Zombie Rules (2 page)

             
Macie and Felix looked at me expectantly. I shrugged. “I read a lot and have a good memory.”

             
“Well if you don’t start applying that brain to your classwork, you’ll never graduate high school. Then you can kiss any scholarship possibilities goodbye.” Macie punctuated her statement with an upturned nose as she turned to walk off. I hurried to catch up with her. Felix started to follow but I looked back at him and gestured with a shake of the head. He took the hint.

             
I caught up with Macie and walked along with her. “Hey babe, what’s up? You seem mad at me.”

             
She glanced at me sidelong as she continued to walk. “It’s not you. I’m about to start. I’m just feeling irritable.” She saw my obvious confusion and rolled her eyes. “My period Zach. I’m about to start my period. God Zach, for somebody who is so smart you sure are naïve.” I could feel my cheeks turning red. She scoffed at me, but then squeezed my hand briefly.

“So, you have track practice after school?” I nodded. Track and a good memory were my strong points. I was counting on a track scholarship after high school. My only living relative was my Grandmother. Her only source of income was Social Security. Otherwise, it was a life on the farm with Rick, or a long indebtedness of student loans.

              Macie looked around furtively and then quickly kissed me on the cheek. “I’ve got cheerleading practice. So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

             
It was not what I wanted to hear. “Practice is only for a couple of hours. Why don’t I come over after? I can shower at school.” Macie quickly shook her head. “Why not?”

             
The smile was gone and replaced by a frown. “Zach, quit being so needy.” I did not say anything, just hung my head. I couldn’t help it. “Zach, Jesus. I’m going to a study group with the girls after practice, okay? We’ll probably be late.”

             
I looked up. “What’s late? I mean, I can just stop by for a few minutes.” She stopped me with another shake of the head. “Well how about you call me before you go to bed?” I grinned “We can talk dirty to each other.”

             
“Sure Zach. I’ll talk to you later.” She walked off before I could sneak in another kiss.

             
Felix jogged up as Macie walked off. “So Zach, how’re you and Macie doing?” Felix was always asking about the two of us. He did not have a girlfriend. We’d grown up together and lived around the block from each other. He was the only one who saw me cry every night for a week after my parents died. It was a stupid car wreck, a direct result of my father’s drunkenness. Felix never judged me or teased me, always a brotherly pat on the shoulder and kind words. He was a good dude and a good friend. But poor Felix had never had a girlfriend. He claimed otherwise but I’m pretty sure that he had never even kissed another girl. The poor guy was short, awkward, and had poor eyesight which required him to wear incredibly thick glasses. The effect worsened his already homely appearance. But, he was still my friend.

             
“Well buddy, I think she’s the woman I’m going to marry one day.” His eyes lit up. The lenses magnified them to two large orbs.

             
“Wow, I’ve never heard this one. Something big must have happened to make you feel this…” He stopped and looked at me. I could not help but grin. It could be best described as a massive, shit-eating grin. “Oh my fucking God, you did the two-backed beast with her!”

             
“Sshh, keep it down bro.” I kept my voice low. “I don’t want the whole world knowing. Come on, we need to get to track practice. Maybe I’ll tell you all about it.” He giggled as we turned around and started heading toward the locker room. I was not paying attention, and bumped into someone. His name was Jason Argos. He was standing around the corner, motionless. It was almost as if he had been listening to us. I apologized quickly. A lowly sophomore did not go around casually bumping into seniors.

             
“Oh, sorry Jason! We didn’t even know you were there.” I said.

             
Jason looked at me oddly a moment. “No problem. My bad.” He continued staring at me but turned aside for us to pass. Jason was a senior. He was a very handsome biracial eighteen-year-old, six feet, six inches tall and very muscular. He was a varsity athlete with letters in baseball and football. All of which made him probably the most popular guy in school. He was very popular with the girls and never lacked for a date.

             
Felix always gushed over him, a true bromance. “Hey buddy.” He tried to act like they were the best of friends. Jason nodded. He merely tolerated Felix, along with most other underclassman. As we walked out to the track, Felix continued with his love of Jason.

             
“Have you heard? He finished the baseball season with an ERA of 2.01. Friday night he had three touchdown passes against Overton. Not only does he have his own personal pitching coach, he has a quarterback coach as well. That’s phenomenal!” He looked around conspiratorially. “Rumor has it he’s already been offered a load of money under the table to go with a certain SEC team in the eastern part of the state, if you know what I mean.” He winked.

             
“You think he’ll marry you?” I asked sarcastically.

             
Felix laughed and actually blushed. “You crack me up Zach.”

             
Our conversation was interrupted by one of the assistant principals. “Mr. Gunderson, there is a rather rough looking man who is waiting for you in the parking lot. He said he is your boss and there is an emergency involving your Grandmother.”
             

             
I spotted Rick sitting in a truck waving at me. He had his three dogs with him, whom he had named Moe, Larry, and Curly. They were strays he had found and adopted. It was hard to tell what mixtures of breeding made up their genetic content. It was assumed they had the same mother, but it was hard to tell.

             
“Hey Rick, what’s up?” I asked when I jogged up. Rick was a grizzled old Vietnam veteran who worked at the farm with me. Technically he was my boss. He was a little past sixty. A hard life, along with generous amounts of alcohol and cigarettes, had etched deep lines in his sun damaged face. It appeared he had been going on a week without shaving. Felix jogged up a short time later and said hello. Rick ignored him.

             
“I need to get you to the hospital. Your Grandmother’s had a stroke.” He looked over at Felix. “Your gay friend can come too.” Felix started to protest, but I spoke first.

