The Walker Family Vacation (Episode 1)

by McRory, Shane

  The Walker Family Vacation

  episode 1

  Shane McRory

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Episode 1

  of The Walker Family Vacation serial

  First Edition. January 8, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 by Shane McRory

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Afterword

  Webcomic

  About the Author

  Blackshift Preview

  Prologue

  CHRISTIAN

  If any of them survived, they would look back at the incident in the tavern as the harbinger of the terror to come; the first and only warning they would receive to get themselves the fuck off the island before their vacation collapsed into inescapable horror.

  At lunch yesterday, every member of this year’s Walker Family Vacation witnessed a grown man at another table vomit blood and teeth all over his BLT—the B being a thick slice of Canadian pea-meal, given the selected location of the perennial family get-together. It was just after the lunchtime rush, around two, and the Walker clan and guests had disembarked from the ferry. A bellhop from The Holloway met them and took their luggage away in a golf cart, but he’d told the guy they all needed to stretch their legs.

  No vehicles allowed on the island, they’d walked up from the port and into the town. Everyone hungry, they’d all stopped at The Rebellion, a tavern on Michimac Island’s picturesque Main Street, lined with its Victorian shops below the limestone bluff and under the watchful eye of the white stone wall of historic Fort Michimac.

  The Rebellion was at half-capacity and the massive Walker clan could easily find seating together. The family vacation event, or the FVE as Amanda abbreviated it, began five years ago when he made VP at the tender age of thirty-seven. This year’s destination—to quaint, historic, yet fun and amenity-providing Michimac Island, in the Straits of Michimac on the Canadian side of Lake Superior—would mark the sixth family adventure.

  Each vacation sported a revolving roster with plenty of familiar faces, particularly he and Amanda and their own children; Troy, College Freshman, fourteen-year-old Hunt, sixteen-year-old Stacy, twelve-year-old Tabby, and their sweet little newcomer, six-year-old Bethany. Mom and Pop, and five Walker kids. Also in attendance this year for the two week getaway: his own mom Evie, Amanda’s father, Charles, Amanda’s sister April and her boyfriend Houston (oh brother), and two of the children’s good friends; Tabby’s pal Becca, and Hunter’s good but weird buddy, Warren—or Wooly as he liked to be called. White kid with a head of thick tight curls like a Brillo pad.

  All thirteen travel-weary members sat down, taking up four tables pushed together by the waitress, famished and tired. The journey began with a flight from Philadelphia International to Pellston Regional in northern Michigan. From there it was a four-plus hour drive in three overloaded rental cars to cross the border and reach the ferry that would take them far out in the lake to the remote but popular island.

  After the young waitress had taken their order, they waited for their food and he’d tried to keep the spirits high, especially the kids. Amanda joined him, encouraging Bethany to sing her little song about poop, bringing laughter from his father-in-law Charles, but chagrin from his own mother. True, had he sung such a song at the table where they would eat when he was six, mom would have slapped him right out of his chair. But dammit, Bethany was just so gosh-darned cute, and frankly, times had changed; plus her poop song was pretty fucking funny. The other kids didn’t care; Troy and Stacy noses down in their phones, Hunt and Wooly engaged in some sort of plan that involved their plastic straws and paper wrappers and he imagined, probably, their boogers somehow, Tabby and her pretentious little friend Becca, both making superior faces like they were above it all. April and Houston held hands across the table, looking into each other’s eyes sitting at the end like they weren’t even part of the entourage.

  That’s when it happened.

  Bethany sang: “I’m no longer afraid—I’m proud of the poop that I made …” and Becca coughed a disrespectful, “Oh, gawd.”

  At first he was mad, thinking this uppity young girl—a guest—was chastising his little daughter’s song or her singing abilities. He tsk-ed and frowned and shot her a look. She wasn’t even watching Bethany. No, instead she had one thin hand clamped over her mouth, and with wide eyes stared across to the opposite bank of tables.

