THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road (19 page)

Stephen said nothing as he flicked away Tarra’s arm and grabbed her mid-section with both arms and squeezed.  It was the only defense he had against his wife, she was a known fighter!  Stephen squeezed with all his strength and took Tarra to the floor, kicking and screaming the entire way.  He had never squeezed or hurt his wife that bad in all their years together.  It made Stephen feel terrible, but it was necessary.

“Let me go, let me go!”  Tarra yelled as she resisted Stephen’s clutch, and as she yelled, Pharoah began his furious barking again, this time directly in Tarra’s face, as if
she
was the one in the wrong, and needed to chill out.  The loud barks in her face momentarily stunned Tarra, and she resisted for a few seconds as the sound of a car screaming its way up Swantown caught everyone’s attention.  The Kays had come out of their room after the gunshots and Stephen yelled extremely loudly at them to go back to their room.

Stephen and Tarra heard the car screech through the intersection and stop at the Burgess place.  Stephen was nearly out of breath from restraining Tarra, but managed to whisper in her ear, “There’s the second half of the ambush.”

“Okay, okay.  I’m okay.  Let me up.”  Tarra said, and Stephen obliged.  He was out of steam, anyway.

The Alexanders went back to their watching stations, and witnessed two young men around the same age as the woman emerge from the black Monte Carlo and congratulate their accomplice with a few quick hugs.  Tarra watched with disgust, and wanted to kill them all, but Stephen would never allow her to leave the house.  What the hell was wrong with those kids?  They just killed a wonderful old man in utter cold blood!

Stephen was disgusted as well, but couldn’t risk dying over their neighbor, who was already dead.  If there was something he could do, he would have.  Eddie could not have survived such gunshots to the chest, it was impossible.  The Alexanders viewed the activities across the corner with extreme hatred.

Eddie Burgess was also watching.  He wasn’t dead yet!  One of the .22 caliber rounds had pushed its way into his right ribcage and the other one was deep into his right shoulder.  The rest had missed.  Even at such a close range, the girl was a horrible shot. 
Typical woman
, the old-timer thought,
can’t shoot for shit!  I should be dead right now!
  He was in terrible pain, and could feel his warm blood oozing from his wounds.  Fluid began to build up in his pierced lung.  He needed to act soon if he was to survive.  The .38 special he normally carried was still wedged in his shoulder holster, concealed by his denim overcoat.  Thank god for that!  However, since he had taken a good one to shoulder, Eddie knew that he would need to shoot with his left hand, which sucked, because he was right-handed. 

It would have to do.

The three celebrating criminals moved to the vehicle’s open door and folded the seat down as if to get something out of the driver’s side back seat.  The Monte Carlo was hastily parked perpendicular to Eddie’s driveway, and all their backs were turned to the old man.  Eddie seized the opportunity while they weren’t watching to scuttle himself to the front of his Oldsmobile parked in the driveway. 

Without hesitating, he forced himself to stand and leaned on the hood of the Olds, creating a low profile.  He took aim at the group of punks, and fired with his off-hand.  He had aimed at the bitch with the gun, but the bullet struck the male that was bent over behind the folded seat of the Monte Carlo smack dab in the left butt cheek!  Eddie grinned as the whippersnapper’s back pocket of his filthy jeans exploded, and ass-gore plastered the seat, steering wheel and a good portion of the windshield.  The .38 was Eddie’s deceased brother’s service pistol, from when he was a deputy for Snohomish County “back in the day”, and it packed one hell of a wallop!  The kid had flown forward, howling in agony.  He was blasted almost entirely into the back seat of the Monte.  Only the bottom of his legs hung out of the car.

The other two invaders flinched from the sound of the gunshot and spun around.  Eddie took aim once again at the miserable cunt that had taken advantage of his kindness and fired a second shot, but missed.  She ran around to the lee side of the Monte and ducked down behind the rear quarter panel, just in time to be missed by the third shot from Eddie’s gun.  The remaining male, the chubbiest one of the three, ran around the car in the other direction, and hid himself low behind the front quarter panel.  Eddie wasn’t sure if he was armed or not, but it didn’t appear to be true.  Otherwise, he would have been shooting back, right?

