Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (45 page)

Athena texted her parents and
warned them again not to come out until someone came in to get them. She
covered the speaker so Sarah couldn’t hear the conversation, but judging from
how long it took her to respond again and the frequent exasperated sighs, it
must have been some discussion.

“Ok, I told them, Calvin.”

“Thank you. Ok, here we are. This
is Boomer’s parents,” Calvin pointed Felicia to a square, ‘60’s era two story
bright orange house with a two car garage. The lawn was immaculately manicured.
Two little white-faced lawn jockeys and half-a-dozen garden gnomes watched over
the twenty zombies shuffling back and forth in the driveway around a burned-out
Cadillac Escalade, the molten tires of which had been reduced to mere stains
running down the driveway. At least ten toasted Infected bodies lay within the
burned-out wreckage.

“That’s my parent’s car! Get off
our lawn you diseased freaks!” Boomer yelled, sending burst after burst into
the zombies trespassing on his parent’s lawn.

“Mom! Dad! Stay inside until we
come get you!” He hadn’t told anyone, but he was very worried. Neither of his parents
had responded to the texts. He had been hoping the car wasn’t still there. Now
that he saw that it was not only there, but nothing but a smoking skeleton, a
cold fist squeezed his heart like a vice.

“You stay outside, Boomer,” Calvin
ordered.

“I know,” Boomer replied quietly.

They all knew there was a chance
they would find nothing but corpses inside the house. As soon as a large enough
cushion was created, Trip, Calvin, Lucy, Brick and Athena burst forth from both
vehicles, charging across the lawn and up to the front door. Calvin held out
both arms, slowing the others and then paused to ring the doorbell.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Trip
asked in astonishment.

“Hey, it’s still their house. Mr.
and Mrs. McClintock! It’s Calvin! We’re here to see if you need a lift out of
town!”

There was no answer. Calvin
shrugged and with one chop separated the door from its handle and with a kick
the door swung inward. He nearly retched again at the sight of the lime green
walls with dark purple décor covering the living room.

“Hello?” he called.

No one answered, but they could
hear shuffling sounds from the right hallway. Calvin pointed for Lucy and
Athena to follow, and the other two to get on either side of him. Trip moved to
the far side, Brick on his right. The shuffling cleared up as they walked down
the hallway and Calvin realized it was someone sobbing and wrinkling paper. He
reached the master bedroom and turned the knob. The door slid easily and he
looked to either side for booby traps before swinging it the rest of the way
open. Four pink walls with blue trim jabbed Calvin in the brain. A body sat on
the floor, upright and moving around, shuffling things from one box to another.
It seemed to be a male, and he was crying silently, shoulders shaking in uncontrolled
sobs. Another step and he could see the man’s short, graying black buzz-cut and
shiny ebony skin. The partially missing upper left ear positively identified
the man to him. But was he dead or alive?

“Mr. McClintock?” Calvin asked
tentatively.

The creature didn’t answer, so
Calvin shuffled slowly a few steps further into the room and asked again. “Mr.
McClintock? You ok?”

“Calvin? Calvin, that you?”

“Hello Mr. McClintock. How are
you?”

“You can call me Ed, Calvin. You
know that.”

“Thank you, sir. We need to get you
out of here. Where is Mrs. McClintock?”

But the man ignored him and fumbled
around in another box.

“I just been sittin’ here lookin’
at the photos of me and Beatrice at the family picnics. We got a separate box
for all the events over the years and we just put all new photos into similar
events so’s we can look back on all the events and…see how time has changed the
memories…” he trailed off and dropped the pictures into the box.

“Guess that’s all I got now. Jus’ memories.”

“What happened, Ed?” Athena asked.

“She just burned up. I couldn’t do
nothin’. I just stood in here with them damned zombies between us and me holdin’
a damned broken shovel handle and I didn’t do a damn thing. And she screamed
and screamed. Lord how she screamed…I just did nothin’.

“Oh hell,” Tripper breathed.

“Boomer, you’d better get in here,”
Calvin called. “Athena, can you take his place on the turret?”

“I don’t know, Calvin,” she replied
doubtfully. “I should probably stay here and help Boomer.”

“Trip, can you take over Boomer’s
turret?”

“You got it, boss.”

“And can you stop calling me boss?”
he snapped angrily.

“Sure thing, Chief.”

