Dead End

by Howard Odentz

  The professor looked at me and raised one eyebrow. “A talking crow?” she repeated. “Really?”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  If the professor were wearing glasses, which she wasn’t, she would have stared over the rims at me like I was misbehaving in a classroom. Meanwhile, Manny’s stomach growled long and loud.

  “Do you know where we can get anything real to eat?” he asked. “It’s been a day or so. I’m a little sick of picking through convenience store food and trying not to notice all the junk they put into that processed stuff.”

  Spoken like every other hippie in this part of the world.

  “Where’s a good organic store when you need one?” said Jimmy, and they both stared at each other like they had finally found a kindred spirit in all this madness.

  “We have food,” I said. “But we have to go. One of our . . . um . . . my . . . girlfriend . . . had a little accident. She’s bleeding so we’ve got to get her to my dad so he can patch her up.”

  The professor raised that one eyebrow again.

  “He’s a doctor,” Trina said. “And Tripp’s right. We have to go.”

  I turned back toward the bus, the little creases on my forehead folding in on themselves. I wondered how many copies of that picture were out there.

  I wondered how many people knew that Diana and her soldiers were searching for us.

  I even wondered how many of those people would actually give us up if given half the chance. Then my thoughts turned to the three we had just found.

  If they knew the real reason why Cheryl the It and her cronies didn’t help them, Professor Billings would have probably started a protest. Niki would have melted into a puddle of tears, and Manny would have refused to believe there are people that evil in the world.

  He was far too mellow for such awful truths.

  “What about us?” asked the professor.

  I stopped and shrugged. “Unless you’re planning on turning us over to the people at Black Point Fort, I guess you’re coming on a bus ride.”

  36

  AS TRINA DROVE toward Apple, and Bullseye continued to act as an extra set of eyes, we told our three new arrivals everything.

  I started with Chuck Peterson back in Littleham and ended with what happened up at the Peace Pagoda, where we stupidly thought that all we had to do was tell Diana what we knew so she would leave us alone.

  “Yeah, not so much,” I mumbled.

  “It seemed like a good plan,” said Manny.

  “Good in theory,” I shrugged. “Not in practice.”

  If digesting everything that happened to us wasn’t enough, I then dropped the bomb on them that the color of their skin, or the fact that Manny had a bum peeper made them unlikely candidates in any sort of new world order.

  The professor quietly listened as she poked and prodded at Prianka’s wound while we talked. “You’ll be fine,” she told her as she tore a fresh piece of Jimmy’s tee-shirt off of the bloody wad and wrapped it tightly around her arm. “We just need to get this cleaned and some proper bandages on you.”

  “Thank you,” said Prianka when the professor was through. I could tell right away that Professor Billings was one of the good guys. Kindness billowed off of her. Besides, I was more than happy to have a good adult on our side. I had my fill of people like Diana and Dr. Marks, or even Freaky Big Bird. Professor Billings was cut out of a different and much better cloth than the rest of them.

  “Have you met anyone else?” asked Jimmy. “Anyone alive, that is?”

  “A few,” said Manny. “Most people just ran when they saw us. I’m not sure if they thought we were dead or if they were just afraid because I look like I’m from the barrio.”

  “Hardly,” said Prianka, and we all laughed. Our laughter mellowed into giggles and our giggles eventually turned to silence.

  After a moment, Professor Billings sighed and said, “Who would have thought that the world would come to this?”

  “Conspiracy theorists,” said Jimmy. “They’ve always said that we’d find a way to kill ourselves in some sort of apocalypse.”

  “That, and like every video on the Internet,” I added. “It’s an old story. Who knew it would ever really happen? I can barely spell the word ‘apocalypse,’ let alone pronounce it.”

  “Apocalypse,” tweeted Andrew as he hopped off of Sanjay’s shoulder and onto the seat in front of where Niki and Manny were sitting. “Apocalypse. Apocalypse.”

  Niki stared at the crow for a moment then reached her hand out to him. Andrew cocked his head sideways and regarded her for a few seconds before quickly jumping to her hand and pulling himself onto her shoulder.

  Meanwhile, Newfie lumbered down the aisle and stopped in front of Professor Billings.

  “My,” she said. “You’re a big one.”

  “Woof,” barked Newfie in a calm and gentle way. Then he took one of her hands in his mouth and slobbered all over it.

  Behind Newfie came Whitby. She slowly slinked over to Manny, her tail between her legs, and stared up at his patched face with her big, round, bug eyes. After a moment, she jumped up on her hind legs and stuck her snout right in front of his nose and sort of started sticking her tongue up his nostrils.

  “That’s pretty disgusting,” I said.

  “I don’t think there’s anything pretty about it,” Manny agreed. “But hey, she’s too sweet to turn away.”

  “Yeah, well, no one’s turning anyone away here,” I said. “If Andrew and the dogs like you guys, that’s good enough for us.” I settled back in my seat next to Prianka, and she put her head on my shoulder.

