THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road (16 page)

Eddie had hollered, “Get the hell outta here you sonsabitches!  I ain’t dead yet!”

That same day, Eddie used some brown patio deck paint to write in giant letters: “TSOS” on each side of his home that was exposed to either Swantown Road or Loerland Drive.  Stephen and Tarra had watched curiously from their windows while he did it, and Tarra’s curiosity overwhelmed her.  She went outside, once again against Stephen’s objections, and yelled across the street as she waved.

“Hello, Eddie!  What does T.S.O.S mean?  I see that on a couple other houses, too.”

“Well hello there, Tarra!  Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, eh?”  He waved back with the paintbrush hand, and then continued, “It means, ‘Trespassers Shot On Sight’.  I have don’t time for all these hoodlums and their thievery!  How are you guys holding up over there?”  Eddie shouted as he put down his paint can and stretched his back.

“We’re okay, so far so good!”  She hollered back.  She wanted to say,
We’d be a lot better if you would please just shoot Mickey Kessler for us, thank you! 
But Mickey would probably hear it and come barreling out of his house in a blaze of glory.

“You hang in there honey, don’t put up with no shit from nobody, ya hear?”  Eddie yelled, and went back to darkening up the enormous letters on his home.

Tarra went back into the house and Stephen scolded her for being so careless by going outside, but she waved him off.  It was just old Eddie, after all.

*****

TSOS was spreading everywhere.  Homes all over Oak Harbor began displaying the dire message.  Even Mickey had the warning emblazoned on his house, although his letters were smeared onto his house with what looked like oil sludge.  Apparently, he didn’t have any paint.  Somehow, it made the message even more menacing than it should have been, as some of the letters dripped streaks below them, mimicking a bloody scrawl.  Stephen and Tarra didn’t dare to put TSOS on their own home, in fear that Mickey would view it as a taunt, and subsequently lose his shit.

Speaking of Mickey, he had made another appearance on Tuesday, requesting more food and something to drink.  Stephen gave him one of the Tupperware containers filled with the tub water and the last of his junk food. 

If there was another visit (which there likely would have been), Stephen had determined that he would be forced to start giving him some of the good stuff.  All of the “shitty” stuff, as Tarra had labeled it, was gone.  The thought turned his stomach, having to take food out of the mouths of his family just to hand it over to the shitbag next door. 

Stephen spoke with Tarra, and finally accepted the fact that they would need to kill Mickey in order to survive.  They would need to commit murder.  Premeditated, cold-blooded murder.  The stuff you see on TV. 

Stephen wasn’t sure he could actually go through with it.  So many different variables and what-ifs ran through his brain, each thought cancelling out the last one, or creating a totally new variable of it’s own.  Tarra, on the other hand, was ready to rock and roll.  The thought of murdering another human being didn’t bother her in the slightest.  In fact, she was beside herself with glee, developing one murderous plan right after another.  Her focus was Stephen’s strength, and he agreed that the abomination next door, did, in fact, need to be put down like a rabid dog by any means necessary.  It wasn’t just the fact that he was taking their stuff, there was something wrong in his head. 

Tarra said, “I don’t even think it’s the food and water that keeps him coming back.  He could go anywhere, harass anyone for that.”

“What do you mean?”  Asked Stephen.

“I think he’s just a big control freak.  He likes making us uncomfortable, he enjoys having power over us.  I don’t think he would actually try to kill us until we actually stood up to him.”

“You know what?  I think you’re right.  The bastard gets off on it.”  Stephen said.

“Yes!  That’s what I meant.  He’s the stereotypical schoolyard bully.  He could have shot us a long time ago, but he hasn’t.  I’m still not totally convinced that his absurd looking gun even works.  I say we jump him tomorrow.  Right now we have the element of surprise, he thinks we are just going to continue to submit to his needs and never resist.  And he’s definitely not expecting us to ambush his ass!”  Tarra proclaimed, her eyes full of dynamo and zest.

