And the Blood Ran Black

by Nathan E. Harvey

  “Look what I found! I know we’re not wanting to take anything we don’t need, but come on; I think we’ve earned this,” Moto said as he set down the glasses and began working at the cork. He paused when Jim awkwardly declined and left the room. “Really? If it’s that big of a deal…”

  “It’s not that; he’ll be alright. He’s kicking himself for not bringing his cell on the life boat. It’s driving him crazy to know what is spreading down there and not being able to warn everyone about it. He’s wanting to get word to his sister, but he doesn’t know her number. He thinks it would help to alert the media, but I’ve convinced him to wait until we can go about it the best way.”

  Jim returned to the room with a laptop in hand. “I think the internet is still working,” he announced happily. “But my friend Leuschke’s blog is still down. Unless he has it hidden from me, I bet I can find his number or email or something on Facebook.”

  “You should be able to find your sister’s number online too, right?” John asked.

  “Exactly,” Jim said as he typed effortlessly. “Alright here he is, number and email. Finger crossed.”

  “Hey toss me that remote,” Moto said to Jim. “There’s no way nobody is talking about all of this. That’s impossible.”

  After flipping through all of the channels twice, Moto left the TV on one of his favorite childhood movies.

  Jim dialed the number into the home’s cordless phone and waited anxiously. His eyes lit up, but only for a moment.

  “Hey, it’s Jim,” he said, before furrowing his brow. After a long pause, Jim hung up the phone without speaking.

  “It’s bad,” he explained. “Leuschke warned me not to speak and said that he’s almost positive that they’re watching him. He hasn’t been able to get online or make any outgoing calls. He decided to drive over to a coffee shop and upload some updates on another site he has access to. He walked out to his apartment’s parking garage and said there were suspicious-looking guys in a black SUV just staring at him. That’s as far as he got. The line just went dead after that.”

  “Oh my God,” Moto said. “FBI? Homeland Security?”

  “There’s no telling,” John said. “But you better believe that they’re gonna look into who called him. We need to be smart about what we do from here.”

  “We’ve got to get the word out however we can,” Jim said as he closed the laptop. “Let’s call CNN, email our congressmen, host a live vlog, anything. We just have to get the word out to a few people and it’ll spread from there.”

  “Don’t you think that would’ve already happened from your friend’s blogging over all this time if it was going to?” Moto said after finishing off his first glass. “Any attempt that we make at alerting everybody is probably going to end in us being tailed by a black SUV of our own.” He stood and walked into the kitchen to peek out the window. “I think we need to lay low for the night and stay off the computers and phones. Tomorrow, we can go start the process with people face to face instead of making it easy for them to track our every move.”

  “I’m with you,” John said. “It’s just a few hours until sunup. Then we can go rent a car and start tracking down our loved ones.”

  “I guess a few hours won’t make too much of a difference,” Jim agreed.

  Moto returned with another bottle of wine. “I don’t know about y’all, but there’s no chance I fall asleep tonight without some self-medication. I don’t want to look back on tonight and regret not enjoying my last normal night on earth as we know it.”

  “Go easy with the drinks, Moto,” John cautioned. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day. We need to stock up, find a car, and head to get Ma first thing. Jim said his sister is even farther West than that, so it’s gonna be a trek. The last thing we need is for you to be hung over if and when this outbreak does reach us.”

  “I hear ya,” Moto said with laughter as he rested his feet up on the coffee table and turned up the volume to the old comedy. “I’m actually at my peak when I’ve been drinking. I was just thinking that we should hold on to the little cash we have. Let’s just put everything on credit cards for now,” Moto continued as he sank deeper into the leather couch, tilting the bottle to see how much remained. “I’m pretty sure that’s rule one of surviving a zombie apocalypse. Stock up on resources by climbing into debt that you’ll probably never have to pay back anyways.”

  “That’s actually a great idea,” John said while swirling his red wine nearer and nearer the rim of his glass. “I initially wanted to avoid leaving a paper trail, but when you consider every angle, that’s probably the way to go. We’re going to have to use our ID’s when we rent a car anyways.”

  “We should be fine. Jim called from the land line. This phone doesn’t have any connection to us. Assuming they even know about us, they probably think we’re dead and washed up on the shore of that Godforsaken island,” Moto said while emptying the bottle into his glass.

  Jim set down the laptop with a sigh and announced that he was going to shower. The echoing sounds of Adam Sandler’s nasally laugh filled the room.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  Early the next morning, John awoke to the throbs of an unforgiving headache and an alarm that he didn’t recall setting. He cursed Moto for maintaining a steady supply of wine. He initiated a controlled fall off of the couch and stumbled toward the bathroom. Moto was unfazed with his head hanging off the edge of the love seat and his mouth gaping wide open, his snoring had finally subsided. Jim still lay in the recliner with the laptop propped up next to him. Though he didn’t move and his eyes remained closed, John sensed that he too had awoken from the alarm. That is, if he was ever able to sleep at all.

