A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories (20 page)

“It didn’t. There was something wrong with it, I think. Do you remember anything unusual about the berries?”

Jessie Lynn shook her head. “Not any more unusual than any other time. You sure it wasn’t the oven?”

Mama interjected. “New ovens can be tricky.”

“I don’t know,” I said. But I suspected that I did know. As implausible as it sounded, the pie went to the pig and the pig bit Hank. Hank bit his wife and his wife bit the neighbor. And Lord knew how far that might spread. Because Hank hadn’t just bit his wife. He’d bit the paramedic. And the pig had bit the deputy.

Some kind of virus, maybe, I told myself. I looked outside at the massive white flakes and the blanket they made over the cars and ground, then looked to the open doors and unswept trailer porches within view.

Now Mama was in the kitchen. “What can I do, Kay Ann?”

Anything and nothing, I thought, and then Mama’s phone rang. I heard my brother’s voice on the other end.

“Dear Lord, Bobby,” she said, “are you both okay?” She looked up at me. “They’re in the ditch.”

“Fuck,” I said. “Let me talk to him, Mama.”

“Your sister wants to talk to you.” She passed the phone.

“Hey Bro,” I said.

“Hey Sis.”

“Where are you?”

“Just passed Gallagher Road,” he said.

“Okay. Sit tight. I’ll come fetch you.” Then, as an afterthought: “And hey, lock the doors. Watch out for crazies on the loose.”

I gave Mama back her phone and went for my boots. I’d not worn them since I discharged out of Fort Dix and they were the closest thing I had to snow boots. I dug a heavy sweater out of my closet along with my camo jacket and watch-cap.

“We should let Franklin drive us,” Mama called from the dining room as she pulled on her coat.

“There’s no
we
in this, Mama,” I told her. My voice was firmer than usual and I enjoyed trying it out on her. “
I’m
going to go fetch them.”

She blinked at me and said nothing.

“Then what?” my sister asked.

“Then,” I said, “we have dinner.”

The power flickered and Johnny Alvin stood up and grabbed his coat. “You should let me drive you.”

“And why would I do that?”

He walked to the door and pointed. “Because of that.”

Johnny Alvin had traded in his Maverick for a black SUV with tinted windows. All four tires were chained. I looked from it to my snow-covered Kia. “Okay then,” I said. I zipped up my coat. “Y’all tend the turkey and set the table. And lock the door behind us.”

We went out into the cold, my eyes already reverting to training, scanning the buildings around me. Outside, there was a heavy silence broken by the crunch of snow beneath our feet. The stillness was pervasive and when the quiet was broken by a growl, I followed the sound.

There in the gloom just beneath my trailer, the pig watched and waited and growled. Johnny paused at the driver’s door. “Never seen a pig like that before,” he said.

“Get in quickly,” I told him as I opened the door. As I said it, the pig charged.

“Shit,” Johnny yelled as he scrambled into the SUV. He pulled the door closed just as the pig slammed into it with a loud thunk. Then it was up and racing across the snow, this time heading for Summers’ open shed. Johnny looked at me. “What’s wrong with that pig?”

“Something,” I said. I stared after it, trying to figure out if the blood on it was its own or another of its victims. “Not sure what.” But I was growing more certain that whatever it was, it meant bad news.
Really
bad news.

Johnny looked at the glove box and started the engine. “You think it’s dangerous? Should we try to put it down?”

“Him,” I said. “It’s a boy. Wilbur. And yes, he’s dangerous. And they tried to put him down last night.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Someone
actually
named their pig Wilbur?”

I nodded.

He sighed. “At least people are reading.”

“Amen,” I said by way of agreement.

Johnny backed us up and pointed us toward the highway, moving slowly through the park. I watched as we went, suddenly flooded with memories of last Thanksgiving. The smell of the city. The dry desert heat. The sound of raised voices speaking Arabic. It was an odd contrast to now.

Movement in my peripheral drew my eyes to the nearest trailer. Something on the porch.

I jumped when the woman threw herself at my door with a shriek. Her eyes were dark and sunk-in, her skin yellow and her mouth foaming. Her nightgown was a mess of what looked like dried gravy and blood. She clawed and bit at my window and Johnny punched the gas, the chained tires slipping before they caught and rocketed us forward, sending the woman spinning off into the snow.

