by Micah Gurley
Kyle had come home in early January after fifteen months in the Middle East. It became apparent early that Kyle had changed. Gone was his easy smile, his stupid jokes, and his casual attitude about things. He came back tense, with an edge to all his actions. He was silent and glaring in familiar company, where before he would have been the life of a party. Abe didn’t push him to talk, didn't ask questions, Abe was, against his better nature, patient. He just spent time with him in whatever he wanted to, often just camping or surfing.
For three months Kyle stayed with him at his place, sometimes visiting their father or disappearing in the Appalachian Mountains for days. Abe would often hear moaning, thrashing, and general terror coming from his sleeping brother. He would often go to his room and just place a hand on his head or arm, which helped calm the terrors that were haunting his dreams. He never mentioned his actions to his brother, and his brother never woke from these dark moments to discover him.
Things changed one Friday evening when Abe came back from work ready for a nice weekend and found Kyle sprawled out on the couch reading a book. Abe took a look at the soda cans and candy wrappers adorning his coffee table and growled but didn't say anything.
Kyle lowered the book and looked at his brother, “I’m going to hike the Appalachian Trail.”
Abe, folding his tie, looked up at his brother who noticed what he was doing with the tie and gave the ghost of a smile.
“When did you decided this?” he asked, placing the carefully-folded tie on the table.
“Just now.”
“Okay, when are you going?” Abe asked, a little surprised at this sudden decision, but happy his brother was making one.
“Next Sunday, I’ll catch a bus down to Springer Mountain in Georgia,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“What?” Abe exploded, “In a week? That's not enough time to plan. Where is your equipment? Your tent? Sleeping bag? Do you have a map of the trail? I doubt it!”
Kyle was smiling now, “I’ll just go to the camping store and get it. No worries.”
Abe picked up his suit jacket and the tie he had laid down and looked sternly at his older brother. He was exasperated. Kyle was always coming up with stupid ideas and just doing them without thinking. In his opinion, his decision to join the army had been too damn quick and look where that had gotten him. No, that wasn't fair. Frustrated, he walked back to his room and felt terrible for even thinking that. He wasn’t angry at Kyle, but it broke his heart to see him this way and he couldn’t help but blame the army, the country! Hell, he didn’t care who be blamed. His hurt and anger weren’t a logical thing; he had no reasoned response to his feelings. Someone that he loved was hurting and he wanted someone to blame. He uncharacteristically threw his tie and jacket on the chair next to his bed and laid down. Idiot brother. He would worry about it tomorrow.
Abe went to work early the next day, despite it being a Saturday, but was home by noon. The two of them got some lunch and then headed to the outfitter’s store to get Kyle started on his plans. They started by looking at tents. A middle-aged, overweight salesman was droning on about the benefits of this and that, while Kyle looked on, a pleasant smile on his face. That was too much for Abe. Kyle was trying to be pleasant to this fat idiot when Abe was still pissed at him.
“Look buddy, we know what we want,” Abe snapped. The idea that he would buy something from a retail store without doing his homework was repulsive to him. Buying from a retail store at all was repulsive to him, but Kyle only had a week and he knew his brother would just go and buy any random equipment. He wouldn’t!
“We want two of these single sleepers as well as…”
Kyle interrupted, “I only need one Abe.”
“I went in to work this morning and took a month off,” he said, throwing the small tents in the cart. “I can’t do the whole thing of course.” He stopped and looked at Kyle, who was staring at him with watery eyes. He didn’t need to get teary-eyed in front of the fat guy, so he turned around and started pushing the cart to the sleeping bag section.
“Don’t be too happy,” he said over his shoulder, “you're paying for me tent.”
They started their hike the last week in March, with a random group of young pot-smoking hippies, middle-agers looking for meaning, and old Grizzly Adams types. The weather was cold and Abe cursed Kyle’s decision to start so soon after winter. After a week, Abe’s entire body was screaming in pain. He could hardly bend down to take his shoes off at the end of the day because his back was so tight. His feet were a smorgasbord of raw skin and blisters that peeled off when he removed his socks.
