After a hot shower, Lenore dressed in her usual outfit of jeans, a white button down oxford blouse, her favorite leopard print jacket and her battered loafers. She tried to fuss with her hair, but it just annoyed her. It had to be changed and soon or she was going to go crazy. Kissing her fingertips, she pressed them to the photo of Common she had taped to her mirror and headed out the door.
“...telling you, Olympia, they are all crazy. On crack!” Her grandmother was on the phone with her best friend, Olympia Hernandez. Even though the old ladies lived within walking distance of each other, they preferred to sit in their La-z-Boys, watching the same shows, and discussing them on the phone. It was impossible to get through on the phone to either one of them during the soaps and talk shows.
Lenore leaned over and pressed a kiss to her grandmother’s cheek. She got a pat on the cheek and a kiss, then her grandmother kept on complaining about the whacked out people eating each other in Houston.
“Maybe the government put something in the water,” Lenore offered.
Her grandmother eyed her and then immediately repeated this to Olympia. “It’s like the old crazy man on the public access is always talking about!”
Rolling her eyes, Lenore trudged to the front door, grabbed her huge leather bag, and headed out for another day of work at Ken’s Diva Beauty Shop. As usual, she rode her bike and she rather enjoyed the briskness of the morning now that she was awake and fully clothed. The sun was just making an appearance over the hills, but her quaint little neighborhood was wide-awake and in full swing.
Already, old Mr. Thames was out in his yard working on his spring garden. She waved to him then swung around the corner to head into the downtown of Stross, Texas. It was not much of a town. The population consisted of old people or families with hardly any young people about. Most were smart and got out of town after high school. Her dream was to save up enough money to make it back to East Texas. Back to the bayou and the good old soul of the area. She missed the ocean. She missed the crawfish. She missed her house full of relatives. But her grandmother had raised her since her mama died and her daddy went out onto the oilrigs and she had felt obliged to come with her to this tiny forsaken town.
She was just parking her bike when Mr. Cloy, the man who ran the hardware store next to Ken’s shop, arrived to unlock his door.
“Hey, Lenore. Howya doing?”
“Doing good, Mr. Cloy.”
The skinny guy with too much black hair and the bushiest mustache in the world looked grim. “See the news?”
“‘bout Houston?”
“That and all that rioting in Chicago. You know how that plane crashed yesterday?”
“News thought it was 9-11 all over again? Yep.”
“Well, rumor is that there was something bad on that plane that is making people go crazy and kill each other. Chicago is bad. Wonder if it’s Al Qaeda?”
“How does that explain Houston?” Lenore raised an eyebrow at him.
“Maybe they put something in the water,” Mr. Cloy offered. “I dunno. It’s got me on edge. Got me thinking that the world is going to hell fast. Damn Arabs with their Mohammad.”
Lenore blinked at him, but didn’t bother to argue. “Well, we’re all the way out here away from everything and everybody. I don’t see any of that crazy shit happening here,” Lenore assured him.
“I hope so, Lenore.” Mr. Cloy shook his head. “Crazy times, Lenore. It’s the End Times.”
“Well, if Jesus is coming back today I better do something with my hair,” she said very deadpan.
Mr. Cloy was probably not really listening to her. “Yeah, End Times. We’re seeing the last days.” He shoved the door open and entered his store.
Lenore peered through the glass in the old wood door of the beauty shop and saw Ken busy on an early appointment’s hair. He saw her and waved her in, smiling brightly. He was attractive with the tan skin of his Mexican mother and freckles of his Scot-Irish father. His eyes were a very pretty shade of brown with glints of gold and Lenore envied his tall, slim, fit physique. She felt short and squat next to him.
“Good morning, girlfriend!”
“Hey, Ken,” she muttered as she walked past him.
