by L. L. Akers
As a police officer, and Grayson’s younger brother, Dusty knew as much as Grayson did abut firearms, and was at least as good a shot. They’d trained together for years growing up and as adults. Dusty did work out to be the better instructor for Olivia than her husband was. He spent days on the range showing her the basics, and when she’d finally mastered loading, unloading, clearing misfires and a healthy grouping, he’d declared her trained, much to Olivia’s relief—since she hated guns.
But Jake was glad they’d all gone through it. He knew the girls had their Get-Home bags with them. Grayson would’ve never let them leave home without them, and those bags had their guns and ammo. They might be needing some fire power, and he was glad that at least two out of the three could ‘shoot like a girl.’
Jake walked around the bike for one more inspection. It was as good as it was going to get. He’d have to push it out the side door rather than wrestle with trying to manually open the garage door. He rolled it that way, but came to an abrupt stop when he saw Kenny, his neighbor, through the glass pane of the door. Red-faced and sweating, he looked to be in a panic.
“Jake! Come quick, there’s a fight at Tucker’s house!”
A fight? Shit. What was this, eighth grade?
Kenny ran away, toward Tucker’s house and Jake hurried to get his bike out the door. He jumped on, pedaling as fast as his throbbing leg could manage. What did they want from him? He hoped it wasn’t a stupid disagreement over some lame Home Owners Association—HOA—issue. That crap could wait. This wasn’t the time for nitpicking over lawns, driveways, and dues. Times were about to get rough.
In normal times, TullyMore—the neighborhood—was already divisive. Half the residents followed the orders of the HOA, regardless of how ridiculous they were, and the other half blatantly ignored them or outright opposed them. The two sides had many small disagreements, as well as large disagreements; some ultimately resulting in nearly physical altercations. There had even been court battles over stupid things such as a camper being parked in a driveway.
Neighbors reported neighbors to the cops for noise. Walls were built. Feelings were hurt. Sides were chosen. At the worst of times, it felt like the Hatfield’s & McCoy’s.
But somehow, Jake and Gabby had managed to straddle the line and keep friends on both sides, maintaining a quiet and Switzerland-like sort of relationship with them all.
And now, here they were. Jake took a sharp turn into Tucker’s driveway.
He saw people from both sides.
In a bloody brawl.
9
Graysie
“Sir, I know we’re not allowed to go to our cars. But I just need to get my backpack. See, these are my keys.” Graysie held up her keys and jingled then, smiling innocently.
The security guard gave her a stern look. “Sorry, miss. I’ve got my instructions. I can’t let you leave. It’d be my job on the line. We should know more about the situation in the next few days.”
The university, supposedly on advice from the National Guard, had mandated all students temporarily stay in place if a parent didn’t arrive to retrieve them. The cyberattack must have come from an enemy, and the government was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Would someone dare to attack us on our own soil? Or was the loss of all power enough of an attack for the assailant to just sit back and watch us die slowly as our world imploded around us? She’d be damned if she was going to lay around napping while the world fell apart. Dad always said no matter what happens, just come home. This would be one of the few times she would listen to him.
Graysie’s shoulders fell and she let her head drop, causing her long, red hair to fall over her face. She shook her shoulders slightly and sniffled, followed by a low whimper.
The security guard took the bait. “Miss? Don’t cry. I’m sorry. Look, what do you need so bad out of that bag? Maybe I can help you?”
Graysie used her best fake-crying-voice. “I doubt it, Mister. See, when young women are cramped up all close together like this, we tend to all start our… menses… together. There’s not a feminine product to be found on my whole floor. Probably not on this floor either. And I have a lot of problems in that area, if you know what I mean. And now, there’s no water to wash with either. But my step-mama made sure I was prepared. She and my daddy packed me a whole bag of girl-stuff and it’s in my car. I just need that bag—quick.”
She crossed her legs and leaned against the counter, taking a quick shuttered peek at her victim. As she thought he would, he looked flustered—and thoroughly grossed out. “The whole floor of ladies, you say? All having this same problem?”
