Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (73 page)

When we came to Division Street, we turned left and began a twisting route through the foothills of Mount Washington until we came to Sunny Heights drive and turned left.  Here, Sandy slowed, because we were getting close to Jolene’s parents’ house.

I glanced about the large homes dotting the various flanks of Mount Washington, marveling over such opulence in the midst of our middle class neighborhood.  The houses up here were, quite frankly, huge!

Sandy drove no more than a half a mile when we began to see the crowds, the marked increase in traffic and, to our dread, long lines of police tape blockading entrance onto Marchena Drive where Jolene and her family lived.

As smart as she was cute, Sandy busted a quick bitch and parked four blocks from the throng gathering about the lazy, turn onto Marchena, turning toward me.  “So, what’re we gonna do now?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged.  “Seems like an awful lot of cops and NIA bastards around, so you know something went down.”

“Yeah, especially if they blocked off the entire street,” agreed Sandy, looking out through the back window to the multitude behind the car.

I ran my hand over my bare scalp, pausing to scratch an earlobe, and then turned to peer out the same window.  Neither of us was paying much attention to Katie, who was sitting in the back seat, a thoughtful scowl on her face.

“Didn’t Jolene say she lived at the end of Marchena?” I asked.

“Yeah, on the left hand side of the cul-de-sac,” replied Sandy, her eyes dancing about the scene.

“So, if they blocked off the
entire
street, then we can infer something pretty nasty occurred, right?”

“Imm-himm,” was the girls’ grunt of agreement.

I blinked and inhaled sharply.  “Which means it’s probably dangerous for us to go and get a closer look…”  I stopped as Sandy and I exchanged a nervous glance.  “We could be discovered.”

“I should go and check things out,” announced Katie
, of a sudden, catching us both by surprise.

“Why you?” I questioned a little too aggressively.  I didn’t want anything to happen to my beloved cousin, and
was immediately protective.

“No one from the government knows I’m here, Eff.  For all they know my mom and dad picked me up in Palm Springs and hauled my ass back to Oklahoma.  They had released m
e before your mom arrive at the CHP station.  I was sitting in the lobby waiting.”  She was smiling at the memory.  “When Aunt Patrice got there, I just waved at the front desk officer and she smiled.  We walked out of there just like that, no fuss, no paperwork – nothing.

“There is no way anyone, outside our two families, knows where I am,” she concluded her visage smug with confidence.

I never said Katie was stupid!

I peered over at Sandy, who raised her brows and nodded.  I could see she thought it was sound reasoning and, most likely, it was the best we could do, but I was worried for Katie.  I don’t know what I’d do if anything bad happened to her.  I’d probably go on some idiotic rampage that would endanger everyone else.  I didn’t want to risk it.

Yet, we still owed it to Jolene to try and find out something about her family, even if it was terrible.

“Promise you will be careful, Katie?” I queried pathetically.

She frowned at me like I was a two-year old.  “Of course, I’ll be careful, you wanker!”

“Very… careful…?” I clarified, reaching out for her face, stroking her cheek.

She cupped my hand with her own, then pulled it to her mouth and kissed my palm.  “I promise,” she whispered, closing my hand about her kiss.

At that, Sandy unlocked the doors and Katie scrambled form the back seat, before I could do or say anything else.  Seconds later, she was walking down Sunny Heights, her tight little butt swaying back and forth as she strode from us.

It was the longest twenty minutes of my life, and I spent the whole duration gazing like an eagle for any sign of my cousin.  Until finally, I spied her emerging from the crowd, which had grown even larger since we had arrived.  She had already crossed the street and was taking her time, trying to be natural and not raise any suspicion.  Her lightly tanned legs looked scrumptious in the summer sun.  Her denim booty-shorts were doing her right!

I scurried from the car much too quickly.  Sandy grabbed me by the back of my shirt to slow my exit.  I got the point and took hold of her wrist, turning slowly to mouth a silent “thank you”, which made her grin from ear to ear.  I opened the rear door for Katie, who remained expressionless, ducking into the vehicle and scooting over so I could close the door behind her.  I retook the shotgun seat and motioned for Sandy to start the car and get the fuck out of Dodge.  She complied at once.

It wasn’t until we reached Division Street when Katie finally broke her silence.  “They’re all dead.”

I looked back at her.  Her eyes appeared a thousand miles away.

“Are you sure, Sweetie?” asked Sandy, hoping against hope.

Katie shook her head and crossed her arms under her pert breasts.  “Yeah,” she huffed, wiping at the corners of each eye.  “The fuckers burnt down their entire house and let two other catch fire just make sure no one got out alive.”

“What the fuck, are you kidding me?!?” I asked loudly, more at the situation itself, then to my cousin.

Katie answered as if I had directed me question at her.  “No bullshit, Eff, they slaughtered them all, even some of the neighbors as well – those that came to help.”  She seemed exhausted.

“How in the hell are those assholes getting away with shit like this?” wondered Sandy as she took us onto El Paso Drive, making sure she was observing every single rule of the road in the process.

Katie chuckled ruefully.  “They can do whatever the fuck they want once they send out the word that a group of Muto Terrorists are holed-up somewhere.”  I could hear the
sardonic tone in her voice.  My cousin was angry.

“That’s what they said?” I asked.

“No, that’s what I heard.  The whole damned crowd was buzzing with relief that the terrorists had been brought to justice,” explained Katie.

