by A. R. Shaw
“Is he always like that?” Lee asked as he was rolling the hose up.
“Who, Owen?”
“Yeah,” Lee said.
Matthew looked over and saw that alongside the two bodies draped with sheets, Owen knelt and had removed the sheet over the small dead dog that they’d tried to revive and was stroking his hand along the short pale fur. He was muttering to the dog. Saying things like, “It’s okay, buddy. Go over to the rainbow bridge my friend. It’s okay…” Then he wipes his eyes.
“What? He likes dogs. Owen is one of the kindest people you’ll ever know,” Matthew said and in a lower tone, he confided, “He’s also hyped up on painkillers. Makes him a little more emotional than usual. Cut him some slack.”
Lee smiled and finished packing up the equipment.
On the ride back, Matthew patted Owen on his good shoulder. “You okay, buddy.”
“Ye..ah. Poor, little guy.”
“It’s all right, man. He’s in a better place.”
“Yep,” Owen said and leaned his head against the window.
“How many more of those pills do you have left?”
“Tonight’s the last one.”
“Good, geez man.”
“I know. I feel so out of it.”
“Yeah. We’ve all noticed and by all the rules dude, you should not have attended today.”
“I know, but you guys needed the help. I stayed outside, though. I didn’t want to get in the way.”
“Good call. I’m glad you’re nearly done with the drugs. We need to get back to some sort of normal around here.”
“Won’t be normal until Dane comes back. We need her. She kept us all in line.”
“What? I don’t keep you guys in line?”
“Nah. We’re not scared of you man. You’re a big teddy bear. Dane on the other hand…she’ll kick your ass. Well, not your ass but you know what I mean.”
“I can…I can kick ass.”
Owen shook his head briskly from side to side. “Nah.”
“I’m like three times her size. You don’t think I can?”
Owen looked as if he was actually thinking about it for a second. Matthew couldn’t believe they thought this of him.
“Nope.”
Matthew pulled the truck into the gravel drive in front of their building and put it in park. “Okay, fine. It’s ass-kicking time. Let’s go.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me in my injured state.”
“What state? If you can go to a fire, you can’t get your ass kicked.”
They got out of the car. Matthew heard the gravel crunch beneath Owen’s boots at a rapid pace and when he looked, he didn’t see the young fireman coming his way. Oh crap.
Then from his backside, Owen slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.
Looking up at Owen standing over him. He had a silly grin on his face. His eyes were still glossy, and he was rubbing his shoulder that still sported the Velcro sling.
“Why’d you do that?”
“See?
“See what?”
“Dane would have already jumped up and clobbered me. You’re still laying there wondering what the hell happened. She wouldn’t have asked questions.”
Matthew pushed himself up off the ground. “That’s because Dane’s reactionary. I’m not going to clobber you. I was kidding.”
Owen walked with him to the building. “She doesn’t kid, either.”
Matthew thought about that. He remembered her smile, lite up her entire face once. “Yeah, she does. She can be funny when she wants to be.” He found he was smiling too and then he growled under his breath and walked off.
“What?” Owen asked.
“Nothing. Clean out the damn truck,” he said with something close to anger. He couldn’t handle thinking about her. Owen kept getting him to remember her. She wasn’t likely to ever come back, and he knew that. He had to go on. He had to get his mind clear of her. Which meant, he needed to distance himself from those that made him remember her. But that wasn’t likely to happen for a long time.
He walked into the house and immediately flashed on not only Dane sitting at the kitchen table eating chili but also Tuck in their sparse living room quarters.
He had to get through this. Their images faded. That’s when his wristwatch buzzed and when he looked down at the text and said, “Oh no…”
He never expected to see her again and the note stated she wasn’t released for duty, but her status had changed, and they couldn’t keep her in their facility any longer. They were to expect her arrival by the end of the week. She was to transition slowly, the email said, and ease into things again. Rebecca was coming home.
6
Dane
Somehow it didn’t matter if the sky was blue or gray. Once she stepped off the ferry and found herself between the tall buildings, she could only literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dane’s mood changed instantly. Then she suddenly stopped. Before the line to public transportation, there was a checkpoint into the city. Lots of uniforms, lots of K9’s, aggressive growls and barks, yelling and screaming. She hadn’t thought of this. Then she overheard someone say, “Why can’t they keep these checkpoints one place? Last week the first checkpoint wasn’t until 3rd Avenue. Swear to God, I’m going throw up.”
Her companion said, “Take it easy. Deep breaths. They’re just doing their job. Keep ‘em guessing. I’m surprised they haven’t shut the whole place down yet.”
“If they did, it would be an economic disaster. They can’t afford to do that yet. They did for a few days after all those passengers died and it cost them. So instead…they try to trip up the would-be terrorists by switching around the checkpoints. But God, I can’t go through this every day.”
“I’d rather be safe than sorry?”
As they shuffled along slowly the woman said, “I used to feel that way. Now, I’m not so sure. Look, I’m already shaking. The dogs… We’re getting too used to this. It’s like communist Russia. I’m actually afraid to go anywhere without my id.”
