Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary (3 page)

Chapter 4

              "GET OVER here, Ray," Jennie said, standing up and pulling an empty chair away from the kitchen table. "You need to hear this." They were all sitting around the circular table. Rivet had just plopped down beside Jennie, and across from them, Theo and Abby sat so close they almost touched. The four of them looked like two opposing factions working out the terms of war. Titan sat on his haunches in the center of the table, acting as mediator to the discussions. He leaned over to lick himself periodically.

              I sat down in the chair Jennie proferred, scooting it over so that I was directly in the middle of the two groups, between Jennie and Abby.

              "Okay, Theo," Jennie said. "Tell Ray and Rivet what you just told me."

              Now what?

              The kid looked up at the gaunt, silent woman, as if asking permission. I was struck by how much Abby had changed. Apparently, she'd washed her face while the three of us were upstairs—or Theo had washed it for her—and despite her malnourished look, she was radiant. I'd overshot her age out on the porch. She couldn't be more than thirty-five, with high cheek bones and smooth skin still rosy from her recent wash. Her eyes were dark and almond shaped, haunted by the shadows cast by her narrow brow line. Her eyebrows dainty and thin, offset by plump lips with a natual pout along their lower curve. Long, beach-sand hair framed her face. Although it was mussed now, I imagined that it must have shone just a week ago.

              She stared straight ahead, between Jennie and Rivet, as if they weren't even there. She didn't move, but Theo nodded as if she'd given him the okay. He turned to us.

              "Ms. Abby isn't my mommy," he said. "My mommy's in heaven with Ms. Abby's daughters. She said it was okay for me to tell you that. She said it's important for you to know. They didn't die, but they're in heaven now."

              I exchanged a look with Jennie and Rivet. Jennie shrugged. Rivet made a little clockwise motion beside his hear with his finger.

              "Ms. Abby found me after my mommy went to heaven," Theo continued. "I was hiding in a car and they were trying to get in. My mommy was with them. She wanted to eat me," he said bluntly. "Ms. Abby says that's not true, but I know she's just trying to protect me. Ms. Abby threw rocks at them and made them chase her, then came back to get me. She still talked then. She asked me if I'd seen Alice and Sissy—those are her daughters—but I didn't know them. I wish I did, because she was being so nice to me and I wanted to help her, too, but I didn't know who they were.

              "Ms. Abby cried a lot then. I asked her if I could stay with her and she cried even more and hugged me."

              I watched Abby while the boy talked. She didn't react to any of the things Theo was saying, just stared straight ahead, barely blinking. Fuck, no wonder she was so messed up. I didn't have much family to miss, just a sister who never talked to me. I'd tried not to think about her over the past week, but I knew she was gone. She didn't use drugs. Didn't even drink. I missed her, but that was a feeling that went back years. To lose your kids, though...

              "Ms. Abby made me keep taking my medicine," Theo was saying. "The doctor told my parents I needed help reading. In school, you know. So they gave me a pill every morning, and mommy took a little bottle of them for the field trip to the science museum in Lincoln. She was a shap-erone. I hated seeing Ms. Abby cry, so I told her I had pills that would make her feel better, and she gave me a funny look. I didn't know how to get home and all the other kids from my class was gone, and Ms. Abby was on vacation with Alice and Sissy, so we started walking, and that's how we found the bad place."

              "Go on," Jennie urged when Theo stopped talking. He looked scared. "This is all I've heard," Jennie told us.

              "We didn't know it was a bad place," Theo continued after a moment. "There were people there, and they told us to come in. There were a lot of people, and they were very happy. I told Ms. Abby they looked friendly, and she told me to stay close. But the people didn't let us stay together. A man took me with him. He was nice at first, but then he was mean. He gave me new medicine, even when I asked him to stop. I didn't like the new medicine, but he kept giving it to me. He gave me too much, and then he...he told me to take my clothes off."

              "Jesus Christ," Jennie breathed, putting a hand over her mouth. Abby began to quiver softly, eyes still blank, staring.

              "Ms. Abby found me a few days later. She came in at night and killed the mean man with a fork and helped me get dressed. She didn't talk after that. She put a finger in front of her mouth like this," Theo mimed the action, "to be quiet and took me away from the bad place. The bad men didn't want us to go, so they followed us, and Ms. Abby killed more of them. That's when she started talking to me. Not out loud. In here." The little boy tapped his forehead.

              "Did they follow you here?" Rivet asked.

