The APOCs Virus (15 page)

 "I'm sorry dad," Tad said, "I guess I must of just slept in today that's all . . ..  Yeah when I got to the bus stop it was just pulling away . . ..  I told you before, I didn't miss it on purpose . . ..  No, it won't happen again.  I know this makes you late for work . . . .  Okay, I love you too dad." 

Tad slammed the door shut and bolted for the building. 

Brian ducked behind the door.  In his rush to get to class, Tad didn't even see him.  Brian thought for sure his goose just escaped getting cooked. 

Brian rode his bike again the next day arriving fifteen minutes before the first bus arrived.  He waited patiently again just inside the main doors.  The crowd of kids passing by him gave him strange looks.  

It was almost time for the first bell to ring, when a lone bus abruptly pulled up to the curb.  The next to last person to get off was Tad Robertson.  The bus number was number thirty-nine.  

That evening while Tad practiced his passing game, Brian took a ride on bus thirty
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nine. 

The bus route took him along Division Street, the road that demarcated the school district and the city limits.  He was on the lookout for a mailbox with Tad's last name, or with his new found knowledge, a black Lincoln.  He saw neither, and the bus was emptying fast.  He got out with the last two children and started to walk the five miles back to the school to get his bike. Brian noticed how the widely spread homes were so diametrically different from the house that his mother was renting.  Some of the large, expensive homes and the expansive well- manicured lawns would have covered a half block in his neighborhood.  It was easy watching for the black car since one side of the street was either covered with trees, or filled with vacant fields.  Plus the mail was obviously delivered by truck or car verses a letter carrier, since the mailboxes and the names were just off the shoulder of the road. 

Light rain was falling since he had gotten off the bus.  Twenty minutes of the steady downpour turned the unpaved shoulder of the road he was using as a sidewalk to inches
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deep mud.  His footing was becoming more and more uncertain.  It was starting to feel like the whole trip was for naught.  He decided to walk on the pavement.  The rain fell harder, and his tears of indignation and rage intermingled with the cloudburst. 

He was walking with his back to the traffic and he didn't see the car before he heard the screech of its tires and scream of its horn.  He bolted for the shoulder, slid, then fell headlong into the slippery mud.  He raised his head in time to see the brake lights of the big black car flash-on.  The car wasn't stopping for him.  He saw the black Lincoln slow and turn into an immense house set back from the road.  A muddy smile crossed Brian's tear
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streaked face. 

Three days later Brian sat on a bench in the small playground across from the Robertson house.  He took a huge bite of a yellow moon pie and wondered just what the hell kind of name Tad was anyway.  The next day was homecoming and the football team had a rare Friday night off.  Tad arrived home on the school bus thirty minutes prior with the blonde
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haired girl he had been with that day in the hallway.  Brian found out she was a cheerleader.  

Cheerleaders were the kind of people Brian only knew when he was doing his business with his right hand.  He had seen the way that these kinds of females had looked down their noses at him.  That crap-pants was in there with her now—alone.  He knew they were doing the beast with two humps.  His stomach got a little queasy as he stuffed the rest off the moon pie into his mouth. 

The son of a bitch was in there having a cheerleader sandwich, with her pompoms as dessert; and he was sitting in a park seventy
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five yards away digging into a bag for another moon pie.  The closest he had ever come to sex was watching his mother and her lovers.  He had two thoughts in his mind: one was to run to his bike and ride home forgetting it; but the stronger urge was to walk into the house, catch them in the act, and kill them both.   

He broke off a corner of his sugar-fix and tossed it into the air.  It hit his nose and landed in the dirt.  Picking it up he quickly placed it into his mouth without brushing it off. 

The front door of the Robertson house opened and the young couple came out and sat down on the front steps.  Brian's heart lurched.  He could see even at this distance that the girl looked ruffled and unclean . . . she reminded him of his mother.  Tad stood, walked back up the steps, and into the tri
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level house.  