He chuckled though nothing about this was funny. “You’re starting to sound like a right-wing conservative. If I didn’t know you better.”
She shushed him. “Watch it. That’s kind of talk will get us stomped on here. Don’t even joke around. I am nothing. I’m just a human of the race. It’s too crazy to be associated with any parties any more. You can get your throat ripped out either way.”
“Yeah,” he said, but the waver in his voice was clear. He agreed with her and that sent a chill down Dane’s spine. The problem was, that sentiment wasn’t just in Seattle. That was all over the country from one extreme to the other. At least a few people were beginning to see what having the least tolerance for their fellow man meant to society. Either could get you killed.
Though Dane shuffled along through their chatter, it was hard to ignore what sounded like a K9 unit ferociously ripping into someone. She could see what was happening up ahead, but you could not ignore what you heard. Her mind was on the checkpoint ahead. She peeked through the spaces between the horde of people she walked with down a gauntlet lined with barriers There was no way out really. There were police officers wearing bike helmets and armor with weapons strapped across their chests. “Keep moving,” one shouted close by.
They wore dark sunglasses and scanned the crowds in front of them. She couldn’t just skip over the side…not unless there was some sort of distraction. Sure, she could scan her ID, but then there would be questions. A lot of questions. Questions she didn’t want to answer. They would check with her sponsor. But she didn’t have a sponsor to get into the Emerald City. She wasn’t employed there. She couldn’t prove she was in Seattle for any particular reason. No family or relatives willing to host her. She’d make up something if questioned but for the time being, she wasn’t prepared. She knew security would be tight. She didn’t know it would be this tight.
Just get through the day. Get in. Get out.
Then she
saw her opportunity. Dane made her way to the side of the crowd. She didn’t say excuse me or make any eye contact with anyone like she would in the Midwest, south, or even in Montana. Instead, she just edged her way over. Some of the people in her way grunted. Some huffed, but most just went through the motions of letting her by, too transfixed by sounds of the menacing dogs ahead. The gatekeepers of the Emerald City. Dane didn’t blame them for their fear. She was afraid too, but not of the dogs. She was afraid of not achieving her goals. And one thing that would stop her was getting found out before she even got through the gates. She didn’t know if they had her reported missing or not. She’d done everything she could to throw them off her trail. It was too risky to call Matthew every day to find out if they still technically had her there. He’d said, they’d hold off as long as they could. She believed him. She believed he’d cover for her as long as he could and for anything, she didn’t want to jeopardize him in her pursuit to get this done. So, she stayed out of sight as much as possible. Despite the dogs and the authorities ahead of her, she needed to bypass this check-in as well, so there would be no discrepancies about her attendance in Missoula, Montana when she was standing there in Seattle, Washington.
Once on the edge of the horde, Dane kept just out of the line of sight of the police officers on patrol on the sides of the incoming passengers and made sure she was right in front of someone larger than her. In this case, she began walking slower than the crowd permitted. If there was one thing she had in common with the police officers as a firefighter herself, it was training in crowd control.
It was a little part of her training…but it was a big deal. From what she remembered, there were a few different types of crowds. Passive crowds, like the one she was in now or active crowds, like at sporting events. People becoming aggressive and create a mob causing violence. And that’s what she needed. A mob but not just any mob. She needed this passive crowd to suddenly act like an active mob. Active mobs are classified into four groups. Acquisitive, expressive, aggressive or escapist. Acquisitive mobs wanted to acquire something: as in food line mobs when they announced they were out of rations people went a little nuts. Expressive mobs got together for an active purpose, like demonstrations against police brutality. They’d seen a lot of that on the news lately. Aggressive mobs were like those morons fighting after their favorite football team lost it, and they destroyed even nearby businesses for no particular reason. But escapist mobs…that was when you got a group of people to panic over their own safety and sadly, that’s what you saw after public shootings. People panicking and fleeing for their lives in a state of mass confusion. Everyone looking for a way out, all at once.
There wasn’t going to be a shooting if she could help it, but Dane needed them to think there was a reason to ignore her presence, so she could slip past the barrier. And instead of causing mass panic, she played on their learned behavior…like the freeing of trapped fleas.
7
Matthew
“What? She can’t be…no way she’s ready.” Outrage. That was his initial feeling when he read the email but then again, where was she going to go? She apparently had no family to go to. A sister in the Navy abroad somewhere undisclosed. There was no one to care for Rebecca. And despite what the note said, he wasn’t sure what kind of condition she might be in. Physically, she was probably fine, but it was the other things he worried about. And hell, Dane wasn’t there. Though she denied even liking Rebecca, she would know how to deal with her. How to care for the girl.
“Who can’t be?” Owen asked as he came through the door.
Matthew was shaking his head. Dismayed. “It’s Rebecca. They’re sending her to us.”
Owen’s jaw slacked open. “Well…that’s great right? Means she’s recovered enough to come back to work. Damn, it’s a good thing Cal’s gone…I mean…it’s not like we killed the guy. It was an accident but all the same.”
