The adults hadn’t caught on to the whole super immunity idea yet. They were just thankful to all be alive and be in a place that seemed to have a pretty big supply of everything we needed. I wasn’t ready to have the conversation with them, anyway, but Trina and I kept looking at each other. I knew she was thinking what I was thinking, and I knew she knew I knew.
You know?
With a little bit of elbow grease, we cleaned up the mess in the break room and all decided to set up base in there. Behind the break room was a locker room where employees kept all of their stuff. We were even lucky enough to find a bathroom and two stall showers that actually worked.
Randy said as long as we had propane, we’d have power. We all took showers, found clean clothes fresh off the racks, and set up a bank of toaster ovens we found in the appliance section. In honor of Trudy, though she didn’t know it, we cooked frozen pizza from the freezers. She was thrilled. Frankly, we were all pretty tickled pink.
After dinner, we ate ice cream, which I thought I would never have again, and Jimmy made himself a fruit smoothie with a really expensive blender and some bananas, blueberries, and strawberries that hadn’t gone bad yet.
Aunt Ella washed the dishes in the bathroom when we were through. Then we all checked out the camping supplies area, found sleeping bags and fold-out cots, and brought them into the break room to set up for the night. We even set up a fort for Sanjay.
It was all so orderly. Everyone pitched in—even Nedra Stein, who was probably used to much finer things than what we could get in a Walmart. Before we knew it, it was dark outside.
I stood at the front door with Prianka, her head on my shoulder. Jimmy and Trina were with us, too. We had looped bicycle chains around the doors and locked them so no one could get in. As we stared out the dark windows, we saw the sky glowing in the distance. It was the forest fire run amok. The woods were still pretty dry, so at some point, the fire was going to make its way to Apple. Even if it did—even if it burned down the whole town—we were surrounded by a huge parking lot and behind the building was that hill. I’m sure there would be a lot of smoke, but fire? Nah. Still, the safety this place offered wasn’t safety at all. It was only a pit stop—a chance to catch our breath.
Trina sat on Jimmy’s lap, her arms around his neck. Finally, she sniffed and sighed.
“What?” he asked her. “Everything okay?”
She didn’t answer him right away. She just looked at me. I sighed, too. “Are you going to say it or am I?”
“Say what?” asked Prianka. She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked from me to Trina and back at me again. “What do you have to say?”
“Aren’t you guys tired?” asked Trina.
“Well it’s been quite the day,” said Jimmy. “Quite a freaking day.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “Aren’t you tired of running?”
Jimmy smiled. “I don’t run,” he said. “I’m all cool with the rolling thing.”
I pulled away from Prianka. “What Trina’s saying is, aren’t you guys tired of running from Diana and soldiers and helicopter people? I mean, weirdly enough, we can handle ourselves with the poxers. We just have to find a place where they can’t get to us, you know? Like an island or a place out in the middle of the woods.”
“Like the McDuffy Estate,” said Trina in a quiet voice, not daring to look at Jimmy.
“Like the McDuffy Estate?” repeated Prianka, her voice rising up a couple of decibels. Her eyes widened. “No way,” she said. “No way in hell.”
Trina pulled herself away from Jimmy and came to stand beside me. Prianka folded her arms over her chest as the anger started to boil up from the soles of her feet.
“What am I missing?” asked Jimmy.
“Don’t you get it?” Prianka snapped. “They want to leave.”
She was right. Trina and I hadn’t even discussed it, but we both knew what had to be done. Diana, witch that she was, had to know her experiment was successful. If she did, she would leave us alone. No more helicopter people, no more running in the night. She would have a cure to super immunity and we would be off the hook. We would all be free to go north or south, or anywhere far away and start over. We could give Krystal a life, and Sanjay, and Bullseye. The adults could learn how to adapt. Maybe Trudy would even lose some weight. After all, there wouldn’t always be pizza, if you know what I mean.
“No way,” said Jimmy, but even as the words slipped out of his mouth, he knew that Trina and I had already made our decision.
“We have to,” Trina said. “It’s not like we can just call her up. We have to make sure she knows. It’s the only way we’ll all be safe.”
Jimmy balled up his fists. “Safe with that woman? That Diana? What part of safe do you possibly think goes hand in hand with turning yourself over to her?”
“Don’t you get it?” Trina said. “We’re not turning ourselves over to her. We’re going to tell her the experiment was successful. She’s not a complete idiot, you know. All we need to do is explain that whatever she did to Randy and Felice worked. Whatever combination of voodoo they tried actually did the trick. They’ll have the key to super immunity. They won’t need us.”
“Your parents will never let us go,” said Prianka. “They just got you back.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “Who said anything about us?”
“And me,” said Bullseye. He had been lurking around the candy racks nearby. None of us had seen him there.
“That’s means Sanjay, too,” said Prianka. “If you’re going, we’re all going.”
My shoulders slumped. All I needed was for one of them to get hurt. I would never be able to let it go. It would eat at me and eat at me until there was nothing left.
“Listen,” said Prianka. “You bailed on me already when we were back at your Aunt Ella’s and I didn’t know if you were ever coming back.”
“You bailed on me, too,” said Bullseye. “You doing that again?”
We were all quiet. It was like playing chess, and any second now either Jimmy, Prianka, or Bullseye was going to call out checkmate.
“You all suck,” I finally said.
“Completely suck,” said Trina. “This isn’t fair.”
“So does this mean I get to shoot somebody?” asked Bullseye.
“No,” we all snapped at once. Then I thought better of it.
“Well, maybe,” I said. “Just a little.” Bullseye grinned from ear to ear.
“So I guess there’s just one thing left to do,” said Trina. “We need some straws.”
“For what?” said Jimmy.
I answered for her, a grim smile on my face. “Whoever pulls the short one has to tell the adults.”
“Oh,” he said, “Crap.”
Jimmy was right. Crap just about summed it up. Still, one way or another, we were looking at a possible end to this messed up Necropoxy madness. A little more bad to end up with a whole lot of good couldn’t be all wrong.
Could it?
Well, could it?
I guess we’d find out soon enough.
The End
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Acknowledgements
As always, I would like to give special thanks to David Gilfor for reading over my shoulder, making sure my writing remains compelling, creepy, and humorous. In addition, I would like to thank my readers Shira Block McCormick, Tamara Fricke, and Joline Odentz for venturing into the world of Tripp Light once again.
I would also like to thank Lois Winston, Ashley Grayson, Debra Dixon, and the team at Bell Bridge Books for their tireless support.
Finally, I would like to once again thank my brilliant nephew, Nick Gilfor, for wading into a literary universe inflicted with Necropoxy and pointing out where I might have gone astray.
I haven’t decided if Nick is immune to poxers yet. Only time will tell.
About the Author
Author and playwright Howard Odentz is a lifelong resident of the gray area between Western Massachusetts and North Central Connecticut. His love of the region is evident in his writing as he often incorporates the foothills of the Berkshires and the small towns of the Bay and Nutmeg states into his work.
The mysterious has always played a major role in Howard’s writing. He is endlessly fascinated by the psychological aspects of those who are thrown into thrilling or otherworldly circumstances.
“I like writing about my dark little corner of the world,” he says. “After all, this is New England. There’s more than enough creepiness here to keep me inspired for years to come.”
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 1): Wicked Dead Page 24