Family Reunion "J" (4 page)

The sun set behind them as they roared down the road. If not for the circumstances, this would have been an enjoyable evening ride. The ride of the Road King was much nicer than that of the Softail. She remembered how her ass ached after a hundred miles on the Heritage. The guy who named the Softail obviously hadn’t ridden the bike for four hundred miles. Thinking of that trip made her miss Ryan.

Twilight was disappearing and full-on darkness was threatening for the last ten minutes of their trip. The turnoff for the casino was just ahead. Bob slowed the bike gently at first, then he hit the back brake hard and she felt the rear end slide out a bit. Just as suddenly he cranked the accelerator, righted the bike, and shot down the road to the right. When they arrived at the casino hotel, he pulled under the canopy and killed the engine.

“Did you see that back there?” he asked her.

“See what? I’m still not able to turn my head very well.”

“There was a group of…” He thought for a minute. “Hell, I don’t know what they were, but they scared the bejeezus outta me.”

“If they scared you, I’m just as glad I didn’t see anything.”

She had dismounted and was working on taking off her helmet when the automatic doors leading to the lobby whirred open.

“Look out!” Bob screamed at her. He was half-on, half-off the bike, looking behind her. She started to turn, but Bob grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her behind him and the Harley. She landed in a heap, banging her still-helmeted head off the pavement. She got up in time to see her new friend Bob with one guy under his arm and another lifted off the ground, Bob’s right hand wrapped around the man’s neck. He moved like a cat as he strode toward the front of the lobby. He threw the guy under his left arm toward the doors that were opening and closing erratically. The guy he had by the throat was making a strangled shrieking noise.

She made it to her feet in time to see two more people streak out from the hotel. They didn’t look right; they were changed somehow. He kicked out at the first one as it charged toward him. He connected and it rolled away to his left. The second, however, slipped inside the kick and was mauling Bob. He turned toward her and made direct eye contact even as another one of the things bit into his arm.

“Go! Get the hell outta here! Go! I can’t hold ‘em off much longer.” He wasn’t trying to win the fight now; he was trying to give her enough time to escape.

She jumped on the bike and hit the starter. The engine roared to life. She kicked it into gear and smoked the back tire for a second before it caught hold and rocketed her back onto the street.

She was sobbing as she drove back up the road they had just come down, tears coursing down her cheeks. She slowed and stopped; ignoring the pain, she turned and looked back at the hotel. Buffalo Bob was still standing his ground, stomping, throwing, and throttling the things as they attacked him. As she watched, he went down to a knee, and then disappeared behind the crowd that had grown to cover him completely. Turning back, she saw more of them ahead of her at the intersection where Bob had maneuvered around them earlier. She ground her teeth and loosed the beast’s horses directly at the approaching horde.

Jay’s skills on a bike were a bit rusty, but this maneuver she had ingrained into muscle memory with constant practice over the years. She pushed hard against the left handlebar and accelerated. This threw the bike into a steep, hard left turn. When the bike was leaning over, she just touched the rear brake, throwing the bike’s ass into a slide, then immediately gunned the throttle while applying just a little front brake. This righted the bike at ninety degrees from her original direction. This all happened in an instant. The really hard part of this maneuver was at the end. It went against all of the mind’s preconceived thoughts. If done right, you exited the maneuver headed in the correct direction. If done incorrectly, the centripetal forces would throw your body off the bike as it reversed its lean—a body in motion and all that jive. These thoughts never entered Jay’s head. It was as the old saying goes: “It’s as easy as riding a bike.”

She made it past the group, oversteering only a little, but it still had her heart in her throat. Even though it had been several years since she owned a bike, her body and reaction time did not let her down. She slowed and let the adrenal gland compose itself; the burst of adrenaline had given her the urge to pee.
No time for that now, girlfriend.
She settled herself back into the seat and took stock of her situation.

“What the hell, Danny?” Auddy threw up her hands in frustration. They were fighting; the stress of learning to live with someone was like that. They had moved in together at Danny’s place and Auddy was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Like most people who’ve been single for an extended period of time and lived alone, they were both used to things being a certain way. Auddy was of a mindset that when you finished using a cup or glass, you rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. Danny wasn’t. Auddy was mad because she thought he was leaving the glass sitting next to the sink just to piss her off. In reality, Danny was fine with letting a few dishes accumulate before loading them into the dishwasher. He wasn’t being obtuse or purposefully poking the bear, as it were; it was just how he was.

Auddy stomped off to the bedroom and slammed the door. Danny looked up from where he was in the middle of a game of
League of Legends.
He was completely at a loss as to what had brought on this outburst. He shook his head and exited his game. He got up and went after her.

Auddy was beautiful. She looked a lot like her mom: five foot seven, long and straight brown hair tastefully highlighted, blue eyes. But the two things she had inherited from her dad’s side of the family were her butt and her attitude. Whenever she complained about her butt, her dad would say, “Women around the world would kill to have your butt.” It was very shapely. Her attitude, on the other hand, could take some getting used to. Danny stood five feet six inches tall, maybe six and a half. His temperament was even keeled, but like most men he loved to be right.

