Welcome to the Silent Zone, page 17
Cassius opened the map and looked for the restaurant someone had circled and marked with a question mark.
“When do we get there?”
“At this pace?”
“Yes, for God’s sake, at this pace!” Cassius snapped. David put both hands up, oblivious to the fact that he was driving a fifteen-ton monster.
“All right, calm down! Two hours, maybe a little more. Why?”
Cassius checked the ammunition in his gun (Three and four, two for Abigail... Not enough for anything!), then turned back. He gestured to Abigail, who eased up to the front with her arms stretched out for balance. The bus shuddered as it crashed into something again. David stared blankly at Cassius.
“What’s wrong?” the young man asked.
“You really don’t understand how things work out here, do you?”
“No... well, yes... but what’s that got to do with it?”
Abigail stomped her foot as she moved up beside them, and without a word, Cassius handed her the mag of his Glock with the bullets inside.
“Load them into yours!” he told her, then looked at David, who was still blinking widely. “What do you think happens out here to uninvited guests?”
Silence.
Abigail answered the question.
“Nothing good.”
4.
“Stop right there!” Cassius pointed to the billboard on the top of a few degrees of slope. He tried to breathe deeply, but his chest was tight in the hot summer air. His clothes were already drenched in sweat. “Slowly, don’t mess up the dust too much!”
The Blue Bird pulled off the road and stopped in the cover of the torn billboard. In the distance, floating above the mirage in the middle of nowhere, the ruined diner could be seen, the sun reflecting on its windows. Around it a few withered trees and a sea of scraggly green weeds. Downed electricity poles and ripped off wires. In the distance, the countryside was hidden behind a curtain of haze, and the sun was obscured by thin wispy clouds.
Worst case, he thought, it’s a false alarm. But if there’s someone in the restaurant. Or something...
“Keep the engine running.”
“If we waste fuel like this, we won’t even make it to Headland,” David snorted and wiped his face, smearing a smudge of dirt across it.
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Cassius said coldly, taking a pocket mirror from his bag and turning it towards the sun so that even David could understand it. “I’ll signal when it’s clear.”
“And what if it’s not clear?”
“That’s why you have to keep the engine running. If you see anything suspicious, do a flip and don’t stop as long as there’s fuel in this piece of junk.”
“Are you crazy, man? Would you send me straight back to the pack?”
Cassius tossed Grant’s map into the young man’s lap.
“Study it while we’re gone! Make something up,” he said, then jabbed a finger at the door. “Open it!”
The muggy air outside the bus hit his face and the heat reminded him how tired he was. Even adrenaline and a sense of danger couldn’t dampen the fact that he hadn’t slept properly in days. He would have liked to sit down and drop like a sack, but he had to hold on.
Cassius gestured to Abigail to go. The plan was simple, but by no means without risk: search Cowboy Mike’s diner, with only nine bullets and some silent treatment. He decided to talk to Abigail as little as possible for a while, relying solely on instructions. If that’s the way, so be it, I can be like that! From now on we’ll have new rules: I’m gonna say what we do, how we do it, and no more explanations, no more debate. When she hears the command, she will jump, salute, and execute, no questions asked. But the very next thing that went through his mind was to tell the girl to concentrate, to spare the bullets, what to look for, and how to approach the diner. So much for the silent treatment…
The restaurant was about a quarter of a mile away, surrounded by a few small buildings and a gas station. Cassius wanted to approach it from the shady side, hiding in the tall grass and bushes to take advantage of the cover of the trees.
“Watch out for traps! And Abigail, be careful!”
She looked at him with an impassive face, but it was obvious even to him how hard she was holding herself and how poorly she was acting.
“I know my job!” she said, and turned defiantly away from him.
They crept to the restaurant at a reasonable distance from each other, and as they drew closer, they involuntarily slowed down. Cassius peered once more out of the cover of a ceratiola shrub. The bus was hidden by the billboard and the sound of the engine was inaudible. Everything seemed to be fine.
He turned back towards their target. Cowboy Mike’s was a typical country diner with a red-and-white striped tin roof, wheat-brown walls and white plastic windows that had been boarded up from the inside at the beginning of the pandemic. The parking lot in front of the building was dusty, the American flag on the pole had been torn by the wind, and the dingy welcome sign had some funny words on it, but all these years later Cassius couldn’t remember what they were. Farther away was a small gas station with four filling pumps, even farther a rickety barn and a service building that had completely collapsed.
Cassius crouched down and Abigail followed without thinking. They waited in silence, watching. Nothing moved on the shady side of the restaurant, only the rustling of the wind and the buzzing of insects could be heard. The heat brought drops of sweat to their foreheads, the back of their necks scorched by the sun. Cassius looked up at the sky, trying to somehow lower it, but it was sparkling and climbing higher.
We can’t sit here still until the end of time.
He rose slowly and took a few steps, then stopped again and listened. Abigail copied him, step by step, movement by movement. One, two, three, stop. Squats. Listen. Four, five, six. Rise, start, steady steps. Balance, gun held ahead, eyes on the target.
