Valley of Death, Zombie Trailer Park

by William Bebb

CHAPTER 7

  Maria the Mechanic and Billy's Mission

  Maria swore, “Puta,” as she leaned under the raised hood of Mrs. Remlap’s dark green 1975 Chevy Nova. Her white peasant blouse and blue jeans were smudged with patches of grease and oil as she continued to pull, without any noticeable success, on the wrench. Sweat trickled down her neck and a sheen of it made her feel sticky and miserable while she worked. Her long dark brown hair was tied in a ponytail and she wore a red and white checkered bandana around her sweaty forehead as she attempted to repair the vehicle that had been neglected for several years.

  The two car garage itself was quite large, yet all the cardboard boxes and crates stored there made her feel more than a little claustrophobic. There was a washer and dryer by the steps that led into the kitchen. An old wood panel late1960's Caprice Station Wagon was covered with all manner of junk and a thick layer of dust next to the Nova. The walls were decorated with a Hodgepodge of just about everything imaginable- Bamboo fishing poles, dozens of expired license plate tags, and a few old tires with no tread on them hung from large iron hooks. The tires had undoubtedly been circular at one time, however they had hung so long that they were more egg shaped than round. There were hundreds of sticky fly strips hanging from the ceiling like some crazy person’s idea of party streamers. A grim faced General Douglas MacArthur stared down from a large painting behind the workbench that was covered in dozens of mason jars filled with every kind of nut, bolt, and screw imaginable.

  Two kerosene lanterns gave off the only light as she worked under the car’s hood.

  “My Henry was a great mechanic, God Bless his soul,” Mrs. Remlap said while reclining on an aluminum lounge chair next to the washing machine. Sipping from a tall glass of lemonade, she looked around the garage.

  She was wearing a blue housecoat and fuzzy blue slippers that had cartoon-like bunny faces on the front. Staring up through the old windows near the ceiling of the garage, she saw the bright stars twinkling in the sky. She wondered if there was some way to get them open and maybe catch a breeze. The garage was stuffy and warm even though the sun had gone down many hours earlier.

  Clucking her tongue in annoyance, she looked at her wristwatch. “Young lady, you've been fooling around with my Henry's car long enough. If you haven't gotten it started after all this time spent pretending to be a mechanic you never will. I cannot believe it’s still this hot in here even though it's nearly midnight,” the old lady said as she continued looking up at the stars through the window.

  When Maria didn't say anything, the old woman continued to ramble. “I really should clean those windows. They're absolutely filthy. Oh, how I wish my Henry was still alive. Did you know that it was just a few years ago when I found him out here sitting in that very car you're fooling around with? Poor Henry… it was such a silly way for him to die. He'd been working on the Nova and forgotten to open the garage doors. The exhaust fumes accidentally killed him. I still think I should sue the people who made such an unsafe car. There should be warnings that explain it's dangerous to run an engine inside a closed garage. People have a right to know such things.”

  Mrs. Remlap raised all kinds of Hell with the police officials who initially said Henry had committed suicide. Eventually, they agreed it could have been an accident especially since no suicide note was ever found.

  Of course, they never found the note because she destroyed it after finding it on the dashboard of the car. She found her husband sitting behind the steering wheel with a dopey grin on his dead face as old country and western songs played from the eight track stereo.

  Maria was tired, hungry, frustrated, scared, and extremely pissed off.

  After the old woman told her about the new battery she had delivered, but hadn't installed, the determined young lady went to the garage she began working on the old car.

  Several hours after starting, she’d managed to pump up all four tires which were nearly flat, check the spark plugs, hoses, and the radiator. But she was growing more and more furious by the minute trying to disconnect the old battery. The nuts and bolts connected to the cables were covered in a thick greenish crud that she painstakingly scraped off. She hurt her wrist several times trying to remove the nuts which she was beginning to suspect were inexplicably welded in place. More than once, she was tempted to take a hacksaw to the cables and try to rig up some kind of connectors for the new battery.

  Maria coughed and blew her nose into a greasy rag she'd found while Mrs. Remlap looked over at her in disgust. The filthy cat litter box, the musty dusty smells of the garage, and its contents were making her sinuses swell and eyes water. She felt her stomach aching for food and kept ignoring it- knowing if she got the car running she'd be in Albuquerque in twenty-or so minutes and very far away from the nonstop rambling old bitch reclining in the lounge chair.

