Apocalypsis: Book 1 (Kahayatle) (16 page)

“Yes, I liked the fleg, but I can see how it might be a problem.”

Peter giggled some more, but went over to the trailer to get the tools.
 
“What do we need?” he asked me.

I went over to take a look, bending down to see what type of screw or nut was holding the flag in place.
 
That was when I felt Bodo’s hand grab the back of my neck.

In two seconds flat, I had spun around, grabbed Bodo’s hand, wrenched it from my neck and pulled him off the bike.
 

The bike clattered to the ground and Bodo went tumbling after it, his hand now bent at an extreme angle and in danger of being snapped by me as I stood over him, legs spread apart, ready to smash his face in with my foot at any second.
 
I was pissed, but he just laughed.

“Dat was
amaszing!
 
Did you see dat, Peter?
 
She
iss
a lethal weapon.
 
It wass like a movie or somesing.”
 
Then he got a frown on his face.
 
“Actually, dat kind of hurts right now.”

I was sweating and my heart was pounding a thousand beats a minute.
 
“What the hell was that all about?” I demanded.

“Nothing.
 
I was chust testing your reflexes.
 
Dey’re pretty good, by da way.”

I shook my head and looked over at Peter.
 
“Did you see what he did?”

“No, but I saw what you did.
 
Impressive.”
 
He was nodding his head in appreciation.

“He grabbed me by the back of the neck!”
 
I was still pissed.
 
I couldn’t tell if the guy was just messing with me or if he’d really tried to do something and now was trying to play it off.

“Can I haff my hand back, please?
 
I don’t think it’s going to bend any more dan dat before it breaks.”

I slowly let him go, watching him warily as he stood, shaking his hand a little and massaging it with the other.

He was smiling his stupid head off.
 
“I love dis.
 
You are halff my size and probably no more dan fifty-fife kilos … but den you take me down like Triple H in da ring.
 
You are one hell of a woman, you know dat?
 
I loff American girls.”

Peter came walking up and put his arm around me.
 
“Yeah, Bryn is one hell of an American girl, I can agree with you there.”

I nudged him in the ribs and he flinched, but he didn’t let me go and he didn’t shut up.

“But she’s not tough all the time.
 
Inside she’s like a … marshmallow.
 
All soft and sweet.”

“Oh, really?
 
Iss dat so?” said Bodo, smiling conspiratorially with Peter.
 
“What doess your boyfriend think about you spending all dis time with Peter, eh?”
 
He pointed to the ring on the necklace around my neck.

I wiggled out of Peter’s grasp and moved away.
 
“You guys are a couple of idiots, you know that?
 
And I don’t have a boyfriend.
 
The ring was my dad’s.”
 
I bent down by the bike and turned to look up at Bodo.
 
“Touch me again and I’ll break your wrist next time.
 
Or kick you in the nuts so hard, you won’t feel them for a month.
 
Now hand me the adjustable wrench.”

Bodo’s eyes widened and he slowly reached down to cup his sensitive parts, speaking to Peter but looking at me.
 
“Wow.
 
She doesn’t mess around.”

“No.
 
She doesn’t,” agreed Peter, handing me the wrench.
 
“Just try to stay on her good side, would you?
 
She can get cranky sometimes.”

I worked at getting the small nut off that was holding the flag in place.
 
“If you guys don’t stop talking about me, I’m going to leave you both behind and go to the Everglades by myself.
 
With Buster.”

“Oh, we’re going to da Everglades?” asked Bodo.
 
“Did choo know dare are alligators dare?
 
And lots of snakes?”

“Yeah,” said Peter wryly.
 
“We’re aware.”

“Okay, well if dat’s not a problem for you, den it’s not a problem for me.”

I couldn’t help but giggle at that, my anger over his need to test my skills evaporating.
 
I wondered if I went to Germany and learned some German whether I would say one stupid phrase over and over like that.
 
I’d have to get Bodo to teach me one so I could use it and make him crazy with it.

I finally got the nut off and wiggled the flag off the back wheel.
 
“Done.”
 
I threw it over to the edge of the highway.

“Can’t we keep it?” asked Bodo.

“Why would we do that?”

He shrugged.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I chust kind of like it.”

“Well if you want to figure out how to hide it in the trailer so no one can see it, I don’t care.”

“Good!” he said, jogging over to pick it up.
 
He came back and rummaged around in the trailer to bend it around the inside walls, and managed to get it in there without too much trouble.
 
“Dare.
 
You see?
 
Not a problem.”

I went to climb on my bike, and Bodo came up next to me, making me instantly wary.
 

“You want to trade bikes with me?
 
I swear, it’s not because of your butt.”

I rolled my eyes.
 
“Yes.
 
I’ll trade bikes with you.
 
Just wait a minute.”

I went to the trailer and reached down for Buster.
 
“Come on, Buster, come ride with me.”
 
He hopped out and I took the Hello Kitty backpack to put it in the basket of the bike, lifting Buster up to sit on top of it.
 
He rested his chin on the edge, his eyebrows moving as he watched me only with his eyes.
 
It was pretty comical, how he just settled in so easily like that.
 
He was as goofy as the rest of us.

“Okay.
 
Now I’m ready.”

Bodo got up on my bike and Peter got on his, and we pedaled down the highway.
 
My butt felt a hundred times better.

***

“So, how far do we go today?” asked Bodo.
 
We’d been going for about an hour, making small talk along the way in places and sometimes just riding in quiet companionship.

“Our goal is fifty miles, but it’s not set in stone,” answered Peter.
 
“We want to get there as soon as we can.”

“But we want to avoid the canners.”

