“You might want to use a different bathroom,” Brendon said quietly with a hint of a smile across his lips.
Justin was trying his best to breathe through his mouth, but the mere thought that he was now ‘tasting’ the essence of Brendon’s offal did little to quell the queasiness that was building up in his stomach.
“Gotta talk to you,” Justin rushed out on exhale, and pointed down the stairs. If Brendon in anyway delayed, Justin would have to go downstairs without him. Justin had promised himself that he would not take another gulp of air anywhere in the vicinity of the ‘death zone.’ Brendon nodded and followed Justin down. The floorboards had not had sufficient time to reset and both boys were able to make it all the way down without so much as a minor crackle. Justin took a few long pulls of fresh air, hoping to evacuate all the poison from his lungs. He felt almost immediately better.
“What were you eating, a rotten rhino?” Justin asked when he had sufficiently cleaned out his airways.
“Did you like that? I was working on that just for you. As a matter of fact I was going to come down and get you so you could get a whiff,” Brendon laughed.
A greasy smile split Justin’s lips. “Thanks man, I appreciate that,” he said sarcastically.
“What’s up?” Brendon asked more seriously. He could tell Justin had something to ask him but was hesitant to come out with it.
“All right, if I ask you something you have to promise if you say no, that you won’t tell Nicole,” Justin said tentatively.
Brendon had to think about this for a moment. If she were to somehow find out that he had important information and had withheld it from her that would not end well. Nicole was all of four foot eleven, but she was a veritable spitfire. Mountains would quake in the wake of her voluminous voice. What she lacked in size she MORE than made up in for in vocals. And to top it off she was quick to anger and so very slow to mellow. Those were not great ingredients if one were to perpetrate a lie. Brendon had learned the hard way.
“Justin, I don’t know if I could do that,” Brendon said in all seriousness. “You know how your sister gets.”
Justin nodded in reluctant agreement. Of course he did, he’d had nineteen years of personal experience. Justin was secretly attempting to find a work around to this dilemma.
“How about this,” Justin started. “What if I ask you something but you don’t tell her until she wakes up?”
“Again, that depends,” Brendon answered. “If it’s important she’ll be pissed that I didn’t wake her to tell her.”
“Damn it,” Justin muttered.
“What’s going on?” Brendon asked, curiosity starting to get the better of him.
“Damn it,” Justin said for the second time. “Here goes nothing. I want to take Travis, Tommy and hopefully you to go get Paul.”
“Your dad’s best friend? Does your dad know? Of course not or we wouldn’t be doing this whole covert conversation in the living room,” Brendon said as he nervously wiped his forehead, even though sweat had not yet begun to form although it would soon. “What makes you think they’ll even let us out of the gate?”
“My dad just left on the semi.” ‘I think,’ Justin thought to himself. “I’ll tell the guys at the gate that he wanted us to follow.” ‘And hopefully they won’t ask where, cuz I have no clue,’ he finished his inner dialog.
Brendon turned to walk back upstairs. Justin became anxious, fearful Brendon had made up his mind and not in the appropriate direction.
“I’m going to get my stuff,” Brendon explained as he now began to play the advanced hopscotch game.
Justin was excited and worried at the same time. He ran downstairs to get the others and get out of the house before he changed his mind. This undertaking was of his design and if anything went wrong it would be his responsibility. This was a little bit more unnerving than making sure the shelves were correctly stocked for the frenetic holiday shoppers at Wal-Mart.
The boys had decided to take Brendon’s Explorer, after some initial resistance. Brendon’s truck had the habit of breaking down at the most inopportune times, but this fact still seemed like a better alternative than facing Mike Talbot if something should happen to his beloved Jeep. With nothing closing in and no elevated terror level, Brendon’s truck, of course, clamored to life easily, just as the sun began to shine under an opaque sky. Brendon pulled up to the gate guard who was putting his hand out to halt them, although this was a useless gesture. It wasn’t like Brendon could miss the five-ton yellow bus.
“Vere are you boys going?” Igor Drudarski, the guard, asked. Igor was a fifty something, fat Russian man who had emigrated over from the former Soviet Union some twenty years previously. He had not lost a hint of his former accent or his profound ability to drink vast quantities of vodka. The sour stench permeated through the truck as he looked over the boys and all the weapons they carried. Tommy smiled back, greedily stuffing a blueberry Pop-Tart into his mouth.
“We have Pop-Tarts?” Travis asked softly.
“Weef did,” Tommy smiled weakly back.
Justin leaned over Brendon a little and subsequently closer to the stink of Igor’s breath. This morning was not working out well at all for his olfactory senses, which had just recently gotten over the assault at the bathroom.
“Mike Talbot asked us to follow him with some more fire power,” Justin said, with a little more conviction in his voice than he felt.
“You are his boys, no?” Igor asked.
“That’s right,” Justin answered.
“He already had four people with him, what does he need you for?” Igor asked.
“Probably just guard duty,” Travis threw in hastily. Justin silently thanked his brother.
Igor looked at all of them skeptically. “They left over fifteen minutes ago, you know how to get to the armory, yes?”
“Oh yeah,” Justin responded, perhaps a little too eagerly.
Igor pulled his head out from the driver’s side window, not convinced he was receiving the truth, but his main function was to keep people out, not in. He waved the bus driver to pull forward and out of the way.
Be safe, dah?” Igor yelled out. Brendon waved in response. The bus driver closed the gate, not waiting for Igor’s hand signal.
“Which way do I go when I get to Havana?” Brendon asked Justin.
“Uh right,” Justin told him, taking just a fraction of a second longer than appropriate to give the answer.
“You know the way right?” Brendon asked doubtfully.
“Uhhh, most of the way,” Justin said meekly.
“Justin!” Brendon bellowed. “You are going to get us all screwed, this is going to be an all risk and no reward venture! Your sister’s going to kill me, not including what Mike’s gonna do when he realizes I let you talk me into this harebrained scheme. It’s not like we can ask somebody for directions. ‘Hello Mr. Zombie, have you eaten any one lately named Paul Ginner? No? Then can you tell us how we might get there before you? What? You can’t talk?’” Brendon was working himself up into a frenzy. He pulled into a now out-of-commission gas station so he could turn around.
