Part 19 (1/2)

Neither of them thought it possible they would sleep last night. They'd remained huddled on the floor of the jail, Rick inside the cell, Janice and Bobby on the other side as the Dark Ones pillaged and plundered through the town. Every once in a while screams arose from somewhere outside, sometimes gunfire, but for the most part the noises were coming from the Dark Ones as they destroyed.

And fed.

Luckily Bobby had gotten to sleep. He remained at the rear of the hallway, bundled up in some spare jackets Janice had found in the office. His sleep had been deep, too; not once had he woken in fear of the noises and screams from outside. Those sounds contributed to Janice and Rick remaining awake, sitting next to each other on the floor of the cell, holding hands through the bars, talking through the night about what they could do to escape. What they should do to escape. Whether anybody was going to recognize their plight and send somebody to rescue them-the army, the National Guard, anybody with enough guns and firepower to blow these green, scaly creatures back to whatever water-logged h.e.l.l they had come from.

After a while, that end of the conversation meandered onto other subjects. It was hard to tell how much time pa.s.sed, especially with the storm raging outside and the night so dark and brooding. The sounds of destruction retreated farther inland for a while, and they relaxed slightly, still on alert status. Janice slid a nine-millimeter pistol and several boxes of sh.e.l.ls through the bars of Rick's cell should they suddenly be embroiled in a war; she kept a large cache of the weapons she'd snagged by her side, like a camper guarding provisions. Fortunately the creatures outside didn't seem to sense that they were inside the sheriff's station. They were pretty much left alone.

So they talked more. Rick found himself continuing the conversation he'd begun with her earlier that afternoon when he first ran into her on the pier, back when things were innocent, when the future seemed brighter. When it seemed that he might have the extreme hots for her and was antic.i.p.ating a future with her. He remembered that she seemed to share his attraction and they had played off it at the pier, flirting like they were teenagers. And then that had been broken by Bobby's screams- Rick found himself intrigued by Janice's background as she spun the tale. She'd grown up in Phillipsport an only child. When her parents divorced she remained in town with her father, who succ.u.mbed to lung cancer five years later, the year she graduated high school. With no one in town left that she could call family, she left and headed to Bangor where she eventually drifted into college. She stuck with it, getting a degree in Liberal Arts five years later. Midway through she met Kevin Murphy, Bobby's father and her future husband. Kevin was an economics major. They married a year later and settled in Bangor and for once Janice thought she would be happy. She had a husband who loved her, a job she liked-she had gotten a job as a secretary at a securities firm-and she was pregnant with Bobby. She couldn't have asked for more.

The first five years were great, but she began to sense that Kevin was drifting. The hours at the office grew later, the business trips grew longer, became more frequent. He began spending less time with her and Bobby and worse, became less interested in raising their son. She forged on and the truth slapped her face brutally one Sunday morning when she was doing the laundry. She was putting Kevin's s.h.i.+rts in the wash for a cold cycle when she lifted one of them up and examined it closely. She checked out the collar. There was a smudge of red lipstick on the tip of the collar.

She confronted Kevin with it. He denied knowing anything about it at first, but after she nagged him about it, he broke down and confessed. She hadn't expected a confession. She expected he would deny it all along and the confession caught her off guard despite the fact that she had already convinced herself that he was having an affair. Hearing it from his own lips seemed to confirm the suspicions. The woman was a secretary at the firm he worked at. It was nothing serious, but- Besides gaining full custody of Bobby, she got the house, which she sold after the divorce was final. And she moved back to Phillipsport for a more quiet, more serene lifestyle. She wanted something more peaceful, especially for Bobby, but most of all she wanted to escape the past. Coming to Phillipsport did that for her.

Rick listened patiently, sympathizing with her. He had been burned by girlfriends and old lovers in the past too, and he emphasized this. He gave her examples. He tried to make it sound like his own excursions were funny and she laughed. She seemed to appreciate the humor he injected into the conversation. Sometimes the human spirit needed to laugh to break up the monotony of life.

