Justin woke as soon as he heard the front door open. He had always been a light sleeper, and now, with the way things were, it had only gotten worse. He came upstairs and watched as his father walked off towards the clubhouse in the predawn quiet. He thought about following him, but first off it wasn’t much above five degrees out and he was in shorts and a tank top, and second, if his father wanted him along he would have come and gotten him. Justin’s dad was a former Marine, a strong disciplinarian and an anal compulsive man. If he wanted something done, he was not afraid to tell any of his kids to ‘get it done and get it done now.’ Knowing his dad like he did, Justin always thought it was funny how his father always deferred to his mother. Dad was the boss of the kids and Mom was the boss of Dad. That was the hierarchy. For the most part Mike Talbot had mellowed with age, but when something got him riled, all hell broke loose, and it would take all of Tracy’s calm demeanor to put the genie back in the bottle.
Justin turned back towards the kitchen to get a bottle of water when he noticed his father’s Blackberry lying on the table next to the sofa. Back in the ‘normal’ days, his dad had the Blackberry almost surgically attached to his hip. To see the phone was to see the man. Nowadays the phone was not much better than a paperweight. Cell service was sketchy at best. It wasn’t even worth carrying it. That was why Justin was puzzled when he saw a red light blinking, the telltale sign of a message waiting. This was intriguing to Justin. Sure, they still had electricity, thanks to a network of generators. But television was, for the most part, nonexistent, except for some news, and they weren’t broadcasting anything new. Telephones and cell phones were rapidly becoming instruments of the past.
Justin was tempted to wake his mother and see if she would listen to the message, but if it was a spectral collection call and he woke her for that, there would be hell to pay. He decided to wait a few minutes for his dad to return. When it didn’t look like that was going to happen right away, he figured he’d get some clothes on and track him down. Justin no sooner came up from the basement wearing more respectable seasonable clothing when he heard and then saw the tractor trailer head out the front gate. Without actually seeing his dad, he knew for a fact his father was on that truck.
“Dammit,” he muttered. This meant it was going to be the better part of the day before he found out what the message was…or from whom.
What if it’s Pops? he thought. Pops was his grandfather from back East. Nobody had heard from any of the East Coast Talbots since the zombie plague had begun. All the kids loved Pops. Where Dad was hard and angular, Pops was soft and easygoing. Not one of the kids could ever remember Pops raising his voice, unless of course it was to tell everyone that dinner was ready.
Only Mike knew differently. Pops Talbot had also been a Marine. If anything, Mike at this age was infinitely calmer than his father had been. Mike remembered the days of his youth. If he had been caught doing any one of the myriad of things his father considered inappropriate, his hands would be bleeding from the task of digging holes and then filling them back in. The kids thought Pops was a saint and Mike had no wish to smash their illusions. He loved the old man more than the Man Code would allow him to say, but the fact remained, he knew another side of the old man the kids didn’t.
Justin had never messed with his father’s phone, first because of the privacy issue. Mike had striven to drive that into all of his offspring. Trust is a sacred institution, and once it is shattered it is nearly impossible to put back together with the same integrity again. And second, because Mike probably would have been able to tell Justin was trying to listen to his messages by the way Justin would have had to position himself with his ear next to his dad’s hip pocket.
Mike also knew kids were curious by nature, if given the chance they would find all sorts of new and unusual ways to get into trouble. His goal had always been to remove as many opportunities as possible and, well, the rest will follow.
Justin didn’t think it would be a big breach of trust if he just checked the call log, and if it was Pop’s he could have his mom breach the code. Fumbling with the phone, Justin had a frozen moment of guilt and almost put the phone down, but his inquisitive mind wanted to know. What he saw disappointed him more than he thought possible. Something had been lost in the electronic netherworlds because the Blackberry screen only showed: “**u* **r* 7***2***5*”
Oh, that’s crap! he thought. He had finally built up enough pluck to even look at the screen and his reward was gibberish. Justin didn’t hesitate long—in for a dime, in for a dollar—so he pressed the voice mail button.
“…(Garble)…(static)…can’t…(static)….want….(garble)…fell…(dial tone).” ‘End of message, to save message press 7, to delete, press 9’. Without even thinking, Justin pressed 9. ‘Message deleted’, came the officious voice. ‘There are no new messages.’
Justin broke out into a cold sweat when he realized what he had just done. Oh crap, the old man’s gonna have my ass for this. He was half tempted to erase the call log and further hide his evidence of tampering, but he couldn’t do it.
The message may have been incomprehensible, but the voice was not. It was his Uncle Paul, not by blood ties…but maybe by something even stronger. His dad had known Uncle Paul for almost thirty years. They had grown up together in a small suburb outside of Boston. They had done everything together from playing football and baseball on the city and school teams to exploring an old Indian Burial ground aptly named Indian Hill. So when Paul’s family moved away in their sophomore year of high school, they had vowed to remain friends forever. But things for teens happen at a different pace than the rest of the world. There are girls and Friday nights and football and countless other distractions to keep them occupied. Sometimes the two friends would go for months at a time without communicating, always able to pick up the easy flow of conversation as if only hours had passed. So it was almost not even a surprise when the two realized that unbeknownst to the other, they had both applied for the same college, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For four years they did not so much ‘attend’ the school as they ‘frequented’ it. The two were much more interested in the social aspects of college rather than any educational benefits.
When Paul went on the five-year degree program, the two parted ways again. Mike, under some heavy lobbying from his then girlfriend, Laurie, moved to Colorado. After a few months of the ‘we are so grown up and in love’ phase, Laurie and Mike’s relationship soured by degrees until finally they broke up.
The break up affected Mike more than he had known. Booze was becoming more and more of a crutch to get through the lonely nights. After one intense drinking session and a 3:00 a.m. call to his friend, Paul flew out to Colorado. It had been eighteen months since they had seen each other but it might as well have been eighteen minutes. The deal was sealed. Mike packed up everything and drove back East to live with his friend Paul who now lived in New Hampshire.
Mike knew without a shadow of a doubt that Paul had saved his life by flying out to Colorado, just as surely as Mike had saved Paul’s by pulling him out of a burning car some years before. Living with Paul had begun Mike’s healing, but still the booze beckoned. Five years with the love of his life suddenly over was not easily forgotten. Mike knew he had to make a radical change, so when he came home one night and told Paul he had enlisted in the Marines. Paul nodded in understanding but internally was conflicted, if anything the two of them were peaceniks or, at worst, apathetic.
So once again the brothers from a different mother went their separate ways. For five years Mike lived in dirt and battled foreign enemies. Whenever he could, he would contact his friend Paul, just so he could be reminded there was a world still out there where being shot at every day was not the norm. If anything, this separation strengthened their bond.
It was during the Marines Corps days that Mike met, married and began a family with Tracy. Paul had also married and moved back to Massachusetts. So when Mike told Paul that he was bringing his family back to Massachusetts once his current tour was over, Paul had nearly giggled with glee, or at least as much as was acceptable by the Man Code. Mike was two months away from his discharge from the Marines when he received a disappointing call from Paul. Paul’s marriage had acidified. The break up was imminent. Paul decided he needed the comfort of his family, who had in the meantime moved to North Carolina. Mike was understandably disheartened.
