Myer swallowed dryly and turned back to Rory and Woody, an unyielding glower gripping his sweaty face. “You two are riding with me.”
“So are we,” Rob said, standing up and finishing his bottle.
“The heck you are!” Myer said, heading for the door and not looking back.
“Let em come! You might need all the help you can get,” Doc said, staring worriedly at Rachel. “Specially since you’re the only one patrolling for fifty miles around.”
Alex unleashed his silver cap gun and pointed the orange end at the ceiling. “I’m going, too!”
“Oh, no you’re not!” Kourtney said curtly.
Alex’s face dropped nearly as fast as the gun in his hand. “Awe man, I never get to do anything fun,” he groaned, shoving the toy gun back into its holster.
“I wonder if I played my music too loud last night or somethin,” Rob said, throwing his black leather coat on.
Mick slid into his worn in bomber jacket and cocked his head.
“My mom always said I was going to wake the dead with that crap.”
Mick arched an eyebrow at him and finished his beer. He set it on the bar with a loud clank and let a long belch ruffle his lips. He wiped beer from his mustache. “Metallica?”
Rob shook his head, flattening his collar. “Priest.”
Mick tipped his head back and nodded. “That’ll do it.”
Rachel turned to Rory with glassy eyes and took his arm. “Don’t go back there. Please.”
Deputy Myer, studying her from the doorway, sharpened his gaze.
“Rachel, everything is going to be fine,” Kourtney said, leaning on the bar. “You just stay right here and wait for em to come back. Doc’ll cook ya up something to eat in the meantime, okay sweetie?”
Rory took Rachel’s cold hand and squeezed. “We’ll be right back, I promise.” He glanced at Woody. “Trust me, we’re not going anywhere near that water.”
Woody twisted the cap onto his water bottle. “No doubt.”
“You promise?”
Rory smiled, touched by her concern. “I promise.”
A lone tear spilled over her puffy eyelid and rolled across a long scratch in her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”
Myer took off his ball cap and scratched his head. “Heavens to Betsy, what in the Sam heck is going on here? Let’s move people!” he said, holding the door open. “And you better not be carrying, Robert!”
Rob and Mick looked at each other and chuckled and turned for the door.
“Hey!” Michelle said, intercepting Rob. “You be careful, too.” A smile graced her plump cheeks just before she laid a big wet kiss on him that smelled like whiskey.
Rob recoiled in disgust, his gray pony tail swinging through the air. “Damn, what’s the matter with you, woman?” he cried, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and examining it for some kind of deadly virus.
Michelle tipped her head back and laughed to the water-stained ceiling above. “There’s more where that came from, sugar!”
Mick pointed a finger at Marge as he carefully squeezed past her. “Don’t even think about it.”
She grinned. “Oh, I’ve thought about a lot more than that, handsome,” she said, nonchalantly brushing an open palm against his groin, causing him to hop backwards.
“Okay, time to go,” he said, rushing to follow Myer, Rory and Rachel out the front door.
“Hey!”
Mick and Rob turned in the doorway to see Alex smiling at them.
“Can I have your motorcycles if the boogeyman gets you?”
“Alex!” Kourtney gasped.
Rob arched an eyebrow at the kid.
“You should probably leave your keys,” Alex suggested with a rapid succession of head bobs. “Just in case.”
Mick swallowed hard. “Man, that kid gives me the creeps,” he muttered.
Rob shook his head. “We’re probably safer with the zombies.”
“Always leave a campfire burning unattended?” Deputy Myer asked, frowning at the smoldering embers, his hands resting on his gun belt. “You tryin to burn the whole darn place down?”
Rory and Woody stood side by side, the green picnic table positioned between them and the water. They were taking no chances.
A loud hissing crack suddenly pierced the quiet night. Their heads swung around. Rob smiled at them, a fresh can of Icehouse in his hand. “Sorry. Found it in the cooler.”
Myer surveyed the littered table and kicked an empty beer can with his black boot, sending it skittering across the sand. “Zombies,” he snorted, shining his flashlight out across the water. “Shoot! Only zombies round here tonight are your drunken butts.”
Mick cracked a can open and took a long swallow. “Well, if we’re gonna die at least we’re gonna go down drinkin.”
Rob chuckled nervously. “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna die,” he whispered, patting the .38 Special tucked inside his leather coat.
Mick nodded while Deputy Myer combed the ground with his light. Mick turned to the trees and took another long drink. He swallowed with a sigh and wiped his mustache. “I’ll tell ya this much, if Jason Voorhees suddenly popped out of them woods, I would shit bricks, build a house and lock myself inside.”
“I think he’d let us go. He only kills people who have sex,” Rob replied, scanning the thick woods.
Mick snorted. “Speak for yourself, Nick Jonas.”
Rob squinted in the moonlight. “When have you had sex lately?”
“I ain’t sayin. It’s not polite.”
“Pfffff! Oh, I don’t think Rosie and her five sisters would mind.”
