THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road (14 page)

“I could really, really use some toilet paper.  Do you have any extra at your house that you could spare me?  I could follow you home quick.  Like I said, I have cash!”  The man asked, hustling to keep up with Stephen as they neared his parked truck.  Stephen was no longer empathetic for the man, and the fear of a confrontation succumbed him. He just wanted the fat guy to go away and leave him alone.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I am not going home.  I have lots of errands to run today, and I don’t have any asswipe to spare, regardless.  Good luck to you, though.”  Stephen said, his tone very abrupt and final.  The man, however, was not finished with his sales pitch yet.

“C’mon brother, twenty bucks for two rolls.  Help a guy out.  Easy money, eh?”  He laughed as he walked, trying to cordial, but it came off as creepy.  Stephen was now afraid.  The man was too persistent, too pushy, too personal. 
Follow me home?  Not in a million years, buddy!
 

“Like I said, I’m sorry.”  Stephen said as he climbed into his truck and closed the door, practically in the Seahawks fan’s face.  He quickly locked the door and put his key in the ignition, not looking back at the desperate man outside his window.

“Military asshole.”  The fat guy said.  He flapped a fat hand toward Stephen and then thankfully walked the other direction to his own vehicle.

Stephen let out a sign of relief and left the Walmart parking lot.  His next stop was around the corner and down the block, to Walgreens.  Even though he was on edge from the disturbing encounter, he was still on a mission to obtain those much-needed containers to store fresh water in.  At the first lighted intersection, he checked his rear view mirror to make sure the Seahawks fan wasn’t behind him, and there was no sign of the guy.

When Stephen neared Walgreens, he soon realized why the squad cars had passed him earlier.  The entire lot was full of customer and police vehicles, and there was a crowd amassed at the entrance.  There seemed to be quite a bit of activity there, and Stephen wasn’t sure if it was a fight or a disturbance of some type.  Policemen were moving around amongst the people in the crowd.  It looked too chaotic for Stephen to deal with, so he double-backed on Highway 20 to check Kmart instead.  Maybe they were still open.  If people were in such a rush to gather up whatever food was left on the island, maybe they wouldn’t bother with Kmart, since they didn’t sell any.  Wishful thinking? 

On his way to Kmart, Stephen thought of the heavyweight Seahawks fan, and what he had said to him in the parking lot.  “
Like I said, I have cash!”
  Cash.  Cash, indeed.  Stephen decided that cash was a pretty damn good idea, with all that was going on and everything.  He drove past Kmart, looking over at the parking lot, and there was a ton of vehicles there as well, but the place looked open.  Or so it appeared from his point of view.  That was good news.  But cash was the first priority.  What if all the credit and debit card systems failed all of sudden?  Those with the cash-in-hand would rule the day.  And then some.

Stephen arrived at Navy Federal Credit Union, which was only a few intersections past Kmart.  Once again, the parking lot was full.  Stephen parked towards the rear of the lot and walked past several nervous customers on their way to their vehicles.  They were uneasy and watchful as they passed him.  Way too uneasy.  Spooked, or something.

The line for the tellers had spilled outside the entrance, and many were waiting outside in the cold.  Stephen noticed a sign taped to the glass on the double door entrance, much like the Walmart one, that read: ALL WITHDRAWALS LIMITED TO 500 DOLLARS OR LESS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.  One woman standing in line pointed at the sign and commented to a young man behind her, “They can’t do that, can they?”

But they could.  And that sucked.  Stephen had planned to pull out at least a few thousand, just in case.  Tarra would be proud of him for his forward thinking.  The line for the ATM machine wasn’t nearly as long as the teller line, and Stephen knew the machine’s daily limit was five hundred dollars.  But, he had another account with a different bank as well.  Two separate withdrawals would net him a cool grand if he did that instead.  He made the decision to use the ATM machine and became a nervous customer in the parking lot himself, just like the ones he had passed, as he cautiously strode back to his truck with a thousand dollars worth of crisp twenties in his pocket. 

*****

Tarra left the house in the Prius, and drove up Loerland Drive towards the elementary school.  She had frantically tried to contact the school with the Alexander’s landline, but she received nothing more than a busy signal.  Her plan was to get the Kays home as quickly as possible.  She had a very keen feeling that bad things were about to happen.  Imminently. 

As Tarra reached the first stop sign, her cell phone went off.  It was Stephen.

“Hey babe, sorry to call you while I’m roaming, but it’s important.”  He said.

“It’s okay, mine’s roaming too.” 

