The Hours Read online

  Holbrook extended his arms, continued his slow march towards Nolan. His flesh was papery and taught, his eyes gleamed yellow in the hazy light. His jaw clicked open, shut, open, shut. With each click, a massive gash on the side of his head spewed brain and blood.

  “No fucking way,” Nolan said, and he hopped back onto his bike, pushed off onto Lakeview. Even when he’d put a good distance between himself and his professor, he could hear his moans and the clicking of his teeth. When Nolan was nearly at the end of Lakeview, he turned around on his bike once more, watched the small outline of Holbrook shamble down the center of the road behind him.

  When he finally hit Maub, he was relieved. The police station sat at the end of the road, where Maub opened up into the commercial district. It’d be a long, lonesome ride, with mostly trees and vacant lots on either side of him along the way. No one to stop and ask for help if he was hurt. Not that they’d help anyways, if the previous events of the night were any indication.

  It’s starting again, Nolan thought. Slower this time, but just as surely. We should have left for Arabella the second the travel ban was lifted. We should have gotten out of town, or did something…. It’s gone to shit. It’s all gone to shit.

  He biked harder. Maub turned into a slight incline, and it made the journey that more tiresome. The adrenaline from breaking out of his room, from finding Sherri’s body, from escaping his house and from finding his professor—poor, poor Professor Holbrook—it was all starting to peak and wear off. The lingering effects of the heavy sedatives Sherri had given him earlier in the night were seeping their way back in. Thoughts were hazy. Focusing was hard.

  He was tired.

  He stopped pedaling, hopped off of his bike, and took a seat on a stretch of sidewalk along Maub. The muscles in his legs pulsed. He was sweating, shivering in the cold.

  Chloe was called into the police station for a shift, he thought. They must have every car out on patrol tonight. Why hasn’t one passed by yet?

  Nolan shivered. Maybe because they’re all busy.

  He put his palms behind him, flat on the ground, took three deep breaths. If only a car would pass, if only someone—anyone—could help him. Had a curfew been enacted? He wished he’d checked the news before he rushed out of the house.

  He sighed and felt a distant rumble in the ground. It reverberated through his palms. He thought he had imagined it, at first, that it was a precursor to falling asleep or passing out right there and then on the cold, frozen ground.

  But, the rumbling grew louder.

  Nolan leaned forward, nervous at what could be causing such a tremor. Was it an earthquake? He’d never felt one before. Was this what it was like?

  He stared up at the night sky. A blanket of stars twinkled back at him. There was hardly a cloud. No more fighter jets, no low flying aircraft. And yet the vibrations grew and grew.

  He lowered his head, fixed his eyes on the overpass further down Maub. A short bridge above the street carried a connection of I-80, the main arterial from Cherry Valley to Denver.

  The rumbling grew to the loudest it’d been, and the overpass darkened. A massive shadow crept across the bridge. It moved steadily, if not a bit slowly.

  The shadow disappeared, and another one emerged immediately behind it. They were monstrous and intimidating in their appearance.

  Tanks, Nolan thought. Those are tanks. They’re travelling northbound, towards Denver.

  He watched them pass one after another. He counted as they went. Five, ten, fifteen. When the last one had passed over the bridge, the sky screamed again, and a formation of fighter jets whizzed by overhead in the same direction as the tanks.

  Nolan stood on shaky, wobbly legs. He righted his bike beside him, and was about to hop on, before being startled by the sound of screeching tires.

  He turned behind him, looked down Maub. Whatever was going on was masked by the bend of trees behind him. Another screech of tires, and then a rapid series of gunshots.

  Blam, blam, blam, blam, blam.

  Nolan felt his stomach sour. He saddled his bike, and just as he was about to pedal down the last stretch of Maub towards the police station, he heard a rustling in the woods behind him. The rustling grew louder, closer, and from the dark came an unforgettable moan.

  Nolan swallowed and started to pedal. The front tire of his bike skidded on a patch of ice on the side of the road, and he tipped over. The left side of his body hit the ground beside him with a thud. His arm went sore. A scrape dug all the way through the knee of his jeans, scuffed the skin beneath it, and the wound started to bleed.

