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It was a dark and stormy night in Gibbs' neighbourhood, the rain putting a damper on the Hallowe'en festivities, the kids faces a tableau of disappointment. Jack got together with the parents and cobbled together a makeshift party at Nathan's house, complete with candy and treats, then hustled them over to Gibbs', promising to show them the hallowed boat if they could keep the secret from Gibbs when he returned from Philadelphia. Of course, the kids eagerly agreed.
Which is how they all found themselves huddled under the boat, sheets over his work desk and tools, lights out except for the one in Jack's hand, held under her chin to illuminate her face.
"We didn’t think it could happen to us," she began ominously, once everyone got comfortable. "The virus started in Canada, and we just assumed they'd be too polite to come for us." One of the kids giggled. "We were wrong." She looked each kid in the eye. "So very, very wrong."
"It started like any other day," she began. "Some parents went to work, some parents stayed home, all the kids went to school." She grinned at the chorus of boos. "When it seemed like the school bus was going to be late bringing the kids home, the parents were thrilled." Another round of boos and a few 'Hey!'s. "But when it didn't show up at all, we knew something was wrong. The adults came out of their houses, looking up and down the street, only seeing other parents doing the same. It was eerily quiet. Even the birds stopped chirping. The silence was broken when Agent Gibbs pulled up in his car and barked, 'What the hell's goin' on here?'" Her impression was spot on and the kids laughed.
"Nathan's mom rushed over and said, 'The children- they're gone!' To which Gibbs replied, 'And?'" Another round of laughter. "'I'm really afraid something's happened.' Gibbs dropped the tough guy act and asked her to tell him everything she knew. When she was done, he nodded and looked in the direction of the school, his blue eyes squinting, as if he could see it. Determined, he told Nathan's mom, 'I'll handle it.' Then he took out his phone, flipped it open and called me, because every hero needs a sidekick, right? He growled into the phone, 'Be ready in 5,' then he squealed away in his truck, making it to my apartment in 4 minutes. Luckily, I was ready, because there’s nothing scarier than Gibbs when he has to wait. Believe me.”
“What did you do when he got there?” a girl Jack got to know as ‘Isabelle’ asked.
“Got in the truck,” Jack said, “and broke all traffic laws to get to the school. But it was strange- the night seemed to come quick because suddenly, it was so dark. The only light came from the truck’s headlights and the moon that sometimes peeked out from the clouds. The streets were empty. There wasn’t a single person around. Not a single person.” She held the silence for a beat. “But there was an odd sound. Like a shuffling. At first, we thought it was the truck, but when Gibbs pulled over, the sound was still there. Except it got louder, and there was another sound, like a moaning. I told Gibbs we needed to get out of there. I didn’t know why, I just knew if we stayed, we might not make it back. He slammed it into gear and we got the heck out of there! We only looked straight ahead, determined to get to the school. When we got there, Gibbs slammed on the breaks and spun into a parking spot.”
“Cool!” Danny whispered.
Jack winked at the boy who had put Gibbs on a pedestal. “I asked him what the plan was, because the school was dark and quiet and we’d never been there before. He shrugged, checked his gun and said, ‘We go in, we get the kids, we get out.’ Sounded like a good plan, so I nodded and said, ‘Let’s do this.’ We unclipped our seatbelts and tiptoed our way to the door. Our eyes scanned back and forth,” she said, mimicking the motion. “We were on high alert for everything and anything. We started on the first floor, but didn’t find anyone. I mean, no one. Where was everyone? School was out but the buses were still in the parking lot. I looked at Gibbs who looked back in the dark. We nodded and silently went to the 2nd floor. It was so quiet, I could hear Gibbs breathe. Wait, was it Gibbs??”
She froze.
“‘PSSSSST!!!’”
The kids jumped, then laughed when they realized it was her.