Matthew looked him in the eyes the second he said the word, killed. Owen didn’t waver. His eyes glazed a bit, but he didn’t waver. Most everyone accepted the story of Cal’s demise. Sure, there were initial questions but, in the end, Matthew thought the family actually regarded Cal’s death with a bit of relief. Seems, he was that bad. They certainly didn’t act as if they missed their fallen son. They showed up at the funerals, played their part, but that was the extent of their involvement. No great speeches. No emotional tears either. They’d all noticed the lack of emotion there. It wasn’t hard to assume…they just didn’t care, or they were silent in their grief.
“She’s not ready, that the point. There’s no way Rebecca is emotionally ready to take this on. Not after the condition I saw her in. She just doesn’t have anywhere to go now.”
Owen shrugged his shoulders quickly. “We’re her family. She’s one of us. We’ll take care of her.
He was always so damn positive. This wasn’t as easy as he thought. She’d need constant observation. He had no idea what her condition was, but he was sure it wasn’t anything near normal.
“I wish Dane were back. She’d know how to care for Rebecca,” Owen said.
“You and me both, brother.”
With a jut of his chin, Owen said, “You should call her.”
Matthew tilted his head to the side. “Nice try.”
“Seriously, man…this is a good reason.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I know you don’t want to look all needy and all. First rule of relationships.”
“We’re not…in a relationship.”
“Uh-huh.”
Matthew shook his head, “I said…I’d think about it.”
“When she coming?”
“Dane?”
“No, Rebecca.”
“Oh,” Matthew looked back at the screen on his phone. “Tomorrow!”
“Well…they don’t give us much time to prepare.”
“What do you mean?”
“She should have her own room now. We should enclose off part of the bunk room just for her. Maybe give her a door she can lock and feel safe.”
Matthew stood there and blinked a couple times, thinking then shook his head. “No…she’s a smokejumper. We’ll treat her like a smokejumper. She’s not a victim. We don’t coddle her. She’ll never learn to survive otherwise. We have to treat like we always have. We won’t help her if we treat her like a victim.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying. Maybe your right. But we didn’t do such a good job of helping her before.”
“We didn’t know Cal was a monster. We didn’t know he was capable of that.”
“That’s just it…I can’t help but feel we should have done more to protect her from him.”
“We all feel that way. We’ll give her some time. We’ll go easy on her initially but until we know how she reacts to things, we don’t change anything for her.”
“Except well…we don’t let anyone bother her.”
He said it in a whisper as he walked past Owen after flashing on Cal’s body crushed and crumpled and surrounded by fire, “Not if they value their life.” It came out as a threat. He felt the burn in his stomach as he flashed on carrying Rebecca’s body to his truck, the feel of her bleeding body in his arms that night, and he meant it. If he ever came across something like that again, he wouldn’t hesitated to take their life as Dane had tried to bash Cal’s skull in then. She knew. It killed him to know something like that happened to Dane and she was left all alone afterward. She wouldn’t talk about it, but he knew too that, that was why she was making her way to Seattle at the moment.
As he put their gear away, he groaned under his breath. “Call, dammit,” he pleaded. He should be there with her…but then again…he was needed where he was now more than ever.
“Hey,” Owen called from the doorway of the house. “We just received rationed this week and Dane’s still on ours. Should I let them know she’s on travel?”
Too quickly, Matthew yelled, “No.” He dropped the gear from his hands in the bac
k of the truck and looked around to see if anyone heard their conversation, then he turned and ate the ground with his boots back to Owen. He should have taken care of the food boxes as they came in that morning. He’d forgotten. He’d slipped up when he was heard the news of Rebecca.
Owen looked from side to side a little scared seeing how Matthew was making a hasty line right toward him.
“What?”
“Owen,” Matthew whispered, his lips in a straight line just a few inches from his face. “We need to act as if Dane’s still here.” He swallowed hard.
“We’re…not supposed to do that. That’s what they tell us, by purgery of law…we have to sign off.”
“I need your help, Owen. I need you to do this. Dane…needs us to do this.”
“Is she coming back?” he said in a squeaky tremor.
Matthew nodded tentatively. “She’s... Yes. She’s coming.” He was lying. He was lying to himself and now he was lying to Owen. Hell, he didn’t know if she was coming back. She might never come back. She might die doing what she was trying to do. Only he knew what she was trying to do right now. The second she got caught, that’s when he’d be in trouble.
“Matthew…are you sure?” Owen asked but didn’t look convinced.
“Yes. Dammit. Give it to me. I’ll sign off on any roster that comes in. I don’t want you involved. Understand? Just cover for me when needed.”
“Okay,” Owen said and raised his eyebrows.
“Oh look. We’ve got a call coming in,” Matthew said and quickly signed the electronic roster for the rations that came in that morning. That was it. He’d just lied on an official document and in some states, they were shooting people for doing what he’d just done. They’d seen it happen on the nightly news. It was madness. But that didn’t matter now, they had a fire to put out…a small one nearby. Then Matthew read the alert. “Arson…fourth one this week. Grab your gear. More madness.”
Owen flexed his bad shoulder after gearing up.