After a month, he was getting concerned about losing weight. His already thin frame had lost ten pounds, and he was looking like some kind of prison camp survivor. Kyle had no apparent difficulty at all, his few months of loafing had not affected his fitness apparently. He hefted his heavier pack in the morning and would walk all day with no visible pain to his back or his feet. Kyle soon began to chat with other hikers and enjoyed the ridiculous conversations that would take place. Kyle spent one entire day talking about candy bars with a old man whose beard was down to the middle of his stomach. Abe walked behind his fast-moving brother thinking that the conversations had to get better than this.
Abe had gratefully gotten off the trail near Virginia and had gone back to work. He wasn't worried about Kyle, for he seemed to be coming out of his shell, and the walk through nature looked like it was restoring him. He didn’t hear from Kyle for another four and a half months. Then in mid-August, Kyle showed up at his house with scraggly blond hair down to his shoulders and a disgusting, food-covered beard. Abe wasn’t impressed by the look, but was content to see the smile underneath.
Abe was finishing up the cereal when the sounds of a crash came through the open front door. He quickly set the bowl down and went to take a look. A few houses down the street someone had driven a red Camry right into their garage door. It didn’t seem too bad, at least there were no fires or explosions. Abe gave a shrug and walked onto the small porch to slip his flip-flops on when he saw that some of Kyle’s neighbors were already checking on the situation. There was no absence of people to help and gawk since it was a Sunday. Abe fought the temptation to be a spectator and walked back inside to wash out his bowl.
After cleaning up after himself and his brother’s morning mess, he decided to go ahead and get some gas, just in case. He really didn’t believe in his brother’s zombie stories, but he wouldn’t look too stupid getting gas with all that was going on, right? He walked to the garage and hit the garage door on the side of the wall. The new door promptly rose to shed light on the chaos that was Kyle’s garage. Abe swore again at the destruction that was before him. Boxes, both empty and full, were scattered everywhere on the floor. Laying on them, around them, and between them were tools, books, board games, hiking equipment, and every assortment of random trash that hadn’t been thrown away.
Abe started to get angry but then just laughed. He knew it was stupid to get angry since his brother would never change completely, and at least he wasn’t the one who had to pick up after him anymore. He looked through the mess to spot three, 5-gallon red gas containers. On the side of each of them were the words written: GAS. He picked the containers up and set them outside. He seriously wondered if he could hit the garage door button near the back and still navigate the mess in the garage quickly enough to get outside before the metal door slammed down on him. He just made it.
He packed the spare gas cans in the back of his old black F-150. He wasn’t in the business of buying new cars, oh no, such a waste of money. But his truck was well taken care of, as were all his possessions. He had, along with the gas cans, even packed Kyle’s camping equipment next his own that was already stored in the back of his truck. He drove by the little accident and had seen people talking on the lawn. He threw his finger up in howdy and drove on past.
The little country store that Kyle had referred to was only a few miles from his house. It
was a former house that had been converted to a little country store. Its white wood siding had retained very little of its paint however, and this just added to its rustic redneck charm. There was only one pump at the station, and it was one that would have been better off in an antique shop. It was made of a heavy metal that had been painted white and it had small black numbers which would actually flip when gas was pumped.
He pulled up to the empty pump and started getting the cans out, when an older white gentleman in old jeans and dirty white tank top walked out. He also had a NASCAR ballcap on that immediately reminded him of a trip that he and Abe had taken with their father a number of years ago. Neither of them had ever been to a NASCAR race and their father was always asking them to go. So they did. It was a completely new experience for both of the brothers. It looked to Abe like a country bomb exploded and spewed out deep country folks all over the place. After a few minutes, both of the brothers noticed that they were getting strange looks as they walked around the various venues outside the track. It took a few minutes before he realized that it was because both of them had University of North Carolina hats on, not racing hats.
