Chucklers: Laughter is Contagious

by Jeff Brackett

  He and Michelle had been married for seven years, and he’d known her for three years before that. One of the things that he treasured in her was the fact that she was such a strong woman. He’d seen plenty of his buddies in the Marines who had married pretty, timid, young women who had hung on their arms and doted on their husbands’ stories of glory. Trophy wives who married the big, strong, man in uniform. But as often as not, those marriages didn’t last. Sooner or later, reality intruded. Military life was a hard life.

  Linton had been so lucky to find a kindred soul in Michelle, a quiet warrior spirit who was strong enough to cut through the emotional crap that life dished out, put her head down, do whatever needed to be done, and deal with the consequences later.

  In their years together, he’d seen her happy and sad. He’d seen her show concern, and on occasion, he’d seen her angry. Those were times he dreaded, almost as much as he looked forward to the mischievous, lustful look she showed in the bedroom. But the look in her eyes now was something he’d never seen. For the first time since he’d known her, there was genuine fear in her eyes. “What is it?”

  “They’re saying there’s some sort of outbreak in Africa. Estimates are that there are millions of people dead.”

  “Millions?” Linton walked numbly to stand beside her and together the two of them watched the talking heads comment somberly to each other as film footage of burned villages played behind them. All travel to Africa was suspended. All American travelers returning from Africa were to be quarantined by the CDC until they were cleared.

  “This is it, isn’t it? This is what Emmet was talking about.”

  “Holy shit.” His heart thumped in his chest. It was one thing to plan for “what if” scenarios. It was quite another to see one playing out. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it is.”

  Michelle watched the screen until it switched to the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York. She raised the remote and shut it off. “Okay, so what do we need to do?”

  “The truck’s in the garage. We pack all the canned food, gasoline, and weapons in it and wait until we hear from Emmet.”

  “How long?”

  Linton glanced at his watch. “Let’s have some breakfast and pack. If we haven’t heard from him by noon, I’ll give him a call.”

  “That won’t get him in trouble?”

  “I’ll just be checking to see when he’s going to be here for Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Michelle nodded. She sipped her coffee as she headed into the kitchen. “Bacon and eggs?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Linton’s phone rang as he was loading the last of the five-gallon gas cans in the back of the truck. He didn’t recognize the number, but answered it. “Lima Bravo.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Lint.” If he didn’t know the man so well, Linton might have been fooled by Emmet’s almost cheerful voice. “You guys still up for another guest at the table?”

  Linton sighed in relief. “Sure thing. You on your way over?”

  “Yep. I’m in a cab as we speak. Looks like I’m about…” There was a muffled discussion as Emmet covered the phone with his hand and spoke to someone. “Cabbie says we’re about twenty minutes away from your driveway.”

  “Sounds good. See you when you get here.”

  Michelle was at the garage door with another box of canned food when he looked up. “He’s on his way?”

  “Yeah. Twenty minutes.”

  She handed him the box. “What then?”

  He heaved the box into the bed of the truck. “Then we see what he has to say.”

  It was only fifteen minutes before a cab pulled into the driveway and an exhausted-looking Emmet Pismire stepped out. He slid a heavy duffle bag out of the back seat, handed the driver some bills, and walked to the door. His expression was somber as he hugged Michelle and slapped Linton on the shoulder. They all walked inside. “You guys ready to pull out?”

  Linton nodded.

  “Good. We probably don’t really have to go right away, but it’s better to be ready, just in case.”

  “It’s that epidemic in Africa, isn’t it?” Michelle asked.

  Emmet nodded. “It’s not just in Africa. It’s spread into Europe.” He walked into the kitchen and helped himself to a cup of coffee. “So far, we think we’ve kept it contained here in the US, but there’s no way of knowing how long that’ll last.”

  Linton swallowed. “So what is it? Ebola, anthrax… what?”

  “We don’t know. This shit has spread so fast that they haven’t had time to figure it all out.”

