by Dave Conifer
~~~
Nick knew something was wrong as soon as he pulled open the sliding glass door and went inside. “Is somebody crying?” Dewey asked. That’s exactly what it was, Nick knew. He followed the sound into the living room, where Sarah was hunched on the couch, sobbing. One of her daughters was on either side, each looking dazed. When Nick and Dewey entered they looked up, startled.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asked. “What happened?”
Sarah wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “We had visitors,” she said, carefully holding up an arm in a way that made it plain that she’d suffered an injury. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I opened the door when they knocked. It was a man and his family. Three little boys,” she added, her voice cracking. “They were asking for food.”
“Uh oh,” Dewey said.
“And?” Nick asked.
“I know we talked about this,” Sarah went on. “I told them if they waited until you were back, maybe we could help them out. Nick, he had this crazy look in his eye. I never should have opened the door.”
“Or you should have had the rifle in your hand,” Nick said. “That’s why we left it.”
“This all happened just now?” Dewey asked.
“A half hour ago, maybe,” Sarah explained. “I tried to close the door, but he blocked it with his foot. He said he couldn’t wait, he had to have some food and water for his sons. Then he pushed the door open and knocked me down. He waved his family in while I was lying there. The wife sat on me. Right on my back!”
“Where were Jenny and Ashley?” Dewey asked.
“They came out of the bedroom, but I made them go back,” Sarah said. “The man took his boys right past me into the kitchen. A minute later they came back out. They had all the water I put in bottles last night. The little boys were carrying them. And he had two shopping bags. He took almost all the canned food we had.” Her face wrinkled up and she began to sob again. “I’m sorry,” she said, choking out the words. “Now we’re no better off than they are. I’m so sorry.”
A few thoughts popped into Nick’s head, but he held back. It hadn’t been very long since he'd been the one who’d screwed up, and she’d gone easy on him about it. Instead of showing his anger, he put his arm around her. “We’ll get by,” he said. “At least nobody got hurt. Not too bad, anyway.” He looked at her arm. “We’ll have to find a way to get that checked out.”
“They didn’t go into the basement did they?” Dewey asked. Sarah shook her head to indicate that they hadn’t. “Because Nick and me took a whole bunch of cans down there. So we still have some cans left.”
"His wife said she was sorry," Sarah said. "And that they'd pay us back when they could." She rubbed her eyes. "The world's turned upside down on us."
~~~
“Looks good,” Penny said from the other side of the fence the next morning. Nick was puttering around the outhouse, backfilling some holes around the outside walls and gathering the tools that Dewey had left outside overnight despite Nick’s request that he bring them down to the basement. “A real palace.”
“Thanks,” Nick said. “It was something to do. We really needed it, too. You guys are welcome to use it. Speaking of that, I’ve got some ideas I wanted to talk to you and Tom about.” He explained what they’d discussed the day before about forming a co-op between the four houses.
“Sounds great,” Penny said. “I’ll run it by Tom and see what he thinks.”
Nick knew what Tom would think. Tom wasn’t going to be able to take care of himself and his sizable family if this went on much longer. Life was getting more primitive every day, not to mention dangerous, and Tom wasn’t physically equipped for that. If he’d been around the day before, he’d have been about as useful as Matt and Dewey had been, if that. Tom barely knew how to start his own lawn mower. He’d jump at the opportunity.
“Okay,” Nick said. “It’s just an idea for now. We’ll get together and hammer it out.”
“I have to say, I never thought you’d be building a porta-potty back here. This is some crazy stuff happening, huh?” Penny asked. “The power outage, and all?”
“Sure is,” Nick agreed.
“How much longer will it last?”
“You know everything I know,” Nick told her. “Dewey thinks this is long term, and he could be right.”
“Starting to look that way,” Penny said. Still leaning on the fence, she shifted her weight. “No, I never thought I’d see anything like this. It’s hard with kids. You can’t explain it to them because you don’t understand it yourself. They don’t like that.”
