by Terry Yates
He left Gringo and made his way over to Michael Blum who was now sitting up. Once again, he and Zack were together, both glaring at Gringo, Zack more so than Michael.
“How could he do that?” Zack asked him, not taking his eyes off of the short, stocky, hairy man. “How could he put someone so…”
“Beautiful?” Kyler interjected.
“Not just that…but how could he put someone that he cares about in danger like that?”
Kyler looked back over his shoulder toward Gringo, who was far enough across the room that he couldn’t hear them.
“I don’t think he meant to, Zack. He just wasn’t using his head, that’s all.” He looked the teenager square in the eye. “Sometimes, we just have to forgive people for what they’ve done. If we don’t, it could eat us alive till we’re filled with nothing but anger and rage…and you don’t want that.”
Zack looked over at his sleeping father, and began to sob softly. “But he let it kill my mother…and my grandmother…”
Both Kyler and Michael placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Let it out, Buddy,” Kyler told him. “Now’s the best time to do it.”
As if on cue, Zack put his hands over his eyes, and began to cry, the tears pouring through his hands and down his cheeks. Kyler knew that he needed this. So much had happened recently…he’d been running, swimming, and then running again so much that he hadn’t had proper time to grieve for his mother.
As Zack wept, Kyler looked over at Michael, who seemed a little confused. Zack was sixteen…a grownup…and he was crying. He was somewhat addled by it. He had been taught to never to let anyone see you cry. His father had told him that it was a sign of weakness. You can show joy, but never sadness or pain. Never. Never. Never. But right now, watching Zack let the tears flow, and the Dr. Kyler telling him that it was okay to do so, seemed to throw a spanner in the works. All that he had been taught was completely dissolving before his very eyes. He wondered if something was wrong with him. He was worried sick about his parents, but he couldn’t force the tears to come. He wished that he could, but they just stayed dormant, the way they had his whole life. He wanted to beat on his broken leg to see if they would begin to flow, but he already knew what the result would be. He would not cry out in pain and he would not shed tears. Even when he’d broken the leg, he didn’t do much more than grunt loudly. Sure, he’d bitched and whined at the doctor and nurse for not immediately taking care of HIS needs, but that’s what he’d seen his parents do. Me first, they had taught him. Me first…unless someone was watching, and then you put on the brave face on and pretended to help others before yourself, but in the back of your mind, it was self interest. You. You alone. People couldn’t be counted on; his father had told him many times. That’s why you strive to be President, so that you’re making all of the decisions. You decide what happens. You decide what serves your best interests. You. You. You.
Michael snapped to when he realized that Dr. Kyler was looking at him with an expression that said that it was okay to cry…okay to let go…okay to be like everyone else…but still he couldn’t do it. Instead, he continued to pat Zack awkwardly on the shoulder.
CHAPTER 37
It was angry and hurting. The pack of two legger’s had put up another good fight. It had been repelled once again, but not before tasting flesh and blood again. The old female and the old male had not tasted so good, but the young male had completely whet his appetite for more.
It had waited outside the door, hoping that more two-leggers would follow the ones that had gotten away from him, but it had missed its chance when it had climbed onto the roof, allowing the three males that had fought him off with their small but loud fire sticks, to get into the place before it could get to them. It had been looking for a way into the building, but had found none. The wind and the rain had begun blowing so hard that it couldn’t give it its complete concentration…but it knew where they were, and instinct told it, that they would be there again tomorrow.
It whimpered in pain as it walked back toward the old two-legger den. Between the small fire rocks that had hit it, and the dog biting it on the front forearm and the back leg, it had been weakened again like it had been when the old female had stuck it with the tiny spear and sent the bad medicine into its body. But it had taken care of the old female. Oh yes, she would never stick him again…unless she could do it from inside his stomach.
As it neared the pass, large debris began to fly through the air as it had the full moon before. It must get back to shelter before the big things began to fly around again. They hurt when they hit it.
It crouched lower as it reached the pass. Although it knew that it should be getting back to shelter, it had decided to stop and finish off the tasty young two-legger that it had been forced to leave behind, unfinished and undigested. It would be back again. It knew it. It could feel it. It would get the rest of them…and that dog. It definitely wanted the dog.
CHAPTER 38
Potts looked at his watch. He couldn’t believe that it had weathered the storm, both figuratively and literally. It was almost one in the morning…and he was winding down. He hadn’t slept a wink in over two days now, and he was feeling it. He’d done pretty much all he could do at that point. His soldiers and Fong had gathered every scrap of arsenal that was in the secret room and placed it in one of the unlocked rooms. They found two more secret closet rooms on that floor, but both were empty. Someone just forgot about that one…or had been in too big of a hurry to retrieve the arsenal.
They hadn’t found any communication devices yet. The one at the security desk was knocked out by the storm, but he knew that there was another one somewhere. There had to be. He couldn’t stand not knowing where the storm was or where the monster was. If it was true, and werewolves turn back into humans when the sun comes up, then they still had a good five hours left…maybe less.
