Dead (A Lot)

by Howard Odentz

  “Ow, quit it,” I said as the nightmare procession-without-end descended on us.

  “We have to go back, man,” said Jimmy.

  “Poxer,” chirped Andrew, and I snapped out of it. High five to the bird. I threw the Hummer in reverse and navigated back down the ramp and around the accident as best as I could.

  My shoulder ached, and my head swam with hideous images. That’s when I saw her out of the corner of my eye. There was a woman, maybe my mom’s age, locked inside one of the cars in the traffic jam. She kept popping up in the window, waving frantically at us, then popping out of sight again so she wouldn’t arouse the interest of any of the poxers.

  It was already too late. Some of them divided off from the pack and began climbing over her car and clawing at the windshield.

  Trina saw her, too, and she looked at me hard. I knew what she was thinking. This time . . . this time she was right.

  Trina looked the other way and began to chew her nails.

  I twisted my neck around and navigated the rest of the way down the ramp. When we got to the bottom, I turned on to the back road and just kept driving.

  “Do you know where this takes us?” I asked Jimmy, choking back the frog that was rising in my throat.

  “I’m pretty sure all roads just lead north.”

  “Okay,” I sighed and pressed hard on the gas. “North.” Even now, I still remember the look of horror on that woman’s face when she realized we weren’t going to help her. There was nothing we could have done. There were scores of poxers all around her, and we just weren’t prepared.

  I silently prayed for her as I drove through the autumn colors. Trina said nothing. After about five minutes I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Prianka’s. She just stared at me through the rearview mirror and managed a sad smile on her stone face.

  She said, “It was the right thing to do,” and nothing more. After a moment she removed her hand and placed them both in her lap.

  It didn’t help at all.

  22

  THE NEXT TOWN past North Amherst was Sunderland. I only knew that because of the incorporation sign we passed as we entered. The signpost was decorated with dried corn stalks and a few pumpkins. Leaf-peeping season was just around the corner, and this was just one more staunch, New England example of how seriously we take our Fall.

  Town center was virtually nonexistent. There was a minimart, a gas station, a post office, and a fruit stand—each on a corner. That’s all. A huge mountain with a bald top loomed over us from across a river that snaked its way through the valley.

  “Mount Sugarloaf,” said Jimmy as we all looked up. “There’s an observatory on top. From there you can see for miles. You can probably see all the way back to Littleham from this side. I know you can see Vermont and a tiny bit of New Hampshire from the other side.”

  We crossed the bridge that spanned the river, zigzagging around a few cars and narrowly missing a poxer that looked like he escaped from a nursing home. On the other side of the river we all stared at the mountain growing before our eyes.

  “Great make-out spot,” Jimmy said under his breath. Trina blushed. I didn’t even know that blushing was part of my sister’s repertoire.

  As we passed by the entrance to Mount Sugarloaf State Park I noticed that the gate was open. Maybe no one had a chance to close up before everything hit. That’s when what Jimmy had just said about the make-out spot registered.

  “How far did you say you could see?”

  “Pretty far.” Jimmy only took a second for him to latch on to what I was thinking. “At least far enough to see if the highway is as bad as Route 116.”

  “What’s the dif?” said Trina. We’ll know when we get there, won’t we?”

  “Or we’ll be in the middle of another poxer fest,” I said. “Not really anxious to push our luck if we don’t have to.”

  I stopped the car and backed up to the entrance and pulled in. I admit, the trees were beautiful. I could really see why people were so drawn to Massachusetts in the fall. I never used to notice things like that, but now I was beginning to see how precious and fragile and beautiful everything was.

  We climbed up the steep, winding road that led to the top of the mountain. There were a couple of really sharp, hairpin turns, and half way up the mountain, a rock wall flanked us on one side for a while and a sheer drop on the other. A couple of juvenile offenders had left their marks on the rock. One said ‘Go Lancers’ and another paint-scrawled message read ‘Kris and Gary forever.’ I wondered if when Kris and Gary were defacing public property they knew that forever wasn’t quite as long as they thought.

  When we reached the top we found an empty parking lot and a pathway up to the observatory. I parked the Hummer, and we all got out, including Jimmy. “I love this place,” he said as he pumped his wheels with his muscular arms. “Race you to the top.” He was off and rolling before any of us had a chance to respond.

  Andrew took flight and followed Jimmy, circling above him. After a moment, he came right back to Sanjay’s shoulder. Prianka was wary, looking everywhere for signs of dead movement. I suppose Trina and I were doing the same thing, but Prianka looked like she was engaged in taking a midterm exam—like life and death and Harvard depended on it.

  Well, I guess it did, except for the Harvard part. Who could blame her?

  Mount Sugarloaf’s observatory was on a large plateau, maybe 200 feet across. The tower itself was a three-story wood structure with a steep, metal, spiral, staircase running up through its middle. Thank God the path was paved, or Jimmy wouldn’t have gotten very far.

  He easily beat us all to the top. Around the plateau were park signs with information describing what observers were seeing. Directly below us was Route 116 winding its way through the valley. I could even see the traffic jam of cars that trailed off into the distance.

