The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.34 Herd Instinct

June 16, 1:45 pm

"Pil, we need to keep moving," Billy whispered.

"I know, Billy. Just give us a minute..."

Keith looked drawn and pale. He sank down onto the curb, resting his injured arms carefully on his bent knees. Pil knelt next to him, and as Billy glanced around nervously, the two men talked about what to do next. They were deep in discussion, but Billy wasn't listening. All of his senses were on fire, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something big had shifted. No longer were they walking through a ghost town. He now sensed movement, and danger, lurking in every shadow and behind every locked door.

"Pil, I really think we need to go. We're very vulnerable here..."

"I know, but Keith needs to rest a minute."

Billy couldn't dispute that. There were beads of sweat on the chubby man's forehead, and his fingers were quivering where they stuck out of the ace bandages that covered his arms and hands. Billy could see that he'd picked up a shard of the shattered safety glass from the SUV that Pil called Big Bird, and he was rolling it back and forth between his thumb and index finger like a diamond. The look in Keith's eyes said that the OxyContin he had taken was wearing off, and he was in ever-increasing pain.

"Maybe we should break into one of these houses and look for some car keys," Keith suggested. "There are still a few cars on the street. Or maybe there's one in a garage."

"I think that would be risky, K," Pil said, scanning the silent houses around them. "I'm sure that a lot of these houses are full of the dead, which would be... bad." He furrowed his brow. "Or the living, which could be even worse."

Billy knew Pil was right. The Avenues were feeling less like an abandoned suburb, and more like a battlefield under siege. They needed to keep moving.

As Keith and Pil continued to discuss their options, Billy saw a figure at the end of the block behind them that he instinctively knew was one of Drouillard's angels. The ghost looked like a nurse or a medical student in crisp and clean scrubs. She was young, with her hair piled on top of her head in a neat knot. The horned rimmed glasses on her face were stylish, but a throwback to a half century before, and her scrubs showed no sign of violence. Billy watched the woman silently moving through the street and around the abandoned cars, but fortunately she didn't pay any attention to the trio on the sidewalk. She stopped as if she was listening for signs of life from the surrounding houses, and when she heard one, she darted quickly through a closed front door and disappeared.

The sound of a muffled scream from inside the house shocked Pil and Keith into silence. Slowly, Keith reached up and gripped Pil's hand, and the trio stared down the street behind them. Billy thought of telling Pil and Keith about the ghost in the scrubs, but saw no point in it.

"We need to go," Billy said, his voice as steady as he could make it.

Pil and Billy looked at each other, and then Pil reached out and put his other hand on the back of Keith's shoulders. He helped his friend to his feet, and the trio once again began walking east—away from the house that Pil had shared with Michelle, and away from the sounds of death that were still coming from inside the house down the block.

"Did you see something?" Pil asked. "Was it one of... them?"

"Yes, I saw her," Billy answered.

"Do you see any more? Should we be worried?"

"Not yet. But I sense them. I think we're walking into a pocket that's... more dangerous. We're going to have to keep our wits about us and keep moving."

"Why are they here?" Pil asked. "I mean, why here, and not back from where we came?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe it's random. Or maybe they're drawn to where people are congregating."