THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road (13 page)

Chapter 14 – Everyone Panics

Stephen decided to wait until the next day to do his water container shopping.  He thought that maybe the crowds wouldn’t be so bad if he got up early and made the trip to Walmart before most people would be up.  Since it would be Monday, he also assumed that most folks would be at work.  He had the advantage of retirement on his side.  Tarra was a bit leary about that decision to wait another day, but supported him anyway.  She knew that he was still flustered from the earlier shopping experience.

Fish had called Stephen immediately after his meeting in the hangar bay, and filled him in on what was going on.  Stephen asked if he was going to come over, but Fish declined, saying that he just wanted to be alone in his apartment for a little while, and then he was going to the bar to get ‘annihilated’.  Sunday or not.  He didn’t care.  He did mention, however, that he would get his bags packed with some clothes and personal items and that he would be over the following day after work.  Most likely in the early evening.

Stephen walked out to his truck on the chilly morning of Monday, February 11
th
and started driving down Swantown Road towards Walmart.  He flipped on his radio, which was permanently adjusted to his favorite AM talk radio station (which drove Tarra absolutely bananas) and was instantly met with the eerily familiar AAEGH…AAEGH…AAEGH of an Emergency Alert System broadcast message. 

*****

A very hungover Fish slogged into his office on Monday morning, not particularly interested in whether or not Connie had showed up for work.  In fact, he felt somewhat hopeful that she
wasn’t
there, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the drama.  He felt terrible.  It took a lot of drinks to get Fish hurting that bad, and he figured that he might in fact
still
be drunk.  He had ran a tab at Off the Hook, as a dependable regular the owner let him get away with a tab from time to time.  Most of the patrons, even other regulars, were without that privilege.

He went directly to his bottom drawer, where he stashed his aspirin and ibuprofen.  Most of his staff was absent, including Constantine.  Only one sailor sat quietly at his desk that morning; Petty Officer Gilson.  Fish knew that a majority of his people were on loan to the National Guard, but there was no way that Connie would have been one of them.  Gilson was married with three kiddos, so he had refrained from volunteering with the Guard. 

The chief had not arrived yet, thankfully, so Fish dug his cellphone out of his cargo pocket and tapped her name from his recently called list and swiped it quickly to make the call, but his phone was without signal.
Huh?  That’s just wonderful.
  Fish thought it might have been the base, because cellphone signals could be sketchy at times due to all the Prowler and Growler flights overhead.  He needed to get ahold of her before the chief arrived, or else he would receive another verbal flogging for ‘not knowing his people’ so Fish tried the office landline instead.  The landline worked.

“Yo, are you coming to work today?”  Fish asked.

“No.”  Connie said.  And that was all she said.  Fish wanted more information than that.

“Annnnd, why not?”  He asked, frustrated.

“Just talk to chief.”  She replied, quietly.

“I don’t want to talk to chief, I want to talk to you.  Why aren’t you coming in today?”

“Just talk to chief, Fish. Please.”  She informed him, without much emotion.  His frustration was too much for his hungover brain, and it overwhelmed him.  He got angry.  Fish absolutely did NOT want to talk to Chief Worts about Constantine.  He did not want to talk to Chief Worts about anything!

Fish sat up, inhaled deeply and barked into the phone, “First of all, you need to address me properly.  Second of all, I am your leading petty officer and you are required to keep me updated on your personal situation, especially if it is going to effect my workcenter.  So, why are you not coming in today.”

“I already talked to chief this morning, and the last time I checked, he outranks you, Petty Officer Hooker.  Goodbye.”  She said, and the phone beeped, signaling him that she had hung up.

“What in the
fuck
!”  Fish shouted as he slammed the phone’s receiver back onto its base, extra hard, maybe even too hard.  He thought for a second that he might have broken it.  Petty Officer Gilson jumped in his chair, startled from the shockwave of Fish’s actions.  Fish had seen him recoil, and knew that he was a sensitive guy.  He felt bad about scaring him and apologized.

“Sorry about that, man.  My bad.”  Fish consoled.