She brought the story to a close: she found her present job as a secretary at the law firm, enrolled Bobby in school here in Phillipsport, and bought the nice little house Rick and Jack had rescued her from about eight hours before. She had known most everybody in town before she left, and she blended back into the community again with ease. She hung out with Carol Bradford and Sue Ba.n.a.li, who were secretaries at the Phillipsport Bank. Bobby had his friends from school. She worked her nine to five with a pause to pick her son up from school around two, although lately he was walking home by himself. They spent the evenings together, with Carol and Sue coming over sometimes for an evening of television. She usually spent her weekends with her son, but when the need arose to be with her friends, or spend a night on the town, there was always an available sitter in the parents of one of his friends. She hadn't dated much after the divorce, but she did drift into an affair with a coworker that ended much the same way it began. Her life had pretty much been the way she described it until she ran across Rick at the pier.

There was an uncomfortable silence, as if both of them were waiting for the other to begin something new. During the talk they sat on opposite sides of the bars, but during the last five minutes they had drawn closer. Rick's hand strayed out from the cell and Janice's found his, her fingers clasping it. He felt a surge of electricity run through him as their eyes met briefly. He supposed if things hadn't happened the way they had he would be sleeping with her right this minute. He almost voiced this observation, thought that he probably shouldn't jump the gun, and s.h.i.+fted the conversation to other topics.

But then somewhere along the way, they must have fallen asleep.

Now Janice shrugged sheepishly. She turned and went down the hallway to check on Bobby. Rick looked out the window; the sky outside was a dark gray-it was morning now. He wondered how long they'd slept.

”I wonder what time it is.” Rick said.

”Quiet!” Janice was standing over Bobby, poised over him as if something was about to pounce on the building. Her head was c.o.c.ked at a questioning angle, as if she were listening to frequencies he couldn't pick up. Rick couldn't hear a thing.

He managed a whispered query. ”What is it?”

Janice looked at him. ”Do you hear anything?”

Rick listened, trying to pick up whatever noise she was hearing. Whatever it was, he couldn't. He didn't hear a thing.

”I know,” Janice said. She looked almost elated. ”It sounds like they're gone.”

Rick listened. She was right. He detected no sound. None of the roaring and bleatings the creatures made as they plundered the town. No screams or moans from maimed and dying people. No gunfire, cras.h.i.+ngs. Nothing.

The silence was so still it was almost deafening.

Rick walked over to the window and looked out. His mind had mentally prepared him for what he saw outside but even then, it was still disturbing.

Main Street was deserted. And totally littered.

With bodies.

They lined the street three and four deep. They lay scattered about like soldiers on a Civil War battlefield. Despite the stark horror of the scene, Rick made out some familiar faces; George Cleaver, one of the countermen at the Diner where he had met Lee Shelby and Melissa Peterson two days before; William Reynolds, a man he'd met in Dr. Jorgensen's waiting room yesterday who was an Arrowhead Springs deliveryman who had come into Doc's office to make his drop and collect the empty. There were others. All of them people who'd fought to protect their town. And their loved ones.

Broken crab sh.e.l.ls lined the bodies of the dead.

The Dark Ones were nowhere to be seen.

Rick turned away from the window and approached the bars. ”I don't see the Dark Ones anywhere. It's pretty dead out there.” He paused, realizing the remark he just made. ”Literally.”

Janice looked grim. She looked down at Bobby, who was still asleep. He was curled up in the jackets, his arm tucked under his chin, his bandaged hand cradled to his chest. She looked from Bobby back to Rick, a grim realization in her face. ”We've got to get out of here.”

”I know.”

Janice moved out toward the main office of the sheriff's station and stood in the middle of the room. Rick couldn't see her from the cell but he guessed she was looking out the big plate gla.s.s window at the carnage. He looked at Bobby, who was sleeping deeply. Poor kid had gone through a lot in the past twenty-four hours. No wonder he was conked like that.

Janice came back into the jail area. She picked up her jacket from the floor and put it on.

”Where are you going?” Rick asked.

”I think I see Sheriff Conklin outside,” Janice said. Her face was grim.

A weird sense of elation swept through Rick. As much as the trouble Conklin had put them through, it would be the best news in the world right now if he was here bringing in the calvary. ”He's alive?”

Janice shook her head. ”I don't know.” She stopped and looked at Rick. ”He's across the street, and...he locked you in here. He probably still has the keys with him...”

Rick got the message. It sounded like the sheriff was dead. He nodded. ”Be careful.”

”I will.” She started to walk out but Rick reached through the bars and grabbed her arm, holding her back. She spun back, surprised, the expression on her face saying what did I forget? ”What?” She asked.