“How are you?” He winked at her and she detected a tiny bit of makeup on his lids. Ken had trouble holding back at times and she could understand how hard it was for him to be a very out, very gay man in a small Texas town. The original owner of the shop had fooled the townspeople for years into thinking he was straight until he brought his very cute, very flamboyant boyfriend, Ken, to town. A year later, Ken’s ex had abandoned him and the town for another man and left Ken with the shop. Lenore didn’t know the entire story, but she knew that according to Ken, the former owner was a “cheating ass bitch of a boyfriend who deserved to die.”
“Other than seeing people eating each other on the news, I’m fine,” she answered.
“Eating how? Good or bad way?” Ken gave her a sly look.
“Bad. Like cannibals,” she answered, deftly destroying his pornographic dreams.
“Ugh, that is why I so do not watch the news!” Ken frowned and began teasing the customer’s hair into an even bigger, blonder poof.
“Well, it’s all over the news,” Lenore told him.
“Well, we just won’t watch it today, will we? It’s the E! channel all day today! Yay!”
Lenore rolled her eyes and went to turn on the TV at the back of the shop and set it to the right channel. They had left it on CNN the night before and she felt her stomach churn as the image on the screen was instantly of a massive riot with deranged people attacking a reporter. They were literally biting her.
“Freaks in Houston still going at it,” she muttered to herself.
Right before she changed the channel, she saw that the footage was actually from Boston. A shiver of fear flowed down her spine and she hit the remote control to flip over to the entertainment network.
Standing up, she shoved the horrible image out of her mind. No time for news media crap. Time to work.
2.
Nothing As It Seems
Despite his wide smile and exuberance, Ken was having a very bad day. The no-good ex-boyfriend had called him early in the morning to tell him he was getting married in Canada. It had taken all of Ken’s willpower not to burst into tears and scream at him. He had pretended to be happy and chatted away as though his heart hadn’t just been ripped out and thrown out the window. What little hope he had that he would be reunited with Darryl, his lost love, had been summarily squashed.
But he was not going to let anyone know that he was hurting. He had a business to run. A small business in the middle of nowhere, Texas, but it was his beauty shop. It was going to be a good day one way or the other. He had prayed that God would grant him grace and a good attitude. Maybe it was a good ol’ jolt of holy power or maybe just his grim determination, but he was smiling.
He checked his eyes for the millionth time to make sure they were not swollen or red from crying. He was satisfied that his expert makeup job to cover up the redness was looking brilliant. He continued to tease Mrs. Chentworth’s hair into the biggest ‘do in Texas and chattered on about all the latest gossip he had read that morning on the internet entertainment blogs.
Lenore was huffy again and that was fine by him. When his no good rotten cheating boyfriend had left him with the beauty shop and vanished for the glories of artsy Marfa, Texas, he had hired Lenore to help him build his clientele. The black population had grown since hurricanes Katrina and Rita sent evacuees fleeing into the small towns of Texas. Some had decided to stay and enjoy the good weather, down home hospitality and cheaper cost of living. Lenore was straight out of beauty school, but she was trained specifically to care for the hair of the black ladies. Since she had joined the shop, he had seen his appointment book swell. It hadn’t taken long for her to become his daily verbal foil. She was Eeyore to his Tigger and that worked well for them. He loved work now, and he owed it to his grumpy
girlfriend.
“Do you think he’s sleeping with her?” his client asked about the latest “it” boy in Hollywood.
“Honey, he’s gayer than I am!” Ken flashed a smile in her direction and covertly checked his eyes again. He still wanted to cry, but he would not. To try and cover how much he was hurting, he did a very flamboyant pose.
“Embracing the stereotype, Ken,” Lenore drawled from across the shop as she checked in their latest shipment of hair extensions.
“This coming from the classic stereotype of the angry black woman?” Ken batted his eyelashes at her and returned to his poofing of Mrs. Chentworth’s classic Texas bouffant.
Lenore harrumphed from across the room. “I ain’t angry. I’m grumpy. There is a difference.”
“You gonna get all sassy at me, snapping your fingers and flipping your weave?” Ken teased.