  A couple times over the next few hours we heard helicopters overhead. Every time that awful noise sliced through the night, Trina pulled the bus over to the side of the road and we all sat quietly waiting for the chopping sound to disappear.

  At some point, after Prianka seemed to be resting her eyes, Professor Billings and I had a long conversation in the back of the bus. I repeated our story and what happened at the very last second, when I realized the implications of letting that old bat, Diana, know what she had done.

  Super immunity in her hands was bad—very bad.

  Professor Billings sat somberly in the seat across from me as I poured my guts out to her like she was my guidance counselor at school and something really wrong was happening at home.

  She was so nice and understanding.

  “No one should ever have to make a decision like that, let alone you and your friends. That’s too much responsibility for too few to carry.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” I said. “I still don’t feel any better about it. I sort of feel like I just let a whole generation down, you know? Anyone can get bit and turn at any time. Meanwhile, there’s a fix out there somewhere.”

  “Well, maybe this generation will just have to be a little extra-careful,” she told me. “The next generation is fully immune. They can do the heavy lifting and put this world of ours back on the right track. Our responsibility is to raise them well enough so they’ll turn out as good as you and your friends.”

  My face flushed. I didn’t feel like I turned out good at all. I felt like I was cursed. Trina and I were doomed to spend the rest of our lives protecting the people we loved the most—our friends—our families— while they constantly looked over their shoulders, always wondering if this was the day they’d get bit.

  We’d always carry that burden along with Randy Stephens and Freaky Big Bird. They were immune, too.

  Somehow, I couldn’t imagine Felice standing up for anyone besides herself, but stranger things had been known to happen. People could change.

  I’d been changing since the very first moment I saw Chuck Peterson’s eyeball fall out of his head back in Littleham. If I could change, so could Freaky Big Bird
.

  “Thanks for listening,” I told Professor Billings when we were through talking. It was nice to get some of that stuff off my chest. I still felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, but somehow that weight seemed a little lighter than before.

  When we finally arrived back in Apple, the giant Walmart stood in front of us.

  Just about twenty-four hours before, we had left my parents and the others locked inside with bicycle chains and some lame-ass poster about how we were going in search of Diana.

  I think that stunt was probably going to go down in history as one of the more reckless things I’d ever done. Even since Necropoxy began, I routinely put myself in some questionable situations.

  I had to. Still, there were a couple of adults inside named Mom and Dad who might think otherwise.

  Now it was time to find out.

  I stared out the windshield at the front doors of Walmart. Regardless of whether I wanted to or not, I was going to have to go back inside, confront my parents, and tell them what happened. I didn’t know what that was going to look like. My parents were probably sick with worry. I could just imagine my Aunt Ella struggling to hold my dad back from throttling me silly for ever leaving in the first place.

  Trina put the bus in park just inside the parking lot entrance and got out of her seat. “Home sweet Walmart,” she said.

  “Is there really a working shower in there?” Niki asked.

  “Shower,” drooled Manny and his eyes glazed over like he had just reached Nirvana. “A shower would be awesome. I feel like I’ve been living in a sewer.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Trina. “We still have to get past a bunch of really angry adults who are probably worried sick about us.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage,” said Professor Billings. “It seems like you’ve all done really well so far. Facing the people inside that building has got to be better than what you faced back at the Peace Pagoda.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “You haven’t met Freaky Big Bird.”

  Manny chuckled. “What’s a Freaky Big Bird?”

  Sanjay held Poopy Puppy to his head and nodded several times. “Big Bird is a character from the children’s television show Sesame Street,” he said. “He is eight feet and two inches tall, and is considered to be an anthropomorphic canary. Big bird can ice skate, roller skate, dance, sing, write poetry, and even ride a unicycle. He lives in a large nest next to 123 Sesame Street and owns a teddy bear named Radar.”

  “Um, okay,” said Manny while the rest of us giggled. “But what makes Freaky Big Bird so freaky?”

  Jimmy, who was the closest, reached over and put one hand on Manny’s shoulder. “You’ll see soon enough,” he said.

  “If we survive that long,” I mumbled.

  At that moment, I wasn’t so sure.

  37

  THE BICYCLE CHAINS weren’t looped around the handles to the front door anymore. When I saw the naked glass all the color drained from my face, and since I’m so white I’m almost an albino, there wasn’t much color there to begin with.

  Trina pulled the bus to the opposite side of the building from the alley leading to the back. There were dense woods to our left. Between the trees and the side of Walmart, we figured no one would notice the bus from the sky.

  All of us quietly let ourselves out and edged along the front of the building, scanning the early morning for wandering poxers that might materialize out of the darkness, but nothing came at us.

  I was still scared, though. I was scared because the bicycle chains were gone.

  “Now there’s a pickle,” whispered Jimmy when he saw the empty door handles.

  “Where did the chains go?” said Bullseye. Immediately his hand reached for the gun in the back of his pants, but Whitby let out a warning growl.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so, Bud,” I said to Bullseye, who immediately got a pissed-off look on his face.

