The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) (27 page)

              I watched as OMT shook Lt. Klein’s hand and he started off towards the lodge and the world came roaring back at me as I realized that Karen Morena was shaking me and was practically screaming my name at me “JOHNNY, JOHNNY!” I looked at her like she was the crazy one and when I did I realized that Mrs. Driscol was kneeling in front of me and her hands were on my shoulders. “What?” I asked in a whispered voice. Peeking over Mrs. Driscol’s shoulder Darnell asked “J-Dude, you alright?” I nodded even though I felt my eyeballs were rolling around in their sockets like marbles in a soda bottle. I felt that everyone was looking at me and I looked around at the serious faces and I saw that Old Man Tucker was on the stairs to the lodge had stopped and was looking at me with more concern than he had the right to have. “I’M FINE.”

Mrs. Driscol pulled me into her and hugged me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. Before I could catch myself I let out that traditional 12 year old lament that every parent knew; in a sing song voice I begged her to cease her demonstrations by saying “Maahhhhhhmmmm!” I froze, Karen M. froze, Darnell froze, everyone froze and Mrs. Driscol pushed me away to arm’s length. She was staring at me; tears had formed in her eyes and were running down her cheeks. She didn’t say anything but I knew I had broken her heart, she wasn’t my mom, I wasn’t  Billy, this was all wrong and I knew deep inside that I had crossed a forbidden line. I tore away from her, I wanted to yell, I wanted to curse, I wanted to cry, but all I could do was run. I dropped my rifle and ran up the stairs past OMT and into the lodge.

Once inside I was a blur up the stairs to the 2
nd
floor and then again up the stairs to the roof. I burst onto the sun porch and was surprised to see Deputy Weir on guard duty, he was wearing those stupid mirrored sunglasses that cops think make them look tough. He had a scoped, bolt action rifle slung over his shoulder and our best binoculars held in both hands. We stared at each other for a second or two but neither said anything, so I broke off our staring contest and ran over to the teak storage bin on the roof where they kept extra cushions for the deck furniture. I yanked open the door and climbed inside, getting myself arranged on the cushions I then slammed the door shut. I peeked out through the slats and saw that Deputy Weir had turned back to scanning the horizon with the binoculars. I apparently didn’t matter to him; good.

I guess I fell asleep for a bit because when I woke up the cop was gone, in his place was Kyle Morena and his sister, they were sitting on a chair just outside my hiding place. I slowly pushed the door open and she looked up at me with an embarrassed smile and asked

“How are you feeling Johnny?”

I felt like crap, I was dizzy and had a head ache but I said

“I’m fine.”

I climbed out of my hiding place and looked over at her brother who apparently had found something really interesting to look at about 3 miles away. Karen said

“Mrs. Driscol wants to know if you will talk to her.”

I looked at Karen with fury in my eyes and snapped

“NO.”

She winced at my anger but didn’t give up,

“Johnny, she isn’t mad, she cares for you and your sisters. You should talk to her.”

I paced about in a small circle on the raised deck for a moment then reiterated

“NO WAY.” then I added in a quieter voice “I am never going to talk to her again.”

Karen sighed, “Johnny.”

I paused and waited for her to continue but she remained silent so I prompted “What?”

Karen looked away and crossed her arms over her chest before she spoke,

“My parents are dead.” 

This was crazy,

“SO? So are mine!” I said angrily.

She shook her head,

“You don’t understand Johnny, we are all alone. All of us. And if I had someone to call
mommy
, well, I would.”

I heard the grief in her voice. I started to speak but she wasn’t done;

“Mrs. Driscol feels empty, like an old jar with nothing in it. I think she wants you to think of her as your mother, she wants to think of you as her son.”

I wanted to slap Karen and I trembled with rage,

“SHE IS NOT MY MOTHER, MY MOTHER IS DEAD.”

This time Karen rose to my challenge and she stood nose to nose with me,

“You Johnny are an idiot. You have a chance for someone to care for you and you are going to walk away from her. You don’t deserve her.”

Karen spun on her heels and stomped away.

I sat down, my breathing was ragged and I wished things were different. That was when I heard Kyle walking over towards me. I thought he was going to yell but he didn’t, instead he said

“Karen was really close to Mom.”

I sat there and looked at him as if he were from another planet, so he went on.

“Johnny, look around, all we have is each other. Just quit being such a jerk.”

He turned and walked back to his post. Jerk.

I went back inside the building and went to our room. I was surprised to find Mrs. Driscol and Lucy playing cards,
SNAP
I think. I took a deep breath and walked over next to them, they stopped playing and they both looked up at me. I sighed and took a deep breath and then made my impressive speech;

“Can I play?”

Lucy and Mrs. Driscol both grabbed me and hugged me and to my surprise Mrs. Driscol kissed me over and over and Lucy laughed at that.

“ACK!” I said.

She didn’t let go, finally she sat me in her lap and looking me in the eye said

“Johnny, you have been part of my family for a long time, and I don’t think your Mom would mind if we acted like it.”

I whispered that I was sure that Billy felt the same way and she nodded and for a moment I was afraid she was going to cry again.

“I want you both to know…”

She grabbed Lucy and pulled her next to me on Mrs. Driscol’s lap.

“I want you all to know that from now on, if you call me Mom or Ma or Mommy, that will be okay, it will be our little secret that when you say that, you and I are thinking of my best friend, your mother.”