“After I made sure I didn’t pee myself, we tried to find the source of the noise. Then, a shuffling noise came out of the darkness. We held our breaths. The moon shone through a window across the hall, giving us the tiniest sliver of light. And in that light stepped… Nathan.”
She looked at the teenager who had dressed as a zombie for Hallowe’en and still had his costume on.
“Gibbs pulled out his gun and Nathan shouted, ‘It’s me!’. At least, I think that’s what he said; he had a lot of candy in his mouth. I quickly touched Gibbs’ arm to stop him. ‘Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,’ Gibbs told me, and Nathan said, ‘The safety’s on.’ Guess that gun course helped, huh Nathan?” The teen grinned through his makeup. “I asked him what he was doing there. Then he told us the story of how everyone was in the gym for a Hallowe’en party when things got weird. He wasn’t sure if it was the sheet cake Mrs. Cromwell donated or the popcorn balls, but everyone who had eaten one of those things turned into one of those things. A zombie, I mean,” Jack corrected herself. “Not a sheet cake or popcorn ball. That would just be silly.”
They giggled at her silliness.
"Nathan and Justin had snuck away, not at all to cause trouble. 'We were looking for the little kids,' he protested when Gibbs asked him why he wasn't in the gym with the rest. They could only find 7." She let the number settle among them, knowing they'd figure out the 7 was them, plus Nathan and Justin.
“What happened to the rest?” Isabelle whispered.
DeMarcus leaned into her, eager to help “They’re zombies!”
Isabelle’s eyes went wide and looked at Jack who solemnly nodded.
“I’m afraid so. But 7 was good enough for Gibbs who gave Nathan a manly nod of thanks. ‘I'll throw ya in the back of my truck,' Gibbs said. 'Grab your gear.' When no one but me and Danny moved, Danny turned around and explained, 'That means let's go!'" The 7 year old 'Junior Probie' as Gibbs called him, beamed in the dark. "So we ran like ninjas, quiet but alert. We almost made it, too. But Principal Whats-His-Face stood in front of our only exit."
"Principal Sinclair," Hayden helpfully supplied.
"Right. Principal Sinclair. He stood there in the shadows looking at us, but he didn't say anything. He just made this weird groaning sound."
"He's a zombie!" Hayden also supplied.
Justin scoffed. "No shi-" He quickly remembered the company he was in. "I mean, wow, no kidding!"
Jack nodded at the quick thinking. “We turned around to find another way out, only to discover everyone in the gym came to see what was happening. We looked to the left. We looked to the right. There was no escape.”
“We just need to distract him,” Nathan suggested. Justin elbowed him and he said, “What? She tells a good story.”
“Distraction! That just might work. But how? Gibbs already had an idea. ‘I’ll pretend to tap dance. That will totally get Principal Sinclair’s attention.’” When all the kids laughed, Jack said, “No? Let’s see. Oh, I know what he’d say. ‘Get movin’. I’ll take care of this.’ Better? We watched him bravely lure the principal away, but when we got to the door, it was locked!”
“What do we do now?” Isabelle’s friend Carly asked.
“Let’s just smash the window,” Justin said, avoiding Nathan’s retaliatory elbow. “What? You can make a suggestion and I can’t?”
“Okay!” Jack grinned. “Let’s smash the window!”
Danny, Hayden and DeAndre bounced in their seat. “Shoot it with your gun! Shoot it with your gun!”
“You just don’t want to be on the hook for the bill. I’m on to you.” She narrowed her eyes, but relented. “Okay. But cover your ears; guns are a lot louder than you think. BLAM! BLAM! The window crashed into at least a thousand pieces. I pushed everyone out, telling Nathan where the truck was and making sure everyone was out before I followed. Except everyone wasn’t out.”
“Gibbs!”
Jack nodded at DeAndre’s panicked exclamation.
“I turned just in time to see Principal Sinclair slash at Gibbs’ face and push him to the ground while he was momentarily blinded. With my gun already drawn, I aimed and fired. It didn’t work.”