For a couple of years Mike toiled at the family business in downtown Boston while Paul attempted what Humpty Dumpty had tried many years before. He began to put the pieces of his life back together. The two miscreants were able to get together a couple of times during this period and subsequently just tore the living crap out of their livers, reveling in the ‘good old days.’ It was after one of those lost weekends that Tracy announced to Mike that her father was terminally ill and she was moving back to her home state of Colorado with or without him. (Flash back to the part about who’s the boss.) The house was on the market the next day. Within a week the U-Haul was packed and the Talbots were heading out West.
Mike and Paul kept in more communication than they had during their previous hiatuses, so Mike knew almost right away when Paul became serious with his on again-off again girlfriend Erin. Erin was good people. She saw some excellent qualities in Paul and knew this was the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Paul, after already going through a nasty divorce, was not in so much of a rush. Erin, however, was skilled and patient in the ways of the heart. She didn’t push Paul, but she was wily enough to keep him on the hook. For three years they played this game of cat and mouse, Paul always thinking he was a word away from being able to break up and Erin believing she was a word away from getting his commitment.
When Erin got the call one July evening that her mother had been rushed to a hospital for life threatening injuries sustained in an auto collision, she knew her place was with her family. They just so happened to live in Colorado. Paul knew the score. He either went with Erin, and climbed a bunch of notches up the commitment ladder, or he walked away from a potentially beautiful union. This was not an easy decision for him. His first instinct had been to call Mike, who had been thrilled at the possibility that his lifelong friend might once again be within spitting distance. Mike did his best to temper the excitement in his voice during the phone conversation, but when they hung up he almost cackled with glee (see ‘Man Code’). In Paul’s mind he wasn’t sure if he was ready for this. Being that close to Mike, while not the ‘deciding’ factor, was certainly a ‘contributing’ one. Bars beware! The dynamic duo was once again about to be reunited. Paul and Erin finally made the ultimate leap, got hitched and moved into their own house. Mike and Paul didn’t get to see each other as often as they would hope, living only 9.98 miles away from each other, but they more than made up for it when they did.
Justin knew his dad loved Paul and Erin and that not knowing what had happened to his friends was weighing heavily upon him. Justin also knew the only thing keeping his dad from going to get Paul or find out his fate, was him. Well not just him, all the kids. Mike would not sacrifice the safety of his kids, not even for his ‘brother’ Paul. Justin decided there and then that if his father wouldn’t go get Paul because of the kids, then the kids were going to have to do it themselves.
Justin went downstairs and not very carefully shook his younger brother to alertness. Travis came up from the depths of sleep quicker than Justin had expected. He was barely able to avoid the bat as it swung dangerously close to his rib cage. Mike had given every one in the family a firearm to protect themselves if needed, but they were all expressly forbidden from having the firearm within arm’s length from where they slept. It was in the first seven seconds of being awakened that a person was not in complete control of their faculties, and Mike did not want any fatal accidents. Having other less lethal weapons at the ready was not discouraged; Mike had warned the family to wake somebody, including himself, from a safe distance. Justin in his haste and excitement had forgotten this rule and had almost paid dearly for it.
“What the hell, Travis, you almost crushed my ribs!” Justin yelled, in the grips of an adrenaline rush from his decision and partly from the added stimulation of having avoided the bat.
“Huh?” Travis asked as he sat up rubbing the torpidity from his eyes.
“We’re going to get Paul,” Justin said, barely able to hide the enthusiasm in his voice.
“Huh?” Travis responded. Apparently the lingering effects of his siesta had not been shaken off.
“Paul called,” Justin said.
That got Travis’ attention. “Uncle Paul called?” he asked excitedly. ‘Uncle Paul’ had always been a favorite of Travis’ because he was Paul’s godson. Something Paul would never let him forget. “How? The phones don’t even work!”
“I don’t know how, he left a message on Dad’s cell,” Justin answered.
“When does Dad want to leave?” Travis asked as he got out of bed and began to dress for the undertaking.
“Dad doesn’t know,” Justin said as he involuntarily lowered his eyes in guilt.
Travis stopped mid-way through putting his three-way tactical sling on as comprehension dawned on his face. “I don’t know which will make Dad more pissed, the fact that you checked his phone…or that you want to leave the complex,” Travis told his brother.
Justin sagged in resignation.
“So when do we leave?” Travis asked nonchalantly as he began to place spare shells in his multitude of pockets.
Justin whooped with glee, and then caught himself and lowered his voice. “I want to leave now, but I want to get Brendon in on this.”
“Can’t,” Travis said. “You wake Brendon, he wakes Nicole, Nicole gets Mom, we go nowhere.”
“Shit, I hate it when you’re right,” Justin said. “But I wanted Brendon to drive his truck. If we take Dad’s Jeep on top of everything else he’d probably just shoot us without ever asking questions.”
“He won’t shoot me,” Travis said beaming. “I won’t be driving.”
Justin let a sickly smile ghost across his lips. Taking the Jeep was by far the worst offense of the many offenses he was about to commit.
Tommy came in a minute later, a trail of Kit-Kat crumbs marking his passage. “Whatcha guys doing?” he asked, spraying peanut buttery goodness everywhere.
“Kit-Kats?” Travis asked. “We have Kit-Kats?”
“Weef did,” Tommy said, spreading his chocolatey smile.
“Hey, Tommy,” Justin said. Concern laced his thoughts. It would not be easy getting out of the house quietly with Tommy asking all sorts of questions. “Did you just get up to get a snack?” He was hoping that Tommy was merely getting a little bite before going back to sleep. Tommy was famous for sleeping in, so much so that all of his shifts at Walmart started no earlier than 1:00 p.m. For him to be up before the sunrise was an anomaly.
“Well I was sleeping good, right?” Tommy started. “I was dreaming about working at Walmart before the deadheads came. You remember the time, Justin, when they were moving that huge pallet of Halloween candy and it tipped over.”
Justin didn’t remember; that incident happened six months before he had started, but he nodded anyway. His being there wasn’t relevant to the story.
“I was happy no one was hurt, but I was SO happy the candy got all smooshed. Joey the manager said I could have all that I could carry. Ended up I could carry a LOT.” Tommy was smiling at his remembrance.
“Didn’t Joe get in trouble for that? “Justin asked. “Something about having to return the damaged goods for inventory control.”
Tommy’s smile faded a bit at the memory of his friend getting in trouble, but slowly spread again as he said “Yeah, but I sure could carry a lot!”
“That’s a good dream, Tommy,” Justin said, trying to hurry Tommy along and hopefully back to bed.
Tommy wasn’t having any of it. Justin would be more likely able to push over a non-sleeping cow than Tommy. Tommy began anew. Justin sighed.
