THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road (20 page)

Fish studied Caesar as he held the defenseless woman.  He envisioned him as a giant, confused frog.  Fish pointed the weapon at him and said, “Your turn now.  One chance to live.  Let her go or die, simple as that.”  Fish narrated coolly. 

Caesar hesitated for a few moments, but let go of the woman, and she crumpled back down to the wet yard once again.  He quickly threw the blade off to the side and put his hands back in the air.

Fish stared into the man’s eyes.  The brown skin of his face contrasted heavily with his large, white, bulging frog eyes.  Caesar was afraid.  For good reason, too, because at that very moment Fish began to imagine the giant scary frog doing the same thing to Tarra or the Kays that he had just done to the woman on the ground.  Sorry, Mister Frog, but your chapter on this planet has come to an end.  There was only one option.

Fish plugged him twice in the chest, same as his fallen buddy.  The woman protested, screaming, “No!  Why did you have to shoot him?  He was surrendering!  What the hell is wrong with you?”  She ran to Fish and pounded on his shoulders with both her muddy fists, hard.

“What the hell, lady?  I just saved your ass!”  Fish said as he braced himself from her blows and tried to step away.

“Just get out of here!  Get the hell out of here!”  She cried, and pushed him.  Fish was taken aback by her lack of gratitude.  Maybe she had some psychological problems.  Fish remembered that Stephen used to complain about liberals, and how they thought they could save everyone, regardless of how pathetic the people were.  Fish wasn’t entirely sure what a liberal actually was, but maybe that lady was a liberal.

“You shot them!  You shot them!”  The woman kept yelling as she kneeled in the cold dead grass of her yard.  Fish turned and walked toward the Prius.  She wailed behind him as he walked away.

“What am I supposed to do with the bodies?  You bastard!  What am I supposed to do with these bodies?”  She cried.  Fish wanted to reply back to her with something cocky, but said nothing, and continued to his car that was still parked quietly at the curb.  He just wanted to get out of there.

Once in the Prius, Fish tried to gather his thoughts for a moment before starting it up to drive away. 
What was wrong with that woman?
 

Fish put his hand on the key, but stopped as he suddenly heard the woman call out, “Sir, please don’t leave yet.  I’m sorry.  Thank you, thank you!  Please, come have a drink with me.” 

Fish laughed to himself,
bipolar much?
  He watched through the open passenger side window as the woman got back on her feet and smacked the mud off her hands on her already-muddy green slacks.  She looked hopeful toward the Prius, awaiting his response.

“A drink actually sounds pretty good right about now.”  Fish said to himself, smiling, and exited the vehicle.

The woman introduced herself as Margaret and invited him inside.  Fish waited patiently in her living room after she excused herself to change out of her soiled, wet clothes.  She was quite a mess, after all.  A few moments later, she returned in different clothes with a bowl of water and a roll of paper towels.

“So, where are your babies?”  Fish asked, as Margaret dipped crumpled up paper towels in the water to wipe off the half-dry mud on her hands and elbows.

“There’s one right there.”  Margaret joked, and pointed with a wet hand toward a Siamese cat on the loveseat across the room.  The kitty had been watching Fish very curiously ever since he walked in.  “His name is Linus.  The others are probably hiding.  I’m pretty sure that they are all bit upset right now, considering.”

“Oh, I get it!”  Fish laughed, realizing that there were no actual babies in the house.  Well, no babies in the human sense, anyway.  The cats were babies to Margaret. 

Margaret turned out to be a really nice older gal, in Fish’s opinion, whose husband had passed away a little over two years prior.  She lived alone with her cats, and had considered leaving Oak Harbor for her younger sister’s house in Spokane, but didn’t want to displace her cats.  Some of them were quite old, and Margaret wasn’t sure how they’d handle the journey across the state. 

Fish had introduced himself and told her of what he knew from the Navy base.  She was pleasantly surprised to hear that he was in the service.  Her husband had retired from the Marine Corps back in ’99. 

“I’ve made up my mind to leave this place.  The attack today finalized my decision.”  She had told Fish.  She repeatedly apologized for beating on his shoulder and for pushing him, but he kept waving her off.  “I was just out of sorts, ya know, from all that happened.”  She explained.

Fish was still waiting for that drink she had promised, but Margaret was too busy chatting.  He politely tried to excuse himself, and then she remembered.  “Oh, I almost forgot your drink!  Please, wait here.” 

