Wolf nodded once again and asked, “So, does that mean I might be able to come back here to hang out with you and get some more birds?”
Fish wore a massive grin as he replied, “Yeah, kid. A lot more.”
*****
Stephen had bid a hasty farewell to the Martinez’ after he heard the sound of a vehicle moving at high speed through The Park. He assumed that it could have been one of two concerns. First, and most likely, it was either the bridge or the gate team bringing down an injured person (which was true). Or secondly, he thought the vehicle might have been an infiltrator that breached the main gate and was now roaming around freely inside The Park. Either way, Stephen was headed to Carrie’s site. He wanted to check on his family. Oh, and of course, he needed (wanted) to find out what had happened.
The men that had brought Kip down from the bridge were still at Carrie’s site when Stephen arrived. The Kays had spotted Stephen power-walking toward the site and screamed “Daddy!” as they ran to him. Tarra was right behind the girls, for she was extremely relieved to see her husband.
Stephen saw the Chevy with the broken rear window and the two men from the bridge team, but he didn’t see Carrie.
“What happened?” Stephen asked Tarra as she jumped into his arms. Stephen continued to survey the scene as he hugged his wife, it was the first time he had been to Carrie’s site.
“A whole laundry list, baby. Come sit down and I’ll explain everything,” Tarra told him.
The driver of the truck greeted Stephen as he and his family moved to the picnic table. The man enthusiastically stated to Stephen as he shook his hand, “You’re wife is one hell of an athlete!”
Stephen smiled at the compliment, but was confused. Tarra put her hand up before she sat down and said, “I’ll explain that too.”
Dakota was still at the table, and stared at Stephen as he sat down. He was studying him. Maybe it was Stephen’s M-4 rifle on his shoulder that fascinated the little boy. Most males are captivated by firearms at any age.
Before Tarra began, Stephen tousled Dakota’s hair and said, “Let me guess, this is Hal Hollingsworth’s little boy?”
Tarra was baffled that Stephen knew and said, “Yeah. How did you know that?”
“Because Carrie mentioned it at the three o’clock meeting. I’m surprised he’s still here, which is not good. Hal had ran off during the meeting to find his wife. Apparently she is MIA.”
“MIA?” Tarra asked.
“Missing In Action,” Stephen clarified. Tarra understood and smirked a bit, because she figured Carrie had intentionally stirred up some drama at the meeting.
Stephen redirected the conversation, “So what’s going on?”
Tarra explained everything that went down that afternoon, from Julia and Sydney dropping off Dakota all the way up to her saving the little boy’s life, which subsequently put Carrie through the truck’s rear window.
“Good God!” Stephen exclaimed. “You’ve had one seriously messed up day! Is Carrie okay? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Tarra sighed. She wasn’t lying. Tarra only dreaded the impending confrontation with Julia. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
Tarra also reenacted for Stephen how Carrie stood up in the truck after everyone thought she was dead. Stephen was astounded and couldn’t speak, so Tarra nodded and confirmed, “Yeah, Carrie was in total beast mode!”
The driver had joined the group at the picnic table and revisited the scenario where Tarra had leapt out in front of the truck to pull Dakota to safety. He seemed overly impressed by Tarra’s actions. Maybe even a little too impressed for Stephen’s taste.
As the driver concluded his exuberant life-saving story, Julia and Sydney were spotted walking toward Carrie’s site.
“Uh, oh. Here we go,” Tarra announced as she pointed at the approaching women.
Julia noticed the damaged truck and ran toward the picnic table, turning up the drama factor on the way there by frantically screaming, “Oh my God, where’s my son?”
Hmmm…as if she really cared as much.
“He’s over here, Julia. He’s fine,” Tarra yelled as she stood up from the table and picked up Dakota.
Julia retrieved Dakota from Tarra and in full theatrical fashion kissed him repeatedly on the cheek. She had observed the Band-Aid on Dakota’s forehead and proceeded to freak out.
“What the fuck happened to my son?” she interrogated.
Tarra replied, “Calm down, let me explain.”
