THE COLLAPSE: Seeking Refuge (22 page)

The audience’s reaction to that statement was mixed.  Some were nodding in agreement, others were shaking their heads with disgust.  One of the fishermen seated in the middle of the amphitheater stood up and shouted, “You can’t do that!  You can’t just lock people up!”

Claudine sighed and then addressed the fisherman, “I know that you are one of our herring producers, and we certainly appreciate your efforts and value your opinion.  But…let me ask you a question.  Aren’t your wife and children
alone
while you are out on the water?  Did you even know that there was a murderer among us?  Wouldn’t you rather have those individuals seeking to do harm safely detained under strict supervision where they can no longer hurt the ones you love?”

The fisherman sat back down and said nothing.  He must not have thought about what Claudine said before his outburst.

“Very well,” Claudine began, “now let’s resolve this murder business once and for all.”

Stephen suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  It must have been how Claudine had said those words.  Something huge was about to go down, he just
knew
it.

Claudine stepped backward and rejoined the line of leaders on the stage, then said, “Pay close attention to this.  We’re offering a reward for information leading to the capture of the man responsible for this crime.  Anyone that can provide us with information directly related to the murder…or…the name of the man that was having an affair with Julia Hollingsworth will be granted permanent, unlimited access to the provisions at sites 17 and 18.”

Stephen gulped as at least a dozen hands shot up in the audience. 
“Ohhhh, shit!”
Stephen said to himself and looked up at Fish next to him, who was grinning hard as if he knew it was coming.

Near the rear of the amphitheater, a man in his mid-twenties wearing a camouflage hunter’s jacket and a faded camo ballcap suddenly leapt from his seat and bolted towards the forest.

“Stop him!” Claudine ordered and pointed at the fleeing suspect.  Hal and Alexis, who were already in the vicinity, took off after the man.  A few of Hal’s loyal gatekeepers had taken up pursuit behind them as well.  Even though Hal was middle-aged, short and somewhat stocky, he was surprisingly quick on his feet.  As he caught up with the camo guy, he removed his handgun.  For a moment, Stephen thought that Hal’s rage was about to get the best of him, and he was gonna blow a few holes into the man’s back in front of over a hundred witnesses.  But instead (thankfully), Hal pistol-whipped his wife’s former beau between the shoulder blades.  Camo guy went down with a loud yelp onto his side and rolled onto his back. Hal had struck the man so hard that the faded ballcap had lifted off the guy’s head.  It parachuted toward the ground in the same direction that the man had been running, as if it had chosen to continue fleeing on its own accord. 

Hal pounced, and straddled the fallen man’s chest with his powerful legs, which effectively pinned the struggling man’s arms to the ground. 

The crowd in the amphitheater gasped in horror as Hal suddenly raised his pistol by the barrel, as if he was about to smash the camo guy’s face into a pulp with the butt end of it.

“You motherfucking sonofabitch!” Hal bellowed right before his gatekeepers snatched him off the camo guy by his arms.  Hal never got his vengeance at that moment.  He tried to struggle his way out of the gatekeepers’ grasp, but there were too many of them.  “Let me go!  Let me go!” he screamed, but his devoted men intended on keeping their boss out of trouble by holding him fast.

Alexis flipped the camo guy onto his stomach and gleefully handcuffed him.  The man pleaded with her, crying, “I didn’t do it, I swear!  I loved her!”

Alexis said in a loud voice as she got camo guy on his feet, “Whatever…you ran.  Only the guilty run.  And that’s a fact, jack.”

On the stage, Stephen heard Claudine say to herself as she watched Alexis march the camo guy away, “Hmmm, that was easy.”

Chapter 12

Stephen, Fish, Tarra and the Kays all walked together from the amphitheater back to site 199.  Wolf had caught up with them half way there and begged to tag along, which Fish allowed, of course. 