  “Son of a bitch,” Nolan grunted.

  The moan beckoned louder. From the woods beside him a figure appeared. A teenager. He was wearing a Taco King uniform. In the low light, his nametag glinted. It read: Josh.

  Josh bellowed some more, stumbled forward from the brush and bramble. His right eye was missing. A flap of eyelid fluttered open and shut over the gory wound.

  “Get the fuck back,” Nolan shouted, and he stood up, careful not to slip on the ice.

  Josh ignored him, continued his advance. The distance between him and Nolan shrunk.

  Nolan looked at his bike. The front wheel had bent when he slipped off.

  Josh stumbled closer, reached out, grazed his icy palm over Nolan’s arm.

  Nolan recoiled, leapt back. He picked his bike up by the frame and hurled it at his attacker. The bike slammed into Josh, and the Taco King employee stumbled backward.

  Nolan turned to run, slipped on the ice. He put both palms out in front of him halfway through the fall. They slammed into the cold dirt, and he grunted from the impact.

  He rolled over onto his back and coughed. The tumble had knocked the wind right out of his chest. In front of him, Josh had steadied himself. The teenager continued his march. His teeth clicked open and shut.

  Nolan closed his eyes and thought of Chloe. Thought of her pretty face, thought of the first time he had the nerve to ask her out. Thought of careless summer days in New York spent at the movies and arcade, of nights spent on her father’s back porch until sunrise. He closed his eyes tight, and it was her, only her. Though the temperature outside had plummeted and the ground was freezing, he felt warm. Peaceful.

  Happy.

  He kept his eyes shut tight, and Josh let out a deafening moan.

  Nolan braced himself for the impending attack. Every muscle in his body tensed. At any second Josh would be on top of him: chewing, gnawing, tearing at his flesh. That thought was terrifying only for a moment, before being replaced once more by the thoughts of Chloe.

  There was a bright flash of light. Not the sweet hereafter, but headlights. Nolan heard a car stop and a door open and shut, and then the ring of a dozen or so bullets being expended from the tip of a 9mm handgun.

  Nolan opened his eyes. Josh lay lifeless on the ground beside him. Six of the bullets had pierced his skull, left nothing but a pile of mushy flesh where a head once was.

  Nolan spun his head, started to lean up. Parked in the center of Maub was a police cruiser. Trails of steam rose from its hood in the chilly night air.

  Standing beside the cruiser was Chloe and her partner, Hannah. The tip of Chloe’s gun was still smoldering.

  “Jesus Christ, Nolan,” Chloe shouted. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She raced to him, extended an arm, and helped him to his feet. “Get up, get up, get up. We have to get out of here.”

  FOURTEEN

  “What the hell were you doing?” Chloe shouted. She placed one palm on either side of Nolan’s face.

  “I-I-I was trying to get to you,” Nolan said.

  Chloe kissed him hard, then shook his head. “You almost got yourself killed!”

  “I was almost to the station,” Nolan said. “I almost made it.”

  Chloe wrapped her arms around him, squeezed him tight.

  “It’s happening again,” Nolan said.

  Chloe nodded her head. “It’s not looking good.”
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br />   “It’s different this time,” Nolan said. “In New York, the response was so fast—so effective—it’s like they were waiting for it. Now, it’s like the opposite is happening. I saw some military vehicles go towards Denver, but…why hasn’t help arrived here yet, Chloe? How can they not be prepared when they’ve had two years to do nothing but prepare?” His eyes teared up. “I was just—ju-ju-just—just almost fucking eaten alive.”

  Chloe hugged him tight. “We’re prepared,” she said. “That’s all that matters. We’ve been through this before. We have each other. I’m so glad I found you.”

  “Guys,” Hannah shouted. “I hate to break up your reunion, but Fuller wants us back at the station.”

  Nolan hugged Chloe one more time before the three stepped back into her cruiser. “I’m so tired of you having to save me,” he said, and he hopped into the back seat of the car.