The first wire ran thirty yards from the restaurant, but Cassius could see immediately that it was patchwork, or at least that the alarm around the house hadn’t been maintained for a long time. He stepped over it and took a few more steps forwards. That’s when he caught sight of the bloodstains and scorch marks in the grass. Cassius let out a soft whistle. Abigail stopped, waited, looked around, and only then started walking towards him.
He flicked a ripped human ear aside, and pinched a piece of shrapnel between two fingers. The girl stared at him in bewilderment.
“Someone blew themself up? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe to avoid being eaten.”
Cassius stood up and pointed to the parking lot in front of the building.
“That must be where he escaped, where he was caught. Click, safety pin out, boom. If all else fails, I’d go with the same.”
“Very inspiring, but what do we do?”
“You take the back door, I’ll take the front. Thirty seconds. Go!”
Abigail nodded and headed for the back of the building. Cassius, his eyes on the windows, circled the building.
Seven, eight, nine.
In front of the diner he saw three cars by the station. The SUV must have been rusting there for years, so he ignored it, but the other two looked like recent customers. The sedan was parked with the hood up and flat tires just outside the entrance, with discarded parts beside it that someone was hurriedly trying to remove. It may have been the owner of the armored pickup truck that pulled out from in front of the restaurant when it was attacked. The door was open, the barred windshield smashed in. He didn’t have to think hard to figure out why it looked so familiar. The pickup had been modified in the same style as the Blue Bird: metal bars on the windows, a plow mounted on the front, and even the symbol on the side in small. The skull without the jaw. But why did they split up here? Why had the dead man-eaters left their pickup behind and not turned back to Headland?
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
He did not yet know the answer, but he did notice the burned tire marks on the blacktop. They were wide, just as wide as the Blue Bird’s. For some reason, the hobo and the tramp had left in a hurry. Something must have disturbed them.
Twenty-nine, thirty.
Cassius hurried to the door and opened it carefully. A thin band of light illuminated the dim interior, giving the ruins a hellish effect. Shards of glass and dust on the floor, some tables pushed aside, chairs overturned. The drop ceiling was torn down and there was a pleasant chill that made him shiver. He straightened up because he noticed the other clues.
A bloodstain on the floor, but old, too old to belong to the man-eaters. Drag marks in the dust. A long, thin, deformed footprint, shaped from blood and dust. Farther away, at the long counter, a human hand torn off. On some of the tables, there were even plates with leftover food that had rotted over the years. Cash registers had been ripped out of their places, probably when money was still worth something. What the hell? It didn’t look like anyone lived here.
Glass clinked under Cassius’ feet, but no one broke out from under the rows of tables. Dust motes swirled in the air and there was a stale, musty odor. He took a deep breath, but he couldn’t smell the distinctive stench of ferals.
Behind him the kitchen was in almost total darkness. Something stirred among the dented silver-grey appliances, followed by a flickering beam of light, and Abigail emerged, breath held, gun and flashlight in hand. She glanced at the front door, then back into the darkness.
“Next time I’ll come in the front.”
“Fair enough. Did you find anything?”
“Nothing. They’ve been here and taken what they could, but there’s definitely no one living here.”
Cassius nodded.
“And now?” she asked.
“Something is very wrong with this place.”
“You do know that you always say that, don’t you?”
“Let’s go!”
They stopped at the same time in the doorway, looking outside with a wry face. They were reluctant to leave the cool, pleasant interior, but they knew they had to go and stepped out into the sweltering heat. Cassius glanced first towards the bus (In place, luckily!), then nodded his head at the pickup and the sedan.
“One belonged to our nice old friends, the other must have arrived not long before, but for some reason it got stuck here. Seems like the man-eaters started picking out the useful parts when they were surprised by someone... or something.”
“Cowboy Mike?”
“Could be. But I don’t think Cowboy Mike smashed their windows.”
Cassius stepped up to the armored pickup and looked inside. There were traces of blood and a severed thumb. He nodded, proudly.
“Yeah, just as I thought.”
“Was a pack just passing by?”
“Just? Every time someone rolled up in front of the restaurant? And what about old Mike, the one our pain in the ass lost contact with a month ago?”
“You don’t think…” Abigail didn’t finish, she just kept turning back and forth as if looking for a reasonable explanation for what had happened. Blonde flyaways were stuck to her forehead, her thin face glistening with sweat.
“I don’t think anything,” Cassius growled. “That’s the problem.”
“Look!” Abigail pointed towards the sunny side of the restaurant.
Beside the building a thick steel tube protruded from the ground, topped with an air vent cover, badly damaged by an unknown force. Most of the cover was broken off, the pipe was dented, and the sides were scarred with scratch marks.
Cassius looked around, and now that he knew what he was looking for, he quickly found the shelter hatch at the end of the building. They hurried there with their weapons raised, but halfway there they could see that the double metal door had been ripped open from the outside. The metal plate was buckled, the lock fluttered despondently in place, and inside and below there was a pitch-black, putrid, stale scent.