Neither of them had broken the news to their parents about moving in together. They’d decided to try it out for a while before making it public. Their parents were a bit old fashioned to their way of thinking, and both were a little apprehensive about telling them. Danny knocked lightly on the door. There was no response. He knocked again and cracked the door a bit. Auddy was lying on the bed and ignored him. She huffed and turned to face the wall. He walked across the room and wondered if it was smart to cut through the obvious tension. “Hey Panda Bear, what’s bugging you?”

She rolled over, her eyes red from crying. “Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t, I really don’t.”

This elicited another huff from her to show her disbelief.

He tried again. “I’m serious, Auddy, I don’t know what I did. Did you say something and I didn’t respond?” She just stared at him.

“What?” he said, a bit exasperated.

“I’ve asked you a hundred times to put your dishes in the dishwasher. Are you dense or are you doing it to piss me off?”

“You’re being ridiculous.” He just didn’t get what the big deal was. “Why are you blowing up over this? Are you doing it just to pick a fight?”

She sat up, ready to launch into the melee, when the lights flickered and went out. She flung herself back down on the bed. “Great, just great!”

Danny got up, opened the nightstand next to the bed, and pulled out a flashlight. He turned it on only to find it wasn’t working. He banged it against his hand a couple of times and got up to go to the kitchen to see if there were any batteries in the junk drawer. “It’s probably just a transformer or something. They’ll have it fixed soon, I’m sure.” He said this over his shoulder as he cautiously made his way across the room, arms outstretched to keep from running into something.

He found some batteries and got the flashlight working. He located his phone and went to the browser to look up the electric company’s website. Then he noticed that he had no bars.

“Hey Auddy, you have any service?” he called into the other room. He heard a bump, then some muttered cursing, as she found her way to the living room.

“Nope, I got nothing.”

“Huh, I knew the Wi-Fi would be down, but why would we lose cell service? The outage must be pretty widespread to knock out the cell towers.”

They went to the window and looked out across the driving range that was their backyard. Danny’s condo was in a gated community that boasted a world-class golf course. All the lights were out as far as they could see. The clubhouse where he worked as a golf instructor, the driving range floodlights—all were dark.

Handing Auddy the flashlight, Danny said, “Stay here. I’m going to run up to the clubhouse and see if they know what’s going on.” He grabbed his key off the coffee table and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Auddy called to him. She went to the pantry and retrieved a pack of candles. She opened it, put two onto a saucer, and lit them. Then she crossed the room, kissed him, and handed him the flashlight. “Hurry back.”

He kissed her again. “Sorry about the dishes. I’ll try to remember.” He turned and went out the door.

The clubhouse was only a couple of football fields away, but he decided to drive up there. They might need him to make a run to the store for flashlights or something. He was the newest addition to the staff and was still trying to make a good impression. He had lived there on and off for four years. His grandmother owned the condo and he stayed there while pursuing his dream of getting his PGA Tour card. It hadn’t happened yet, and he wondered if it ever would.

He was good looking, athletic, maybe a bit on the small side, but that was why he wasn’t trying to be a pro football player. He had dark hair and dark eyes that Auddy said were the reason she fell for him.

As he drove, he could have sworn he saw a group of people running through the eighteenth fairway. What was that about? He pulled up to the back of the clubhouse. Bill would be at the pro shop at this hour; he would know what was going on. Bill ran the driving range at night. He was a hundred years old, or so it seemed to Danny. The old man sat there, collected money for golf balls, and sold a golf glove or two, maybe a shirt if he was lucky. Mostly he watched the cable news station and bitched about the government.

Danny got out of the car and shined his flashlight around the area. No one was around, which was odd. Normally a few guys would be hanging around. The power hadn’t been off long enough for the usual crowd to have dispersed already. He went to the door that led to the pro shop. He opened the door, and as soon as he stepped across the threshold, he smelled a peculiar odor.
God, what is that? Has a sewer backed up or something?
The stench almost made him gag. He shined his light toward the counter where Bill usually sat.
What is that?
He couldn’t make it out in the distorted beam coming from his flashlight.
What? Is that a shoe?
He called out, “Bill?” The foot sticking out from behind the counter didn’t move. “Bill? Quit messing around man, this isn’t funny.”
Oh man, the lights went out and Bill fell and broke a hip or something.
He quickly walked up to the counter and around the end. When the beam of his flashlight landed on Bill, Danny sucked in his breath and backed up quickly. Bill was torn apart. His upper body looked like a bear had attacked it. He was sure it was Bill, because the body had on bright yellow pants. Bill was always wearing something like that.

Danny went to the phone and picked up the receiver. No dial tone.
Huh.
He turned and headed for the stairs up to the main floor. Mr. Dietrich, the night manager of the restaurant, would know what to do. He took the stairs two at a time and arrived at the front desk in under a minute. The smell here was worse. He could now identify the smell—it was of feces, and something else. He rounded the corner and found Mr. Dietrich on the floor, bent over one of the wait staff. He looked up, the bright light shining in his opaque eyes. A piece of bloody intestine was hanging from his lips. He opened his mouth wider than Danny would have ever thought possible and let out a shriek that reminded Danny of a barn owl, only much louder, and much scarier. Danny turned and ran.