 Tad returned with a box and opened the door letting out a St. Bernard.  He sat down in his spot next to the girl and the dog played and barked in front of them.  Tad and the girl took out pieces of food from the box and threw them to the dog that would acrobatically catch them in midair.  Brian tossed the rest of the moon
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pie into the air.  Instead of hitting him on the nose, it bounced off his forehead then onto the ground.  He scanned the grass, found it, and bent over to pick it up.  He lifted his hand to bring it to his face when he heard the St. Bernard barking wildly. 

The dog was in the middle of the street yapping at him.    

"Zeus!  Zeus, come here boy!  Zeus what are you barking at?" Tad yelled to the dog. 

Brian sat bolt upright the pastry falling from his gaping mouth.  His face was a whitewash of terror. 

"Hey Speakes, is that you?"  Tad said seeing Brian. "Hey Judy, it's Tubby
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Two
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Boobs.  On second thought honey, maybe you better not look.  I don't want you to get jealous about him having bigger tits than you."   

The girl joined Tad in the street, but she was no longer smiling.  Her breasts swayed with each step; Brian noticed she was bra
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less.  Reaching his side she said in Brian's direction: "Hey fat kid, what are you doing spying on us?" 

 Brian ran, ran away from his bike, ran away from the couple, and ran away from his chance at revenge and self-redemption. 

 There was a field full of kids playing baseball and he ran straight through the outfield ignoring their taunts and screams.  He didn't look back over his shoulder even as he reached a mound of trees on the far end of the park.  He climbed the small incline at a run not stopping until he was safely in the woods. 

 He had covered the half mile at full tilt.  He gasped for air
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almost yawning—but every breath he drew did nothing for his air-hungry lungs.  He had hot needles of discomfort stinging his chest and a stabbing pain in his side.  A thick film of dirt and sweat covered his arms and face.  His drawing of breath turned to the swallowing of air, alternately burping up the oxygen, and choking down the acidic bile that was rising from his stomach.  Dizzy from hyperventilating he felt his guts give way. 

Yellow bits of the moon
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pie exploded from his mouth. He was racked with wave after spasmodic wave of sickness.  Up came what was left of his liverwurst sandwich from lunch.  When the last of the food was gone from him, he foolishly thought the worst was over. Then the dry heaves started. 

Brian felt something wet and warm on his arm.  He recoiled backwards into the tree. 

It was the St. Bernard, Tad's St. Bernard, the one he had called Zeus. 

The animal was wagging its tail with a silly dog grin on its face.  

Brian crab
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walked away from the animal. 

"Woof!" Zeus barked, continuing to wag his tail furiously.  

Brian cringed at the sound of the dog's friendly bark.  He expected Tad and Judy to appear at the top of the hill looking for the dog.  No one came. 

Zeus began to eat the mess Brian had made on the ground.  Brian stood and walked around the huge animal
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giving it a wide berth
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and peered over the top of the rise.  There was nothing except the sandlot baseball game almost a quarter of a mile away.  No 'Tadster' or cheerleading bitch looking for their lost dog.  

Probably gone back inside to do some more pompom practice, Brian thought. 

He turned back to the dog with a smile on his face, the same grin he would have many more times in his life.  The St. Bernard was eating the vomit, oblivious to Brian's approach.  Reaching into his back pocket he pulled out a small pocketknife. 

Approaching from behind, he petted the behemoth.  Zeus looked up from his regurgitated meal directly into the boy's eyes.   Whether it was something in the way he stroked the canine, something in his eyes, or just a feeling, the dog realized it had made a mistake.  Zeus mewed a soft whine. 

He briefly considered not using the knife and just choking the animal.  Just wrap my hands around and squeeze the life from the beast.  To feel the blood flow slowly, then cease altogether under his fingertips, would be so satisfying. To imagine that as the last breath of life left Zeus, that it was actually Tad dying in his hands.  He scrutinized the hulking dog, average by St. Bernard standards, and figured the thing had to at least weigh as much as he did, likely more. 

