by William Bebb
*****
Boris caught the rubber disc for the twentieth time and for the twentieth time Billy shouted, “Good boy!”
Boris trotted over sat at the boy's feet, looking up with the slobber covered rubber disc in his mouth, tail thumping rapidly as if in complete agreement- Yes, I am a good boy.
“Billy, come eat your lunch!” Cheryl called out from beside the picnic table.
Sitting on a bench by the table, Maria sipped her glass of lemonade and watched as Josey pulled the last of the hamburgers off the grill and walked back to the table.
“Are you ever going to get your nose reset?” Cheryl asked, as he started assembling hamburger bun condiments.
“No onions on mine, please, and if you want to have any chance of romance tonight you'll skip them on yours too,” Maria said, watching as Boris and Billy ran up to the table.
“I would get it reset, but Maria thinks it makes me look sexy. She says it makes me look dangerous; sort of like an action hero,” he said, striking a heroic pose while holding a slice of onion and tomato in each hand. “Maybe something like The Undertaker, he deals with the dead so you don't have to.”
Billy laughed as he sat down and wiped his hands on a moist paper towel his mom handed him. “Don't forget your faithful sidekick, Boris, The Demon Dog.”
Josey leaned down and put a paper plate filled with three good size well-done hamburgers on the ground. “He's a heroic dog, that’s for sure.”
Boris wolfed down the first patty within seconds.
“When do you get the cast off your foot?” Billy asked Maria, between bites of his hamburger while ketchup dribbled down his chin.
“Tomorrow, I know it’s only been five weeks but it feels like forever. It itches like a million ants are climbing my leg,” Maria said, between bites of potato chips.
“So, are you really going to marry, Mr. Hitler?” Cheryl asked Maria, pointing a dill pickle up at Josey.
“That's The Undertaker, thank you very much,” Josey said, and then bit into his hamburger.
“Well, I'm not sure. Did you put onions on your buns?” Maria asked, suspiciously.
“Young lady, what I have or don't have on my buns is between me and my underwear,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Billy burst out laughing and Cheryl and Maria joined in.
Boris wolfed down the last of his hamburgers and turned to look when a car pulled into the parking lot. He growled deep in his throat when he saw Bo get out of the squad car and walk over.
They all looked where the dog was staring.
“Easy Boris, I won't cuff anyone today unless Billy has been any trouble,” Bo said, smiling slightly as he looked at the people around the table.
“No, don't tell me, not another briefing. Please not another one,” Josey said, looking nervously up at the deputy.
Bo smiled, “No, I think a month of interviews and official inquiries was enough. I know it was enough for me, anyway.”
“Well then, have a seat. We have enough for one more,” Cheryl said, smiling up at Bo and scooting down the bench.
He sat down and they laughed and talked for a while.
Eventually, Bo looked at Billy and said, “I bet Boris sure would like to go for a run and work off some of that food.”
Billy smiled, jumped up and took off running yelling, “Come on Boris!”
They all watched them run for a few seconds and then looked at Bo expectantly.
Bo looked back and nodded. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out three envelopes and handed them out.
Josey looked at his name printed on the envelope. “You got one too?”
Bo nodded and smiled sadly. “I deposited it in my bank before I came here.”
“Perhaps I'm just stupid, but I'm still confused. Why is it a check from the federal government when it was Beaumont Industries that caused the whole mess?” Maria asked, putting the envelope in her purse.
“Well, you know part of it. You guys and I signed enough waivers and legal papers to last a lifetime while we we're in quarantine. They don't want anyone to ever know what happened out there and frankly I'd love to forget the whole thing too,” Bo said, as he watched the boy chasing Boris around the park.
“What's the other part? Why aren't they checks from Beaumont?” Josey asked.
“You didn't hear it from me, but-” he looked around the park in all directions then whispered. “I think they cut a deal to develop the virus for military applications and the government paid off Beaumont Industries as well.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” Josey whispered angrily.
Bo shook his head and said, “I shit you not and I'd suggest you forgot I even mentioned it. But you people deserve to know the truth.”
“Do you know what happened to those people at that store?” Cheryl asked.
He looked around the park again nervously and decided to take a chance. “The kid in the van was using her video camera and I eventually got to see the footage. Turns out this guy, Issac, had gotten infected and managed to find his way out of the valley and somehow made it all the way to the store.
