The Last Bastion (Book 1): The Last Bastion

by Callahan, K. W.

  “Can’t we talk about something more upbeat?” Christine Franko asked. “Not all of us have a spouse to consider knocking off,” she snickered. “But if I could just have one more shot at my ex,” she gave them a squinty-eyed grin.

  “Hell, you’d probably go Lorraine Bobbitt on that poor guy!” Suzana Mendoza laughed aloud.

  “‘Poor guy’ my ass!” Christine gave Suzana wide eyes. “He put me through hell!”

  “Don’t get her started on her ex again,” Julia Justak called from across the room. “How’d we get from serial killers to ex-husbands, anyway?”

  “Just living my fantasies out loud,” Christine laughed.

  “Lovely. We’ll start calling you the Black Widow,” Michael shot back.

  “Black Widow? He’s not dead…yet,” Christine gave Michael a maniacal expression. “See? You guys are a bad influence on me. Here I was trying to be good and change the subject to something more positive, and you have me talking about killing my ex.”

  “Something happens to him now and you’d better lawyer up quick. You’ll be the prime suspect,” Manny Simpson called from his spot behind the bar. “I’ve got a guy,” he grinned, wiping a wet glass ring from the bar top.

  “Ah, you’ve got a guy for everything except home repair projects,” Monte Hines snorted, waving him away with a hand.

  “I’ve got plenty of guys…you guys,” Manny chuckled. “And you all work a lot cheaper…although after all the beer you drink here…maybe not so cheap,” he reconsidered as he filled a frosty mug with frothy beer from the kegerator.

  “The way this economy is going, you might have to hire us out as day laborers,” Josh Justak joked.

  “Ugh,” Ms. Mary moaned. “Try making a buck when you’re retired. You can’t make anything on savings anymore. I remember when I was still young and working, I could get ten percent on a certificate of deposit. Heck, I was even buying US savings bonds with a great return.”

  “Yeah,” Caroline Trove snorted, “but we were also paying upwards of fifteen percent or more on our mortgages.”

  “True,” Ms. Mary nodded, recalling that side of higher interest rates as well.

  “Heck, even I remember putting the remainder of my student loan money into a three-year CD at around seven percent when I graduated from college,” Josh Justak said.

  “Be lucky to get half a percent on a five-year CD these days,” Michael scoffed.

  “So what do we do with our savings to make money beside plow it into the great casino otherwise known as the stock market?” Monte asked.

  “Buy gold and silver?” Juan offered.

  “What am I going to do with that? Put it in my pirate’s chest and bury it in the backyard?” Monte laughed.

  “I could hold onto it for you,” Juan grinned and gave him a wink.

  “Yeah, I bet you could,” Monte snorted. “But seriously, there’s no good option for safe investing anymore. It’s all 401k accounts, IRAs, and hedge fund stuff I don’t understand. You can’t just put money in a savings account where it’s safe and earns you a couple percent a year.”

  Everyone in the clubhouse was nodding and offering murmurs of agreement.

  “I know where I’d put my money if I could,” said Victoria Hines. “Gas and food.”

  “Oil is a terrible investment…way too volatile,” Juan shook his head. “Unless you’re planning on sinking a well in the backyard, I’d stay away from black gold.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Victoria tilted her head at him and frowned. “I’m talking about gas for driving the cars and food for feeding our families. You all know how expensive it is raising kids these days. The little monsters would eat us out of house and home if they had the chance. And we have to drive them to friends’ houses for play dates, birthday parties, activities, sporting events, and all the rest. Gas and food are probably our biggest expenses beside our mortgage, taxes, and healthcare. If I could lock in when gas prices are down and buy a couple hundred gallons of fuel to keep in a tank in our back yard, or buy food, toilet paper, toothpaste, or whatever it is in bulk quantities when it’s on sale, it’d probably give me a better return than any stock.”

  “You can do that in a way,” Caroline Trove said. “I buy in bulk, things like toiletries, meat that I can freeze, or other products with a longer shelf life whenever I see them on sale.”