*****

Later that evening, Stephen had volunteered to patrol the home while Tarra rested.  He couldn’t sleep anyway, the thought of murdering his neighbor haunted him relentlessly.  The Alexanders had decided that Tarra was going to be the one to actually commit the deed, with Stephen’s assistance of course.  Stephen thought that he should have been the one to ‘man-up’ and deliver the killing blow, but they both agreed that he might have been hesitant at the moment of truth, and they couldn’t risk the possibility of him, Tarra, or (god forbid) the Kays getting hurt or maybe even killed in the process.

Stephen was finishing the Kays’ bedroom window portion of his patrol when he heard the slow, familiar ‘whore whore whore whore’ sound of the engine of a large truck traveling at low speed.  Instantly, he knew it was Fish and ran toward the kitchen entrance of the home.  He had almost squealed like a little girl with joy, and thought about waking up Tarra and the Kays, but decided against it.  It would be exciting enough once Fish was inside the house that they would wake up on their own, if they wanted to.  He was finally back!

Stephen was so buzzed with thrill that he didn’t even bother checking to see if it was safe before he opened the door.  Unfortunately, Stephen’s joy instantly turned into disappointment.  The pickup truck traveling slowly down Loerland Drive wasn’t Fish’s.  The moon-clouds in the sky provided him with enough light to distinguish that it was an older model from the 80’s or 90’s crawling toward the intersection with its headlights off.  Stephen should have known better, the sound of the engine was too hoarse to be a newer model like Fish’s Ford F-150. 

The pickup didn’t stop at the STOP sign on Swantown, as it should have.  Stephen gawked as it slowly swerved and made its way through the intersection at an angle, and ultimately collided with a telephone pole that straddled his and Mickey’s property line.  The thud of the impact wasn’t very loud, but loud enough that Stephen wondered if Mickey had heard it.

Stephen scurried back into his house and closed the screen door, but continued to observe through the screen as the truck idled away against the stalwart wooden pole.  Stephen wondered why the man (or woman) driving the truck would just sit there like that.  Was it one of Mickey’s old ‘customers’ waiting for him to come outside to make a score?  If that was the case, why would they run into the pole like that?  To wake Mickey up, maybe?  And why were the headlights off?  Stephen also considered that maybe someone had a seizure while driving, and maybe they needed his help.  It was too dark to see inside the cab of the truck, and Stephen grew nervous as he watched, yet curious at the same time.  The truck whore-whore-whored for another thirty seconds or so, then sputtered out.

Nobody, including Mickey, had come out of their homes to investigate the wreck.  Nobody cared?  Nobody was awake?  Maybe Mickey was ass-deep into a drug or alcohol induced coma, and didn’t hear anything.  That was the best-case scenario. 

Stephen decided that he needed to be brave (for once) and at least get closer to the truck to take a look and see if anyone needed help.  It was the only human thing to do at a moment like that.  Stephen clutched his spear, or harpoon, whatever you want to call it, and stepped back outside into the damp, chill-you-to-the-bone island winter air.  He cautiously took a few steps through the night-moistened dead grass closer to the truck, keeping a sharp eye on Mickey’s place.  Any sign of him, and Stephen would have been back on his own porch in an instant.  Nothing stirred at Mickey’s, so Stephen inched closer and closer.  Eventually, he was able to identify the figure of a man’s head against the steering wheel inside the truck.  It was, after all, someone who needed Stephen’s help!  Mustering up as much courage as he possibly could, Stephen crossed the rest of his yard and attempted to silently open the passenger side door.  Being an older model truck, the heavy steel made a ratchety, popping sound as he pulled the door toward him and the dome light inside the cab lit up.  Stephen cringed and drew back, glancing once again over at Mickey’s for any sign of activity.  Nothing.

