At first, Fixer entered the ocean with trepidation. But when his half-sister took his hand and led him step by step toward the breaking waves, he was buoyed by her confidence, and for the first time in his life felt protected. After that, he threw himself into the surf with reckless abandon, and the two of them rode the waves until their mother could barely see them framed against the setting sun and had to wade into the water herself to pull them out to begin the long trek home.
Now, years later, every Sunday, Tory and Fixer continued the tradition they had begun as children. They got up before sunrise, took the two-hour drive to the coast, were in the water before eight a.m., and floated on their surfboards atop the cresting waves. They would share what had happened the week before, what they hoped for the days ahead—chuckle, cry, and then catch as many rides as possible until the sun began to descend and they were almost too tired to crawl into shore.
It was the time each week Fixer had treasured.
Until today, when it had all gone so wrong.
“Six.”
The number came out of his mouth, warbled. Fixer wondered if the anesthesia was starting to do its thing.
Or maybe it was his lips trembling as he remembered what had happened when they’d come out of the water.
They had caught fewer waves than usual. Not because there weren’t any good sets. On the contrary; the surf was big. At least four feet. The few rides they’d taken lasted forever—the curl kept going, and standing up on the surfboard with the entire coast spread in front of him, Fixer had felt he was on heaven’s highway.
He had a big decision to make. Abe was going to retire. Fixer had never even considered that a possibility—you walked up to the building each day and saw the giant sign flashing Abe’s name in red neon—and one couldn’t imagine walking inside the building and not seeing the man himself barking orders between humongous bites of a schmeared-up bagel. It was only when Abe told him he’d been there for close to forty years that Fixer realized he’d spent a decade in the garage himself.
“The wife wants to go to Mexico,” Abe had told him. Fixer knew the woman had family down there and was always after Abe to spend more time with them. But Fixer never thought Abe would actually do it. “And I’m tired of trying to rub forty years of grease off my palms.”
Fixer could see Abe’s point. But he felt like he was being abandoned all over again—this time by a father figure he knew as opposed to one who had refused to even acknowledge his existence. And this hurt even more.
“What happens to the garage?”
“Well, the way the wife spends money, I guess I’m going to sell it.”
“To who?” asked Fixer, wondering what asshole he was going to end up working for. That is, if the new owner would even hire him.
“I thought maybe you’d want to buy it,” said Abe.
Fixer was knocked speechless. Owning the very same place he’d almost been hauled away to jail from years earlier was enough to blow his mind. Then he came to his senses. He had no money—he could barely afford to help his sister with the rent on their mother’s small house. How was he going to buy a garage?
He told that to Abe. The garage owner nodded, not surprised. “Just think about it. If it’s something you really want, maybe there’s a way for you to pull it off. Get an investor. Or a partner.”
Then Abe said the thing that kept echoing through Fixer’s now-aching head. “I just wish I could give it to you, Fixer. You’re like the son I never had.”
Fixer had felt the tears well up in his eyes as Abe again told him to consider it. And consider he did—all the way on the Sunday drive to the coast and for a good part of the day while he and Tory lay on their boards, floating in the Pacific.
Finally, when Tory had asked him what planet his brain was on, Fixer told her about Abe’s offer.
She listened intently and when Fixer was done, she stared out at the bobbing horizon for the longest time.
Then she rolled over and smiled at her baby half-brother.
“How ’bout I put up the money and we go in as partners?”
It was the happiest moment of Fixer’s life.
“Five.”
“Easy, easy,” whispered the anesthesiologist.
Sure enough, Fixer’s breath had quickened.
He’d been so excited. . . .
And then. . . .
As the sun began to set, Tory and Fixer waded through the surf, toting their boards. They made plans for the future as they made their way up the deserted beach. Fixer was still overwhelmed by the generosity of Tory’s offer, but she insisted it was a no-brainer.
“You’re the only family I have in the world. I’ve watched you go from a kid who was destined to end up in juvie to Abe’s right hand—why wouldn’t I want you to have this opportunity?”
She had saved up a decent amount from the bookkeeping job she’d held for the last six years, and they could always take a second mortgage on their mother’s house as collateral on the loan. Tory could run the accounting at night and keep her day job; that way there would be another income streaming in. In the meantime, Fixer could start building the business. By the time they reached the parking lot, they were dreaming of expansion and franchises.
“Fixer’s. Perfect name for a garage,” Tory had said. “I can see it now. One in every big city.”
Fixer laughed as he helped her strap her board on top of the car. He couldn’t wait till Monday morning when he’d go in and tell Abe he had himself a buyer.
He was so excited he didn’t notice the jumpy man emerge from the shadows.
By the time the man raised a gun, it was too late to do anything.
“Four.”
Fixer shifted around on the table, feeling all sorts of strange. He thought his heart was beating faster, but also felt his mind starting to slip away. The anesthesiologist might have been right—maybe no one ever did get to zero.
