thing. That would be the blood. There was blood everywhere. And dead people. Heaps of them. Danny’s mind was reeling as she swallowed these huge chunks of information. Danny remembered all the people running. She couldn’t remember why. There weren’t many children among the dead here, probably because children simply couldn’t run as far before they fell down dead.
She made her way to her feet and approached the nearest car, a station wagon. Shone the flashlight inside. Nobody there. In the next car she could see the outline of a driver, head tipped forward against the steering wheel. And there was the Toyota truck with the giant tires. Danny struggled to remember why it angered her, then she remembered it had something to do with the upside-down Explorer. This was as much deduction as anything else; the truck was climbed up onto the bent-over guardrail right aboutwhere the Explorer went down. She approached the truck on unsteady legs, stepping over dead limbs sprawled on the pavement.
The Toyota driver was slumped against the B pillar, wedged between the door and the seat. Somebody had shot him through the windshield. Lucky shot. Not much penetration on those angled safety-glass windshields. A lot of people had died in their vehicles, but not from gunshot wounds. Danny’s light found them in almost every other car, usually slumped forward or flopped across the backseats. Then Danny realized the loud droning sound she heard in her ears wasn’t from the blow to the head. It was the sound of thousands of dead people slumped against the horn buttons on their steering wheels. If the horns were still going, that meant it could only be a few hours since Danny lost consciousness. Otherwise the batteries would have died. But it had been afternoon, last Danny could remember. Maybe around five o’clock. She’d been out of commission for at least five hours…Why she was alive when so many others were dead, Danny could not imagine. But she was not grateful for it. It was high time she got back to Forest Peak and found out what the hell she’d missed.
6
By the time Danny made it halfway to town, she was pretty sure she was the only living human being left on earth. The dead lay three deep on the roadway. Not far from the beginning of Main Street, she saw the tan shirt and brown pants of a deputy among the corpses littering the road. She turned him over with her toe. It was Deputy Dave. His face was slack, one eye wide open, the other half-closed. He hadn’t made it far before he died, unlike some of the other victims.
If this thing was a disease, Danny thought, maybe she shouldn’t be touching the corpses. Or be anywhere near them. But she wasn’t up to a hike through the woods. And if she wasn’t dead yet, the worst was probably over. Danny passed the first couple of houses in town without seeing them, dark and silent under the trees. No auto horns blaring in town. Maybe nobody had died in their cars here. Maybe someone had moved the corpses off the steering wheels.
Danny passed the first commercial building in town, the one with the real estate office and the VFW she’d never been into, although she was eligible. The whole place was dark, even the apartments upstairs. The street lights were working, so it wasn’t a blackout. Nobody had turned on the lights. All the way down the street there was darkness in the windows, except for a couple of shops and the gymnasium way down at the far end: Danny could see the side door was open, a rectangle of greenish fluorescent light.
Beneath the street lights there were more cars parked helter-skelter or abandoned where they stood, doors hanging open. And on the ground, everywhere she looked, more bodies. They lay under the lights and in the shadows, most of them face-down, most of them with their heads pointed to the north. They had died running. Danny switched off her flashlight and thought her boots had never sounded so loud on Main Street.
She was too late. She wondered
She made her way to her feet and approached the nearest car, a station wagon. Shone the flashlight inside. Nobody there. In the next car she could see the outline of a driver, head tipped forward against the steering wheel. And there was the Toyota truck with the giant tires. Danny struggled to remember why it angered her, then she remembered it had something to do with the upside-down Explorer. This was as much deduction as anything else; the truck was climbed up onto the bent-over guardrail right aboutwhere the Explorer went down. She approached the truck on unsteady legs, stepping over dead limbs sprawled on the pavement.
The Toyota driver was slumped against the B pillar, wedged between the door and the seat. Somebody had shot him through the windshield. Lucky shot. Not much penetration on those angled safety-glass windshields. A lot of people had died in their vehicles, but not from gunshot wounds. Danny’s light found them in almost every other car, usually slumped forward or flopped across the backseats. Then Danny realized the loud droning sound she heard in her ears wasn’t from the blow to the head. It was the sound of thousands of dead people slumped against the horn buttons on their steering wheels. If the horns were still going, that meant it could only be a few hours since Danny lost consciousness. Otherwise the batteries would have died. But it had been afternoon, last Danny could remember. Maybe around five o’clock. She’d been out of commission for at least five hours…Why she was alive when so many others were dead, Danny could not imagine. But she was not grateful for it. It was high time she got back to Forest Peak and found out what the hell she’d missed.
6
By the time Danny made it halfway to town, she was pretty sure she was the only living human being left on earth. The dead lay three deep on the roadway. Not far from the beginning of Main Street, she saw the tan shirt and brown pants of a deputy among the corpses littering the road. She turned him over with her toe. It was Deputy Dave. His face was slack, one eye wide open, the other half-closed. He hadn’t made it far before he died, unlike some of the other victims.
If this thing was a disease, Danny thought, maybe she shouldn’t be touching the corpses. Or be anywhere near them. But she wasn’t up to a hike through the woods. And if she wasn’t dead yet, the worst was probably over. Danny passed the first couple of houses in town without seeing them, dark and silent under the trees. No auto horns blaring in town. Maybe nobody had died in their cars here. Maybe someone had moved the corpses off the steering wheels.
Danny passed the first commercial building in town, the one with the real estate office and the VFW she’d never been into, although she was eligible. The whole place was dark, even the apartments upstairs. The street lights were working, so it wasn’t a blackout. Nobody had turned on the lights. All the way down the street there was darkness in the windows, except for a couple of shops and the gymnasium way down at the far end: Danny could see the side door was open, a rectangle of greenish fluorescent light.
Beneath the street lights there were more cars parked helter-skelter or abandoned where they stood, doors hanging open. And on the ground, everywhere she looked, more bodies. They lay under the lights and in the shadows, most of them face-down, most of them with their heads pointed to the north. They had died running. Danny switched off her flashlight and thought her boots had never sounded so loud on Main Street.
She was too late. She wondered
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