“Peeps?” chirped another voice from those around the fire.
“Yeah, peeps,” Corky shot back, coupling his words with a flash of his middle finger. “You got a problem with that? Take it up with your mother. I did last night.”
He broke out laughing, an act that shook Horace so hard he felt like he would vibrate out of reality. Corky, ostensibly sensing the discomfort of the man in his care, led him to the cave wall, propped him against it, and then, free of constraint, doubled over. The laughter didn’t so much seep from his lungs as erupt like a geyser of hot air held dormant for years. Phlegm formed sticky tentacles in his beard. His body trembled. Horace thought of the way his father used to laugh, and was suddenly curious as to how this peculiar yet kind brute could experience so much joy given their current circumstances.
Very slowly, the manic outburst subsided. “Sorry, pops,” blurted Corky as he choked on his last few giggles. “Got a little outta control there.”
“That’s fine,” replied Horace.
“Guess I can really crack myself up, huh?”
“Sure can,” piped in another voice.
Corky smiled. “But I’m a blast, I tell ya.”
Yet one more voice added, “Fuck, yeah!”
Horace smiled at the banter. The odd crowd looked at him as if his being there was the most normal thing in the world. It amazed him how trusting they seemed.
After a few moments Horace steadied himself, leaving the security of the wall’s support. “Where am I?” he asked.
“A safe place,” said Corky. “Well, it’s really just a hole in the side of the mountain, but beggars can’t be choosers. Right?”
Horace nodded. “And what about Clyde? Is he here, too?”
The relaxed appearances of those before him stiffened. All of them, Corky included, looked away.
“Uh, who’s Clyde?” asked Corky.
“He is my travel companion. We escaped from Johns Hopkins shortly after the first wave of hostiles hit. We’ve been hiding in the woods ever since. It seems like forever ago. I think we were in Linville when we were taken from our shelter.” He glanced around. “Did you see him when you found me?”
Corky’s tone dropped to a barely audible murmur. “He’s…well, we saw you being marched across a field…and you, uh, fell down…the guy with you tried to protect you…you know, all brave-like…and…”
Horace leaned forward and placed his palm on the large man’s shoulder.
“He’s dead?”
Corky nodded.
A wave of vertigo spun Horace’s brain. “I think I have to sit down again.”
“Well,” said Corky, “let’s get you to the fire, at least.”
Colossal hands firmly clutched his shoulders as he shuffled his feet in the direction of the fire pit. Two of the others scooted aside to make room for him. Knees smarting, he lowered himself to the hard ground, which had been warmed by the intensity of the flames. Smoke from the fire spiraled upward and exited through a hole in the cave ceiling the size of a basketball. It was a strangely convenient happenstance, and he wondered what kind of karma these folks had built up to be awarded with such luck. After all, they still had their lives, and they still had each other, which was more than he could say.
He squeezed his eyes shut and felt the steady heat toast his wrinkled flesh. He sat there for what felt like hours, and never once during that time did any of those around him utter so much as a word. His thoughts wandered, aided by the steadiness of the crackling blaze. He saw Clyde’s face, young, boisterous, and full of life. The boy would have fit in well with this motley bunch.
Kelly entered his mind next. His heart ached for his former assistant more than he could ever admit. Her loss formed a cleft in his soul. Here he was, an old man rapidly approaching the closing bell of his life. Death surrounded him, and yet unlike most of those young souls, he’d been spared. What do I have to offer the world? he wondered. He thought of those now departed and attempted to latch on to their ambition, to restart his own dying motor through a confluence of ideals. It wasn’t working. They were gone now, and they would never be coming back. Part of him demanded that he feel lucky for his chance at survival. No matter how much he tried, however, he couldn’t ease his conscience.
“It’s funny how things work out,” he said finally, and opened his eyes. “I lived my life trying to unlock the world’s hidden mysteries, like I was unchaining some secret code to the universe. I always thought I was an oddity…the man of science who actually believes in God. Then, the world goes to hell, and what do I do? I feel sorry for myself and wish I didn’t believe…because if God does exist, he can’t be very happy with me right now.” He paused to see if any would be taken aback by his sudden admission. It seemed none did.
