Surge (10 page)

We make it to her safe house just as the sky’s about to open up.

Olivia’s place is not the Imperial, but it’s more than sufficient for the night. A two story brick house attached to a row of clones, with window boxes full of what used to be flowers but are currently neglected weeds, and is located on a tree lined street, it has Bostonian charm.

Entering through a small spiked gate, Olivia fishes around in her bag before coming up with a bike lock to keep it shut. Giving the lock a tug to make sure it holds, she steps back with a satisfied nod. Hopping up the stairs, she takes out a key chain with what appears to be thirty plus keys, and starts flipping through until she finds the right one. After turning the lock, Olivia opens the door and swings an arm out.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” her voice is still muffled behind the visor, which she must realize, because she flips it open before continuing. “One of them anyway.”

“Why so many?” John inquires with furrowed brows. “Wouldn’t you rather set up a base?” Olivia gets a faraway look in her eyes. She’s silent for a few seconds but comes back with a vigorous shake of her head.

“No,” her voice is hard. “It’s best to keep moving.”

And move she does. After triple locking the front door, she leaves John and me staring after her retreating form exiting from the foyer. Knowing there’s more to the story than she’s willing to tell, I turn my attention to observing our temporary safe house. It was a multi-million dollar home prior to the infestation, so the furnishings reflect the wealth.

Traditional couches, antique rugs, upholstered chairs and rustic wooden tables are spread in a design centered around the massive fireplace with original brick. The brick extends down the entire left side of the open concept house, leading to a formal dining and massive modern kitchen. Dark wood cabinets with granite counters and stainless steel accents decorate the space. Off to the right is a staircase with wood and iron spindles for a railing. In conclusion, it’s a bittersweet reminder of what the world used to be.

I plop down on the couch in front of the floor to ceiling fireplace while John takes the tufted recliner to the right. I’m staring at the still hot coals, indicating that Olivia must have been here before bumping into us, and listening to the raging thunderstorm outside when John speaks up.

“She’s a strange one,” he remarks quietly. “Fucking gorgeous, but a bit of a kook.”

“She is that,” I agree. “But who isn’t a little off kilter living in the world that we do?” John nods to admit I have a point.

“Not to mention she’s all alone,” he adds. “We’ve always had each other and Sarah, and then we found the others along the way. What’s to say we might not have turn into a couple of Rambos toting machetes if we were all alone?”

“You have to admit, that was fucking awesome,” I say with a grin.

“You always did have a thing for Rambo,” John counters slyly. I laugh because it’s true, not in an
‘I want to fuck him’
kind of way, but an
‘I wish I were a badass like he was.’
Totally not gay, but I do still have the useless DVDs in my room to prove I was a fan.

“And Tomb Raider,” I reply. “So did you, you sick bastard. Always making her drown, so that you could check out her virtual ass.” John chuckles as he flips me off.

“I was nine, you asshole,” he points out. “At least I didn’t play doctor with my sister’s Barbies.”

“You lying fuck!” I accuse. “It was your idea to let GI Joe have a little play time with her. You said Ken didn’t have the right equipment to get the job done, so she needed a real man.”

We both burst out laughing at that memory. I think we traumatized my mother when she walked in to see two eleven year old boys reenacting the nasty with plastic toys. To round out the picture, this included some embarrassing, poorly made sound effects and voice-overs that would make a porno proud. I remember her face turning beet red when John, not having noticed her said,
‘Give it to me Joe,’
in a high pitched Barbie-like imitation. My mom immediately spun around, walking right back out with a slam of the door.

But she got us back with the resulting sex talk, which included some traumatizingly realistic visuals of childbirth from the book she went to retrieve. All with Mr. and Mrs. Moure’s explicit permission of course, the pack of sickos. I wasn’t able to look at any person of the female persuasion for more than three seconds for an entire month without envisioning bloody placentas trailing after them like a gory dog on a leash. This unfortunately included the nuns at school and made learning near impossible for a while, as well as earning me numerous raps on the knuckles along with orders to pay attention.

