And This Too: A Modern Fable (8 page)

             
“Have you thought about Trevor?” Allie asked.

             
Trevor and Kurt had been best friends since they were young. Trevor was a year older, but it didn’t matter. The two were practically brothers. Allie had raised them. Trevor’s parents had died in a car accident when he was five. Kurt’s father had left Kurt with her for a weekend and never showed back up to get him. When Allie tried to return Kurt herself, she found her brother’s apartment empty. He was just…gone.

             
“I think about Trevor every moment of this hell, I hope that he was smart enough to hold on to Tsgumi and survive.”

             
“Me too…” Allie whispered.

             
Kurt gazed out the window. A figure darted across the road and stopped in front of the Escalade.

             
“Aunt Allie!”

             
Allie slammed on the brakes, jolting Harley awake. A man in a uniform hit the hood before hopping over to the driver’s side window. Allie put the car in park and rolled the window down.

             
“Mmm..What’s goin on?” Harley vocalized from the back seat, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

             
Kurt turned around and hissed, “This
psycho
jumped in front of our car.”

             
“SBPD!” The man desperately wailed. “Where are you folks goin?”

             
“Ivana’s Port.” Allie answered coolly. “Why?”

             
There was a clap of thunder and the grey clouds above burst open.

             
“I just want some company.” The man whimpered, looking around.

             
The moans of walkers started up beneath the heavy drum of rain.

             
“And I’m gettin’ low on fuel.”

             
Harley looked at him.

             
“I’ll make you a deal.” Allie stated, “We’ll give you gas, if you come with us. We could use a cop where we’re setting up haven.”

             
“Oh thank you.
Thank
you!”

             
“On one condition.”             

             
“What?” The cop asked desperately.

             
“I have to ride with you.”

             
“Aunt Allie!” Kurt cried as Harley gasped: “No!”

             
“Deal.”

             
Allie got out of the car and shook the cop’s hand. “I’m Allie.”

             
“Deputy Thomsen.”

             
Allie helped Deputy Thomsen fuel up.

             
“Just take another gas can.” Harley insisted.

             
“But…what about you guys?”

             
Harley smiled and replied, “Gas Siphoning Kit.”

             
“We’re going to Martin’s, right?”

             
Harley nodded.

             
Allie gave Harley a toothy grin and replied, “See ya there.”

             
Allie watched from the passenger seat of the Crown Vic as Harley eased forward, trying not to let the tires yell at the rain soaked pavement but not willing to stick around and wait for the undead to come out.

*****

              Harley drove in silence. Fifteen more minutes.

             
“How’ve you been?” Kurt inquired softly.

             
Harley hadn’t seen Kurt since she graduated. He never tried to contact her after she had moved to Ivana’s Port.

             
“Just
great
,” Harley retorted moodily. "I've no idea whether or not my sister and my best friend are okay. I’ve killed about a billion of those…those
things
. And, oh yeah, I got to watch a corpse stuff my cat, my only companion since this all began, in his face like a God Damn Tastee Kake. What about you?”

             
“I’ve been okay.”

             
Harley felt the urge to turn the radio on, and then she remembered that people had to be broadcasting in order for anything to come through. Kurt reached down and pressed the on switch. He dialed through all of the stations, all of them, both AM and FM had nothing to offer but static. He turned it back off.

             
“I missed you,” Kurt maundered, observing the landscape.

             
Harley used the rear view mirror to make sure that Deputy Thomsen wasn’t trying anything funny, and was thoroughly pleased. Allie and Deputy Thomsen were laughing and looked incredibly happy considering their predicament.

             
“That’s your problem,” Harley spat.

              The look on Kurt's face could only be likened to a puppy that had been kicked in the ribs by his owner.

             
“What’s wrong Harles?”

             
It took all of Harley's willpower not to slam on the brakes. “What’s
wrong
?” She scoffed.

             
“Yeah.”

             
“I don’t even want to go into that right now.”

             
“Why not?”

             
“Because we are armed
to the teeth
, and I might
hurt
you,” she growled.

             
Kurt’s eyes widened. “Harley…”

             
“No Kurt. Just stop.”

             
“What’d I do?”

             
“What’d you
do
?”

             
“Yeah,” Kurt returned, biting back his rage.

             
“I haven’t heard from you for
three
years, Kurt. Three
years
. Before this whole zombie plague thing, Trevor and I talked nearly every other day. But
you
? You broke my heart, Kurt. We used to be best friends. I had never even had a female friend until I graduated, because I wanted to be one of the guys. We knew how to separate ‘guy time’ from ‘our time’ without spending more than a day apart. You and Trevor were my family. Trevor and Tsgumi?” Harley swallowed. “Trevor and Tsgumi are
engaged
Kurt. They went to college together. I can’t stop thinking about how
they’re
doing. Whatever happens, they have each other. But me? I have Allie. I don’t know if I’ll have my parents. I don’t know what’s waiting for me out there. But I don’t have the one person who
truly
owned my affection all through high school. The only thing that would have made it worse would have been if I had actually
loved
you.”

