The Z Contingency

Chapter 50

“Up there, on the right.” Gary pointed to the sign for the state park that was just coming into sight. Natalie turned the wheel of the pickup truck, and guided the vehicle into the parking lot. Just as Simon had predicted, the lot was empty except for two other cars.

Simon was busy studying a map spread out over the hood of the Ford Explorer, and did not look up as the pickup rolled into the parking space two spaces away from him. Gary and Natalie got out of the truck, and walked over to Simon.

“Hi Simon. Where’s Tyler?” asked Natalie.

Simon finally looked up from the map. “He went scouting around for a restroom.” Simon gestured toward the path Tyler had taken. “Hello Natalie,” he added as an afterthought.

“Those cars don’t belong to any of my friends. I wonder if they belong to Mary or the others you rescued?” she asked rhetorically. “Bubba and the gang must have gone to gather up more supplies for the trip, otherwise they should be here by now. They left before us. Hand me one of those walkie talkies. I’d like to confirm.”

Gary gave one of the portable CB radios to Natalie, and she walked off a bit to check in. Gary then turned to Simon and asked, “So, where are we headed? You mentioned back there that you were going to get us to a safe lab to start working on a cure.”

As Simon was formulating a response in his head, Gary interrupted, “So Natalie told me that you didn’t sleep with her back in college.”

Simon’s eyes grew wide, and a look of confusion spread across his face. “What? Where did that come from?” The reason for the sudden change in Gary’s behavior Senior year dawned upon him. “Wait a minute. Is that what all this has been about? All this time, you thought I was trying to scam on the girl you were interested in?”

“Well... yeah.”

With a rush of memories, Simon was suddenly and finally aware of the source of that little nagging self-doubt that had appeared late in his college career, and he now understood what had happened to their friendship. He had honestly liked Gary for reasons that even he did not understand, so he was quite troubled when Gary turned his back on him. “Wait! What? I never slept with her. I never even went on a date with her. Look, there was no reason for me to go after Natalie. Come on, Gary. There were plenty of girls into me who I could go out with. Why would I go and scam on the one girl that my best friend wanted to date?”

“I guess…” Gary started to reply.

“Did you ever give me any reason to want to screw you over like that? No,” he answered his own question. “I had no reason to want to screw you over, stab you in the back, steal your girl, or anything like that. So you tell me. We were good friends up until that point. I knew you wanted to ask Natalie out. Why in the world would I go and do something like that to you considering I had plenty of girls of my own?”

“I don’t know, but I overheard a couple of Natalie’s sorority sisters talking about how you had gone out on a date, and then spent the night with her.”

“Okay, I did ask her to meet me, but it wasn’t a date. I knew you liked her. I mean, you’d been pining away about her for four years, and college was almost over, but you still hadn’t made your move, so I invited her to dinner so I could sell the idea of her going out with you. Honestly, I was talking you up with her. Swear to God, man. That’s the truth. C’mon, look me in the eye and tell me I’m lying when I tell you I didn’t screw you over.”

“So you didn’t sleep with her?” Gary already knew the answer from his earlier conversation with Natalie, but he wanted to hear it from Simon directly.

“I never slept with her. I didn’t even spend the night. She kicked me out less than an hour after we got back when she realized that we weren’t on a date, and I was just going to talk about how great you were.”