7
ABOUT TEN MINUTES down the road we saw a small sign that said ‘Swifty’s Country Store’, with an arrow pointing right. Aunt Ella turned the school bus and followed the sign.
“Sounds like a happening place,” I joked.
No one said anything. Ever since we left Greenfield, we had been following back roads and staying away from the populated areas, which wasn’t that hard to do. Who knew Massachusetts was so dead?
Ba dum dum.
“Where are we?” said Trina, vaguely annoyed.
“Lost,” muttered Prianka.
Trina pulled the road atlas out of the door pocket and handed it to Sanjay. “Sanjay, where are we on this map?” You had to ask him things directly—that’s just the way he operated. He took it from her and rapidly flipped through the pages, occasionally stopping and closing his eyes.
“I think you have to give him a quarter, too,” I said. Daggers shot out of Prianka’s eyes and practically skewered me on the spot. “Um—or not.”
We waited patiently for Sanjay to answer as we followed the bus down a bumpy road with the fall foliage hanging over us on both sides. The woods were dense and thick—almost like you needed a machete to hack through the stuff.
Places like this made me wonder why there was always so much talk about how humans have encroached on nature so much that there is no space left for wildlife to go. Oh yeah? Come to Western Massachusetts some time. We got all the space you need.
Finally, Sanjay pulled Poopy Puppy up to his ear and slowly nodded his head.
“Hollowton,” he said. “Poopy Puppy says we’re in Hollowton.”
“Really?” said my sister. “Hollowton? Where’s the mall?”
Sanjay closed his eyes again.
“No mall,” then, “Hollowton, Massachusetts was first settled in 1724, owing its name to the notion that it was nothing more than a hollowed out section of roadway between Cotton Corner and North Westville.”
“There’s actually a North Westville?” I laughed. “Is there a South Westville and an East Westville, too? I guess there wouldn’t be a West Westville because that would just be Westville, right?”
Trina smacked me in the back of the head.
“Hollowton has never surpassed a population of 200 since its incorporation,” Sanjay continued. “According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 45.7 square miles. A portion of the hills in the northern part of town are protected as part of the Hollowton State Forest. The eastern side of town is bordered in totality by the Quabbin Reservoir, the main source for drinking water for the Boston Metropolitan area.”
“The Quabbin is cool,” said Jimmy. “It’s this huge lake like twenty miles long and a couple miles wide. There’s awesome fishing, not that I do that.”
“I don’t fish,” said Trina.
“You will,” Prianka snipped. “And hunt, and build fires and do all the stuff that people used to do to survive. If we’re going to make it, they’re all necessities.”
“Fast food and air conditioning are necessities,” Trina muttered. The sad thing was that I knew where she was coming from. The thought of catching a fish, let alone skinning it and eating it, skeeved me out. In my world, fish came in sticks out of the freezer.
The bus’s right blinker flashed and Aunt Ella turned into a parking lot. A battered sign was nailed to a phone pole up near the road. It said ‘Swifty’s Country Store’ with a picture of a black bear standing on its hind legs.
The store itself was a big log cabin with a front porch filled with rocking chairs. There were a couple of signs in the window that said ‘Fishing licenses sold here’ and ‘Hand-made quilts.’ A carved wooden statue of a black bear holding a fishing pole sat on the steps. Its beady little eyes reminded me of Andrew, but I didn’t say anything.
“Who knew Massachusetts was so close to Arkansas?” I said. “I mean, how hick can you get?” The bus pulled up to the front porch and stopped. I pulled Stella’s minivan up next to it. The rest of the parking lot was deserted. On the front door there was one of those red and white signs that said ‘Closed’.
That made me feel a little sad. I know I’m a kid and all, but anyone who lives in Massachusetts knows that you don’t close for anything in September and October. This is leaf-peeper season and Western Massachusetts is like fall foliage central.
At least one good thing was certain. If he closed up shop, no poxers were inside.
Score one for the lady driving the bus.
Prianka didn’t even wait for me to stop the car before she flung open the door and got out. Well that sucked. She didn’t want to be anywhere near me. I think she was still pissed about the gun. I didn’t know what the big deal was. So I wanted the gun just in case big, fat Trudy Aiken had ratted us out to Cheryl The It? What was I supposed to do, just sit there?
Geez, I had enough problems keeping my own thoughts straight. Now I was supposed to know what Prianka was thinking, too?
Jimmy reached forward and squeezed my shoulder.
“I feel you, man,” he said.
“Whatever.” I got out of the minivan just as Aunt Ella was stepping down from the bus. “Do you know where we are?” I said with a hint of snot-nosed brattiness in my voice.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re so far out in the middle of nowhere that no one would think to look for us here.”
“That helicopter did.”
“And thanks to Trudy, they’re off flying in the wrong direction.”
The others piled out of the bus, but I was still stuck on what Aunt Ella said. I pulled her aside.
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “Why didn’t she run when she saw that Cheryl lady?”
Aunt Ella shrugged. “Do you really think Trudy could run more than twenty feet without having heart palpitations?”
