An Unwelcome Homecoming

by Darrell Maloney

  It wasn’t.

  It was a petrified rat, which had apparently been trapped in the abandoned car for months and had died there.

  Chapter 35

  Under other circumstances she’d have screamed and dropped the rat immediately.

  But those with concussions not only have severe headaches, but clouded vision and judgment as well.

  Instead of dropping the rodent she held it up in the pale moonlight.

  And studied it.

  And pondered how it came to be where it was, and how it met its fate.

  It was only after she’d studied the creature for a minute or two that she finally discarded it.

  And only then did she finally feel disgust.

  Then, moving mere inches at a time and suffering incredible pain, she crawled from the car in search of her clothes.

  She found them a few yards away from the car, cut off with a knife and pretty much unwearable.

  Still, she covered herself as best she could.

  She left the Jerry can there, where it sat, unable and unwilling to move it another inch.

  “Good riddance, you bastard,” she muttered at it as she bid it goodbye.

  She recognized the severity of her injuries, and understood she needed help much more than she needed diesel fuel or… whatever… was in that big stupid green can.

  Still, she was confused, walking in a daze. Uncertain where she’d come from or where she was heading.

  Had someone come upon her at that moment and asked her what her name was, she’d have had a hard time answering.

  Only two things came clearly at that moment in time: She was damaged and needed help.

  And she was very sleepy.

  She also got the sense she had a concussion, though she couldn’t think of the term for her condition.

  A few months before the blackout, in her high school health class, she’d studied basic first aid.

  There wasn’t much to the class.

  Pressure points, how to stop bleeding and apply a splint. That was about it.

  Students were offered extra credit if they signed up and completed a Red Cross course on first aid, and she’d done so. She learned rescue breathing and CPR, and how to treat for shock and head injuries. Including concussions.

  She had a pretty good idea why her head hurt like hell, why her mind was in a fog and why she was having trouble focusing.

  She was barefoot, and looked around for her shoes.

  She saw one, some distance away.

  It didn’t seem worth the effort, and she left it where it lay.

  As she made her way through the streets she almost went back to her own house; the one she and Angela occupied before they moved in with Amy and Robert.

  It seemed right to her. And logical, too. And it was her habit, and people with head injuries sometimes do things merely out of habit; because they’re used to doing them.

  When she came to the intersection of Rigsby and Pine, though, she stopped short.

  Part of her brain said, “Go this way, girl, like you’ve done a thousand times before. Angie will be there waiting for you, and she’ll make you better.”

  Another part was saying, “No. Don’t listen to her. She’s confused. You left from a different place this time. You need to go back to that place. That’s where Angie will be waiting.”

  She hesitated for several seconds, looking first one way, then another.

  And she saw a white Corvette Stingray stopped dead in the middle of the street a couple of houses to her right.

  Her crush in high school had a Stingray. She’d wanted to be his girl. She’d wanted to ride around in his car. She wanted a Stingray of her very own.

  This wasn’t the same car. His was a couple of years older and a different color. But in the moonlight they looked close enough to make her remember him. And miss those days when things were so much easier, so much simpler.

  So much less violent.

  It was her vague memory of passing that white Corvette a couple of hours before which made her make that turn.

  A few houses up and on the left, she saw the distinctive curved driveway she’d walked across when she emerged from the back yard of the house behind… behind where?

  She prompted herself.

  You know, dummy. The house where you climbed through a secret trap door in the back fence.

  Wait, what?

  A trap door in a fence?

  Kristy, you must be imagining that part. It can’t possibly be right.

  But even as the little voice in her head tried to convince her she was mistaken, she remembered.

  Yes. The little boy’s bicycle turned over on its side in the high grass next to the curved drive. She remembered that too, though she saw it from a different angle the first time.

  She pressed on, though every part of her body was hurting. Though her head was pounding. Though she was completely naked, save two cut up pieces of clothing she was trying desperately to cover herself with.

  She was trying hard to remember, and was praying to God she wasn’t making the wrong choices. She needed to be right.

  She had to be right.

  She passed by the boy’s bicycle, looking around desperately for something else she recognized.

  There. There it was.

  The six foot privacy fence. The one someone had attached plywood to on the inside to make it eight feet high instead of six. It was very distinctive, for surely only a crazy man would do such a thing.

  The gate was ajar, just as she’d left it. She remembered leaving it that way because it could only be locked from one side.

  She went through it, and had the presence of mind to pull it shut behind her.

  Now what? Where in hell was that trap door in the fence? Did it even exist? Was she mistaken? Was she as crazy as the mysterious man who’d built the fence?

  Then she heard a voice. A voice in the dark. A voice which couldn’t have been sweeter had it come from an angel.

  Angie rushed up to her and grabbed her hand.

  “This way. You’re home. I’ll make you better, I promise.”

