The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 2): Wicked Dead

by Howard Odentz

  Each of them was tied down with a mixture of t-shirts knotted together, cheap leather belts with dorky Massachusetts belt buckles on them, and plain old rope.

  My mother was awake. Her hands were curled into claws as she strained against the makeshift bonds. Dark saliva spilled from her mouth, and she was growling like small dogs do when you try and make friends with them.

  Her eyes were the worst. They had gone a dull gray, like she was really old and blind. It hurt me to look at her like that.

  “Is she a poxer?” I asked Aunt Ella.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “None of them are. Your dad says they still have pulses.”

  Pulses were cool, but I was hoping that they still had brains.

  My father came in through the front door carrying a boxful of things from the ambulance. He had a stethoscope around his neck and a blood pressure cuff in his fingers. I only knew what that was because he had one at home, because, well, hello, he’s a doctor.

  Anyway, he set the box down on the counter and began pulling stuff out. I should have asked if I could help, but what I really wanted, more than anything, was to not see my mother like that, or the rest of them. I wanted to go hide someplace in a corner and think about happy things for just one minute.

  “I’m going to . . . I’m just going to go over near the fire,” I said.

  My aunt nodded and let me go. As I pulled away, her fingers brushed against Uncle Don’s watch for a moment and a sort of sadness crept across her face. Thankfully, she didn’t wait for me to say anything. Instead, she turned to help my dad.

  Jimmy, Trina, and Prianka had come inside. They were spreading out the remaining quilts on the floor next to a fort of sweaters draped over a bench where Sanjay quietly slumbered underneath. Krystal, with two fingers stuck in her mouth, was wrapped in a quilt. She was sound asleep next to Newfie. He got up when he saw me, lumbered over, and licked my hand. Andrew perched on top of the pile of sweaters with his head tucked under his wing.

  Prianka sat down, so I plopped myself next to her and leaned back on my elbows. No one said anything for a while. We just watched as the shadows from the fire danced demons on the walls. Finally, the quiet started to get to me. It was getting uncomfortably close to what it probably sounded like in a morgue.

  “So . . .” I finally said in a low voice. “What do we do?”

  Trina, her arms wrapped around her knees, leaned back into Jimmy. I could see she was chewing on her lip, which meant she was exerting some kind of mental effort.

  “I don’t want to say it,” she said.

  I got a little angry. “Good, then don’t.”

  “Did I miss something?” asked Jimmy. Yeah, he did. She didn’t want to say that we should burn them and move on. I already did that once with Uncle Don. It was horrible. I wasn’t about to torch our mom. No way. Suddenly, I felt just a teensy bit like Roger Ludlow refusing to believe that his Millie was dead, and I found myself glancing around the store to see if there was a rack of beef jerky.

  Prianka’s warm hand curled into mine and she slightly squeezed. I think she was trying to make me feel better but all I felt was electricity.

  Damn hormones.

  “This isn’t Nexcropxy,” Prianka whispered. “It looks like Necropoxy but it’s not. This is something else.”

  “Which could end up turning them into zombies,” I grumbled.

  “Or not,” she said again, reassuringly. “You said that Diana’s people had been experimenting on them. Maybe she was trying to make them immune.”

  “So?”

  “Well maybe they’re not catching Necropoxy—maybe they’re fighting it.”

  Maybe they were. Who knows? I let out a deep sigh and put my head down in Prianka’s lap. I didn’t realize it, but it had been a long, long day. As soon as I rested my head down, my eyes closed and strange images flitted around behind them.

  I saw Diana, and Dr. Marks, and needles, and monitors. The other doctors were there, too—the weird perfect men and the pretty women with their hair tied back into ponytails that were so tight it looked like their eyes were permanently fixed open.

  They were talking and pointing at the monitors, and one of them was saying something about the infection rate and how it was getting longer and longer to take hold.

  Then I heard helicopters in my head and Roger Ludlow screaming bloody murder for me in the darkness. Finally, my mom’s poodle, Sprinkles, appeared like a random image caused by too many tacos at dinner. Chuck Peterson, Trina’s ex, bit her face off a week ago. Sprinkles was talking to me out of the place that should have been where her face was, but instead was just a red, gaping wound.

