The rustic hamlet of Montrose, New York, nestled along the Hudson River with its spacious parks, wooded hills, and scenic views, was the last place anyone expected an outbreak to occur, especially on this warm spring evening. The sun had just set as Marty McNamara parked the Mercedes in front of the Save More convenience store, a quick stopover to buy milk and eggs.
Before he could open the car door, his wife Cheryl grabbed his arm. “Wait.” He crooked his eyebrows. “What?”
“How was your workout at the gym today?” “Good. Why?”
“Who was that floozy you were talking to?”
His heart could have flopped out on the floor mat. “Wha...what?”
“The one wearing the pink outfit that fit her tighter than the noose around your neck right now.”
Marty’s mouth gaped open. “You were there?”
Cheryl folded her arms. “It looked like you were getting friendly with her.”
Marty stabbed an accusatory finger at her. “I can’t believe my wife is checking up on me.”
“Are you having an affair?”
“Christ, Cheryl, she just works out there. I’m sick of your jealous rants.” “Don’t let me see you with her again.”
“Then stay away from the gym.” He huffed, shoved open the door, and stalked to the store entrance.
“Wait up, Marty.”
“I don’t need your help buying milk and eggs.” He knew it wasn’t about shopping, it was about her distrust, her jealous eyes always on the lookout for any woman who might catch his attention, if even for a second. Reluctantly, he opened the door for her. The breeze pushed a torn lottery ticket down the sidewalk. A bell rang above their heads. He smelled hazelnut coffee from a percolator by the front counter.
The clerk, a muscular man in his forties with a thick beard, took an order from a young couple while a blonde boy and girl stood beside them.
Cheryl squeezed Marty’s arm. “I’ll get in line to buy us the winning Powerball ticket.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears. I’m ready for early retirement.” “Pick up some beer to celebrate.”
“You got it.” He rolled a small shopping cart down the aisle and picked up milk, eggs, and a six-pack of Yonkers IPA then joined Cheryl standing behind the couple with the two kids. “What’s up with the clerk?”
“He’s got some kind of nervous twitch.” “Looks like he’s on something.”
“PCP? Meth?”
The clerk’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. He gripped a can of black beans and crushed it with his bare hand. Beans and juice gushed out. His head kept twisting at weird angles, like his neck was broken, and his face grew mushroom grey. Dark circles formed around his eyes.
The woman waiting with the man and children ushered them backwards toward the door. “What’s wrong with you, mister?”
The clerk growled in a guttural tone. “Keep away from me.” He hurled the cash register at the woman. It struck her in the face, flooring her, out cold.
“What the hell is your problem?” Her husband lunged at the clerk, grabbed him by the shirt, but the brute tossed the man aside like a bothersome child.
The children screamed and huddled over their downed mother.
Marty and Cheryl stood there in shock, unable to move, as if their feet were nailed to the floor. Cheryl’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. A sudden coldness enveloped Marty that made his knees wobble.
The clerk dug his fingers into his temples. He shook his head violently as if it would explode. “I’ll kill you all.” He flailed his arms, knocking down the cigar display on the counter, smashing the lottery ticket dispenser, and then he grabbed the coffee pot and hurled it at his customers.
It shattered on the floor, spraying Marty and Cheryl with hot coffee, which spurred Marty into action. “Cheryl, get the kids out of here.”
She ducked more flying debris and snatched up the children. The boy clung to his mother’s arm. “No. No. Mom...Mom.”
His sister, a couple years older, grabbed the boy’s wrist. “We have to go. She’ll be alright.”
Cheryl pulled the kids to the front door and they fled the store.
The husband helped his wife up. She was wobbly on her feet and had a massive welt on her head. Neither noticed the clerk leap over the counter.
“Look out!” Marty yelled.
The clerk flattened the husband with a body-slam. The mother staggered back. Fleeing customers knocked over Marty’s shopping cart and a display of potato chips. He jumped into the fray to wrench the psychopath away from the man, but the maniac chomped down on the man’s arm and tore out a chunk of meat.
He screamed. “Get him off me!”
“Stop!” Marty kicked the clerk in the head, but he laughed with malevolent glee as blood dripped from his mouth.
“Is that the best you got?” He growled. “How’s this?” Marty kicked him in the ribs. The clerk howled.
What the hell happened to this guy?
Marty helped the husband get up. “Let’s go!”