“Hey, Travis, why do you have your gun on?” Tommy asked. Alarm increased in the boys and just like that Tommy moved on, not waiting for a response. “So what I was telling you was not a dream, ‘cause dreams are made up, and all of that stuff happened. I wish I had some more smashed mallow cups,” Tommy’s eyebrows furrowed. “But then Ryan Seacrest comes over while I’m carrying all my goodies away. He keeps following me saying I dropped a Kit-Kat. And I’m like, ‘thanks, Ryan, but there weren’t any Kit-Kats on the pallet.’ He keeps following me, and telling me about the Kit-Kat. He starts pulling on my arm and I start to drop stuff, so I was kinda getting a little upset.” Tommy paused for dramatic effect. Justin’s attention was peaked now. He had heard the conversation Tommy and his father had regarding Tommy’s inner voice. Justin tore away from his inner-dialogue as Tommy started up again.
“So now I have to pay attention, because if I don’t, he’ll make me drop everything. Joey said I can only have what I can carry and I don’t want to miss out. So I turn and Ryan tells me that there’s a Kit-Kat in the basement for me. Wait did he say that, or that I should go eat a Kit-Kat in the basement? Why would he tell me to eat a Kit-Kat in the basement? Wait, okay so I got the Kit-Kat upstairs, and then I came down here, but I started eating it upstairs, do you think that’ll make Ryan mad?” Tommy looked ultra-concerned that he might be irking his spirit guide aka the host of the now defunct American Idol.
“I don’t think he’ll be mad, Tommy,” Travis said earnestly.
“So I ate most of my Kit-Kat down in the basement!” Tommy said loudly, possibly trying to appease his spirit guide. “And then here were you guys, awake! Do you want to play Monopoly?” he asked hopefully.
“No, Tommy, we can’t play Monopoly right now,” Justin answered.
“Oh, is it because you’re going to get Paul?” Tommy asked as he licked some errant chocolate off his candy wrapper.
Justin swallowed loudly, his mouth having gone instantly dry. Travis’ mouth hung slackly.
“Did you hear us talking?” Travis asked. Justin just shook his head; he knew better.
“Naw, that’s spying. My mom said that’s not polite. ‘Sides, I couldn’t hear you guys talking anyway, don’t you know how crunchedy sounding Kit-Kats are in your head?”
“Tommy, are you gonna go back to bed?” Justin asked hopefully already aware of the response.
“Can’t,” said Tommy matter-of-factly. “Ryan says I have to go with you.”
Quarter-inch goose bumps embossed the entire length of Justin’s spine.
“Are you going to tell Mrs. T?” Justin asked.
Tommy looked up to the ceiling as if trying to remember some missing facts. “Oh no, Ryan didn’t say anything about her, but we should bring Oleyco’s boyfriend.” Tommy had become enamored with Nicole. He became flustered every time he thought of her. Because of this, he could not remember her name. She was known as Oleyco most of the time, but sometimes she was Nickel, Coley, Colon, Coldstone and even once as Dime, no one was sure where that one originated from. Most likely Tommy had been thinking of ‘Nickel’ and Dime seemed like the next natural progression. Tommy never mentioned Brendon by name; everyone but Tommy noticed the slight.
Something or someone was intervening in the boys’ plans, whether it was divine was yet to be determined. Brendon was out of bed, making an early morning bathroom delivery. Justin crept up the stairs, doing his best to avoid all the spots on the stairs that creaked. This was not an easy task. Tracy had been goading Mike for months to repair some of the worst offenders. Some of the creaks were as loud as a pistol shot, especially in the middle of the night. But Mike had staunchly held his ground. He had always thought of the creaks as his own alarm system. He had argued intensely that no intruder would ever be able to sneak up into the bedroom unsuspectingly. Tracy couldn’t even begin to fathom the depths of Mike’s survivalism and paranoia. Although as he would tell you, it was either one or the other. He preferred to call it survivalism. Then he would add that if someone could get past the security bars, Henry and the ‘stair alarm system’ without garnering any attention, then they deserved to take some stuff. So, maybe using Henry in the equation wasn’t a great example, but still.
Justin crossed from one side of the steps to the other, at one point climbing over one step completely to avoid a particularly nasty groan. He appeared to be playing some advanced three-dimensional version of hopscotch. He stopped at the top landing, directly facing his parents’ bedroom.
There were four hot spots on the landing, the problem however was that not all were active at the same time. It was like playing Russian roulette with floorboards. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Justin had his suspicions that his dad somehow had the floor rigged. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities. Justin’s right foot came down tentatively. Nothing. He sighed in relief. Next he strategically placed his left foot as close to the banister as possible, more times than not this was a safe bet, but not today. CRAAACK—Justin froze, only the sweat on his forehead had the audacity to move. Nothing stirred, not even Henry. After a thirty-second pause in which Justin expected his mother to come bursting out of her bedroom, nothing happened. He took a quick left which marked his first successful completion down the gauntlet.
The next part was going to be equally difficult. On the left of the hallway was his dad’s office, which was now Brendon and Nicole’s room. Directly across from it was the bathroom. Justin noticed the light on underneath the bathroom door. If it was his sister, the jig was up before it ever got going. She would not be persuaded to not tell their mother. For the second time in two minutes, Justin found himself frozen. This time, however, it was with indecision. He needed to think of a valid reason for his being in the hallway at this time of the day if his sister came out of the bathroom. Somehow asking her if she wanted to play Monopoly at 6:30 in the morning didn’t seem like a viable option. He then had the idea of getting Brendon awake, convinced, and out of the bedroom before his sister returned. Not an acceptable alternative, she would surely go looking for Brendon if she came back and he wasn’t in bed. They’d never get out in time unless of course she had fallen asleep on the john. Justin laughed a little at that picture; he couldn’t for the life of him imagine his prim and proper sister falling asleep on the toilet.
It was the smell that got Justin moving. For a fearful second he thought that a zombie had broken in. When he realized that it only smelled LIKE something had died, and had not actually died, he sprang into motion. Without even looking, Justin quietly shut the office/bedroom door. His sister was lactose intolerant, and even if she had downed a whole cheesecake, she was incapable of producing the noxious gas that oozed from beneath the closed bathroom door.
Justin was now dead smack in the center of the hallway between the bathroom and the bedroom. He didn’t want to move for fear that Brendon would get back into the bedroom before Justin could intercept him. He was beginning to get woozy trying to hold his breath. Just when he began to lose his peripheral vision, Justin heard the toilet flush and the sink go on. He exhaled in bliss, only to be rewarded on the inhale with the full blast of pestiferous tang of Brendon’s refuse as the door was opened. Brendon was momentarily stunned by the appearance of Justin at the doorway but quickly recovered.
“You might want to use a different bathroom,” Brendon said quietly with a hint of a smile across his lips.
Justin was trying his best to breathe through his mouth, but the mere thought that he was now ‘tasting’ the essence of Brendon’s offal did little to quell the queasiness that was building up in his stomach.
“Gotta talk to you,” Justin rushed out on exhale, and pointed down the stairs. If Brendon in anyway delayed, Justin would have to go downstairs without him. Justin had promised himself that he would not take another gulp of air anywhere in the vicinity of the ‘death zone.’ Brendon nodded and followed Justin down. The floorboards had not had sufficient time to reset and both boys were able to make it all the way down without so much as a minor crackle. Justin took a few long pulls of fresh air, hoping to evacuate all the poison from his lungs. He felt almost immediately better.
