Fire Birds (13 page)

“Never mind,” she said. “If you’ll tell me where the berries are, I’ll go pick them.”

“How’s your back?”

“Stiff. Sore. I’m taking the pain killers, so I’m good.”

“You’ve been on your feet in front of the stove all day,” I said. “Why don’t you go rest a while?”

“I told you, I’m okay,” she said. Then she got a strange look on her face, took a step toward me and hunched so she could look out of the kitchen window that faced the road.

I turned just in time to see an airplane come in low over the field and the road, and then disappear over the house. We both ran for the back door and made it to the yard as the shadow of the thing slid over the back pasture.

“Wow,” Sara said. “Who do you think it is? Is it a drone?”

I didn’t answer. I watched it bank to the left and go behind a line of trees. I could see Christine in the distance looking at the sky. The plane’s shadow had gone right over her. Grant, however, was still shooting and hadn’t heard it come over.

“Do you think it’s the government? Do you think it is the military?”

“No,” I said. “It was small and red. I don’t think the government uses red planes.”

“Maybe they use what they can get,” she said.

“They can get anything.”

Christine was running toward us carrying the shotgun.

“Oh my God!” she was yelling. “Did you see it?!”

Grant paused his shooting to reload, and I heard the airplane returning.

“Should we signal it?” Christine said as she joined us.

“Why?” I said. “They already know we’re here. If we signal them, they might think we need help, and we don’t.”

“But it’s more people,” she said.

“They know we’re here,” I repeated. “If they want to introduce themselves, they know where to find us.”

The plane came in from the west and flew directly over Grant just above treetop level. He couldn’t miss it that time.

“Did you see those things under the wings?” I said. “I think it was a crop duster.”

“It didn’t spray anything,” Christine said.

Grant ran across the pasture toward us. The plane made another pass from the east, higher this time. Then the sound of it waned until we could no longer hear it. Grant climbed the fence, ran past Julio’s grave, and joined us in the backyard by the well house.

“What do you think?” Grant asked me, breathing hard from the run. “Could be bad.”

I agreed and nodded.

“Don’t be so negative,” Christine said. “If there is someone around here that is a pilot then maybe they can fly us someplace where there aren’t any goons.”

“That thing could hold two people,” Grant said. “Four at most…including the pilot.”

“I know, dumbass,” Christine replied. “In a different fucking plane.”

“Stop,” I said. “Yes, that is a possibility, but I’m with Grant on this. I think we should be cautious.”

“How did they even know to fly over here?” Grant said. “I mean, there are miles and miles, but they flew right over us.”

“You and Christine have been shooting for two days. I’m sure someone heard it and flew around trying to find the source. The crowd around the property probably made it easy to spot from the air.”

“So that means they’re close,” Christine said.

“Not necessarily,” I replied. “Now that there aren’t any extra noises like cars and stuff, I would imagine the sound of your guns could have been heard two or three miles away…maybe farther…maybe even in the Clayfield city limits.”

“How far is that?” she asked.

I shrugged. “About six miles, I think. I’ve heard the city fireworks out this far.”

“Those big fireworks are really loud, though,” she said. “Where’s the airport?”

I pointed toward the north, “The county airport is about four miles that way.”

“Well, that will be the first place to check,” she said.

“I wonder if it has anything to do with the heads or the yellow cars,” I said.

“What?” Grant asked.

I told them about my findings the past several days.

“Whoa, babe, you love yellow cars. Bingo, right?”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Sara has this game she plays where she says ‘bingo’ when she sees a yellow car,” Grant replied.

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“It’s a thing I used to do when I was a kid,” she said. “It’s no big deal.”

I thought it was a big deal. It seemed like an odd coincidence. Plus, Grant knew something about her that I didn’t know. He probably knew a lot more about her that I didn’t know, and that bothered me.

“Sounds like there’s a nut in town that likes to chop off goon heads and knows how to fly a plane,” Christine said. “I can’t wait to meet them.”

“Tell me about the yellow cars,” I said to Sara.

“I told you; it’s nothing. It’s just a little thing I used to do for fun,” she said. “Grant and I would do it when we’d go out with our group sometimes.”

“You don’t think it’s strange? Could it be someone else from your group?” I asked.

“It was just the four of us that came here,” Grant said. “The rest wouldn’t leave Mississippi.”

“That’s what Sara said, but–“

“It’s no big deal, okay?” Sara said. “I’m going inside. Are any of you hungry?”

“I could eat,” Grant nodded. “I’m thinking a pepperoni and mushroom hand-tossed.”

“Good luck with that,” Sara said. “I’ll open a couple of cans of soup, and we can all share. If you want a salad, you’ll need to pick it yourself.”

We all went inside and washed up. Over the meal, Grant and Christine talked about the plane and the possibility of traveling by air to someplace far away. Sara sipped her soup quietly.

“I find it odd that the plane and the heads and the yellow cars all happened so close to your arrival in Kentucky,” I said. “There hasn’t been much of anything going on here for a long time.”

“Well, we didn’t do it,” Christine said. “Is that what you’re saying? Are you accusing us?”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t an accusation, just an observation.”

“Anyway, what’s so wrong with beheading goons or collecting yellow cars?” Grant said.

“Nothing,” I replied. I looked at Sara, but she didn’t look up from her bowl.

“I have some more seeds left,” I said, changing the subject. “I’ve been saving them so I can do a second planting. I was thinking about starting on that today or tomorrow. I’d be happy to show you how if you’ve never planted a garden before.”