  Chloe turned the key to the ignition of the cruiser and u-turned on to Maub. Nolan tried to get as comfortable as he could on the hard, plastic seat in the rear of the cruiser. It was meant for criminals—why give them the comfort of cloth, when plastic was that much easier to hose off after it’d been covered in blood, or urine, or feces? He stared through the steel netting between him and the front of the vehicle. It felt odd, riding in a seat where a burglar or a drunk would have to ride.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” Hannah said. “Why are you turning around?”

  “Can’t go back to the station right now.”

  “Fuller radioed all the cadets back five minutes ago,” Hannah said.

  Chloe sighed. “Tell him we’re busy. Shouldn’t be too difficult of a lie to believe. Not tonight.”

  “Chloe, Christ,” Hannah said. “The military is mobilizing on Denver. I’m sure he wouldn’t be calling us back for shits and giggles. There’s important stuff we have to be briefed on.”

  “What’s important,” Chloe said, “is that we find my father before Fuller does. Before any of the Cherry Valley Police Department does. If they find out about Sherri, if they find out that my father and Nolan were in the same house as her, we’ll all be locked away in quarantine. This is all our problem.”

  Hannah said, “Wrong. It’s your problem.” She pointed to the backseat. “And his. And I want to be left out of it. My mother has barricaded herself in my apartment with my kid. I want to see them both. I want to finish this shift and be with them for an hour or two before I need to sleep and get back on patrol. This doesn’t concern me.”

  “It does,” Chloe said. “You were in my house with me. You stood right over the body of someone infected with EV1.”

  “No one cares about this shit, Chloe!” Hannah said. “If they locked up every person who came in contact with EV1, half the force would be out of commission. They’re not locking up the officers who shot that guy on Lakeview.”

  “So that’s what the gunshots were,” Nolan said. “I figured. That was my professor.”

  “We can’t take that chance,” Chloe said, ignoring Nolan. “Those officers didn’t live in a home with that guy. They were probably never closer than ten feet to him. If Fuller or anyone on the force connects the dots between us and that body in my home, we’re all gonna be fucked.”

  “If you say so,” Hannah said, and she crossed her arms.

  “I do say so!” Chloe shouted. “Nolan—when was the last time you saw my father.”

  “When we were in the living room,” Nolan said. “Watching the news. Sherri gave me a sedative, took me to bed. When I woke up, she was dead. Jim was gone.”

  “I think he left home in a hurry,” Chloe said. “I think he drove right through the fucking garage door.”

  “Why would he do that?” Nolan asked.

  “Well—if he was scared.”

  Hannah laughed. “Scared because he just murdered his mistress.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Chloe said.

  “He was running,” Nolan said. “From something. Maybe someone infected had broken into the home. Turned Sherri. So he killed them both and ran.”

  Chloe shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Where would the second body be, then? And how would you have not heard someone break in, even as sedated as you were? And why would he leave without you?”

  “Why would he leave without me?” Nolan said. “And there was a chair pressed against my bedroom door—someone didn’t want me getting out. Maybe even Jim.”

  “Maybe he was trying to protect you,” Hannah said. “Maybe he was infected. Maybe he was trying to run away from the people he could hurt the most.”

  “No,” Chloe said. “Not my dad.”

  Hannah said, “I know you don’t want to believe something like that, Chlo’. But listen to yourselves. Listen to how you’re explaining what happened. Face the facts.”

  Chloe shook her head. “If I can end this night without pushing you out of this car, it’ll be a miracle. You don’t know my dad. It’s impossible.” She gripped the steering wheel tight. “He’s a good man. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Jim woke up in the alley behind the Grab-N-Go on the corner of Green and Parkview. His face was slick with blood. The taste of it was awful on his lips. Beside where he sat lay his victim, still writhing. She was a cashier at the Grab-N-Go, was on her way back home and had just finished locking up before Jim appeared behind her. He’d struck the back of her neck, and she ran. He chased her behind the shop and into the alley, where she tripped over a palette that’d been leaned against the back of the building. Before she hit the ground, Jim was on her, tearing the flesh from her neck and shoulder with his teeth.

  He had no memory of any of it.

