Rabid Read online

  “We don’t need a gun. A fire hose would do the trick.”

  Taylor picked up a leather deposit bag, unzipped it, and then placed it on top of the counter. Carl picked it up and counted the cash that was inside. “Almost a thousand dollars here,” he said.

  “And every bit of it completely useless.”

  There were other odds-and-ends in the drawer, but none, Taylor thought, were useful enough to warrant keeping under lock and key. “Why the fuck did they bother locking this thing? All of this stuff is crap.”

  Carl said, “Crap to us.” He held up the leather deposit bag. “But on a normal day, I’d say a thousand bucks is worth keeping in a safe place.”

  “That’s what banks are for.”

  “Maybe the owner didn’t believe in banks.”

  At the bottom of the drawer, below a pile of documents, Taylor found a zippered black case. Upon opening it, he discovered it was a toolset. “Basic,” he said. “About as basic as you can get. A flathead and a Phillips. Pliers. Zip ties? Somebody must have added those. Not much.”

  Carl held up the bag of money. “What do you wanna do with this?”

  “Put it back. It’s not ours.”

  Carl zipped the bag shut and tossed it into the drawer. “Doubt anyone’s going to miss it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but we’re not thieves. It’s the principle of the thing. It’d be a different story if you could hurt those things by throwing five dollar bills at them. Then I might take the money.”

  “What now?”

  Taylor shrugged and slid the drawer shut. “For now, I guess we stay put. We know they’re still out there. I’m not willing to try outrunning them again. If anything, we wait until it gets dark and try to sneak out of town.”

  “On foot?”

  “We’ll find a car or a truck or something.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be an overabundance of them in town if you didn’t notice,” Carl said.

  “I can’t figure that out. It’s a small town. How many people do you figure live here?”

  “I remember seeing the population on the sign when we coasted in on fumes. I know it wasn’t more than fifteen hundred or close to that.”

  “About the same as Coldwater. So think about home. If this was home, and we were walking around town the way we have been here, would we have seen any cars by now?”

  “Well, if we were walking around downtown, I’d have to say yes because of the car dealership.”

  “What if you were walking down Main Street around…” Taylor checked his watch. “A little after five-thirty. How many cars would you see?”

  “I know what you’re driving at. Not many. Nothing is open on Sunday’s except the gas station on the highway, and that isn’t downtown. Still seems odd.”

  “It seems odd now because you’re noticing it for the first time. Now that we’re actively looking for something to drive the hell out of here, it’s painfully noticeable. A few of the lucky ones probably got out while the going was good. Only the crazies left. How many of those have we seen? A hundred or so. Tops. It’s not so out of the ordinary. I bet if we can get to the residential part of town, we’d find what we’re looking for. But I’m not willing to risk it until it gets dark. Those things out there want to tear us apart, but they’re still human. At least to the extent that I don’t think they can see in the dark.”

  “You really thought that through. The whole missing car problem I mean.”

  “When I was younger, you remember how I liked to take walks?”

  “I remember that you liked to go for midnight strolls. It freaked me out a little actually. Who does that? Takes walks in the middle of the night?”

  “Best time to do it. Nobody else around. A small town is dead at those hours. I used to pretend I was the only person left on Earth.”

  “How the fuck did you get so weird?”

  Taylor ignored the question and started to search around the store. “Help me see if there’s anything else we can use. It’s close to six. Should be dark enough out by nine.”

  Carl walked past a rack of winter coats. One of them had an imitation fur collar and he ran his fingers through it. “It’s going to be cold out by that time, too. Middle of October, it could start snowing any minute.”

  “So take one of those jackets.”

  “It’s made for a chick. I’d rather freeze.”

  The fitting rooms were at the rear of the store. There was another counter sitting a few feet in front of two doors. Taylor searched the shelves built into the back of the counter. He found tape measures, pins, hangers, scissors, a coffee mug that held a mixture of pens and pencils, and a half-full bottle of Arrowhead drinking water. “What’s that?” He pushed some of the other items out of his way and closed his hand around a metal object. “It’s a box cutter.” He slid the lever up so that the blade protruded. It looked sharp enough. He retracted the blade and shoved the box cutter into his pocket. “Could come in handy.”

  “Mine’s better,” Carl said and pulled his knife out. He flipped open the blade.

  “Put that thing away.”

  “That’s what all the girls say to you isn’t it?”

  “Don’t make me beat the shit out of you.”

  Carl waved a hand and laughed, but he folded the blade of the knife back into the handle and put it into his pocket. “Has anyone told you you’ve got an overactive imagination?”

  Taylor walked to the front of the store, staying close to the racks in case he had the sudden need to hide. When he reached the plate glass windows at the front of the store, he scanned the street outside. “Sun’s starting to go under.”

  Stores lined the opposite side of the street. One of them was a barber shop with an old-fashioned red, white and blue pole next to the door. A tanning salon stood next to it. Farther down the street, Taylor saw a store with Dave’s Hardware written on the marquee. Why couldn’t we have ended up in that one?

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I think I saw a bag of rice cakes in the backroom.”

