“Poor Erway,” Allison said.
“I’ll eat the eggs, I guess.” Erway startled us.
I spun around. “Scared me.”
“Sorry about that. How’d you guys sleep?”
“Well,” Allison said.
“And that’s everyone.” Jason closed bedroom doors as he passed them.
“Good morning, everyone.” Crystal scratched at a mop of hair. “Where’s Elysia?”
“Palmeri?” Erway said. “She went down earlier. She did not sleep well. Tossed and turned all night.”
“Didn’t bother me,” Crystal said.
“Kept me up,” Erway said.
We went down the stairs. Our Bed & Breakfast had a home cooked meal waiting, and I’d just bet a day full of activities!
I needed to keep my head on straight. Couldn’t allow myself to be sucked into this Never Never Land the Terrigino brothers created.
We took the same seats around the large table. Erway joined us, fitting in on a folding chair at a corner by where Jason sat. The spread took up a lot of the center of the table. There were even two jugs of orange juice, and one of milk. Two oil lamps burned at either end. Gave the whole room a rather relaxing ambiance.
Never Never Land was damned appealing. No doubt about it.
“So,” Jason said as he reached for a piece of crisp bacon. “What are your plans?”
The question was vague, and was not seemingly directed at anyone in particular. “I would like permission to borrow shovels so I can bury my son,” I said.
No one moved.
“Of course,” Jason said. “If you would like, we have a tree out back. Provides lot’s of shade in the summer months. It’s tall, strong. You are more than welcome to use the ground around it, if you’d like.”
“That sounds wonderful. Thank you, I appreciate it,” I said.
He smiled. “Of course. And Jeremy and I would like some volunteers.”
Spade cocked his head to one side. “Volunteers?”
“Need a small hunting party. Dinner doesn’t grow on trees. However,” he held up a finger, “it can often be found running along the branches.”
I heard Jeremy laugh from the kitchen. The door swung open. “Biscuits are just out of the oven. Hot, hot, hot. You can cut ‘em open and lay a slab of butter in there. It should melt without spreading it. In my opinion, they are so good that they don’t even require butter, but that’s just me.”
The biscuits looked and smelled amazing.
My plate contained fluffy scrambled eggs, strips of bacon and toast. I could not pass on the biscuits though. Figured, we might not be here long, so I might as well fill my belly. Could be a while before we eat like this again, if ever.
With a glance around the table, it seemed like I wasn’t the only one thinking this way, with the exception of the Terrigino brothers. They didn’t pile food onto their plates. They knew where the next meal was coming from. It was right in the fridge in the next room.
“I’d be happy to give you a hand, replenishing the food we’ve eaten,” Spade said.
“Thank you,” Jason said. “Someone like you, I doubt it would take very long. Jeremy will accompany you.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s something I can do on my own. We owe you that much. I’m sure your brother has more important things to do if I handle the hunting.”
“Like what?” Jason said. It was the first time I’d seen him snap, losing his cool host-like composure.
“I’m sorry?” Spade said. It wasn’t an apology, as much as a who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you’re-talking-to implication.
“No, I’m sorry.” Jason forked his eggs around on his plate before lifting a mouthful and taking a bite. He chewed slowly, his eyes never leaving Spade. “I just meant, like what is it you think there is for my brother to do? We’re up in the mountains, in the woods, while the world below us is suffering a worse hemorrhage than the black plague.”
Spade pushed back from the table. “I saw stacks of wood. Might need more chopped? Winters must be brutal up here.”
Using the tip of his tongue to pick at food in the front of his teeth, Jason again smiled, or tried to. “That is excellent. We do spend a lot of time chopping wood. The supply dwindles faster than one might think. We have a pretty efficient wood burning stove, but you are correct. Chopping wood is a daily chore. I am sorry if I sounded . . . rude. It’s just this, everything going on, it gets to me.”
“We’ve spent nearly a month watching the military prepare that camp down there. Setting up tents and cleaning the apartments inside. They made repairs to the fence, and were always coming and going. Those loud vehicles of theirs. No respect for nature, really,” Jeremy said. “We had no clue what was going on. We kept our distance, but never stopped watching them.”
“And what did you discover?”
Jason shrugged. “Only that they were expecting to lock a lot of people up inside the razor-wire compound. Of course, we didn’t know why, or what the military was preparing for. All the shit going on in nearly every third-world country, and some not-so-third-world, figured a war was coming. We didn’t take it lightly, Jeremy and me. We chopped our wood, stocked our freezers, and made sure we had a solid stack of supplies. And then we saw them. . .”
“Them?” Palmeri said.
“Those things. The zombies. They brought a few in strapped to gurneys, flown in on that helicopter of theirs.”
“Helicopter?” I said.
“Over by their little landing strip,” Jason said, pointing to nowhere in particular. “We thought for sure a new plague hit. That all these infected people were going to be quarantined in our hills. Our hills. That wasn’t going to work. Our father, he’d never have stood for it. The American military just moving in with diseased people, destroying our home.”
I put a hand on my stomach. Wasn’t sure I was going to like the rest of the story.
“What did you do? What did you and your brother do?” Spade said.
“We did nothing. We watched them. We watched the sick they brought in. Had them in collars and kept them tied to posts like dogs. Jeremy said they looked like zombies,” he said.
“I did. I knew it,” Jeremy said.
“He knew it alright. Then, a few days ago, some of those . . . zombies were outside the fence. Don’t think they were the same ones the military delivered to the camp,” Jason said.
“I was sure it was Mr. Robinson, guy who ran the little grocery store along the main road,” Jeremy said. “And then there was Loretta Breeze, she was in her night gown and just growling and moaning and wandering around aimlessly.”
“Military shot them. Put bullets into their heads. Just, killed them. You don’t shoot sick people,” Jason said.
“And again, I said, they’re zombies. Like in the movies.”
“More came out of the woods. Started sniffing their way around here. We were left with no choice. We had to shoot them. If the military was that out of sorts to the point they were shooting ‘em, it only made sense we should shoot them, too.”
“It’s the military, or I guess, the government’s fault. They brought those things up here,” Jeremy said, as he used a knife to slice open a biscuit. “So all we did was cut a hole in their fence. Gave some of the local dead a chance to enter the compound. That’s all. Served them right. That’s how we see it.”
Spade shook his head. “That’s how you see it?”
“You see it differently, soldier?” Jason tipped his head to one side. It was confrontational.
“That camp was a mobile research facility. They were going to be studying the creatures, trying to find a cure. They were looking for a way to fix the mess,” Spade said.
“A mess they caused,” Jason said.
“Dammit, you had no right. Do you know how many people were in there? How many you killed?”
“We didn’t kill a single one of them.”
“No, but you wanted them gone. Away from your precious land.”
“That so wrong? We built this land. This has been with our family for generations, soldier. Generations. It is ours. My brothers and mine. Military has no right infecting the area with their mistakes. None!” Jason slammed a first on the table. Silverware rattled.