Cruel World(81)

He ate a stick of beef jerky and drank a bottle of water for breakfast. After a quick shower, he packed a wool blanket into his bag from the master bedroom’s closet, glancing around the space one last time before locking the front door and heading down the drive.

He found a log cabin-style home after traveling only a mile. Its garage was unlocked and a black Ford Raptor sat inside, as pristine as if it had come off the showroom floor days ago. Maybe it had. The thought saddened him.

He drove into the nearest town seeing nothing alive along the way save for a squirrel that darted in front of the vehicle in a near suicidal sprint. The gas station he stopped at had been looted, its glass doors and windows blown out, by gunfire or by rocks he didn’t know. There were a handful of candy bars along with some potato chips left on the floor. He picked these up and returned to the Ford before filling the tank along with two gas cans he found in a storage shed beside the station.

Stopping at a blinking traffic light on the edge of the town, Quinn glanced left and right. The road was a barren stretch, punctuated by the odd vehicle every quarter mile. He gazed in each direction before punching an address into the GPS display mounted in the dash. He’d left the sheet of paper with the address on it in the ruined center console of the Tahoe, waiting for the right time to bring up his request, but that didn’t matter anymore. He’d memorized the town and numbers that went with it, and now he had no one to discuss it with.

Quinn swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment before glancing at the GPS. It told him to go southwest on a road he’d never heard of. As he pulled out and accelerated, Alice and Ty flitted through his mind, and he wondered where they were on the digital map displayed within the dash, if they were safe. He supposed they were, now that they’d left him behind.

He rubbed his face, fingers finding the familiar, unnatural curves, and glanced around at the landscape flowing past. He couldn’t deny the beauty of it all. The sun, the road, the trees, the fields, the towns. Each sight brand new, each place original in its own right. But everything held a tinge of disappointment. As if the colors were less today than they were the day before.

He shrugged off the thought and focused on the road. Maybe he’d drive until the drabness went away. Maybe he wouldn’t stop. But there was one place he had to visit before continuing. And then again, maybe he wouldn’t continue. It would all depend on what he found when he got there.

He only hoped Foster and Mallory were alive to greet him.

~

Quinn waited behind the round, sagging hay bale and watched the seven stilts examine his truck.

They were all well over eight feet, one towering above the rest that must’ve been upwards of twelve, their long-fingered hands poking and prodding the vehicle’s paint. One sniffed at the grille, inhaling a long breath before forcing it out with a wet blast. The tallest kept turning in his direction, eyes wide and hungry, scanning the land around the road.

He’d been making good time, only having to leave the road twice to get around cars blocking the highway. But the Ford was a glutton for gas, and he’d stopped on a barren stretch where he could see a good length in almost all directions to refill the tank from one of the spare cans. When he was finished, he’d walked to the side of the highway to relieve himself, slinging his rifle around his shoulder, not bothering to close the truck’s door. While he was standing there, he’d glanced back the way he’d come, the road narrowing to a dagger point in the distance before cresting a hill. At its very top, long shapes had been swaying, their movements fluid and swift. He’d cut his urination off mid-stream and began to run for the Ford when two stilts had appeared from the trees closest to the road. Without pausing they’d made a line for the truck, their deep grunts and burps becoming louder and louder.

There was no way he would have made it to the vehicle.

He’d fled in the opposite direction off the road, keeping the truck between the stilts and his flight. He’d slid behind the hay bale as they reached the truck, the first one rumbling a growl as it peered inside the cab. Within minutes the other group he’d spotted first arrived and joined them, their numbers growing from two to seven.

An hour later, they were still enamored with the vehicle. As he watched, one pulled out his bag from the backseat and tore an MRE open, its contents exploding on the pavement near its feet. Quinn re-gripped the AR-15. He raised it to his shoulder, bringing his sights to rest on the tallest stilt’s head. Thirty rounds, seven of them. But only twenty yards between them and the hay bail. He placed his finger on the trigger, beginning to squeeze, but then lowered the weapon as another three pale figures emerged from the woods a quarter mile behind the truck and joined the group. Quinn’s nerves frayed further as time slid by. The sun arced overhead and began its descent toward the western horizon. He watched them scatter the contents of the bag further, all the while the tallest kept pacing up and down the highway. It croaked louder than the others, and he saw that they always gave it the most space when it passed by.