  In Chuck Peterson’s voice she said, “Bow, wow, wow, wow, wow.” Then she repeated it again, but this time more slowly. Over and over again she barked at me in Chuck’s voice, but each time it was longer and longer between barks, until finally she just stopped and sat down on her haunches.

  There was something else. When I looked at her—when I really looked at her, the gaping wound where her face had been had healed and she looked like new. She even looked better than new, like she had gone to the groomer and had the fanciest sort of poodle cut there was.

  In the blackness of my dreams, I fell deeper and deeper into nothingness, until it enveloped me.

  For the rest of the night, I truly slept the soundless sleep of the dead.

  30

  I WOKE UP BECAUSE Andrew stuck his beak in my ear, which, in retrospect, made me wonder if I had bugs or something. After all, my last good bath was when we had all taken a dunk in the pond at Aunt Ella’s house. That was like a few days ago. Anything could have crawled in any part of me and laid eggs that hatched.

  There was sunlight streaming through the windows. Prianka was up and taking the quilts down to let the morning in. I watched her as she quietly went from window to window, gently peeling tape and taking out thumb tacks.

  Trina and Jimmy were still asleep—his arms around her as if my dad and mom weren’t right on the other side of the store.

  There were no signs of movement from underneath Sanjay’s sweater fort, which meant he was probably busy calculating out pi to the millionth digit while he slept. Krystal was curled into a ball with her fingers in her mouth and Newfie softly snored beside her.

  Still, we were down one key player and it bugged me.

  I brushed Andrew away with a flip of my hand. “Beat it, you flying rat.”

  “Rat,” he cackled as he flapped back over to the mound of sweaters and began preening his feathers. Prianka looked over and smiled at me but kept on working. I knew she was as dirty as me, but for some reason I didn’t care. She looked amazing.

  I glanced down at my wrist. Uncle Don’s watch said it was just before seven in the morning. I stood up, stretched, and walked quietly over to her.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “Where’s Bullseye?”

  She took a deep breath and shook her head.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t know where he is. Last night, after you and Dorcas left, he wouldn’t come in from out back.”

  I kissed her on the forehead, mumbled something about morning breath, then wandered over to the other side of Swifty’s to see what was going on with everybody else.

  What I found was a sick ward.

  My dad had somehow managed to hang bags of fluid off the candy hopper handles—Lemon Heads for Eddie and Nerds for Freaky Big Bird. He hooked up everyone with tubing he found inside the ambulance, and now a steady drip was sliding down the plastic and into their arms.

  I didn’t know what kind of concoction he was pumping into them, and I couldn’t tell if it was working or not. My mom and the other people on the floor looked horrible. You could see the cold, clammy sweat beading up on their foreheads, and their lips were blue. Thankfully, their eyes were closed. I didn’t want to see dead eyes right now. I wasn’t ready for that yet.

  The oil lamps and the candles were still alive with fire. Dad, howev
er, was out like a light. He sat on a chair with his chin dipped to his chest. I didn’t want to disturb him. Aunt Ella and Dorcas were both asleep, too. They were up against the back wall, right underneath the candy cigarettes. Fitting for Dorcas.

  I tiptoed around everybody until I came to the bin filled with spearmint leaves—those gummy, sugar-coated green things. They weren’t a substitute for brushing my teeth. I just needed something to take away the taste in my mouth because it was truly nasty.

  Then I took a deep breath and went out the backdoor to find Bullseye.

  I didn’t have to go far.

  He was on the deck where we all had dinner before the turkeys and the Asian Tour of the Damned crashed our party. Last night, everything was covered with poxer goo. The big, homemade grill was kicked over and burning briquettes were everywhere.

  Now, it looked like nothing ever happened. Bullseye had a mop and a bucket and was just finishing cleaning up the last bits of exploded tourist.

  “Hey, man,” I said as I rubbed the back of my neck. “You clean all this?”