They ran outside, leaving the clerk to destroy the store, shoving over shelves, spilling inventory, and slamming down aisles with the fury of a wrecking ball.
Cheryl was clutching the kids in the lighted parking lot. They sprinted to their parents. “Mom! Dad!” The mother held her forehead, and the welt looked a little more bruised than before. The father winced, cradled his arm, and squeezed the wound, trying to stop the blood-flow.
The husband turned to Marty and Cheryl. “Thanks for your help in there.” “What could cause someone to get bonkers like that?”
“He seemed fine when we first got in line, then his eye started twitching and he started talking to himself.”
“Take care of that arm, and get some ice for your wife’s head.”
“I’ll be fine.” His eye twitched. “It’s not as bad as it looks, but I can’t believe that guy bit me.”
Sirens shrieked in the distance. “Someone must’ve called 911. The cops will be here soon.”
The family got into their minivan and tore away.
The convenience store door banged open. The door’s bell rang and then clattered on the ground. The maniac clerk lumbered out, scowling and his fists were clenched. Blood burbled from his lips and dribbled from his chin. His wild eyes zeroed in on Marty. “There you are.”
Marty shuddered. “Oh, God.”
The clerk stomped toward him. “You can’t escape me.”
Marty grabbed Cheryl. “Come on. We’ll get milk and eggs somewhere else.”
They fled to the car, got in, and locked the doors. Howls and screams filled the streets. “What the hell is going on around here.”
“Just go,” Cheryl shouted.
Across the street, a man was running...and two guys were chasing him. Streetlights revealed their bloody faces, and all down the front of their t-shirts, more blood...and the three were headed for the convenience store. An SUV careened into the parking lot and slammed into the front wall. Bloody maniacs spilled out, and the small crowd of customers took off running, the maniacs in hot pursuit.
Marty started the car and slammed it into reverse. The maniac clerk leaped onto the hood with the agility of a long jumper and punched a fist into the windshield, spider webbing the glass.
Marty’s heart walloped with horror. “Marty! Get us out of here!”
He gunned the engine. “Hold on.” The car whipped a dizzying reverse semicircle, yet the inertia didn’t throw the clerk off. He kept smashing his fist into the windshield until his hand broke through, and he started grasping for Marty’s face with bloody fingers.
He slammed the shifter into drive and floored the gas. Tires screamed, and he spun the steering wheel to throw the car into a skid. The momentum propelled the attacker over the fender and onto the ground. As the body tumbled and kicked up dust, the hand, severed at the wrist, continued clutching its bloody fingers.
Cheryl screamed.
Marty punched the hand out of the windshield, and as it bounced off the hood, he floored the accelerator, and the car fishtailed onto the road. A glance to the rearview mirror revealed the clerk running after the car as it sped away.
“What the hell was that?” Cheryl cried. “Your new boyfriend.” He leered at her. “Watch where you’re going, smartass.”
His heart raced as he accelerated toward their house. He gripped the wheel as he made a sharp turn around a corner. His eyes darted from side to side along the barren streets, searching for any more maniacs. What the hell was happening out there? Before he could think any further, two men rushed out at him from the shadows. They loomed in front of the car, screamed at him, and raised their clenched fists with inexhaustible brutality, trying to block his path. His heart constricted into a frozen fist. Cheryl shrieked in terror. He gunned the gas to the floor and mowed down the maniacs like bowling pins, snapping and crunching bones as the car barreled over them. Howls and groans reverberated from behind as he sped down the street toward home.
There, he skidded the car into their driveway. As soon as he shut off the engine, screams and howls could be heard, coming from somewhere down the block. They jumped out and bolted for the front door. His hands shook as he fumbled with the keys.
“Come on, Marty. Hurry up.”
“I’m trying.” He dropped the keys.
“Jesus Christ. Can’t you do anything right?”
Down on his knees, he groped for the keys. Howls and screams echoed throughout the neighborhood. His heart raced so fast that his chest tightened as if he were on the verge of cardiac arrest, then: “Got ‘em.”
“It’s about time. You’re going to get us killed.”
“Shut up, Cheryl. You’re not helping right now.” He unlocked the door, and they scrambled inside. He locked the deadbolt and leaned his back against the door. His breaths came out in spurts. “That was close.”
Cheryl turned on the lights in the hallway and the living room, then she ran to Marty and hugged him. Her body was a mass of quivering gelatin. “Marty...what’s...happening? I’m scared.”
