THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road

by Frank Kaminski

  Stephen laughed and said, “Everyone gets six pieces, unless you want more, then you can have some of mine.”

  “More!” Kyla laughed at her daddy, then said, “Just kidding! I don’t want to get fat.” Stephen was a bit disturbed at the statement, he didn’t think she should be talking like that at her age.

  Tarra came back from her patrol of the garage, which was downstairs adjacent to the basement, opposite of Swantown Road. The house was built into the hillside, and from the Swantown side you wouldn’t even think that there was actually a garage down there on the other side of the house, but there was.

  “Yum, bacon!” Tarra said.

  As the Kays turned to look at their mommy, Kyla gasped, “Mommy, you have a gun!”

  “Yes, baby girl, I sure do!” Tarra said. “I bought it at the gun store last night!”

  “Oh, yay! Are you going to shoot Mickey now?” Katrina asked. She had said it so matter-of-factly that Tarra was stunned. Stephen stopped eating his biscuit in mid-bite.

  Tarra put the shotgun down against the wall by the refrigerator in the kitchen, came back into the dining room and looked at her daughter while she munched on a strip of bacon at the dining table. She asked with a soft, serious tone, “Do you think we should shoot Mickey? He’s a very bad person.”

  “Yes.” They both replied, with the Sameness.

  “Well, Christ! I’m glad they’re onboard with it!” Stephen exclaimed sarcastically and threw up his hands. He glared at Tarra. She shouldn’t be exposing the young girls to so much, in his opinion. Stephen didn’t want them to get older and think that killing people, even bad people, was okay.

  Just then, as if he had heard the Alexanders talking about him, there was rap on the door. Stephen fearfully stood up from the table and looked at Tarra.

  She nodded at him and said, “Go ahead and let him in.” Stephen looked at her, confused, but followed her orders.

  Mickey looked extra happy that morning as Stephen greeted him, and he said, “Good morning, neighbor! I just happened to be outside, and I couldn’t believe my own nose! I smelled bacon!”

  “Indeed you did, come on in.” Stephen replied and pushed the screen door open a tad for him to grab it.

  “Well, don’t mind if I do!” Mickey said, grinning his foul smile at Stephen as he strolled into the house. He was extra ripe that morning, and Stephen’s nostrils flared as he nervously led him to the dining room, where the Kays were still nibbling on their bacon strips.

  Kyla looked at Mickey and plainly said, “My mommy’s going to shoot you.”

  Mickey threw his head back and howled, “Oh, honey, that’s a good one! What’s she gonna shoot me with, a bottle of Windex?”

  “No, with this.” Tarra came around the corner from the kitchen and pointed the shotgun at Mickey’s chest. The color left his face and his jaw dropped immediately.

  “You fucking b-“ Mickey started, but Tarra cut him off.

  “I wish you would call me a bitch right now! Do it! I’ll paint the walls with your nasty ass.”

  “Now, let’s not get carried away here.” Mickey said, holding his palms out in front of himself in protest.

  “Shutup. Stephen, take his gun.” Tarra ordered. Stephen looked at Tarra, shocked, but reluctantly did what she said and approached Mickey. He slowly withdrew the sidearm from it’s holster. Once the weapon was released from Mickey, Stephen glanced down at the revolver and laughed.

  “It’s not even loaded!” Stephen cried. Mickey just shrugged.

  Tarra chuckled, “What a surprise.”

  “Just toss me a couple of pieces of that bacon, and I’ll be on my way. No more Mickey at your door, ever again. I promise.” Mickey said.

  Tarra laughed and said, “Nope, no bacon. Nothing, ever again.”

  “Ok, just one piece then, just one little piece.” Mickey said, and started forward toward the table. He must have been really hungry. The Kays screamed and covered their paper plates with their hands. Tarra held the gun tight to her shoulder and shouted, “No, Mickey! Get the hell out of here, now!”

  Stephen said, “You better do what she says.”

  Mickey studied Tarra for a few seconds, and decided that she was utterly serious, she was really going to shoot him if he didn’t leave!

  “Fine, I’m on my way.” Mickey said, and gradually began walking towards the door as Stephen escorted him out. He stopped half way there and said over his shoulder, “This ain’t over. You and me, Tarra, we ain’t done yet.” Mickey spoke to Tarra as if Stephen wasn’t even there. Stephen’s face looked troubled, but he said nothing as Mickey departed. He locked the door after the grimy neighbor left, and let out a long, drawn-out sigh of relief.

