A little after 3:00 a.m. the train began to creep forward. As it built up speed, Knick returned to the door, pulled it open a few inches, and took a seat. He wished he'd grabbed a set of scrubs to wear under his clothes when the moist breeze blew across him.
The train chugged north, hugging and sometimes overhanging riverbanks. The towns they passed through looked ghostly in the fog at dawn. At 7:00 a.m., Knick realized he should have squirreled away some food for the trip. He had three hundred dollars with him, pocket money he'd taken out of the bank months before, on his way out of town for vacation. But he didn't want to get off the train to grab a meal; he had no idea how long it would be before another came along, and he didn't want to end up in quarantine again.
At 11:00 a.m. the train passed a water tower with "Parkersburg" painted on it before crossing the Ohio River on a dizzyingly high bridge. Knick was pleased that his luck had held, that this batch of coal seemed bound to pass through eastern Ohio on its journey. The sun heated up the boxcar. Knick took off his shirt and allowed the breeze to blow across the thick thatch of gray hair on his chest. Still no sign of illness, although he figured it was quite possible he simply hadn't come in contact yet with a carrier. He hoped that the blood he'd left behind in Beckley would be of some use.
The train passed through familiar towns, now. Belpre, Marietta, Lowell, Stockport, then at noon the city of Zanesville. He thought about bailing there, only half an hour's drive from his home in Newark, but the train was traveling too fast.
He counted his blessing when the train finally did began to slow, then came to a stop at the Conesville Power Plant near Coshocton. The facility sprawled along the south side of U.S. 16, only thirty miles east of his home. As soon as the train halted, Knick jumped down and set off across a large, cinder-strewn field to the state highway. His legs were stiff after the ride.
Now came the risky part. He took a position just off the berm of the highway, westbound side, behind a stand of pine trees where he could see cars coming, hoping to identify cops and step back into concealment before they spotted him.
He thumbed for the better part of an hour to no success before he decided stronger measures were needed. He took five twenties from his wallet and held them up in a fan as the next vehicle approached. It quickly slowed and came to a stop next to him, a Ford F-250 so tall he couldn't quite see the driver as he ran to meet it.
As he climbed in, he found the driver was so young-looking Knick had a hard time believing he had a license. The boy had hair down to his shoulders and braces that spoiled his smile.
"Hey, gramps," the kid said. "Who let you out?"
Knick snapped his seat belt. "Thanks for the lift. I'll give you a hundred dollars to take me to my house in Newark."
The kid raised his eyebrows. "I could use the gas money. But really, how did you get out? I thought every geezer in the state was in quarantine."
Knick chuckled. "I busted out. So I warn you, you're traveling with a criminal."
"Cool." He grinned and reached into the glove box and handed Knick a ball cap that read Hooper Electric. "Do me a favor, though; wear this. Your head shines like a light bulb, and bald isn't hip anymore."
The kid didn't bother holding down his usual speed just because he was transporting a criminal, and within half an hour Knick was standing in the driveway of his house.
He managed to hold off the string of expletives until the kid disappeared down the gravel drive. He and his wife Carmen had built the brick ranch house themselves, back in 1988, and raised a family there. A For Sale sign stood in a front yard that hadn't been mowed in a month.
When he unlocked the side door into the garage he wasn't surprised to find that the cars were gone; his Cherokee, Carmen's Celica. So was his riding mower, his power trimmer, his fishing gear, even his bait box. Nothing was damaged, though; no sign of vandalism.
He continued into the kitchen. The old refrigerator was still in place, but the range, new a year ago, was gone, leaving only the gas connection sticking out of the floor.
He found similar vacancies throughout the house: the heirloom dresser gone, bed still in place. The silver was gone, the stainless steel utensils still there. His gun safe was ajar, empty. All the televisions were gone, the laptop, the Xbox he'd bought for Trish's kids to play with. The wall photos of family members remained intact. He took down a photo of them all together at last summer's reunion and, hugging it to his chest, crossed the room to his ratty old recliner. He stared at it for half an hour, allowing the memories to wash over him, one sparking the next, until he could take no more sorrow. He retrieved a can of peaches from the larder, opened and scarfed them down, and stretched out in the chair. He was asleep moments later.