The driver of the truck was a man in his late fifties, maybe early sixties by the looks of him, wearing a thick red flannel pullover.  He was very grizzled, overweight, and to Stephen’s relief, snoring very loudly against the steering wheel.  The pungent stank of body odor and alcohol hit Stephen in the face like a sack of hot nickels. 
This guy doesn’t need my help, he just needs to sleep off his drunk!
  Stephen thought, and then noticed the horrifying item laying on the floorboard amongst the beer cans and empty fast food wrappers.  It was a shotgun.  A fucking shotgun!  Not a pistol or a hunting rifle, it was a SHOTGUN, the mother and most intimidating of all firearms in his own opinion.  Stephen’s heart leapt into his throat. 
Holy shit!  I need to get out of here!  Now!

Just as Stephen was about to dart back toward the safety of his home, he stopped himself in his tracks, and forced himself to think rationally, disciplined, controlled.  The man in the driver’s seat was passed out cold, as evidenced by the vociferous snoring.  The drunkard probably wouldn’t wake up, even if somebody slapped him hard in the face. 

The summary: Stephen needed a gun.  Stephen needed to protect his family!  But, Stephen was afraid to grab it!  He was afraid that the man would wake up, grab him by the throat and throttle him right there in the stinky passenger side of the old pickup.  Stephen hyper-ventilated in order to take control of his emotions. 
Just take the gun, just take the gun, just take the gun, you pussy-ass sonofabitch, just TAKE IT!

Stephen drew in a deep breath, checked Mickey’s place once more, then reached for the shotgun.  The barrel was the closest thing to him, so he grabbed it.  The metal was really warm for such a chilly night, as if the driver had set the truck’s heat to floor-mode at full blast, so he acquired a better grip with his cold, clammy, sweaty fingers around the barrel once again and pulled the weapon toward him.  It slowly crunched through the sea of papers and beer cans, and Stephen cringed at every sound it made, fearfully expecting the owner or Mickey to wake up at any moment.

With the harpoon in his left hand, poised to strike, should the driver wake up, Stephen adjusted his grip with his right hand further up toward the stock of the shotgun, just underneath the pump-action slide, and lifted it carefully out of the garbage on the floorboards.  It was clear.  And it was now
his
shotgun!  Stephen was about the close the truck door and make a beeline back home, when he did a double-take at the garbage he had just navigated the shotgun through.  Astonishingly, there was an open cardboard box of shotgun shells half-hidden beneath the dome-light shadow of a crunched up Burger King to-go bag
.
Stephen praised God for his good fortune, and then silently sighed to himself, “
Sorry buddy, but I’m gonna need to take those, too.”
 

As he relinquished the bonus prize from the old drunkard’s Chevy, Stephen gripped the open box of shells with two fingers from his harpoon hand, and carried the shotgun with his right hand as he hurriedly tiptoed across his front yard back to the wood-stove warmth and security of his closed and locked doors.

“Tarra!  Holy shit, wake up!”  Stephen exclaimed anxiously, yet quietly, to his sleeping wife.  He didn’t want to wake the Kays.  Tarra erupted awake, almost taking a swing at him from her dream-state, and cursed him out in the midst of her sleepy haze. 

“Check this out!”  Stephen said proudly, and presented the shotgun to his groggy wife.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”  Tarra uttered, rubbing her eyes, now completely awake.  “How in the hell did you get that?”

“I’ve got a half box of shells, too!”  Stephen said, beside himself with euphoria.  He explained the entire situation that took place outside at the telephone pole, and she went to take a look out the window for herself.

“Oh, this changes everything!”  Tarra expressed with a sly, sleepy grin.

“Yes it does honey, yes it does.”  Stephen replied.

Chapter 17 – Tarra’s New Toy and The Return

Like a kid with a new toy, Tarra had volunteered to stand the next watch with the shotgun.  Stephen was able to sleep soundly for a few hours, the first time in over a week.  When he awoke, he decided that the day was to be marked as a celebratory day, and quietly crept down to the basement to brave the icy water of his hot tub to pull out a special treat. 

Bacon.

