Dead Over Texas
Infected Texas | Book 1
John J. O'Mahony
Copyright © 2018 by John J. O'Mahony
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To my wife, for whom I love.
Contents
1. Road Trip
2. Hello Neighbor
3. Blood In The Sun
4. Help
5. Meat Breath
6. Special Report
7. Goodbye, For Now
8. Busy
9. The Good Doctor
10. Broom Closet
11. Ding!
12. Employee Of The Month
13. On The Road Again
14. Panic On The Highway
15. Dead End
About the Author
Author’s Notes
Book 2 Sneak Peek
1
Road Trip
“Can’t you at least do the speed limit?” I grumbled to the car in front of us as we stutter-stopped our way down I-10 heading back toward Austin. I leaned out my window—giving my backside a brief moment of rest. We can’t get home soon enough…
Hailey peered over my shoulder, “Oh Nate, they’re only being college girls. That will be Emma in a couple of years.” My wife said patting me on the back.
I looked out my passenger-side window as I passed them on the left. Two twenty-somethings sang aloud to the latest flavor of the week. They were making gestures as though they were dancing. But this was driving, and they weren’t that great at it. Actually, they weren’t that great at the dancing part either.
We were on our way back from Florida. Hailey’s mother wasn’t doing so well at that retirement home, we knew that her old age had been failing her for some time now, but we weren’t expecting to make an emergency trip.
That place reeked of lemons. Either it was the cleaner or the stuff they pumped into the air to mask the smell of the elderly. Or the smell of the recently deceased—I could never tell.
I lost count of the times Hailey called her mom only to find out that so-and-so “had just passed.” Those words sounding all too cryptic now.
The worst part of it was that I’d rarely seen anyone visiting the home’s tenants. Poor people. To die without having seen loved ones in so long. Although I’m sure they were coming out of the woodwork when it was time for the will to be read. Making their bounty for their inheritance.
Because in the end, death gets us all. And there will always be someone there to collect what we’ve left behind. Family or otherwise…
They say the last thing you see before you exit this life is a white light. Most of them in that retirement home went out of this world staring up to the unforgiving glow of fluorescent lighting in a grim one sized bedroom adored in tacky flowery wallpaper, only to have to go through those piercing pearly white gates in the end. Sad.
Since Edith, Hailey’s mother, had gotten too old to fly, we’d visit her twice a year. Once on her birthday and again during Christmas break. We had done that for the last few years. This time was different though. This time we didn’t bring the girls and we weren’t celebrating anything.
Mary, a compassionate young women my wife insisted be her mothers caretaker on account of her “being friendly but not untrustworthy around the old folks”, called to inform us that Edith had fallen ill a couple weeks back and was declining quickly.
The doctor said she needed to make her arrangements, contact family and all the other things that come with planning your own death.
Which she had already done so many years ago with her late husband when they were both in their right mind. They purchased side-by-side lots in a beautiful cemetery on the outskirts of Saint Augustine. Each had identical redwood coffins with blue-lining for him, pink-lining for her.
When Bill passed three years ago we expected Edith to follow as is the case in long marriages where one spouse dies—The other is never too far behind. The fact she lived this long at the age of ninety-two was a blessing.
But, she was ready to go be with her husband. Hailey couldn’t see it, wouldn’t accept it, but the old women was ready.
On her last night alive, I stared into her mothers eyes until her very last wheezing breath. She went peacefully with the assurance of someone accepting their fate. Taking my hand gently—squeezing ever so slightly before leaving this earth. Face-up, staring at the glow of buzzing fluorescents.
I had the displeasure of waking Hailey beside her mother’s bedside of her passing. She took it as well as I thought she would. Crying in her lifeless mother’s arms until the nurses came to take her away.
Edith T. Baxter was laid to rest yesterday morning. The staff at Sunshine generously helped gather Edith’s belongings as they often do in these situations. Real estate is limited at Sunshine after-all.
Her body had been barely cold before her bed was stripped, sheets replaced, and name tag at the door replaced with another. The circle of life at Sunshine Living lives on indeed.
I stopped at a Kinko’s and had a photo of Edith enlarged for the backdrop at her burial. Hailey picked the flowers, marigolds, her mothers favorite and framed them along the picture.
I barely recognized the women in that photo. It had to have been taken more than forty years ago. But Hailey said her mother loved that photo. She wearing a beautiful red dress with bright pearls around her thin neck. Her hair was silky brown and her skin was youthful and vibrant. And she was happy. Happily dancing with her husband.
The service was small except for a group of the other tenets she had made friends with at Sunshine Living. They were carted in on a short bus from the facility around noon, just after afternoon snacks were served and pills were passed around.
Afterward, they piled back on and left where they would go back about roaming the halls of the assisted living facility. One less Edith.
