by Ryan Harding
“Sawed-off shotgun,” Patrick said from his squatted position near the sink, peering into the open cabinet.
“Can you get it out?” Marcus asked.
“Not without tools. The recoil loosened the harness, but the wood is still screwed into the stock.” He stared directly at Marcus and it wasn’t like the looks from Nathan or Ed or Lawrence—Patrick knew when the shit hit the fan that Marcus was the most important guy to have around. Marcus wasn’t sure how he felt about someone not named Suzanne depending on him. His stomach shrunk like Patrick had his hand in there squeezing. You’re gonna help us, right? Right, Marcus? Get in there and take one for the team, son! Don’t tell me you don’t have the guts! Nuh-uh, screw that shit.
“Probably only had one shell anyway,” Gin said.
Patrick looked at the other drawers and the closed cabinets but didn’t touch anything. Gin seemed to be taking her cues from Patrick and also left them alone.
If the drawers were rigged, they’d probably all been emptied, too. No great loss. Knives in most of the hands here would be about as lethal as snow cones.
“I think we need to look for a boat,” Ed announced.
“You go do that.” Patrick squatted in front of the refrigerator and put his finger on a piece of metal on the floor. “Anyone with him?”
People looked at each other, at Ed, at Patrick.
“If that’s your plan, you need to leave now. I don’t want you drawing attention to the rest of us.”
“Hey, you think Nathan died and made you the leader or something?”
Marcus smiled. Shit was about to get real. Suzanne tightened her grip on his arm; she had the same look she got when Marcus and her father argued Grizzlies versus Tigers. Pops thought it was crazy to pay grown men to play games but was down with colleges making bank off the backs of “student athletes.” A pissing match between Ed and Patrick was a much bigger deal; no one’s fate hung in the balance with ballin’. Marcus reluctantly found himself agreeing with Ed: a boat was the best move. Not necessarily one big enough for nine people, either.
Patrick seemed more interested in a spoon he’d found, rotating and examining it carefully. Could it be the key to everything? Fuck no, but you wouldn’t know that to watch him.
Maybe this ain’t the best guy to follow.
“Well?” Ed asked, throwing his arms wide.
“If you want to leave, leave.” Patrick stood with the spoon in hand. So much for leaving things as they found them.
Adam moved further into the kitchen, closer to the cabinets.
“Don’t open any drawers,” Pamela warned.
“Nah, sure don’t wanna bust a cap,” Adam responded and had a look of instant regret as if he’d pulled the trigger on a sure-fire winner only to have it blow up in his face—cue blush. Shit was too serious for corny-ass jokes.
He turned away sheepishly when he saw Marcus looking at him. He was saved by the bell, or at least the civil defense sirens as they shattered the lake house hush. They were muffled in here, but loud enough to make them jump. Maybe they were on a timer like Sling Blade said. Everyone remembered what followed the last eruption.
Annette covered her ears and moaned.
“What’s your plan, then?” Ed nodded toward the kitchen cabinets. “Since we won’t be making our final stand with butter knives after all.”
“This isn’t very productive,” Eliza said.
Pamela jumped to Ed’s defense. “Is there something else we should be doing? We need to find one of those chicken phones. The directory said there’s a bunch on the other side of the lake.”
Yahtzee, baby.
“There’s a reason Patrick thinks it’s a bad plan,” Suzanne said. “Why?”
Patrick looked at Suzanne and Marcus again and this time there was something else there, something Marcus couldn’t place. Did the guy have a reason he didn’t want to reveal? If so, why the hell not? They were all in the same boat, or not since it was apparently a bad idea.
“Did you see a boat?” Patrick asked Ed.
“Uh…no, but this is a lakeside community and—”
“While we’re looking for a big enough boat for nine people, we’re in the open. He’s less than a mile away. Say we find a boat, say it miraculously has oars and we row it out of arrow range by the time he spots us…he could be halfway around the lake by the time we make land. And how much time will we have to find shelter before nightfall?”
