He’s a closet geek. You wouldn’t know it because he plays Mr. Cool Guy most of the time, but when you get to know him you find out he’s a big nerd. He even used to collect comic books. Go on, tell her about the stuffed animals.”

“Shut up.”