Post by lighthouse on Jan 25, 2012 12:08:47 GMT -5
After a good home cooked meal we all sat down to relax. There was so much to talk about and so much to catch up on. I felt like Jay had been gone a lifetime. He looked a little bit different. Besides the scruffy beard, I couldn’t tell if it was fatigue, maturity, or sickness. He seemed okay, but I could tell there was more going on that I had to know.
Taylor also seemed tired, but that was expected. She was unusually quiet from when I remembered her last. Typically full of wit and sarcasm, now she sat quietly staring at her surroundings and cautiously on guard. She too had thinned and her hair had grown extremely long. Both of them appeared to have struggled with more than they should have at this age.
I poured Jay another cup of iced tea and sat down to wait for him to begin. He knew me all too well. He looked at me and smiled.
“Okay, Mom. I know you can’t wait any longer.” He sighed a big breath. “it’s a wild story and you may not like most of it, but it has a good ending. Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’m going to be. I know it has a good ending, because you’re home now. That’s the best ending I could ever think of.”
Jay just shook his head and looked at Taylor. “There’s an even better ending that that! But lets start at the beginning. I tried to keep a journal or blog while I was away so I’ll let you read the details later. Taylor had one too, but it got lost somewhere on the road. For now, here is the condensed version.”
“Well, you know that the whole epidemic with the MRSA virus was pretty scary and I just felt like God was calling me to do something about it. I wasn’t sure what it was. After all, I’m not a doctor or anything, but I really felt like I was suppose to help in some way. So when that “special” project came up after graduation, I knew I had to be a part of it.
When I talked with Taylor, she also thought something strange was going on and she didn’t want me to work on the project all by myself. She was a little protective to say the least.”
Jay looked over at Taylor and saw that she was nodding her head. “Good thing, too.” She said. “There was no way Jay should’ve been doing anything out there by himself.”
Jay continued. “Anyway, we decided secretly to tackle this project together. If we told you and Auntie Tarcia what we were going to do, you both would have locked us up and thrown away the key. And in this house, that would not have been hard.”
Jay laughed then, but I didn’t think this was funny.
“Well, I then spoke with Aviane and she said that she had family members that were working on a cure for this whole Zombie like problem. She said she was headed to New York to try to help. This was my chance to follow my calling. Taylor and I told you and Auntie Tarcia that it was a research project, so you wouldn’t worry so much. We weren’t lying, because we were going to research a lot of material. I knew you didn’t want me to go, but I respect that fact that you let me. You’re pretty awesome, Mom.”
I smiled at my son. “Thank you, honey. But it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Now, finish your story.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “The project took on a whole new meaning when Aviane called me and said that her relative that was working on the vaccine disappeared. She was leaving for New York immediately to try to find him. Taylor had her car and offered to drive Aviane there to help search for him. It was more that we bargained for, but I figured it was all part of God’s Big Plan. So we left. Aviane and I met up with Taylor and headed for New York.
The journey was wild. After we passed the state line, things were even more strange than they were here. Buildings were abandoned and the streets were deserted. Each time we stopped to fill up the car, we felt like someone was watching us. At one point, Taylor didn’t even pay. We were so freaked out, we just pumped and ran. Everything was barren and creepy. Even if we wanted to buy something, there was no one there to take the money. We weren’t sure what to do, so we just took what we wanted and left.
We stayed at a few hotels while we were on the road. No one was in the lobby or anywhere else for that matter, so we helped ourselves to a shower and a warm bed. There were a few MRSA victims wondering around the first night, but we boarded and locked ourselves in so they couldn’t come anywhere near us. It didn’t last long though, because in the middle of the night, we woke up to see some silhouette crawling over the railing of our balcony. We freaked out and took off down the hallway. More zombie like creatures were invading the hotel. We jumped in the elevator and pressed the down button but it wasn’t working properly. Taylor was in hysterics. You know she hates elevators to begin with. I thought she was going to die. We all were when we heard some big noise jump on top of the elevator shaft. All of a sudden the elevator zoomed downward and we fell to our faces. It stopped before we hit bottom though. We scrambled out of there and ran to Taylor’s car. That was no good, because someone had trashed it! We had to run back into the hotel. We found the room with the indoor pool and hid in there. We waited until morning to leave and tried to find a new car.”
I stared at my son and held on to my cup of tea. What was going on in the world?
