by Jones, K. J.
Brandon’s eyes grew big.
“Another handsome man.”
Brandon moved Emily between him and the approaching Stanton. “I’m a Marine too.”
“That seems to mean something around here.”
Women’s laughter radiated from open windows. Angela and Phebe lost it, holding each other up as they guffawed.
“Brandon,” Emily reprimanded. “You are being wrong.”
“No. Yeah. Hi, Stanton. Good to meet you.” He waved from behind her.
“You’re embarrassing me,” she said.
Stanton introduced Manuel, in the same manner as earlier, and then Robert, who stayed far away from these men who announced they were Marines. His arms crossed over his chest and a distrustful glare in his eyes.
“Ignore Robert. He’s our escort home. We need an armed person in these terrible times.”
Phebe stepped out.
Stanton said. “Is this The Pheebs I’ve heard about?”
“Not sure what that means. Good to meet you.” She took a seat since there were enough vacant at the garden table. The men kept away.
“Is this everyone?”
“Angie. Nia. Where are the boys?” Phebe looked around. Tyler had vanished.
“They’re in the pool,” Nia said as she came out. “Mama said I can’t go in until I have a proper bathing suit.”
“That’s no fun at all,” said Stanton.
“I’m Nia Jackson.”
“You are, aren’t you? A beautiful young lady around all those straight boys, your mama is wise.”
“You tell her,” said Angela.
Manuel had ducked inside. He came out with a tray of cocktails. Phebe exchanged a look with Mazy. Dark-haired Manuel was abnormally good looking. Beautiful even.
The pair seemed to not be in the catastrophe. They were the best dressed, most clean people. A glimpse of hands told they had recent manicures. Meanwhile, Brandon grew a caveman beard. An ecosystem colony grew under everyone’s nails. The pair smelled good. Everyone else smelled of body odor.
“Stanton told us the house with our size clothes,” announced Mazy. She pointed to the bags.
“Why not look good during the end times, I say. The Simpsons have lovely clothes. And Mrs. Simpson, who was very stuck up, may she rest in peace, was the same size as our Mazy and Emily.”
“The husband was your size, Running Elk.”
Ben nodded, staying at a distance.
She smiled at him with a titter of laughter. He glowered at her amusement.
“They’re the ones with the antique Browning. It is a Browning.”
“Ah,” he responded. “Ah. A thirty cal M1919. How did you get that working?”
Stanton looked at Robert. “He’s the gun person.”
But Robert didn’t look eager to make friends.
“We were talking about other survivors,” Mazy switched topics.
“We’ll bring the doctor and his daughter around tomorrow,” said Stanton. “There’s another fella, but he’s a strange one. Keeps to himself and watches everything with binoculars. He makes us have radios.”
Ben’s ears piqued. “Radios? Did you say radios?” He dared to come within the homosexual strike zone.
“Yes, sir. Radios. So we can do some kind of community watch or something or another.”
“Does he have any extras?”
“Henderson is a gun nut. Probably. I don’t often socialize with him. He apparently does not care for our company. His loss. He’ll tolerate our Robert.” He flung his hand dismissively at his cousin. “Robert has gone back in the closet since all this began.”
“I have not.”
Stanton blew out air and rolled his eyes.
Ben said, “But I’m not gay. He’d talk to me.”
Emily declared, “He didn’t mean anything by that.”
“I meant what I said, Emily. I’m not. And what I am, he’d probably like me.”
“He’s an extreme right-winger,” said Stanton. “I would not be surprised if he had G-O-P tattooed to his ass.”
“If he’ll look away from him being gay, he’ll not be an asshole because I’m an Indian, I’m thinking.”
“Most likely.”
“Is he military?”
“No. A wanna-be. So Robert says.”
Ben looked at Mazy.
She nodded. “He’ll worship you then. Bring Pell.”
“Oh, please, shoot him. I dislike the man terribly. Was that a dreadful thing to say?” Stanton covered his mouth. “I’m going straight to Hell.”
6.