It was the last of the bacon, and Stephen cooked the entire pound on the woodstove along with some Bisquick biscuits.  He had to use the metal campfire toaster placed directly into the fire for the biscuits, and they were flatter than they should have been, but they turned out surprisingly well!  The Alexanders still had half a tub of Country Crock left, and Stephen cheerfully buttered those biscuits while they were still hot.

Just as Stephen was finishing up the last biscuit in the fire for his family, the Kays exploded from their room screaming “BACON!” with the Sameness.  It was one of their breakfast favorites!

“Good morning, girls!”  Stephen beamed.

“Yay, bacon!  We love you daddy!”  Katrina said as she took an enormous bite of her warm buttered biscuit.

Stephen laughed and said, “Everyone gets six pieces, unless you want more, then you can have some of mine.”

“More!”  Kyla laughed at her daddy, then said, “Just kidding!  I don’t want to get fat.”  Stephen was a bit disturbed at the statement, he didn’t think she should be talking like that at her age.

Tarra came back from her patrol of the garage, which was downstairs adjacent to the basement, opposite of Swantown Road.  The house was built into the hillside, and from the Swantown side you wouldn’t even think that there was actually a garage down there on the other side of the house, but there was.

“Yum, bacon!”  Tarra said. 

As the Kays turned to look at their mommy, Kyla gasped, “Mommy, you have a gun!”

“Yes, baby girl, I sure do!”  Tarra said.  “I bought it at the gun store last night!”

“Oh, yay!  Are you going to shoot Mickey now?”  Katrina asked.  She had said it so matter-of-factly that Tarra was stunned.  Stephen stopped eating his biscuit in mid-bite.

Tarra put the shotgun down against the wall by the refrigerator in the kitchen, came back into the dining room and looked at her daughter while she munched on a strip of bacon at the dining table.  She asked with a soft, serious tone,  “Do you think we
should
shoot Mickey?  He’s a very bad person.”

“Yes.”  They both replied, with the Sameness.

“Well, Christ!  I’m glad they’re onboard with it!”  Stephen exclaimed sarcastically and threw up his hands.  He glared at Tarra.  She shouldn’t be exposing the young girls to so much, in his opinion.  Stephen didn’t want them to get older and think that killing people, even bad people, was okay.

Just then, as if he had heard the Alexanders talking about him, there was rap on the door.  Stephen fearfully stood up from the table and looked at Tarra.

She nodded at him and said, “Go ahead and let him in.”  Stephen looked at her, confused, but followed her orders. 

Mickey looked extra happy that morning as Stephen greeted him, and he said, “Good morning, neighbor!  I just happened to be outside, and I couldn’t believe my own nose!  I smelled bacon!”

“Indeed you did, come on in.”  Stephen replied and pushed the screen door open a tad for him to grab it.

“Well, don’t mind if I do!”  Mickey said, grinning his foul smile at Stephen as he strolled into the house.  He was extra ripe that morning, and Stephen’s nostrils flared as he nervously led him to the dining room, where the Kays were still nibbling on their bacon strips.

Kyla looked at Mickey and plainly said, “My mommy’s going to shoot you.”

Mickey threw his head back and howled, “Oh, honey, that’s a good one!  What’s she gonna shoot me with, a bottle of Windex?”

“No, with this.”  Tarra came around the corner from the kitchen and pointed the shotgun at Mickey’s chest.  The color left his face and his jaw dropped immediately.

“You fucking b-“  Mickey started, but Tarra cut him off.

“I wish you
would
call me a bitch right now!  Do it!  I’ll paint the walls with your nasty ass.”

“Now, let’s not get carried away here.”   Mickey said, holding his palms out in front of himself in protest.

“Shutup.   Stephen, take his gun.”  Tarra ordered.  Stephen looked at Tarra, shocked, but reluctantly did what she said and approached Mickey.  He slowly withdrew the sidearm from it’s holster.  Once the weapon was released from Mickey, Stephen glanced down at the revolver and laughed.

“It’s not even loaded!”  Stephen cried.  Mickey just shrugged.

