The Ties that Bind Ch. 03

August 2020

It had been a very weird and confusing several months, Tal mused to himself while trimming his stubble beard. Following the lockdowns in China, panic had spread quickly without any real directions being offered by anyone, least of all the government. Most people had been getting their information from social media, since news sites either hadn't been covering it, or hadn't know what to say, and all it did was cause people to either freak completely out or assume that it was just a bad flu. Mike had luckily been at least somewhat informed and made sure that they were well provisioned right away. He was the adamant one that refused to let Evy go elsewhere, and that freaked her out enough to actually listen to him. He rarely went full big-brother mode on her, but when he did, he meant it.

They had been isolated well before the first cases, well, official cases, were announced Stateside. Tal had been able to take some time off and then naturally transition into work from home, since everyone was shutting down offices. Evy was already able to work from anywhere with her laptop and Mike had orders not to leave his residence. Thus began a surprisingly smooth transition for all of them to be far too familiar with one another. He could only imagine the chaos other folks were dealing with.

He finished up and opened the door to a surprised Evy who had her hand up to knock. "Oh, all yours. Sorry."

"Did you clean up after yourself this time? Cause I swear if I find more of those tiny beard clippings of yours, I'm going to be pissed."

He pinched both of her cheeks and cooed, "You're so adorable when you get assertive. Yes, I cleaned it up."

She playfully swatted his hands away. "I'm not a child. I'm 25 and you need to respect. Mah. Authoriteh!" The little foot stamp at the end really sold it.

"Maybe if you grew another foot I wouldn't mistake you for one, short stuff."

She sniffed indignantly and walked past him. "You know where I'll be when you are ready to apologize." She closed the door, but not before sticking her tongue out at him, really undermining her fake outrage.

Sharing 1.5 bath with three people was not ideal, but they managed to make it work. "Hey Mike, did you hear from Jenny yet what they're thinking?" Mike was flipping through his old DVD collection when Tal walked in.

"Yeah, she said they wanted a chill evening and figured movie and pizza sounded good. She said Andy was going to pick up two deep dish pizzas and be here around 7. I was just flipping through wondering what to put on."

"You know we have like, every streaming service under the sun, right?"

"Yeah, but they don't always have all the old stuff. I'm trying to decide if we do something really terrible and just razz it or put some classic on."

"Just don't put on Wing Commander. Freddie Prince Jr. is dead to me! How could they not even get Mark Hamil to join?" Mike just waved his hand in acknowledgement, having heard this diatribe at least four times before, and continued browsing.

Once evening rolled by and people started showing up, they put the movie selection up for a vote. The horror movies were shot down by committee, no surprise, and Andromeda Strain was out because, well, for obvious reasons. It turned out that neither Evy or Anna had seen The Princess Bride, so that ended up being the front runner, with a close second being Birdemic: Shock and Terror, a truly horrendous movie. The movie was so bad that it had its own cult following, something like The Room, and was approved by majority vote, much to Tal's vehement objections.

The massive pizzas were on the table, so people could get up and grab more whenever they wanted. Evy was serving up initial slices with a deep-dish pie server. "Here you go," she said with a smile.

"What did you do to it?" Tal made no move to take the plate.

Evy clicked her tongue, "When are you going to let that go? It happened ages ago. The note had hearts on it."

"It was literally two weeks ago."

"Oh," she said in sudden realization. "I know what you want." Evy grinned and slowly slinked around the table to be eye to eye with him. "You're right, I should apologize." She kept his gaze as she knelt down on the floor.

"Wait, what the fuck are you doing?"

She bowed her head, made the sign of the cross before interlocking her fingers and looking up at him with puppy dog eyes and saying breathily, "I'm sorry daddy, I've been a bad girl."

"Oh. My. God. Stop that! And it's "Forgive me father for I have sinned."

"Oh, that might explain why the priest has been avoiding me."

Mike mimed cocking a gun and blowing his brains out. Andy instantly taped off the crime scene and tried to keep the reporters at bay. Jenny began peppering him with highly inappropriate questions that made the corpse giggle before Anna flashed a napkin, stating that she was CSI and started posing the body. She may not have fully grasped what CSI was.

