by Jay Morris
Mrs. West said “A bullet must have clipped a Freon line, the fridge is gone.”
I didn’t answer her yet, I was on a mission. I set my rifle down, crossed the room and spun Karen to me and kissed her. Her arms slowly went around me and her hands ended in my hair. God I loved her.
“Ah, uh hum.” Mrs. West let us know she was still there.
Karen was blushing furiously and it darkened the bruise on her face.
“What was that for?” Karen asked.
I went back picked up my rifle and said
“Two reasons. First, for THE ‘I love you’ picture for Gina and Lucy.”
I started to leave when Karen said
“Wait you said there was a second reason.”
I turned back to her.
“Because we might die any moment and I need you to know that I love you.”
I got the Hell out of there before they could see the color flee from my face and to make sure I didn’t throw up in front of them.
I took a two hour turn on over watch; Amy, Mrs. West, and Karen started to sort through the things in the school bus. They put the things in three piles as they took each one out of the bus. They were pretty clever entering through the folding door at the front then exiting the rear emergency exit. In the pile that contained a couple of cases of MREs I noticed what appeared to be a radio that was an exact copy of the one we left at the post office. I realized that it probably was the one from the Post Office.
Amy and Karen started to carry things from the two of the piles inside while Mrs. West started to carry the things from the last to the trash ravine. Mrs. West was just finishing when Deputy Weir relieved me, he said that everyone was going to be in the great room; he said he had already heard about our battle from Tucker and sure didn’t need to hear about it again. I nodded and headed downstairs. I was the last one to arrive, and everyone else was sitting in chairs and couches that made a rough circle around the fireplace. I sat next to Karen who smiled at me then promptly stood and spoke;
“Everyone, before we start I would like to thank Lucy and Gina who have worked all day with only one short cookie break to finish a very important project”
Lucy nodded her head seriously “THE important project!”
Gina added “Yep, THE important picture project.”
Both girls nodded vigorously and stepped forward the picture held between them like a banner. Karen took and shook both their hands very officially. Everyone was silent as she placed the poster board on the mantle over the fireplace. The trinkets that had been there had been moved. Nothing would distract from THE important project. We stared at it for a minute then I jumped a bit when Tucker started to clap, slowly at first then faster and soon we all were applauding the two little girls, for their courage, for their effort and for the sweet memories we now had in front of us. Amy wrapped them up in her arms and kissed them both, both girls were silent and blushing furiously. For once Lucy didn’t have to say anything. She patted them on the bottom and they ran off towards the dining room where snacks had been prepared in advance for them. They did not need to hear what was to come next.
Karen sat down, there was no leader after that, and Mrs. West asked if we would tell our story first. We started with their early morning departure and included every detail we could about how their friends had died. Karen told them how we had made it to the blind and the fight between Mr. Livingston and Mr. Lowe and the bikers. I told them about us being chased and how we ended returning back to the side of the building after the explosions that Tucker had made. Tucker admitted that two of the first six were not dead when he got to them, he said he used his knife to cut their throats. It was just me, Karen, and Tucker so there were things that we could only guess about, like how Mrs. Boudreaux and Mrs. King died in the kitchen. Tucker said that they were dead when he shot the first man coming out of the kitchen. He spoke in a way that seemed as if he were talking to himself, as if he were just confessing to a priest or something. He held his forehead in his right hand, veiling his eyes, as he told us what happened.
“The man I shot wasn’t dead, but he was pretty bad off. When I followed him in I saw Mrs. Boudreaux was dead and the meat cleaver in her hand said she didn’t just give up.”
He paused and swallowed hard but when he continued his voice was flat and all facts again;
“Mrs. King was on the table, one of them was stabbing her over and over, I don’t know how many times but he had to be crazy because she had been dead a long time. He looked at me…”,
Tucker tried to regain his composure.
“He laughed.”
He said then his jaw clenched a bit before he continued again.