Tarra chuckled, “What a surprise.”

“Just toss me a couple of pieces of that bacon, and I’ll be on my way.  No more Mickey at your door, ever again.  I promise.”  Mickey said.

Tarra laughed and said, “Nope, no bacon.  Nothing, ever again.”

“Ok, just
one
piece then, just one little piece.”  Mickey said, and started forward toward the table.  He must have been really hungry.  The Kays screamed and covered their paper plates with their hands.  Tarra held the gun tight to her shoulder and shouted, “No, Mickey!  Get the hell out of here, now!”

Stephen said, “You better do what she says.” 

Mickey studied Tarra for a few seconds, and decided that she was utterly serious, she was really going to shoot him if he didn’t leave!

“Fine, I’m on my way.”  Mickey said, and gradually began walking towards the door as Stephen escorted him out.  He stopped half way there and said over his shoulder, “This ain’t over.  You and me, Tarra, we ain’t done yet.”  Mickey spoke to Tarra as if Stephen wasn’t even there.  Stephen’s face looked troubled, but he said nothing as Mickey departed.  He locked the door after the grimy neighbor left, and let out a long, drawn-out sigh of relief.

Tarra and the Kays went back to their breakfast, and Stephen joined them at the table.  Stephen was about to take a bite out of his now-cold biscuit, but spoke to Tarra instead.

“What do you think he meant by that?  ‘We ain’t done yet’.”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”  Tarra replied and shrugged her shoulders as she enjoyed a savory bite of her bacon.  The Kays were watching their father as he tried to eat his biscuit, but his appetite had left him.

Katrina said, “I don’t like that man.  He wanted my bacon!  He was really stinky, too.”

“Yeah, he was icky.”  Kyla said to Katrina.  She was right, too.  Mickey’s stench still hung in the air.  Then Katrina added, “I wish Uncle Fish was here.”

“Me too.”  Kyla replied to her sister.

Stephen, visibly upset, stared at his girls for a moment, then said, “Why?  Why do you wish Uncle Fish was here?” 

“Because he would have beat Mickey up a long time ago.”  She answered, bluntly.  Stephen appeared hurt and offended by their comments.  He continued to eye his daughters as they nibbled away at the rest of their bacon.  Neither looked at their father as they ate. 

“Uncle Fish, huh?”  Stephen said, out of the blue.  Tarra could tell that he was genuinely agonized by what they had said, and she was was about to add something to support her husband when Stephen suddenly leapt up from his chair. 

“What are you doing?”  Tarra asked.

“Taking care of business.”  Stephen declared, and snatched up the shotgun that was leaning against the wall next to Tarra.  With the shotgun in his right hand, he picked up two pieces of bacon with his left hand from his own plate and marched toward the door.

“Stephen, no!  Stop!”  Tarra protested, realizing what he was up to, but he was already across the house and out the door.

Tarra and the Kays stopped eating, and waited in silence.  Moments later, there was a single explosion, the familiar woofy boom of a shotgun, and all three of them flinched together.  It was very loud but somewhat muffled, as if the weapon was discharged inside the house next door.  Moments later, Stephen returned, minus the two pieces of bacon.  The Bait.

“There, the stinky man will never bother us again!”  Stephen yelled at his girls, and very formally put the shotgun back against the wall next to Tarra.  She had her hand over her mouth, shocked, but there was grin underneath that hand.  It was an ‘I-can’t-believe-you-actually-did-it’ grin.  Stephen sat back down and waited for his girls to start crying.  He knew they would.  They were just little girls, after all.

The Kays just ate their last pieces of bacon, saying nothing.  They never cried as Stephen had anticipated, or even mentioned anything of what had just happened.  How could that be possible?  Maybe it was
Stephen
that wanted to cry.  Tarra continued to grin after she removed her hand from her mouth, and gobbled up her last piece of bacon as well.  Stephen glanced back at the shotgun, as if reliving the incident once more inside his head.  He watched as a single tendril of wispy smoke escaped the barrel and crawled up the wall.  The scent of gunpowder had already filled the room.