Lucy stretched and kissed her on the cheek, I know it wasn’t manly or whatever, but I just leaned into her, I decided that I liked being hugged by her and Mrs. Driscol deserved being hugged right back. We actually played four more hands of
snap
before we left the room and went down stairs. No one said anything to us but they all seemed relieved that we had worked things out. Karen walked up to me and asked if things were cool, I nodded and then said

“Karen, about earlier, on the roof I mean, well, I just mean...”

I paused looking for the right word and then found it;

“Thanks.”

Karen smiled and said

“No problem Johnny.”

It wasn’t long after that when Elaine came into the room and said

“Alrighty, if you all are finished being all huggy, there is
ANOTHER
meeting that is just about to get started downstairs.” S

He sounded irritated and had emphasized the word ‘
another
’ so as to leave no doubt of her opinion on the subject. Never-the-less we all went dutifully downstairs with Elaine yelling into Mrs. Frank’s room to Janey that she would fill her in if anything interesting came up.

To my surprise it was Lt. Klein that was running the show this time.

“Hello everyone, thank you for putting up with yet another ‘family’ meeting.” she said.

Then she gazed casually around the room but I noticed that she grinned a bit at Elaine.

“Folks, we have been talking...”

She began but I knew she meant ‘
OMT has been lecturing me....’
instead.

“…and we are concerned about the Zs. They are continuing to evolve, becoming more and more dangerous.”

That was when the good Lt. Klein surprised us all,

“We are suggesting that perhaps it is time that we were a bit more aggressive towards them.”

I sat up, now this had potential.

“They are systematic in their searches, only forming large groups when a significant human force is encountered. We feel we might be able to take advantage of this.”

Everyone started talking at once and she had to bang one of those spikey meat hammers to get everyone to listen.

“Everyone will be given a chance to talk, ok?” 

After a moment more she began

“Staff Sergeant Barnes and Mr. Tucker have volunteered to go on an extended scouting mission. We need to know if and when the Zs are going to be coming back through here. They also are going to try and make contact with any military, police or civil defense units that are still functioning.”

I had not noticed Lucy leaving Mrs. Driscol’s side but suddenly she was behind where Old Man Tucker was sitting and reaching up she poured an entire bottle of water on his head. Several people broke into laughter but OMT just sat there, humiliated but unresponsive. Lt. Klein then spoke

“It seems we have one ‘no’ vote on the proposed mission, any other opinions?”

Lucy had left the room immediately after her aquatic-assault and Elaine following her saying that she would go find her and talk to her. Things got more specific after that, what vehicle would they take?

“Not one of the MRAPs.” Darnell insisted.

So the Humvee it was. How much food? How much water? How long would they be gone? Would they try to maintain radio silence like they did before? All of this was boring to me so my mind began to wander as I looked around the room. Everyone seemed open to the suggestion more or less as long as they didn’t take too much of the gear. I saw Mrs. Livingston, her dark black skin in contrast to her silver and white hair. She seemed unsettled and nervous like she was running something over in her mind trying to make sense of it. I think her husband too knew something was wrong but when he snaked his arm across her shoulders she grabbed it by the wrist and tossed it aside as if it were stinky cheese or fish bait or something. Grown-ups are strange.

In the late afternoon, just before dinner time I went out on the porch and watched as OMT, Deputy Weir and SSGT. Barnes strung lengths of barbed fence wire in and out of clusters of trees, they put strands down low then about knee high, and finally chest high. Each line crisscrossed many times with the others it was a huge spider web of barbed wire. Anyone or anything coming through there would pay for it in skin. I saw that the hunting blind was opposite the wire trap and it was a good observation spot for it. I tried to imagine what it would be like running through the woods right into that web of barbed wire then having someone shoot at you while you were trying to get yourself unstuck. Kyle showed up and shook me from my day dream, he was pushing a wheel barrow full of dog eared pickets and each had hundreds of 10 penny nails driven through them. Oh right, Kyle Morena,
King of the Poop Sticks
. They placed the boards with the nails pointing up in places where someone might step or hide. They covered them with leaves and small twigs pretty soon it was impossible to tell where they were and where they were not. As I watched the four of them finish up and start back to the lodge I realized how clever this set up was, they were not trying to kill the enemy with that stuff or even cause serious injury. What they wanted was a warning and they wanted time; time to shoot and kill the enemy; that idea made me smile.

They spoke to Rico, he had the hood up on the Humvee and was working on it, getting it ready for the mission and they all laughed at whatever Rico said in response. I followed them inside, I thought that maybe I would take a watch on the roof, I had not done it yet although I had spent quite a bit of time away from the lodge and didn’t have many opportunities.

Later, after dinner that evening everyone broke up into small groups; some played cards, others had kitchen duty, and others chatted. I sat near the fireplace and watched the Morena’s, Lucy, and Janey play cards while I eavesdropped on OMT and Mrs. Driscol. Their conversation went something like this:

M. Driscol: “Darnell is really nice isn’t he?”

OMT: “Yeah.”

M. Driscol: “He is very intelligent I think.”

OMT: “Seems so”

M. Driscol: “He’s good with the kids too, hard to find someone his age with the patience he has.”

OMT: “Yeah.”

M. Driscol: “Lucy and Johnny have really taken to him.”

OMT:

There was a long uncomfortable silence and I could tell Mrs. Driscol was getting angry but I couldn’t figure out why.

M. Driscol: “He wants to meet me later tonight after the kids have gone to sleep.”

I couldn’t believe my ears and I waited for OMT to explode, only he didn’t, he turned and walked away.

M. Driscol: “YOU ARE AN ASS.” she said between gritted teeth.

Suddenly OMT stopped and turned back to her,

“And you are a lovely, intelligent young woman who doesn’t deserve to be alone.”

Once again he started to walk away.