The memory of my mom still hurts, but I think forgetting her altogether would be a worse pain. I loved my dad, but he was a workaholic. Pulling long hours with John’s dad in the office, we mostly seen them at dinners and the occasional ball game that John’s dad took us to. But our moms worked only part time, so they were always there to pick us up after every scrape, support us at all our games and embarrass us as all moms occasionally do. I wouldn’t have traded her for anything in the world. John must have caught my mind wandering, because he sobers up showcasing a rare appearance of seriousness.

“Do you remember when we first met each other?” John asks. “That fat fuck, what was his name? Ah, Herbert. Who the fuck names their kid Herbert?” He waves his hand. “Anyway, Herby kept shoving you around and you were letting him. I still don’t know why, I would have just gut punched his ass if I were you, but I’m glad you didn’t because you still owe me.” I nod because my four year old self’s shyness is the reason I got the douchebag talking for a best friend.

“Here I am, doing the monkey bars like a fucking champ, when I hear some cocky bastard mouthing off and shoving a kid around that was half his height and weight. So, I go on over to put this bitch in line, one quick pop to the nose and he tumbles down like a stack of dominoes. Fucking pansy.” He pauses to take a breath.

“And who gets in trouble? Me, that’s who, because Herbert’s privileged ass calls me the instigator and I get sent to the office. I puffed up my chest and was walking out with my head held high, since I got that douche to cry for his mommy, when I hear this little voice behind me say that it wasn’t my fault.” I remember that, it was probably the first time I spoke without raising my hand out of fear the nuns would rap my knuckles with a ruler. “The uppity bitch ignored you, so you got up and followed me out of the room. We go down to the office, take a seat outside, and wait for our moms to show up. That’s when I took it upon myself to make the introduction.”

“Your version of an introduction was to say I better be your friend, or I was next,” I retort. “Some giraffe boy threatens me, what was I supposed to do? I feared for my life.”

“Fuck you,” he says with a chuckle. “And it was only a few inches.” More like half a foot, but I caught up eventually. Now he only has two inches on me, lanky bastard. “When our moms showed up, they both go ape shit on the principal,” John continues. “They didn’t even know each other then, and they still teamed up to take a strip from his ass for punishing their two
‘poor, defenseless boys’
for sticking up for themselves. They were like soul sisters from then on.”

Our dads clicked too. Vacations were always taken together as a group, our dads started up the law firm as partners within a year, and John’s mom was Sarah’s godmother when she came along a few years later. John was an only child, so Sarah and I are all the family he has left.

“And you were the uninvited guest from hell,” I say and he laughs.

“You loved me and you know it,” he boasts. “I remember when you got your growth spurt in high school, the first thing you did was lay out Herbert Vincent Hemington III.”

“He had it coming,” I reply. “I was just biding my time, waiting for the right moment to strike.”

“The right moment just happened to be when he asked Rachel Von Tuten to prom before you did?” John asks dryly.

“The douchebag knew I was planning to,” I remind him.

“Nut up or shut up,” is his smartass reply. “It’s a good thing I showed you the ropes. Then they were following after you as if they were sheep, and you their herder.” I flip him off in response. “Admit it, without me you’d probably be a 23 year old virgin.”

“Fuck you!” I retort. “I lost it at fifteen
without
your help, thank you very much. Plus, it was way before you lost it to Regina Bolman during sophomore year.” John’s mouth gapes open.

“You selfish prick!” John exclaims. “You were holding out on me!” He jumps onto my couch and puts me in a headlock. “Who was it?” I reverse the hold before I answer.

“Georgina Wilkinson,” I answer. “Senior cheerleader, and slut extraordinaire.” John flips us back over.

“Where and how?” He demands after pinning me with a noogie.

“In the backseat of her boyfriend’s car. She needed tutoring in freshman math, because she was too fucking stupid to have senior math, and didn’t know that two plus two didn’t equal potato.” John releases my pinned arms, not that I couldn’t break out of it if I tried, before rolling on his back and clutching his stomach with a guffaw. Our laughs echo off the walls.

“You cheeky bastard,” he says while wiping tears from his eyes. “I bet that was the only time your brain ever got you the girl.”

