“Theresa and I went to dinner at the home of another couple, my business partner and his wife, Gary Blake and his wife…uh…Linda. I met Gary in college and thought of him as a brother. I would have done anything for him or given anything to him. We had been roommates, and I knew Gary better than any person I’ve ever known. Lots of late nights spent talking over beers instead of studying gives you a good look inside of a person. The problem did not lie in how well I knew Gary. Rather, the trouble was in how poorly I knew Theresa.”
“Hold on,” Joey interrupted. “I gotta pee. And as much as I’m enjoyin’ the story, we gotta figger out what we’re doin’ here.”
Louis Stoaffer nodded and was quiet.
“So, Louis, if you would be kind enough to point us in the direction of a gas station.” I said.
Stoaffer looked a bit confused. The clicking of the breath mint sped up, and finally he answered, “I really haven’t the slightest idea. I mean, I’m just passing through the area like you.”
Before I had a chance to ask Louis what he meant, Joey blurted out, “There’s a gas station!” He bounced around the backseat.
The small rundown mini-mart offered a couple of self-serve gas pumps. But considering it was the only building we had seen in the last few miles, the place must have seemed like an oasis to Joey’s bladder. I pulled the car next to a dusty old payphone about fifty yards away. He was out of the car and trotting toward the store before the car had stopped.
I had no reason to use the phone, but I figured a couple of guys parked next to a payphone appeared more normal. That’s me, always thinking. As I glanced around the area in every direction other than the backseat, I noticed a yellowed piece of paper taped to the payphone - “Out of order”. So much for looking normal.
Despite the apparent transformation Louis Stoaffer had made from blathering old drunk to coherent human being, I was still disturbed by the sight of him. However, my uneasiness did not stop my eyes from flying to the backseat at the sound of his voice.
“Well, I’d have to say that our friend Joey is quite the hothead.” He made the observation in the same bright tone that someone would comment on good weather. “The term sociopath comes to mind.”
I turned to face him with the idea of challenging his opinion, but my idea went out the window as soon as I made eye contact. Something about the deep blueness I found in the eyes made me forget what had been planning to say.
“He seems a bit… uh… unpredictable.” Stoaffer did not attempt to hide his amusement. “Of course, it’s not my place to say, but don’t you think his lack of control could get you into a world of trouble, Thomas?”
Without thinking, I shot back, “Joey has always been there for me. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“As the saying goes, with friends like that who needs enemies?” The old man paused and stared as if memorizing every feature of my face before he said, “You know the things Joey does are wrong. We could easily start this car, drive away, and leave the darkness far behind.”
I stared at him for a moment trying to figure out if he was mocking me. The words he had just spoken perfectly matched a thought which had run through my head many times since I had met Joey. The shock of hearing my thoughts voiced aloud froze me.
Before I could recover from my verbal paralysis, Louis Stoaffer continued, “This could be your last chance to save yourself.”
I was still staring at Stoaffer when Joey yanked open the rear passenger door and piled in.
“The clerk in the store was watchin’ TV. Looks like our friends at the store got loose and are talkin’ to the police. Didn’t hear no description.”
I stared at Stoaffer for a few more seconds before looking toward Joey and saying, “Well, we’ve got to decide what exactly what we’re doing next. It’s not a real good idea to be just cruising around like this.” The irritated tone in my voice was not missed by the others.
“Thomas, you need tuh lighten up.” Joey grinned at me. “Everything looks okay. Now we’re headin’ south with our new best friend. Right, Lou?”
Louis Stoaffer gave me one of those looks that say “this is exactly what I’m talking about”. With his mouth, he said, “Right! Let’s go to San Pietro!”
The enthusiasm bubbling up from the backseat was too much to resist, and I found myself smiling against my will. But even as a smile came to my face, a sense of dread was developing inside of me.
I spun the car around and headed south back the way we had come.
As we got closer to the scene of our recent crime, the car grew quiet. None of us could resist turning to gaze down the street leading to the grocery store. About a quarter of a mile down the street was a mass of cop cars, ambulances, and blinking blue and red lights.
As I stared in that direction, a clear picture of a dark-haired, middle-aged woman with blood oozing from holes in her chest and cheek on the floor beneath the cash register floated into my head. I resisted a sudden strong urge to press the gas pedal to the floor and speed far away from the place as fast as possible. Apparently my temptation was obvious as Joey’s hand touched my shoulder as if to let me know I had made the right decision.
“I think we cud all use a little distraction.” Joey commented. “Lou, keep goin’ with yer story.”
Louis smiled as if he had just gotten a huge compliment. “Well, let’s see, where was I?”
“You went to dinner at your partner’s house.” I offered quickly in hope the old man’s story would indeed distract me enough to keep images of corpses out of my brain.
“Thank you, Thomas. Yes, Theresa and I had gone to have dinner at Gary’s home. It was just about ten minutes away in the hills above San Juan Capistrano.” He smiled at the memory. “It was a lovely place.” His smile twisted. “It turned out to be a little piece of hell for me though. As soon as we got there, I felt something wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it right then, but I’ve had plenty of time to play things over and over in my mind.” His eyes looked as though they were staring off at something in the distance. “Plenty of time to play things over and over in my mind. So much time in fact maybe it’s driven me crazy.”
