The Infected (Book 5): Battleground

by Zuko, Joseph

  “I’ll be there. Trying my best to guilt people into signing back up for the New Year. I don’t know what Lisa has planned.” Ben pulled out his keys as he waited for Duke.

  Hearing this stopped Duke in his tracks, “Here is some advice and please take it. It is of the utmost importance that you make sure your lips are pressed against your beautiful wife’s the moment the ball drops on Times Square. I missed a year once and my second wife was gone by February.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Ben held the door open for Duke.

  They stepped out of the gym and onto Main Street. Mountains surrounded the town on all sides. A fresh blanket of snow covered everything in white. Small businesses lined the street and holiday decorations were hung with cheer. Duke’s 1974 Ford pickup was parked at an angle in front of the gym. Attached to the front grill was a massive twelve point deer head and neck. It protruded nearly four-feet from the front bumper. Dominic was right. It was a public safety issue.

  Ben locked the front door and shook it three times to make sure it was secure.

  Duke stepped off the sidewalk and leaned next to his trophy. He slipped a cigarette between his lips and struck a match off the deer’s antlers. “Sheriff wants me to take this down, can you believe that?”

  “Yes, I can. It’s begging to impale someone,” Ben said as he turned to face Duke.

  “The only blood it’s ever drawn was mine.” Duke’s uncovered eye zeroed in on one of the pink stained points.

  “All right, well if I don’t see you tonight, have a good New Year’s.” Ben extended his hand and the two shook on it.

  “You too, Mr. Williams.” Duke blew a lung full of smoke out the corner of his mouth. “And I hope you give my advice a second thought.”

  Ben smiled, released Duke’s hand and headed down the sidewalk in the direction of Bill and Tad’s Excellent Video Adventure.

  Lisa wrapped her knuckles against an impressive solid oak door. The house attached to this marvelous door was a two story brick mansion at the end of a cul-de-sac. Brass letters were bolted to the exterior, they read M.D. Thomas Evans. An elderly man with thick glasses opened the door.

  “Lisa? It’s a holiday. I’m not open for business.”

  “It’s an emergency.” Lisa didn’t wait to be asked in, she gently stepped past Thomas and entered the house.

  Lisa nervously waited on the examination table in the Doctor’s home office. A little red seeped through the cotton ball taped to her arm. The room was furnished with everything a practicing physician would need to see patients. Degrees and diplomas hung with pride next to the main door. Adjacent to the framed certificates of achievement were photos of the doctor and some patients. The pictures spanned decades. One framed photo always bugged Lisa. It was a photo of her and Evans when she was eight-years-old. The chubby cheeks on her fat little face drove her nuts.

  Dr. Evans stood across from her as he looked over the test results. He cleared his throat, “So I know how to best deliver the news, what exactly are we hoping to hear today?”

  Lisa broke into tears. Her shaking hands covered her face. Dr. Evans put down the test and stepped closer to Lisa. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. She sobbed.

  “It’s okay. I promise it’s all going to be okay. No matter how bad you think it is, I swear, in the end everything will work out.” He pulled her away to look her in the face and deliver her an award winning smile.

  Lisa babbled at a rapid pace, “We’re about to lose the gym and the house. Ben and I have talked about getting a divorce. I’m forty-five years old and if I am pregnant I don’t know who the father is.”

  Evans drank in all that info. Processed it and managed a quarter of a smile, “It might be years from now, but it all will work itself out.”

  A snot bubble formed in her nose, “Are you saying I am pregnant?”

  Ben entered the video store. The place buzzed with excitement. A newly released action movie played over the store’s speakers. Customers were in every aisle. Two guys in their thirties stood behind the register ringing up customers as fast as possible.

  The bigger of the two men had a name tag on that read “Bill.” He wore a set of jazzy black rimmed glasses and a luxurious beard. He waved and said, “Ben! Are you here to snag our interns?” Then he rubbed at his pot belly. “The holidays tore me a new belt size. I’m signing up at your gym tomorrow. You can run me through a monster of a workout, cool?”

  “Sounds great. Where are they?” Ben stepped out of the way of a speedy video renter.

  The smaller of the two men behind the register had a name tag that read, Tad. He proudly wore a mustache that curled up at the ends and a snap-brimmed-hat. He pointed. “Putting away a stack in horror.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said as he side stepped by a young couple and headed for the back corner. Even though it was a longer route he skipped by the westerns. It was in that aisle, twenty-years ago when the store was called Vic’s Videos, that he met Lisa. He bypassed the aisle, but the memory of their first meeting played in his mind anyway.

