by L. L. Akers
Empty.
He yanked his T-shirt up around his nose, and waved Jake back, quickly and quietly shutting the door again. The toilet was filled to the rim with a brown and yellow liquid mess.
They moved to the next door and Grayson flung it open.
No one there either.
They stepped in to what appeared to be Puck’s bedroom.
The carpet on the floor was so shabby that it showed patches of the sub-flooring beneath. The bed was covered in a tattered Star Trek comforter. An old TV stand held an even older television and an Xbox game system. Posters hung on two of the walls. Over the dresser were pictures of muscle cars and skate-boarding scenes. Over the bed, hung half a dozen eyebrow-raising poses of nearly naked young women with long legs and big titties.
Uh oh, Grayson thought. Maybe Jake was right to be concerned about Puck.
Quietly, they moved around the room, and each took a side next to the closet. Jake flung the door open in one quick motion and Grayson pointed his gun in it…and then relaxed. It was too small to hide in; no one was there. Grayson bent down and rummaged through the pile on the closet floor, surprised to see a new-ish drone and controller.
It reminded him of the welfare-rats checking their EBT and Snap card amounts using five-hundred dollar iPhones. Unbelievable. Between the drone and the Xbox, Puck’s mama could have used that money to fix his room—or any room—for that matter.
“Look at this, Grayson,” Jake whispered.
Jake had stepped away to stand in front of the other wall, staring at a series of pictures taped to the old wood paneling. They were drawn by hand with colored pencils and crayons—the level of skill that which a young teenager would be capable of.
Grayson shrugged. “So, he draws?”
Jake pointed at one. “No. Look really close at these…”
Grayson stepped up for a better look and shrugged again. “What?”
“Don’t you see?”
One by one, Grayson looked closer at the collection of pictures: the first one was a messy green tractor with exaggerated tires, pulling a wagon piled high with yellow hay.
The wagon had three red hearts scratched onto the side of it. A figure of a man wearing a hat sat in the driver seat. Reddish-brown balloons of dust were drawn in behind it.
The second picture showed a woman laying horizontal with a cross drawn over her. The figure had long black hair and two turned-up black slits for eyes—as though she were Asian. On her arm, Puck had drawn the number two.
The third picture showed a scene of a black hole drawn over green grass, with a bucket hanging over it, the rope attached to it flying overhead, tangled and twirling. Underneath the bucket was a long ‘down arrow’ pointing into the hole. Two stick figures stood over the hole. One was looking up toward the sky with his face colored beet-red. The other was looking down with his hand held over his mouth. A tear-shaped drop plopped from the second figure’s face.
The final picture showed a boy with blondish hair, his mouth a dark, gaping maw as though screaming. A maroon-colored crayon had been used to depict blood dripping down his arm as a girl-figure with curly red hair stood over him, pointing her finger.
“Holy shit,” Grayson mumbled.
“Do you see what I see?” Jake asked, scratching his head with the butt of his pistol.
Grayson slapped the gun away. “Don’t do that, Jake. You’ll blow your fool head off,” he whispered loudly. At least he didn’t have his finger on the trigger, surprisingly.
“It’s not loaded,” Jake admitted.
Grayson closed his eyes, exhaled deeply, and shook his head. Jake had bucked him about the gun situation, not feeling comfortable with it at all. But Grayson was uncomfortable with him not having it on him. He knew he’d have to do some practice drills with Jake soon to get him more comfortable.
He turned to leave when he noticed a picture in a frame standing on an old wardrobe. He stepped over and picked it up.
It was a picture of Puck, standing tall and strong with clear, intelligent eyes in a hockey uniform. He was holding a trophy. He looked to be about thirteen or fourteen. A larger, older version of Puck stood with his arm slung lazily over Puck’s shoulders, smiling proudly down at the boy.
He flipped the frame over. On the other side, taped to the back, was a letter. In very small writing, it read:
“My Huck Finn,
Your mama named you Finn when you were born, but I’ve always called you my Huck Finn. I knew you’d grow up to be a man’s man, always looking for adventure. You played a mean game of hockey, son. Could’a gone pro. After your accident, I couldn’t shake the thought of that puck hitting you in the head, and all the regrets and what-ifs it brought me. I couldn’t handle seeing you this way. I cussed the fucking puck, not you… but I’m still sorry. I apologize for that. I’m going away for a while to make us some money, but when I get back it’ll be me and you again, just like it was before, without my anger. And even though you’re different now, I can re-teach you things. We’ll hunt and fish and you’ll be my Huck Finn again. You can still climb trees, so keep on climbing high and watch out for your old pop. I’ll be back.
