Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (22 page)

“What genre?”

Jerry fired off, “Comedy.”

“Classic or Modern?”

“Ooooooh, specific. Both.”

“I really like
Bringing Up Baby
with Hepburn and Grant. The first time I saw it was with my dad at my grandparents’ house. We were sitting at the kitchen table and watching it while Grandma cooked and smoked. Back when people still smoked in their houses. I remember hearing my dad laughing out in the kitchen, so I wandered in to check out what was so funny. He had one of those laughs, you know? You just had to find out what could solicit such laughter. So I sat down and just started watching. Kate Hepburn was just so funny and sweet. Ya know? And Grant. He was such a good straight man. D’ya remember him in
Arsenic and Old Lace
?” He trailed off, lost in the past.

Meghan was thinking to herself that she may just love this guy but decided to distract herself and the conversation with, “And modern?”

The memory hadn’t completely faded...it was stalling there on the periphery, teasing. He thought a moment longer and then looked at Meghan and said, “Maybe
Wonder Boys
.”

Meghan asked, surprised, “
Wonder Boys
? That’s a comedy?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, when I think about ha-ha comedies,
Wonder Boys
isn’t one that comes to mind.”

“Well, what would say then?”

“What about
Uncle Buck
?”

“
I can live with that.”

Jerry said, “But
Wonder Boys
is a hell of a movie. One of Douglas’ best.”

Meghan still persisted, “But a comedy?”

Defending himself now, Neil said, “In the classic sense of a comedy, yes it is. Everyone wins and the hero gets the girl and all of the action and dialogue is humorous, light, and somewhat lyrical.”

Giggling, Meghan teased, “Listen to you. ‘Light and lyrical.’ Why is it that you weren’t teaching or something?”

“What could I possibly be qualified to teach?”

Jerry said somberly, “Apocalypse Survival 101.”

They all nodded reluctantly. Neil was still nodding when he asked, “
Uncle Buck
huh?”

“Yeah and what’s wrong with that?” and Meghan’s hands slid to her hips in defiant protest.

“I wasn’t suggesting there was anything wrong with—”

Abruptly closing the distance between them until she was almost pushing him over, Meghan playfully threatened, “That’s right you weren’t suggesting. If you know what’s good for you anyway.”

Like a good boxing referee, Jerry separated the two and sent each of them to their corners.

Neil, as a way of perhaps mock appeasement, said, “
Uncle Buck
is Candy at his best.”

Jerry added, “I was just a little kid when John Candy kicked it but I remember it. He was a funny guy that’s for sure.”

Not wanting the game to stop, Jerry asked, “Okay, what about other movies? I love talking movies.”

“You do it often?” asked Meghan.

“Naw, not really. Only when I get to hang out with MDs at Providence during the rare down time. Most of my friends were into whatever was at the theaters or on the radio right now, ya know? I mean, I’m not trying to suggest that I’m better than them or that I don’t on occasion like whatever is right now, but I’m not a slave to seeing or having the latest and greatest of anything. Sometimes the greatest happened a long time before the latest ever came along.”

Jules was sleeping peacefully in a bed with pink sheets and flowered pillow cases. The dog, which everyone had taken to calling Lucky, was on the floor next to the bed and sleeping as well. Danny, however, couldn’t get himself comfortable enough to sleep. His mind wouldn’t stop turning over questions, and every time he did close his eyes for longer than a simple blink, he always saw that face from out at the glacier. That was where it had all started. That day seemed so long ago. He wasn’t even sure how long ago it was or even what day it was.

He sat up in bed and tried to think about something else. He tried to think about home and his parents. He tried to think about his own dog, a great Golden Retriever named Max, who was, hopefully, waiting for him back home. He even thought about his older sister, wondering if he’d ever see them again. He was crying before he even realized that the tears were streaming down his cheeks and wetting his shirt.

He didn’t like this one bit. He just wanted to be back at home. He knew deep down that all of these people were looking out for him and Jules, but nothing could take the place of his mother’s compassion. Her voice just made everything better for him. He needed her voice and her comfort. She could make everything all right regardless of the situation. He found himself getting upset that he had accepted the invitation to come to Alaska at all. His mom had said that it was up to him whether he went or not. She wasn’t going to force him, though she did say that she thought that he might regret it if he didn’t. Boy was she wrong.

He wondered if his family was still safe or if the whole world had been turned upside down by what was happening here in Alaska. Was this same thing happening everywhere? Jules stirred slightly and rolled over onto her side. The dog’s head rose from the floor to inspect the new noise. Danny caught the dog’s attention and motioned for him to join Danny on the bed. The dog hopped up eagerly, obviously a treat that he was not accustomed to enjoying. He circled three or four times before finally plopping himself down heavily next to Danny’s leg. Possibly sensing Danny’s unease, Lucky laid his head across Danny’s thigh and breathed a long, loud sigh. Lucky wasn’t Max by a long shot, but he was friendly and seemed to need attention. He was quite obviously a child’s dog and was missing his human counterpart.

Danny scratched him behind the ears, like he’d seen Jerry do, and then curled up next to him. The dog’s breathing, deep and rhythmic, helped to relax Danny enough to let him drift off to sleep. The dog too found his way back to sleep.

“What’s up, buttercup?”

Kim looked back at her friend Tony, who was walking down the hallway toward her. “I thought I heard crying or sobbing coming from back here.”

“Looks like the kids are still asleep.”

“Yeah.”

“D’ya think they understand what’s going on?”

“God, I hope not. I mean, their family. It all started with them. Can you imagine?”

