Caught in the Web Read online

  The man starred at his can, watching as the little droplets of condensation ran down the side, then dripped to the wood grain counter. He pushed in on the aluminum with his thumb and watched as the can popped back into shape.

  “You gotta do what ya gotta do, what feels right.” Rob knew he was just giving contrite answers. Bruce seemed like a good guy, one Rob could call a friend, but he didn’t really know enough about the guy to give him real advice.

  And this wasn’t the conversation Rob wanted to be having. How had he steered it there? Bruce had said he was leaving earlier. It had nothing to do with his home life, but had to do with the phones. So why were they having a hard time talking about it?

  “I think what I need to do is just take some time off. Hell, that’s why I don’t want to hurry home, even though I’m ‘hurrying’ home. I want to get there, but the longer I can put it off, the longer it takes to think about it. Being tired as all hell isn’t helping things. I was already driving my second log when I picked you up. I don’t even know when my fourteen expired.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Rob said, smiling, though his lips were tight and he was growing a little concerned. Rob now noticed the dark circles under the man’s eyes. He did look tired. He just thought it had been the long hours on the road the man suffered through day in/day out. If he had just heard Bruce right, he had been up for about twenty hours already. He should be getting some sleep.

  “How much farther you gotta go?”

  “I’m just down the way about another hour, so not that far. I’ll make it home for supper.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Still nothing about the car, huh? Only been an hour, though.”

  “Yeah.” Rob stood and made his obligatory look down the street. Right now, he would actually be shocked to see his car show up at the garage. He was getting so used to not seeing it, looking down the road to see the mechanic standing in front of the open garage doors for the occasional smoke break.

  This time, though, something was different. His car still wasn’t there, but there was a man walking, stumbling down the center of the road.

  The man wasn’t drunk, but there was something off to how the man moved. Rob had taken enough people to the drunk tank, watched enough late night brawls and people stumbling to their cars to recognize the walk. There was something different to how this man moved. It was like, well…he wasn’t sure exactly what it was like. It was lurching and unsure. The man was trying to test his limbs and wasn’t sure how to move on them. He would shuffle his feet forward…one, then the other…then he would lose his balance. Instead of a man who would pick up his feet and stumble forward to regain his balance, this man would just stop and sway.

  “Huh, I hadn’t heard anything about a Zombie Walk going on in town? Man, the guy seems to be lost.”

  Rob looked back at the larger man behind the bar. He was pretty sure he had introduced himself as Sullivan. He’d been decent, quiet, and had kept the soda’s coming. Other than that, Rob had barely noticed the guy, but when he looked at him now, he saw more of the unkempt hair that trickled out from under the hat, and the few days of stubble. He wore glasses, but they didn’t look right on his face, like they were slightly askew. The bartender was looking past Rob and out the door.

  “A what?” Rob asked, surprised.

  “A Zombie Walk. Get a bunch of people together, they dress up like zombies, and walk around a neighborhood. Jason and I went to one up in Chicago last year around Halloween. Lot of fun. Even had an officer pull up to us and warn the passing pedestrians to beware of zombies. Even they got into it.” Sullivan was smiling, and Rob had a sense that the man was reliving past memories.

  Rob found that the idea of people dressing up as zombies and walking around hard to believe. Just what was the world coming to? He remembered zombies as a part of late night television or some crappy movie in the theater. He turned back to look at the “zombie”, his skepticism growing. He had been a Chicago officer for a number of years and had never even heard of anything like that. Maybe it had just not been a part of his beat, but he just couldn’t see the appeal.

  Was he really getting that old?

  He tried to imagine what he would have done if he would have come upon the group back in his Chicago days. He probably wouldn’t have done too much, as long as they weren’t hurting anything or bothering anyone. He doubted he would have played into the fantasy, but if he was having a good day… Hell, why not.

  And, sure enough, the guy outside was doing a good job of impersonating a zombie. That walk was definitely reminiscent of what he guessed it would look like if a dead man rose up and tried to figure out how to walk again. Now that Sullivan had said something, Rob realized what it was that had been bothering him about the person. The clothes the man wore looked rugged. Rob couldn’t see the make-up the man was wearing, but what he could make out looked good, at least from a distance.

  “I wonder why he’s all by himself, unless he’s lost,” Sullivan said. He was now looking intently down the street.

  Rob looked back at him, asking, “Why do you say that?”

  Sullivan shrugged. “The whole point of doing a Zombie Walk is to do it with a group. Get some friends together or meet new people with similar interests, then do the walk.”

  “Probably some kids getting together and shooting their own film,” Bruce said just before upending his can of soda and setting it back down on the edge of the bar.

  Tina, who seemed to move out from the shadows of the hallway, grabbed the can to toss it in the recycling shoot that lead to the basement, then went to the cooler to grab another. Rob only glanced at her briefly, but he could still see how messed up she was. There was clear indication of shock.

  What the hell happened to her, he thought. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could just make out the start of a nasty set of bruises around her neck. It was the kind of bruising someone got from being choked. He had seen it too many times. He didn’t like seeing it on her, but she wasn’t talking.

