“I know you and that rotten ass Roy are out doing some scandalous shit, so you need to come by here and get your things before I throw it all over the front lawn. You muthafuckas act like y’all on the d-l…” Click!
Roy asked, “Woman troubles?”
“Yeah.”
Cash snapped his phone shut and wondered that perhaps the loss of electricity left her frightened or she’d finally become fed-up with his loafing and lying.
“Maybe she knows about the job,” Roy mumbled.
“She couldn’t possibly know, but might have her suspicions.” He shoved the phone into his pocket. “I should’ve called her back.”
“So call her now.”
“I’m scared to.”
Roy looked at him long and hard. “Scared?”
“If she doesn’t answer, I’m going to assume the worst.”
“Aw man, don’t go beating yourself over the head with that ‘It’s all my fault the monsters ate her’ shit.” Roy pointed for emphasis. “Hey, she was looking for a reason to give your ass the boot, remember?”
“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t worry about her.”
Roy’s face became the home of an incredulous look. “Cash, are you telling me you were in love with Claudia?”
“Naw man, I ain’t even sure what falling in love entails.”
“Falling in love with someone that much older entails but one thing: insanity.”
Cash laughed. “Okay, Mister Love-‘em-and-leave-‘em, what do you know about that mysterious situation?”
“Probably less than you.”
The two swapped dap and laughed together. Ned heard their laughter and came in and joined them.
“Say brothers, that young buck in there and I think it might be a good idea if we go next door and get some batteries, extra candles and matches. Also, it might be wise for us to bring over their kitchen table, you know, we need places to sit, as this floor is hard on an old cat like me.”
Valerie came into the room and Ned greeted her with a hard look. She didn’t hesitate to return it with one equally as fierce. Cash noticed and warned the two, “Y’all better be cool. We gotta all be down for the same cause, that’s all that counts.”
Valerie lowered her gaze. “You guys are going next door?”
“Yeah, and we’ll need you to stand guard in here.” Roy said, raising to one knee.
“I can do that.”
“So what’s the plan?” Roy asked.
“Me and the youngsta go into the house and look for the stuff,” Ned said. “I’ll bring the machete, the kid’ll keep his rifle.” Ned pointed to Roy. “You stand inside your sister’s door and cover our asses.”
“I’ll stand nearby in case Roy needs backup,” Cash said.
Ned walked over to the wall where he’d set the machete. “It’s now or never.”
“Take one of the lanterns with you,” Valerie insisted. She picked it up and handed it to Ned. “The other one’s in the hallway and its dimming fast.”
Roy went to the kitchen with Cash, Ned and Noodles in tow. Roy grabbed a handful of plastic grocery bags off the top of the refrigerator and passed them to Ned. He carried the bags and the lantern from the hallway in one hand, the machete in the other as the foursome headed out the back door.
Ned stopped and the hair on the back of his neck stood up as he heard a growl behind him and something grabbed the back of his leg.
Ned let out a yell and Noodles burst into laughter having ducked behind him and grabbed the back of his pants. A panicked Ned dropped the lantern and the glass shattered on the back porch. Also, due to their in attentiveness, the wind came through the open door and extinguished two of the candles.
“You ignorant bastard! Knock off all that childish bullshit!” Unable to control himself, Cash slapped Noodles on the back of the head.
“Sorry, man,” Noodles mumbled.
Cash lowered his gun as Valerie came into the kitchen with a flashlight. She looked around and asked, “What happened to the light?”
“Just bring that light from the living room into the kitchen and relight the candles,” Ned said sharply.
Valerie called for Duke to bring the jug light and he stumbled into the room, his eyes red. Cash took the light from him, passed it to Ned, then turned his gaze back on the youngster.
“Were you asleep?” Cash asked.
“I might have dozed off for a few.”
“For a few my ass!” Cash snapped. “Keep your eyes open until daylight, or take your ass home and get in your bed and go to sleep.”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Duke’s attitude was belligerent.