Sydney had joined Julia, and both women were examining the Band-Aid on Dakota’s forehead as if it was the most gruesome wound they had ever seen. Tarra attempted to get through the factual version of what had happened, but Julia didn’t want to hear it.
“This is absolutely unacceptable. I never should have trusted you!” Julia screamed. Tarra just held her head low and took it in the ass as Julia fumed.
The driver of the truck had witnessed enough of the reprimand and joined the conversation. He jumped in and defended Tarra by saying, “She just saved your son’s life! You should be thanking her, not yelling at her!”
Julia sneered at him and said, “No, she didn’t save his life. The way I see it, she almost killed my son due to her negligence!”
Sydney was horse-nodding next to Julia as if she completely agreed. Tarra really, really wanted to fire back at Julia, but maintained her composure and allowed Julia to get the fury out of her system. Whether the anger was genuine or not…who knew?
Julia turned her sneer from the driver back to Tarra and declared, “I’m going straight to Claudine about this. You’ll be lucky if you even get to stay in this park after I’m through.”
Tarra nervously looked at Stephen as if to say, “Did I just get us into trouble?”
Stephen was about to say something in Tarra’s defense, maybe to calm down the two overly dramatic women and rationalize the situation, but he didn’t need to.
Carrie suddenly bounded out of RV. She hadn’t cleaned herself up yet, and the semi-congealed blood still remained on the side of her face. She wore a scowl the size of Massachusetts as she stomped toward the two attention whores that were ganging up on Tarra at the picnic table.
“Julia,” Carrie shouted, “you go right ahead and take your complaints to Claudine. In fact, I’ll go with you. Let’s go right now.”
Julia and Sydney were too stunned to speak. Carrie appeared very menacing with the blood on her face, and neither of the two women could determine whether she was supporting them or fucking with them.
Carrie continued, “C’mon bitch, let’s go! I’m not joking around!”
It was clear now, Carrie wasn’t supporting them. The tall nurse tried to grab Sydney’s arm as if to get them moving, but Sydney fearfully flinched away and abandoned her friend a few yards away as Carrie got into Julia’s face. She towered over the terrified mother holding her child.
“You go ahead and tell your pathetic little story to Claudine. Then, I’ll tell her some things. I’ll tell her about how malnourished your child is. I’ll tell her that your son has had an upper-respiratory infection for what appears to be weeks now. I’ll tell her about Dakota’s extremely limited vocabulary for a three year-old. You want to talk to Claudine about negligence? Let’s go! The only reason YOU are even allowed to stay in The Park is because of your husband!”
Julia’s eyes popped wide open. She was in the wrong, and she knew it. She said to Sydney, “Let’s get out of here. I need to think about some things before we go to Claudine.”
Tarra laughed loudly as the two women scurried away from site 72. As they walked away, Carrie’s rage had met its apex, and she shouted something she probably shouldn’t have.
“Everyone knows that you’re fucking around on Hal!” Carrie shouted in a sinister tone. Everyone shuddered and went silent. Carrie looked around at everyone, they all had that “oops” look on their faces, and nobody spoke. They saw something that Carrie didn’t.
“Say what?” a man shouted fr
om the road. It was Hal Hollingsworth. What was he doing there?
Oh, shit.
Sydney immediately jumped ship and scampered away from Julia, leaving her friend alone on the road. She ran toward Lower Loop as Hal stormed toward his unfaithful wife.
“Is that true?” Hal asked. Julia shook her head in denial, but said nothing. Hal couldn’t believe anything his wife told him. He had suspected things in the past, but now he had semi-confirmation of his suspicions. He left his wife and child standing in the road and moved to Carrie.
“Who is it, then?” Hal demanded.
“Hal, I’m so sorry,” Carrie said as she shook her head.
“Carrie, tell me right now, or I’m gonna fuckin’ lose it!”
“I think she should tell you,” Carrie said, pointing at Julia, who had taken the opportunity to exit stage right. She was moving quickly toward Lower Loop.
“Carrie, please don’t pull my strings right now. My wife isn’t going to tell me jack shit. She’ll just lie to me. I just want to know the truth,” Hal pleaded.