He moved her back a step so he could look at her face-to-face. Her eyes were red and swollen as tears poured down her cheeks. “We’ll figure this out.”
“I’m sorry about earlier. Sometimes I can be such a bitch.” “I know.”
“We could have been killed.”
“That’s still highly possible. I’m going to turn on the news to see what’s going on. In the meantime, close the window blinds and make sure the place is locked up solid.”
“I’m on it.”
While Cheryl raced through the house, Marty turned the flat screen to CNN. Nothing. Fox. Nothing. He slumped on the couch, leaned forward and wiped sweat from his brow. CBS. Special Report. “Here we go.”
HEALTH EMERGENCY DECLARATION.
“Cheryl, come sit down.”
She sat next to him and squeezed his hand. “Everything’s secure.”
A woman newscaster wearing a grim face sat at the news desk. “This just in from the New York Center for Disease Control and Prevention. They’ve declared a public health warning over the outbreak of a novel virus. It affects the central nervous system, turning ordinary citizens into raving mutants. Scientists are calling it the rage virus. There is much we don’t know, and as this is a fluid situation, the threat of infection in the greater New York City metropolis is very low, so everyone should remain calm until we get more information. Meanwhile, stay inside after sunset.”
Marty felt an icy coldness slide through his bones. He fell back onto the couch and rubbed his temples. “Rage virus? What the hell is this world coming to?”
“What are we going to do?” “Stay calm.”
“Stay calm? You heard them out there. Something’s terribly wrong.” He turned off the TV. “How about dinner? I’m starving.”
“I don’t feel like cooking.”
“Can you open a can of spaghetti and meat balls?” “Camping food?”
“Why not?”
Cheryl sulked to the kitchen, got out a can of Chef Boyardee then opened up a few drawers. “Where did you put the can opener?”
“Check the utility drawer on the left.” “A hammer, screwdriver...Ah, found it.”
She shuddered and dropped the can opener. Marty gripped her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
She avoided his eyes and wrung her hands. “Do I look okay?” Tears welled in her eyes, and her lips quivered. “We’re screwed. This entire world is going to hell, Marty. I’m scared. How are we going to survive?”
He hugged her close. “Calm down.” “What if the mutants find us?”
“I don’t know, Cheryl. I have as much information as you.”
“We should get out of here. Go to your parents’ house in the mountains upstate.
Maybe it’s safer there.”
“We shouldn’t go out after sunset. If we run into mutants, they would kill us in a second. We barely escaped the store.”
“You’re right.” She glanced at the floor. “I hope that family made it home alright.”
He held her chin up. “Do you know you’re beautiful when you’re frightened?” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Sweet talk isn’t going to fix this, Marty.”
He kissed her, a quick reassuring kiss on her trembling lips, then to lighten the mood: “Let’s eat.”
While she heated the spaghetti and meatballs in a pan on the stove, Marty set the table: two bowls, two forks, and two glasses, lit the centerpiece candle, and then added a bottle of scotch he’d saved for a special occasion.
She brought in the steaming pan of camping food and filled the bowls. “I wish we had a time machine that could take us back before all this shit happened.”
“This scotch should help us sleep tonight.” He held up the bottle. “Look good?” “What are we celebrating?”
“Our survival.”
“In that case, pour the drinks.”
They sat, and Marty poured the scotch. He raised the glass to his nose and sniffed. “I’m getting hints of peat, grass, and fruit.”
“You’re a true connoisseur, Marty.”
Someone started pounding on the front door. He damn near dropped his glass. “What the hell?”
A small voice outside shouted, “Let me in. Please, let me in.” Marty’s pulse raced. “Sounds like a kid.”
Cheryl shot out of her chair and hurried for the door, but Marty intercepted her and grabbed her arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She struggled to free her arm from his grip. “It’s that boy, Marty, from the store.
We need to let him in.”
“He might be a mutant by now.”
The pounding continued. “Hurry. They’re coming.”
She broke free and rushed to the door. “He needs our help.”
Marty followed her. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He ran around her and beat her to the door. “Let me open it.”
The bashing against the door became more frantic. Marty unlocked the door. “Stay back, Cheryl.” “Just open it.”
His heart thwacked against his sternum as he slowly opened the door.
A blonde boy with ruffled hair, ripped clothes, and dirt all over his face stood in the moonlight, panting on the doorstep. His eyes darted about fearfully.” Let me in. They’re coming.”
