The Scattered and the Dead (Book 2.5)

by Tim McBain

  “I’m a Junior, dickface,” I said.

  Almost as soon as I spoke, I knew that was probably the most juvenile response possible.

  A couple of the other soldiers chuckled, though I wasn’t sure if it was because I sounded like a whining little brat or if it amused them that I’d called Bennett a dickface.

  “No, she’s right,” Max said. “That’s 1999 in roman numerals.”

  Max is kinda cute, actually. You always said that tall and gangly was my type. He has green eyes with freckles scattered over his cheeks. And without his hat on, I saw he had hair the color of sand dunes. (And now I’m going to shut up, because I know you’re probably dying laughing at your poor, lovesick best friend and her flowery descriptions of Max Rippingale.)

  “Maybe it was Cobain’s ghost’s lighter, Sarge,” Jimbo said. “Or maybe just some other guy named Kurt.”

  He and all the other guys cracked up.

  Max winked at me, maybe to let me know they weren’t laughing at me. Or at least, he wasn’t.

  Bennett just stared at me with those creepy cold eyes. They weren’t smiling now.

  “I still think it’s cool,” Breanne said with a shrug, and I had to stop myself from making a gagging sound.

  Like, what part does she think is cool? The part where he lied about owning a piece of Nirvana memorabilia to impress two teenage girls? Yep. Pretty cool.

  We hung around for a few more minutes, but eventually Bennett said, “You kiddies better run on back to camp now.”

  Breanne glowered at me, like it was my fault he was making us leave. On the walk back, she bitched about it some more.

  “Why’d you have to be such a know-it-all?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “OK.” She said it all sarcastic.

  “I read a stupid date. I can’t help it if he’s a liar.”

  “Whatever. You know he made us leave because they were about to smoke pot.”

  I didn’t know what her point was. “How do you know?”

  “Because I saw Jimbo pantomime smoking a joint, and then suddenly Bennett told us to scram.”

  I still didn’t see how that made it more my fault.

  “I thought you wanted me to come out of my turtle shell.”

  “Not if you’re going to do it like that.”

  When I got back to our tent, my mom grilled me about where I’d been.

  “I was hanging out with Breanne.”

  “Who’s Breanne?”

  “A girl,” I said.

  Like I could tell her any more than that when I’d only know her for a day and a half.

  “And she’s your age?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Close enough, anyway. I would assume that Breanne being a year older isn’t a big deal, but sometimes my mom is so weird about that stuff. Which obviously I don’t have to tell you.

  “What’s she like? Are her parents here with her? Are they from the Pittsburgh area or farther away, like us?”

  You also know how she likes to play twenty questions. She’s so obsessed with me stumbling across a “bad influence.”

  I dodged her questions the best I could. I mean, I barely know most of the answers anyway.

  But then she asked, “So what were you and this girl up to?”

  Kelly, can we just take a moment and imagine what she’d do if I told her the truth? Oh, we were just hanging out with a bunch of the off-duty soldiers. You know, smoking cigarettes and having a few beers.

  It’s hilarious that she’d have a fit if I was even in the presence of such debauchery.

  So instead, I said, “Oh, we just kinda walked around. Talked about school stuff.”

  That satisfied her. Big time.

  Technically it’s not really a lie since we did discuss roman numerals, right?

  So now I’m in my cot, pretending to do some late night book-reporting before bed. It is not comfortable whatsoever. It’s hot as balls out, but the sleeping bag is down or some shit. And no sheets! I hate sleeping without sheets. When I sleep uncovered like that, I feel like some creepy banshee lady is hovering over my bed all night, waiting for me to open my eyes so she can frighten me to death or suck my soul out through my sinus cavity. Or whatever banshees do.

  Ugh.