That was true, and something I didn’t exactly want to see, anyway. Still, I didn’t quite trust Trudy Aiken. Actually, that went for all the survivors we were toting along. Maybe I distrusted them because they were adults and we weren’t. I don’t know. At least Trudy didn’t rat us out to Cheryl The It, so that had to count for something.
I guess only time would tell—that and our food supplies. After all, I . . . I . . . I . . . wanted a pizza, too. I just wasn’t sure how ruthless I would be to get one.
8
THE FRONT DOOR of Swifty’s was locked. Although no one would have cared if we’d thrown the little fishing bear through the window to get inside, we decided that it might be better to keep the door intact just in case we wanted to camp out there for the night.
You know, a poxer might come to the door with a pamphlet or something trying to convert us. Better safe than sorry.
Out back was another door with a padlock on it, along with a rough wood deck and a few picnic tables tucked in against the dense woods. There was also a huge mega-grill made out of a couple rusted oil drums. It looked like someone with three teeth and a blow torch had welded the thing together.
I think burgers were off the menu because any meat left lying around was surely rotten by now. Still, we at least could have a pig-out party with grilled peanut butter and jelly and maybe chips or something. The grill was already filled with little coal briquettes. Perfect! We were totally stocked with lighter fluid.
While a couple of the adults tried to figure out how to get the padlock open, my idiot sister went around front and came back with Bullseye’s handgun.
“Trina!” yelped Jimmy, but a fat lot of good that did.
“Step back,” she barked, and shot off the padlock on the back door to Swifty’s Country Store. The loud bang was accompanied by a chorus of adults’ enthusiastic disapprovals.
She whirled around and stared them all down.
“What?” she demanded. “Get used to the guns.” She kicked th
e door open like she was a female version of Chuck Norris.
“Trina,” gasped my mom, but my dad didn’t say anything. Maybe it’s because he knew Trina was right. This wasn’t a movie and it wasn’t a game. We were in a fight for our lives, and whether we were duking it out with poxers or crazy scientists, we needed to know how to survive.
Being smart and ruthless were the new rules.
Still, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the adults looked at us warily—me, Trina, Prianka, Jimmy, Bullseye, and Sanjay, like we were a street gang or something, or maybe even the enemy. Adults always look at kids like that—like we’re just a little bit dangerous, a little bit untrained.
I remember my dad once told me that adults are just big kids with all the same feelings and insecurities as children, but with money.
Now that money didn’t matter anymore, the playing field was evened out a little. We were just as capable at this survival thing as the adults, but now I think they were beginning to feel like it was us against them.
Anyway, when the little snit about Trina cooled to a low simmer, my aunt suggested that we all get some food in us before deciding if we planned to stay put for the night or try to put a few more miles between us and whatever was left of Diana and Site 37.
Trudy nodded her head enthusiastically when she heard we were going to eat. Of course she did. I just hoped we brought enough supplies.
It turns out it didn’t matter.
Swifty’s was part tourist trap and part minimart for the fine folks of Hollowton, Massachusetts. On one side of the store was lots of food, although it was pretty much more of the same stuff we had been eating for the last week—potato chips, candy, bread, and canned goods.
There was a big case full of home-made fudge on the front counter and a whole wall filled with jars of old-time candy like dots and fireballs and those little wax bottles that held colored sugar water. Trudy helped herself to a double handful of circus peanuts—you know, those orange-flavored marshmallow puffs?
Sorry, but they just gross me out. Those and marshmallow Peeps, even though I have to admit they were both fun to put into a microwave and watch explode.
Sanjay took a multicolored jawbreaker that was about the size of a baseball and sat down on one of the window seats near the front of the store. He propped Poopy Puppy up against the glass and let Andrew peck at the ball a few times before the stupid bird realized there was no way his beak was going through all that sugar. Newfie lay on the floor next to them, his head on his paws, and watched as Sanjay went to town on the jawbreaker.
It was still weird to see the animals so drawn to Prianka’s little brother. Maybe they sensed he was special in some way, just like dolphins can sense when a person in the water needs help. I don’t know.
Creepy, creepy. That’s all I can say. Creepy, creepy.
Besides all the pre-packaged food, there was a big fridge in Swifty’s that had bottles of water and soda inside. They were safe to drink, but since there was no electricity, all the dairy stuff was a bust. Aunt Ella, farmer woman of the century, told us the eggs were fine—they could last for weeks unrefrigerated—but the milk was best left untouched.
No argument from me.
On the other side of the store were t-shirts and fleece jackets, moccasins, bird houses, and some chairs made out of twigs. There were a bunch of other items, too, all generally geared toward people who weren’t from Massachusetts who thought that everyone here loved maple syrup, Macintosh apples, and the smell of wood burning stoves.
To drive the fallacy home, a big cast-iron wood burner sat on a brick hearth in the back of the store. A bundle of birch logs was piled next to it, which was probably just for show. Still, all I could think was that the weather was starting to get a bit nippy. A nice fire would be awesome.
I tried to talk to Prianka while she was spinning a rack of bumper stickers with some pretty rude sayings on them. She totally ignored me and stomped away, but not before slapping my back with a sticky message.
