The apartment fell silent as everyone stared at Buckley. Even the trumpet playing had stopped.
In a quiet voice, just loud enough for the others to hear, Buckley repeated the words he only wished were true. "I am not Icka Bicka Soda Crackered."
Little Rashad ran into the room carrying the glass jar. Smoke rose from the open top. A gray sludge coated the bottom. Unlike the others in the room, his smile was broad and wide.
"I got it, Mr. Adamski. I killed your Maggie. I figured it all out for you."
God was fucking with him. That’s what it was. This was one great game of let’s fuck with Buckley. He rolled his eyes and hung his head.
"Aren't you happy, Mr. Adamski? I found the secret. Aren't you happy?"
"Sure kid." He closed his eyes as Samuel cocked the shotgun. "I'm fucking thrilled."
CHAPTER 14
Buckley sat on Bennie’s shower-curtain-encased body, back against the door, hands on his knees, bound with packing twine. A semi-circle of salt had been poured around him blocking him off from the rest of the house. When they’d come for him, he'd gone down without a fight. He shouldn't have deceived them like he had. He'd put them all in danger.
"Reversal of fortune. Ain't that a bitch." MacHenry sat on a foot stool, smoking a cigar, pointing the shotgun at Buckley. He laughed softly, then took a long toke of the Havana.
"Bound to happen sooner or later," Buckley shrugged.
"I suppose."
"What happened to flame on?"
MacHenry flipped open his silver Zippo lighter and stared into the flame for a moment. When it got too hot for him to hold, he turned it off and rubbed the metal against his leg to dissipate the heat. "Flame on won't work anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"Would you believe I fell in love?"
"What'd you do that for?"
"I don't know."
"Your timing’s pretty pathetic."
"Isn’t it though? Who would have thought I would have found someone like Gert at the end of the world?"
"She was there all along, you know."
MacHenry’s eyes brightened. "That’s what she said. Said, I wouldn’t have given her the time of day, else-wise."
"She’s probably right."
"I suppose."
"It’s the choices we make."
Buckley groaned audibly as a maggie popped free under his pants leg. The way he was hogtied, he couldn't get up. So like an upended crab, he shook his legs, until finally it slid free. When it hit the floor, he toed the nasty little beast into the salt where it smoked to nothingness. MacHenry watched it play out non-plussed, then spoke as if nothing had happened. "I wanted to be a lawyer, but I drank my way out of school. Became a car salesman. Same thing in a way."
"I wanted to be a soldier."
"So why didn’t you?"
"They didn’t like my heart. Said it murmured."
"Murmured." MacHenry giggled. "Like it had something to say."
Gert stuck her head out the kitchen door. "Dinner will be ready in a moment, hon. We’re having Vienna Sausages, peas and peaches in heavy syrup."
"Oh Yum." MacHenry licked his lips in mock sincerity.
"No, it’s good. You’ll see." She turned to Buckley for the first time, her face struggling to hold an emotion. She whispered. "Anything special for you, Mr. Adamski?"
"Extra salt, please."
Gert grinned sadly. "Coming right up. Especially on the peaches."
Buckley mimicked MacHenry’s earlier expression. "Double yum."
Both men stared at each other as Gert returned to the kitchen. Suddenly Sissy's laughter brightened the world, she said something, and both women laughed. The only other sound in the apartment was Grandma snoring in the corner of the room. MacHenry leaned closer to Buckley. He laid the shotgun across his knees, the barrels pointed down the hall. "Where were you when it all started?"
Scenes of violence and devastation explode from the floor model console television. Atop the television is a gold alarm clock. Behind the television is a plain, white wall. An old woman lies on the couch. Buckley sits in a chair beside her, holding her hand. He looks up and watches as words flash on the television screen — INVASION OR INFECTION.
"With my mother. She’d been sick for a long time."
"Did she die easy?"
Buckley’s mother reaches out to kiss him with the mouth that had kissed him every morning for school for eighteen years. She purses lips that had taught him the words of love, as he grew up fatherless and angry on the streets of Wilmington. She leans forward, her eyes wild with death as maggies erupt from her skin and cascade to the carpet around her like rice at a zombie wedding. Buckley struggles, screams in panic, then pushes his only mother to the ground. He barely hesitates as he shoots her in the head. Blam. Blam. Blam.
"No. She died hard."
CHAPTER 15
"Dinner’s ready."
Gert brought a plate of food which she placed on the floor at MacHenry’s feet. She handed him a fork. When he took it, they exchanged a brief but warm smile, then she spun on her heel and headed back into the kitchen. A towel hanging over her shoulder and her hair up in a scrunch seemed perfect casting for middle-aged housewife. No one would ever have known that she'd plied her trade on the corner of Main and Sixth. And no one needed to know. She'd remade herself. The world where she'd been a whore no longer existed. For all intents and purposes she was a middle-aged housewife. At least, if given the chance, it seemed the most practical conclusion to the relationship she had with MacHenry. She returned with a glass of water and a Ziploc bag filled with salt. She laid these beside the plate, offered Buckley a sad soulful smile, then once again left the room.
MacHenry pulled out a pocket knife and snapped it open. He moved the blade to the twine securing Buckley's hands. "On your honor?"
Buckley nodded, then added "I ain’t going nowhere."
Once he sliced through a few strands of the twine, MacHenry stood and waited for Buckley to untie the rest. When he finished, Buckley glanced up, rubbing the patterns dug into his wrists.
"We'd appreciate it if you didn't move out of the circle."
Buckley nodded. "Don't worry; I'll stay here with the dead."
"Sounds pitiful."
"Didn't mean it that way. Or maybe I did. I don't know. But don't worry about me. I'm not gonna put you folks in any more danger."
"On your honor?"
"On my honor."
MacHenry nodded to himself as if he'd satisfied some interior concern, then turned and shambled into the kitchen. As he passed Gert setting food on the large table, he let his hand drift across her ass, then linger on her hip. He leaned over, whispered something in her ear that made her blush and giggle, then took a seat. He cast one look back at Buckley, then began to heap his plate with the canned cuisine.
Buckley grasped the fork and his plate. He pushed the peaches around, but the heavy syrup stuck to them like motor oil. The Vienna sausages looked like baby's fingers. And the peas, well, he'd never liked peas. He should be hungry. A part of him understood that he needed energy, but he couldn't bring himself to be hungry. Perhaps the prospect of death was too much for him.
Finally he picked up the bag full of salt. With the plate balanced in his knees, he began to sprinkle the salt atop the food. A crazy thought pinged in his brain. If he ate enough salt, he could kill the maggies in his body. The sprinkle turned to a thin pour, then finally an avalanche as he let the entire contents of the bag cover his food. He tossed the empty bag aside and stared at the white-capped plate.