  “That’s kinda hard to believe.”

  He shrugged. “I’m sure someone somewhere knows what it is, but it’s not common knowledge yet.” He pulled up a chair at their breakfast table and sat staring at his coffee. Linton and Michelle sat across from him. Michelle put her hand on his arm. “Emmet? You’re starting to really scare me.”

  Emmet nodded. “Good. I wouldn’t want to be the only one in the room that’s scared shitless.” He took another sip of coffee before looking up at them. “I’m real sketchy on what’s going on. Truth is, I’m not supposed to know any of this. But with all the buzz, it’s hard to miss that there’s something big happening. And you know how I can’t keep my nose out of things.

  “So I’ve been putting things together from different sources. There have been disaster recovery plans that are being brought out of mothballs, about three times as many high-level reports have been coming in than usual; high level encrypted stuff to the higher ups. There’s been a lot of other traffic, too. Stuff from FEMA, the Coasties, World Health Organization, and the CDC. Day before yesterday, I saw COOP advisories coming in.”

  Linton blew a deep breath out through his mouth. “Wow.”

  “COOP?” Michelle looked from Chris to Linton.

  “Continuity of Operations Plan,” Linton said. His eyes never left his friend’s. “It means the government is planning to start rotating key officials into secure bunkers.”

  Emmet nodded slowly. “Combine that with the other traffic, and it’s not hard to figure out that this epidemic overseas has really spooked the higher ups.”

  “So with all this going on, how did you manage to get out? I mean, security has to be insane right now.”

  Emmet looked at his watch. “By now, it probably is. I left last night.”

  Linton furrowed his brow. “So?”

  “The COOP reports were for Colonel Stafford’s eyes. But the colonel was out sick a few days ago and he had me covering for him. I saw those reports in his desk, I stepped outside and called you on my burner. Then I developed a cough and left for the day.”

  Linton shook his head. “Holy shit, Emmet! They’re gonna be on you like white on rice.”

  Emmet shook his head. “At some point, they’ll try to call me. Eventually, they’ll send someone to check on me. There will be some buzz, and they might even pull the records on my phone. But I called you from the burner. So, not finding any suspicious activity on my cell, they’ll track the phone’s GPS. At that point, they might even contact someone in New York to find out what I’m doing there.”

  “New York?”

  Emmet shrugged. “My phone might have accidentally fallen out of my pocket and into a ream of paper that was sent to a New York publishing house.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Did I ever tell you I thought about writing a book one time?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I found out that there was a lot more to getting a book published than just sending a manuscript to a publisher. In fact, when you send an unsolicited manuscript to one of the big publishing houses, it usually sits in their slush pile for weeks before anyone even looks at it.

  “Ah!”

  “Yeah. I figure if they actually send someone to find me, they’ll just find the phone in New York at first. If they don’t then it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before anyone opens that package. By then, the battery will have died anyway.
”

  Linton nodded. “You’re taking a hell of a risk, buddy.”

  “Yeah, but from what I saw in those reports, the government’s about to have a lot more to worry about than one AWOL sailor. I doubt they’ll even remember my name in another few weeks.”

  “So what’s the plan, then?”

  Emmet yawned. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. I’ve been on the road all night. How about we grab a few hours of rest while we can and head for the bunker this evening?”

  Linton nodded. “I’m pretty well rested, but you catch some z’s in the guest room. Michelle and I will finish packing the truck. Maybe catch some more news.” He looked at the time on his phone. “Wake you at six?”

  “Sounds good. The bunker’s what, two hours away?”

  “A little less.”

  “So with everything packed, you could get up at six, fix a quick bite, and be out the door by six thirty?”

  “Yeah, and at the bunker around eight o’clock.”

  Linton showed his friend to the guest room, and Michelle brought him some blankets and kissed him on the cheek. He looked surprised.

  “What’s that for?”