"It can't be because we don't have NASCAR apparel on can it?" Abe asked his brother, doubting his own conclusion.
"Na, can't be, but everyone else sure has it on," Kyle said, looking around like a fish inside a fish tank.
"Well, it probably won't hurt to support one of these drivers," Abe said, wondering how much a hat would cost them.
"I can't believe we're getting peer-pressured into buying NASCAR apparel just because we don't want to stick out."
"When in Rome," Abe responded.
Abe's thoughts were pulled back to the present when the old-timer walked over to talk. “How ya doing?” the older guy asked neighborly.
“Good, how about yourself?"
“Fair to middling,” the man answered. Abe almost didn't understand what he was saying since his accent was so thick. “Needing some gas?”
“Yeah, gonna store some up, with all that’s going on and all.”
“Yeah, heard about it on the TV, but been quiet around here so far.” The man was leaning on the gas pump with his hands stuck in his back pockets. Abe thought the guy just wanted to talk. The old fella stuck out his arm. "The name is Jeremiah, been working here for over ten years."
"Abe, nice to meet you," he said shaking the man's hand, who pumped it vigorously.
"It's not short for Abraham is it?" asked the old man of Abe's name.
Abe laughed, "It is actually, only my mom called me Abraham, and then only if I was in trouble."
"You can't go wrong with a name from the good book." He reached around and pulled out a small book. Abe assumed it was a small Bible that Jeremiah was making his point with.
"Unless it's Beelzebub," replied Abe smiling. The old man gave him questioning look, then roared out in laughter.
"No, that surely isn't a good name,” he said, between bouts of gut-shaking laughter. "Beelzebub, oh boy, that's a good one!" He reached over and smacked Abe on the shoulder.
"Beelzebub, gonna have to tell Martha that one."
"Yeah," Abe laughed. He didn't think his joke was that funny but you couldn't keep laughter in when someone like old Jeremiah was busting a gut right in front of you.
When the old man's laughter died down, Abe asked him about gas. "You don’t have any more of these gas cans for sale do you?" He knew that Kyle wanted some more, but he wasn’t going to buy more than two, that was getting just crazy.
“Not new ones I don’t, but I have some used ones that are all right, and they have only held gas. Can give them to you for a couple of bucks.”
“That would be great,” answered Abe quickly. Always loved a deal. The man walked away to get the old gas cans and Abe finished filling his cans and grunted as he lifted the heavy cans into the truck.
The man brought back the cans and though they were a bit dirty seemed to do the job. Abe filled up those and put them in his increasingly full truck bed. He walked into the store with the guy who seemed to be waiting to make the fifteen foot walk with him.
The inside of the store was jam packed with everything from fishing lures to ammo to that bunny white bread Kyle liked so much. Dust coated the unpopular items that didn’t seem to warrant cleaning, and the wooden floor creaked as they walked on it. All in all, Able loved it. It reminded him of the small country store where he ate hot dogs at when he was younger. There was a large jar of Smithfield's Dill Pickles on the counter and Abe thought he might get one of those on the way out.
“Do you have any ammo for a .30-06?” Abe asked, as he moved up to the counter and waited for the guy to move behind it.
“Sure I do,” he answered. “Not sure how old it is but not older than a few months since hunting season used a lot of it up. We keep a lot of it around.”
“Good, I’ll take a few bricks of that and three cases of 9mm. And one case of 45s.” Kyle had told him to buy everything he could but ammo wasn’t cheap and he still wasn’t sure this wasn’t a joke. He would hedge his bets.
The guy plopped the heavy boxes of ammo on the counter and then began to punch the in numbers in his classic cash register. “And a pickle,” Abe added, taking one out of the jar.
“On the house,” the man replied happily, and then began to cackle at his joke as he pointed around the small store. “Get it? House?” he kept laughing and Abe smiled and was happy the old man was having such a good time. Who said all old people were grouchy.
