Clickers II: The Next Wave by J. F. Gonzalez

Author:J. F. Gonzalez
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: clickers, brian keene, j f gonzalez, horror fiction, creature fiction, monster fiction
Publisher: J. F. Gonzalez
Published: 2011-07-17T23:43:45+00:00

* * *

Shrewsbury, PA

10:59 PM

Surprisingly, Rick remained calm as they drove down the lonely road running parallel to a creek that, according to his captor, fed into the Susquehanna River. Tim remained in the backseat, gun trained on him the entire time they were traveling. It was getting harder to see through the driving rain, and Rick realized with sinking dread that Hurricane Gary was going to hit them dead center. He’d tried to think of a thousand different ways to try to convince his kidnapper that driving into the heart of the storm was a bad idea, but each time Tim told him to shut up and keep driving. Rick remained silent the last ten minutes of the drive, his mind racing. They’d been slowly making their way south towards Maryland and the storm was growing stronger. Even worse than that was the scattered click-click of the Clickers; Rick pointed out the sound to Tim thirty minutes ago. “Fuck,” Tim had said. “They’re that big?”

“Yeah,” Rick had said. He was leaning forward over the steering wheel, peering through his glasses out the windshield, trying to see the road.

“Goddamn.”

“They’re obviously being washed up the river,” Rick said. He could feel himself beginning to panic now, all the bad memories from Phillipsport coming back.

“They won’t find us at this B&B,” Tim assured him. “It’s in the woods, away from the river. We’ll be safe.”

Rick had been thinking about that over the past thirty minutes now as they reached an intersection. Tim told him to turn left. Rick turned, heading down another narrow back road. What Tim said bothered him. He’d told Rick almost two hours ago that he just wanted to ride the storm out, that once Rick dropped him off he’d let him go. But when he said that they’d be safe there, he was speaking plural. We’ll be safe. Not he’d be safe, but we. Plural. Not singular. As in, the two of them were holing up at the B&B. As in, Tim had no intention of letting Rick go.

Rick’s over-active imagination was what kept him from thinking about what was outside: the nearby river, the Clickers, the approaching Dark Ones. And what he was thinking was that Tim had something else on his mind. There was the possibility that what Tim said back there was a slip of the tongue, that he was now thinking of them as fellow Hurricane Gary survivors, but Rick didn’t think that was the case. Still, he couldn’t slip up now, couldn’t show Tim he was nervous. He had to be calm and get Tim to the B&B, and then get the hell away from him when the chance presented itself.

Tim scooted up in the backseat. “We’re almost there,” he said.

Rick slowed down a bit, trying to see through the wind-blown rain.

A moment later the headlights of the car picked out a structure set back behind some trees. Tim motioned with the gun. “Turn here.”

Rick made a right turn down a narrow driveway and the car’s tires crunched wet gravel.

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