Justin turned back towards the kitchen to get a bottle of water when he noticed his father’s Blackberry lying on the table next to the sofa. Back in the ‘normal’ days, his dad had the Blackberry almost surgically attached to his hip. To see the phone was to see the man. Nowadays the phone was not much better than a paperweight. Cell service was sketchy at best. It wasn’t even worth carrying it. That was why Justin was puzzled when he saw a red light blinking, the telltale sign of a message waiting. This was intriguing to Justin. Sure they still had electricity, thanks to a network of generators. But television was for the most part nonexistent, except for some news, and they weren’t broadcasting anything new. Telephones and cell phones were rapidly becoming instruments of the past. Justin was tempted to wake his mother and see if she would listen to the message, but if it was a spectral collection call and he woke her for that, there would be hell to pay. He decided to wait a few minutes for his dad to return. When it didn’t look like that was going to happen right away, he figured he’d get some clothes on and track him down. Justin no sooner came up from the basement wearing more respectable seasonable clothing when he heard and then saw the tractor trailer head out the front gate. Without actually seeing his dad, he knew for a fact his father was on that truck.
“Damn it,” he muttered. This meant it was going to be the better part of the day before he found out what the message was…..or from whom.
‘What if it’s Pops?’ he thought. Pops was his grandfather from back East. Nobody had heard from any of the East Coast Talbots since the zombie plague had begun. All the kids loved Pops. Where Dad was hard and angular, Pops was soft and easygoing. Not one of the kids could ever remember Pops raising his voice, unless of course it was to tell everyone that dinner was ready.
Only Mike knew differently. Pops Talbot had also been a Marine. If anything, Mike at this age was infinitely calmer than his father had been. Mike remembered the days in his youth. If he had been caught doing any one of the myriad of things his father considered inappropriate, his hands would be bleeding from the task of digging holes and then filling them back in. The kids thought Pops was a saint and Mike had no wish to smash their illusions. He loved the old man more than the Man Code would allow him to say, but the fact remained, he knew another side of the old man the kids didn’t.
Justin had never messed with his father’s phone, first because of the privacy issue. Mike had striven to drive that into all of his offspring. Trust is a sacred institution, and once it is shattered it is nearly impossible to put back together with the same integrity again. And second, because Mike probably would have been able to tell Justin was trying to listen to his messages by the way Justin would have had to position himself with his ear next to his dad’s hip pocket.
Mike also knew kids were curious by nature, if given the chance they would find all sorts of new and unusual ways to get into trouble. His goal had always been to remove as many opportunities as possible and, well, the rest will follow.
Justin didn’t think it would be a big breach of trust if he just checked the call log, and if it was Pop’s he could have his mom breach the code. Fumbling with the phone, Justin had a frozen moment of guilt and almost put the phone down, but his inquisitive mind wanted to know. What he saw disappointed him more than he thought possible. Something had been lost in the electronic netherworlds because the Blackberry screen only showed: “**u* **r* 7***2***5*”
‘Oh, that’s crap!’ he thought. He had finally built up enough pluck to even look at the screen and his reward was gibberish. Justin didn’t hesitate long, in for a dime, in for a dollar, so he pressed the voice mail button.
“……(Garble)….(static)…can’t….(static)….want….(garble)…fell…..(dial tone).” ‘End of message, to save message press 7, to delete, press 9’. Without even thinking, Justin pressed 9. ‘Message deleted’, came the officious voice. ‘There are no new messages.’ Justin broke out into a cold sweat when he realized what he had just done. ‘Oh crap, the old man’s gonna have my ass for this.’ He was half tempted to erase the call log and further hide his evidence of tampering, but he couldn’t do it.