Stephen said, “I think you should pull the Kays out of school today. The entire city of Oak Harbor is a total mess right now.” 

“I’m two steps ahead of you, honey.  I’m already on my way.”

“Good, good!  Did you hear that they declared martial law in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Bellingham?”

“Yes I did.  It was all that was on the news this morning.  Those damn protesters!  I don’t think it’s going to be very long before it spreads.  It shouldn’t reach the island, but -” 

Her phone cut off.  Stephen called her back, and gratefully it rang.  He said, “I’ll make this quick.  I’m on my way to Kmart, it seems to be the only place still open.”

“Stephen, do whatever you need to do to get those containers.  Water is life.  Then get your ass home, ya hear me, fool?”

“I hear ya, honey.”  Stephen laughed. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” 

And that would conclude the last phone call Stephen and Tarra would ever make to each other.  As Tarra neared the elementary, she observed a disordered mess.  A long line of cars, SUVs and pickups cascaded down the block toward the entrance of the school from both directions.  To make matters worse, it had begun to rain.  Cold, Whidbey winter rain.  It was already windy, and the rain fell at an angle.  In the distance, Tarra could see two elderly ladies in blaze-orange crossing guard vests holding STOP signs trying to direct traffic.  Everyone seemed to be ignoring them, cutting each other off, honking and hollering as they all tried to squeeze into the school’s driveway at the same time.  Had they just followed the women’s orders, the line would likely have moved quickly.

Tarra could not see the school at that point, and as she watched the frigid rain batter her windshield, her mind began to wander, and she wondered if they had all the children waiting outside for their rides.  She didn’t see any schoolbuses entering or departing the campus, so it was parent pick-up only. 
Are my twins standing outside in this wintry shit?  

The line wasn’t moving fast enough for her taste.  Tarra grew impatient.  All of the idiots at the access point were trying to force their way in simultaneously, despite the frustrated crossing guards attempts to quell the chaos.  Her children were standing outside in the wind and rain for god’s sake!

The line inched forward again, but only slightly, and Tarra decided that enough was enough.  She glanced over at the sidewalk, and thoughtfully calculated the distance between the residential fencelines and the streetlights.  Was the car narrow enough to make it?  She mentally debated the possibility, abandoned it, but then thought again of her poor little Kays freezing in the rain.

“Come on baby, let’s find out if our ass is skinny enough!” she exclaimed to her beloved car, rubbing the top of the dashboard.  When the convoy inched forward again, she snuck into the closest driveway and crawled the Prius up onto the sidewalk.  As she cleared the first streetlight, Tarra discovered that she had inches on both sides of the car to spare, and floored it.  “Haha, bitches!”  She yelled as she blew past the entire idiot happy hour beside her.  Upon reaching the entrance, she cut off an angry silver sedan as her tires barked off the curb and onto the elementary’s driveway. 

One of the two crossing guards had ran towards her, holding up her bright red STOP sign and waving her other arm in protest, but she was too late.  Tarra had already scuttled the traffic and was on her way to the school’s pickup point.  She whooped and laughed when she looked in her rear view mirror and saw the defeated little old lady standing in the rain, her rain soaked white hair plastered around her red visor and along the sides of her head, her orange vest flapping away in the frigid Whidbey wind, but then felt a little bad about it. 
Poor old gal was only trying to help out, she was probably just a volunteer, too.
  Oh well.  The Kays were more important.

Chapter 15 – The Rudehouse Invitation

Tarra and Stephen arrived at home at nearly the same time, which Tarra thought was odd because Stephen needed to stop and pick up those containers.  The wind and the rain had not let up, in fact, had gotten worse.  Stephen had instructed Tarra to park the Prius behind the house, away from Swantown Road, and slowly followed her down the rain-soaked, sloping driveway with his truck.  Once everyone was safely inside the house, Tarra sent the Kays to their room so she could talk to Stephen.

“Were you able to score anything?”  She asked.

“Nope.  Kmart shut down just as I got there, the workers were shuffling the last few pissed off people out the door.  An angry mob was developing outside the entrance, so I took off.  The same thing was happening over at Walgreens, the cops were already there.”  Stephen said, hoping that his wife would not be upset with him.  She wasn’t.

Stephen added, “I think all the stores are taking a moment to jack up all the prices on everything, and then they’ll open up again.”

Tarra sighed and said, “Don’t worry about it, hun.  We’ll figure it out.”  She knew better.  They would not likely open again for a long, long time.

“Actually, I already did, on my way back home.  I still have all my stuff from before we were married in those giant Tupperware tubs in the basement.  They are of a solid plastic construction.  I can clean those out and fill them up.”

