Cruel World(55)

“We have to help them,” Quinn said, beginning to ease the window open.

“Stop. We can’t; there’s too many. Besides, the shots will attract more of them.” When he started to protest again, she squeezed his forearm. “We don’t have scopes on these. We’ll miss in the dark and they’ll overwhelm us. They’ll get inside. They’ll get Ty.” Quinn’s mouth opened to argue, but the pleading look on her face was like a shadow all its own.

Another gunshot pulled their attention back to the meadow. The injured stilt had been shot again and fallen. It crawled forward like some extended insect searching for a carcass to invade. The rest of the creatures didn’t appear to be afraid of the man or his weapon in the least. They moved closer, cinching the circle smaller until they were almost in reaching distance.

The woman shook and the man stood above her, his head snapping back and forth, trying to watch all of the stilts at once. A moment before he did it, Quinn knew what he was going to do.

With a jerky motion, the man aimed the gun at the woman’s head and pulled the trigger, his scream mingling with the thunder of the shot. She slumped sideways at his feet and without waiting, he tucked the barrel beneath his chin and pulled the trigger again.

The final gunshot resounded in the clearing and the man fell in a heap on top of his wife. The stilts paused before moving in closer. The tallest, that had come from behind the house next door, swiped a long arm at the next closest creature, sending it slinking back a step before dropping to its hands and knees. It brought its head down to the bodies, and even from the distance that separated them, Quinn could hear it inhale like a chef sniffing a steaming dish.

When the lead stilt lowered its head and began to feed, Quinn turned away, drawing the part in the curtains shut. His stomach roiled, and the Mediterranean chicken resurfaced in the back of his throat, tasting like an acidic semblance of its original flavor that sickened him further.

“There was nothing—” Alice began.

“We could’ve tried.”

“They would’ve killed us. All of us. Who knows how many more there are out there.”

“I just hope that if we’re ever in a situation that bad, if someone can help, they will.” In his mind’s eye he saw his father watching the starving girl and the dying man on the side of the road as he drove past.

“You can do whatever you want after tomorrow,” Alice said, walking toward the door. “I’m going to keep me and my son alive.” She paused in hallway. “We should keep watch.”

“I’ll take the first shift,” he said. Alice half nodded and vanished into the bedroom where Ty slept, undisturbed, by what had played out in the meadow.

Quinn paced downstairs and sat with his back against a kitchen cabinet, his eyes burning as he tried to block out the sounds of feeding that filled the night.





Chapter 13



Silence and Frost



The morning was overcast with interlocking clouds moving east at a steady pace.

Alice had relieved him somewhere near three in the morning, waving off his assurances that he could make the whole night.

“I’ll need you alert in the morning,” she’d said, and sent him to lay down in his own sleeping bag. He’d slept little and light, the first gray edges of dawn creeping beneath the curtains waking him.

They ate a simple breakfast of powdered eggs and jerky, which wasn’t bad considering they had hot water to mix the eggs with. When they stepped outside, the development was quiet without so much as a single birdsong breaking the silence.

Quinn laced up his father’s hiking boots and walked around the front of the house, easing up to the corner before scanning the street and meadow on its far side. There were no traces of the stilts or any sign of their late meal. The area where the couple had died was heavily trodden, the sprouting grass trampled flat. Other than a dark stain, there was nothing to show that they’d been there at all.

After loading the Tahoe, they pulled onto the street, their windows down despite the cold to hear their surroundings better. Quinn rode in the passenger seat again, his rifle between his legs and the XDM strapped in a holster on his hip he’d taken from Thor’s the day before. Ty sat quietly in the backseat, his face turned toward his window, lips moving soundlessly in what Quinn could only guess was a song he sang to himself.

Quinn searched the yards and parking lots of the buildings they passed on the way back to the blocked bridge. There was no movement, human or otherwise. The emptiness filled up the city and overflowed, stretching away to the indifferent ocean that continued its forever quest of washing away the land.