We crossed the state border between Louisiana and Texas. Trading bayous for longhorns as we rounded past a bridge over the state line. A large metal star stood big and proud as if to announce; “Welcome to the lone star state, cowboy.”, at the Texas welcome center to our right.
It was what was beside the road that really caught my attention beyond that large Texas star.
There were quite a few military Humvees parked on the opposite side of the Texas state line. Several Army personnel stood in front of camouflaged cargo trucks dressed in what looked like full uniform and armed with assault rifles at their side. Traffic was unusually dense opposite our direction. And it was mid-June. Strange.
“What do you think that’s about?” I asked Hailey who was busy staring down the book she had nestled between her knees.
She glanced up, pinning her long black hair behind her ear. “Training I guess,” she said disinterestedly while she flipped to a new page and shrugged her slim shoulders.
“Just seems weird, right?,” I asked peeking back my rearview—watching the Army personal that were lining the road. Standing about-face and stoically monitoring vehicles zooming along.
“I can’t imagine what they would be doing over here this time of year,” I said mostly to myself since Hailey was back to heads down into her book. She was crouched into the faded leather seat of my pickup. The curve of her back pulling at her black and white lined dress top. Her painted red toes free of her heels she had kicked off the moment when we started this road-trip earlier this morning.
I supposed they could be down here from Fort Hood. But this was a long way from Killeen where the military base is stationed. And, generally, when
they run exercises they notify the public in some fashion. But then again we have been out of town for the past week and out of the loop on Texas related matters. Which mostly involve in the guns, football or bible thumping territory.
After a moment of silence, I turned on the radio. You can only do so much staring at row after row of cow filled fields. An old song my dad enjoyed playing during our yearly camping trips when I was a boy played on the radio between waves of static cutting in.
It was one of those twangy country songs all the blue-collared men would listen to while sipping on some Lone Star beer on a warm summers Texas night. Hailey, annoyed, buried herself deeper into her book. Country wasn’t her thing. The Beach Boys saw to that rite.
After a moment the feed switched over to someone talking, yet I couldn’t discern in what context the man was speaking.
I listened.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Sir?”
“North is going wide now. Sir”
“Affirmative.”
“The whole lane going eastbound.”
“Approximately two hours ahead of schedule, sir.”
I only heard one side of the conversation. But the tone in the man’s voice was authoritative and orderly.
Hailey’s finger flicked the power button to the off position with an annoyed grunt at the nearly garbled exchange of words.
“Nathan, I love you too much for you to miss out on the journey,” she said closing her book and sliding it back into her over-sized Coach bag sitting on the floorboard.
“We can never know how much time we have together.” Faint tears appeared under her green eyes. She was bottling it up inside. Masking the pain. I touched Hailey softly on the shoulder.
She looked at me, smiled and wiped her face with a tissue. Hailey dabbed under her eyes until the tissue was stained in smokey eye-shadow.
Her eyes twitched in that way they do before you’re about to sneeze. She then coughed and blew her nose—scowling at the wet tissue in disgust.
“That’s disgusting, eww!” She held the tissue with pinched red painted finger nails as though it were a dead rat before throwing it away into a crumpled fast-food bag we indulged on the previous night. Just like the good ole’ days of sobering up cocktails with a bag full of greasy burgers from our youth when we could hang out late into the night.
“Allergies hit hard in Texas.” I laughed.
“God I hope I’m not getting sick. I think I might be coming down with something Nate. My throats all scratchy.” She pulled a makeup mirror from her purse and began to inspect inside her mouth. Oooing and ahhhing down her throat.
I laughed and she teased me by showing me the inside of her mouth. Making a cross eyed funny face. Her fingers pushing her ears forward to that of a silly monkey.
We both cracked out loud—laughing a good while until the weight of the road caught me back into a drivers daze and Hailey returning to her book. Sneezing every-so-often and filling the fast food bag with snotty tissues.
We passed various billboards branding how big of a meal deal at the chain restaurants you could destroy your insides with. Fried fatty foods, and a sixty-four-ounce sugar water drink for only the low, low price of four ninety ninety, only in Texas of course.
We passed a small-town museum where I imagined men standing around with stubby hands on their belt buckles nodding along to the town’s insignificant history, acting interested and the women trying their best not to look bored.
And a slew of broken down pickup trucks and closed-down pit-stops on our way home to Driftwood.
My mind drifted back to the state line.
Military. What were they up to?
2
Hello Neighbor
After several hours of staring out the window spotting cows and shouting, “Cow, I win!” back to one another, we were finally driving down the dirt road leading to our home.
I rolled down my window to say hello to one of our neighbors that was out walking around just beyond the other side of his farm. It was my neighbor Jim trampling over his vegetable crops. I imagined he was chasing off those pesky birds he was always on about.
