by Patten, Sean
I could tell where this was going.
“And then the power went out,” I said.
“And then the power went out.”
He didn’t need to say any more.
“So you want me to go there and get the goods, right?”
“That’s the long and short of it,” he said. “You got here by car, right?”
“Right,” I said. “But it’s damn near empty.”
“I figured you’d say that,” he said. “And that’s why I’ve come prepared.”
He hopped off the desk and walked around it, opening a drawer and pulling something out.
“Hose?” asked Amy.
Sure enough, that’s what it was.
“I know it’s not the most elegant solution in the world,” he said. “But it’ll get the job done. And it’s not like there’s a better way to do it.”
“So,” I said, crossing my arms. “You want me to suck some gas into my car, then go over to Alban Falls, load up on meds, and come back.”
“That’s the long and short of it,” David said. “And the best part is that they should have the meds all packed and ready to go. Alban Falls prepares them for us, and the delivery service just brings them here.”
I was acting skeptical on the surface, but deep down I was getting more than a little excited about the idea of getting access to some meds. If they had enough to keep a town full of old timers in ample supply, they had to have what I was looking for.
“I’m going with him,” said Amy.
“What?” I asked. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Are you?” she said right back. “You know of Alban Falls, but do you actually know the town?”
“Not…not really, I guess.”
“Right,” she said. “I know the fastest way to get to the pharmacy, and I know all the back roads in case the road’s all clogged up with cars like the highway was. You want to get in and get out, then you need me.”
I wanted to argue with the girl, but I knew the odds of me talking her out of it were slim. And she had a point.
“Kiddo,” said David.
Amy shot him a pointed look.
“Amy,” he corrected. “You don’t need to do this. Stay here where it’s safe. Don’t you want to be around if your mother shows up?”
She shook her head, glancing over to me with a small smile on her face.
“Ed and I have been sticking together through all this crap,” she said. “If he’s going to be taking off for good soon, I’m not about to let him go on this last job on his own.”
David shrugged.
“Ed,” he said. “I want to say that it’s your call. But I’ve known this girl since she was a kid, and I know how stubborn she can be.”
“So, it’s not really my call, is it?” I asked with a wry tone.
“Suppose not,” he said.
“Okay,” I said to Amy. “You can tag along.”
“Tag along,” she said, shaking her head. “You mean making sure you get your butt back here in one piece.”
I let out a quick bark of a laugh.
“Something like that,” I said.
It was settled. I took the length of hose from the desk and looked it over, the thing limp and loose in my hands.
“You said you had experience with this, right?” I asked Amy. “Back when you were on the road. Hope you’ve still got the skills.”
Amy appeared a tad shocked.
“Sure,” she said. “If you’re not going to be a gentleman about it.”
I flashed her a quick look to let her know I was just busting her chops, which she seemed to get.
“Right,” said David. “Might be best to get this show on the road now before nighttime hits. God knows what kinds of lunatics are going to come out then.”
“Bullets, too,” I said, thinking of the gun. “Nine-millimeter, if you’ve got them.”
“Of course,” said David. “Ammo’s about the one thing that’s not in short supply around these parts.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “No sense in wasting any more time.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” said David. “You two get your ride filled up, and I’ll go scrounge up some ammo. You need some gas cans, they’re in the maintenance shed around the side of the building.”
Nothing more to be said. Amy and I were off, the two of us grabbing a couple of empty gas cans from the shed before starting back towards the gate where we’d left the car.
“Hey!” called out a voice behind us as we stepped onto the road. “Wait!”
Amy and I turned to see a short, skinny man who looked to be in his early seventies. He wore a white-and-yellow shirt unbuttoned enough to show off his pasty chest, his brown slacks nearly falling from his waist as he hurried towards us. When he stopped, already out of breath, something about his gaunt features and wild eyes struck me as…not quite right.
“Mr. Powell!” said Amy. “What…what’s up?”
Amy was hesitant around him, but not in a fearful way. More in the way you’d be around your eccentric neighbor who was always looking to get you into a conversation about one bizarre, random subject or another.
“You two,” he said. “You’re leaving now, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Over to Alban Falls.”
“No!”
The word exploded out of his mouth, his eyes going even wider than they already were, little bits of spittle shooting into the air.
“What?” I asked. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“No!” he repeated.
He glanced down at the length of hose and gas cans in our hands.
“Okay,” he said. “You’re filling up your tank. Good. Do that, then get on the road and drive off and never come back.”
“Mr. Powell,” said Amy. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what the hell are you talking about?”
His hands in front of him, Powell closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, as if trying to figure out where to begin.
Finally, he went for it.
“I don’t know what you two have in mind, but you need to leave.”
“What?” I asked, totally befuddled.
