CHAPTER EIGHT
Jobie immediately opens his eyes and sits upright. Madison lifts her head off of her knees and stares anxiously at the door. But Taylor and Lynda, remarkably, don’t even twitch. They just lie there, sound asleep. Apparently apologizing to me has given them enough peace of mind to nap during the apocalypse.
Another ring.
“Does anyone else live here with you?” Madison whispers to Jobie.
Jobie shakes his head.
“Maybe it’s the super,” I suggest. “Has your mom put in any requests for repairs?”
Jobie looks at me like I’m a total moron. “The super has six kids. The only repair he wants to make tonight is killing all of them.”
“Unless they’re all already dead,” I whisper back.
The doorbell rings again. Jobie, Madison and I stand up simultaneously.
“Who’s there?” Jobie shouts.
A deep male voice responds. “Paramedics.”
“Paramedics?” Jobie echoes.
I kick Taylor’s leg and then Lynda’s. Taylor opens his eyes instantly. Lynda needs a second kick.
“Wake up!” I hiss.
“What is it?” Taylor asks fearfully, sitting up and glancing around the room.
“Someone’s at the door.”
“Who?”
“He says he’s a paramedic.”
Taylor stands up. Lynda, despite looking a lot more scared, stays seated. “Don’t let him in!” she whispers.
I pull her up by the arm. “Get up!”
“Ow! My neck!” she cries, grabbing the back of her neck with her free hand.
“Shh,” Jobie whispers. “Stay here.” He creeps up to the door, looks through the peephole, and creeps back.
“Is it a paramedic?” Madison asks.
“Yeah. Two of them. Two men.”
The same paramedic as before tries to get things moving. “Look, we received a report of a woman having trouble breathing in this apartment. A Mrs. Sarah Tobias. Is she in there?”
“Who called it in?” Jobie asks.
“She did.”
“Hold on a second.” Jobie leans over the couch and shakes his mom’s shoulder. “Mom? Mom?”
No response.
“She is breathing funny,” Lynda whispers.
Jobie turns to the door. “How do I know you’re not crazy like all the other adults outside?”
“Because we’re here doing our job instead of out there killing people. Now is there someone in there who needs medical attention or not?”
“Yeah. Yeah, there is. Hold on.” Jobie lowers his voice back to a whisper. “I’m gonna let them in,” he says. “She does look crappier than usual. She must have called them.”
I shake my head. “How could she have? Nine-One-One has been out since all this hell started.”
“Maybe she called right before all this started and it took them all this time to get here.”
“Or maybe Nine-One-One is working again,” Lynda suggests.
“I’ll check,” Madison says. She takes out her cell phone, dials, listens. “Nope. Still dead.”
“Look, the bottom line is they’re here. They can check on my mom and on Lynda’s neck too.”
“What if – ?” I start, but I’m not sure how to ask him.
“What?”
“Look, is there a chance, even a chance, that one of those guys out there is your dad?”
“Hell no.”
“How can you be so sure? You haven’t seen him since you were three.”
“Mom always said he was a complete bum. Bums don’t become paramedics.”
“The one who spoke just now knows your mom’s name.”
“That’s because the Nine-One-One dispatcher asked her for it.”
The paramedics aren’t willing to wait anymore. “Look kid, either let us in or we’re gonna go.”
“I’ll be right there!” Jobie shouts. He runs into the kitchen. I hear a drawer open, and the rattling of cutlery. Convinced that there is no changing his mind, I pick up my branch and get ready for battle. Madison picks up her superspade.
Jobie returns from the kitchen with three long knives. Apparently he doesn’t have much faith in my weapon or Madison’s, at least not for close quarters fighting. “Here,” he says, handing me one. I toss my branch aside and take the knife. He offers one to Madison but she shakes her head.
“I have what I need.”
“What about us?” Taylor gripes.
Jobie looks at me.
“Sure. Go ahead,” I tell him. He hands Taylor the knife.
“But you don’t do anything until I tell you to,” I order my brother.
“Got it.”
“Lynda, you just stand behind him.”
“Got it.”
Jobie goes to the door, unlocks it, and quickly steps back, holding his knife out in front of him. “Okay. Come in.”
The door opens slowly and two uniformed paramedics enter. The first one in is a tall, round-faced man in his late thirties or early forties. He carries the equipment bag. The second is a shorter, thinner man with a moustache, about the same age. He carries a folded up portable wheelchair. Neither one resembles Jobie in my opinion, but they both have brown hair like him.