“Yes sir, and I intend to share with them too.” She took a swipe at her fake-tears before looking up through her long lashes at him. He quickly looked away. His face was turning red. She almost laughed. What was it with middle-aged dudes not being able to talk about a simple fact of life?
“I’ll… um… I’m being relieved in thirty minutes. If you’ll give me your keys, I’ll get your bag and bring it to your room. Can you… um… wait that long?” he stuttered.
“Yes, sir. Thank you so much, sir. Here’s where my car is parked.” She pointed to a sticker on her key chain. “Mine is the red Mustang with a peace-sign on the back window. The bag’s in the trunk. I’m in room 205. Last one at the end of the hall. I’ll be waiting. We’ll all be waiting. You’re our hero,” she said, and reached over the counter to give him a one-armed hug. She almost giggled when he cringed. Dude, it’s not contagious, she thought as she ran up the stairs.
She burst in with a smile on her face, startling Becky from her sleep.
She rubbed her eyes and glared at Graysie. “What are you so happy about? Did something change?” she asked.
“Only that my dad really is going to help me get out of here and get home,” she answered slyly. “I’m leaving within the hour.”
10
Grayson
Grayson was going stir crazy all alone out at the homestead. Finally, he’d thought about the gas in the lawnmower. And the gas in that old boat Jake had dragged out behind the barn. Between the two, he’d siphoned enough to go for a short ride in the truck.
He hurried into the house with Ozzie at his heels and washed the taste of gas out of his mouth, cringing at the pain of his bad tooth, and grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. He changed from his sweaty, dirty clothes, as he muttered to himself. “Been sweatin’ like a two-dollar-whore on nickel night by myself out here. Be nice if someone could show up to help.”
He slipped on a pair of shoes, grabbed his wallet and a leash and hurried out the door with Ozzie. “Come on, boy. Let’s ride up the road and see if any neighbors are out. Maybe someone has some news about something.” Grayson wouldn’t say it out loud, but he hoped maybe his family was walking down the road right now. Not able to wait another minute, he hoped to meet them, although he couldn’t go far on the limited gas he had.
Slowly, he rolled up the dirt road with his windows down. Living out in the country so spread apart, he rarely saw his neighbors in good times. But, maybe today would be his lucky day. He was embarrassed that he’d never exchanged much more than a wave when he had seen someone, but no time like the present to get to know each other.
The big house on the hill, a mile from his own older homestead, had a generator. Grayson could hear it buzzing at he drove by. The couple who lived there alone kept to themselves. The house was huge, with all the amenities, and their kids were grown. Grayson kept meaning to invite them over for dinner. He passed them on by. They weren’t outside and he didn’t know them well enough to knock on the door.
Yet.
Two horses grazed in their pasture surrounding the house as though they didn’t have a care in the world. Ozzie gave a low whine.
“Envious boy? I forgot to feed you again, didn’t I? Sorry.” He ruffled his fur and Ozzie leaned into him, as usual quick to forgive. “I’ll feed both of us as soon as we get back.”
He drove slowly
and turned at the next gravel road, passing two more small houses. No one outside and no signs of power there either.
At the stop sign, he took a left. Soon, he’d be coming up on the backside of his own thirty acres. There was an old shack of a farmhouse somewhere along this road, not visible, other than the driveway. A woman and her grown son lived there, he’d been told. Rumor was they didn’t have much of anything and relied on the government and church hand-outs. Their farm was overgrown now. He’d check on them and see if they’d heard anything yet.
He rolled to a stop next to the long dirt driveway and stuck his head out the window.
Three teenagers stood at the base of a huge tree, yelling and taunting something above them. Wearing hoodies in this beautiful weather only made them look like…well…hood rats. Baggy pants with cigarette pack shapes etched into their back pockets, and too-big high-top sneakers with the strings untied, they looked to be a wannabe bad crew. They gave him a passing glance and then went back at it, throwing rocks up into the tree and yelling, “Come down now or we’re coming up to get ya.”
