Dolph nodded. He had put a pot of something on the stove before he’d stitched Nick up and the smell was permeating the air.
“I learned to cook in the Marines,” he said. The words military and culinary didn’t seem as if they belonged in the same sentence, so Nick had held out hope the food was going to be any good. As it warmed it actually smelled okay. “I made it this morning after my granddaughter left for work.” He poured Nick a glass of water, set it down, and placed a piece of chocolate wrapped in blue tinfoil next to it.
“Go on,” Dolph said.
Nick took a drink of water. Then another. He was thirstier than he expected. Then he unwrapped the chocolate and popped it in his mouth.
It was delicious.
Nick had had candy, but it had been unlike any other thing he had eaten. It may have been good at first, then his taste buds would shut off, though, and he may as well have been eating cardboard. This was great! His tongue was firing on all cylinders as wave after wave of flavor hit him. It was sweet, it was bitter, it was creamy. He didn’t know if he’d ever had chocolate before, but he knew he never wanted to stop.
“Got another?” he asked. Dolph smiled again. The expression would have looked more natural on a bear.
“Maybe later.”
Nick’s stomach was alive now and he didn’t want to wait. His vision started to do that thing when he could see veins beneath people’s skin.
Then the colonel set a bowl of whatever he’d been warming up in front of him.
It smelled… great.
There was a spoon already inside of it and Nick wasted no time digging in. He was almost finished when the colonel ladled more into the bowl. Nick tore into that too and within minutes he was finished.
“Thought you’d never come up for air,” Dolph said. “Want some more?”
“No,” Nick said, still a little hungry and embarrassed. “I’m full, thank you.”
They both turned when the garage door began opening.
“Bunny!” Dolph said and rushed to the door.
“Bunny?” Nick said under his breath. He was nervous for some reason. It wasn’t him who had something to hide, it was her. Well, it probably was him too. Dolph was retired military and Nick would be willing to bet he still had some ties on base or on complex. Whatever they called it. One false step here and he was back in a pen.
Nick pushed away from the table, eager to get in front of Dolph somehow. He heard a car door slam and a moment later another. For a second he wondered why Randy hadn’t stayed home with Pop-Pop. Then he considered that it would have been difficult to watch an active three year old and pummel knife-wielding construction workers at the same time.
Dolph opened the door to the garage.
“Bunny!” he said. The smile still looked unnatural. Nick caught sight of her over the bigger man’s shoulder and she looked pissed.
“Pop-Pop, why did you do that to the house?” She sounded upset too, allowing him to fold her up in a big hug. He kissed her and Randy on the cheeks, back and forth several times, and his great-grandson giggled.
“Why, I fixed the house, Honey-bunny,” he said in a booming, cartoonish voice. “I can’t let the roof fall in on my two favoritest people in the world.” ‘World’ sounded like it should have been pronounced with a ‘u’ in place of an ‘r’. He turned up the baby talk, looking at Randy. “How would you look with your brains squished out of your ears?”
Phoebe pulled a disgusted face. “It doesn’t need fixing. Ugh, don’t say that in front of Randy.”
“Oh, he doesn’t care what Pop-Pop is saying, so long as Pop-Pop squeezes him ‘til his eyeballs pop out!” She let her grandfather take the tyke off her hip and what came next was completely revolting. He wrapped his arms around his great grandson, tucked his face between the boy’s head and shoulder and began making abhorrent sucking sounds. Randy howled with laughter, slapping wildly at his head, and Nick seized the opportunity to wave to catch Phoebe’s attention.
Her mouth dropped open when she looked at him and then he began making a throat-cutting gesture. Nick wasn’t certain if she understood, and hoped she would follow his lead.
Dolph let the boy go, putting him on his feet. “Did you have a good day in school?” Randy nodded. It was obvious he loved his Pop-Pop, though he wouldn’t talk for him, either. “Hungry?” He nodded again. “Okay, come on.”
The three of them came into the house proper and Nick stepped in front of Phoebe.
“Hi, I’m Nick,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it. “You’re… Bunny?” He couldn’t help the smile on his face.
She smiled and averted her eyes, her cheeks turning crimson. “I’m Phoebe. Nice to meet you—”
“Nick.”
“—Nick.” He thought she was pouring it on a little thick. “Oh, my gosh! What happened to your face?”
“Nothing,” Dolph said, barging between them and breaking the handshake. “Just a little accident outside. Nick here is one of the workers.”
“Well, where’s everybody else?”
“It’s getting dark, it's time to pack it in.” Dolph glanced quickly at Nick and he got the picture. Don’t say anything about Emilio and the knife incident. “Nick here twisted his ankle and bumped his face on a rock. You two get washed up for dinner. It’s ready.”
The room felt colder and Nick wondered if it had had anything to do with him. He remembered when he and Phoebe had sat down to talk about him leaving for a few days and how the temp had dropped. Although before had been on the confusing side, he was pretty certain this time had been Dolph being a little protective of his granddaughter.
All the more reason to not say anything about knowing her.
When mother and son had gone upstairs, Dolph looked at him sternly. “Hands off.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. That’s my only granddaughter. Steer clear of her. You got me?”
