Zombie Fallout 4: The End Has Come and Gone (43 page)

“Sounds good so far.”

“Well, about ten years go by and the older Keenagh brother lives in
New York
now, I think he’s an investment broker or something like that. He’s heading home from work one night and this guy robs him and stabs him to death for $35.”

“That’s screwed up, getting killed for $35.”

Gary
shrugged his shoulders in acknowledgement. “I know, some people have gotten killed for less. Anyway, so that same night Rob gets stabbed and died, the Sparrow slipped its moorings. After they bring Rob’s body home and get him buried, the family spends the next week searching for their lost boat. They even asked the Coast Guard if they could keep a look out for it. The Sparrow had become Rob’s pride and joy in those long ago summers, and Mrs. Keenagh, I think her name was Luci, couldn’t stand that this remembrance of her son was now also gone. She used to be able to look out her kitchen window every morning and smile looking down on the small boat. Rob’s first words every time he called home were, ‘How’s she doing?’ Luci couldn’t even look out the window any more, the loss of the boat a constant reminder of the loss of her son.”

“Man, that sucks,” I said honestly, “Who needs that kind of reminder?”

“I know,”
Gary
said. “So a few more years go by and the younger brother Sam is home visiting his folks for the holidays. He’s out on the front porch sitting in a big rocking chair having a cold beer.”

“Do you know what kind of beer it is, because that sounds really good right now.”

“That’s not really important to the story.”

“Sorry.”

“Can I go on?”

“Wait, did they ever find the boat?” I asked.

Gary
shook his head.

“Any debris from a wreck then?”

Gary
shook his head again. “Can I continue?”

I motioned with my hand that he could.

“So Sam is on the porch and this car pulled into the driveway. It’s Tabitha, she was down in
New Orleans
taking her daughter to her new college for orientation and thought she would show her where she used to go on vacations with her family while she was down there. Before she can even come across the yard and hug Sam, this truck pulls up. Its David. He lived in LA but had to go to
New Orleans
for a conference. When it was done, he decided to go see the beach he
had
spent so much time on.”

I was sitting up now.

“Sam, Tabitha, and David are all talking and hugging about
what good
fortune it is that they all came together at the same time when another car pulls into the driveway. It’s Donnie, the youngest of the group. He had no reason whatsoever to make the drive from his home in
Texas
. He told them he just felt compel
led to do it. So there they all
are sitting on the front porch reminiscing when Mrs. Keenagh comes out the front door. She is sheet white. Her son Sam got up so fast he knocked his chair over.”

“Did he spill his beer?”

“Do you want to hear the rest?”

“Well yes, I just figured that was the scary part, him spilling his beer and all.”

“Mike!”

“Sorry.”

“So Sam is pretty concerned for his mother and asked her if she’s alright. She can barely talk she’s so upset. ‘It’s the Sparrow,’ his mom tells him, ‘it’s back.’”

“The Sparrow came back?
Damn
, that gave me goose bumps,” I told
Gary
. “So they finally did honor their pact. And that’s a true story?”

“Supposed to be.”

“Damn.”

“Okay, you want to hear another one?”
Gary
asked, “It’s a little freaky-deakier.”

“Deakier? I’m supposed to be the one that makes up words.”

“All right, so there’s this guy.”

“Wait, is this true?”

“Yes.”

“What is your source of information?”

“What are you talking about Mike?”

“I mean did you read this in a book or did you hear it from a friend of a friend whose uncle it happened to.”

“I read this in a book about hauntings.”

“I thought you said this wouldn’t be scary?”

“It’s not really,”
Gary
said.

“But by its definition ‘haunting’ is a scary thing.”

“It’s not.”

“You know, because I’m pretty maxed out already with this whole zombie thing. I don’t need another genre to keep me awake at night.”

“Mike, I don’t remember you always being this difficult.”

“I’ve been away for a long time
Gary
. I’ve developed all sorts of neuroses.”

“Did you seek professional help?”

“Why? Do you think I need it?”

“You tell me. Can I get on with the story?”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Gary
looked at me with a sideways glance and began his story. “So there’s this guy.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.
Gary
looked like he was going to hit me with his canteen. “I’m just saying, it’s a lot easier for me to visualize the story if I know the people’s names.”

“Fine, his name is Rob.”

“Really? He’s got the same name as the kid in the last story?”

“JAMES, his name is James.”

“Like Bond.”

“Sure, whatever. So James is married to Tricia and they have a son together, his name is…”
Gary
paused trying to think of a name, “Mickey and they live in
Wyoming
.”

I didn’t agree with his name choice, but I let it go for the sake of the story.

“It’s about five years later and the three of them are going through life as best they can when the dad gets laid off. He’s falling behind on his bills and the mortgage and he panics and robs a bank.”

“Damn, I thought you were going to say he robbed an investment banker for $35 and then stabbed him to death.”

“No, it was a bank and he got caught. Spent the next seven years in prison. When he got out he got an apartment within the
Cheyenne
city limits. His wife and kid were about a half hour away. James had paid his debt to society and wanted to try and rebuild his family. He had visited Tricia and Mickey a few times and had asked her if she would be willing to take him back. His wife told him that it wasn’t just her decision to make. They had been on their own for so long she would have to ask Mickey too. So she and her son went out the next day to do some hiking, clear their minds and talk about the decision they needed to make. While they were climbing up the hill, they came across an open crevice
which led
into an abandoned mine.”

