Outside the Fire

by Boyd Craven

  “I nearly did,” Steve told her, stopping in front of the pitcher pump.

  He started working the pump handle until water started sloshing out. It was so muggy, that the water droplets that hit them both in the legs would have been barely felt, except it was much cooler than the air. After one bucket was finished, Angela took over the pumping and Steve changed buckets out and carried the water back to the fence. They repeated the process until everyone’s was full.

  “Now guys,” Steve said, after Angela and him had finished pumping, “I’m not going to be doing this every day. My house and my property are likewise mine and off limits, despite what the HOA thinks or says.” Steve looked pointedly at Richard.

  “I uh…I told you, I didn’t vote for that,” Richard stuttered.

  “I won’t Mr. T,” Billy said at the same time.

  “I appreciate the help,” another neighbor said, giving Steve an understanding nod.

  “Ok, thanks for understanding. I still have my own stuff to do and I don’t want the entire community here all the time. Now remember, you have to filter and boil that water, the well isn’t deep enough and we live next to a farm,” Steve told them, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

  “You mean, you won’t do this….” one of the neighbors the Taylors hadn’t officially met asked.

  “All the time? Hell, no,” Steve said. “There’s a lake just south of us and to the north of us. Before the golf course is a couple of smaller lakes.”

  “Most of that property is privately owned,” Richard said.

  “But there’s a stream that runs from one of them to the other. Walk to the main road, hook a left and you’re at the stream in less than ten minutes.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Billy said hopefully.

  “It is,” Angela told them.

  The men at the gate looked at each other and gave small waves goodbye. Angela and Steve watched them go.

  “You did great,” Steve said, after he heard Billy’s front door close and kissed her on the side of the head.

  “You did too. I didn’t want them to see the rabbits and the solar panels. Ruffles had another litter.”

  “That’s good. I am going to see if I can get ahold of Dwight and see if we can trade for some pork, next time he gets some butchered.”

  “I’d love that, Steve,” Angela said and kissed him deeply.

  The sound of a bang had Steve jumping up, his heart racing. Angela heard the same and was already rolling off her side. The sound happened once, and seeing his wife’s reactions, he knew it wasn’t just a dream.

  “What was that?” Steve asked her, feeling in the darkness for his shorts.

  “I don’t know, sounded like a door banging shut,” Angela said, pulling her colt from the nightstand drawer.

  Steve located his shorts and pulled them on in one smooth motion then got his own Colt off of his side of the bed, taking a flashlight.

  “What are you going to do?” Angela asked.

  “I’m going to check it out. Go upstairs with the girls. Get ready to call 911, if I start hollering.”

  “You be careful,” she said, coming around the bed and giving him a quick hug before running off on nearly silent steps.

  “I will be,” Steve said, his adrenaline pumping.

  Without turning on the flashlight, he headed through the downstairs on silent feet until he made it to the kitchen. Most of it had windows facing the backyard. The night was dark, but inside the house with no lights, it was darker. Moonlight reflected off the white surfaces of the hutches, and a figure was briefly outlined as a lid to a hutch was opened who jerked its hand back, and the lid fell with a bang. Steve’s blood was boiling in anger, and in the gloom, he checked the chamber on his Colt and then made sure the safety was off before he walked to the sliding door.

  The glass panel had been left open, to let out as much of the hot air as possible and let the slightly cooler night air in. A small battery powered fan was on the floor, helping move things along. Steve barely heard its buzz, but he knew it was probably heard from outside as well. Slowly, he used his left hand to slide the screen open a couple inches. He led with the pistol, and then pushed it open hard, heedless of the sound.

  “Stop!” Steve screamed as the figure opened the third hutch.

  The moonlight silhouetted the figure for a minute, and he could see that it had to have been a woman based on the figure. He was already moving and nearly tripped on his head over the solar panels that ran the swamp cooler. He righted himself as the figure made a dash for the back gate going to Dwight’s. Cursing, he hurried and as the woman fumbled for the latch in one hand, he could see a squirming rabbit to her left, trying to break free.

  He leaped and hit the figure in the waist and felt the claws of the rabbit dig into his shirtless back as it used Steve as a springboard. All three fell and then a buzzing sound, a blue spark lit the night, and Steve started twitching as a taser unloaded on his bare skin. Agony ripped through his body as every muscle fiber flexed, and every nerve ending tried to shoot off at once. Just as it felt like he was going to crush his teeth by clenching his jaw so hard, the taser was removed, and the figure ran out the back gate.

  Steve laid there a couple seconds longer when a flashlight illuminated him. A gun barrel came into sight next to the flashlight just as Steve was getting his muscles to relax enough to start moving his right hand. The gun had fallen close to him, and he was praying he was thankful his finger wasn’t on the trigger when he was hit with the taser when the rabbit hopped into his view.

  “Steve?!” Angela yelled.

  “Fi…Fine…” he said, wiggling his feet and toes.

  “Your…your back. Are you ok?” Angela asked rushing over.

  “Yeah. Somebody tasered me,” Steve spat.

  A light turned on upstairs, one of the LED flashlights Steve equipped the girls with to only be used in the case of emergencies.