“Yeah, ‘cause then they noticed my purty face and huge dick,” I retort. John rolls his eyes, and it’s only then that I notice how quiet it is in here and remember we aren’t alone, and we haven’t seen Olivia in hours. Standing up and brushing myself off, I start for the kitchen.

“Make me some food,” the lazy bastard on the floor orders.

I wave him off and go searching for our not so friendly hostess. Seeing the empty kitchen and dining room, I head upstairs. There are four rooms and a bathroom up here, all with their doors open, so I peek into each one before continuing on. When I reach the last bedroom, I’m thinking that she must have ditched our asses until I notice a fifth door propped open with a can again. Removing it, I head up the stairs leading to a witch’s walk.

The storm has since died off, but the roof is still wet from the thunderstorm we had, so I have to move around slowly or I’ll wind up on my ass. After carefully navigating my way, I finally find my target sleeping with her jacket tucked under her head as a pillow. That’s when I notice a couple of attributes that the pesky, snug leather jacket was hiding. Tomb Raider beware, because this girl’s got you by a mile. Olivia is stacked better than one of Hef’s bunnies, and she hides them. First opportunity I get, I’m accidentally burning the jacket. Such beauties should not be smothered, they should be showcased.

“Are you going to stand there like a creeper, or ask for whatever the fuck it is that you needed?”

I’m startled when she sits up and faces me with murder in her eyes. Mental note for future reference, do not wake the sleeping tiger. Clearing my throat, which I know will not remove the huskiness of arousal completely; I make up some bull shit excuse.

“I was going to make dinner, and was wondering if you’d like to join us.” Heh, heh, not bad if I do say so myself.

“I’m not hungry,” Olivia snaps.

She then rips her jacket back on, zipping it a few inches, where it isn’t able to go up anymore. How the fuck did that happen? That was tighter than the school committee’s purse strings just a few hours earlier. Did she sprinkle some miracle grow on them? Stuff her bra with tissue like Sarah did for a pool party in sixth grade? My dad went zero-to-sixty in 0.001 seconds after that visual, and he
always
banked his anger for use in the courts. Shaking those ridiculous thoughts away, since I don’t care where they came from so long as they’re here to stay, I try again.

“How about some company?” I propose as she fiddles with the zipper. Finally giving up, she holds it closed with a gloved fist. “I like star gazing, and don’t get to do it much from home.” Without waiting for her to answer, I sit down where I am, seven feet away since I don’t want to press my luck and be tossed over the side. Nor do I want her to see the erection that caused me to sit down in the first place.

“We don’t go up to the roof all that much since we’d have to climb twelve floors, and I’m not that motivated.” Seeing how she’s just staring at me like I’m the loon, I pick something else. “How’d you find this place?”

“I knew the area,” comes her barked answer. Okay, this is more painful than trying to get answers from Cory, and he’s one tough bastard. Going for broke, I begin again with something innocuous. Picking up the can, I hold it out.

“What’s with this?” Rolling her eyes at me, she replies.

“That, my intrusive friend, serves two purposes.” Olivia ticks them off with her fingers. “One of which is to prop a door open so I can make a fast exit without falling in defeat to the impossible opponent called a door knob, like some scary movie bimbo with more silicon than brains.” I can’t help it; her snarky answer makes me laugh. “The second of which is to warn me when something comes through, with the exception of some asshole who doesn’t know what personal space is, even if it were to hit him over the head with a two by four.”

“And how successful has this little can been for you?”

“Very,” she says smugly. “The crunch of the can announced your arrival, even before your stomping feet on the stairs did.” Fuck, most likely she caught my wandering eyes. Oh well, guy here, remember? Sex-brain comes with the penis.

“Am I really that loud?” I ask, because if I am that noticeable to a human’s ears, how many wheezers can hear me?

“Not loud per se, I just pay very close attention to my surroundings.” Since she’s in a slightly accommodating mood, but knowing there must be a story for her excessive guard, I make note to ask later. When the risk of her stabbing me in the eye is significantly lower.

“You just need to lighten your step a little. I bet not many people pick up on it. Including you.” Looking over my shoulder, she shouts, “Hey, Douchebag.” That’s when I hear John’s tread on the stairs. Jesus, am I’m off my game today.