“It smells like fireworks on the Fourth of July.”  Kyla simply stated.  Stephen snapped out of his haze and looked at her.  He studied her for a few moments, and decided that it was funny.  How could these little girls be so unaffected by any of this?  Stephen felt like running to the bathroom and throwing up, and then maybe even crying into a pillow for a good twenty minutes after that.  But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for his family.

“Fireworks.”  Stephen repeated, and started to giggle.  “Fireworks.”  He said again, and then shrieked out in laughter.  “Fireworks!” 

The Kays watched with smiles on their faces as their father wailed one hysterical laugh after another, then joined in with laughter of their own.  They had never heard their father laugh like that before, and it was kind of weird.  Yet funny as hell.  Tarra lost it and joined in with the three of them.  “Fireworks!”

Later that day, in between rain showers, Stephen emblazoned a large TSOS of his own on the Alexander home.  It wasn’t quite as intimidating as others in the neighborhood, being that it was a pinkish-purple colored paint job.  The only stuff that Stephen had in the garage was the paint used to redecorate the Kays bedroom the previous fall.  But the message was there.  It would have to do.

*****

The next day, Stephen went around his home and took an inventory of the remaining water and stores.  He was trying to keep himself occupied in order to take his mind off the previous day’s sins.  The hot tub was still over three quarters full, but the fresh water totes were nearly half depleted.  There was still plenty of wood, food, paper plates, paper towels, flushable wipes and toilet paper.  Asswipe, cripes.  ‘
Like I said, I have cash!’ 
Stephen remembered. 

The battery situation, however, wasn’t as good.  He wasn’t able to acquire as many as he had wanted to when he and Fish went shopping.  All of the LED flashlights and lanterns used batteries.  Light was pretty important, since it got dark around 5:30 PM in February in Washington State.  At that time of the year, there was still more darkness than sunlight in the twenty-four hours of the day.  Stephen considered conservation options, and would need to talk to the rest of the family about them as well.

The next project that Stephen decided to tackle was the set up of a rain catchment system with plastic tarps on the roof.  He figured he could lay the tarp at the joints of his roof, and have them lead down to a piece of PVC pipe that he still had left over from when he had replaced one of his pipes that had burst three winters ago.  Good thing that Stephen was a bit of a hoarder, and never threw that extra pipe away!  Coffee filters would be rubber-banded around the bottom of the pipe to strain any debris that washed down along with the clean rain water.  The filters would be easy enough to replace each time it rained.  The fresh water totes were low enough to be consolidated, one into another, and he would use the free ones to catch and store the rainwater.  Might not be the best-tasting stuff in the world, but it would be drinkable.  Stephen was pretty sure that he remembered watching on TV that you could take a couple drops of iodine to purify water for drinking.  But would he need to?  Google wasn’t around anymore to verify that information, unfortunately. 

Stephen also thought about packing up Tarra and the Kays and heading out to the Rudehouse’s river property.  It was the middle of February, however, and camping out there in winter temperatures would be far from comfortable.  He couldn’t (wouldn’t) leave without Fish, also.

As Stephen began consolidating the fresh water totes, he did not hear Tarra creeping up behind him with the shotgun.  She was on a patrol, but wanted to find out what Stephen was up to with the water.  Tarra walked up next to Stephen and put her hand on his shoulder, which startled him.  He nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Tarra!  You just scared the shit out of me!”  Stephen exclaimed.

“Sorry.  I just wanted to see what you were doing with the water.”  She said, and set the shotgun down on the kitchen counter.  After watching her husband shake off the heebee-jeebies, she asked, “Is the Mickey thing still bothering you?”

“No.”  He said firmly, and shook his head.  Then quickly changed his mind.  “Okay, maybe a little, yes.  I’m okay, though.”  He said with mock confidence, trying to prove that he had a thick skin.