"I should be punished daddy," Evy mewled as she rushed over to the couch and presented her butt to him. "Maybe you need to teach me a lesson." Her sentence ended in a surprised yelp as Tal had smacked her behind with a cushion, launching her halfway over the couch and onto Mike's Egyptian mural posed dead body.

"Apology accepted. Now stop doing that."

"I told you he was going to paddle you at some point," the corpse said and manhandled her off of him and onto the floor with another yelp of outrage.

"Jeez, talk about kinky." She tried getting her legs off the couch and under her. "I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me," she grumbled while rubbing her butt. Anna was giggling and helped Evy up off of the floor. Evy dramatically embraced her and stage whispered, "Careful, he likes it rough."

"I am going to throttle you," Tal fumed from the table. "Simpsons style. Both hands."

"See. Best think up a safe word. Mine is banana bread." Mike swatted at her but she hopped out of the way.

Things settled down a bit and they put on the movie. It was honestly tough to hear some of the dialogue since four people were repeating the lines throughout the movie. The best part being of course the Miracle Max scene when Mike and Jenny did an almost perfect re-enactment by chasing each other around the couch and dinner table.

During the intermission they cleaned up the kitchen and broke out some hard liquor because, as Tal said, "No way in hell am I watching that movie without being drunk." Mixed drinks were being made and passed around and Anna stepped up to the impromptu bar. "And what can I get you gorgeous?"

She crossed her arms under her bust and leaned heavily on the bar as she considered, "Well, I'm not really sure. I don't have that much experience with hard liquors." Her eyes met his as he quickly snapped them up, "Rum and coke maybe?"

"Oh, I think we can do better than that. Do you like your drinks more on the sweet side?"

"Umm, yeah. I don't really like the strong flavors and just want something I can sip but still kind of get me there."

"Okay, okay. Have you had a long island iced tea before? It's a mixed drink that tastes like sweet iced tea, so no strong liquor taste, but packs a big punch."

"Can't say that I have, but I trust you Tal." She gave him a coy smile, brushing a few strands of her hair behind her ear and running her finger along her neck. "Is it hard to make?" Somebody had been coaching her, he was sure of it.

"Uh, no, uh, you just need a lot of different liquors. Lucky for us, Mike keeps us stocked up." He quickly grabbed out several bottles and started prepping the pours. "So, what's been your favorite activity here so far? Anything we haven't done that you would like to try?"

She stood up and thought about it, finally adopting a less provocative pose. "Honestly, I feel like we have a pretty good spread of activities, short of actually being able to go out. I do like the card games that we play, the deckbuilding ones."

"Oh, you don't mean Dirty Words? You were so good at it last time when you pulled that card and said," He didn't get much further before Anna covered her face with both hands and squealed. There she was; he could see a furious blush running up the side of her face.

"Don't say it! I need more booze before I recall that memory."

Tal grinned from ear to ear. He handed her the drink, which she took, and clinked his own glass with hers. "To years more of friendship, staying close, and all the booze we need to make it happen." Anna cheered, sipped her drink, and moaned a little. "So good."

"Glad I got it right for you. Let me know whenever you want a top up. I can show you how to make it too, but I'll have to save the fancy bartending tricks for the advanced course. I can not afford another fire strike on my record." She giggled and winked at him, before heading toward the couch where Jenny was glaring at him again. "What?! I didn't even do anything this time?"

Later, Mike clinked his glass with a battery he randomly had in his pocket before flipping it over his shoulder onto the couch. "Alright everyone, you may have guessed by the booze that this movie is going to be bad. You are, however, mistaken. It will not just be bad; it will be the single most horrible movie you will likely ever see. With that in mind, making fun of the dialogue, making jokes and providing color and off-color commentary is not only encouraged, but highly necessary." Tal, being the only other one to have seen it, groaned with great exasperation. "That there is the appropriate response to this screening. Let's begin!"

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here!" Trey cried as he took a shot of whiskey.

"Oh, we should watch that sometime. I love the Pirates movies." Anna's suggestion was met with a round of approval, but sadly, it did not stop the train wreck that was occurring on screen. There was much confusion throughout the movie.

"Wait, did he just offer a deal and then hang up the phone without hearing the response?"

"Why is he walking so weird? It's like he doesn't know what humans look like when they move."