Calvin sighed. It would have pissed
him off if he didn’t know Tripper had to make a joke out of something or he
would probably lose it. And his friend hated crying in public more than
anything. Boomer entered the room and instantly knew his mom was gone. He burst
into tears and ran over to his dad and pulled him to his feet and into a great
bear hug, so happy was he to see at least one of his parents still alive.

“What happened, pop?” he demanded
quietly.

“Boomer, that you?” he asked.

He was clearly stoned out of his
mind.

It took several minutes to get Mr.
McClintock composed enough to tell them what had happened. “We was stuck in
here, one, maybe two days ago now. The phones are out and so’s the ‘lectricity.
Heard an explosion before it went out so someone probably blew up the relay
station or somethin’.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Boomer
demanded.

“Our phones are outside in the
Caddy. I couldn’t go out there cause of my broken leg. So I told her we’d wait
here ‘til one o’ you kids comes and rescues us. But she said we needed to be
callin’ to get people organized and make sure you kids was ok. I tole her to
wait, tole her you and Calvin and your bunch are smart kids and you’d take care
of things. Tole her you’d find a way to get us out if you was still alive, but
she’s got to be so damned…so god damned stubborn,” he broke down again.

Boomer hugged him, tried to comfort
him, but was having a hard time waiting to find out what had happened. Not
wanting to judge, he sure did need someone to blame.

“She…she was always so stubborn,
you know that, don’t you son?” he asked.

Boomer nodded.

“Well, she goes out there and
almost gets to the car and this pack is on her. They was movin’ so fast…so
fast. But she killed the closest one with a hammer and makes it into the car,
but can’t get the door shut. I go hoppin’ out the door on one leg and two o’
them fast ones jump at me. I killed one again and then broke the shovel on the
other—whole thing stuck in its head as it fell away. I had nothin’ but this
little six inch piece of wood and two more comin’ at me, so I stepped back and
closed the glass door. It’s thick ‘nuff that they jus’ bounced off it.”

“It’s ok, Dad,” Boomer consoled
him. “We’ve been out there. We’ve seen how it can be.”

“I don’t think she got bit,” Ed
said through his tears. “But she was in the back and they was gettin’ in and
she knew they was gonna get her, one was crawling over the seats an’ others was
beatin’ in the windows. She grabbed this flare out the emergency kit, you see.
And she waited until they was all halfway inside and she busted out the back
window and started screaming to attract a few more. And when they was on her…she
sprayed them with that gas can and lit that flare and Boom! You ain’t ever seen
nothing that went up like that,” he laughed and cried at once. “Yeah, your
mother was stubborn…and proud. You know that bitch done went out there and lit
herself up like some damn hero rather than come in here and admit she was wrong?
We could have jus’ waited. You know that’s right, don’t you, Boom? Crazy damn
Bitch,” he laughed.

Boomer nodded and hugged his dad
once more.

“Ain’t that some real bullshit?” Ed
muttered, letting them lead him slowly in a staggering daze from the room.

“She took ten of them things out
with her, Boom-Boom,” he hugged his son again fondly and squeezed his shoulder.
“She didn’t want to go out like them. You were right, Calvin, I should have
bought at least one gun.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Calvin said
sadly. “I wish we had gotten here sooner…”

“This was that first day, son. If
I’d have got her down to the parade, it’s likely we’d both be dead. Don’t you
worry bout takin’ the blame for things ain’t in yo’ wheelhouse, son. You here
now even though we didn’t call you, just as I said, but she don’t ever listen. Got
to go her own damn way. So just you don’t let it get to you none.”

“Clear outside?” Calvin asked.

“Clear,” Trip replied.

Calvin stood on one side, Boomer on
the other and they half-carried the dazed man out of the house and into the
back of the Wagon. Athena half led, half pushed him down onto one of the
medical cots and told him to belt in. The random tinkling of the turrets could
be heard the entire time.

“Sorry Boomer,” Calvin said,
patting his friend on the shoulder.

Athena hugged him tightly when she
stepped out of the back of the truck.

“You mind if I take my place back
on the turret?” Boomer asked.

“No problem, mate,” Trip called
from the Hedgehog.

“Let’s go get your folks,” Boomer
said, looking out at the streets with sad, but determined eyes. “At least we
know they’re ok for now.”

