Ravenous Read online

  Early on, the authorities had tried to force people to leave their homes. Many, including Terry and Bobby, had refused.

  Now he supposed there were authorities or experts out there somewhere working on a solution, but he never heard about them. They did not make their studies known to the likes of him. While the power was still on, Terry had destroyed his cell phone, fearing the authorities would use the signal to track him and force him to leave. He didn’t have a landline at the cabin. Television reception on the mountain had always been sketchy, and the only radio he had was on his old Jeep, and it was pretty much worthless.

  The roads and highways had been sealed off by the town police and by the highway patrol. Terry had seen people in hazmat suits too, but that was early in the game. He hadn’t seen any lately. People had been allowed to leave, but no one was allowed back in. Rumor was that Spangle had been quarantined. Cut off from the world entirely. Since they couldn’t correct the problem, those in authority seemed to have decided they would simply keep the menace penned up until they could devise a solution. The small backcountry town of Spangle had apparently been sacrificed for the greater good.

  For Bobby and Terry, everything they owned or cared about was tied up in Spangle and on the slopes of the tiny mountain nestled next to town. The house on River Street. The cabin in the woods. That was it, their whole world. That was what made them stay. But most importantly, they also had each other. For them, that was enough.

  For the second time that morning, while he stood dressing, staring through the cabin’s upstairs window, the memory of that day flooded back to swallow Terry whole. The day that Bobby died. The day three months earlier when Bobby was torn to bits. How the creatures swarmed around them both, but only Bobby had been attacked. While Terry sat there helpless and stunned, drenched in his husband’s blood. Untouched. And only inches away!

  After those few fleeting seconds of unimaginable violence and mind-numbing terror, Bobby’s beautiful body had been reduced to little more than a shimmering red mist and a sliver or two of bone twirling through the air. In mere moments, even those were gone.

  On that day. On that bloody, horrible day.

  Chapter Three

  IT HAD been a warm spring then. Over their heads, the Southern California sun spit out heat, raining it down on the earth like a welding torch.

  Terry remembered that Bobby had been grinning like a sap that morning. The world was falling apart around them, but the guy could still smile now and then for no reason at all, which made Terry love him all the more. They had legally wed, practically on a whim, almost three years ago to the day, thus the extremely thorough and highly enjoyable anniversary lovemaking that morning. Terry suspected those heart-pumping hours in each other’s arms had something to do with the grin on Bobby’s face. And the grin on his own face as well.

  But Terry quickly learned that having sex that morning had absolutely nothing to do with Bobby’s good humor. He had, it seemed, made a decision overnight.

  “We’re leaving today. Leaving town. We have to escape. Get away from the slaughter. We’ll be safe in the cabin,” Bobby announced, referring to the mountain cabin they had bought only a year before. “I know we will.”

  “But the cabin is still in the quarantine zone.”

  “Yes, but it’s secluded. If we lay low, the creatures won’t be drawn there. They’re used to feeding here. In town. Where food is abundant.”

  “It’s not so abundant anymore,” Terry countered. “Most everyone has left. The lucky ones were driven out by the authorities. The not-so-lucky ones were eaten.”

  “Yes,” Bobby said, his fingers clutching at Terry’s arms. “And if the creatures move on to better feeding grounds, they’ll move to where the people are. They won’t fiddle around with our little mountain. They’ll head for San Diego. Or maybe Tijuana. A large city would be a smorgasbord for them.”

  “But what will happen to all the people in those places?”

  “You know what will happen to them. What we have to do is make sure we’re not among them when it happens. Will you go with me?”

  “You mean to the mountain? Now? Today?”

  “Yes. Right now. The time has come.”

  “What about our stuff?”

  “We’ll take food and clothing and Bruce. And anything else we can’t live without.”

  Bobby was right, of course, and Terry knew it. All their friends, in fact most of the town’s population still breathing, had already fled. Left Spangle completely, or so he had heard. He and Bobby and maybe a few other stubborn souls were the only ones remaining.