“Sure. I’m not even interested in any girls.” Wait, that didn’t come out right. “I mean right now.”
“Well, keep it that way as far as my Bunny is concerned. Don’t need any foxes in this particular henhouse.”
Is she a chicken or a rabbit? Nick thought. “I’m trying to get back on my feet. I honestly wouldn’t even have the capacity to have any kind of relationship.”
Dolph gave him an examining look and grunted.
Nick made the connection for the first time that this was a relative of hers. Not that it had mattered, he’d always been curious of her ethnicity. She could have been just about anything. Dolph was a light brown complexion, with deep-set dark eyes, white hair cut short, and full lips. If he’d had to guess, he’d say the man was black. He could have been a couple of other things too. He supposed he wondered about these things because he didn’t know about himself. Whenever he pictured his parents he couldn’t recall any telltale signs of what their ethnicities were.
“So you know some about me,” Nick said. “How about you? Where are you from?”
Dolph had taken a pitcher out of the refrigerator and was pouring lemonade into two glasses and a sippy cup.
“Me? What the hell do you want to know about me for?”
“I’m just curious. Sorry if I’m being too intrusive.”
Dolph didn’t speak for three or four beats. “No, no, it’s not you. Hell, I get a good sense off you, Nick and I trust my instincts. I just get so protective of that little girl upstairs and my little man. Her last boyfriend, Randy’s father, ran off on her before he was born. I can’t help but see every other man as another taker.”
“Taker?”
“You know, givers and takers. We’re all of us one or the other. Next to her grandmother, Bun—Phoebe’s one of the biggest hearted people on this Earth. What was that you asked me again?”
“You,” Nick said, now wanting to know more about what Dolph was currently saying. “Where are you from?”
“Here. I grew up in Highland Park. It was practically about all black then and I su
ppose it is still now. I went to school there and enlisted in the Marines the day after I graduated.”
So he was black. Which meant Phoebe was too. At least partly. Nick mentally patted himself on the back for his minor degree of detective work.
“What about you? What do you remember?”
“Not too much. I was in a coma for about ten years they tell me. I actually grew up—” he’d almost said in this house, and thankfully caught himself— “in this city, but my memory is really…”
“Like Swiss cheese. Yeah, a lot of you kids are like that. Did you know every adult who contracted what you have died? A hundred percent mortality rate.”
“No. I didn’t know that.”
“Some seventeen year-olds died, even fewer who were younger. Every single man and woman eighteen and older died.”
“How many people are infected?” Nick had been wondering this for some time.
“Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know who came up with that one percent business. So far as I know, it could be ten or fifteen. There could even be people who are infected who have never been diagnosed.”
“So there could be adults who contracted it who didn’t die.”
Dolph thought a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose there could be. Not in any case I ever saw, though.”
“How can that be? If they’re not taking medication, then—” Nick realized he sounded like he was on both sides of the argument.
“We know the virus can lie dormant. For how long? We still don’t know the means of transmission.”
Nick mentally noted Dolph’s liberal use of the word ‘we’. Then he did something that gave Nick an intense feeling of déjà vu. He rolled his shoulders like he was loosening a knot going across his back. It could have been any number of people whom he’d seen do it, in that moment, though, he was certain it had been the man standing in front of him.
Phoebe and Randy headed down the stairs then and the moment was broken. Dolph ladled out stew into two bowls and had them waiting on placemats by the time they got to their chairs. Nick felt a moment of panic, wondering if Randy might do something to give him away. If Dolph watched the two of them as closely as Nick thought he might, even one small glance might be enough to blow everything.
Nick had eaten dinner with the two of them often enough and he had a pretty good idea of what Randy would and wouldn’t eat. Although he’d enjoyed the stew, it seemed a bit much for the palette of a toddler. When Dolph set the glasses of lemonade down he also left a piece of chocolate next to Randy’s bowl.
Phoebe rolled her eyes at her grandfather as her son unwrapped it. “Pop-Pop, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m trying to teach him treats come after dinner. And not with every meal.” The candy quickly disappeared and Randy dived into the stew.
“I know, but look at him,” Dolph said. She silently watched her son eat for a moment then went to her own bowl. Nick stared in awe. He’d never seen the boy eat so heartily. Did the chocolate mean what he thought?
He looked at Dolph, who was busying himself with dishes in the sink. Nick didn’t understand. Phoebe was definitely not infected and Randy was too young by five years. Maybe—
Nick’s stomach groaned.
“You okay over there?” Dolph asked without turning.
“I—uhh, yeah.” Nick wasn’t honestly sure. It groaned again and he felt movement inside him. He went to the bathroom often enough, but never anything as urgent as this. He stood up.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
Dolph cocked an eyebrow at him and Phoebe looked too. Randy had eyes only for the bowl in front of him. “Upstairs, second door down the hall.”
Nick moved as quickly as his body would allow and barely made it in time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done his business. His therapists had told him doing normal things would inspire his body to do more normal things. Eliminating waste was low on the list of things that came to mind when he thought of normal things he should be doing and he used the time to actually think about what had happened to him recently.