“What were you eating, a rotten rhino?” Justin asked when he had sufficiently cleaned out his airways.
“Did you like that? I was working on that just for you. As a matter of fact I was going to come down and get you so you could get a whiff,” Brendon laughed.
A greasy smile split Justin’s lips. “Thanks, man, I appreciate that,” he said sarcastically.
“What’s up?” Brendon asked more seriously. He could tell Justin had something to ask him but was hesitant to come out with it.
“All right, if I ask you something, you have to promise if you say no, that you won’t tell Nicole,” Justin said tentatively.
Brendon had to think about this for a moment. If she were to somehow find out that he had important information and had withheld it from her, that would not end well. Nicole was all of four foot eleven, but she was a veritable spitfire. Mountains would quake in the wake of her voluminous voice. What she lacked in size she MORE than made up in for in vocals. And to top it off she was quick to anger and so very slow to mellow. Those were not great ingredients if one were to perpetrate a lie. Brendon had learned the hard way.
“Justin, I don’t know if I could do that,” Brendon said in all seriousness. “You know how your sister gets.”
Justin nodded in reluctant agreement. Of course he did, he’d had nineteen years of personal experience. Justin was secretly attempting to find a work around to this dilemma.
“How about this,” Justin started. “What if I ask you something but you don’t tell her until she wakes up?”
“Again, that depends,” Brendon answered. “If it’s important, she’ll be pissed that I didn’t wake her to tell her.”
“Dammit,” Justin muttered.
“What’s going on?” Brendon asked, curiosity starting to get the better of him.
“Dammit,” Justin said for the second time. “Here goes nothing. I want to take Travis, Tommy and hopefully you to go get Paul.”
“Your dad’s best friend? Does your dad know? Of course not or we wouldn’t be doing this whole covert conversation in the living room,” Brendon said as he nervously wiped his forehead, even though sweat had not yet begun to form although it would soon. “What makes you think they’ll even let us out of the gate?”
“My dad just left on the semi.” ‘I think,’ Justin thought to himself. “I’ll tell the guys at the gate that he wanted us to follow.” And hopefully they won’t ask where, cuz I have no clue, he finished his inner dialog.
Brendon turned to walk back upstairs. Justin became anxious, fearful Brendon had made up his mind and not in the appropriate direction.
“I’m going to get my stuff,” Brendon explained as he now began to play the advanced hopscotch game.
Justin was excited and worried at the same time. He ran downstairs to get the others and get out of the house before he changed his mind. This undertaking was of his design and if anything went wrong it would be his responsibility. This was a little bit more unnerving than making sure the shelves were correctly stocked for the frenetic holiday shoppers at Walmart.
The boys had decided to take Brendon’s Explorer, after some initial resistance. Brendon’s truck had the habit of breaking down at the most inopportune times, but this fact still seemed like a better alternative than facing Mike Talbot if something should happen to his beloved Jeep. With nothing closing in and no elevated terror level, Brendon’s truck, of course, clamored to life easily, just as the sun began to shine under an opaque sky. Brendon pulled up to the gate guard who was putting his hand out to halt them, although this was a useless gesture. It wasn’t like Brendon could miss the five-ton yellow bus.
“Vere are you boys going?” Igor Drudarski, the guard, asked. Igor was a fifty-something, fat Russian man who had emigrated over from the former Soviet Union some twenty years previously. He had not lost a hint of his former accent or his profound ability to drink vast quantities of vodka. The sour stench permeated through the truck as he looked over the boys and all the weapons they carried. Tommy smiled back, greedily stuffing a blueberry Pop-Tart into his mouth.
“We have Pop-Tarts?” Travis asked softly.
“Weef did,” Tommy smiled weakly back.
Justin leaned over Brendon a little and subsequently closer to the stink of Igor’s breath. This morning was not working out well at all for his olfactory senses, which had just recently gotten over the assault at the bathroom.
“Mike Talbot asked us to follow him with some more fire power,” Justin said, with a little more conviction in his voice than he felt.
“You are his boys, no?” Igor asked.
“That’s right,” Justin answered.
“He already had four people with him, what does he need you for?” Igor asked.
“Probably just guard duty,” Travis threw in hastily. Justin silently thanked his brother.
Igor looked at all of them skeptically. “They left over fifteen minutes ago. You know how to get to the armory, yes?”
“Oh yeah,” Justin responded, perhaps a little too eagerly.
Igor pulled his head out from the driver’s side window, not convinced he was receiving the truth, but his main function was to keep people out, not in. He waved the bus driver to pull forward and out of the way.
Be safe, dah?” Igor yelled out. Brendon waved in response. The bus driver closed the gate, not waiting for Igor’s hand signal.
“Which way do I go when I get to Havana?” Brendon asked Justin.
“Uh…right,” Justin told him, taking just a fraction of a second longer than appropriate to give the answer.
“You know the way, right?” Brendon asked doubtfully.
“Uhhh, most of the way,” Justin said meekly.
“Justin!” Brendon bellowed. “You are going to get us all screwed, this is going to be an all risk and no reward venture! Your sister’s going to kill me, not including what Mike’s gonna do when he realizes I let you talk me into this harebrained scheme. It’s not like we can ask somebody for directions. ‘Hello Mr. Zombie, have you eaten any one lately named Paul Ginner? No? Then can you tell us how we might get there before you? What? You can’t talk?’” Brendon was working himself up into a frenzy. He pulled into a now out-of-commission gas station so he could turn around.
“What are you doing?” Justin screamed in panic.
“We’re going back before we get in any deeper over our heads,” Brendon shot back.
Tommy had finished getting the final few crumbs out of his Pop-Tart bag when he spoke up. “I know the way.”
Brendon and Justin turned to look at Tommy. There was not a hint on his features that he was speaking anything but the truth. Brendon sighed and got back on the road heading in the general direction of Paul’s house.
Travis was busy looking in Tommy’s knapsack for a wayward Pop-Tart. The quartet passed three cars on their way. All three were packed with people and provisions. All the people in those cars looked haunted, harried, and in a rush. Not one of them so much as addressed the boys’ presence with even a nod.
“They sure seem in a hurry,” Travis said, putting into words what everyone was thinking. Well, maybe not Tommy. He had somehow pulled out another Pop-Tart from the bag Travis had previously checked. Travis added for Tommy’s ears only, “Do you have a secret panel in there or something?” Tommy just smiled, strawberry goo plastered to his teeth.
“Need any help with that?” Travis asked. Tommy broke off half. Travis couldn’t have been any happier than if he had won a shopping spree at Game Stop.
“You’re gonna need it,” Tommy said cryptically. Travis almost immediately lost all pleasure in the Pop-Tart.
Tommy led them unerringly to their destination. When they were about to make their final left turn onto Paul’s street, Tommy told them they “might want to park here.” Brendon didn’t question him at all as he pulled the car over and shut the engine off in the hopes of not attracting any undue attention.
“Prob’ly didn’t want to do that just yet,” Tommy said. When he didn’t clarify, nobody asked for any further information, not knowing exactly what they would be trying to clarify.
