Vacation

by Matthew John Costello

  He walked steadily in the direction of a lone gun spitting out flashes.

  Jack saw the guard.

  One fucking guard, standing with a group of Can Heads circling him. They moved around the guard, taking steps, tightening the noose they had him in.

  They could take a lot of bullets.

  And that was another thing: how many bullets did Jack have? Should he have brought more? And when they were gone…

  Jack saw a Can Head leap forward, taking shots from the guard and dropping to the ground. But the suicide move also allowed the others to accelerate their hunting circle. The guy began literally spinning on his feet, blasting, crazed.

  Maybe, at this point, insane.

  If Jack was going to help, it better be now.

  He slowly tightened his trigger finger. The Can Heads’ crouching bodies caught the scant light, making them look like rocks and bushes… dark clumps moving.

  Jack began firing.

  Two of the Can Heads fell immediately.

  The others, seeing their simple feral trap fall apart, turned to him.

  Jack had planted his back against a tree. It gave him some protection from any rear attack.

  The guard had stopped firing.

  Stopped—or out of ammo?

  Either way, the few Can Heads left surrounded him, ready to leap.

  This would all play out in seconds. That’s all he had, Jack knew, from so many attacks and battles in the city.

  He aimed at one Can Head to his left, firing, kicking it back, maybe not dead. But shifting to the right, and catching that one in the skull, dead center. A head shot always took them out.

  Always, that is, except for those freakish moments when they didn’t and somehow the thing could still move with a chunk of skull and brain matter missing.

  This time, though, the Can Head got kicked off his feet. A third hesitated, perhaps smelling death.

  Jack fired at it. At the same time, he dug out his Glock.

  Anything could happen with an M16. A jam, some malfunction.

  Two guns gave him some security.

  With all three attackers dead, Jack hurried to the guard, now with one Can Head riding his back, mouth open. Another had locked itself to the guard’s midsection.

  Not a job for the rifle. This was up-close work.

  Jack took aim at each Can Head, knowing that mere inches separated a shot that could save the guy’s life from one that would just make the Can Head’s work easier.

  Jack’s first shots were tenuous. Not wanting to get too close. But each second brought deeper wounds to the guard.

  He adjusted his aim, taking a chance that a sudden jerk of the guard’s body would expose him to a killing shot.

  The Can Head on the guy’s back caught one shell. It fell off the guard as if thrown from a horse.

  The guard fell to his knees. Jack fired three shots at the creature digging at the guy’s midsection.

  It stopped moving.

  But as if clamped on, it stayed stuck to the guard.

  Jack walked over and crouched down, not knowing whether he’d just saved a dead man.

  The guard’s eyes were open. He could speak.

  “Th-thank you.”

  Hard to tell about his wounds. Guy could be bleeding out all over the place.

  Jack pried the dead Can Head off the man, like undoing a blue crab from a net.

  Its claw hands, even the feet with their uncut nails, all dug in.

  Then the man was free.

  “Can you stand?”

  What little light there was caught at least three nasty wounds, all oozing.

  But the blood wasn’t gushing out; it wasn’t pouring onto the forest floor.

  With his own gun silenced, Jack could hear gunfire around them.

  “Can you stand?” Jack asked again.

  The man seemed to wobble as he tried to make his legs work to get himself up.

  But then, like some amazing feat of science, the guy stood.

  “You have some bad wounds.” Jack nodded at the woods. “Things still going on in here. Think you can manage to shoot some more of them?” The guy made a face that looked about as unsure as any Jack had ever seen.

  “I’ll be with you. I have a little experience killing these suckers.”

  The man nodded.

  “Good. Clear this area. Then you can get your wounds tended to. Okay?”

  Another nod.

  “One thing: remember to reload whenever you can. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack wanted to get back to his family.

  But then from behind the lodge, more gunfire.

  Fuck, he thought.

  The snaps and pops insisting that he go there.

  He left the guard and ran as best he could in the direction of the gunfire.

  * * *

  He stopped.

  The figures ahead—shadowy. But he could see Lowe, Shana, a few other guards, surrounded.

  Christ, had to be ten… twelve Can Heads. Circling. That hunting shit they did.

  Everyone’s guns out, maybe thinking about conserving bullets. Their own panic making them do just the wrong thing—turn to look this way, then that way, feeding their panic, fueling the disorientation.

  Only seconds before the Can Heads would pounce. Lowe and his workers would be turned into mincemeat.

  Jack took a step—a twig snapped.

  One Can Head shot his head around, the sound of the dry stick just able to penetrate its consciousness. One of Lowe’s guards fired a gun at another. Then another shot, only this time—a click, the weapon empty.

  Another Can Head spun toward Jack as if smelling the new interloper.

  Right, thought Jack. I’m here.

  He started firing.

  For every shot that hit one of the Can Heads between the eyes, another barely grazed a shoulder, an arm. Now the group of cannibals was equally divided between moving toward Lowe’s group, and moving on Jack.