  Maria grunted and tossed the wrench aside- flinching as it clattered loudly across the cement floor. She went back to the workbench and opened more cardboard boxes that were all covered in dust and continued to find many interesting things but not a can of WD40 or its equivalent. She kept seeing those damned rusted nuts in her mind that were stubbornly holding the battery cables in place.

  Ripping open a big cardboard box that was tucked under the workbench, with the word PRIVATE written in black marker on the sides and top, she saw it was filled with hundreds of pornographic magazines. Though Maria had absolutely no interest in such things, one particular cover caught her attention. It featured a color photo of an obviously sexually aroused male donkey and a naked young girl who was frighteningly similar to how she remembered her mom looking in family photo albums. Maria felt a wave of dizziness and nausea hit her as she looked closer at the girl on the cover of the magazine. “Momma?” she whispered in disbelief while running her fingertips over the girl's face in the picture.

  “So you're goofing off? I thought better of you. I swear, I never considered you as just another lazy wetback,” Mrs. Remlap grumbled loudly before sipping from her glass of lemonade.

  Maria screamed, grabbed a long rusty screwdriver and held it like a knife pointing it at the old woman. “JUST SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU OLD BITCH! Or, I swear to God, I'll stab you in that wrinkly flat chest of yours until I can find and cut out your heart- that is, if you even have one!” Maria's throat hurt from the shouting as spittle flew from her lips while still clutching the nasty magazine in her other trembling hand. Her vision blurred as tears started to flow down her cheeks.

  The old lady's mouth sprung open in utter shock and she stared in disbelief at the trembling young girl pointing a screwdriver at her. She saw the tears beginning to leak out of her eyes and stood up slowly, holding her hands out to her. “I'm sorry Maria. I say stupid things, especially when I'm upset. You look exhausted. Come over here, girl. Come here, calm down, and please forgive me.”

  Maria glanced down at the magazine still clutched in her trembling fingers and threw it far back under the workbench. She started crying harder thinking of nothing except her mother and how much she wished she was with her. Her body shook harder and she felt like she might be sick or faint thinking back how her mom had told her she used to be a model. She remembered after asking if there were any pictures of her modeling, how her mother’s face had blushed and she quickly changed the subject. Maria shuddered uncontrollably as she dropped the screwdriver and staggered into the old woman's open arms. She was much taller and bigger than the old woman, but she was comforted and led to the lounge chair.

  “You just sit and rest awhile, dear. Here, have some lemonade you'll feel better. Just rest and I'll look for that can of lubricant you said we needed.”

  Maria sat back in the chair and wiped at her wet cheeks and eyes with the bandana she'd been wearing. “I'm just so tired,” she said, drying her tears and snuffling softly. “It feels like I haven't slept for years. And whenever I do manage to doze off I just keep having nightmares about those horrible things outside.” She coughed and sipped some lemonade, watching wh
ile the old lady opened a tall green metal cabinet and listened as she noisily moved things around inside it.

  “Do you know what my very wise father used to say when things were bad?” Mrs. Remlap asked, as she moved more things around and continued searching the cabinet. “It will all work out. And he was right, you know. No matter how bad things may seem eventually everything always works out. Maybe not always the way you wanted them to, and yet every bad time eventually comes to an end.

  I remember when I was nine or maybe ten years old, my father got grievously injured in a car wreck. The doctors had to remove his left arm at the shoulder. And I still remember him smiling as I hugged him, while crying my fool little head off, when he eventually came home from the hospital.

  He told me to quit crying- that it would all work out and he was right. He said to always remember his philosophy of life; it could always be worse. Instead of just losing an arm he could have been blinded, lost his legs, or just flat out died. My father was a wise man, Maria. Just remember his two favorite philosophies and you’ll be okay in this crazy world we live in. It will all work out. And no matter what happens, things could always be worse.

  Oh, what’s this?” The old lady asked in happy surprise before pulling a rusty spray can out of the bottom of the cabinet. Smiling broadly, she turned and tottered back over to Maria.

  “See, I told you it would all work out,” Remlap said while holding a small blue can of WD-40.

  Maria was curled up on her side asleep in the lounge chair with a peaceful look on her face.

  The old lady picked up the wrench and looked at the bolt that didn't want to move. She sprayed it with the can's contents and after a few seconds tried to remove the nut from the bolt.

  It slid off so quickly and easily, she wondered if during all this time the girl had been trying to turn it the wrong way. She chuckled and shook her head while easily slipping off both nuts that held the battery cables in place.