As Brendon opened the door, the telltale redolence of the dead blasted through the car like an Arctic breeze through a windbreaker. What little flavor Travis’ Pop-Tart had maintained had now embittered. The next few minutes were spent securing weaponry and stashing all extra ammo into as many free pockets as possible while still being able to move under the weight.
All fours boys slowly walked the twenty-five yards to the corner of Paul’s street. The smell was intensifying. What was more disturbing was the incessant sounds of the dead. There was no talking, only the loitering shuffle. There was no laughter, only the constant sound of bodies maneuvering for position. There was no human sound, so to speak; there were the plaintive sounds only the dead can make.
Brendon peeked his head around the last privacy fence that marked the delineation between safety and demise. The other three waited expectantly a few feet behind. Paul lived at the end of a cul-de-sac, no more than a hundred yards long. What Brendon saw almost made him turn tail and run. It looked as if the world’s most successful block party was raging. There had to have been at least three hundred lost souls wandering around; most looked as if they had a purpose. Some, however, looked lost and were somehow relieved to be among their own. Brendon, of course wouldn’t swear to that, it was just a feeling he had perceived. He pulled his head back before any of those errant demons had a chance to spot him.
“Uh, I’m not so sure about this, guys,” Brendon said in hushed tones. “There have to be at least a couple hundred zombies. Most of them are clustered around one house. So we might be able to sneak by, but I wouldn’t want to bet our lives on it.” Which of course they would be.
Justin asked, “Are they focused on the last house on the right, by any chance?”
“How did you…?” Brendon knew the answer before he finished. “That’s Paul’s, right?”
“Of course,” Travis threw in sarcastically.
As if on cue, the three boys looked to Tommy to see if he had any insight into their situation, but he merely smiled back. The sporadic firing of a small caliber pistol coming from the cul-de-sac interrupted their contemplation. Travis ran up to the fence to hazard a look; Justin and Brendon followed. What they saw both lifted their spirits and simultaneously weighed heavy on their hearts. At the apex of the house was the distinctive outline of Paul’s wife Erin. It appeared that she had knocked out the attic vent and was taking some ill-aimed shots at some of her besiegers. The boys were happy she was alive but saddened at the thought of the impossibility of a rescue attempt.
“So obviously a frontal assault is out of the question.” Brendon stated the obvious.
Travis spoke up. “Let’s go through the back yards on this side of the street and see if we can spot a way in from that vantage point.”
“It’s not really the way we want to go,” Justin said nervously.
“You know what I mean,” Travis answered.
“That’s going to put us about ten feet away from the nearest zombie,” Brendon said. “Will they be able to smell us from that distance?”
“My dad asked the same thing when we went to get Justin. I think they can. But if they are focused on something, it takes a lot to get their attention away from the first thing,” Travis said optimistically.
“Let’s hope your dad’s right,” Brendon added.
The brothers nodded in unison. Tommy was busy pulling wayward gobs of Pop-Tart off his shirt and popping them into his mouth.
“All right, let’s fall back to the rear of these houses,” Brendon said, taking charge. He didn’t like the position at all.
The boys moved away from the zombie infestation to traverse behind the houses. Once they got to the house directly across from Paul’s, they quickly climbed over the six-foot privacy fence. Brendon had thought that they might have to leave Tommy behind because of the fence, but he was surprisingly agile and seemed to have the least amount of problem getting over.
“Must be all the sugar,” Brendon mumbled mirthfully to himself.
The boys moved to the front yard, still under concealment of the fence. The smell was unbearable. Even Tommy, who seemed immune to it, stopped eating.
“What’s Paul’s back yard like?” Brendon asked Travis.
“It’s heavily sloped down and away from the house, but it won’t do us any good,” Travis answered.
Brendon cautiously looked over the fence. From his vantage point he could tell that the fence that led to Paul’s back yard had been destroyed, most likely from the press of dead flesh against it. The fence hadn’t stood a chance. “Yeah, it’s as likely as not to have as many deaders in the back as in the front.”
Over the preternatural quiet that enshrouded the neighborhood it was easy to hear Erin shout to Paul that she had seen someone over at the Henderson’s house. Paul crowded Erin out of the small opening to take a look. Brendon had quickly jumped down before any zombies could see him, but apparently zombies suffered the same affliction that troubled dogs, they couldn’t follow a pointed finger. And that was exactly what Erin was doing.
“I don’t see anything,” Paul said.
“He was right over there by the fence, you must have scared him away,” Erin answered.
“Yeah I’m sure it had nothing to do with the meat bags below,” Paul responded sardonically.
Travis climbed up the fence when he realized the zombies weren’t turning to investigate Erin’s claims.
“See, there he is again!” Erin said excitedly. “Wait, that’s not the same person.”
“Travis?” Paul said softly, then a little louder “Travis, is that you? Wait don’t answer! Just nod.”
Travis nodded.
“Is your dad here?” Paul asked as hope surged in him. If anyone could get his wife and him out of this jam it would be Mike. The guy had a penchant for getting out of tight jams, the Marine Corps had only added to that legacy. When Travis shook his head no, Paul was dismayed. “How many of you are there?”
Travis held up four fingers. Paul couldn’t imagine that Mike would send his boys alone to get him. He prayed that Mike hadn’t died trying to save him.
“Where’s your dad?” Paul asked. Travis shrugged his shoulders. There was only so much the boy could answer with body movements, but the fact that he didn’t look too upset told Paul volumes.
“Any ideas?” Paul asked. Travis again shook his head no.
“I’ve got an idea,” Brendon said from below. Travis held up one finger and mouthed ‘Wait One’. Paul was left to ponder what this meant as Travis ducked back down off the fence.
“You three wait here. When the coast is clear get Paul and Erin and get back to the car,” Brendon said as he began to move back towards where they had come from.
“Any chance you could be more specific?” Travis asked Brendon’s back, but he was already out of earshot of Travis’ whisper.
A few moments later, Travis got his answer. Brendon thought valor was highly overrated as he hesitantly walked out into the middle of the junction between Wheelspoke Avenue and Lacey Street.
“Couldn’t it have been something a little more noble, like OK Corral Place and Okinawa Way?” he muttered to himself.
At first, not one zombie took notice of the interloper. Brendon had aspirations that maybe he was somehow invisible to them. However, when he cleared his throat as if he wanted to reap attention in a loud auction house, he was rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. A zombie no more than twenty yards away turned to look at this newest nutrient food bag. The lone zombie started its hunt. Brendon felt like a fox about to be released. Although his body was moments away from bolting, his mind was holding steady. Pulling one whole zombie away from the fray was not the distraction Brendon was looking for. He aimed his gun in on the unaccompanied zombie and neatly removed the mass of its head from the rest of its offending body with a loud explosion. Most of the zombies were so tightly packed in around Paul’s house that turning around was an industrious undertaking. It was only after a fair portion of the zombie crowd had peeled off to pursue this new quarry that the rest were able to swing into a position where they could see what the fuss was all about. In the rudimentary works that passed as thoughts in the zombies, the dinner bell had been sounded. ‘Meat for me’ would have been the vocalization of their thoughts if that were a possibility.