“They’re smart kids,” Nick said. “They’ll deal with it in their own ways. Funny, I remember when each one of them was born. I know them better than I know my own daughter now, I guess.”
Penny reached out and touched his arm. “How are they doing? Do you keep in touch?”
“Yeah I do,” Nick said. “At least until this happened. Val, too.” He smiled. “Unfortunately, they’re doing great.”
“Tom and I always felt horrible about how that all worked out.”
“Yeah, I don’t feel so good about it either,” Nick told her. “But what’s done is done, right?”
“Sure enough,” Penny said. “Are you taking care of yourself? I heard you spent a few hours alone in the basement the other night.”
“I’m good,” Nick said. He raised his eyebrows. “You and Sarah are getting to be friends, huh?”
“A couple of gossip girls,” Penny conceded.
Nick looked at the empty yard behind her. “No dog? No kids? What gives?”
“Tom took them all on a hike,” Penny said. “They left five minutes ago. I expect them all back in five more, max.”
Nick laughed. “That sounds about right. I think he can last that long.”
“I have to get back in,” Penny said. “I promised them I’d have lunch ready when they got back. Not that I have much to feed them with. I just wanted to see how you were making out, and give you some props for the new outhouse.”
~~~
Nothing changed much over the next few days. As expected, the four households surrounding the outhouse all committed to Nick’s new alliance without much discussion, agreeing to pool their food supplies and work together to meet needs that were not fully known to them yet. Nick surmised from what he heard and saw around the neighborhood that others were doing the same. It didn’t surprise him. There probably wasn’t any single household that had everything they’d need to get by. But four or five could get by together, if they shared what they had.
Ten
“How’s the water supply?” Nick asked Matt a few days later. During a quick trip to the outhouse that morning he’d spotted Matt in his own backyard. Surrounding him was a jumble of empty ice-blue water jugs, the ones that snapped onto their fancy water cooler. In better days, they’d already have exchanged the empties for full ones. “I thought you said you were swimming in the stuff. Get it? Swimming?”
“Ha ha. But they went faster than I expected,” Matt answered. “We’re down to four jugs. We didn’t have as much on hand to begin with as I thought.”
“Wow. Four?” No wonder, Nick thought as he examined Matt’s smooth face, which had obviously been shaved pink earlier that morning. Ever thought of conserving the stuff?
“I was thinking of taking as many jugs as I can down to the creek to fill them up. It won’t be drinkable, but it’ll be better than nothing.”
“Not a bad idea,” Nick said. “Maybe we could find a way to clean it up once you get it back here. We could always boil it. That would kill a lot of the stuff in it.”
“I’m already thinking about how to get them down to the creek to fill them,” Matt said. “They’re awkward to lug around, even when they’re empty.”
“And getting the full ones back here won’t be a picnic, either,” added Nick.
“Believe me,” Matt said. “I thought of that.”
“I wouldn’t do it during daylight,�
� Nick advised. “People are starting to get thirsty around here. No use tempting anybody. I hate to be like that, but that’s the way it is.”
“I’m still in the planning stages,” Matt said. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He shrugged. “It’s good to have something to focus on. Something like this. Something that could be useful. If nothing else, it keeps me from just sitting around wondering when the power’s coming back on.”
“I’m glad you’re working on this,” Nick said. “Clean water’s going to be the new gold. It already is. Joe Garrison came by yesterday and asked for some water for his family. We gave him some, but we just couldn’t afford to give him as much as he asked for. And he’s my friend.”
~~~
One hot, sweaty night, a few weeks after they’d built the latrine, Nick heard voices outside while lying on the living room couch trying to get to sleep. Moving slowly, he rolled from the couch and stood up in one deft motion. He crept to the window and gently eased the curtains aside. The quarter-moon provided little light, but he could make out a pickup truck parked on the street. Several dark figures were moving around on the sidewalk beside it.
