Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home (2 page)

This is definitely going to be a long day
, he thought, sighing loudly as he glanced at his watch.

It was now unavoidable and quite painfully official. Ryan Sheller was going to be late to the first day of what was a very competitive internship. Not a good way to start. He pulled a well-ironed kerchief from his coat pocket without so much as slowing down. Not wanting to alarm or concern his superiors at their first meeting, he wrapped it around his injured wrist and secured it tightly with a clumsy knot with his free hand and his teeth. His head not pointed in the direction of his motion, Ryan bounced off a number of fellow pedestrians in his haste. No longer able or willing to slow down, he overcame his conditioned need to be polite by simply grunting out “
Shaw-ry
” from behind clenched teeth.

Yeah … you better HOPE it’s going to be one helluva long day, Ryan. You better move your ass! There won’t be a long day to have if I get fired on the first day!!

Dead Come Home

Chapter 2

The Nostoi of Mike

Wolfe was wrong when he said “You can’t go home again.”

Mike knew it. Wolfe had to be wrong. In fact, he’d spent the majority of his flight from North Carolina to DFW airport convincing himself of this one thing.

You can go home again,
can’t
you? Where else does a man return to after the smoke clears? Hell … if you can’t go home again, then what the fuck was Odysseus doing all those years?

Mike wasn’t much for Wolfe, anyway. Although, he had to hand one thing to the guy … he sure knew how to turn out some really zippy one-liners. After all, a line doesn’t gotta be true for it to sound cool.

Of course, Odysseus had Penelope waiting for him. But the poor guy’s Ma was already takin’ a dirt nap with Baby Jesus, now wasn’t she? Not my Ma, though. Nah. Might even say I got the opposite problem that the old “O-Man” had. Ma’s waitin’ for me … but my Penelope took off a long time ago with one of the suitors, now didn’t she?

Mike’s “Penelope” had been a voluptuous and quite beautiful blonde number by the name of Kerry Taker. If only he’d known how appropriate that last name of hers would turn out to be. Hell … a six-week saga of epic sex and the next thing Mike knew he was walking blind down the aisle in his dress blues. When the wedding pictures were developed, more than one person had made the comment to him that (in most of the photos, anyway) he looked a lot like a deer in headlights. And their statements weren’t too far from the truth.

Blinded by the immensity of Kerry’s DD cup size, the flexibility of her former-gymnast body, and the curvy smoothness of her tiny little waist, he hadn’t even hesitated when she demanded that he marry her. Shit … when Kerry’s pretty blue eyes started twinkling and the word marriage had come out of her mouth, Mike had felt like the luckiest guy on the planet. Unfortunately … it was a feeling that didn’t last too long once they got back to his new duty station at Camp Lejeune.

Had there been any red flags in the relationship? Sure there had been. But the life of a Marine grunt can be a lonely one, and the idea of having a warm soft body at home had sounded a hell of a lot better than the alternative to Mike. As he reached the baggage claim, he wondered if it was possible that she’d gone back home in the last few years since running off with another man. It would be nice if she was there, though Mike well knew that it was somewhat unlikely. It would be nice because … well … after all, they never
had
gotten that divorce.

She’s long gone by now … no way she’d come back home. Death first, that’s what she always said. Can’t say I blame her. I’ve got Ma … all she’s got is a useless, cheap-wine guzzling, old man and a mom living off of lawsuit after lawsuit. That ain’t no life … not for a pretty thing like her. Hope she’s doin’ alright.

Mike didn’t
hate
Kerry for the way their marriage had turned out. After all, in the eight months she lived with him in that cozy little trailer just outside Camp Lejeune, he’d only been home for a total of five. She was young, vivacious, and free spirited. Sitting at home waiting for some war-dog Marine was no place for a thing like her. No. Mike didn’t hate her. If anything, he wished her the best and hoped that she had found someone who could make her happy in a way that he’d never seemed able.

I wonder if she’s still with that busboy with all the tattoos. He seemed to make her happy.

Well, made her happy all but that one night when she showed up at the barracks all hot and aggravated, because apparently the old boy had done so much blow that he couldn’t get it up for her. Mike gave her what she came for … and got a VD for his troubles. No one would ever accuse of him of having good judgment when it came to Kerry.

Oh well, I guess it’s like Ma always says. Ain’t no use cryin’ over spilled milk,
he thought.
After all, it wasn’t nothin’ some antibiotics and a few rough nights couldn’t cure. Lucky for me, she didn’t give me nothin’ I couldn’t get gone.

* * *

As the baggage claim’s conveyor belt whirred to life, Mike took slight notice of how large groups of people were huddling around most of the TV sets that hung from ceiling mounts beside nearly every set of automatic doors. He was too far away to see or hear what all the fuss was about. Who knew? And even more, who really
cared
? Certainly not Mike. As far as he was concerned, he’d done his time “in the shit.” His days of violence, of caring about war and death and going crazy trying to fix things in a broken world, were over for good. And good riddance. In fact, he truly did not care if he ever held a rifle (or any other weapon, for that matter) in his hands ever again.

Not my fight … not my problem … not anymore.

Mike smiled at this thought. He saw his large, olive drab sea-bag slide down onto the conveyor. Basking in a brief moment of laziness, he let the bag come slowly to him. He lugged the canvas duffel, stuffed like an odd sausage with all that he owned in the world, over his shoulder. He then headed for the exit, scanning about for a familiar face.

Ma said she’d be here. Where is she?

