The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) (36 page)

“Johnny, come with me I have to show you something.”

I nodded and followed her unnoticed by the others who were too excited to see Janey and to meet the new people.   She led me upstairs to Tuckers room, it was a mess, He had set up a card table and it was coved in pages and pages of math and hand draw diagrams.

“What is all this? I asked.

“No idea but there is more, come on,” she said pulling on my arm.

We went to the roof, he had set up the last of Rico’s radios and he had taken one of the solar panels to run it. The antenna had been replaced with a lazy-Suzan from the spice cabinet with a large empty coffee can laying on its side nailed to the end of a broom handle standing straight through both the table and the spice rack. It stood like a flag pole; the crowning glory of his ridiculous contraption. He had drawn the letter ‘N; and degrees all around the edge of the spinning spice rack. On the umbrella covered table was also a notepad and a pen. He was recording something. Date and time, direction and another value that didn’t make a lick of sense to me.

              “So what is he doing? I asked.

I looked at Karen and saw the concern in her eyes.

“I don’t know but he isn’t sleeping, he spends all his time with this thing then he limps down the stairs.”

She looked away ashamed then she held out her hand to me without saying another word.  I took the empty pill bottle from her and read the label.

“We have to show this to Amy and Lt. Klein.”

I said and taking her hand we went down the stairs as fast as we could manage them.

              We found them in the kitchen along with Rico, Elaine and Ms. West. Amy looked up at me with a smile that vanished when she saw my face.

“Johnny? What’s wrong?” she asked.

I handed her the pill bottle and as she read the label I added

“It’s Tucker, they say he has gone strange.” 

She stared at the label and said nothing it was Lt. Klein who asked “Strange how?” 

Ms. West asked “Mr. Tucker?  The Tucker who was with Janey the other day?” 

I just watched while Karen explained and Elaine offered her insights. Amy just held they bottle while they told the new ones about tucker and what he had done and how he had been beaten for his sins. I watched as the empty bottle was passed around until it eventually found its way back to Amy. At last, I thought, at last they all know what I have always known. Tucker was dangerous, a criminal, a psychopath. Klein, West, and Rico went with Karen to see the machine and probably to look for a tin foil hat. Elaine went to check on Lucy who was playing with the new kids under their Mother’s watchful eye, it left only Amy and me. I sat down across from her and waited. She looked at me and said

“This only means two things: first he was very sad before all of this and his name is John.”

I practically barked a laugh,

“And his magic box and the scribbles and nonsense he is writing down?” I said with sour venom dripping from my lips.

“I don’t know Johnny, show me?” She said. 

“OK. Fine.” I said, I was confident I had him now.

The others joined us in Tuckers room, everyone was looking at the gibberish I could hardly contain myself. They wouldn’t hang him for being crazy but they sure would not let him run around free. Some people searched his room but when Kyle found a photo Elaine snatched it away and put it back from its hiding place.

“Since when is it a crime to have a picture of people you love?” she snapped. “Come on Lucy let’s get out of here.”

She took Lucy’s hand and stormed out. I shook my head at her silliness. That was when Klein opened her big mouth.

“Look, this isn’t gibberish. Its mathematics and it’s pretty high level shit. I took three semesters of calculus and a course in ODEs and I only recognize about half of the symbols.”

She paused and then asked Amy,

“What did you say he did for a living?”

Amy shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know, I though he was retired, he never talked about it.”

The Lt. laid the papers back down and said

“Well, let’s wait till he gets back and ask him.”

I couldn’t believe it, he was going to slip away again,

“What about the drugs?” I demanded.

“We will ask him about that too.” Ms. West added but when she put her hand on my shoulder I spun away and out of the room.

Later after dinner I had calmed down and sat in as the others discussed the things they had discovered about what OMT was doing. I was impressed with both Klein and West, they worked well together, they had arranged things in such a way that the pieces started to fit together. The Z’s were on a schedule, they broadcast around 10AM, again about 6 PM and then 2AM. Each day the times were a minute or two later. Ms. West said that they were probably going by the sun and OMT’s notes said that he thought their range was limited and that by using his directional antenna he could pick up three or four different signals. OMTs notebook recorded time, directions in degrees measured from North and next to that was also a column of measurements in dBu whatever those were. I looked over Elaine’s shoulder at OMTs notes and saw (a long time later I actually copied it down)

That’s when I came up with what I now call
William’s Theory #1:

“Math sucks
the most when there aren’t any numbers”
.

