by Weston Ochse
"Not as much as I used to be."
"There you go. Maybe you can talk to Sissy," Grandma Riggs said.
Little Rashad examined the young blonde woman with surprisingly old eyes. Dropping his trumpet to dangle at the end of a rope tied around his neck, he offered Sissy his hand. "Mr. Adamski taught me about ‘awakes.’ He said it was important to celebrate the life, not the death."
"It’s a wake, son."
The boy frowned and glared at Buckley. "That’s what I said." To Sissy he added, "You tell me what you liked about Samuel and I’ll tell you what I liked about Sally."
Sissy stared at the boy, then wiped the tears from her eyes. She managed a weak smile and allowed the boy to lead her to the curb a ways down, where they both sat.
From this distance, Buckley couldn't hear more than their muffled words, but it was clear that the boy had made some kind of connection with the young woman. "You aren’t as crazy as you seem," he murmured to Grandma Riggs.
"Yes I am."
"I bet you were a great teacher."
"I was the best."
"You still are."
With his neck craned, Buckley waited for a reply, but there wasn't any. Instead, he heard the cackle of laughter and the sound of a lighter followed by the harsh whisper of a crack pipe.
CHAPTER 24
They'd been walking for twenty minutes with Sissy now in the lead. After Little Rashad had spoken with her, she'd stood away from the group for awhile. When she'd returned, a flinty hardness inhabited her eyes, determination in her gaze.
Buckley trudged slightly hunched as he carried Grandma Riggs. Maggies had begun to pop along his lower back, escaping the salt-laced cellophane to fall sizzling to the ground. He'd tried to stop to fix the rent in the cellophane, but Grandma Riggs wouldn't let him. 'Let it be,' she'd said, so he'd trudged on.
Little Rashad followed with one hand grasping one of the chair legs, oblivious to Buckley's leavings. The boy was so exhausted, all he could do was allow himself to be led without care for reason nor destination, his eyes on a far away horizon.
Last came MacHenry and Gert, whispering softly to each other and laughing at some private joke or another. They seemed more like teenage lovers than doomed souls. Then again, teenagers were doomed souls.
The streets hadn't gotten any better. Once busy thoroughfares had become parking lots. Car doors had been left open. Bodies lay exploded where they’d fallen. They'd passed a Volvo with an open back door. Buckley didn't want to remember the blue and white plastic rattle that angled out from the pile of sludge in the baby seat. Volvos were supposed to be the safest car. Even at the end of the world a family deserved the expectation of safety. Yet even as he thought it, he realized how horribly manic it was to think that way, a part of him coming unhinged—or maybe too much secondhand crack smoke.
Caddies roamed like rare cattle munching on buildings as if they were tufts of wheat grass. The original maggies, the small name-sakes, were thankfully few. They depended upon human hosts it seemed and the one thing lacking in Wilmington these days were humans. Shops stood empty, windows shattered at intervals making the façade of a wealthy street seem more like a good-natured hooker with a broken-toothed grin.
At Seventh Street, a school bus had plowed into a fire hydrant, long gone dry. Schoolbooks and backpacks colored the street like sprinkled confetti. Here and there bones and hair, mingled with mud that had most probably pooled when the hydrant had first geysered free. Pooled, because of the gaping hole that had been torn in the road, by what, Buckley could only imagine. Filled to the top with red muddy water, the breeze stirred the surface like a lake. Miniature whitecaps formed, revealing skeletal hands and the occasional fleshy skull in the troughs of the waves. On the ground surrounding this earthy cauldron, red and black skirts flittered along on greedy winds like tumbleweeds. Buckley stared at a particular skeletal hand poking free of the water and couldn't help but sense that if the hand's owner were merely drowning, he could pull him or her to safety.
Everyone had stopped and stared at the scene knowing that the children had died, their remnants so unsentimentally strewn seemed disrespectful. Gert had moved to pick up one of the skirts as it drifted by, but MacHenry pulled her back. When they finally moved away, they were a more somber pair, the idea of a busload of children dying so horribly coating their conscience with hot slimy details.
