“I’m sorry,” said my dad. “That was out of line. I didn’t mean anything.”
“I know you didn’t,” I found myself saying. “I’m cool.”
My dad looked to both me and Trina and shook his head. “I really am proud of the two of you,” he said. “You’re so grown up. Just yesterday I was sitting up all night feeding you bottles and changing your poopy diapers.”
“Ew,” we both said at once.
“Way to kill the mood, Dad,” Trina added.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Lifetime Movie moment’s over.”
He smiled. “Go,” he said. “Just be careful.”
There were some towels for sale on one of the racks. They were covered with pictures of moose. I’ve lived in Massachusetts all my life and I still don’t understand what’s with all the moose references. I’ve never seen one and never heard of anyone seeing one. Squirrels I get, maybe even bunnies, but moose? Here?
Prianka grabbed a pile of the tacky towels and handed one out to each of us. She came up a few short.
“That’s okay,” said Trina. “Jimmy and I can share.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father’s fiery glare melting Jimmy’s wheels to the floor. Jimmy just smiled and said, “Sure thing.” Then he winked at my dad.
I think a blood vessel popped in Dad’s eye, but I wasn’t sure.
“Alrighty, then,” I said to diffuse whatever tension there was. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Prianka went to scoop up Krystal but Aunt Ella said no. “She has stitches in her arm. She can’t get them wet.”
“Oh,” said Prianka. “That makes sense.” Instead, she grabbed Sanjay’s hand. Andrew cawed and flapped his wings once or twice, then settled back down on his shoulder. Sanjay looked uncertainly at my dad.
“It’s okay,” Dad said. “Everyone is getting better.”
Sanjay held his stuffed dog to his ear. “Necropoxy is bad,” he finally whispered. “Poopy Puppy says so.”
“Yes it is,” agreed my dad. “Just not this time.” He smiled and went to ruffle Sanjay’s hair but Sanjay pulled away. “Oh, sorry,” my dad said and just put his hand up and waved goodbye. Sanjay did the same. Then we all filed out the front door and made our way back across the parking lot.
36
JIMMY PUMPED HIS wheels through the mounds of dead leaves like they weren’t even there. The hard bicycle treads on the heavy rubber of his wheelchair tires made it easy for him to maneuver through the steadily growing piles.
I wondered if there used to be trucks that came by on a daily basis to clear the leaves off the road. I bet there were, because there were a gazillion of the little dead things and they had to go someplace or the roads would be impassable.
How could such a little nuisance become such a major roadblock? I wondered about all the other little nuisances we took for granted but couldn’t anymore. Things like who was going to scrape up road kill? Well, that was a stupid thought because, hello, no cars. Seriously though, I’m sure there were tons of things that just automatically happened in our pre-poxer world that wouldn’t anymore.
We were just going to have to wait and find out what those things were. Lucky us.
A short way down the road we came to Gate 29. All it amounted to was a big metal bar that was already opened in front of a sunlit trail that meandered off into the woods. The sign in front of the gate said: ‘Welcome to Gate 29, a nature preserve protected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Black Point Fort Aquaduct, 1.2 miles. Accessible by foot only.’ Underneath that was written the same disclaimer about domestic pets and no parking that the other sign had, but I already used up a joke on that one so I kept my mouth shut.
It was hard.
“What’s this?” asked Prianka as she bent over the sign. We crowded around her and found a little plaque showing a map with arrows on it.
“Cellar holes,” said Sanjay.
We all looked down at him.
“What’s a cellar hole?” asked Bullseye.
Sanjay cleared his throat. “In the book Reservoir Remnants by McCormick Block, sold for $8.95 at Swifty’s Country Store in Hollowton, Massachusetts, it states: Most areas around the Quabbin Reservoir are accessible only by foot, except for three distinct boat launches. Few people ever go into the deep woods, and the Quabbin has become a wildlife preserve.
We all listened to Sanjay like he was a tour guide. I wondered if we had to tip him at the end of his explanation.
“Many towns were submerged to create the reservoir basin, and as such, homes were deconstructed or moved to other locations, leaving many cellar holes throughout the region. Some cellar holes have been filled in, but many are still open and can be found along paths deep in the woods. Visitors are discouraged from entering cellar holes and disturbing wildlife that now make them their home.”
“Who cares about the cellar holes?” I said. “What’s Black Point Fort Aquaduct?”
“I know, right?” exclaimed Jimmy. “That sounds awesome.”
“It does sound cool,” agreed Bullseye. “Sanjay, what is it?”
We all looked at him, expecting a flow of information to pour out of his mouth. Instead he looked at his feet. Newfie stood beside him and stared up at his face with his round, vacant eyes.
“Table of contents,” he said. “Page one—‘Introduction’, page seven—’ What was here first’, page twenty-one . . .”
Prianka stopped him. “That’s okay, Sanjay.” Then she turned to us. “He didn’t finish reading the book. He’s done that before. Either he got distracted or he fell asleep. Still, if he’s asked a question from a book that he’s only partially read, he’ll try to find the answer in the table of contents.”