  “You risked a lot to help us.”

  Emmet shrugged. “And you guys have offered me a place to stay.”

  She looked at the small bed, then back at him.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. If this all goes down the way it’s starting to look like it will, that bunker is going to be one of the best places to try and ride things out.”

  “You really think it’s going to happen?”

  “It’s already happening in Africa, and starting in Europe. I think it’s only a matter of time. And I don’t know how much time.”

  Michelle pressed her lips into a thin line and started to turn. But Emmet wasn’t through.

  “You know, if I’m wrong… if this doesn’t happen, then I’m going to be hunted down eventually. They’ll find me, haul me in as a deserter, and if I’m lucky, I’ll spend several years in prison.” He looked her squarely in the eyes. “And even with that, I truly hope I’m wrong.”

  Chapter 41

  Erica Chapman

  Thanksgiving morning

  What began as a melancholy Thanksgiving Thursday got progressively worse as the morning passed. The lawyers wanted Erica out by Friday, so she’d already packed what few personal belongings she still had at the ranch into her old mini-van in preparation for the trip home. According to the documents she’d signed, their representatives would be by in the morning to facilitate the transfer of ownership on the ranch. She assumed that was legalese for kicking her out and taking the keys.

  She worked on a final cleaning of the house, mainly to keep herself distracted. But as she cleaned, she kept running into reminders of the years she and Uncle J had spent together. And as morning faded to afternoon, so too did melancholy devolve into outright depression. By late afternoon, she realized she had finished cleaning long ago. At that point, all she was really doing was wandering from room to room, looking at pictures and knick-knacks, all the while getting more and more depressed.

  I need to get out of here for a while. Her stomach growled agreement, reminding her that, despite bone-wearying depression, the body still required its due. Checking the time, she was startled to find it was already late in the afternoon. So then, food. That decided, she grabbed her keys and left without further planning. Erica had long ago decided that planning was overrated, anyway.

  She had cause to second guess that philosophy half an hour later, as she aimlessly drove around Katy, looking for someplace to eat. It took only a few minutes to remember that her dining options were going to be limited on Thanksgiving. And of those places that were open, she had to choose between fast food, and restaurants so crowded that many of them had lines waiting in the parking lots. She absolutely refused to have fast food for Thanksgiving. The very thought seemed almost sacrilegious. She figured there had to be someplace she could go where she could walk in and have a semi-traditional turkey dinner without having to wait for an hour.

  Salvation appeared in the guise of an IHOP that perched in the corner of a shopping mall parking lot. Surprisingly, there were quite a few cars parked out front, giving testament to the fact that it was open. Yet, there was no evidence of the huge crowds she had seen at some of the other diners. Finally. Something going my way!

  She should have known better. There was a half hour wait before they had a table cleared for her. Twenty minutes after being seated, she looked at her plate in fascinated disgust as a sea of giblet gravy congealed around an island of factory pressed turkey resting on a bed of soggy dressing. Christ on a stick, I was actually eating this?

  She dropped her fork, appetite gone for the moment, and looked around at the crowded diner. There was an old couple sitting at a booth across the room, almost shouting as they tried to hear one another over the constant din of clinking dishes and shouted orders between the wait staff. Erica watched as busboys, waiters, and waitresses frantically scrambled to keep ahead of the holiday rush.

  Shaking her head, Erica pushed away from the table, paid at the register, and left the bustling restaurant. She’d wanted to get away from the quiet depression of Uncle J’s ranch, but being thrust into such a crowd wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind.

  By now, the day was done, the sun long gone below the western horizon, and she had some serious reservations as to how much more of an ass-kicking she could take from the world. Uncle J’s death, the loss of the ranch, the state of her personal life… and all just in time for the holidays. No wonder so many people commit suicide this time of year.