  “Right,” Victoria conceded. “I do that too, to a point. But there’s only so much room in the freezer. And with three kids, even when you buy a lot of something, it still goes pretty fast. I just wish we had more storage where we could really bulk up on things like pork or beef roasts or hams when they’re on sale. I mean, if you find something like that and it’s a dollar or two off per pound, the savings can really add up fast. Or when they have buy one, get one free deals.”

  “Or like when butter or eggs are on sale,” Christine Franko added. “Sometimes you can save a couple dollars on a pound of butter, and with the way we go through the stuff making cookies or just using it on toast and stuff, that can add up too. And you can freeze butter,” she nodded. “Doesn’t seem to hurt the running of it.”

  “You know, you guys might have something here,” Josh said thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about buying some extra stuff just to have on hand around the house…you know, in case of an emergency or something. They say that many people don’t even have three days worth of food in their homes. We have more than that, but I’m not sure how great some of our meals would be after a week or two. We could be subsisting on pumpkin pie filling and stewed tomatoes.”

  “I’d rather put my money toward something like that than risk it in the stock market,” Juan said. “We lost a butt-load of money when the recession hit. If something like that happens again, who knows how bad it could be.”

  “We should start a community store,” Manny offered excitedly.

  Manny was always good for coming up with ideas. Executing them was another story.

  “We could each put in a little money every week…you know, like an investment club or something,” he continued. “Not a lot, maybe just ten or twenty bucks per family. Then, whenever we find a really good deal on something at the store, we take money from the pool and load up…as long as it’s something that everyone will use. We could come up with a list of pre-approved items so we wouldn’t buy things some people don’t like or don’t use. When someone stumbles across a deal, they could buy up a bunch of stuff and just get reimbursed from the fund later. Juan, you’re an accountant, you could keep up with the money.”

  “Yeah, thanks a lot,” Juan grimaced. “Like asking a hotel room attendant if she wants to come over and clean your house after work.”

  “Where would we keep all the stuff?” asked Suzana Mendoza.

  “We could use my house,” Ms. Mary offered. “Well, not exactly my house, but my garage. I don’t use it for much other than storing my garden tools. And I already have shelving in there for the canning I do. I also have that big chest freezer that I don’t keep much in. It would be great for storing meats and other bulky items.”

  “That would be perfect,” Caroline Trove nodded. “But how would we split up the money contributions? I mean, we have families who range from a single person, like you, Ms. Mary, all the way up to the Hines family with six people.”

  “First off,” her husband Michael added, “we have to make sure that everyone is up for this. Maybe not everybody wants to participate. Remember, that’s one of our mantras here in the Blenders. We don’t want people to feel uncomfortable or as if they are being forced to participate. If we come up with an idea that affects everyone, we want the group as a whole to be good with it, otherwise, it won’t work.”

  “Good point,” Caroline nodded. “Should we take a vote?”

  There were nods from around the room.

  “All in favor of the idea of a communal food reserve raise your hands,” Caroline said.

  Everyone raised their hands.

  “Well, I guess that
’s settled,” Caroline nodded. “So, when it comes to financing the project, how should it work?” she turned to look at Juan, the accountant. “Any ideas, Mr. Numbers?” she smiled at him.

  “My thought is that to keep things fair and equitable, as well as to make them easier to manage, we all contribute equal amounts per family. Just as with retirement savings, you shouldn’t be dependant upon a single income stream. Well, it’s the same with this. We aren’t going to be solely dependant on this food that we buy. It’s an investment to take advantage of low-priced goods when they’re on sale and to guard against the possibility of an emergency of some sort. I say that we all put in a weekly amount of something like twenty-five dollars or even ten dollars or something reasonably small so that people are comfortable with the amount. We have seven separate families, so the money will add up pretty quick. Once we build up a big enough supply of goods, at the end of each month, we could dole out the stuff that needs to be used first. We can base distribution on ‘use-by’ dates and broken up into even lots of seven. The remaining supplies stay on hand as our food reserve. If there is something on hand that hasn’t been divvied up yet and needs to be used, we have enough communal events where we could use it to feed the group.”