Creepy, creepy.
“No problem,” I said, grabbing her hand. “We haven’t had an adventure in, oh, an hour or so. Who’s game for walking a mile down a sunny path through the woods to some freaky fort and a chance to wash our hair?”
What was I saying? I hated the woods. I guess the fact that I was with my friends, and the path was sunny, made a hell of a big difference.
Prianka squeezed my hand. “I’m game. My hair must look like a rat’s nest.”
“Your hair looks great,” I said.
Trina rolled her eyes.
“Jealous,” I said to her.
“Hardly.”
Jimmy had already started pumping his muscled arms down the path. The ground was hard-packed, and his chair bounced around a little bit, but all in all, he was having the time of his life. I think he was in his element. I bet if he hadn’t been in that chair, he would have been one of those guys who went rock climbing and stuff. I already knew he loved to kayak because he had one back at his house in Amherst.
Trina walked next to him ahead of us. They laughed and joked. I’d never seen her this happy with a guy before—certainly not Chuck Peterson. What a douchebag he was. That was a million years ago and this was now. I was genuinely happy for her.
Bullseye was ahead of us, too. He had his pistol sticking out of the back of his pants, only partially covered by his t-shirt. Sanjay walked a little behind him. I don’t know if he was quite sure what to make of Bullseye just yet. I hoped he would end up thinking of him like a brother or something, because I did feel like we were all a family.
Even Andrew—no matter how annoying I thought birdbrain was.
“I’m glad it’s not October-cold,” said Prianka as we walked holding hands.
I kicked at a pile of leaves and they scattered in front of us. “This used to be my favorite time of year.”
“Not me,” she said. “The colors are pretty, but all that means is that everything’s dying.”
“That’s a little bit of an understatement.”
She smiled. I liked when s
he smiled. I’m such a jerk. I could have been dating Prianka Patel all through middle school and through most of high school. We could have been like this for years already, and I think I would have been just fine with that—chilly moments and all.
“Did you ever think we would be doing this?” she asked as we fell further behind the others.
“Doing what?” I said. “Surviving the zombie apocalypse?”
She smiled. “Well that, too,” she said. “But did you ever think that the two of us would be walking through the woods holding hands?”
I shrugged. The truth was I never did, but I was a quick study. This was a ‘what would Jimmy say’ moment.
“Nope,” I said, then pushed her into a pile of leaves and fell down next to her. “I thought we would be doing this,” and planted one on her. The next thing I knew we were giggling and laughing and throwing big wads of leaves at each other. Newfie dove into the pile after us, woofing and slobbering with his giant tongue.
It did occur to me, for about a nanosecond, that this was so wrong—so random. My dad was back at Swifty’s with Aunt Ella, watching over my mom and a bunch of other sick strangers, along with an orphaned four-year-old and a cranky senior citizen. It didn’t seem right that I should be having fun, but I just couldn’t help it. I was having a good time, and I was with Prianka and it felt great.
“No PDA,” yelled Trina from a hundred feet up the path. Suddenly, she abruptly turned to her left and walked right off the hard ground into the woods.
“Hey,” I yelled, but she didn’t yell back. I got up, covered in leaf litter, and held out my hand for Prianka. “Hey,” I yelled again after Trina.
“Look at this,” she yelled back. Jimmy turned his wheelchair toward the sound of her voice and Bullseye and Sanjay left the road, too. Damn, I really didn’t like the woods. What the hell was she looking at? What the hell was everyone looking at?
When we finally caught up to Jimmy he pointed off to where they were standing.
“Cellar hole,” Bullseye turned and yelled back to us.
“Cool,” I said. “So?”
Trina walked back out of the woods, brushing orange leaves off her shoulders and picking a few out of her hair.
“So,” she said. “This cellar hole has a door.”
37
HERE’S THE THING about doors. You’re supposed to walk through them for new experiences, you know, to meet new people or learn new things. On the flip side, sometimes doors are there to keep things locked away: icky stuff, stuff you have no business knowing about.
I felt sick to my stomach when I saw the door in the ground, if you could call it a ‘real’ door. The rotted wooden entrance looked like it was meant for a barn. There were holes in it where mice or chipmunks had probably chewed the wood away. The bottom was splintered and worn and the top didn’t quite cover the dark cellar hole that lay beyond.
How freak-show can you get? The door was propped up against a mound of dirt and rocks at the bottom of a little ditch, which was lined with moss-covered bricks that were probably made with straw and mud hundreds of years ago. If I was on a field trip from school, the door and the cellar hole might have been marginally interesting. Considering the last week, it was flat out scary.
“Yeah . . . no,” I said.
“Baby,” sneered Trina.
“Yup. This is the part in the movie where the audience yells at the teenagers for being really, really stupid.”
Trina rolled her eyes.
“Come on,” said Prianka. “You just said it was about time for an adventure.”