Corky placed his anvil of a hand on his knee. “It ain’t that bad,” he said. “I mean, you’re still alive. That’s gotta count for something.”
“I wish it did,” replied Horace. “But there’s been so much death. It surrounds me. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. Sometimes, I just don’t think it’s all worth it.”
A new, younger voice rose up from behind him. “Now that’s just dead fucking wrong,” it said.
Horace peered over his shoulder. A youngster wearing fatigues stood in front of the cave entrance. The brightness of the flames bounced off the walls and illuminated him with eerie yellow light. The boy was tall and thin, with a teenager’s tight ropes of muscle rippling down his neck. His hair was cut close to this scalp, his eyes dark and foreboding. The way he stood – rigid, with his legs spread apart and his hands on his hips – echoed the message those eyes gave.
“What makes you think you have it worse than anyone?” the kid asked, his voice a muted growl. “All of us have seen shit that would make anyone in any normal place and time shit their fucking shoes. You’re nothing special, old man. So get over it, and at least thank us for saving your worthless fucking life.”
Corky shot up. “That’s enough!” he screamed. “Leave the guy alone!”
Horace tugged at the leg of Corky’s pants. “No,” he said, “he’s right. I am sorry, son. I wasn’t thinking.”
His words seemed to disarm the young soldier. His visible angst diminished like the smoke through the hole in the ceiling. “Well, uh, apology accepted,” he muttered. “You guys, I’ll…be outside keeping watch. You got next, right Dennis?”
“Sure do, my boy,” answered an older man with a head of wavy silver hair and equally silver beard. He waved his hand. The boy opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut, swiveled on his heels, and headed back towards the cave’s mouth.
He stopped at the cusp. “I’m…glad you’re all right,” he said, barely audible, then marched out into the howling wind.
Corky sat back down and again thumped Horace’s knee. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said. “That’s Doug. He’s kinda like our own human Doberman. Don’t mind him too much. He can be a bit of a prickly fucker sometimes, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean he’s a social retard,” said Dennis the Silver Fox.
“Pretty much,” he replied before turning back to Horace and saying, “So, old timer, I don’t think we caught your name.”
“Horace. Horace Struder.”
“Okay, then that’s settled, Ho-bag,” he said with a grin. It looked as if he’d lose control of his mirth again, but he held it together and gestured in the direction of his circle of friends.
“Go ahead guys, introduce yourselves.”
“I’ll start,” the man sitting beside Corky said. He was much too lean, with a comical blonde mullet. “Name’s Larry Nevers. I’m a trucker, just like good ‘ol Corky here. Was on my way back from a drop in Roanoke when the shit went down. But you can just call me Glad To Be Here.”
“As you probably heard, I’m Dennis,” said the silver fox. “From Louisiana originally, and I’m hoping to get outta this cold-ass shit hole soon as I can.”
Next to him were two Hispan
ic fellows. The first was short, pudgy, and most likely in his mid-thirties. The second looked much younger and had intense gray eyes. Beside him was a nondescript individual with a receding hairline and black-rimmed glasses; he seemed to Horace the type of person one might have a conversation with and then forget their face a moment later.
Around they went, introducing themselves while raising their right hand in salutation.
“Hector Conseca, from right here in the glorious state of Virginia.”
“Luis Rivera. Missouri.”
“Stanley Clark, New Mexico.”
The banter flowed fast and easy with the preambles finished. The group told Horace of the first time they met, which happened to be in a roadside diner off the Richmond Beltway. Each took turns telling parts of the story.
They’d been random strangers, detached from both the world and each other, when they happened to wind up at the same place for a bite to eat. Disaster struck soon after. The invading Wraiths (“Fleshies,” insisted Corky) ripped through the diner, slaughtering everyone in sight. Hector, who’d been the short-order cook, charged the nasty bugger who’d latched onto Corky’s back and gouged it with a butcher knife. Stan was there with his wife, the first casualty of the melee. He told his chapter with tears on the cusp of overflowing their ducts. Luis and Larry were in the bathroom. They dropped to the floor and tried to wedge their adult bodies into the disgusting area behind the bathroom stalls for protection before gathering enough courage to crawl across the shit-stained linoleum floor and book it out the kitchen’s back door.
