THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road (17 page)

“No, you’re not.”  Tarra said, softly.

“I’m fine.”  Stephen stated, and exhaled heavily.  His bottom lip quivered and he sniffled.  He was beginning to cry.  Tarra knew that her usually passive, kind-hearted husband was on the verge of tears, so she put her arms around his neck and pulled him close to her.  She whispered,  “It’s okay, honey.  You did what you had to do.  I’m very proud of you.”

Stephen bawled tears and snot into her shoulder, as quietly as he could.  Thankfully the Kays were too busy playing a mean card game of Uno in their bedroom to notice anything.

Just as Stephen forced out his last tear, and began straightening up, there was a sound outside.  Sounds were very clear during the quietness of the Collapse of America.  It was a truck!  And it was crunching it’s way down the driveway toward the Prius and the F-150 motor pool behind the house.  It just had to be Fish!  Stephen flew down the stairs to the garage with Tarra at his heels.

“Girls, come down!  Fish is back!”  Tarra hollered.

Fish emerged from his monster truck with an M-4 automatic rifle strapped to his shoulder and leapt to the ground.  Holy shit, what a score!  An M-4!  The Alexanders ran to him and hugged him, the adults on top around Fish’s shoulders and the M-4, and the Kays at the bottom around the legs.

“Wow!  I guess you’re all happy to see me?”  Fish said, his trademark grin plastered across his mouth.  He looked at Stephen’s joyous, yet moist and reddened face and said, “Are you crying?”

“No!  I was just, uh, doing some work upstairs and got a little heated up.”

Fish laughed, “Bullshit, you’re crying!  You really missed me, huh?”  After that arrogant remark, Stephen and Tarra both pushed off of him and guffawed.  Fish added with another chuckle, “Nice TSOS on the house, by the way.  The pink really works great.  Very intimidating.”

“It’s purple.”  Stephen defended.

“Whatever, yo.  Hey, I got one for you, too.”  Fish said, referring to his M-4 as he nonchalantly lifted up on his shoulder strap, as if guns were just laying around everywhere.  Another gun!  What a day that was turning out to be!

Fish leaned down to the Kays, and excitedly said, “I have a surprise for you two as well!”  He stepped back up on the foothold of his truck and opened the door.  “C’mon boy, let’s go!” 

Stephen’s grin disappeared off his face. 
Oh shit, what now?

A full-sized German shepherd launched happily out of the cab of Fish’s truck and immediately went to the Kays, who screeched, “A DOGGY!” with the Sameness.

Stephen was apprehensive at first. 
Oh great, another mouth to feed.  Another BIG mouth to feed.  Damnit, Fish!

Katrina, who was almost thrilled beyond words, asked her Uncle Fish, “What’s his name?”

“Pharoah.”  Fish replied, proudly.  “There was only one handler left on base, and he didn’t know most of the dog’s names, except for his own, and a couple others.  So I named him Pharoah, you know, because the ancient Egyptians used to worship dogs.  He seems to like it, and he answers to it, too.”

Tarra shook her head in confusion and said, “Wait, what?”  She rolled her eyes and continued, “You do know that the Egyptians didn’t worship dogs, right?”  Stephen put his hand on his mouth to conceal an upcoming laugh that he knew was imminent.

“Uh, yeah they did.”  Fish replied.

Stephen added, “No, actually they didn’t.”  He was about to let loose a round of laughter in amusement.  Tarra was gonna tear him up!

Tarra yelled, “They worshipped CATS!  Not dogs!”

Fish looked at her and shouted back, “Okay, genius, then why did they build all those giant dog statues in the desert, then?”

“Are you talking about the sphinxes?”  She laughed.  “Those are half-lion, half-human.  Not dogs!” 

“Ah, shit.”  Fish said, defeated.  “His name is staying Pharoah, though.”

Kyla looked at her father and asked, as if it was even a question at that point, “Can we keep him, daddy?”

Stephen stared at the dog. 
Good lord, there’s a lot of maintenance involved with owning a dog.  Especially a god damn huge one like this.  Lots of food, lots of turds.  But wait!  He’d be an excellent companion on my late night rounds throughout the homestead.  Kind of like having a living, breathing, mobile security system throughout the entire house.  A mobile security system with extreme loyalty, fine-tuned hearing and lots of teeth.  Hmm…

Pharoah sat on his haunches between the girls as they gleefully petted his mane, looking up at Stephen with hopeful eyes, as if to say,
“Just feed me and love me, and I’ll protect the living shit out of these two girls for you.”

Stephen sighed and said, “Okay, Pharaoh, you can stay.  Come here, boy!”  Pharoah instantly left the girls and leapt to Stephen as commanded, enthusiastically meeting his face with a few friendly licks as Stephen bent down to meet him.  He was definitely a friendly dog, Stephen could tell.  So could Tarra, by the satisfied look on her face.