  Chapter 36

  It was a turning point in their relationship.

  For three straight days Kristy lay in a bed in the basement, crying and rambling incoherent words and phrases. She slept for hours at a time, each time waking up soaked in sweat and screaming.

  She took water but not food. The only time she got up was to use the camping toilet hidden behind a shower curtain in the back of the basement.

  Until now Amy and Robert harbored just a touch of resentment that Kristy and Angie invaded their territory and were enjoying the fruits of Dave and Sarah Spears’ labor; fruits they now considered their very own.

  At the same time Kristy and Angie felt like unwelcome trespassers, desperate to contribute so they weren’t considered freeloaders.

  Now, for the very first time, the two blended families had a mutual mission.

  Their main job was to nurse Kristy back to health. To bring her back from the brink.

  They didn’t know who had brutalized her in such a manner.

  They also didn’t know if he was coming after her again, or if he posed a future threat.

  While Kristy slept the three little ones concocted a plan: They would retreat to the basement and pull the bookcase/door behind them, effectively sealing themselves inside.

  They didn’t know it, but they were employing the same tactic Dave and Sarah would have used if they ever determined the house was about to be overrun.

  If they planned well and made no blunders, someone could search the house for days without realizing there was a basement beneath them and people were actually living there.

  There was everything the four needed. Maybe not for the rest of their lives, but certainly for several years.

  The only thing they were worried about was the generator, since their fuel supply was getting rather low.

  None of them knew that the summer before the power went out Dave
installed four solar panels on the roof of his house. They cost a pretty penny, but he saved a lot of labor by doing most of the work himself under the guidance of a friend who installed the panels for a living.

  On most days the trickle power kept the batteries in his basement at least partially charged and greatly reduced generator time.

  The group made an agreement:

  Although there was an electric hotplate in the basement, they’d cook all their food in the microwave. It was faster and more efficient and used far less electricity.

  By soaking their dry foods in water overnight they wouldn’t have to boil them as long when it came time to cook them. That would help a lot too.

  Even though they didn’t particularly like MREs, they would eat one every other day. One MRE would more than provide all the calories they’d need to sustain them for that day and would require absolutely no electricity to prepare.

  They agreed to kill the overhead lights in the basement and use only a small lamp to light each room. And then to only light the rooms that were occupied.

  Lastly, they agreed to restrict themselves to one DVD movie per person per day, and one hour of video games per person per day.

  Actually that last concession was rather misleading.

  Since they all enjoyed more or less the same types of movies and video games they were able to enjoy the others’ leisure time choices as well as their own.

  And not counting Kristy that meant three movies and three hours of gaming each day they were in Alcatraz.

  Alcatraz… that’s what the three named the basement in light of their forced confinement there.

  Beyond the movies and the video games, they spent a lot of time reading, from the extensive library of over four hundred books that Sarah had packed into the basement. They also played board games, until Robert got so angry at losing at Monopoly he refused to play “any games, never and ever again.”

  They also napped a lot, just like residents of the real Alcatraz once did.

  After a week, Kristy was sitting up in bed and walking around several times a day and was with sound mind once again.

  She still didn’t share any details about what happened to her. And the scrapes and bruises were mostly still there, though both black eyes were now faded to yellow and brown.

  The trio asked her whether she thought her attacker might come after her and she honestly said she didn’t know.

  “Let’s stay down here another week,” she suggested.

  “By that time I’ll be able to fire a gun again and I can shoot that bastard if he comes around.”

  Unfortunately, she’d have to get used to one of the other handguns the Spears had stashed in the basement. Sid took her gun and holster with him.

  But she’d get it back. She didn’t mention it to the other three, but she’d already resolved to make Sid pay. She got a good look at his face, just a few inches from her own, as she was being raped and was in and out of consciousness. She recognized him as someone she’d seen many times on the streets. She had a good idea where she could find him. And she swore she’d get her revenge.

  But she’d keep that to herself. If Angela knew her plans she’d almost certainly try to talk her out of it.

  And Kristy would not be denied her vengeance.

  As it turned out, the electricity wasn’t much of a problem. Despite the winter cold, skies were clear enough on most days to provide for most of their electrical needs.

  They’d succeeded in bringing Kristy back from the brink and nursing her back to health.

  It was a group effort, and they were no longer a divided household.

  They were now one. One family. All for one and one for all and all that.

  The only problem, they all agreed, was the horrific stench of their own waste.

  The camping toilet behind the shower curtain in the back of the basement was placed here by Dave because the basement wasn’t equipped with a bathroom. And a regular toilet wouldn’t have worked anyway because San Antonio’s water plant stopped working long before.

  Their waste was being emptied in an open-topped five gallon bucket because they didn’t know what else to do with it.

  And it was stinking to high heaven.