With heads slung low, the group continued on another ten minutes, before they found a space devoid of death. Sissy paused and looked around. "I think we should stop here, huh?"
Buckley nodded. "Good idea."
Sissy, Gert and MacHenry took the opportunity to check their Super Soakers. MacHenry worked the mechanisms, while Gert pulled out some bags of salt. Here and there water had puddled from the run-off from Seventh Street, but out of respect for the dead, they left these alone. Instead they checked the radiators of the cars, draining them into the rifles. As they worked, all of them kept an eye on the buildings.
Little Rashad, Buckley and Grandma Riggs, who was fast asleep, plopped down in the shadow of a store front. A sign in the window read – PAULINE’S PULLED PORK. As Buckley finally divested himself of Grandma's chair, setting it none too gently on the ground and untying the ropes, he made smacking sounds with his lips. "Mmmm. Mmmm. I could do with some Barbecue. What about you, kid?"
"I could eat a whole pig," Little Rashad said.
"I’m with ya. What do you think the odds are that we can get us some pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad and a cold soda?"
MacHenry crossed the street and sat heavily beside Buckley. He glanced at the storefront, then shook his head. "Dream on, Adamski. Your days of pulled pork and ribs are over."
"Now that would be a reason not to go on living."
"It can't all be that bad," MacHenry said.
"It's not." Buckley smiled wistfully. "I'm just talking because I'm too tired to do anything else."
MacHenry glanced at Grandma sleeping in her chair. "Old Lady's heavy, isn't she," he said.
MacHenry nodded. "Anyone would be heavy after all the running we did. This back wasn't meant for transporting people. Hell, sometimes I do well just to get out of bed."
"How's the infection?"
"Not as bad as I thought it would be. I'm wondering if maybe the maggies have a set lifespan, because frankly, I should be dead by now."
"Set lifespan? You getting science fiction on me?"
"Kind of. Yeah, I suppose I am. Follow me if you will." Earlier Buckley had refused to believe that maggies had evolved from anything other than pure evil. But the more he saw, the more logic dictated something else. No matter how he hated Star Trek logic, he found himself embracing the possibility. "What if this is some sort of invasion, or even better, terraforming? What's the first thing someone would want to get rid of if they were going to take over the planet?"
"Reality Television?"
"Seriously." Buckley pointed at himself, MacHenry and the others. "Us. People. They'd want to get rid of all the people." Buckley chuckled. "That reality television comment was funny, by the way."
"Thanks," MacHenry deadpanned.
"The small ones came first almost wiping out the population. Hell, as far as we know, we're all that's left. With the exception of you guys, we haven't seen anyone else."
"Then came the caddies." MacHenry nodded slowly to himself. "Those things are here to eat the buildings. And if I take your theory to its natural conclusion, then the caddies are here to cleanse the earth of all structures."
"Removing the evidence of our existence so that someone else can build."
"Or someTHING else."
"Yeah."
"Damn. That's fucked up."
Buckley plucked a maggie from his neck and pressed it into the sidewalk with his hand. "Makes you wonder who it is that's making it all fucked up."
"You don't believe in fate? Or that God did this?"
"What'd we ever do to God to make it this bad?" Buckley jerked his thumb at Li
ttle Rashad. "What did he ever do to God? No way. This isn't about God. It's about something else, something else entirely."
"What about fate?"
"Bull shit. Fate's nothing more than a four letter word created by people who don't know how to use their brain." Making a face like a spastic child, "I tripped and fell down. It's fate. I didn't win the ball game. It's fate. I didn't get that scholarship. It's—"
"Lemme guess," MacHenry interrupted. "Fate."
Buckley rolled his eyes and nodded.
"I've always thought that fate was the invention of underachievers," MacHenry said. "I didn't succeed. It must have been fate, because it couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that I wasn't smart enough, strong enough or good enough."
Buckley held out his hand for a low five, which MacHenry accepted. "On that topic, you and I are in one hundred percent agreement, brother."
