CHAPTER 9

Four days later:

We were walking in the front door and laughing about a story that Norah was telling about one of her cousins; when she stopped suddenly, causing me to bump into her back. "What is she doing here," Norah hissed.

Confused, I looked up to see an older but attractive dark-haired woman standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Don't you dare speak about me in that disrespectful tone, young lady," she snapped.

Not one to back down easily, Norah drew herself up to her full height, "Iris, you're not welcome in this house."

"I grew up in this house the same as my sister Celeste and I have just as much right to be here as either of you."

"Maybe so," Norah replied calmly. "But we don't want you here."

"Celeste wants me, and that's all that matters," Iris answered with mock politeness. "Besides which, you should be thanking me for coming."

"And just why would I want to do that?" Norah asked.

"Well," she replied with a faint smirk on her lips. "If I hadn't shown up when I did, she'd still be lying there at the foot of the stairs."

"What happened?" Norah gasped.

"One of her patients, a teenage boy, went crazy on her, and when she tried to stop him from leaving, he knocked her down the stairs. The poor thing had been lying there for hours with a broken leg when I found her."

"Oh no, what happened to the boy?" I asked.

"I have no idea," she replied carelessly. "He ran out the door several days ago and hasn't been seen since."

Norah reached out and took my hand, "don't worry, we'll find him. Let's go talk to my aunt and find out what happened."

"She's sleeping right now, but you can see her later," Iris said and stepped in front of the door with her arms crossed.

We'll just take a peek and see how she's doing," Norah said firmly, and only when I was starting to think that we might have to either give up or push our way on past her. Moose curled back his lips and let out a soft, barely audible growl.

Iris gasped and jumped back in alarm, "get that beast out of here!"

"He's with us," Norah replied impatiently and brushed on past her.

"I'm warning you, Norah, dogs aren't allowed in this house," Iris snapped.

"This isn't your house, and you don't make the rules around here," Norah said, leaving Iris, I was amused to see, speechless.

"Oh, Kaley, I'm so sorry about Lucas," Celeste exclaimed when we came into the room. "He was doing so well at first; it took me completely by surprise."

"What happened?"

"Sometimes, during treatment, they suffer from hallucinations and have to be restrained to keep them from injuring themselves or others. But Lucas wasn't experiencing any side effects until right after the 2nd treatment. One minute he was completely fine, and the next, he was out of his mind."

"We have to find him," I exclaimed. "He's been out there on his own for almost three days now."

"But how?" Norah asked. "He could be anywhere by now."

"Why don't you see if Moose can track him," Celeste suggested. "Give him something of Lucas' to smell and see what happens."

"You know, that just might work," Norah said encouragingly.

"I'll go get one of his shirts," I said and abruptly left the room just in time to catch Iris lurking just around the doorway. Obviously eavesdropping on our conversation, she looked a little surprised to get caught; but overall, I would say she looked more defiant than embarrassed. Ignoring her, I ran upstairs and collected one of Lucas' recently worn shirts.

* * *

Once I showed the shirt to Moose, he seemed to know what I wanted instinctively. He sniffed around the area for a couple of minutes before taking off into the wooded area behind the house. Curiously enough, when we reached the spot at the edge of the yard where I'd thought someone was watching us on our first night here. Moose uttered a low growl and started sniffing all around in a circle.

I looked at Norah, "that's a little odd, don't you think?"

She shrugged, "it just tells me always to trust my instincts."

"I think that you might be right about that, " I said and showed the shirt to a bored-looking Moose who had laid down on the ground and seemed to have forgotten that he was tracking. He became instantly alert and took off like a shot at the first whiff of Lucas' shirt, but luckily I had him on a lead this time, so there was no chance of losing him in the woods.

A couple of hours later, we found ourselves on the edges of a little town called Sweet Springs with a rusty population sign that read 425. The town, which was so small that you could walk from one end to the other in five minutes, comprised a general store, a cafe, a hotel, a barbershop, and a mayor's office. The town's buildings did look a little rundown, which was to be expected. But you could tell that someone was taking care of the place because the street was clean, and somebody had planted flowers in the pots that lined the sidewalk.

Moose, who was no doubt confused by all the different scents, had stopped tracking and was now eyeing a squirrel that was chattering down at us from its perch in one of the trees that was lining the street.

"I think that we might have lost the scent; why don't we ask around and see if anyone has seen your brother," Norah suggested.

We tried the mayor's office first, but the place was deserted, so we moved on to the cafe. The cafe, which several friendly-looking locals occupied, was nice and homey if a little worn looking. Once inside, we sat at a small table in the corner and ordered the special, which was gumbo with rice and cornbread and a couple of bunless burgers for Moose.