  Tarra and the Kays went back to their breakfast, and Stephen joined them at the table. Stephen was about to take a bite out of his now-cold biscuit, but spoke to Tarra instead.

  “What do you think he meant by that? ‘We ain’t done yet’.”

  “Don’t know, don’t care.” Tarra replied and shrugged her shoulders as she enjoyed a savory bite of her bacon. The Kays were watching their father as he tried to eat his biscuit, but his appetite had left him.

  Katrina said, “I don’t like that man. He wanted my bacon! He was really stinky, too.”

  “Yeah, he was icky.” Kyla said to Katrina. She was right, too. Mickey’s stench still hung in the air. Then Katrina added, “I wish Uncle Fish was here.”

  “Me too.” Kyla replied to her sister.

  Stephen, visibly upset, stared at his girls for a moment, then said, “Why? Why do you wish Uncle Fish was here?”

  “Because he would have beat Mickey up a long time ago.” She answered, bluntly. Stephen appeared hurt and offended by their comments. He continued to eye his daughters as they nibbled away at the rest of their bacon. Neither looked at their father as they ate.

  “Uncle Fish, huh?” Stephen said, out of the blue. Tarra could tell that he was genuinely agonized by what they had said, and she was was about to add something to support her husband when Stephen suddenly leapt up from his chair.

  “What are you doing?” Tarra asked.

  “Taking care of business.” Stephen declared, and snatched up the shotgun that was leaning against the wall next to Tarra. With the shotgun in his right hand, he picked up two pieces of bacon with his left hand from his own plate and marched toward the door.

  “Stephen, no! Stop!” Tarra protested, realizing what he was up to, but he was already across the house and out the door.

  Tarra and the Kays stopped eating, and waited in silence. Moments later, there was a single explosion, the familiar woofy boom of a shotgun, and all three of them flinched together. It was very loud but somewhat muffled, as if the weapon was discharged inside the house next door. Moments later, Stephen returned, minus the two pieces of bacon. The Bait.

  “There, the stinky man will never bother us again!” Stephen yelled at his girls, and very formally put the shotgun back against the wall next to Tarra. She had her hand over her mouth, shocked, but there was grin underneath that hand. It was an ‘I-can’t-believe-you-actually-did-it’ grin. Stephen sat back down and waited for his girls to start crying. He knew they would. They were just little girls, after all.

  The Kays just ate their last pieces of bacon, saying nothing. They never cried as Stephen had anticipated, or even mentioned anything of what had just happened. How could that be possible? Maybe it was Stephen that wanted to cry. Tarra continued to grin after she removed her hand from her mouth, and gobbled up her last piece of bacon as well. Stephen glanced back at the shotgun, as if reliving the incident once more inside his head. He watched as a single tendril of wispy smoke escaped the barrel and crawled up the wall. The scent of gunpowder had already filled the room.

  “It smells like fireworks on the Fourth of July.” Kyla simply stated. Stephen snapped out of his haze and looked at her. He studied her for a few moments, and decided that it was funny. How could these little girls be so unaffected by any of th
is? Stephen felt like running to the bathroom and throwing up, and then maybe even crying into a pillow for a good twenty minutes after that. But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for his family.

  “Fireworks.” Stephen repeated, and started to giggle. “Fireworks.” He said again, and then shrieked out in laughter. “Fireworks!”

  The Kays watched with smiles on their faces as their father wailed one hysterical laugh after another, then joined in with laughter of their own. They had never heard their father laugh like that before, and it was kind of weird. Yet funny as hell. Tarra lost it and joined in with the three of them. “Fireworks!”

  Later that day, in between rain showers, Stephen emblazoned a large TSOS of his own on the Alexander home. It wasn’t quite as intimidating as others in the neighborhood, being that it was a pinkish-purple colored paint job. The only stuff that Stephen had in the garage was the paint used to redecorate the Kays bedroom the previous fall. But the message was there. It would have to do.

