“What!?” Patrick replied as he pushed the ridge pole for his tent through the loops to his daughter as they had numerous times over the past couple of weeks.
“Yeah, Dad” Mackenzie continued not believing that her dad was that far out of touch. “He is totally gay. How could you not tell?”
“I guess I don’t know. So, that’s why he is a loner you think?” Patrick asked as they bent the last tent pole into position and began stretching it tight for the stakes.
“I imagine. Kids in these small towns are probably even worse that the ones in Columbus when it comes to giving kids a hard time that are different,” Mackenzie said as they finished installing the stakes.
As they threw their bags into the tents and started back towards the Dungeon, Mackenzie told her dad “Now don’t go acting all weird around him now that you know he’s gay.”
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked his daughter as he put one arm around her.
“Just don’t be weird,” Mackenzie said again chuckling.
Chapter 13
The three survivor’s spent the next few hours visiting and talking about Spearfish, the rest of the Kincaid family, music, old comic books, and several other topics that had nothing to do with the cloud, EMP, or dead bodies. They each had a can of raviolis and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. Patrick couldn’t help but act somewhat weird around Stuart, but Mackenzie gave enough sideways glances to her dad that Stuart didn’t seem to be uncomfortable. Even though Stuart tried to talk them into staying in the Dungeon for the night on some of the unused cots that were piled high with supplies and storage, Patrick insisted that they stay in the tents up in the backyard.
Stuart rolled out of bed sometime in mid-morning and felt better than he had in months. He used the restroom and somewhat combed his now clean hair before bounding up the stairs to visit with his new-found friends. Mackenzie was laying on her back reading a book with her head poking out of her unzipped tent, and Patrick was sitting in a folding chair reading a paperback where his tent had been the night before. Patrick was wearing a half cowboy / half safari hat that Stuart thought made him look weird.
“Well, you do sure clean up nice,” Mackenzie said as she rolled over onto her elbows as she heard him approach.
“Shut up,” he told her while grinning.
Patrick put his book down in his lap and pointed over to one of the pine trees by Mackenzie’s tent. “What do you think about that one?” he asked Stuart.
A black mountain bike with electric blue splotches here and there along the frame was leaning up against the tree. It was decked out with hard plastic bags near the hubs on each of the rear wheels. It had big knobby tires, several water bottles at different locations, and two sets of leather saddle bags draped across the main part of the frame. Stuart thought that it looked like something out of one of those Mad Max movies.
“It looks pretty tough,” Stuart said walking over to it. “Are you trading up for it?” he asked.
“Nah,” Patrick said as he got up and walked over to join Stuart next to the bike. “That one’s yours!”
Stuart’s great mood fell immediately like a ton of bricks. “Hey – I told you that I wasn’t going with you Mr. Kincaid. I’m staying right here.”
“I know that’s what you said,” Patrick said without letting any defense into his voice. “I also understand why you would want to stay here at the Dungeon. But I’m telling you that others survived. Mak and I know in our heart of hearts that the rest of our family is okay; but even if you can’t believe that, then you must be able to reason that the cloud couldn’t have made it around the world. So if we don’t find anyone in Nebraska, we’ll keep heading east. Somewhere in Missouri, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, or somewhere out there is a large group of survivors.”
Mackenzie had joined them at the tree and wrapped her arm around Stuart’s waist. “It’s no use Stuart,” Mackenzie started. “He has so much practice getting me up and pedaling each morning that you don’t stand a chance.” Stuart couldn’t help but smile a little bit at that.
“You can make your mind up later,” Patrick said. “Why don’t you take it for a test spin and check it out?”
Stuart showed some hesitancy before finally grabbing the bike and saying “Where did you get it?”
“There’s a bike shop down on the main street with all kinds of cool things in there,” Patrick said with a little bit of excitement in his voice.
“He’s been gone since early this morning putting that thing together for you,” Mackenzie added.
Stuart hopped on the bike and made a few big arcing circles in the alley around some of the waste laying on the ground. Then he started out slow down the alley, but by the time he made the next side street he was standing up and pumping it as fast as he could go.
“I think he likes it,” Mackenzie told her dad. Patrick smiled. He had gotten the reaction that he had hoped for.
Patrick sauntered back to where his bike was parked and said “Let’s follow him for a little ways. I’d like to get both of our bikes down to that shop and add some of the attachments and bling that they have there.”
“Bling?” Mackenzie said somewhat snidely. “I think that you may be a little too old to use that word correctly Dad.”
Patrick chuckled a little as they got on their bikes and turned down the alley in the direction Stuart had ridden. “You two sure seem like you are pretty close for just meeting yesterday,” Patrick said as they rode side by side.
“What do you mean?” Mackenzie asked.
“Nothing really. It just surprises me that you just met that boy and you act like he’s your best friend already. I was just wondering why,” Patrick said as they rounded the corner to the street Stuart had turned down. There was a decline to the hill, so both riders padded their brakes some so they could still go slow enough to talk to each other.
“I don’t know really,” Mackenzie responded after thinking about it for a few seconds. “I guess that he reminds me of some of my friends back home. He’s different.”