  Terry stared down at the little dog at their feet. The mutt had a worried look on his face, as if he knew what they were discussing. Of course, pugs always have a worried look.

  Bobby pulled Terry close, his eyes desperate, burrowing in. His jaw muscles clenched. Determined. His smile had disappeared. He had made the jump from fuck-happy to deadly serious in ten minutes flat. “Help me pack, Terry. Please. We have to get out of here.”

  “But why? Why today? What’s happened?”

  Reluctantly, Bobby tugged him toward the door. As they always did before leaving the house, they examined each other’s exposed skin to make sure there were no injuries, no matter how slight. This was the new norm. This was the way everyone lived their lives now. It no longer seemed odd. It was simply what one had to do to survive.

  When they were satisfied they were injury free, they stepped outside into the morning light. The silence was deafening. As almost every morning was these days. Spangle had never been a major metropolis. Spanglites were not known for bustling. If they had to move, they ambled. It was almost as if the town had always managed to lag behind when it came to the hurries and complexities of the twenty-first century. Like the residents were stuck in Mayberry in 1955. Calm, unruffled, maybe a little bored. And boring. But still, life went on. Or had gone on before the creatures showed up.

  Now, of course, the streets were empty but for occasional smears of dried blood on the walkways and roads where kills had been made. Sparkles of shattered glass lay sprinkled beneath punched-out windows. A car was parked sideways in the middle of the street just past the end of their driveway. They had first noticed the vehicle a week ago, its windshield in ruins, the hood coated with blood, congealed to black, where the driver had been pulled through the glass and torn to shreds. The flies had given up on the blood days ago, leaving it to cook in the sun. Neither Bobby nor Terry could bring themselves to push the vehicle out of the street.

  “Look,” Bobby said, his eyes sad. “Look there.”

  Turning to where Bobby pointed, Terry realized the house next door had been attacked sometime in the night. Windows broken. Front door sagging from twisted hinges.

  Terry stared at the damage. Shocked. A man, a woman, and two children lived there. The Petersons. They were their neighbors. Friends. They had barbecued together. Gone to the county fair together only a few months before. Terry had won the daughter a teddy bear by tossing quarters.

  The Petersons, too, had been reluctant to leave the only place they had ever called home.

  “Where are they?” Terry asked, a chill settling into his core like he had swallowed a ball of ice.

  “They’re dead.”

  Bobby’s gaze led Terry’s toward a trail of blood drops in the grass.

  Terry stared at those drops for the longest time.

  There were other items scattered across the Petersons’ lawn. An adult’s flip-flop, spattered with blood. A shred of cloth from a child’s pajama shirt. A foot-long hank of fine blond hair with the rubber band still holding it together at one bloody end. The couple’s ten-year-old daughter had worn her blond hair in a ponytail.

  Terry didn’t understand. “It looks like the creatures took the whole family. I’ve never seen them do that before. Usually it’s one person only. The person with an injury. The person whose blood they smelled. Why would the creatures have taken them all?”

  Bobby�
�s eyes were misted over in grief. The Petersons had been like family. “Who knows which one they came for first? But whoever it was, maybe the father and mother fought back. Trying to protect the kids. Or each other. In the melee everyone was injured a little. Blood was drawn from each of them. A little, a lot, who knows? But once it was drawn, it was over. The feeding frenzy escalated. They were torn apart. The whole family. All of them.”

  Terry spread protective fingers over his throat. A defensive gesture. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think what it must have been like. A tear leaked onto his cheek.

  “We’re leaving today,” Bobby said again. Even more determined this time. He reached over and brushed the tear from Terry’s cheek. “We’ll mourn later. Help me get our stuff together. Gather up clothes and every ounce of food we have in the house. Don’t forget Bruce’s dog food.” Suddenly he was all business. “Wear your gloves. Wear all the protective clothing you can find.”