He looked around the infirmary. He decided to keep everyone together…for the first night anyway, just until they could explore the place more, but if the hurricane ended tonight, someone would probably come back tomorrow…and then he’d be in trouble, but he was too tired to care. He had lead the group as best he could. Not bad for civilians, he thought to himself. Every one of them was asleep except for the doctor, who looked like HE was about to give up the ghost, and Hawkins, who stood just outside the infirmary door keeping guard. The crazy old lady was still awake, too. Jesus, he wouldn’t be forgetting her anytime soon.
He wanted to sit down, but he knew that if he did, that would be all she wrote. He’d be out like a light. So long. Goodbye. The End. Goodnight Vienna. If he could hold out through tomorrow, they would probably rescued. No one was going to leave this place empty for too long.
“Tired, Colonel?”
Potts jumped, his fists already in combat position before he had even hit the ground again. He spun on his heels ready to jack this shitbag into next week, but before he threw a punch, he realized that it was the doctor, who now stood before him, a startled look on his own face, having suddenly realized that he had sneaked up behind a combat veteran…again.
“God dammit!” he said, still in fight mode, his fist still tensed back, ready to hit whoever it was in the throat. “What the…are you crazy, Doctor, or just extremely stupid?” he asked gruffly, more mad at himself for having been caught off guard. How had Kyler done it? One minute, he was standing over the Olsen man, and the next, he was right up his ass.
“Extremely stupid, I guess,” was all that Kyler managed to say, still a little startled in his own right.
“You should be getting some rest,” Potts told him, relaxing again.
“And so should you.”
“I can’t. I’m in charge. If that thing comes back…”
“We’d all wake you up…believe me.”
Potts leaned back against the wall, let out a sigh, and closed his eyes. “Why are you still up, Doc?” he asked.
“Probably for the same reason that you are. Wh
en you’re in charge, you deem it necessary to be the last person to disembark the boat.”
Potts smiled for a moment, but his eyes remained closed. Kyler moved up next to him and leaned against the wall.
“I…uh…” he stammered.
“Don’t.” Potts said, opening his eyes and looking at the doctor.
“What? I was just gonna ask…”
“Don’t.” Potts repeated, a more ominous tone in his voice.
“What did you think I was going to ask you?”
“You were going to ask me about Abby.”
“Abby? Who’s…”
“Nurse Walling.”
“Nurse Walling’s name was Abby?”
“Abigail, as a matter of fact.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“Well, now you do.”
Kyler folded his arms. “So…uh…how did you know her name?” asked Kyler. He had already started to flinch before the words were out of his mouth.
Potts closed his eyes and grunted loudly. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but quickly closed it again. He also folded his arms. He looked like he was sleeping on his feet.
“Oh…” he groaned and slid to the floor. “Yes, I knew Abby Walling.”
Kyler slid down next to him and looked straight ahead.
“We were both from the same small town in Nebraska. Shulerville…Shulerville, Nebraska, a little fart of a town smack dab in the center of the state, population two thousand and four…that’s what the sign said anyway. I was seventeen and having my first three day furlough, so I hopped a ride with a guy from my unit who lived in the town next to Shulerville, figured I’d see the folks, ya’ know.”
Kyler nodded, even though Potts still had his eyes closed.
“Anyway…one day, I’m driving my dad’s Mustang around town…you know…seeing all of the old haunts and talking to all my old friends. Well, I was cruising down the street, drinking a beer. It wasn’t against the law in those days. I turned a can of Bud up to get those last few satisfying drops in the can, when I looked up and saw a little girl riding her tricycle right out into the street. I could either hit her or ditch my dad’s car into the back of a parked truck…so I did the obvious.
“You hit the girl.”
“No, I rear-ended a brand new truck with my old man’s vintage ‘Stang.”
“Dent it up?”
“And how. There probably wasn’t two square inches of that car that wasn’t dented, scratched, or completely caved in.”
“Yikes.”
“Yikes was right. Anyway…Abby…eh…Nurse Walling, happened to have been walking down the sidewalk at the time…she saw the whole thing, and came to my aid, I guess you call it. I had fractured my leg…sorta like the Blum kid over there did with the jeep. She got me to the hospital and stayed with me all night, and told me…I can’t remember how she said it…basically, she told me that what I did was a very noble thing. Noble, hell! I wasn’t gonna hit no kid, no matter what the cost. It was just a hunk of metal…an expensive hunk of metal…but nothing worth hurting or killing a child over, but she was impressed. See, I was sort of the bad boy around town. I wasn’t a juvenile delinquent or anything, but I guess I did have a bit of a black cloud hanging over me…if I didn’t find trouble, it found me. Anyway, I was laid up in the hospital for a couple of days and she would come and visit me even on her days off. Well, a lot of talk started up about us, especially after I got out of the hospital, because she was twenty-eight and a divorcee and I was just a seventeen-year old kid soldier. There was nothing going on between us, but that didn’t stop the talk. We were sorta damned if we did and damned if we didn’t, so we put all the speculation to rest and started seeing each other.”
By now, Kyler was transfixed…and maybe a little repulsed, trying to picture Potts and Nurse Walling bumping uglies. Potts’ eyes remained closed, but he turned his head toward the ceiling.
