Rabid

Chapter 9 The Search

Taylor hadn’t taken into account the uneven terrain and the fact that the bottom of his shoes were laden with mud.  The extra weight caused him a noticeable increase in effort.  A distance that should have taken him ten minutes at a rather leisurely jog ended up costing him nearly twenty.

The Ford was there as they had left it.  He unlocked the driver’s side door and removed the Glock from his waistband before sliding into the seat.  He started the car, listened to the engine idle, evaluating his choices.  Which way?  The road ahead of him led to a dead end; he could see where it abruptly ended and turned into nothing but hills and forest.  The only way was to backtrack.  Turn the car around and take the first right he came to, and hope that it either curved around or that there was an intersecting road that would cross paths with the one Carl and Tina had taken.

You should know this kind of stuff, he thought.

Taylor turned the car around.  Half a mile later, he turned right on a road that eventually formed a gradual curve that took him in a northerly direction.

The road ended at a T intersection.  There was a sign posted in the road just before the intersection, blocking him from going any farther.  ROAD CLOSED: September-April.

He exited the car.

The sign had a heavy metal base.  He grabbed the sign from the side and began tugging it toward the side of the road, creating enough room for him to maneuver around it.

Man, I hope it’s this simple, he thought.

Carl slowed his pace when he noticed Tina falling behind.  He tried the walkie-talkie every minute or so, and it was all he could do to keep himself from breaking into a run.  Not that running would have done him any good.

Angie was out here somewhere.  And, most importantly, she was alive.  A queasy feeling erupted in the pit of his stomach.

When Tina caught up to him, she said, “Thanks.  You were walking too fast for me.  I couldn’t keep up.”

“It’s all right.  Just anxious I guess.”

That’s the understatement of the year isn’t it?

“I don’t blame you.”

Carl tried the walkie-talkie again.  He received a momentary hiss of static in response.  Might be a good sign, he thought.

He spoke into the radio.  “Angie, if you can hear me, we’re coming.  If you can, try to find a way to signal us.  I love you, baby.”

Another hiss of static.

“Is that her do you think?”

“Could be.  Or it could just be static.”

The dirt path curved to the left and then to the right again.  Gradually, the ground became less muddy, and in places it became difficult to make out the tire tracks.  He figured they had been following the tracks for nearly a mile, never falling below a rapid walk unless it was to allow Tina to catch up to him.

“How far does this road go?”

“A few miles, I guess.”

The prospect of walking several miles exhausted her completely.  She hoped that Taylor would catch up to them in the car sooner rather than later.

“I wish she would answer,” Carl said.  “That we were getting more than static.  We’ve got to be getting closer right?  So why isn’t this thing working?  We heard her when we were by the lake.  Why not now?”

“Taylor thought it was interference of some kind.  She might be moving the same way we are.”

“It sounded like she was talking about those things.  Something about being separated.  What if they’re after her?  What if we’re too late?”

 “We haven’t seen any of the rabid things since the ones on the interstate.  That’s a good thing.”

The path seemed to narrow as they went.  Huge stones peppered the landscape.

In a feeble attempt to distract Carl from his thoughts, Tina said, “It’s pretty up here.  How long did you say it’s been since you were up here last?”

Carl pointed to the ground.  “Look.  The tracks leave the road here.  See?  They curve and head that way.”

So much for that idea, Tina thought.

“Do you see them?”

“Yes.”

“They must have headed for those rocks over there.”

“Could they get a car through there?  It looks rough.”

Carl followed the tracks.  The ground was solid, rocky, and strewn with leaves.  The tracks became faint.  Fifty yards later, they vanished completely.

“They can’t just disappear can they?”

Carl stomped his foot on the ground.  His foot didn’t leave a mark.

“There’s no give to the ground.  Not like there was when we were closer to the lake.  And it doesn’t look there’s much rain up here.  The ground is hard and rocky.  The tires didn’t leave marks.”

“What do we do?”

“Keep heading this way.

“How far away is that?”

“Maybe a mile, maybe a little more.”

Tina felt like her legs might give out at any moment, but she continued to trudge onward.

It didn’t take him long to realize why they kept that particular road closed.  It hadn’t been properly maintained.  Taylor thought it probably bore some similarities to what it would be like to drive across the cratered surface of the moon.  The Escort wasn’t faring well.

He had to take it at a crawl.  The needle on the speedometer hovered anywhere between five and twenty miles-per-hour.  It felt like an eternity.  Taylor was frustrated at having to move at such a slow rate when every fiber of his being was screaming at him to hurry the hell up.

But there was always the reality of it: if he hit any one of the potholes going too fast, Tina’s car would be finished.

I’ve got to be close to the lake by now, he thought.  It wasn’t that far.

He was hoping to see it up ahead, but the trees were distributed densely in the area to his right, making it impossible to see anything past them.

The road curved slightly to the right.  He skirted another pothole.

His mind was preoccupied with the mystery of the boat.  It was hard to grasp.  In his mind, he saw the image of it sitting forlornly in the middle of the still lake.  His theory had been wrong.  There was no evidence suggesting that it had floated out there by accident.

Admit it.  They abandoned the boat.  That’s the only explanation.

It went against everything they knew about the rabid things.  If his parents and Angie had been in danger from them, then the safest place would have been inside the boat.  Those things wouldn’t go in the water.

Or had they purposely left the boat there so that the walkie-talkie could be found.  It was such a small lake, a