Jay continued. “ We finally found another vehicle at a car dealership. It even had a GPS, but come to find out, it didn’t work very well. We managed to find a hunting supply store, so we stopped for supplies. Who knew Aviane knew how to shoot a gun? Anyway, we got lost in the woods. When we finally found our way out, there was this little town that we stopped in . Actually, we had no choice. We ran out of gas. The town was completely useless except for the Wallymart we found. We decided to get some more supplies and have some fun. Still, it was freaky being in an abandoned department store. I kept thinking I saw moving shadows.
“Well, come to find out, I was right. We weren’t alone in Walmart. There were some serious rednecks roaming around too. They tried to grab the girls by gunpoint, but that didn’t stop Taylor or Aviane. They fought those two geezers and gave them a run for their money. I would have helped, but they knocked me out with the butt of their gun. My head hurts just thinking about it.”
Taylor poured herself more tea. “It was scary, Auntie. I don’t know where we got the strength to fight them off.”
“Thank God you’re alright. Its amazing what we can do when we’re scared to death. I have some stories I’ll have to tell you.” I answered.
Jay poured some tea too. “It was incredible. When I woke up, I found Taylor in the toy department fighting off some redneck kid. We managed to bring him and down, only to find Aviane dealing with his father. Together we smashed gun cases open and threw barbells at him. I don’t know what else we would have done if the zombies hadn’t come in. We heard them crashing through the store and moaning. We managed to escape while they were ravaging those redneck guys.”
Taylor interrupted. “There were zombies everywhere outside. We almost got caught in the lawn and garden section. Aviane and I were screaming, but Jay came through. We turned the sprinklers on them and then we made a run for the Hummer that those rednecks came in.”
“We were just lucky enough that Aviane figured out how to hotwire a car.” Jay and Taylor nodded together. “So we started onward to New York again. As we were driving, we found this little old man walking along the road, trying to hitchhike. Come to find out, he was a physicist with the government. He deserted his office to go to New York and find his sister in law’s house. I guess there were no zombies there. Charles proved to be quite helpful in our journey.”
By this time, I was shaking my head back and forth trying to absorb all this information my son was giving me. I was a nervous wreck as he told me his story. I can’t imagine what I would have done had I known what was going on at the time.
Jay continued. “We arrived in New York at the lab where Aviane’s family worked. It was trashed. Charley and Aviane immediately went to work trying to salvage some of the research and records. Taylor and I decided to find some food. We ended up at some Lebanese food store, only to be chased again by more zombies. We gathered whatever we could find and headed back. We decided we needed to find weapons immediately. While we were out searching, I lost my phone. That’s why you didn’t hear from me for awhile. Then once I found it, I had to find some internet connection. It just seemed like one bad thing after another.”
“That’s when you called me?” I asked.
“Almost. A few other things happened in the mean time. Aviane and Charley had a breakthrough. They discovered some information to help with their research for an immunity to the MRSA zombie disease. They were ecstatic, except that it didn’t work at first. It was only by mistake that Taylor actually fixed it.
“I was hungry and decided to make myself some macaroni and cheese. I accidentally turned on the wrong burner and I heated the blood sample that Aviane was working on. Come to find out, the heat divided out the cells in the zombie blood and created the beginning of an antibody. By separating the cells, Charley was able to make a serum to battle the MRSA zombie virus.” Taylor added.
“The only bad part was that we needed a test object to inject the serum.” Jay paused and looked at me. I knew where this was going. I closed my eyes and waited for him to speak again.
“ I volunteered Mom.” He said.
“Of course you did, honey.” I replied.
“The good news is that it worked! The bad news is that you actually become part zombie like while it flows through your system. For awhile I tried to kill Aviane and Taylor and Charley, but eventually it wore off and I am me again.”
Jay looked at me and grabbed my hand. “It’s okay Mom. I’m healed and I truly believe I’m now immune to this MRSA virus. Aviane and Charley are trying to figure out a way to stop that process from happening again. But I’m fine. I actually feel good.” He stopped for a moment. “ That was when I called you to tell you I love you and I was coming home soon. I couldn’t wait to be home. Taylor decided to come with me and I think Auntie Tarcia may be on her way too.”
Taylor smiled. “I tried to call Mom yesterday, but the call kept dropping. I hope she understood where I was going.”
“We’ll call her on my house phone or my special phone. I’m sure we’ll get through.” I consoled her.
Jay looked quizzical. “Special phone, Mom? What’s that?”