  “Fuck that. I want real food.”

  “Well, we’ll just saunter across the street and find us the local steakhouse then. Sound good?”

  “Be like that if you want,” Carl said, “but sooner or later we’re going to have to figure that out. What if this doesn’t blow over? What if we’re stuck here? We’re going to need to eat sometime.”

  “There’ll be food once we get back home. There’s enough game meat in the basement freezer to last us over a month.”

  “Assuming we make it home.”

  “What are you talking about? Once it’s dark enough out there, we’re out of here. We’ll find a car and then we head home. We can hit your place first. Aren’t you worried about Angie?”

  “What kind of question is that? Of course I’m worried about her.”

  “She’s a smart girl. Just not smart enough to dump your ass. How long have you two been going out now? Six years?”

  “Seven.”

  “And you haven’t put a ring on her finger. Jesus.”

  “Like you’ve got room to talk. You get engaged to every hooker you meet on the street. What’s it been?” Carl pretended to count the number of times on his fingers. “At least four that I know of. They’re not all marriage material you know. Oh, that’s right, you must already know that because they all left you.”

  “Keep talking,” Taylor said.

  Carl held his hands up in front of him. “Hey, you started it. You had to start doggin’ on Angie.”

  “I wasn’t dogging on Angie. I was dogging on you. I’d take her in a heartbeat. You’re lucky to have a girl like that. Seven years, man. She’s done her time. Take it from me, there aren’t many around like her.”

  “Let’s drop it. Okay?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Carl looked up and down the street. All was quiet. “Maybe they left.”

  “I doubt it. Chances are they’re still around here somewhere. Probably waiting for us to do som
ething stupid.”

  “You think those things are that smart?”

  “They used to be normal people. So, yeah, they could be. Either way, I’m not going to chance it.”

  “What kind of moron screwed up so bad for something like this to happen?”

  “I wish we had a TV. Or even a radio. That might help us figure out what’s going on.”

  Carl was still staring down the street when he said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Just thinking out loud I guess.”

  “What about Mom and Dad? You think they’re okay?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m going to try not to think about that until we’re out of this mess. We need to keep our heads clear. It’s going to be hard to do, but that’s what has to happen so we don’t fuck up and get ourselves killed.”

  “There was that bottle of water behind the counter,” Carl said. “I’ll fill that up with water from the sink before we leave.”

  Taylor nodded and moved away from the window. “Good thinking.”

  I want to get inside that hardware store before we leave, he thought. Pick up a few things. A Just-In-Case measure if nothing else. I’d donate a kidney for a gun and ammo store right about now.

  “You think they’ve got a sporting goods store in town? Some place that sells guns? That’s what we could really use.”

  That Carl had spoken aloud what Taylor had been thinking only a moment before didn’t come as a surprise. Coincidences like that were commonplace between them. What surprised Taylor was that they still shared moments like that despite the fact that they had always been on such divergent paths. Carl had always been the stand-up kid; the one destined to follow in their father’s footsteps. As a kid, he had been their father’s second shadow.

  And what were you? The black sheep? Not even. Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. Like you were abused or something.

  Taylor sat down behind the checkout counter, watching the daylight slowly fade away. He could hear the sound of water running through the pipes and realized it was Carl filling the bottle with water.

  When Carl returned from filling the bottle, he held it up and said, “Hard to believe that this is as good as a loaded .45.”

  “I’m not sure that it is.”

  “What aren’t you sure about? It hurts them doesn’t it?”

  Taylor answered without taking his eyes from the window. “I’m not sure that it hurts them. I think it’s more like they’re afraid of it. The radio said whatever’s going on might be related to rabies. How they know that this soon beats me, but if it’s related to rabies, then it fits that those things would hate water. People with rabies develop an aversion to water. But it’s worse than that. Like just the thought of water drives them apeshit. If I remember right, it’s called hydrophobia.”

  Carl tilted his head in bemusement. “And you know this because?”

  “I read a book about it. Well, the entire book wasn’t about rabies, but there was a chapter on it. I don’t remember who wrote it. Some doctor, I think. Anyway, it was about all these different kinds of bites and stings. Poisonous animals and stuff. Rabies was covered in it. I only remember it because it was interesting. Until I read that, I didn’t know rabies was such a crazy disease.” Taylor pointed to the water bottle in Carl’s hand. “Can you imagine a disease that causes you to be deathly afraid of something as harmless as that?”

  “I saw it in action an hour ago,” Carl said. “And let me tell you, I was scared shitless. Had I known that this wouldn’t actually hurt them, it would have been a lot worse.”

  “Don’t take what I’m saying as gospel truth. I’m only making an educated guess based on what the guy on the radio said. I could be totally wrong. Or the guy on the radio could be wrong. If somebody offered me a choice between that bottle of water and a loaded .45 and said I had to go back out there, I’d pick the loaded .45 every time.”

  Carl glanced at the bottle of Arrowhead in disappointment. “It’s better than nothing.”