Tarra shivered and said, “You go right ahead and do that, I don’t want to mess with those spiders down there!”

Stephen laughed and said, “Spiders are the least of our worries right now.  I have no idea how long services are going to hold up.  Electricity is probably gonna go out, water soon after.”

“How long do you think we have?”  Tarra asked.

“I’m guessing a matter of days?  Or less?  Once the power goes out and the pumps are stopped, unless someone physically turns off the water mains, gravity should provide the last few trickles, then it’s game over. I used to think that all this crap was going to blow over, but not anymore.  You should have seen those people today around Oak Harbor, the looks in their faces, it was desperation.  It was scary.  Some fat bastard tried to hit me up for some
toilet paper
, of all things!”  Stephen shuddered as he thought back at the fat, desperate Seahawks fan in the Walmart parking lot.  “I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the major cities right now.”

Tarra’s face morphed into seriousness, and asked, “How long before the cops give up?”

“That’s a good question.”  Stephen paused for a second, thinking, and then continued, “How long would
you
wait?  Think about it, they have families too.  How long before they say ‘fuck it’ and abandon ship?  I have no idea.  What if the military does the same thing?  I know I wouldn’t hang out long, if everything was going to shit.  The boys in uniform are providing the last shred of security and normalcy in this country right now.  If they throw in the towel, god save us.  We’re in self-destruct mode.  This ain’t China or Russia doing this, we are doing it to ourselves.”

Tarra looked him dead in the eye and said, “If you weren’t retired right now, you’d come back to us, right?  I mean, you wouldn’t stay on base and leave us alone, right?”

“Yes, I would come home, regardless of the consequences I would have to face later.  And that’s what scares me.  Who else is going to decide to do the same thing, if not
all
of them?”  Stephen replied.

Tarra appeared very satisfied at Stephen’s answer.  She nodded and said, “Yeah, especially since they are no longer getting paid.”

“Wait, what?”  Stephen asked as he did a double-take on his wife.

“It was on the news this morning.  None of the armed forces are getting paid on Friday.  I wasn’t able to gather all the details before I left for the school.  I needed to go pick up the Kays, ASAP.” 

“That means no paycheck for us, either.  This is bad, this is all bad.”  Stephen shook his head, ran to the living room and scooped up the TV remote from the dual recliner center console.  The TV had turned on, but nothing but a blue screen generated by the Comcast cable box appeared.  He tried to bring up the programming menu, but nothing happened.  Tarra had followed Stephen into the living room, and pointed at their wireless internet modem on top of the entertainment center.  The light that normally flashed when internet was available was dark.  “No internet, either.”  She declared.

“It has begun.”  Stephen said, plopping down in his recliner.  “I’m going downstairs to clean out those totes.  I just need a little time to think for a second.”

Tarra said, “I’m going to talk to the Kays, and explain to them what is happening.”

“Good idea.  Get them in a warm bath, too.  They looked like they had gotten pretty wet today.  Might be one of the last baths they will take for a while.”

Tarra laughed, “They might actually like that idea.” 

*****

Before Stephen headed down to the basement to clean out his plastic totes, he tried to call Fish with his roaming cellphone but had no luck.  It wouldn’t even go to voicemail.

He removed the contents of the first tote and stacked everything neatly along the wall (with zero spider encounters), and had started on the second, when he heard Tarra yell from the top of the stairs, “Hey Stephen!  Come on up!  The Rudehouses’ are here!”

Mac and Melanie Rudehouse were the Alexander’s ex next-door neighbors.  Mac had landed a much higher-paying job in Burlington two years prior to that fated February, and the Rudehouses had moved off-island to reduce the commute.  They had tried to sell the house ever since, but wanted way too much for it and it never sold.  Mac had bought the place many years ago, and his mortgage was low enough that he just decided to hold out until he got his “dream price” for it, which of course, never happened.  Even though the Rudehouses lived forty-five minutes away in Burlington, they remained close to the Alexanders, and Stephen kept a vigilant eye on his buddy’s vacant place next door, especially watchful of Mickey Kessler.  Somehow, Mickey had also found out that they had moved.  The Rudehouses also owned many acres of vacation property along the Skagit River near Marble Mount, Washington, and the Alexanders spent several weeks out of every summer camping and enjoying time with Mac, Melanie, and their children; fourteen year-old Mike and eight year old daughter Makenzie at their cabin and trailer out in the woods.  Fish would often come along for the camping trip as well.  He came in very handy when it came to clearing out the branches and brush along the trail that led down to the river or splitting wood for the nightly campfires. 