“What’s there to know?” Christine said. “You stick the seeds in the ground, and they grow.”

“Yeah, bro, basic stuff.”

“I think it’s Bruce,” Sara said.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

“Who’s Bruce?” Grant and I said in unison.

“A guy I met in Tennessee a few weeks ago. He had a sword, and I’ve seen him cut off heads.”

I glanced over at Grant, and his face mirrored my own confusion.

“Like a ninja sword,” Sara added as if that explained everything.

I looked at her again, then at Christine. Christine had returned to her meal. She knew exactly what Sara was talking about but was feigning ignorance.

“Bruce?” Grant said again.

“Tell them his whole name, Sara,” Christine said.

“It’s Bruce Lee.”

Christine snickered, but quickly stifled it.

“Are you shitting me?” Grant said. “Babe, I...” he stopped in midsentence and his brow furrowed, then he looked at me. “Dude…Bruce Lee?”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Sara rolled her eyes and exhaled loudly like a teenage girl trying to explain something to her parents.

“Judy and I were driving down to The Gulf. We met this guy north of Memphis. He was really sweet at first. He was kind of geeky and boring. He shared some food with us. He told us he was with a group of men that were headed west, but I never saw them. He drove down with us even though he had been going the other way. It took us three or four days, because a lot of the roads were jammed with cars and we had to switch cars and backtrack. We got separated from him in Hattiesburg when we went into a Wal-Mart there. I thought he might have been killed or maybe rejoined his original group.”

“But his name, babe,” Grant said. “Come on…I mean…for real?”

“That’s his name,” Sara said. “I saw his driver’s license. He was all into martial arts, but I don’t know if he was really trained or just pretending. I don’t know if his parents gave him that name or if he changed it to that because he liked martial arts and comic books so–”

“Why would he be here?” I said, getting impatient. I didn’t give a damn about his name.

“I told him I was from Clayfield. He was clingy. He was just this geeky guy. He got me that leather suit. He wanted me to wear it for him. He said I would look like Batwoman. It was a creepy fantasy or something.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “But you wore the suit. I saw you in it. We all saw you in it. You told me that suit–”

“He sounds like a total douchebag stalker,” Grant interrupted and reached across the table, taking Sara’s hand. “Babe, did you do it with him? I won’t be mad, I just want the truth.”

Sara pushed his hand away, “Stop it, Grant. This is serious.”

Suddenly, I wanted to know the answer to that question, too…probably more than Grant.

“For all he knew, you were going to Biloxi. Why would he come here? What about the others he was with? Remember Corndog? Remember he was with some bad men, and they weren’t too far away.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But the yellow cars and the heads…I think he might be trying to let me know he’s around.”

We were all quiet for a few seconds. The only sound was Christine slurping her soup. Then Grant spoke up, “So what? So there’s a guy in town that has a thing for Sara. Who doesn’t have a thing for her, right? I say we forget him.”

“I would agree,” I said, “but he’s been careless. He’s been leaving the doors open on houses. Those houses are our main source of supplies until they run out. I think he burned down the hardware store, too. He can’t be doing that. What if he brings others here that are worse than him? I can’t allow it. This is where I live.”

“As soon as the goons leave, we’ll find him and you can kick his ass,” Grant said.

“Leave him alone,” Sara said. “He’s unstable, I think.”

Grant stared at her blankly.

“You did it with him, didn’t you?”

“Stop it, Grant,” Sara said.

Grant grinned as if it had suddenly turned into a game. “You did! You totally did it with him.” Then he looked at me. “Bro, she did it. She–“

“Shut up,” I said. “It was before she met you, so why should you care?”

“True,” he said, “but you should care.”

“I said shut up.”

Sara got up and left the table. I watched her leave the room but didn’t get up to chase her. Christine got up and wiped her mouth on a napkin.

“I’ve got some goons to kill, boys,” she said. “Good luck sorting out Sara’s trail of broken hearts.” She walked over to the counter and grabbed a can of warm beer. “Don’t be concerned about any of my ex-boyfriends showing up. All the good ones are dead. I’m pretty sure the rest are goons. Fuckers. We’ll all be goons eventually.”

She left the room, and I heard the back door open then slam shut.

“Bro, Sara did the dirty with Bruce Lee.”

“Shut up,” I said.

Sara spent the rest of the day outside picking berries and wild greens. The only interaction I had with her was to show her where to find the plants. She didn’t want to talk. She seemed angry or embarrassed. I stayed in the garden, but I was distracted by my thoughts, so I didn’t get a lot of work done. The constant gunfire didn’t help either. I had decided that I would put a stop to the shooting after that day. I wanted some quiet, and I knew both women would be winding down their cycles soon. Hopefully, the zombies would lose interest in a few days and leave.

The next morning, after breakfast, I was sitting alone at the kitchen table looking over my to-do list for the day. I hadn’t slept well the night before. It bothered me that in the space of a couple of months, Sara had already been with two other men. I wondered if there were others that I would find out about later. If it had been Jen, it might have come as less of a surprise, but this was Sara. I didn’t expect her to be like that. I kept trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter. She had thought I was dead. She had been upset, and she was young; I shouldn’t judge her too harshly.

Christine and Sara came in the back door carrying buckets and heading toward the stairs.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Just flushing the toilet upstairs,” Sara said.

“Is that water?”

“Yeah,” Christine said. “We have to have water to flush. So?”