I love you,
Dad”
Grayson handed the frame to Jake, who read it quietly and then looked at back at him.
“Holy shit,” Grayson mumbled.
Jake sat the frame back onto the dresser. “That all you gonna say today?”
Grayson shrugged his shoulders, at a loss for words. So, the kid’s name wasn’t Puck. It was Finn. And he was the way he was from an accident. That explained a lot. But where was his dad? And why did Puck/Finn think he was dead? Maybe the boy couldn’t read? Maybe no one had read him the letter?
Grayson’s eyes watered, and he turned away. Poor kid. That’s a damn shame. All of it. He swiped at his face, cursing himself. What was the matter with him lately? Carrying on like a moody woman.
He turned back and nudged Jake, who was gathering Puck’s crayons, pencils and paper. “Come on. Jenny’s got to be in that last room, or she’s just not home. Let’s check it out before you gather his stuff.”
Bang!!
The sound reverberated through the house from the next room, followed by something even stranger…
“Heehaw.”
They hurried to the last door.
Grayson kicked it open and stood gaping at the sight in front of him.
A donkey.
A very upset donkey.
“Holy shit,” Grayson mumbled.
“Again…is that all you’re going to say today?” Jake pushed in beside him and stared at the huge beast. “Well, I’ll be… you think that’s Jenny?”
Grayson tilted his head to the side and leaned over to take a peek. He nodded. “Well, it ain’t a Jack; There ain’t no pecker on it, so that’d be a jenny—or jennet, to be correct.”
The room was covered in the poor critter’s manure and urine. The bottom pane of the window was a gaping hole surrounded by jagged shards of glass. Nothing was left atop the nightstand—it was all knocked to the floor; much of it broken. A lamp, candle, books…
Strangely the bed was unmolested, other than the blankets and pillows that were a mess.
The enormous beast brayed once more, and stepped up onto the bed. Just like a dog, it turned around three times and laid down, seemingly finally at peace by just not being alone. It opened its mouth, giving them a toothy smile and a yawn, and stuck its tongue out.
Jake snorted and held back a laugh—for a second. But unable to hold it back, he doubled over, laughing until tears came.
Grayson stood still, scratching his beard, staring in disbelief at who, or what, Jenny had turned out to be. His sore tooth was aching madly. He massaged it with his tongue as he tried to take in the crazy scene. “On the bright side, the boy can take instructions. I did tell him to make Jenny come into the house to sleep…”
6
Tullymore
At the clearing for the new latrines, Tucker saw h
is boys and their friends had painstakingly finished their job of gathering pea-sized and other larger sizes of gravel, one wheelbarrow at a time from a nearby construction site. It was dumped in heaps, ready for use, next to a pile of landscaping fabric.
Tucker shook off his bad mood and cleared his throat. “Okay, guys. Here’s what we’re doing. Believe it or not, it’s not the crap that stinks so bad at our other latrine. It’s the piss mixed with the shit. So, we’re gonna try to separate those out as much as we can. Let’s start with the guys side.”
He waved his arm toward the pile of pipes, doing his best Vanna White impression. “And for the gentlemen, we have these urine tubes.” He held up two of the tubes, each six inches in diameter and ten feet long. “These are only six inches wide. I won’t be able to use it, but you boys should all be fine.”
The guys cracked up.
Tucker continued. “On the bottom four feet of the pipe, I’ve drilled holes into the sides. At the top of the pipe,” he turned the pipe around to show the guys, “I put a screen in it about six inches from the top for urine splash and to keep the flies out. We don’t want creepy crawlies crawling up your pecker late at night, ammirite?”
The guys laughed again.
“Let’s start by digging the holes for these pee pipes, also known as urine tubes, about six feet deep. We’ll fill the hole with four feet of large gravel, covered with landscaping fabric, then two feet of pea gravel…pun intended...until we’re at ground level. The fabric is to stop the pea gravel from filling in the holes between the larger gravel, but will allow water to pass for rain—or poor aim.”
No one laughed at that.
Tucker stepped over to a set of fifty-five-gallon half-barrels, each spaced ten feet apart. There were three. “And for your pooping pleasure, I give you these.” He waved his arm at the barrels, ala Vanna White again.
“Kenny helped me confiscate some diesel fuel for each one of them—don’t ask, don’t tell—and this diesel fuel will cover the solid waste, and keep the smell down and the flies from landing. Also, don’t put nothing else into the barrel. Not your tissue, paper towels, toilet paper, or whatever…Use the bag hanging on a nail next to the barrel. We’ll burn the bags separately when they fill up. Oh, and we’ll burn the diesel fuel and crap, too. If we can get it lit…” he finished in a mumble.
