Armed with the pistol he had killed his best friend with, Brent and the kid checked the premises for chompers. Finding nothing but a sun-bleached skeleton lying in the parking lot, they broke into one of the rooms on the second floor. While the women barricaded the window, Brent and Max ranged through the building for supplies. They broke open a soda machine and stocked up on bottled water, got towels and blankets and robes from the linen room, even managed to scrounge up a couple cans of food. Everyone put on robes when they returned to the room with their bounty, laughing at the strangeness of it, all of them wearing the same style white terrycloth robe.
They feasted on canned vegetables and bottled water as the light drained from the world, and then they bedded down for the night. The room had two full size beds. Brent and Muriel slept in one bed. Roo and the kid slept in the other. Roo wanted to sleep with Brent and Muriel, but they both said no at the same time-- and hopefully, Brent thought, for the same reason.
That night, after the kids had fallen asleep, Muriel rolled over to face Brent and whispered, “I know I’m several years older than you, but I’d like to be your woman, if you’ll have me.”
“I’ll have you if you’ll have me,” Brent whispered back.
She stroked his beard very lightly with her fingertips and he bent his lips to hers, sliding his hand beneath her top.
They continued on the next morning.
They came across a wrecked RV a few miles from the motel they had stayed the night in. It was a white and tan Winnebego Vista, lying on its side on the shoulder of the road like a dead whale.
It looked like a prop from a fantasy film, saplings growing up through its shattered windows, a toupee of grass speckled with tiny white flowers perched atop it. Brent thought it looked like a Hobbit house. Muriel was the only one who knew what a Hobbit was.
The only reason he pulled over was because several large suitcases were scattered across the road beside it.
“Be careful,” Muriel called as he and Max slid out of the cab of the truck. As the girls watched the area for danger, Brent and the kid hefted the suitcases onto the tailgate and popped them open.
A couple of the suitcases were buggy and useless, but the others were fine, and there were quite a few clothes inside of them, men’s and women’s.
Muriel jumped out of the truck when Brent held up two pair of high-heeled shoes, grinning like a triumphant fisherman.
“Heels!” she breathed, her eyes alight. She grinned naughtily at him. “Oh, you are going to get it so good tonight!”
They all managed to find a few outfits that fit, even the kid, who was kind of short. He just rolled up the legs and sleeves of his outfit and he was good to go. Roo put on a scoop neck white lace top and a very pretty pair of blue silk capri pants.
Dressed in black dress pants and a white shirt and tie, Brent turned around in the middle of the road, arms out to his sides. “How do I look?” he asked.
Walking a pretend catwalk in a shin-length red dress and high heels, Muriel pushed her hair up and said, “Almost as fine as me, sugar daddy!”
They had to flee then as a chomper came running out of the woods at them. It was a big Bubba chomper in bib overalls with a stocky gray body covered in sores, but they got away without injury, and they all agreed that stopping for the RV had been a good idea, even though the zombie had scared them half to death.
They say clothes make the man, but the truth is clothes make the human being, and they felt like human beings again in their slightly musty smelling new garments.
Shortly before noon, Roo suggested they try the radio. Brent and Muriel looked at one another with a flabbergasted “why didn’t we think of that?” expression. The thought hadn’t occurred to either of them, they had gone so long without the luxury.
Muriel immediately turned the radio on, and gaped at Brent when it actually worked. She dialed through the stations until it picked up, faint and crackly with distance, the Home radio station.
It was just music for a while, what they used to call easy listening. Roo and the kid watched in dumbfounded amazement as Brent and Muriel sang along to “Right Here Waiting For You” and “Islands in the Stream” and Neil Diamond’s “America”.
That last brought tears to Brent’s eyes as he sang, but they were happy tears. “Home! Don't it seem so far away?” he sang, grinning at Muriel as he steered. “Oh, we're traveling light today! In the eye of the storm…!” By the time the song was over, both of them were weeping, and Roo and Max, who had very little memory of a time and place called America, were looking a little misty eyed themselves.
The song ended. The dulcet tones of one half of the duo known as the Last Living Deejays purred through the old Ford’s crackling speakers.
