THE COLLAPSE: Seeking Refuge (16 page)

The boys had pre-staged an area for the herring smokers in the short grass next to the where the wood would be stacked.  They asked Stephen if there was anything they could do to help get the cooking apparatus set up, but Stephen couldn’t think of anything other than to start separating the smoking wood pieces from the pines.  He needed to talk to Hal Hollingsworth about the smokers, first.  His first order of business that morning would be to pedal out to the main gate and ask him for his time that he had volunteered at yesterday’s three o’clock meeting.  Stephen hoped that Hal wasn’t too upset from the horrible news he had received about his cheating wife to start working on the smokers. 

Before Stephen took off for the main gate, he informed the woodcutters that he had mentioned them at the three o’clock meeting, and that he had requested better tools for them.  All of the boys had smiled and looked at each other excitedly.  For the first time since they had formed the team weeks ago, the woodcutters felt good about their job within The Park.  They were relevant.  They were proud.

*****

Hal wasn’t nearly as upset as Stephen had anticipated.  In fact, he didn’t seem out of sorts whatsoever!  Stephen admired the man’s fortitude; he couldn’t imagine how devastated he would have been if he had found out that Tarra was cheating on
him
.  It definitely would have taken more than one day to recover and be himself again, maybe even weeks or months.  But then again, the “bounce back” concept is excellent medicine for a broken heart:
To hell with that bitch!  Let’s get back to work and accomplish something good today, damnit!
  Maybe Stephen would have been the same way after all.  But Tarra would never cheat on him, so he had nothing to worry about, right? 

Hal seemed more than ready to get started on the fish smokers, immediately.  He gathered his team around him in a semi-circle and explained that he was probably going to be gone for most of the day to work on a project for the resource manager.  He passed the radio to his number two and turned to Stephen, nodding to him as if he was ready to leave.  The sound of a vehicle approaching on Highway 20 turned Hal back around again.

“Hang on a second,” Hal said to Stephen, putting his right hand up, “let’s see what we have here, first.”

Stephen nervously replied, “Fine, I’ll just, uh…wait.  I guess.”

“Ready for a little action?” Hal enthusiastically winked at Stephen.

Stephen straightened himself up and answered, “Sure, why not?” forcing a devilish grin, trying to appear solid and tough.  He didn’t want to come off as scared, especially since he was a member of The Park leadership, even though he wasn’t as aroused by the prospect of some “action” as Hal was.  But then again, Hal did this stuff every day, and had grown numb to the potential hazards of sentry duty during a total collapse of the United States of America.  People weren’t the same anymore.  Stuff could go south, real quick, and there was no 911 to come save your ass.  Well, maybe…kinda…The Park had good ol’ Carrie McDonald on speed dial, at least.

Stephen moved his M-4 rifle from his back to his front.  The cold metal in his hands was comforting.  He glanced around at the other sentries, and realized that he was the only one at the gate with an automatic weapon.  The rest of them had pistols or hunting rifles.  If something were to go wrong, Stephen felt a responsibility to be one of the first to respond, if necessary.

Hal nudged Stephen’s arm and said, “Don’t worry, most of them don’t even come all the way down to the gate, if they even turn to come down here at all.  They usually just stay on Highway 20 to the bridge, in which case Ox gets to intercept.”

“Good ol’ Ox,” Stephen commented, trying to fit in as one of the boys.

“Yup, good ol’ Ox,” Hal replied with a chuckle.

The vehicle was a heavily loaded-down Chevy Equinox, and it
did
turn down the road that led to the gate.  The recent-year Equinox and its occupants didn’t appear threatening, not even a little bit.  Stephen quickly assessed the vehicle for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary, and nothing surfaced.  A middle-aged man was driving with a similarly aged woman in the passenger seat (likely his wife), and a little girl maybe a couple years older than the Kays (who obviously wasn’t wearing a seatbelt) was behind them in the back seat along with a colossal amount of tied-up white garbage bags, which presumably held the last of the family’s reserves.  There were so many bags in the back seat that the little girl barely had room to sit!  Her face peered hopefully between her mother and father’s seats.  The camping gear tied down to the roof of the car had given away their intentions before they even said anything.