“And what’s this?” Deputy Myer said, bending over and coming back up with the tail end of a burnt joint pinched between a thumb and index finger. “Looks like the evil weed to me.”
“Are you going to find our friends or what?” Rory asked impatiently.
Rob raised a finger into the air. “Would you like me to file that evidence for you, Deputy?”
Myer glared at him and shoved the roach into his jeans. He turned the flashlight’s beam to the calm waters and began walking closer. The frogs and crickets were still conducting their night song but much quieter, as if most of them had already called it a night.
Myer stopped at the water, his beam cutting across the lake. He turned back to Woody and Rory and threw his arms out, the lake softly lapping just behind him. “Well, where are they?” he yelled. “Where’s the big bad ghosts?”
Rory braced himself for what he knew was coming next. His mind saw the things spring from the water and snatch the small town cop before it even happened. He saw them pull Myer into the water kicking and screaming, shooting his sidearm blindly into the night and wounding Mick, like in some movie Rory had seen a thousand times. But nothing happened. This was no movie. Myer dropped his arms to his sides and began scanning the sand while shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
“How do you explain our missing friends?” Woody yelled. “You better get this right, Myer!”
Myer jerked the light to Woody’s face. “Or what, Woody? What’re you gonna do?”
“Call Fox News for starters,” he replied. “You wanna end up on The Sheppard Report?”
Myer waved a hand through the air at him and turned his light back to the sand, taking particular notice of Clutch’s last stand.
“Well then explain why Clutch’s Jeep is still here,” Rory said, folding his arms.
Mick and Rob looked at each other, raised their eyebrows and nodded.
“How should I know? Maybe they went for a ride on someone’s boat,” Meyer responded, turning back to the lake. “Probably went home to throw up and sleep it off.”
Woody nudged Rory with his elbow and spoke out the corner of his mouth. “Told you this would happen.”
“Ya know somethin,” Myer said, walking back to Woody and Rory. “I know I wasn’t in your little click in high school, and I know that everyone called me names because of my weight and my beliefs, but it is no
surprise we have taken completely different paths.” He stopped in front of Rory and took a moment to eyeball him up and down. “With completely different results.” His judgmental eyes turned on Woody. “I suggest a quick comin-to-Jesus party, boys, and on the now plan. False reports are a crime round here.”
Rory snorted. “First of all, you weren’t in our click, Jason, because you’re an asshole. And I never made fun of your weight.”
Myer cackled loudly. “Oh, you mean you don’t remember calling me a salad dodger one time in tenth grade?”
Rory’s jaw dangled helplessly in the light breeze. “That was an accident.”
“Whole cafeteria busted up laughing and I never forgot it.”
Rory dropped his head, his chest deflating as he exhaled a sorrowful breath. “Listen, Jason, I’m sorry. I was a stupid kid back then and you’re right, that was mean. But don’t let that cloud your judgment today. People’s lives are at stake here.”
“What people, Rory?” he smiled, throwing his arms out and looking around the campsite. “The only people I see are the ones who’ve been smokin too much of the whacky-tobacky!”
“We’re not messing with you. Kate, Ashley and Clutch are out here somewhere. Hurt or…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Myer interrupted, sticking an open palm in Rory’s face. “The zombies got em; yada, yada, yada. Sounds like someone’s having a mid-life crisis to me. Too bad you got fired cuz you could’ve just bought a Corvette like your old man did.”
Wrinkles coursed across Rory’s brow. “Okay, that makes no sense.”
“I wouldn’t believe us either, Jason, but we would never take something this far. You have to know that.”
Myer turned to Woody, sweat trickling down his temples. He took a step back and turned to face the water, his evaluating gaze gliding across the serene lake. A turtle head emerged like a submarine’s periscope a few yards from shore and stared at them with expecting eyes. Myer hitched up his gun-belt and turned back around. “Only thing I know is, you’re wasting taxpayer dollars.” He spit into the sand and started for the trees, hitting Rory with a cold glare as he whisked past. “Let’s clear out!”
Rory’s dad wrinkled his stubbly face and pulled a gray Twins shirt down over the pot belly trying to escape from beneath it. “What?”
“Personally, I think they’ve just had too much to drink and everything will be right as rain in the mornin,” Myer said softly, his folded arms resting on his stomach. “I’m gonna release em into your custody tonight, so keep an eye on em.”
Rory’s dad held the screen door open and turned back to his son. Rory sat between Rachel and Woody on the leather couch, the same solemn expression gracing his bloody face as the others. “Well thank you, Deputy,” he said, running a hand through his thinning gray hair. “They won’t be going anywhere tonight.”
“Probably best they don’t,” Myer said, glancing through the open front door. He leaned in and tried to smile. “Your friends will turn up tomorrow.” Blank expressions answered him from the couch. Myer took off his ball cap and mopped sweat from his forehead with his hand. “Get some rest and you’ll feel better in the morning.” When they didn’t respond again, the deputy smiled thinly at Rory’s father and nodded. “Goodnight then.”