She glowered. “One, I ain’t sassy. Two, the only one who snaps their fingers around here is you. Three, what I do with my weave is none of your damn business.”
Ken stuck his tongue out at her.
Lenore dismissed him with a look and went back to work.
He chattered on to his customer as he worked and ignored the TV playing in the background. He always felt happier when he was working in the shop. He may have received it as a goodbye gift from his rich ex, but he had decorated to make it his own. The walls were a deep burgundy and decorated with lots of swanky artwork depicting hairstyles and fashions over the ages. Fresh flowers were tucked into hand-painted vases and soft trip hop music played in the background. He may have gotten stuck in Podunk, Nowhere, but he was doing the best he could to make it work.
When he finished with Mrs. Chentworth’s hair, he took her check gratefully, waved to her as she walked out the door, tucked the check into the cash register, and burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” Lenore asked from across the shop.
“That bastard is getting married in Canada!”
“Oh,” Lenore said, and then added matter-of-factly, “But he’s no good for you.”
“I know! I know! But all I wanted was a good husband, a nice home, my own beauty shop and...and...”
“One out of three ain’t bad,” Lenore reminded him.
Ken sniffled a little and shrugged. “I just thought he was the one.”
Ken was always looking for the one. He had hid that he was gay quite successfully all through his childhood and into his teens until he had fallen madly in love with the student council president. On impulse he had written the boy a love letter. The next day his crush had read it over the school intercom and outed him in the most vicious manner possible. Ken had tried to sneak out of the school, but the jocks had found him, beaten him senseless, and sent him off to the hospital.
When he’d woken up, his father had been sitting at his beside with a grim expression on his face. His father had stared down at him for a long moment, then said, “Serves you right for being queer.” Standing up, the man who had once given him piggybacks around the backyard while Ken shouted giddy-up! had walked out of the room and out of Ken’s life.
When Ken was released from the hospital, he was sent to live with his grandmother in San Antonio. His father still wasn’t talking to him and wouldn’t until he “straightened up.” His mother called him in secret and sometimes sent him gifts, but his childhood had ended at seventeen and so had his relationship with his parents.
“The ‘one’ ain’t going to ditch you for some bitchy queen and run off to Canada and get married,” Lenore chided him. She put one hand on her plump hip and glared at him. “You should know that by now. If they love you, they stay by you.”
Ken wiped a tear away and some of his makeup came off with it. “I know! I know! But I gave up everything I had in Dallas to move here to be with him and he left me for some stupid peroxide blond with a fake orange tan!”
Lenore rolled her eyes. “He has bad taste.”
“Hey!”
“I meant with whathisface. Not you. You’re adorable.”
“Really?”
Lenore frowned and said reluctantly, “Yes, for a melodramatic princess.”
Ken gave her a pout, then shook his head. “I’m not melodramatic. He ripped my heart out. Tore it out and flung it away, then ran after it and stomped on it, then ground it into the dirt and...”
Mr. Cloy pushed open the door and peered in at them. “Y’all hear what’s going on in Austin?”
Ken set his chin on his fist and shook his head. He tried to tone down his Nancy Boy inclinations when around the men in town. They were actually quite nice to him and one had even told him that “for a queer boy, you’re okay.” But he was also a businessman and he tried not to cause a stir among potential clients. There were enough stupid rumors about gay people in the world that he did not want anyone painting on him.
“Nope. What’s up with Austin?”
“Got riots there, too. It’s really getting crazy. It’s like all the big cities are just going nuts,” Mr. Cloy said, letting the door slam shut behind him. It was a heavy wood door with a leaded glass window set into it. Thick black velvet curtains with gold thread brocade covered the two big bay windows in the front of the store and kept out the hot sun.
Lenore broke down the box the hair extensions had come in and sighed. “Something bad going on. Maybe some bad crack or something.”
Mr. Cloy scratched his chin. “It’s on purpose. I know it. Someone has put something in the air or in the water. You know that old guy on public access is always going on about that stuff.”