“Hey, zombies! Dinnertime!” Brendon yelled in encouragement as he punctuated his point with some well-aimed shots.
A few zombies went down, a couple even stayed down, but it was the typical drop in the bucket. Brendon did not immediately turn and run as more and more zombies took note of his presence and began to come at him. He laid down shots almost on top of each other. If Travis hadn’t known better, he would have thought Brendon had somehow obtained a fully automatic weapon with that rapid rate of fire. Brendon was holding his ground as best he could, only falling back a step or two when he should have been running as if hell itself were chasing him. In a few more seconds his window of escape would close but he was trying to get most, if not all, the zombies to come his way. Travis had knocked out a knothole in the fence and was just about to lay down some suppressive fire to help him when Brendon finally understood he could not hold his ground anymore.
“That wasn’t much of a plan,” Travis said to Tommy. Tommy nodded in agreement.
Justin looked through the hole and noted that, although it wasn’t much of a plan, it had worked to near perfection. Travis and Justin could count on both their hands the remaining zombies. Of those that were left, Erin was doing her best to dispatch most of them. But unless the zombie’s brains had somehow migrated to their feet, she wasn’t doing much good. Most of the zombies that were left would now have a pronounceable limp, but they wouldn’t be able to collect disability insurance any time soon. Travis, Justin, and Tommy walked through the front gate, the Mossberg and the Winchester blazing hellfire. If the zombies were capable of any other thoughts besides ‘meat,’ they would have known to leave this place of re-death so they could salvage what remained of their ravaged bodies in order to attack at another time. The last zombie had fallen long before Travis and Justin stopped firing. It took Tommy’s gentle hands on their shoulders and a couple of words to get their attention; they had been deep in the grip of battle fever.
“I found another Pop-Tart,” Tommy said as he flashed the foil bag in front of Travis’ eyes.
Justin turned to Tommy. “Were you whistling?”
Tommy grinned. “Yeah, it was the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”
Justin laughed. But the killing fog had not cleared from Travis’ eyes. It took a giant bear hug from his godfather that threatened to cut off his oxygen supply to do the trick. Erin came out next; she was busy reloading her pistol.
“Holy shit, boys, it’s great to see you!” Paul pulled Justin into the growing mass hug, Tommy stood to the side with his hands clasped behind his back, casually kicking his left foot into the ground. He looked like a puppy in a pet store window.
“I don’t know who you are, kid, but get your ass over here,” Paul said with a beaming smile, doing his best to stretch his arms across the three of them. Erin completed the circle on the far side.
“My name’s Tommy,” Tommy said happily, his face buried in Justin’s back.
“Boys, I’d love to stay like this a while longer but I want to get the hell out of here,” Paul said as he disentangled himself from the conglomeration. “So what’s the plan?”
Justin and Travis merely looked at one another. Paul sensed their uneasiness.
Travis spoke first. “Well, you… um, kinda know as much of the plan as we do.”
“Oh crap, we’ve got to get back in the house then,” Paul said apprehensively.
“Paul, we can’t. We’ve only got enough supplies for a day or two at most,” Erin reminded him.
Paul’s stress level was as stretched as high as it could be. Justin spoke before it snapped. “Our truck is at the end of the street. Brendon should be back in a couple of minutes. As soon as he gets here we’ll head back home.”
Paul and Erin looked longingly back at their home, confident in the fact they would never see it again. “All right, let’s get going,” Paul said as he wrapped his arm around his wife.
A few moments later, everyone was huddled around the car. Tommy was the sole occupant. The rest stayed outside in an uneasy silence. It seemed more prudent to be able to leave in a moment’s notice rather than be imprisoned in the SUV. Only Tommy felt otherwise.
“Maybe we should get your car, Uncle Paul,” Justin said. The waiting was plainly beginning to unnerve him.
“Not such a good idea,” Paul answered. “I coasted home on fumes the night before this all happened. I would have gone to your place before we got surrounded if I had a chance to fill the damn tank. I just figured I’d have all the time in the world to do it.” Just as Paul was done rebuking himself, a single shot rang out. It sounded distant. Everyone swung in the general direction of the sound.
“That was Brendon,” Justin surged toward the noise.
“The captain is back!” Tommy yelled from the backseat.
Paul looked questioningly before Justin answered sheepishly. “Captain Obvious, you get it?”
“Oh,” Paul forced a strained smile. He appreciated the humor, just not under the present circumstances.
Another solo shot rang out. This one was definitely closer, but still no sign of Brendon. Justin was about to speak, but Paul saved him the trouble. “Yeah it does sound closer.”
Time slowed to match the shuffle of a zombie. The group fervently waited for something, anything to happen. They were rewarded a few moments later with the compensation of a rapid three round burst.
“Shit, that was close,” Travis said as he jumped a bit.
“You swear?” was all Paul could think to ask.
Travis grinned like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Not in front of Dad.”
“When we get to your place, I’ll make sure I leave that part out,” Paul said.
Brendon came sprinting around from the main street, still about two hundred yards away, but even from this distance they could tell he was drenched in sweat and laboring hard to keep up the pace. Three seconds later they could see the reason. Zombies were within spitting distance of his back. If he turned to shoot he’d never get the shot off. The boys flipped off their safeties, but at this distance there wasn’t much they could do. Brendon was slowly pulling ahead of those closest to him, but zombies began spilling out of the yards along his path, facing him; they were trying to encircle him.
“Paul, I’d like to get out of here now,” Erin said stridently as the whites of her eyes began to expand in terror.
Travis and Justin didn’t want to shoot the zombies between them and Brendon for fear they might hit Brendon. There was still room for Brendon to maneuver around, but it was getting marginally narrower by the second. When Brendon was within a hundred yards the circle noosed shut; the time for inactivity was over. Tommy began to whistle his favorite Clint Eastwood theme again. Travis and Justin concentrated their fire to the left. Their theory was that they could open a hole without hitting their sister’s fiancé. It was working, but more due to the fact that the forward-facing zombies had now taken notice of the new piles of warm meat directly behind them. The circle in front of Brendon broke down as those closest began to come towards their new prize. It was going to be a close contest to see who got to the car first.
The cloudy day was lit up by the expended rounds. The smell of gunpowder would linger long after the battle was over. Brendon was now zigzagging around zombies; some were still interested in him and once or twice they got a hand on him. Most were disregarding him and were now focused on the main course instead of the entrée.
Paul opened the back door, weighing the myriad of possibilities laid out in front of him.
“Hey, Tommy, you might want to get out of there,” Paul said, feeling the possibility of escape was rapidly diminishing.
“I’m good,” Tommy said matter-of-factly, blithely ignorant of what was going on around him.
Travis looked over his shoulder as he began to reload for the fourth time and saw Paul talking to Tommy. “What’d he say, Uncle Paul?!” Travis screamed over the roar of Justin’s shots.
Paul pulled his head from the inside the car door. “He says he’s good,” Paul answered, although he looked thoroughly perplexed.
Travis knew Tommy’s abilities and didn’t doubt him in the least as he yelled back to Paul, “Get Erin and get into the car!” Travis shouted as he drove his bolt home.