  “Tasered? What were they…” Angela held her hand out and Steve tried to reach for it but he didn’t have control enough to get it yet.

  “Call 911,” Steve whispered hoarsely, “they could still be out there.”

  Angela had seen he was already weak and moved to start checking on his injuries.

  “What the hell happened here?” Angela asked again, mostly to herself.

  Steve rolled over on his side, finally getting his muscle control back somewhat. Every nerve ending was still shooting bolts of pain, as if the electricity was still coursing through his body. Despite that, he made his way onto his butt while his wife checked his vital signs over, her flashlight searching for injuries, his back first and foremost the worst looking. If he was just hit with a taser, she knew to keep a feel on his pulse but the fact he was moving already told her he would be ok.

  “Somebody was in here trying to get one of the rabbits, I think.”

  “I told Amy to call 911 when I saw you rushing at the figure. I told her to stay upstairs,” Angela said.

  Steve pulled his knees to his chest and then straightened back out, stretching. “Did you catch the rabbit, at least?” Steve asked.

  “You’re so silly, but I love you anyway,” Angela said as the upstairs window opened, and Amber leaned out.

  “Is everyone ok?” Amber yelled through the window. Amy’s little face was in the curtain next to her older sister.

  “Yeah, did you get a chance to call 911?”

  “Yeah, they said to call back if someone was hurt.”

  “I wonder why the hell they would say that?” Steve asked his wife quietly.

  “Probably because they have bigger things going on tonight,” Angela said softly.

  CHAPTER 20

  It took the police four days to come out, and when they finally showed up it was the County Sheriffs, Lucy and Ron. Matthew walked over with Lucy, and they all talked about what had gone on and what actually happened. Lucy was in her plain clothes, but she still had her service pistol on her hip with the Sheriff’s Department badge displa
yed prominently on the side of her belt.

  “Did you come in the cruiser today?” Angela asked.

  “Not today, and maybe not after this week either.”

  “What do you mean?” Steve asked her.

  “I know the president gave the executive order, on top of the martial law, but there’s no relief in sight. There’s no help coming, and the promise of food and supplies was either greatly misinformed or an outright lie,” Matthew told them.

  “Oh man, so no paycheck still?” Amber asked, the curiosity of a teenager trumping her usual manners.

  “No,” Lucy said. “It’s been rough. There have been rumors that they are going to federalize the Sherriff’s Department but that hasn’t happened yet. Even a case of MREs would be welcome right about now.”

  Steve was about to talk when Matthew’s stomach rumbled.

  “How are you guys set for supplies?” Angela asked.

  Steve gave her a slight nod, as if to tell her to follow her instincts.

  “We have food, but fuel…the last couple of tanker deliveries in town hasn’t made it in. My boss isn’t broadcasting it, but they think the fuel deliveries are getting hi-jacked somewhere on the highway.”

  “No way,” Amber said, and then looked sideways as Amy walked out of the laundry room.

  “Little ears,” Matthew whispered to Lucy.

  “It’s ok,” Angela said, “she’s ten going on thirty.”

  “I also wanted to say sorry that I’ve not made it over here sooner, even though I’m spending a lot of time in the subdivision—”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve been busy,” Steve told her. “Any news you can share?”

  “Well, I’ve been busy, and I don’t know if it’s news or not, but two houses towards the front of the subdivision had home invasions.”

  “What?” most of the Taylor family chorused.

  “Only two so far. They said men with Hispanic accents kicked in their front door and held the family at gunpoint while they took the food and anything of value they could find. One house had a few guns and ammunition, and they took that too,” Lucy told them frankly.

  “Oh god, did anybody get hurt?” Steve asked her.

  “No,” Deputy Ron said. “Just a little roughed up. Bumps and bruises, but it could have gone worse, much, much worse.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” Angela asked.

  “There is a community meeting at the HOA clubhouse…” Mathew said, his words trailing off into dead air.

  “Great,” Steve said after a few minutes.

  After the cops had left, the Taylor family decided they did want to go to the community meeting after all. It wasn’t that they wanted to look at the faces of the HOA leaders in the eye and talk to them, but the idea of pulling together as a community for mutual defense seemed like a good idea in light of the recent break-ins. The good thing they had going for them was that they had the Sheriff’s deputy, Lucy, to work with them. Her relationship with Matthew had only grown and deepened in the month that they had officially been together. Steve had always wondered why Matthew seemed to have pulled away from the newfound friendship, he figured the situation was weird enough, without adding in the stress of a new girlfriend and what looked like a country doomed to collapse.

  Weird in other ways, such as his own daughter, Amber, and Matthew’s son are starting to get along in their own budding relationship. Mix that in with the fact that with a new girlfriend, he probably didn’t have a lot of time to do things. And if he was being fair with himself, Steve was spending a lot of time over at Dwight’s farm, ensuring that his family had enough food to put away. He replanted all his planter boxes, something that he’d been doing every time a crop finished in the Georgia weather, but his own small gardening endeavors weren’t enough.