Both paramedics stop in their tracks when they see that we’re armed.
“Why don’t you kids put your weapons down, okay?” the taller one, the one who did all the talking out in the hallway, says. “We’re here to help.”
“No chance,” Madison responds, holding her superspade like a baseball bat.
Jobie steps behind the men, closes the door, and retrieves his baseball bat from the umbrella stand, which he carries back to the other side of the couch and hands to Lynda. “That’s her on the couch,” he tells the paramedics.
“I’m not going anywhere near her until you kids disarm,” the shorter paramedic says.
“We won’t hurt you as long as you don’t hurt us,” I tell him.
“That’s it!” the shorter paramedic snarls. He turns to his partner. “I’m gonna do what I have to do!” With that he drops the folded wheelchair and exits the apartment, leaving the door wide open.
“Close the door!” I yell, but of course he doesn’t come back.
Madison closes the door and relocks it. “What did he mean by that?” she asks the tall paramedic.
“Never mind that. Just help her,” Jobie commands, pointing at his mother with his knife. He sounds genuinely concerned about her now, unlike when we first entered the apartment.
The paramedic approaches the couch and looks down at Mrs. Tobias. “You’re going to have to untie her,” he says. “No arguments.”
“Fine.” Jobie hands me his knife and starts to untie his mother’s ankles, then stops. “Wait, help me move this coffee table first.” He takes one end of the table, the paramedic the other.
“Is this your mother?” the paramedic asks as they move the table.
“No,” I answer for Jobie, a little too quickly. “She’s mine.”
With the coffee table out of the way Jobie proceeds to untie his mother’s ankles. Instead of helping with her wrists the paramedic pulls his equipment bag closer to the couch, opens it, and starts rummaging around inside, I assume for a stethoscope. I stand behind him with my knife in one hand and Jobie’s in the other. Madison stands on my right with her superspade. I’m so confident that we have the paramedic covered that I step back and lower my hands to my sides.
And that’s when it happens. Finished with his mother’s ankles, Jobie starts to reach for her wrists. Still crouching, the paramedic watches him, waits until he’s within range, then jumps up and plunges a pair of scissors into the side of his neck. Before I can even scream he pulls them out and plunges them in again. This time he leaves them in. Jobie falls to the floor.
“No!” I scream. “Oh my God!” I raise my knives and attempt to slash the paramedic’s back as he
bolts for the door, but I miss. Behind me Lynda screams. Madison, infuriated beyond reason, chases after the maniac. I drop my knives and kneel down next to Jobie, but I have no idea what to do. Blood is spraying out of the first puncture wound, but the scissors are sticking out right next to it. I can’t put pressure on the first wound unless I pull the scissors out of the second, but I read somewhere that if someone is stabbed and the knife is left in you should never pull it out. If you do you might cause more damage. You’re supposed to leave it in and wait for the . . . Shit!
Jobie’s eyes roll back, his breathing stops, and the blood stops spraying.
For the first time tonight my eyes fill with tears. It’s all I can do to keep from bawling.
“God Jobie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I reach down and close his eyes. Taylor and Lynda, still holding their weapons, kneel beside me. Lynda is sobbing. I tell myself to get a grip. If I lose control I’ll never be able to calm her down. Drying my eyes on the backs of my hands, I stand up and turn away from my dead friend. “There’s nothing we can do for him,” I say coldly, picking up my knives. “Close the door but don’t lock it,” I order Taylor.
Taylor obeys.
“Get away from him Lynda. Go back to where you were.”
Lynda retreats to her previous place near the jacket pile but remains standing. “We should cover him up,” she whimpers.
“We will. When Madison comes back.”
“If she comes back.”
“She’ll come back.”
Taylor rejoins Lynda by the jackets. I stand at the ready, just in case Jobie’s paramedic dad makes a return appearance, not that he has any reason to anymore. I tell myself that this time I’ll hurt him, but at the same time I berate myself for not recognizing him as Jobie’s dad the second he walked into the apartment. Sure there wasn’t much of a resemblance, but a lot of fathers don’t resemble their sons. He had the same brown hair as Jobie. And he knew Mrs. Tobias’s full name – a huge red flag. And what about the way his partner said “I’m gonna do what I have to do” before he took off? He was obviously talking about going home and killing his own kids. How could I not have seen all that?
There’s a knock on the door.
“Caril?” Madison calls out.
“It’s unlocked.”
Madison enters and locks the door behind her.
“Did you clobber him?” I ask.
