by Damon Novak
I was about to voice my concern to Lilly, who now put the Sea Ray in forward and bumped the throttle. She guided the big boat around the small protective jetty and into the choppier water.
Seein’ she had it under control, I went to sit beside Georgina, who had Nokosi sittin’ on her feet on the floor.
“You got it, sis?” I asked.
“There’s beer,” she said. “Settle in.”
“I want tamales,” I said, droppin’ down. No sooner had my buttcheeks hit the leather seat, I heard a shrill shriek.
I knew that sound; it was a canned boat horn. I knew right way it was Danny.
Ω
I ran out of the cabin and up the steps to the flybridge, wavin’ my arms.
“CB!” he called, standin’ shirtless on the bow of the Sportsman center console. He started pointin’ down at the water, and I barely heard, “Drop anchor!”
I gave him a thumbs-up and trotted back down to the salon. “Lil, pull to neutral. I’m droppin’ anchor. I’m guessin’ he’s going to tie up to us.”
“Good,” she said. “Okay, go.”
I ran back up and pressed the anchor switch with my foot. I heard the chain feeding off the spindle. When it started to slack, I let out several more feet and stopped again, waiting.
The boat drifted, turned, then I felt a slight jerk as the anchor caught on the bottom.
I stood up again and waved at Danny, who began motorin’ toward us immediately. As he neared, he jumped out of the captain’s chair and dropped his bumpers over his starboard side, tying both in place.
“Man, you don’t know how glad I am to see you,” I said as he pulled up beside us. Now Lilly ran up behind me, leanin’ against the railin’.
“Y’all don’t have any idea,” he said.
Behind us, Terry, Roxy, and Georgie emerged from below. I turned to look at ‘em, and I think I was just a tiny bit jealous when they all stared at Danny, standin’ in front of that steerin’ wheel, his shirtless black body glistenin’ with sweat, accentuatin’ every goddamned muscle.
“He’s … amazing,” said Terry.
“No shit,” said Lilly, a smile planted on her face now.
I was used to it. I remember in school, seein’ Danny in the shower after gym class, all 6’2” of him at the time, makin’ the rest of us boys look like 98-pound weaklings. He was a god at our school, a star of our basketball team and an amazin’ high jumper on our track and field crew.
Now he was 6’5” if he was a foot. Hell, I’m 6’3”, 235 pounds, and believe me when I tell you, I don’t like havin’ to raise my head to look a man – or a woman – in the eye. I’m used to bein’ the big guy in the room.
“Everybody take a cold shower,” I said. “This ain’t the time for gawkin’.”
Lilly shook her head as she caught the first of the dock lines Danny threw over. “Do I hear jealousy?” she quipped.
“A shitload,” I said. Laughin’, I shook my head and ran down to grab the stern line. We pulled his Sportsman up against the bumpers and tied it off, leavin’ just enough slack to handle the rollin’ waves beneath us.
“Sight for sore eyes, brother,” I said. “Get over here.”
Danny laughed, his perfect teeth stark against his black skin. “I ain’t never been happier to see somebody,” he said, leapfroggin’ onto the Sea Ray. He looked over the boat. “CB, man, you steal this?” He pulled me into a hug.
I hugged him back. “Glad you’re okay, man. Yeah, I stole it.”
“Y’all know what’s happenin’, right?” he asked, pullin’ away, his hands on my shoulders. “You hear that crazy DJ dude?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m glad you did. You heard his call to head to Lebanon, Kansas, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. “It’s where we figured we’d go. He’s the only one with any kinda plan we’ve heard about.”
Danny nodded, but his eyes weren’t on me. I guess Lilly was givin’ us time to say our hellos, because once his eyes left me, he turned, and she ran into his open arms.
As I watched, no words were exchanged between ‘em. They just held one another, both their eyes closed.
This told me two things: first, they’d been datin’ longer than she’d said. Second, that it was way more serious than she’d let on.