“You sure you shot it in the head?” Justin asked.
“Sweetheart, I got 98% on my last shooting test. If I wanted to shoot it in the brain, it would be shot in the brain. The bullets weren’t having any effect. I had almost given up when, out of the blue, Isabelle came running in with her- what’s your costume?”
“Shuri!”
“Right. With her Shuri costume, water shooting out of her fists.”
“Knuckle busters.”
“I stand corrected. Knuckle busters. You know what the craziest part was? It worked! The water, for whatever reason, totally worked! Principal Sinclair grabbed his face and jumped back before dissolving right before our eyes.” The audience cheered. “Not sure what I think about your joy in all that, but I’ll give your parents my phone number to set up an appointment. In the meantime, Isabelle kept shooting, and the other zombies started running. I ran over to Gibbs. But I was too late.” The kids were deathly silent. “There was blood everywhere. I checked for bite marks, but only found wounds from Principal Sinclair’s attack. But it was enough. There was nothing I could do.”
“Kiss him,” Carly said. “That’s what happens.”
Justin scoffed, “The prince kisses the princess in stories, not the other way around.”
“Hey,” Jack said, “you might want to learn a little bit about feminism here, kiddo.” Looking at Carly, she admitted, “I was just thinking about finding bandages or something, but… you think I should kiss him?”
The girls nodded.
“Okay. Look away, boys.” She proceeded to make over-the-top kissing noises, much to the boys’ embarrassment. “Oh, my gosh! I think it worked! It did! He’s waking up! ‘We don’t have time for me to ask what happened,’ he said. I helped him to his feet, he scooped Isabelle up on his shoulders, and we ran out of the school, the sounds of groaning all around us. That might have been Gibbs though; he’s got bad knees. Nathan squealed the truck as close to the door as he could. We jumped into the back and then Nathan squealed the truck as far away as he could. ‘My house,’ Gibbs said. ‘We can regroup in the basement.’”
Jack leaned forward and whispered, “I think he’s got a secret door somewhere. I mean, how else does he get the boat out, right?” She saw them look around. "Uh-huh. Anyway, we were bouncing around in the back like rubber balls because I don't think Nathan had his licence."
"Shoulda let me drive," Justin shrugged.
"Every turn we made, we could hear the groaning in the dark. Sometimes it seemed far away, other times, it sounded like it was right beside the truck, like zombies were lining the streets just waiting for us to stop. Finally, we turned down our street, but what we discovered made Nathan slam on the breaks. In the beam of the truck's headlights and in the spotlight of the full moon, we saw the entire street filled with zombies. I stretched around to the passenger window and told Justin to get the flashlight out of the glove box. When he handed it to me, I raised it in the air and clicked it on and off, over and over until I saw responses in the windows of all the houses. Thankfully, every parent was okay."
Hayden frowned. "Where did all the zombies come from, then?"
Nathan jumped in to help the story. "Probably those losers from the next street over."
"That's exactly it," Jack concurred. "The losers from the next street over. The real question was, how were we going to get to Gibbs' house?"
"Distraction!" they shouted.
