Dead (A Lot)

by Howard Odentz

  “Why?”

  “She might actually stab that Cal guy. He’s a major tool.”

  “I know,” she said. “But both of those idiots have to believe we mean business.” She held the knife up in front of her eyes and licked her lips. “They have to really believe. Luke’s the one who’s going to cave first. As long as we can keep Cal quiet, Luke will tell us where your parents are. I know he will.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I really do.”

  Back in the living room, Luke renewed his sobbing when he saw the knife in Prianka’s grip.

  “I can’t,” he blubbered and snorted. “No way, no how. Either Diana will kill me or you will. Lordy, lordy, help me. I should have up and died with everyone else.”

  Jimmy leaned forward in his chair. “Who’s everyone else?”

  “The other units,” he sobbed. “Us and the other units. We was doing maneuvers up in the mountains when everything happened. We was called in, but by then there was only a few of us soldiers left.”

  “Called in where?” pressed Jimmy.

  Cal began to rock in his chair, his fists opening and closing and straining against the tape. A muffled roar came from beneath his blocked mouth. Jimmy ignored him and pushed Luke again.

  “Luke. Called in where?”

  I swear, Luke was about to crack. He opened his mouth to speak, but before anything came out, his voice caught in his throat, and his eyes bulged out of his head. A strangled, gurgling noise was all that he could produce. He was staring at the entrance to the living room, so we all followed his gaze.

  Sanjay had come in.

  Saying our mouths dropped open would have been a bit of an understatement. Sanjay was stripped down to his underwear. His bare feet slapped against the hardwood floor. He was decorated from head to toe in red paint. Strange symbols and words covered his skinny arms, his chest, and legs. In the middle of his forehead was a pentagram like the one painted on the door to the house. To top it all off, Andrew perched on his shoulder, his wings outstretched as Sanjay walked.

  “He’s here,” I shouted because I really didn’t know what else to do. I dropped to my knees and bowed my head. Jimmy caught on first. He lowered himself out of his chair and bowed his head, too. Prianka, Triana, and Bullseye did the same. Finally, Newfie got up and slowly walked over to Sanjay and stood by his side.

  Now what? I caught Trina’s eye, and she looked desperately at me then back to the floor.

  “Oh mighty Master,” I yelled before I could even stop the words from pouring out of my mouth. “What is thou willist?”

  “What is thy will?” Prianka repeated. Even in dire circumstances she had to point out that she was smarter than me. Okay, so I wasn’t that hot in Ye Olde English.

  The room was deathly quiet. All we could hear was the sound of the llama chewing on her bed of hay. The rhythmic chomp, chomp, chomp was eerie.

  Finally, Andrew cackled, “Thy will. Thy will,” flapped his wings, and the oddest thing happened.

  Sanjay spoke.

  They weren’t quite the words we were expecting him to break his silence with—but he spoke, nevertheless.

  “I invoke thee, dark lord,” he began in a booming voice. “Enter my circle. I call you on this dire hour to aid me in my foul deeds. Help me to perform the evil that I must do. Come at once and crawl inside my enemies’ head.”

  He walked forward toward Luke and Cal, Andrew squeaking and squawking like a demonic, black chicken. Luke became hysterical and squirmed so much he toppled his chair over backwards and hit his head on the floor. Thankfully, he didn’t boink his noggin hard enough to knock himself out.

  “Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy,” he wailed. “I ain’t never done nothing to deserve this. I ain’t never.”

  We all stayed crouched with our heads bowed, not sure what was going to happen next. Frankly, I was prepared for Sanjay to start spouting nicknames or directions. If he did that, we’d really be screwed.

  Sanjay walked around the fallen soldier, stepped over him, and made a beeline right for Cal. He reached forward and ripped the tape from his mouth.

  “I invoke thee, dark lord,” he chanted again with his face scant inches away from Cal’s. “Enter my circle. I call you on this dire hour to aid me in my foul deeds. Help me to perform the evil that I must do. Come at once, and crawl inside my enemies’ head.”

  Andrew squawked, “Enemies’ head”.

  Cal didn’t miss a beat.

  “They’re at the McDuffy Estate up the road about twenty minutes past Purgatory Chasm.”

  That was easy. Why are grownups so damn stubborn sometimes?

  “Are they hurt in any way?” asked Jimmy.

  “No.”

  “How many others?”

  “A couple soldiers, Diana and her people, the doc and his wife, and some folks I ain’t never seen.”

  “Lordy, lordy, lordy,” cried Luke again. I think we had broken something inside his head.

  We all stood up a little relieved and more than a bit confused about Sanjay. Prianka moved forward, gently reached out, and tentatively touched her little brother’s shoulder. He turned and let Prianka slowly guide him out of the living room and down the hall to the library.

  We followed them, leaving Luke a blubbering mess and Cal probably wondering what he had just done.

  When we were all inside the library, I closed the door.

  “What the hell was that?” I gasped.

  Prianka bent down in front of Sanjay and Andrew. The crow repositioned himself closer to Sanjay’s ear and ran his beak through the boy’s black curls.