  Your wussy BFF,

  Erin

  Erin

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  7 days before

  Kel-

  Did I ever tell you why we left for the camp in the first place? I mean, aside from the fact that no one in town had power for going on four weeks, and the electric company doesn’t give a crap because we live in Podunk, PA? (Every time I complained about the daily task of driving to the cemetery to fill up water jugs so we could flush the toilets and do dishes and laundry, my mom was all, Oh, Erin, why do you have to always be so negative?)

  You remember Mrs. Sevransky, right? She’s the lady that lives around the corner from us. The one who always laid out an arrangement of king-size candy bars on Halloween and then invited you in to select the bar of your choice. Somebody (and according to the police it was a group of somebodies) broke into her house to steal a bunch of stuff. They beat her up pretty bad and left her for dead. Which is insane, because she’s an old lady. It’s not like she was really posing a threat or anything. Surely they could have locked her in a bathroom or something, taken what they wanted, and left her alone. Scumbags.

  Anyway, after my mom heard that story, she freaked the eff out. Actually, wait. She was pretty worked up after Jeannie next door told her all the grisly details, but it was what I said that really made her lose it.

  I said, “We should get some pepper spray or something.”

  You should have seen the way her eyes bugged out of her head.

  “What on earth would make you say that? Pepper spray? Pepper spray! I will not have weapons in my house!”

  “I was just saying, in case someone tried to—”

  Oh, but that was so over the line. She waved her hands in the air to cut me off.

  “Out of the question! Out! Of! The! Question! I can’t believe you would even think that way.”

  I’m still confused, honestly. Think what way? That what happened to Mrs. Sevransky could happen to us? Obviously she doesn’t deny that, because isn’t that the whole reason we came here? We left our house to be guarded by a bunch of guys with guns in a camp. I don’t understand how that’s any different.

  Except that if we’d done things my way, we’d actually be in control of our own destiny. God forbid.

  In terms of camp life, I would celebrate the fact that I don’t have to haul water to flush the toilets anymore, but the porta-potties have gone from “pretty gross” to “crime against humanity” in a matter of three days. And before you have the pleasure of using one of those bright blue cesspools, you get to do the thing we do for everything around here: wait in line!

  I’d estimate I spend easily half of my day standing in line at this point. We stand in line for food, we stand in line for water, we stand in line for seats before camp meetings.

  Speaking of the food… Today’s menu featured mashed potatoes, and you know me. I can go to town on some mashed taters. Kel, these were not mashed potatoes. It was gray, slippery goop that tasted like someone pureed a bunch of wet toilet paper in a blender. Barfgasm.

  Now I can’t stop thinking of your mom’s mashed potatoes and how she always makes the little well in the middle of the pile for the gravy. I could cry just now thinking of those salty spuds.

  Meanwhile, Breanne wouldn’t shut up about pizza. She kept talking about trying to get Bennett or one of the other National Guardsmen (is that the correct nomenclature?) into driving us into Pittsburgh to get pizza. Yeah, I’m sure their commanding officer would be totally fine with a quick jaunt into the city for some quality pie.

  Not that I wouldn’t dive face-first into a pizza right about now. Mmm… pizza and breadsticks from Angelo’s. Even Checkerboard sounds good at this point. You know how they
use that weird, thick pepperoni that turns into perfect little cups of grease in the oven? I always found that pretty gross, but I would eat the shit out of it right now. One extra-large grease-cup pizza, please!

  (Sorry for that smudge, I literally just drooled on the paper after all that.)

  There are so many people pouring out of the city that even though our tents are made for 6-8 people, they are making everyone squeeze in extra cots. So we have a new roommate. (Tentmate?) She’s an older lady, like probably 75 or 80, and she has some classic old lady name like Dorothy or Barbara or Lois. You know how I always forget names when I meet new people, because I get all nervous and flustered and my brain shuts off? Well, I can’t remember her name. So now she’s Wetty McMoistEyes, because she’s got these big, bulging, watery-looking eyes like that basset hound your neighbors used to have.

  Sorry, I know you hate that word. But I can’t resist.

  Moist.