I’ve only got three shots left, and there’s two of them
, Eddie thought.  The rest of his ammo was in the house.  The bitch with the gun fired back at him and he managed to get another one off in the crossfire, but missed again, taking out the Monte’s rear windshield before he was forced to slide back down the hood of the Olds to take cover.  The stupid whore had started firing at him like it was target practice time and she had infinite ammo.  Bullets impacted Eddie’s faithful, beloved car and he cursed. 

Unfortunately, Eddie had been running on nothing more than pure adrenaline, and had ran out of gas.  He made an attempt to get up, but couldn’t, and remained on his knees with his good elbow and shoulder against the grill of his Oldsmobile.  He could barely breathe, and his battered body was shutting down. 
I still have one bullet left for each of those crooked hooligans!  Get up, Eddie, get up and shoot, damnit!

But he wouldn’t need to.  Something caught his eye to the right.  A large dog was bounding across the ditch in his yard toward the Monte Carlo at blinding speed.  His neighbors from across the street were several paces behind the speeding German shepherd, trying to keep up, and they were armed!  It was Stephen and Tarra Alexander, god bless their souls!

The girl with the .22 caliber had little more than a fraction of a second after she noticed the four-legged terror barreling toward her to react.  She shot at the dog, but didn’t have time to aim, and like most of her other shots, it was errant.  Not even close.  Pharoah went airborne, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.  Pure dread overwhelmed the young woman in slow motion as Pharoah connected with her, teeth to neck, and took her down with well-trained working dog precision.  She felt his teeth pierce her soft, smooth skin, and had little more than a fleeting moment to reconsider all the miserable things she had done before her throat was raggedly removed from her body and everything went black.

“Yeah!”  Eddie was able to raise his gun hand and let out a triumphant cheer, but it was hideously painful.

“Eddie, stay down!”  Stephen yelled as he ran toward the scene.  The chubby punk that was hiding behind the front quarter panel of the Monte Carlo took off running up Loerland Drive, terrified and in shock, immediately after the dog had taken down his female counterpart.  He was unarmed, just as Eddie had speculated. 

Stephen stopped and raised his M-4 to take a shot at the man before he got away, but hesitated.  He couldn’t shoot an unarmed man in the back, could he?  He looked like he was just a kid.  Tarra, who was still pushing forward ahead of him, looked back at her husband and shook her head with distaste.  She put her head down and dashed past the Monte Carlo, picking up speed.  The fleeing chubster wasn’t much of a runner, especially with his pants half-way down his ass, and most unfortunately for him, Tarra was an excellent sprinter.  She caught up to him quickly, raised the shotgun to her shoulder and blasted a giant, crispy hole into his lower back.  He went down with a high-pitched, girlish yelp and rolled onto his side.

The thug with the ass wound inside the Monte Carlo attempted to painfully wriggle himself fully into the back seat of the car for cover.  He bled profusely, and felt as though he wasn’t able to his legs properly.  Black flashes bombarded his vision with each agonizing movement, and passing out was a near option.  The old man had done one hell of a number on him, he had taken half his ass off!  Maybe he could hide amongst the bags of stuff in the back seat that they had stolen from other ‘customers’ earlier that day?  It was the only thing he could think of to do, but he knew his situation was dire, regardless. 

Eddie saw the awkward movement in the back of the car and began to stumble his way across the concrete driveway, vengeance was about to be his. 

“Aw, shit.  I’m fucked.”  The defeated thug said aloud, as he managed to flip onto his back in just enough time to see the smiling old man raise the .38 special and fire a single shot into his brain.

*****

Fish had found the Worts’ residence, but after observing it for several minutes determined that it was abandoned.  There was no smoke coming from the chimney, none of the windows were covered, or even curtained, and there was no TSOS painted on the house anywhere.  The cheap old coot didn’t have a garage, and the entire driveway was empty.  He could easily tell where two cars were normally parked, by the stains on the cement driveway. 
Chicken shit bastard must have jumped ship!  Damnit!

