even at his tender age. I held my arms out to him and he willingly came up and tried to crawl inside my jacket. I wrapped the sides of my jacket around him and held him close while heading for the house and the warmth inside.
He was dressed in nothing but a pair of soaked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle underwear and a camo t-shirt. There was hay in his blonde curls and a few "goat berries" stuck to the back of his t-shirt. Marisa and I got him undressed and into a warm tub. He played in the water like it was his every day routine. We finally got him out and put a pair of Amber's little panties on him (God forbid his future wife or drinking buddies ever see this diary). We dressed him in a pair of Amber's sweatpants and a little black t-shirt. The look was complete with a pair of Amber's socks, flopping off the ends of his little feet.
I remembered a visit I had last spring from three little boys who lived in the new house back in the woods. The boys came through the woods to see the goats when they heard them calling for their afternoon meal.
They were cute little stair-step boys , and the youngest was a blonde angel who looked like he was still trying to get his legs to work right. They had an older cousin with them, and he introduced himself and the boys. They played with the goats for a while and then went marching merrily back through the woods, swinging stick swords.
I was trying hard to pull the content of that conversation to the front of my brain and suddenly remembered the name of the blonde angel. "Are you Caleb?" I asked the boy. He vigorously nodded his head up and down , He popped that little thumb back up to his chest and said proudly "I Cab! Momma uh boo boo! Unky Bo uh boo boo!" We stared at him for a good solid minute.
Marisa spoke first. "What does he mean? Do you think his mom is just sick, or maybe she has the virus? Who's Unky Bo?" she asked. "I have no idea" I said, "but I'll bet Unky Bo’s an Uncle, and he has a boo boo along with Momma. We better take this little guy home and check on ‘em."
Mick just about came apart. There was absolutel y no way on this green earth that he would allow Marisa and me to trudge through the woods alone, looking for Momma and Unky Bo. I told him it was possible that the boy just slipped away, and they might be out looking for him, so we needed get him back pretty fast.
After a few minutes of sorting it out , we headed to the path and through the woods toward the new house along with Sam Colt of the 1911 .45 style and Mr. Winchester of the .30-30 Buffalo Bill Tribute style. Carisa kept Amber inside the house and locked the doors with strict orders not to open them to anyone.
When we got close to the house, Caleb started pointing and jumping around in my arms. He was yelling "Unky Bo! Unky Bo!" We looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a man hobbling towards us, walking in a drunken-like swagger.
He was tall and wearing a nasty red flannel shirt with filthy blue jeans that were definitely wet. His face was as white as the driven snow , and there were big red bubbles coming from the tear ducts of his flat black eyes. The skin on his face was hanging like he was 100 years older than he could possibly be. Half of his left ear was torn off and the flapping remains were swinging back and forth in rhythm with the hanging skin of his jowls. Dry, caked blood covered the side of his neck and disappeared into his shirt collar.
He was carrying something that looked like a turkey leg wrapped in a big ol' cloth napkin in his right hand . His left hand was reaching toward us. He was making a gurgling sound in his throat, like he was gargling on a bite of whatever was in his hand. That left hand looked like it had been gnawed on by a squirrel or raccoon.
"I think we found Unky Bo" I said, turning my head towards Mick.
Almost immediately, Mick took Unky Bo out with a head shot from Mr. Winchester. I was shocked and Caleb was screeching. Mick wasn't fooling around.
"You
Morten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, Tim Lister