Ken knew exactly whom he was talking about. The geezer would come on public access once a week to ramble on about the government creating clones to do their dirty work. Back in the day, Darryl had watched it religiously. Of course, that was before Darryl hit his midlife crisis, sold the house without telling Ken, got himself a bimbo boyfriend, and hightailed it out of town leaving only a note on his pillow telling Ken he had to move out and that the shop was his.
“Well, I don’t like the news. I don’t like hearing sad stuff or scary stuff, but if something major is going down, I think it has to be those crazy Muslims,” Ken decided. “Seriously, they hate us.”
“Oh, Lord,” Lenore drawled.
“They do! Because we’re rich and stuff.”
Lenore walked over and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Okay, so they hate us. But why come and put a bunch of bad stuff in the water so we start eating each other and being all crazy?”
“Because they want to destroy us from within ‘cause they hate our freedom,” Mr. Cloy told her. “Honey, you’re still young-”
“Do not honey me!” Lenore snapped. “I know what is going on just as much as you do and they hate us cause we’re over there messing in their business.”
“Look here, Missy Democrat,” Ken said going all-Republican on her. “If they weren’t messing in our business-”
“It is the responsibility of the United States of America as the only superpower in the world to police-” Mr. Cloy started up.
“Oh, and what about China?” Lenore cut in.
It was an old argument between the three of them. Ken was an old school Republican that still adored Reagan. Mr. Cloy was a Neo-Conservative Republican that disagreed completely with Ken’s sexual orientation, yet liked him anyway. Lenore was a hardcore Democrat. And all three loved to debate and argue. It was almost gleeful when they started up.
Ken was about to unleash his best speech on China when the sound of police sirens pierced their conversation. Mr. Cloy, who had been making a point about the moral superiority of the United States, stopped in mid-sentence.
A car outside slammed on its brakes and there was a loud screech as they locked. The terrifying sound of two large metal objects slamming together quickly followed.
“Shit,” Mr. Cloy said, his eyes going wide behind his glasses.
Ken darted around the counter and whipped back one of the curtains. Outside were six cars: two smashed
together, a van, a station wagon, and two police cruisers hemming them in. Steam was billowing out from under the crumpled hood of one of the crashed cars and people were pouring out of the vehicles. Some were shouting, others were crying. A few were covered in blood.
“Oh shit,” Ken said.
Lenore took one long look at the scene. “It’s here,” she said simply.
3.
Things Going Bad Fast
Lenore took a long hard look at the chaos right outside their door. Two highway patrol cars and the town’s only police car had the wreck surrounded. The people pouring out of the crashed vehicles were families with children, and the cops hesitated on drawing their weapons.
Mr. Cloy opened the door slightly so they could hear what was going on. Ken reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder. She knew the gesture was not only to comfort her, but also him. She rested her hand on his fingers and slightly squeezed.
“Please, we’re just trying to get away!” A young white woman with brown hair sobbed uncontrollably, holding her baby tight. “Please! We have to get away from the highway!”
“Ma’am, calm down,” one of the highway patrolmen said. His hand lingered near his weapon, but he looked calm. “You were going over a hundred miles per hour. That’s not safe.”
“It’s not safe back there!” A Hispanic man spoke up, his face was bruised and blood was splattered over his shirt. His family was still in their vehicle. The mother leaned over the back of her seat trying to calm their children. “It’s insane on the highway. We had to get off of it!”
“People were hurting each other...ripping each other apart...even...even...” another woman cried out.
“They were eating each other!” An older white man shouted out the dramatic words. His face was so red Lenore wondered if he was going to pop a blood vessel. “We got the hell out of the city when things started going bad, but out on the highway there was a car accident and it slowed all the traffic down. Next thing you know there are these...things...people...they were pulling people out of cars...and...eating them!” The man wiped his face with the back of his hand. “They pulled my wife out of the car...and I couldn’t...I couldn’t...” He began to sob and silence fell over the road.
3.2 As the World Dies Untold Tales Vol. 2 Page 4