Fish chimed in, “He’s a military working dog.  He knows commands and shit.  He started following me around on base after his handler took off, so I decided to look after him.  Watch this.”  Fish took a step back from the group and said, “Pharoah, come!”

Pharoah’s head snapped toward Fish, and he bolted toward him and stood wagging his tail, anxiously awaiting his next order. 

“Sit!”  Fish yelled, and Pharoah obeyed.  “Now, check out that truck!”  Fish commanded, pointing at Stephen’s F-150.  Pharoah went around the perimeter of Stephen’s rig, sniffing the doors, examining the undercarriage and searching around the wheels.  Once his sweep was completed, he sat on his haunches and barked twice.

“Two barks means good-to-go.  No barks means something bad is in there.  They don’t bark when it’s something bad, as to not alarm the driver that the dog knows something is up.  At least, that’s what I heard, anyway.”  Fish said, proudly.  Stephen and Tarra looked at each other in astonishment.  Pharoah really was a smart dog.  Maybe even smarter than Fish!  (just kidding).  Stephen was definitely sold at that point, the dog was staying.

Once Fish was done showing off, the Kays called Pharoah back over to them, and the adults agreed to head inside the house.  They needed to talk.  Much information needed to be exchanged, including the acquisition of the shotgun, the death of Mickey, and Fish needed to tell them what he knew so far from the base.  He had been there the entire time.  What was going on? Pharoah could keep the Kays busy while the adults exchanged information.

Chapter 18 – Stephen’s Late Night Visitor

The Alexanders could tell that Fish was more than juiced up to explain everything that he knew, but he waited for his turn, and let the Alexanders tell the story of the shotgun and Mickey first. 

“Looks like a Mossberg.”  Fish stated, as Tarra displayed the righteous weapon to him.

“I guess.”  Stephen added.  “All I know is that it
works
really well.”  Stephen stated with a solemn tone.  “What’s going on over there on base?”

“Well, at first a bunch of people got sent out to augment the National Guard.  Then we didn’t get paid, which sucked.”  Fish said.

“Indeed.”  Stephen agreed.

Fish continued, “Once people started noticing that the National Guard augmentees weren’t coming back, as promised, a lot of squids just took off.  ‘Fuck it!’ they said, ‘we ain’t getting paid anyway’.  Then more and more of them took off.  It was like a ghost town on base.  The higher-ups said that anyone that stayed would get promoted, awarded, blah blah blah.  A few of us stuck around to stand watch on the airplanes, so North Korea wouldn’t get them or something.  I thought that they were actually gonna promote me to Chief if I stuck around to help out.  Wishful thinking.”  Fish said that last sentence sheepishly.

Stephen looked concerned, and said, “What about North Korea?”

“Oh, no worries there.  I guess NATO has ships patrolling off both the east and west coast, for now, anyway.  At least until we get our shit together.  There was a few of the NATO guys on base, helping out with the airplanes and stuff.  I talked to one of them, and asked why they didn’t send troops in to help us restore order.  The guy said that NATO and the rest of the world has a strict, ‘hands-off’ policy at this point.  They are only there to keep the Chinese and North Koreans off our coastlines.  He had a really funny accent.  I think he was Polish.”

Tarra laughed at Fish’s Polish comment, then asked, “But what else do you know?  Is there any hope for us?”

“I did talk to some of the guys that had radio contact with the other bases.  I guess the Naval Station in Everett was completely overrun by the local population, and nobody is manning any of the ships there.  Bremerton still has control of the surface and submarine bases, but there’s hardly anything more than a skeleton crew there to run the boats.  Without food and fuel, they cannot get underway, which means they are basically dead in the water.  It’s not like there’s an enemy out there to fight, anyway.  We’re killing ourselves here.”

Stephen nodded in agreement.  “You’re totally right, but I think we might be some of the lucky ones.  I bet it’s much worse in the bigger cities.”  He thumbed toward the Rudehouse place and said, “Mac and Melanie were here a few days ago and said that Burlington was a total mess.  And they also invited us out to the river property, by the way.”

“Oh, no!  I missed Big Mac?  Damnit!”  Fish exclaimed.

“Yeah, you sure did.”  Stephen commented.  Fish would have loved to have seen Mac again.

Tarra wasn’t fully satisfied with the information that Fish provided, and said, “So, what the hell?  Is there any hope left or not?  Where do we go from here?”

“We’re on our own now.  There really
isn’t
any hope.  That’s why I came back.  Nobody even tried to keep me on base.  Nobody gives a damn.  I took as much shit as I could, those guns, that dog, two bags of dog chow and a bunch of MRE’s, nobody stopped me.  I figured that I might as well be here with you guys.”  Fish explained.