I didn’t care, but I might’ve felt a bit slighted.
Ω
We left the boat anchored for the time being, while we got caught up.
“My gas tank’s full,” said Danny. “It was almost on empty when this thing started, but I just hid out at the house for a few days. I tried to get out of Florida on the highways, but it got too crazy. I got down to the marina and took off. So far, I’ve just been siphoning from boats. Cut a good piece of hose at my house before I left.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” said Lilly. “Where are your parents?”
Now Danny’s face went slack. His lip started to quiver, and I realized I’d never seen him like that before, except once.
That was when he hadn’t yet grown into the beast he is, and a bunch of racist pricks from our school were tryin’ to force him to jump maybe twelve feet down from a tree.
He’d just moved to Everglades City from Shreveport, Louisiana, and there weren’t many black kids in school then. All kids can be cruel, but introduce anyone different to a backwoods school, and trouble won’t be far behind.
I was almost home from school when I saw ‘em, just a block from where I lived. Danny had used a rope ladder that was always attached to the tree to climb up to a platform someone had built up there, but one of the assholes followed him and pulled the ladder up behind him.
Danny later told me the kid, Jimmy Waldrup, told him the only way he was gettin’ down was the hard way.
I could hear Danny cryin’ from where I was. He was wailin’, his feet danglin’ over the edge while he tried to gauge whether he’d make it or not.
I didn’t like any of those kids. I decided Danny wouldn’t be jumpin’ down – not that day.
I ran to my house and grabbed my .22. I remember sneakin’ around the bushes and gettin’ real close. I aimed at the tree just above Jimmy’s head, and fired. The bark exploded above him, and he dropped the rope ladder clutched in his hands. Then he lost his balance.
Jimmy fell out of the tree, landin’ face-down with his arm beneath him. When he finally sat up, I saw his lip bleedin’ and he was holdin’ a broken arm. He was cryin’ like a baby, and afterward, the four bullyin’ bastards ran off and I went over to see if Danny was alright.
That was the first time we met. He’d been my best friend since.
“Danny, man, are your folks okay?” I asked.
He shook his head, his expression grim. He looked over at Liam and said, “It’s bad. He okay?”
“Liam,” said Georgie. “Why don’t you go into the cabin there and close the door for a few minutes.”
“Don’t want to,” he said shaking his head. “Don’t you think if I saw what happened to my mom, my dad, and Fiona and Finn, that I can handle what happened to his mom and dad?”
“He’s got a point,” I said. “The kid has seen a lot. Talk about closin’ the barn door after the horse got out.”
Everyone nodded. “Your call,” Roxy said to Liam. “If you feel uncomfortable, you can leave anytime.”
“Okay,” said Danny. “Anyway, I got a call from Dad about forty-five minutes after that weird rain stopped. I was on the internet trying to figure out what caused it. That’s when I found the viral video from that crazy Indian medicine man.
“Dad said he and mom were out gardening, but dad admitted he was on the covered porch listening to a baseball game on his old-ass transistor radio. Mama was on her knees on a pad, tending to her tomatoes.”
“Not that same old radio,” I said.
He pointed at me. “Yep, same one. About the size of a brick, silver. Broken antenna. That it was still working was
a source of pride for my dad. Had it since he was like seventeen. Philco Ford I think it was.”
“Go on,” I said.
Danny shifted in his seat. “I didn’t wait long. When he called, he said mom was acting real strange. I told him to call 911, but he said he tried and couldn’t get through. I hung up and tried myself. Then I understood. I got in my car and hauled ass to his house from work.”
“When I got there, Mom was on the floor and dad was over her, pinning her arms to the floor, crying. She was snappin’ her jaws at him.
“How horrible,” Lilly whispered.
Danny nodded. “You know our family, guys. You know how tight we’ve always been. Horrible’s the least of what it was. Anyway, Dad’s fingers were all bandaged up, and he told me to get back, because she bit him once already. He shut himself in the bathroom to tend to it, and she just scratched at the door the whole time.
