HOWLERS by Kent Harrington

Author:Kent Harrington [Harrington, Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Market Street Books
Published: 2015-10-15T07:00:00+00:00

She slipped her shoes on, went back to the door and listened. Not hearing anything, she pulled the door open.

The first thing she saw was a motorcycle stuck in the opposite wall, as if it had been hung like an ornament. The room’s couches and lounge chairs were turned over. A man, the one who’d come to the door and pulled her into the house, was on the floor of the tiny living room, dead, his head twisted grotesquely so that it was turned 180 degrees. His face was above his back.

She heard the front door’s screen door open and turned, startled. A young man with red hair, in a dirty uniform of some kind, stood in the doorway.

“Sorry, I saw you in the window and I—I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think you were one of them,” Lieutenant Bell said.

Lacy looked at the lieutenant. He’d left the stoner couple from L.A. when they stopped at the Denny’s on the road to Timberline, preferring to go it alone. And after he’d watched them rifle two dead bodies for cash, the Chinese girl taking a dead woman’s earrings and putting them on and laughing about it.

He’d found an abandoned mountain bike leaning against the back of the restaurant and ridden it back all the way into Timberline. He’d ridden to the sheriff’s office, expecting to find help, and found that abandoned too. The interior of the office had been wrecked. The bank across the street was mysteriously on fire. And everywhere he walked on Main Street were dozens of dead bodies and abandoned cars. He thought he was the last living soul on the planet until he’d cycled down a random residential street and seen the girl standing inside the house. She was the first human being he’d seen in more than an hour.

“I’m looking for my sister,” Lacy said blankly.

Bell limped into the house. His side was bleeding and he had a bruise on his face. He was wearing some kind of military overalls that were filthy.

“Is she here?” Bell asked.

“I—I don’t know. No. I don’t—I’ve been. I have to call my father,” she said. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“No. Land lines are down,” Bell said. “I’ve been in a few empty houses and there was no dial tone.”

“I need to call my father,” Lacy said again. “Do you have a phone?” She repeated the question as if she hadn’t heard him answer her.

Bell looked at the girl. He saw that something was very wrong with her. She was disheveled—trauma from seeing the killing in the house, he supposed. He didn’t know what to say. Bell glanced around the room. He saw a body part lying on the floor and looked up. The things had been here, it was obvious. The girl had escaped—or come in later—and now she was traumatized. It was understandable.

“I’ve …” Lacy looked at him.

On instinct he walked across the room, took the girl by the hand and led her out the front door to the street.

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