I squeezed my son’s hand. “ Oh, I have a few stories to tell too. This news about the serum and cure for the zombie disease is incredible. There’s hope for us yet. I’m just glad you’re okay and you’re home. That’s what is most important to me.”
Taylor also seemed tired, but that was expected. She was unusually quiet from when I remembered her last. Typically full of wit and sarcasm, now she sat quietly staring at her surroundings and cautiously on guard. She too had thinned and her hair had grown extremely long. Both of them appeared to have struggled with more than they should have at this age.
I poured Jay another cup of iced tea and sat down to wait for him to begin. He knew me all too well. He looked at me and smiled.
“Okay, Mom. I know you can’t wait any longer.” He sighed a big breath. “it’s a wild story and you may not like most of it, but it has a good ending. Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’m going to be. I know it has a good ending, because you’re home now. That’s the best ending I could ever think of.”
Jay just shook his head and looked at Taylor. “There’s an even better ending that that! But lets start at the beginning. I tried to keep a journal or blog while I was away so I’ll let you read the details later. Taylor had one too, but it got lost somewhere on the road. For now, here is the condensed version.”
“Well, you know that the whole epidemic with the MRSA virus was pretty scary and I just felt like God was calling me to do something about it. I wasn’t sure what it was. After all, I’m not a doctor or anything, but I really felt like I was suppose to help in some way. So when that “special” project came up after graduation, I knew I had to be a part of it.
When I talked with Taylor, she also thought something strange was going on and she didn’t want me to work on the project all by myself. She was a little protective to say the least.”
Jay looked over at Taylor and saw that she was nodding her head. “Good thing, too.” She said. “There was no way Jay should’ve been doing anything out there by himself.”
Jay continued. “Anyway, we decided secretly to tackle this project together. If we told you and Auntie Tarcia what we were going to do, you both would have locked us up and thrown away the key. And in this house, that would not have been hard.”
Jay laughed then, but I didn’t think this was funny.
“Well, I then spoke with Aviane and she said that she had family members that were working on a cure for this whole Zombie like problem. She said she was headed to New York to try to help. This was my chance to follow my calling. Taylor and I told you and Auntie Tarcia that it was a research project, so you wouldn’t worry so much. We weren’t lying, because we were going to research a lot of material. I knew you didn’t want me to go, but I respect that fact that you let me. You’re pretty awesome, Mom.”
I smiled at my son. “Thank you, honey. But it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Now, finish your story.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “The project took on a whole new meaning when Aviane called me and said that her relative that was working on the vaccine disappeared. She was leaving for New York immediately to try to find him. Taylor had her car and offered to drive Aviane there to help search for him. It was more that we bargained for, but I figured it was all part of God’s Big Plan. So we left. Aviane and I met up with Taylor and headed for New York.
The journey was wild. After we passed the state line, things were even more strange than they were here. Buildings were abandoned and the streets were deserted. Each time we stopped to fill up the car, we felt like someone was watching us. At one point, Taylor didn’t even pay. We were so freaked out, we just pumped and ran. Everything was barren and creepy. Even if we wanted to buy something, there was no one there to take the money. We weren’t sure what to do, so we just took what we wanted and left.
We stayed at a few hotels while we were on the road. No one was in the lobby or anywhere else for that matter, so we helped ourselves to a shower and a warm bed. There were a few MRSA victims wondering around the first night, but we boarded and locked ourselves in so they couldn’t come anywhere near us. It didn’t last long though, because in the middle of the night, we woke up to see some silhouette crawling over the railing of our balcony. We freaked out and took off down the hallway. More zombie like creatures were invading the hotel. We jumped in the elevator and pressed the down button but it wasn’t working properly. Taylor was in hysterics. You know she hates elevators to begin with. I thought she was going to die. We all were when we heard some big noise jump on top of the elevator shaft. All of a sudden the elevator zoomed downward and we fell to our faces. It stopped before we hit bottom though. We scrambled out of there and ran to Taylor’s car. That was no good, because someone had trashed it! We had to run back into the hotel. We found the room with the indoor pool and hid in there. We waited until morning to leave and tried to find a new car.”
I stared at my son and held on to my cup of tea. What was going on in the world?
Jay continued. “ We finally found another vehicle at a car dealership. It even had a GPS, but come to find out, it didn’t work very well. We managed to find a hunting supply store, so we stopped for supplies. Who knew Aviane knew how to shoot a gun? Anyway, we got lost in the woods. When we finally found our way out, there was this little town that we stopped in . Actually, we had no choice. We ran out of gas. The town was completely useless except for the Wallymart we found. We decided to get some more supplies and have some fun. Still, it was freaky being in an abandoned department store. I kept thinking I saw moving shadows.