With that, Patrick crossed the kitchen to a partially open door at the other side of the room. He nudged it the rest of the way with the handle of the spoon, leaning away if he had to promptly bail. Nothing happened.
“Basement.” He looked at Gin. “The door at the end of the hall goes to the garage.”
“So, uh, what? We hang out here and wait for him to show up?” Ed asked. “I want to be gone by nightfall, not looking for shelter. The sooner we leave this nonsense behind—”
“We won’t be gone by nightfall.”
“That’s comforting,” Ed said.
“Maybe we should follow a road out of town?” Eliza suggested. “All roads end at a military checkpoint, don’t they?”
Annette pointed to Eliza. “Yeah, that.”
“Why would the people who put us here rescue us?” Patrick asked.
“We don’t know anything about the people who put us here,” Ed said.
Patrick abruptly changed tact. “Adam, the last group they brought here…how did they get out?”
“I…uh…I’ve never heard of it happening.”
“So are we the first group tossed in here as human prey, or has this already happened a hundred times before?”
“Why?” Annette asked. Her voice cracked. “Why would they want us to die?”
“Why would they want us to die, Adam?”
“Because it keeps Agent Orange from breaking through the walls to find victims?”
“Sounds like a winning theory to me,” Patrick said.
“That’s enough,” Ed said. “You’re spooking everyone.”
“Nathan and Lawrence getting their asses slaughtered already had me spooked,” Marcus said. “But what makes you so sure that’s what’s goin’ down?”
Suzanne jumped in. “The lodge had electricity, Marcus. Who’s around to pay the bills and change the bulbs? Who’s in charge of maintaining the walls that keep him in?”
The government. Suzanne believed they’d drive a bus full of kindergarteners in here if it was for the greater good. Two busloads if they were inner city kids.
“I believe we’re on the same page, Suzanne,” Patrick said.
“Not even in the same book, sir.” Ed shook his head, ran a hand over his face. “The government isn’t in the business of killing its own citizens to appease some madman. How could they manage the logistics of gathering and transporting us here when they can’t even run the Postal Service at a profit?”
“The people who took us have interstate reach and direct access to the heart of this Kill Zone. Who are they if not some agency within the labyrinthine, bloated bureaucratic nightmare we call the US Government? If the only way to appease an unstoppable killer is to wall the place off and throw him some chum when he gets unruly, you can bet an agency is taking care of it. It’s the pragmatic thing to do.”
“That’s crazy,” Ed said. He threw up his hands for the benefit of the others and repeated, “Crazy.”
“We’ve lost our lead. We need to dig in now and find something for defense.”
“We never should have followed you here.”
Patrick shrugged at Ed, nonplussed. “You don’t have to stay.”
“But he could be anywhere now.”
“So the arguing bought us exactly nothing,” Eliza said.
Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. Patrick convinced him, but he and Suzanne would have had to go too if Ed’s family left on a boat hunt.
Patrick moved on, case closed. “Gin, would you try to find us some dark clothes, please? These bright colors w
ill make excellent targets if we have to run, which I’m sure was the point. Full moon tonight.”
“I can’t be here at night!” Annette said. “God, this is a nightmare. I have a full slate of showings Saturday. There’s so much to do.”
And so much Xanax to take.
“I’ll go with Gin,” Adam volunteered.
“You’re staying right here with us, young man,” his mother snapped.
Adam gave his father a pleading look.
“He won’t be going far, hon.”
“There are traps!”
“Pam, keep it down. Adam, be careful.”
Da-amn, son. Marcus thought Suzanne had a death glare. Pamela looked fit to snatch Patrick’s spoon and stab her husband repeatedly in the neck and face.
Adam and Gin rushed off before his mom found something sharp. Instead of giving his mom a smug in your face! look before he exited stage left Adam tried to appear contrite. Tried.
“We need someone watching upstairs so we see him before he sees us,” Patrick said. “We’ll plan accordingly depending on how thoroughly he searches the houses, but above all, we’ve got to keep it down in here.” He made it a point to look at Annette and Pamela.