              Theo shook his head. "Ms. Abby says they gave up. The ones following us ran out of..." he looked curiously at the woman. "That doesn't make sense, Ms. Abby. Okay, I'll tell them." He turned to us. "She says they ran out of 'math.' " Abby shuddered, and a tear leaked down her cheek. "Not math, she says. Meth? What's that, Ms. Abby?"

              "It's okay," I told Theo gently. "Thank you for telling us that. And thank you, Abby." I nodded to the silent woman. I could only imagine what they'd done to her. Without thinking, I reached over and put my hand over hers on the table. The woman jerked it away and her eyes shot to mine, wide, bloodshot. Terrified. Something flashed into my mind, like a random memory that I couldn't get a fix on. It was gone just as quickly, but I'd caught a glimpse: Chains. Blood. Laughter.

              "And after that, you helped Bugs Bunny escape from Azkaban," Rivet's sarcasm sliced through the vision. "Come on, guys. Are we really supposed to believe this act? Mystique and the Comeback Kid? They're fucking with us. I don't know why, but they're a hundred and eighty degrees off center."

              "Excuse him," Jennie said pertly to Abby and Theo. "He was recently diagnosed with asshole disorder."

              "More jokes. Hardy-har-har. Poor Rivet, he has a disease, let's all make fun of him."

              "Nobody's making fun of you, Rivet," I said, trying to keep everyone on track.

              "But he has a point, as much as I hate to say it," said Jennie. "The psychic thing is a little weird."

              "Ms. Abby talks to me," Theo insisted softly, his head down. "She can talk to you, too, if you'll let her." His eyes shot up. "She says she will."

              "Just stop it," Rivet said.

              "You've been through a lot," said Jennie. "It's okay if you have a different way of sorting through it."

              "I'm not lying," Theo pushed, enunciating each word separately. "The bad people changed her."

              I didn't know what to say. Was I an idiot for believing him? I'd seen something, but what? Even I couldn't buy it completely. It was too much of a stretch to think that Abby had sent them into my head. Despite the zombies, this wasn't science fiction.

              "We have to go," I said suddenly, standing up. "You ready Rivet?"

              "Go where?" Jennie asked.

              "Ray wants to go shopping. I told him I'd help him. Out of the goodness of my heart and all that."

              Jennie regarded Rivet suspiciously. "I'm coming, too," she said.

              "Sorry Jen, someone has to stay here," I said, inclining my head ever so slightly toward the newcomers, hoping she'd get the hint. Theo was watching us talk. Abby stared at nothing. "Ready in five, Rivet."

              "Aye aye, Rayman."

              Jennie started to protest, but I left before I heard any of it. There wasn't time to argue about this. I wanted to get out today, and we only had about two hours of daylight left. I ran up to the third floor and pulled my cell phone out of the pile of clothes in the corner. I'd turned it off last week to save the battery, and I was hoping it still had a charge somewhere behind that blank screen. I shoved it in my pocket, pulled on my shoes, and took the steps two at a time back down.

              Rivet was waiting for me at the back of the kitchen, where we'd lined up our various implements of undead destruction. Jennie was whispering something to him, apparently agitated, but Rivet brushed her off when he saw me enter the room. Theo half-turned in his seat. Abby, of course, didn't twitch a muscle. I was about to brush past them when I had a thought. Squatting down next to Theo, I said, "Any food you miss more than anything?"

              He grinned sheepishly. "Oreos."

              "Well you're in luck, because this town just so happens to have the best Oreos in the state."

              Theo squinted. "You would have said that no matter what I said."

              "Maybe, but with Oreos, it's true."

              "Rock and roll, Rayman," Rivet said, hefting an axe. I stood and walked over, picked a crowbar from the counter beside the door. Took a deep breath.

              "Ready?"

              "Onward and upward."

Chapter 5

              LESS THAN a minute later, the park loomed on our left. Rivet drove the Jeep like it would explode if he dropped below sixty. He swerved right to cut around town on Troutman Street, but I told him to keep going up River. I wanted to see.

              He laid a heavy foot on the brakes a moment later and I hopped out of the vehicle, looking around in wonder. Jesus, they weren't lying. All the bodies were gone. I slid the toe of my tennis shoe against the asphalt, seeing the sun-blackened blood smeared over the street's surface. But the bodies had disappeared. I was standing as close as I could figure I'd been when I blacked out and tried to kill Jennie. I could see the thick, puddled patch where Mr. Collins had dropped under my axe.