“It’s okay, boss.  I’m just a little bit on edge.  I caught a guy going through the stuff in my garage last night, and it kinda scared the shit out of me.”

“Wait, what?”  Fish was caught off-guard by that.

“Yeah.  I usually don’t close my garage door at night because my wife and I go out there to smoke cigarettes.  I don’t do it in the house, ya know, because of the kids and stuff.”  He said.

“That’s good.  You’re a good family man.”  Fish added.

“Oh, thank you.” Gilson said, sheepishly.  “Anyway, I went out there for my last smoke of the night, probably close to midnight, I think, and some punk was digging around in one of my toolboxes.  Luckily, when I opened the door, he took off running across the street and through the neighbor’s yard.  I tried to call the police a few times, but all I got was a busy signal, so I said ‘to hell with it’ and closed the garage door and locked everything else up in my house.”

“A busy signal?  You’re talking about 9-1-1, right?”  Fish asked.

“Yeah.  9-1-1 was busy last night.”  Gilson replied, somberly. 

*****

Stephen listened as the the Emergency Alert System repeated the message twice, and then the radio station resumed its regular talk show. Stephen, shaken by the message, was making a left turn onto Highway 20 from Swantown when he noticed a squad car in his rear view mirror, approaching his tail at high speed.  He thought for a second that he might have been going too fast while listening to the emergency broadcast, not paying enough attention to his speedometer, but he was wrong.  As he moved his truck to the side of the highway, the squad car sped past, lights flashing and siren blaring.  He began to drive back out onto Highway 20 when another police cruiser screamed by alongside him, almost side-swiping his truck.

“Jesus Christ!”  Stephen yelled, and immediately took a right onto the nearest side street.  His nerves were now shot, and he needed to take a quick breather.  A lot had happened in such a short time, and Stephen wasn’t very good at handling chaos.  Additionally, he wanted to call his wife to tell her what he had just heard on the radio.

*****

Fish tried to mentally absorb Gilson’s story as he logged into his computer to check his email. 
How in the hell could 9-1-1 be busy?
  There wasn’t a single message in his inbox, which was odd.  He then noticed that the Outlook server was offline.  Figures.  The meds that Fish had taken when he first arrived at the office began to relieve his head and body ache, but he was still upset about the phone call with Connie, so he did something that he had not done in over a year. 

“Gilson, you said you smoked cigarettes, right?”  Fish asked.

“Yes, I do.  Trying to quit though.”

“Can I get one off you, please?”  Fish asked, pacing around the office.  Gilson looked up at him, confused.  He knew that Fish did not normally smoke, but he dug a pack of Marlboro lights out of his uniform anyway and offered it to his supervisor. 

“Thanks, man.”  Fish said, and thought,
ahhh, my man here is carrying the good ones
.  He pulled out a smoke and walked out of the office.  The smoking area was right outside the hangar, and usually populated with a dozen or more sailors at all times throughout the day.  Fish thought it was weird that only one guy was puffing away out there, and it was Chief Donovan.  Chief Donovan was one of Chief Worts’ buddies, but he was actually one of the ‘cool chiefs’ and Fish got along with him rather well.

“Hey, chief.”  Fish spoke as he lit up his cigarette.  It had been so long since he had one that the nicotine instantly buzzed him, and he started feeling better.  Way better, really.

“Howdy, Hooker.  Haven’t seen you out here in a while.”  Chief Donovan said.

“Too much shit on my plate, yo.  Needed a break.”  Fish laughed.

“I hear ya on that!”  The chief laughed with him, and then his face assumed a serious stance.  He said, “Did you hear that it’s official now?”

“What’s official?”  Fish asked curiously.

“That we’re not getting paid on the fifteenth.”  The chief informed him as he blew the final puff of his cigarette out of his nose and snubbed it out in the plastic tower butt can.

“Are you serious?”  Fish asked, doubtfully.