Mac enjoyed Fish’s company, saying that he didn’t feel so much like an alcoholic when Fish was around.  Mac loved his beer more than anything else, and his plump mid-section supported that fact.  Fish was the only person allowed to call him: “Big Mac”.  In return, Mac was the only person that could get away with calling Fish a nickname of his own design.  Stephen remembered the first time Mac had called him that nickname, they were camping at the Skagit River property and the adults were already knee deep into a case of Heineken’s, sitting around the fire and telling tales while the kids explored down by the river.  Fish had arrived fashionably late, as usual, and as he strolled up to the fire with his trademark shit-eating grin, Mac leaned backward in his camp chair and yelled, “Well, if it finally isn’t Fishy-Fish and the Funky Snatch!  Better not be empty-handed!”  Which instantly erased the grin off Fish’s face and stopped him dead in his tracks.  Stephen had been taking a good-sized pull off his beer at that precise moment, and it promptly exited his body through his nose and into the campfire.

The Rudehouse’s visit was two-fold.  One, to check on their home and secure it as best they could, and two, to present an invitation to the Alexanders.  The Rudehouse pickup truck was loaded down with provisions, Stephen could see boxes piled all the way up to the windows inside the truck’s canopy.  They had planned on “waiting it out” at the river property, which was miles and miles away from the nearest human neighbor, and asked the Alexanders if they wanted to join them.  Mac explained that the Burlington and Mount Vernon area had taken a ride on the “crazy train”, much worse than what Stephen and Tarra had witnessed on Whidbey Island at that point. 

Mac and Melanie could be what some considered as “Preppers” but they were not as extreme as the ones that were on TV.  Mac wanted to throw the impending apocalypse in Stephen’s face.

“I told ya this was comin’, I told ya!”  He shouted, almost joyfully.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”  Stephen replied, sheepishly.  “But this isn’t that EMP burst thing, or the commies, and, the last time I checked, Yellowstone hasn’t erupted yet like you said it would.”

“True, true, but everyone is losing their shit out there!  Everyone!”  Mac countered.  Stephen went to the living room lightswitch and flipped it repeatedly, saying, “Hmm, power’s still on.”

“For now.”  Mac countered.  “And for how long, brother?  Who’s gonna maintain the power plants once everybody jumps ship?”

Stephen could think of no response to that.  Mac continued, “Speaking of jumping ship, no pun intended to the navy folks in the room.”  He paused, looked hard at Stephen and boomed one of his bass-driven laughs.  Then continued, “Looks like your islanders are all cutting out.  Highway 20 was loaded down heavy-duty with traffic eastbound.  Hardly anyone besides us was westbound.”

Tarra spoke up, “That was too be expected.  But that’s good!  Less people here to deal with if the shit hits the fan.”

Mac said, “Shit’s
already in
the fan, my dear lady.  We’re getting out of here now, while the gettin’s good.  Who knows how long you’ll have before the highway bandits take over all the major roads.”

“Highway bandits?”  Stephen chuckled, shaking his head.

“Mark my words, brother!”  Mac declared prophetically.  “You’re more than welcome out at our place.”  Mac said, and then leaned toward Stephen and muttered softly to him in his deep voice, “Just don’t come out there empty-handed, brother, if ya know what I’m sayin.”  And then winked at him.

Stephen replied, “We’ve stocked up pretty good here, we’re going to be alright for a long while.  Long enough to wait this out.  But, however, if worse actually
does
come to worse, we will definitely be headed your way.  Thanks again, man, for the offer.”

“The invitation is open.  C’mon out when you’re ready.  Which will be soon, in my own,  honest, humble opinion, of course.”  Mac leaned over at Melanie and winked at her.  Mac liked to give out lots of winks.  Melanie smiled up at her larger-than-life husband and spoke directly to Tarra, “Think of the twins.”  Tarra cocked her head, paused, then nodded in consideration.

Stephen, Tarra and the Kays watched from the porch as the Rudehouse family dashed to their truck in the rain.  In theatrical fashion, all of them waved next door toward their previous residence as they splashed through the Alexander’s mushy yard, as if waving goodbye to a spectre of their old selves watching them through the windows.

Later on down the road, as the Rudehouses crossed under I-5 and into the shit still brewing in Burlington, Mac hit the steering wheel and said, “Damnit!”

“What?”  Melanie asked, startled and concerned.

“I forgot to ask Stephen if he needed to borrow a gun.”

Melanie sighed, “Oh well, too late now.  They’ll be alright.  I think.”