“$212.50,” Jeremiah said, after punching the last item in the old cashier.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Abe mumbled to himself. “Totally unnecessary,” he was still grumbling when he thanked the guy for the pickle and climbed into his truck, a dill pickle hanging from his mouth.
As he pulled into the housing development that Kyle lived in, he saw smoke in the distance. He couldn’t immediately see where it was coming from but became a little concerned when he noticed that it was coming from the general direction of his brother’s house.
He breathed in a sigh of relief when he saw that the smoke was coming from the house with the car smashed in its garage. He wondered again how that had happened, and was asking himself where everyone had gone. He didn’t see a person in the area which was weird since he wasn’t gone that long. The smoke was thick and black, and was progressively getting heavier even as Abe watched it from his truck. He decided he would take a look after he parked.
He backed the big truck, bed first, into the driveway so he could pack a little easier if he needed to. He got out of the truck and started to close the door when his brother’s warning squawked in his head. He sighed and flipped up his seat to pull out the gun belt that his brother had gotten him. It was black and made of some fiber that was extremely durable, though that was all he knew about it. Kyle had told him that it was what they used at work.
He snapped the gun belt on his waist and pulled out a small, hard plastic case. He opened it and pulled out a Remington 9mm. His brother had given him this also and made him spend countless hours at the range with it. What a waste of money. He didn’t mind the shooting, but loading the magazines and picking up the spent brass was a pain.
Abe checked the action, popped the magazine out to make sure it was loaded, and inserted it back into the magazine well. He holstered the gun and snapped the safety on it. He felt like an idiot as he started to walk down the street like he was trying to be a cowboy, and he hoped no one called the police on him. He stopped at the front of the house and debated what to do.
The house was still producing black smoke but Abe couldn't see a fire from the front. The car was still crashed halfway into the garage but there wasn’t anyone around.
“Hello in the house?” he called out, trying to be loud enough without looking like a gunslinger throwing out a challenge. Nothing moved. He looked to the houses on either side, but nobody seemed to be moving. He decided to get a closer look and saw a nice gap where the car crash
ed into the garage. He started to hear what he thought had to be a dog trapped inside the smoking house. A soft muted growl was coming from right in front of him.
“Hey boy, you trapped in here?” he called out, as only a dog lover could.
He walked up the paved driveway further to see into the garage. He squatted down to get a better look through the small opening that was between the car and the rest of the garage, the lights were on. A nasty smell was coming from the hole in the garage but Abe didn’t give it much thought, there was something burning after all. He didn’t see anyone moving in there but the smoke, coming out of the opening in waves, was pretty thick. He was about to call out for the dog again when something slammed into the garage door from the other side causing the garage door to shake and sending small pieces of wood flying out at him. The sudden action startled him so badly, that he let out a high-pitched scream that sounded embarrassing even to himself, and he fell backward on his butt. He grimaced in pain from the fall on the hard cement.
Abe, slowly getting up, looked back at the jagged hole. A man seemed to be leaning over and sticking his face in the hole. Due to the small space, Abe could only see part of his face and his legs behind him. The head disappeared but Abe saw the legs move back and again the door jolted. The man was running into it for some reason. Again the man tried to break through, this time screaming at the results of his poor effort. The scream was from the gut, a growl mixed in with a moan. Abe began to slowly move away from the curious scene. A little distance was a good thing.
“What….,” he wasn’t able to finish saying anything as he was completely at a loss to what was going on. “Virus!” he almost yelled, thinking about what had been going around, what his brother had warned him about. He put his hand on his gun but didn’t pull it as he looked around him to make sure that he was still alone. He was. Abe wasn’t sure what to do about this guy, but he wasn’t going to stick around. He could always call the police from the house. “I guess Kyle wasn’t joking,” he thought, as he jogged back down to his brother’s house.