Ah, finally!
  Fish grinned.  Margaret disappeared and struggled as she returned with a medium-sized cardboard box.  It looked heavy, and she put it on the floor with a huff. Bottles clanked. Imprinted on the side of the box was:
“Gentleman Jack, Rare Tennessee Whiskey.”

Oh, snap!  It was a whole case of Jack Daniels!  The good stuff, too!  The case was already opened, and Fish licked his lips in anticipation as Margaret pulled a sealed bottle out and handed it to him.  He thought for a second that she was only going to offer him a sip of the bottle, but then she said, “This case was my husband’s, he died before he could finish the first bottle.  I’m sure he’d want you to have this, for everything you did for me.  I can’t even bring myself to touch the stuff after he passed away.”

Fish paused, confused, but took the bottle from her.  Wow, she was giving him the whole bottle!  Then things got even better.  She continued with, “I still have the bottle my husband opened, you can have that one too, if you’d like.”  Holy shit, she wasn’t giving him just a bottle, she was giving him the whole case!

Fish almost turned down dead husband’s open bottle, but after a quick reconsideration he decided to take it as well, which completed the case.  In the world they were living in, the whiskey would make an outstanding bartering tool.  No one would have to know where it came from.

Fish thanked Margaret and departed.  He had decided to make the rest of the day a “recon mission” throughout Oak Harbor.  He needed to get a feel for the place, new as it was.

Chapter 20 – A Sad Day

In the aftermath of the attack on Eddie Burgess, Tarra sobbed as Eddie proclaimed that he was dying.  She begged, “Please, just let us take you over to our place, let us try to patch you up.”

“I don’t wanna get patched up, honey.  I’m done.  I’m done with this wretched place.”  He painfully waved his arm around in disgust at the rest of the neighborhood.  Where in the hell
was
the rest of the neighborhood, anyway?  Nobody had come out to help.  Nobody had even come outside after the shooting was over with.  Were they hiding? Too afraid?  Had they all left already?  Stephen and Tarra had many unanswered questions.

Tarra continued to plead, “Please, Eddie, let us try to help you.”

“You don’t worry now, ya hear?  Everything is gonna be okay.  I’m gonna go inside and bleed out in the same bed by dear Marie died in.  She’s been hangin’ out in heaven without me for a long time, now.  Too long.  It’s time for me to go.”

Pharoah whined as Eddie hobbled toward his home.  It was the dog’s nature to help, but there was nothing he could do. 

Eddie turned around one last time and said to Stephen, “I have few things stocked up, ya know?  There in the house.  You’re more than welcome to all of it after I’m gone.  Just wait until tomorrow, please.  I want to die in peace tonight.”

Stephen, who was also holding back quiet tears, replied, “Roger that, sir.”  He was at a loss for words, and really didn’t know what else to say other than a military acknowledgement.  Tarra sobbed even louder into her hands. 

“Oh, and another thing.  Take this.”  Eddie said as he took a second while struggling to remove his denim jacket.  Stephen ran to him and gingerly assisted.  Once the bloody jacket was in Stephen’s arms, Eddie asked him to help him take off the shoulder holster that held his trusty .38 special revolver and said, “I want you have this as well.  Protect those kiddos over there with it.  I’ve got rounds for it in the top dresser drawer next to my bed.”  The old leather holster was also marked with Eddie’s blood, but Stephen did not object, and respectfully accepted the weapon from the fading old veteran.

“I’m on my way, fellas!”  Eddie said, cheerfully looking skyward at the dark winter clouds above him as he got closer to his door.  To whom was he addressing?  Nobody knew.  He began to laugh as he entered his house, but it ended up as a coughing spell as he disappeared inside and closed the door behind him.

Tarra sobered up quickly as Eddie went into the house, and dried her face with her sleeve.  She felt terrible about Eddie wanting to die, but it was his own decision, and she had to respect it.  She asked Stephen.  “So what are we going to do with these bodies and the car?”

Stephen was still staring at the door to Eddie’s house.  He thought about Eddie for a moment, scowled and said, “Let’s line ‘em all up in the driveway.”

“What?”  Tarra asked.

“Yeah, that’s what we’ll do.”  Stephen replied, nodding his head in agreement with himself.  He had a hard look on his face, one that Tarra had never seen before.  He continued, “Eddie already has a TSOS on his house.  The bodies will be a nice little reminder of what will happen to the next group of idiots that come around here looking for trouble.  As for the car, I’m going to wait for Fish to come back.  See if he has any ideas.  Hell, he might even want to keep it.  If anything, we could at least siphon the gas out the tank before we get rid of it.”