They were silent for a few moments, watching Sissy and Gert handle the water. The two had a system. Sissy would approach the car, and pop the hood, keeping her super soaker trained on the interior. Then Gert would unscrew both the radiator cap on top and the drain plug beneath. The green-colored water would be caught in a short bucket that fit neatly between the radiator and the street.
"So what you're saying," MacHenry said, "Is that this is some sort of War of the World's event. Instead of tripods, we have maggies, is that it?"
"I suppose that's one way to put it." Buckley stood up and adjusted the cellophane from where it had fallen away. "But then I'm just a garbage man. What the fuck do I know?"
"And I'm a used car salesman."
"To think that we're the brain trust that's supposed to figure out this mess."
"If that's the case," MacHenry said, getting to his feet. "Then we are most surely fucked."
CHAPTER 25
"I've been thinking, Mr. Adamski."
Both MacHenry and Buckley turned to where the kid stood.
"What about the freezers?"
"Freezers?" MacHenry repeated.
"Yeah. How long does it take for them to cool off? I wonder if some of the restaurants still have food in them."
"Like this one," Buckley said in an almost reverent whisper. "Just think, kegs of BBQ sauce and freshly thawed racks of ribs. We could have a BBQ. Sure would do a lot for our morale."
"Are you kidding? We're only taking a break, not a sabbatical." Looking up and down the street, then at the afternoon sky, MacHenry added, "A caddie could come along any minute, and between you and me, I don't want to be out here come nightfall.
"Yeah. I know. I was just dreaming is all."
"So we're not going to check the freezer?" Little Rashad asked.
Buckley shook his head. "Probably rotten by now."
"Probably?" MacHenry scoffed. "Does the pope wear bunny slippers?"
"You know, I liked you better when you cared for fuck. Love and living has made you cynical," Buckley said.
"We have a problem you boys are forgetting," Gert said crossing the street to where the men stood.
"What's that, dear?"
"We didn’t pack any food," she said with arms crossed.
Buckley and MacHenry stared at each other, then cursed simultaneously.
"Freudian," Buckley murmured. "Like our subconscious knew we didn’t plan on living."
"Suddenly I'm real hungry," MacHenry said.
"A side effect of staying alive is hunger."
"I can live with that kind of side effect as long as I get a sandwich."
Buckley stared hard at the window of the BBQ joint. "Freud might know what's inside our heads but he can't make a sandwich."
MacHenry caught Gert's wave out of the corner of his eye. He raised his eyebrows, looked from Buckley to Gert, then seemed to make a decision. "We’re gonna be here for a few minutes, right?"
Buckley laughed. "You're asking me? I think so."
"Good." MacHenry hurried across the street to join Gert.
Buckley's jaw dropped. "Now?"
MacHenry turned and glared at Buckley as if the man had been smoking some of Grandma Riggs’ crack. "What? We're supposed to do it later?"
Buckley tried to make his mouth form a word, any word, finally he gave up as all it could manage was an exasperated Puh-lease!
MacHenry snatched Gert into his arms, whispered in her ear and kissed her along the length of her neck. She twirled his hair in her fingers as she hugged him close. After a moment, they grabbed some freshly-filled Super Soakers and entered the building nearest them.
Buckley sighed.
Little Rashad pointed to the doorway the pair had just gone through. "Where are they going? They getting some food? They getting something to eat?"
Buckley glared at the doorway, then at Little Rashad. Sissy walked across the street about the time he answered the boy's question. "You want to know where they're going? They're going to have sex. Hot, passionate and amazingly inappropriate S - E - X!"
Sissy gaped. "What? You didn't just tell—"
Little Rashad’s face reddened.
Buckley shrugged dramatically. "What?"
"What?" Sissy repeated. "Isn't he a little young?"
"At this point what does it matter? If they didn't want him to know, they shouldn't have been cavorting like a couple of frenzied, fucking rabbits."
Sissy looked at Buckley much like his mother used to when he'd done something wrong and he just didn't realize it. Then she sighed, and moved over to Grandma Riggs where she wiped drool from the side of the woman's face.
"I see Twinkies," Little Rashad said.
Buckley's stomach jerked and his eyes shot wide. "No you don’t."