  Off to the left was the University. There was enough smoke rising from one of the buildings to confirm it was burning to the ground. All I could imagine was that some survivors unluckier than us figured out that poxers burn like paper but didn’t get out of the way fast enough and fried their hideout.

  To the right of us were low hills that gave way to layer after layer of mountain ranges. The foliage was amazing. Puffy clouds in the sky made me feel like I was looking at a painting instead of the real thing.

  “Wow,” I murmured under my breath.

  Jimmy wheeled up to me. “Pretty awesome, right?”

  “You could say that.”

  He pointed to the mountains slightly off to the left. “That’s where your Aunt Ella lives. I’m guessing that’s about thirty miles from here.” Then he pointed down to Route 116 and off in the distance to where it met the highway. “And that answers the question of the day.”

  My eyes followed to where he was pointing. The highway was jammed with cars, too.

  I got really frustrated. “I don’t get it. Who goes to Vermont?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Leaf peepers, dead heads, people who want to be as far away from a city as possible. I’m thinking that if this all went down and I had a car, I would have headed north, too. South is Hartford, New Haven, and New York City. North? There’s nothing’s north but Vermont and Canada. That means lots of wide open space and not a lot of people.”

  I heard a commotion behind us. “Sanjay—NO,” Prianka scolded from near the observatory. He was already scrambling up the stairs with Poopy Puppy in one hand. Andrew flapped off his shoulder and climbed into the air. Prianka and Trina dashed after Sanjay.

  I was ninety-nine percent sure there was nobody up there, but that one percent tugged at the corner of my brain.

  “Crap,” I said to Jimmy. “Come on.”

  At the foot of the spiral stair case, Jimmy lowered himself out of his wheelchair and grabbed on to the metal railing. He swiftly pulled himself
up the stairs with ease. He was pretty amazing. As I followed after him, I noticed a tiny toad sitting on the edge of one of the iron treads. It regarded me with beady, alien eyes. I couldn’t figure out how the toad had gotten there to begin with, but when I gently stooped to pick it up, it jumped.

  If I was cornered, would I jump? If I had nowhere else to turn, would I take that final, fatal leap?

  The thought of that toad jumping still stuck on my mind as I reached the top. There weren’t any poxers there or anyone else but us for that matter. Trina, Prinaka, and Sanjay were at the railing looking off into the distance. The view was amazing. How could three stories make so much difference? The whole of New England was laid out before me.

  From here I could guess where Littleham was.

  From here I could see across the valley for miles. One way was the distant mountains of Vermont, and a small edge of New Hampshire. The other way was the University. In front of us was village after village, and every once in a while a thin pillar of smoke.

  “At least people are fighting back,” said Prianka as she lifted her chin toward the smoke.

  “Power to the people,” said Jimmy.

  One of the smoke trails withered to nothing and disappeared. “Peace out,” I said.

  That was when Trina totally lost it.

  23

  I HATE WHEN people cry. It’s awkward. I don’t know what to do. Their faces screw up in these freakish masks and sometimes they even get red. Every bit of inner frustration or anger or hurt leaks out of their pores all at once.

  Trina crumbled to the ground like someone had unpinned her. Maybe all the tension of the past two days finally caught up to her, like Chuck or our missing parents or the rest of the world turning poxer. Maybe she just needed to vent. I don’t know.

  But there was one thing I did know. When my sister cries, the last thing she wants is for me to be anywhere near her. She thinks she is supposed to be the strong one—the one who is supposed to take care of me. Not the other way around.

  Sanjay ignored her and kept looking out across the valley. After a moment, Prianka guided him away from the view and back down the stairs.

  Jimmy looked back at me, and I looked back at him, and somewhere in that silent communication I gave him permission to take this one on, mostly because I wasn’t willing to extend a helping hand to Trina and pull back a stump.

  He crawled over to her and she turned away from him, so he leaned up against the edge of the deck and just sat there. Jimmy gave me the thumbs up, so I left, silently following Prianka down the spiral stair case and out of the observation tower.

  I looked around for the toad when I got to the bottom of the stairs, but it was nowhere to be found. It got away. Somehow, it took a leap of faith and got away.

  “I never took Trina Light for a girl who cries,” said Prianka. She sat down on a stone bench and watched as Sanjay went to the edge of the plateau.

  “She usually doesn’t,” I said. “But everyone has their moments, I guess.”

  Prianka stared off in the distance, and I stared at my feet. Andrew leaped off Sanjay’s shoulder and flew out over the sheer drop, sweeping into a wide arc then floating on the air. Sanjay clapped his hands together and held Poopy Puppy up high over his head, presumably so the grimy little bag of cotton fluff could see, too.

  In another world, it would have been a Kodak moment.

  “Thanks,” said Prianka after a while.

  “Thanks for what?”

  “Just . . . thanks,” she said.

  “Um, okay.” My dad said I would never really be able to figure girls out. He was right—Prianka was a complete mystery to me.

  She ran her hands through her thick, black hair and absentmindedly brushed some strands behind her ear.

  “You could have left me at the Mug N’ Muffin,” she said.

  “No I couldn’t.”