  Bullseye didn’t say anything. He just kept working at a black streak, putting his full weight into pushing the mop back and forth over the sticky stuff. His shirt was really dirty and he looked exhausted. It occurred to me that he’d probably been at it all night long. I noticed that there were oil lamps still burning on the picnic tables. He had been at it all night long.

  “Bullseye—what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you even sleep?”

  He just kept pushing the mop, harder and harder. Any second I expected the handle to break. “Someone had to keep watch,” he grumbled.

  “Keep watch?” I said. “It doesn’t look like you were keeping watch. It looks like you have OCD and everything has to be exactly right.”

  “Yeah—so?”

  “So, what’s up with you?”

  “Nothing,” he bristled. Bullseye leaned against the mop handle, trying desperately to get the black up.

  I walked over to him and reached out to put my hand on his shoulder. He pulled away from me. “Go away,” he snapped.

  “What do you mean, ‘go away’? Really, dude, what is going on with you?” What I really wanted to say was that I didn’t get girls and I didn’t get kids. I’d been working real hard on the girl thing this past week, but the kid thing was new territory.

  “I said GO AWAY,” he snapped. “You don’t seem to have a problem with that.”

  Whoa! Blindsided! “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Bullseye wouldn’t look at me. He kept working at the poxer stain, his knuckles turning red and white.

  “You leave, Tripp,” he said with venom in his voice. “That’s what you do. You leave. You left me back in Deerfield, then you left me at your aunt’s house, then you left last night. You leave,” he hissed again. “That’s what you do.”

  Well, technically he was right. I did leave him back in Deerfield—where we first met him—mostly because he tried to hold us up with a bow and arrow, pissed his pants, and ran off into the woods. As far as my aunt’s house, Jimmy and I left everyone when we went to save my parents. We were trying to protect them, not put them in danger.

  Last night? Last night was different. Everyone was sick. We had to leave.

  “I didn’t leave you last night, Bullseye. Dorcas and I had to go to a pharmacy. We came back.”

  “I didn’t know if you were coming back,” he muttered. “I never know if you’re coming back.”

  He pushed really hard on the mop handle one last time, and it shot out of his hands and skidded across the deck. He almost toppled over, so I grabbed him, which I guess was a bad move.

  Bullseye punched me. It wasn’t hard. It was just a kid’s punch—but just the same, he hauled off and punched me. Then he did it again and again and again, until I realized that I just had to stand there and take it because this is what he had to do.

  Tears streamed down his face. “Everyone leaves,” he cried. “Mommy left and Daddy left and my sisters left,” punch, punch, punch, “then Mr. Choy left and you guys left in that ugly yellow jeep,” punch, punch, punch, “then you left me at the farm and you left me again last night.” The punching slowed down. He was exhausted and his eyes were puffy and red. “And . . . and . . . and . . . I don’t have anyone,” he sobbed. “I . . . don’t . . . have . . . anyone.”

  I grabbed his raised fists and held them tight. “That’s not true,” I said. “You know that’s not true.”

  “It is true,” he sobbed. “Jimmy has Trina and Prianka has Sanjay. And you—you have your entire family. I don’t have anyone.”

  I didn’t care what major life crisis he was going through. At that moment I wanted to hit him. My mother was dying just twenty feet away. Hell, she might even already by dead—but I couldn’t do it. This wasn’t about me at all. This was about a little boy—a little boy who was scared and alone, and I had to fix this before he spiraled out of control.

  “You’re my family,” I said. “We’re all a family.”

  “We’re not a family,” he wailed, the tears streaming down his face. “We’re not anything. I’m just some stupid kid who everyone thinks is a murderer.”

  “What?” Blind-sided twice. “Who ever said that?”

  “No one has to say it,” he screamed. “I know what everyone thinks of me. I’m the kid with the gun. I’m the kid who doesn’t have a problem pulling the trigger.”

  “And that’s why you’re so important,” I said, still holding on to his clenched fists. “Without you, we’re nothing. We’re all nothing.”