  “And you think we’ll be safe at the cabin?” Terry asked, still stunned by the blood trail in the grass. Stunned by what had taken place right next door while he and Bobby were either asleep or making love. Right next door! He was so astounded, so appalled, he could barely grasp what Bobby was telling him to do. Bobby’s announcement had hardly soaked in at all.

  “We’ll be safer there than we are here,” Bobby insisted.

  Only then, at that moment, did Terry begin to fully comprehend. “Y-yes,” he said. “You’re right. We’ll go today. Right this minute.”

  And as simply as that, the decision was made.

  Standing there on the front lawn, which was weedy and hadn’t been mown in weeks because those things didn’t really matter anymore, Bobby pulled Terry close. He wrapped his strong arms around him, and Terry felt comforted there. As he always did. Even with the tiny, voiceless town screaming in silent terror around them.

  When a shadow passed over, they tilted their heads up to the sky and observed a black swarm of creatures, like a monstrous flock of crows, only larger, much larger, wheeling away toward the south. Silent but for the sweep and lift of fleshy wings—a percussive pulse of sound that battered at the air around them. In mere moments, the swarm had disappeared, slipping down below the rooftops toward some far-off Spangle street. Toward a soul with only moments left to live. If even that.

  Terry pressed his lips to Bobby’s ear, whispering softly, his eyes returning to the bloody grass on the lawn next door. He noticed the flick of curtains on a house across the street. Somewhere behind those curtains, a terrified pair of eyes peered out. They were being watched. Not that it mattered. There were terrified eyes watching everywhere you looked these days.

  Terrified eyes, or hungry eyes.

  “We can pick up more food along the way,” Bobby said. “There are abandoned stores scattered around. We’ll find enough. We’ll take the Jeep. It has more storage room than the VW.”

  “What about the Jeep’s canvas roof? The creatures….”

  Bobby planted a kiss on Terry’s nose. A wicked smile twisted his mouth. “As long as you don’t start your period, we’ll be safe enough.”

  Terry rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”

  But Bobby didn’t laugh. He simply went back to the business at hand. Clearly, he had been planning this longer than Terry knew. “All right,” he said. “Once we’re on the mountain, we can hunt for game if we have to. Rabbits, squirrels. The creatures aren’t drawn to animal blood, I hear. Only human.”

  “How is that possible?” Terry asked. He was disinclined to trust the rumors that ran rampant in the creatures’ wake. Not unless he saw it for himself. Bobby shook his head, clearly impatient to get moving. “I don’t know, Terry. I don’t know. I’ve already loaded the shotgun in the Jeep. We’ll find more shells along the way when we’re looking for food. Maybe even more guns. Who knows? And extra gas for the generator at the cabin. It’ll be nice to have a backup if the power goes out. I figure it’s only a matter of time before the authorities shut the power down to try to get the rest of the people to abandon Spangle. But we’ll beat them to it. We’re leaving on our own.”

  Terry stared back at the place where they had once been so happy. The place where they were still happy, even if the town was dying around them. “What about the house, Bobby?”

  “If we come back, it will still be here. But that’s only if we’re still alive to come back. On the mountain I think we can survive until this all ends. All right? Are you with me?”

  Terry smiled then, because the question was patently ridiculous, and they both knew it. “Of course I’m with you,” he answered with sober eyes.

  Bobby stared down at Bruce. “Are you with me too?”

  Bruce gave a yip that sounded like a yes to Terry.

  Five minutes later they were throwing stuff in the back of the Jeep Sahara. Ten minutes after that, they were on the road.

  While Bruce slept in the back seat, the streets they drove along were still and silent. Occasionally, in the distance, they would see another automobile, usually a farmer’s pickup truck, either crossing the main drag, or veering away to disappear down some side street or other. There were no pedestrians. There were no police cars. Anyone in a position of power had vacated weeks ago. Again, dark smears on the sides of buildings and on the sidewalks showed where the creatures had made their kills. Showed where people had died. The blood sprays and puddles were clotted black now, like blotches of tar, strewn and left to harden in the California sun.