The video showed the girl's dad offering him a bottle of water and Issac started chasing him around the parking lot. It wasn't funny and yet the girl holding the video camera can be heard laughing her head off while her dad was being chased around. It could easily have been the start of a whole new nightmare if things didn't take an unexpected turn.
The door to the store opened and the clerk came out swinging a baseball bat. She's a big lady and when she hit this Issac kid he was knocked out-cold on the pavement.”
“So, that's it?” Josey asked.
“Almost. They got some duct tape from inside the store and wrapped him up. After they finished wrapping him up along came another kid that looked like he bought his clothes at the same store as the Issac guy. Name was Jeremiah something or other and this kid was just torn all to shit but not infected. Someone said he suffered a concussion and couldn't even remember his own name.
Anyway, before the Issac kid woke up again, the cops arrived seized everyone and everything including the girl’s camera,” Bo said, sipping his lemonade.
“And that accounts for everyone who was down there; everyone who made it out alive and uninfected?” Maria asked doubtfully.
“Why do you ask, and why are you staring at me like that?” Bo asked looking slightly red- faced.
“You saw the man with the monkey when we were in that scary laboratory place in Montana, don't deny it. Who was he? He was involved in it all somehow, wasn't he?”
Bo sighed and shook his head. “I was the one who found him. Before the CDC ordered a lid on the whole place, the sheriff sent squads to check for any survivors. There's not much to say really. But, it was the weirdest damn thing I've ever seen.”
“What? What happened?” Josey asked, both looking and sounding exasperated.
Bo checked to make certain Billy was still out of earshot, leaned forward, and spoke slowly. “I went to this really old trailer that a helicopter pilot spotted and reported its location to the sheriff. There were two corpses in a nearby stream, not moving around zombie corpses... just regular dead guys. I told the two deputies that came with me to leave the bodies where they were. We approached the trailer and all of us were nervous... okay, actually we were a bit more than just nervous. There was a bloody gory mess splattered both on and around some kind of wooden lounge chair that was beside the door. Plus, hanging overhead, there must have been at least fifty thousand dollars worth of drying marijuana hung up on clothes lines. I may not be the sharpest officer in the world but instantly understood that whoever lived there could be very dangerous. Even if there hadn't been a couple of corpses in the stream, I would have been worried because drug dealers are very unpredictable and often dangerous.”
Bo paused and rubbed at his eyes, sighed and said, “After everything that I'm about to tell you happened, one of the deputies discovered dozens of cigar boxe
s stuffed with cash and I warned him to not mess with anything. I've known drug dealers that sometimes set booby traps where they stash their money and, much later, after the CDC folks had taken over operations that trailer exploded and two of their field investigators died in the blast. I never heard from anyone about what happened but suspect they triggered some kind of a bomb.”
“Bo, I like you but suspect that you're stalling,” Maria said accusingly.
Cheryl gave Maria a dirty look that said, without words, Shut up, he's hurting.
Bo missed the look as he stared down at the wooden picnic table and resumed speaking. “Okay, here's what happened. The trailer door was locked. So with the two deputies on either side of me, holding shotguns ready, I kicked in the door and kept thinking and hoping that there were no booby traps.
Adrenalin does funny things to any person. Plus, you guys have to remember it was a Hell of a day for me already.” Bo paused, shook his head, and rubbed his chin while nervously looking at the people around the table.
Cheryl reached over, gently squeezed Bo's hand, and softly said, “It's alright. You don't have to tell us anymore if it's too hard to talk about.”
“No. It's okay. I still have nightmares about it. Sometimes drinking helps me forget, at least for awhile. Maybe talking it out will help. I sure can't tell anyone else about what happened. They'd think I was nuts,” Bo said, sipped some more lemonade and took a deep steadying breath before continuing.
“I was the first to go inside the trailer and I was scared. I know cops aren't supposed to be scared but I certainly was. There was a giant snake in the corner of the room that looked like it was moving toward me. When I say giant snake what I mean is it was long and thick like a monster from a horror movie. I freaked out and fired my shotgun at it.
The other two deputies quickly moved up on both sides of me and opened fired too. Altogether, we must have shot the damn thing twenty times.”
“It must have been one tough snake,” Josey said, holding Maria's hand, as Cheryl kept an eye on her son chasing after Boris.