  He knew he was pretty well set, but one thing you couldn’t have out of buckets of freeze-dried food, rice, beans or whatever…was fresh greens. Sure, you could reconstitute freeze-dried food, but it didn’t taste the same; it didn’t have the same flavor. With the change in their diets, the girls were suddenly curious about vegetables and grains again.

  The meeting coincided the night before the next Sunday service, something the Taylors had been skipping out on. They had gone a couple of times since the power had been going on and off, but without a steady and reliable way of telling time as all their batteries kept dying on them, they just got out of the habit. Yeah, Steve knew he could recharge them what his small solar set up, but they didn’t want to get that out and get that all set, yet.

  Neighbors, new and old, would start dropping over and asking for buckets of water. The days of reliable electricity were getting fewer and fewer. For a while there, they’d get up to a few hours a day to get power. Now if they were lucky, they got four hours every four days. It was never reliable, it would always happen at unexpected moments…almost like they were trying new things out. When the power was on, people would try to check the radio and check the TV, but there were no signals. More than a few times Steve had kicked himself for never getting into communications gear. He’d always heard about shortwave radios, CBs, and other stuff. He didn’t have anything like that, and with the power being all wonky he didn’t know if anyone else would be using it either, but that idea was still left open. It was still one checkbox left unchecked.

  The Taylor family walked into the community building for the subdivision. It was already packed when they got there, but they were able to get seated. In another twenty minutes, it was so full people were standing in the back of the room. Jeff caught Steve’s eyes, and a dark look crossed his face. Steve shot him a smile and a little jaunty wave. Matthew walked up with a LED, battery-powered lantern and turned it on and put it in the middle of the plastic folding tables that the HOA leaders liked to sit behind as if they were judges holding court.

  Jeff spoke first, the weasel dick wanted to discuss the recent break-ins, and did so at length. He pointed out the two families that had been held at gunpoint and asked the community to see if they could help. That opened up the discussion when someone stood up and pointed out they didn’t hardly have anything to share. That talk went on as other people went off topic and took turns standing and speaking, with the HOA leadership board throwing questions in here and there.

  Lack of food, lack of transportation, lack of fuel, and lack of medical attention were all topics that were brought up. Steve sat between his wife, Angela, and little Amy. Little bit. Early on Angela’s hand snaked into Steve’s right and as people were describing how dire the situation was getting, Amy’s hand snaked into her father’s left. The girls and Angela kept shooting Steve looks, but he shook his head slowly, as if to say this isn’t the right time. Surveying the crowd, the Taylor family saw a lot of people were starting to look on the thin side. That’s when someone said something that made Steve sit straight up, as if a bolt of electricity had zapped him in the ass.

  “How about we go and talk to that farmer on the backside of the property?” someone shouted from the audience.

  Steve tried to pick out who’d called the question but he couldn’t find them in this sea of faces. Jeff looked over at Steve. Jeff looked at Steve thoughtfully and steepled his fingers together, touching his thumbs to his lips a couple of times in a tapping motion. He looked over at the Taylor family and spoke.

  “Steve Taylor, you know Dwight Abbott the best, do you think he would be willing to help the community out? Provided of course, we can pay for it.”

  Steve stood up. “Dwight is a reasonable man, I think he probably would. I don’t think he gives it away for free, but who knows what’s in a man’s heart. I can ask him for the community,” Steve said, but kept standing.

  Matthew spoke. “I’ve gotten to know Dwight a little bit myself, and here’s something I think needs to be said, and I don’t care if it pisses any of y’all off. This foolishness that this board has perpetrated against the Taylor family and the Abbott farm needs to be talked about. We look like hypocrites
if we suddenly go over looking like beggar princes after raising hell, trying to get them shut down, trying to even get him to sell the land off for some kind of real estate bullshit,” Matthew said, looking angrily at Jeff. “So my advice to you guys, is to make your apologies. Be damn humble about it, especially before you ask him what the price is going to be. You never know, he might be a better Christian than all of you. Steve, will you ask him?”

  Steve nodded. “I said I would.”

  “All things considered,” Jeff said, “that’s damn kind of you.”

  That admission looked like it had to have been forced out, the way a kidney stone was passed. From the back of the crowd, someone shouted, “Yeah, but you’re still a Yankee,” and the tension in the crowd broke a little bit as people started chuckling.

  Steve sat down. Amber stood up, looking more like Angela with every passing day. “Do we know anything more about the people who broke in?” she said and then sat down. That seemed to have gotten everyone’s attention, and then the board member started sharing what they heard.

  The next part of that discussion on the break-in seemed to go on for an hour. When asked if anyone had any ideas for a solution, Steve told them why not put together a neighborhood watch. Except, for a watch that could run 24/7, it would require people to stay awake or work third shift. In the community center, there had to have been 200 people. Three people stood up, and said they would be willing to help. Steve said he would help also, but at this point they would get together after the meeting or Sunday to talk about things and discuss how to react to an armed home intrusion.

  Professor Toodles stood up and started berating the volunteers, telling them they couldn’t do a neighborhood watch, especially if it was going to be people that were going to be armed.

  “Why should I disarm if I’m volunteering to keep an eye on the community as I walk around?” Steve asked him in a loud voice.