“Leave,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t know if you were planning on staying or what, but the best thing you can do is to fill up that car of yours with whatever gas you can find, and then drive on out the way you came. Go to Vegas, go to LA, it doesn’t matter. Just leave and never come back.”
As he spoke I noticed a strange hesitancy to his tone, as if he was worried that someone might be listening in on our conversation.
“Mr. Powell,” said Amy. “This is my home—I’m not going to just leave. And besides that, I need to stay in case my mom comes back.”
A frustrated look formed on the man’s frazzled features, as if he had something very precise he wanted to say but was forbidden from using the exact words.
“If your mom was here she’d say the same thing,” he said. “She’d tell you to leave and never come back.”
Right as he finished I hit my limit with the vague bullshit.
“Listen, Powell,” I said. “Either you start talking straight with us or quit wasting our time. We’ve got a long day’s work ahead and no time for you dancing around whatever it is you’ve got to say.”
“No!” he shot out. “You don’t get it!”
Over his shoulder, back towards the entrance to the community center, I spotted a tall, sturdy form slip out from the darkness within. It was David.
“Then help me get it,” I said. “Get to the point and tell me what’s going on.”
Another sigh, followed by a nod. Behind Powell, David drew closer and closer, a big, friendly smile on his face.
“Things here,” said Powell. “They’re not what they seem. And the longer you two stay here the more—”
A big, meaty hand clapped down on his shoulder, cutting him off. The color drained out of Powell’s face, as if he knew who was behind him without even needing to turn around.
/> “Stan!” said David, referring to Mr. Powell. “What’s up? You giving our friends a few last minute words of wisdom?”
“David!” Powell replied, clearly shaken. “Um, yes. Just letting them know the fastest way to cut through Alban Falls.”
“Amy’s been there more times than she can count, I bet,” said David, the big, broad smile set below the steely eyes I recognized from last night. “I remember her going there with Lori just about every weekend for their shopping trips. Right, Amy?”
“Yeah,” said Amy, clearly unnerved by the whole thing. “We did.”
“So,” said David. “I’m sure they’ve got it all under control.”
He gave Powell’s shoulder one last hard squeeze before removing it and clasping his hands together.
“Anyway!” he said. “Before you all get moving, there was something I wanted to talk about with Amy. Ed, you mind me stealing her from you for a few minutes?”
I gave Amy a look, and she nodded.
“Sure,” she said.
I didn’t mind it one bit. It’d give me the chance to get some straight answers out of Powell.
But David had other plans in mind.
“And Stan,” he said. “Something I wanted to chat about with you, too.”
If there was any color left in Powell’s face, those words sucked it dry.
“I’ll get started on the gas, Amy,” I said. “Meet you by the car.”
And that was that. The three of them left, vanishing into the center and leaving me with more questions than I knew what to do with.
11 Amy
I swished the water around in my mouth so hard I worried I might tear my cheeks. Then, with a spit, I sprayed it all out into the nearby grass.
“How’s that?” asked Ed.
I gave it a second, eager to find out if this last mouth rinse had been enough to do the trick.
Nope. It was still there.
“I think I’m going to be tasting gas for the rest of the week.”
Ed smirked and let out a snort.
“Hey,” he said. “I offered to do all the draining. And I was all gentlemanly about it, too.”
“Nah,” I said. “It’s gross, but I wasn’t about to stand around and let you do all the hard stuff.”
“Looks like you’re the real gentleman after all,” Ed said, his grin still on his face.
“I’ll take it,” I said with a laugh.
I kicked the gas cans softly, feeling a satisfying “thud” at the sound of them being full of liquid.
“We set?” I asked.
“Franz’s tank is full,” he said. “And we’ve got a few spare gallons if we need them.”
“Which we won’t,” I said. “Alban Falls is less than a half hour away.”
He nodded. “Then let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
“Let’s.”
We loaded up and were soon back on the road. As we drove out of town, I let my eyes linger on the passing houses, the abandoned buildings looking even more dilapidated in the light of day. And off in the distance, as it always had been, was the factory. Now that it was daytime I could make out the sorry state of the place, from the smashed windows to the rusty splotches on the exterior to the tipped-over street lights in the long stretch of parking lot out front.
“What’s up?” asked Ed.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just noticing how all this is pretty much the entire town—the Sandy Vista neighborhood is actually only a small part of it. But when you’re inside, behind those walls, you can’t see any of it.”
We drove on, soon passing through the outskirts and back into the desert and onto the highway leading west.
“Listen,” said Ed. “Don’t mean to pry, but what did David want to talk to you about before we left? Seemed like it was something important.”
“That’s the bizarre thing,” I said. “It…wasn’t. I was thinking the same thing, that he had some info on Mom that he’d forgotten to tell me or something like that. But…he didn’t.”
“Then what was it?” Ed asked.