The waitress, a friendly young woman named Penny, stopped by to chat a little while we waited for our food. When I asked her about Lucas, she suggested that we try the barbershop because Joe, the Barber, usually knew everything that was going on in town.

Joe, the Barber, was a friendly older man with dark weathered skin and a ready smile. We took a seat and waited for a bit while he finished up with his current client before I asked for a trim.

"You could certainly use a trim, young lady," he observed while checking out the sad state of my hair. "What did you do? Chop it off with a chainsaw?"

"No, I used my knife," I replied laughingly.

"Well, in the future, I would suggest that you try using scissors. Or maybe better yet leave it to the professionals," he suggested with a grin.

"I will keep that in mind," I replied.

"So what brings you two young ladies to Sweet Springs?" He inquired as he started evening out the jagged ends of my hair. "I know almost everyone around here, and I don't remember ever meeting either one of you before."

"We're looking for my twin brother; he's been missing for about three days. And we tracked him to the edges of town."

"I haven't seen or heard about anyone new in town, but you should check with my friend Roy down at The Red Rocket. He pretty much knows everything that goes on around this place."

"That sounds like a good idea. Where can we find The Red Rocket?" I asked while admiring my neatly trimmed hair in the mirror. It was still long enough to braid or wear in a ponytail if I wanted, but was not so long as to be a liability.

"Oh, you can't miss it, just follow that road out of town for about a mile, and there it is." He paused for a minute and then gave us his stern grandpa face. "Things are mostly pretty safe around here. There hasn't been any report of a zombie in this area for quite some time. But just the same, you girls be careful and keep your gun close at hand."

* * *

"Can you imagine that less than twenty years ago that everyone had electricity and cell phones?' I mused out loud as we walked down the road. "Now, if you don't have a working generator, you're pretty much out of luck."

"Don't forget about the cars and airplanes," Norah added.

"I wonder what it would be like to fly in a plane?" I wondered.

Norah shook her head, " it must have been awesome, but that's not something that we'll likely ever get to experience in this lifetime."

"It's crazy how fast life can change, so many lives were destroyed, and nobody knows why," I replied.

"This world will never be the same, and I just hope that we can live with the answer when we get it," Norah said ominously.

"What do you mean by-" I was just starting to say when we rounded a bend in the road, and The Red Rocket Gas N Go came into view. It was a lot more kept up than the previous Red Rocket that we'd visited in Mississippi. Everything was so much cleaner, and someone had even made an attempt to repaint the fading sign. But that wasn't what caused me to lose my train of thought. It was the three men on horseback who were leaving the service station.

They looked like trouble with their stern hardened features as they rode by, and I made an effort not to catch their eye. The first two had already passed us on the road when Moose decided to growl at the third one who was lagging a little behind.

Instantly he pulled a pistol and pointed it right at Moose, "Control your dog, little girl, or he's dead."

Just as quickly, I pulled my pistol, pointing it at the man on horseback, knowing all the while that it was probably a huge mistake but unable to stop myself. The other two men had pulled up and turned around to watch the standoff.

"There's no trouble here; he's just a puppy and doesn't know any better," Norah said soothingly and reached out to pull my hand that was holding the pistol down.

Mollified, the man lowered his pistol, "you might want to teach your friend how things work around here. Otherwise, she may not get off so easily next time." With that, he spurred his horse to catch up with the other two riders.

"Kaley, you have to be more careful. Those guys are part of a militia, and some of them would just as soon shoot you as to look at you." Norah said as the three men rode away.

"I couldn't just let him shoot Moose, " I protested stubbornly.

" I know. But with situations like that, you have to try and defuse things."

"You're right," I replied. " Sometimes, my temper gets away from me. Lucas was always the more leveled-headed twin; I'm the one who rushes in without thinking."

"That's not always a bad thing," Norah replied.

"Maybe so, but today certainly wasn't my best day," I said ruefully.

"Well, it wasn't all your fault. There was no reason for him to be so hair-trigger like that and all because of a puppy growling at him. He's a grown-ass man, but he certainly wasn't acting like it."

I reached down to pat Moose, who had sensed that he'd done something wrong and was looking guiltily at me with his droopy head and big eyes.

Norah laughed, "He's still learning."

"Silly puppy," I smiled despite myself. "You need to be more careful about who you growl at."

We both laughed when Moose simply looked at us with his head lopsided as if he was trying to figure out what we were saying.