“The bodies are going to stink, you do realize that, right?”  Tarra asked.

“It’s cold enough outside that they’ll keep for a while.  Once the weather warms up and they start to get ripe, the winds here blow mostly north and south.  These other homes will catch most of the stench.”  Stephen pointed at the houses across Loerland Drive and up the street.  “Serves them right for hiding out like a bunch of bitches, anyway.”

Tarra nodded an acknowledgement and then grabbed one of the thug’s feet that hung out of the Monte Carlo.  She asked, “C’mon, give me a hand, let’s get this over with.” 

*****

Fish returned back to the Alexander stronghold just before it began to get dark.  He parked the Prius behind the house and knocked on the door inside the garage for someone to let him in.  Stephen was the first one there.

Fish yelled excitedly at Stephen, “What in the
blue fuck
happened across the street?  There’s a bunch of bodies in Eddie’s driveway.  Did he cap some fools while I was gone?”

“Kind of, yeah.”  Stephen said, solemnly.  He explained the details of what had happened earlier that day, and Fish wanted to go over to his house to pay his respects before Eddie passed away.  Tarra told him that it wasn’t a good idea, that Eddie wanted to be left alone in peace. 

Since Fish was just about a permanent fixture at the Alexander home, he knew Eddie just as well as they did.  He was sorrowful for the loss across the street.  He liked Eddie Burgess, and Eddie had liked him back just as well.

Stephen changed the subject back to the task at hand, “Did you find any batteries?”

“No.  But I got a case of Jack!”  Fish said, proudly.  Stephen frowned at first, then smiled.  Tarra hurriedly walked up to the two as they were talking and asked, “Did I just hear you say
‘a case of Jack?’
”

“Yup!”  Fish answered.  In any other circumstance, the Alexanders probably would have accused him of lollygagging around and would have scolded him for coming up with such useless provisions.  But after the day they just had, a nice stiff drink sounded beautiful.

Fish went ahead and told his own story of the men at Margaret’s house.  Stephen looked disturbed when Fish told the part of the story about him basically executing both of the men in cold blood.  He told it with such exuberance, and laughed as if it was just another thing.  Why was Fish so happy about that?  Tarra, on the other hand, was just the opposite of Stephen, and had smiled and damn near cheered aloud during the story.

At the conclusion of Fish’s story, he apologized for not finding any batteries.  Then he added, “But, Safeway’s open.”

“Wait, what?”  Stephen said, as both of the Alexanders did a double take on Fish.  Was he kidding? 

“Yeah, it’s open.  Well, not really ‘
open
, open’.  But it’s open.”  Fish said, confusing the hell out of both Stephen and Tarra at the same time.

“What do you mean by ‘open’?”  Tarra asked, seriously.

“The owner and a bunch of his buddies are allowing people to buy stuff in the store, but they will only accept real gold or silver as payment.  No credit or debit, not even paper money.”  Fish explained.  Stephen instantly thought of all the silver he had purchased years ago before Tarra took over the investment fund.  He had pure silver in the house!  Rolls and rolls of gorgeous, shiny, silver American Eagles.  He could send Fish to buy the batteries with those!  And more supplies, if they needed to!  But damnit, the two grand in twenties that he had withdrawn was now useless.  Oh well, at least he had it just in case things got back to normal.

Tarra was nodding at Fish, she knew that Stephen had the silver stashed away in the house somewhere.  She explained it to him while Stephen was still spaced out, reminiscing about his wonderful silver.

Fish snapped his fingers in front of Stephen’s face to wake him up, and said, “I think we should wait until tomorrow, though.  Trust me, you don’t want to be out there at night.  It was sketchy enough during the day, I can only imagine that it’s a lot worse at night.”

Stephen hesitated, and then said, “Hold on, I’m not going with you.  No way!” 

“Yeah, you are.”  Tarra interrupted.  “If you give Fish that silver, he’ll come back with a bag full of condoms and candy bars.  You need to go with him.  It’s
your
silver, anyway.”

Fish howled a huge round of laughter and repeated Tarra’s words, “Condoms and candy bars! That’s a good one!”

*****

The next day, Stephen wanted to wait until at least noon to go out on the battery mission with Fish.  He figured it would be the safest point in the day to make a run into town.  They also needed to bury Eddie that morning, and did so next to the tomato and flower garden that he had meticulously maintained every summer.  He would have wanted to have been buried there, they assumed.