  *****

  The next day, Stephen went around his home and took an inventory of the remaining water and stores. He was trying to keep himself occupied in order to take his mind off the previous day’s sins. The hot tub was still over three quarters full, but the fresh water totes were nearly half depleted. There was still plenty of wood, food, paper plates, paper towels, flushable wipes and toilet paper. Asswipe, cripes. ‘Like I said, I have cash!’ Stephen remembered.

  The battery situation, however, wasn’t as good. He wasn’t able to acquire as many as he had wanted to when he and Fish went shopping. All of the LED flashlights and lanterns used batteries. Light was pretty important, since it got dark around 5:30 PM in February in Washington State. At that time of the year, there was still more darkness than sunlight in the twenty-four hours of the day. Stephen considered conservation options, and would need to talk to the rest of the family about them as well.

  The next project that Stephen decided to tackle was the set up of a rain catchment system with plastic tarps on the roof. He figured he could lay the tarp at the joints of his roof, and have them lead down to a piece of PVC pipe that he still had left over from when he had replaced one of his pipes that had burst three winters ago. Good thing that Stephen was a bit of a hoarder, and never threw that extra pipe away! Coffee filters would be rubber-banded around the bottom of the pipe to strain any debris that washed down along with the clean rain water. The filters would be easy enough to replace each time it rained. The fresh water totes were low enough to be consolidated, one into another, and he would use the free ones to catch and store the rainwater. Might not be the best-tasting stuff in the world, but it would be drinkable. Stephen was pretty sure that he remembered watching on TV that you could take a couple drops of iodine to purify water for drinking. But would he need to? Google wasn’t around anymore to verify that information, unfortunately.

  Stephen also thought about packing up Tarra and the Kays and heading out to the Rudehouse’s river property. It was the middle of February, however, and camping out there in winter temperatures would be far from comfortable. He couldn’t (wouldn’t) leave without Fish, also.

  As Stephen began consolidating the fresh water totes, he did not hear Tarra creeping up behind him with the shotgun. She was on a patrol, but wanted to find out what Stephen was up to with the water. Tarra walked up next to Stephen and put her hand on his shoulder, which startled him. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Tarra! You just scared the shit out of me!” Stephen exclaimed.

  “Sorry. I just wanted to see what you were doing with the water.” She said, and set the shotgun down on the kitchen counter. After watching her husband shake off the heebee-jeebies, she asked, “Is the Mickey thing still bothering you?”

  “No.” He said firmly, and shook his head. Then quickly changed his mind. “Okay, maybe a little, yes. I’m okay, though.” He said with mock confidence, trying to prove that he had a thick skin.

  “No, you’re not.” Tarra said, softly.

  “I’m fine.” Stephen stated, and exhaled heavily. His bottom lip quivered and he sniffled. He was beginning to cry. Tarra knew that her usually passive, kind-hearted husband was on the verge of tears, so she put her arms around his neck and pulled him close to her. She whispered, “It’s okay, honey. You did what you had to do. I’m very proud of you.”

  Stephen bawled tears and snot into her shoulder, as quietly as he could. Thankfully the Kays were too busy playing a mean card game of Uno in their bedroom to notice anything.

  Just as Stephen forced out his last tear, and began straightening up, there was a sound outside. Sounds were very clear during the quietness of the Collapse of America. It was a truck! And it was crunching it’s way down the driveway toward the Prius and the F-150 motor pool behind the house. It just had to be Fish! Stephen flew down the stairs to the garage with Tarra at his heels.

  “Girls, come down! Fish is back!” Tarra hollered.

  Fish emerged from his monster truck with an M-4 automatic rifle strapped to his shoulder and leapt to the ground. Holy shit, what a score! An M-4! The Alexanders ran to him and hugged him, the adults on top around Fish’s shoulders and the M-4, and the Kays at the bottom around the legs.

  “Wow! I guess you’re all happy to see me?” Fish said, his trademark grin plastered across his mouth. He looked at Stephen’s joyous, yet moist and reddened face and said, “Are you crying?”

  “No! I was just, uh, doing some work upstairs and got a little heated up.”

  Fish laughed, “Bullshit, you’re crying! You really missed me, huh?” After that arrogant remark, Stephen and Tarra both pushed off of him and guffawed. Fish added with another chuckle, “Nice TSOS on the house, by the way. The pink really works great. Very intimidating.”

  “It’s purple.” Stephen defended.

