Rising (43 page)

“Mom.
 
Listen to me very carefully.
 
We
are leaving right now.
 
I know it sounds
crazy, but this storm has brought something terrible to Beau
Chêne
.
 
People are
dying.
 
We’re going to Pop’s cabin where
it’s safe.
 
Others are there waiting for
us.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her
hand.
 
“People are dying?
 
From what?”

“They’re, they’re,” I stammered, knowing full
well how absurd it would sound coming out of my mouth, “monsters.
 
They’re killing people.”

“It’s true,” said Ben, coming in behind me,
glowing like a damn candle.

“Oh, my word, Benjamin,” she exclaimed, “what
in the world has happened to you?
 
Did
you fall into some sort of chemical spill?”

He had dimmed somewhat on the way over, but he
still had a bizarre, ghostly look to him.

“No, Ms. Nancy.
 
That’s another story that we can tell you along the way.
 
But, Gabe’s telling the truth.
 
We need to leave.”

My mom stared skeptically at all three of
us.
 
She hadn’t even bothered to ask who
the new kid was beside me.
 
Jeremy just
waited silently.
 
I hadn’t noticed that
Pop had disappeared and was now reentering the room, holding a 12-gauge
shotgun.

“Alright then.
 
Let’s go.”

“Daddy, what do you think you are you doing
with that thing?”

“Nancy, I’ve known this boy all my life.
 
He doesn’t lie and he doesn’t make up
stories.
 
If he says we’re safer out
there, then we’re safer out there.
 
Get
your purse and let’s go.
 
I’ve got all I
need.”

She looked back into my eyes, considering what
to do, weighing everything as she always did.

“Trust me, Mom.”

Finally, she sighed heavily.

“Fine.
 
But one of you boys needs to get the ice chest in the kitchen.
 
I’ve got a month’s worth of frozen meat in
there and I’m not going to let it spoil.”

It took close to ten minutes, but we eventually
got my mom and Pop in the Durango along with an ice chest, a gas grill, two
fold-out cots, and a pile of sleeping bags and blankets.
 

“And, whose Durango is this, Gabriel?” she
asked in an accusing, motherly way.

“We had to borrow it from Jessie,” interjected
Ben, thankfully.

“Why?”

“Mom, we just did.
 
It’s too much to explain right now.”

“Well, you’ve got a whole lot of explaining to
do when we get there.”

In three minutes, we were pulling up to Ben’s
grandmother’s house.
 
The white shell
driveway crunched under the tires.
 
Pop
was already dozing in the backseat.
 
Jeremy and I followed Ben up to the front door.

“Well, this should be interesting,” said Ben.

Their generator rumbled loudly on the backside
of the house.
 
Faint lights came from the
two windows in the front room.
 
It seemed
like all was well.
 
No reapers.

“Sounds like everything is okay here, too,” I
told Ben whose anxiety was pouring over me like a tidal wave.

“Yeah, except my parents don’t believe me as
easily as your family believes you,” he said.
 
“You know what?
 
Why don’t y’all
wait right here.
 
They hate surprises,
and they’re only expecting me.
 
It’ll be
easier if I do this alone.”

“Okay, we’ll wait here,” I said, gesturing to a
garden bench on the side of the walkway up to the front door.
 
“But, we need to hurry.
 
We’ve got to go to Jeremy’s house, too.”

He nodded and went in to face the firing
squad.
 
I glanced at Jeremy when we sat
down, wondering why he hadn’t seemed in any kind of a hurry to get home to his
parents.
 
He had plugged his earphones in
and was tapping his knee to the rhythm of whatever was playing.
 
I pulled out his right earphone.

“Did you ever get a call from your parents
before the cell towers went out?”

“Nope.”

“Do you think it’s going to be hard to get them
to come with us?”

He pulled the other earphone out and stretched
out his legs, crossing his ankles.

“I don’t know what they’ll do.”

“What do you mean?
 
What are they like?”

Jeremy had always spoken so cynically about his
parents, but I wondered how he really felt about them.
 
Was he just playing the bad boy or did he
truly not care about them?

“What are they like?
 
Well, my mom’s a heavy smoker, snuffing out
at least two packs a day.
 
She plays
bingo down at Veteran’s Hall three nights a week.
 
She hates cooking, so I pretty much live off
of Ramen noodles and Easy Mac.
 
And, I’ve
heard her say more than once that she was glad she only had one kid.
 
My dad works at Bayou Pipe from 6 a.m. to 6
p.m.
 
When he gets home, he falls into
his recliner with whatever fast food he picked up on the way home and basically
ignores the world around him while he watches Spike TV.
 
And, as far as they’re concerned, I’m pretty
much invisible.”

That was way more than I was prepared for.
 
I knew my expression must’ve shown a bit of
shock.
 
Jeremy sort of laughed.

“Don’t worry, man.
 
It really doesn’t bother me.
 
Not anymore.
 
I practically raised myself, and if I do say so, I did a damn fine job.”

I tried to smile back.

“Do you think they’ll come with us?”

“Quite frankly, I’d be surprised if they’re
even there.
 
They left for that hurricane
last year to my aunt’s in Baton Rouge without telling me.
 
I came home kind of late and found a note
with bottles of water, cans of tuna fish, and a variety pack of chips.”

There was a building anger rippling out from
him.
 