              All the blood had dried to a crust. It was difficult to see on the graytop; if you didn't know that more than twenty people had died here a week previously, you would have never guessed it.

              A thick flock of crows flew over our heads, cawing loudly. There were at least a thousand of them, wheeling simultaneously to some instinctive signal, the whole flock twisting and turning like a scarf blown into the sky. I watched them pass, craning my head in a long arc until they shrank to a point under the low western sun.

              "Animals are coming back from wherever they went," Rivet observed. I gave the street one more cursory glance, then climbed back into the passenger seat of the Jeep. Rivet gunned the engine and we shot off through town.

              "Told you," Rivet said, giving me a sidelong glance.

              "They could have been taken by animals," I said, although I didn't believe it.

              "Not likely. They would have left bones, pieces. Scavengers never take all of it." He was right, of course. I think I just wanted to hear him say it again so that I wouldn't feel crazy. As long as one person shares your delusion, you've got a belief system.

              Rivet was driving so fast, and Joshuah Hill was so small, that by the time we finished our little conversation, we were already at the supermarket. The store was a fairly recent addition to Joshuah Hill, completely out of sorts with its surroundings. The walls were white and glass, gleaming in the sunlight, and the sprawling parking lot was larger than the entire park on the other side of town. Rivet made the tires squeal as he turned off the road, then rocketed diagonally across rows of painted parking spaces to the front door.

              He left the engine running, looked both ways for zombies, then pulled the axe off the back seat and leaped out of the vehicle. He spun in a slow circle holding the axe out to ward off attackers. I clambered out more slowly and watched him.

              "Dramatic, much?" I asked him. He laughed.

              "Gotta do something to keep busy. Figures we get the only zombie apocalypse without any zombies." He tossed the axe back into the Jeep and began walking nonchalantly down the face of the building, away from the sliding glass doors at the front of the store. "Front doors don't work with no power, but Jennie and I found a side door over here," he explained.

              Rivet stopped at a swinging glass door with an iron pull-par about twenty feet away and waited for me to catch up. "You're going to like this, Ray," he winked, and tugged on the door. A nauseating stench of rot came through the open door on a wave. I gagged. Rivet pulled the collar of his t-shirt over his face and stepped inside.

              The supermarket was one of those modern conveniences that has more than just food. Most of the store was devoted to groceries, both fresh and preserved. Flies buzzed thickly over the deli and fresh meat section to the left of the registers, which is where the awful smell seemed to be the strongest.

              "Jesus," I choked. I followed Rivet's lead and began breathing through my shirt. It didn't help.

              "It was bad before," Rivet said. "But it's a shit ton worse now. Let's make this quick."

              Aside from the cloud of rank air that had settled over everything like a funeral shroud, the supermarket was, well, exciting. Rows and rows of food and packaged items as sparkly as the day they'd been stocked on the shelves. No employees, no customers, no looters. All of it laid out just for us to grab. Rivet wheeled a shopping cart up, grinning.

              "Cool, isn't it? Once you get past that "wanting to vomit" thing, I mean."

              "Hell yeah," I said. "
Hell yeah.
"

              "You got that crazy look, Rayman. What's spinning through that blocky head of yours?"

              "We'll need two carts."

              I'd worked out a mental shopping list, and I hoped to God I wouldn't forget anything important. Rivet, true to his word, followed me dutifully as I scoured the aisles. He may not have much going for him, but he was a man of his word.

              I went down the baking aisle first, and by the time we reached the other side, my shopping cart was already filled to the brim with sugar. I paused at the end to scoop all the baker's yeast over top the blue-and-white bags in the cart. Paper packets and glass jars tumbled and slid into the cracks, and I turned to Rivet and said, "Maybe three carts."

              "Baking a cake?" Rivet asked.

              "Best cake you've ever had." He already knew what I was doing, so I don't know why he kept up the charade.

              I took my loaded cart to the front and came back with a fresh one, then led Rivet down the spice aisle. Plastic and glass bottles of poppy seeds were the first to clatter onto the cart's mesh bottom, followed by nutmeg and saffron. Opposite the spice rack, in the same aisle, was a long line of bagged rice. On the top shelf, though, the store stocked their specialty grains for the health nuts. Millet, quinoa, hulled barley, flax and chia seeds.

              "Millet, barley, and quinoa," I told Rivet, and began pulling bags into my cart. He followed suit.

              "You think Jennie's fine back there?" Rivet asked. "What the fuck is going on with those two?"