  “Shut up, liar,” he screamed and yanked his fists away. “I showed you how to shoot a gun. Now you know. You don’t need me. None of you need me.” He kicked the bucket of water over and the soapy, gray liquid splashed across the deck and dripped though the crevices.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Prianka came up to stand beside me.

  “Pick it up,” she said to him with a mouthful of icicles.

  “Go to hell.”

  “Pick it up now, Ryan.”

  “Make me.”

  She did. She cracked him across the face with her open palm so hard that his cheek immediately began to turn red. I was stunned. I kept looking from Prianka to Bullseye to Prianka again. I half expected him to pull a little gun out of the back of his jeans and drop her on the spot.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he started to cry in a way that was terrible to hear—terrible because I actually felt each gasp, each pained sob. I felt it deep down inside because his tears summed up all of the past week. Every poxer we torched, every person we loved that was now gone—his family, my uncle, the entire world, everything.

  Then Prianka opened her arms. Bullseye, with tears streaming down his face, rushed into them. She held him close as though she could make everything safe and whole and right again.

  As for me, I shoved my hands down deep in my pockets and stood there for a moment before I realized that I didn’t feel comfortable standing there at all. His meltdown was over, at least for the moment. Like I said, we all had the right to cave at least once. Maybe this was his time. Who knows?

  There’s one thing I did know. It wasn’t my place to be there anymore, on that deck, in that moment. This wasn’t about me. This was about Bullseye.

  So I did exactly what the twelve-year-old who was key in helping us get this far accused me of doing.

  I left.

  31

  NO ONE KNEW Krystal and Sanjay were there until it was too late—well, except for Andrew, which made the whole mess that much creepier.

  I walked in on the two of them as they were crouched over Trudy Aiken, her enormous stomach practically hiding Krystal behind a mountain of blubber.

  “Her chakras are blocked,” said Sanjay as he held the stuffed dog up to his ear. “Poopy Puppy says so.”

  Sanjay had untied Trudy’s hands. The knotted t-shirts were balled
up next to her on the floor.

  “The kundalini energy that’s lying at the base of her spine needs to be aroused so it can rise back up through the more subtle chakras until her union with the energetic forces of nature is achieved in her crown chakra.”

  The who of the what?

  Krystal nodded her curls like she completely understood everything Sanjay was saying. As for me, my stomach cramped. Trudy’s chubby ham-hock arms were moving a little.

  Andrew bobbed his head up and down and said, “Chakra.”

  What the hell is a chakra?

  At first, my throat got so dry that I couldn’t get the words out. Finally, I whispered, “Hey guys, why don’t you come over here?” I was afraid to move. They were sitting in the middle of a poxer powder keg and any second it could explode. Calling them to me was like asking them to navigate a mine field.

  Trudy Aiken gurgled and saliva spilled from her mouth.

  “That is her releasing her prana,” said Sanjay.

  “Ew,” said Krystal. Then she giggled.

  I stared hard at my feet and made a wish. It was the only thing I could think of doing. Please let this be a dream. Please let me be back on the other side of the store with my head in Prianka’s lap. I won’t even wish to wake up in Littleham. Just please let this not be happening.

  I must have used up my three wishes.

  I looked up and Krystal and Sanjay were still there, but now everything was even worse because Trudy’s eyes were open.

  My mind raced. What do I do? Trudy has her hands free. Sanjay can get away from her if he has to—at least I think he can. Krystal can’t. No way. She’s right on top of her.

  Trudy’s fat fingers twitched open and closed, and her eyeballs rolled in their dingy, gray sockets.

  She’s a poxer. Trudy Aiken had become a poxer, and that meant my mother was going to be a poxer, too. Everything that Dorcas and I did last night was for nothing. The covered bridge and the ambulance, Witch Hazel and her poxette, the pharmacy and Roger Ludlow, and the helicopter people—they were all for nothing. Everyone who was sick was going to turn into monsters and we were going to have to torch them. The worst part was that we, meaning us kids, were going to have to do it, because Aunt Ella and Dorcas and my dad weren’t capable.