“As serious as the Superbowl.  Really sucks, eh?”  The chief said.  Fish thought about his bar tab from the night before, and whether or not he was going to make it until the next payday, if there even was another payday in the near future.  He thought about how the conversation with the owner would go
.  Shit, sorry man.  Didn’t get paid this payday.  Spot me until the first?  Or next month?  Or next year?  C’mon, you know me!  I’m good for it! 
Maybe he could just avoid the place for a while.  That, however, was not a likely option.

Chief Donovan could tell that the news greatly disturbed Fish, because he was just staring off into space in a daze. 

The chief walked up next to him and said, “Your old buddy Alexander is still on terminal leave, right?  You might want to let him know.  He probably isn’t getting the word anymore like the rest of us.”  The chief patted Fish on the shoulder and finished with, “Hang in there, bud.”  And then walked away.  Fish finally exhaled, he had held his breath when the chief approached him, as he did not want him to smell the previous night’s liquor coming out of him.

Fish’s phone jingled a text notification, and Fish thought it was strange because moments earlier he had no signal at all.  It briefly reminded him of Afghanistan, how the haji phones over there could text just fine (most of the time), but phone calls were difficult to make and often cut out during the conversation.  The text was from Chief Worts, informing Fish that he would not be coming to work that day, and he ordered Fish to ‘hold down the fork’ until the next day. 
Hold down the fork?  Did you mean ‘FORT’, dipshit?
  He thought about texting that in response, but abandoned the idea.  Fish was disappointed, because now he would’t be able to find out why Connie had stayed home.  It was just going to be him and Gilson for the rest of the day.

*****

Stephen dug his phone out of his jacket pocket to call Tarra, and noticed that his phone was now roaming. 
Roaming?  That’s not right.  Not in this part of town.  Something is wrong.
  He thought.  The only time his phone would roam was when he took Tarra and the Kays hiking near Deception Pass.  He would receive a “Welcome Abroad!” message from his service provider.  He assumed that he was picking up a Canadian signal or something like that. 

Stephen didn’t want to make the call while roaming, so he journeyed back to Highway 20 and made his way to Walmart.  He would tell Tarra about the message when he got home.  He figured she probably already knew anyway, since the Emergency Alert System covered television as well.  Both the Walmart and nearby Albertson’s parking lots were nearly empty, and he said aloud, “Yes!” as he parked his truck and walked to the entrance. The sliding doors did not respond to his presence and immediately open, as they normally did.  In fact, they did not open at all.  There was a piece of paper taped to the inside of the door.

CLOSED TEMPORARILY DUE TO RESTOCKING ISSUES.  WE WILL REOPEN WHEN POSSIBLE.  PLEASE CONTINUE TO CHECK WALMART.COM REGULARLY FOR UPDATES.  –MGMT

Stephen remained in place, staring at the sign, as if suddenly the restocking issues would be resolved and the doors would open up for him.  Pipe dream.

“Ah, shit.  These guys are closed too?”  A man said, from behind him.  Stephen flinched, startled.  He did not hear the overweight, middle-aged man in a Seahawks jacket and ballcap approach.

“Yeah, they’re closed.”  Stephen said to the man.

The man got a closer look at the sign, then turned to Stephen and said, “Safeway’s closed too.  And so is the Country Store and a bunch of others.  What the hell, right?”

“Right, I hear you.  I guess I’ll try Walgreens.”  Stephen laughed, and began to walk away.  He was uncomfortable near the man, he appeared harmless enough, but he had a shady air about him.  And a smell.  Like alcohol or cheap aftershave, one of the two, or both.  Stephen was good at reading people, and this one was a bad apple.

The man hustled to catch up with Stephen and said, “Hey buddy, this might sound a little weird, but do you have any groceries or asswipe you could sell me?  The old lady is gonna be pissed if I come home empty handed, if ya know what I mean.  I’ve got cash.” 

Stephen felt bad for the guy, but couldn’t (wouldn’t) help him.  “Sorry, I can’t help you.  I’m in the same boat you are!”  He said, trying to laugh a bit, and picked up his pace, trying to evade the man.  He hoped that was the end of the conversation, but it was not.