              "Jennie can take care of herself," I assured him, finishing up with the barley and starting on the boxes of quinoa. Rivet picked one up and read the label. "Quin-owa," he pronounced. "I don't remember this. Were you experimenting behind my back?"

              "Keen-wa," I corrected. "And maybe just a little, after you took the job at the recycling plant."

              "Bastard," Rivet said good-naturedly. "Here we go." He turned and, using the shelves like a ladder, climbed to the top, eight feet off the ground. Rice and bags of dry beans spilled out onto the tile floor under his feet. "Gimme a target," he said, reaching on the top shelf and stepping behind all the grains. I wheeled my shopping cart into the center of the aisle, and Rivet bent at the waist and scooped forward with both hands, sending an avalanche of packages raining all around the cart. Only about half of them went in.

              "Yeah, that's efficient," I called, then jumped back as another round of quinoa and millet flooded the aisle.

              "Good show, old boy," Rivet drawled, suddenly British. He began dancing along the shelf, kicking away bags of grain and flour that floated through the air like snow. "Siiiiinging in the rain," he crooned.
Whack.
A bag of flour soared over two aisles, leaving a plume of white behind it. "Just siiinging in the raiiin!"
Thwock.
A bag of rice split down the center and the hard white grains skittered like shotgun pellets against the tile floor.

              "Will you get the fuck down and help me?" I shouted, laughing. What a dipshit. He'd already pranced his way down the length of the aisle, and as he pirouetted and came back toward me, the entire row of shelves began to wobble dangerously.

              "Earthquake!" shrieked Rivet, jittering his hips back and forth to facilitate the shelves' rocking.

              "Okay, okay. Quit it already. You're going to—
shit!
" The shelves swayed away from me...and didn't come back. Rivet teetered on the corner of the shelf for a breathtaking moment, then gravity caught the metal structure and pulled it hard to the ground. With a yelp, Rivet disappeared in a fog of airborne flour. Things shattered, broke, tumbled and rolled away on the smooth floor. I raced down the aisle and found Rivet sprawled on a mat of red plastic coffee tubs, holding his back and moaning.

              "You hurt anything?" I asked, kicking away Folgers cans to kneel next to him.

              "Yeah..." Rivet groaned, rolling away. Fuck.

              "Where does it hurt?" I asked, concerned, hands hovering over him, afraid to touch him in case I made it worse.

              "I think I broke..." Rivet began.

              "What? Broke what? Jesus, Rivet."

              "I think I broke...my dick. You'll have to set it for me." His smiling face whipped toward me. God dammit. I stood and walked away, tripping over coffee cans. "And, oh no! I've landed on a snake! Just suck out the poison, Ray! Please!" He was calling after me. "Please, don't leave me!"

              "Cunt!" I yelled over my shoulder. "I don't know
why
I was worried. You can't take anything seriously."

              "But...but isn't that why you love me?" Rivet howled laughter. I kept walking, mostly so he couldn't see me smile. What a dipshit.

              He finally joined me in the next aisle over, where I was loading the cart with bottles of grape juice. He rested an elbow on my shoulder and leaned into me.

              "I'm sorry."

              "Save it, homo pretendus. If you're really sorry, you'll make yourself useful and start loading the Jeep."

              "Aye aye, el capitan."

              While he rattled the shopping cart away, I went back to the debris-strewn aisle and commandeered Rivet's empty cart. Just a few more things, and we'd be on our way. In the center of the store was an aisle with toilet paper and pet food on one side and random gadgets on the other—phone chargers, earbuds, cooking utensils, magazines, all the stuff that didn't really fit anywhere else. I pulled my phone from my pocket and began tearing the plastic off the car chargers until I found one that fit my old Droid. Farther down was a small section of garden decor, and beside the smiling gnomes was a crate of solar lights. I took every last one, added a few packs of condoms, then pushed the cart to the wine section in the back of the store and gently laid a few dozen bottles over everything.

              When I walked out, Rivet had the rear door of the Jeep open and was stuffing sugar bags up against the back of the seat inside. The sun was sinking low over the domed roof of the courthouse deeper into town. We could still make the library if we hurried. I helped Rivet pile the rest of the supplies into the Jeep and was about to climb in when I remembered.

              "Shit," I said. "Give me thirty seconds." Before Rivet could reply, I leaped out and raced back inside. I returned a minute later, two packages of Oreos in hand.

              "You're such a sap," Rivet told me as he cranked the Jeep and spun out of the parking lot.