Wormwood

2

There was a dog in the cul-de-sac, a black and white border collie that was trying to pull something out of the scorched heap of the pyre.

“Hey!” Rudy shouted, taking an unguarded step toward the street. “Get away from there! Heyah!” He made wild shooing motions with his free hand, his heels clipping down the walk. “Go on!”

The collie skittered back, startled, retreating down the street as far as the Dawley’s before looking back to see if Rudy was giving chase. When it saw that he wasn’t, the dog came to a stop, ears up and alert.

“Keep going!” Rudy told it, throwing out his arm once again, a gesture no longer so threatening from sixty feet away.

The dog stood and watched him. It glanced at the smoldering remains of the pyre, licked its muzzle, and then looked at Rudy once again. Rudy had no desire to shoot it, but neither did he care to watch it drag bone after bone out of the cooling ashes, making a meal out of people he once knew.

He held the pistol over his head and fired it into the air, setting off a bang that echoed in the morning silence of the surrounding hills. The collie bolted; not down the street, but into the gap between the Iverson’s and the Navaro’s, where Rudy lost sight of it.

A door opened to his right; Shane in jeans and a black t-shirt, a rifle in his hand. He looked at Rudy questioningly.

“It was a dog,” Rudy told him.  “I caught it foraging in the fire.”

Shane nodded, the rifle relaxing as he started to turn back inside.

“How’s Mike?” Rudy inquired.

Shane shrugged. “About the same.”

“Are you still planning to go to town?”

A bleary nod, as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep thinking about it. “I was just getting dressed when I heard the shot.”

“I’ll help you get the motorcycle,” Rudy offered, moving closer so they wouldn’t have to shout.

“All right. Let me get my shoes on.”

As Shane ducked inside the gloomy interior of his house, Rudy glanced across the cul-de-sac, expecting to see the collie in the faint shadows between the houses, waiting to get at the bones again.

There was nothing there; apparently the dog had decided to move on. Rudy guessed it would find what it wanted, if not on this street then another.

He found himself wondering what effect Wormwood might have on animals… dogs and cats, or birds for that matter.

His eyes rose toward the treetops and telephone wires, scanning.

Now wouldn’t that be something…

He wondered if he would be able to tell the difference between a live bird and an infected one? Would they lose the ability to fly, or come diving down like flocks of kamikazes, attracted to anything with a warm pulse?

God help us if that happens, Rudy thought, his gaze dropping until he found himself looking at Larry’s front door. He supposed he ought to go knock, see if the Hannas were up yet. If Larry and Shane were going into town, it would be best for them to start as early as possible, just in case they ran into trouble.

Rudy shook his head. Just in case… He almost laughed.

In a city of almost 50,000 souls, of course they were going to run into trouble. If Quail Street were any indication, then half of them would already be infected. Predators roaming the streets, trying desperately to get at the other half, the numbers gradually tipping…

The real question — antibiotics notwithstanding — was would they make it back at all?

And if so, what might come following?

3

Larry was a long time answering his door; so long, in fact, Rudy feared he might have changed his mind and gone back to his old isolationism. Then the sound of disengaging locks issued through the heavy oak and the door creaked open, just an inch or two.

Larry Hanna looked out at him like a man already dead. A man who supposes things can’t possibly get any worse and then finds out he’s wrong.

A long sigh seemed to come out of him, blowing sourly through the crack.

Rudy wondered if he even recognized him.

“I thought I should check on you, Larry. Shane and I were about to go to the Sturling’s to get the motorcycle.”

Larry let the door swing wider. “Come in,” he invited, his face slack, expressionless. “I want to show you something.”

Rudy felt a chill at the flat sound of his neighbor’s voice. He glanced over his shoulder, for the dog or for Shane; any excuse to keep from going inside. The street, however, conspired quietly against him.

“Downstairs,” Larry said, turning toward the darkness, his target rifle carelessly in hand, the heavy stock knocking against the risers as he descended.

Rudy found he had little choice but to follow.

“Those damn junipers,” Larry swore, moving slowly ahead of him, the light in the stairwell turning from blue to gray, threatening to disappear altogether at the bend. “Every year I think about tearing them out. The whole damn lot of them. Ugly, shaggy bushes.” He turned to look at Rudy. “Mark climbed out of them yesterday; did I tell you that?”

“Yes, you did,” Rudy answered, wondering where this was leading.

“And the scratches?” Larry wondered. “I told you about the scratches on his back?”

“I think you may have mentioned it,” Rudy agreed, not certain if he had or hadn’t. A tingling feeling floated down the center of his back, like a premonition. They had come to a halt outside the shelter: Larry on the brief landing while Rudy stood two steps above him, looking down on the pale oval of his face. The dark, haunted eyes…

“Well I thought Mark got those scratches from hiding in the junipers,” Larry explained, the point coming slowly, as if he were telling Rudy why he’d always preferred Sprite to 7-Up. “They’re hell to crawl through, you know. You lose a ball in bunch of junipers, you may as well kiss it goodbye.” His attention seemed to waver, drifting down the wall from Rudy to the door.

Rudy watched him, uncertain. “Larry? What are we doing here?”

The door to the vault clicked open. It was an impressive click: solid and secure, like something you’d hear in the back of a bank. Larry’s eyes found Rudy again.

“Like I said, I want to show you something.”

A soft fan of light opened with the door, spreading with it a thick odor, one which Rudy had become well acquainted with over the last twenty-four hours. It was blood. He felt like he’d waded through oceans of it. Now here was another.

Larry stepped over the threshold, the rifle knocking squarely against the dark steel lip. His shadow grew stilted and monstrous on the painted blocks of the interior wall then stopped, turning back to Rudy.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Rudy stepped inside.

4