  Rob turned back to the man outside and saw that the people in the bar weren’t the only ones who had seen the man walking down the street. The mechanic Rob had spoken to just about an hour ago had been coming out of his garage and had noticed the man. He was now walking over to him.

  His instincts tugged at him, and before he realized what he was doing, he moved forward. His hands had a mind of their own as he reached out towards the door. Something was pushing him to go outside and get a closer look. A voice in the back of his head screamed that something was wrong. There was a growing growl pushing in, and a knocking of drums pounding behind his temples. There was a taint to the air. Darkness pushed in from the corner of his vision. Something was out there, and he had no other word for it. It was just a wrongness.

  The growling grew louder, pausing Rob’s hand on the door. Before he could back away from it, there was a roar of a loud engine. It barely had time to register before he saw it at the intersection. The car whipped around a turn, gravel flying and wheels squealing as they spun. The car was fishtailing and just barely missed hitting the telephone pole on the other side of the street. Then the wheels found some grip on the asphalt and it sped out of view, moving fast past the bar.

  “Shit,” the redneck muttered, standing behind Rob. Rob looked back and saw he was already walking towards the back door when a fiery redhead, one of the shortest Rob had ever seen, was coming in. She was a slightly larger woman when it compared to her height, but seeing the little package that she carried in one of her arms, Rob guessed it had more to do with recently giving birth. She was hot, fired up, and screaming as she came into the bar.

  “What the hell do you think you are doin’?! This isn’t some job. This isn’t work. In fact, it looks more like you are spending money. Just what the hell do you think you are doing? We can’t afford this! We can’t afford you spending the money I’m making as fast as I make it. Until you get another damn job, you don’t have a cent to waste up here in this s
hithole.”

  Rob winced from the tongue-lashing, and he could tell right away where it was aimed. He was glad it wasn’t aimed at him, as just being near the target was hard to bare. She whipped those words around so fast and furious, the redneck had stopped in mid-step and now looked like he was ready to turn tail.

  “Get home.” He scowled back at her, somehow finding his backbone.

  Damn. Rob knew that wasn’t the right answer. He also knew that this wasn’t going to be pretty.

  The woman glared at him, then at the rest of the people in the bar.

  Everyone, including Rob, went back to the bar, taking their seats and trying to act as though there weren’t two rival nations about to have an all-out nuclear war right there in the bar. It was obvious they were all having a hard time not looking. Rob could feel heat radiating from the pair.

  “Get home?” Her voice was booming off the wood paneling of the small bar, the room suddenly not feeling large enough for the two people standing in its center. “Get home?! You get your own ass home. You need to get home, or get a damn job. I have worked all week, then I come home and have to clean up after you, clean up at night and all damn weekend, when you are supposed to be there!”

  In the large mirror behind the bar, Rob could see the redneck clenching his fists and looking like he was just moments away from doing something that Rob didn’t think he could just sit there and watch. He caught Bruce’s eye and, in that second, he could see the concern on the trucker’s face, and Rob had a feeling Bruce was about to do something, too.

  The redneck started to shift, and his hand was coming up. “ h-” he was saying, but his words were cut off by a scream from outside. It wasn’t a normal afternoon funfilled scream from the days many cookouts or other outside events. Rob had heard this scream before. This was desperate, death at the end of it, and before it would get there, pain was its best friend.

  * * * *

  Hammond was a town like so many others in the Midwest. A town where the church to bar ratio was about the same, and the drunk that was falling down as they tried to find their way to their car would be standing next to you in church. That woman who had been with everyone in town, working her way from one guy to the next for sexual pleasure, would be singing soprano in the choir, and that guy who cheated you on some deal would be the usher passing around the collection plate. Hammond was a town where church was a place for the sinners to feel like they could get saved for taking an hour out of their time one day a week.

  Was that all religion was, though? A place to feel like a person could get saved? Was there not any actual salvation out there? When the end came, when the rapture struck and pulled forth the righteous, was it the Sunday wannabes who would be a part of it and would that one day dedication truly be enough?

  When the end came, what would happen? Who would be left? Who would be saved to fight the evil in the streets? If the righteous were called, would anyone remaining even try to fight the evil that would wash over the land, or would they see it for what it was?

  They had to know. They had to be able to find their way to God. There had to be a way to help them, to make them see. There had to be a way to make them find the light. The stench of hell, the maggots that rotted the meat and ate the corpses was rising. Death was rising. There had to be a way to save them. There had to be a way into the light.

  “Please, Lord, help me! Help them find the light!” Father Carpenter said. He was stumbling. He knew his feet and his legs were week below him. He walked on them, but they just didn’t feel like they were his anymore. There was so much going on with his head, so many thoughts and images flowing through him, that he felt like his body couldn’t control itself.

  He remembered he had left the church and had taken to walking down the street. It was bright outside, and he relished being a part of the light. He knew the light was faint, though, as there was a darkness that tinted it. There was an evil growing. He had felt it. He had seen it when that creature had infected Cynthia and she had smelled of its foulness. It had tainted his church and he had known he had to get out of there. He wasn’t yet sure where he needed to go, but he just had known that he needed to go.