  Conversation stopped, and he’d followed Becca’s gaze to discover an elderly couple in distress. They were mid-meal, the wife rising from her seat with a hand over her mouth much like Becca. A man he assumed was her husband sat opposite her, him facing toward the Walker banquet. Eyes wide and shocked he looked around dumbly, his hands working on the table, picking up and dropping a fork, sliding a folded napkin to the side …

  “Oh no, Tom,” the man’s wife gasped, appalled, frightened, but afraid to touch him.

  Tom had thrown up a slick, dark splash of blood all over his lunch. Red bile bubbled over top of his sandwich, a spattering across his curly fries. Below his nose and up his cheeks he frothed crimson; it dripped and drooled from the point of his chin.

  “Oh my God, Christian,” Amanda said in a tight whisper next to him, so soft, yet the restaurant so suddenly quiet it was as if his wife’s voice was wired right into his head. In his periphery, he could see she had slipped off her seat and squatted next to Bethany who had ceased her humorous crooning and now tried to peek around the hand Amanda had clamped over her eyes to protect her from this grotesque visage. Christian’s eyes remained glued to the horror.

  Poor Tom wasn’t finished. Now his back heaved and bucked, and he made a sick face while his body lurched like a cat looking to produce a hairball. Five, six, seven gulps and it came up in a voluminous gush that splashed across the table and his wife inexplicably lifted her drinking glass out of the way as if her husband had just accidentally tipped over a glass of wine.

  The young girls shrieked, and he heard Hunt groan, “Holy shit.”

  Tom let out a long wheezing moan that went on and on until it shook and warbled, disappearing into a hoarse whisper.

  “Tom?” the older woman asked in a hopeful tone, believing it was over. Who knows what she thought—perhaps he’d consumed a lot of beets the night before, maybe this wasn’t as dire as it seemed. “Tom?” she asked him again when her companion didn’t respond.

  It wasn’t over.

  Hunt covered Stacy’s eyes, and she slapped his hand away, horrified but still watching. Amanda hugged Bethany. Christian was still frozen, unable to remove his eyes from the grotesque spectacle.

  Tom had sat up straighter then, looking around as if coming out of some fugue. There was a white gauze bandage on his forearm and he picked at it with his fingernails. His wife said his name again, reached to him but he sat back. The couple were at a table, the wife on a chair, her husband sitting on a long, shared bench. The other adjacent customers had pushed themselves far away, afraid of the
splatter. Tom looked left and right at them, his face blank—Christian believing he was trying to assure them he was all right. His hands moved to his face, and he felt his cheeks, felt his mouth, examined the blood on his fingers. Then he put those fingers in his mouth and sucked on them.

  That was when Christian stood up, and without looking at his family said, “All right, everybody up.” And when they didn’t respond, he slapped the table. “Up, up, up!” He kicked his chair back and motioned with his hands as if shooing them all toward the front door. Still his eyes weren’t removed from that poor man who now had licked his bloody fingers into pale, red-streaked digits. His wife, who had a moment ago appeared hopeful, plopped her butt back down on the chair and covered her mouth again, watching with dismay.

  Amanda joined in with him, knowing what her husband wanted, knowing it was the right thing. There was no way they were eating here today and there was no way their children could sit and witness any more of this. “Everybody out,” she said calmly, like a grade school teacher during a fire drill. “Out, out, out,” she repeated, almost sweetly, standing and hoisting Bethany up into her arms and cradling her.

  Troy joined in, big brother acting for once like he was part of the family, glimmers of old Troy when he was a less surly teenager. He got Stacy and the others pointed toward the door. Meanwhile, the hand old-man-Tom held to his mouth began shaking—then with great satisfaction, he pulled out a canine tooth and examined it.