Patrick pondered her response for a little bit and decided not to tell her what he was really thinking and instead allowed himself to coast a little in front of her so he could lead the way to the bike shop. He surmised from the little time that he spent with Stuart that he was indeed different. Different enough that he had been shunned from other kids his age. Mackenzie’s other friends back home weren’t like that at all in Patrick’s opinion. They weren’t necessarily different by nature, but instead they tried hard to be different. They did and wore shocking things to be different, regardless of moral fortitude or impacts of others. They wanted other people to notice how different they were. Patrick didn’t feel that having that conversation now with his daughter would be productive when those ‘friends’ may never be seen again.
Stuart found them at the bike shop after a while. He told Patrick that he really did like the bike, and he asked if Patrick could adjust a few things on it while they were there. Stuart and Mackenzie sat outside on the curb enjoying the afternoon shade visiting and laughing at each other while Patrick spent several hours in the little back room shop adding things and changing things to each of their bikes. The shop had enough hand tools and things without motors that the engineer in Patrick had fun for the first time in a long while putting accessories on the bikes and making other adjustments. When he’d finished his tinkering, he walked outside to find the two kids still sitting on the curb visiting.
“So….,” Patrick interrupted. “Did she talk you into it?”
“Talk me into what?” Stuart asked.
“Going with us,” Patrick explained.
“Yeah,” Stuart said with some resignation. Mackenzie shoved him a little with her elbow and giggled. “There’s no reason why I can’t come back if I want to.” Patrick extended his hand to Stuart and Stuart stood up to shake it, but didn’t take it right away.
“That’s great news son. I think that is the right idea,” Patrick said with
some confusion as he let his hand drop to his side without Stuart shaking it. Stuart looked down at the ground and appeared to be mustering up the courage to say something.
“Mr. Kincaid…” Stuart started, but trailed off without raising his eyes from the ground.
“Go on Stuart,” Patrick said. “Just go on and say what needs said.” Patrick was bracing himself for Stuart to tell him about his homosexuality, and Patrick was scrambling on the inside about how to respond. He couldn’t tell the boy that he condoned his lifestyle, but he wanted to make sure the kid still wanted to leave here with them.
“There’s one thing that I need to do before we leave,” Stuart said still staring down at his feet.
“What’s that?” Patrick asked. He felt a wave of relief wash over him and he caught himself breathing out a sigh that was probably noticeable to Mackenzie and Stuart.
Stuart’s eyes came up to Patrick’s as he said “I need to bury my parents.”
Patrick paused for a second, then extended his hand back out to Stuart again. “We’ll do it tomorrow and head out the next day,” Patrick said directly. After just a brief pause, Stuart reached out and shook Patrick’s hand.
They all enjoyed raviolis, pop, and each other’s company again that evening, and then retired to the same sleeping arrangements that they had the night before. They awoke to drizzly conditions that seemed to damper the already somber mood. After raiding neighboring garages for additional shovels, the three of them started digging a large single grave in Stuart’s back yard near his mother’s peonies that were in full bloom. When they’d reached a couple of feet deep by mid-morning Patrick went into the house to prepare the bodies while the two kids continued to dig.
He found them both in their upstairs bedroom in bed. There was the undertone of death in the small room, but the smell wasn’t unbearable. He went over to a window by the bed and opened it all the way. The window had stuck a little, and the noise caused Stuart to look up from his shovel in the backyard that made both him and Patrick uncomfortable. Patrick left the window and turned back toward the bed to determine how he was going to handle this dreadful task.
Before this catastrophe, he had never seen a dead body other than ones already prepared in caskets. He’d seen enough in the last two weeks though, that he thought that he had become numbed to the sight when he offered to do this for Stuart. But seeing this rotting couple laying here in their bed with their son outside digging their grave was more than his personal defenses could take. He took a moment, sat down on the floor in the corner by the closet and wept. He said a prayer that originally was just asking for strength, but turned into a string of requests to aid him, his daughter, and their new companion.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been, but when he stood back up he could see out the window that the grave Stuart and his daughter were digging was getting deep enough. Where Stuart was standing, it looked like he was at least waist deep in the hole.
Patrick looked through the two closets in the bedroom, but didn’t find what he was looking for. He found a linen closet in the hallway and took a few of the sheets out that he found in there, but he needed more. He went into an adjacent bedroom and immediately knew that it must have been Stuart’s room. It was messy, just like a teenager’s room; and the palette of colors of the posters on the walls, the bedding, and the clothes strewn around the room were dark and moody. Patrick grabbed most of the bedding in a big wad and headed back to Stuart’s parents.
The task ended being up even worse than he had imagined. Both bodies had begun to rot significantly, and at some point, a mix of dark bodily fluids had run out of them staining the sheets and mattress. Patrick wrapped Stuart’s mom up first. He used a blanket from the bed they were on, then used one of the clean sheets to roll her up like a burrito before placing her on the ground next to the bed.