They hadn’t enough food in their stomachs to offset Manuel’s cocktails. Within hours, the group was drunk. Except for Phebe and Ben. As the only non-drinkers, they had to take watch. Somehow the kids, though not hanging out in the garden, got themselves drunk as well. They threw up in a garden bed.
The chickens went to sleep at sundown, finding their way to the bedding Nia had set up in the greenhouse.
Phebe let out the guests for their return in the dark and bolted the door behind them. The rest of the group had to find their beds, or some kind of surface, to pass out on.
Since she was one of two sober people, and Ben wanted to establish a watchtower sniper nest somewhere towards the top of the house, Phebe went to the marina to guard the trawler.
Like the marina in Carolina Beach, the Molly required steps from the dock to reach the opening in the gunwale at the side of the boat. The eighty-foot trawler towered over everything else.
In the other slips were docked small boats. Some outboard engine skiffs, many showing signs they were used for fishing. Coolers. Fishing lines and lures. Rods tucked to the gunwales. A lot of speedboats and small cabin cruisers. The absence of larger cabin cruisers probably attested to attempted escapes by the owners, just as occurred in North Carolina. And they became Boat People who’d go to the refugee island … where they died. She recalled when they passed Charleston on the way to the island, the population of boats was thick.
She startled at hearing a surreal croaking roar in the deep darkness. “What the fuck?” It sounded close. Flashlight on, she scanned. Presuming it was not a lion – again – she kept the beam low for an animal. “Holy crap.” A huge alligator stretched out on a jetty of the dock. He looked about twelve feet long. She assumed it was a male based on his size. He roared. “What are you making all that noise for?” He ignored her. “Ah, a dominance display. This is your turf and you want all the other boys to know it, huh?”
He took his time turning his head to look at the terrestrial two-legged creature shining concentrated sunlight at him. She kept her distance. Alligators could run. She figured she could get away fast enough, jump onto the Molly before he got to her. Gators weren’t fast going up steps. She had him there. Much like zoms.
He watched the two-legged sunlight bearer. Reptiles had emotionless faces. Maybe that was why humans distrusted them. Or maybe it was because they ate their own young.
“This situation must be working out for you, huh, big guy? Barely any humans. No boats wrecking your shit. Loads of dead things to eat. Good deal, right?”
He watched her.
“You look like a Moe to me. Big Moe. You like that name?”
His head moved as she moved. Ironic, he probably was sizing her up as a potential threat. All twelve feet of him. She did have a gun that could hurt him bad. Did reptiles have that kind of thinking?
Or was he sizing her up for a meal?
“Hey, Big Moe. I won’t kill you if you don’t kill me. Can we have that arrangement?”
He turned away and roared. More important things pressed on his brain than her. Food and females and fighting other males.
“Yeah. You’re like some guys I know.” She laughed. “If you’d drink beer and watch football on TV, you’d be my friend Chris.”
Saying his name struck the fear she had worked hard to repress.
“Fuck!” She touched her chest above the sternum. Heart pain. Somewhere in her m
emory, she seemed to recall that was the heart chakra. Her late roommate, Rebecca, was into those types of things.
She climbed the steps and walked the starboard side walkway until reaching the hangout deck. Flashlight still on. The beam illuminated the Christmas lights strung along the interior gunwale. The coffee table and all the seats, including the one from an old model pickup truck. She opened the microfridge. Empty and needed cleaning. Closing it, she looked around. The place was haunted by their energy.
She moved inside the cabin. Peter hadn’t had the chance to manically clean while on the island. The saloon was a mess. He’d really have a fit seeing chicken feathers and poo on the carpets. She could imagine him cleaning and cursing.
She stood in the kitchen, looking around. The baseball team mugs hung from hooks beneath a cabinet. The Red Sox mug remained. She’d not let anyone drink out of it. Or the Chicago Cubs one, which was Julio’s. Her blue Yankees mug sat beside the sink. She picked it up.
Laying in bed one night, Peter had told her he almost threw out that mug. He bought the set less than a month before the catastrophe and almost threw out the New York Yankees mug. He explained Red Sox fans hated the Yankees. She didn’t get why but accepted it.
Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the sight of the mug in her hands. She looked up at the ceiling, willing them to go away.
Gaze down, she caught sight of a Dock Cat toy. The pain welled in her heart chakra to an excruciating degree.
She could practically see Julio walking across the saloon. “Morning, chica.” Why he called her chica, meaning girl or little girl, she hadn’t understood.
She moved through the living room. A mess everywhere from the check-in search for the island. All the plants were gone. At least it looked different from normal. That helped. Through the companionway and down the steps. She went into Julio’s bedroom. A full-sized bed against the wall. A cot against the opposite wall. A dresser. Not much more could fit in the room.
She sat on the bed. It was made. The cot’s sleeping bag was tidy. Julio and Ben were so military at times, presented in their tidiness. Chris didn’t share that trait. But Peter had too much.
She looked at the tiny nightstand that stood between the bed and the cot. Putting the mug down on it, she lifted a framed photo. No wonder he called her chica. She looked like his daughter. Luciana, his wife, was blond. It looked natural. The family of four was squeezed in together and smiling at the camera.
What were his children’s names? She couldn’t remember. Did she know? Panic struck. What were their names? Why hadn’t she asked him about his children? What kind of self-centered asshole was she to not ask about him? Their conversations were always about her and Peter.
Things from the small closet were on the floor. Dresser drawers still open. A cat bed sat among the closet stuff. The pink bed lived in the closet for Dock Cat to hide. The searchers had tossed it out.
Julio was so caring for others. So paternal. But they treated him like teenagers treated their father, someone always there but required nothing himself. He deserved so much better.
The tears were unstoppable.
He deserved so much more.
Her fists clenched.
He deserved to be with his family, who did not even know he was gone.
She screamed.
At least Syanna Lynn’s whole family was gone. She had carried the heartbreak, the void inside her, for their loss, but continued on with a smile for everyone else. It was easier when she was constantly stoned out of her mind. But even on the island, when the sadness had set into her beautiful eyes, she put on her Southern graces smile. And she was so excited about the baby.
“I’m okay now, sugar.”
Phebe startled.
An auditory hallucination of her dead friend.
She was going insane, she concluded.
Her head whipped around, feeling the bed slightly move as if Dock Cat jumped up.
“I couldn’t save you, Dock. I am so sorry.”
She couldn’t save any of them. Syanna’s pain, in body and in spirit, was over. But the cat was an innocent.
The memory of Dock in the cage, matted fur, crazy eyes.
Evil everywhere. Cruelty. She was an innocent animal, not part of all this human-made insanity. She didn’t deserve what they did to her.
And Julio, who most desired to return to his family. Provide for them. Protect them. Love them. The evil shot him as if he was a zom. An inconvenience.
He was her friend.
What if the others had joined them? Peter. Matt. Chris. Eric. Heidi. What if they were gone too?
She screamed, “What’s the fucking point?”
If everyone she loved died, why keep fighting?
She grabbed the Yankees mug and hurled it at the wall. “What’s the point?” It shattered into chunks. The pieces fell on the cot. A primeval yell ejected from her mouth, surging up from her soul. “Ahhhh!”
“What’s in your belly is why, sugar.”
“Shut up!”
She pressed her hands against her ears.
“Shut the fuck up! You’re not real.”
“Tyler needs you, too.”
“It’s not real.”
“Look for them. Maps, sugar. Find them on the rivers. They’re lost.”
Phebe fell still. Maps.
Her feet took off. Out of the room, through the dark hall, and up the steps. Into the saloon, she turned and took the stairs to the wheelhouse.
There it was. A chest of thin drawers. Maps were inside.
The small flashlight held in her mouth, she opened the top drawer and searched. Spiral-bound books of nautical maps. She flipped pages, searching for anything with the river systems. Nothing. Tossed it aside. Onto the next. She pulled out poster-sized maps and scanned. Too many maps of the Caribbean. Probably where his weapons smuggling took place. Maps of the US East Coast. Not helpful.