Nancy was the first thing that swam into his mind. Nick needed to get to the bottom of that. That probably had been an abandoned house and they were using it. Nick had been warned about that before he'd been released. People had strange beliefs when it came to vampires and they had seemingly carried over to the infected. Like believing their blood could be used as some sort of drug to get high or that you could pulverize their bones into a powder that would be a cure-all for any number of diseases or that you could shoot them in the head and they wouldn’t die.
Then his mind raced over the events when he’d made it to where Lucky was staying. Had he actually been shot with an arrow? He touched his thigh where he remembered a wound. Nothing there. He wasn’t even limping anymore. Then sleeping for four days.
And had he been floating?
He’d have to ask Lucky that the next time he saw him. With that thought, he remembered he was supposed to meet up with him for lunch. Working on the house all day, getting attacked by Emilio, and then getting fed dinner by Dolph had kind of made him forget. If Lucky weren’t at the same house anymore, Nick had no idea how to find him. He certainly wasn’t going back to Earl’s house.
If Dolph gave him a ride, where would he go? He probably had enough for a motel room. Dolph seemed as by-the-book as they came. Would he turn Nick in if he told him he didn’t have an actual residence?
He flushed and washed his hands. When he got back downstairs, something was different. Randy was still eating and it looked like he was on his second bowl.
“Need to talk to you,” Dolph said, matter-of-factly. “Outside.” The man looked agitated. He looked at Phoebe, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Okay.” Nick followed him out the front door where they sat in the same place he and Emilio had sat for lunch.
“The crew will be here tomorrow to finish up.” Dolph was looking somewhere skyward. “Probably best for you not to be here.”
“What do you mean? Emilio can’t still be—”
“He’s the foreman’s brother. That particular señor comes as part of the package.”
“I didn’t really even do anything.” Nick didn’t point out that Dolph had done all the knocking unconscious.
“They don’t see it that way. These guys have been working tight with each other going on a few months now. You’re the only change, and then Snoop goes down and Emilio gets his face broken.”
Okay, now he had to say it. “But you did that.”
“Yes, I did. To protect you.” Nick opened his mouth to protest. “Don’t look for it to make sense. Some things just… suck.”
“So what do I do?” Nick had enjoyed the work he had done today. There was something about working with his hands that was rewarding. If he had stayed on it would have been a means of supporting himself too. Also, he probably couldn’t keep up the ruse about not living here for too much longer.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your pay for today. Even though you weren’t on the books, I’ll speak to Hector and make it right.” After a pause, Dolph said, “Would you be interested in helping me with something?”
“Like what?”
“Something from my former life. I do a little consulting for the military on occasion.”
That intrigued Nick. He wanted to know why this man was familiar to him. “Sure.”
Something changed in Dolph’s body language. He shifted his shoulders, looking uncomfortable. “That brings me to another thing. Bunny is a bit uncomfortable with me driving at night and I’m not comfortable with her driving you to wherever you live. So she wanted me to ask you to stay the night. It’d be in the basement, and there’s only the mattress that was already down there. It’s not much, but it’s either that or the floor.”
Ah, home again. Nick made a show of mulling it over. He didn’t think Phoebe had a problem with her grandfather driving Nick for his own sake, and he was grateful to be home for the night all the same.
“I guess I’ll take it.”
The old man gave him a look like he’d rather be punching something than be in this situation and nodded. They watched the remainder of the sun set, the sky a pretty scarlet-purple, although Nick didn’t think he could say the word ‘pretty’ in front of Dolph and live beyond the next three seconds.
“You’re going to need to look presentable for tomorrow,” Dolph said. “I don’t suppose you have any suits?”
“No.”
Dolph made a sound that was half growl, half grunt. “I may have something that’ll fit you.”
They sat quietly for the next ten minutes until Phoebe poked her head out. “Pop-Pop, I’m going to put Randy down for the night. He’s super tired.”
“Wait a minute, I want to say goodnight to the little monster.” He hefted his bulky frame off the porch and stepped inside. Nick stood up and looked over his shoulder before following; Phoebe was lingering by the door. That thing that had been at the edge of the property hadn’t shown up yet. He passed by Phoebe, who looked like she was trying to ask something with her eyes.
A smile sneaked across his lips. “Your home is very lovely, Bunny,” he said. She narrowed her eyes at him and he smiled even more. It was either joke at her expense or be pissed off that Dolph was fixing up the house. She slid a quick elbow into his side as he walked passed her.
“Thanks,” she said.
It turned out they did have a minute or two to talk when Pop-Pop took Randy upstairs to use the little boy’s room.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Phoebe whispered.
“I got your texts. And your voicemail. I wanted to come see what they were doing. The foreman guy thought I was one of the workers so I hung out.”
“Okay, but why are you here now? Everybody else is gone.”
“Long story. I’ll sum it up: Dolph saved my life.”
The toilet flushed and they took a step apart from one another.
“Dolph?” she mouthed at him, her eyebrows raised. Nick shrugged.
The sink ran for about twenty seconds and then the door opened.
“Success!” Dolph said in his big voice.
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