He woke late in the afternoon with indigestion. Luckily, there were still some antacids in the bathroom cabinet. His wife's stash of cancer meds was gone.
The water still worked, so he took a long shower. The electricity was out, though, so he ate a can of tuna cold and drank the last can of V-8 in the larder.
Rested and fed, impatience prodded at Knick to track down his grandson. Brian's old mountain bicycle was still intact in the garage, the back tire as flat as it had been two years ago when Trish's younger boy, Oliver, had abandoned it there. Luckily, Knick had some patches that hadn't dried out yet, and he repaired the inner tube. After pumping it up and oiling the chain, the bike seemed operable. He grabbed his backpack, not sure he'd be returning to the house. He also donned the ball cap to disguise his baldness before setting off for T.K's trailer, in a small park abutting the freeway a couple of miles away. He stuck to alleys on the way to avoid cops.
He arrived around dinnertime and found the front door of T.K.'s trailer open. A fat raccoon stared back at him from the couch inside.
Knick stepped off the bike, rubbing his ass. The door of the trailer next door opened and a dumpy woman whose true age had disappeared in rolls of fat only loosely contained by a tank top and shorts appeared in the threshold. She held a Mountain Dew two-liter bottle in one hand like she was strangling it.
"You looking for a place to live?" she said. "I could hook you up with that trailer for five hundred dollars a month. You could hide out from the quarantine for a while, at least."
"How much is the coon paying?"
"Damn kids, always leaving the door open. My brother's coming over tomorrow to mount a hasp so we can lock it."
"I'm not shopping," Knick said. "T.K.'s my grandson. Any idea where he's staying?"
"I didn't know he had any old relatives left. He's got a house over on Welsh Hills now, one of them new four-bedroom models. Not that he's ever invited us over, as much as we done for him over the years."
Knick knew the builder who was developing that tract: $300,000 a pop, minimum. He said goodbye, gingerly sat back on the bike, and took off.
It took him half an hour, most of it spent walking the bike up one steep hill after another, to reach the development. By the time he identified T.K.'s house by the Cherokee in the driveway, he was soaked with sweat and ready to tear into his grandson.
T.K. and Trish must have collected on his life insurance as well as those of his well-insured son and daughter-in-law, so he wasn't surprised that his grandson could afford the sprawling four-bedroom Georgian-style house with attached three-car garage. The pristine appearance of the new home was marred by the front yard, which was mostly dead sod.
Dusk was falling as he reached out to ring the doorbell, but changed his mind and tried the doorknob instead. Surprise would work in his favor.
The door was unlocked. He opened it and quietly stepped inside. His heart raced as he passed through the entry hallway.
To his left was a dining room empty of furniture, to his right the living room, a display of garish taste in crimson and velvet. From the back of the house, he could hear a snore.
He found his grandson shirtless and asleep on an L-shaped couch in the family room in front of a TV showing the Quaker State 400. A tattoo of a Colt Anacon
da backed by an American Flag covered his chest, his nipples forming the nose of two upright bullets. A small Baggie of white powder sat on a makeup mirror resting on the coffee table next to him.
Knick stepped forward until he stood over T.K. "Hey," he said, poking him on the shoulder. "Wake up." He shucked off his backpack and dropped it onto an end table. He didn't want to be encumbered if he had to dodge a punch.
T.K.'s left eye cracked open. Knick could almost hear his grandson's brain spinning up. "No fucking way," he finally said before blearily sitting up. "Where did you come from?"
"Not as dead as you'd hoped?" Knick said.
T.K. palmed his face. "You've been gone for months. How were we supposed to know you were still alive?" He fumbled on the coffee table for a cigarette and lit it with a shaking hand.
