by L. L. Akers
Tarra nodded, agreeing with her friend. “That’s right. One more second and one or all of us could have eaten a bullet. There was nothing else we could do. They forced our hand,” she said angrily.
She jumped into action, running over to the mess, and turned the passenger over, grimacing at the blood seeping through the jeans and light jacket already. Taking a chance, she gently removed the helmet.
To their surprise, a blonde pony-tail plopped out the bottom, same color as the driver’s. The face revealed a young girl, also mid-twenties, and features nearly identical to the driver’s.
She was dead.
Tarra took a deep breath, her face changing from anger to sadness tinged with regret. No one wanted to see two lives so young lost, regardless of the situation. She reached into the young woman’s right pocket. Her face fell even further when all she pulled out was a large piece of paper.
She stared hard at it a moment, confused, and bit her lip. She looked up at Tina with tears in her eyes. “That’s why these damn fools wouldn’t back off,” she said in a shaky voice. She dropped her head for a moment, and then looked up at her friend. “Tina…you couldn’t have known.”
Slowly, Tarra held the paper up for the group to see.
Jake squinted at the paper, and then swallowed hard. He stepped over to Tina, putting his arm around her shoulders and squeezing. She turned and lay her head against his chest, and cried.
The paper said,
“Please Help! 2315 Parpham Drive. Need Doctor ASAP.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jake eased off the gas and slowly rolled into town. The motorcycle incident and the two young lives that had been lost had put them all into a state of subdued shock. But they had made it this far, so they couldn’t waste this trip now. Not if they had a chance of not losing one more kid—Sarah’s baby.
The shock doubled when they came into town seeing what could only be described as the aftermath of a natural disaster.
Only it wasn’t a natural disaster.
People had done this.
People had torn and destroyed their own town.
The area was mostly void of human activity now, but not long ago it hadn’t been. Every shop and store they passed had been looted, ransacked and pillaged. Graffiti had been painted all over the place. Trash cans were overturned. Windows and glass doors were shattered. Cars had been burned wherever they had stopped running, abandoned by their owners—probably after running out of fuel.
They drove by a pawn shop where a small group of men were too focused on breaking and entering to notice a working vehicle driving by. They were using crow bars to try to pry the steel cage off the front of the entrance.
Suddenly, it was opened. They slid up the cage and heaved a brick through the window of the door. Then, they used another brick to punch out the jagged glass.
Jake saw the store swallow up the men, like a big dark hole, as one by one they disappeared into it.
He was surprised to see the pawn shop had lasted that long without being looted. Pawn shops had guns and other tools that would be on every man’s wish-list about now. According to Grayson, you could never have too many guns. You could always use another.
Jake watched Grayson eyeballing the shop, and punched the gas a bit just to make a statement that they were not stopping there. It was too dangerous.
Grayson sighed. Jake ignored it.
There must’ve been someone guarding the store since the grid went down, for it to have remained intact so long. Wherever the guard or the owner was, their leaving was hella bad timing and they’d be coming back to a big surprise.
At least Jake hoped that was the case, and that it wasn’t a case of them having already ‘dispatched’ the owner or guard.
They passed a Gas and Food Mart that had a street sign impaled through the front window, still attached to the long metal pole. It read, “Dead End.” From what Jake had seen so far, this whole trip was becoming a dead end.
On the next block, they watched with disbelief as they passed a liquor store with all the windows broken out. All of the shelves that they could see were bare. In front of it, someone had rolled in a steel barrel that now had a fire blazing inside. A dozen men were gathered around it, all clutching a bottle, drunk as Cooter Brown. The men were too intoxicated to pay them any mind at all. Four women sat against the wall of the store, barely awake. Clothes torn and dirty, their hair all mussed, they looked like they’d been ridden hard and put up wet.
Jake and Grayson both shook their heads in disgust.
Putting aside the fact that they were all drunk, they were wasting valuable burn material, not to mention the liquor, which could be used for antiseptic and medicinal purposes later. It was also warm outside, so they didn’t need a fire for heat… yet. And they weren’t cooking over it either. They were just gathering around it to enjoy the flames and the buzz. Soon the losers would wish they’d saved whatever it was they were burning—and drinking.
Jake sped up, covering five more miles as they all looked around with wide, haunted eyes at this new reality. Finally locating the grocery store they’d planned on checking out, he pulled into it with disappointment. It too, looked deserted.
But looks can be deceiving, and the group would soon find out they didn’t have their eyes open wide enough.
26
Grayson’s Group
Puck crept into the woods, trying not to make any noise. If the girls saw him, they’d just make him go back to bed. He wasn’t a baby, and he was tired of being treated like one. If they would all just really look at him, they would see he was bigger than almost anyone there, even GrayMan.
He was a man.
Just like GrayMan and Jake.
He stopped walking and listened. Someone was following him.
He whipped around. Suddenly, Ozzie came running through the brush, joyfully flopping his head around with his ball in his mouth, sounding like a herd of elephants.
“Geesh, Ozzie, you scared me! Go back,” Puck whispered loudly, pointing him home. “You can’t be with me right now.”
