by Jones, K. J.
Phebe sighed, regretting she shared too much. Her mother would now worry more about her.
Best maneuver: Change the topic.
“Anthony, what’s happening in New York?”
“Oh, it’s a crazy shit storm here. The virus is in southern New Jersey, heading north. The City is going apeshit trying to kill off all the sewer rats that can be carriers. Good luck on that, huh? New York City without rats is like it being without skyscrapers. No way. Remember how people were going crazy, hoarding toilet paper and shit, for COVID?”
“Yeah.”
“They got into actual fistfights – ladies doing the ole fisticuffs – over shit at the supermarket. Including our dearest mother and aunts.”
Colleen’s voice, “I did not get into a fistfight. That was your Aunt Mary.”
Peter laughed. “Wait till they get a load of you, babe.”
“Shh.”
He giggled.
“Listen, Anthony, is Ma in touch with Caitlyn Sullivan?”
“Ma –”
“What am I, deaf? I heard her. Phebe, I’m right here, honey.”
“Well, don’t get me more worried about stuff, Ma.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I don’t want to make things harder for –”
“Ma, stop crying,” Phebe ordered.
“Ma,” said Anthony. “Get a tissue. Hold onto yourself. But, Pheeb, yeah, we’re in touch on an internet board.”
“I’m married to her brother.”
“Her brother’s the father of your baby?”
Peter scoffed.
“Anthony, we’re not that open-minded. Of course, he is.”
Her brother laughed. “Didn’t mean offense, kiddo.”
“Listen, I gotta give you her number. He’s called her. Get paper and pen.”
“I’m ready.”
She read the numbers off the paper. He repeated them back.
“That’s it.”
Peter said, “Tell them they need to go to Boston.”
“Anthony, Ma, you need to get to Boston. They’re in South Boston.”
“The South Boston?” Colleen asked.
Peter rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone do that?”
“Yeah, the South Boston. They’ll love you. They’re Catholic Irish, too.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good,” said her mother. “We’ll have that in common. What do we do, just go to complete strangers?”
“Ma, they’re family. They’re your in-laws now. Just call Caitlyn when we’re done here. Get things arranged. You cannot wait until things get bad there. Because they get really bad fast. Really, really bad fast.”
“What about your father? Is he invited too?”
“Oh God,” Phebe moaned. “You all figure that out, okay. I got enough on my plate.”
“You sure do, honey.” The crying again.
Phebe sighed. She had said the wrong thing.
“I’m not going to see my grandchild born? What if something goes wrong in delivery?”
“Ma,” both Phebe and Anthony said simultaneously.
“My daughter is in the Quarantine Zone. And pregnant. I have the right to be upset.”
“Yeah,” said Anthony. “You do, Ma. But you gotta wait. We’ll call over to Father John afterwards. Get the aunts over. Tell ‘em the news. Have a cry and pray party.”
“Okay,” Colleen sobbed.
Peter chuckled. “Cry and pray party. Sounds like my family.”
Phebe said, “Eat some pizza for me.”
“Are you eating?” Colleen asked.
“Yeah, we eat. Just not pizza.”
“What kind of food could you possibly have there?”
“We got a friend here who is the mother of teenagers. She kind of takes care of us. She makes great food.”
Eric said from across the saloon, “Leave out the rat meat.”
Phebe glared at him and put her finger to her mouth to be quiet. Colleen would entirely flip out if she knew what her daughter was really eating. Rat and alligator.
“Okay,” said Phebe. “Do we have an understanding? We clear? Call Caitlyn. Get to Boston ASAP. Right?”
Peter craned his neck to see out the windows. Matt, Mazy, Ben, and Brandon were waiting for their turns. He tapped Phebe’s shoulder and gestured his head to them.
“Okay, I can’t be long. Other people have gotta call their families, too.”
“You’re going?” Colleen asked. “You can’t go. I haven’t talked to you in months. I’ve been so worried, baby. Oh, I need you with me. Especially with a baby on the way. Tell that husband to get you home.”