  “Sanjay?” she said, searching his dark eyes for any sign he was somewhere inside.

  “The Gate, page forty-three,” he whispered, his eyes still glazed. “Andrew said so.”

  We all shifted our gaze to the crow.

  “Andrew said what?” Prianka whispered.

  “Andrew’s smart,” said Sanjay, as though he was talking about Poopy Puppy instead of Jimmy’s flying rat. His eyes grew less distant. He seemed to be coming out of his stupor. “Andrew’s very smart. He told me to scare the tatti out of those two men.”

  The crow ruffled his feathers and chirped, “Tatti.”

  “He told me to scare the tatti out of them,” said Sanjay in a quiet voice. “So I did.”

  67

  THERE ARE SO MANY stupid arguments I could have come up with. I thought about it for a long time, but each one sounded worse than the one before. In the end, I didn’t say anything at all. I just slipped away because I thought that was the best thing to do. It may not have been the brightest idea, but to me, it was the best.

  Trina had left the jeep keys on the kitchen counter, and I already had the keys to Stella’s minivan. While no one was paying attention, I took both sets of keys. Quietly, I tiptoed into the living room and held a small knife to Cal’s throat. I whispered something particularly nasty in his ear and pressed down just hard enough for him to catch my drift.

  He told me the McDuffy Estate was down a dirt road about a hundred yards past a big rock ledge covered with graffiti that loomed over the Trail.

  That was good enough for me. I doubted he was lying. Sanjay’s little display had probably knocked the lying gene out of his head.

  The others were in the library. I mumbled something to them about going out for some fresh air and headed for the front door.

  I underestimated Jimmy, though. He was smart—like Poopy Puppy smart—like Andrew smart.

  “Hey wait up,” he called after me. “I need a breather, too.”

  “Um, okay,” I muttered as I walked on to the porch and sat down on the front steps. Twilight was coming, and the sky was painted with streaks of pink and orange.

  Jimmy wheeled up next to me and stared into the fading light. “
Red sky at morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night is a sailor’s delight.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what my foster mom used to always say. When the sky looks like this, expect smooth sailing.”

  “Who’s sailing?”

  “Seems to me you’re about to,” he said. “Pretty swift of you to take both sets of car keys so no one can follow.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He folded his hands in front of him and bent forward. I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my head.

  “So let me take a crack at this, and you tell me how I’m doing,” he began. “I’m guessing you’re thinking that Prianka’s got Sanjay, Bullseye’s too little, and Trina is so fired up about those two guys that she’s likely to do something stupid. And me? Well you think I’m a cripple. How did I do?”

  I couldn’t look him straight in the face.

  “You’re pretty smart for a cripple.”

  “Sticks and stones, my friend. Sticks and stones.”

  I chewed on the inside of my lip. “I’m getting my parents. I don’t expect you to help me, and I don’t want anyone here to get hurt. This is my problem, Jimmy. Not yours.”

  “You’re pretty damn stubborn for a spoiled rich kid from the burbs, you know that?”

  “Yeah, whatever—I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

  Jimmy chuckled. “Well I was born with a spork in mine. Same dif. We‘re both still alive, and I’m coming with.”

  Jimmy lowered himself out of his chair and scooted down the three porch steps to the ground. He motioned for me to grab his wheels. When I did, he climbed back in his chair and stared at me like he was Sprinkles and I had just asked her if she wanted to take a ‘rideinthecar.’

  “Is this right? Leaving them alone?” I whispered because I didn’t want anyone to know what we were about to do.

  “Tripp, man. Have you seen our girls? I think they handle themselves better than we do. Bullseye’s a crackerjack shot, and our little shaman animal whisperer probably has more tricks up his sleeve than all of us combined.”

  He was right.

  “What about all the guns and the ammunition?”

  “The jeep’s still loaded, right? We’ll leave that for them and take the minivan. All we need is a handgun and some matches and maybe a little lighter fluid.”

  I agreed. We’d leave all the weapons and ammunition with them in case we didn’t make it back. “Fine. We’ll take the minivan and hope we have a plan by the time we get there.”

  Jimmy rubbed the red stubble on his face. “I’m working on it,” he said. “I’m working on it.”

  I blew air out of my nose. “Okay. What about the elephant in the room?”

  “We’re outside, and there aren’t any elephants here—only llamas.”

  “You know what I mean.” I didn’t want to have to say you’re handicapped!

  “No, Tripp. I really don’t know what you mean.” Jimmy licked his lips. “I’ve spent my whole life looking straight ahead and not down at my legs. I’m not about to start now. I don’t have a problem with being differently-abled. Frankly, besides running a race, I’m sure I can take you in pretty much everything. For that matter, between my wheels and your legs, I’d bet on me.”

  The sky was turning purple, and night was coming fast. I was thankful that he couldn’t really see my face in the fading light, because my cheeks burned red.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “A jackass, even.”

  “Keep going,” he said. Nah—that was all the self-deprication Jimmy James was going to get out of me. Besides, we had a job to do.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  “Alrighty.”

