tried climbing the alley wall, but only made a few feet before they fell back. I waited there until they grew bored and left the alley.
We made it.
7
We broke a window and slipped into an apartment. It was dirty and dusty and dark in there, but there was nothing waiting for us. We made a quick check of the place and the only thing we found was the mummy of a woman in bed holding onto the mummy of an infant. Both were festooned with cobwebs. Their meat was long gone, but their skin had dried to a fine, flaking parchment that clung to the bones beneath. Both had black hair.
We decided we weren’t comfortable in there and went to another apartment. No bones, no nothing. We sat in the darkness and waited. The minutes ticked by. I had two bullets left and I was painfully aware of the fact.
“I would think the cautious thing to do would be to wait until sunup,” Price said.
And as he said it, I heard a sound from the floor above us. Something large and weighty had shifted up there, sliding its bulk across the floor.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think that would be a good idea at all. Let’s give it an hour or so.”
I knew the rats well by that point. They were industrious, cunning, relentless, but not the most patient creatures in the world. If their prey escaped as we had, they would move on to greener pastures. So we waited in the dusty darkness while Morse got a few shots for Better Homes and Gardens. We were silent. I could smell the perspiration coming off the others, feel their warmth, hear their slow breathing. They were counting on me to deliver them from this mess. I considered our options. The only logical thing to do was to make another try for the dealership, link up with the others.
After about thirty minutes, I said, “Let’s scope out the downstairs.”
We moved down the dim hallway, guiding ourselves by the moonlight that spilled through a narrow window at the end. I found the stairs and down we went. The bottom floor was occupied by a health food store which appeared to be untouched for the most part. I guess tofu and shirataki noodles weren’t a big draw when the world ended. It was damnably dark in there. Peering out the plate glass windows, I saw that the streets were empty.
Looking around, I saw that the store was not as untouched as I first thought. Something had happened here. There bones scattered over the floor, unarticulated skeletons of human beings and various animals, all just heaped and tossed around in no particular order. It was too dark to see properly, but I was guessing there were the remains of dozens.
“Why would this be here?” Janie asked. “Why here? Why dumped like this?”
Price shrugged. “Who can say? We might have stumbled upon somebody’s private ossuary.”
But I wasn’t buying that either. I kicked a skull out of the way and grabbed up a long bone. A human femur, I thought. I brought it to the next aisle amongst the moldered, crumbling organic pasta. I examined it in a stray patch of moonlight. It was scratched up, gnawed, riddled with minute punctures. Something had been chewing on it and I was guessing the same went for all the bones.
“What is it?” Janie said when I came back and tossed the bone into the heap.
I was about to tell her that the bone had been nibbled on by rats, though I honestly didn’t believe it was anything as prosaic as mutant rats. I opened my mouth to do so and I heard a shifting, leathery sound from somewhere overhead and then Price cried out and Janie screamed.
“Look out!” I shouted.
Something had Price. Something twisting and undulant had looped around his throat. I threw myself at him and tried to peel it off his throat. It was scabby and pulsing and felt almost like braided rope. But it was no rope. It was alive. I pulled my gun and fired up at the black bulk above Price. In the muzzle flash I saw a series of tendrils or tentacles, black and oily, squirming and writhing. And mouths. Something with two or three mouths that were vibrantly pink with fine sharp teeth like fish bones.
Morse was trying to take its picture. I knocked him out of the way.
It made a weird squealing sound when I shot it.
But it dropped Price right away.
I could feel a sickening, feverish heat coming from the thing as it rustled and slithered above, a rank stink like decaying hides. It was a dark shape in constant motion. I took aim and fired again and it made that shrill squealing again. In the muzzle flash I saw…I think I saw…something like a huge bat retreating into an oval cavity in the ceiling. I saw something like membranous wings unfolding, shiny flesh like greased vinyl set with a tiny hairs, mouths, and more than two beady, bulbous eyes. It moved quickly and was gone, in-between the floors.
I couldn’t even guess what it might have been.
I was only glad it wasn’t in the mood for a fight.
I got Price to his feet and got him over by the doorway. There was a circular burn around his throat like something that might be left by a hangman’s noose. But he was all right. The streets were empty and I opened the door.
“Everyone hold hands,” I said. “We’re going on a run.”
We raced across the street and nothing came loping out of the shadows to stop us. We crossed first to one car lot and then another and came around the side of the dealership. We went in there and made the first showroom and a blinding light hit me in the face.
“It’s about fucking time,” Carl said, lowering his flashlight.
8
The morning dawned gray and pale like the blood had been sucked from it. The dark pulled away and vanished into holes and cellars for the day. After crashing for a few hours, I was awake with Carl and Texas Slim to greet the new day.
“Tell me something,” Texas said as the others stretched and yawned and got their stuff together. “You think this is why came here? For this Price fellow? You think that’s it?”
“Yes, I have a feeling it is.”
“But why?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Take it or leave it.”
He looked like he wanted to leave it and I did not argue the point.
“I say we ditch that Morse guy,” Carl said. “He takes another picture of me and I’m drilling him.”
“Go easy,” I said. “He’s just confused.”
The Jeep was untouched and we were thankful for that. Texas and Carl carried plastic jerry cans of gas out to it that they had siphoned from other vehicles and set about filling it up. Janie was off packing up our stuff with Morse. I stood there, leaning up against a Chevy Cobalt, pulling off a cigarette. Mickey was there. She was watching me but not speaking.
After a time, I said, “Go ahead. Say it. Say what’s on your mind.”
I looked over at her, expecting to see the fire in her eyes. She quite often gave me the impression that she was in heat. “I was never much in the old days,” she said. “I was the kind of person you probably think I was. I made a living getting my picture taken, if you catch my drift. Sometimes I wore a bikini or something equally as scanty, sometimes I didn’t wear a thing. No porno, though. Believe me, I was offered, but it wasn’t my thing. You’d be surprised at how many calendars I did.”
I smiled. “No, I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” I told her, wondering what the sudden need for confession was all about.
She gave me a smile, threw her hair back. She knew I liked to look at her. What sexy woman doesn’t know men like to look at her?
“Bottom line is, Nash, is that I was never much. I considered myself a model. My mother considered me a