  Not to worry, though. Robert was getting ready to come to the rescue.

  Chapter 37

  Since they took over the Spear house and started living there, Monica and her children were wondering about some of the things Dave Spear had done and why he did them.

  They wondered as well about some of the things he left behind when he left. Wondering if they were half finished projects, or maybe completed projects which only he knew the use for.

  One example was a common exterior door, woodland green in color, placed flat across two sawhorses in one room of the basement.

  Three one inch wide holes had been bored into the door. The first two were on the hinge side, about two inches away and centered on the top and bottom hinges.

  The third hole was three inches from the top of the door and five inches from the latch side.

  Amy’s father studied the door for quite some time and could not solve the puzzle.

  Her mother Monica studied it at least as long as Ronald. She, being considerably smarter than her husband, assumed she’d solve the case and figure out Dave’s intent for the door.

  But she couldn’t solve the puzzle either.

  While Kristy was in bed recovering, it occurred to Amy that three heads might be better than one.

  She dragged Robert and Angela into the basement bedroom where the door lay on its sawhorses and said, “Okay. Let’s work to figure this thing out.”

  It wasn’t happening. They came up with several nonsensical “maybes” but nothing which really made any sense.

  Finally they gave up. To make more space they took the door down and leaned it up against the wall, then folded and tucked the sawhorses behind it.

  It was a sad mystery, it seemed, never meant to be solved.

  Another puzzle Dave left them was in the same room where the camping toilet hid in the corner behind a shower curtain.

  They found several odd things which might have something to do with one another, or might not.

  Eight fifty pound sacks of rabbit food, stacked neatly against one wall.

  Eighteen forty pound sacks of kitty litter stacked neatly against a different wall. A one cup scoop, blue in color, sat rather forlornly upon the stack of kitty litter.

  Yet there was no litter box, no cat food, no water dish, or anything else to indicate they’d ever owned cats.

  Six pieces of six inch diameter plastic pipe, each one threaded on both ends; capped on one end and open on the other. Six unattached caps of the same size.

  Four lengths of nylon rope, exactly five feet long and taped on each end to prevent fraying.

  One folded twelve feet by fourteen feet plastic tarp with grommets.

  Folded and placed neatly on top was a second tarp, this one four feet by six feet without grommets.

  The large tarp was black, the smaller one was gray, though nobody but Dave Spear knew whether that made a difference.

  What appeared to be a handmade stand, crafted from plywood and two by fours. The base was made of one inch plywood with a round depression dead center. The depression was about half an inch deep and three inches across.

  A wooden frame, constructed completely from two by fours cut to various lengths and fastened together, hulked over the plywood base.

  The frame was obviously meant to hold something. But what? And for what purpose?

  The stench in the room from human waste was becoming quite unbearable.

  So bad that the basement’s inhabitants held their waste until they were in pain, just to delay the process as long as possible.

  When they could wait no longer they resorted to holding their breath as long as they could when they did their business, not quite understanding how silly that whole concept was. Or that when they finally had to take a breath they’d
gasp, and they’d breathe in many more breaths than they would have normally.

  It was Robert, pondering the mystery one night while trying to sleep, who found the solution.

  He got up, walked into the room they’d started calling “Big Stinky,” and closed the door behind him.

  Then he picked up one of the sections of four inch plastic pipe and placed the capped end into the depression on the base of the wooden stand.

  Sure enough, it fit quite nicely, the pipe leaning slightly into the wooden frame, which held it securely into place.

  He stood back and looked at the two things which, when placed together, fit like a glove and were obviously designed to work together.

  He took a folding step ladder and placed it in front of the frame so he could reach the top of the pipe.

  Next he opened up a bag of kitty litter and used the scoop to pour several cups of litter into the pipe. How many, he wasn’t sure of, since he lost count after five. Probably around ten cups or so.

  Since Kristy got raped and they locked themselves in the basement they’d been dumping their waste in a five gallon orange bucket.

  Robert looked inside the bucket at three to four gallons of ugly and nasty muck. There would have been more, but some of it evaporated.

  The problem was the bucket had no lid, so there was no way to capture the smell.

  Now came the tricky part.

  He picked up the bucket of muck and hefted it to the top of the step ladder, then very carefully poured it… every drop of it, into the pipe.

  Then he put the empty bucket down and left the room to get some fresh air.

  It was the sweetest air he’d ever breathed.

  Chapter 38

  Robert checked to make sure everyone else was still sleeping.

  His sister had a bad habit of ridiculing him when he came up with what he thought was a great idea. He’d had an idea to put rainwater out in the sun to warm, so it didn’t take as long to boil and make drinking water out of it.

  “No, dummy. A lot of it will evaporate and we won’t have as much. And we’re still going to boil it for ten minutes, no matter how long it takes to start boiling.”