  Breanne and I were “doing laps” around camp after lunch. Usually we stick to the area with all the tents, but we could see some of the soldiers in one of the far corners working on setting up another giant tent. Not quite as big as the mess tent, but almost. Probably thinking Bennett might be there, Breanne couldn’t resist doing a drive-by.

  Bennett wasn’t there (too bad, so sad). But Max was. He was using a sledgehammer to secure a tent stake, but he paused when he saw us. He smiled and gestured at me with the rubber mallet in his fist.

  “Well, if it isn’t Porcia Catonis.”

  “Who?”

  “She was Marcus Brutus’ wife.”

  Breanne looked at me like I’d know what the heck he was talking about. I shrugged.

  “You know, the guy that killed Julius Caesar? They were from Rome? Roman numerals…” He closed his eyes and let out a dramatic sigh. “Never mind.”

  “Sorry,” I said, kind of laughing at how disappointed he sounded.

  “It was a joke but obviously not a very funny one.” He waved the hammer. “Carry on, ladies.”

  We started walking again, and for some reason I felt kind of flustered and giddy.

  “Wow. What a humongous dork.”

  I thought Breanne was talking about me so I said, “What did I do?”

  “Not you. Him.” Then she snorted. “Though now that I think about it, you did prove yourself a pretty massive dork with that roman numeral thing to begin with.”

  I didn’t get a chance to protest before she started chuckling.

  “Yep, you two should totally bone and have a bunch of dork babies together.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I was secretly happy.

  Your majorly dorky BFF,

  Erin

  P.S. Watery McWetEyes says hello.

  Delfino

  Rural Missouri

  9 years, 133 days after

  When I finally heard the car’s engine for real, I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it was nothing — my mind playing tricks again — and then I thought it was a bug. One of those horseflies about the girth of a grown man’s thumb or something, putrid veiny wings buzzing loud as shit.

  But no.

  It was a car.

  A car approaching on the interstate.

  I huddled myself some, head rested between my knees, all of me coiling into something taut, as though tightening my squatted position could further conceal me in the grass.

  And I adjusted my grip on the shotgun just to feel it in my hands.

  All I wanted to do was look, of course. I wanted to peer over the grass wall, just a little peek. But I couldn’t.

  Even if I risked it, the dark would render it useless for a while yet. I knew that from straining my eyes off and on earlier. Learned that lesson the hard way.

  The pitch black nothing sprawled all around. Endless and shapeless. It made me sick to look into it, so I didn’t.

  I knew I wouldn’t see the car — any car — until the headlights crested the little hill down the way and brought it into view.

  I blinked a few times, gazing down to where the darkness shrouded my feet, and then I closed my eyes again.

  The engine noise grew louder and fuller. Some low-end rumble thickening up that initial mid-range buzz I’d heard.

  I rocked back and forth, careful to avoid making contact with the walls of grass hung up around me, careful not to make any noise.

  A strange rhythm overtook my body almost right away. A trance of some kind, I think. My shoulders jerked to some beat I couldn’t hear and didn’t understand. Hypnotic. Controlled. But there was something aggressive about it anyhow.

  The violence to come.

  That’s what it was, I think. A savage wave in the air that shook me, made my muscles twitch and sway, made me relish the feel of the shotgun in my hands.

  Put bad thoughts in my head.

  This was battle I was going into. I knew that. On some animal level, I understood it, and I was fucking ready.

  So I waited.

  Waited.

  Rocked and rocked and waited.

  The engine’s growl grew louder, and when I lifted my head at last, I saw what I knew I would.

  Headlights.

  The two beams drifted over the top of the hill and shattered the darkness. Split the shadow open wide. It was intense after so long out here in the black.

  Everything was a little different than I remembered. Smaller. Farther away. The dark had morphed it in my mind, I guess, and then the light came along and reminded me.

  The way it glinted off the road made my chest tingle, this rolling wedge of strange illumination rocketing down the hill toward me. It was overstimulating or something. Almost religious in a way.

