10

REVELATION 6:8

And Hell followed with him.

~ * ~

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his temple, slow and thick, as though a heavy drop of blood had dripped from the ceiling. As it disappeared into his hairline, Alex felt another creep along the trail left by the first; twenty-five degrees in here and he was lying on a perspiration-soaked sleeping bag.

Enough, Alex decided. He crawled from the bag and stepped cautiously to the door of the small office in which he had stayed last night with Deb. He was fully clothed; last night had been the sole exception to that since he'd decided a year ago last October that he'd live longer if he "disappeared" from what was left of the rest of the world. Now he crept to a window in the corner that was partially blocked by a bookcase stuffed with dust-covered law books; it would hide him on the left but not block his view of the plaza below. Still, he knew not to get too close to the glass; he hadn't made it this long by being careless. The world beyond the building was a cold, uniform gray, bleak and not at all beautiful in its winter fury; the plaza itself seemed to float like some stagnant pool long since leeched of color. Although it was still snowing, Alex thought he could sense a letup in the storm's energy.

He wondered what Deb was doing. Was she cold, lonely—did she even miss him? After all this time, knowing her and loving her last night was like dangling water in front of a man who hadn't realized he was dying of thirst. His last feeling of warmth had been kissing his parents good-bye as they left to visit his mom's older brother in Utah—another foolish mistake. In the midst of the disappearances that were sweeping the city, he’d never heard from them again. He should have kept them close, as well as the teenage twins, Daryl and Jeff, and his . . .

Grandmother.

Bitter guilt flared. He hadn't told Deb about that. While she had killed a man in self-preservation, it had been a stranger, at least justifying the act somewhat. His grandmother, snarling with a newfound hunger, had come home to her son's house for her first meal, and thank God his parents hadn't been there to witness the foul-smelling carnage as he'd chalked up his first kill on the machete. He'd almost given up then: Daryl and Jeff would be coming; they had telephoned the evening before to tell him they were going out to look for several missing friends. Standing over the disintegrating mass that had been his own flesh and blood, Alex had known that another couple of hours would bring the "Disaster Duo," as he'd called the twins since grammar school, home for dinner. It was his responsibility to stay and release them from the hell in which they'd become trapped.

Alex fled.

There had been no one to see his shame then, but now? He just wanted to get the hell out of this building and go to Deb, and be damned with that stupid promise he'd made.

A break in the wind offered a suddenly unobstructed view of the plaza, and goose flesh rippled up Alex's spine at the footprints stretching across the snow, stumbling blotches interspersed with larger holes and loops, as if the walker had fallen more out of laziness than weakness. Alex inched closer to the glass, holding his breath to keep from fogging its cold surface, straining for a better view. The wind gusted again, then stopped; before the next wave of snow could slap the glass, Alex quickly followed the tracks across the plaza until they vanished directly below and out of his range of vision. He cracked his knuckles thoughtfully, mentally rechecking his lockup this afternoon. Another blast of snow against the glass pulled his attention back outside. Beneath the howling of the storm Alex thought he heard something else then, a fluttering—

He flung himself to the floor just as a black, tattered creature resembling a man-sized bat clawed and clung its way across the window directly outside the spot in which Alex had been standing only a second earlier. Was it the same one that had terrified them the night before, checking its territory like a starving wolf? Alex had no intention of tapping on the glass and asking.

Alex lay with his face and hands hugging the icy floor. Jesus! he thought as his heart whammed in his chest. If this is what I'm going through, what's happening to Deb?