Nick rubbed his eyes. These men had a working vehicle, something he hadn’t seen many of recently. As he speculated about their intentions, he wondered what other advantages they might hold. He felt his way to the front door and opened it a crack.
“We’re overloaded now,” he heard a man say. “We hit the jackpot at that last place. We should stop for the night.”
“There’s room. We need everything we can get. We can hit a couple more houses.” Nick watched as they assembled on the sidewalk and moved toward his house. The next words sent a chill down Nick’s spine. “At least this one.”
Nick recognized the voice, and understood the sentiment. “Dewey!” he hissed. “Dewey!” He moved across the room as quickly as he could in the dark and shook Dewey violently by the shoulders. “Dewey! Get up! Hurry! We got looters!”
Dewey scrambled to his feet, knocking Nick backwards. “What? Looters?” He fumbled around on the coffee table until he found his glasses. “Let me get my shirt on.”
“Don’t worry about it! Just get over here!” Nick said on his way back to the door. The men were at the foot of the driveway now. A glint of moonlight flashed off metal in the hands of two of them. They were armed. This mob meant business. He pulled the door open and stepped outside, followed by his lanky, shirtless sidekick. “No matter what, we have to keep them from getting inside this house,” he said to Dewey. “You hear me?”
The bandits stopped cold when their flashlight beam caught Nick and Dewey on the porch. There were five or six of them, Nick decided. All wore ski masks to hide their identities, but Nick had no doubt that one of them was Ryne Cronin. “Who’s there?” he yelled. “Don’t come any closer! What do you want?”
“Looks like they have guns,” Dewey whispered.
“Why didn’t we grab the rifle?” Nick hissed back, but Dewey had already disappeared back inside.
“We’re collecting supplies,” a voice came back. It wasn’t Ryne Cronin’s. “By order of the mayor. We’re authorized to take possession of food, water and basic staples. Everything we collect will be rationed out to you and your neighbors according to need.”
“What are they talking about?” Nick whispered to Dewey, who’d already returned with the rifle. Nick was glad he’d readied it to fire before going to bed, the same way he’d done every night since pulling it out of the closet.
“No way,” Dewey said. “They’re lying. They wouldn’t be doing it like this. Not in the middle of the night.”
“If you have a weapon,” the voice continued, “put it down and back away from it. You are required by law to stand down and let us inside, so we can assess your stores and acquire your required contribution.”
“Acquire this!” Dewey shouted back as he aimed the rifle over their heads and pulled the trigger. The crack of the shot echoed off the surrounding houses and into the night. Shocked that Dewey even knew what a trigger was, Nick gently took the gun and ejected the spent shell. Now they know we’re not going to roll over for them, he told himself. He heard the men talking amongst themselves in low voices after scrambling behind their truck.
“Go inside and get everybody out the back door,” Nick ordered Dewey. No use getting Dewey killed, too. Or the others.
“Put that BB gun down and get out of the way!” This time it was Cronin.
“No way, Jose,” Dewey yelled back.
“Get going,” he told Dewey. Again, Dewey didn’t move.
There was more discussion from behind the truck. After what seemed like an eternity, they opened the door and climbed in.
“We’ll be back, Mercator,” Cronin bellowed from where he stood. “Count on it.” Something clicked inside Nick. He pushed Dewey inside and fell in behind him just as a A torrent of automatic rounds raked the front of the house, shattering windows and tearing through the siding.
Nick pushed past Dewey after the shooting subsided and ran into the hallway, where he skidded to a halt. Sarah and her daughters had been sleeping in the bedroom that Cronin had just shot up. “Everybody okay?” he yelled. “Sarah?”
A faint glow appeared under the bedroom door as Nick approached it. “We’re good,” somebody called back.
Nick thought it sounded more like Jenny than Sarah, which alarmed him. When he reached the door and threw it open, a flashlight beam blinded him. “Is anybody hurt?”