Hal raised his arm to his men as the vehicle slowly approached.  The man driving the car was spooked enough by the armed men to be cautious, but desperate enough to continue proceeding all the way to the gate.  From the looks of it, the family was hoping to score a campsite at The Park.

The driver called out to Hal, who was walking toward the Equinox, “Hello, sir.  We were wondering if there were any campsites still available?”

Hal answered as he neared the driver’s open window, “Sorry bud, but we’re all filled up.  You’ll have to find somewhere else to stay.”

Stephen had followed Hal to the car, and stood next to him with his rifle at port arms as Hal conversed with the driver.

The driver begged, “Please, we can’t stay at our home anymore.  The city has become too dangerous.”

“I understand that,” Hal stated plainly, “but there’s nothing we can do for you.  You’ll have to keep moving.”

“Sir, please,” the man started, “isn’t there anything we can do or say that can change your mind?  We have a nine year old daughter, for Christ’s sakes.  Please?  Just let us in, we won’t use a campsite, we can stay in the forest or one of the meadows.  Hell, we’ll even set up camp on the causeway or the beach if we have to.  We just need to get off this road and somewhere safe!  Please…sir?”

Hal sighed with moderate frustration.  Stephen could tell that Hal had dealt with this type of “customer” on many occasions.  The family just wanted to be somewhere safe, that’s all.  But Hal was required to follow the rules, which meant turning away all new residents.  A few exceptions could be made from time to time (like Fish and the Alexanders, for example), but those were extremely rare cases indeed.

Stephen had difficulties hiding his emotions during the conversation, and he was likely the only man at the gate with any empathy for the Equinox driver.  The man must have detected the compassion in Stephen’s face, because he had locked eyes with him.  Pleading eyes.  Hard-to-turn-away-from eyes.  The man had a wife and child, and was only looking out for his family’s best interest. 

The man was now speaking to Stephen instead of Hal, saying, “Please, sir, isn’t there anything we can do to change your mind?”

The driver’s wife and daughter were looking at Stephen as well.  He was their last hope.  But… there was nothing that he could do for them.

“No,” Stephen spouted abruptly and stepped forward.  He needed to prove to the sentries at the gate that he was large-and-in-charge.  He gestured with his rifle toward Highway 20 and referenced Hal by saying, “You heard the man, you’ll need to leave now.  Move out!”

“Fine,” the disgruntled man huffed as he put the Equinox into gear and left the gate area.  The driver
did
have some balls, however, because Stephen heard him mutter, “fuckin’ assholes” as he rolled up the automatic window during his U-turn.

As the Equinox turned left onto Highway 20 toward the bridge, Hal clapped Stephen on the back and said, “Did you see all that stuff in the car?  Ox is gonna score big time off that one!”

“Yeah, I did,” Stephen replied, somewhat quietly.  He was mostly in thought.  It was only a few days ago that he was in the exact same position as the Equinox driver, trying to get across that very same bridge with his family.

As the two men walked away from the gate and toward the campground, Hal detected that the encounter had bothered Stephen, who was walking his bicycle without speaking.  He tried to make Stephen feel better by saying, “It’s okay brother, you’ll get used to it.  I have two mottos that I keep in the back of my head at all times when dealing with situations such as the one back at the gate.  Wanna hear them?”

“Sure,” Stephen shrugged.

Hal put his right index finger up and said, “One:
it’s either us or them
.” 

Stephen nodded as if it made sense, then Hal put two fingers up and continued with, “And two:
compassion can get you killed.
”

Stephen liked both of Hal’s mottos, and told him so.  He even decided at that very moment to adopt those mottos for himself.

Stephen was also curious, so he asked, “Do you deal with a lot of those cars every day?”

Hal shook his head and replied with, “Not anymore.  In the beginning, there were cars stopping here all day long.  But nowadays, they’re few and far between.  Like I said earlier, most of them just blow past on their way to the bridge.  Every day the traffic gets less and less, though.” 

Just then, as Hal finished his sentence, baby raindrops began to moisten the men’s faces.  

