“Two
weeks! Hell, no. One day.”
“Two
days,” I replied.
“One day
and I do laundry for a week.”
“Deal,”
I replied and gave her a quick kiss.
“What
the hell does ‘Frigadoris’ mean anyways?”
“Well, I
think it’s Latin for ‘Cold Caustic Bitch,’”
I said and deftly dodged her hand, “’Friga’ comes from the root phrase
‘cold as ice’ while ‘rigadoris’ means ‘stiff like a dead body.’ So
linguistically speaking, it means cold, corpse like bitch.’ Linguistically
speaking, of course,” I said as I saw Tony and Greer pull up in Tony’s beat up
VW.
“Ha, ha.
You are so funny,” Nicky replied, “She is not that bad.”
I just
looked over at Nicky with a cocked eyebrow.
“It just
takes a while for her to warm up to you,” she replied, “And look, Tony and
Jailbait have arrived.”
“Tony says Greer is very mature for her age,” I
said getting up and opening the door, “Welcome refuges from the End of the
World.”
“Not
funny, dude. Are you guys ready?” he said looking around hopefully, “No
Frigadoris?”
“No such
luck dude,” I said fist bumping him, “We’re picking her up on the way out of
town. Hi, Greer. Come on in,” I said looking at the terribly young, frightened,
and pretty teenager standing nervously at my front door. She was short, maybe
five foot at the most, had dyed, platinum blond hair in a pixie cut, bright
green eyes that darted from side to side looking everywhere at once, and
probably weighed a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet.
“Are you
sure it’s OK?” she said.
“Yeah,
we’re cool,” I said thinking she was asking if it was OK for her to come with
us, “We’ll let your parents know you’re with us as soon as we can get a hold of
them. I’m sure they’ll be happy to know your with us instead of on your own.”
“No, I
mean, is it OK in this area? Are the dead here yet?” she said as she came into
the apartment and I closed the door.
“What
the fuck?” I said. Nicky and I both looked back and forth between Tony and
Greer. Tony held up his hand palms out and shrugged while shaking his head.
“Don’t
mind her, man. She’s just freaked out. She thinks the people who have been
infected are dead, as in ‘walking dead.’”
“Man,
keep that theory to yourself,” I said, “You will absolutely freak Dreysi out if
you say something like that.”
“We’d
better get going,” Nicky chimed in, “I’ve be glued to the tube all day and it
looks like the government might impose a travel ban in the state on top of a
curfew. So if we’re going to get out of town, now is the time to do it.”
We all
agreed and carried our stuff down to the Bronco and quickly loaded up our gear
plus Tony’s and Greer’s and were soon on our way. Again I stayed off of the
main roads slowly making our way past police and military checkpoints. Each
time the cops would stop us, ask us for IDs and if any of us were potentially
infected, then wave us through.
I
wondered what they’d do if they found someone who was infected.
“Take
them into custody,” Nicky said when I asked aloud, “They have turned the
college stadium into a vast holding pen for the sick.”
“Bullshit,”
Tony said.
“It’s
true. I saw it on the television earlier today. The hospitals are all crammed
full so they’re taking stadiums, gyms, even hangers at the airport and turning
them into hospitals.”
“You
mean morgues,” Greer said.
“Jesus
Christ, Greer,” Nicky said, “They’re not morgues!”
“No
yet,” she replied.
“Bucket of sunshine, that one,” I
whispered to Nicky as we pulled up in front of Nicky’s house, “Let’s go fetch
the princess,” I said as I shut off the engine.
“Casey,
maybe you should leave the engine running,” Tony said from the back seat.
“Not at
twenty dollars a gallon,” I replied, “But I will leave the keys, just in case,”
and got out of the car with Nicky.
We
walked up to the doorway of her parents super huge McMansion and before Nicky
could even get the keys out of her purse, Dreysi had whipped open the door and the
next thing I knew was I was looking down the business end of a very large
shotgun.
“Who the
fuck are you!?” she screamed.
“Nicky,
could you convince Dreysi to remove the potentially lethal instrument of death
from the general vicinity of my face? Maybe?”
“It’s
us, Dres! Jesus, put that thing down!”
“Oh my
god, it’s you Nicolette!” she said crying and pulled her sister inside without
bothering to give me a second look. Dreysi was in her late twenties, a bit
older than Nicky and stood in the doorway looking like she was about to embark
on a Slut Safari wearing a pair of two sizes too small khaki shorts, designer
hiking boots, and a white tank top that look like it was painted on. Her jet
black hair was pulled up in a tight ponytail and her bright green eyes shot
daggers out as she looked at me and Nicky.
“And me,
the unwanted boyfriend Casey,” I said to myself as I stepped inside and closed
the door behind us.
“Crazy
fucking people have been running around all over the neighborhood today,
breaking into homes, screaming, lighting shit on fire, fucking biting each
other for Christ’s sake!” Dreysi said as she dragged a colossal suitcase into
the foyer.
“That’s
big,” I said taking in the wheeled monstrosity, “But it should fit,” speaking mostly
to myself when Dreysi pulled in three more suitcases and two handbags, “Are we
moving? Shouldn’t we take the couch and refrigerator too?” I said out loud.
Thankfully,
Nicky stepped in and said “Dres, we can only fit one and we’re only going for a
few weeks at most.”
