Dead of Night (Dead of Night 1)

God … how far gone am I?

How do I even know if I’m crazy or just in shock?

At the corner of Rempel’s trailer she paused. Her own double-wide was sixty feet across open ground. No cover except for some flower gardens that had withered in the cold and were now beaten flat by the rain. She was about to sprint for it when she saw a figure come walking out from between her trailer and her neighbor’s.

It was a teenager. One of the Murphy twins from the F-section of the park. He was dressed in jeans and a white sweatshirt. No shoes or coat. Even from twenty yards Dez could tell that he was dead. The realization drove a knife into her heart.

The twins were thirteen. Still kids.

She raised her pistol and aimed. The distance was far too great for an accurate shot, but she suddenly found herself running forward, the gun leading the way, her feet making the quick, small steps she was taught in the military. Large steps jolt and jerk the body, spoiling aim; small steps roll the body forward, keeping the gun level. She ran toward the boy and, as he turned toward her and began to reach, Dez fired a single shot from eight feet away. It took the boy in the forehead, blowing an apple-sized chunk out of the back of his head as the impact snapped the child’s neck.

Even with the roar of the rain muffling the blast, the gunshot seemed too loud. It would draw them. She knew that for a fact, which meant that she had just blown a hole in her own future.

Hurry, you bitch.

She ran to her trailer, jammed the key in the lock, opened the door, jumped in, and shut and locked the door behind her.

* * *

Byron Rempel sat on the floor, dead but newly awake, inert because there was no prey to follow, when Desdemona Fox ran past the open doorway.

The sight of her. The smell of her. The living reality of her triggered a response in the parasitic hive mind that now ruled his body. It was not a thought, merely a reaction. An impulse to follow, to attack, to feed, and to transfer larvae to a new host. To another host. One of many.

Rempel and Mrs. O’Grady struggled to their feet and shuffled slowly out of the trailer, following the scent of fresh meat. Other figures emerged from trailers all along the path the running woman had taken.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

SWEET PARADISE TRAILER PARK

The trailer was dark. There was no backup generator, no emergency lights.

Dez unclipped her flashlight and used its beam to find the stove. It was gas, so she lit all four burners. The light filled the kitchen and dining room. She fished in the cabinets until she found a box of candles. She didn’t have any of the thick girlie-girl scented candles. All she had were thin colored candles left over from JT’s birthday, so she lit those and carried a fistful of them into her bedroom. Since she couldn’t hold them all and do what she had to do, she grabbed her metal trashcan and dropped the candles on the balled-up tissues, used makeup sponges, torn-up bills, and a card from Billy Trout that she had thrown away unopened. The tissues caught right away and then the rest, throwing bright yellow light into the room.

Dez set the can down on the bedroom carpet, fished in her pocket for her keys, and fumbled the right one into the lock. The Yale clicked open and Dez lifted the lid.

It was all there. Handguns in wooden boxes. Shotguns. Hunting rifles with scopes. Stacked boxes of bullets. Knives. Everything.

For the first time in hours, Dez Fox smiled.

And then the dead began banging their pale fists against the walls and windows of her trailer.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

DOLL FACTORY ROAD

Billy Trout drove across town like a madman. At the corner of Doll Factory and Meetinghouse Road he saw a National Guard Humvee.

“Thank God,” he breathed. Guardsmen were mostly local guys, if not from Stebbins then at least from this part of the state. If anyone would understand, they would; and if anyone had the resources to turn this thing around, they would. The feds might be willing to wipe Stebbins off the face of the earth, but he did not believe that of ordinary guys.

The soldiers turned at the sound of his horn. Trout flashed his brights at them. He was looking for a sign, a wave, a smile. Anything.

The soldiers leveled their weapons at him.

Trout slowed the car, still forty yards from them.

He tooted the horn again.

There was a two second pause as the Guardsmen bent their heads together to consult. Trout began to smile.