  John returned from brushing his teeth carrying a large glass of water that he seriously regretted not having chugged the night before. Moto hadn’t moved an inch, but he had resumed his sporadic, deep breathing. Scanning the room, John found that Jim had apparently given up on battling Moto’s deviated septum and had moved to a different room. Combating a half burp, half hiccup, John pulled his boots back on and began to search the house for Jim. Lying on the floor near the front door John found a hastily scribbled note. Skimming quickly, John surmised that Jim was gone and had no intention of returning. John swung open the door, but saw no sign of him.

  “Moto, start stirring,” John called into the next room.

  He walked over to the recliner to check the laptop for any sign as to where Jim may have gone. There, he found that the laptop was no longer propped up between the chair and the end table. John tossed a few light coasters toward his brother’s gaping mouth as he yelled out a couple of creative threats for what would happen if Moto didn’t get moving. He went to check the outlet at the desk where the laptop’s charger had previously been plugged, and saw that the charger too was gone. Jim had taken it. John suspected that he planned to go online and spread a warning about the outbreak.

  “Get up!” John yelled louder and heaved the only object within his reach toward his brother.

  “What the…?” Moto gasped and dodged to the floor. “Really? A freakin’ paper weight?” he yelled from the hardwood.

  “We’ve gotta go. Get dressed,” John said without apology as he read the note more thoroughly.

  “I can’t not warn my family. I don’t expect you to understand. Don’t look for me. Thanks for everything. Good luck.” -Jim

  John was surprised with how fast Moto recovered and walked up behind him, greeting John with a coaster to the back of his head. Amidst an impressive yawn, Moto managed to ask about Jim’s decision to disappear. Before John could finish reading the note aloud, Moto had returned to and flopped back down onto his couch.

  “No, get up,” John said. “We’re still leaving.”

  “Why?” Moto asked, attempting somewhat successfully to drink from John’s glass of water while still lying prone. “We wouldn’t even know where to look.”

  “We’re not looking for him,” John answered. “But we are still leavin
g.”

  By the time the fog had lifted from Moto’s head, they’d already arrived at the rental place. Moto perked up just in time to start a fight, arguing that they should go the more luxurious route and splurge for a Hummer. John was already breathing in to begin listing off some of the numerous reasons why they shouldn’t before he remembered the realistic chance that they would never actually have to return the car. Possibly even more important, there was also a very real chance that they would find themselves in some situations that demanded good ground clearance and 4X4 capability. John was about to oblige before a large diesel truck parked further down the aisle caught his attention. After some brief debate about aesthetics, John easily convinced his car-savvy brother by pointing out that the Hummer’s chassis was almost identical to that of a Tahoe. In addition, diesel would help avoid some of the predictable gasoline issues that would undoubtedly arise in the case of a major panic. Diesel would get slightly better mileage for such a heavy vehicle, but more importantly, they could re-fuel at any truck stop while all of the minivans filled with families lined up around the block for the gasoline pumps. The less volatile oil would provide a longer shelf life, and if possible, they could commandeer a large storage tank of diesel that could service both the truck and a large generator.

  Not knowing how long they had before the outbreak stirred up a panic in their area, the Chow brothers decided to first check their mother out of the hospital, as this would likely be among the worst possible places to seek shelter for a shit-hit-the-fan scenario. If they were quick enough, the necessary supplies should still be readily available once they had secured their mother.

  They knew the area well, having visited this hospital every chance they got in between stints of training that led up to their deployment. It had now been almost five years, though, since either brother had seen their mother. She’d been in and out of the hospital for various health issues for much of their upbringing, but being so far away only intensified the pain of being without her. Regardless of what situation they’d find upon entering the hospital, waiting until the next morning to visit their mother was not going to be an option. John feared that the faces blurring past in the hospital’s hallways may no longer be those of the staff that they had come to know so well over the years. Even without the extenuating circumstances that had rewritten the course of their existence, it would take much more than a determined nurse to turn away the two sons.

  It was already approaching sundown when John finally pulled into the usually packed parking lot nearest the main building. Clipping the curb with his back tire, John took a ticket from the dispenser to raise the lever arm. Moto had unbuckled and was stretching his neck to look for the best possible parking spot even as John was already turning into the first pair of adjacently vacant spots.

  “Really? Why don’t we just have mom walk home, then?” Moto asked.

  “I’ll pull around and pick her up,” John answered.

  “Look at this,” Moto said, observing the truck hanging out into the aisle and blocking two spots. “I can’t even tell which spot you were aiming for.”

  “It’ll make getting back outta here that much easier,” John said, turning his back as the truck chirped. “Lay off.”

  “Not as easy as if you’d have just backed into the spot like a normal person,” Moto chastised.

  “These rows are too narrow for this truck,” John argued. “The turning radius makes it feel like I’m driving a school bus.”

  Moto let out a chuckle as he jogged to catch up to John. “You know the turning radius is actually tighter when you’re going in reverse in a truck like this?”