“Canners.
 
You use dis word for da cannibals?”

“It’s Peter’s word.”

“It means something else in English?”

“It could mean someone who puts things in cans, I guess,” said Peter.
 
“But obviously that’s not what I mean when I say it.”

“I was chust wondering.
 
I like it.
 
It sounds more normal den zombies.
 
Dey are not undead, after all.”

“As far as I’m concerned they are,” I said bitterly.
 
“They’re going to ruin our world … what’s left of it, anyway.
 
They’re ghouls.”

“Maybe someone will stop dem,” suggested Bodo.
 
“Like dee army or something.”

“There is no army left.”

“Yes, but dare is army eqvipment left.
 
And veapons … I mean,
weapons
.”

“With our luck it’ll be the canners that get to that stuff first.”
 
I shivered, considering the ramifications.
 
“I don’t even want to think about it, really.
 
Can we move on to other topics?”

“How about food?” suggested Bodo.
 
“My favorite American food besides da Pringkles is peanut butter.”

I laughed.
 
“You and every kid under the age of nine.”

“Really?
 
It’s a food for da little kids?”

“No.
 
I like peanut butter, too,” said Peter.
 
“It’s not just for kids.
 
But lots of people feed their kids peanut butter and jelly when they’re little, so we kind of get hooked on it.”

“In my country it was Nutella.
 
I used to have it on toast in da morning when I wass a little boy.”

“We have that here now, too.”

“I know.
 
But it’s old newss for me.
 
I prefer da peanut butter.
 
Dat is my dream now, to find a peanut butter factory where I can take a hundret jars of it.”

“We’ll keep our eyes open,” said Peter.
 

I looked over at him to catch him rolling his eyes.

“What food do you like da most, Bryn?”

“Hmmm, that’s a tough one.
 
I think … I miss Doritos most.”

“Oh, dat’s a good choice.
 
I like dem too.
 
Da ones dat make your fingers orangch.”

“Yeah, that’s my favorite flavor, too,” said Peter.
 
“But the food I miss the most is pizza.”

“Oh, yeah, pizza.
 
I forgot about that.
 
Put pizza on my list,” I said.
 
I shook my head to get it out of pizza land.
 
“We have to stop talking about this stuff.
 
I’m getting seriously hungry and it’s not time to stop and eat yet.”

“What I want to know is when you are going to teach us your moofs.
 
I need to get very tricky da way dat you are, so if someone tries to come in and take our stuff, I can show him who is da boss and break some of hiss bones maybe.”

“Maybe when we get to our new place, we can get lessons from Bryn,” said Peter.
 
“I wouldn’t mind that either.”

“We’ll be like dose Special Forccess guys, jah? … I mean, yes?”

I shook my head.
 
“I don’t know if I’ll be a very good teacher, but I will try.”

We kept riding along, but I noticed a change in the looks of the cars we were passing.
 
It was kind of spooky in a way.

“Do you guys notice anything different around here?”

“Yeah,” said Peter.
 

“No, not really,” said Bodo.

“What do you see, Peter?”

“Well, some of the glass on the cars is broken.
 
And look!
 
That car over there looks like it was burned.”

“Yeah.
 
The cars farther north were all normal.
 
I mean, they had doors and windows open, but none of this vandalism I’m seeing here.”

The sun was now fully up.
 
I looked at my watch.
 
“It’s almost ten o’clock.
 
Maybe we should stop now.”
 
I looked off the side of the highway and saw a group of short trees in the distance. “Are those orange trees?”
 

“Yes, dey are.”

“Are you thinking we should sleep there?” asked Peter.

“Yeah.
 
We can hide the bikes and ourselves pretty easily, and maybe there’ll be some fruit.

Bodo headed for the edge of the road and we followed him.
 

Buster woke up when I went over the bumpy grass.
 
I decided to get off and walk the bike.
 
I didn’t need some big thorn getting pushed into the tire with my heavy weight on it.
 
I had very little in the way of spare tubes and patch kits.

“Wait up, guys!” I called out.
 
“I need to walk the bike.”

Peter and Bodo got off and waited for me to catch up.
 
We crossed over a shallow canal and walked across a wide open field before reaching the orange grove ten minutes later, all of us sweating after battling patches of sand that the bikes liked to get bogged down in, especially Peter’s.
 
His bike had the thinnest tires of the three.

“So where to now?” asked Peter, looking around.

“I’d like go in deep enough that we can’t be seen from the road.
 
But not too deep.
 
I want to be able to sneak over and watch the highway without having to go too far.”

“Go four rows in,” suggested Peter.
 
“I’ll stay here and tell you if I can see you from outside the grove.”

“Okay.
 
Come on, Bodo.
 
Let’s go find a spot.”

“Okay.
 
You’re da boss.
 
Show me da way.”

I wheeled the bike in deeper, looking up at the trees as we went, hoping to see some fruit.
 
I saw a few up high in the trees, which meant I’d have to climb to reach any of them.
 
There were plenty of rotted ones on the ground, but they didn’t look edible.
 
The earth smelled wet and almost sour as our feet trod across it and stirred up the scents.

We stopped four rows in and waited for a few minutes.
 
Eventually Buster let out a small half-bark, letting us know that Peter was coming; he broke through the trees in front of us a few seconds later.
 

“This is perfect.
 
I couldn’t see you at all after the third row.”

We set up camp, using the tarp to cover our bikes and the trailer, and I dug out another one to sit on so we wouldn’t get wet on the damp ground.
 
We were under a tree that had the highest branches, hoping it would not only block us from sight but also shade us from the worst of the sun.