I
thought Dreysi was going to have a fit right there but instead she said, “Why
can’t we just stay here? That way if Mom and Dad come home…”
“Dres,
they’re out on Long Island. Flights have been cancelled until the epidemic has
been brought under control. They’re not coming home.”
“Well,
then just you and I could stay here. We can lock the doors and I have this
gun…” she said waving the shotgun dangerously around.
I
noticed that I was not invited to share their refuge here but thought I’d be
more than happy to leave her behind if she didn’t want to come as I stepped up
and grabbed the gun before she accidently or purposely shot something vital off
of me, “Let me hold that for you,” I said as I deftly snagged the gun and
flipped the safety on.
“Well
fuck us all
,” Dreysi spat finally
acknowledging that I was here, “The Man has come to save us. I’ll just wet my
panties and give you a gratuitous blow job in thanks!”
“Oh,
god. Nicky, we need to get moving. Is she coming or not?” I said looking at
Nicky and choosing to ignore the venom being spewed at me.
“Dres,
you need to decide if you want to go with us and pick one suitcase, then we
need to go.”
“Oh, all
right,” she said and grabbed the most humongous suitcase and pushed it towards
me.
I
sighed, grabbed it by the handle, and headed for the door. I’d tell Dreysi that
we had a five mile hike to the cabin once we were on the road. I was thinking
that I didn’t know where we’d get another pack when Nicky came out of one of
the back bedrooms with a spare one.
“What
the fuck is that for?” she said pointing to the pack.
Nicky
just shrugged and replied, “Who knows, we might need it.”
I went
outside rolling the gigantic suitcase behind me around to the back of the
Bronco. I opened the back tailgate and none too gently stuffed the monstrosity
in, then slammed the back gate while Dreysi squeezed in the back seat with Tony
and Greer. Nicky and climbed in the front and I started up the engine.
“You
brought Jailbait?” she said as she looked at Greer.
“Nice to
see you too, Frigadoris,” Tony said.
“Has she
even hit puberty yet?” Dreysi continued looking at Nicky and ignoring Greer and
Tony all together.
“Have
you finished menopause yet?” Tony replied.
“Ah,
nothing like a family road trip,” I said to Nicky and put the Bronco into gear
but Nicky was looking out ahead of the Ford up the street, “What’s up?”
“Look at
those people,” she said pointing down the road.
I looked
to where she was pointing and saw a group of people about a quarter mile away coming
around the corner.
Behind
me, Tony pulled himself up to take a look, “What is that? Some type of protest
maybe?”
I
watched as they slowly walked around the street and towards us spilling over
the road onto the sidewalks and lawns, “I don’t
think that’s a protest,” I said watching the way they shuffled along,
almost as if they were drugged or something. Suddenly, they all stopped en
masse and turned to our right looking at something off to the east.
“Whoa,
that’s wired,” I said then nearly jumped out of my skin as a few of them began
screaming at the top of their lungs and racing off down the street away from
us. The others followed and soon the whole crowd of people went running away
leaving the street empty again.
“Do you
think they were infected?” Tony said.
“I don’t
know. Maybe. Why would they act like that?”
“I don’t
know, Casey, but it’s time to go,” Tony said. I nodded, put the Bronco in gear,
and headed west.
We
followed Unser boulevard south along the western outskirts of the city avoiding
the highway as long as we could. We drove slowly along turning right and left
making our way west until we hit 98
th
street and had no choice but
to get on I-40 to get out of the city. I drove up the onramp and onto the
freeway right into a large military checkpoint. Fuck. I had been hoping to
avoid any of these until we were out of the city but it looked like the
military had other ideas.
“Just
stay cool everybody,” I heard Tony say form the back seat, “It’s not like
they’re looking for drugs, right?”
Given
the nervous tone in his voice, I wondered how many bags of dope Tony had
stashed in his back pack as I rolled down my window to talk to a kid only a few
years out of his teens holding a very large, fully automatic weapon, and
looking very nervous. I spotted the officer insignia on his lapels and said,
“Hi Officer, how can I help you?”
“You can
get me the fuck out of here, mister,” he said with a jittery laugh and twitched
his gun up and down. He must be hopped up on something, I thought and hoped the
safety of his rifle was on.
“I’d ask
you to join us, but we are crammed full,” I said knowing everyone in the car
was glaring at me.
“I
appreciate it mister, but deserters are being shot on site and without
question. See that gentleman sitting on top of the tank, behind that big old
.50 caliber machine gun?” he said pointing back behind him, “He sees me get in
this here care and he puts one, two, maybe ten big old bullets into me and
probably into a few of your friends too, so I’ll take my chances here. Where
you folks headed?” he said looking in the windows of the Bronco.
“Heading
for the hills. Mount Taylor to be exact.”
“The
hills, huh? Good choice, the city won’t last much longer. Mount Taylor in
state? They’re not letting anyone cross state boarders until the epidemic is
contained.”
“Yep.
Just two hours from here, just outside of Grants,” I said and pulled out a map
showing him where Grants was.
“Grants,
yeah, OK,” he said looking over my map. It was then I realized he wasn’t hopped
up on anything, he was just scared shitless, literally shaking in his boots,
“Any of you infected in there?” he said swinging his gun around to indicate my
passengers. Jesus Christ, first Dreysi, now this guy.
“No,
sir. No infection, no fevers,” I replied thinking the kid was going to
ventilate someone and I wanted to be far, far away when he did.