“Ronni!” Brent cried at the sound of her voice, remembering all the times he and Harold had squatted in the cold and dark and listened to her on the radio.
“Home,” she said. “Isn’t that a beautiful word? Sometimes I think it’s the most beautiful word in the English language. That song was “America” by legendary performer Neil Diamond. We dedicate it to all you people trying to make it Home right now. Wherever you are, however hopeless your situation may seem, just know that we are still here, and we are waiting for you to come join us. However near, however far, however young, however old, sick, healthy, happy or in despair, it’s time to put on those walking shoes and come Home. Come Home, you brave souls. Come Home.”
And they did.
35. Home
Muriel mopped the sweat from Roo’s forehead and replaced it with a kiss. “Come on, honey,” she said, stroking the girl’s cheek with the other hand, “you heard the doctor. Give us one more big push!”
Roo’s entire body went rigid, teeth clenched, the muscles in her neck standing out. “I caaaaan’t!” she cried.
Despite her denial, she could, and she did. She held her breath and balled her hands into fists and pushed.
Standing beside the doctor at the foot of the bed, Brent watched as his child spilled moistly from the teenager’s body. It came all at once, after what seemed like weeks of intense labor. The baby slithered out into the doctor’s waiting hands, all purple and wrinkly and covered in goo, and Brent thought for a moment that he was going to faint.
As the doctor wrapped his child in soft white swaddling, and a nurse stepped in to suction the baby’s nostrils and mouth, Brent stepped away and leaned against the counter.
“Are you all right, Brent?” Muriel asked.
“I… Yeah, I’m fine,” Brent said. His legs felt like they had magically transformed into rubber. Or spaghetti noodles. Whichever was wobblier.
“Is it over? Is it out?” Roo panted, and when the doctor said it was, she began to sob exhaustedly.
Young as she was, and being her first child, her labor had been long and difficult. She was worn out. They all were.
Brent and Muriel had stayed with her the whole time, from the moment her water broke at their apartment, nearly two days ago. They had all piled into the big blue Ford, just as they had when they escaped the town of Manfried, and drove to the hospital: Brent, Muriel, Roo and Max.
Max was here, too, waiting in the hallway. He wasn’t able to stay in the delivery room, not after the blood and shit started flying. He had bowed out with a distinctly queasy expression on his face, apologizing to Roo, who was his girlfriend now, but that was okay, because Roo had Muriel and Brent, and that was more than enough.
“Would you like to hold your baby, Roo?” the doctor asked, rising from his stool with the infant in his arms.
“Oh, yes! Yes, sir!” Roo exclaimed, wiping off her tears. She held her arms out. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a boy,” the doctor said, and he laid the newborn on his mother’s chest, the umbilical cord trailing across her belly for the moment. Brent had followed the doctor around the bed, and he leaned over Roo after the doctor stepped aside.
The baby boy was pudgy and purple, looked like a beat up old baseball, but Brent though
t he was just about the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Waving his fat little arms in front of his face, the baby boy opened his mouth and began to squall.
Muriel laughed and kissed Roo on the forehead again. “Oh, he’s just beautiful!” she said. “What are you going to name him?”
Cradling the baby in her arms, Roo said, “I’m going to name him after my father. My father, and the man who helped us escape from that awful place. I’m going to name him Charles Harold Wilson.”
“That’s a wonderful name,” Muriel said, and she smiled up at Brent. “Don’t you think so, hon?”
“It sure is,” Brent said, shaking his newborn son’s tiny hand. “Welcome to the world, Charles Harold Wilson. It’s not as nice as it used to be, but we’re working real hard to fix it up for you!”
END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author formerly known as Rod Redux, Joseph lives in Metropolis, Illinois with his wife, his kids and all the voices in his head. Cattle is his twelfth novel.
If you would like to contact Mr. Duncan, you may do so at [email protected]. You can also friend him on Facebook, or visit his blog Red Ramblings at http://authorjosephduncan.blogspot.com .
If you enjoyed this novel, be sure to leave a positive review. Good reviews help sell the books, which allows the author to make more stories for you!
And eat. That’s always nice, too.
Cattle (The Fearlanders) Page 22