  “Yeah, it’s better than nothing.” He looked at his watch and then nodded toward the window. “Another hour-and-a-half and it should be dark enough. We’ll go out the same way we came in. I think we should head across the street and see if we can find a way into that hardware store too.”

  “Why not just find a car and leave? I don’t think a shopping spree is such a good idea.”

  “We’re going to do it just in case.”

  “What? And we’re going to fill a shopping cart and then push it down the street until we find a car to unload it in?”

  “No. We won’t use a cart. Only what we can carry without getting bogged down. A cart would make too much noise.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. It’s still a shitty idea. I’m telling you, if we stop anywhere it should be a gun shop.”

  “Remember where we are. Chances are a town this small doesn’t have a gun shop. You have to compare it to our town. Do we have a gun shop? No. So most likely they don’t have one here, either. Around here, a hardware store is the next best thing.”

  Carl mulled this over. He walked up to one of the plate glass windows, looking down the street at Dave’s Hardware. “It’s not that far. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take a look and see what we find.”

  “We need to look at this like we’re in it for the long haul. It’s not a matter of getting home and everything’s back to normal. At least I don’t see how things could get turned around that fast. The plan is to get home, get our loved ones all together, and then make a kind of self-sustaining fortress out of your place or my place or Mom and Dad’s house. Fix it up so it’s strong enough to keep those things out. Maybe then we can wait till this all blows over.”

  “Has anybody told you you’ve seen too many movies?”

  “Yeah, and it’s lucky for you that I have,” Taylor said. “Turns out they’re kind of like survival guides for when the shit really breaks loose.”

  Carl rolled his eyes. “See. That’s what I mean. Too many freakin’ movies.”

  Carl heard the sound and imagined it was what Spain sounded like during the Running of the Bulls. The sound of a hundred feet running in tandem. The noise grew louder and he crouched down behind a rack of women’s power suits, peeking around a pair of slacks in time to see the mob of crazies passing by right outside the window. Even on asphalt, that many feet were like the menacing rumble of distant thunder.

  Taylor had taken refuge behind the ‘returns’ counter. He was thinking that if those things saw them that the two of them were goners. Nothing to stop them but a thin piece of glass.

  “I don’t believe it,” Carl said. “You think they’re still looking for us?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  Carl waited another minute, took a final glace around the corner to make certain the coast was clear, and then made his way back to Taylor.

  The sky outside had taken on a gloomy quality; a thick buildup of clouds had rolled in.

  Carl said, “That’s what we need. For it to rain. If those things are afraid of water, then rain should really fuck with them.”

  Taylor didn’t think they were lucky enough for it to rain. It was autumn. Although the season saw its fair share of rain, he was also cognizant of the fact that eighty percent of the time those dark clouds could also be one of Mother Nature’s cruelest bluffs. He didn’t say this out loud; he wanted to keep things positive. Carl knew how to keep his head. That wasn’t an issue. But Taylor never underestimated the power of positive thinking, even if he wasn’t very good at it. “Rain wouldn’t hurt,” he said.

  “I can’t believe those things stick around,” Carl said. “Just running back and forth on the street like that. I know they’re probably still looking for us, but don’t they have to move on sometime? Don’t they still have to eat? Or sleep?”

  “If we had access to a radio or a TV we’d at least know if they’d figured that out yet.”

  Taylor glanced at his watch. Time was creeping by slowly, and despite his pessimis
m, the clouds outside instilled a glimmer of hope. The rain might not hurt them, he thought. But it might keep them out of our hair for a little while.

  Carl unscrewed the cap and took a drink from the bottle of Arrowhead.

  “I thought you were saving that for them?” Taylor said, nodding in the direction of the window.

  “I am. It’s not a big deal. It’s tap water. I’ll get a refill before we go. It tastes like shit, you know. Not even cold.”

  “Can’t have everything.”

  “Why do you think they were running? When they went by those things were running. Why? I don’t see the point of it. Whether they’re still looking for us or not, I don’t see the need to run. I wonder if it has something to do with whatever’s wrong with them. You’re the rabies expert. Would rabies make them run like that?”

  “No idea,” Taylor said. “I don’t remember reading anything about that. And I’m nowhere close to being an expert on the subject.”

  “Since there’s nobody else around, I’d say you’re the closest thing to it.”

  Carl moved over to the window again. He was leery of the mob returning. His eyes were on Dave’s Hardware. It sat kitty-corner from the clothing store. “It’s really not that far. I bet I could throw a rock that far. Way less than it took to find this place.” He brought his head forward, pressing his nose against the window glass, shifting his view so that he could see down the opposite side of the street. “None of those things in sight at the moment. What if we tried going for it? I mean, what if we went right now. Make a beeline for it. Go right out the front door, full speed ahead.”

  “The only problem with that is what if we get over there and the door is locked?” He walked up to the window and stood next to his brother, bringing his face close to the window without pressing up against it. “The coast is clear now, and maybe we could make it across the street fast enough, but what happens when we hit that door and it’s locked? Because you know it’s going to be. Besides the fact that no business owner with his head on straight is going to forget to lock up his own store, we’re just not that fucking lucky. How many times have you left the front door to your house unlocked?”