"Mmm, I don't know. It almost didn't work last time. But Gibbs' had a revised plan. 'Hayden, DeAndre and Isabelle, you're my distraction, because I know you 3 run faster than anybody. I'm gonna need you to run behind the Pearsons' house, through that gap in Mrs. Cromwell's fence, and around to my backyard. Come in through the back door. The rest of you run right to my house. Got it?' We all nodded but I asked, 'What are you going to do?' He leaned around to Justin and said, "There are 3 water guns where you found the flashlight.' He looked at Danny, Hayden and DeAndre who looked a bit guilty about something I don't know maybe it was because they sprayed Mrs. Cromwell's house and got caught who can say?" The run-in sentence made everyone laugh. “Gibbs handed one to Nathan, one to Danny, and he kept one for himself. ‘Danny, you make sure nothin’ happens to Agent Sloane. Nathan, you make sure nothin’ happens to anyone else. Remember what I told you about guns at the shooting range?’ Nathan nodded. ‘Well forget it, kid,’ Gibbs told him. ‘This is a water gun. Just point and shoot.’ Nathan nodded and asked, ‘What are you gonna do?’ Gibbs gave that smirk he gives everyone and said, ‘I’m gonna cover these three, and when they’ve made all these zombies chase them, I’m gonna walk through my front door and go into my basement, have a whiskey and put my feet up. Maybe have some candy.’” This got a cheer from the audience. ‘So unless you got any disagreements, on the count of 3-’ then he made one of those military Black Ops Navy Seal whatever motions with his hands, you know, like this-” She made a pointing motion with two fingers. “Then Hayden, DeAndre and Isabelle ran in one direction to distract the zombies while we all ran the other way. Gibbs stayed in the back of the truck picked off zombies one by one. I tried to keep my eye on him as we ran to the house, but there were just too many of them. I could only hope his sniper training was enough. Because, you know, he’s a pretty good kisser.”
The boys cringed out a collective, “Ewwww!”
“We made it to the house, with Nathan and Danny shooting the odd zombie here and there. I pushed everyone inside and we ran downstairs. I tried the lights, but none of them worked. Luckily, I still had the flashlight from the truck. This flashlight.” She waggled it, sending light beams across the ceiling. “We huddled under the boat. Just like this.” When she lowered her voice, the kids leaned closer. “It was quiet. Too quiet. Then there was a bang upstairs, and the moonlight that strained into the house outlined a silhouette at the top of the stairs. We all held our breaths until DeAndre said, ‘It’s me!’ Hayden and Isabelle were right behind him. ‘We’re down here,’ Carly whispered. Finally we were all together. Except for Gibbs. I asked Hayden what happened, but he didn’t know; they had done exactly what Gibbs had told them to do. But when they had run, that was the last they had seen of him. So we huddled and waited. And waited. The longer we waited, the more worried we got. I remembered the last time I saw him, surrounded by zombies, but I thought he’d be okay, you know?”
“The zombies got him,” Hayden whispered, and everyone got quiet.
“Do you hear that?” Jack asked, her eyes darting to the door.
All eyes followed hers, the dread of her fiction bleeding into their reality. The only thing they could hear was the rain bouncing off the upstairs roof.
Justin’s laugh probably wasn’t as strong as he would hope. “Whatever.”
“No, really, I’m not kidding now,” Jack said, deadly serious.
Everyone froze, ears straining for any sound.
“I hear something,” Nathan hissed.
Justin elbowed him. “Shut up.”
“For real.” Even covered in makeup, Nathan seemed to go pale white.
Everyone was quiet again, and the next time someone spoke, it was Danny. “I hear it, too.”
It started as a low sound that slowly stuttered its way into a groan. The only light in the room was on Jack's terrified face. Something fell to the floor, causing the younger kids to squeal and Justin declare, "I'm out!" before he dashed up the stairs.
"Coward!" Nathan accused even as he hunkered down in the dark.
The groaning got closer and Jack whispered, "I'm going to turn the light around."
She followed her warning by slowly doing an area sweep, starting with the far corner. The kids came around to huddle beside her as the low light sought out the basement's secrets. Inch by painstaking inch. Nothing but wood and sheets and shadows. But the groaning continued. Pinpointing the sound with her ears, she quickly swung the flashlight to the corner.
It was Gibbs.
Never had the basement heard such a collective scream. Regardless of their age differences, the kids all reacted the same, only the terrified sound that escaped their throats being unique to each of them. Jack winced as the sound pierced her eardrums and held in her laugh when every kid bolted upstairs. The last kid had the decency to slam the door shut.