  “I did this?” Jim muttered.

  The cashier squirmed. Her eyes filled with terror.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” Jim said. “I don’t remember even driving here. Where am I?”

  The cashier kicked her leg, then relaxed. Her movements stopped.

  Jim started to sob.

  He just wanted it to end. He could run to the pumps in front of the building, douse himself in gasoline, and set himself ablaze.

  As soon as the thought entered his mind, his head went fuzzy.

  I have to stop thinking about it, Jim thought. Every time I think of ending myself, I turn back…into one of those monsters.

  He rubbed his eyes, thought of Dana. Thought of the Seven Lakes State Park. Thought of Chloe. Thought of anything to take his mind off his affliction.

  The fuzzy feeling in his head retreated.

  He grabbed the cashier’s foot and jiggled it. She didn’t respond. He shook her some more, and still nothing. She stared lifelessly at the darkened sky above. Her nametag read: Khloe.

  Jim sobbed some more.

  In the distance, he could hear sirens. He slouched against the wall of the Grab-N-Go and cried, and cried, and cried.

  Someone is here, he thought, to put an end to all of this madness. I just hope it isn’t Chloe.

  Slowly, he rose to his feet. He pressed his palms against the side of the building for balance, stumbled down the back of the alley. He passed a Civic, parked between the alley and the front parking lot of the shop, and stopped to inspect himself in the car’s driver’s side windows.

  His face and mouth were greased with blood. His shirt was soaked with it, too. Was it his victim’s? Or his? He lifted his shirt, examined the two wounds from where the professor had shot him earlier in the night. They were black, festered with an oily sludge. Rotted. Still, he felt nothing.

  Jim dropped his shirt and stumbled around the corner of the alley. A police cruiser had parked beside a gas pump. An officer had exited the cruiser, was shining a flashlight in Jim’s Suburban, which was double parked in a handicap spot in front of the building.

  Jim heard someone shout: “On the ground, fuck-o.” Before he could spin to see who it was, a cadet bashed him against the side of the building. Jim slid to the ground and slumped onto his stomach, and the cadet cuffed his wrists together behind his back.
/>   In no time, Jim was tossed into the back of the cadet’s cruiser. “I’m ill,” he moaned. “I killed that poor girl back there. Shoot me. Do something.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” one of the officers said. “Sick fuck.”

  The officer slammed the rear door of the cruiser shut, and Jim collapsed in the backseat, rested his head against the passenger side window of the car.

  The two cadets stood beside the cruiser, talked to one another and answered calls over the radio. They briefly filled out a single form of paperwork, seemed ready to haul Jim off to the police station. There, he’d more than likely sit to rot until the impending outbreak had been contained and he could be dealt with.

  Jim shut his eyes, then opened them. Creeping from behind the back of the Grab-N-Go was Khloe. She shuffled forward. The deep wounds on her neck and shoulders oozed black tar.

  “Look out,” Jim screamed. “Look out!”

  One of the cadets banged on the window with his palm. “Shut the hell up, asshole.”

  “She’s behind you,” Jim said.

  One of the cadets turned just as Khloe lunged at him. He raised his hands in defense, but Khloe had already landed on her target, had already dug her teeth deep into the side of the cadet’s face.

  “Crazy bitch!” the cadet’s partner screamed, and he raised his pistol to fire upon the attacking cashier. He squeezed the trigger, and three shots rang out. One hit the cashier in the shoulder. The other two his partner in the neck and bicep.

  The injured cadet slumped to the ground, and Khloe spun to attack the second officer. She grabbed him by the face, threw him towards the gas pump that he stood beside. When he stumbled backward, Khloe swiped at his cheek with her long fingernails, tore off a patch of skin that started to bleed and bleed and bleed.

  The injured officer hunched against the side of the cruiser, raised his pistol. He popped off five shots before he lost all feeling in his arm. Three hit Khloe in the back. One hit her in the base of her skull.

  The fourth hit the gas pump between him and his partner.

  Khloe collapsed to the ground, motionless. The other cadet stood beside the pump, clutched at his bleeding face, felt his pants and shoes dampen with gas.