El Barquero stared into the panic-stricken eyes of the young man as he knelt and carefully placed his heavy rifle on the rugged ground. Slowly he reached behind his back for the two curved metal blades in the waistband of his black trousers. They flickered in the strobe effect of the half-light and lightning. He would go to work on the bodies. He would start with the man who was still alive.
“Protégeme Jesus,” Ernesto whispered as he stared into the menacing eyes of the hulking man hovering over him. Somewhere, deep in the desert, something howled.
More than five hundred miles to the east, the roadside traffic board warned of ZOMBIES AHEAD. Funny how some things in Austin never change, Kip thought as he drove past the traffic board that had been broken into and altered by teenage pranksters. Then again, some things do. He hardly recognized the skyline of the city in which he’d grown up. Glass and stone buildings sprouted up like weeds in an unattended garden.
Kip hadn’t been back to Austin since his mother’s funeral, over ten years ago. Now, his father, Bennett, a retired doctor, had been diagnosed with cancer. Smoking a pipe for half a century has a nasty way of catching up with a person.
He planned on staying a few weeks but didn’t really know. Free time was a luxury he now enjoyed. Since graduating from college, he’d worked on Wall Street for one of the numerous firms that specialized in trading bonds backed by sub-prime mortgages. One by one, as the global credit crises exploded, they closed their doors. When his firm went out of business, it seemed to happen overnight. Turn in your security badge and get the hell out. He never even bothered cleaning out his desk. It had nothing worth keeping. He was overdue catching up with his father, and this time off would give him the chance. Besides, he knew he could help around the house. Avery and Aunt Polly helped Bennett as much as they could. Well, at least Aunt Polly did.
After exiting the highway and driving another ten minutes past stores and buildings he thought he might or might not exactly remember, he pulled his rental car to a stop in front of the house in which he’d grown up.
The aging white house showed signs of neglect, yet still maintained a certain grace. Like a portrait of an elegant, elderly lady wearing her tattered wedding dress, she looked disheveled but defiantly proud. The two-story home was built in the Greek Revival style of architecture. Six stately white columns badly in need of a fresh coat of paint framed the two levels of deep verandas in front. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined both levels of the house. Neighbors snickered that it was nothing more than a cheap imitation of the Texas governor’s mansion. A great white elephant surrounded by oak trees that hardly fit in with the modest homes along the rest of the street.
Navigating the cracked and sinking walkway to the front steps required an interrupted stride to avoid tripping. Kip hopped the last few feet of concrete, landing on the worn wooden front steps with a dull thud. A pile of New York Times, unopened and still in their blue plastic delivery bags, lay scattered to the left of the door.
The front door was open, abandoning the ripped screen door to a brave but futile battle to defend the home from fruit flies and the occasional dirt dauber wasp, whose dried mud nests lined the upper corners of the front porch.
“Hello?” Kip called out as he stepped into the entryway. There was no reply but the dull buzzing and tapping of a fly trying to escape the room via a closed window.
As worn as the outside of the house appeared, the interior was still magnificent. The antique furniture remained in the exact locations he remembered and was perfectly maintained.
Kip slowly climbed the curving staircase that dominated the main foyer. Reaching the second floor, he walked quietly down the main hallway toward his father’s room.
Bennett woke from his nap as Kip opened the door. At the man’s feet, a small white French bulldog opened a disapproving eye, cocked his blocky head, and snorted.
“Move, Max,” Bennett said.
The little dog sprang to his feet, shook his collar, hopped off the bed, and trotted out of the room, pausing briefly to sniff the leg of the stranger who had so rudely interrupted his afternoon slumber.
As the sound of the dog bumping and banging down the stairs faded, the old man pushed himself up on his side and then slid back, propping himself upright on his pillow. His closely cropped white hair and beard framed his weathered face and slate-grey eyes.
“Make yourself useful and see if my pipe is by the chair,” Bennett growled with as much compassion as a black bear woken early from hibernation.
“That a good idea?”
“Best one I’ve had all day.”
“You’re a doctor. You should know better.”
“I was an obstetrician. I know how to bring ’em in the world. After that, it’s up to some other schmuck to sermonize them regarding the finer points of a healthy lifestyle regimen.”
Kip walked toward his father’s chair. The leather was cracked and peeling. The matching ottoman was in even worse shape. The once dark mahogany leather was now nearly white with age. A yarn afghan woven to replicate the Texas state flag lay draped across one arm of the chair. A dog-eared copy of National Geographic rested on the other. Kip glanced around the chair and the small lamp table next to it. He didn’t see the pipe.
“Sure it’s here?” Kip asked.
“Look under the blanket.”
Kip lifted the afghan, revealing a corncob pipe and tobacco pouch resting in a glass ashtray. The ashtray was etched with an image of Galveston’s Strand District.
“Why keep it covered?” asked Kip.
“So Avery doesn’t find it and use it in one of his experiments.”
“Experiments?” Kip asked as he handed the ashtray and its contents to Bennett.
“Experiments, projects, research. Hell, whatever it is he does day and night in his room.”
“So, how you feeling, old-timer?” Kip asked, settling into Bennett’s chair.
“Well, I’ve been better.”
“You following the doc’s orders?”
“I’m following my orders.”
“Any chance you might want a second opinion?” Kip inquired.
“Look, son,” Bennett said as he filled his pipe from the pouch. “I was in the room the day half the doctors in this town were born. Most are young, cocky punks with the bedside manner of a hyena. You want to know the grand history of medicine? It goes like this. A thousand years ago, if you were sick, they told you to eat this ground-up root. Pretty soon they decided the root didn’t work, so just take this potion instead. After a while, they decided the potion didn’t work, so just take this pill. Now they say the pills don’t work because the disease has developed a resistance to the drug. Now you need a holistic cure. So what you do is just eat this ground-up root. The reality is we don’t know much more about how to keep people alive than we ever did. I’m sick and I’m an old man. Some day I’m going to pass and be with your mother again. I’m not changing my ways now. I know what I need to do, and I’m doing it. If all you plan on doing is nagging at me too, you can get right back on that plane and…”
“Good to see you, too,” Kip interrupted.
Bennett smiled warmly at his son and said, “Aunt Polly has your old room fixed up for you. Go on and move your stuff in. Oh, and be sure to say hello to Avery. Otherwise, he might think you’re some kind of spy.”