  There were nods and more murmurs of confirmation and agreement from around the room.

  “That’s why we keep you around, Juan,” Josh Justak smirked at his friend.

  One of the kids, Natasha Mendoza, entered the room red-faced and breathless, heading straight for her mother.

  The typical ten-year-old, she immediately inserted herself, vying for her mother’s attention. She spewed her words forth rapid fire. “So Mom, Andrew and Patrick are playing with the drone, and they won’t let anyone else play. I asked them, and they said I had to wait. But I waited for at least ten minutes and they’re still playing. I want a turn. And then Jack asked if he could have a turn and they told him to wait too. And then I, I…”

  Her mother stopped this verbal diarrhea with a hand held up in front of her young daughter. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said. “Take a deep breath.”

  She waited for her daughter to calm. “Those drone things are for big kids. You let them play with those things. They’re expensive, and I don’t want you flying them into any power lines or a house or a person or something. There are plenty of other things to do out there, and if you can’t find something to do, you could start cleaning up. There’s food that needs to be taken inside, trash that needs to be thrown away, the ice needs to be dumped from the beverage coolers, the…”

  “That’s all right. I’ll find something to do,” Natasha recovered from her fit instantly and bounded away, not wanting to be put to work by her mother.

  “Man, I wish I had your parenting skills, Suzana,” Julia Justak shook her head. “You always know exactly how to switch the narrative on those kids. You should have been a politician.”

  Suzana laughed. “All you have to do is give them an option between work and something fun. Or you give them two options, both of which you want them to do…then there’s no losing on your end.”

  “Unless Patrick is your son,” Michael grimaced. “He’ll select the option you want, but then he’ll mess whatever it is up so bad that it takes you more time to fix it than if he’d just left it alone in the first place…even at age twenty-six.”

  The group laughed, knowing Patrick’s propensity for screwing up even the simplest of tasks. Even young Manny and Margaret Simpson often politely refused his assistance with home repair projects. If Patrick didn’t screw up the project, he’d usually end up breaking a tool, hurting himself, or doing something that otherwise slowed things down or added additional costs to the project. It was usually just easier to politely decline his offer of assistance. And Patrick was typically good with that, finding a video game, television program, welcoming bed for a nap, or some other mindless activity to keep him busy.

  “I already have a big dry erase board in the garage,” Ms. Mary got the conversation back on track. “We can use that to list our purchases, dates, prices, create a wish-list, and all the rest. Juan, you can help me organize it. How’s that?”

  “Fine with me,” Juan shrugged. “Nothing I love more than playing with numbers during my time off,” he grinned sarcastically.

  “Should we start with twenty dollars per week, per family, and see how it goes?” Victoria asked.

  With a family of six, and with Victoria not working, money was tight in the Hines family.

  “That’s fine,” Michael nodded. “We can always bump it up down the road if things are working better than we’d planned.”

  “And if we find a really great deal on something and don’t have the money in the pool, we can always get approval to buy it from the group during our evening happy hour.”

  “Oh, I’m so excited!” Ms. Mary clasped her hands together. “I’ve always wanted to be a part of an investment club, and this is probably as close as I’ll ever come!”

  The others laughed and began filtering back outside to start cleaning up and re-opening their end of the block.

  Chapter 4

  “Here…take it,” Victor jabbed the wad of bills at Jose as they sat in the front of their work truck, the rear bed of which was full of assorted scrap metal.

  Jose instinctually reached for the money but then hesitated. “What’s it for?” Jose frowned,

  “It’s your cut from the stuff we got off those mummies down in that apartment building basement last week,” Victor said. “Didn’t get as much as I’d hoped, but somethin’s better than nothin’. Your share’s eighty bucks.”

  “Man, I don’t want none of that,” Jose waved the money away.

  “Why not?” Victor looked confused, almost pained by the refusal.

  “It’s just…I don’t know,” Jose shook his head. “It just feels wrong.”