“I was kidding,” I answered her, which wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t been kidding about walking down to Black Point Fort to wash the grime out of my hair. Frankly, this was probably the last time this season I’d be able to go into the water without turning completely blue.
Still, I wasn’t up for exploring creepy holes in the ground. Hey, if everyone else wanted to live out their own little Blair Zombie Project, have at it—just not me.
“What is it?” Jimmy said as I walked back to the dirt road.
My hands were shoved deep in my pockets. “Sorry, man. I’ve done a lot of things in the past week, but I refuse to knowingly walk through a doorway to hell in the middle of the woods. Nope—this is where I get off the ride.”
“Really? There’s an intact door?” he gasped, totally ignoring what I said. “That is so cool.” Jimmy got this excited look in his eyes. “I gotta see.” He pumped his wheels into the brush, the treads gaining traction the harder he pushed.
Great. Just great. Leave me all alone, why don’t you? Even Bullseye, Sanjay, Andrew, and Newfie had veered from the path. I hung back and watched from a distance as they all gathered around the hole in the ground like it was the secret way into an awesome rave.
“I thought we were going to wash our hair,” I screamed after them, but everyone just ignored me.
That’s when I heard it off in the distance—the familiar sound that had been dogging us ever since we left Aunt Ella’s house.
Helicopter blades.
I turned in a circle trying to pinpoint exactly where the sound was coming from, but I couldn’t get a fix on it. Wherever the helicopter was, it was far away. Still, anything within earshot was too close.
I looked up into the sky. For the most part brightly-colored orange and red trees loomed over the path, but we were still somewhat exposed in the sunny spots. If anyone bothered to fly down low, they’d spot us for sure. Then I thought about Mom and Dad back at Swifty’s. As long as they stayed inside I’m pretty sure they would be safe. An ambulance, a bus, and a minivan sitting in a parking lot wouldn’t call any attention at all. At least I didn’t think they would. There were millions of parking lots with zillions of abandoned vehicles in them. All I could hope was that the helicopter people thought the same thing.
Still, it would have been nice to go down to the water with my girlfriend and just be a normal teenager for an hour or two.
Do I hear a half hour?
How about two more minutes?
One more minute?
I stomped the ground hard. There wasn’t a wall around to punch, so the dirt was the next best thing.
Whatever.
I grimaced and made my way back off the trail toward the cellar hole.
“You can’t just break it down,” I heard Jimmy pleading as I got close to them. “It’s historic.”
“You might have to break it down,” I said as I walked up to them.
Trina didn’t look at me. “Nice of you to join us.”
“Come on Tripp, man,” whined Jimmy. “Be on my side on this one. We can’t go around destroying historically significant stuff.” He pointed at the falling down door. “That’s part of our heritage.”
I snorted. “Yeah,” I said. “And so is surviving the apocalypse. Key word—surviving.” I pointed up to the sky. “Listen.”
Everyone stopped talking. The faint droning of the helicopter cut through the morning like a persistent mosquito in the ear. I remember there used to be mosquitos on the soccer fields all the time. One would inevitably glom on to me and buzz around my ear the whole time I was out there. No matter where I ran or which part of the field I ended up on, that damn mosquito would always be there.
The helicopters were starting to become like that—a perpetual nuisance.
“See what happens when you step off the path?” I said. There’s a science fiction story by this old guy that we read in something like seventh grade. It was about a bunch of people who paid a boat load of money to get sent back in time to go on a hunting trip. The catch was that they could only kill things that were supposed to die anyway. If they killed something that wasn’t supposed to die, they would end up altering all of history. The hunters were told not to step off the designated path, but
in the end, one moron did. He stepped on a low-flying butterfly and altered all of history, forever.
That’s what happens when you step off the path. You wreck everything. I know it’s dumb to think if we had just kept walking to Black Point Fort, the helicopters wouldn’t have come, but we didn’t and they did.
Maybe I just wanted to blame someone for our crappy luck.
“What do we do?” cried Bullseye, his eyes wide. Bullseye swung wildly between being a kid and a teenager. One minute he was killing poxers with the best of them, the next, he was scared out of his mind or pissed off. I was going to have to keep an eye on him. Once again, I had that strange feeling like everyone was waiting for me to make a decision, and I didn’t want to be the leader. I wanted to play video games and eat Funyuns and ice cream. I didn’t want to be doing this anymore.
“Okay,” Jimmy said reluctantly. “There’s no sense in history if no one’s alive to care about it. Let’s break the door down.”
“With what?” I said. “Want me to see how hard I can roll you into it?”
Trina smacked me in the back of the head and I yelped.
“I got this one,” said Prianka. Okay—not quite sure what she meant by that, but I was all ears even though they were still ringing. She stepped down the slope into the ditch and put her shoulder to the door and pushed. The rotted wood heaved a little under her weight, but not enough to make me think that Prianka Patel could knock the door down.
Still, Prianka surprised me a lot this past week, so I was only slightly impressed when she did another ninja move like she pulled when we saved her from the Mug N’ Muffin back in Littleham.
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 1): Wicked Dead Page 16