Every kid except Danny, who stood in front of Jack with his water gun drawn. "Stay behind me," he told her, missing Gibbs' raised eyebrow at the order. "Federal agent!" he announced, then proceeded to empty his gun in Gibbs' direction.
Gibbs flicked on a nearby lamp, and it took everything for Jack to not burst out laughing. He was absolutely soaked.
"Danny…"
The 7 year old seemed to realize his mistake instantly. "Sorry, Mr. Gibbs!" he said as he barreled up the steps.
"Danny!"
The young boy stopped, his expression one of sheepish embarrassment. "Yes, sir?"
"I told you to protect Agent Sloane. You did that. Take the candy bowl by the door."
His eyes lit up even in the semi-darkness. "For real?"
"For real."
"Awesome!"
She watched him leave then swayed over to Gibbs. “Boy, he got you good.” Her hands wiped his cheeks, down his jaw, to his chin.
“‘Military Black Ops Navy Seal whatever’?” The tug on her elbow brought her in closer.
“You point that out, but not the fact I’ve basically told the entire neighbourhood you’re a pretty good kisser.”
He shrugged. “That’s because one’s a lie and the other’s the truth.”
She tilted her head back and laughed. “Is that so?”
He brought her hips flush against him. “Whattya mean, ‘Is that so’?”
“Mmmm, I don’t know. You’ve been in Philadelphia for 3 days, I may have forgotten.”
The tail end of the sentence was breathed in by him, his mouth wasting no time in reminding her. With his hand still on her elbow, he lifted her willing arm to his shoulder and pressed forward until her back touched the boat. Then kept pressing forward. His hands curled around her ass, pulling her into him as he pushed into her. Her head tilted back so her lungs could let out a contented sigh, leaving her neck exposed to his wicked intent.
"I will send a bulletin around the neighbourhood tomorrow," she promised. "'Correction- Jethro Gibbs is a fantastic kisser'." When he murmured his approval under her ear, she traced his hairline with knowing fingertips. "I'm glad you could come." She lightly slapped the back of his head at his snicker. "Behave." Reevaluating their position and where she wanted that position to end up, she corrected herself. "Behave for 60 seconds. I'm glad you made it. When I didn’t see the truck in the driveway-"
"Parked it the next street over. Where the losers are." He felt her grin against his cheek. "You're good with them."
He didn’t need to say 'them' by name; she knew he meant the kids. She shrugged away the praise, not wanting to get into that particular conversation. At least not then. Not surprisingly, he understood without her having to say anything.
"Did you really get 98 on your shooting test?"
"You're not the only marksman in the family, you know."
They both heard her use the word at the same time, but while she was more than a little mortified at the slip, he lifted his head to look into her eyes. There were so many ways to respond to her image of them as a family, and the dim basement light gave him opportunity.
"Say it again."
"'Marksman'?"
"Don't be a smart ass, Sloane."
The use of her surname always brought a sly smile to her face. "But you like my ass."
The smile, the banter -and the ass- always brought him to his knees, but he wouldn't give up that easily.
"It is the nicest ass in the family."
Him saying the word she had been embarrassed to let slip squeezed her heart like an embrace, a promise, a hope. She showed her appreciation for the way he could say so much with so few words by sliding her hands down into the back pockets of his jeans.
"That's saying something considering this ass is pretty damn fine." A possessive squeeze punctuated her purr.
His eyes went smoky blue. "My sixty seconds are up," he said, arching her against the boat's rib.
"Mmmm, so it is" she relented with a light bite on his bottom lip. "Is that a candy bar in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
He met her bad cliché with one of his own. "Did the trick- now I'm collectin' on my treat."
She groaned, partly at the joke, partly at the way his hands were finding their home in her hair. "Does that actually work with women?" Her feigned disbelief was betrayed by her own hands meeting between them and undoing his button.
"'Women'?" He shrugged. "But I think I'm about to find out if it works with one woman."
…..
-end.