Klein stopped and with a strange expression said in a slow, precise voice.

“Tucker is tracking them.”

Then for reasons that escaped me, she smiled. Just then Deputy Weir put his head in the door and said,

“Unknown vehicle is coming slowly up the drive.”

We scrambled fast and as I ran down the stairs, a .308 caliber M4 held in both hands I wondered why on Earth any kid would play war. War sucks. I went out the back door just behind Rico, we sprinted to along the tree line and both clambered up into our sniper hut. I was surprised when the rifle we put in there had been replaced with something big and long, boxy, and deadly looking. I whispered to Rico,

“What the hell is that?”

He spoke over his shoulder “Barrett, fifty cal sniper rifle.”

As he worked the bolt I got my first glimpse of that menacing round and it made me shiver. I set up next to Rico and picking up the binoculars I looked down the road.

“What do you see?” Rico asked.

I hesitated a moment then answered him,

“A trash truck.”

The thing was old and banged up, the back was one of those enclosed ones, and the truck was rocking from side to side as it slowly creeped up the drive.

“Can you see the driver?” Rico asked.

I sighed, lowered the binocs and closing my eyes I sighed as I answered him. “It’s Tucker.”

It didn’t take long after that before the truck pulled around the circle drive and shut down. Rico and I walked in from the sniper station and others came out from either side of the lodge and Weir stood up on the roof station. I could see Tucker before the others as he climbed down from the cab.

“Hey, hey, hey Mista Tucker!” Rico called out.

As Tucker turned around to answer I could see that his eyes were wild, barely slits in his swollen face. He was limping, slightly hunched over and he was holding his left arm strangely, palm up, like he was cradling a football.

“Rico! Good to see you!” then he smiled at me

“John!” and he reached up and placed his right hand on my shoulder pretending that he cared. We walked around the front of the truck and most of the others gathered around us. Suddenly there was a tremendous banging sound from the back of the truck. Anyone with a weapon, me included swept it into position to open fire on trash bin. It didn’t stop in fact it seemed to get more intense when people started freaking out about it.

“Calm down everyone! Calm down!”

Old Man Tucker yelled and for the most part we did. Lucy was hiding behind Amy and several others had retreated inside the lodge.

“Tucker? What on Earth do you have in there?” Lt. Klein demanded. 

He looked at her and waved his good arm at it,

“I caught one of them, one of the monsters.”

There were murmurs of:

“Out of his mind”,

“You gotta be kidding me”,

“Jez-zus Kree-iste”, lots of things like that.

Ms. West stormed out of the group and stood nose to nose with Tucker, I thought she was going to say something but she just stared at him, fury in her eyes, her hands trembling into fists. Tucker just stood there, he didn’t look angry or scared, he didn’t raise his hands to defend himself, and it was eerie.

Lt. Klein made her way between them, gently separating them,

“Alright children, cleansing breaths” she said.

She took an exaggerated breath and exhaled it slowly.  West didn’t take a step back really, instead she just readjusted her feet as she leaned backwards in response to Klein’s intrusion. Tucker took a step or two and opened the passenger door of the trash truck and pulled out a military style back pack by its strap, the strap of his Thompson along with it. The pack was heavy I could tell by the way he grunted as he shrugged it up onto his right shoulder. Tucker started towards the steps,

“Come on everyone, I’m starved, after I’ve eaten I’ll explain everything I have got going.” He said.

West’s eyes grew wide and she stared after him, her left arm slowly rising to point at the trash truck. The creature within going crazy, I could see the metal deforming with each blow and I felt my insides quiver with each one. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it in there, it’s sleek black body armor, those cruel jaws and suddenly felt like I was going to pee my pants. I felt someone take my arm and pull me towards the lodge, I turned to see Karen Morena looking at me,