The message may have been incomprehensible but the voice was not. It was his Uncle Paul, not by blood ties but maybe by something even stronger. His dad had known Uncle Paul for almost thirty years. They had grown up together in a small suburb outside of Boston. They had done everything together from playing football and baseball on the city and school teams to exploring an old Indian Burial ground aptly named Indian Hill. So when Paul’s family moved away in their sophomore year of high school, they had vowed to remain friends forever. But things for teens happen at a different pace than the rest of the world. There are girls and Friday nights and football and countless other distractions to keep them occupied. Sometimes the two friends would go for months at a time without communicating, always able to pick up the easy flow of conversation as if only hours had passed. So it was almost not even a surprise when the two realized that unbeknownst to the other, they had both applied for the same college, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For four years they did not so much ‘attend’ the school as they did ‘frequent’ it. The two were much more interested in the social aspects of college rather than any educational benefits. When Paul went on the five-year degree program, the two parted ways again. Mike, under some heavy lobbying from his then girlfriend, Laurie, moved to Colorado. After a few months of the ‘we are so grown up and in love’ phase, Laurie and Mike’s relationship soured by degrees until finally they broke up.
The break up affected Mike more than he had known. Booze was becoming more and more of a crutch to get through the lonely nights. After one intense drinking session and a 3:00 a.m. call to his friend, Paul flew out to Colorado. It had been eighteen months since they had seen each other but it might as well have been eighteen minutes. The deal was sealed. Mike packed up everything and drove back East to live with his friend Paul who now lived in New Hampshire. Mike knew without a shadow of a doubt that Paul had saved his life by flying out to Colorado, just as surely as Mike had saved Paul’s by pulling him out of a burning car some years before. Living with Paul had begun Mike’s healing, but still the booze beckoned. Five years with the love of his life suddenly over was not easily forgotten. Mike knew he had to make a radical change, so when he came home one night and told Paul he had enlisted in the Marines. Paul nodded in understanding but internally was conflicted, if anything the two of them were peaceniks or at worst apathetics. So again the brothers from a different mother went their separate ways. For five years Mike lived in dirt and battled foreign enemies. Whenever he could, he would contact his friend Paul, just so he could be reminded there was a world still out there where being shot at every day was not the norm. If anything, this separation strengthened their bond. It was during the Marines Corps days that Mike met, married and began a family with Tracy. Paul had also married and moved back to Massachusetts. So when Mike told Paul that he was bringing his family back to Massachusetts once his current tour was over, Paul had nearly giggled with glee, or at least as much as was acceptable by the Man Code. Mike was two months away from his discharge from the Marines when he received a disappointing call from Paul. Paul’s marriage had acidified. The break up was imminent. Paul decided he needed the comfort of his family, who had in the meantime moved to North Carolina. Mike was understandably disheartened.
So for a couple of years Mike toiled at the family business in downtown Boston while Paul attempted what Humpty Dumpty had tried many years before. He began to put the pieces of his life back together. The two miscreants were able to get together a couple of times during this period and subsequently just tore the living crap out of their livers, reveling in the ‘good old days.’ It was after one of those lost weekends that Tracy announced to Mike that her father was terminally ill and she was moving back to her home state of Colorado with or without him. (Flash back to the part about who’s the boss.) The house was on the market the next day. Within a week the
U-Haul was packed and the Talbots were heading out West.
Mike and Paul kept in more communication than they had during their previous hiatuses, so Mike knew almost right away when Paul became serious with his on again-off again girlfriend Erin. Erin was good people. She saw some excellent qualities in Paul and knew this was the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Paul, after already going through a nasty divorce, was not in so much of a rush. Erin, however, was skilled and patient in the ways of the heart. She didn’t push Paul but she was wily enough to keep him on the hook. For three years they played this game of cat and mouse, Paul always thinking he was a word away from being able to break up and Erin believing she was a word away from getting his commitment. When Erin got the call one July evening that her mother had been rushed to a hospital for life threatening injuries sustained in an auto collision, she knew her place was with her family. They just so happened to live in Colorado. Paul knew the score. He either went with Erin and climbed a bunch of notches up the commitment ladder, or he walked away from a potentially beautiful union. This was not an easy decision for him. His first instinct had been to call Mike, who had been thrilled at the possibility that his lifelong friend might once again be within spitting distance. Mike did his best to temper the excitement in his voice during the phone conversation, but when they hung up he almost cackled with glee (see ‘Man Code’). In Paul’s mind he wasn’t sure if he was ready for this. Being that close to Mike, while not the ‘deciding’ factor, was certainly a ‘contributing’ one. Bars beware! The dynamic duo was once again about to be reunited. Paul and Erin finally made the ultimate leap, got hitched and moved into their own house. Mike and Paul didn’t get to see each other as often as they would hope, living only 9.98 miles away from each other, but they more than made up for it when they did.