Rick didn't answer. He grabbed her face gently with his right hand and moved it toward the bars, guiding it so her lips met his. She offered no resistance once she realized what he was doing, and kissed him back. He released his grip on her and smiled at her. ”Be careful, Janice.”

”You bet I will,” she said. Her eyes sparkled, her smile flashed wide and bright; she looked like the happiest person on earth at that moment. She squeezed his hand briefly, then set off down the hall.

Rick heard her footsteps retreat slowly through the main office, then pause by the front door. She was checking out the area before she stepped outside. Smart girl. Rick's heart pounded faintly, partly from fear, but a large part due to their emotional and physical connection. He was feeling a very strong attraction to her, and the thought that the feeling was reciprocated produced a strong burst of emotion through him that was so great that, if he wasn't sitting in this cell, he'd be singing. Her kiss was still on his lips, faint now, but sweet, and despite their predicament of life and death, that simple kiss had sent the area below his belt into a raging hard on.

Her footfalls shuffled beyond the hallway. A moment later he heard the click of the front door, and then the latch of the k.n.o.b as it shut behind her. She was outside.

It was, in a sense, incredible.

Janice stood on the sidewalk in front of the Phillipsport Sheriff station, her mind boggling at the sight before her. All up and down Main Street, the bodies of Phillipsport's finest lay on the streets, in the sidewalks, sprawled in doorways. The carnage continued to the pier due east and all the way to the T-intersection that bridged the town square to the west. Broken Clicker sh.e.l.ls littered the streets. Janice thought she would be sick to her stomach at the sight of all those bodies-some of them so horribly mangled that they hardly resembled human beings-but surprisingly, she coped well. Perhaps it was Bobby's run-in with the Clickers the day before that had mentally prepared her for what was at hand. What he'd gone through was nothing compared to the carnage that lay before her.

Most of the bodies she saw were ripped and mangled; chests ripped open, arms and legs torn off, decapitations. In some cases all that remained were b.l.o.o.d.y, lifeless, hollowed-out trunks. But in most cases the dead she saw were somewhat intact. The streets were soaked with blood and water from the rain. The air was thick with the smell of death.

A slight wind picked up, lifting Janice's hair and blowing it. It blew dead leaves and sc.r.a.ps of paper down the street, rustled her jacket. The darkness of night was slowly giving way to the gray of early morning. It was very foggy and the clouds overhead were dark and gray. It made Phillipsport seem more like a ghost town now, with nearly all of its inhabitants dead.

Janice took a deep breath and looked up and down the street. There was still no sign of life, human or otherwise. She looked across the street and down a ways, toward the pier. What she perceived to be Sheriff Conklin was nestled on top of a slew of bodies. She could make out tan slacks and a s.h.i.+rt that looked like it could be brown, but was probably a deep maroon from blood. He looked tall and lean, much like Conklin had been, but from here, as inside the station, it was hard to tell. What clinched it for her was what appeared to be the police-issue belt with a holster the man was wearing.

Janice set off down the street, keeping a steady pace, but trying to keep her footfalls light so as not to attract unwanted attention. She had to hop-scotch her way around bodies, Clicker sh.e.l.ls, and body parts. She felt her gorge rise briefly when she almost stepped on a severed forearm, hand still attached. An image of Bobby rose in her mind as she stepped away from the limb and she put her hand to her mouth, feeling her throat constrict. She stopped, fighting it back, and black spots began to dance in her vision. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The wind was blowing the scent of blood away and she caught a whiff of good old fresh air. That felt better.

She opened her eyes, her composure gained, and set off down the street.

A sound startled her, a skittering sound that came from her right toward an empty car. She whirled around, taking a hopping step backward, her foot landing in a small puddle of blood-soaked rainwater. Janice's heart lodged in her throat, the flight instinct almost set to propel her back to the station and lock the door when she realized it was only a piece of paper flapping in the breeze. It was stuck between the winds.h.i.+eld wipers of a car.

She sighed. G.o.d, I'm going to be a nervous wreck by the time I get down to Sheriff Conklin or who I hope is Conklin and- A Clicker suddenly came scurrying from behind a car parked diagonally across from her and began scuttling down the street, heading toward the beach. This time Janice did jump back and actually took a few running steps back the way she came before she realized the creature didn't seem to care she was there. She stopped, muscles tense, watching the Clicker scurry toward the pier. It grew smaller as it receded from view.