Bo's face was bright red as he coughed then continued. “It probably was a tough snake at one time, but turns out it was dead before we even shot it. Fact of the matter is, it didn't even have a head on its body.”
Their boisterous laughter lasted for quite a while and Bo smiled along with the others nodding his head.
Maria looked at Bo, picked up a plastic fork and held it like a weapon. “That’s enough beating around the bush, Officer Gringo. What about the man and the monkey?” She said, looking frustrated.
Bo sighed and shook his head again. He took a deep breath and continued. “Eventually, we learned the man's name was Charlie Farro. He's still alive, at least that's the last thing I heard. But he damn near gave me a heart attack when I first saw him.”
The deputy's face faded from pink embarrassment to a disturbing paleness as he continued. “I've seen a lot of weird shit in my life but nothing more terrifying and at the same time as pitiful as Mr. Farro. What initially made me look in his direction was a cute little monkey.
After we shot the snake to tiny bits, the monkey was screeching at me and jumping up and down. The smoke from the shotguns was thick in the trailer and at first I had a hard time seeing clearly. Everyone quickly reloaded and the other deputies searched the rest of the trailer as I considered the monkey.
It took a turkey baster and reached up squirting water under a towel.
That was when I realized it was on the lap of a man sitting in a beat up old recliner with a big towel draped over his head. The monkey finished squirting the water and sat back on the man's lap while looking up at me.” Bo stopped and cleared his throat.
His eyes looked watery as he continued, “I pulled off the towel expecting to find a dead body, and I swear to God he really did look dead. And not just dead, but royally fucked up dead. It looked like someone had ripped off his face and shot off the right side of it just for good measure.
Then I realized he wasn't wearing some kind of goofy hat that looked like a python. The fucking snake's head was embedded around his skull. I nearly threw up as the deputies came back into the living room and then one of them, King I think, opened the front door and blew chunks all over the porch.
I don't know how I did it, but somehow managed to keep it under control and didn't vomit. It was a real struggle, I promise you that. After a few seconds, I was about to report another dead body to the command post when the man sitting in the chair looked up at me and gurgled.”
Bo abruptly stopped speaking, wiped at his eyes with a paper towel and stood up quickly.
“Well, I need to get back on patrol,” he said, in a choked and strained voice turning away from everyone.
Cheryl stood and went over to where Bo stood and hugged him.
He hugged her back, cleared his throat and nodded weakly.
“It's okay Bo,” Cheryl said, still holding him.
“I still see his face, or rather what remained of it, in my nightmares sometimes. And I know it's impossible he said what I thought I heard when he gurgled at me, but I still think about it. I mean, it makes no sense and his voice was so garbled I must have misheard him,” Bo said, looking at the setting afternoon sun.
A long pause stretched out awkwardly for almost a minute.
Josey finally broke the silence. “You don't have to tell us, Bo. We understand.”
Bo glanced at him with a half hopeful look and then said, “If you ever do understand please explain it to me. Charlie Farro, that poor pathetic bastard, looked at me with his one glazed over eye and gurgled seven words. He was hard to understand, but I'm sure I got them right. He said, 'I should have chosen door number one'.”
They all shared a bewildered look for a long time before Bo put on his hat and said, “I have one last bit of advice for you guys. Keep quiet. If you think someone might be listening to your phone calls, or reading your mail, or email, I think you'd be right. Take care of yourselves.”
“Thanks Bo. Be careful,” they called as he walked back to the cruiser and drove off.
“They can threaten us, sure, but I don't think they can keep it quiet forever,” Cheryl said, shaking her head.
“You're thinking about what happened at that town west of the trailer park, Laguna? They said it was just a Mexican gang warfare thing in the newspapers,” Maria said.
“Three hundred and twenty dead is what the newspaper reported. But you know what made me think it may be a lot more than they reported?” Cheryl asked, looking around the park until she spotted Boris and Billy walking slowly back toward the table.
“The heads?” Josey whispered while nodding.
“What kind of gang kills three hundred and twenty men women and children, cuts off their heads, and builds a bonfire at the high school football field to dispose of the bodies? Want to know what I think happened out there?” Cheryl asked.
“No,” Josey and Maria answered simultaneously.
###
Closing thoughts, thanks, and just a bit of rambling