Dennis, the silver fox, had the most amazing story of all. According to all in attendance, he took two bullets in the shoulder and one sliced off the lower half of his ear when the window beside him exploded. (“And I just wanted to dive into my hotcakes and grits,” he said while he pulled up his shirt and showed Horace the two crusted-over holes just below his left armpit.) He collapsed and slid beneath the table. For more than a few lost seconds he lay there in shock, unable to comprehend what went on around him.
“One of those bastards fell in front of me,” he said. “I didn’t even think about it after that. My face and chest were on fire, but I didn’t care. I grabbed the gun the thing’d dropped and stood up. I hadn’t held a rifle since the Reserves, and that was a long damn time ago, but I just shot and shot and shot, in every direction. I caught the fuckers by surprise, I tell ya. They didn’t know what hit ’em.”
Dennis’s actions created the window of opportunity that the remaining four required. With confusion ruling the day, Dennis, Corky, Hector, and Stan followed, without prior knowledge, the path taken by Luis and Larry before them: out the kitchen door, past dumpsters that stunk of overly-greased waste, and into the surrounding cover of trees.
“And that’s where we met,” said Dennis. “Out beyond the forest, right by the freeway. We was alone and scared shitless.” He patted Larry on the shoulder, who smiled in response. “We’ve been best of buds ever since. Brothers, really.”
“That’s an amazing story,” Horace said, “but where does your young soldier friend come in?”
“Oh, Dougie,” sighed Corky. “He showed up about two weeks ago, I think. It’s hard to keep track of time nowadays. It was a few miles from here. We were hiding in an old barn and then here he comes, walking through the woods and freezing his ass off. The kid looked miserable as all hell, but I’ll be damned if I never seen anyone put on a face as fucking hard as he does. We offered him a dry place to hang his boots. I guess he just kinda ended up staying with us. Not like he had anywhere else to go.”
“He might be wound a bit tight,” added Luis, “but he’s a good kid. Plus, he’s a caballero. Even with ole Dennis’s divine intervention in the diner, none a us really know how to protect ourselves, you know, with guns and stuff.”
“Plus, I think he needs us as much as we need him,” said Dennis. His Bayou drawl was starting to make itself known; his I’s were coming out like protracted ah’s. “But I don’t think he’d ever admit it. Like Corky said, he’s a hard one.”
A long silence followed those words. Horace sat back. He thought of Doug and his crushed youth. A pang of sadness pricked his brain. He felt sorry for the kid. To be that young and have so much responsibility heaped upon his shoulders could not have been easy. Youth is meant for learning and amusement, not this, he thought.
His pondering brought back memories from his own childhood. It seemed like so long ago. He remembered how he was at Doug’s age, how driven and eager he’d been. There were so many nights spent with either his nose pressed arduously into a book or nipping at the heels of some revered Yale professor like an over-eager lap dog. He had done this not out of enjoyment but because it was what he thought he needed to accomplish his goals. And this is where I find myself. He was sixty-three, with no family, and lacking the sense of stability to ground him.
In that realization, he regretted his past decisions. The memories, with all their bitterness and regret, forced his mind to tread even further backwards, to a happier time. He was ten years old again, playing stickball in one of the many vacant lots that peppered his neighborhood in Queens. Johnny Pazarelli, Shane Reynolds, and the rest of his youthful friends became his friends once more. He’d been immature and free in those days, a feeling that stayed with him until his brain kicked into high gear and he succumbed to the pressures his intelligence – and drive – demanded.
“You know what I miss?” he asked. The others turned to him. “I miss the innocence of youth. I miss being able to walk down the street and know, just know, that everything is good and always will be. It didn’t matter how broke I was or how practical I could be. My father would let me skip school sometimes on weekdays, and he’d bring me across the bridge to Yankee Stadium to watch Mickey Mantle play ball.” He sighed. “I miss the time when baseball was all that mattered. I suppose we won’t have that anymore, either. Baseball, I mean.”