  Jack started walking toward them, reminding himself: stay steady, take time to aim. Try to fucking anticipate the Can Heads’ next crazy move.

  Anticipate.

  As if.

  The rifle kicked one back on its heels. Another blast removed one’s head clear from its shoulders. And still the thing walked another few damn feet before collapsing to the ground.

  Jack kept walking into the circle, as if bridging the gap between Lowe’s party and his weapons. The closer he got, the better he could aim and shoot.

  Only two of the things were left standing; sniffing the air like pigs, snorting, smelling the blood, mad with hunger but also seeing the death around them.

  Got you, fuckers, Jack thought.

  He easily took these two out in their confusion.

  And then it was quiet.

  Lowe and his people safe.

  Jack’s guns smoking in each hand like mini-chimneys.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what you get for ruining my fucking vacation.”

  27. 10:41 P.M.

  The alarms stopped.

  “It’s over,” Christie said. “I think you should try and get some sleep.”

  Kate asked the obvious question.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’ll be here. I’m sure he helped.” She forced a smile.

  “He said he’d be back soon,” Simon said.

  “And he will. Tell you what. As soon as he’s back, I’ll send him in. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Kate said.

  Simon looked up. “I want to hear what happened.”

  “Probably nothing. Only an alarm.”

  Just saying those words made them sound false.

  “Come on—brush your teeth and into bed.”

  The two kids slid off the couch and walked into their room. With them gone, Christie looked at the door and then walked over to the front windows.

  Lights on outside. Everything looked quiet.

  Where the hell was he?

  She turned away fro
m the window, the locked door, and walked into the kids’ room.

  * * *

  Ed Lowe nodded to Shana and the others, who headed to the Lodge.

  At the same time, a different kind of siren started coming from the horns all around the camp.

  Lowe stood close. “The all clear. Fence back up.” He took a breath. “We stopped them.”

  Jack looked right at him. “Fences back up? Great. So what the fuck happened?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve got power back up now. Something— I’ll check it out. I’ll find out what goddamned happened.”

  “So much for your security.” He turned away to head back to the cabin.

  Lowe grabbed Jack’s right arm. “Hey, Jack, hold on a second.”

  Jack shrugged off Lowe’s hand.

  “I got to get back. My family’s waiting.”

  “Of course, of course. Can I walk with you a bit?”

  “Be my guest.”

  The pain in Jack’s leg had come roaring back, now that the adrenaline had faded. All that running.

  Killing my leg, he thought.

  “What you did was amazing, Jack.”

  “Right.”

  “Helping us. Taking down those Can Heads. Can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “You know, we could use someone like you.”

  Jack shook his head. “Someone like me? What’s that? Some cop who came up here to get the hell away? And finds his family at fucking risk?”

  His voice rose, the tension of the night hitting him.

  He would have liked nothing more than to take Ed Lowe and shake him, grab his shirt and ask him, How the hell did you let this happen?

  “No. And easy, friend. No need to raise your voice. Just that this can be a safe place, Jack. Protected, with guards. But even in safe places, things can happen.”

  Jack stopped. They were close to the path that led directly to his cabin and he didn’t want Lowe following him all the way there.

  “Things can happen? Is that how the damn fence got knocked out?”

  “Hey, Jack—I said easy, huh? No need to yell. We’re all friends here, right?”

  “How about an answer?”

  “You can take the cop out of the city… and you still get a cop, right?”

  “Lose power to your fence, and—shit—in a place this large, everyone here is suddenly vulnerable. Enough Can Heads outside, waiting. If they had all gotten in, it would have been a bloodbath.”

  “We have backups. Backup power. Should have kicked in. Redundancies. I’ll get to the bottom of—”

  Jack shook his head. “Redundancies? Really? Didn’t see anything too fucking redundant tonight.”

  “I said things can happen. Whatever shorted out the fence led the backup to overload. Never happened before. Should have been a smooth transition, like a switch being thrown. Don’t worry, Jack. I have people looking at it… working on it now. Won’t happen again.”

  “How reassuring. Will you call the state police?”

  Lowe’s face caught the glow from the lamp behind Jack. The fleshy face now smiling. The tight-as-a-drum Lowe from before had been replaced by this stubby guy with an idiotic grin.

  Welcome, newcomers!

  “Of course I’ll call the state police. But they have their hands full out there. They’d come if we needed any help. But it’s all over now. They’ll swing by tomorrow.”

  “And who’d you lose?”

  Lowe grimaced. “Not too sure yet. But I know of one. A guard. Drunk. Right near that section of fence that went down. One drunk guard who couldn’t fire fast enough.”

  Lowe looked away.

  “We’re better off without that asshole.”

  * * *

  Christie heard the voices and went to the big front window of the cabin.

  She saw Ed Lowe standing in a pool of light, talking to Jack.

  Why don’t you just come back? Christie wondered.

  Why do you have to do a goddamn postmortem with Ed Lowe?

  She remained standing at the window.