Discouraged, Fish drove away and decided to continue with the battery mission.  He drove toward the city center, where things were the worst.  A person could tell that they were getting closer to the city center, because the garbage would increase in volume, the desperate people increased in number, and there was life.  The outskirts of town seemed lifeless to Fish.  Nothing but seagulls and crows everywhere, picking at the trash in the streets.  Too quiet.  Spooky.

Fish was about to turn from one side street to another, when he heard a scream through the passenger side window.  A female scream.  Fish slowed the car, almost to a stop, and listened.  Suddenly, a woman in her fifties (Fish assumed), burst from her front door, as if she was pushed or thrown.  A younger man came outside, maybe in his twenties or early thirties, and as the woman tried to stand up, he pushed her down again into the cold, wet, muddy yard.  Fish immediately assumed it was a domestic incident, and began debating with himself whether or not to intervene.  Was it worth it?  Fish absolutely could not stand violence to women, but it was probably just a woman and her son.  Might be better if he just stayed out of it.  But then the woman begged, “Stop!  My babies are in there!” toward the house as the man laughed.  He kicked the woman once more back down to the wet ground to keep her from standing up.  Fish couldn’t watch any longer, he had had enough.  It wasn’t a domestic situation whatsoever.  It was a home invasion!  There must have been others inside the home, taking her things!  And she had babies in there!  Fish didn’t consider the fact that she was in her fifties or sixties, a bit old to have young children, but hey, they could have been grandchildren, right?

Fish grabbed his M-4 and erupted from the Prius.  “Hey!”  He yelled, getting the abusive man’s attention.

“Aw, shit.”  The man said, and raised his hands above his head.  Fish had the M-4 trained to the man’s chest as he approached the scene.  The woman on the ground had curled into a fetal position and was bawling uncontrollably.

“Yo, call your partners out here, now.”  Fish told the man.

“Caesar, come on out.  We got trouble.”  The man called out, calmly.  Almost too calmly, as if he had been in this exact same situation before.

“C’mon out Caesar, or I’m shooting your buddy and then I’m coming in there to shoot your ass next.”  Fish yelled. 

“Alright, alright, I’m coming out, bro.”  Caesar said, calmly as well.  He exited the house with his hands up, and joined his buddy in the yard.

Caesar asked, “Are you a cop, esse?”

“No.  What difference does that make, anyway?”  Fish answered.

“You just look like a cop, holmes.  That’s all.”  Caesar said, and looked at the ground.  “I’m just a good Samaritan.”  Fish stated with a grin.  He was apprehensive about those two turds.  Why were they so calm?  Was there another member of their little posse hiding out somewhere, waiting to ambush him?  Was someone still in the house?  Maybe they wanted to kill him and take his guns and car.  Fish thought about his next move.  What was he supposed to do now?  Let them go?  They were bad guys.  They would probably do the same thing again, to another home down the road, if freed.

The woman recovered and shakily stood up.  She immediately walked over and spat in the first nameless man’s face.  “There’s only these two of them.”  She said to Fish, wiping her mouth.  Fish was relieved, but he still had the dilemma of what to do with the two men.

As the older woman turned to walk to Fish, Caesar jumped on the opportunity while her back was turned to him, and in one fluid motion grabbed the woman around her neck with his left arm and produced a blade from behind his back with his right hand.  He put the knife next to her face and she quivered helplessly.

“Okay,
good Samaritan
, put the gun down.”  Caesar said.

The other man cheered and said, “Haha, yeah motherfucker that’s right!  Put that shit down!” 

Fish laughed at both of them and said, “You two really are dumbasses, aren’t you?”  Fish smiled, and put two M-4 rounds into the nameless man’s chest.  He fell back instantly, dead. 

Caesar flinched, and his eyes widened at the sudden, unexpected turn of events.  He didn’t think Fish was going to execute his friend so quickly.  In fact, he figured that Fish would have already put the gun down and surrendered, in which case, they would have taken the gun and shot him with it, of course.  Total fail, now.