For the next ten minutes no one
said a word. Calvin turned up the classic rock station slightly and started
using a finger to show Felicia where to go. 1 finger pointed left meant next
left, 2 fingers right meant 2
^nd
street on the right. Only music, the
continuous tinkling of Boomer’s turret and the occasional crunch of a Bouncer
ricocheting off the hood spoiled the silence on the journey to Athena’s parents.
Joel might as well have stayed back at the Fortress, because before he could move
his turret and hit the trigger, Boomer had already filled his target with nails
and moved on. If it moved and it didn’t move right, Boomer shot it. Clearly he
was done worrying about how future Boomer would look at him. These things were
a danger to everyone around him and he would kill every one that showed itself
in his crosshairs. This continued for their entire trek to the other side of
town.

“Welcome home,” Sarah said to
Athena as they pulled up in front of the long two-story brick house with a covered
two-car garage connected to the right side and another immaculately manicured
lawn.

Athena growled, but she looked both
happy and relieved to see her old home.

“Did you—”

“—I told them,” Athena snapped at
Calvin.

“Ok. I just don’t want another Lola
incident,” he finally admitted aloud what was behind his OCD.

“Darlings, you made it,” an
extremely slender, dark featured woman in her sixties with a thick, dyed-blonde
mom-cut called down to them, waving a shotgun that seemed half her size from
the second story window.

“Get back inside, Miriam!” they
heard Saul yelling. “Calvin said stay inside until they come in and get us.”

“I’m not outside.”

“You are outside. I can see you.”

“I’m not outside. I’m leaning out
the window,” Miriam argued.

“You’re more than halfway outside
the house; that makes you outside.”

“I’m on the second floor. I am not
standing on the front porch.”

“That is not the issue. You do not
know that those things cannot jump. Mrs. Wiggenton used to run track, remember?”

“You don’t have to remind me. I am
the one who has to listen to her stories every time we get together, Saul.”

“Not anymore, I’ll tell you that.”

While they continued arguing,
Calvin and Athena rushed out side-by-side and attacked the two zombies stomping
through the side garden. Both turrets kept the streets clear behind them. Just
to keep in practice, Calvin threw his first axe, splitting the skull of an old
man in a bloody gray suit and sending him flying into the side of the house.

“Very impressive, Calvin. Ooh, Lem
Clautshizer,” Saul broke off his argument to comment on Calvin’s victim from
inside the turreted kitchen window. “Do not worry, Calvin. He was a thief.
Never returned one single thing he ever borrowed from me. And his wife there, whoo,
that woman could not keep a secret to save her own life. Funny thing, she was a
vegetarian.”

He said this as Athena ran her
panabas half way through the skull of a little old dead woman in a flowing,
traditional black dress.

“Oh, they were dead set on going to
temple yesterday even though The Maker clearly had given them the day off. But,
oh no, they wished so much to prove their faith. Now what are they? Garden
fertilizer. The Lord does not show mercy to the stupid, Saul! This is what my
father always said to me. Oy! What has happened to this world?”

“Ok, Athena, go in and get them,”
Calvin ordered as Trip and Brick waltzed together through the rod iron gate
from the back indicating the yard was clear.

“What? Now? We have things,” Calvin
could hear Saul saying as Athena ushered him out of the house.

“I know Dad. We’ll get them for
you. We’re protected and you’re not.”

“No one is protected when the dead
walk the Earth.”

“We have armor on.”

“What is with these costumes?”
Miriam asked, pointing to the oddly attired group as she shuffled out the front
door.

“We’re wearing it for protection
from them, Mom.”

“Protection. The police should be
protecting us, with all the taxes we pay to this forsaken city,” Saul argued.

“The police have their own families
to worry about.”

“What? What!
This. This
is
their
job
. To protect and serve. That’s what it says on the side of
their cars. And here we are shooting our neighbors who are trying to eat us.”

“We’ve got this under control,
Dad,” Athena said, pulling him along each time he finished saying something,
only to have him pull up short to speak again.

“Under control. You have this under
control? Let me tell you something. Leave the control to those who are trained
to use it.”

“That…that doesn’t even make any
sense, Papa,” she argued as Tripper and Brick escorted the Grissoms and Bergs
past them to the ambulance.

“This whole thing doesn’t make any
sense,” Saul stopped and pointed at her. “And running around playing damsel in
distress and the knights of chivalry is not going to solve anything.”

“You might at least have noticed
this damsel is wearing armor and jousting with the men,” she muttered.