“Ma, you cannot stay home. You gotta go as soon as possible. You cannot wait too long.”
“I can’t leave my sisters.”
“Ma, please. You have to go.”
“Are you going to Boston?”
“Ma, please. One step at a time.”
Anthony’s voice, “We got it, kiddo. Leave it with me and I’ll get her there. But you take care of yourself. Don’t worry about us. I’ll take care of the crazy family. You just watch your back there and take good care of yourself. Say hi to this husband of yours.”
Peter leaned in to the headset and said, “Hi.”
“Oh, he’s there.”
Phebe turned the mouthpiece so they could share.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m Sul –” Phebe poked him in the ribs. “I’m Peter.”
“Hey, Peter. Anthony Marcelino, Phebe’s brother. You take care of my little sister, huh.”
“I am. She’s a pretty tough cookie herself.”
Phebe sneered. “Cookie, really?”
Anthony said, “How so? She’s a freaking academic. Ain’t never even shot a gun.”
Peter chuckled. “Oh, she has definitely shot a gun now. You’d be amazed.”
“You were in the Army, yeah?”
“I was.”
“Special forces like this Matt guy I hear about?”
“Special operations, yeah.”
“So you’re tough hombres?”
“We hold our own.” Peter repressed laughter. “Got us this far.”
“Well, you use that to protect her, huh?”
“I have been. She’ll be okay. I give my word.”
“Yeah? She better be.”
Phebe said, “We got a line to use the phone. Ma, Anthony, I love you both.”
“I love you, baby,” Colleen sobbed. “I pray every day for you. I’ll pray for Peter, too.”
“Okay. Love you both. And the aunts and uncles. Tell everyone I love them. And I am okay.”
“Okay, baby.” Colleen’s voice told she was really losing it. Her words became incomprehensible.
“We’ll call this Caitlyn Sullivan,” said Anthony. “You take care of yourself, kiddo. Love ya.”
“Love you, too. Bye.”
She pulled the headset off and stared at it. Tears dripped from her cheeks.
“C’mon.” Peter gave her a tissue and put his arm around her.
She hugged him and sobbed in his arms.
Mazy waited in the doorway. Eric waved in the next caller. They had drawn straws for the order between the four of them.
“You’re next Matt,” Mazy directed to the men waiting on the walkway.
Entering the saloon, Matt gave a worried look to weeping Phebe. “Everything alright at home?”
“Think it was hearing their voices,” said Peter. “But, yeah, they’re okay.”
Matt nodded. His green eyes watched Phebe with soft sympathy.
“Go ahead,” said Peter, ignoring the way his friend looked at his wife. “We’ll leave if you want privacy.”
“No, no. Don’t get her more upset.”
Peter passed him the headset. He was glad to stay, remembering Caitlyn had said something was up with Matt’s family.
Matt paced, listening to it ring.
Voice mail.
“Shit.” He left a message. “It’s me, Matt. I’m alive. I’m okay. I’m trying to get a hold
of you via satellite phone. Still in the Zone, but I’m good. I love you all. God bless. Bye-bye. Love ya.” Disconnect.
He gave Eric another number.
“Shit.”
Same thing.
He took out his cell phone and scrolled numbers. “Try this. My brother-in-law’s cell.”
“My sister said something’s going on,” Peter informed. “Something about the government giving a culling order about the horses.”
Matt’s eyes blazed. “What?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Oh, fucking hell, no. They can’t kill the horses. That’s their livelihood. Fuck!”
“What would they do?”
“They’re champion cutting horses. They’d never kill them. They – no one in my county – would cull their horses or the cattle. Or the Cheyenne with their ponies. No way. Fuck! I know what they did. Damn it. They don’t have satellite phones. They’ll be paranoid about the government finding them, too. Shit.” He scanned around at the saloon. “I can charge my cell here, right?”
Eric responded, “It won’t have a signal.”
“I know that. It’s running low on juice and I need numbers off of it.”
