7
Molly sat in her car
with her forehead against the steering wheel, much the way Ron had earlier that
night. The trunk and the backseat had been filled with her purchases, with the
help of a young Wal-Mart employee. He had given Molly a concerned look, just
like the cashier had. But that didn’t matter. She had gotten what she needed.
That was good. At least, good enough for now.
Molly hadn’t been able
to drive to England the day Shells died. Really, she hadn’t been able to do
anything. It was only after a few minutes that she realized the ridiculousness
of what she had been thinking. Molly had been barefoot. She didn’t have her
purse, which contained her money, credit cards, and driver’s license. She
didn’t have her phone. The phone was not just forgotten but also destroyed. All
she had been able to do was sit in her car and cry.
Eventually she went
back inside. Somehow she knew that trying to call Shells would be useless. As
useless as trying to drive across the big pond. Molly turned on her TV and
changed it to one of the twenty-four hour news stations. There was a young
blonde woman talking about the soaring gas prices and how this was affecting
the average commuter. Molly found another news channel. This one had two older
white men arguing over who the main contestant might be in the next
presidential election. She tried another channel. And then another.
There was nothing about
England. Nothing at all. Just the same boring filler that makes up ninety
percent of twenty-four hour news stations. Why? What the fuck was happening? If
there had been some kind of crazy riot in England, it would be all over the
news stations.
Maybe this is some kind
of joke? Some kind of sick joke.
Maybe Shells was just fucking with her in some kind of awful way. A sick prank
where maybe she just went a little too far. Just
trying to get one over on old Molly. This thought brought a little spark of
hope to her stomach. Then Molly remembered the blood on Shells’ neck.
No. This was real. This
had happened. And worse of all, Shells was
dead.
Then a horrible thought
occurred to Molly. Her stomach went cold and all at once she wanted to vomit
again. Good thing she was running on empty now or she would have yacked on her
sofa. The image of Shells came back to her. The blood coming out from between
her pale fingers. If this is real, Molly thought, then why the fuck wasn’t it
all over the News? Why weren’t there hundreds of reporters on the ground
covering this by now? The gun shots she had heard in her last chat with Shells
had sounded real. The blood had been real.
Molly started flipping
through the news channels again. Again nothing. If this was really happening
then why wasn’t it being covered? What
the fuck!? Molly turned her TV off and threw the remote on the floor.
This was real. The
image of Shells was real. The blood was real…
But how could it be?
Really, how could it be? Was there some kind of war going on in suburban
England? She remembered the soldier, with the bloody gear and a large hole
where his cheek had once been. She remembered the gun shots. Not a warzone. No.
this was something else. Shells hadn’t been shot or stabbed. Had she been
strangled? No, she had screamed. Hard to scream with someone trying to choke
you to death. They bit me! That was
what she cried. Who bit her? And why? Now that she thought about it, the wound
on her neck, it was a bite. Not some kind of shrapnel wound. But a bite. That
doesn’t make sense.
The gun shots were
real. The blood was real. The bite
was real. But then how do you get bitten in a fire fight? And what bit her?
Then
thy came! From everywhere! What did? Whatever had bitten her?
She heard her friend scream again. Shrill screams of pain and terror. The tears
rose up in Molly’s eyes again.
The blood was real. The
screams were real.
These thoughts kept
coming into her mind. The shock of watching her friend, her only friend, die
right in front of her eyes seemed to have overloaded her brain. Causing her to
throw up then black out for a few hour. And the drowsy feeling she had when
waking made everything that had happened seem false. As if the last wisps of a
nightmare had followed her into the waking world. She couldn’t fully shake this
feeling of falseness. But the vomit on the carpet was real. That means the
blood was real and her friend was dead. Then a question came back around in her
mind. If this was really happening, then why wasn’t it all over the fucking
news? War, blood and death? The news stations just gobble up this kind of shit.
And really wasn’t that what they were made for? Why they existed? To search out
the worst parts of human nature and air it for our viewing pleasure? It most
certainly was.
Then why weren’t they? Because
someone was stopping them.
