by Kurt Gepner
It didn’t take long before he had become a textbook druggie and got caught robbing a neighbor’s house. Ever since then, Caleb had pursued his happiness at the expense of others. He had become an adept thief and funded his habits from pawn shop to pawn shop. How he had managed to make it to fifty-three years old, abusing one substance after another, Tom had no clue. Now that the world, for all intents and purposes, had come to an end Tom found himself desperately worried for Caleb. Aside from his wife and nephew, Caleb was the only family he had.
Peeking at the time, Tom was surprised to see that only fifteen minutes of his shift remained. As he tucked the watch back in his pocket there was a sudden uproar from the chicken coop, behind the new structure on the property. Tom crawled up to the peak of the roof and shined the light down into the back yard. The dogs were just arriving at the building, but Tom saw nothing else. The clamor was getting louder. Somebody was definitely in the coop.
Careful of his footing, Tom made his way to the ladder and scampered down as quickly as he could. The dogs were barking, running from one side of the building to the other, trying to find access to the disturbance. The coop was only accessible through a back door in the garage, but both the bay and side door were locked. Tom ran up to the house as Camille was emerging from the back porch.
"The door’s locked!" Tom barked. "And someone’s into the chickens!"
Camille didn’t say a word, but turned to snatch a set of keys from a hook just inside the porch. Moving quickly for a man in his eighties, Camille bounded down the steps and unlocked the garage door. Tom led the way, darting the beam of light from wall to wall of the shop. At the door to the coop, Tom brought the rifle up to his shoulder with the flashlight under its barrel, like a spotlight. Camille pulled open the door and Tom stepped through, probing the darkness with his light. A few chickens ran to one corner, but that’s all there were.
The coop was eight feet wide and ran about twenty feet from end to end, stretching from the center of the building to its very end. Along the back corner, which butted up against the back yard of an adjacent property, three fence boards had been carefully removed and stacked on the ground. Feathers trailed out through the gap.
"God damned, sons-of-bitches!" Camille proclaimed.
Silas and Brody appeared behind them. Silas asked, "How many did they get?"
"Seven!" Camille said it like a curse. "Seven hens! Half-a-dozen eggs a day!"
"Damn!" Silas cried. "What about those ducks?"
"They’re safe in their own pen," Camille nodded. "Those Kahki ducks lay an egg a day, like clockwork."
"We’d better make sure nobody gets to them," Silas said.
Brody cleared his throat. "I’ll watch them."
Dale came into the shop at that moment. "Watch who?"
"I’ll watch the ducks and the chickens," Brody offered again.
"Whoa," Dale blurted. "What happened? What was all of the barking and stomping on the roof? The women are half scared."
"Some bastard took my hens!" Camille was livid.
"Oh, shit!" Dale sounded like a man kicked in the gut.
"But I’ll watch them for the rest of the night," Brody asserted.
"Now, son…" Silas didn’t manage to cut off his words before he spoke the one most wicked, but Brody didn’t react; at least not in a way that could be seen. "Um, Brody, you know what Hank said."
"This is different," Brody quickly replied. "I don’t need a gun and nobody’s counting on me to wake them up." He was speaking quickly, but with a certainty that was disarming. "I’m an extra. You know, like gravy." An imploring edge cut through his voice. "Come on… How can I prove anything, if I’m not given a chance?"
"I’m sold," said Camille. "I might get some sleep, knowing that he’s out here watching them birds."
"Well then," Silas conceded, "let’s get that hole fixed and let the boy watch those birds. Maybe we should have him wake up his friend, in a few hours."
Dale’s eyes leveled on Silas. "You mean Jeremy?" Silas nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Dale cut him off. "No. Jeremy’s not ready for that sort of responsibility."
Silas blinked at him and shook his head with raised eyebrows. "You mean you’re not ready for him to grow up."
Dale sneered. "Fuck you! He’s my boy."
Silas gave him a confident nod. "And that’s all he’ll ever be, until you let him grow up."