“I’ve got to pee,” Eliza said.
“Find a bathroom upstairs. Nine people pissing in a toilet that won’t flush is the first thing he’ll smell if we do it down here.” Patrick looked from person to person. “If you have to go you do it upstairs.”
Marcus wouldn’t be able to put off taking a piss much longer and he knew Suzanne was long past due; she had a bladder the size of a walnut.
“Isn’t anyone going to check the phone at least?” Annette blurted, as if they had overlooked the most obvious thing. She hurried across the room to a wall-mounted dark green phone with matching cord that dangled to the floor.
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Order us a pizza.”
Ed, Eliza, and Pamela followed Patrick, unconcerned they would miss Annette’s surprise announcement of a dial tone. Eliza didn’t wait for her pal? Maybe she was getting tired of Annette’s craziness, too.
“Are you okay?” Pamela called.
So much for keeping it down. Damn, these people.
“Fine, mom,” Adam answered from a rear bedroom.
“Why isn’t there a dial tone?” Annette whined. The long cord swayed after she hung up.
Suzanne pretended shock. “For real? It doesn’t work?”
Marcus laughed. “Maybe there’s something on the news about that. Go try the TV.”
Annette scowled. Like many certifiable idiots, she reserved the right to act like one but didn’t want to be treated like one. With a grumble, she went after the main group and left Suzanne and Marcus alone in the kitchen.
“So what about the canoe?” Suzanne whispered.
“Next house over on a rack at the dock. Maybe it ain’t seaworthy if nobody’s used it.” He nodded at the severed leg. “Obviously motherfuckers been runnin’ for their lives before us.”
“Maybe it’s locked down. But what good is getting to the other side by ourselves? What if they stick together and find a Chicken Exit and get rescued? We’ll be screwed.”
Marcus took a few steps to verify no one was within earshot.
Suzanne snapped her fingers. “Hey, hey, conversation over here.” She snapped again. She knew he hated it; they’d argued over it many times.
How much time have we wasted arguing about meaningless shit?
He didn’t let it faze him now. If time was short, it would be a waste of what they had left. The storm was coming.
“Too late to go.” He nodded toward the front of the house. “He’s out there somewhere.”
“And now we don’t know where.” Her eyes widened. “If he breaks in, if we get separated, go for the canoe. These people’ll leave you like we left Lawrence and Nathan. You don’t owe them anything. Don’t try some heroic shit.”
Marcus smiled. “Don’t worry none about that. Your parents would like it too much.”
Her parents were civil to him, but only just. If he and Suzanne were never seen again, they’d believe he dragged her down with him, even though they didn’t know shit. They thought he was some kind of thug for his “vulgar language” (her dad’s term) and grammar that worked just fine at his own parents’ house. Most of the people he knew talked like that and their biggest crime was just smoking some chronic. If her dad knew he did that at his boy Dewan’s, his stuck-up ass would petition to have Marcus sent to the electric chair. Missing Grizzlies for that chump’s birthday was some bullshit. He’d never been to jail and had a perfectly legit job installing cabinets.
Maybe somehow this really was his fault, though. He kept it real. He could have set off the wrong person. Maybe they all did. Adam didn’t fit, but he might be a package deal with his parents. Nathan, Lawrence, and Annette, no doubt they’d pissed some people off.
Suzanne would disagree, but to Marcus the group was several blacks and Mexicans shy for this to be a government plot.
Paint chips dropped on Marcus’s head. Suzanne nodded at the cracked kitchen ceiling. “Should we be with them?”
Before he could answer, footsteps pounded down the stairs. Patrick returned first, followed by Ed. Gin and Adam also returned from the bedrooms with armfuls of dark clothing, now wearing black shirts.
“Pamela, Eliza, and Annette are watching the windows, Marcus,” Patrick said. “They’ll give us a heads up if they spot him.”
“Okay.”