“C’mon, Peter. Just one of the rivers here.”
She made it to the bottom drawer and frowned. Children’s drawings. Signed by his nieces and nephews, the redheaded freaks he often called them. Obviously, he felt more for them than his words, since he kept their drawings.
Something else was in the drawer. She reached her hand back and felt objects. Pulling them out, her fingers held a tiny red Ford Mustang. The cool 1960s kind. And a prayer card for Michael Patrick Sullivan, Jr. He had just turned eighteen, according to the dates. Another search and she pulled out a black rosary.
The prayer card was in a plastic sleeve. She flipped it over to see what the picture would be, foreseeing it would be St. Patrick, St. Bridget, or the Blessed Mother.
Instead, a folded newspaper article pressed against the prayer card. She carefully put all the objects down and unfolded the paper. It was a bit old, from the look and feel of it.
Her breath caught. It was an obituary. The feel between her fingers said it was too thick for one newspaper page. She pulled another obituary out.
Reading one after the other, the picture grew clear. Those things of Peter’s past he would not talk about. She had asked, catching mention of strange stuff, like having a brother, but he’d shut down and evade. He was a master of evasion, making his jokes or spouting out something snarky. Maybe this was why he was so good at it. He had a dragon lurking inside of him, and he had to keep the door closed or it would burn him up.
A quick math calculation, she realized Peter was ten months younger than Michael Patrick Sullivan, Jr. The parents listed were Michael P. Sullivan, Sr. and Margaret “Maggie” Sullivan. The siblings, Caitlyn, Peter, and Shannon with their ages listed.
“Oh, God.”
It mentioned Michael Jr. was the grandson of a captain in the police department.
A second prayer card slipped out of the sleeve. It was for a Captain Sullivan of the Boston Police Department.
She set out everything on the floor.
Michael Jr, known as “MJ” according to the obituary, died in a car accident. But little else on t
he death itself. He was an honors student, attending St. Bridget’s Catholic school. Peter had mentioned this school many times. He played baseball. The brothers had that in common. He was going to Harvard next year.
“Wow.”
She remembered Peter once confiding in her that he had early acceptance to Harvard, and his father was an alumnus. Michael Sr. had attended Harvard Law School.
But Peter also said he had stolen a car.
Colleges liked legacies, sure, but not if the student’s grades were bad. Peter had to have good grades. Honors level.
These disjointed facts swirled in her head.
The date of MJ’s death coincided with the end of Peter’s junior year of high school. It was April, prom time, just before graduation in May.
MJ died in a car accident in April of Peter’s junior year. According to the prayer card and obituary, his grandfather died of a heart attack less two months after MJ’s funeral.
The pieces clicked into place. Peter derailed from loss. He went from an honors student with early admittance to one of the top Ivy Leagues in the country to a car thief who joined the army at eighteen.
From all the cracks he made about his mother, Maggie, either she was a wretched mother or she did something during that time which soured his feelings for her. He sounded angry at her. And said she nightly flew a broom. But he never cited any specifics. No abuse or neglect.
Versus Tyler. Things fell out bit by bit about his horrible childhood. That’s how it went with the abused and neglected. The nasty facts fell out. But it didn’t with Peter.
He was only close to his older sister Caitlyn. They talked all the time, he said. He had invited her to move down, but she would not leave BPD and the family. Apparently, they had a gazillion relatives in the greater Boston area.
He spoke with disdain about his younger sister Shannon, and especially about his brother-in-law. The only Catholic Irish Republican in Boston and he was a redhead, to top off all the rest of the freakishness, according to Peter.
And he talked about his dad, but it sounded more like a resume of what he did for a living and where he lived. The only personal thing was Peter claimed was he got his sense of humor from his dad.
Michael Sr. lived in San Diego. The parents were divorced. Maggie had the family home in City Point, which was apparently in a good area and nowadays a very expensive house. He talked about South Boston, Southie, being gentrified into SoBo, and now property was worth small fortunes.