“He just sort of…took me down memory lane. Way back in the day me and his girls used to play together, and were really good friends up until we hit twelve or so.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing catastrophic or anything,” I said. “Just that puberty set in. His girls stayed, well, pretty girly. And I didn’t. Took about four months of us hanging around as teenagers to realize that there really isn’t much of a friendship when two of the people in it are more interested in gossip and makeup and the other’s in her room all day listening to rock and practicing guitar.”
“That’s how it goes,” said Ed.
“But David just went on about it, talking about sleepovers we’d had and that sort of stuff. Just smiling and staring off into the distance and reminiscing.”
“Weird,” said Ed. “And that was it?”
“I mean, he just went on about it. Told me that the girls grew up and moved across the country and got married and had kids of their own and all that, and how he barely has a chance to see them anymore.”
Ed seemed to tense up at this, like I’d poked at a raw spot or something.
“Go on,” he said.
“And he mentioned how his wife passed a few years back from cancer, that he’d been more or less alone since then.”
“All the more time and effort to put into running the HOA,” said Ed. “Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He started talking about my mom.”
“That right?” asked Ed. “What’d he have to say?”
I took a moment, trying to decide where to begin. Truth be told, I hadn’t entirely finished processing the strange conversation.
“At first it was just the usual stuff,” I said. “Talking about how great he thinks she is, how much he respects her, how big of an asset she is to the community. That sort of thing.”
“Sure.”
“But the more he went on, the more, I don’t know, reverent he got. He started talking about how they’ve both become so close, both of them being widowed with their kids long gone, how they’ve really ‘been there’ for each other when they needed one another.”
“I see,” said Ed.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Maybe it was me being paranoid, but I was getting the impression that he was trying to gloss over the fact that they’d ‘been there’ for each other in ways he knew better than to talk about.”
“Good of him,” said Ed. “Not exactly appropriate conversation fodder with the kid.”
“No kidding,” I said. “But like I said, I might’ve just been seeing things that weren’t there. I know they’ve always been close, David and Mom. But God only knows what kind of close they’ve become in the last few years.”
“I see,” said Ed. “Anything else?”
“Like I said, he just wanted to have a chat. It was weird, but pretty harmless.”
“Did he say anything about finding her? Maybe that he’d talked to some people around town and learned some new info?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Just talked to me like I was visiting home during college break or something.”
“Okay,” said Ed, clearly trying to find out as much as he could. “What about Powell? Did you hear any of that conversation?”
“Not even a word,” I said. “Me and David’s talk only stopped when Powell knocked on the office door. When David answered the guy looked damn near on the verge of peeing his pants. And then when I left David shut the door right away and locked it behind him.”
“Weird. And what’s the deal with this Powell guy? Seemed sketchy.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Powell’s always been in the neighborhood, one of those guys who never got married and didn’t really go out much. He did remote work for some defense contractor and got paid big bucks for it. And instead of spending that money on a family he bought model trains and fancy speakers—the usual thing for single men with too much money to do, you know
?”
“Sure,” said Ed. “But…is he dangerous?”
“Nope,” I said, not even having to think about it. “Eccentric, sure. A little awkward? Definitely. But I’ve never gotten a bad vibe from him.”
“Hmm,” said Ed. “Well, speaking of bad vibes, I’m getting nothing but them from this place. I know it’s your home and everything, but…”
“No,” I said. “I get it. I feel like there’s something going on that David’s not telling us about.”
“Right,” said Ed. “And even beyond that…it’s like they’re living in total denial about what’s happened. David’s little speech to the residents, for example. Sure, it sounded nice and it was probably what they wanted to hear. But, damn, he’s leading them to the edge of the cliff.”
“How do you mean?” I asked. I’d felt the same way—David’s speech didn’t sit right with me. But I wanted to hear Ed’s take on the matter.
“That whole neighborhood,” he said. “Even before the pulse it was fantasy land, designed to be cut off from the outside world. But now that the cars aren’t running and the deliveries are done, it’s even more of an anomaly. If David had an ounce of sense in his head he’d be preparing the people there for what happens when they turn on their sinks and nothing comes out by brown sludge followed by nothing.”
He went on.
“I mean, shit. They’re living out in the middle of the damn desert. Do they seriously think that their way of life’s going to last more than a week without modern civilization there to make it work? This whole trip to get the pills…what are they going to do when the meds are gone? When they can’t raid the nearest pharmacy and get what they need? Everything they do is just kicking the can down the road.”
There wasn’t a word that I could disagree with. Ed was right, and his words had got me thinking.
“It’s always been weird like that,” I said. “Even before the power went off.”
“How so?” asked Ed.
“Like I said, that factory was the only thing keeping the rest of the town afloat. And most of those people who live in the development are former managers at that place living off pensions. I don’t know how much they were getting, but it always seemed like they were living lifestyles that a few thousand a month from a closed factory shouldn’t have been able to give them.”