I had no idea that his home life
was that bad.
 
It made me feel a little
guilty for having people who cared about me so much, when he really had no
one.
 
Well, now he had us—his clan.

“Do you even want to go by there?”

Jeremy cut his eyes at me.
 
There was deep sadness there.
 

“Yeah,” he said, almost reluctantly, “I need to
go, just in case they stayed.”

He knew as well as I did that it would be a
death sentence to leave them unprotected.
 
After all their neglect of him, Jeremy still had a heart to protect
them.
 
He always seemed to be surprising
me.

Ben came out the front door with his tiny,
white-haired Grandma on his arm and two bickering people behind him.
 
All four of them were talking at once.

“This is just ridiculous, Ben.
 
I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said
his blonde-haired mother.

“Son, this is all uncalled for.
 
You can’t take Grandma to a cabin in the
woods,” said his sandy-haired father.

“Wow,” said Jeremy next to me, “a whole family
of Light Bulbs.”

“I believe you, Benjamin,” said his Grandma,
looking up adoringly at her grandson and patting his arm.

“Dad, you’re just going to have to trust
me.
 
Now, Gabe’s mom and grandfather are
waiting on us.”

“Gabriel,” said Ben’s mom, “would you please
tell him he’s being ridiculous?
 
You’re
just being ridiculous, Ben.”

They followed Ben all the way down the walkway,
griping the entire time, but still following him as he hobbled slowly so
Grandma could keep up.
 
I have to say, it
did look a bit ridiculous, just like his mom said.
 
What was surprising was that Ben’s parents
were still trailing behind their son without a full explanation why they had to
leave.
 
Actually, knowing Ben’s easy
nature to follow others, it shouldn’t have surprised me at all.
 
Apparently, the apple didn’t fall far from
the tree.

“Hey, Mr. LeBlanc?” I called behind them.

“Yes, Gabriel?”

“Would you mind if I borrowed a car?
 
I’d like y’all to caravan straight to the
cabin, but Jeremy and I need to get to his parent’s house.”

“Well, we’ll go swing by there with you,” he
said, nodding hello to Jeremy.

“No, sir.
 
I think it’s best that all of you get off the road as soon as
possible.
 
We won’t be long.”

“Okay, then,” said Mr. LeBlanc, pulling a pair
of keys from his pocket.
 
“We’ll take
Grandma’s car.
 
Angela!
 
We’re taking your mother’s car.”

She was still complaining to Ben and Grandma
who shuffled toward the Chrysler instead of the Honda minivan.
 
I gave instructions to my mother to drive
straight to the camp without stopping and that we’d be there shortly.
 
I also warned her to expect quite a few house
guests.
 
Her only response was that she’d
at least have someone to feed all the meat that was going to spoil.

“Ben,” I said, as he put his Grandma in the
front seat of the Chrysler, “I think you need to drive them there.”

“They can find it on their own, Gabe.
 
I’ll go with you two.”

“No,” I said.
 
“They may encounter some of the scouts or reapers.
 
If they do, they’ll probably panic, not
having seen them or know what they are.
 
And, you’ll be able to weaken them enough that you can all get away.”

“You think so?”

“Of course,” I said confidently, knowing that
Ben needed it.
 
“Besides, I think I’ve
figured out that the reapers are going for easy prey.
 
I think they know there’s enough people out
there for easy taking that they won’t fight that hard to get people in fleeing
vehicles.
 
Still, I’d feel better knowing
you were with them and will get them all to the cabin in one piece.”

“Don’t worry, Gabe.
 
I’ll take care of them,” he said with his big
Ben smile.

“Let’s go,” I told Jeremy.

We jumped in the minivan and backed out of the
drive.
 
I waited until the other two
vehicles were safely ahead of us, then I turned back toward Beau
Chêne
, back to where the shadow scouts lurked and the
reapers searched.

“Well, Gabe,” said Jeremy, “this is different.”

I glanced at him in the passenger seat of the
minivan, wondering how in the hell we’d ended up in this situation.
 
Just the two of us, heading back into a den
of demons in the most laughable ride imaginable, without our Guardian—Clara.
 
I was suddenly in a great hurry to get this
over with and get back to the camp, gunning that little minivan straight toward
town.

17

GABE

Jeremy’s neighborhood was spooky quiet.
 
No noisy generators broke the silent
night.
 
Creeping into the back door with
a flashlight, Jeremy found a note on the counter, just as he’d predicted.
 
He scanned it, then balled up the paper and
tossed it on the kitchen floor.

“Yep.
 
Gone to Aunt Lydia’s in Baton Rouge.”

I could feel that same bitterness as I did
earlier coming from him.

“Sorry, man,” I said, standing halfway in the
doorway, “but we better go.”

“Yeah, just give me a minute to get some
things.”

He disappeared with his flashlight to the back
of the house.
 
I couldn’t help but glance
toward his father’s worn recliner in the den after what Jeremy had told me
about him earlier.
 
Even in the dark, I
could tell this was a depressing environment to grow up in.
 
Jeremy tromped back up the hall with a
backpack over one shoulder.

“Let’s hit it.”

“I was thinking it might be better if we go
straight out to Sugar Mill Road from here then skirt around town to Old Spanish
Trail,” I said, jumping back into the driver’s seat of the minivan.