“What the fuck,” he said, glancing to the rearview mirror. Johnny looked at the glove box again, then looked at me. “You can shoot, right?”

I nodded.

He reached over and worked the latch, dropping the compartment open. Sitting on top of the registration, next to a stack of Drummond Funeral Home brochures, lay a 9mm Colt. “That might come in handy,” he said.

I watched the woman climb to her feet and lope off toward another trailer. “I reckon it might,” I said. “Since when did funeral directors pack heat?”

Johnny grinned. “It’s for when I’m delivering pizzas. Dangerous work, that.”

I lifted the pistol out carefully, holding it in my hands like something fragile. I’m not a fan of guns. I grew up with up them, of course. My daddy had taught me to shoot and fish before I’d learned to read. I’d not taken to either much—I liked books much better—and my opinion on keeping and bearing arms shifted a little after being shot in the ass with one. I worked the action and left the safety on. “Let’s hope we don’t need it,” I said.

The highway was deserted. Any ploughing and sanding that might’ve been underway earlier hadn’t been maintained and the road was a ribbon of white stretched out beneath the trees. Rush was quietly singing about today’s Tom Sawyer and mean, mean pride and we drove slowly over the snow in silence for the first mile before Johnny cleared his voice.

“You know,” he said, “I’m not really with Jessie Lynn. She actually brought me hoping to fix me and you up.”

He knows about the plot.
I felt the heat in my cheeks and I wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry about that. My family’s got it in their heads that I need to marry up.” I looked at him. “I hope you’re not—”

Johnny Alvin laughed. “Oh no. Not at all.” Now he looked at me and I realized those brown eyes had some kind of mischief in them.

“Oh good,” I said.

“You’re not my type, Kay Ann. No offense.”

I felt a rise of defensiveness and a rush of relief all at once. “Not your type? What’s that supposed to mean?” Not that I cared but I knew most men noticed me when I walked into a room.

He measured me. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Those eyes measured me again before going back to the road. “Your brother is my type,” he finally said.

When the words registered I didn’t mean to laugh out loud but I couldn’t help myself. When I saw the hurt on his face I reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Oh Johnny,” I said, “I’m not laughing about that. It’s my family.” I continued at his confused glance. “You’re one of three plus-ones in an elaborate Thanksgiving matchmaking scheme.”

The light came on for Johnny. “The preacher?”

I nodded. “Yep. Pastor Frank.”

He released his held breath. “Jesus.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“And the third?”

“Bobby’s bringing a lesbian.”

Now Johnny’s smile was genuine. “He’s not with her?”

“Nope,” I said. “I think he’s single.” Now it was my turn for the light to come on. “You came for Bobby.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Didn’t have anywhere else to be. Figured it couldn’t hurt to spend time with him and his family. Get to know him better.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

He shrugged. “Not so much a secret. Just like telling people my own shit rather than them hearing elsewhere.”

“Makes sense to me.” Despite being caught up in my family’s machinations, and despite his own scheme to use that as an opportunity to get close to my brother, I decided that Johnny Alvin was good people.

It didn’t hurt that he came well equipped for the kind of
going to shit
that was happening all around us.

We let Rush sing us the rest of the way, slipping past cars and trucks that hadn’t made the curves, until we saw my brother’s red Civic tipped into the ditch.

Johnny didn’t even try to edge off the highway. The road was empty and he stopped right beside the Civic. Bobby squinted at us out of the driver’s window. The girl sitting next to him, Dana I assumed, was blonde and pretty in an angular kind of way. Johnny rolled down his window and Bobby did the same.

“Hey Johnny,” my brother said. He saw me and nodded. “Hey Kay Ann.”

“Hey Bobby,” I said. “Need a ride?”

Bobby grinned. “I could use one.”

“Hop in,” Johnny said.

He and Dana climbed out of the Civic carefully, pulling bags of chips soda out of the backseat. They climbed into the back of the SUV. “Hey, this is my friend Dana. She’s up at the university.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said over my shoulder as she buckled up. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Thanks, Kay Ann.” She smiled and there was something wicked in the smile though it didn’t bother me at all. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Thanks for coming to rescue us.”