“Real mature,” I said, as I tried to reach around to peel the bumper sticker off. I began twirling in circles trying to get Prianka’s little joke off my back. “What does it say? What does it say?” I asked as I spun wildly around.
Jimmy was close by. He barked out a laugh and steadied me as he peeled the bumper sticker off my back and held it up for me to read.
“Oh, that’s funny,” I said. “That’s real funny.”
The sticker said ‘Masshole’ on it. That’s what the people from Vermont and New Hampshire called us Bay Staters.
I wasn’t amused.
For the next few hours we busied ourselves with lighting the grill out back, setting up the picnic tables for dinner, and dragging out a couple really expensive hand-made quilts that were probably stitched together by the three-toothed guy’s two-toothed wife.
Then we had ourselves one grand old picnic.
Jimmy was the one who was the most bummed about the food choices. The packaged bread in the store was still edible, but it was all white—not whole grain. He kept checking the amount of chemicals and nitrates on some of the other food packaging until he finally gave in and suffered through a grilled Spam sandwich in silence.
Prianka sat on one of the other picnic tables with some of the adults who I didn’t really know. She was as far away from me as she could get without being in the next county. When I looked at Jimmy for help, he just shrugged and made a point of holding hands with Trina.
Suck up.
The light was just starting to fade when we finished dinner. My aunt, her thick lenses glinting in the disappearing sun, stood up and knocked her soda can down on the table a few times until we all stopped talking to hear what she had to say.
“For anyone who doesn’t know yet, we’re in Hollowton, alongside the Quabbin Reservoir. I drove us out this way because we’re reasonably remote.”
Sanjay raised his hand and squirmed on his seat like he had to go to the bathroom.
“Yes?” said Aunt Ella.
“Hollowton, Massachusetts was first settled in 1724, owing its name to the notion that it was nothing more than a hollowed out section of roadway between Cotton Corner and North Westville.”
“All righty then,” said my aunt.
Sanjay raised his hand again.
“Sanjay?”
“There’s no mall. Poopy says so. Andrew too. Newfie doesn’t like to shop.”
Prianka smiled and looked down at her plate. I wish I was sitting next to her instead of on the other side of the planet. I didn’t get why she was still so mad. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?
Well didn’t I?
Did I?
Oh crap. I never said I was sorry. I think I broke some cardinal rule about the girlfriend always being right, no matter what. If the sky is blue and she says green, then the sky’s green.
No questions asked.
“Not likely,” I mumbled to myself. If Prianka wanted to be a pig-headed, self-righteous, stubborn badirchand, then more power to her.
That thought lasted all of about ten seconds. I had to find a way to tell her I was sorry for whatever she thought I did.
Meanwhile, Aunt Ella continued talking.
“Since we’re already here, and we have some food, a grill, and these lovely hand-made quilts, I say we settle down here for the night and figure out our game plan over hot chocolate and s’mores.”
“How about lighting the wood stove inside?” said a tall skinny lady with a beak for a nose. She was sitting directly across from Trudy Aiken. Trina had been calling the skinny lady Freaky Big Bird since we first saved her—not to her face, of course, but we all had fallen in line and started calling her that, too. Her name was really Felice LeFleur. I think she was a librarian or a Sunday school teacher, because she certainly looked like one. “I
don’t know about anyone else,” she continued, “But I know I’d feel a lot safer behind four walls.”
People started to nod their heads.
Then Trudy Aiken sneezed. Everyone froze and stared at her in horror. A gush of red splattered across the table.
“Excuse me,” she said, not realizing what had happened.
The second sneeze was worse. This time thick, goopy, clots of dark blood sprayed all over Freaky Big Bird’s face.
Who could blame her for screaming?
9
“YOU’RE BLEEDING,” gasped Trudy, staring wide eyed and horrified across the table at the bloodied woman. Clearly, she had no idea the blood was coming from her.
Freaky Big Bird shrieked again—a shrill, horrible sound.
Prianka, who was at the same table as Trudy Aiken and Felice LeFleur, immediately sprang to her feet and ran to us. I already knew why. She didn’t want Sanjay to see all the blood.
“Trudy,” said Dorcas Duke, who had been sitting next to Freaky Big Bird and smoking a cigarette that no one dared ask her to put out. “Look down, hon.”
“Oh my,” Trudy whispered as she saw the blood covering her hands. They were slick and dark. “Oh my,” she said again before falling backwards and landing with a thud on the deck.
Everything happened so fast. My dad was squatting over Trudy in an instant.
“Hand me some paper towels,” he yelled to no one in particular, not daring to look away from the huge mound of flesh on the ground.
Sanjay was sitting next to me, so I specifically turned toward him to block his view. Andrew gave me a dirty look and chirped, “Paper towel.”
“Paper towels are an absorbent textile manufactured from paper instead of cloth,” said Sanjay. “They are intended to be used only once. Their loosely woven composition enables water and other liquids to travel easily through them. They are most commonly used in a kitchen.”
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 1): Wicked Dead Page 4