  She shook her head. “You could have dumped me as soon as you saw Sanjay.”

  “Nope on that, too.”

  She was quiet for a moment. Could I possibly have just made the great Prianka Patel speechless? No such luck.

  “I’m not sure I would have done the same for you,” she said.

  I snorted and looked directly ahead. Andrew looped back over the plateau and rode a light breeze to the top of the observation tower.

  “Yes you would have,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  How did I know? I didn’t know, but that’s how I would have wanted her to be.

  “Because you’re always right,” I said. “And if I had been stuck at the Mug N’ Muffin instead of you, you would have come to get me because that would have been the right thing to do.”

  Prianka sat quietly. Andrew cawed from up above and swooped down to land on Sanjay’s shoulder. That kid was going to be a big responsibility for her. He probably always had been and that made my opinion of Prianka slowly creep up just one notch, but only one. That’s about as generous as I felt at the moment.

  We didn’t say anything more to each other. About five minutes later, Trina and Jimmy came down the stairs. Her eyes were puffy, but she had stopped crying. Jimmy pulled himself up into his chair and checked his watch.

  “Not even noon,” he mused.

  Wow, a lifetime ago we had left his house in Amherst.

  “We should go,” said Prianka.

  I thought about the highway. “Go how?”

  “Back roads, I guess,” said Jimmy. “You got from Littleham to Amherst, and we managed to get here. How hard can it be?”

  Really hard.

  24

  JIMMY WAS FLOORED the first time we used our human navigator. Sanjay was filled to the gills with junk food and had absolutely no interest in sleeping. He sat on Prianka’s lap in the back seat and stuck his head out the open window like a faithful hound dog.

  Andrew sat on the headrest between her and Jimmy. He obviously enjoyed the fall breeze, too. Every once in a while, he spread his wings and let the air rush through his feathers.

  We slowly inched our way down Sugarloaf Mountain. The road was a little less freaky than the one coming up. We had to hope we didn’t encounter any cars along the way, because there would have been no place to pass. We’d have to go back the way we had come.

  When we got to the bottom, I stopped the car and turned around.

  “Sanjay?” I said. “Hey, Buddy?” He blushed and tucked himself down into Prianka’s lap as though he could hide from me. “Listen, Buddy. We’re all going to need your help again like you did yesterday. We have a new address, and we’re hoping that you can help us find the way to get there.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Jimmy.

  I ignored him. “Do you think you and Poopy Puppy can help us? Well, because, you know, Poopy Puppy is smart.”

  Sanjay nodded his head in agreement. “Poopy Puppy’s smart,” he said. “Poopy Puppy’s very smart.”

  Jimmy started to ask again, but Prianka just put her hand on his and shook her head.

  I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the piece of paper that I had torn out of the phone book. “We’re going to see a really nice lady named Ella Light,” I said. “She’s my aunt. She’s Trina’s aunt, too. I bet when we get there she’ll be really happy to meet you and Poopy Puppy and Andrew.”

  Sanjay didn’t say anything, so I continued.

  “But we have a little problem. We can’t go on any highways, and we can’t go on Route 116. Do you think you can get us there by just going on regular roads?”

  Again, he didn’t respond so I opened up the piece of paper and read the address out loud. “We’re going to see Ella Light at 8 Captain Logan Way in Cummington, Massachusetts.” I repeated the address. “8 Captain Logan Way in Cummington, Massachusetts. Do you know which way we sh
ould go?”

  Sanjay pulled Poopy Puppy close to him, closed his eyes, and said, “‘A total of 48 sheep were seized along with 13 goats from a small farm in Cummington.’”

  Trina gagged on the bottle of water she was drinking.

  “‘I have rescue groups lined up that want to take these animals and give them the care that they need, said Sherrie Gilbert, Community Liaison, Cummington County Animal Care Services.

  “A judge approved the seizure Thursday, deeming the conditions the animals were living in at the farm of Ella Light and Don Dark questionable.

  “While Gilbert said samples taken from the farm were being tested for certain livestock related diseases, Ms. Light and Mr. Dark insisted the seemingly poor conditions were caused by recent extremes in weather.

  “It was noted that all animals were well fed and hydrated at the time of the seizure. The county attorney is expected to file animal cruelty charges against the couple this coming week.’”

  We all fell silent. I felt the red spread up my neck and across my cheeks. Trina sucked in her lips and made this weird little whistling sound.

  Jimmy just stared at Sanjay in utter amazement. He was too stunned to speak.

  “Really?” Prianka barked. “Your aunt and uncle are like, like felons?”

  “I can’t believe he dredged that up,” I stammered. “That was years ago. Aunt Ella says one of their neighbors reported them because he didn’t like them.”

  “What just happened?” asked Jimmy, his mouth still agape.

  “That’s just great,” Prianka went on. “That’s just peachy.”

  Trina started giggling a little. “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family,” she offered but none of us laughed.

  “Is Sanjay . . . is Sanjay an idiot savant?” said Jimmy like he just found out aliens landed on the White House lawn.

  “Don’t say that word,” Prianka snapped.

  “Yeah, Dude. We’re not down with the putdowns,” I said.