Justin knew his dad loved Paul and Erin and that not knowing what had happened to his friends was weighing heavily upon him. Justin also knew the only thing keeping his dad from going to get Paul or find out his fate, was him. Well not just him, all the kids. Mike would not sacrifice the safety of his kids, not even for his ‘brother’ Paul. Justin decided there and then that if his father wouldn’t go get Paul because of the kids, then the kids were going to have to do it themselves.
Justin went downstairs and not very carefully shook his younger brother to alertness. Travis came up from the depths of sleep quicker than Justin had expected. He was barely able to avoid the bat as it swung dangerously close to his rib cage. Mike had given every one in the family a firearm to protect themselves if needed, but they were all expressly forbidden from having the firearm within arm’s length from where they slept. It was in the first seven seconds of being awakened that a person was not in complete control of their faculties, and Mike did not want any fatal accidents. Having other less lethal weapons at the ready was not discouraged; Mike had warned the family to wake somebody, including himself, from a safe distance. Justin in his haste and excitement had forgotten this rule and had almost paid dearly for it.
“What the hell Travis, you almost crushed my ribs!” Justin yelled, in the grips of an adrenaline rush from his decision and partly from the added stimulation of having avoided the bat.
“Huh?” Travis asked as he sat up rubbing the torpidity from his eyes.
“We’re going to get Paul,” Justin said, barely able to hide the enthusiasm in his voice.
“Huh?” Travis responded. Apparently the lingering effects of his siesta had not been shaken off.
“Paul called,” Justin said.
That got Travis’ attention. “Uncle Paul called?” he asked excitedly. ‘Uncle Paul’ had always been a favorite of Travis’ because he was Paul’s godson. Something Paul would never let him forget. “How? The phones don’t even work!”
“I don’t know how, he left a message on Dad’s cell,” Justin answered.
“When does Dad want to leave?” Travis asked as he got out of bed and began to dress for the undertaking.
“Dad doesn’t know,” Justin said as he involuntarily lowered his eyes in guilt.
Travis stopped mid-way through putting his three-way tactical sling on as comprehension dawned on his face. “I don’t know which will make Dad more pissed, the fact that you checked his phone or that you want to leave the complex,” Travis told his brother.
Justin sagged in resignation.
“So when do we leave?” Travis asked nonchalantly as he began to place spare shells in his multitude of pockets.
Justin whooped with glee, and then caught himself and lowered his voice. “I want to leave now, but I want to get Brendon in on this.”
“Can’t,” Travis said. “You wake Brendon, he wakes Nicole, Nicole gets Mom, we go nowhere.”
“Shit, I hate it when you’re right,” Justin said. “But I wanted Brendon to drive his truck. If we take Dad’s Jeep on top of everything else he’d probably just shoot us without ever asking questions.”
“He won’t shoot me,” Travis said beaming. “I won’t be driving.”
Justin let a sickly smile ghost across his lips. Taking the Jeep was by far the worst offense of the many offenses he was about to commit.
Tommy came in a minute later, a trail of Kit-Kat crumbs marking his passage. “Whatcha you guys doing?” he asked, spraying peanut buttery goodness everywhere.
“Kit-Kats?” Travis asked. “We have Kit-Kats?”
“Weef did,” Tommy said, spreading his chocolatey smile.
