Rabid by J.W. Bouchard Read Free Book Online

superstition of mine.  I used to figure if I admitted to believing in them that they would leave me alone.  It’s silly, but I was afraid of the dark for a long time.  An overactive imagination or something.  So part of the ritual when I was a kid was to line up my stuffed animals around me on the bed.  That and I’d put the thought out there to any monsters that I believed that they were out there.  It sounds stupid now, but it worked back then.”
    “I think it’s kind of cute,” Tina said.  She patted him on the arm.  “I had a bunch of stuffed animals, too.  Dolphins mostly.”
    “I haven’t even gotten to the really fucked up part yet,” Carl said.
    “You just can’t leave it alone can you?”
    “Don’t be a poor sport, bro.  You were the one who was just saying humor is a survival mechanism.  So I’m being humorous.  Besides, she wants to know.  Don’t you?”
    “I’m hanging off the edge of my seat.”
    “Right.  So ask him where those stuffed animals are now?”
    “Where?”
    “In our parent’s attic.  My mom has brought up selling them at the garage sale every year, but Taylor refuses to get rid of them.  They’re all up in the attic in this big black garbage bag.”
    “I’m sentimental,” Taylor said.  “Thought I could pass them on to my kids some day.  Assuming I ever have kids.”
    Tina smiled at him.  He wondered if she was just being polite.  She looked so beautiful yet vulnerable sitting there on the floor. 
    Another hour passed.  Conversation was sporadic, and after a while they grew tired of raising their voices over the pounding on the door.  For brief periods, the pounding would change tempo, alternating between loud and fast to soft and slow.  Were they taking turns out there? 
    Without proper treatment, rabies was almost always fatal.  If he remembered right, there was only one case of a person surviving the disease without treatment, and even that had been a long and drawn out affair.  How long could those things outside last?  If the radio had it right and the disease was related to rabies, shouldn’t they start to keel over?  At some point, he hoped.  And he hoped it was soon. 
    He was tired and hungry.
    “If either of you want to sleep,” he said, “now would be the time to do it.  I can keep watch for a little while.  We can rotate if you guys want.  Take shifts.”
    Tina said, “I don’t think I could sleep with all this commotion.  Every time I close my eyes I see Mr. Sullivan and that squirrel.”  Despite this, several minutes later she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.  Whether she managed to find sleep or not, Taylor couldn’t tell, but she seemed momentarily at peace with the situation. 
    Carl yawned.  The machete still rested across his lap and he tapped his fingers against the blade, his fingernails making faint clicking sounds against the cheap metal.
    “That goes for you, too.  If you want, get some sleep.  You can fight it for a while, but you’ve got to do it some time.  Might as well be now.  If I feel myself start to drift off I’ll wake you up.”
    “I’m hungrier than I am tired.  We haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.  That was how long ago?  Sixteen hours now?”
    “Something like that.”
    “We could still sneak out the front.”
    “And what good would that do?  The only car we’ve seen so far is behind that door.  At least for the time being we’re relatively safe in here.  As long as their attention is back there instead of up front.  If we go out there?”  Taylor shrugged his shoulders.  “Who knows?”
    Carl stared at him wearily.  The light from the kerosene lamp cast moving shadows across his face.  “Who would have thought, huh?  You see TV shows about stuff like this, but who knew it would actually happen?  When you think about it, it’s some crazy shit.”  He yawned again, this time covering his mouth with his fist.  “I could