Stephen had asked Fish if he knew about Claudine’s plan to weed out Julia’s murderer, and Fish had admitted that he did, saying, “Why do you think Hal and Alexis were standing in the back instead of on stage with the rest of us?”

Tarra said, “That was pretty intense.  I thought Hal was going to kill that guy!”

“Yeah, me too,” Stephen added.  “I’m glad he didn’t.”

When the group reached site 199, it was almost eleven AM.  All were hungry, so Stephen dug out a box of chicken-flavored noodle mix and a cookpot from the back of Fish’s truck.

Stephen said to everyone, “I am pretty sure that the herring are cooked by now.  I’ll bike out to the wood station and pick some up.”

The Kays screeched, “Yay!  Yummy fishies!”

Stephen smiled at his girls and then asked, “Who wants to cook the noodles while I’m gone?”

Tarra assumed that Stephen was just joking around, and was only referring to her (Fish couldn’t cook for shit), but Wolf cheerfully volunteered instead.

“Do you know how to cook, big guy?” Stephen asked him.

“Yup!  I do it for my mom all the time.  She’s been really quiet and lazy since Mr. Doug died.  Sometimes, she doesn’t even get out of our tent,” Wolf explained.

Tarra walked over and rubbed Wolf’s back.  She said to him, “Aw, honey, I’m so sorry.  She’s very lucky to have such a strong young man like you.”

“Thanks Ms. Tarra,” Wolf said.

Stephen found a medium-sized plastic bowl with a lid that sealed tightly.  He placed it under his arm and grabbed his mountain bike by the handlebars away from the tree that it had been leaning against.  He was about to pedal off when Pharaoh started vigorously barking and Tarra shouted, “Stephen, wait!”

And Pharaoh wasn’t the only dog barking.  Dogs all over The Park were barking too.

Something was wrong.  No, something
felt
wrong.  Everyone stopped what they were doing and went silent. 

The ground was moving.

One of the Kays shouted, “Daddy, what is that?”

“Sshh!  Quiet honey!” Stephen snapped as he looked up at the treetops.  They were swaying slightly back and forth.  Not the kind of swaying that a wind caused, either.  His suspicions were confirmed as shouts erupted from residents at other sites.

“Earthquake!  Earthquake!” multiple people shouted.

Stephen tossed the bike and the bowl to the ground and snatched up Katrina, who was closest to him.  Fish was already picking up Kyla.

“Get them under the table, now!” Stephen yelled as everyone scurried to the screen tent, where the sturdy picnic table was.

Tarra held the screen door open as Stephen and Fish shuffled the Kays and Wolf under the thick wooden table.

Stephen tried to take the screen door from Tarra, saying, “Your turn.”

“No, you,” Tarra argued.

“I’m serious, get under there!  There might not be enough room for everyone,” Stephen shouted.

“I’m serious too, get your ass in there, Stephen!” Tarra barked back and glared at her husband.  Stephen knew better than to argue, because she would never back down.  Tree branches could start falling at any second, so there was no time to waste arguing about it.

“Goddamnit, Tarra,” Stephen cursed as he awkwardly crunched himself under the table with the children, leaving Fish and his wife still exposed.

Fish nodded at Tarra, as if to say,
“you’re next,”
- so she crawled under the table and put the three children between her and Stephen. 

There wasn’t much room left under the table, so Fish darted over to his truck and crouched down next to Pharaoh.  He fearfully glanced skyward to see if anything was about to drop down on him or his precious vehicle.

Seconds that felt like minutes had passed before the ground beneath them stopped moving.  Thankfully, nothing but twigs and a rainshower of pine needles had fallen from the sky onto site 199.  It had been a weak quake.  Just a quick “roller” – if you’re familiar with earthquake slang.

“I think it’s over,” Tarra stated.

Fish confidently stood up from his crouched position as if he hadn’t been afraid the whole time, then asked, “Yo, what about the title wave that comes after an earthquake?”