“No. No way. Who would have even thought this would be happening? I don’t even know that I can believe it and I’m living through it. Well, hopefully anyway.”

Kim cocked her eyebrow at that comment and answered, “Speaking of which…you’ve done your hero bit now, right? Can we agree to let the other heroes step up and do their parts now? I don’t think I can handle a repeat performance of yesterday. And I know that I can’t handle losing you after losing everything else.”

“You won’t get any arguments from me.”

“Tony, is everything going to work out? Are we gonna make it through this alright?”

“If we stick together, I think we’ve got a better chance than trying to do this alone.”

“That’s not really much of an answer, ya know.”

“What do you want exactly?”

“I want you to tell me that everything is going to be alright and that we’re gonna make it through all this and that there’s still going to be a world left to live in. Can you do that?”

Tony put his big arms around Kim and pulled her into his chest. She didn’t resist even a little. She melted against him and tried to claw even closer. With his cheek resting on the top of her head he said, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, that’s for sure, because I can’t imagine a world without you in it.”

It wasn’t the answer that she wanted, but it would do. Kim, once again, damned her bad luck for having fallen in love with yet another man who didn’t want to have anything to do with her romantically. She’d loved boys with girlfriends, young men with fiancées, and men with wives. Sometimes there were brief moments of romance, fiery sweet, but all of those relationships had ended the same. And now, she was falling for a gay man. Dumb luck. Pure and simple.

“What’s wrong sweetie?” asked Meghan, her blues eyes soft and concerned.

It was later in the day and the house around them was buzzing, albeit quietly, with life and activity. Jerry had found a portable DVD player with a charged battery pack and battery back-up; so he, Jules, Danny, and Rachel were all watching a Pixar movie in the front room. Kim and Tony were trying to scrape together a meal in the kitchen. A Coleman cook stove was busy heating a can of beans while peanut butter and jelly were being slathered on bread. Tony hummed while Kim quietly sang to the tune. It was all just too normal...too routine for Neil to take. He retreated to the garage and, of course, Meghan had followed him.

With the CD player in the minivan melodically making its way through a tune, the two of them continued their conversation. Neil just wanted someone to understand what he was feeling; the discomforting thoughts that just wouldn’t give his mind peace.

“I...I...” he looked away trying to hide his shame for the tears forming in the corner of his eyes. He wasn’t accustomed to crying. It just wasn’t something that he did. And yet, the urge to cry was a feeling that hovered so closely over the past few days that the feeling alone was enough to set him off at a moment’s notice. Finding the base root of his emotions, he tried to sum it up with, “I’ve never been this...scared before.”

“Oh, honey,” she tried to soothe Neil with a soft caress on the back of his neck.

He turned back toward her and tried to make her understand, “You didn’t see...you couldn’t have seen…”

“What sweetie?”

“...those eyes. And that smell. It was the most horrific odor that’s ever been, I’m sure. It was all the bad smells...rotting fish, decaying plants in the spring, body odor, shit...all of it put together and then made worse. And that sound that it made. It was as much a sensation that I could feel as I could hear. It rumbled down in the pit of my stomach and rattled my knees. But its eyes...I’ve never seen anything so empty and soulless but, at the same time, so angry and full of rage. All the fear in the world was there in the blackness.”

She nodded and started to speak but thought better of it and chose to let him continue instead.

“We can’t stay here indefinitely and I don’t think anyone is coming to help us. Hell, there may not even be anyone left out there anyway. We’re running out of options and I am petrified about going back out there again.”

“Sweetie, we’re all—”

“No! You don’t understand. I’ve never been this afraid of anything...ever. Not even when I was a boy and all things were possible was I this afraid. Back then, I knew that Mom in the next room would always come to rescue me from the Boogie Man in the closet or the monster under the bed. Just knowing that she was there was enough to hold the fear at least partially at bay. I didn’t know that fear like this even existed...was even possible.”

They were quiet for a few minutes while Jack Johnson on the CD sung about all the good people and wondered where they’d gone.

Meghan took Neil’s hand in hers. “Are you more afraid of what might happen to you, or about making a wrong decision that might lead to something happening to one of us...one of the kids maybe?”

He thought about that for a few seconds. At first, he was inclined to say that he was terrified about his own well-being. After all, who likes to consider the prospect of being eaten alive? He remembered the curly haired blonde guy in the parking lot of his office building. He could still see the man flailing his hands about wildly trying to fend off his attacker. And then he remembered seeing the man’s hands, held in the air uselessly and coming together in weaker and weaker fists as he was disemboweled and eaten. Neil felt true nausea come over him when he imagined Meghan lying there instead. He couldn’t picture himself there, but seeing Meghan suffer such a fate was too much.

He lowered his head until his cheek rested against Meghan’s chest. Her heartbeat was strong and her breaths were deep. He tried to match his own breathing to hers so that he might be able to get control of his own heartbeat.

“I don’t know what I’m more afraid of anymore...losing me or losing you.”

She hugged him tighter against her, the way that she used to do to her fiancé when life was too much for him to bear on his own. She closed her eyes and let the tears come. They dripped down her cheeks and onto Neil’s back. “Oh sweetie, what are we going to do with you? My poor hero.”

Jack Johnson’s disembodied voice was still asking the world about the good people. The song had a light feel to it, but the question and the frustration were serious and ardent. It was the only sound in the minivan other than their breathing. Neil wondered too where all the people, both good and bad, had gone. He was going through options in his mind when the door from the garage to the house was opened, letting in a slice of light that cut into the darkness surrounding the minivan. It was Jerry.