DISCLAIMER: (See Prologue)
Walking With Captain Trips
Chapter Four
I couldn't stay there all day. My legs were starting to fall asleep from being still. I either had to go back up to my apartment or out into the dead city.
I didn't think I could face Dutchy just then. So I started walking. Threading my way in between the stalled and crashed cars, my eyes averted from their occupants. I didn't really have a plan as to where I was going. I just wandered, staring into deserted shop windows, many of them broken, the stores looted. And apparently the whole city was powerless; I didn't see any lights.
I had made it all the way to 5th Street before I really got ahold of myself. It was probably best to get something to eat while I was out here. And I still hadn't found any other survivors. Not that I was going to, but I guess it would be better to tell Dutchy I at least looked.
I turned around and started heading back towards the grocery by my apartment building, but a familiar street caught my eye. One I hadn't been down in a long time. It was Finch Street, which opened up into Greeley Square, not far from the miserable little orphanage where I had once lived. The boys had alwayscome here to play rather than being cramped inside. There the old greening statue sat, perfect to climb on, the old man a silent witness to all the mistakes of the world around him. "Go West, young man," he instructed us. Well, we went West. Now look what came back East, Horace.
I kicked the base of the statue. Take that for giving us some lousy advice. I was only rewarded with silence and a throbbing pain in my toes. Sighing, I turned to stare down the street at the decrepit building of the orphanage. Maybe it was some of that sick, sappy nostalgia, but I ended up wandering closer. Then closer. And closer still, until I was at the door. Well, if I'd come this far...
For a moment, I had forgotten the dead bodies. The compressed stench that hit me when the door swung open with a screech was a painful reminder. I didn't have much time to dwell on it, though.
"Who's dere?!" yelled a startled voice from up the stairs. I nearly fell over in shock. Dutchy had been right after all, there were still others.... "I said who's out dere?!" the boy called again, and I could hear him coming down the stairs to investigate.
"It's me! It's... Skittery..."
The other boy came into view, spooked Asian eyes studying me. "Skittery? Why'd you come back heah? I t'ought you'd said you'd never come heah again..."
Oh. Right. That little detail. It wasn't important now; I pushed it aside. "Swifty. Swifty... you made it..."
He nodded, with no great pride in the fact. "Yeah... me... me'n Mush, Snipeshooter, an' Kid Blink." A pause, then mournfully, "We'se all dat's left. Itey'n Snitch... we thought dey'd pull through foah a while, but... I'm shoah you saw it."
Yeah. Yeah, I'd seen what Trips did. Even if I had been shut up in my room. You'd get worse and worse, then people'd get better, try to take themselves to the doctor. The next minute they were choking on their own throat mucus and crashed their cars. I hated to think of these boys like that. I had grown up with these kids. They were like brothers. Let me stop before I get sappy. I watched the floor silently for a moment, then muttered, "Dutchy's immune, too. He's at my apartment."
"Immune...?"
"He didn't get Trips."
"Who's down dere, Swifty?" Little Snipeshooter's voice, wierdly deep for a kid his age. He appeared at the top of the stairs. "Hey! Skittery! Skittery came back!!" He charged past Swifty, nearly knocking him over, to hug me around the middle. A red-eyed and dissheveled Mush took his place at the top of the stairs, followed after a while by Blink.
"Hey..." I said. It was all I could say.
"Hey..." they said back, almost in unison. Then there was that awkward silence. Snipeshooter was looking around at all of the "big kids" questioningly, still hanging on my arm.
"So what.... what happens now?" Blink questioned, his tone sounding a lot like mine. Mush flinched away from him.
I shrugged. "We go home I guess. Make sure Dutchy's still there?"
Soundlessly, they nodded their agreement, and drifted downstairs towards me like zombies, and the five of us wordlessly headed for the streets...