"Oh no, if only there were some kind of enclosed conveyance, like some kind of automated engine horse buggy, we could use to traverse town in rather than traveling on foot. Oh well, no time to take this car, guess I'll go die now."

"What is the message here? The activists also died."

"Who do I have to sell my soul to for this to end?" That last one was Tal, who was pinned to the couch by Jenny and Evy, who both took great delight in torturing him. Jenny because she owed him for years of sibling abuse/love, and Evy because he had taken her phone, simply stating "If I have to suffer, so do you."

"Did you know that there have been several attempts to riff track this movie? There were no survivors."

"That's not completely inaccurate. The couple I saw even the comedians couldn't take it anymore an hour into it."

"It's like watching a Steven Segal movie."

"Back in his prime or now?"

"Take your pick."

"You and me are going to have some words after this movie."

"Bring it on soup can!"

At some point the movie mercifully ended to collective cheering. "The next movie you pick Mike, I'm vetoing," Jenny groaned as she pounded her drink.

"Woah woah, you all voted on that. I told you it was bad."

"I didn't think that bad. Let's do campy bad next time, like Gremlins or Critters." Jenny stumbled to the kitchen for some water.

"What are those?" Anna was similarly unsteady, having had a couple drinks that Jenny and Evy had begrudgingly allowed Tal to escape from the couch to mix.

Jenny squeezed Anna's cheeks together, perhaps a bit more forcefully than really necessary. "Oh, you sweet summer child. We need to get you up on all the classics." She giggled and gave her a hug. Maybe she should have stopped a few drinks ago.

"I'm not sure in what world Critters is a classic. That also came out like a decade before you were born." Andy considered for a bit, "I think it was made even before I was born."

"Well, blame mister "mom and dad put me in charge and we're watching what I want to watch" over there. I have a really fucked up sense of what good movies are because he kept getting random shit from the 80's."

Tal shrugged, "I just loaded up on the Blockbuster deals. We had the card and they were like, $1 to rent if you got something else from the top charts."

Anna was about to ask something, but Jenny shushed her, "No no, don't make me feel old. I'll tell you how we used to get movies in the VCR age later." Anna's face scrunched up in confusion. Jenny was only a few years older than her, what would she know about VCRs?

"Alright, I'm going to head back. I have something that I need to sign for early tomorrow. Who the hell schedules something for 7am on a Sunday?" Andy grumbled a bit as he put away his glass. He hadn't been drinking much during the night, not because he didn't enjoy it, but because he actually loved watching terrible movies. "Do you want me to drop you ladies off, or are you crashing here for the night?"

Anna looked at Jenny who she had propped up against the wall, looking a little spaced out. "I mean, is it okay if we crash?" She had never actually stayed over, so she didn't want to volunteer Tal and Mike's place.

"Sure! Jenny can pop into my bed and Anna you can sleep with." She never finished the sentence as Mike's meaty hand clapped over her mouth. "I'll take the couch out here if you girls want to take my room." Evy was furiously trying to communicate via eye movement to Tal, but he just ignored her.

"I don't want to put you out." She was also ignoring Evy's growing repertoire of gestures.

Mike waved off the objection. "I've slept on worse places than the couch. I crash out here occasionally anyway." He moved to get the extra sheets, dragging the gagged Evy along with him. She had now moved to almost exclusively hip-based charades style communication.

Tal moved to block line of sight, worrying what else she would escalate to. "You alright sharing a bed with her? I can grab the love seat her and you can use my room if you prefer some privacy."

"Well, you don't have to do that." Anna started and then ran out of steam halfway through. Her internal voice was screaming something at her about being more assertive. Or maybe that was Evy trying to telepathically communicate with her.

"It's not a problem. Last thing I want for you is to feel uncomfortable." Tal's internal voice was also screaming something, but it sounded more like a klaxon crossed with a whale. That may also have been because he could see Jenny reaching for something on the table without breaking eye contact. Man, ruin one high school friendship and you never hear the end of it. Well, also that whole roommate debacle.

Anna thanked him somewhat hesitantly and Tal set up the love seat with the extra sheet. It was an okay place to sleep for a night or two, but in the long term it wasn't great for the back.