His eyes suddenly became clear again. They jumped around the car as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. Stoaffer’s eyes eventually rested upon the rearview mirror, and eye contact with me seemed to calm him. He gave me a broad grin before continuing his story.
“As I was saying, something didn’t feel right that night. Even on the short drive over, Theresa was unusually cheerful. She had never hesitated about voicing her negative opinion of Gary and Linda or ‘Gutless Gary and the mouse’ as she referred to them. On this night, I remember that she had only complimentary things to say. This was another strange thing that I did not notice until much later.
“From the moment Linda met us at the door, she seemed afraid to look me in the eye. Although we were never close to one another, but I could see that something was bothering her. Her smile was forced, and she spoke too quickly. Theresa must have seen it too, because she whisked Linda into the kitchen. I continued through the large entryway toward the bar where I knew I would find Gary. He was behind the dark oak bar filling a large crystal decanter with Scotch.
“‘Putting out the cheap stuff?’ I joked as I walked toward him. I must have really startled him, because he jumped spilling some of the liquid on the black marble slab which topped the bar. His eyes shot up to meet mine and then at once moved away.
“’Uh, no…I was just getting ready…making sure we had enough to keep you happy.’ Gary forced out a laugh as he grabbed a small bar towel from the counter and began wiping up the spilled whisky. After a few seconds, he abruptly dropped the towel on the bar and walked around to me. ‘It’s really great to see you, Louis.’ He said this and then gave me the kind of hug given by men who haven’t seen one another for years or don’t expect to see to see one another for years to come.
“The embrace definitely took me by surprise. Gary wasn’t t
he type of person given to emotional displays or physical contact. In fact, that was what made him such a good business partner. He didn’t have a temper. He never got overwhelmed by stress. He always showed up when he was expected. ‘Even keel’ was the perfect description of the Gary I knew. His behavior on this evening certainly didn’t fit. Then everything suddenly made sense to me.
“The obvious cause of the evening’s strangeness was that Gary and Linda were having marital problems. It certainly explained Linda’s avoidance of making eye contact with me. She felt guilty. As for Gary, many guys get over-emotional when dealing with problems at home. After coming to what seemed a plausible understanding of the situation, I was feeling a bit superior. Dropping into one of the dark leather barstool, I watched Gary as he went back to wiping up the spilled whisky.
“‘Oh, well. You know what they say, don’t cry over spilled Scotch. I made the comment without trying to be particularly clever. However, Gary’s response came as roaring laughter which continued far too long.
“The whole thing had me a bit uncomfortable. Gary was filling the awkward pauses by humming as he cleaned up the mess and finished arranging the bar. I remember that part very distinctly because it struck me as strange that he would be humming that old tune ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’.”
At the mention of the song title, a picture of an earlier Louis Stoaffer looking at me from the back of the storage room as he hummed that same tune flashed into my mind. My head reflexively jerked around to look at him.
As any DMV handbook will tell you, reflexively jerking your head around to look at someone in the backseat is never a good idea while you are driving. The result of my reaction was that the Lincoln drifted off the solid pavement of the road onto the loose gravel of the shoulder. I yanked the steering wheel in an effort to get the car back on the road.
The car’s movement after this is difficult to describe. What must been only a few seconds seemed to last minutes. The Lincoln spun around showing blurred objects through the windows. The only thing staying sharp to me was the image of the old man’s smiling face. I couldn’t see Joey from where I sat. The car seemed to shudder for a moment like a dog trying to get dry. Then with a sudden thud, the car came to a jarring halt at a slight angle.
The shock of the abrupt stop froze everything for a few seconds. There was silence.
Then like a swimmer just coming up from under the water, Joey burst out, “What the fuck, Thomas?”
Stoaffer began giggling nervously.
It took me a moment to catch my breath and let the fast pounding of my heart slow.
“Shit.” I commented under my breath as I turned off the car and pushed open the door.
My comment did not do justice to the situation before me. The reason the Lincoln had stopped so suddenly was obvious. The back of the car had come to rest on top of a tree stump.
I looked around at the wide area of gravel that made up the shoulder. Except for a few soda cans and other pieces of trash tossed out of cars speeding by, it was clean, bare, and flat. In fact, the only thing that could have any chance of slowing a car whatsoever was the lone tree stump upon which the Lincoln was sitting.
Joey had rolled out of the car and was standing beside me. He stepped close to the car and fell to his knees with his back to me. For a second, I thought he was praying, but he was checking under the car.
As he raised himself gradually to his feet, he was slowly shaking his head. A flash of rage hit me as I heard him chuckling. “Damn, Thomas! You could finduh turd in a fielduh diamonds!” The chuckle grew into a full-throated laugh.
That rage I had felt for a brief moment was gone. I could not help but join in with Joey’s laughter. It felt good to laugh. Maybe it was the release of tension. Maybe it was a way of letting go of some of the horrible images of death that had been stuck in my head. Maybe it was a way of spitting in the face of an absurd twist of fate that would put us here on an empty highway beside a car stuck on a tree trunk.
