Apocalypsis: Book 1 (Kahayatle) (12 page)

“So what’s the plan?” asked Peter, his thirst now satisfied.
 
He handed me his bottle and I put it back in the trailer.

“Well, if we move from four in the morning until nine, we’ll be able to get about fifty miles a day.
 
And we’re about two hundred and fifty miles from where I think we need to be.”

“So about five days of traveling, you think?”

“Something like that.
 
I don’t remember much about the area; I’ve only been there once.
 
I figure we’ll get down there and stop when we find a place that looks good.
 
Maybe once we get closer we can go into a tourist shop with some books that have info or a map of the whole place.”

“The Everglades are pretty big,” said Peter, sounding skeptical.

“I know.
 
But we need to find a specific spot.
 
One that’s hard to reach and has trees to hide a shelter in.”

“How are
we
going to get into it if it’s hard to reach?”

“Boat?” I suggested.

“I can see you’ve put a lot of time into this plan,” he said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, how much time have you put into it, smartass?”

“None.”
 
He held up his hand for a high-five.
 
“You’re right.
 
I’m sorry.
 
I appreciate you doing all this for us.”

I begrudgingly slapped his hand back.
 
“The plan is flexible.
 
We’ll just figure it out as we go along.
 
It’s better that way, anyway - if one of us gets caught, we won’t be able to divulge any secrets.”

“Since we don’t have any.”

“Exactly.”
 
I smiled at my unintentional genius.

“Let’s just pray we don’t get taken captive, because the only reason someone would do that would be to … well, you know.”

“Invite you to dinner,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to tell me about your sister now?”
 
I tried not to cringe at the fact that I’d just brought up his sister while we were on the topic of being eaten for dinner, but it was impossible.
 
Sometimes my mouth got away from me before I could stop it.
 
“Sorry.
 
That wasn’t cool.”

Peter didn’t seem to mind.
 
His eyes got a far off look to them as he stared off into the distance.
 
“She was twelve.
 
Really small for her age, though.
 
She looked about ten or so.
 
We used to fight all the time.
 
She was always getting into my stuff and I hated it.”

I had no experience with siblings invading my territory, but I could see how it might be irritating.
 

“We were in Sanford, in our house.
 
We had to bury both of our parents in the back yard.
 
They died on the same day.”

“That’s awful,” I said, meaning it.
 
I had only lost one parent and that was bad enough.

“My sister and I had a hard time moving them out into the yard.
 
We couldn’t stop crying, because we kept worrying that we were hurting them.
 
Isn’t that stupid?
 
I mean, they were already dead.
 
We checked their pulses like a hundred times to be sure.”

I shook my head but said nothing.
 
Even when bodies were dead, if they belonged to people you loved in life, they seemed sacred.
 
I was once again reminded of how grateful I was to my father for doing his dying elsewhere.

Buster went over and sat in Peter’s lap.
 
Tears were going down his cheeks and Buster kept trying to jump up and lick them.
 
Peter kept him contained by playing with and petting his ears absently as he continued his story.

“After we got them buried, we stayed in the house, living off the things left in the pantry.
 
My mom always made spaghetti on Sundays, just like my aunt, so she had about fifty jars of sauce in the garage.
 
She bought them in bulk at Costco.”

“I loved Costco,” I said wistfully.

“Me too.
 
What I wouldn’t give right now to just live in one.
 
They even have mattresses there.”
 
He sighed and cleared his throat, continuing in a stronger voice now.
 
“Anyway, one day we decided to take a walk down to the convenience store that was near our house, just a few blocks away.
 
We were joking around about getting a slushy, I remember, when we first saw them.”

“Them?” I asked, to fill the silence.
 
Peter was lost in the memories somewhere, and I knew it wasn’t a good place to be.
 
I scooted over and put my hand on his back.
 
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do,” he said sternly.
 
“Someone else besides me should know what they did to her.
 
To Lily.”
 
His voice broke at her name.

Buster tried to get up to come over to me, but I pushed him away, sending him back to Peter.
 
He needed the dog more than I did right now.
 

“As soon as we saw the group of them, we knew they were trouble.
 
They walked in a big group, right down the middle of the street, not caring who saw them.
 
Some of them had baseball bats.
 
One had a gun.”

“Was it the same guys we saw?”

“I don’t know.
 
I doubt it.”
 
He looked at me, fear in his eyes.
 
“I mean, what are the chances they would have taken the same route as me to get to my aunt’s house?”

“Not good,” I assured him.
 
“Practically impossible.”
 

“Yeah.
 
You’re right.”
 
He stared straight ahead again.
 
“It means there’s more than one gang of them out there, though.
 
Not exactly good news.”

I shook my head in disgust.
 
“They’re like packs of wild animals.
 
Zombies.”

“I used to read zombie books and go to those movies, laughing at the gore.”
 
He smiled bitterly.

“Me too.”
 
I reached over to pet Buster with him.
 
“So what happened then?”

“We took off running.
 
It’s like all they needed to see - it got them all excited.
 
They were hollering and cheering, like they were egging each other on.
 
It was a sick game to them.
 
I’ve never been so friggin scared in my entire life.”

Peter grabbed my hand that was petting Buster’s head.
 
I just sat there and let him squeeze it, saying nothing, just listening.

Peter’s voice was wavering badly now.
 
“Lily took my hand and I saw her face.
 