“Happy to,” I said. I looked at my brother. “So why didn’t you chain up?”

He blushed and opened his mouth to answer but Dana cut him off. “He didn’t know how to put them on. I told him I could do it. And drive, too.” She paused. “I’m from Illinois. This is normal for Thanksgiving.”

Johnny carefully turned us around and pointed us in the right direction.

I looked at the abandoned highway and thought about the woman with her yellow skin, the pig ploughing up the snow as he raced toward us. “We’re not having much normal around here for Thanksgiving. Sorry he put you in the ditch.”

I saw her studying me in the mirror. There was sweetness in her smile that told me she liked what she saw. “I guess I don’t mind being a damsel in distress under the right circumstances.”

Johnny used the mirror now to catch my brother’s eye. “How you been, Bob?”

Bobby snorted. “I was better before the ditch.”

Johnny smiled. “Don’t sweat it. This weather clears up, me and you’ll come fetch your car.”

Dana sat forward now and I could smell the peppermint on her breath. “So how long do you think this will stick? We couldn’t get a straight answer out of the radio. They’re all fired up about some kind of bug that’s going around. Otherwise, the news is quiet.”

I looked over, aware of her face close to mine. “What are they saying about the bug?”

“Some kind of rabies, they think. It’s got folks acting crazy. Hit last night and spreading fast. All the way to Lexington already.”

Now my stomach hurt. “They figure out how to treat it?”

“Not yet,” Bobby chimed in. “They thought it was killing folk but it seems they were mistaken.”

No
, I thought,
I don’t think they were mistaken
. And the ramifications of that unsettled me greatly.

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out,” Johnny said.

I stared at the pistol in my lap and hoped he was right.

“So,” Mama said as we all gathered around a table piled high with food, “shall we let Pastor Franklin bless this food?”

Normally, I’d have said no or made light of it but some part of me hankered for that comfort even though I’d given up faith some time ago, finding it to be something akin to a gall bladder—useful to a point but not really essential. “I think that might be nice,” I said. “Maybe throw something in about all the craziness of the day.”

Pastor Frank looked around at each of us and smiled grimly. “Happy to. Let’s join hands and bow our heads.”

His prayer was simple, heartfelt and long, but I was grateful for it and I found myself grateful suddenly for lots of things, including my family and their plus-ones on a day that was getting scarier and scarier the more I considered it.

At his “amen” everyone let go of the hands they held except for me. I clutched Mama and Dana’s hand and squeezed them harder than proper. I’m sure it gave Dana a different idea than what I intended but I didn’t care. Her hand, cool and strong, felt good in mine. Mama’s hand, sweaty and worn, felt good, too.

We sat and the feast commenced.

Jessie Lynn and Pastor Frank seemed to hit it off and I noticed my sister’s face was a little flushed as she sipped her sweet tea and asked him questions about Oklahoma and the End Times. Johnny and Bobby were chatting, Johnny’s eyes more alive than I’d seen them as they talked about work, life and video games. Somewhere in there, Johnny even offered to show Bobby how bodies were embalmed and my brother’s grin told me that maybe his plan had backfired a bit.

Dana tried to engage me and I did my best but I was preoccupied now. I made myself eat even though my stomach protested. I answered her small talk where I could but found myself watching the others.

Mama was watching, too, and I saw from the line of her mouth that she was perplexed. She was beginning to see that Johnny Alvin wasn’t working out at all well, for me at least, and Pastor Frank was all about my little sister. Mama didn’t even know what to do with Dana and didn’t pretend to for a change. I leaned over to Mama and squeezed her hand. “Sorry it didn’t work out the way you planned,” I whispered. “But look at it this way: It still might’ve worked.”

She gave me her phony look of incredulity. “Why whatever do you mean, Kay Ann?”

I’d wanted to play with her in all of this, maybe teach her a little something about how her eldest girl, Kay Ann Cooper, didn’t need no man—or no woman—to find her way in this world. I could pay for my own trailers. But now, in the light of everything else, that lesson didn’t seem as important and the day had no room in it for playfulness. Instead, I was just glad to be here having what might be our last Thanksgiving before the world changed. So instead, I looked at Pastor Frank and my sister, at Johnny and my brother, and then back to my mother. “Nothing, Mama,” I told her.