Scott did so.
“Hey,” Gus said, grimacing. “I think you did shit yourself.”
Scott looked over, blinking, before turning his attention to his crotch. “Aww shit.”
“You can’t do anything about it now.”
“I gotta clean myself up.”
“Wait ’til I clear a house.”
“I can feel it, awww,
man
!”
Gus rolled down a window. “Christ, what’d you eat anyway?”
Scott felt himself blushing.
“Scott’s a dirty boy.” Gus said in a teasing voice.
Scott broke out laughing. Gus erupted into a belly chuckle, too, which quickly escalated into tears of laughter. Scott roared, actually slowing and stopping the beast. His helmet met the upper curve of the steering wheel.
“Oh, God,” Scott panted between high peals of laughter. “I can feel it
squishin
’ between my ass cheeks! Like I’m sittin’ in rotten Jell-O.”
That crack took Gus away on a fresh gust of laughter, doubling him over in his seat.
The hooting eventually died away to head-shaking chuckles.
“Man,” Gus said hoarsely. “I… I haven’t laughed like that in fuckin’ three years at least.”
“Me either.” Turning his attention to the street, Scott noted that they were on a main shopping drag. “Okay, get serious now,” Gus said.
That only brought another bubble of giggles from Scott.
“We gotta get out of here. They’re probably hearing us right now.”
“Sure as fuck can smell us,” Scott threw out.
“Drive straight. I’ll tell you where to go. Nothing here. S’all been picked over.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
Under control, Scott eased the beast back up to speed.
*
They continued on past the shopping district and took a series of turns until the larger buildings fell away to a series of houses. Gus directed Scott to take another left, and the beast turned into a new subdivision built on the side of a hill in the neighborhood once known as Kentville, before the towns had amalgamated.
At Gus’s instruction, Scott brought the van to a stop and backed into the driveway of a two-story white house. A small front lawn sprouted an uncontrolled frizz of tall yellow grass, half-hiding several faded lawn gnomes. Gus hopped out of the rear of the van, armed as always, and moved to the front door. He saw the hiding gnomes, their chipped faces bright and merry.
Happy little fuckers, aren’t ya
? he thought as he moved over a concrete walkway that the elements had split in places. He stopped at the door and tried the knob. Locked. He stepped back, inspecting the windows and seeing none broken. Gus didn’t like breaking into houses, on the very slim chance there were people living in there. He hadn’t encountered anyone in his picking process, figuring he’d allowed enough time to pass that folks had either run for the hills, died, or become one with the gimps. He didn’t want to smash out the side window next to the door to unlock it, as he might want to lock it later. Still, he relented, he had shitty-assed Scott stewing in his own beef stroganoff, and he certainly didn’t want to think about how that felt.
He broke the glass with one pop of his shotgun butt, the crinkling sound making him cringe. He reached over the jagged ends, and felt around inside for the lock. A moment later, he opened the door, revealing dark wood flooring and a welcoming area that branched off to the left and right. A musty smell permeated throughout, which told him that none of the windows in the place had been opened in a long time. A staircase to the right went up to a landing with an open door, and then went left. Bright wallpaper covered the walls, and one look around informed him that the owners had money. Shotgun at the ready, he moved quickly through the downstairs, then proceeded up. The three bedrooms had been left neat and clean, as if the people had thought to return at a later date. Gus found a large flat-screen TV in the master bedroom and went into the adjoining bathroom that had a window facing the street. Oak cabinets and walk-in closets were half-full of clothes. Old-people clothes, Gus thought, while the other bedrooms were filled with other items: desks, school textbooks, paperbacks, laptops, and other things that didn’t attract his attention while in house-checking mode. It was a house where the people had children who had grown up and moved away.
Gus left the upstairs and cautiously took the wooden steps down to the basement. A long row of paperbacks lined the wall and a pile of hockey sticks and equipment were piled up in a corner. Gus tried the light switch, knowing it wouldn’t work. He stared into the dark below and rapped his hand against the wall, once, twice, before easing back and waiting with shotgun poised.
Nothing came.
As it was much too dark down there for him to explore, he decided that the house was pretty much clear, and went out to get Scott. At least Scott could clean himself up and maybe even find some clothes that fit.
Exiting the house, Gus saw that the street was still clear, and that made him happy. He didn’t like to rush when picking.
“C’mon in,” Gus told Scott. “It’s cleared.”
“No trouble?”
Gus shook his head.
“Took long enough,” Scott grated. “Almost thought you were purposely taking your time in there.”
“And let you wallow in your own shit?” Gus shook his head. “Don’t know you well enough for that. C’mon in. The van’ll be fine. Clean yourself up. There are clothes inside. You might be lucky.”
As it turned out, Scott wasn’t fortunate enough to find anything his size, but he did locate a pair of black pants with a leather belt and some long johns. He found plenty of old towels, too, and even a four-liter bottle of water, which he took to the washroom to clean himself.
Gus moved into the kitchen and went through the cupboards. He didn’t find much. He took the sealed bottles of condiments, pepper, salt, even cinnamon, and popped them into his duffel bag. He also tossed in some paper towels and eight rolls of toilet paper. He found a bottle of vinegar and more household cleaning products under the sink. When Scott appeared holding a plastic-bagged pair of jeans in his fist, he helped carry stuff out to the van.
“What about the furniture?” Scott asked as he brought out a pile of well-kept paperbacks.
“Leave it. The furniture at the house is fine.”
“There’s an exercise machine in that room off the laundry room.”
“You really want to exercise?”
“What about the old DVDs?”