Paul slowly shook his head in response. “I think we should get back to the house.”
Erin began turning in that direction, she wasn’t going to need to be told twice.
Travis put the rifle up to his shoulder and fired a shot at a zombie ten feet away. “GET!” he fired again. “IN!” he fired again. “THE!” he fired again. “FUCKING!” he fired his last shot. “CAR!” he screamed as he fished more slugs out of his pants.
Paul was in shock but had the wherewithal to grab his wife and usher her into the car. “You sound more and more like your dad,” Paul said with dismay as he pulled the door shut.
“Want a Snickers?” Tommy asked.
The car jumped. A zombie had run into the rear in an attempt to get to the boys. Brendon had dropped his pistol as he covered the last few yards, desperately trying to get his keys out of his pocket without slowing down. It was going to be close, but the destructive fire of Justin and Travis had cleared a rapidly shrinking gap.
“Get in, brother,” Justin told Travis.
Travis usually was not one to do as his brother told, but this seemed like a foolish time to keep up that tradition. He hopped in and scooted over to the middle of the front bench seat. Seconds later, Justin slid in, pulling the door closed as the closest of the zombies smeared his decomposing hand on the passenger window.
Erin screamed in terror.
“Ah, just like old times,” Travis said sarcastically.
Justin sometimes wondered how deep the depths of resolve went in his younger brother.
Brendon crossed in front of the car, for one heart-stopping beat, all of his attention was on the set of keys that he fumbled in his hands. At one point he lost control of them. Everyone held their breath as Brendon made a desperate bid to swipe them out of midair, and in a play worthy of a top ten mention on ESPN’s Sports Center, he made contact and snatched life from the jaws of death. A moment later, Brendon plowed into the driver’s seat, nearly snapping the key in the ignition with the brute force with which he drove it home. His chest heaving for air, Brendon turned the key but nothing happened.
“Told you about that,” Tommy said from the backseat.
Brendon had some choice expletives but kept them to himself. The energy to issue them forth was more than he had right now. His heart was a trip-hammer as he began to fumble with the shift selector.
More to himself than anyone else in the car he said, “Sometimes the shifter doesn’t go into park and the car won’t start.”
“Probably a good time to put it in park, don’t you think?” Travis asked.
Brendon glared in his direction, but his girlfriend’s little brother for once wasn’t being sarcastic. Travis was looking out the windshield at the growing number of zombies. Fear creased his face. The sound of Justin’s window exploding inwards masked the sound of the engine catching, so much so that Brendon was in danger of stripping out the starter as he held the key too far over for too long. A zombie reached in and clawed at Justin’s face. Travis having realized what Brendon hadn’t, slammed the car into gear. Brendon turned from the invading zombie as the car shot forward and threatened to stall. Brendon quickly realized what was happening and tried to put his foot through the floor. The car sagged at the over rush of gas, hesitated, sputtered and then shot out of the crush of zombies like a cat in a tub. A few unlucky zombies found out firsthand what it felt like to have three tons of Detroit steel run over your body, although they didn’t seem to mind that, only that the ‘meat’ was getting away.
The zombie in Justin’s window had its arm wrapped around the seat belt. It tried for a few feet to keep up, but then it allowed itself to be dragged, its concentration fully fixated on the food within reach. Its arms swung wildly within the car as it tried to pull its body up and closer so its gnashing teeth could do their job, the fetor of its moldering breath rivaled even that of its undead flesh.
Justin screamed in surprise as a hand closed around his cheek, trying to seek purchase, or perhaps just trying to pull a bit off for a snack. Paul, reaching over Tommy, was desperately attempting to unravel the seatbelt from the zombie. Justin was flailing around like a drowning victim. Erin moved into Paul’s vacated spot and placed one hand on Justin trying to calm him down. He didn’t, at least until her other hand passed in front of his eyes, the one with the gun. Paul pulled back as Erin lined up her shot. Everyone in the car was a little hesitant after her not-so-successful display of shooting skills earlier. This bullet, though, hit home, dead center in the zombie’s forehead. Its head whipped back and then forward from the backlash, but it looked more like he was questioning ‘Why?’ as his slumped body fell from the car like a discarded McDonald’s bag.
The zombies retreated quickly from view. It took a few moments for Justin’s overloaded senses to regain equilibrium from the deafening shot and the acrid blast of smoke that had inundated his nose. But when his senses did clear, the outcome was less than satisfactory.
As the ringing began to subside within his ears, Justin bowed his head to try to regain the precious breaths he had lost. At first he was uncertain what he was looking at as large crimson droplets splashed on his blue jean covered thigh. It was when he attempted to wipe his cheek clean that true terror infiltrated his heart. His fingers were covered in blood, his own.
“Oh, Jesus, no!” Justin wailed.
Paul looked out the back window thinking that the zombies were somehow keeping up with the speeding get-away car. Justin buried his head in his hands. Travis made an attempt to discover what the matter with his brother was but was shrugged off. Brendon slowed and then finally let the truck come to a rest (with the engine idling) to discover the problem. Justin was too far lost in his own thoughts to do more than show the offending blood to the rest of the occupants.
“Were you bitten?” Travis asked.
Justin shook his head ‘no.’
“That’s good then, right?” Travis asked, hoping someone would answer in the affirmative. “In most zombie movies you have to be bitten to be infected.”
Nobody knew the answer. How could they? This wasn’t a movie, and zombies weren’t supposed to be real, right? Even Tommy looked concerned. Travis hoped it was because he was out of Snickers bars. Nobody said anything. As Brendon accelerated the truck, nobody knew what to say anyway. Travis put his arm around Justin. It was a rare display of brotherly love. Justin was at first inclined to shrug it off, but when he realized Travis was not going to relinquish his spot, Justin acquiesced.
As Brendon was racing closer to Little Turtle, he voiced his thoughts. “They’re not going to let Justin in through the gate with that wound.”
Travis instantly got upset. “We can’t leave him outside!”
Justin didn’t say anything. He had already resigned himself to his fate.
“I’m not saying we should leave him outside, Travis,” Brendon said with a bit of attitude in his voice.
Justin and Brendon had become friends since Brendon had started dating his sister. He was offended that Travis would think he would abandon his friend this quickly.
“We could say he cut himself on the broken glass,” Travis said hesitantly.
“Justin,” Brendon said softly. Justin didn’t respond. “Justin!” he said with a little more force. Brendon pulled over again. “Justin, look at me.”
Justin reluctantly turned his head to face him. Brendon inwardly winced when he saw the wound. A three-inch long slab of flesh had been raggedly pulled from Justin’s cheek, and blood flowed freely from the laceration. If Brendon hadn’t firsthand witnessed the attack, he would have assumed the wound to be caused by a bite. The notched pieces of sinew looked angry with swelling; Justin’s eyes appeared to be sunken from the rapidly expanding flesh due to the damage. What was worse was the look of defeat in those same eyes. Brendon couldn’t help but think that his friend was already turning. Better to leave him out here than take the possibility of him injuring someone else. Brendon definitely did not want to be the person that had to put a bullet between his eyes. All these thoughts raced through Brendon’s mind, each one trying their best to gain a foothold and sway a decision in their favor. His lack of ability to think clearly under the circumstances may just have saved Justin’s life.