For a long moment, Dale glared at Silas. After an intense moment, during which both men refused to look away or even utter a sound, Dale spoke. "I said no!" Then he pushed passed the older man and crunched heavily through the graveled path toward the house. Evie met Dale as he ascended the porch steps and asked him what happened. "Exactly what Hank said would happen," Dale snapped as he pushed past her.
In the shop, Camille tsked and said, "He’s a good guy, just wound up tighter than a tick."
Silas smiled and shook his head. "I never thought he was a bad guy. I was just trying to figure out how to keep from kicking his ass, if he’d a decked me." The men chuckled and then Silas turned to Brody. "You best get to fixing that fence, or you’ll end up chasing those birds all night long."
"Right!" Brody beamed. "Uh. Hammer and nails?" Camille pointed him to the necessary tools and they soon had the gap boarded shut.
As Brody worked on the fence, Tom observed that Hank was conspicuously absent from the goings on. Camille rubbed his hand through his thick matt of grey hair and said, "Well, he hasn’t got a lot of sleep lately, I’d suppose he is sawing on some pretty big logs. It’s getting pretty late, Mister, who’s supposed to take over for you?"
Tom tried not to look at Silas when he said, "Dale."
Silas stiffened when he heard the name. "Damn!" He expelled. "Let me out of here." The men laughed for a moment before the group broke apart. The planned order of events was executed and night left the Shumway house undisturbed until morning.
CHAPTER TEN
The waves were erratic. They swallowed bits of land with a roar and spit them back out with a sigh. Standing on a long beach, Hank had to keep backing away from the water. He wasn’t worried about getting wet, but the water was made of people. If he got too close, they would grab at his legs and try to drag him in. Faster and faster the wave of people came onto shore, only the shore was a road and Hank was back pedaling as quick as he could. He turned and started to run, but the wave turned into a tsunami of flesh. He tried to run left, then right, but high, concrete walls caged him in. Finally, the wave crested and loomed over his head.
Hank was panting when he jerked awake. The morning had dawned crisp and Hank threw off his covers, rubbing sleep and dream out of his eyes. Over breakfast, the men recounted the events from the previous night. Hank took the news with a grimace and a nod. After breakfast, chores were distributed and then Evie privately harangued her husband about pushing himself beyond the point of exhaustion. Hank responded to her lecture with a fervor of confidence that she had not seen in him for many years and her heart fluttered with a renewed affection for him.
Hank confided in Evie that he was convinced of his role in life, that only he would be able to save their small group. He further pontificated that she needed to, more than any time in their life, believe in him. What had happened and what was about to happen would require the best of their talents and their greatest efforts, if they were to survive. But for Evie, who had been used to leading a conservative life for so long, the urge to resist this sudden swing in power was more than she could bear. Where her better sense told her to support him and defer to his expertise, Evie found herself goading her husband and challenging his judgment.
"If you’re so important to our survival, Hank, what would happen to us if you got yourself hurt or killed?" Evie folded her arms across her stomach. "You tell me that!"
Hank looked at his wife and gave her the smirk that most infuriated her. It was the one he reserved for the moments when he was so convinced about being right that he felt paternal toward anyone who co
uldn’t see it as plain as day.
"You son-of-a-bitch!" Evie belted from the sink where she was still cleaning up the remains of breakfast she had served their small army. "That is not an acceptable answer!"
Hank closed his eyes in another sure sign that he was patronizing her and said, "Evie… I can’t worry about dying. How many bottles of wine have we finished over this subject?" Evie’s expression was flawlessly unaltered. Hank huffed out a breath of frustration and pressed his lips together. "All right! Here is my Plan B: If something happens to me…" Evie inclined her head and raised her eyebrows in such a way that Hank knew he had understated the situation. He paused, again pressed his lips together, and breathed heavily through his flaring nostrils.
"Have it your way, Evie." He cleared his throat and went on. "If I get killed," Hank said, pointedly, "I want you to take everybody down to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge and do your best to set up a community. You’ll want to set up camp in a place that is at least fifteen feet above the water level. And clear…"
"Henry Bernard Shumway!" Evie interrupted, causing Hank to nearly choke on his next word. "If you think that this plan is good enough for me, why aren’t you doing it?"