“Hey Tommy,” Justin said. Concern laced his thoughts. It would not be easy getting out of the house quietly with Tommy asking all sorts of questions. “Did you just get up to get a snack?” He was hoping that Tommy was merely getting a little bite before going back to sleep. Tommy was famous for sleeping in, so much so that all of his shifts at Wal-Mart started no earlier than 1:00 p.m. For him to be up before the sunrise was an anomaly.
“Well I was sleeping good, right?” Tommy started. “I was dreaming about working at Wal-Mart before the deadheads came. You remember the time, Justin, when they were moving that huge pallet of Halloween candy and it tipped over.”
Justin didn’t remember, that incident happened six months before he had started, but he nodded anyway. His being there wasn’t relevant to the story.
“I was happy no one was hurt but I was SO happy the candy got all smooshed. Joey the manager said I could have all that I could carry. Ended up I could carry a LOT.” Tommy was smiling at his remembrance.
“Didn’t Joe get in trouble for that? “Justin asked. “Something about having to return the damaged goods for inventory control.”
Tommy’s smile faded a bit at the memory of his friend getting in trouble, but slowly spread again as he said “Yeah but I sure could carry a lot!”
“That’s a good dream Tommy,” Justin said, trying to hurry Tommy along and hopefully back to bed.
Tommy wasn’t having any of it. Justin would be more likely able to push over a non-sleeping cow than Tommy. Tommy began anew. Justin sighed.
“Hey Travis, why do you have your gun on?” Tommy asked. Alarm increased in the boys and just like that Tommy moved on, not waiting for a response. “So what I was telling you was not a dream, ‘cause dreams are made up, and all of that stuff happened. I wish I had some more smashed mallow cups,” Tommy’s eyebrows furrowed. “But then Ryan Seacrest comes over while I’m carrying all my goodies away. He keeps following me saying I dropped a Kit-Kat. And I’m like, ‘thanks Ryan, but there weren’t any Kit-Kats on the pallet.’ He keeps following me, and telling me about the Kit-Kat. He starts pulling on my arm and I start to drop stuff, so I was kinda getting a little upset.” Tommy paused for dramatic effect. Justin’s attention was peaked now. He had heard the conversation Tommy and his father had regarding Tommy’s inner voice. Justin tore away from his inner dialogue as Tommy started up again.
“So now I have to pay attention because if I don’t he’ll make me drop everything. Joey said I can only have what I can carry and I don’t want
to miss out. So I turn and Ryan tells me that there’s a Kit-Kat in the basement for me. Wait did he say that, or that I should go eat a Kit-Kat in the basement? Why would he tell me to eat a Kit-Kat in the basement? Wait, okay so I got the Kit-Kat upstairs, and then I came down here, but I started eating it upstairs, do you think that’ll make Ryan mad?” Tommy looked ultra-concerned that he might be irking his spirit guide aka the host of the now defunct American Idol.
“I don’t think he’ll be mad, Tommy,” Travis said earnestly.
“So I ate most of my Kit-Kat down in the basement!” Tommy said loudly, possibly trying to appease his spirit guide. “And then here were you guys, awake! Do you want to play Monopoly?” he asked hopefully.
“No Tommy, we can’t play Monopoly right now,” Justin answered.
“Oh, is it because you’re going to get Paul?” Tommy asked as he licked some errant chocolate off his candy wrapper.
Justin swallowed loudly, his mouth having gone instantly dry. Travis’ mouth hung slackly.
“Did you hear us talking?” Travis asked. Justin just shook his head; he knew better.
“Naw, that’s spying. My mom said that’s not polite. ‘Sides, I couldn’t hear you guys talking anyway, don’t you know how crunchedy sounding Kit-Kats are in your head?”
“Tommy, are you gonna go back to bed?” Justin asked hopefully, already aware of the response.
“Can’t,” said Tommy matter-of-factly. “Ryan says I have to go with you.”
Quarter inch goose bumps embossed up the entire length of Justin’s spine.
“Are you going to tell Mrs. T?” Justin asked.