*****

The rain fell lightly at first.  It was spotty, too.  Typical annoying Washington rainfall.  Not enough to get a person soaked, but enough to irritate and discourage them from making any plans outdoors. 

At noon, however, a cloudburst changed all that.

During the downpour, Alexis Tillman ran from tree to tree, using the foliage for cover as she made her way to site 199.  She had discovered some disturbing news about what had happened the night before, and needed to speak with Fish about it at once.  She didn’t care if he was sleeping or not. 

Alexis observed a large tent, a small tent, and a screen tent at site 199.  Alexis ran to the screen tent first, and batted the rain off her jacket as she gathered herself for the impending confrontation with Fish.  Loud snoring coming from the smaller tent indicated that he was in that one.

Alexis dashed over to the pup tent and kicked it, yelling, “Fish, get your ass up!”

A series of intense, booming barks from inside the tent surprised the bejesus out of her.  Alexis had no idea that a dog had been in there with Fish.  Her right hand swiftly found her service pistol at her hip as she stepped back, but stopped herself from removing it.

From inside the little tent, she heard Fish holler over the dog’s barking, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA!  What in the FUCK, dude?”

The dog’s barking subsided.  Alexis took the opportunity to shake off her shock and holler back, “Get up and get out here, now.  We need to talk.”

“No,” Fish called out to her.  Alexis angrily watched as the tent door unzipped itself and a disheveled Fish poked his head out, saying, “I don’t want to get dressed.”

Pharaoh pushed his own face past Fish’s and glanced up at the extremely attractive woman with the black jacket standing in the rain.  He sensed her anger; smelled it, even.  It was fierce.  But she reminded him of his old masters that he used to work for on the navy base.  Law enforcement types.  She posed no threat to him or Fish, so he retreated back into the tent to let his master take care of whatever business he needed to with the woman.

“Fine,” she said, frustratingly.  After crouching down to Fish’s level, the stench of a dirty dog and the tangy odor of a large, unwashed human being emanated from the open tent door and warmly washed across Alexis’ face.  She clasped her hand over her mouth and nose, it was awful!

“Oh, my god,” she said as she stood up, “you need to put some clothes on and get out here.  I can’t talk to you like this.  You absolutely reek!”

Fish cried out to Alexis as he watched her scurry into Stephen’s screen tent to hide from the rain, “Well, sorry about that, princess, but if you haven’t noticed, all the showers are out of order.”

“Whatever, just get out here,” she replied. 

Then it was Fish’s turn to be angry… 

If she had the guts to wake him up and embarrass him like that, then he was gonna embarrass her right back.

Yup.

Fish crawled out of his tent, barefoot and wearing nothing more than just his maroon boxer briefs.  He zipped the tent door shut before Pharaoh could egress into the rain along with him. 

Standing outside the screen tent in his underwear, Fish let the rain patter against his skin.  It wasn’t warm rain, not by a longshot.  In fact, it was rather frigid.  The outside temps couldn’t have been much more than 50 degrees, but Fish wasn’t about to show any discomfort to the prissy bitch that thought it would be funny to shame him.

Fish closed his eyes and looked toward the dark sky, welcoming the cold rain onto his oily face.  He said through the falling water, “You wanted to talk?  Then talk.  You’ll just have to pardon me as I ‘shower’, since I apparently stink to high heaven.”

Alexis sighed as she watched Fish’s incredibly bold, yet ludicrous display from inside the screen tent, and then sarcastically stated, “Wow, that’s real classy.” 

But…she refused to look away or appear offended.  She knew that the jackass was purposely trying to make her uncomfortable, and she just simply could not allow him that satisfaction.  She was stronger than him, she was positive of it, and he needed to realize that.  Even so, his body wasn’t what she had expected.  His long arms were well-defined, and he had a sizeable chest that wasn’t droopy or flabby like most guys his age.  He didn’t have a six-pack for a stomach, but at least it was flat with no love handles on the side.  All in all, he had a nice body!  Maybe it had been his choice of clothing and jacket that had made him appear lanky.  Tall people often have trouble finding proper-fitting clothes for their body type.