Stephen did a double-take, and said, “Wait, you got some MRE’s?”

“Yeah, four boxes.  Twelve menus in each box, so, that’s sixty.  No, wait, it’s forty-eight.  Anyway, I just threw them in the truck.  The galley was shut down, and the higher-ups kept saying they’d feed and protect our families if we stayed around.  I don’t think they have enough food to last for very long, though.  Another reason why I took off.”  Fish said.

Tarra asked Fish, “Are those MRE’s any good?”

“Hell yeah they are!  MRE’s are awesome!”  Fish replied.  But Stephen and Tarra looked at each other.  They both knew that Fish’s idea of ‘awesome’ differentiated from the rest of the population.  Then he added, “Stevo, you know what I’m talking about, right?”

“No, actually, I don’t.  I’ve never had an MRE.”  Stephen replied, somewhat embarrassingly.

“What?  Twenty years in the service, and you’ve never had one?  How is that possible?”  Fish laughed.

“I just never have, I guess!”  Stephen replied.  Then he quickly changed the subject.  “Now that you’re here, we can move to four-hour watches during the night.  You might need to show Tarra how to use and load the M-4’s.”

Tarra cocked her head at Stephen and said, “I think I can figure it out, fool.  Besides, I’m going to use the shotgun.  You two can keep your pea-shooters.”

“How are we on ammo?”  Stephen asked.

“They were kinda stingy on that.  I did manage to score an extra speed loader and six boxes of rounds.  Every time I stood a watch on the airplanes, there seemed to be a different watch captain in charge.  I just kept saying that I didn’t have any ammo, so they kept giving me more.  I wanted to get an M-4 for Tarra, too.  That never happened, though.  I had no idea that you guys were able to score that shotgun.”

Stephen looked at his best friend with satisfaction.  Fish actually
wasn’t
as dumb as everyone thought he was!

Fish looked at Stephen and asked, “When are we going to head out to the Rudehouse property?”

Stephen thought about it for a moment, then replied, “I think we’re good here for a while.  We got food, water, heat, and now,
protection
.  I don’t think you want to camp outside in this February weather, do you?”

“Ah, good point.  No, not really.”  Fish answered with a laugh. 

Stephen added, “We do, however, need batteries.  We’re getting pretty low on those.  We gotta have light at night, it’s not a luxury, in my opinion.  It’s a necessity.”

“I’m on it, boss.  I’ll go out tomorrow and find some.”  Fish said, volunteering to help.  Stephen and Tarra looked at each other apprehensively, they both knew that all the stores were closed.  Maybe Fish didn’t know?  Or was he going to “acquire” them somehow?  At that moment, the Alexanders silently agreed with each other not to ask
how
he was going to get them, or anything else that they might need in the future, for that matter. 

Tarra asked, “Aren’t you afraid of getting shot?”

“Stupid idea for anyone that tries.  I shoot back.  And I can aim better.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, I have this too.”  Fish cockily replied as he lifted his jacket flap, revealing a 9mm pistol.

“Nice!”  Stephen exclaimed. 

*****

With the new watch rotation, Stephen was scheduled to have the first eight hours off.  Tarra had requested the first watch, followed by Fish, then Stephen would assume the early AM shift until sunrise.  Stephen couldn’t believe that he was actually going to get a full night’s sleep!  He was certain it was to be wonderful.  The thought of Fish being back to support the family was immensely comforting.  It had seemed like forever since Stephen had actually slept soundly through the night, and he was excited about the prospect of Tarra quietly sneaking under the blanket and curling up next to him after her watch.  They hadn’t slept together in the same bed since The Collapse began.  Oh, what a beautiful night’s sleep he was going to get!

Stephen fell instantly asleep, but what seemed like only seconds afterwards he opened his eyes to a buzzing sound.  Somewhat mechanical in nature, but almost insect-like at the same time; it was living, alive somehow.  The room should have been completely dark, but there was a soft faint light that painted the walls and Tarra’s vanity in front of the bed.  Had Tarra opened the blinds to let moonlight in?  Why would she have done that?  The buzzing continued, and Stephen decided to get up to investigate.  Just before he reached down to toss the thick comforter off him, a figure appeared at the door.  At first, he thought it was Tarra, who had just finished her watch and was coming to bed, but it was coming in slow, and threw odd shadows off the wall in the weird light.  It was Mickey!  What the hell?  His eyes must have been playing tricks on him.  But they weren’t.  It was Mickey indeed.