At some point Evy managed to escape from Mike and dragged poor Anna into her room for a girl's powwow. Tal knocked on the door. "We're fine," Evy replied curtly.

"Could you open the door? I have reason to suspect that there is someone under duress in there."

"No, we're all good here. Thank you. How are you?"

"Anna, sweetie, are you being held against your will?"

"No, I'm fine. Don't come in, we're, uh, naked!" "What? Why the fuck would you say that?" "I don't know, I panicked."

"Alright, just make a sound of a dying giraffe or tap out SOS in morse code if you need rescuing." There was the sound of some scuffling and then the door creaked open just enough for Anna to peak through.

"I'm fine, thanks. Evy just has a lot on her mind right now and wants to talk."

Tal wished he had a pocket flashlight so he could re-enact a police scene. "Alright, just wanted to make sure Evy wasn't going too far with playing around. Blink twice if you need help."

Anna smiled and started closing the door, keeping steady eye contact with him. He waited just a moment longer before Mike wandered over. "I think we need to cap their alcohol intake. E was far too wound up tonight."

"Well, if you hadn't let her stay up so late last night, she wouldn't be so overstimulated."

"Why do we always fight when company is over?"

Mike's door opened and a disheveled looking Jenny poked her head out. "Oh my god, just get a room you two."

"I would but someone's in mine," Mike countered.

"Go over there and sleep or I'm going to beat your ass black and blue." She turned around and fell face first onto the bed.

"I'm getting real mixed signals here man."

The month was slowly getting more and more hectic as it progressed for everyone. Mike spent the majority of his working time jumping in and out of his room trying to field calls from his teams. He worked in logistics, and they were starting to feel stretched. Some logistics teams were running late, and in other cases, not showing up at all. He was constantly trying to redirect shipments and locate crews. Nearly half of his workforce was either out sick or scared of coming in.

Evy had been spending the majority of her time recently cursing under her breath as she was trying to decipher some monster spreadsheet she had inherited. Tal wasn't sure what she was doing, but she had bought a whiteboard the other day and was starting to write out process maps and figures. It started straight forward, then started getting really noodle-y.

Tal's job was typically pretty boring but had recently been kicked into high gear with a new product launch. It wouldn't have been too bad, but he was missing two of his people who had suddenly fallen ill, so now he was managing the launch while also working design and process flow. To say that he was underwater would have been an understatement.

His slack channel pinged on a Thursday afternoon and snapped him out of his current grind. He checked to make sure he wasn't running late for something again and then saw that it was from Andy. They would occasionally chat back and forth during the week, but this had been pretty crazy for him too, so this was the first they had spoken since the weekend get together.

"Hey, just had a meeting with my dev ops guys, did you know that they are down to two guys? There used to be eight of them."

"Oh great, is tech going through another reorg? That's really the last thing we need here."

"No, but that's just it. The tech lead didn't really say anything about it, but I pinged Jesh and he said that half of those guys never even logged on since the beginning of the week. No calls, no computer, just gone." That gave Tal some pause.

"Nothing? Really?"

"Yeah. No one's heard from them since last Friday and it kind of freaked me out. A couple of those guys are local here too. We met one of them at a bar once. You remember Jake? Short guy with a stubby beard."

"Yeah, he was newly engaged right? We went bar hopping and then hit up karaoke with him."

"Yeah, that's him. Was a nice guy. I texted him and tried calling, but nothing man."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah. Make sure you keep safe man. I don't know what's going on."

"Shit, yeah, you too."

Tal sat back a bit and looked across the table. Evy was muttering something while Mike picked up his cell and headed into his room again. Tal grabbed his cell and shot a text out to Kayla, one of his team members that was out, just to check up on her. He had shot well wishes early in the week when he heard that she was out but hadn't really followed up with her. After Andy's message, he was starting to feel a bit worried.

He tried to collect his thoughts and get back to work but his phone chirped moments later. It was exactly the message that he didn't want to receive, ever. It just read "I'm sorry to inform you that Kayla passed away last night. This is her sister and she has you saved as bossman T. I'm assuming that she worked with you. We're dealing with funeral arrangements currently." His stomach dropped and that sensation of disassociating started creeping up his spine. It was almost like he was looking over his own shoulder at the phone.