"You were supposed to hold out hope. But knowing you, you hoped I was dead. Otherwise, you wouldn't have all this."
"All this? Are you serious?" Knick was surprised by the bitterness in T.K.'s voice.
"How'd you do it?" he said. "Bribe the funeral home? Or do you have a buddy in the sheriff's office? God knows you've spent enough time with them."
T.K. rose unsteadily to his feet. Although Knick was not a small man at six foot one, his grandson had a full five inches and probably fifty pounds on him. In his fury, Knick didn't care.
"You talk to Trish yet?" T.K. said.
"I figured I'd start with you. You've got a lot to answer for."
"You disappear for half a year and now you want your shit back. Is that it?"
"I want more than my stuff back. I want my life back."
T.K. shook his head. "You think it's that simple to come back to life? You're going to fuck up everything."
"I'm sorry to ruin your binge," Knick said. "But first things first. You and I are going down to the sheriff's office so you can have them declare me alive again. Then, you're going to transfer whatever money you have left back to me, and tell RE/MAX my house is off the market. Maybe they can list this place instead."
T.K. shook his head. "Dream on, old man."
As a child, the only thing T.K. had obeyed was firm, unequivocal commands. "I'm not giving you a choice."
"Is that right?" T.K. leaned over and reached under the couch cushion. When he withdrew his hand, it held a pistol. Knick recognized it as one of his, a Walther P22 Match pistol that he used for target shooting.
"Who's going to miss you when you're already gone?" T.K. said.
As he brought the pistol up to bear, Knick snatched up his backpack and held it up to his chest. His grandson fired twice. Knick could feel the bullets strike the backpack, but they did not make it through.
Knick shoved the backpack into T.K.'s chest. His grandson took a step back and his leg bumped against the coffee table. He lost his balance and fell back onto the couch, pulling the backpack out of Knick's hands in an attempt to check his fall.
Knick instinctively reached for the backpack, but caught only the strap of the binoculars that were half out of their pocket. From the couch T.K. tossed the backpack aside, then sat up and attempted to retarget Knick. Before he could fire another round, though, Knick swung the binoculars by their strap with all that anger that possessed him, for his son, his friends, all those millions murdered before their time. The binoculars smashed into T.K.'s temple where they made a crunching sound, part broken lens, part bone. T.K.'s arms fell to his sides and his eyes became unfocused as he slowly slumped back onto the couch.
Knick took a seat on the chair next to the couch and watched as his grandson stopped breathing. He couldn't reconcile this brute with the curious boy he'd taught how to fish. He thought the plague and Carmen's death had cooked all the grief out of him, but he couldn't otherwise account for the wave of profound sadness that settled over him as he called 9-1-1.
* * *
Knick spent the next hour in the isolation ward at the local hospital sipping weak coffee and waiting for the investigating officer, before the door opened and Trish shuffled in, dressed in the now-familiar hazmat suit. From her puffy eyes he could see she'd been crying, and a lump appeared in his throat. In her he could see his wife, as though she had come back to life, young again and vibrant.
"Grandpa?" she said, stopping halfway to the chair in which he sat.
Knick stood, reached out a hand toward her, but stopped when she held up hers like a school crossing guard.
"God, Punkin, it's good to see you," he said.
She nodded, but he couldn't tell if it was in agreement or just acknowledging his words. "How is it you're still alive? T.K. said he got a death certificate from that place in West Virginia."
Knick explained where he'd been, how her brother had scammed him, how he'd tried to kill him. "I'm sorry he's dead. He gave me no choice."
"I understand." She still kept her distance, arms crossed, eyebrows tight.
Knick, attempting to calm her, took his seat again. She cautiously advanced and leaned against the examination table.
"How have you been?" he said.
She smiled, but the rest of her face didn't echo the sentiment. "Truth? We've never been better. After we got the money from your estate, we were able to put Oliver in a special school, and he's making progress like you wouldn't believe. We moved out of that piece of crap apartment and bought a nice three-bedroom in Frazeysburg. Glen's been able to quit the garage and is taking nurse's training at Otterbein, and I was able to get the knee replaced that I screwed up in that car crash when I was twenty. There's still some money left though, that we can give you back. I'm sorry there isn't more."