“When he came back out, she was just as crazy, and somehow he got her on the floor. That’s how I found him. Anyway, you know I didn’t know what the hell was happening yet. When I saw ‘em, I took charge, I guess. I pulled my dad off the floor and made him sit on the sofa.
“By the time I got back to her, she was on her feet, comin’ at me. I grabbed her by the arms and spun her around so her back was against my chest, and I muscled her to the bed. It wasn’t easy, man! She was fightin’ me like a wildcat.”
He paused, his eyes seein’ it all over again, his thoughts back in that room with his mother. As if talkin’ to himself, he said, “The second I let her go, she was at me again … you’ve all seen them, right? How they are?”
I nodded. “Lilly had to put Pa down. I had to shoot Clay and Tan.”
His eyes saddened even more. “I’m so sorry, you guys,” he said, reachin’ out and takin’ Lilly’s hand. “This shit makes me lose hope.”
He waited for a few seconds before continuin’ with his story. “Anyway, I didn’t know what to do, so I held her arms down, but she was bucking and snapping her jaws, never getting tired, never changin’ at all. I had to have been there two hours. I know I’d have held her there all night if my dad hadn’t come in.”
“Did he offer to take over?” asked Roxy.
Danny shook his head. “He attacked me from behind.”
Tears ran down Georgie’s face. She whispered, “Danny, did he bite you?”
He shook his head. “No, thank God. I remember, my heart was pounding. I heard his jaws snap together right beside my ear, and for some reason, I thought he was joking or something. I know, not the time for that, but then I smelled his breath and it smelled … rotten. I let go of my mom and dove to the ground. Dad didn’t try to attack her, he was focused on me, but the second I let my mom go, they both came after me.”
“What the hell did you do?”
“I ran outside and shut the door. The rain had stopped a long time before, but that black shit was everywhere. The grass was black, trees, streets, benches, everything.”
“Don’t we know it,” said Lilly. “Danny, you don’t have to finish. We can guess.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t talked about it to anyone. I maybe need to.”
I nodded, and he nodded back. “Anyway, I was outside, freakin’ out, lookin’ through the window at them. That was when I noticed Dad’s bandage had come off. He was missing two fingers. It wasn’t just a bite.”
He wiped a tear from his cheek with his finger. “They both just wandered around for a while. Neither one was paying any attention to the other. He wasn’t worried about her, and she wasn’t worried, either. They just staggered around. Finally, after trying 911 again, I tapped on the window.”
“Not good,” I said.
“No,” said Danny. “Not good at all. They both saw me and just came toward me. Both of them hit that window together, and it shattered. They fell through it and the glass cut them.”
“And they didn’t bleed,” said Georgie.
“Some places they did, but not their faces. I remember seeing their blood was darker somehow. Their faces were cut by the glass, but it looked like a cadaver cut.”
“How do you know what that’s like?” asked Roxy.
“Pre-med,” said Danny. “We did a dissection of a cadaver. Worst day of my life before Mom and Dad changed.”
“Did you run?” asked Liam.
“No, because they were my folks and they were sick. I lured them back into the house, got them into a bedroom. First I ran in there and opened a window and closed the curtains. Figured I’d open a path for them to follow me and use my speed against them. I moved slow down the hall and turned into the bedroom, moving behind the door. Once they came in, I slammed the door and jumped on the bed to get to the window. They were both on the other side of the room when I jumped through and closed it again. With the curtains there, I guess they forgot it was a way out.”
“What did you do then?” asked Terry, transfixed.
He shrugged. “I ran over to a neighbor’s house. Tammy and Diane. Middle-aged, divorced roomies always tryin’ to talk me into a threesome.”
“Seriously,” said Lilly.
Danny smiled. “Not my type, ‘specially now. Nobody answered when I knocked, but I’m pretty sure they hit the inside of that door. I went to the window and saw them in there. They were both stained with that black shit and they looked just like my mom and dad and all the others.”