“
That’s n
ot a good move
if they went in
.”

“Afraid of being buried alive?”

“Who the hell isn’t?” I asked, not believing that I wasn’t on the side of the vast majority in this.

“
They went in,
they’
d
gone
about ten feet when Mickey leans up against one of the support beams, problem is it’s all rotted out and the ceiling gives. The cave-in was devastating. At the same time as the ceiling collapses, James hears a frantic knocking on his door. He immediately answers it and standing there is a bloodied battered and bruised Tricia screaming at him that she needs his help, Mickey is trapped in a mine collapse. James grabs some tools and hops in his truck with Tricia. They drive for forty-five minutes to get to the site and James starts digging like crazy to get to his son. He tells his wife that she needs to get to the roadway and get some more help. Sure enough, after about ten or fifteen minutes two guys come up in different cars. They are all helping each other and they finally find the pocket where Mickey is trapped. They dig out a hole big enough to pull him out and Mickey is screaming at his dad to go further, that his mom is a few feet past him. James is trying to tell him that his mother is safe, that she came and got him and that she’s fine. Mickey is having none of it. He’s frantic, starts digging at the rocks with his hands. James and the men who came to help start digging and in a few feet they come across Tricia’s body.”

“Holy shit,” I said.

“Yeah, for the love of her son, she went to get the help of his father. What is really weird, when they interviewed the two other men, one of them said what he heard could have been the howling of the wind but felt compelled to check it out. The second one said he definitely heard a woman screaming for help.”

“Man that just gave me the chills.”

This was a different night with
Gary
but in its own way it was way scarier, at least to me.

“Do you want a drink?”
Gary
asked handing his canteen over.

“No, I’m fine man. I’ve got my own,” I told him.

“This isn’t water.”

So I’m figuring Vodka or some other such libation. “I’m good, I don’t want to drink. I’ve got watch in a few hours.

“Mike, it’s Kool-Aid.”

“I’m good,” I said, feigning that I was getting ready for sleep.

“It’s really good,” he said, placing it under my nose coaxingly.

“
Gary
, I really don’t want any.”

“This was your favorite as a kid. I remember making it for you all the time. I especially got this for you.”

“I appreciate that man, but I still don’t want it.”

“Oh hell, it’s that whole germ-a-phobe thing isn’t it? We’re family, germs don’t count.”

I smiled wanly. I begged to differ.

“I haven’t drunk from this since I made the mix.”

“Since when do germs have a shelf life?” I asked him.

“You just take this canteen, let me get something to drink out of so I can have a little.”

He handed the canteen to me which I accepted gingerly. Then he began to scour the area we were in, finally grabbing an old Coke bottle that was laying on its side. Dirt and possibly a small nest of dead bugs were on the inside and he scraped a small cobweb off the opening.

“What are you doing?” I asked, horrified beyond measure.

“Make-shift cup,” he replied smiling.

“You can’t be serious?” I asked, finding myself backing up unwittingly.

“The more germs the merrier,” he said still smiling.

“Are you kidding me? Get away from me with that thing.”

“Yes I’m serious, the more germs you introduce
in
to your body the better it can cope with them. Sanitizing wipes are horrible for people.”

“Bite your tongue! Are you the Anti-Christ?”

He wasn’t messing with me. This wasn’t the whole big brother teasing his younger brother with the spit-and-roll-up procedure. He grabbed the canteen from me and filled that bottle almost to the top. He didn’t wash it out first, he just gulped it down, added protein and all. My stomach was roiling for the next eight hours. Every time I thought about what he did I thought I was going to heave.
Gary
on the other hand was as right as rain, so which of us has it right?

“I miss Glenn,”
Gary
said to me pretty much out of the blue one night. We were about
three
hundred miles from the
Maine
border, and we were both homesick.

Glenn is/was our brother. The order went Ron, Gary, Glenn, Lyndsey and myself. I hadn’t seen Glenn in years, but the pain of his loss was still acute.

“Me too,” I told
Gary
noncommittally.

Gary
looked at me askew. I think he caught more meaning in my answer than I had intended to give away.

“Do you think we should look for him while we’re down here?”
Gary
asked, scrutinizing my face.

“We could, I guess.”

“Alright, what gives?”
Gary
asked, standing up and coming over to me.

“Glenn’s passed,” I told him.

“I thought so, but you seem to know for sure. How?”

“Listen, you might think I’m nuts if I tell you.”

“I might, but you can tell me anyway.”

“Great, all right. I don’t know if you know about this or not, or even if you believe in this sort of thing, but I can astral project.” I stopped right there, looking at
Gary
for any indications that he was going to get me some heavy medication. When he sat back down, I took that as a sign that he wanted me to continue.

“Astral projection, that’s where you float out of your body, right?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the basic idea. From what I’ve done and read there are two types of projections. The first is on the astral plane which has nothing to do with the world we live in, and the second is the ability to travel within our own world. I usually can’t control it, and the night I found out about Glenn was no different. I had gone to sleep relatively early because I was pulling a late night shift on the ladders.”