"Not a problem. T.K. can't have spent all his money yet. And we can sell that place he bought."
"Wanna bet? He gave all his money to a guy in Westerville he met in a bar who promised him he could double his investment in six months in the Chinese stock exchange. The guy disappeared three weeks ago, and guess what? No stocks. Now even T.K.'s new house is mortgaged up to the hilt."
"So I'm broke?"
"No, Gary and I are broke. Once we give you back what's left of your estate."
Knick processed her words for a few moments. "I'd love to see Oliver and Ben," he finally said.
Trish took a deep breath. "Maybe we could Skype you. But we can't take the risk for a face to face. I shouldn't be here myself; Glen tried to stop me. Who knows how good these suits are?"
"But I love you."
"I love you too. But . . . times change. And I buried you once already, but you didn't stay dead. How much more can you expect of me?" Tears welled again in her eyes as she stood and left the room.
* * *
When the detective finally got around to interviewing him, Knick had had plenty of time to think about the situation, about the future, and didn't hesitate to confess to murdering his grandson. Premeditated. Cold blood.
He figured that internment camp wouldn't last; they'd find a cure and free the elderly eventually, and anticipating that, Trish would never make use of the remaining money. Her family would return to the misery they'd escaped.
But if Knick was in prison for life . . . As a con, he would have no need for Trish's money, and she would feel free to use it. It was the most he could do for her, as a dead man. And if he was lucky, he'd be rejoining his wife before long anyway.
He could only hope that he wasn't truly cursed with immunity from the plague.
Diesel Dead
Tim W. Burke
Editor: Not all who do good are good.
The Cleveland bus terminal milled with merchant carts, vending machines, overpriced e-booths, all trying to grind a Federal dollar out of weary travelers. Bill pushed through the crowd, speaking apologies in Unidas and English, his nasal Illinois accent not too out of place among these Ohio Buckeyes. He clutched his canvas tote under his arm despite it throwing his balance off.
The scrap dealer in Texas had given him $400 Federal for sixty pounds of platinum and gold. Less than a penny on the dollar. Bill was grateful the dealer hadn’t shove
d a knife in Bill’s skull and taken it all.
He reached the door to the bus dock for his third ten-hour ride since running out of Texas ten days ago. Slipped outside the door to see if he could sneak a drink.
He slumped against the Plexiglas wall and sighed, taking in a noseful of sour diesel fumes. In the loading dock, the big Galleon Lines bus waited, twelve fat wheels and big gold sailing ship on the aluminum side. Down the line to his right, other bays waited for busses to accept their next customers. To his left stood the fuel pumps, surrounded by twisted pipe like musical instruments, engraved with protective wards dark with exhaust.
Bill reached into a coat pocket and unwrapped the wax paper around a bologna roll with mustard and kraut. Hunched over quick and sneaked a mouthful from his fresh pint bottle of Maker’s Mark. Bit into his lunch and between the food and drink, his stomach would be quiet for most of the day. The mustard stung his lips and he couldn’t quite lick that away.
Something scratched against metal. Scrabbled like big bugs trying to get out of a can.
Within those twisted, big pipes, something scratched.
He almost stepped toward it, surprised.
Damn, thought Bill. Haven’t heard of a crude oil–skeeter since I was a kid. Isn’t this diesel mixed up and blessed?
The scratching reminded him of the lives still in that diesel, the dead animals and dinosaurs and the like that wanted to taste and to touch, who did not realize their last moment had been blotted out by volcanic dust or the cold mud poured down their throat into their lungs.
A tall man walked out from beyond those pipes out of the darkness, staring at the tank.
Bill wondered, What’s he doing back there in the dark?
Enter the Rebirth (Enter the... Book 3) Page 16