“Thank you again, Deputy.”
Myer raised a hand into the air on his way back to the patrol car parked behind Rory’s Honda Accord in the driveway.
Rory’s dad shut the door, leaned his back against it and exhaled one of those breaths that clearly indicates a parent is at their wits end. He traded glances with Laura, standing in a robe across the room with her blond hair poking out in all directions, and let his eyes bounce from Rachel to Rory to Woody. An incredulous laugh slipped from his lips as he rubbed his prickly face. “I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.”
Rory leaned forward on the couch. “Dad, it’s not what you think.”
“You shut your goddamn mouth!”
“Stephen!” Laura snapped, her mouth hanging wide open. “These kids have been through enough tonight already without you piling it on.”
“They’re not kids, Laura!” Stephen huffed, pacing the large living room. His bare feet made a dry wooshing sound against the hardwood flooring in the silence that followed. “They were smoking weed, for Christ’s sake!”
She inhaled sharply and threw her hands over her cheeks in mock horror. “Big deal, Mother Theresa! We did, too, at one time, ya know.”
“Yeah, in college!” He stared hard at Rory, his pot belly making another break for it. “And the stuff they smoke today is waaaay stronger than anything we had back then. It’s no wonder they were seeing zombies!”
Laura adjusted her robe and tied it tighter, unknowingly giving Woody a sneak peek at the red panties hiding just beneath. “Stephen, since when do these kids make anything up like this? They are good kids and if you don’t know that by now, then you’ve got bigger problems,” she said gravely, dropping into a large armchair. She glared at him, awaiting his snide response.
Stephen stopped pacing and massaged his bristly face with both hands, his gray Twins shirt pulling up again and exposing the pasty beer belly beneath. Woody tried not to stare at Stephen’s gym shorts but they were so short it was hard not to.
“All right,” he said tiredly. “Let’s just…get some sleep and we’ll talk about this in the morning,” he said, heading for the stairs. At the bottom step he turned back to Rory. “But you are going to have some serious explaining to do tomorrow. This is no way to come back into our lives. We don’t deserve anything remotely close to…whatever this is.”
Rory glanced at Woody and rolled his eyes.
Stephen’s face stiffened. “You think this is funny?”
Laura frowned. “Oh Stephen, stop being so dramatic!”
“The only thing funny around here are those shorts,” Rory said flatly, hitting his father with a defiant stare.
Stephen gritted his teeth and spoke slowly. “I should throw your worthless ass out of here right now.”
“Don’t talk to me like that! I’m not one of your employees you don’t give a shit about!”
“You’re not anyone’s employee!” Stephen laughed. “Which makes me such a proud father!”
Rory snorted and dropped his gaze to the coffee table. “God, you’re a dick.”
The quiet that followed was as uncomfortable as a motel bed. No one spoke a single word, making the humming refrigerator in the kitchen seem way too loud.
Stephen nodded slowly, holding onto his anger by a mere thread, and stomped up the stairs in a huff. “We’ll see who’s laughing tomorrow, hot-shot!”
Laura exhaled a defeated breath and leaned forward in the armchair. “Rachel, honey,” she said softly, taking her hand. “Do you want me to take you home?”
Rachel looked up with panicked eyes. “What? No, I don’t want to be alone tonight. Kate was my roommate.”
“Okay, okay,” Laura said with a high voice, patting Rachel’s hand. “You can stay here for as long as you want.” She smiled and turned to Woody. “Woody?”
“I’ll just crash here tonight, too, if that’s all right.”
“Of course it is,” she replied warmly, her sleepy eyes bouncing from their worn out faces to the scratches carved into their arms and legs. She took Rachel’s ashen hand in both of hers. “I’m so sorry about Kate, sweetie.” A tear rolled down Laura’s cheek and dropped to the floor. “And Ashley and your boyfriend…I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now.”
Rachel stared into Laura’s soft eyes and broke down crying.
“Oh honey,” Laura cooed, pulling Rachel into her shoulder and rubbing her back. “You just let it all out. Whatever it was that happened…it’s all over now.”
“Wait a minute,” Woody said, scooting to the edge of the couch. “You believe us?”
Laura stroked Rachel’s short blond locks. “I don’t know what went wrong out there tonight, but I can tell something happene
d just by looking at you.”
“Thank you!” Rory said, slapping his knee. “Finally!”
Rachel pulled back and studied Laura through skeptical eyes. “You can?”
Laura’s heavy gaze traveled to each of their faces, stopping for only a few seconds that seemed like hours. “I know none of you would make something up like this, let alone come home early from camping when you know who is here,” she whispered, nodding upstairs.
Rory drank from his water bottle, not lifting his eyes from his mother. He thought it wouldn’t surprise him if she was the one person in the world who actually believed them but, hearing it now, it did.
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