Carver Pike - Scalp

“Sally, run!” Hal yelled. “Get in the bed of the truck!”

He turned his attention back to Grant but still couldn’t take the shot. So, he did the next best thing. In high school, he played a little bit of football. He wasn’t the best field goal kicker, but he had a hell of a punt. So, he ran at the fox, lined it up perfectly, and blasted it with his boot. He wasn’t expecting the fucked-up furball to take flight, but it did.

Hal waited a second to make sure Grant wasn’t infected. He’d seen how quickly the transformation happened. Grant scooted his ass against the ground, staring at the forest with fear in his eyes, but he didn’t scream, he didn’t howl, and he didn’t try digging to his brain with clawed hands. He was okay.

Sally’s scream brought him back to her situation. She was in the bed of the truck now, but the bear was tall on its hind legs and was swatting at her, growling, and trying to climb into the truck.

“Get it, Hal!” she yelled.

Hal rolled into the bed of the truck, stood up, and aimed at the bear. It looked back at him with eyes that seemed possessed. Blood seeped from its jaws and it swung its paw out with a deadly fury. If this were an action movie, it would have been the perfect time for a one-liner, but he couldn’t think of anything witty to say. Then it came to him. Before pulling the trigger, he looked straight in that bear’s eyes and said, “Hey, bear. You bear -ly stood a chance.” Then he shot it in the face and the beast fell to the ground, dead.

Grant backed toward the truck and climbed into the bed, meeting Sally in the middle. The two hugged each other and Hal couldn’t believe his eyes when Grant pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. She struggled for a second and then relaxed in his arms and went with it.

“I’m sorry,” Grant said as they finally broke from their embrace. “I needed to do that.”

“Maybe you should’ve done that a long time ago,” she replied.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have done it at all,” Hal joked with a roll of his eyes.

He had nothing against love, but now wasn’t the damn time for these two to be acting like horny teenagers. They needed to get to Stonewall Forge.

“How high do you think these things can jump?” Hal asked as he stared down at the dead wolf and the bear lying only a few feet away from it. He moved closer to Grant and Sally.

“I hope it’s not that damn far,” Grant replied.

The fox that had attacked Grant’s legs came darting out of the woods, aimed right at the truck. It snarled and leaped into the air. This time Grant pointed his pistol and caught it with a bullet in midair. Hal didn’t get to see where the shot landed as the tiny animal was flung by the force right back into the forest.

“Damn that thing is angry!” Grant yelled. “It almost took my damn leg off earlier.”

“ Was angry,” Hal agreed. “Ain’t much of anything now.” He looked down to see Grant bleeding through his jeans and added, “If it got any closer to you, you would have ended up like Clementine.”

Sally wiped tears from her eyes, and Hal felt insensitive for talking about Clementine like that.

“Hell, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize y’all were that good of friends.”

“All these poor animals,” Sally said through her tears.

“Poor animals?” Hal replied.

“They’re fucking victims, Hal,” she shot back.

Hal rubbed his temples, trying to force away the headache coming on. “All right, don’t get all snippy.”

“What do you think?” Grant asked.

“Truck ain’t worth a damn now,” Hal replied.

Grant nodded. “So we walk.”

It seemed their only option but marching down this dirt road with rabid raccoons and other ferocious furballs more than eager to take a bite out of them didn’t seem like a good idea. The truck had been the plan. Now, they had no plan at all.

It was a bonfire made of blood and bone. The shrieks emitting from the infected teenagers would haunt Nitsy for the rest of her life. They had been people once. They’d sat with her in the auditorium, each with his or her own reason for coming to the conference.

Now, seated in the bed of Andre’s truck, with Robbie’s arm around her, she watched them burn. She heard the monsters inside them scream in their suffering and that was the only part for which she was grateful. She couldn’t help wondering if, deep inside their minds, the teachers and students were in there somewhere. Did they feel the pain of the fire’s flames?

Phyllis and Bradley were both seated up front with Andre. Robbie had tried to talk Nitsy into riding in there with them, but she’d refused. She wanted to stay with him. She trusted him. Looking at him now, she watched as his hair blew in the wind, and it was the first time since leaving the cafeteria that she’d thought about her wig being gone. He was seeing her right now, the real her, without being glammed up. Robbie didn’t seem to care. Maybe he was the one .

“They’re all gone,” Eggo said softly, barely audible over the sound of the truck’s engine and the wind whipping by. “Every fucking one of ‘em is gone.”

The nightmare was over. At least Nitsy was fairly certain it was. This couldn’t have been taking place outside of the Stonewall Forge campus, right? This was a bad dream they were finally driving away from.

“At least y’all got your families to go back to,” the caretaker’s son said, his eyes looking glossy as he stared at the fire.

Nitsy didn’t know the boy, but she sensed his pain, and she wished she could hold him. His bravery had saved them all.

“They got Pa… and Ma… I ain’t got nobody no more.”

“You were very brave back there,” Nitsy said. “That was a really heroic thing you did.”

He turned his head toward her and was silent for a moment before he said, “I saw you the other day. But… but you had hair.”

Nitsy wasn’t expecting to laugh, but the statement caught her off guard and caused her to. It felt good, so she laughed some more. Soon, Robbie was laughing too.

“What… what is it?” the boy asked.

“What’s your name?” she replied.

“Thomas,” he said.

“Thank you, Thomas. I’m Nitsy. I needed that laugh.”

“I didn’t mean to be funny,” he said.

“I know. And it wasn’t you. You see, that was a wig. It’s a long story, but that wasn’t my real hair.”

“Thank God,” Thomas replied, “Because I was gonna ask you what happened to it. Thought maybe you’d lost it in the fire.”

The way the boy said the word fire made her laugh again. He pronounced it far .

“I lost my hair before the fire,” she informed him, “but it’ll grow back.”

Robbie pulled her to him and squeezed her tight.

“So, what happens now?” Eggo asked.

Nitsy looked up at the moon shining its bluish glow down over them. “I hope we can go home.”

The truck, which had been bumbling its way over the uneven dirt road, swerved sharply, throwing them all off balance. Nitsy’s head bounced off Robbie’s and they both cried out in pain.

“What’s happening—” Eggo began, when a loud snarl filled the air, cutting him off.

To their right, a large dog dove at them, but the truck was moving too quickly, and its snout hit the side panel. It yowled and for a moment, only for a second, Nitsy felt bad for it. It was infected right now, but yesterday it might have been someone’s pet.

“Ah hell!” Andre yelled from the driver’s seat.

Nitsy peered through the truck’s back window and saw a giant buck standing in the center of the road. Its antlers were tall and wide. It was an impressive creature. Any hunter would dream of seeing one like it out in the woods, but standing in the middle of the road, with its chest puffed out the way it was, it seemed to be daring Andre to hit it.