Ozzie dropped his ball and danced around Puck’s feet, waiting for him to throw it. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as he panted.
Puck sighed and snatched up the ball, and threw it hard, toward the house. When Ozzie took off after it, Puck ran the other way, hoping the pooch would give up and stay home.
But Ozzie wasn’t that easily deterred. A short minute later, he was right behind Puck again, loping easily through the woods. Puck had to slow down—maybe his arm still hurt a bit after all—and maybe it was good that Ozzie was with him.
He was lonely with GrayMan being gone so long. And he was worried about him, too.
As he walked, Puck thought about the man that had saved him from the mean boys. Sometimes GrayMan was grumpy and acted like he didn’t like him. But sometimes he acted like he did like him. If he could just do something to help out, then maybe GrayMan would like him all the time. Maybe if Mama Dee did come back, GrayMan wouldn’t make him go home.
He didn’t want to go home to her. She was mean to him and Jenny. Puck knew Mama Dee didn’t ever like him—she told him so. She would get mad and say, ‘If I didn’t need this check, I’d throw you outta here.’ And then she’d make him act like he couldn’t talk at all, or think, when the man in the suit came to visit every few months.
Grunt. That’s what Mama Dee said to do, no matter what the man asked him.
It made his face hot to act like that when the man was there. It wasn’t nice to not answer the right way when talked to. Even he knew that.
It was stupid to act stupid.
Mama Dee said if the man knew he wasn’t stupid, he couldn’t stay there anymore. He’d have to go to school and everything. She made him hide his Xbox and his drone on the days the man was coming.
Uh oh, he thought. I think I forgot to hide my Xbox.
Well, hopefully the man wouldn’t come.
Puck didn’t want to go to school anyway, but h
e wouldn’t mind it at all if he didn’t have to stay with Mama Dee anymore… as long as he could keep Jenny and Mama Dee could still get her check. If she didn’t get her check, she got really mad.
Puck hadn’t been to school in a long time. He could barely remember school, but sometimes he had a nightmare of other boys taunting him in a school setting. The dreams scared him because they seemed like real life.
But Mama Dee said it wasn’t real.
The kids in his dreams made fun of him. Just like the mean boys who chased him up that tree. He didn’t like mean people. He was nice to everyone. It wasn’t fair that not everyone was nice back to him.
Mama Dee was even meaner to Jenny. Jenny didn’t like her one little bit.
A loud buzzing filled Puck’s ears and he stopped again. Ozzie stopped beside him. He looked up into the tall trees and found what he was looking for.
And much more.
His face lit up. Now there were two bee nests! He was going to bring back lots of food!
One nest was in the hollowed-out knothole in the tall tree. He’d sat down in the woods many times to watch the little workers their honey. It was really fun to watch. The stuff looked like tiny yellowish-orange bags. He’d imagined they had packed their things and were moving out—running away even.
Maybe they had a Mama Dee Bee that was mean to them, too. He giggled at that. A Mama Dee-Bee… and maybe they were going somewhere to live with a new Mama Bee. One that was nice to them and let them eat as much as they wanted, anytime their belly growled. One that didn’t make them work hard outside all day long.
One that let him have friends and go places and carry a gun—oh wait.
He was getting confused. He forgot he was thinking of the bees… not himself.
He sighed and looked at the new nest. It was strange looking and didn’t look like a normal nest at all. It was a big bubble of bees all stuck together, hanging on a branch on the next tree over from the hive in the knothole. The bee-bubble moved as though it were breathing. It looked like the bees were doing ‘the wave,’ like he saw people do at a football game on television sometimes.
He wished he could go to a real football game.
Why are so many bees out of the knothole? he wondered. Probably wasn’t room in there for all those bees… maybe they were waiting their turn to get in.
He secured the bag that he was carrying through a belt loop and grabbed the base of the tree before looking at Ozzie. “Ozzie, stay,” he said, not remembering Ozzie couldn’t climb trees.
Slowly, he climbed, trying not to put too much weight on his arm.
It was really hurting now…
Graysie leaned back, looking up in amazement. “Puck! What are you doing?” she screamed. “Get down from there!”
She had seen Ozzie run out and get his ball that weirdly flew in from the woods, grab it and run back into the trees. She’d followed him, knowing he was following Puck.
Puck was so startled by her scream that he nearly fell. “Graysie! Go back. I can do this all by myself!” he yelled angrily. “I’m mad at you!”
“Whatever, Puck, come down. You’re going to get hurt and then we’ll both be in trouble. I was supposed to be watching you!”
“I don’t need you to watch me. I’m not a baby!” he yelled down, his face growing red.
Graysie waved her hands up in the air. “No, I mean… look out for you. Not watch you. I know you’re not a baby. Come down. There’s bees up there!”
“No! I’m getting us food.” He hung on with one arm, looking all the world like a big blonde monkey, and reached into his bag, pulling out a glass Mason jar.
Graysie ran her hands over her face. “Puck, what are you doing?”
Ozzie looked up at Graysie, then Puck, and whined, pacing a circle around the tree.
“This is how Pooh does it,” he said, determined to prove her wrong.