“So that’s when you first learned it was more than just your parents,” said Georgie.
Danny nodded. “I watched them for a while. It was easier than watching my parents, but it told me all I needed to know about them, too. When I’d seen enough, I grabbed my keys and got out. I didn’t drive very far before I figured out the roads were jammed. Then I worked my way back and went to get the boat keys, water, food, and other stuff like gas cans. I left and hit the marina.”
“Why didn’t you try to call us?” asked Lilly.
“I did,” said Danny. “Tried your phone and CB’s. Got circuits busy message or nothing. I didn’t think to try texting. Figured it would be the same story.”
“I’m so sorry about your mom and dad,” said Georgie. “Did anything become of them?”
He shook his head, and in that simple gesture, I saw him begin to crack, just a little. I suppose bein’ with us again kinda brought home how messed up everything else really was. He choked out the next words. “My parents are … still there as far as I know. This is a catastrophe, guys.”
“You up for Kansas with us?” I asked. “I take it you’re not plannin’ on stickin’ around?”
“I’m relieved as hell to be with you guys. And I know this is kinda out of the blue, but is the shower working on this boat? Can I take one?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Go ahead but keep it short. We just filled the water, but we don’t know what’s ahead of us. You hungry?”
“For somethin’ hot, yeah. Been eating room temperature, canned stuff.”
“We have tamales comin’ out of our asses.”
Danny stared at me, a sly smile on his face. “Don’t think I want any ass tamales.”
“C’mon,” said Lilly. “I’ll show you where the shower is and get you a towel. I still need to check you over for any bites or scratches.”
“Maybe Georgie should do that,” I said. In the back of my mind, the minute the words left my lips I was thinkin’ how I didn’t necessarily want Georgie lookin’ at the big stud’s nude body. Lilly saved me.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll know if anything’s out of place.”
I shook my head and smiled as I watched ‘em walk away. I was glad Danny was here. He had a good head on his shoulders, and we needed all the help we could get.
Ω
With Danny’s boat tied off on ours, we stayed at anchor. Tide was high, and there was no danger of hitting any sand bars, especially with the depth-finder, but I didn’t like boatin’ in the ‘Glades in the dark and I didn’t dig doin’ it in the Gulf of Mexico, either.
“Tamales!” he said. “Load me up.” He plopped down on the bench seat behind the captain’s chair, where I sat. I think everyone else was afraid to sit there for fear I’d have them drivin’.
“Lilly, you goin’ with Danny on the Sportsman?”
“For a while, I think,” she said. “That okay with you guys?”
Everyone nodded. That made me feel pretty good. If they didn’t think I needed Lilly around me to keep me in check, it was a rare feelin’ indeed. She definitely kept me from doin’ a lot of stupid shit in my life.
“See you brought all your rods,” I said.
“Can I fish?” asked Liam. “We were going to go fishing, but we never got the chance.”
“Sure,” said Danny. “Probably tomorrow, though. We’ll need to cast my net for some baitfish.”
Danny glanced at me, then threw a sideways glance at Liam. I knew the question. It was: You mess up? He yours?
Two old friends could say a lot with just a look and an eyebrow. I laughed out loud.
Everyone looked at me. “What’s funny?” asked Georgie.
“I guess it ain’t that funny, now that I think of it,” I said. “Danny here thought Liam might be a gift from an old girlfriend. You know, from back when I was 19 or 20.”
“Because CB’s hair is so red?” asked Lilly, leanin’ over to smack Danny on the back of his head. “That boy right there is as Irish as the day is long.”
“I don’t know Irish from nothin’, Lil,” said Danny. “God, it’s good to see y’all. Felt like I was just wanderin’ until now. Crazy to think it’s just been a couple weeks. Feels like months this has been goin’ on.”
“The only voice we’ve heard that seems to have any kind of plan is Micky the DJ,” said Georgina. “Our classic rock pied piper.”