  “Ah, come on, just take the damn money,” Victor continued to jut the bills at him enticingly. “Nobody found out about us taking the stuff. Hell, I shouldn’t even be offerin’ you this for all the complainin’ you did while we were down there.”

  “Just keep it,” Jose waved the money away. “I believe in Karma, and doing stuff like that will bring bad shit your way.”

  “Suit yourself,” Victor jammed the bills in his front pants pocket and then grimaced, pulling his hand out and shaking it. “I believe in makin’ money. And turnin’ away free money got a way a bringin’ bad shit your way too.”

  Victor inspected his hand as he talked. A spot on its top, between the thumb and forefinger, was red and badly swollen.

  “Man, this hand is killin’ me. I don’t know what I did to it,” he poked the affected area gingerly with a finger and then recoiled, grimacing in pain and shaking his head. “Wow that hurts!” Wonder if a spider got me or somethin’? Wouldn’t surprise me with all the shitholes we go in. I been bit before. Never nothin’ like this, though.”

  Jose thought back to the rodent he’d seen bite Victor when he was pilfering the dead bodies. He smiled, hoping the bite was infected or worse. He almost felt like telling Victor what he’d seen and that he should probably see a doctor, but the way Victor acted, maybe he deserved a little of that Karma he’d dismissed so readily. Maybe this jackass would come down with a bad infection, or rabies or something.

  “Guess we’d better eat,” Victor said after a few more seconds of poking his hand. “I wanna make it to the scrap yard after lunch. Then maybe we’ll call it an early day. I ain’t feelin’ so hot, and I wanna go home and soak this hand.”

  “Yeah…whatever you want, boss,” Jose nodded, reaching to the floor and finding a brown paper bag containing his lunch.

  Victor followed suit, pulling an aluminum foil wrapped sandwich from his own brown bag.

  “Watcha got?” Victor peered over at Jose’s lunch.

  Jose unwrapped the foil from around his sandwich. “Looks like ham and cheese.”

  Victor grimaced and turned back to his own lunch. “Hate ham and chees
e,” he sneered, shaking his head.

  “I don’t remember asking you,” is what Jose wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he took another glance over at Victor’s hand, the uncomfortable looking and inflamed nature of which instantly made him feel better. Then he finished unwrapping his sandwich and fished a bag of chips from inside his lunch bag. After a bite of sandwich, he opened his chips and then reached over and twisted open the soda bottle he’d left in the dash drink holder. Jose was actually looking forward to getting home early, even if it meant losing a couple hours worth of pay for the week. He’d take the financial hit just to have an early break from Victor. He wasn’t sure just how much more of working with this guy he could take.

  Meanwhile, Victor was taking a big disgusting bite of his own sandwich.

  Jose glanced over and then quickly turned away. He wished he hadn’t looked. Jose found it torturous having to eat with Victor. He’d hardly worked with Victor a week, and he already despised lunchtime with the creep. Victor would chew with his mouth open. And he would talk with his mouth full, spewing chunks of food and spittle when he did. He slurped his drinks, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand or his shirtsleeve, and he had a nasty habit of sniffing, snorting and snuffling constantly while he ate. Then, when he finally did blow his nose, he would openly inspect what had been discharged as if he was consulting the operating manual for some difficult-to-use device.

  But like watching a car crash, Jose found himself observing these horrible displays. It was like some sort of sadistic self-punishment he’d subject himself to if for no other reason than to be able to better describe this poor wretch to his buddies at the bar after work.

  “What in the hell are you eating?” Jose asked at last, unable to contain himself.

  “Burger…want some?” Victor jabbed the half-eaten burger at him.

  Jose recoiled in disgust. “Ugh…man, is that thing even cooked? That’s disgusting!”

  Victor shrugged. “It’s great. You really taste the meat when it’s like this. Cooking it too much takes all the flavor out of it. Cooks it all out in the juices.” He took another big bite, several bits of reddish-pink burger meat dropping onto his grime-covered pants. He quickly picked them up and popped them into his mouth along with the rest of his bite.