One hour and a few cigarettes later, Mike began to wonder. He wasn’t quite concerned at this point. Any number of things could have delayed her. Ma had never been good with city driving. Maybe she had gotten stuck in traffic.

Suddenly, Mike remembered all those people with their eyes glued to the TVs. He went back inside to the baggage claim area and shouldered his way through the crowd, trying to get a closer look at what had everyone’s attention.

* * *

Joseph found it hard to concentrate, knowing Ryan had been sent home early because he had gotten too sick to work. That just wasn’t possible. Ryan Sheller lived to work; he put in overtime hours Joseph didn’t even consider trying to match. He wasn’t truly convinced Ryan didn’t go home and just work even more after all the other interns finally gave in and went to the bar to unwind … all but Joseph, of course.

Joseph decided he would stop by Ryan’s place when he finished work for the evening. Any other time and he probably wouldn’t have thought about checking on Ryan. He had found that Ryan was the kind of guy who preferred solitude.

Joseph wouldn’t exactly call Ryan his friend, but as pale as Ryan had looked when he’d dragged himself out of the office, somebody needed to check on him. Since no one else in the office was even considering calling Ryan, it fell to Joseph, with his unbending sense of empathy to do it. He knew that if he did not do it … no one else would.

Joseph spent the next three hours thinking of possible explanations for Ryan’s sudden sickness. Nothing he had ever heard of would make a person look that bad that fast. He almost hadn’t noticed when the office lights had dimmed to half for the night. He looked at what he had typed over the last three hours and realized it all amounted to trash.

“Screw it,” he said and shut off his computer, killing the changes. He shoved his research and working materials in his well-worn satchel, flipped the lid shut, and walked out of the office.

His ‘91 Honda CRX was one of ten cars that sat silently in the parking lot. Joseph pulled out his keys, ignoring the wail of police and ambulance sirens. It wasn’t a conscious decision to ignore the sirens, but as often as he heard them, they barely registered, not unlike the chirping of birds in a park.

He opened the door, tossed his satchel into the passenger side, and slid into a plush bucket seat. The car may not have looked it on the outside, with minor dents dings and faded paint, but the interior was clean and comfortable. And more importantly, it was still “all good under the hood.”

The engine purred to life at the turn of the key. The stereo popped on, and the volume automatically rolled up to where he had set it. Joseph immediately punched the power key. He was in no mood to listen to the same newscast about riots five times in the next ten minutes, like the ones they’d been broadcasting all day.

“Looks like it’s still bleeding. You should probably go see a doc, man. Who knows what kind of nasty infection that guy was carrying?”

“I’m thinking about it. Right now, though, I just want to lay the fuck down,” Ryan said, pulling on the door as if to hold himself upright. “I’d invite you in and all, but I think I’m coming down with something, and it might be contagious.”

“That’s alright,” Joseph said politely. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll give you a ride to work in the morning if you’re up to going in.”

“Thanks man,” Ryan said, smiling a little. “I may take you up on that.”

Joseph realized that Ryan wasn’t really any of the things people thought. Ryan just never had anybody show true concern, so he threw himself into his work; not that it helped his social life any. When he was working, he was on track and nothing short of a nuclear war could sidetrack him. People misinterpreted his brusqueness at work as some sort of asshole, predator aloofness.

“Rest up. Tomorrow is gonna be hell,” Joseph said, stepping away from the door. “I’ll be here about nine.”

* * *

It felt as though Mike’s heart was forcibly shoving its way up into his throat. The images being flashed across the TV screen were terrifyingly horrific, and he could barely hear the anchorman’s words over all the background noise of the bustling airport. Whatever was happening, it was happening right here in Dallas, according to the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

DFW Metroplex area in a state of emergency.

That little nugget of info didn’t tell Mike much. He still couldn’t hear a damn thing over the racket.

“What’s going on?” he asked out loud, to no one in particular.

“Some kind of riot,” answered a middle-aged fellow, decked out in what Mike could easily tell was a custom-tailored designer suit. “Cops are saying most of this is going on in the downtown area. According to them, it started in Deep Ellum early this morning when a bunch of homeless guys decided to gang up on a meter cop. News is saying people should stay off the streets.”

“Stay off the streets?”

“Yeah, there have been a lot of accidents, and they showed some poor young girl that got pulled out of her own car a little while ago. Riot cops managed to pull her to safety in the nick of time. One of the bastards that grabbed her even bit off a piece of her ear. Fuckin’ savages, I swear. I’m glad I’m just here on a layover. The sooner I’m out of this goddamn city, the better. Even in New York, we don’t stand for this kind of utter nonsense. We’d have already—.”

Before the gentleman had even finished his last sentence, Mike had already broken into a dead sprint, making a beeline for the row of payphones he’d seen when he was outside. Luckily, there was one phone still open. He dropped his heavy bag, picked up the phone, and dialed “0” for the operator, planning to dial home collect. All he got was a busy signal. He fumbled for his wallet and yanked out a phone card he’d bought a few weeks ago. For the most part, he’d already used the most of the minutes on it. Now it was his only chance of getting in contact with someone back home.

Should be at least a few minutes left on this thing. Goddammit! I should’ve listened to Bennett when he told me I needed to get a cell phone!

He dialed the ridiculously long series of numbers on the worn plastic card before finally being prompted to enter the number he wished to call. After what seemed like an excruciating length of time, the phone began to ring. Two rings later, and someone picked up.