“l fired at the other guy, well, kid really, he was standing off to one side and he looked like he would rather be anywhere else. He was maybe 19, he had bright blue eyes, and there were tears on his cheeks. I raised my revolver and shot him between at the bridge of his eyes.”
Tucker picket up a small bottled water and took a drink then continued
“The knife guy tackled me, I dropped my gun but he was much smaller than me so I was able to slam him against the china cabinet but I lost hold of him. He scrambled away and held the knife in a way that made me think he had done this before.”
Again, Tucker paused and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I picked up a pan from the stove, apparently they had been heating cooking oil for something, I used it like a back hand from a tennis pro and the hot grease sprayed over his face, he screamed when it made contact with his face. I charged him and when I landed on him he couldn’t see but he was still able to drive that knife of his into my thigh.”
He stopped then he finished it quickly as if the words were sour in his mouth, “I beat his head with the frying pan until the …
He was done talking, I knew that so I took it up from there, I told about how Karen had gotten the bruise from her own shotgun; and then Karen told what we found in the room upstairs and how we ended up trapping the remaining bikers up on the roof, the deal we worked out. I took over and finished by telling how I had distracted them and how Tucker had gone to the roof and shot them as they tried to escape.
Mrs. West was silent, she just looked sad. Amy got up and sat on the floor next to Tucker where he was stretched out on one of the couches. There was no recriminations, no anger, nothing, just acceptance. It made me sick. I couldn’t help but imagine that dude in the kitchen, standing there with tears in his eyes and Tucker doing what he said he did. I imagined the bikers on the ground begging to be spared as he cut their throats like he was slaughtering hogs. But I was mostly mad at myself because I realized that I didn’t really care. I was just trying to find a reason to be made at Tucker.
Mrs. West began their story.
“We made good time after we left, we arrived at the mining warehouse before 10. We found a case of dynamite but only one detonator and what we found out later was just barely enough cord.”
Amy said “we were in good spirits, serious but looking forward to striking back.”
We waited for ten full seconds before Mrs. West continued,
“We arrived at the ambush site at 3:30 and we started to set up. Lieutenant Klein was amazing she was everywhere, she helped Deputy Weir find a sniper spot and got him camouflaged, she helped Rico set up the machine gun and she got Elaine and Kyle set up on the ridge on the East, it over looked the field and there was an old shed that offered them a hiding place until everything went off. We set up just like we planned, no, better than we had planned.”
Mrs. West looked at Amy who agreed.
“Yeah, that’s right, we took advantage of the… what’s the word? Terrain? Things that didn’t show on the maps. I helped Rico and the Lieutenant to place the dynamite and the claymore, well, actually they did it, but I ran the detonation cords to where Kelsey was going to be. She was not far from the MRAP. We ...”
Amy stopped and Mrs. West took over,
>
“We didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“By 5:30 we were all ready and hidden. By 5:45 the monsters started to show up.”
Mrs. West said but I interjected
“When the Before showed up.”
Everyone looked at me strangely and suddenly I felt stupid but I explained that they needed a name that while they are monsters now, they used to be people before, so that’s what I named them.”
I expected everyone to laugh but Mrs. West just nodded and went on;
“By 5.45 the first Before started to show up. I don’t know why I thought they would all arrive together, but they didn’t. They came from all directions, like when they leave a humming circle they spread out and do their search and somehow end up back together at the next humming place.”
“It was 6:00 on the dot when the last few started down the hill to the circle.” Amy said. Mrs. West added “I had never seen that before, even though Mr. Tucker had described it to me. It was incredible, like black petals on a flower they radiated out from the center.”
Lieutenant Klein said that when she and Rico opened up, everyone should too, and Kelsey should set off the explosives.”
Amy said “Right when they started to hum, Rico started firing and so did everyone else, bits of exoskeleton were going ever where, it was like many of our shots just took chips off of them.”
Mrs. West said “Then the claymore and the dynamite, but not all the dynamite had gone off. Only about a third of it, something went wrong with the rest.”