The gun was pointed directly at Tory, who had just grabbed her purse from where she’d stowed it under the driver’s seat.
“Gimme the purse.”
The man had been lurking in the darkness beside the old brick surf shack that had been closed for years, not just the day. He was jittery, probably hyped up on something he needed the dough for, a thirty-year-old guy going on sixty who would never make it that far.
Fixer was still clinging to his surfboard as the man approached Tory. She clutched her bag closer; the thought of giving it up was not even a consideration.
“No,” she said, plain and simple.
“Whadaya mean ‘no’, lady?”
“Go to hell,” Tory told him.
Fixer looked frantically around. They’d stayed out in the water much too long. Not a living, breathing soul in sight—except for a gun-toting hype who was getting increasingly annoyed.
“Tory. He’s got a gun,” Fixer said, stating the obvious.
“I’m not giving him my purse.”
Fixer wondered how things could go to shit in a split second; only moments before he’d been dreaming of the future and now they were looking down the barrel of a pistol that could end everything right there.
“Give him what he wants, Tory.”
“Unh-uh,” said Tory as she moved toward the car.
One step.
That’s all it took for all hell to break loose.
The man lunged with the gun, his finger itching toward the trigger.
“Get the hell back here!”
Fixer swung the surfboard as hard as he could against the side of the hype’s head. The man went crashing to the ground but still held onto the gun. Fixer yelled at Tory.
“You all right?”
“Watch out!” she cried.
Fixer whirled just in time to see the man trying to get back on his feet, fumbling with the gun. Fixer hurled himself at the gunman, and they tumbled to the concrete.
Tory kept screaming for help that would never come, as Fixer grabbed the man’s hand and they struggled for control of the gun
. They rolled over and over until the air was split by a deafening sound.
Gunshots. Two of them.
The gunman scrambled away from Fixer, who was holding the gun. He realized that his finger was on the trigger and he had somehow fired it twice in the tug-of-war.
No wonder the hype was running as fast as he could out of the parking lot.
Then, Tory was hovering over him, still clutching the purse.
“You’re crazy,” Fixer managed to get out—right before he realized his head hurt like a son of a bitch.
He raised his hand to his temple and yelped in pain. When he looked at his palm, it was covered in blood.
Tory screamed again.
“You’ve been shot!” she said.
How was that possible, Fixer wondered? Hadn’t he been the one to pull the trigger?
Then, he wasn’t thinking anything—because he passed out.
“Three.”
The wooziness was starting to take over from the anesthesia. Fixer felt like he was falling in the emptiness, the same bottomless pit he had emerged out of hours earlier to find himself in a hospital emergency room.
A ricochet.
Fixer had indeed pulled the trigger. Two shots had gone into the air. One bounced off the brick wall of the abandoned surf shack and somehow found its way directly into the side of Fixer’s head.
And in that miraculous way things sometimes work out, it lodged directly into a spot in his skull that not only spared his life, but allowed him to regain consciousness with nothing but a horrendous headache.
But, as the emergency room doctor—who looked like he should still be in high school—explained to him, Fixer’s luck ran out right there.
Because there was no guarantee the bullet would remain exactly where it was currently residing. One shift to the right and he’d be lucky to end up a drooling, blithering idiot for the rest of his days. If it scooched to the left, he was just plain dead.
So, it was straight to surgery to get the bullet out. A complicated six-hour operation he had maybe a fifty percent chance of surviving. When he asked what were his chances of survival without surgery, the doc simply shook his head.
“It’s so bizarre,” he told the sobbing Tory right before they wheeled him to the OR. “I feel fine. Except for this nagging headache—but I could live with that.”
“But that’s the point,” she said. “You probably won’t. And how do we open Fixer’s if you drop dead on me?”
“Franchises.” Fixer corrected with a smile. “We’re opening franchises, remember? At least a dozen. We’re going to be so damn busy you won’t believe it.”
They had reached the doors leading to the operating suites and Tory wasn’t allowed to go any further. She asked the nurse wheeling the gurney to give her one minute. She took hold of her half-brother’s hand.
“You just come out of there.”
Fixer began to nod, but the pain almost made him pass out. He made sure not to wince, not wanting to worry Tory any more than she already was.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Do better.”
“I’ll see you soon, Sis.”
They wheeled him inside.
“Two.”
How ’bout that?
I’m gonna make it. All the way to zero. Even lying here on this gurney in the OR with a bullet in my brain.
“One. . . .” he said drowsily.
Sleep was coming. He could feel it.
But Fixer was determined. He struggled to fight it off. He was gonna show this guy.
Zero, here I come. Maybe negative numbers.
He opened his mouth to continue the countdown.
But the doc was right.
No one ever got to zero.
The room was flooded with purple light.
The first thing Fixer noticed was that his head had stopped hurting.