  “What if something’s wrong?” he snapped. “If there aren’t any chains on the door, something could have happened. Anything.”

  Prianka was holding her left elbow up with her right arm. “And we’ll deal with that if we need to, but for now, I’m with Tripp. We’ve had enough of guns for the time being, don’t you think?”

  Bullseye reluctantly let his hands fall to his sides. “Maybe they took the chains off to let Dorcas in,” he grumbled.

  Hopefully that was the case and she was inside, safe and sound.

  Sanjay, with Newfie and Whitby at his side and Andrew perched on his shoulder, quietly stepped forward and placed the palm of his hand on the glass. After a moment he said, “My wards have held,” as though his magic was actually real, and he could feel it. “There’s nothing bad inside.”

  “We’re in the Twilight Zone, aren’t we?” whispered Manny.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Is magic any stranger than poxers?”

  Sanjay turned to face the rest of us. “Rod Serling says, ‘You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead—your next stop, the Twilight Zone.’”

  “Yup,” said Manny. “We’ve definitely crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”

  Professor Billings put her hand over her mouth, but I knew that she was smiling. Sanjay made people do that sometimes.

  I bent down on one knee so I was facing Prianka’s brother. Whitby wagged her tail and licked my face. Newfie just drooled on my shoe. “Sanjay,” I said. “We’re relying on you. If you say it’s safe inside, we’re going to believe you.”

  “It’s safe inside,” he said.

  “Good enough for me.” I stood and rubbed my hands together, reached for the handle on one of the doors, and quietly pulled.

  Seconds later we were all standing by the gumball machines.

  “Where is everyone?” whispered Trina.

  “It’s like five in the morning,” I whispered back. “I’m sure they’re sleeping.”

  “But the doors weren’t chained,” she said. “Don’t they know how dangerous that is?”

  “Obviously not,” I shrugged. “You can only teach adults so much. At some point you have to let them go and hope they make the right choices.”

  “Ahem,” said Professor Billings. “I think we’re a tad better than that, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “You use words like ‘tad.’”

  She smiled again. Yeah, Professor Billings was a good egg, just like Dorcas Duke. Age didn’t show what was inside somebody. Neither did skin color. A smile or even a laugh was the absolute best way to take stock of a person.

  Jimmy rolled forward a little bit. Andrew immediately jumped from Sanjay’s shoulder and landed on top of Jimmy’s head. He flapped his wings a few times and quietly cawed—his version of a crow whisper.

  “What is it, Andrew?” he said. “Is there someone there?”

  Tense seconds later Andrew repeated his words, but softy. “Someone there,” he squeaked. “Someone there.”

  Suddenly, a brilliant flash exploded in front of us. Niki yelped and grabbed onto Manny. Sanjay put his hands over his eyes. It took me a second for my own eyes to adjust. Just like back at Jolly’s Pharmacy in Guilford, there was a flashlight shining right in our faces. For a sickening moment, I relived everything that happened with Roger Ludlow, and how he almost fed me to his dead wife, Millie.

  “Who’s there?” I heard an unfamiliar voice say. The voice didn’t belong to my parents, and it didn’t belong to any of the other people we saved. To the best of my recollection, it didn’t even belong to any of the soldiers we had met along the way.

  Bullseye didn’t waste a second. “I have a gun,” Bullseye called into the dark in his most
threatening, twelve-year-old, pre-adolescent, super- idiot, doesn’t-know-when-to-give-it-a rest voice.

  Oh geez, not this again. “No, he doesn’t,” I barked as much as to him as to the person on the other side of the light. Then I gave Bullseye a look that almost made him flinch.

  Almost.

  “What do you mean, ‘Who’s there?’” Trina growled. “Who are YOU?”

  My sister never missed an opportunity to be the stronger of the two of us. She thrust out her chest and balled her hands into fists like she was ready for a fight. I immediately grabbed onto her arm.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I told her.

  She hissed something at me that at any other time would have gotten her grounded for life, and yanked her arm away from me. Then she turned toward the blinding glare of the flashlight. “Yeah,” she repeated herself. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my Walmart?”

  The beam of the flashlight started bouncing up and down in mid-air. I was fairly sure that whoever was holding it was giggling.

  “Now there’s a new claim. Your Walmart?” the voice asked.

  “This place is ours,” Trina snarled.

  Again, the light bounced up and down and I was positive whoever was holding it was downright laughing, and not a little, but a lot.

  Slowly the beam of light closed in on us until, out of the aisles, a hand appeared attached to the flashlight. The hand was attached to a body, and the body was attached to another hand holding onto a piece of paper that was unfortunately all too familiar.

  “Nice picture,” a guy said. He was thirty or so, maybe even a little older. He had dark hair and really white teeth, like someone out of a toothpaste commercial. I guess he was good-looking in a soap opera kind of way.

  He was also wearing all white—like a doctor.

  Like a pretty doctor.

  “We’re photogenic,” I blurted out, starting to get really scared.

  “Good for you,” the guy said. “But I don’t think taking a good picture is exactly working for you these days.”