Continuing to rub the dog's head he noticed it was wearing a silver choke chain.  It was the kind of chain-collar with the metal ring used for attaching it to a leash.  Hooking his finger through the ring he maneuvered it to the top of the dog's neck.  Transferring the ring to his right hand he held the knife in his stronger left. 

In a blur of movement he swung his leg up over the dog's back—straddling it like riding a horse—and pulled on the metal choke chain.  He slid the knife along the front of Zeus's throat. 

The dog reacted instantly, but not in a way Brian had thought it would.  Zeus bounded forward carrying Brian along like a monkey riding a goat in a rodeo. 

The St. Bernard had moved with such speed and potency it caught the boy by surprise.  He had cut the dog and when it tried to bark blood sprayed out it all directions.  The sound he made was not a bark, but more like a gurgled 'woomph'. 

Brian held the ring of the choke chain as he rode the now madly-running animal.  The blood came in intervals Brian could only guess were in sync with dog’s heartbeat.    

The beast and rider were descending a slope leading them ever deeper into the woods.  The animal showed no signs of weakening.  Brian knew that he had to do something or he would soon fall off and the dog probably would attack.  He decided to stab again with the knife still held in his left hand. 

He stabbed Zeus again.  Concentrating on the knife, Brian failed to notice the slope of the hill falling away. 

The dog's front legs buckled. 

Brian did a complete flip in the air and landed flat on his back in the bottom of the water
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filled ravine. 

He had time enough to look up to see the hundred
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plus pound dog about to land on him.  His breath was knocked out as the impact of the animal pushed him into the muck of the stream bottom.  The open blade of the pocketknife closed on the back of his fingers until it hit bone. 

For the second time that day he gasped for breath.  With every breath his lungs only drew in water, he thought.  He tried to sit but couldn't with the full weight of the dog on him.  Instead, he raised his head and drew in another breath.  Again he inhaled liquid, yet he knew he wasn't under water.  Then he knew, it wasn't water, and he panicked.  

The combination of adrenaline and terror was enough for him to push Zeus off and turn to his side.  He pried the half-open knife off and dropped it.  He coughed up the liquid from his lungs, choking for air between every explosion.  Retch
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induced tears left streaks of white on his gore covered face.  When he finally could, he looked at the dog lying next to him.  The blood was now slowing seeping out of the animal's neck, at first beet-colored, then raspberry, then a salmon pink as it mixed with the stream water only to be swept away. 

Brian could tell the animal was still cognitive as it traced his movements with its eyes.  Zeus tried to whimper. 

Brian thought the dog looked like it was pleading for help.  He laughed and said, “Screw you mutt, who helped me when butt-muncher Tad decided to make a fool out of me at school?  Who was sitting all alone eating a moon pie when that cheerleader pries was boffing his brains out?  Who has to live in a roach-infested trash-hole with his bull
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dyke mother?  Answer me you stupid mutt!” 

Tears cascaded down his face. “I’m a  person too, you know, " he said as he searched the stream-bed for his knife.  "Don't you think fat people have feelings too?" 

He found it and the opened it. 

Zeus sustained his scrutiny of the now-crying boy through heavy-growing lids.  A look of sorrow or possibly understanding was on the dog's face. 

"No one showed me any sympathy that day in the hall," Brian wailed.  “In my whole life no one has ever put an arm around my shoulder and said, ‘keep your chin up everything's gonna be all right’." 

Brian chopped at the water with his knife to underscore each word. 

"You know what people for me?  Laugh, that's all, just laugh." 

Tears thundered from his eyes like a rainstorm. 

"Let me tell you what, mighty Zeus.  One day people are going to respect me.  Don't you respect me?  Answer me you flea
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bag!" 

Brian slashed the dog who was too weak to move and merely accepted the boy's indignation. 

"Maybe there's hope for you yet, pal.  I tell you what.  I'll let you borrow my guardian angel. Hah!" 

He swung his leg over the animal's back straddling him again. 

"In other words, buddy
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row, no one's going to help you!  I'm going to hurt you bad.  The good book says it's better to give than to receive.  Well here's my chance to make up for some lost time."