  Let there be light.

  And I rocked. And I waited.

  It was the Fiesta. I couldn’t tell for sure until it got a little closer.

  Red flared from behind the hatchback. Brake lights. And then the car slowed, slowed, slowed as it drew up on the Delta 88 with its hood open wide.

  I tucked my head down again, remembering myself, remembering what was going on here.

  My hands went icy cold against the gun. Shaking a little. Adrenaline.

  The car rolled to a stop from the sound of it, a little jerk creeping into the engine’s drone followed quickly by a change in pitch. It held its new note for a while, and without warning, it cut out all at once.

  And the silence screamed in its place.

  Erin

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  6 days before

  Kel-

  You are going to love this.

  My mom and I were on our way out of the mess tent this morning, after a breakfast best not rehashed here. (Mmm… reHASH… hash browns…)

  We had to pass the long line of people still waiting to get their food. And who should be there, practicing his expert line-standing skills, but Max. Just as we drew even with him, he glanced over and saw me.

  He started smiling immediately, snapped his fingers, and pointed at me.

  “Einstein! Everyone knows Einstein, I should have gone with that!”

  There weren’t any mirrors in sight, but I didn’t need to see my reflection to know that my face had turned beet red from blushing. I would have been flustered regardless of who I was with, but it was my mom. And you know my mom. The twenty questions were going to begin any moment, and I needed some fresh air and some space between me and ol’ Max if I was going to think straight.

  I hurried out of the tent without a word to her or Max, but she kept pace and stared me down the whole time.

  “What was that all about?”

  Holy shit, Kel, my brain has never had to work so fast to come up with a plausible story.

  “There was a trivia game the other night. For the kids,” I said. “I knew the answer to a really hard question, so I guess I’m Einstein now.”

  I threw in a shrug. I’m pretty sure I’m going to hell just for that single scrunching movement of my shoulders. Such a big fat liar.

  “Oh!” I could tell
that wasn’t the answer she’d been anticipating, but she sounded relieved. “What was it?”

  “What was what?”

  “The trivia question?”

  Crap. Of course she’d want to know that. If we actually had phone service, she’d probably call all of her friends to brag about my enormous intellect.

  “I can’t remember what the question was, but the answer was Nelson Mandela.”

  She clicked her tongue.

  “I’m not surprised you did well. You’ve always been very bright.” And then, because she can’t just leave it at that — you know, an actual honest-to-goodness compliment — she added, “If you just applied yourself…”

  I rolled my eyes. Knee-jerk reaction. This was about that Trig quiz again. The one I failed three months ago. Never mind that I passed the freaking class with a B+. So that’s what I said.

  “I got a B+ in that class! One quiz isn’t the end of the world.”

  “It’s not about the grade, Erin. It’s about what you could accomplish if you put in some real effort.”

  You know the subtext in that statement as well as I do. Why can’t you be more like Missy Klein? Missy Klein, girl wonder! Missy Klein, who’s never had so much as a single A-minus besmirch her report card! Missy Klein, shoe-in for valedictorian!

  Excuse me if I don’t model my life after a girl that chooses to go by the name “Missy” at the age of eighteen. Then again, Missy’s mom is almost as disturbed as mine. She’d probably stroke out if Missy requested that everyone start calling her Melissa.

  Anyway, as annoying as it was to be having this conversation for the 1600th time, I was just glad the whole Max thing had slid under the radar.

  Sometimes I feel guilty about keeping so many secrets from her. Other times I think maybe I could change how things are by laying everything on the table. Being 100% honest from now on and rolling with the punches. Aren’t I reinforcing her behavior by never challenging it?

  Then again, I’m not sure I’m a match for her neurotic tendencies.

  The other big news around camp is this: Remember how I mentioned seeing Max and some of the other National Guard soldiers putting up that massive tent? I guess it’s going to be a hospital tent.