Hank deflated. "I don’t think it’s good enough. That’s why it’s Plan B. But it might mean the difference between you getting killed and living long enough for order to take hold."
Before Evie could reply the dogs began barking an intruder warning. Evie and Hank held each other’s gaze for a moment, until Hank looked down. "I wonder if that’s a doctor."
"You’d better hope it’s a doctor!" Evie growled and grabbed the paring knife that she’d left on the cutting board. Hank grinned and skated out of her reach. Evie jabbed the little knife toward her husband, emphasizing her words. "One of these days, Mr. Shumway, you’re going to get yours!"
Hank’s grin fell crooked with mirth as he said, "I already did, Evie." He turned and strode for the door, but over his shoulder he called back to his wife. "I got you. What could be more painful than that?" As he reached the door, Hank heard his wife snarl out one, distinctly articulate word. "Bastard!"
Hank chuckled at their banter and his face still held a smile when he opened the door. Standing at bay, ten feet from the gate, were three sizable men and two women who appeared to be in their thirties. Each of the filthy, unshaven and exhausted looking men carried a firearm. The women were clean, but also looked very tired. Hank silenced his dogs and asked who the visitors were.
"Hello, Mr. Shumway," said the woman with the darker complexion of the two. "I am Dr. Bali and this is Dr. Shister."
"Well," said Hank, impersonating the hallmark slur of W. C. Fields, "you don’t shay?" His mood still percolated with playfulness and he smiled broadly at the women.
Dr. Shister giggled in a very adolescent fashion, while Dr. Bali simply looked between the two of them and pursed her lips in annoyance. After an inappropriately long moment of smiling into Dr. Shister’s eyes, Hank broke contact and invited the quintet into his home. Two of the men stayed on the porch, flanking the steps like sentries. The largest of the three men, who carried a shotgun much like Whisper, followed the two doctors into the house. Hank and the man exchanged a curt nod before he asked the women to make themselves at home.
The doctors both found the chairs bordering the fireplace and Dr. Shister sat on the left, nearest the window, while Dr. Bali sat to the right. They both studied a new painting that had been added to the wall opposite the fireplace. It was nearly ten feet wide and about five feet high. Camille had used an amateur paint set, a present for his seventy-ninth birthday, to create his masterpiece. Hank explained that it was a map to their destination, but left it at that.
With a wide-eyed smile, Dr. Shister said, "Your house smells delicious!" Dr. Bali threw a look of warning at her colleague, but it went studiously ignored. Hank asked them if they would be interested in some breakfast. Both accepted his offer, though Dr. Bali said she couldn’t eat pork or beef. He asked the bodyguards if they were hungry and then ducked into the kitchen and apprised Evie of her new customers.
Once his guests were comfortable, Hank began some polite conversation, but was brusquely interrupted.
"We were told that you wanted to talk with us, Mr. Shumway." It was Dr. Bali who spoke and she did so with a precise English accent.
Hank folded his hands together and said, "I have a proposition for you."
Dr. Bali stiffened, noticeably, but Dr. Shister simply blinked. After a moment’s pause, Hank went on. "This house has a steam powered generator and a few energy saving amenities that make it special. Over and above anything else is the fact that it did not burn up. That is presently a very nice feature in a building." Dr. Shister stifled a laugh at his quip. "I would like to lease it to you."
From the back porch there came a staccato thumping, like a stampede of buffalo was tearing through. In the kitchen, Evie was heard to shout, "Hey, hey, hey! Where do you kids think you’re going?" Undaunted by the parental challenge a cluster of four children burst through the dining room and ran like blind mice through the living room where Hank and the doctors were in discussion. Bertel came huffing fast on their trail, too out of breath to call after them. The children laughed when they saw her and poured through the front door. Bertel looked chagrined as she trotted her old body through, mouthing "sorry" to Hank as she passed.