They told us how the Before started to focus in on where the gunfire was coming from and how they started to hop like giant black grass hoppers and how fast they were. They told us how Kyle and my sister were the first to go, they had a group of four that had started towards them on the ridge, they took them apart, but they didn’t see another group of four that circled and took them from behind. They said that Kyle and Elaine had died quickly but I didn’t know if it was true or not but I choose to believe it. I hoped it was true.
There was a pause then Amy took a breath and continued.
“Rico lost it when Elaine was killed and he actually stood up and started towards the Before, firing the S.A.W from the hip, he was yelling, screaming, not anything in particular, just his rage. The Lieutenant tried to get him to stop, Mrs. West tried, but he was out of control. He walked into the main group, maybe 25 of them. He blasted several of them into bits before the Before finally tore him to pieces. The fight went on, at least another 30 minutes, they told us how Amy moved the MRAP closer to Weir’s position and provided cover to Kelsey. The damn bugs tried to cut their way in to reach us. We fired through the gashes they made in the armor. They got on the roof, they climbed under us, I guess that’s how they damaged the engine, causing an oil leak.”
They both stopped talking then, I knew what was coming next was something they would have to live with.
“Kelsey got excited, she said she could see that the blasting cap had been pulled from a bundle of dynamite and that the cord had come apart there stopping the charge from reaching the rest of the dynamite. , she started to run for it, to insert the little metal thingy, the blasting cap, to put it back. There was no way she was going to make it then suddenly Janey was there, she had gotten out of the MRAP and was using the Thompson to cover Kelsey. They ended up together, side by side as Kelsey got the metal bit back where it was supposed to be and twisted the wires back together. That’s when I saw that she had carried the detonator with her, she had known there was no way she was ever going to get back to the MRAP. She had known that.”
Amy’s voice drifted away, like smoke on a dying fire. Mrs. West took over.
“When Janey’s magazine ran empty, they were covered in Before, and then the explosion that left very little behind, and then another and another and another explosion. If they had all gone off as planned then things would have been very different.”
Amy said there were a handful left, most of those were wounded but it took another half hour to kill the last of them. Weir was hurt, the monsters, the Before were dead so that was it, West, Driscol and Weir.
We all sat there for a long time in silence, I looked up at THE very important project and smiled. I could see them every day. Lucy and Gina were brought back in and everyone made over them. It seemed to please them so much, I held Karen’s hand in front of everyone, which seemed to please Karen. Later a stack of MRE’s were brought out along with some canned mixed fruit and we all ate. Mrs. West went up to relieve Deputy Weir. Karen and I played a game of cards that Lucy claimed was called “Viking Boat” and that apparently only Lucy and Gina knew the rules to. I did find out that if you had some cards in your hand and that if the ones on the ends were spades and the ones in the middle were diamonds then that was a Viking Boat. But most of the rules continued to change periodically. Needless to say Gina and Lucy won.
I watched Amy talk quietly to Mr. Tucker and she even held his hand and he didn’t pull it away. I thought briefly about how short our life expectancy was, but I wasn’t afraid to die, not anymore. I realized that whatever time we had left, we had to experience it as fully as possible. We needed to cram 60 or 70 years of life into a few weeks, maybe if we were lucky a few months.
Later Karen and I took Lucy and Gina up to Mrs. Driscols room and put them in her bed. Karen and I pulled a mattress into there too. We slept next to each other all night long, I have to tell you something; until that night I had never seen Karen, or anyone else for that matter, wearing an oversized “Free Leonard Peltier” tee-shirt and white cotton panties before. If you haven’t, pray you get the chance because in my honest opinion there is nothing more beautiful.
Day 29
The next morning about 5, I couldn’t sleep so as carefully as I could I, what is the word? Extricated myself from Karen but to be honest if I didn’t have to use the toilet so bad I could have endured that particular fate for about a quite a bit longer. Mrs. Driscol had ended up sleeping between Gina and Lucy who seemed to be permanently attached to her. After I used the bathroom, I went upstairs to see who was on over watch.
