The caddies had come to Wilmington. It hadn’t been enough that the people were dead. The creatures wanted the city too. Goddamned maggies wouldn’t stop until all evidence of humanity was erased from the planet. If there was one thing that was for sure, it was time to postpone the democratic process.
'Enough! I messed up. I'm human. But if you want to keep this up, you’ll have to wait. Right now, we got ourselves a problem. Soon. Very fucking soon, this city is gonna come down around our ears. Whoever is controlling these things has sent in the big guns and ten to one they ain't tourists.” Realizing he’d been shouting, he lowered his voice to normal. “I don’t know how much longer we can stay here. For all I know, this place is next. So, if it’s okay with the rest of you perfect individuals, we need to make ourselves a plan.'
He looked from one to the other. They’d had their say and felt better for it. Now, it was back to the business of survival. Two faces were still missing, however.
'Where's MacHenry and Gert?' Sissy asked.
Blank stares all around.
'Fine,' he sighed. 'Samuel, you and Sissy go and inventory the salt. Bennie, you do the same with the ammunition. Little Rashad, can you grab all the empty bottles, buckets and jars and place them on the table in the kitchen? I have an idea about making us some special North Carolina Cocktails.'
He turned to go.
'What about me?”
'Grandma, your eyes must be hurting. Why don't you take a few hits on the pipe and watch the door.”
'Don't you condescend to Grandma Riggs, boy. I marched with Martin Luther King. I fought the KKK. I’ve seen and done things that would scare even your badass self, King Kong garbage man. You can treat me like I’m old, but don’t make me out as crazy.” She sighed and stared at the bulge in her robe that hid forty ten-dollar bags, each holding a single rock that had been destined for resale on the street before the world came to an end. “Just the same, you're right. My eyes are hurting something fierce. I'll just do me a rock and watch for them maggies. It don't matter if I can't see, I can smell them. I can smell them real good.'
Buckley stared at her a moment with a furrowed brow, then went down the hall to wake up the love birds.
CHAPTER 7
He knocked once, then opened the door to the master bedroom where MacHenry lay naked on the spread, his white flaccid body a perfect color match to the cheap sheets. The used car salesman was propped up against the headboard, smoking a cigar. Gert sat cross-legged beside him with the covers drawn around her in a diaphanous swirl, dismay creasing her worn face.
'What's up with him?' Buckley asked.
'He says he's gonna kill himself.'
'What's she talking about, MacHenry?'
MacHenry smiled as he took another great puff from his cigar and launched three perfect smoke rings into the air. He sipped from a brandy snifter, paused and puffed again.
'Listen, I don't know what's going on here and, at this point, I don't really care,” Buckley said. “Get your clothes on. We're gonna have a meeting in the living room, most ricky-tick.' He turned to go.
MacHenry’s response stopped him. 'Nope.'
Buckley spun around. 'What'd you say?'
'I said nope. I thought I said it pretty clear.'
Buckley's first instinct was to launch himself across the room at the smart-ass car salesmen, beat him within an inch of his life, then drag his naked ass down the hall and into the living room, but he forced himself to remain calm and invoked the old yarn about the carrot and the stick. Still, he gritted his teeth when he said, 'Come on, MacHenry. We need you out there. The caddies are coming and no telling how much time we got left.'
MacHenry shook his head and blew another smoke ring. 'I told you, I ain't coming. At least not until I finish my cigar. Hell. This here is a Robusto. You ever smoked a Robusto, Adamski? This baby's leaves were rolled on the honey-brown legs of a Cuban Senorita.” He sniffed the length of the cigar. “I can almost smell her sweat. I can almost taste her. A man can't hurry a cigar like this. A cigar like this is meant to be savored. Anything else would be disrespectful.'
'Listen, Lord MacHenry. I don't know where you think you are, but this ain't Cuba. Hell, as far as we know, Cuba is gone.'
'One more reason to take my time. This may just be the last Robusto in existence.'
Buckley eyed Gert, pleading for some assistance, but she merely shook her head. Her expression held little hope that Buckley would succeed.
'He's been like this for hours. Rambling on about this and that. He says he wants to die. But not like Lashawna or Sally or any of the others. He wants to do it in style.'
'Listen MacHenry.' Buckley caught himself and removed the edge to his voice. One of the complaints from the others was that he wasn't taking time to listen to their wants and needs. He was always ordering people around without a care or concern for their emotional well-being. They’d called him a micro-manager. They’d used the term type-A personality. Bennie, the drug dealer, had actually called him a fascist. Fine. If they wanted him to listen, then by the God of All Impatience, he'd fucking listen.
He began again, but softer this time. 'Listen, MacHenry. As far as we know, this is the end of the world. We really need to pull together. We need you to help us.'
'So what if it's the end of the world? Who the fuck cares? It was bound to happen sooner or later and seeming how it's sooner,
'Remember Elliot? He said
'What crack have you been smoking, Buckley?' MacHenry rolled his eyes towards Gert. 'Of all the joints in all the world, I had to hole up with the only garbage man with a PHD in uselessness. Poetry.'
'Those are some wise words.'
'Fuck that!' MacHenry sneered.
'What?'
'I said Bang!'
'You don't know what-'
“B — A — N — G.”
“But-'
'Shut up. I ain't done. You wanted me to talk, so now I'm talking, so listen and listen good and none of your poetry shit. I, Travis James MacHenry, am gonna go out with a bang. In fact, as soon as I finish the better part of this cigar and this rather lazy cognac, I'm gonna get dressed, comb my hair, walk in the kitchen, pour fucking turpentine over my head, open the door and use the last of my Robusto to Flame On.”
He puffed on his cigar and eyed Buckley. “You ever read that Fantastic Four comic book when you was a kid, Adamski? You know with Johnny Storm, The Invisible Woman, The Thing, Ben Grimm, and that rubber band man, Reed Richards?'
Buckley glanced over at the nightstand and saw that the bottle of Hennessy was half empty. Yes, he’d read the comic when he was young. He liked Ben Grimm the best. The rest of the super heroes were just too white and too suburban. He nodded. “Yeah, I read them when I was a kid.”
'See Gert? See? I told you our Minister of Sanitation Defense, his right royal honorable highness General Buckley Adamski hisself was well read. So you know Johnny Storm then. You understand how them writers seemed to make him out as some selfish, bastard teenager like he was some kind of social retard, just an angry young man who was so lost in life that he couldn't find his way out of a paper bag with a knife. Sure he was the youngest of the four, but they made it seem as if it was his youth that made him hardly in control, always going off.' MacHenry puffed at his cigar and waved his hand expansively. 'I got my own ideas, though. He was a metaphor, see. He wasn't only Johnny Storm. Hell, he was James Dean. He was Marylyn Monroe. He was a freaking pro wrestler