  “Okay, holy shit,” Christian said, his profanity unavoidable. His hands trembled as he pressed Becca and Tabby on their backs, hoping they wouldn’t turn around, aiming them at the doorway as they all shuffled out and back to the street. He looked over his shoulder once more and saw Tom drop his tooth to the table, heard it clatter. Saw that the man was toothless. Saw that when he’d vomited that second time, his teeth had gone with the spew and after the blood had soaked into his sandwich, there were half a dozen teeth left resting on top like bizarre condiments.

  1

  Christian

  The massage room was warm, the walls paneled in aromatic cedar. Not very big, just enough space for the elaborate and comfortable massage table he lay on, and for the masseuse to move around. Three walls were wood-paneled, the fourth completely glass, and it looked across the grassy field that sloped to the lakeshore. The place was minimalist in decoration; a pushcart filled with lotions and oils with a neat stack of folded towels atop. A chair against the wall where he’d folded and left his clothing before donning the towel. Gentle yet strangely Asian music was piped quietly through speakers hidden in the low ceiling. It was kind of claustrophobic but the big glass wall helped. Plus, it was bright and sunny out this morning, the lake choppy, the sky a brilliant blue. The glass must be one-sided because a pathway passed just beyond the glass that ran close to the building. He was sure the owners of the Holloway Inn and Spa didn’t want passersby to get a look up his towel and peep his ying-yang. Right now, he lay face down, feet toward the window, head nestled in the leather padded hole waiting for his masseuse—waiting for quite a long while now.

  After the horrid events at lunchtime yesterday, they checked into their rooms at the Holloway, and he and Amanda had worked at putting the ugly scene out of the children’s minds. After check-in they had an early dinner. A feast of unappealing health food—Amanda decided to try to go vegan for a little while, imitating her sister. There were greens and vegetables, some sort of tabbouleh, and an assortment of Middle Eastern and Japanese dishes. It was the whole reason he wanted to stop at The Rebellion tavern; get a good whack of solid, greasy food and meat in his belly before the two-week stay at the Michelin-star rated resort geared toward a healthy lifestyle that his wife had selected for the stay. Vegan menu, yoga, meditation, blah blah blah, etc., etc. Amanda, April, his mom, and the girls were all into it; Hunt, Wooly, and Troy not so much. But just beyond the resort’s perimeter there were plenty of things that the guys could get themselves into. Plenty of places to get a hamburger and milkshake, jet ski rentals, sailboats, batting cages, even a golf course for him and Charles. And Hunt wasn’t too bad with a club either.

  The early hour of dinner meant there wasn’t much wait staff on, and despite the resort’s reputation for excellent staffing it took forever to get through their meal. The kids ended up picking through the food anyway, a combination of what they witnessed at The Rebellion and the strange food. Though, Becca and Tabby took a lot of pictures which he was sure ended up on their Instagram accounts. No one talked about Tom, and it was probably for the better anyway. Though he wondered what happened to that man after they left. Wondered if he had passed away.

  It was a terrible start to the vacation and their first evening was weighted with a sick feeling. Everyone retired early. He booked three suites for the thirteen attendees. Only two were adjoining. And unfortunately that meant that the bedroom he and Amanda occupied butted up against the opposing bedroom in the adjoining suite. Houston and April, unhindered by the horrid and bloody display at lunch time, went into a long extended session of raucous banging. He and Amanda laughed it off at first, but after an hour grew uncomfortable. They were trying to watch TV. It occurred to him that they could partake in their own session but he honestly wasn’t really feeling into it. Nor was Amanda. They were normal people.

  But Houston and April went at it for two-and-a-half hours. April was uproariously vocal; Houston apparently had some capabilities. It provoked a competitiveness in him but not the desire. He’d show Amanda tonight. He and his wife would put on a display that would shame her sister. Probably.

