Cruel World(48)

“The brothers that ran you off the road, they’re here.”

“Oh shit. Those bastards,” Alice whispered.

“Shh, they’re inside,” Quinn said.

Glass crunched beneath boots and low voices floated to them from the main area. Where would they inspect first? The bathrooms? No. The light was still on in the rear office. That’s the first place they would go. Quinn inched to the doorway and peered around the corner, the pistol’s grip trying to slide from his sweat-soaked palm.

The brothers were mid-way through the store, their own flashlights sweeping arcs across the shelves and walls. Quinn leaned back just as one of them turned, coating the bathroom entry with light before swinging it away. Quinn looked out again and watched the closest one, he thought it was Rick, shove a display of rain gear over.

“They’re going to the back room,” he breathed over his shoulder.

“They’ll find the Tahoe. They’ll know we’re here,” Alice replied. Ty whimpered once, soft and brimming with fear. Quinn watched them approach the back office and take up positions on either side of the door. His mind spun like a dervish, whirling for a way out. They were trapped. Could he sneak up behind them and kill them both before they got a shot off? He re-gripped the XDM. Could he do it? Could he take a life? Two? Alice squeezed his upper arm, trying to pull him back into the full dark of the bathroom when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Four stilts were striding along the highway past the parking lot.

They were enormous. Their enlarged heads bobbed well over the seven-foot street signs that lined the road, but the one leading the pack dwarfed them all. It stood half-again as tall as the rest of them, its pale skin glowing in the sun, skeletal arms swinging in time with its stride that surpassed a car-length.

Before he had time to think, Quinn was moving. Alice gripped his arm, her nails raking furrows in his skin in an attempt to keep him where he was. His name hissed from her lips, but then he was out in the open of the store. The brothers had disappeared into the office, no doubt reveling in the armory they’d discovered. How long would it take them to wonder why the light was lit only there? How long until they saw the hammer on the desk, the broken deadbolt in the door, and do the math?

Quinn tracked the stilts as they lumbered on, coming even with the store now, the lead tilting its massive head back to sniff the air. He lowered himself closer to the floor, running bent low, stepping over fallen clothes hangers, skirting broken glass, leaping past a downed display. Then he was between the cars, sliding along their bumpers. His jeans snagged on a license plate, and he swore under his breath as the material tore along with his skin. He began to crawl, crab-walking, when he cleared the cars until he was beside the brothers’ truck. His pulse jumped in his vision and his mouth gaped, breath hot and frantic blasting in and out. He stood, peeking over the truck’s hood. The monsters were beyond the parking lot now, their path taking them toward the ocean. One of them made the bullfrog croak that Graham had issued the night in the solarium, and the others answered with a chuffing sound that brought the hairs to attention on the back of Quinn’s neck.

With a final glance back at the storefront, he opened the passenger door of the truck and pulled himself inside. The dangling key fob in the ignition sped his heart up further. He’d been right about the brothers. They were overly confident. So much so that they didn’t feel the need to lock up their unattended truck. Something in the back seat drew his attention. After he grabbed his father’s hiking boots from the pile of gear that littered the space, he pressed the small panic button on the truck’s keychain.

The vehicle erupted with sound.

The horn honked in short bursts, the lights flashing in strobe-like flickers. Quinn saw the group of stilts halt and spin as one, their faces turned toward the store, emaciated forms rigid. The tallest of them bellowed and began to run toward the truck.

Quinn slid out of the cab, not bothering to shut the door. He skittered between the cars and slid inside the building as the brothers burst from the back office. He had just enough time to fall flat on the floor before the lights strapped to their guns swept the space above him. He belly-crawled, knees and stomach picking up shards of glass that stung like wasps. Boots pounded the floor as he tucked himself beneath a clothing rack, sure that they’d seen him duck inside the store. But they ran past him outside, not pausing for a second.

Quinn leapt to his feet, glancing once over his shoulder to see the brothers leering, dumbstruck at the open door of the blaring truck. An instant later hungry croaking filled the air that reverberated throughout the store, and Rick screamed something to his brother as he raised his shotgun and fired.