“I am old fashioned, dear one.
Yesterday I gave you your bat mitzvah and now you’re running around playing King
Arthur with swords like a young man. It’s not normal. If not for Calvin I would
worry you would come home with a young woman lover, not that I am saying there
is anything wrong with that. Your mother and I would love you no matter what.
But you should be going to dances and—”

“—cooking and cleaning and all the
stuff grandmother fought so hard to change? The days of the repressed housewife
are supposed to be over, daddy.”

“I don’t want you repressed, my heart,
I want you safe,” he explained. “I miss my little Gindele, my Neshama.”

“I’m still your little girl, Papa,”
she said, hugging him as she pulled him along. “It’s just that girls kick ass
now,” she added, emphasizing her point by spinning her blade around with her
free arm.

“Oy, you be careful with that
cheese knife. You go lopping off an ear or finger and there goes your
education.”

“I’m not going to get any dumber by
losing a finger or ear, Daddy.”

“No, but you already don’t listen
half the time, so lopping off an ear would make you deaf. You lose a finger and
you can’t type anymore.”

“I’m not a typist,” Athena growled.
“I mean, I type, but…just what exactly is it that you think I do?”

“Your mother says you are a secretary,
I figure you must type.”

“I’m an administrative assistant.”

“Yes, that is what I said; you are
a secretary.”

“No. It’s not the same. I’m the Chief
Executive Assistant to the President of a multi-billion dollar multi-platform
industry.”

“What, what, what? Are you
Vice-President? Are you even a manager? No. You are just an Executive
Assistant. Fancy words for a fancy secretary.”

“I help run the company, Dad,” she
argued.

“The janitorial staff helps run the
company.”

“I make more money than everyone
here put together,” she argued.

“And how does this look? The
President’s secretary making more money than the other company officers? It’s
shameful. How does Calvin let this continue?”

“It’s not like that,” she stomped
her foot angrily.

Saul shot a wicked wink at Calvin
while she begged the sky for help and her fiancé tried to keep a straight face.

“Yes, yes, I know dear. I just like
seeing you get riled up about it,” he squeezed her cheek and shuffled past her.

“Get in, Dad,” she nearly shoved
the man into the back of the Wagon, almost dislodging his yarmulke.

“Pushing is it? What? You’re mad
now?”

“Oh leave her alone and get in,
Saul
,”
Miriam pushed him too. “Sorry, dear,” she apologized to Athena with a soft hand
on her armored shoulder. “He’s been like this since Mrs. Wolowitz tried to eat
him when he took her pruning shears back the other day…why did she do that,
dear?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” Athena replied
honestly. “But we’re trying to find out.”

Sarah and Tripper stepped down
together from the back of the Paddy Wagon looking frazzled under their open helms.
Each had just finished similar conversations with their own parents.

“Is it too late to put them back?”
Athena asked over the private com channel. Several others laughed, but she
couldn’t tell which ones.

“She’s got a point. We’ll need to
leave them somewhere so we can work, Calvin,” Tripper cautioned over the mic.

“Hey, my Dad still works out,”
Sarah complained. “And yours is no slouch either. Maybe they can help. Athena
is the one whose parents decided to have another kid after forty years.”

“I’m not saying they’re useless,”
Tripper rebutted. “I’m saying there’s a chance I might kill them myself if
we’re stuck together in the same building for too long.”

Several of the others laughed. All
but Joel and Gus gathered outside the vehicles, out of earshot of the parents. Calvin
looked around, considering their options. “I don’t know what we can do about
that. Maybe we’ll set them and any others up at the Fortress and let them run
things there while we make the Dungeon our new base.”

“That’s cruel, Calvin,” Athena
reprimanded him.

“Hey, you’re the one who has to
have those marathon exchanges with your dad just to ask how his day went. If we
stay in the same place, you’ll be having those all of th time, but I guess if
you have no problem with it…”

“Although, I supposed we could tell
them we’re helping Hephaestus with his equipment,” Athena suggested as an
afterthought.

“Even though we’ll most likely just
be in the way there,” Tripper added honestly.

“Won’t it be like we just saved
them from a house surrounded by zombies and stuck them in a bigger house surrounded
by zombies?” Sarah asked. “We might as well have left them here until it’s time
to go.”

“Hmm, that’s a good point,” Calvin
admitted. “Rescue them just to dump them off somewhere still in the middle of
this mess?”

