by Bobby Adair
“Dude,” I was offended. “I didn’t say anything. I just wasn’t sure.”
“I know how you are, man. Finish that beer. You need some calories, and the alcohol might take the sharp edge off that stick in your ass.”
I rolled my eyes and drank some more. “Have you ever tried this whole friendship thing before?”
“No, you’re my first friend.” Murphy chuckled again and gave me a friendly push on the shoulder. “Lighten up, man. Shit could be worse.”
“I hear you. Sorry.” I lifted my beer and looked at the label. “Coffee would be better.”
Murphy shrugged. “When you’re done whining, we need to talk about what we’re going to do.”
“We know what we’re going to do. We just need to do it. Is everyone still cool with it?” In truth, I didn’t care how cool they were. It was dark outside. I had calories in my belly and a machete to do my dirty work.
“Worried, but cool enough.”
I sat up straight and looked worriedly at the flashlight in the corner as a new thought occurred to me. “What happened with Jay’s thugs? Did they come back?”
“Dalhover said one of the boats did a quick run-through of the cove just before sundown. They weren’t very thorough. He thinks they found the cabin cruiser in that other marina and probably saw the dead Whites. Jay probably thinks we got munched there, or we got away. Either way, they weren’t looking for us here, not really.”
That was a relief. I said, “Cool.” I had no doubt in my mind that crackpot Jay was still fuming over his revenge, but he probably figured we were a problem that wouldn’t trouble him further.
Murphy opened up a beer of his own.
“You know, that thing with finding Rachel was a nice surprise,” I said.
“Yeah,” Murphy nodded. “I never thought I’d see her again.”
“How’s she been? How’s she dealing with all of this?”
“Better than you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What does that mean?”
Murphy grinned. “You brood too much.”
“I’m trying to follow the Murphy plan. How’d she get all the way from east Austin over here to Monk’s Island?”
“Luck.”
“What kind of luck is that?” I asked. “Oops, I took a wrong turn on the way home. What’s this lake doing here?” I laughed.
Murphy put a finger to his mouth to keep me quiet. The boathouse walls weren’t insulated. Sound would carry across the water. In a soft voice, he said, “That’s almost what happened.”
“Whatever. Really, how’d she get to the island?”
“A friend of hers from the office has a house out here on the lake. They wrapped up some big pain-in-the-ass deal at work and were blowing some vacation days waterskiing. When shit went down, she said she tried to call Mom but never got an answer. Her friends convinced her not to go home and check on her. They said it was suicide to try.”
“It probably was,” I said.
“True or not, it doesn’t make the guilt go away.” Murphy glanced at the others sitting in the shadows on the other side of the boathouse.
I asked, “Did her friends make it?”
“There were four of them. I guess one was her boyfriend.”
“Interoffice romance?” I asked.
Murphy nodded. “I never even met the guy. They’d been dating for six months or some shit.”
I nodded, knowingly.
“The boyfriend was the first of them to get infected. The others came down with the fever. Next thing she knows, she’s in a big house on a cliff looking over the lake with three people passed out with the fever. The TV and radio were still working then, so she knew what was coming.”
“She bailed out?” I hoped, for her sake.
Murphy shook his head as he frowned. “She stayed until the boyfriend turned.”
“I don’t see a happy ending.”
“She found a gun in the house. She had him locked in the wine cellar.”
“The wine cellar?” I asked, with an inflection in my tone that implied something, though I didn’t even know what it was. I was just trying to lighten Murphy’s mood.
“All rich white people have wine cellars.” Murphy put on a false smile. The joke wasn’t worth a laugh.
I said, “I’ll bypass the stereotype and ask how you felt about your sister dating a white guy.”
Murphy punched me in the arm. “You know that’s bullshit, right?”
“I know.” Letting the mood fall back into seriousness, I asked, “Did she have to shoot him?”
Murphy nodded.
“And the other two?”
Murphy shook his head. “After the boyfriend, she packed up all she thought to carry, loaded it in a boat, and headed out. She ended up on Monk’s Island.”
“How’s she dealing with the boyfriend thing?”
“She’s a tough girl.”
“I gathered that.” I finished the last of my beer and crunched the can. “When do you want to head out?”
Murphy nodded toward the others who were still awake. “Everybody wants to talk first.”
Chapter 24
Murphy looked at me with a face that told me to be quiet and keep my thoughts to myself. He’d been around me enough to know my moods. He could see that I was pissed. I was apt to say any number of stupid, insensitive things that wouldn’t make anything any better. Being a good friend, he was trying to keep me from doing that.
Sure, our new friends needed food. We all needed food.
But I’d run on an empty stomach for so many days that the concept of three meals a day had not only stopped being a luxury, but had also stopped seeming like a necessity.
In my head, a grub run was just one more obstacle.
I wanted so sorely to go and kill those Smart White motherfuckers all over Austin, but I needed first to get Steph out of Jay’s hands—hands that in my imagination, grew more lecherous with each passing hour. On top of that, I had to—well I didn’t have to, I agreed to—follow Gretchen’s advice, which was to follow Dalhover’s plan as a safer way to pull off Steph’s rescue.