  * * *

  “Jack, I meant what I said. We could use you here. Your skills—training my guys.”

  “I have a job, thanks.”

  “Yeah. Back there. You think your family is really looking forward to going back? How long before things in the city go completely to hell? And the food? What you have to eat there. Is that how you want your family to live?”

  “That’s life.”

  “Not here, it isn’t. You could be safe. And we have food, real food.”

  Jack looked up at his cabin.

  “Look, I said thanks, but no thanks. Gotta go. Just make sure you find out what happened with the fence.”

  He turned away and walked up to the cabin.

  For a few moments, he thought Ed Lowe would stand there and watch him walk all the way back. But Lowe headed back to the lodge.

  No longer engaged in a heated conversation, the pain hit Jack full force.

  Need to take some real painkillers tonight.

  Even though he hated the way the Vicodin made him feel in the morning, all cotton balls in his head, so groggy.

  Christie opened the door for him and immediately raised her hands, balled into fists as if she was about to beat his chest.

  Instead, she backed up, letting him in.

  “The kids… I said you’d come in. Say good night.”

  Her voice cold; her eyes on him equally chilly.

  She had passed being worried and sailed straight on to really pissed.

  “They still up?”

  “I’m sure. Guess they want to hear what happened. The cop adventures of their father.”

  “Yeah. Okay. As soon as I wash off some of this blood.”

  “Then we talk,” she said.

  “Fine.”

  * * *

  Christie had started by telling him how she expected him to come right back. How scared she was, and how angry.

  But then, when she was done, she let him talk.

  And she listened as Jack spoke about the fence, the guards, and she quickly knew he was downplaying it.

  The failed fence had been a major threat.

  And despite Lowe saying things happen, he didn’t understand how it could have happened.

  “So, with all their damn security, the safety of Paterville—”

  “Not so safe.”

  He then told her what Lowe had asked him.

  “What? To live here?”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked away. “God. I don’t know. I mean after tonight… But maybe…?”

  Jack didn’t say anything.

  He got up. Their chat ended. She watched him take a step toward the bedroom.

  “Your leg—you messed up your leg. Your doctors won’t be happy.”

  “Me either. Can you grab me a Vicodin? Hate it, but… And a glass of water. I need a shower.”

  While she went to get the pill and the water, Jack limped into the bedroom.

  * * *

  Jack took the pill and held it.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Christie, in a short nightgown, turned off the lamp on the dresser.

  As she did, Jack took a sip of water.

  But he put the pill on the end table near his side of the bed.

  He had planned on taking the Vicodin. Planned on getting knocked out and sleeping.

  But in the shower, his plans changed.

  He got under the covers. Windows still shut and locked, outside now all seemed quiet and still, as if nothing had happened.

  Christie shut off the light on her side of the bed.

  Jack lay there, feeling so achy, the too-soft pillow surrounding his head.

  His eyes were shut, but sleep seemed impossibly far away.

  He felt Christie’s arm around him. Then it tightened, the hug promising, her hand straying. He felt her reach down, encircling him, the feeling electric.

  He turned to her, r
eady so fast, his senses so awake after the madness of the night.

  “The kids?”

  “Asleep,” she said. “Late for them.” Then: “Just be quiet.”

  He felt her slowly slide down, her lips planting kisses. No sounds outside to compete with the gentle noise of her kisses. His hands went to her face, caressing her, and she started to slide back up to kiss him on the lips.

  He could feel her body, lean, taut—she put as much time into exercise as he did—position itself over him.

  A big kiss, and he felt her on him, straddling him—and suddenly there really was nothing else. Just this shaded room, the bed, the sounds each of them made, the waves of pleasure making the idea of pain seem distant.

  He became invulnerable.

  At some point he turned her over, a move that had been impossible only weeks ago. He could support his weight with his knees, trying to minimize the pain to his bad leg.

  Her legs entwined his.

  When her foot moved over his healed wound, he detected no flicker of a reaction from her.

  For her, too, everything else had vanished but their lovemaking.

  And as he looked at her in the shadows, kissing her hard again, at one point, she took a breath.

  And as if welcoming him back from a long trip, she said:

  “I love you.”

  His answer was in his movements, driving deep, another kiss, holding her almost too tight.

  Until it was done, and they both fell into the lightest of sleeps.

  SECRETS

  28. Morning

  Jack woke up, the aches from the night before still hitting him at a dozen different points on his body.

  He heard steps… expecting Christie to walk in… but it was Kate.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, Kate. Um, where is everybody?”

  “Mom took Simon down to the lake. I’m going down, too.”

  He felt his daughter scrutinizing him.

  “You okay, Dad? After last night.”

  Jack had already decided to minimize the break-in.

  “It was nothing. Certainly no worse than what I see every day.”

  She nodded. Not exactly looking convinced. “Can I get you anything?”

  He guessed all was forgiven.

  Jack laughed. “No, I’m fine. Thanks, though.”

  “’Kay. Then, I guess I’ll go down to the beach. It’s really hot out.”