It was Mrs. West, she smiled and waved me over to her. She hugged me, said good morning, and then asked how I slept. I said Fine, she said “I heard.”
She asked “Did you and your Mom or Dad ever have THE talk?”
I must have looked at her in a funny way because when I asked her if THE talk was something like THE important crayon project she broke into laughter. I know that it was the first time I had heard her more than chuckle and to tell the truth it was a very beautiful laugh for someone as old as her.
“No, no, not that one, THE talk about where babies come from.”
She said still trying to regain her composure. I felt my cheeks burn
“Well, sort of, Mom said that when married people love one another very much and they think the time is right they, um, well they ‘make love’ and 9 months later they have a baby.” I answered.
I looked at her and she put one arm across my shoulder and squeezed me reassuringly.
“That’s just about right.” she said but then went on to ask “Did she tell you what ‘making love’ was?”
I said quietly that I did ask her and she said to ask my Dad. Mrs. West asked “What did he say?”
“Well, just about the same thing as Mom so I didn’t understand, but it is okay because Billy told me.”
She looked confused “Billy?”
“Yeah he was my best friend” I paused “he is on THE picture.”
“Ah” she said then asked “What did he tell you?”
I guess I looked uncomfortable because she said it was okay so I said “Well he didn’t tell me so much as show me.”
It was her turn to look shocked “What?” she asked.
“Yeah, the Frank’s had this dog and one street over was this standard poodle named Cupcake, and…”
Her laughter cut me off.
“Well I guess that is good enough for now.” she said
, “Just you and Karen shouldn’t do anything like that without talking to me, Amy or Tucker first okay?”
“Um, sure.” I said then told her that I needed to get some breakfast and started to go down stairs, at the time I remember thinking: why would we do that and who would spray us with the hose?
I checked back in, Karen, Lucy, and Gina were still asleep but Amy was gone. The bathroom we used was still open so I figured she was downstairs. Halfway down the main stairs I could hear Amy and Tucker talking quietly. I stepped into the great room and found Tucker actually sitting up but he had an old wooden cane and had both his hands on it for support. Amy was sitting in a chair opposite him, she was writing in one of those really long yellow pads of paper.
“Hey Johnny” Amy said, “Come on in we were just making a list of what we should do next.”
Tucker smiled and said “Morning John. Maybe you have some ideas?”
We talked business for 10 minutes or so before Deputy Weir joined us, his ever present mug of coffee held protectively in his hands. After participating for another 10 minutes he excused himself by saying he needed to relieve Diane on over watch. It took me a second to figure out who he was talking about but I got it. Pretty soon the whole house was up and about, we moved the conversation to the dining area and to my surprise Tucker made it without assistance other than the cane, he really did look better. Unfortunately we no longer had a working stove thanks to the gun battle but we were able to heat water by running it through the electric coffee pot and we were able to make instant oat meal. The list was long and divided into columns labeled Gina/Lucy, Johnny/Karen, and Amy/Carl/John. Each task was then numbered to show priority. It was a little before eight when we started in on the chores list.
We worked first on supplies, there was still quite a bit of things like rice and beans but our fresh stuff had started to go bad since the fridge was out. We had to throw all that rotten stuff out on the garbage pile. I could still smell the dead bikers even though they had been burnt two days before. We had to throw two bags of flour out because they had been on the floor and they were soaked in blood. There was the new supply of MREs that the ladies had taken from the bus and that helped. We had two big boxes of whiskey and such from them as well. We tried one that didn’t sound too bad, some kind of rum like in those movies about the pirates but all we did was end up coughing and gagging and laughing together. It was nice to work, just work, not think about anything bad. At ten I took the best of the bad stuff in a box up the hill to the Before. It was sitting in the corner with its back to me, the scar had almost completely healed. It heard me walking up and it spun around ready to pounce but when it saw it was me it seemed to relax, anyway it said