  When they woke this morning, they skipped breakfast, and each sought their own adventure. The best way to start fresh was to hit the ground running, leave all that nastiness in the rearview mirror. So Amanda took the girls (Tabby, Bethany, Stacy, and Becca) to the opposite side of the island to go horseback riding. Houston slept in, and April said he wasn’t feeling well but he’d meet up at lunch (not feeling well?—he’d certainly been in top form while he and Amanda wanted to sleep). Hunter and Wooly walked into town to go to the mini-putt and he imagined they would spend the rest of the morning at the arcade which he knew adjoined. Charles and Evie went for a stroll along the boardwalk, and Troy shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t know what he was going to do. Last he saw him he was walking the resort’s winding driveway and headed into town.

  That left him alone to do whatever he wanted. His choice?—his choice was obvious. The long day of travel yesterday had beaten up his forty-three-year-old body, and he deserved a pampering. With a joyous whistle, he strolled the pathways of the spa, thinking he might meet up with Hunt and Wooly after, grab a hamburger before they met here for another sampling of raw vegetables and pureed beans. When he’d called the reception from his room, the woman on the phone said they had a surprise opening this morning if he came right away; arriving at the long low building, separate from the main Inn, overlooking the deep side of Lake Superior, he saw she wasn’t kidding. Expected the place to be busy, but found the waiting lounge empty. Great for him. The young woman at the counter said there were two cancellations but that one of the massage therapists didn’t show up for work this morning. She gave him some other chump’s appointment, telling him Steve would be in to see him in a moment.

  Steve. A guy—happy ending ruled out. Not that he was looking for one, nor would he accept one really, but there was always that possibility … Nope, he’d never cheated on Amanda, not even come close. No interest. Amanda still set their sheets on fire, and at forty, she was just as hot as she was when he met her, even hotter than her younger, very sexually active and childless sister.

  2

  Troy

  “You came inside me?—you’ve got to be shitting me!”

  He looked down between his legs, saw his erection poking up from under his long T-shirt, the condom torn, the remnants shoved down in a tattered latex bunch around the base. The bare skin glistened with wet.

  “Ah, fuck,” he whispered. “The
condom broke.”

  “No shit, Sherlock, the condom broke,” she said, her grey-blue eyes challenging him. She was squatted down on the bathroom floor, bare knees shot out on either side, both her hands shoved underneath her, holding bunched up wads of rough brown paper pulled from the battered receptacle in The Rebellion’s ladies room.

  “Don’t be mad at me,” he said, meeting her challenge. “I didn’t make the condom.”

  “Ohh, dammit,” she moaned, her head thumping back against the wall. “I really don’t need this right now.”

  He shook his head, pursed his lips. He murmured, “Shit, I should have gone to a different store. They were all out of Magnums …”

  “What?” she scoffed.

  He said, “I had to buy regular-sized condoms …”

  She stared back at him, mouth hanging open in incredulity.

  “What?” he said now.

  “It broke because it wasn’t a Magnum?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What?”

  “Oh, please,” she muttered.

  “What do you mean, oh, please?”

  “Forget it,” she said, wiping at herself, then checking the wad. “God,” she sighed and pressed the paper against her sex again, making a face now like she was flexing her stomach muscles.

  He squatted down next to her, not too close, giving her some space. They were in the washroom at The Rebellion, the door locked. Not a big washroom; two cubicles and one sink, a small window set high up on the wall at the end. Sunlight streamed down and lit her up. Brittney. Or Brit as she told him to call her. The waitress from lunch yesterday. He’d just about shit his pants when she took their table, politely dealing with this big gregarious group, Dad doing that thing where he could talk down to serving staff, but this hot chick letting it roll right off her back. He’d watched her, even stepped in and helped her out, the two of them working like a team to push the tables together, their eyes meeting one time and when she smiled, he gave her one back. Saw that spark there. The outfits they made the girls wear at the tavern were hot, and she had the body to pull it off. Long legs, bare, and this skirt-looking thing in black, though they were shorts so no one could get a look up them. Then a tight white dress shirt, buttoned right up to the top, showed off her slim figure. He never let on he was giving her a look over, acted like he didn’t give a shit, saw hot girls every day (and he did, coming off a killer first year at Penn).