“Sure then.” He pulled out a drawer of the desk. “Pick a power cord that fits.”
“Brandon’s next. Let him call while I do this.”
Eric waved him in via Mazy.
“Why isn’t Emily out there?” Peter’s arm remained around Phebe.
“She doesn’t have a cell,” answered Brandon. “All her numbers of relatives in New York are gone.”
“Shit. Well, hopefully, my sister can locate them. She’s up for detective. She should be good at this.”
Eric began typing. “I may be able to connect to that board.”
“Phebe, you okay?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah.” She sat up and wiped the last tears. “Everything’s fine.”
“Matt?”
Intensity radiated from Matt. “If you get a hold of your family, ask ‘em what’s going on with horses and livestock. A culling order from the government.”
“Are you serious?”
“Wish I wasn’t, brother.”
“Well, my family’s suburbs, but I’ll ask.”
Headset on, Brandon moved through the door at the back of the saloon to the enclosed deck. They figured it was so they wouldn’t see him tear up.
“You’ll want this speaker, too,” said Eric. “Or we can hear you.”
Brandon returned and grabbed the small speaker. Connected via Bluetooth, he took it into the back enclosed deck.
Mazy and Ben came in.
“You alright?” Mazy sat next to Phebe and put her arm around her.
“Just hearing them.”
“Keep those tissues where I can get to ‘em. I’m fixing on crying my eyes out too.”
“Well,” said Ben. “I’m going back there.”
“So we don’t see you cry?” Peter cocked a smirk.
“Damn right.”
“You calling Grandpa Standing Bear?”
“Yeah. He’s the only one I guarantee will be sober.”
“He gonna make you teary?”
“If animals are being culled, I’m weeping.”
“Gotcha.”
They waited for news from Brandon. At the time up, Eric gave the signal to the invisible watch on his wrist. Peter threw an empty can against the door to alert Brandon.
“So?” Matt asked as Brandon came back in.
“Yeah. Who’s next?”
“What’s the sitch?” Matt implored.
“It’s like you said. Government order. But it’s on all animals. Pets, too. My family is freaking. Somebody tried to shoot our dog. He’s alright. They missed. But my Dad didn’t. Got the guy in the leg. They’re all boarded up and shit.”
“In Montana?” Peter asked. “Isn’t that west of the Mississippi? Or am I wrong on the middle of the country geography again?”
“It is west. It’s against mostly healthy people. A few zoms. Enough to make everyone go even crazier. Nobody’s working. Everyone’s broke. Looting like crazy. The place is melting down without an outbreak.”
“Good times.” Peter shook his head. “That was why the government lied.”
“People are fucking nuts,” said Ben. “Hey, what about wild animal herds? Like the buffalo?”
“I didn’t know to ask.”
“Is everyone at home alright?” Phebe inquired.
“Oh yeah. I mean, physically. They’re freaking the fuck out. My dad and brother-in-law are sitting in the driveway. They upgraded from shotguns to assault rifles and bulletproof vests.”
“In Montana?” Matt spoke in disbelief.
“Everywhere, my mom said. She was crying. But got my dad on. They’re quarantined like COVID, except now everybody’s hoarding and armed. Barricades going up at people’s homes. My parents aren’t the biggest internet people. But my sister is. She saw the shit here before it was pulled off.”
“They started that before the outbreak,” said Phebe. “Pulling off all social media footage of the quote, Real Zombies of the South.”
“So they’re still doing that censorship bullshit?” asked Peter.
“Yeah. But there’s an internet board for missing people in the Zone. I gave them all your names to hook up with your families.”
“Good,” said Peter.
“I’m working on finding it,” said Eric. “There can be no trace it came from here, so it takes a minute.”
“I gotta find my family.” Matt ran his fingers through his blond hair as he paced.
“Can I use it yet?” Mazy asked.
“What? Yeah.”
Eric had a battery-operated votive candle in front of the framed photo of the hacker and her brother. And a piece of food as an offering.
Mazy listened to the phone ring. “C’mon, Daddy, pick up.”