“What I’d like is for you and Mister wannabe Jaime Kennedy here to quit fucking up.”
“Let’s just go,” Noodles mumbled. “Sorry about that, Mister Lathan.”
“Whatever.” Ned gave the kid a last dirty look.
Ned was fired up as he led the way to the back door of Noodles’ house. He looked over his shoulder at the teen. “I’ll go in first and when the coast is clear I’ll call for you. You get the candles and matches. The energy drink is in the fridge, right?”
“Yeah. Almost a dozen of ‘em left.”
“I’ll get ‘em all.”
Ned eased the screen open and extended his arm. The light cast eerie, exaggerated shadows against the kitchen wall. He stepped over the threshold, and when the floor creaked he held his breath for several seconds before he took a full stride into the house. He looked around and called for Noodles.
Noodles followed with shotgun in hand. He moved to the kitchen drawer. “Gimme a bag.”
Ned handed him one of the balled up plastic sacks and watched as Noodles stuffed a box of wooden matches, two packs of “D” batteries and four long candles into it. Ned opened the fridge, felt around inside and located the cardboard box that was covered in a thick sheet of plastic. “I can’t lift this shit and carry the machete, too.”
“Gimme the machete.” Noodles came over and took hold of the handle.
“We’re coming out,” Ned called out.
“I got your back,” Roy shouted.
Cash looked to his left to make sure there was nothing creeping up on them. Roy held the screen open and let Ned pass. Ned ran back into the Grace’s kitchen, set the energy drinks on the table, then stepped back outside and took the bag of candles and matches from Noodles. He passed them to Roy who shuttled them to Cash.
Ned went back and joined Noodles, who had set his gun on the kitchen counter and picked up two chairs next to the kitchen table. He hurried to the door and set them outside. Cash ran over, picked them up and made a beeline back to Grace’s kitchen.
Noodles ducked back inside the house and was about to grab two more chairs when something sprang from the dark hallway. He let out a shout and Ned charged at the thing as it grabbed at the young man. Noodles fell and the beast dragged the kicking, hyperventilating teen across the floor into the shadows.
Roy ran into the apartment, grabbed the light and followed Ned, who ran toward the shadows where Noodles had been taken. When the light hit them, Roy saw the beast clawing at Noodles, who screamed for Ned to hit the zombie with the machete. The light gave Roy a glimpse of the creature. It was Tanisha’s mother, Carmen. Roy stepped in front of a shocked and awed Ned and squeezed off two shots. Her brainstem protruded from the base of her skull and half of her face was missing.
The shots knocked her back several steps, but Carmen crouched, poised to strike as Noodles rolled over and covered up. Ned wakened from his daze and hacked at her with the machete, taking off one of her hands in the process. Noodles turned and ran for his rifle, and once he had it in hand, in his haste to get off a shot, blew a small hole in the ceiling.
Roy snatched Noodles by the wrist and pulled him out the door. Ned was behind them, and as the three came out the screen door, Cash stepped to one side and fired a shot that hit Carmen in the jaw and spun her around. Ned stopped, spun and made like Barry Bonds. He drew the machet
e back with two hands and swung as hard as he could. The razor-sharp blade took Carmen’s head off. He’d swung so hard that he fell to one knee.
Ned looked on terrified as the body convulsed and blood spurted onto the wall. The torso began to raise and recline before Ned turned and followed Cash through Grace’s back door before the four men barricaded it.
Cash looked at Ned and the others and in as calm a voice as he could muster quipped, “Someday this is gonna be one helluva story to tell around the campfire.”
F O U R T E E N
1:34 a.m.
Back inside the kitchen Valerie had relit the candles, then two of the ones Ned and Noodles brought over. She and Noodles sat side-by-side in the chairs fetched from next door as a glum-looking Duke leaned against the refrigerator.
“Didn’t think you were gonna make it back, Cutty,” Duke said in a near whisper.
Noodles managed a faint smile. “Wouldn’t have if not for Mister Lathan and these other cats.”