Carrie couldn’t let the poor man languish anymore. He needed to know the truth. At least as much of it as she knew, anyway. Carrie sighed and said, “He’s on the beach team. Night shift, I think. I don’t know his name. That’s all I know, Hal. I swear.”
Hal looked at Stephen and said, “Your buddy is the night shift team leader, correct?”
“Yeah,” Stephen replied. He wondered what the relevance was.
“Can I trust him?” Hal asked.
“I would imagine so. Depends on what you are planning to do,” Stephen said, then continued by asking, “what exactly are you planning to do?”
Hal shook his head and said, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” His angry face had disappeared and was replaced with expressions of disappointment and pain.
Everyone watched silently as the sullen man slowly walked away from site 72.
*****
Wolf sat patiently on the bench of the picnic table at site 199. He was careful to place the dead birds away from the site, choosing a pine needle covered spot next to a very tall tree. Wolf had remembered something from school about dead animals carrying diseases, and he certainly didn’t want Fish’s friend Stephen to catch a disease from the birds.
Most young men of Wolf’s age would find themselves bored to death waiting at a picnic table, and would find some type of mischief to get into. After all, he did have his trusty slingshot with him. But Wolf was on a mission. He wanted to impress his new friend, Fish, so he was doing exactly as he was instructed. Fish was really cool, and he had a really cool dog as well. He also had a super awesome monster truck! Or, the truck could have been Stephen’s, but Wolf was pretty sure that it was Fish’s.
Fish reminded Wolf of his deceased neighbor, Douglas Townsend. Mr. Doug always helped out Wolf’s mom a lot, since Wolf’s father had never been around. The little boy didn’t even know who his real father actually was. He could have been anybody. How could his mother not have known who he was? She had joked around and said something in the past about “having too much fun” – and little Wolf had an idea of what that might have meant, but he wasn’t entirely sure, and refused to ask for clarification. Maybe Fish was his father and he had finally found him? What a wonderful day that would be!
It was just a fantasy.
After The Collapse had occurred, Mr. Doug had helped Wolf and his mother escape from Oak Harbor and set up shelter in The Park just before Claudine and William Probst had arrived. Before The Collapse, Mr. Doug took Wolf and his mother camping a lot at The Park, and it was Mr. Doug who had bought the Wrist Rocket for Wolf on his 10th birthday. Since then, Wolf had gone through multiple bands and thousands of rounds of steel shot. Mr. Doug had faithfully replaced everything as Wolf practiced, which ultimately led to the boy’s incredible accuracy to the present day.
Mr. Doug had passed away during the epic Safeway run. The men that had been with Mr. Doug that day told Wolf that Mr. Doug wanted to “really impress your mommy” so he did something a little too brave at the Safeway store and was shot to death by bad men up on the roof. Wolf was extra sorrowful that day. He had looked at Mr. Doug as a father figure, and he was pretty sure that his mommy really liked Mr. Doug, too, because she cried for a very long time after the men had informed her of the terrible news.
A day or two after Mr. Doug’s unfortunate death, Wolf had learned about a man that single-handedly shot down all those men up on that roof. Nobody knew what his name was, and he wasn’t a resident of The Park to anyone’s knowledge. He was a total mystery, which intrigued Wolf even more. The man became Wolf’s new superhero. Even more than Spiderman or Wolverine! Wolf spent many hours replaying the scene over and over in his head, how the Safeway Guy snuck up behind all those bad men and BANG-BANG-BANG shot them all down! Blood and guts were everywhere! It was so glorious! Then the Safeway Guy ran up to the dead bodies and kicked them all in the face! “That’s for Wolf! You killed his mommy’s best friend!” the Safeway Guy would holler as he bashed in all the skulls of the nasty men on the roof with his boot.
Wolf made a pact with himself that if he ever met the Safeway Guy in real life, that he would do two things. One, he would give the Safeway Guy the only item that meant anything to him in this world; his Wrist Rocket. Two, he would make sure that the Safeway Guy was introduced to his mom, so she would know who killed all those bad men (and in his daydreams, bashed in all their faces) that murdered Mr. Doug. Wolf didn’t really want to give away his slingshot, but since nobody knew who the Safeway Guy was, the odds of him actually meeting the man were slim to none anyway. If Wolf had not been such a loner, he might have known that the Safeway Guy had recently taken up residence in The Park!