Luis’s eyes lit up. “Damn, Doc, I hear you. I’m only thirty, but I remember my pops taking me out to Bush every once in a while to see the Cardinals play. I’d whistle every time Ozzie, the Wizard, shot the gap and turned singles into double plays. Man, it was fucking poetry watching the Oz play ball.”
“Yes, it was,” said Horace.
“Pops and I worshipped those teams. We lived and died with them.” Luis paused. A tear descended his cheek. “My father died in a car accident when I was seventeen. I didn’t watch another game for a good ten years after that. It just hurt too much. But then my son was born three years ago,” again he paused and his voice grew choppy. “And I…I…”
“It’s okay, compadre,” Hector said, placing a caring hand on his back.
“I’m all right,” replied Luis. “So anyway, last year, on his second birthday, I took little Juan to a game. He was way too young to remember anything about it, but that was okay. I saw something that I needed that day. I saw my dad in the bathroom mirror. It was me. I realized it wasn’t the worst thing to remember the good times, even if it hurt. I was there, with a life I helped create, and I could give him a great set of memories just like my father gave me. It’s the first time I really appreciated what I had. But now…now he’s so far away. I don’t even know if he’s alive. I doubt he is. But I still wish I could see him again…see him and tell him how much I love him.”
He began to sob, heavy tears that caused his body to tremble. Hector wrapped his arms around his friend. Stan reached over and wiped a watery smudge from his cheek.
“Gracias, you guys,” murmured Luis.
Larry stood up and stared at Luis from across the sea of flames. “I’m sorry, Lou,” he said.
“Naw, it’s okay. I got shit I gotta work out.”
“No, it’s not.”
Larry paced around the circle. “Truth is,” he said, “that none of us have to be alone any more. We got our memories, and we got each other, man. Shit, things’ve happened to all of us that wasn’t so good. We’ve seen each other at our absolute fucking
worst. And what’d we do? We helped pull through, that’s what. We’re still alive, fellas. And fuck it all if it ain’t gonna stay that way.”
“Correctamundo!” shouted Hector.
“Damn straight!” continued the mullet man. “And actually, I’m a bit jealous of you, Lou. You talk about your dad and I wish that was me. I woulda killed to have someone in my life like that. The piece o’ shit that got my mom pregnant was one of the nastiest fuckers you’d ever meet. He was a drunk, and my mom loved him more than anyone in the world, me included. He’d beat her up and make a mess of her face then turn on me. He put me in the hospital at least twenty times before I finished grade school. That bastard never took me to a game. He never took me anywhere. Hell, I woulda taken a how was your day kiddo? and been happier than a pig in shit. I wanted him to love me. To acknowledge me. But I didn’t get none of that.”
Luis frowned. “I’m sorry, Larry.”
“You see, I accept that. I want you to feel my pain.” He stopped pacing. “I want you to know that there’s been good shit in our lives. You know why? ‘Cause I’ve been happy, too. We all gotta remember that. When I met my ex-wife, I thought I’d died and gone to the big pig roast in the sky. Of course, we did end up in a bad divorce after five years and I wouldn’t trust the bitch to kill herself with a garden hose in her tailpipe, but at the time, I was happier than anyone.”
“I have something to say,” Stan said. His lips were clenched in a sullen expression, yet a mischievous glint appeared in his unremarkable eyes.
“Oh yeah?” said Larry. “What’s that?”
“Fuck you.”
Horace laughed along with everyone else at the deadpan nature of his delivery.
“But seriously, guys,” Stan said, finishing off a laugh that didn’t seem quite sincere. “Larry’s right. When Kirsten died that morning in the diner, I was devastated. I wanted to kill myself right then and there. Heck, sometimes I still do. She was my life. I’ll never meet anyone like her again. And the way things are looking right now, I don’t think any of us will even see another woman again. Ever. But hey, I’ve come to grips with that a bit. I don’t think I’ll totally get over it, but at least when I’m asleep and I remember the way she looked and the way she smelled, I don’t have the urge to put a pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger. At least not all the time.”
Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) Page 4