Everybody thought my Rambo plan was—well, they didn’t say half-baked, but I saw it on their faces.
Peer pressure. Ugh!
But putting off Steph’s rescue meant pushing back my Smart One hunt even further. And it all started with logistical problems. The consensus in the group was to make our first step raiding the houses on the hills above the cove for food and—with any luck—weapons. I’d argued that beer was, in fact, just liquid bread, with a nice buzz as a fringe benefit. Nobody agreed. They all blabbered on about the benefits of real food.
Did it make sense?
Yes. It did. But that just pissed me off all the more.
To Gretchen, Paul and the others, Dalhover said, “We’ll leave two of the guns with you.”
“Why does Murphy have to go again? That’s what I don’t understand.” Rachel was not happy about the plan and didn’t mind letting her anger show.
In another pointless attempt at placating her, Murphy said, “We’ve talked about this plenty. You know it makes sense for me and Zed to go ashore. The Whites don’t see us the same way they see the rest of you.”
“How many stories have you told me already about the dangerous exploits of Mighty Murphy and his sidekick the Valiant Null Spot?” Rachel topped it off with a belittling laugh. “And I’m supposed to believe you’re going to be safe.”
“Let’s not pretend you’re telling me what to do.” Murphy had come to the end of his patience. The volume of what he said next made that clear. “I’m going.”
Rachel understood that whatever else she had to say on the subject was wasted breath. She crossed her arms and glared at me instead. Like it was my fault that Murphy was coming along. Well, maybe a little.
Getting back on track, Dalhover said, “I’ll have one rifle. Zane has his machete—”
Murphy raised his hammer. “It ain’t perfect, but it’ll do
.”
“Do you think that’ll be enough?” Gretchen asked. “Should you take another rifle?”
Dalhover shook his head. “Another rifle won’t help. Besides, if we run into trouble, we’ll run down to the water and swim back.”
“Murphy can’t swim.” Rachel’s anger hadn’t abated.
“I’ll be fine,” Murphy told her.
Exasperated with the whole process, I finally said, “Can we just get in the boat and go? All this talking is pointless. We know what we’re going to do.”
“It never hurts to plan,” Paul said.
“Fine, when you guys are done, I’ll be in the boat.” I walked to the other side of the boathouse.
They kept talking.
I peeked out through the front window where Freitag was keeping watch. She said, “It’s clear.”
“Okay.” I lifted the handle on the garage door in front of the slip that held the bass boat. I stopped and looked up at the electric garage door opener and said, “Crap.”
“It’s okay,” said Freitag. “Sergeant Dalhover disengaged the mechanism while you were sleeping. It should come right up.”
“Thanks.” I lifted slowly, doing my best to minimize the noise.
Cool, fresh air blew in off the water as the door rose. By the time I had it all the way up, the discussion had ended, and both Dalhover and Murphy were getting into the boat; Dalhover at the stern, Murphy in the middle. That left the bow for me.
I asked Freitag, “Will you close it when we go?”
She nodded.
I took my spot in the front of the boat and turned back to Dalhover, who flipped a switch on the silent, electric trolling motor. The boat moved slowly out of the boathouse.
Once out in the water, Dalhover angled the boat to point the bow at the shore and reversed the direction. Freitag tiptoed and reached up to the garage door handle and brought it slowly down. The others stood on the dock with their emotions on their faces.
Chapter 25
We left the bass boat anchored in waist-deep water a dozen feet from shore, cautiously crossed a hundred yards of sloping backyard, and let ourselves in through a back door that had previously been kicked in. After closing the door behind us and positioning ourselves in the living room for what we thought might be a good defense, Murphy called into the dark house, “Anybody home?”
The house was quiet. But the smell of old rot let us know that death had visited well before us.
He called again, of course. “Anybody home?”
We listened to the silent house for a minute longer.
“C’mon.” Dalhover led the way toward the kitchen.
Despite the back doors having been broken through and the smell of the rotting corpse somewhere inside, everything about the house appeared to be in order. Once in the kitchen, Dalhover positioned himself in a corner between the sink and a Cuisinart appliance so he’d have a view of both entrances. He readied the rifle at his shoulder and said, “I’ll cover. You guys search.”
Murphy was closest to what appeared to be a pantry, and he peeked through its open door. “Somebody beat us here,” he said.
I crossed the kitchen. It was dark in the pantry, but the shelves were empty. Everything was indeed gone. “Let’s check the cupboards.”
We worked our way around the kitchen, but found nothing but dishes, coffee cups, pans, utensils, and cookbooks. Not even spice bottles were left.
When I found myself in front of the refrigerator, I glanced at the others. I didn’t want to leave the house empty-handed. “This probably won’t smell good.” I yanked on the door.
Before I could see inside, I knew already that it was pointless. There was no immediate clinking of bottles and jars as the door swung open. It had been emptied of anything salvageable. Only the rotting items remained. I closed it before too much of the stink clung to my clothes.
Murphy was disappointed.
“Do you want to check the rest of the house?” Dalhover asked.
I peered into the darkness through one of the kitchen’s doors and shrugged. “If someone beat us here, it may be a waste of time.”