“Damn things are pick’n at my veggies again!” He would say all too often. Jim was always going on about those pesky birds. I swear, secretly in his own way, he liked having them around. If only to have an excuse to drink some bourbon and blow off steam about.
All too often would I hear our wood porch scream under the man’s old boots and the clinking of glass against a nice bottle of whatever whiskey he was into that particular day. Then it was quitting time for the day and sipping on liquid gold—regaling over our troubles living our country lifestyle.
“Hey there Jim!” I called out the window as we passed by his home. He didn’t respond, just kept walking over his plants. Odd. But then again he was an odd guy.
I mean, who likes to eat raw onions as a snack anyway? The man just about always had one in one of the pockets of his overalls. Hailey would answer the door and announce “Ole’ smelly breath is here to see you tech man!,” when he would stop by to ask any number of random technology questions.
Yep, I was the resident tech geek in my neighborhood of farmers and mechanics. I suppose I asked for it when I “retired” to this community. We’d be better off not advertising my computer wizardry in the first place but it was the thing I was known for.
Plus it gave me a somewhat relevant skill to help order parts or lookup outdated manuals for those farmers that either refused or couldn’t afford newer machinery.
I stopped at the gate, unlatched the tarnished rod, and finally we were driving down our overgrown driveway. It was a losing job keeping up with the amount of grass that attempted to take back the land. And it gave our property that “lived-in” look. Country street cred indeed.
Our quaint single-story ranch home sat among an open field of green pastures to either side. A Texas Longhorns flag gusted lazily in the wind at the edge of our porch.
Years of living in downtown Austin inspired Hailey and I to yearn for a simpler life. By the time we had Ava six years ago, we had saved enough to purchase this place and move out of the ever-crowded city of downtown to the farm fields of Driftwood.
Situated just southwest of downtown, and a world of difference from the younger hipster crowd that had taken over with their food trucks, fashion clothing stores and juice or smoothie obsessed pop-up shops.
Don’t get me wrong, I can put down a breakfast taco or two easily. But it all came at a cost. And that was the cost of putting focus into everything but quiet time with my family.
The ideal plan was for us both to retire here one day. The girls would move out and start their own lives while Hailey and I would start the next chapter of ours together. Perhaps we would finally fix up our neglected barn and put it to actual use and not just to house our Christmas supplies…
Or, much more realistically, we’d just soak in the sunsets while sipping on red wine out on the swing seat on the porch—just each other growing old, taking it easy living that Texas country life.
The girls would visit. As much as Emma protests about being out here, I know she’ll come to appreciate the simple life. Away from technology and the gossip of the internet age.
I parked the truck, and before I could have a chance to unload the bags, I noticed my youngest waiting for us on the porch. Her sister wasn’t about to be included in the welcome party I suppose. I mean, if she had been there to greet us on the porch, who would be “liking” her friends’ posts online?
Ava was standing there clinching “Pups,” the stuffed dog I had picked up for her at the hospital the night of her birth. Work be damned, I was going to see her as she was welcomed to this world at the Breckenridge hospital downtown.
Times were so different six years ago. I was working downtown at the largest marketing firm in the state. It wasn’t necessarily hard work. But it was exhausting traveling around the state on behalf of the company pushing tired ad spots. It was
a job that required long, unpredictable hours only to be rewarded with the occasional bonus and time off.
I had finally made enough to free myself from the confines of a stuffy office thirty-six stories high, and to take my own freelance gig to the ranch. I was good at the job, suppose that’s why I was able to convince all of my clients to continue to use my services once I left the company.
Even after all this time, I’d catch myself making mental pictures of my family. I’d lean against the doorframe, coffee cup in hand or a good book, quietly basking in the beauty of my girls growing up before my eyes. And thankful for each day I got to spend with them.
“Hey Sweetpea!” I scooped her up as Ava ran straight into me with every bit of her forty-five pound tiny self.
“Where’s your sister?” I asked looking for my oldest. Ava rubbed her little hand on the stubble of my chin and looked at me with her big green eyes.
“Em is in her room talking to Tommy. I’ve been looking after her like you said Daddy!” Ava looked up to me, her face beaming.
“Job well done Sweetpea.” We both saluted one another. She had picked that up from “Pop-Pop”, my father who liked the girls better than his own son had taught her that being the ever military man himself even after being retired from it as long as he had been.
At least he was involved in their life I would remind myself while I spoke to him on the phone long enough to pass him off to the girls. We’d exchange enough pleasantries in the forms of “how are you?” and “fine” to last a lifetime.
“Ava!” Hailey moved slowly out of her seat. Her coughing had become more aggressive since we got into town. She was clinching shut the stuffed fast food bag while tying her hair into place.
Dead Over Texas: Page 1