Fish was very interested in the Monte Carlo, at first, until he inspected it and discovered the enormous amount of gore that was splattered throughout the interior.  He suggested that they siphon out the gasoline, and then push the bloody mess over to Mickey’s wrecking yard in his driveway and leave it there with the rest of his heaps.  Stephen had agreed.

Subsequent to the burial, Stephen and Fish had looked around Eddie’s place and found the bullets for the .38 along with his stash of supplies.  Fish had exclaimed, “Holy squeeze cheese, Batman!” when they found his food stores.  Apparently, the old guy loved his cheese and crackers.  There were at least two dozen cans of pressurized cheese spread along with box after box of assorted types of crackers.  Even some healthy, veggie types.  Stephen had mentioned to Fish that it was actually “kinda smart” because the food required no preparation or refrigeration, and even a low volume of cheese and crackers still packed a high caloric punch.  Plus, older folks need calcium for their bones, and the cheese contained plenty of it. 

Stephen had laughed, “The Kays are gonna love this.  They absolutely can’t get enough of this cheese stuff.  They’d squeeze it directly into their mouths, if we’d let them.”

The cheese was the second biggest score of the day, because Eddie’s laundry room floor was entirely covered with stacked-up gallon jugs filled with water.  Some were store bought, others were simply recycled milk jugs that had been rinsed and refilled with tap water.  The old guy must have been collecting those for months.  Stephen figured that he must have known
something
was coming, and stocked up just in case.  The Alexander water totes were, for the time being anyway, obsolete. 

In the bathroom, Eddie’s bathtub was nearly half full of clean water, and a large saucepan was set on the floor next to the tub as a scooper.  Stephen assumed that he was using the water to perform his hygiene at the sink and to flush his toilet, which wouldn’t have been that often if his diet was so heavily laden with the cheese.  Fish and Stephen took what was left of the toilet paper and paper towels.  Eddie also had a nice supply of the sturdy-type paper plates and plastic cutlery.  In addition to all the cheese and crackers, there was a pantry about one quarter full of canned goods, rice and noodle mixes.  “Oh, look!  Hamburger Helper!”  Fish had exclaimed, excitedly holding the box up to Stephen.  Stephen laughed, “That’s nice, but are you going to go out and slaughter us a cow to get some fresh hamburger?”

Stephen had furiously searched Eddie’s home for some batteries, in hopes of avoiding the Safeway run scheduled for that afternoon.  The only batteries he could salvage were a few triple A’s from the TV and cable remotes, and two double-A’s from a small metal LED flashlight that Stephen found on Eddie’s nightstand.  He had decided to pocket the flashlight.

Eddie’s garage had contained many hand and power tools, and tons of gardening stuff.  The only real scores in there were a nearly-full five gallon capacity red gascan and a full-size Maglite that after a quick op-test, appeared to have contained full-strength batteries inside it.  The King of all Flashlights required D-cell batteries, of which Stephen had none, so once that sucker had run out of juice, it would be useless for anything other than a bludgeon.

*****

Fish was very anxious to get the Safeway run underway.  It was sunny outside, a drastic change from the miserable weather that had been haunting the island for a week prior.  Fish paced around by the motor pool behind the house, waiting on Stephen, who was stalling.

“Babe, how much do you think I should take?”  Stephen asked Tarra.

“How much is one roll worth?”

Stephen replied, “Well, all precious metals skyrocketed right before the shit hit the fan, almost as if
someone
knew it was coming.  The last I had checked, the spot price of silver had hit $63 an ounce.  So, one roll of twenty eagles would be around $1200.  Maybe more.”

Tarra laughed, “Just take one roll then.  Quit stalling and get the hell out of here before it gets dark!”

Stephen placed a roll of his precious eagles in his jacket pocket and zipped it up.  It was heavy in there, and awkward.  Grabbing his M-4 and newly acquired .38 special, Stephen took a deep breath and met Fish outside.

“Bout damn time, yo!”  Fish shouted.

“Shutup.”  Stephen snapped back.  “Which ride are we taking?  You’re the expert.”

Fish looked thoughtful for a moment, and said, “I think we should take your truck.  You drive, and I’ll ride in the bed.  We can communicate through the sliding glass window.  Being in the back will give me a full 360 degree line of sight to cover any avenues of approach.”

Stephen sighed, “Jesus, is it really that bad out there?”

“It ain’t that bad, I’m just covering all our bases, ya know?  Just in case.”

Stephen laughed and said, “Yeah, I know Justin Case, he’s a real motherfucker.”