The light flicked across the broken glass on the floor to the corner behind the bed, where Sarah was sprawled across little Ashley’s body. “Not unless you are,” Sarah answered. “How about pointing that thing someplace else?”
Relieved, Nick blew all the air from his lungs and lowered the rifle. “Thank God you got down low,” he said. “How’d you know?”
“Jenny heard an argument and woke us up,” Sarah explained. “As soon as we heard a gunshot, we hit the floor.”
“Good work, Jenny,” Nick said approvingly.
“That was my shot they heard,” Dewey pointed out. Nick could almost hear him beaming proudly in the dark.
“Who were those people?” Sarah asked.
“It sounded like they had a car,” said Jenny.
“One of them is a neighborhood tough guy I’ve known for years,” Nick explained. “I don’t know who the others were.”
“They were looters,” Dewey said. “The back of that truck was full, too. I wonder how many people they’ve pulled that stunt on.” He went on to explain how the men had tried to convince them that they were authorized by law to requisition supplies. “Their cover story probably works better when they have the element of surprise,” he said. “Good thing you heard them.”
“And it didn’t hurt that we had this,” Nick replied, tapping on the stock of the rifle.
“I hate to say it,” Sarah said, “but that’s probably a good lesson for us. I’m glad you had that gun ready, after all.”
Eleven
As the days passed, Nick’s nose told him that not many others had done anything to deal with their own waste, human or otherwise, the way he, Dewey and Matt had on behalf of the new alliance. Every morning he saw people emerge from their houses carrying buckets and pans to the storm drains, or sometimes only as far the curb to dump them out. Even before the stench reached him, he knew what was in those buckets.
Unfortunately, there was never enough rain to wash it clean, creating a horrific odor that grew stronger with the heat. Even worse were the ones who apparently did their business wherever and whenever the need arose. It seemed that nobody wanted to follow any rules anymore. It was all breaking down so much faster than he’d ever have expected.
The number of vagrants tramping through the neighborhood increased every day. At first they were treated kindly, even when residents politely turned them down when they asked for handouts. As time went on, the encounters turned gruff and sometimes even violent, as people in Crestview realized that the
y themselves weren’t much better off than the empty-handed wanderers, if at all. Fear replaced kindness. Now, strangers knocked on doors at their own peril. Increasingly well-armed, residents who were even willing to open their door to someone they didn’t know were likely doing it with the intention of discouraging future solicitations.
“I’m worried about the raw sewage all over the place,” Nick told Dewey early the next week. They were lounging in a couple of plastic chairs by the outhouse, which, oddly, had become a hangout for alliance members to keep in touch, swap stories, and fill a growing need for companionship. “There’s a reason why there are so many health problems in third world countries. That’s part of it.”
“It’s getting bad,” Dewey agreed. “But, like, it takes a lot of work to dig a real latrine. I learned the hard way. I couldn’t have done it myself, and I’m in better shape than most people around here. I don’t think many people are up to the task, even if they knew they needed a latrine. Which they don’t. As a matter of fact, most of them don’t have a clue about what to do about anything these days. It’s like they’re not even trying.”
“Some of these houses must stink to high heaven inside by now,” Nick said.
“I’m more worried about running out of water, dude,” Dewey said. “Even with Matt’s water cooler jugs, we’re running low.”
“I got news for you,” Nick said. “I saw him out in his yard with his jugs the other day. They’re mostly empty now. He’s as dry as the rest of us.”
Dewey scratched at his beard as he considered this. “That’s not good. He told us he was loaded with water.”
“Even if they were full, they wouldn’t have lasted forever. It’s not a solution. Maybe we should be collecting rainwater,” Nick said. “I have no idea.”
“Me neither. It’s not like we’ve had a lot of rain, anyway.”
“He was brainstorming about collecting water and sanitizing it,” Nick said. “The problem is getting the jugs down to the creek to fill them.”