Even more absurd was the idea of Louis providing the voice of sanity. “Perhaps it’s a bad idea to be standing here beside the road drawing attention to ourselves. We need to get moving.”
We both stopped laughing. Not because of what the old man had said but because of the strong smell of gasoline.
As if on cue, the three of us tilted our heads to the side and stooped over to look under the car. The source of the smell was clear as we saw a small stream of gas trickling from under the car to the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled.
“You got that right.” Joey commented. “Now what?”
“It looks like we have a slight change of plans.” Louis Stoaffer observed. “However, in any case, I think our first order of business should be to get away from this road.”
I was surprised to find myself agreeing with the old guy. “Right, even if the cops are following a bogus description from our friends in the grocery store, they’re going to be fired up and moving through the area. Not a good idea to be around.”
“Okay, so we gotta get outta sight, but where to?” Joey asked. Louis Stoaffer answered with surprising enthusiasm. “If I am not mistaken, just over these hills is a little town called Chrystal Springs. We can hike it in a few hours and then hideout nearby until it gets dark. I am assuming that one of you is talented enough so that after dark we can appropriate another vehicle.”
“Lissen to you! I’m pretty sure by ‘appropriate another vehicle’ you mean steal ‘nother car.” Joey jumped in. “Yer a regular criminal genius, Lou!”
“Well, I have to say that you’re making a lot of sense, Louis.” I said a little begrudgingly. “We should push the car outta sight and then get going.”
The old man got in the car and put it into neutral while Joey and I pushed from behind. The car refused to budge in the slightest despite all of our efforts. I didn’t like leaving the car out in the open for anyone to see, but after a few unsuccessful attempts at pushing it off of the stump we had to admit defeat.
Stoaffer was behind the wheel. Joey and I were leaning against the back of the car trying to catch our breaths and come up with other ideas. The white and green police car had pulled onto the gravel of the shoulder twenty yards away from us before any of us had even noticed it.
As the crunching of tires on gravel announced the cars arrival, Joey’s head jerked toward the sound and then his eyes darted to the backseat of the Lincoln where his gun sat. As I saw his reaction, my stomach dropped and I pictured a shoot out there on the side of the road. The picture did not bode well for anyone.
To my utter astonishment, Stoaffer popped out of the car and strolled quickly over to the patrol car. I say he strolled, because he seemed to bounce as he walked. It was like he was going to meet some old pal.
The tall thin cop was starting to climb out of the car. As Louis Stoaffer reached the car, the officer must have felt somewhat pinned in by the old man standing directly in front of him. Instead of getting out of the car, he fell back into the seat and looked out at him.
“Good afternoon, officer.” Louis’ greeting seemed genuinely enthusiastic. “As you can see, I had a bit of car trouble. Already called a friend for some help. He should be arriving in no time.”
Even from the distance, Louis Stoaffer’s smile lit up his whole head.
“You sure you don’t need anything?” The cop glanced over at Joey and me.
The old man answered slowly, “No, like I said we’re just waiting on a friend. Besides I hear you’ve got some big problems in Plymouth.”
“Yeah, it makes you wonder what the world’s coming to.” The cop paused and shook his head for a moment. “Little town like Plymouth, stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen.” He paused again as if considering whether or not to continue. “Those were good people who got killed for no good reason.” Another pause. “But we got the sons of bitches that did it! That’s something I guess.”
I shot Joey a rather confused look at the cop’s words.
&
nbsp; “Well, if you sure you got it under control, I should head back down the road.” The cop said to Louis.
“Thanks, officer, we don’t want to take up any more of your time.” Louis answered and the added, “Glad to hear that justice was done!”
The cop didn’t say anything in reply. Instead he simply nodded and as soon as Louis stepped away from the car pulled the door closed. He glanced over in our direction as the patrol car swung back onto the highway.
“Lou, yer one smooth old basterd!” Joey walked over to smack Stoaffer on the shoulder.
The old man looked at me and noticed my clear expression of unease. “Thomas, what’s troubling you?”
“I’m just wondering what he meant by sayin’ that they got the sons of bitches that did it.”
“Oh, Thomas!” Joey looked at me and shook his head. “Yuh need tuh lighten up. Yuh heard the cop, right? That means nobody’s lookin’ fer us.”
“I just wonder who the cops got, that’s all.” I answered a little apologetically.
“It don’t matter!” Joey looked at me and chuckled. “Maybe those fag models from the magazine yuh showed ‘em picked the wrong day to visit the area.”
“You’re right!” I said forcing myself to feel optimistic. “What matters is that we have a little breathing room.”
“I’m glad to see that we’re all putting on our happy faces, but we still need to get to San Pietro.” Stoaffer commented. “I suggest that we keep to the plan. Hike over these hills to Chrystal Springs and then lay low until dark.”
“I agree.” Again, my agreement with Louis surprised me to the point that I had trouble getting the words out of my mouth. “We can’t wait around for someone to start feeling guilty and change their story to the cops.”
Surviving Amid the Zombies Page 10