Grayson could hear something caterwauling up there. A long keening sound shook him to his core. Whatever it was, it was terrified.
He didn’t see a rifle anywhere.
What was it? Possibly a raccoon, but they usually only came out a night. Out here in the country, it could be a bobcat. Very dangerous. These boys might get more than they bargained for if they couldn’t put it down when it finally landed.
Stupid kids.
Ozzie growled and tried to stick his head out too. Grayson pushed him back and opened the door, stepping out with the dog jumping down behind him.
“What are you boys doing?” He walked over to the tree.
The boys whipped around, going into defensive stances.
Ozzie barked and gave a little lunge, startling all three of the skinny kids.
Grayson nearly laughed, and grabbed his collar, holding him back, but Ozzie had never bit a soul, and he doubted he’d start today. He was all bark and no bite.
Usually.
“What do you boys have treed up there?”
The supposedly toughest of the group, who were all probably only sixteen or seventeen, and a buck-thirty soaking wet, spit on the ground. “None of your business, mister. You need to move along.”
The hair on the Ozzie’s neck stood at attention and he growled at the boy’s tone.
“It is my business. You’re pretty close to my property line. If you boys have treed a wildcat or something up there, and it comes down and hurts you, I could be liable. You don’t even have a gun. You need to get on home. You don’t live around here, do you?” Grayson had never seen these teenagers before. They didn’t look much like the typical country-boy teenagers around these parts. The outfits were all wrong.
Ball-caps, Levis and shit-kickers were the style around here.
The boy moved lightning quick and reached into the front of his baggy pants, pulling out a pistol and aiming it at Grayson gangster-style; sideways. “We got guns. You need to get on home, old man,” he snarled while bobbing his head side to side.
The other two boys hooted and hollered, encouraging him. Grayson noticed neither of the other two pulled out a weapon though. Normally an old man comment wouldn’t have riled Grayson up, seeing as he was hitting forty on his next birthday and already showing gray throughout his mustache and goatee, but today, it pissed him off.
It hadn’t been a good couple of days.
Definitely not a good day to have a gun pulled on him.
Ozzie went nuts; snarling and pulling at his collar. He didn’t like anything pointed at his people. Grayson gave him a jerk back. “Stay, Ozzie.”
“Yeah, you better stay, dog. Or you’ll be leaking like a sieve.” The boy bobbed his head left to right when he spoke, then looked to his crew for appreciation. “Am I right?”
They acknowledged him with bitter laughs and high fives.
The kid went too far, talking smack to Olivia’s dog.
Grayson sucked in his breath and held it a moment while he grit his teeth.
Didn’t help.
He covered the space between them in three stomps, shoving one hand into the kid’s chest and pushing him back while jerking the gun away from him with his other hand. He gave the kid a light smack on the side of the head with the butt of the gun before stepping back.
“Next time you pull on someone, you might want to turn the fucking safety off, hotshot. And here’s another piece of advice for you. If you don’t have a holster, at least carry the gun in the back of your pants. You’d rather have another hole in your ass than shoot your little pecker off, am I right?” he asked sarcastically, bobbing his own head left to right in his impression of the kid.
The boy gasped and grabbed his head and then looked at his hand.
Wasn’t a drop of blood, but a bump would surely rise.
He was furious. “Give it back!”
Grayson shook his head and smiled. “I’ll give it back to your daddy. Where you live, boy?”
His friends stepped back a few paces, and then took off at a fast run. One of them yelled over his shoulder, “Come on, Darion! Run!”
Darion took one look at his posse abandoning him, and then sneered at Grayson. “I know where you live. I’ll get my gun back, old man,” he threatened.
Grayson shrugged. “Bring your daddy, Cupcake. Otherwise I might have to give you another spankin’.”
Darion shot him the bird and ran.
Grayson stuck the gun in the back of his own shorts and leaned into the tree, looking up.
