Lex Thomas - Quarantine - The Saints

Gates woke up on the floor of the bus. It was only a dream.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” he said, touching his face to make sure it was still there.

The back of the bus was dark. The light of the main room shined through the shattered windshield, but couldn’t make it all the way to the back of the bus. He pulled himself to his feet and kicked his way through food wrappers and empty soda bottles, and dirty underwear on the floor. He didn’t bother changing into fresh clothes for the day or gathering his toiletries for the shower. He wanted to get out of the bus and away from that nightmare immediately.

He left the bus for the brightly lit front room of the processing facility. He had to squint at first to handle the light. Most Saints weren’t up yet; it was 6:17 a.m. There were a few shuffling through the room, trying to yawn the sleep away.

In one corner of the room there were two gaming chairs, the kind that rock back and forth, positioned in front of a flat-screen TV, and Will sat in one of them, playing a racing game.

Nice, Will was already up. Gates felt the tension of his nightmare washing away. He and Will always had fun together.

Gates ambled over, and plopped himself down in the free chair. He and Will high-fived, without either of them having to take their eyes off the screen to do it. They’d gamed so much together in the last few nights since the party that they might as well have slept in those chairs. He looked Will up and down. He wasn’t sure but he thought Will was wearing the same clothes as the night before.

“Have you been up all night?” Gates said.

“Yup,” Will said, his eyes locked on the screen.

“Is there a video game championship coming up that I don’t know about?”

“Ha. No. I just kept playing.”

“Wait. Should we have a video game championship?”

“We could,” Will said.

“I actually can’t believe we haven’t done it already. Fuck, it could be so awesome. We could go all night. What games do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“One fighting game, one-shooter for death matches, and something that has split-screen multiplayer. Right? That’s not bad. That covers a lot of bases.”

“Sure,” Will said.

“You’re not excited about it? Look at you, you’re mister gamer.”

“No, I am, it sounds like a good time.”

“You all right?” Gates said.

Will didn’t answer, but Gates knew.

“It’s about that Slut girl from the party?”

Will shrugged.

“Oh, come on. She’s one girl. Who cares?”

“I like her.”

There was something about the way Will said those words that made Gates pause. It wasn’t their usual good time bullshitting kind of talk, Will meant what he said, and Gates could feel how deep his emotion ran when he said it.

He wanted to cheer Will up, Will had been his partner in crime, a fellow fun-hunter, and he didn’t like seeing him so torn up like this. He knew Will thought this girl was really important, and in truth she probably wasn’t. As far as Will had told him, this girl had done nothing but turn him down and lead him on, and Will kept going back for more like a loyal puppy dog.

“Best thing for you is to clean your palate with a new girl.”

“Yeah,” Will said with a sigh.

“Serious.”

“Yeah, I know. You keep telling me.”

“It’s not just for you either. It’s for this girl… what’s her name? Luther?”

Will laughed a little.

“You know it’s Lucy.”

“Right, Louis. It’s for Louis too.”

That got another laugh out of him. Will’s sullen shell was cracking.

“Nothing gets a girl interested in you faster than her seeing you with other girls,” Gates said.

“Hmm,” Will said. Gates could see the idea had needled into his brain.

“Besides, you KNOW Louis is in the Sluts, she’s probably getting her ditch dug out by some guy, all day and night.”

Will laughed, and cringed at the same time. “Damn! You’re a dick,” Will said, but he kept laughing.

Gates punched him in the arm. “Ah! You dirty motherfucker, you were thinking it. I know you were.”

“I definitely wasn’t.”

“She’s all unnnghhhh unnghhhh,” Gates said, miming like he was a girl in ecstasy. “What? You want me to do five guys? Okay.”

“Oh, come on!” Will said, smiling. He kicked Gates’s plastic gamer chair over and Gates fell on the floor.

“Please make a line out the door, everyone,” Gates said, “I can only be humped by three guys at a time.”

Will threw an open bag of Reese’s Pieces at Gates and they hit him in the shoulder. Yellow, orange, and brown candies sprayed all over the floor. Gates laughed and scooped a handful out of the package. He chomped them and let the sugary peanut butter filling spread through his mouth.

“For real though. For real,” Gates said. “Are you okay if I go completely real now? I might have to get real.”

“Okay, okay, yes. Get real,” Will said, amused.

“I’m just confused. Why do you have to be a humongous pussy?”

“That’s it, I’m joining the Freaks.”

“No, hold on. I’m fucking with you. What I want to say for real, is you should be fuckin’ happy. We’re on top. Everyone’s coming to us, asking us for stuff. We’re the cool kids.”

“That’s true,” Will said, brightening another degree as he pondered the idea.

“I’ve got dates lined up for the next two weeks,” Gates said, “and I told all of them they had to bring a hot friend.”

“You did?”

“No lie. Now I could be throwing these girls Fowler’s way, or Pruitt, if that’s what you’re telling me I should do.”

“No one said that.”

“Oh, why?” Gates said, torturing Will. “Are you interested in hanging out with new girls?”

Will took a deep breath, and when he let it out he smiled. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“That’s the dude I’ve been looking for!” Gates said, and threw his fists in the air.

“You have one set up for tonight?”

“Yeah, with a Nerd chick. I heard her friend has a third nipple.”

“Really? Full size?”

“You can only hope.”

“Cool,” Will said.

“This is gonna cheer you up. I’m going to make sure of it. We are going to party so hard for so long that you won’t even be able to remember this Judy girl’s name.”

“All right, all right. You’ve convinced me.”

“Perfecto.”

“I gotta piss,” Will said, and he got up.

“Great, thanks for letting me know.”

Will chuckled as he headed off for one of the bathrooms in the mess hall. Gates put his chair right side up and sat in it. Its curved plastic frame let him rock back and forth. He picked up the controller off the floor and unpaused Will’s racing game. He crashed the car almost immediately.

Gates heard the crunch of someone stepping on a plastic bottle behind him. He turned back.

Colton stood in the middle of the floor.

His skin was gray. He wore his black shades, and full St. Patrick’s attire, a blazer, tie and sweater, slacks, and penny loafers. His brown hair was combed neatly to the side. Black blood dripped from the hole in his forehead.

Colton walked toward him. Gates scrambled out of his chair and into the corner. How was this happening? His dead brother made fists of his hands as he strode toward him.

“Get back!” Gates said.

“Gates?”

Will was standing at the entrance to the mess hall, staring at him, perplexed. Colton was gone. One second he was there and the next he wasn’t. Gates didn’t know if he’d just seen a ghost, or he was losing his shit, but just like earlier when he had seen Will in the gaming chair, just Will’s presence calmed him. He needed to stick with Will. He’d be safe with Will. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he could feel that it was true in his bones.