  She walked across the darkening parking lot towards her old van, diligently checking her surroundings as she went. It was another of Uncle J’s lessons. Pretty girl like you, you gotta keep your eyes open. Muggers look for folks that ain’t payin’ attention. She’d always blushed when he complimented her, but the lesson held, nonetheless. As a result, Erica was one of those people that tried to sit with her back to the wall, and made sure she knew where the exits were when she walked into a room. She still heard his voice, “Some folks call it paranoid. I just call it payin’ attention.”

  Whatever you chose to call it, it was part of her now. As she scanned her surroundings though, a movie marquee caught her eye. The AMC 20 across the mall parking lot was open, and it suddenly occurred to her that she really didn’t feel like going back to the empty ranch house. She checked the marquee to see if any of the titles looked interesting.

  While there were twenty screens, most of the titles ran on more than one, and severely limited her options. Gambit, the latest X-Men movie, was playing on four screens, and Avatar 2 took another four. Besides those blockbusters, there was Mila Kunis’s latest romantic comedy on two screens, The Bourne Betrayal on three screens, and Star Trek 4 was beginning to die down and was also down to two screens. But the new animated movie Grump was taking up the slack with three more screens. The only movie that even looked like it was slightly holiday themed was Hell’s Holiday, and it looked like the writers had managed to combine Halloween and Christmas into one singularly bad movie.

  She was briefly torn between the romantic comedy, and the latest in the Jason Bourne franchise, but considering the state of her own love life, she sure as hell didn’t feel like seeing a rom-com. No, an action flick was just the kind of distraction she needed. Not seeing the need to take the car just to cross the parking lot, Erica opted to walk the hundred yards to the theater.

  There turned out to be just over half an hour before the seven forty showing started, so she bought her ticket, a box of chocolate-covered peanuts, and a diet soda. Seventeen dollars and fifty cents later, she wandered around the lobby looking at the cardboard cutout advertisements for upcoming movies. Star Wars: Episode 9, Expendables 4, and the upcoming release of a new movie called Bay’s End that looked like a rip off of the old King movie Stand By Me. Erica shook her head at that one. �
�Typical Hollywood,” she thought. “Not an ounce of originality in the whole damn town.”

  She noticed patrons beginning to exit the previous viewing of Bourne Betrayal and made her way over to wait in line with the rest of the milling Thanksgiving crowd. The exiting moviegoers seemed excited as they walked out, so her hopes were high that this would be better than the last movie she’d seen.

  Fifteen minutes later, she sat near the front of the theater, simply too lazy to climb too far up the stadium seating. She fought briefly with the box of candy before breaking a nail on the faux perforated thumb hole. At that point, she’d had enough and bit into the box, ripping the end of it off with her teeth. Take that you little shit! And with that unfortunate choice of descriptor for her chocolate-covered peanuts, the lights dimmed, and the preliminary movie trailers began.

  After fifteen minutes of previews for coming attractions, the familiar Jason Bourne theme music finally began, and she settled in while Matt Damon fought his way through a wall of the worst marksmen in the world. It always amazed her that the hero in a Hollywood production could walk through a building full of men wielding fully automatic machine guns, and take them all out with nothing more than a small pistol, all while never taking a hit or even breaking a sweat. She shook her head, wondering if she was going to regret her movie choice.

  About half an hour into the movie, she heard laughter from the theater next door. It sounded as if the antics of Mila Kunis and her entourage were funnier than the TV commercials had let on. Turning her attention back to the screen before her, Erica watched as Jason Bourne set his plan in motion. Another round of muted laughter came from the other side of the wall, and this time it was accompanied by what sounded like a scream. It was distracting enough that she cocked her head to the side, listening more intently. Another wave of laughter, and more screams sounded. She looked around and saw several other people that seemed disturbed as well. Two men got out of their seats and walked down the stairs toward the entrance. As they passed Erica, she heard them muttering about having management turn down the volume next door so they could enjoy the movie. They rounded the wall at ground level and walked back toward the entrance.