I’ll be damned.
It wasn’t an animal. It was another kid. This one looked older than the group that had run off—and younger, at the same time.
“Hey, you can come down now, they’re gone.”
He whimpered and hid his tear-stained face against the tree.
“Come on, I’m not going to hurt you. Get down from there.”
Ozzie whimpered too.
The kid stole a peek at the dog. “That dog gonna bite me, mister?” he asked in a child-like voice. “I’m afraid. He has big teeth.”
Grayson’s raised an eyebrow. Is he kidding me? What’s with the baby talk?
“Naw, he’s friendly to friendlies. Come down and I’ll let you pet him. Ozzie’s like a big teddy bear. Watch this.” He pointed his finger at Ozzie like a gun. “Bang bang!”
Ozzie fell over onto his back with his four feet in the air. He slung his head to the side and let his tongue hang out. The big ham.
A child-like giggle came from the tree, and then the kid threw down a sack. A few garden vegetables rolled out of it. He followed, scaling the tree as fast as a monkey. A big monkey. He jumped to the ground and stood back staring at Ozzie, his hand over his mouth in wonder.
Grayson was a bit astonished too. This wasn’t just kid. He was a man. A man-child? At least twenty years old and built like an ox. Grayson wasn’t a short man, but even at his six foot one inch height, he had to look up at the boy. His face was childlike, but covered in a thin sheen of pale blonde, almost white, baby-fine whiskers. His hair was the same color. Tow-headed. His features were…exaggerated. Something about him looked odd.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Fuckin’ Puck.”
Grayson raised his eyebrows. “No need to cuss me, son.”
“I’m not trying to, mister. Mama Dee would whoop me,” he replied innocently and looked toward the ground, losing eye contact with Grayson.
“You said ‘fucking.’ That’s a curse word where I come from.”
“But you asked my name.”
Grayson squeezed his eyes in confusion. Okay, one more time… “What’s your name?”
“Fuckin’ Puck.”
Grayson laughed. “Is that what your Mama Dee calls you?”
The kid looked up, but didn’t crack a smile. “No, that’s what my daddy called me. But he’s dead. Mama Dee just calls me Puck. Have you seen her?
” His eyes were wide and hopeful.
“Your mama?”
“Yessir.”
“No, I can’t say that I have, son.”
“She was s’posed to be home,” he held his hand up and slowly lifted his fingers one at a time until two fingers were up as though he were giving the peace sign, “two sleeps ago. But she’s not. I was all by myself. My nightlight won’t work. Do you think she’ll be home before tonight, mister?”
Something was wrong with this kid. His cornbread wasn’t all the way done in the middle or something. He sounded like a five-year old but looked like a gorilla. “I don’t know, Puck,” Grayson wasn’t about to call him Fucking Puck. “Where did she go?”
“She went to Lumby to get our boxes. She goes every month but she always comes back the same day. Sometimes she gets home real late. I get something special for staying home.”
“Lumby?”
“The big town across the bridges. Mama Dee makes me stay home cuz I’m scared of the bridges and I track her when she’s driving.”
Track her?
Distract maybe?
“Columbia?” Not that there was a huge bridge or anything on the way to Columbia, but the interstate had plenty of bridge overpasses and there were small bridges covering creeks and lows. If the power was out in Columbia too, she might’ve got caught with no gas to get home. It was a little over an hour away—same city Graysie attended college.
“There’s no one to stay with you?”
“Jenny, but she likes to sleep in the barn. This stuff is for her.” He bent down and scooped up the vegetables, awkwardly stuffing them back into the bag.
That was odd, but Graysie had slept in the barn before. Usually, only when she had a friend over though, and most of the time, they’d end up back in the house before morning with tales of bugs, rats and scary things that went bump in the night. Girls didn’t typically like to sleep in barns.
“Is Jenny your sister?”
“No. But Mama Dee says we’re about the same age. Mama Dee says we’re all like family.”
