The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [22]
Chapter 12
“Shit!” I unlock the door and run out onto the driveway without thinking. Everything I have is in that car—everything I need to survive. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like there are two people in the Subaru. The driver sees me running toward them, and he starts to back out faster. I can hear Tank right behind me, barking like crazy at the car. I keep running. I don’t know what I think I’m going to do—throw myself on the windshield? But I can’t just watch all those supplies drive away.
The passenger looks like a young girl, no older than me for sure. As the car swings out onto the street, she looks straight at me from the passenger-side window. At first she just shrugs at me and shakes her head in response to my screaming, but then, when I get closer to the car, she rolls down the window and sticks out a gun. Without a single second’s hesitation, she shoots at me. The sound of the gun scares me almost as much as the bullet I feel whiz past my face. I am frozen to the spot, and I see her point the gun again, this time at Tank.
“Tank!” I yell as loud as I can, and between the split second Tank hesitates and the forward motion of the car, the bullet misses. The Subaru speeds down the road and away. The last thing I see of it are the taillights as it turns onto the main road.
I’m not sure how, but I end up on the ground. Tank is licking my face and whining, and all I can do is hold my head and try to stop the ringing in my ears from the shots. I feel completely defeated. I have no idea what I’m going to do now.
“Best get inside, boy. They might be comin’ back.”
I’m back on my feet in a second, although I almost fall over trying to get my balance. An old gray-haired man is standing on the sidewalk in front of the Holzers’ house. He’s holding a gun down at his side with one hand and ruffling the fur on Tank’s head with his other. Tank abandoned me as soon as he saw him.
“You’re a good dog, Tank, always have been.” The man turns to go, then swings back to me, his reluctance clear in the way he has to force his body to switch directions.
“Listen, you got enough to eat in there?” He doesn’t look like he’s going to wait long for an answer.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Doug’s dad.”
When I shake my head, he nods toward the house next to the Holzers’. “Doug Gannon. He lives in that house with his wife and kids. I was on my way to come visit, see the grandkids, when all this shit came down. I got here and they was already gone.”
An engine roars on the main road. The man shakes his head. “No time to talk right now. People’s crazy out there, and gettin’ crazier. We shouldn’t be out here in the open. Listen, let me get a couple things and I’ll come by. I’ll knock the SOS code so you’ll know it’s me.”
He hurries away, and I hear the door to the house shut. The engine revs again in the distance, and I realize I’d better take the old man’s advice and get off the street.
“Come on, Tank.” Tank looks back in the direction the guy went and whines. But he follows me back to the front door of the Holzers’. I lock it and turn the deadbolt, but it doesn’t seem like enough. So I drag the buffet from the dining room into the living room and shove it up against the door. It’s pretty heavy; it might buy some time if someone were trying to break in.
I slump on the couch, absently scratching Tank’s head while I try to think. What the hell do I do now? My whole plan to get to the city is screwed, all of my food supplies are gone save what’s left in this house, and people with guns know I’m here.
My backpack is leaning against the couch half open, and I see a folded scrap of pink paper inside. I know what it says,