  We both turned and looked at the farm house. They were all going to expel us from our little group when they realized what we did.

  Expel us? Hell, they’d have to catch us and eat us first.

  “One more thing,” whispered Jimmy. He wheeled over to the jeep, quietly opened the front door, and leaned forward with his arm outstretched so he could reach all the wires under the steering wheel. He grabbed a handful and yanked as hard as he could. They came out in his fist, along with some spark plugs.

  “What was that for?”

  “You think taking the keys will stop any of them from following us?”

  “Why not?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Because Sanjay read through every one of Stella’s survival books,” he said as he jammed the wires into the pocket of his jeans. “He could hot wire this thing in his sleep.”

  68

  AS JIMMY AND I started the minivan and backed out of the long driveway, we both caught a glimpse of the front door slamming open. Prianka and Trina shouted after us in the darkness.

  “Damn you,” I heard one of them yell as I backed into the road, threw the minivan in drive, and took off without looking back.

  “We are totally screwed,” I said to Jimmy.

  “No we’re not.”

  “How you figure?”

  “Because we’re going to come back with your parents,” he said. “Trina and Pri might be righteously miffed right now, but when we bring your mom and dad back home, we’re going to get some mighty fine appreciation.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, “Because in case you haven’t noticed, Prianka can turn a sunny day into a blizzard.”

  “Nope—hadn’t noticed. I’ve been too fixated on someone else, Dude.”

  “Enough, okay?” I glared at him. “I’m still processing.”

  “Hey, just passing the time with a little conver—Watch out!”

  A deer was frozen in the middle of the road. Its eyes were bright red in the reflection of the minivan’s headlights. I stomped on the breaks and swerved sideways. The squeal of the tires was enough to spook her, and she jumped off the road into the trees. Seeing that deer reminded me of a line from a poem I memorized for ninth grade English. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. The words finally made sense. They were about life and death and how sometimes giving up and dying seems easier than doing what needs doing.

  Yeah, maybe giving up would be easier, but not for me. That was someone else’s solution. Mine was to get my parents back and make sure that my sister, Prianka, Sanjay, Bullseye, Andrew, and Newfie remained safe.

  Jimmy, too.

  He reached into the back seat and picked up one of the two handguns that we had taken out of the jeep.

  “You think we’re going to have to use that?” I asked as I turned on the high beams and saw two poxers come into view on the side of the road.

  “I’m hoping not,” he said as he pointed it at the two middle-aged things and pretended to blow them away. “I don’t think I have the stomach to shoot something I know still has a brain left in its head.”

  I thought about Luke and Cal and wondered if they counted, because between both of them, they had just about two brain cells fighting for territory. Still, if someone got in the way of me getting my mom and dad, I’d shoot—wouldn’t I?

  We rode in silence for a while. The road made a quick jog and a curve, and we were back at the Trail. My high beams caught a glimpse of the poxers in the parking lot across the street. There were less of them than before. Maybe they decided that the doors weren’t ever going to open, so they moved on in search of food. Who knows?

  I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and scanned the dark road up ahead as I drove. Every once in a while we passed a poxer crawling along the tar.

  Right before the Romance Rendezvous, I saw a poxer kid bent over on the side of the road with his face in a bloated, furry roadkill.

&n
bsp; “That’s nasty,” said Jimmy.

  “That’s survival,” I said. “Just the luck of the draw—one hundred to one. Ninety nine other times that would have been you out there licking up dead skunk.”

  “Raccoon,” he said.

  “Whatever.”

  A little further up the road was another car accident. I had to slow down and carefully inch my way around the twisted metal because the pavement was starting to get narrow. Ten minutes later, rock walls started to climb either side of the Trail, and the road got even narrower. I prayed that we didn’t run across any more accidents. I wasn’t sure I would be able to get the van around anything stuck in the road.

  Just about the time I thought our little rescue mission couldn’t get any bleaker, we turned a curve, and the high beams lit up a big, jagged cliff looming over the Trail. The rock face was covered with graffiti. What caught my eye most was a rainbow colored peace sign and a big heart that said Jeremy and Amanda.

  Maybe if we ever got through all this, I’d come back here and spray paint Tripp and Prianka on a huge slab of granite. Girls are supposed to like crap like that.

  I think.

  “We’re turning off just past here,” I said to Jimmy. “How’s that plan coming along?”

  “The one I’ve been working on with no help from you?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “I’ll let you know,” he murmured as he cradled the handgun in his lap.

  About a quarter mile later I saw the dirt road that Cal described. I took a deep breath and pulled Stella’s minivan about fifty feet down the dark gravel, eased over, and parked on one side. Branches scraped against the roof. Ahead of us, the dirt road disappeared into the night. Somewhere down there some really bad people were keeping my parents, and I had no idea how I was going to get them back.

  “Turn off the lights,” said Jimmy.

  “Good idea.”

  “I’m filled with them, man.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because I’m still waiting on that killer idea that’s gonna get my parents out of this place with all of us still in one piece.”

  “Wait for it,” Jimmy said as the darkness engulfed us. “Just wait for it.”