  At the same moment, they each spotted a child standing in the gutter at the edge of the street. The child was naked. A boy. No more than six years old. He was sucking his thumb, his great wide eyes staring at the Jeep coming toward him.

  “We have to help him,” Bobby said, but no sooner had he braked, steering toward the side of the street, than a man came out of a house and raced toward the boy. His father, maybe. He snatched the child into his arms and fled with him back toward the house, his eyes never once leaving the Jeep that had slowed to a stop not fifteen feet away.

  “He thinks we want to hurt him,” Terry murmured, his heart aching a little to imagine that anyone would suspect them of such a thing.

  “At least the boy is safe,” Bobby said. And while an odd silence settled between them, he accelerated back onto the street. Bobby continued to watch the man and the child as he drove past. Terry did not do the same. He simply wanted to forget the suspicious look in the man’s eyes when he ran from them with the little boy clutched tightly in his arms. He wanted to forget what the man had suspected him and Bobby of wanting to do. As if they were as dangerous as the creatures.

  “It’s good we’re leaving town,” Terry said, edging as close to Bobby as he could get with the seat belt holding him back. “I want to be alone with you. I’ve had it with the human race. Fear has made them… wicked, I think. If they’re going to act like animals, maybe they should be preyed upon for food.”

  Bobby nodded dully, an infinite sadness on his face. “Don’t think about that man anymore. He didn’t understand what we were doing.”

  Terry didn’t speak. He simply sat there, glowering through the windshield.

  Bobby sighed and reached over to clutch his hand. “Cut them some slack. People are frightened. They don’t think straight when they’re frightened.”

  Terry turned to study the man he loved. “Do you really think that was the boy’s father?”

  Softly Bobby replied, “I pray to God it was.”

  After a minute, Terry muttered for his own ears alone, “So do I.”

  The next few blocks were spent in silence, except for the blatting engine noises and the spurts of wind whipping through the Jeep’s removable top, which had never been particularly airtight. The crappy seals on the canvas roof made it kind of pointless to run the air conditioner, but on hot days like this, they always did anyway.

  They enjoyed the simple act of motion. The hum of wheels spinning on asphalt beneath them. Trees and buildings zipping past on either side. It
was nice to finally be going somewhere. For the first time in months, it felt like they were accomplishing something, that they actually had a plan. They enjoyed the solitude too. It was like the old days, with just the three of them: Bobby, Terry, and Bruce, who was still sawing logs in the back seat. Damn, that dog could snore.

  While Bobby drove, Terry fiddled with the radio on what he knew was a hopeless mission to find a station they could hear. All he found was static and white noise. The radio was crap and always had been. Spinning the dial was something to do to pass the time, and Terry knew it.

  After passing the sign marking the Spangle city limits, they traveled a winding blacktop road through the rocky backcountry. Out here the traffic was totally nonexistent. They had the road to themselves. At one point, on one of the craggy peaks, Terry spotted a mountain lion sunning itself on a rock. He tried to point it out to Bobby, but by the time he lifted his hand, the cat was gone.

  They passed a huge compound of modern new buildings between two mountain peaks, off by themselves, far from the nearest homes or towns. One of the Indian casinos. Before the trouble started, the place would have been packed no matter what time or day it was. Now, of course, it was empty and abandoned, moldering in the heat. Not a car in the vast parking lot. Not a soul strolling through the shopping center alongside. The only movement to be seen was a pack of dogs, scruffy and wild, that were standing in front of the broad casino doors, the glass shattered now, exposing cave-like shadows within.

  The dogs watched the Jeep approach. Terry saw one of the dogs, a large German shepherd, lift its lips and snarl. He thought he saw a ripple of tension sweep across its hackled back.

  Swallowing hard, Terry tore his eyes from the dogs and studied the buildings as they passed. Even here there were smears of black blood strewn on walls and asphalt. Shattered windows. Remnants of death. Just like in town.