Stuart’s dad was more difficult due to his size. He looked to have been a man about the same as Patrick’s build or a little smaller, and Patrick had a much more difficult time shifting the body around than he had with Stuart’s mom. He eventually had Stuart’s dad wrapped up as well, but not near as neat as his wife’s blankets were.
Patrick was really looking forward to using the Dungeon’s shower after this ordeal. He just felt dirty and unclean from the sweat of his exertion and the unavoidable touching of the bodies that he had to do, but mostly to get that subtle smell of death out of his nostrils.
Patrick looked out the window again and knew that he was out of time. The kids were standing in the hole and leaning on their shovels. The hole was deep enough that he could just see the top of Mackenzie’s head and from Stuart’s shoulder on up. They both were resting with their hands on the top of the shovel handles and appeared to be talking about something serious.
Patrick didn’t want Stuart to have to help carry his parents out of the house on his shoulders, so he began walking around the house looking for ideas. As he walked around, his mind was racing for what he could possibly say as they laid them in the ground. He knew that he couldn’t say anything to really ease the young boy’s mind, but he felt that something should be said about them.
As Patrick walked around the home, he felt a little like an unwanted intruder. The layout of the home was like many other bi-levels that Patrick had visited in the Midwest, and he felt that he knew what each room was used for before he walked into it. The Rappaport’s home was older and dated, but very nice and cared for. Patrick didn’t find what he needed upstairs, so he headed down stairs. There he found a small work out room, a home office, and a spare bedroom. The spare bedroom had two floor standing lamps on each side of the bed with metal posts supporting them that were probably five feet in length. They weren’t exactly what Patrick was looking for, but he dragged both the lamps out to the garage and fashioned a crude travois from the metal lamp posts, some scrap wood he found in the garage and the electrical wire from inside the lamps.
Patrick used the makeshift travois to drag each of the bodies down the stairs and out to the garage. It didn’t work quite as slick as he had imagined, and he was huffing and puffing something serious by the time he finally had Stuart’s father in the garage.
After taking a few minutes to catch his breath and allowing his heart to slow some, he went back to the back yard where he found both kids sitting on the edge of the hole and softly singing. It was a song that Patrick didn’t recognize, but had a slow catchy melody. Patrick stopped several feet from the hole so not as to interrupt them, closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and just listened. The tone of the song was somewhat like a rock ballad that had a catchy new age pop to it. Neither one of the kids had a voice that would land them a record deal, but the sound was nice just the same. Patrick was learning to appreciate beauty wherever he could find it in this land of horror.
As the two singers finished, they both chuckled somewhat at the things that they felt they messed up during their rendition.
“Why don’t you go get cleaned up Stuart and put some fresh clothes on? Mackenzie and I will make arrangements up here and then meet you down in the Dungeon,” Patrick said as he had rehearsed.
“Yeah, okay,” Stuart replied and headed for the house to get clean clothes. Patrick and Mackenzie waited for him to head down to the Dungeon before going and getting the bodies. They used the travois to hall them one by one over to the grave, then lowered them down into it as gently as possible.
They both grabbed clean clothes from their packs and headed to the Dungeon to clean up as well. Patrick also had grabbed his bible from his pack and began thumbing through it on the walk down the stairs.
“I don’t think that his parents were Christians, Dad,” Mackenzie said looking at the open bible in her dad’s hands.
“Maybe not,” Patrick replied. “But I am.”
Once they were all clean and in new clothes, they headed back up to the yard for the awkward graveside services and burial. Patrick was extremely nervous about what to say and do, but Stuart seemed somber and steady
. The drizzly morning had turned into a sprinkly afternoon as the three survivors stood around the edge of the grave. They all stood there quiet for some time before Patrick broke the silence.
“Do you want to say anything Stuart?” Patrick asked.
“Mom, Dad,” Stuart began. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry that it did. I also know that you didn’t love me the same as you had when we first moved here. And I’m okay with that…” A few tears began to stream down Stuart’s face as he continued the eulogy. Mackenzie sidled over from where she had been and stood next to him with her arm lovingly around his back. “I know that you tried; and I know that I disappointed you. But I’m going with these people now.”
After a few seconds, Patrick asked Stuart if he minded if he said a few words and Stuart just nodded his acceptance.
“As we lay Mr. and Mrs. Rappaport down to their final resting place, let me read from the book of John,” Patrick started as he flipped to a piece of paper that he had inserted as a bookmark. He was looking down at the bible and didn’t notice the sideways look that his daughter was shooting him.
“’And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’” Patrick spoke the words not with a monotone voice, but with enough vigor and life that the other two were listening intently. As he continued, Mackenzie remembered back when she was a little girl and her dad used to read her bible stories before bed every night. “’For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
They all stood quietly for some time more and then Patrick suggested that the two of them sing that song that they had been singing earlier. They looked at him skeptically at first, but when they realized that he was serious about it they looked at each other and then began singing. Patrick closed his eyes and enjoyed the melody of the song. He said a prayer in his thoughts for Stuart’s parents and their son, then just listened to the song.
The Hike (Book 1): Survivors Page 16