             
“What happened?” I asked.

             
Rick looked at me like I was stupid. “I just told you. She had a stroke.” He stared at me a few seconds more before he felt like he needed to elaborate. “The postal lady found her lying in the back yard and called 911. I don’t know why they didn’t call you at school, but the neighbor seemed to think you were at work and called there. I got the phone call.” He looked around and then took a swig out of a pint of cheap whiskey. “Look, get in and I’ll give you a ride to the hospital. We’ll figure it all out when we get to the hospital and talk to the doctors.”

             
Felix opted out of going with us and agreed to drive my little Ford Ranger truck home, but made me promise to call him the minute I knew more. He nodded, gave me a pat on the back and trotted off. I walked over to the driver’s side. “Slide over, I need to drive.” It was hard to gauge Rick’s level of sobriety, or lack thereof.

             
Rick snorted. “I ain’t drunk you smart-assed kid.”

             
“C’mon Rick, you just got your license back. You don’t need to get arrested again.” Rick snorted again, but after putting up an obligatory fuss, ceded the driver’s seat to my smart, and sober, ass.

             
We rode in silence. Rick was listening to a talk-radio station. The host was rambling on about government conspiracies. I tuned him out. Grandma was unconscious when we arrived. I was met by the doctor before I could get in the room.

             
“How is she sir?” I asked tentatively. He did not answer me, at least not right away.

             
“Are you her only living relative?” He asked pointedly. I shrugged. “You are under eighteen I’m guessing.” I nodded. He looked over at Rick, probably smelled the alcohol, and redirected his attention back to me. “She’s had a massive stroke. She was probably lying outside for a while before being found. Her body temperature was very low when she came in. With her age and poor health, the prognosis is…”

             
He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to. I looked past him into the room. She was hooked up to some monitors, there were at least two IVs in her arms, and there was a tube shoved in her mouth. She looked terrible. Weak. Mortal.

             
On the drive over, I was strong, in control. Not now. I felt tears welling up. The doctor put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure there is no other family son?”

             
I wiped my eyes. “My parents died in a car wreck when I was young. She took me in. My father has family somewhere in Sweden, but I’ve no idea how to contact them. There might be some cousins out there somewhere, but I’ve never met them.” I did not tell him that my dad’s family had disowned him years ago, before I was born. I looked at the doctor. “Our only income is my job at a farm and Social Security. We’ll never be able to pay the hospital bills.”

             
He held his hand up. “Don’t worry about that. We have policies in place for indigent patients.” My mouth tightened at the statement. Calling my Grandmother indigent really bothered me, but it was true. Hell, she and I probably had a hundred dollars between us. She did not even own the house we were living in. I had planned on dropping out of school in order to work full time, but she would not hear of it. She insisted that I finish school and go to college.

             
I was not allowed to stay the night in Grandma’s room. The staff informed me in a polite but firm manner I could only sit in the lobby all night with other patients’ families. Rick overheard and interrupted. “Kid, do you really want to sit all night in a room full of strangers?” I hung my head. “If something happens, it happens. There won’t be anything you can do about it. Come on back to the farm and stay with me.” He said.

             
I reluctantly acquiesced. We each gave the doctor our cell phone numbers. Rick’s brain sparked a bit and he realized by letting me drive he could now drink without worrying about getting pulled over by a hard-nosed cop. He tossed me the keys as we walked into the parking lot and drank from his bottle without worry.

             
We rode to the farm in silence. There used to be a gate at the entrance, but somebody, a certain person who goes by the name of Rick, ran over it after a night of boozing it up at the VFW. He either forgot it was there or did not care. The next day it took us an hour to get the gate’s mangled remains out of the undercarriage of his truck. Rick was the caretaker, foreman, and jack-of-all trades at the farm. The main property owners were an older couple named the Parsons. They owned five hundred acres and contracted another five hundred from neighbors. Rick ran the farm and I worked for him. He was paid a salary and lived rent-free in the old homestead.

             
Rick walked in and flipped on some lights. After getting the fire going, he made himself comfortable in his tattered easy chair, and I sat on the couch. We listened to the crackling wood in a somber silence. “You want a drink?” I arched my eyebrow at him. He chuckled and drank a hefty swallow. “You want to talk about it kid?” I shook my head. “Look here kid, you’re hurting. I can see it plain as day. I’m asking if you want to talk about it and you give the obligatory no. This is the part where I’m supposed to coax it out of you. I’m not going to do it. You want to keep it all bottled up inside of you, that’s your call. If you want to talk, I ain’t going nowhere. We can talk all night.”

             
Well, he had a good point. I guess I felt like I did want to talk about it. At least, a little bit. “What do I do Rick?”

             
“Well kid, you always plan for a worse-case scenario. And, you always recognize the inevitability. The inevitability is your Grandma is going to die.” Rick said it in a matter-of-fact tone.

             
I was taken aback. “How do you know?”

             
“Hell Zach, how old is she, 84? 85?” I responded to the latter. “Okay, 85. Her health is not good. She has a stroke and falls over in the back yard on a cold day. No telling how long she’d been lying out there. I’m no doctor, but I’m not giving her good odds kid.”

             
I nodded in silence. Rick was an old alcoholic who was very rough around the edges, but he also had wisdom borne from a life on the streets and some rough time in Vietnam. I liked him. He was easy-going, and in his own way had a lot of worldly advice to give a teenage kid. My thoughts were interrupted by his loud snoring. The alcohol had put him down for the night. I got up, got the bottle out of his hand, and put a blanket on him.