“Cheryl, you’re right. It’s the boy from the convenience store. Looks like he’s been through hell.” He opened the door fully. “Hurry, get in.”
The boy bolted inside, and Cheryl took him in her arms. “You’re safe now.
Where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know. We split up.” “What about your parents?”
“Dad was driving super fast. Mom was crying her eyes out, sis was screaming. We only got a few blocks from the store when Dad’s head started twitching and his eyes got wild. He said he loved us very much, but his voice was all dry and scratchy, then he started laughing like a crazy man. Mom started yelling at him to slow down, but he screamed at her and slapped her in the face.”
“Dear Jesus.” Cheryl’s face was a mask of terror.
The boy’s breath came out in hitches. “The car was swerving all over the road. Mom grabbed the wheel. Dad screamed, ‘Don’t touch me.’ His head kept tilting and twisting to the left and the right.”
Marty gasped. Just like the store clerk.
The boy’s eyes were red and tears streamed down his face. “He crashed the car into the garage door, growled like a dog...then he grabbed Mom and bit her neck. Blood sprayed everywhere.” The boy buried his face into his hands and sobbed. “The last thing she said was, ‘Run, kids, run.’”
Marty’s stomach clenched.
Cheryl slapped a hand over her mouth. No child should witness such horror.
“We got out and ran.”
A knot formed in Marty’s stomach. He looked up and down the block. Trees swayed in the cool breeze. Lights were off in his neighbor’s houses. No mutants were in sight, but he heard a faint howl in the distance. A thought wormed its way into his brain. The mutant store clerk could be prowling the neighborhood looking for them right now. Marty slammed and locked the door. “You said they’re coming. How many are there?”
“Give him a break, Marty.” Cheryl led the boy to the dining room table. “Are you hungry? Want some food?”
The boy scowled at the spaghetti and meatballs. “You call that food?”
Cheryl extended her hand to her untouched bowl. “It’s either this or Spam.” She handed him her fork.
The boy wolfed down the mushy pasta, got sauce smeared on his chin. She got him a glass of water.
Marty sat next to him and leaned in close. “How did you find us?”
“All the other houses are dark. I knew someone was home here, with all the lights on. Didn’t know it was you guys.”
Cheryl wiped the boy’s saucy face. “Where’s the last place you saw your sister?” “Not far. The mutant’s tried to surround us, but we escaped. She ran left past a
house with a white fence. I ran right.” He bit his lip. “She’s out there somewhere.” “There are a lot of white fences in this neighborhood.” Cheryl turned to Marty.
“We have to go out and find her.”
He huffed so hard the centerpiece candle flame flickered. “Are you insane? We won’t last a minute—”
“We can’t just leave her out there.”
“We’ll search for her in the morning. At least then we’ll have some light.
Meanwhile, drink your scotch and heat up the Spam.” “She might not survive until morning.”
“We’ll have to take that chance.” Marty took his own advice and swigged from his glass of scotch.
Cheryl turned to the boy. “Where did you see her last?”
The boy’s brow furrowed. “Just a couple blocks...by the white fence, a really tall white fence.”
“See, Marty. The Bradberry’s place. They painted their stockade fence white. We can get the girl quick and hurry back.”
“Absolutely not. We’re sure to run into a horde of them bastards. I don’t have a gun or a baseball bat to fight them off. We could end up dead, real easy.”
Cheryl stood up and got the hammer from the utility drawer. “What about this?” “Hand-to-hand combat? Against mutants? Are you kidding me?”
“Fine. I’ll find her myself.” She headed for the front door, hammer in hand, ready to defeat the enemy to save the girl.
Marty rushed after her and grabbed her arm. “Cheryl, stop. You’ll get killed.”
She yanked free of his grip. “I can’t let a helpless child get slaughtered. Maybe you can.” She unlocked the dead bolt.
“Cheryl, wait.” He grabbed the hammer from her hand. “At least look out a window to see if it’s safe to open the door.” He relocked the dead bolt.
Cheryl pulled back the front window curtain. “You’re right. There’s a group of them milling around in the street.”
As Marty reached Cheryl’s side, a fist exploded through the window, shattering glass, and a pale hand snatched Cheryl’s wrist.
She screamed in terror. An ashen face with black circles around its eyes scowled through the jagged opening. “Gotcha.” It was the store clerk.
She fought to free herself from the vise-like grip of a creature so far from human existence it may as well have been an alien from another galaxy. “Marty!”