Brendon spoke at last. “Yeah, there’s no way the guards will mistake that for any type of cut.” He swung his head to the back. “Hey, Tommy, want to sit up front?”
Tommy was not his normal jovial self, and that, as much as anything, contributed to the downward spiral of morale in the truck. Erin had buried her head in Paul’s shoulder and was crying softly. Tommy looked like he wanted to join her. Travis did not understand Brendon’s motive to move Tommy and wanted to make sure he was one hundred percent clear on where he was going with this. Brendon saw the look of confusion on Travis’ face and clarified.
“I want Tommy to sit up front, and for Justin to pretend he’s asleep in the back, that’s the only chance we’ve got of getting him back through the gate,” Brendon elaborated. “I’d just as soon hide him in the trunk if I had one, but that isn’t an alternative.”
“What if he turns?” Travis asked.
“I’ll take care of it,” Brendon answered brusquely.
“I’m his brother, I should be the one to do it,” Travis said.
Justin began to open the passenger door as he spoke. “If it comes to it, I’ll do it myself.”
Tommy was busy coming around from the rear driver’s side around the front of the truck as he met Justin. He gave Justin a huge hug which seemed to elevate Justin’s spirits ever so slightly.
“That’s not the hug of death, is it, Tommy?” Justin asked.
“I’ve never hugged anyone to death,” Tommy said seriously as he wiped a tear away from his cheek.
Justin’s eyes were red-rimmed and enshrouded in blackness. He looked like a trick-or-treater halfway made into his costume. Paul switched seats with Erin while they waited for Justin to get back in the truck, placing himself between Justin and his wife.
Within minutes the truck was about ready to make the final turn onto Evans Avenue.
“Everyone ready?” Brendon asked as he exhaled loudly.
Paul stiffened slightly as Justin laid his head on his shoulder. Justin noticed the rebuff, but he couldn’t blame his uncle. He was sure he’d do the same thing if the circumstances were reversed. As they pulled up to the gate, Brendon put on his best award winning smile. It failed miserably.
“Boy, you look like you just had your balls stomped on by a golf player,” the guard said. “Ain’t that right, Igor?” the guard said, clearly amused with his pun.
Igor nodded and answered. “Da.” But Igor wasn’t paying so much attention to his partner. Igor’s head was inside Brendon’s truck looking around.
“Dere’s much blood in here.” Igor said, clearly not looking for an explanation—merely stating a fact. “Veren’t you boys going to help your father?” Igor asked. Now he was clearly looking for answers. Nobody spoke at first until Paul began to brainstorm.
“They were, sir, but when they came across my wife and I in trouble, that Mike fellow rescued us and then told these fine young men to take us home.”
Igor was not convinced. “What happened to the window?” he asked brusquely as he brushed shattered glass off the sill.
Travis spoke a little too soon and a little too loudly. “That was my fault, sir, I shot at a zombie not realizing the window was still closed.” Travis smiled weakly.
“Da glass is on the inside of the truck,” Igor said, looking piercingly at Travis. Travis’ smile weakened further. “Vat is wrong wit the other boy?” Igor asked, pointing to the rear seat.
“I’m fine!” Tommy beamed.
“Da, not you,” Igor answered firmly. Tommy frowned.
This time it was Brendon’s turn to think quickly. “Sir, I’m just trying to get him home so he can sleep it off. We broke into Mr. Talbot’s vodka last night and drank way too much.”
Igor laughed, not convinced again that he was receiving even half of the truth, but he laughed any way at the thought of two young Americans trying to tame Russian water. “Da, he does look a little green around the gills, get him home and get him well,” Igor said, his gaze boring directly into Brendon’s eyes.
“Yes, sir,” Brendon answered as he drove into the complex.
Justin’s sleeping act moved into the realm of reality as he had to have help to be removed from the truck. His steps were sluggish and weak. Paul supported one side as Travis supported the other. Brendon hustled up through the back gate to make sure the way was clear so they could get Justin into the house unimpeded. That didn’t look like it was going to happen, at least not easily.
No sooner had Brendon opened the back gate than his girlfriend met him. The dangerous look of fire was in her eyes and her posture. A litany of lavish profanity was about to be issued forth until she caught sight of her brother being almost dragged into the yard. She didn’t even acknowledge her uncle’s presence, as all of her attention was focused on the ghostly image of her brother’s face.
“Oh my God!” Nicole shrieked as she pushed by Brendon to wipe some of the sweat off of Justin’s feverish brow. She quickly pulled her hand away. “He’s burning up!” She turned back to face Brendon. “What did you do to him?”
Paul spoke up. “Now’s not the time for accusations, Nicole. We need to get your brother into the house and get some antibiotics into him.”
“Uncle Paul?” Nicole asked as she turned back and finally noticed him.
“Get your mother, Nicole,” Paul said with force.
“Thank you,” Brendon muttered under his breath.
“Don’t worry, kid, I did it for all of us. I’ve known Nicole long enough to realize ‘shrill’ was rapidly approaching,” Paul said as they brought Justin through the back door.
The boys laid Justin down on Henry’s favorite couch. Henry wouldn’t mind, he was sleeping soundly upstairs on Mike’s side of the bed. Tracy came downstairs awkwardly holding a rifle; it looked as much out of place in her hands as a cat holding an umbrella, but if there was trouble she wanted to be ready. She stopped short when she saw Paul and Erin, trying her best to assimilate this new information as quickly as possible. However, as soon as she saw Justin lying on the couch the rest was forgotten. In the meantime, Travis was going through the kitchen cabinets looking for any half-empty antibiotic bottles. Nicole and Tracy were famous for not finishing their medications. Within moments his effort was rewarded.
“Got ‘em,” he said triumphantly.
Tracy barely acknowledged his words as she pressed her hand to Justin’s forehead.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tracy exclaimed. “He’s so hot!” She turned her glare on Travis and Brendon. “Tell me right now what happened.”
Justin’s face was sallow and taking on hues of yellow and green. Brendon was hesitant to let his rifle down, feeling that he might need to use it at any moment. But how could he possibly tell Mrs. Talbot to get out of the way so he would have a clean shot.
“Nicole, go fill the tub with cold water. Travis, get all the ice and put it in the tub. And find me some antibiotics!” Tracy yelled.
Travis ran over and handed her the bottle of erythromycin, then headed back to the freezer, grabbed the ice and went to catch up with his sister; anything to get away from the scene that was unfolding in front of him. Justin had a difficult time swallowing the pills his mother handed him. His tonsils had swelled to the point where they were almost making contact with each other.
Mike came back four hours later to find seven people, including the dog, crowded into the master bathroom. The bathroom was spacious for one but was never designed for that many people. Mike took little note of his best friend and wife when he was able to muster past the throng and see what everyone had their attention focused on. Justin was lying in the tub alternating between violent convulsive shivers and panting from the heat his body was throwing off. He groaned in despair and fell to his knees next to his son.