“What had these ‘terrorists’ done exactly?” inquired Sandy, glancing at my cousin through the rear-view mirror.

“I don’t know, really,” she replied through an exhalation.  I could tell the ordeal was wearing her thin.  “There were so many rumors; it’s not even worth it to talk about.”

“That
fucking sucks,” mumbled Sandy.

We all went quiet.

The NIA wasn’t messing around anymore, so it seemed.

When we turned back onto Meridan, I heard Katie fumbling with her cell phone, but didn’t turn around.  Whatever she was doing was her business.  Besides, I had too much on my mind to bother.

There was a few more seconds of silence, then: “Hey Caroline, it’s me Kat, how are you?”

She was calling home.  I pe
eked over at Sandy, but she was intent upon the road.

“I don’t know, I haven’t heard from you guys in a while and I was just wondering if everything was alright.”  Katie stopped talking, listening now.

“Well, no one’s called me since you did that first night, so I - .”  She paused.  “Yeah, I understand, but what about mom and dad?”  Another pause ensued.  “Ok, but where are they?”

The conversation was intruding into my awareness, because it didn’t sound like it was going the way it should’ve.

“Vacation, really?  Mom didn’t tell me, when?”  She listened some more.  “A week, but she knew I would be waiting for her to talk to me!  She hasn’t called me once, neither has dad…”

The car went quiet.

“Oh, fuck you, Caroline.  You’re such a bitch!”  A short stoppage followed.  “Well, I don’t give a shit.  I’m gonna stay out here where people love me and take care of me!  I don’t need you idiots in my life.  As far as I’m concerned, you call go fuck yourselves!”

I heard her tap the
front of her cell emphatically.  “Assholes, don’t give a rats’ ass about me,” I heard her mumble.

None of talked the rest of the way home.

*****

The rest of the day was shitty as fuck.  The keening coming from Flavia’s room was bad enough as it was, but Jacob called a couple of hours later and
, boy, was he ever a harbinger of the oh-so-fucked-up variety.

Apparently, surveillance had increased four-fold in our immediate area, coinciding with chatter over government channels.  All of it, mentioning some large Muto terror-cell hiding out in the vicinity.  Helicopter and street patrols wer
e to begin that very night.  He told us to stay low, to stay out of sight for the next couple of days, because something nasty was coming.

At four o’clock, Flavia came up to the Loft and we filled her in
, while she told us Jolene had finally fallen asleep in Johan’s arms.  Tirza had been reading her some passages from the family Bible.  She probably had to scrape half an inch of dust off the darn thing, seeing how little use it got in my household.

I rolled my eyes at the thought of my ex-girlfriend reading from the book of books, but I told myself not to knock it too hard, if it worked to give Jolene some degree of solace, then who was I to pass judgment.  The fact it wasn’t my cup of tea had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Next, we figured, those staying the night should call their parents and let them know who was staying where, we needed to cover our tracks against discovery by them or anyone else trying to find our group.  Misdirection was most likely the best thing for everyone involved, for now it would keep everyone safe.  After all, one couldn’t tell what they didn’t know.

That night, I asked my mother if a few friends could come over for dinner and hang out.  She frowned and bemoaned the amount of work it would take to feed everyone, but acquiesced when I volunteered to order the food with my own money.  Of course, she had no idea I had a cash hoard given to me by two of my uncles she just happened to hate the most.  There was no real need to explain all of that shit to her.  So, like the good son I was, I didn’t.

My step-dad didn’t give two shits as long as we were quiet and I ordered him a pastrami from one of the places we had ordered food.  In fact, his only comment had been, “Eff, you’re a good kid”, when I walked his meal and a couple of beers into the TV room.  We didn’t hear hide or hair of him the rest of the evening.

The rest of us ate in the dining room.  My mom occasionally peered about.  It was obviously, she had taken note of the sizeable difference between the numbers of females versus males about the large table.  She didn’t say anything
though, because Ramona was there and, even she knew, my girlfriend could be sickeningly jealous at times.  Well, at least, the old Ramona had been.  The new one had learned to share.

Jolene and Tirza stayed up in the Loft.  During the melee of our meal, Johan snuck up plates of pizza, stuffed pita pockets, a big bag of Lays
² and a pair of Cokes³.

After dinner and a movie in the Loft, the girls pretended to leave, but really sneaked to the side of the house, waited twenty minutes or so, and then made their way up the tree and back into my room via the window as they had been doing for the past few nights.

We stayed up long enough to agree, as a group, we should abstain from any sort of sexual activity, because we felt we needed to be focused, alert.  The NIA was hunting down families wholesale now.  It was definitely not the time to be pounding and sweating.  It was time for vigilance.  All we had was each other.  We
had
to make sure we protected what we loved.

For the second straight night, I slept with four girls, while Jolene and Flavia slept in Katie’s bed.  Tirza and Johan each took one of the inflatable mattresses.  It wasn’t long after the light went out, we were all asleep.  The day had been wearisome
; for some of us, it had almost been too much to endure.

I slept fitfully and couldn’t tell you if I dreamed or not.  The world around me was nightmarish enough.

{ ¹Fanta:
a global
brand
of fruit-flavored carbonated
soft drinks
created by the
Coca-Cola Company
in the 20
th
century. }

{ ²Lays: a snack; the brand name for a number of
potato chip
varieties as well as the name of the company that founded the chip brand in 1932.
}

{ ³Cokes: referring to Coca-Cola, the marque product of the Coca-Cola Company.  }

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~