A deep baritone voice said, “Hello?”
She burst out crying. “Daddy!”
“Oh, sweet Jesus, is that my Mazaline? Please, be.”
“It is, Daddy.”
She slipped off the couch down to the floor. The coffee table against her bent knees.
Phebe handed her a tissue.
“Thank you, Jesus. You are alive.” He hollered in his booming voice, “Mazy is on my cell phone. Get y’all’s tushies here. It’s her.”
In the background, running feet and the voices of her mother and sister.
“Are you okay, baby girl?” he asked.
“I am, Daddy. We found a way to call. Long story.”
“Put her on speakerphone, please, Daddy,” her sister’s voice.
Mazy fought cry face from taking over. She breathed in and out as if in Lamaze training.
Phebe squeezed her shoulder
Ben sat on the arm of the couch to be near her and lend support.
“We’re all here,” her mother’s voice. “We’re trying to pack up.”
“Pack up for what?” Mazy asked.
“We gotta leave N’awlins, cher. Oh, my baby child.” The crying began.
“We love you so much, Maze.” Her sister’s voice told she cried as well.
Mazy could imagine them, holding each other. Two petite, café late light-skinned women with curly-Q long hair. Got their makeup on. They habitually did that right after morning coffee. And Daddy, towering over them in height. A big bear of a man who could scoop them both up in his arms. He would be trying to keep his emotions in check, but his nostrils would flare, as they did whenever he was upset.
“Why are you leaving N’awlins?”
Her daddy’s voice, “The bridges close at three this coming morning. We gotta be on the other side before then or we will be stuck east of the Mississippi River. It’s coming, baby. They have seen herds of deer moving west into Mississippi.”
Her stomach clenched, wanting to erupt in a sob. She took another cleansing breath and stared up at the ceiling.
“Is everyone going, Dad
dy?”
“Auntie won’t budge. Just like all those times before for the hurricanes. Stubborn as she is.”
“Yeah, she is.”
Auntie was her great aunt who inherited the historic house in the French Quarter. The house was filled with passed down antiques and family legacy including the journals and oil paintings of their ancestors. But Auntie was bats in the belfry. She had long gray hair, put up in an old fashion style, and wore very outdated dresses. Always had her umbrella, so the sun wouldn’t darken her skin. Absolutely crazy, she was, seeming to believe she was in another era. Tourists thought she was an actress. But she would never leave the house for any reason. Even for Katrina. Fortunately, the French Quarter was on higher ground and did not flood.
But everyone else’s houses were gone, so once allowed back into New Orleans, they all had to bunk in with Auntie and the antiques hoard. She drove them all mental. Freaking out worse than Eric whenever somebody moved anything in the house, even to get it out of their way.
“We miss you deep,” her daddy said. “We pray for you.”
“I am good. Believe it or not.”
“We knew you would be,” her sister yelled at the speakerphone.
“We sure did.” She could hear his smile. “Some dumb virus ain’t gonna beat our Mazy Marine.”
“Sure enough,” her mother yelled at the speakerphone.
“How many people are trying to leave, Daddy?”
“A lot.”
“I’m keeping you from it then?”
“But we want to hear your voice.” His emotion cracked through.
“I am loving hearing y’all’s.”
“Tell us about your Texan. He there?”
She sniffled. Cleared her throat. “No, Daddy. I’m afraid Jim did not make it.”
“Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. You okay?”
“The Zone has a different time than normal. Feels like years ago. I mourned after.”
“You want me to call his family?”
“I’d sure appreciate that, Daddy. You still got their number?”
“You know me. I got everyone’s number in my book.”
She chuckled. He still kept numbers written in a paper address book, because he did not entirely trust cell phones and other electronics longevity.
“I got more numbers for your little book.” She looked at Peter and he pushed the pad towards her. “This is the cell number of Peter Sullivan’s sister. He is –”
“Jim’s sergeant?”
“You remember everything. His sister’s name is Caitlyn Sullivan. She’s a police officer in Boston up North.”