“Tidal wave, you mean?” Stephen asked while crawling back out from under the table.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Fish affirmed.

Stephen laughed and said, “Tidal waves are caused by tides.  I think you’re referring to a Tsunami.”

Tarra’s eyes popped wide open and she gasped at Stephen’s comment.

“Stephen,” she began, “we’re super close to the damn ocean!  What are we going to do?”

Stephen raised his hands and said, “Calm down, everyone calm down.  There might not even be a Tsunami, and even if there is one, it could be small.  It all depends on where the epicenter of the quake was.  If it was directly underneath us, then we should be alright.  If it was way off shore somewhere in the Puget Sound or off the main coast, well…then we might be screwed.  But, that quake wasn’t very strong, so I doubt there will be a Tsunami here at all.”

Fish asked, “But, how are we going to know?”

Stephen shook his head and solemnly declared, “We won’t.  The last time I checked, KIRO, KOMO, KING 5, and KCPQ Channel 13 are all off the air.”

Tarra, who was becoming frustrated with her husband’s lack of concern, asked again, “Like I said, Stephen, what are we going to do?”

Stephen picked up the bowl he had dropped and went back to his bike.  He answered Tarra only after mounting the bicycle and putting one foot on the pedals, “Well, you can run around and panic if you want…but I’m going to get us some fish.”

*****

Before the quake, over at the new jail, Alexis watched Hal as he hacksawed a window into the PODS container.  The prisoner, James “Jimmy” Banks, was inside the box with nothing more than the small amount of light that shown through the corners of the steel frame.  Jimmy continued to proclaim his innocence as he howled and cried over the rasping sound of Hal’s cut job.

Alexis pounded the side of the box with the butt of her fist, shouting, “Shut the fuck up in there, Jimmy.  Nobody is listening, nobody cares.  You’re a piece of shit, and you know it.”

Hal paused for moment to give his arm a break.  He said to Alexis, “You don’t know how bad I want you to lock me up in there with him for about five minutes.”

Alexis tossed Hal a mischievous grin and said, “I could turn my back for five minutes, and whatever happens…happens.”

Hal did a double take on her.  Was she joking, or was she serious?  He couldn’t read her well enough to judge, so he just smiled back and went back to sawing.

Alexis changed the subject, saying, “So what do you think we should do about a toilet?”

“Ha!  Do you want to know my real opinion?” Hal laughed.

“I think I know what you’re going to say, but Claudie and Bill aren’t going to go for that.”

“That’s too bad,” Hal shook his head and refocused on cutting.  After a few more saw strokes, he stopped again and said, “How about a five gallon bucket?  If you could scavenge up a pool noodle from one of the kids around here, all you would need to do is cut a slit down the middle of it and wrap it around the edge for a seat.”

Alexis smiled as she replied, “That’s a great idea!  I’ll get some garbage bags from the Martinez’ later today.  I’m pretty sure I could scrounge up a pool noodle from somewhere.  Shouldn’t be that hard.  Until then, ol’ Jimmy can hold it, for all I care.”

Both of them laughed.  Suddenly, Hal stopped sawing, and he looked confused.

“What’s wrong?” Alexis asked, noticing the concern on his face.

“That’s weird, the saw is stuck,” Hal declared.  At first, he thought it might have been Jimmy messing with him from inside the box, so he pushed harder and the saw easily went forward, but a second later the saw was solidly stuck again.  Jimmy couldn’t possibly be
that
strong. 

Both of them suddenly realized why the saw was actually getting stuck.  The ground was moving!  The PODS container made odd groaning and squeaking sounds as the steel bent and moved against itself.

Jimmy shouted from inside the box, “What’s going on out there?  Something’s happening!  Help!  Let me outta here!”

Alexis and Hal looked at each other, then simultaneously looked up at the swaying treetops.  Together, they scrambled over to the picnic table and hid underneath for cover.