“No. He was too fast.” She joins the rest of us in the living room and looks down at Jobie’s lifeless body. “Damn,” she mutters.
“We should cover him up,” Lynda repeats, no longer sobbing.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“Do you want me to look for a blanket?” Taylor asks me.
“No. Stay here. We’ll use his jacket.”
“Let’s move him away from the couch,” Madison suggests. “I don’t want his mom to step on him when she wakes up.”
Madison and I put our weapons on the coffee table.
“Lynda, move those jackets,” I command.
Lynda piles the jackets on the armchair Jobie sat in. Madison grabs Jobie under his arms, I grab his ankles, and together we carry him to the center of the room. We put him down very gently, as if he’s still capable of complaining. Taylor fetches his jacket from the coatrack and hands it to me.
“Pull the scissors out,” Madison tells me.
“Should I?”
“You want to leave him with that scumbag’s murder weapon in his neck?”
No. No, of course not. I reach down, pull the scissors out, and toss them onto one of the magazines on the coffee table. Then I drape the jacket over Jobie’s lifeless body.
“We should pray,” Lynda says.
“Go ahead if you want to,” I tell her. “Silently.”
Lynda makes the sign of the cross and bows her head. Taylor does the same. Madison shakes her head angrily, grabs her superspade, and faces the door, as if she’s expecting another homicidal visitor. Me? I don’t bow my head or make the sign of the cross, but I do pray one more time. Again, it’s a very short prayer. Lord, please have mercy on Jobie. Please have mercy on all of us.
Finished, I pick up my knives. Taylor and Lynda continue to pray, putting me to shame – and pissing me off. They only knew Jobie for a few hours. How could they have more to say to God on his behalf than me?
Mrs. Tobias’s unexpected voice stops me from trying to figure out the answer.
“Where’s he?”
Her voice is raspy and barely audible – a pneumonia voice. Her eyes are still closed but she’s moving her head slowly from side to side.
“Where’s he?” she slurs again.
“We should tie her feet again,” Taylor says, finally finished with his prayer. He and Lynda stare down at the pathetic alchy, who’s now slowly bending her legs, first the right, then the left.
“No, we should club her,” Madison recommends, tapping the metal end of her superspade against the palm of one hand.
“Why bother?” I say. “She can’t do anything with her hands tied. Besides, the only person she’s gonna want to hurt is already dead.”
“Jobie!” the wretched woman shrieks suddenly. She sits bolt upright, her eyes wide open as if she’s just awakened from a nightmare. “Jobie!”
Despite being armed, Taylor and Lynda jump back. Madison raises her superspade and holds it at the ready.
Mrs. Tobias eyes each of us anxiously. “Where’s he? Where’s my son?”
“Why do you want to know?” I sneer.
The woman slowly, clumsily rises to her feet. Sways unsteadily. “Tell me! You tell – “
She sees him.
“ – me.”
“Don’t you want to know who we are and what we’re doing here? And why your hands are tied?” Madison asks.
Mrs. Tobias staggers around the coffee table, the extension cord dragging between her legs. She stares down at Jobie’s covered body.
“He’s dead,” I say.
“Dead?”
“A paramedic killed him. A paramedic who said that you called Nine-One-One because you were having trouble breathing.”
The woman reaches down with her bound hands and pulls the jacket back from Jobie’s face. At first she doesn’t react. Then she presses the back of one hand against his cheek and holds it there. For a moment I think she’s mourning him, but then she pulls her hands back and looks up at me, smiling. “Trouble breathing? I never have trouble breathing. Not me.” She staggers back to the couch and sits down. Eyes the bottle of scotch on the coffee table. “Untie me. I want a drink.”
“You bitch!” Madison shouts.
I cover Jobie’s face again. For a second time his mother looks each of us over, only this time with bewilderment instead of anxiety.
“Who are you kids?”
“Get your jackets!” I order my siblings. I put a hand on Madison’s shoulder. “We can’t stay here with her awake. Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Where we should have gone in the first place. My uncle’s apartment.”
Taylor and Lynda exchange surprised looks. “Uncle Wayne lives around here?” Taylor asks.
“Yeah.”
“I thought he lived upstate.”
“No. He lives here.”
Madison and I put on our jackets. “That bat’s too heavy for you,” I tell Lynda. “Take this.” I hand her one of my knives. She drops the bat and takes it.
“Were . . . were you kids friends of his?” Mrs. Tobias asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her, even though she has no right to know. “We were.”
We leave without untying her hands.