Cash turned to him and said, “My name’s Cassius, but everyone calls me Cash.” Before Noodles could respond Cash added, “You don’t seem the least bit worried about your folks. You haven’t called them.”
“You gotta admit, things have been pretty hectic.”
“What if they get here and one of those things attacks?”
“Moms and Pops won’t be leaving the party ‘til two o’clock, and most likely they’ll go to breakfast afterward. I’ll hit ‘em then.”
“How you gonna do that?” Duke asked. “We left our cell phones in the house.”
“Pops will be okay,” Noodles said. He walked into the living room, angry at Cash for having put the thought in his head. Before sitting on the love seat, he peeked out the window. He was relieved that it was still quiet, but he knew that somewhere lurking in the darkness, was a beast or two…or two dozen.
Valerie came over and sat next to him. She held two cans of the energy drink and offered one. Noodles declined, but thanked her.
“Since I’ve come close to getting my leg chewed off, my adrenaline is already percolating.” Noodles’ trembling hands verified as much.
Ned and Duke resumed their post at the back door. Cash and Roy stepped into the hallway and motioned for Jenny to come over. The girl looked tired and Cash gave her one of the energy drinks.
She stifled a yawn. “Thanks, Cash.”
Cash spoke in a hushed manner. “Listen up. We’re going to have to get that money here.”
“Why the hurry?” Roy asked.
“We don’t want anybody else running across it. Second, if we wait we might have to fight our way past even more of those things, and come daylight no telling who might be watching. God forbid someone would go in that place and start a fire.”
“I gotta admit, the money’s the furthest thing from my mind right now,” Jenny said.
“Well not mine. We went through a lot to get it and I want to make sure we hold on to it.”
“If we’re gonna go get it, we’d better do it when everyone’s asleep, because those young bucks are gonna wonder what’s in the bag,” Roy said.
“Fuck ‘em.”
“Okay, but what about Ned and Valerie? They both like running off at the mouth, and last but not least, Sis ain’t gonna want any hot shit up in her house.”
“You think she’s gonna worry about a croaker sack full of money with zombies hanging around outside?”
“Okay, I see your point about Grace, but the others are a cause for concern, so we’re gonna have to figure out a way to sneak it in.”
“How?”
“I’ll tell you how.”
The three were surprised to see Grace standing in the hall with her arms folded across her chest. She looked to her left and saw that Valerie and Noodles were inattentive and engaged in conversation. Grace motioned for her brother and his partners in crime to step deeper into the hallway.
“I’ve been in my room listening to the radio,” she began. “Bank of Pittsburg was robbed earlier tonight, by two black men who took a white woman hostage.”
“Sis, we can explain,” Roy said.
“You don’t have to,” she said in a fierce whisper. “After this is over with, I’m getting outta here.” There was no mistaking the seriousness nature of Grace’s words. Her eyes were narrowed and her nostrils flared as she went on. “I’m leaving because after tonight I don’t want my kids anywhere near this place. There will be too many spooky ass memories.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
“You and Cash go get the money and hand it to me through my bedroom window. I suppose that’s enough money for us to get outta here, and by us I mean me, you three, my three kids and Tanisha.”
“That won’t leave us with shit!” Roy moaned.
“Consider it payment for the years of free rent, room and board. You three can live with me until you find work, and trust me, you will get jobs.”
Roy mean mugged his sister and asked, “And if we don’t?”
“You’re my flesh and blood, you know I won’t rat you out, but the fact of the matter is you and Cassius owe me.” She cast a disdainful look Jenny’s way. “I guess your friend here is just along for the ride.”
Roy looked at cash who nodded his assent. “Okay, we’ll break you off ten percent to take care of your kids and Tanisha.”
Grace shook her head. “I want twenty.”
“Split the difference, fifteen,” Cash said irritably.
Grace’s expression never changed. “Twenty.”
Cash looked at Roy, who shrugged. Jenny said nothing.
