Rabid by J.W. Bouchard

Author:J.W. Bouchard [Bouchard, J.W.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: JWB Publishing
Published: 2012-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5: Heading Back

He paid close attention to the gas gauge as though the needle wouldn’t drop if he stared at it long enough. It was at the quarter tank mark. Taylor had the distance figured at another hundred miles or so. They would be cutting it close.

Tina had pushed the box of food supplies onto the floor and slept on the backseat like a cat curled up on a couch.

Carl had his seat reclined back, his eyes closed, but he would wake fitfully every few minutes.

“Bad dreams?”

“With you behind the wheel? How can I not?”

Interstate 80 ran parallel to the highway. It would slip into sight for a stretch and then disappear behind low hills or because of a gradual distancing, but they would always reunite later like old lovers. Taylor had seen a fair share of abandoned cars sprinkled here and there; the same problem plagued the highway, but to a lesser degree. Most of the vehicles they passed were parked along the shoulder or had veered off into the ditch. He had come across an aging Chevy truck that was parked in the middle of the road, straddling the yellow center line, but had managed to slip around it by driving with two wheels on the gravel shoulder.

The storm had moved in the opposite direction. Taylor had watched the clouds break away, thin out, and then dissolve altogether. He cracked the window to allow in the cool night air.

Billions of stars filled the sky. Under different circumstances, he would have enjoyed setting up a lawn chair and stargazing for a while. He wondered if Tina could appreciate something like that. The two of them outside on a chilly night, bundled up in a heavy blanket, heads tilted toward the sky.

Get your head in the game, he thought.

His eyelids grew heavy. Lack of sleep took its toll most fiercely when he was driving. He switched on the radio, dialing through both the FM and AM bands. He had tried the same thing fifty miles back, knowing full well it was a lost cause.

One night. Is that as long as it takes for civilization to be torn down? I would have given us more credit than that.

They were driving through what was considered a remote area. On a good day - a normal day - he could find a dozen or so stations on this same stretch of highway, five of which were at a listenable clarity. Was it so hard to believe that those were defunct at the moment? What they needed was to be near a big city; try dialing through again.

Taylor remembered Tina’s cell phone. He hadn’t been able get a signal in town, but Tina had said that wasn’t out of the ordinary, and that once you got going on the highway for a time - he thought she had said ten minutes - you were good to go.

“You all right?”

Carl’s voice startled him out of his bubble of silence.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just checking. Let me know if you need me to drive.

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