Wolf snapped out of his daydream as he observed a sour-faced man walking toward site 199. At first, the man had stopped when he saw Wolf, but then continued after studying the boy for a moment. He walked right up to the site and curiously scanned the area. Wolf was afraid of the man. He had seen him around The Park before, but didn’t know his name. He definitely wasn’t Stephen, though. Wolf knew that the mean guy had some type of important job for Claudine and William, and was always yelling at people.
“What are you doing here, kid?” the mean guy asked.
“I’m waiting for Stephen. What are you doing here?” Wolf countered.
“None of your business. I’m a good friend of Stephen’s,” the mean guy stated with a hint of sarcasm as he tried to open the driver’s side door of the monster truck. It was locked, and the mean guy said some bad words.
“Mister, I don’t think you should be doing that,” Wolf warned as the mean guy went around to the passenger side of the truck to try the other door.
“I told you to mind your own fucking business, kid. Stephen asked me to come get something for him, and I am trying to find it.”
Wolf became nervous. There was no way that the mean guy was friends with Stephen. He was snooping around, and Wolf was pretty sure that he was up to no good.
The mean guy moved to the rear of the truck and looked like he was about to climb toward the bed. Wolf had to take action. Fish would be disappointed if he found out that Wolf had permitted someone to creep around the campsite like the mean guy was doing, so Wolf dug into his pocket and withdrew a shiny steel ball.
The mean guy had a really big belly, and he almost fell down the first time he lifted his leg to climb the truck. It was funny, but Wolf didn’t laugh. Instead, he loaded the steel shot into his weapon as the mean guy tried a second time to ascend onto the rear bumper.
“Okay, mister, that’s enough. I think you need to leave now,” Wolf warned, hoping that he wouldn’t have to resort to shooting the man.
“Kid, I am not going to say this again. I’m good friends with Stephen, now shut the fuck up,” the mean guy told Wolf as he actually got his foot up on the bumper the second time. Wolf wondered if there was anything inside the back of the truck that the mean guy could steal. He decided to ask anoth
er question.
“So, if you’re friends with Stephen, then you are good friends with Fish, too. Right?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know them both. Whatever,” the mean guy muttered as he struggled to reach the tailgate.
Wolf made sure the steel shot was centered perfectly in the pouch of the slingshot before asking the next question. The mean guy was still trying to climb the truck.
“What is Fish’s dog’s name?” Wolf asked. “If you are such good friends with those guys, then you would know what the dog’s name is.”
The mean guy stopped climbing and glared down at Wolf. He frowned and his face turned red, because he knew that the boy had busted him.
“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I am going to talk to your mother about this,” the mean guy shouted and pointed a hammy finger at the little boy. Wolf was no longer afraid. Now, he was angry. The mean guy never should have brought his mother into it.
“I think you should get down right now, mister,” Wolf sternly warned for the last time and stood up from the picnic table. The mean guy just laughed. He stood on the rear bumper of the truck and was examining a blue plastic tarp that was covering something. He had grinned mischievously at whatever he saw, and was just about to scale the tailgate of the truck when Wolf decided to take action.
*SNAP*
The mean guy howled in pain as the ring finger knuckle on his left hand exploded and he fell off the truck. He hollered a long list of expletives as he rolled on the ground, holding his battered and bleeding hand to his chest with his other hand. Wolf quickly pulled another round out of his pocket and armed himself, he knew the man would come for him, there was no way around it. He had to seriously defend himself, so the second round he placed into the slingshot’s pouch was double the size of the first one that had demolished the mean guy’s knuckle. Wolf refused to run away.
As predicted, the mean guy got up from the ground and charged the boy. Wolf widened his stance and drew back on the vulcanized rubber band as he aimed at the man’s face. The man stopped in mid-stride, debating with himself whether or not to proceed. Wolf held his ground, shouting, “Mister, this is .50 caliber steel shot. The one I hit your hand with was only .25 caliber.”
THE COLLAPSE: Seeking Refuge Page 9