Stephen was paralyzed with dread.  There was no way that he could have survived that shotgun blast to the shoulder and neck.  Even if he had survived the initial blow, he would have bled out quickly.  There’s no 911 to save anyone during the Collapse of America!  But there he was, standing there, still alive and staring down at Stephen in bed.  Mickey took another few steps closer and Stephen found himself still paralyzed, unable to move. 
He’s coming to get his revenge, he snuck in here to kill me!  The M-4 that Fish gave me, it’s next to the bed!  Grab it, grab it now!

Mickey had reached the foot of the bed, moving in slow-motion, ambling oddly.  He was wounded badly, but still approaching.  Stephen tried to reach for the gun, but was unable, once again, to force himself to move.  Terrible fear swept over him and his heart pounded madly. 
Why can’t I fucking move?  I’m going to die if I can’t reach that gun.  C’mon Stephen, reach, REACH! 
But he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried.

  Once Mickey had slowly thumped his way around the bed and was on Stephen’s side, he disturbingly discovered the gruesome details of his murderous gunshot to the neighbor.  A chunk of his neck was missing, and part of his shoulder as well.  Some of the buckshot had erased a portion of his cheek, and Mickey’s foul yellowish-brown teeth displayed sinisterly through the burnt edges of the hole.  Some of them were broken or missing.  It was horrifying. 

He should be dead, damnit, there’s no way he could be alive like that right now!  Get the gun, kill him!  Finish the job, you worthless pussy, DO IT!
  Stephen yelled and commanded himself, inside his head, but it was no use.  His fear had overtaken him, and he could only muster enough spirit to move his fingers on his right hand an inch or two.

Mickey really should have been dead, but there was something wrong with the world.  Everything was wrong.  Mickey being in the house was wrong.  Who was on watch?  Where is Tarra?  Is she dead, too?  What about the Kays?  That would definitely be wrong!  And dreadful!  But maybe all the wrong in the world had resurrected the ghoulish sonofabitch creeping his way next to Stephen.  Maybe, just maybe, Mickey was more powerful than Stephen had assumed.  He had underestimated his wretched neighbor, and now he was going to pay for it.

Fish could save him, though!  Fish was dauntless, unafraid, a
warrior
.  Stephen opened his mouth to cry out for him, but his lips, teeth and lungs could only muster up; “F-f-f-f….F-f-f-f-f-f-f.”.  Mickey was next to him now, and Stephen nearly suffered a cardiac arrest as his grotesque mouth opened, and he spoke.

“Bacon.”  He grunted awkwardly.  Stephen gasped and choked.  Was he about to die over some damn bacon?  Mickey wanted more bacon, is that all?  Is that why he had come back?  Stephen decided that he would just give Mickey whatever he wanted. 
Just don’t kill me, please!
Just as that last thought ran through his brain, a another wispy thought entered his head.  Where it came from, he didn’t know.  But it was there, something was helping him; 
You’re only dreaming, Stephen. 
   

As Stephen began to realize that he was suffering from sleep paralysis, Mickey could tell that Stephen was leaving him, and his face morphed into the worst rage that Stephen had ever witnessed in a human being.  His eyes flared with a hideously evil orange glow, and he leaned closer to Stephen.  Stephen tried to mentally push the nightmare out of his head, and tried to close his eyes, but it was impossible.  He was forced to suffer through Mickey’s torture even longer.  He could smell the dank, dead body and the wickedly revolting odor that was exuding from his mouth and hole in Mickey’s cheek as the horror leaned even closer, eyes burning with rage.  Stephen pleaded silently; s
omeone, something, anyone, anything, please help me.  Please GOD help me!
 

The Mickey-demon could sense Stephen’s helplessness, and savored it.  Oh, did he savor it.  He reared his head back, as if to draw in a breath to blow fire upon Stephen’s motionless corpse, and screamed as he drew forward, “GIMME SOME BACON!”

Stephen cringed and thought he was going to black out, or possibly even die, as Mickey’s bottom jawbone detached from his head and the saliva-stringy, blood-encrusted nastiness plopped onto his chest as the bacon demand left his mouth.  Mickey dropped once again to bring himself closer to Stephen, eye-to-eye, minus the bottom half of his face, but Stephen awoke. 

His heart continued to flutter, almost uncontrollably, as Stephen blinked himself conscious and began to focus.  Pharoah had one of his paws in the exact same place that the phantom jawbone had landed on Stephen’s chest, and he was licking Stephen’s face.  It was comforting.

“Good boy, good boy.  Thank you.”  Stephen sighed, and dug his fingers into his savior’s rough mane with admiration.  He looked to his left and the bed was empty.  Tarra was still on her rounds. 

Stephen was thankful that dogs possessed an uncanny ability to detect distress in humans.  If he had not awakened him when he had, Stephen felt as though he might have suffered a heart attack!  If you die in your nightmare, do you die in real life?  Stephen decided with finality that Pharoah was staying with them, permanently, regardless of how much maintenance it required.