“They may have missed some things.” Murphy was talking himself back into optimism. “There was a set of steak knives in that drawer. Those will be useful.”
“Any weapon is better than none,” I agreed.
“Zane, you lead the way.” Dalhover pointed the barrel of his rifle at one of the kitchen doors. “Let’s stick together and do this quickly.”
Chapter 26
With only the steak knives in the bag, we crossed through the trees toward the second house on our search.
Murphy whispered, “It’s weird how some parts of town don’t seem to have any Whites.”
“I wonder why?” That got me thinking about the peculiarities of the infected behavior. I wondered if there was something significant to learn about the empty areas. I especially wondered if there was something in these areas that repelled the Whites, and if so, was that something that could be replicated?
“Stay quiet,” Dalhover told us. “Keep looking.”
Yes, Dad. But again, he was right.
When we came out of the trees, we weren’t far from the next house, and Dalhover stopped and dropped to a knee with his weapon at his shoulder, scanning back and forth across the house.
That alarmed me and Murphy both. We both dropped to our knees on each side of him.
Murphy whispered first. “The ground floor windows are boarded up. The top floor windows are open.”
“You think somebody’s here?” I asked.
Dalhover shrugged. “Somebody tried to fortify it.”
Dalhover gestured for us to follow him back into the woods.
Once we were far enough in that we couldn’t be seen, he said, “Whether there’s anybody in there now, there was somebody in there, somebody that planned to survive this thing. My bet, they are the ones that ransacked that other house and probably all the other ones around here.”
“Yeah,” Murphy agreed. “So if we want to find anything, it’s already in that house.”
“But?” There was definitely a “but” in the situation, and I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one thinking it.
“But,” Dalhover answered, “we might find a frightened person or group in there who will shoot us if we get too close.”
Chapter 27
Murphy was tall, and with his fat melting away and uncovering powerful muscles, he could intimidate without having to say anything. Dalhover looked like a transient who collected money at an intersection and lived under a bridge. Not the sort anyone would welcome. But I was thin, pale, and still bald from the day when I’d been initiated into the naked horde in a creepy hair-pulling episode. I looked more like one of the crazed Whites than Murphy.
We had no good choices when deciding who to send to the front door to knock.
In the end, I went. Though we only had one gun with us, Murphy and Dalhover could both shoot. More precisely, they could hit what they shot at. What was I going to do if the chosen door knocker got into trouble on the porch, throw my machete across the yard and frighten someone when it clinked against a brick wall?
So I left Dalhover and Murphy in the bushes and crossed the yard. After stepping up onto the patio, I knocked and stepped back from the door and just a little to the side. It didn’t make sense that someone would unload a shotgun through the door to kill me for knocking, but I did look like a virus-laden monster, and I did have an overactive imagination.
I took another step back from the door and another to my left. No point in making it easy when the shooting started.
Hearing nothing but crickets, I looked over my shoulder and spotted Dalhover where he’d concealed himself behind some cacti and big landscaping stones. I shrugged.
He pointed at the door again. So I knocked again, already doubting anyone was inside.
Crickets kept chirping.
I stepped up to the door and pounded loudly three times, stepped to
the side, out of prime shotgun range, and waited.
I was not rewarded with an answer. I looked around, back at the tree line, up the driveway, and at the corners of the house. Habit. I tried the doorknob. It was locked. Oh well. “Hey, if there’s anyone in there, let me know, okay?”
Murphy chuckled.
I pointed my middle finger at him and continued calling at the closed door, “I’m planning to come in upstairs and climb in through a window. If you want me to go away, now would be a good time to tell me.”
No response.
I turned my back to the door so that Murphy and Dalhover had a clear view of me. I pointed up.
We’d agreed beforehand that if no one answered, we weren’t going to bust down the door. The house, while being no real protection from the naked horde, looked secure enough to protect us from the disorganized infected that were always about.
Dalhover pointed to his left and moved back into the woods. Murphy followed. I sat down on a wicker chair at the corner of the wide porch and watched. Well, I couldn’t see them in the darkness once they got back in the trees, but I heard them moving. When they were in position where they had a view of the side and back of the house, it would be my turn to get to work.
As they crept through the woods, much more audibly than I’m sure they thought, I listened for any sounds from inside the house. Still nothing. If there were people inside, what could they be thinking? I shook my head for no reason other than to participate in the dialogue in my imagination. There wasn’t any reason for the residents not to say something. They were either long gone or dead.
The sounds from the woods stopped. Murphy and Dalhover were in position. Dalhover would have the rear and one side of the house covered. If anyone showed themselves with obvious ill intent, Dalhover wasn’t likely to miss. He’d put a bullet where it needed to go.
I walked around to the side of the house to a spot near the corner, where the patio roof attached to the house. A thick steel gas pipe ran up the wall, probably to provide gas for an upstairs laundry room. At least, that was my guess. Building codes back when the house was built required a pipe of monkey bar thickness on mounts that kept the pipe physically separated from the house by—as luck would have it—just enough space for me to wrap my fingers all the way around. How I learned that I could use a gas line to scale an exterior wall to gain access to upstairs windows and roofs is one of those details easily explained by my delinquent youth.