“You might not believe it, but Abby was…mmph! She was sure something in the old haystack, if you know what I mean. I came home every chance I got, but that was few and far between, so she got a job in the base hospital, they used a lot of civilian nurses in those days, and kept our little affair going for about two years.”
“What happened?” Kyler asked, not really sure he wanted to know. He wanted to keep his image of Nurse Walling as perfect as possible.
“I was a teenager!” Potts exclaimed, opening his eyes and looking at Kyler.
“You…had a wondering eye?” Kyler guessed.
“Wandering?” Potts laughed. “I had a flat out stigmatism in that sumbitch. You know how it goes. If you ain’t got a girl, you can’t get one, but if you’ve gotta girlfriend, especially one that’s a lot older, the girls light on you like crows on a picket fence. Well, she found out about my dalliances, and went absolutely berserk on me. I expected her to cry or at least look hurt, but she didn’t do either…maybe alone, I guess she might’ve…but not in public. In public, she shouted and cursed me every single time she saw me…and it was usually when I was with my army buddies. Whew! She called me everything but a white boy. I took it for a while, figuring I had it coming. I’d hurt her and…well, a woman scorned, you know.”
Kyler nodded.
“Like I said, I took it for a while until one of my buddies said he’d done her behind the skating rink…while we were still seeing each other! Can you believe it? That bitch had been cheating on me, too!”
Kyler wanted to get up and walk away. He’d had too much information thrown at him. It was everything he could do not to cover his ears and go “la-la-la-la…”
“I guess you could say that that was it and that was where our mutual hate society started up. Any time we see…saw each other, it was “you bastard” from one, and “kiss my ass…” from the other. It was vicious. This went on till she’d finally had enough and left the base. I didn’t see her for over twenty years until I got transferred to No Name. Low and behold, guess who I ran into on my very first day here?”
“Jessica Simpson?” Kyler answered, smiling.
“No! Nurse…who?”
“Never mind…it was a joke.” Kyler was embarrassed that his sarcasm was once again lost on Potts. “So, you ran into Nurse Walling on your first day here, eh?” Kyler threw in quickly.
“And how? I was walking into the hospital and she was walking out. We did a double take at each other and as soon as we realized who the other one was, it was back on again.”
“You started cursing each other?”
“With extreme prejudice. It was like it was yesterday…and now we were both older and uglier, so we had extra ammo to spend this time around. We started ignoring each other after that, but if we did run into one another, we would tango back and forth, each trying to get in the last word.”
Kyler now understood too well why the two of them had been at each other’s throats all day yesterday. They had been lovers once. It was almost like an anti-romance novel. Instead, of being lovers that reunited after twenty years, they were lovers who picked up the feud twenty years later. He looked over at Potts, who had drawn his knees up and draped his arms across them. His chin rested on his hands and he stared ahead reflectively.
“Any other questions?” he asked, sarcastically.
“No. That’s about it.”
He watched him for another moment, continuing to stare straight ahead. Kyler thought he saw remorse in the man’s face, but you never could be sure with a man like Potts. He might be thinking of his last bowel movement for all he knew. Both men stood up at the same time, and as they did so, they saw Opal Munn still sitting on her table, rocking back and forth, silently keeping some rhythm that only she could hear.
“Boy, she sure is a piece of work, isn’t she?” Potts said under his breath.
“Yes, she is.” Kyler answered, slowly. He looked over at Potts. “I think something’s happening to her, Colonel.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Tonight…and I’m guessing that no one els
e saw it, because no one’s mentioned it, but…when we were running…now you’re going to think that I am so full of shit when I tell you this, but when we were running, she actually passed me up.”
Potts turned to the doctor, his interest peaked. “She passed you up?”
“Yeah, she passed me up. Now Colonel, I ran the eight hundred meters in college, and I haven’t lost that many steps. A few, sure, but not many. I can run.”
“And she passed you up?”
Both men continued to watch her. “Not only did she pass me up, Colonel, she was carrying Wilbur over her shoulder.”
“What?!”
“I know…I know…it sounds crazy, but I saw her do it. She ran right passed me with Wilbur draped over her shoulder.”
“Cripes.”
“Yeah…and she smiled at me while she was doing it.”
“She smiled at you?”
“Yes, she smiled at me with the eeriest looking smile you’ve ever seen. I thought I was going to shit a Christmas tree right there.”
He watched Potts for a moment, who was looking at him as if he were taking in all of this new information, and sorting through what was real and what was bullshit.”
“Damn.”
Kyler wasn’t sure how to take Potts’ “damn.” Did he believe him or did he think that the cheese had slipped of the old cracker just like Opal’s and Rob Olsen’s had. Potts turned back to Kyler.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
Potts laughed. “After all I’ve seen in the last two days, nothing could throw me.”
“So…you believe me?”
“Yes. Normally I wouldn’t, but I saw something for myself first hand, yesterday.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah…”
“What was it?”
Potts kept total eye contact with Kyler as he started to speak. “Yesterday…when we were crossing the field trying to get to the base, I was cussing at former Cpl. Munn, remember?”