  “If your strategy is to flap your gums at me until I hand over the keys, then I’ll just let you know now that it’s never gonna happen,” John said. “Besides, mom would never climb into a car with you behind the wheel.”

  The attendant at the front desk was leaned back in her chair, and barking into her cell phone at someone. From the sound of it, John guessed that this was that familiar argument when her boyfriend should know why she’s upset, and not have to ask. The distraction made for an easy duck into the elevator without harassment for their social security numbers and thumbprints or whatever current red tape policy some lawyer had dreamed up. Their mom was in room 217 of the newest wing--a spot that they had fought like hell to secure for her. It was a large upgrade from her first room in the old wing where patients had to share. The televisions in the old wing were huge boxes of plastic instead of the familiar, more common flat screens that you now saw in most places. Moto always remembered looking up at the rickety stands that the TVs rested on, wondering how they’d still not fallen.

  Upon entering the hall, though, a familiar plain-faced yet kind nurse approached the two. She was shocked to see the brothers, not just because of the long gap between visits, but because their mother had not been in her building for a long while.

  “It’s so good to see you two! It’s been forever,” the nurse greeted them. “Hey, did they not give you nametags at the…?” She cut herself off and dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand.

  “Yeah, we had to come by and see mom first thing. How’ve you been?” John asked.

  “I’m good, I’m good,” the nurse paused. “Listen, I hate to be the one to tell you, but your mom isn’t here anymore. She’s actually over in Heldenfels… the cancer wing.”

  “What? Since when?” Moto asked aggressively.

  “I’m not sure, but it’s been a good while now. Hey, if you can wait a sec, I can get you a room number for her.”

  She returned with a slip of paper reading 237.

  “Oh, she’s still on this level?” Moto asked.

  “Not exactly, you’ll actually have to go up to level three and walk across the sky bridge to get to Heldenfels. The numbering over there makes no sense, so be sure to follow the signs,” she said, giving each man an awkward hug, before they went on their way.

  “Damn. Cancer,” Moto said as they waited for the elevator.

  John didn’t speak.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  As they approached the unremarkable cancer wing in Heldenfelds, John admitted that he’d always assumed their mother would outlive her two sons, especially once they were deployed. The two gathered their composure as they drew closer. Her new room was an upgrade for the brothers in that it was on the near side of the nurse’s station, giving them an uninterrupted path.

  “Oh my God! What a surprise!” Their mom squealed when John stirred her awake. Moto rushed back and shut the door to the hallway as John muted the television. Family Feud was on. His mom had been addicted to the show for so long that he’d lost count of the number of hosts that had come and gone.

  It was obvious by her looks that she wasn’t doing well, but she was putting on a good show as if nothing had changed in all their time apart. The flowing locks of hair that their mother had always taken such pride in were now replaced with a bandana patterned rag. After brief stories and catching up, John started in with the real reason they were back.

  “Mom, the truth is we’re not here on leave. Something terrible has happened down south, and we did everything we could to get back here to you. We’ve got to get you out of here because we think this problem is gonna make its way back to the states… sooner than later.”

  Moto noticed the rolling tray table next to his mother’s bed which held a picked over dinner with untouched pudding.

  “Oh, Lord. You mean to tell me there’s a chance I might die?” their mom laughed, shrugging off the news and slapping Moto’s hand.

  “Mind your manners. That’s for Puddin’,” she scolded. “I’m just so thankful to see you both again. I’ve probably written you boys a dozen different letters to explain everything here, but I could never bring myself to send them.”

  “You mean, that’s my pudding?” Moto asked giving a sideways glance toward John.

  “I know what I said,” she replied. “Don’t think that I’m any less sharp than
I ever was because of a little cancer. It’s not in my brain, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Mom, I don’t know what to say,” Moto started.

  “You don’t have to say a thing, Marvin,” she smiled. “Just your being here is an answered prayer. This is the last thing I needed to be able to die in peace; no one could’ve offered me anything more. Wait, scratch that. I need you boys to do one last thing for me.”

  “Anything,” John offered. “What is it?”

  “Well, two things, because you’re gonna want to kill me before the cancer can after I admit this. One, no judgments. Two, take care of Puddin’.” After a pause in which the brothers weren’t even sure what to ask, she continued. “When I sneak out to the parking garage for a smoke, I always see a beautiful stray dog. All that he’ll eat from my plate of what they swear to me is food is my pudding. He was so skinny. I just knew he’d die right after me once there was no one else to care for him.”

  “You’re still smoking?” John asked.

  “Well, seeing as you neglected the first thing for me, John, I guess you’re in charge of Puddin’.”

  John sighed and sat down as he processed everything.

  “Fine, but I’ll feel guilty forever if I don’t admit this one thing to you first,” John started. His mother eyed him suspiciously. “There is no way I’m calling a dog Puddin’. I can’t bring myself to that… not even for you.”

  “I would be disappointed if you didn’t make him your own,” his mother smiled. “I knew I could count on you. Just like I knew you’d keep your word for getting Marvin out of there if things got too hairy.”