“Okay, twenty,” Cash said wearily.
Grace went back to her room and Roy ran after her. “You’re gonna have to keep the radio to yourself. If the others get word of the robbery, they’ll figure the shit out like you did.”
“Sure.”
Grace then ushered her brother out of her room and closed the door.
***
1:55 a.m.
Two unmarked sedans were parked in front of 128 Shadow Glen Lane, the house that Archibald Walker once shared with his wife Trudy for twenty years. Inside two men dressed in olive-colored military uniforms stood over the trembling, teary-eyed widow as she sat at the kitchen table nursing a cold cup of coffee.
Makeup ran down her face and her eyes were puffy. Her brown and gray hair was in disarray as if she’d been roused from a bout of fitful sleep. She ran her hands over her face as one of the men, who’d introduced himself as Lieutenant Wayne Hooper, spoke.
“We know our questions are repetitive,” Hooper said. “We need them to be to make sure that everything you say is on the up and up.”
Trudy bobbed her head and avoided Hooper’s frightful blue eyes.
“Now Miss Walker, you had no idea whether or not your husband had been drinking before he left for work?”
“I told you…” Trudy let out a long breath like that of a last-place marathon runner staggering across the finish line. “I avoided him before he went to work. I didn’t feel like talking to him.”
Hooper looked at the other man, a round face fellow who’d never given his name. Some secret signal passed between the two and by the time Trudy realized it, the second man’s fist had broken the bridge of her nose. As she fell from her chair, the man pounced on her and wrapped a pair of meaty hands around her neck with his thumb pressed down on the indentation above her collarbone.
“I’ve had enough of you not knowing a damn thing! Your husband is a lush and he was drunk before he left for work!” He watched as Trudy’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and her skin began a quick transformation from alabaster to crimson as she fought for her next breath. “Your husband is responsible for nearly sixty deaths, and I’ll be damned if he gets away with it and the two of you treasonous shits make the U.S. government look bad!”
He released his grip on Mrs. Walker and just as she sucked in a lungful of air, he reestablished his choke hold on her. “You are going to write out a declaration�
�”
Trudy nodded hurriedly as saliva leaked from the corner of her mouth. The big man loosened his grip.
“You are going to swear under penalty of perjury that not only did you see your husband drinking before he left for work, but he called you just after six p.m. crying and said he was in trouble. You will write down that the reason you remember the time so clearly is because the evening news had just come on. You will state that worthless shit bag husband of yours wanted to kill himself. You will testify to the fact that his speech was slurred. Following me so far, Missy?”
He smiled to one side as Trudy nodded repeatedly. After the man stood over her, she rubbed her throat.
“For the next several days you will avoid the media, and on Monday you will reiterate your story publicly. A few hours later we’ll announce that we found his corpse near the Martinez pier and that it looks like an open and shut case of suicide.”
”So my…Archibald is…?”
“He’s deader than dog shit,” meaty hands said with a sneer. “And stifle the water works. You didn’t give a rat’s ass about him, and vice-versa.”
Trudy rose to a sitting position. “You said a fireman…” She coughed up a small amount of blood and swallowed with difficulty. “Saw him…”
The man shook his head. “Trust me when I tell you that no one will come forward and make the claim that it was your dear Archibald who was killed at the transit station.”
Two hours later, the military officials had their validating statement written in Trudy Walker’s hand. To keep her hands from shaking as she wrote, they plied her with a dose of librium. Before departing, they told her they would be getting back in touch with her no later than Sunday evening.
“If you try to leave your home before Tuesday, the men watching the house will stop you and move you to a destination unknown. Do you understand, Missus Walker?”
She wiped her eyes. “Yes.”
“Good.”
The two men departed without another word.
***
Trudy wobbled into the living room, fell face down onto the sofa and cried out her fear and frustration at having married an impotent, alcoholic mass murderer. She came to the realization that as long as she was alive, the military would worry about her loose lips sinking their ship.
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