Then he thought, this seemed like a very strange place to be in recovery.
The surface felt weird. Hard.
As his head cleared, he realized he was prostrate on a cold concrete floor. Fixer’s eyes focused further to see he was actually in the middle of the hospital corridor.
That’s totally bizarre, he thought. If Abe’s medical insurance didn’t pay for the whole operation, he was going to sue the hospital’s ass for inept treatment.
He struggled to his feet and looked around.
The hospital was completely empty. Not only wasn’t there a person in sight, it looked like someone had cleared out half the furniture. He turned the other way, and saw the operating suites. The last thing he’d remembered was being wheeled into surgery there.
Fixer took a few steps forward and pushed through the double doors.
Sunshine filtered in through skylights, illuminating portions of the room.
Again, there wasn’t a single soul.
Strange—when he’d been going to surgery it seemed like there had been at least fifty people buzzing around patients getting prepped.
He also noticed there wasn’t a single piece of medical equipment.
He reached for a bank of light switches—flipped them—but nothing flicked on. He moved through the room, wondering if he was trapped in some kind of post-op dream.
“Hello? Anyone here?”
He called out a couple of times. No response came.
Fixer passed a piece of reflective glass, then returned to it. He looked at his head and was shocked not to see a dressing where the bullet had entered.
He gulped. There wasn’t even a mark where he’d been shot.
Yep, post-op dream. Had to be it.
Might as well enjoy it, and move on.
His eyes drifted to one of the operating rooms. They were lettered A through K. He remembered he’d been in room F, because he had wondered if they put him there because it was F for Fixer.
He knocked on the double doors and all was dead quiet.
He eased them open and stepped inside.
The only illumination came courtesy of the sunlight slipping in from the other room’s skylight. At first he thought the OR was empty.
He noticed the gurney in the middle of the room.
Something was lying on it under a sheet
He saw the operating tray and tools strewn across it. Most were encrusted with blood. There was a metal bowl on the tray. In it was a bloodstained bullet.
Fixer inched closer to the body, realizing this must be that section of the daydream where he was going to wake up—the part where something totally absurd happens that makes you know you’ve been having a nightmare.
He pulled down the sheet.
It was Tory.
There was a huge incision in her head. Blood was everywhere.
She was dead.
Butchered on the very same table he’d been lying on earlier.
He started screaming.
Over and over.
But didn’t wake up.
Because it wasn’t a dream.
17
Fixer’s story floated away in the evening air, followed by stunned silence. Joad watched the wiry man stare into the campfire and absently finger his temple where a bullet had once pierced it, then disappear in a blink of purple twilight. Even Sayers, who had been awake for the entire tale, could only gaze somberly at Fixer.
Laura spoke up first. Which didn’t surprise Joad. In the short time the four of them had been together, the young girl had not been one to shy away from asking questions others avoided.
“What did you do next?”
Fixer hesitated before offering a response. It was the most pained Joad had ever seen the man.
“I took her to the coast and buried her.”
“Long way,” said Joad.
“Took the better part of a week. She loved the water so much, I thought it only fitting she had to be laid to rest there.” Fixer shook his head, remembering. “I couldn’t believe how the world had changed in a single day. I never saw a car or truck. Half the buildings were gone and the ones left had not
hing in them—certainly nothing to power up and make food or get heat.”
“What about people? See many of them?” asked Sayers. Joad found it interesting that even the jaded physician had been caught up in Fixer’s woeful saga.
“Only a few. None wanted to talk. Most ran and hid. I think they were also trying to wrap their heads around what happened.”
“Did you see other dead people?”
Laura asked softly, seemingly frightened about the kind of answer she would receive.
“Funny you should ask,” he replied. “I didn’t see a single one. Only my sister.”
“I wonder why,” said Sayers.
“I’ve been asking myself that for seven years.”
“Must have to do with The Strangers,” said Joad.
“Well, I know that.”
Fixer shot him a tell-me-something-I-don’t-know look. Joad gave it his best shot.
“I think they wanted you to know that you’d been spared. That you were meant to continue.”
“Instead of my sister? That makes no damn sense. She was a hell of a lot better person than I ever was. If it weren’t for Tory, I would’ve rotted away in some jail or more likely been dead. If someone was making decisions who got to remain and who didn’t, she should’ve been much further up the list than me.”
“The same could be said for my wife,” added Sayers. “Laura’s mother was the best person I ever knew.”
“Just because someone was good doesn’t mean they were necessarily chosen to move on,” suggested Joad. “Those brothers are living proof.”
“Then why are most people Gone and only a few Remaining?” asked Laura.
Once again, the child asked the question that got directly to the heart of the matter. Joad had spent a long time on his odyssey thinking about that very thing. For years he had been grappling with an explanation, and while he didn’t definitively know anything, he had his theories as to how things worked in this new world.
“Did you ever go bowling?”
The Seventh Day Page 12