“XL? Thank you.” Patrick took a black shirt from Gin. He pulled the new shirt over top of the white one. “Pam and Eliza will need shirts. The black sweatpants might be a tight fit, Ed, but give these a try. The Man with the Yellow Hat wants his pants back.”
“These are my lucky golf pants.”
“Unlucky for everyone else.”
Ed put on a dark shirt provided by Adam with the word “Foghat” written in bold white letters on the front, but it wouldn’t draw any more attention than the long white sleeves of what was now a button-up undershirt. He expected to see a big cartoon bird on Ed’s back, but then remembered that was Foghorn Leghorn.
What the hell’s a Foghat? Must be a white thing.
“Thanks, son,” Ed said, ruffling Adam’s hair.
Suzanne squeezed Marcus’s hand. “I’ve got to go.”
“I can’t hold it, either,” Gin said.
“Uh, me neither.” Adam.
That bathroom would smell hella good by the time Marcus got in there. Ammonia Central.
When everyone else but Patrick and Marcus left the room, Ed whispered, “Did you really have to tell everyone it’s the government? Maybe it is, but…killing hope? What good is that going to do?”
“It gets seven people to drop the idea of looking for disabled Chicken Exits.”
The sirens ground to a stop and the conversation with it. Nathan wasn’t screaming to mark their position and they were sheltered from view this time, but the house still felt more like a trap than a fortress. Orange could either get them in here or intercept them if they tried to leave.
A board cracked upstairs.
At last Ed swallowed audibly and asked, “How do you know the Chicken Exits won’t work?” He got out of his kicks and pulled the sweatpants over his lucky golf pants.
“Call it an educated guess. I wouldn’t drop eleven people in here and give them a way out. If we—”
“You’re basing a plan of action on guesses. Until we know the Chicken Exits don’t work this is just a theory.”
“But what if he’s right?” Marcus threw in. “What’s the plan of action if there’s no help comin’?”
“We help ourselves,” Patrick said. “Find weapons. At the least we need to hurt that bastard. Even if he can come back from the dead later he can be killed temporarily.”
“Then what?”
“We have time to find our way out. You look ludicrous in those sweatpants. Aren’t they too tight over your other pants? I don’t see h
ow you can even run.”
“I don’t need to go faster than my wife anyway.”
“Suit yourself.”
Marcus cut in. “Why are we here, though? You got a guess?”
Patrick indicated the basement stairwell. “Let’s talk as we go.” He took the first step cautiously. “Wouldn’t a flashlight be great?”
Yeah, if it was tied to a missile launcher.
Patrick went down the creaking stairwell slowly, probably testing for tripwires or loose boards. In a few minutes he reached the bottom and they could see him motion for them in the hazy light. The solid black T-shirt made a hell of a difference. “We’ve got light, fellas.”
Marcus and Ed descended and found Patrick in a huge, nautically-themed den cum game room that smelled of leather, cedar, and stale piss. Someone hadn’t bothered looking for a bathroom down here and unleashed his spray on one of the ancient throw rugs. Or maybe Orange marked his turf.
“So why were we chosen?” Ed asked.
The dual windows, each as large as the one in the TV room, were partially obscured by curtains. Shafts of light came through at odd angles. Dust floated through the rays.
“Each of us probably fit a host of criteria which, unfortunately, intersected with our availability at the time of the round-up,” Patrick said.
Even if the place had electricity the light above the pool table wouldn’t work anymore. It had been suspended on either end by chains, but one side had snapped and the thing had swung down. Marcus ran his hand along the furrows it ripped in the felt surface of the table. Dangling cobweb streamers slowly fluttered.
“You were on vacation with your family. It could be a week before your absence is noticed.” Patrick pointed to Marcus. “You mentioned you were traveling?”
“Just to see her parents. We’re talking Friday night, get the hell out ASAP Saturday.”
“How far?”
“Memphis to Nashville, three hours by car. That’s the last thing I remember. We was gonna stop for a cake. They probably reported us missin’ by now.”