"Yes I do."
"I’d kill for a Twinkie."
"It's right there," pointed Little Rashad. "I don't think you'll have to kill anybody."
Buckley followed the kid's arm and saw the golden, finger-long snack cake and decided right there and now that if Gert and MacHenry could have crazy, end-of-the-world, monkey sex, then he could at least have a Twinkie. He snatched one of the Super Soakers from the sidewalk, checked to make sure it had been freshly reloaded, then cocked it until there was enough pressure to fire. Grabbing a flashlight from his waist, he turned it on. With flashlight in hand and the rifle cocked on a hip, he turned to Little Rashad. "I'm going Twinkie hunting. Who's with me?"
Sissy rolled her eyes, but Little Rashad brightened and jumped at the chance for sugary sweets. He handed Sissy his trumpet, grabbed a Super Soaker of his own, pumped it like he saw Buckley, then fell in beside the older man.
"I'm with you, Mr. Adamski."
"Good boy. Cover my back and I'll catch you a Twinkie."
Without waiting for an answer, Buckley strode into Pauline's Place. Most of the tables were still standing. Only one body littered the floor, but flesh and maggies were long gone. Whoever had been the unlucky soul, he'd been picked clean and rendered skeletal. A pinball game with the words DEATH RACE 2000 and a garish depiction of David Carradine mowing down an old lady with a shopping cart squatted near the door. Beside the long counter that separated the serving area from the cooking area stood a tall rack of plastic encased confections. It was to this rack they strode. When they arrived, both Buckley and Little Rashad stopped and stared. There wasn't just one Twinkie, there were dozens-- a virtual Twinkie Eldorado. Buckley grinned from ear to ear.
Each of them ripped one open, stuffing the golden cakes into their mouths, the white filling squishing free. Buckley grabbed two more, and shoved them one after the other, until his face was chipmunk full.
When he finally swallowed, he shook his head and smiled. "Let's get these out of here. I bet the others will want some."
They began stacking Twinkies into their arms and were about halfway done, when a sound intruded upon their gluttony.
"Did you hear that?" Little Rashad asked.
Muffled pounding from deep inside the restaurant.
"There it was again."
Buckley heard it this time. He droppe
d his cache of Twinkies and snatched his Super Soaker from where it leaned against the counter. "Who goes there?"
Little Rashad had paused in mid-bite. A half-eaten Twinkie poked from his mouth as he stared at Buckley. Several seconds passed as Buckley scanned the back of the store. Seeing nothing, he lowered the weapon.
"What was it?" Little Rashad asked, from around the edges of the confection.
"Dunno. Thought I heard something." Staring at the pile of half-crushed Twinkies on the floor, Buckley sighed and bent down to retrieve them. "Give me a hand. I can't pick up all of—"
The sound of pounding erupted from the back.
Buckley whirled to the sound, his rifle leveled.
Little Rashad gulped the remains of the Twinkie and fumbled with his own rifle. By the fear etched on his face, it was clear that he'd never meant to trade his safety for a golden sponge cake with creamy filling.
"This time I know I heard something," Buckley said. "What about you? Did you hear something?"
Little Rashad nodded rapidly.
Buckley switched the flashlight back on. Holding it over the barrel of the Super Soaker, he panned it across the back of the store. The light illuminated a wall locker, a walk-in freezer and a back door. The light danced back and forth between these three things as Buckley edged slowly forward.
"Who’s there?" he called again.
Creeping only an inch at a time, he arrived at the door to the outside first. Checking it, he discovered that the deadbolt was set from the inside. Nothing could get in that way unless he opened the door, something he didn't plan on doing. He placed his ear to the wood as he panned his light back to where the boy stood at the front of the store. Buckley raised his voice, packing as much authority into it as he could. "Come on, if you’re here, let us know. We’re not going to hurt you."
Nothing.
After several seconds he moved on. Next in line was the walk-in freezer. Checking the door, he saw that the latch was engaged, promising that whatever was inside, if something was inside, was locked inside. He placed his ear against the cool metal of the freezer door, listening for any whisper of noise, any indication that something was inside.