Molly paused at this
thought. She reached down, grabbed the remote and turned on the TV again. What
had Shells said? First that the air travel had been suspended. She watched
flipped through the news networks for a third time. Nothing about grounded
flight. In fact no foreign news stories at all. This thought made Molly a
little uneasy. Then Shells had said that the news station had been playing
reruns and she had seen soldiers in her town. Judging by her tone, that had not
been a common occurrence. No reruns on the news and as far as she could see no
soldiers.
But that doesn’t mean
anything. The new stations weren’t playing whatever was happening and now molly
thought she had a pretty good idea who was stopping then. The good old
government of the United States. For god knows what reason they were covering
this up. sweeping it under the rug. Why? Why would they want-
Because it’s coming.
This thought cut through all others like a
razor. Of course. Whatever the fuck this is, it’s coming. And they don’t want
us to know. Now Molly was willing to bet that this wasn’t only happening in
Shells’ neck of the woods. This Shit could be happening all over the fucking
world for all she knew. And they don’t want us to know.
Shells had said that
radio and phones had come down before the shit hit the fan. They were still
working here. So Molly knew what to look for.
I’m sorry I couldn’t
help you Shells, Molly thought. I’m so sorry. The blood was real. Hler screams
were real. Molly’s hands rolled into fists and she stood up.
“I’ll be ready for this
shit”, Molly said. Her teeth were clenched and tears rolled down her face “I
know what to look for now, and I’ll be fucking ready!”
For the next few weeks
Molly tried to plan for what was coming as best she could. Waiting for some
sign of the end. But nothing could prepare her for the horrors to come.
8
The morning after
Molly’s little shopping spree, James Van Houten woke with a start. He looked
over at his sleeping wife, and then he rubbed his eyes with the back of his
hand. Jimmy thought that he had heard a single loud bang come from somewhere. Like
a firework going off a few blocks away. He laid there in his bed for a minute
waiting to see if another bang rang out. It didn’t.
Must have dreamed it,
he thought as he looked over at the digital clock on the nightstand. It was
Nine-Nineteen AM. Wow! They had both slept in this morning. He could see bright
trails of light coming from the bathroom window. He could also feel that the day
was already starting to grow warm.
It’s gonna be a blazer
of a day, yes sir. Jimmy carefully sat up and got out of bed. He didn’t want to
wake Julie up just yet. He made his way to the bathroom for his morning glory,
stretching as he went. When he finished his business he went to the living room
and plopped on the sofa, yawning. His right knee was a little sore. He
stretched it out in front of him and rubbed it.
The
day was gonna be hot all right. Another beautiful southern California summer
comes to us! Complete with smog and traffic. He reached over and opened the
window to let in a breeze if there was one.
Jimmy
and Julie lived in a quaint house in the central part of Riverside two miles
from the Ninety-One freeway and about a mile from the river bottom and the
small Riverside Airport. Smack dap in the middle of suburbia. With only schools,
shopping centers and churches disrupting the vast expanse of houses.
They
lived on Walter Street off of Central Ave and not too far from the Riverside
Plaza. The houses in this area were built in the early sixties and most were
one story three or four room jobs. These weren’t the cookie cutter houses that
sprung up everywhere after the turn of the century either. Jimmy liked to think
that his house had some character. There was a small koi pond in their front
yard next to a porch swing where Julie liked to go out and smoke. And his lawn
was kept immaculate. Neatly mowed and edged with several ceramic animals
tastefully scattered about for good measure. They had their RV parked around
the right side of their house and a small one car garage on the left.
He picked up the good
book and his glasses from the end table. James Van Houten was a man that
believed that a daily dose of Jesus was good for the soul and good for the
mind. And the morning was the best time to take it. His mother had taught him
this. And even though she had passed sixteen years before, god rest her soul,
Jimmy stayed true to the teachings of his dear mama.
He opened the bible to
where he left off. Somewhere in the book of Mathew as he recalled.
“You making breakfast,
dear?” Julie called out from the bedroom.
Oh no. He had wanted to
be done with his dose of the almighty before Julie was up. Oh for cry-eye. Jimmy sighed and got up,
rubbing his right leg as he did it. Julie preferred a half pot of coffee in the
morning rather than a few pages of scripture.