“That’s a story! You don’t gather honey like that. I’m telling you. Please listen to me!” she begged.
“No! You’re not the boss of me!” he yelled, getting angrier.
There was no stopping him. Graysie could see that. And she knew it was her butt that was going to be in trouble for this. She pulled Ozzie back by his collar. “Come on, Ozzie. This might be bad.”
She grimaced and covered her eyes, peeking through her fingers, as Puck stuck the jar into the hole. She let out her breath. A few bees came out, buzzing around, but so far, no army came after him.
Until it did.
“Puck, here they come! Get down! Quick!”
Puck dropped the jar and it fell to the ground, as he tried to cover his face with one hand. An army of bees filed out and flew crazily around him. “Run, Graysie! Run, Ozzie!”
27
The Three E’s
“It’s Olivia,” Edith blurted out. She crossed her arms. “There was a terrible accident. So, you can mark twins off that list. There’s not a matching set anymore. And Mei went home…the other way. Alone. I have no idea where she lives.”
Trunk narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you lying again, Grandma?”
Edith slowly shook her head, her face burning with heat.
Trunk shrugged.
“Well, that’s a shame. My condolences.” He stonily stared at Edith and then reached out and patted her shoulder. “May Olivia rest in peace.”
Edith nodded, swallowing loudly.
“Okay! Let’s see what else is on the list you might could help us with then.”
He nonchalantly swiped up the paper, and bent his knees to squat down a foot, coming eye to eye with Edith.
She held her breath as he held his pose and stared at her for what seemed like eternity.
“I’ll take those!” He plucked her glasses off her nose, causing Edith to jerk away in fright. He lifted the glasses over her head with the chain still intact, and put them over his own head. Laughing, he walked into the den and plopped down into Elmer’s recliner, kicking his feet back.
He leaned back to look at Edith, still standing as still as a statue in the kitchen. “Bring me some coffee, honey,” he said, and winked.
Edith shook off a shiver, and sidestepped the other biker. “Excuse me.” She pulled a cup down from the cupboard and shakily poured the coffee, sloshing it onto the counter.
The other biker, Backfire, took up where Trunk had left off, shoving chicken into his mouth. “Pour me a cup, too,” he mumbled through a mouthful, not even looking at Edith.
These were men used to getting what they wanted…when they wanted it.
Edith carried the coffee to Trunk and after a moment of hesitation, during which time she considered throwing it in his face and running, she finally handed it to him. Backfire sauntered into the living room, carrying the whole plate of the remaining chicken.
“Can I sit for a bit, too, Boss?” he asked.
Trunk generously waved a hand at the old plaid couch and Edith grimaced as the nasty man sat down, sloshing the black liquid on her favorite green and yellow afghan; one that had taken her nearly a year to crochet.
“Sit, Grandma.” Trunk demanded.
Edith squeezed past his legs and perched on the other end of the sofa, farthest away from the strangers. She stared at the quiet television, seeing her life with Elmer flash by on the empty gray screen. She should’ve listened to him when he told her to carry the pistol in her apron. He’d told her a dozen times it wouldn’t do a darn bit of good under her pillow.
“Where’s your husband, Grandma?”
Edith realized they had no way of knowing if Elmer was even here. They hadn’t looked… why were they so confident he wasn’t about to come out shooting from another room in the house? And how did they even know she had a husband?
“Grrrrraaaaaandma…I’m talking to you…”
“How did you know I was married?”
“You said I was eating your husband’s food, remember?”
She’d forgotten.
“And Rose. Sweet, sweet Rose. She told me
all about you and Elmer. Said you two were BFF’s. I think that’s super cool for you old gals,” he said, and smiled. “She was more than willing to tell me anything I needed to know.”
Edith’s blood turned to ice.
Why would Rose tell these men anything? Did they hurt her? And did she also tell them Elmer had left, taking the girls with him? It was possible she saw them drive by.
But no…she reassured herself. Think, Edith! He was asking where Elmer was. So he doesn’t know Elmer left with the girls.
“He’s gone to town. Looking for supplies,” she lied again.
“Coming home soon then?”
“I hope so.”
Trunk jerked his head toward the bedrooms, and spoke to Backfire. “You. Go check out the bedrooms. You know what’s on the list. See if you find anything. Old people have a lot of weird shit. Look in the closets,” he said to the other man.
The man stood up, sliding the plate onto the end table, and Edith made as though to stand, too. Trunk waved her back down again.
“I don’t want him in our bedroom!” she said with indignation.
“Settle down…he won’t hurt anything. Will ya, Backfire?”
Backfire looked back with a smug grin, just before his elbow knocked over a glass lantern, spilling precious fuel onto the floor. The glass shattered. “Nope. I’ll be careful, boss.”
Tears filled Edith’s eyes. That lantern had belonged to her parents, long dead. The flowers painted on the front were by her own mother’s hand.
Slowly, she sat back down, barely perched on the edge of the sofa. Her mind raced. What if he found the gun? If he didn’t, maybe she could devise a plan on how to get it? Could she shoot a man in cold blood? Could she shoot them both before they shot her? They each had a gun. The man outside probably had one, too.