             
“Harley.”

             
Hot, angry tears started to drip down Harley’s face.

             
“Shut
up
. Kurt.”

*****

Somewhere
else
in Washington

             
Trevor was thankful that he had saved up for college during high school and managed to land a full ride scholarship to Fairview Arts. He lay in bed in his loft apartment with his arm around Tsgumi’s bare shoulder. Her beauty was incomparable to her sister’s, they had different mothers, different sets of genes. But you could still tell that they were sisters.

             
Tsgumi spooned Trevor’s side.

             
“What are you thinkin’ about, boo-bear?” She asked leaving her eyes closed a moment longer.

             
“How that police scanner your Uncle Marvin gave us should come in handy. Maybe he knew about the virus.”

             
Tsgumi giggled with a yawn. “Maybe…he
does
work for the government.”

             
“Small scale, right?”

             
“Well…I know that Linda thinks very highly of Uncle Marv and offered for him to work for this
Save-a-Con
project…but I think he declined. Marvin mostly does, like, peace keeping stuff.”

             
“Wait…isn’t Uncle Marvin Linda’s legal guardian?”

             
“Well, yeah, when she was younger, but now she’s thirty eight.”

             
“Oh, right.”

             
“But yeah, Uncle Marvin’s her second father, same with Aunt Katy.”

             
Trevor pondered for a moment. Then he looked at Tsgumi. “We should get out of Washington.”

             
“Find mom and dad.”

             
“Allie.”

             
“Kurt.”

             
“Harles.”

             
They sighed simultaneously, and then began to laugh at the thought processes they shared.

"But how will we find them?" Tsgumi queried eyes wide with worry.

Trevor thought a moment before he responded. A warm, comforting realization wrapped around his mind and he smiled, "She'll take them to the bus," he whispered, "That's always been the plan."

*****

Derby, Oregon

             
The doorbell rang shortly after the clock struck noon. Fehny went to the door, wondering who in their right minds would
ring
the doorbell in these harsh times.

             
“Who is it?”

             
Martin joined her.

             
“Harley.”

             
Her voice sounded...different. Fehny made to unlock the door, but Martin held his hand up to stop her.

             
“What do you do when a guest comes over?” He asked, briskly.

             
“Vitamin.”

             
Martin beamed, remembering the first time Harley had snuck out to visit Kurt. She was fourteen. He vividly recalled catching Harley trying to sneak in the through the back door. That was the first time he used the joke. Harley wasn’t amused. It had been raining all day and she was soaking wet. So once she had changed into her pajamas, Martin had a talk with her.

             
“So the next time you sneak out,” Martin smiled at his little hooligan, “remember that joke and I’ll let you in without any grief.

             
“Yes daddy,” Harley replied, giggling slightly.

             
Martin stood up, kissed the top of his daughter’s head, and said good night.

             
“Let them in,” Martin urged Fehny.

             
“
Them
?”

             
“She went to Sandy’s Beach,” he breathed. “I
know
she didn’t come back empty handed.

*****

There were so many strangers in Fehny’s house. She recognized Kurt with his short blonde buzz cut, his broad chest and alarming green eyes. She also recognized her daughter, who looked almost broken making Fehny wonder what could have shattered her little girl in under 48 hours. She recognized Allie who was a few inches taller than Harley with a light dusting of freckles on her pale skin. Then there was a man with brown hair, matching eyes and an overly thankful grin on his face, which Fehny didn’t recognize at all. But they were all strangers to the overwhelmed woman. Nobody really looks the same when they're covered with a veil of everlasting uncertainty.

Harley introduced her parents to Deputy Thomsen before explaining how Pixel had died and how they were headed back to Ivana’s Port. Nobody rejected Harley’s idea of going to the Sidewinders Woods and camping out, staying alive until things could return from this insanity. There wasn’t much room for chit chat; everyone was in a hurry to return to the possibility of faux semi-regularity. The brief exchange consisted of throwing Martin and Fehny’s things in the Cadillac and succinct introductions. Before they drove away from Derby in their two car convoy, Harley told Allie to follow her.

*****

             
Christian was perched atop the back counter, his long legs dangling off the edge. The store’s phone was pressed to his ear as he dialed “*400” to activate the PA system. He liked to broadcast what he had written in his journal to the empty store, it kept him entertained.