was still muttering angrily when I rejoined the rest of the caravan.
“What do you think Mike?” Brendon asked.
“Most people don’t have the nerve to ask that question Brendon. At least not open ended like that.”
“You really are nuts aren’t you?” He smiled
I left the question dangling. There really isn’t a way to answer it legitimately anyway. See Catch-22.
“Well Carol’s is still our ultimate goal, for now. But we’re going to need more antibiotics and more pain killers, which means another effen stop.”
He rolled his eyes.
“My sentiments exactly. I want to pack up the pick-up truck that isn’t all bloody because we’re taking it and then I want to completely disable the other. I don’t think Redneck Number One and Mullet Man are going to come back and claim it but I see no reason to tempt the fates. And most of all, I want to get the hell out of here.”
“What do you think about BT’s chances?”
“Well a normal person would probably be dead already so he’s got that going for him. Plus he’s too mean for heaven and hell doesn’t want the competition.” I didn’t get the expected laugh from my flippant remark. I guess he wanted an actual answer. Doesn’t he know I try to avoid those? “Fifty, fifty. I just don’t know how much damage he really has.” I left it at that.
“Mike one more thing.”
Those statements are never good. When someone waits until the very end of a conversation to bring something up, it’s usually because it has taken this long to build up the nerve to say it. “If you tell me my daughter is pregnant, I’m going to be pissed.”
“What?” His eyebrows knit together. “No wait? Huh? No, that’s not it. It’s Justin.”
“I know.”
“About the fever dreams, and Eliza?”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do about it?” He asked me.
“No clue.” I started to walk away.
“That’s it!” He yelled. “Seems to me that Justin has an open line with the enemy and you’re not going to do anything?” He said heatedly.
I stopped and turned. “Got any ideas? I’m all ears.” I meant what I said but my words were infused with malice. Brendon could feel the taint of vileness emanate from them but youth does not always heed to wisdom.
“Oh I think you know what needs to be done Mike! Aren’t you always the one that preaches the sacrifice of the one for the many?”
I didn’t hesitate one second from his words, though they struck me deep. “Take the other truck then.” I said. He physically stepped back, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting that. I had basically told him he was welcome to leave, without Nicole. I had painted him in to a corner for that I felt a measure of guilt. He was as close to family as you can be without actually being family, a fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless. I would choose family over others 100% of the time. It was as simple as that. By now we had drawn a crowd. This was starting to become commonplace. He shook with rage. If he came at me now I would have only one or two chances to take him down before his size, youth and speed overwhelmed me.
Travis breeched a round into his shotgun, Brendon turned towards him. Fear, hurt and betrayal spanned across his features in less than the span of a second. His shoulders drooped as he walked towards the bloody Ford. The passenger side tire was blown and Tracy had made sure when she scraped down the side of it, that it would never win ‘Best in Show’ but other than that, it was mechanically sound.
“We’ll wait until you get the tire changed.” I told him.
“Dad?” Nicole questioned. “What are you talking about?” I didn’t answer her. “Brendon, what are you doing?”
He didn’t answer her as he reached into the cab and got the jack and tire iron. She started tugging on his arm as he began to break the lug nuts on the tire.
“Brendon, you can’t leave us, me!” She cried. “Dad fix this.”
“He’s a big boy.” I said with an ice-cold edge.
“Talbot!” Tracy chimed in.
“What!” I yelled right back. I hadn’t even got to the ‘h’ in ‘What’ when I knew that was the wrong answer.
She didn’t even have to say ‘Really?’ Her arched eyebrow let me know how screwed I was.
Already down for a nickel, might as well increase the Talbot national debt. “You know what Tracy, if he wants to stay with us fine! But I’m not going over there and begging him to come. He doesn’t like the way things are shaking out right now. Why don’t you go see what his plans are. I’m sure you’ll be just as thrilled as I was. I’m going to pack the truck.” And with that I walked away.
Tracy now knew the root of the problem as she looked over to Justin, still sitting in the minivan. She shuddered as she saw the ghost of a smile play across his features. I had taken my time moving our stuff from the minivan to the truck in the hope that cooler heads would prevail, mainly Brendon’s. But for as slow as I was moving, Brendon was moving that fast, maybe he didn’t want to think about what he was doing because he’d realize just how fucking stupid he was being, dumb ass. I almost went over to him to start round 2, but I didn’t want to burden Travis with the guilt of having to shoot him.
Brendon kissed Nicole, and then gently pushed her trembling body away from his as he stepped into the cab of the truck.
“No Brendon!” She wept. “You can’t leave me!”
My heart was breaking for my daughter.
“I’m sorry.” I heard him yell through the closed windows.
I thought Nicole might try to get in the cab and go with him. I would have physically restrained her if it got to that point. I was thankful it didn’t. She stood stock-still and sobbed as Brendon started the truck, did an illegal u- turn and drove off. That was it, he left. We watched for a minute until he was a dot on the horizon. Tracy actually slid an arm across my waist and wept silently on my shoulder.
I put Nicole in the truck with me. She didn’t react at all as I put her seat belt on. Her head slumped against the cool glass.
“Jen you up for driving?” I asked her. Of us all she looked the most prepared. The Talbots as a whole had just suffered a crushing loss. This wasn’t the movies. We weren’t going to be all joking around in the next scene, one of our own was gone. Whether literally or figuratively didn’t really matter. We weren’t ever going to see him again. If he somehow survived on his own, which was doubtful, he would never know how to find us again. I was going to turn around and get him. I had made up my mind. BT changed it back.
His screams pierced the day. I ran over to him, shook out a couple of oxy’s and handed them to him. He swallowed them without water, the tears that leaked from his eyes causing enough lubricant to get the large pills down. Within minutes he had passed out again, not from the pills but from the pain.
“Let’s go, we’ve got to find a pharmacy.” There was no more milling about. We had a mission to complete now. We would have enough time later to mourn.
Tommy was nearly as catatonic as Nicole. He had really ratcheted up the empathy button. Tommy had a serious crush on Nicole. Everyone knew it, though somehow Tommy didn’t know we knew. That was the funny part about it. He would get so flustered around her that he would call her everything but her real name, and Brendon was ALWAYS, ‘that other guy’ or ‘him’. So of all of us, the big kid had the most to, ‘in theory’, gain. Though not in a millennium would he have ever conspired for this sort of outcome. He had taken on Nicole’s pain, not to ease, but to share.
CHAPTER 21 
I don’t want to gloss over it. It was what it was though. We smashed into a pristine Rite Aid. We startled the zombiefied pharmacist and two techs even more than ourselves. We dispatched of them in the most humane way possible. It was a quick, precise, antiseptic kill. They were of the slow variety and maybe even a little slower since they probably hadn’t fed in weeks. That would be something to file and look back on later. I’ve always considered myself a glass half full type of guy but the fact that this store was relatively untouched disturbed me. Don’t get me