  “Whatever, yo. Hey, I got one for you, too.” Fish said, referring to his M-4 as he nonchalantly lifted up on his shoulder strap, as if guns were just laying around everywhere. Another gun! What a day that was turning out to be!

  Fish leaned down to the Kays, and excitedly said, “I have a surprise for you two as well!” He stepped back up on the foothold of his truck and opened the door. “C’mon boy, let’s go!”

  Stephen’s grin disappeared off his face. Oh shit, what now?

  A full-sized German shepherd launched happily out of the cab of Fish’s truck and immediately went to the Kays, who screeched, “A DOGGY!” with the Sameness.

  Stephen was apprehensive at first. Oh great, another mouth to feed. Another BIG mouth to feed. Damnit, Fish!

  Katrina, who was almost thrilled beyond words, asked her Uncle Fish, “What’s his name?”

  “Pharoah.” Fish replied, proudly. “There was only one handler left on base, and he didn’t know most of the dog’s names, except for his own, and a couple others. So I named him Pharoah, you know, because the ancient Egyptians used to worship dogs. He seems to like it, and he answers to it, too.”

  Tarra shook her head in confusion and said, “Wait, what?” She rolled her eyes and continued, “You do know that the Egyptians didn’t worship dogs, right?” Stephen put his hand on his mouth to conceal an upcoming laugh that he knew was imminent.

  “Uh, yeah they did.” Fish replied.

  Stephen added, “No, actually they didn’t.” He was about to let loose a round of laughter in amusement. Tarra was gonna tear him up!

  Tarra yelled, “They worshipped CATS! Not dogs!”

  Fish looked at her and shouted back, “Okay, genius, then why did they build all those giant dog statues in the desert, then?”

  “Are you talking about the sphinxes?” She laughed. “Those are half-lion, half-human. Not dogs!”

  “Ah, shit.” Fish said, defeated. “His name is staying Pharoah, though.”

  Kyla looked at her father and asked, as if it was even a question at that point, “Can we keep him, daddy?”

  Stephen stared at the dog. Good lord, there’s a lot of maintenance involved with owni
ng a dog. Especially a god damn huge one like this. Lots of food, lots of turds. But wait! He’d be an excellent companion on my late night rounds throughout the homestead. Kind of like having a living, breathing, mobile security system throughout the entire house. A mobile security system with extreme loyalty, fine-tuned hearing and lots of teeth. Hmm…

  Pharoah sat on his haunches between the girls as they gleefully petted his mane, looking up at Stephen with hopeful eyes, as if to say, “Just feed me and love me, and I’ll protect the living shit out of these two girls for you.”

  Stephen sighed and said, “Okay, Pharaoh, you can stay. Come here, boy!” Pharoah instantly left the girls and leapt to Stephen as commanded, enthusiastically meeting his face with a few friendly licks as Stephen bent down to meet him. He was definitely a friendly dog, Stephen could tell. So could Tarra, by the satisfied look on her face.

  Fish chimed in, “He’s a military working dog. He knows commands and shit. He started following me around on base after his handler took off, so I decided to look after him. Watch this.” Fish took a step back from the group and said, “Pharoah, come!”

  Pharoah’s head snapped toward Fish, and he bolted toward him and stood wagging his tail, anxiously awaiting his next order.

  “Sit!” Fish yelled, and Pharoah obeyed. “Now, check out that truck!” Fish commanded, pointing at Stephen’s F-150. Pharoah went around the perimeter of Stephen’s rig, sniffing the doors, examining the undercarriage and searching around the wheels. Once his sweep was completed, he sat on his haunches and barked twice.

  “Two barks means good-to-go. No barks means something bad is in there. They don’t bark when it’s something bad, as to not alarm the driver that the dog knows something is up. At least, that’s what I heard, anyway.” Fish said, proudly. Stephen and Tarra looked at each other in astonishment. Pharoah really was a smart dog. Maybe even smarter than Fish! (just kidding). Stephen was definitely sold at that point, the dog was staying.

  Once Fish was done showing off, the Kays called Pharoah back over to them, and the adults agreed to head inside the house. They needed to talk. Much information needed to be exchanged, including the acquisition of the shotgun, the death of Mickey, and Fish needed to tell them what he knew so far from the base. He had been there the entire time. What was going on? Pharoah could keep the Kays busy while the adults exchanged information.