*****

Over the next two days, the quake had been the newest rage within The Park.  Everyone was talking about it.  Maybe it brought everyone together, to have something so significantly important in common.  It also just happened to be the perfect smokescreen for the Probsts to execute the next portion of their plan.  While everyone wondered or worried about additional seismic activity in the near future, they had summoned all the residents that refused to attend the meeting.  One by one, families were quietly evicted from The Park.  Fish and Trent Teegarden (the large man that Stephen had identified walking with the Probsts during the bullhorn parade) had the arduous duty of ensuring that the people left as quickly and quietly as possible.  The Probsts even acquired an AR-15 for Trent to carry while they supervised the evictions.  The AR wasn’t fully automatic like Fish’s M-4, but it was intimidating enough, and that’s what really mattered.  Regular folks couldn’t tell the difference between an AR and an M-4 or M-16 anyway.

Fish and Trent were given specific orders to make certain that the residents did not speak with the other residents while they packed up their things.  If neighbors or bystanders questioned the evictions, Fish was told to respond with, “These people disobeyed a lawful order, and are being evicted from The Park.  Any inquiries regarding this matter can be directed to Claudine and William Probst via the new sheriff, Alexis Tillman.”

Fish became pretty good at using that line.  He also got pretty good at using another line,
“Not my problem, keep moving.”

Evicted residents had begged and pleaded with Fish and Trent to let them stay, but they were under orders not to entertain any of those requests.  Residents would try to use excuses, such as; “We don’t have enough gas” or “There’s not enough room for everything in our car” or “We don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Not my problem, keep moving.”

At first, Fish felt sorry for the castaways.  He really did.  But then, the residents’ bitterness, whining, complaining and excuses began to wear him down and he went cold.  Real cold.  Besides, why didn’t they just go to the meeting in the first place?  Was it really that difficult? 

No, it wasn’t.  The outcasts had belligerently disobeyed a simple request, and now they were paying for it.  Boo hoo…shoulda, woulda, coulda.  Too late now.  Bye…

Working directly for the Probsts certainly had its perks.  Unlimited commissary privileges at the Martinez’ supply sites, for one.  Another was the flexible hours.  As long as Fish and Trent weren’t escorting castaways out of the park, they could do whatever they wanted.  William was also great at coming up with beer somehow, which he would feed to Fish and Trent in between evictions.  But the best perk of the job, however, was the power.  Fish had power over everyone else in The Park with the exception of Alexis Tillman.  He even could tell Jason Oxnard what to do, if he wanted.  But he really liked Ox, so that would never happen.

Wolf was permitted to tag along with Fish and Trent if he wanted to.  He and Fish had become rather close friends in the last few days.  Trent liked the kid, too.  He was amazed (or acted amazed) every time Wolf would show off his accuracy with the slingshot. 

If the residents that were being evicted had firearms, then Fish and Trent would ask Wolf to come back after the eviction was finished.  It was better to play it safe than sorry.

After all of the evictions had been completed, Fish thought that he would be reassigned back to the beachers, but he was wrong.  The Probsts wanted both him and Trent to stick around with them.  They justified their reasoning by saying that they might be needed as backup for Alexis, if a hairy situation ever arose that she wouldn’t be able to quell on her own.  But Fish and Trent were both in agreement with each other that the Probsts just wanted to keep them around for their
own
protection.  Which was a good call, since word had gotten around that the Probsts had become cold-hearted towards the residents, and that shenanigans of any sort would result in immediate detention or eviction.  There were even rumors that the Probsts were kicking people out of The Park for “no reason”.  Fish knew better, of course, since everyone on the eviction list had been disobedient in some form.  Or at least…that’s what he was told.

*****

Just as Fish and Wolf had become close, so did Tarra and Carrie.  They were two peas in a pod, just one of them was a lot bigger than the other.  Tarra had even grown comfortable enough to pop the burning question in her (and Stephen’s) head regarding Carrie’s sexual orientation.