  It was 1996. Ben and Lisa both reached for the same copy of The Quick and the Dead. He was a big Sam Raimi, Evil Dead fan. Lisa was a big Leonardo DiCaprio, Growing Pains fan. They started to argue about who was going to rent it, but when Ben locked eyes with her he stopped mid-sentence. Lisa had the greenest set of peepers he had ever seen. They were like staring at two magic emeralds. She was so beautiful. It was like she hit him with a freeze-ray. Noticing he was catatonic, Lisa took the opportunity. She swiftly reached out, plucked the movie from his hand and said. “Thanks, buddy.” Lisa made it halfway down the aisle before guilt set in. She pivoted as Ben started to defrost and asked. “You want to come over and watch it with me?”

  The rerun stopped playing in Ben’s mind as he turned into the aisle marked horror. A thin, fifteen-year-old girl, held a stack of Blu-rays. She searched the rack for the next movie’s location.

  Ben called to the girl, loudly, so he could be heard over the movie playing in the background, “MaKelle?”

  This spooked the young woman so badly she dropped the movies and let out a scream. “Dang it, Dad. I’m in the horror section. I’m on edge Pops.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ben chewed at his lip to keep from smiling.

  “You have to announce yourself early. People my age can suffer from heart attacks too, you know,” she said as she pressed her finger tips to her chest. After the shock wore off she reached out for her father and gave him a hug. Ben’s daughter looked like a clone of Lisa. MaKelle released her dad and bent down to pick up cases. Her dad helped.

  “You finish this stack and I’ll grab your coat.”

  “Dad, it’s the rush. I can’t leave now. They need me.”

  “You guys work for free rentals. I think Bill and Tad can make it without you. Where‘s your brother?”

  “In the back.”

  Ben handed MaKelle the last movie and headed to the back office.

  He turned the knob and opened the door as he said, “Hayden?”

  Two startled teens stopped kissing and jumped away from each other. Their cheeks were flushed. Clearly they had been smooching for a while.

  “Dad?” Hayden yelped. The two teenage boys didn’t know what to do with their nervous hands. They shifted from arms crossed to hands on their hips back to arms crossed as they waited for the adult to talk first.

  “Hayden? Andrew? I was just coming to take you and MaKelle home.”

  Andrew’s voice cracked. “Hello, Mr. Williams. He was helping me find a movie.”

  “In his mouth?” Ben questioned. “Grab your sister’s jacket and meet me at the front?” Ben stepped out of the office’s door frame.

  Andrew wiped excessive saliva from his lips. “Do you think he’s mad?”

  Hayden grabbed the two coats and headed for the door, “No, sweetheart. You’re not the first boy he’s found me kissing and you won’t be the last.”

  “I’m not your first?” Andrew’s
heart broke a little.

  “Please, I’ve had my skin in this game since first grade.” Hayden gave him a wink and blew him a kiss.

  Ben walked through the falling snow. The kids flanked him on each side. Hayden applied a fresh coat of ChapStick to his tender lips as MaKelle playfully jumped from one foot print to another. Her game was not to leave any of her own prints in the snow.

  “I don’t think Bill and Tad would appreciate you turning their office into a petting zoo. So, maybe don’t drag other boys in there to play tonsil hockey.”

  “Dad, you’re so funny. Petting zoo. Tonsil hockey. Where do you get this stuff?” Hayden patted his father on his back.

  MaKelle moved as nimble as a gazelle. She left no trace of her existence in the snow. “It’s a small town, Hayden. At the pace you’re going you’re going to run out of boys by your junior year.” She leaped over a fallen tree limb and landed dead center in someone’s size thirteen snow print.

  “Jealousy’s not your style, Sis.” Hayden nudged her, throwing off MaKelle’s balance.

  Damn it! She left a mark in the snow.

  “Getting any old boy to kiss me is easy. Getting the right one takes skill.” MaKelle gave up and walked normally now that she had lost the game.

  “And who is the ‘right one’?” Hayden inquired.

  “Please change the subject.” Ben pleaded.

  “Why are we walking? Where’s Mom? Where’s the car?” MaKelle asked.

  “She took it to go get groceries.”

  Hayden’s eyebrows dropped, “She got groceries last night.”

  They walked in silence as Ben pondered where his wife might have really gone.

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