“We don’t know how fast we might
have to light out of here,” Tripper argued. “And we’re talking about a stocked fortress
compared to a house in the suburbs. I doubt they’re going to complain.”

“Have you
met
your parents?”
Sarah asked. “Or
mine
? Or…any of ours?”

“Well, I can’t stay with them.
They’re always on my ass about the future. And now that Calvin’s asked Athena
to marry him they’ll…”

“What?” Sarah’s eyes narrowed.

“Nothing. Nevermind.”

“You’d better finish that
sentence.”

“We need to get going,” he
suggested.

“Thadius Reginald Iggy Percivale Paul
Edward Roy Grissom, if you’ve got something to say, you’d better come out with
it if you know what’s good for you.”

“That’s not my name,” he insisted
heatedly, eyes blazing.

“It was before you changed it,” she
responded smartly, returning an equal inferno.

“Well I
did
change it,
legally
.
So call me by my name or don’t call me!”

“I’m sorry. I know what happened
between your dad and brothers with the business and everything. I shouldn’t
have used their names, but I wanted you to know I’m serious. Tell me what you
were going to say.”

“Look, I’m just saying…”

“It’s just that…Calvin proposed and
now our parents are going to know…”

“You mean that they are going to be
on your ass about why you haven’t asked me to marry you, too?”

“Yes,” he admitted, hunching his
shoulders and refusing to look at her.

She sighed.

“Trip. We’ve talked about this. I
don’t even like you that way,” She said.

He laughed loud and hard, and so
did the others.

“Seriously, though,” she grabbed
his hand. “We agreed to take it slow and I’m fine with that, even if it takes
another five years. You don’t have to go and propose just because Calvin did.
Even though his was very romantic and we could have a double wedding and—”

“—
we
can’t wait five years
for him to get it together,” Athena warned the couple.

“Don’t wait on us,” Sarah said.
“You know he’s always been slower than Calvin.”

“Here,” Trip said, tossing a small
black velvet box at her. “Now do you understand?”

“Oh…” Sarah breathed, tears filling
her eyes as she opened the box to reveal the golden ring with a silver Pegasus
in the clouds flying over a rainbow of tiny colored precious stones.

“I designed it myself over a year
ago. I was the one who was supposed to propose first,” he explained in head
hung in chagrin. “I was going to do it at the parade but sometimes things don’t
go the way you plan them. I was watching the sky so much because a plane was
supposed to fly over towing a sign saying, ‘Sarah Berg, look back’ and I was
going to be down on my knees with the ring. You know the kind of government
favors I had to pull and the background check I had to endure just to get a
plane and a pilot in the air that day? The President knows my name and face because
of the e-mails I wrote, since he was going to be here too. That’s pretty
fucking cool.”

He dropped to one knee and took the
ring out of the box and then took her hand and placed it over that finger. “You
were supposed to look back and see this. That’s why I was dressed so nice.”

“That was nice? A blue sweater and
white pants?”

“You always said that was your
favorite.”

“Well, yeah, but…never mind.”

“Do you want me to do this, or
not?”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“You know I’m not a good talker like
Calvin. And I’m not good at the fluffy pink romance stuff. I’m a smartass. But
you know I love you Sarah. And I know you love me. We get along better than any
other couple I’ve ever met and if something were to ever happen to Calvin you
might even win the best friend contest I’m going to have.” He waited for the
sniveling laughter from behind to trail off before finishing.

“There are so many reasons why I
love you and why I think we should be together, but we don’t have the kind of
time it would take to list them all, so I’ll spend the rest of my life trying
to tell you all of them. Everyone knows we belong together. Will you marry me?”

“I suppose,” she nodded and he slid
the ring all the way onto her finger.

“The wedding ring is gorgeous,” he
said. “You’re going to love it. Unfortunately it’s back at my place.”

“We’ll get it someday,” she
promised.

Everyone congratulated the couple
with hugs and slaps on the back of their armor. The hugs stopped when one of
Calvin’s chainmail rings, broken from the shooting, became linked in Sarah’s
chainmail and Trip had to run to the Hedgehog to get a pair of pliers to
separate them. Boomer and Joel said their congratulations over the com system.
When things quieted back down a little, Boomer’s sharp ears caught some muffled
screams and banging. “Listen. What the hell is that?” he asked the others.