  He had to be a part of God’s plan. He had to get clean. He needed to wash away his sins and get clean. God needed him, was calling to him, and the good father had many sins he needed to wash away. Cynthia had only been one of his sins, but what about all the ones that came before her? He needed to wash them all away.

  “And some say the world will end in fire!” he heard himself call out. Fire! He had seen it in his nightmares. A fire was coming. It was going to burn them all away. It was going to cleanse the wicked. It was coming for them all. God had once washed away the wicked. He had been a more wrathful God then. He was supposed to be a God of peace and love now, of forgiveness. God forgave the sinners. He had given his son to them. He had saved them. All he needed was forgiveness.

  Forgiveness for sin. Oh, how he sinned. The images of the forbidden flesh flashed before him. As he ran his hands along her smooth skin, he remembered that it was gentle and soft, and his hands had felt so rough against it. The bareness, the pink softness, the wetness as he had moved his hands along her different regions. He had broken his vows, but God forgives, and God had to forgive him.

  “Some say the world will end in fire,” he said again. He had seen it. The fire was coming. It would take them all, and they were all going to burn.

  Around him, he heard screaming. It was a horrible sound, and his chest clenched tight as he knew that God’s wrath had begun.

  CHAPTER 8

  His heart beat viciously inside him, pounding out a crescendo of agony. It pounded so hard and fierce, it felt like it was trying to break free, escape the torture around him. Its intensity pained him, burning through his body, and pushing his ragged breath out in gasps. His face was hot, and he felt his skin tingling and on fire.

  He could feel he was still alive just in the amount of pain he was in, both from the scrapes and cuts from falling off the porch, and from the emotional pain he felt inside that threatened to lock him down into a ball. He was thankful for the physical pain because he knew if he wasn’t feeling it, he would be feeling nothing but emptiness, and that would be worse. He would be left with the hollowness, his world falling into that of a gray void. One where he would just give up, roll into that ball, and let it trap him.

  But if he allowed himself to fall into the black hole consuming his emotions, he knew he would never escape. If he just gave in, let himself be pulled into that pit, he would never break free. He would stay there, cocooned in his own pit of despair, and would let the dangers around him consume him. He would have been balled up, crying, and back to being that nine-year-old boy who would always lock himself in his room whenever his parents were fighting.

  His tires screeched and he could feel the car shifting gears. As he took the turn, the right side pulled itself up and he knew the tires were nearly off the ground. He felt like he shouldn’t have slowed for the turn, but knew if he had taken it any faster, he would have lost control. It was still threatening to roll over and he had to fight to keep control. Just breathe, calm down. He needed to get control of himself, just as much as he needed to keep control of his car. He was losing it.

  That thing back there… That couldn’t have been his sister.

  He needed to get help.

  What the hell was happening?

  Too many thoughts and images of what had just happened were trying to storm through his mind. All of it was firing through him, and he couldn’t figure out which he wanted or didn’t want to see more. Images kept blinding him, as he would see them nearly as clear as the road he drove on. With each flash, another tear rolled down his cheek.

  He was driving. He couldn’t be thinking about any of them now.

  He had to get help. He had to get the cops. He had seen one cop rushing into the Rowplex when he was driving back home, but he didn’t know he would still be there. How long had he be
en at his house? It couldn’t have been that long. Would the cop still be there? He had to still be there.

  He saw the stop sign up ahead and knew he had to turn left. The street was a dead end, and directly across from the stop sign was a house.

  Susan. It was Susan’s house. Susan, his mind was spinning and it seemed like suddenly he could only think of her. He thought of when he had spent time there as a kid. He thought of them when they were just about to go into kindergarten. He had spent the night at her house. It was his first sleepover. They had played… What was that game? His mind tried to remember the name of it. Something with them spinning around on a disc, giggling.

  Come on, Jason. Get it together. Focus on driving. Pull your head out of your ass before you end up in Susan’s living room. What did it matter if she was still away at school or not? Damn, he needed to pay attention.

  He didn’t want to pay attention. Paying attention would mean having to remember that he was running from something, and if he was running from something, he would have to remember what it was. But he didn’t want to remember what that was. He didn’t want to remember who that was.

  No! He wasn’t running from her. He was running to get help for her.

  The street quickly came to another stop sign. He would have to turn to the right and, again, he didn’t wait to stop. He turned the wheel hard and felt the wheels slide as they hit the loose gravel in the center of the intersection. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about flipping the car. He was good at maneuvering out of a fishtail. He could control this. If he just stayed and fought for control, he would eventually win, then he could focus.

  The car straightened out and, this time, he couldn’t avoid it. He saw her, his sister, in his memory.

  * * * *

  When she had come through the window, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. He backpedaled. He didn’t definitely know it was her. All he saw was a mop of wild hair breaking through the window to come for him. He had only a second to wonder how she had been able to break through it before his foot stepped back into nothingness.