Before he could pull her away from the window, the mutant bit down hard on Cheryl’s arm. Gnarly teeth drew blood.
The horde moved toward the house, suddenly energized and filled with rage. A frosty hand of dread broke into Marty’s ribcage and squeezed his pounding heart.
Cheryl howled in agony. “Marty. Help me.”
He swung the hammer. Steel met cranium bone with splintering force, but the beast wouldn’t release her arm.
Bodies slammed against the front door, busting through the hollow wood, and other mutants smashed through other windows as a cacophony of howls reverberated like hounds from the bowels of Hell. Splinters of wood, shards of glass, and torn draperies were scattered on the living room floor.
Marty delivered another cranial blow to the mutant gnawing on Cheryl’s arm.
The hammerhead broke through to brain matter but had no effect on the bastard.
A mutant who’d broken in from the back staggered through the dining room and knocked over the table. The centerpiece candle ignited a scrap of drapery on the floor. An inferno was in the making.
Marty turned to the boy. “Kid, get out of here.”
The boy dashed up the stairs as flames licked the railing and set the wood and carpet ablaze. Smoke billowed up and fanned out across the ceiling as fire consumed the furniture, curtains, and mutants alike.
Cheryl’s attacker looked up at Marty and snapped its teeth together. Marty struck the hammer across its mouth, turning its teeth to Chiclets, but it still wouldn’t let go of her bleeding arm. He slammed the hammer into the beast’s wrist. Bones cracked. The mutant finally released its grip on Cheryl and fell backwards out the window. She moaned and crumpled to the floor, clutching her wounded and bloody arm and screaming like a banshee.
Pale arms and grasping hands reached in through the broken window, and Marty got busy with the hammer, attacking each mutant that attempted to enter the house. The mutants screamed and howled, not in pain, but in a rage, a bloodlust that defied all reasoning, as if their victims’ deaths were the only thing in the world that mattered.
Then there was an amplification of sounds that shook Marty’s soul. Pounding on the walls and doors merged with Cheryl’s screams, the howling of beasts, the crackling of flames, all reverberating and increasing until the entire house was thrashing, hammering, banging and screeching. The heat was intense.
Marty felt sheer terror seize him, heat and fear, a toxic brew that threatened to bowl him over, but they had to escape. Running outside was out of the question. Fleeing upstairs seemed futile, too, as heat and fire and smoke would rise to eventually kill them, however, it might buy him a little time to figure out his next move.
He grabbed Cheryl’s good arm. “Come on. We have to go.”
She wrenched away from his grip with surprising strength. Her head wobbled from side to side, and her body shook in a paroxysm of demented fury. “I’m not going anywhere with you, you liar. I saw the way you looked at pink-tights.” She glowered at him with the same ghastly pallor and darkened circles around the eyes as the other mutants.
The flesh on the nape of Marty’s neck crawled and his hand tightened on the hammer, but he couldn’t bring himself to bash in her brains. “Oh no. Not you, Cheryl.”
“You’re next, cheater.” She snickered with a gleeful grin.
Mutants broke through the wall of fire and poured in through the broken door and windows. The store clerk suddenly loomed next to Cheryl, her blood still dripping from his broken-toothed maw. She was one of them now, and he had taken claim to her.
No hammer, no bullet, no weapon could ever undo that damage.
Marty turned and bolted up the smoke-filled staircase, shoes catching fire and his heart pounding as the mutants raced up after him. At the top of the stairs, the smoke was thick in his throat as he dashed down the hallway and burst into the master bedroom. He locked the door behind him and kicked fire from his feet. The stink of his singed hair sickened his stomach.
The horde banged against the door. It shook and bowed under the tremendous pressure.
On the other side of the room, the boy strained at the window, trying to slide up the lower pane. He turned to Marty; his eyes were big as silver dollars. “Help me, mister. Hurry.”
Marty bounded past the bed and dresser. “I’m coming, kid.” He reached the window.
“It’s stuck.” “Let me try.”
Behind him, the mutants busted down the door and scrambled toward Marty and the boy, screaming and yelling with their fists pumping air.
“Don’t let them escape,” Cheryl shouted. “Rip them to shreds.”
Marty freed the stuck window and shoved it upwards then pushed the kid out onto a narrow ledge. “Run, boy, and good luck.” Then he closed the window.
“What are you doing?”
Marty whirled with the hammer raised at the throng of mutants. Before he could get in a single swing, they overwhelmed and battered him until death took him to a better place.
