“Mom, we have no idea where they went and they have at least a fifteen minute head start,” Nicole began pleading. Her mother might be stressed out to the max but Nicole was to put it bluntly, scared shitless.
At 4’11” and maybe 90 pounds after a Thanksgiving dinner, Nicole’s biggest defense had been a Marine dad that some thought might be unstable. Nicole had tortured many a potential threat with the words, ‘My dad knows where you live.’ For some reason Mike could not fathom, all of Nicole’s friends and potential enemies were deathly afraid of him and he had not so much as said boo to any of them. This had all been a device of Nicole. She had made sure that everyone knew of a particular incident in Canada involving her father, several Mounties and a politician. Nicole couldn’t have been any safer if everyone thought her father was Tony Soprano. When her brothers had gotten older they became a second layer of defense, and to top that off was Brendon. If all else failed she had a mouth that belied her diminutive size. To hear her scream one would think they were being besieged by a platoon of howler monkeys. Her dad, who had multiple drill instructors scream at him and shrug it off, shied away from his daughter when her ever-widening pie hole began to vibrate. But shorn of her bodyguards and with an impotent voice, zombies wouldn’t care about screams. It would be more like the sound of a dinner bell to them. She would become what she truly was, Daddy’s little princess. Strip away the abrasiveness of her attitude and there was just a scared young woman.
“I could use some cigarettes too,” her mother announced.
“Let’s go,” Nicole agreed immediately. Addiction is a powerful motivator. Screw the zombies.
Henry looked up from his chair, watching the two women leave. He realized nobody was home and hoped that somebody would be home soon to put out his second breakfast. Tracy and Nicole walked out to the garage. It was when they entered that Nicole noticed the obvious. (Yes, you guessed it, Princess Obvious.)
“You’re going to take Dad’s car?” she asked tremulously.
“Well he did trash my car,” Tracy answered, but not with much verve.
A few months back, Mike and Tracy had been at the grocery store picking out some Starbucks coffee. Mike was in heaven smelling the wonderful aromas of the different beans and spices.
‘You know,’ He began. ‘If God told me I had to give up either beer or coffee, I honestly don’t know what I’d do.’
Tracy had thought the dilemma was easily solved. ‘Beer.’
Mike looked at her. ‘All right then, God says coffee or cigarettes.’
Tracy now saw the point.
After they had filled up the backseat of Mike’s Jeep and were heading out of the parking lot, Tracy had asked him, if God said this Jeep or me, how hard of a decision would that be for you.
Mike’s answer came swiftly. ‘Oh Hon, that wouldn’t be hard.’ But he hadn’t elaborated and she more than half believed his non-verbalized implication.
“Any better ideas?” Tracy asked.
“Well, we do need cigarettes,” Nicole smiled sickly. More than once in her rebellious youth she had wanted to ‘borrow’ her father’s Jeep when she had snuck out of the house, but she was unruly, not insane. The Jeep had stayed safely tucked away in the garage.
Nicole cautiously climbed up into the passenger seat, half expecting some form of theft deterrent to activate. No matter how much she adjusted the seat and her posture she could not get comfortable; guilt was a difficult suit to wear. Her mother didn’t seem to be wearing it any better than her. The Jeep started loudly in the confined space. If not for the seat belts strapped across their laps, they both might have jumped out. Tracy slowly placed the car in reverse.
“Um, Mom, you might want to open the garage door.”
“Oh yeah, right,” Tracy smiled weakly.
This expedition was getting off to a memorable start, cigarettes or no. Nicole wasn’t sure about the wisdom of this crusade. The door rumbled open, Tracy jerkily popped the clutch, stalling the Jeep. “Oops,”she commented.
“Great,” Nicole muttered under her breath. The next three attempts at reverse didn’t go much better. Then there was first gear to contend with.
Tracy rolled up to the main gate, hopeful they would open it before she lost momentum and had to mess with first gear again.
Igor waved them to a halt.
“Dammit,” Tracy and Nicole muttered at the same time and both for the same reason. Nicole had nearly got her nose broken on the dashboard as the Jeep bucked like a pissed off bronco.
“Vat’s a matter vit you Talbots? You not like it here?” Igor asked.
“Igor, do you know where the boys went?” Tracy asked concernedly.
“They say to help their Da but I could tell they was full of it,” he answered helpfully.
She wanted to yell at him for letting them go, but his job was who to let in, not out.
“They be all right, Missus Talbot, they were armed for bear,” he finished when he saw the look of apprehension on her face. “You two should stay here and wait for them to return. It’s too dangerous to go out there.”
“Did you give the boys the same speech?!” Tracy lashed back.
Igor stepped back and motioned for the bus to move. He’d learned a lot of things since he had moved to the States. Women were not subservient like in Russia, and it was best not to stir a hornet’s nest with a short stick. “Have a nice day.” And he walked back towards the bus to get some heat.
Tracy stalled the Jeep twice more at the mouth of the gate. The bus driver seemed on the verge of panic. He was gesturing wildly for Tracy to get out of the entrance way.
“What the hell is he so worried about?” Tracy asked hotly, driving, or actually stalling Mike’s Jeep was getting her flustered. “There isn’t a zombie for miles!” She was wrong, very, very wrong, but they were definitely out of the line of sight. “Keep your damn shorts on!” Tracy yelled as she successfully ground through first and out of the way of the bus. “God, Mike always makes it look so easy.”
“Mom, are you sure we should be out here?” Nicole couldn’t put her finger on it but something didn’t seem right. Her foreboding grew as Little Turtle diminished in the rearview mirror.
Tracy was too busy concentrating on shifting gears to notice anything. It was possible her difficulties with the clutch were stemming more from her subconscious than her foot to pedal interaction. “Huh, got it!” Tracy said triumphantly as she pulled away from the intersection of Havana and Evans with nary a rattle. Now, as she surveyed her surroundings in earnest she had to agree with Nicole. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. She had endangered her daughter and herself and for what, she hadn’t a clue which way her boys had gone. Driving around without a purpose was tantamount to suicide. Sure, they were armed, but neither one of them had shot more than a half dozen bullets and none of those rounds had impacted with the desired targets.
Tracy felt exhausted from the stress of this brave new world, her husband gallivanting all over the place and now her boys were God knows where.
Tracy’s head slumped over the steering wheel as she looked over at her daughter. “Nicole, I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going. Mike will kill us if he finds out about this and not only because we took his Jeep.”
Nicole had never seen her mom so defeated. She had to think of something fast or her mother might just shutdown completely. Nicole had lost her license to drive last year. Not that any patrolman would be stopping to check, but the fact remained that she could barely control an automatic transmission. A clutch was out of the question. The sense of foreboding that she was feeling had not diminished in the least. She had no wish to walk back to the complex.