“Yep, I’m on it,” Jimmy
called out and headed for the kitchen. Jimmy and Julie had a kind of unspoken
understanding between them. Jimmy almost always got up first, so he made
breakfast. So then Julie always prepared lunch and dinner. This system worked,
so why mess with it. Good deal.
I guess I’ll get some Jesus later in the day,
Jimmy thought. There was no way he could know it now but Jimmy’s days of
morning scripture had come to an end.
By the time Julie got
out of the shower, Jimmy was finishing up breakfast. He had made scrambled eggs
and was frying up the last of their bacon. It’s delicious meaty aroma filling
up the whole house.
She sat at the dinner
table and Jimmy brought over the bacon and eggs. He put the two plates down and
sat next to her. She gave him a look that said “did you forget something?”
Jimmy just looked at her and shrugged.
“You forgot the coffee,
Jim,” she said, with the slightest tone of annoyance in her voice.
“The
coffee?” He asked, smiling. “In must have slipped my mind.” Jimmy looked over
at the full pot on the counter and made an exaggerated shrug, still smiling.
“Get
me my Joe, you silly man.” She said smiling and gave him a playful slap on the
arm.
“There’s
that smile! It does my old heart good.” Jimmy said as he got up.
He poured her a cup.
The mug read Alfa-Tor Roofing, Free estimates. Then “Why did the Roofer go to
the doctor? Because he had a bad case of the Shingles!” He brought the hot mug
over to the table. He held the mug out to hand it to her but when she reached
for it he pulled it back a little.
“If you want your
coffee, I need my morning sugar first.” Jimmy said, smiling. Julie rolled her
eyes, still smiling. She tilted her head back and Jimmy kissed her. The old
spark in his stomach was still there. For as long as they had been married,
that too was a good deal.
They ate their
breakfast in silence. Not one word needing to be passed between them. Then
Julie picked up the plates and put them in the sink. She threw away the empty
bacon container and put away the eggs. As she did so she noticed that they were
also out of butter as well as bacon. And the orange juice was running
dangerously low.
“We gotta go to the
store, Jimmy. We’re running low. And I want to do a ham for dinner tonight. I
don’t want to eat out.” Jimmy just nodded and said “ok.” He started washing the
dishes.
When he was done he sat
on the couch and picked up the remote. Julie sat in her easy chair and turned
on her iPad. The Angry Bird’s song played and now Jimmy rolled his eyes. Julie
did have a weakness for those little buggers. He raised the remote to turn the
TV on. He thought better of it, and then he tossed the remote on the couch.
“We should get to the
store while it’s early, don’t you think?” Jimmy asked. Julie looked up from her
game and turned her palm face up. “Sure, why not.”
“Alright, let me grab a
quick shower and we’re off.” Julie didn’t look up from her game this time and
just nodded. Jimmy stood up and looked at the remote for a second. He wondered
if he should turn on the news to see just how hot today was apt to get. He
thought better of it again and headed to the bathroom. If he had turned on the
TV that morning, they wouldn’t have left their home. If they had checked their
phones or tried the radio, they wouldn’t have left their home. They would have
found the same emergency broadcast on every Television channel and no signal on
their phones. All radio station would be blearing the same emergency screech.
But TV remaind off that day. So at around Ten AM they climbed into the Jeep and
headed to the grocery store. The day was hot and the streets were clear. By
late afternoon there would be police sirens wailing and the sounds of gunshots
from all over the city.
The end for most people
in Riverside had come. And on this beautifully warm summer morning the Van Houten’s
where on their way to the Vons.
9
They drove over to the
plaza. At first glance nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Accept, there seemed
to be a lot of people standing in their front lawns and porches. A lot of
neighbors standing around and talking. This struck Jimmy as odd. Why so many
people hanging out today? The heat should have driven most people inside their
nice air conditioned homes.
“Let’s pick up a new
movie tonight from the movie box.” Julie said. She was talking about the Red
Box movie rental kiosks that sprung up in front of most grocery stores. To her
they were always ‘Movie Box’ instead of Red Box. A new movie tonight sounded
grand.
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