“Already checked. Got them on digital on one of the terabytes.”
“Hey, they got a bunch of board games here.”
“Which ones?”
They took what they wanted and left with one bin full of mostly non-edible goods. Sitting again behind the wheel, Scott positioned the van in the driveway of the next house.
Gus entered and searched. He remerged minutes later with more toilet tissue, some clothes that looked as though they might fit Scott, and some cans of sausage. There was a CD collection of 70s rock music, which Gus carried back to the van and stowed as if he’d located a holy relic. He found some towels and two bottles of Glenfiddich scotch along with three bottles of Bailey’s Irish Cream in a closet. Gus tucked them in the bin, wrapped and covered with the plush towels. He next came out with hockey sticks and a set of hard plastic balls. After stowing those, he leaped into the rear of the van and gave the okay to drive to the next house.
They continued along the street, picking the houses clean, until Gus noticed Scott’s increasing nervousness about the dropping sun and decided to give the signal to get out of there. The time was a little after four according to the clock in the dashboard when Gus finished storing his shotgun and plopped down in the passenger seat. The welcoming heat of the interior made him sigh.
“You know something?” Gus asked as Scott drove the van back onto the main road.
“What?”
“I got into nine houses today.”
“That a record?”
“Given the time, no, but it was good knowing you were out here watching things.” Gus nodded. “Gave me a sense of security.”
“Despite me shittin’ myself?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. I shit my own self once, trying to get away from a fucked-up nurse.”
“What?” Scott’s helmet turned in his direction.
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Ah, I’ll tell you about it another time. But I did come close to buyin’ the farm. Lucky to be alive.”
“A nurse?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. You shoot her?”
“What? No, I didn’t shoot her. Shooting the dead’s one thing, but I couldn’t shoot the living. Drive on, there, Chico,” Gus said, relaxing for the first time. He felt good with Scott around. “Take us home.”
Gus initiated Scott to the welcome-back-alive shot he customarily took once inside the garage, and when the burns of the shots got down, they unloaded the van. Afterward, they retired to their rooms and rejoined in the kitchen a few minutes later, both changed into sweat pants and sweaters.
“You find it warm in here?” Scott asked, walking to the island in the middle of the kitchen.
Gus pointed to the living room. “You can’t see it from here, but just inside the wall, there’s a solar panel for heating. Heats most of the place. This area gets toasty now, but it’ll be fine in the winter.”
“This place is amazing.”
“It is.” Gus nodded, rubbing his hand on his black fisherman’s sweater. He turned to the cupboards and took down two cans of Chunky soup. “Chicken okay?”
“That’s fine, man.”
“Go get us some booze.”
Scott limped as he walked to the dining table and picked up the two waiting bottles of Jack Daniels on the table. He brought them back to the island and held one out to Gus. They opened the bottles and clicked the necks together.
“Other than the incident at the fire station, a job well done today,” Gus announced.
“Yeah, it was.” Scott grinned, and both of them took a burning shot.
After he finished grimacing, Scott coughed. “Gotta wash my jeans, though.”
“They still in the bag?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get you some water tomorrow to do the job. A scrub bucket, too.”
“What about the washer and dryer in the mud room?”
“That works, but takes power. Gotta be conservative.”
“Right.”
Gus took another shot from the bottle of Jack and started preparing supper. He emptied the contents of the two cans into two different pots and heated them on the stove.
“Didn’t want to use the same pot?” Scott asked, holding his bottle by the neck.
“Well, y’see,” Gus said as he stirred both with different spoons. “I kinda half believe that one story about the infection coming from the food supply. I never worried about it when it was myself. Man’s gotta eat. Now there’s two of us. If it is in the food––and I don’t think it is––and one of us eats it, at least the other will have a chance.”
He could tell from the sudden sour expression on Scott’s face that he might have said too much. “Don’t worry about it,” he added, trying to reassure the man. “Just eat and drink.”
After finishing their supper, they left the pots, bowls, and spoons in the sink and went down into the den. Gus turned on a single shaded lamp, but kept some candles nearby in case it started to flicker. He then plopped down on the sofa, while Scott took the recliner.
“Here’s shit in your eye.” Gus smirked and downed a shot.
“Just hope I don’t have nightmares tonight.”
Gus held up his bottle. “This should help. Can’t hurt.”
Scott studied the label of his own bottle. “Medicine.”
“Better than Buckley’s Mixture.”
“Ew. I remember that shit. Tasted horrible.”
“It did,” Gus agreed. “But it worked.”
“Didn’t the president of the company say that in the commercials?”
“He did. Smart man.” Gus took another shot of the whiskey. “This stuff’s going down too easy these days. We’ll have to get to the liquor shop and pick more up.”
“There’s still some there?”
“Oh, yeah. A whole warehouse full. I don’t understand it myself. No one went there at all for supplies.”
“Booze isn’t high on a person’s list, I guess.”
“Guess so. Hey, you notice anything down there today?”
“No. What?” Scott stretched out in the recliner, filling its frame and gingerly lifting his healed foot.
“How’s the foot?”
“Getting there. Still sore. So what about today?”
Gus took a moment before answering, as he didn’t really know what to make of it all. “I don’t know how accurate this is, but… we were into nine houses today. You asked if that was a record. It’s not, but I didn’t find any corpses in any of those houses. And there weren’t any dead walking around that subdivision.”
Scott’s brow scrunched and his eyes flicked to Gus’.
“Next time we head down there, just keep that in mind. I might be wrong. Probably
am
wrong, but I have a feeling that the gimps are thinning out.”