“Well, come to find out, I was right. We weren’t alone in Walmart. There were some serious rednecks roaming around too. They tried to grab the girls by gunpoint, but that didn’t stop Taylor or Aviane. They fought those two geezers and gave them a run for their money. I would have helped, but they knocked me out with the butt of their gun. My head hurts just thinking about it.”
Taylor poured herself more tea. “It was scary, Auntie. I don’t know where we got the strength to fight them off.”
“Thank God you’re alright. Its amazing what we can do when we’re scared to death. I have some stories I’ll have to tell you.” I answered.
Jay poured some tea too. “It was incredible. When I woke up, I found Taylor in the toy department fighting off some redneck kid. We managed to bring him and down, only to find Aviane dealing with his father. Together we smashed gun cases open and threw barbells at him. I don’t know what else we would have done if the zombies hadn’t come in. We heard them crashing through the store and moaning. We managed to escape while they were ravaging those redneck guys.”
Taylor interrupted. “There were zombies everywhere outside. We almost got caught in the lawn and garden section. Aviane and I were screaming, but Jay came through. We turned the sprinklers on them and then we made a run for the Hummer that those rednecks came in.”
“We were just lucky enough that Aviane figured out how to hotwire a car.” Jay and Taylor nodded together. “So we started onward to New York again. As we were driving, we found this little old man walking along the road, trying to hitchhike. Come to find out, he was a physicist with the government. He deserted his office to go to New York and find his sister in law’s house. I guess there were no zombies there. Charles proved to be quite helpful in our journey.”
By this time, I was shaking my head back and forth trying to absorb all this information my son was giving me. I was a nervous wreck as he told me his story. I can’t imagine what I would have done had I known what was going on at the time.
Jay continued. “We arrived in New York at the lab where Aviane’s family worked. It was trashed. Charley and Aviane immediately went to work trying to salvage some of the research and records. Taylor and I decided to find some food. We ended up at some Lebanese food store, only to be chased again by more zombies. We gathered whatever we could find and headed back. We decided we needed to find weapons immediately. While we were out searching, I lost my phone. That’s why you didn’t hear from me for awhile. Then once I found it, I had to find some internet connection. It just seemed like one bad thing after another.”
“That’s when you called me?” I asked.
“Almost. A few other things happened in the mean time. Aviane and Charley had a breakthrough. They discovered some information to help with their research for an immunity to the MRSA zombie disease. They were ecstatic, except that it didn’t work at first. It was only by mistake that Taylor actually fixed it.
“I was hungry and decided to make myself some macaroni and cheese. I accidentally turned on the wrong burner and I heated the blood sample that Aviane was working on. Come to find out, the heat divided out the cells in the zombie blood and created the beginning of an antibody. By separating the cells, Charley was able to make a serum to battle the MRSA zombie virus.” Taylor added.
“The only bad part was that we needed a test object to inject the serum.” Jay paused and looked at me. I knew where this was going. I closed my eyes and waited for him to speak again.
“ I volunteered Mom.” He said.
“Of course you did, honey.” I replied.
“The good news is that it worked! The bad news is that you actually become part zombie like while it flows through your system. For awhile I tried to kill Aviane and Taylor and Charley, but eventually it wore off and I am me again.”
Jay looked at me and grabbed my hand. “It’s okay Mom. I’m healed and I truly believe I’m now immune to this MRSA virus. Aviane and Charley are trying to figure out a way to stop that process from happening again. But I’m fine. I actually feel good.” He stopped for a moment. “ That was when I called you to tell you I love you and I was coming home soon. I couldn’t wait to be home. Taylor decided to come with me and I think Auntie Tarcia may be on her way too.”
Taylor smiled. “I tried to call Mom yesterday, but the call kept dropping. I hope she understood where I was going.”
“We’ll call her on my house phone or my special phone. I’m sure we’ll get through.” I consoled her.
Jay looked quizzical. “Special phone, Mom? What’s that?”
I squeezed my son’s hand. “ Oh, I have a few stories to tell too. This news about the serum and cure for the zombie disease is incredible. There’s hope for us yet. I’m just glad you’re okay and you’re home. That’s what is most important to me.”