She was super scared too.
 
And then as we were cutting through one of our neighbor’s yards, she tripped on one of the roots that was sticking up out of the ground and landed on her knees.
 
I tried to help her get up but she’d twisted her ankle.
 
She couldn’t move.”

I put my other hand on top of his, squeezing now too.
 
I could totally picture the scene, his poor little sister on the ground and the pack of wolves closing in.

“She yelled at me to keep going, but I didn’t want to leave her there.”

“There was nothing else you could do,” I said, firmly.
 
“You had to save yourself.”

“I know,” he said, putting his head down.
 
“But I couldn’t just leave her.”

“What’d you do?” I asked softly.

“I stood there over her, waiting for them to come.
 
She kept grabbing my pant leg, pushing me, screaming at me to leave, but I couldn’t.”
 
He started crying again.
 
“I just couldn’t.”

“How did you live?” I asked.
 
I knew those canners had no souls left.
 
They wouldn’t have just let him go.

“They came and took her from me, dragging her away while she screamed my name over and over and over.
 
One of them punched me in the face and knocked me down, saying I was too skinny to bother with.”

“That’s kind of rude,” I said, without thinking.
 
“Sorry.”

“No.
 
Don’t worry about it.
 
Anyway, they took her away, and I tried to follow, but one of them came back with the baseball bat and swung it at me.
 
So I dropped far behind, following them from a distance.
 
I saw where they took her and then ran back to my house to get my gun.”

“You were going to kick some ass, weren’t you?”

“You’re damn straight I was,” he said bitterly.
 
“I took a whole box of bullets in my pockets and went back to their house.”

He was crying again, more intensely now, small sobs bursting out between the words.
 
“When I got there, though, it was too late.
 
I went around to the back where I could hear their voices …”

I didn’t want to hear the rest of the story.
 
I knew pretty much how it ended and I knew the details were only going to make the knowing worse.
 
But Peter needed to tell someone, and Buster wasn’t exactly in a position to appreciate its awfulness enough to help Peter feel like he wasn’t alone.

“What did you see?”

“Oh, God.
 
It was awful.
 
My worst nightmare come to life.
 
I saw my sister’s head.
 
On the ground.
 
They were … they were …”
 
His shoulders were quaking now, tears and snot dripping off of his face.
 
“They were cutting her up … and putting her body parts on a big grill!
 
There was blood everywhere!”

I felt the vomit coming up again and swallowed three times in quick succession to keep it down.
 
My salivary glands were working like mad, telling me to get moving, so I wouldn’t barf on my friend.
 

But I couldn’t leave him.
 
I knew he didn’t want to be alone right now - couldn’t be alone right now.
 
He’d seen pretty much the most horrific thing I could possibly imagine a person having to endure.
 
And it had happened to his baby sister.

I put my arm across this back and pulled him in tight to me.
 
“Shhhh, I know it’s awful.
 
I know it’s terrible.
 
Evil stuff.
 
Evil.
 
They’re going to pay.”
 
I had no idea how that was going to happen, but prayed karma might take care of some of it.

“Oh, they did.
 
Believe me.”

I stopped squeezing him for a minute.
 
“What’d you do?”

“I shot four of them.
 
One right in the face.”

I hugged him again.
 
“
Good
for you, Peter.
 
I don’t know how you did that without knocking yourself out, but I wish you’d shot all of them in the face.
 
In the nuts too.”

Peter agreed angrily.
 
“Me too.
 
I think I got lucky with not hitting myself.
 
The gun kicked more up instead of back for some reason.
 
I think Lily’s spirit was there helping me.”

“I’ll bet she was too.
 
How’d you get away?”

“I ran like hell while they all ran around screaming … got back to my house, threw my stuff in a bag and took off on my bike.”

“And ended up in my back yard.”

“Yeah.
 
I ended up in your back yard.”

“In your Aunt-who-wasn’t-really-an-aunt’s house.”

He smiled, now a little less angrily.
 
“Yes.
 
In my aunt’s house.”

“The one with the bright red pumps.”

He giggled and sniffed hard, shoving me off of him.
 
“Yes, the one with the pumps.”

I stood up and brushed myself off.
 
“Well, I wish I could say something to make it better for you, Peter, but I just can’t think of anything.
 
If I could, I’d go kill them all for you.”

“I know you would.
 
And for some strange reason, that makes me feel just a tiny bit better.”
 
He looked up at me, his eyes all red and puffy but no longer leaking.

I continued.
 
“All I know is, they’d better never show their ugly canner faces in my Everglades, or they’re going to go down … and it won’t be pretty.”

“Yeah,” said Peter.
 
“Damn straight.”

“Gator bait.”

“I like it,” he said.

“Snakebite victims.”

“Another good idea,” encouraged Peter.

“I’m out of good ideas now, though,” I said, smiling at Peter’s slightly uplifted mood.

“That’s okay, I’m good with those.”
 
He stood up.
 
“I’m gonna go pee.”

“Okay.
 
Stay out of sight.”

“Who’s going to see us out here in the middle of nowhere?” he asked.

I shook my head slowly.
 
“Do we really want to know the answer to that question?”

“No,” he agreed, sad once again.
 
“Probably not.”

I felt bad about reminding him of our precarious position, but it wouldn’t do to go around with a false sense of security, just because we had a couple of guns and a fuzzy pink watchdog.