Hank smiled with amusement and waved her on. The doctors looked at each other. "Were you running a daycare here, Mr. Shumway?" Dr. Bali asked with an edge of annoyance.
Still chuckling, Hank answered. "No, Bertel," he pointed after the procession, "that lady, did. She lived two blocks down and those children were in her care when… it happened."
"That’s so nice," Dr. Shister said. "How many people have you taken in?"
In thought, Hank tugged at his beard as he looked at the ceiling fan. "Not counting those who were living here the day before it happened, I think there are twenty-seven more… But we are all leaving. That’s why I want you to lease the place."
With a suspicious frown, Dr. Bali asked, "Why would you do this and what would you want for payment?"
Hank sat up enthusiastically. "The ‘why’ part is easy. I don’t have enough firepower to keep it, or these people, safe."
Blinking rapidly, Dr. Shister asked, "You don’t have enough firepower to keep it, so you want to lease it to a couple of doctors? How does that make sense?"
The bodyguard, who had been introduced as Ron Kenner, coughed and brought all of the eyes in his direction. "Uh… Actually, uh, it makes a lot of sense." His voice sounded like it had spent the last twenty years getting kicked out of saloons two hours past closing time. When it became obvious that the doctors were waiting for an explanation, Ron rubbed vigorously at the back of his neck and went on. "Well, uh, see… Uh, if this is a hospital, uh, then people’ll leave it alone, ‘cause it’s a safe place. Ya know, cause yer helpin’ people. But if it’s just a place to live, and it’s got power and stuff, then people’ll want it fer themselves."
His hand had migrated up the back of his neck and he was now scratching his scalp. He regarded the doctors nervously and seemed about to say more when he was interrupted.
"All right," Dr. Bali said. "That is the ‘why’, now tell us the ‘what’."
Hank nodded, businesslike. "First," he said as he pressed back the pinky of his left hand. "you take care of the place. There’s a lot of ways to make this into a nice little clinic and there’s even more ways to turn it into a dump. You keep it up, looking nice. If you need to build something, or modify something, you do it so as to keep with the general architecture of the house."
"That’s a pretty tall order, given the present climate." Dr. Bali looked hopeful despite her skeptical tone.
Hank nodded in agreement, but left the doctor’s concern unanswered. "Second, you provide me, my family and my friends with medical treatment, without question or cost, so long as you have the lease."
Dr. Shister smiled pleasa
ntly and shook her head. "We’re not charging for our services."
Hank’s eyebrows jumped. "You will be." Dr. Shister shook her head again and opened her mouth to speak, but Hank held up his hand. "It doesn’t matter. That is one of the terms." Dr. Shister’s mouth clamped shut in a flat, humorless line.
"That’s fine," Dr. Bali interjected. "What else?"
"You do favorable trade with me and mine when we are here in town," he said, adding a third finger to his collection.
Dr. Bali rolled her eyes. "Mr. Shumway, this is not the Wild West."
Hank gave her a languid smile. "I hope you’re right, but it is a term, none-the-less."
"All right, what else?" she asked with an edge of exasperation.
"As you are able to pay and I am able to collect, I want fourteen live chickens, per four weeks. At least one, but not more than three to be male," he said, now pressing back all four fingers of his left hand.
"You’re kidding, right?" It was Dr. Shister’s turn to be incredulous.
Hank gave her an open mouthed grin that clearly showed his teeth. He looked predatory. "A couple days ago," he said in response to her question, "you could have bought a live chicken for a lot less than ten dollars. So what I’m asking for is nothing more than a hundred-forty dollars a month."
"But where are we going to get chickens?" Dr. Shister asked through a flurry of eye-blinks.
Hank held up a finger and with arched brows he said, "You’ll charge a fee for your services?" Dr. Shister’s mouth curled into an unamused frown.
The two doctors regarded each other and Dr. Bali turned back to Hank and asked, "What else?"
"Nothing," Hank answered with a shrug. "You sign a contract to those terms and we have a deal."
"All right, Mr. Shumway," Dr. Bali said as she stood and extended her hand. "You have a deal."