“Can you smell it, too?” he asked as something tickled the back of his neck. She nodded. They turned at the same time towards the two-story barn, which crumbled a good hundred yards away from the restaurant, set back from the road, well surrounded by shrubs. It looked like a set built for a cheap horror movie: rusted red tin roof, wind-ripped rotten planks. The granary behind it had long since collapsed.
“Doesn’t look very inviting,” Abigail shuddered.
“Rarely does.”
“Okay. You take the shelter, I’ll take...”
“No, first thing’s first! You stay here and keep watch!” Cassius said leaving no space for opposition. “I’ll go and see what’s downstairs.”
5.
The sunshine balked at the entrance to the shelter, not daring to venture down the rotten steps. Cassius leaned against one wing of the door, switched on his flashlight, and descended into the depths.
The wooden stairs creaked under his feet, but he didn’t stop. His hand tightened on the grip of his gun, and after a dozen steps he hit dusty concrete. He slowed his breathing to hear every little squeak, but the cramped, cool room was silent, with no sign of life.
The opposite wall of the shelter was covered with fiberboard, the others were uncovered brick. Beds in one corner, cupboards in another, tables and chairs pushed up against the wall. Bags and boxes everywhere, with clothes and other useless objects in them. On the table, someone had collected tools and parts from the area. There were some canned goods, mostly superfluous stuff. The bed had not been made and on one of the plates there was leftover food that had been rotting for weeks.
Cassius spoke up quietly:
“It’s clear.”
“Okay...”
He jogged up the stairs, back into the sun, then exchanged looks with the girl biting her lip. Slowly they started towards the barn, thinking twice about every step. To the south, thick storm clouds were gathering. The distant thunder of lightning was still faint, but he knew the storm would be here soon.
“Do you think they’re there?” Abigail asked, not taking her eyes off the ruined barn. “Could they have stayed in one place for so long?”
“I don’t know,” Cassius answered. Sweat poured into his eyes, which he wiped away as quickly as he could. The dirty juice stung, irritating and disgusting him.
“And if...”
“Quiet!” Cassius hissed. He sensed movement behind one of the boards, but before he could do anything, his foot caught. When he regained his balance with great difficulty, he looked down and the blood drained from his face.
A putrefied human corpse lay in the grass. Even the drag marks were visible, along with thin, long, deformed footprints. Cassius raised his head and looked around in shock. What the hell? WHAT THE HELL?
Abigail lifted a bloody shred of cloth from the ground with a sewn name on it: MIKE. She looked at him, stunned.
“Cowboy Mike?”
Cassius nodded, but his mind was already somewhere else. His brain was racing, working furiously. He clenched his lips. His scruff tingled, sending a shiver down his spine. He couldn’t move. The barn stank and the alarm that had never failed him before went off inside his skull.
“What shall we do?” Abigail asked.
“Very... slowly... start... backing away.”
“What?”
“Slowly.”
Cassius took a step back, but kept his eyes on the barn. Abigail followed him only after she was sure that her companion wasn’t trying to be a hero or do anything stupid.
“Shall we cop out?”
“No. We just leave the battle behind.”
“But it’s…”
“Let’s go!”
Two steps back. Three. Four. Something moved again behind the boards. Cassius heard the sound of feet on rotten wood. The soft cry of creaking slats. The crackling of a tired old beam trying to resist the enormous weight pressing down on it. The rush of something taking momentum and leaping.
His heart pounded in his ears, but he didn’t stop. He prayed that nothing would happen. That they made it to the diner, where they would be far enough and the feral might not attempt to attack.
“When I tell you, you turn and run. Fifteen yards. Got it?”
Abigail nodded. It was a familiar tactic. After fifteen yards of running, you turned back to cover the other person’s retreat. But they could no longer do it. Something was blocking the sun. A huge shadow appeared on top of the barn and jumped down between them.
6.
The Gamma landed with a mighty thud and pushed Cassius away. He flew several yards before hitting the ground with a loud groan. His clothes were ripped open by sharp nails, and a thick stream of blood spurted from his shoulders, covering everything around him.
Abigail spun to face their attacker, pointed her gun at the feral, and fired without thinking. She discharged two bullets from her Glock into the Gamma, which staggered from the shots, but regained its strength after a few seconds. Somewhat.
Meanwhile, Cassius tried to get up, but he was too weak and fell back into the dust. His fingers searched desperately for his shotgun, his eyes glued to the Gamma, which straightened up with a rattle and a snarl.
It took Abigail only a moment to realize that Cassius couldn’t help her. She stepped back so she could fire from the proper distance, and despite the terror that gripped her throat, she held the butt of the gun firmly. Her palm was on the grip and her finger on the trigger, but...
...she noticed the strange, staggering movement of the feral. Subconsciously, she had noticed something was wrong before, but only now did she understand what she actually saw.
The Gamma gained momentum. Its right shoulder was scarred by a burn and it slumped as it tried to struggle towards Abigail. The huge leap it was capable of became a feeble shuffle. The stagger lasted barely a second; an untrained hand would have been unable to even react before the feral restored its balance. It was still a threat, except that Abigail was no rookie: she leapt aside, and the Gamma sped past her, trying to catch her with a swiping hand.