Contrary to belief, it wasn’t easy to light diesel fuel on fire. They’d have to add something to get it lit; he’d figure that out later.
He looked around at the group. “Y’all understand?”
A few men nodded. Some looked confused.
“Okay. Let me make it simple. You walk over, sit down and take a shit. If you’ve got to pee, don’t. Put your finger on it, if you have to. Shit, wipe, and bag your ass-wiper. Then stand up, pull out your pecker, and pee in the pipe. Don’t shit in the pipe, and don’t piss in the barrel. And don’t put anything but shit or piss down in the pipe or the barrel. Bag it. Is that more clear?”
Everyone nodded.
“Good. When your done doing your business, wash your hands. We’re not going to have a water station here—for now—so be sure you go back and wash up before doing anything else. That’s really important for lots of reasons. I don’t need to nag you guys, I think you understand spreading germs right now is deadly, right? You picking up what I’m putting down?”
All agreed.
He went on. “So, we’ve pre-cut some lumber to serve as seats for the barrels. That’s all that needs to be done with those. If the power doesn’t come back on soon, we’ll put a roof and some walls around them and make this a real shit-house. If I can get two volunteers to work on the seats, everyone else can get to digging.”
Tucker waved Kenny to him and turned to go to the other side of the clearing, but stopped suddenly. “Oh wait,” he said. “One more thing. Don’t smoke around here or you might blow your balls off. I’ll be adding something more flammable to those barrels eventually. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a wiener, right?”
That was met with wide eyes and frantic nods of understanding. One of the guys raised his hand.
Tucker laughed at that. “What is it?”
“Couldn’t we be using that diesel fuel for something more important? Like to run a vehicle? Or for lamps?”
Tucker shook his head. “We have more. But there’s nary a diesel-ran vehicle in the entire neighborhood, and I think this is important. Sanitation and hygiene have to be high on the list. Bad sanitation disposal breeds disease. We’ve already voted on it as a group and everyone agreed.”
As though a light bulb went on over the man’s head as he remembered, he nodded and grunted, “Oh, yeah.”
He continued. “As far as lights, there’s all kinds of cooking oil and stuff you can burn in those lamps, if you have it. You should also be bringing in solar lights from landscaping every night. This neighborhood is full of them. If your next-door neighbor didn’t make it home, confiscate theirs until they get back…pass them along if you know someone who needs a few. You can put them in front of a mirror for even more reflective light. You all doing that?”
He was met with a chorus of nods.
“Good. You have candles, too. Use all those. Like I said, we have access to more diesel. If we find a vehicle to run it, we will. Until then, this was voted as the best use of it for our group. Anything else?”
Another neighbor spoke up. “Seems to me, it might be easier to put the pee pipes right next to the barrels, right? Kind of really close by?”
Tucker shrugged. “I thought we should separate them in case one of you sleepy fools get confused and accidentally sits on a pipe, instead of a barrel. Unless you like that kind of thing…it’s safer to keep them a bit apart.”
The men all flinched as one, and then nodded in serious understanding.
There were no more questions.
The guys got busy, and Tucker grabbed two pee-pipes and stepped to the other side of the clearing where he’d already hung a tarp for privacy. Behind that sat four more barrels for the ladies. Two urine-barrels and two crap-barrels. For theirs, he’d bury the pipes under the barrels, all the way into the ground, and then attach the tubes to the bottoms of the barrels, where he’d already prepped them with a fitted hole.
The ladies’ barrels were set up a bit nicer. He’d attached a Styrofoam noodle float—from the swimming pool—split and ran around the rough edges of the metal, to keep them from cutting their hands or legs. They’d sanded the seats-boards to a smoother finish, and he’d also hung coffee cans with lids on them to keep their toilet paper dry and bug-free. Their wipe-bags weren’t see-through. Giving them a little bit of dignity since they had more ‘things’ to add to their bag. Over the top of their area, he and Kenny had rigged another tarp, giving them shelter from any dew, rain, or spiders dropping from the trees.
He’d have to think of a few more amenities later, ‘cause if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy…
7
Grayson’s Group
Tina strode down the dirt road, constantly looking left to right, her hand hovering lightly over her sidearm. “Are you sure this is the right way?”
Tarra stopped to tighten her boot lace, and then hopped ahead to catch up with her friend. “That’s what she said.”
They shared a laugh.
Tina cleared her throat. “We’re leaving here, aren’t we?”
“You bet we are. I’m not dealing with the princess another day. I’d rather make camp in the woods somewhere and sleep on the ground again than deal with her.”
Tina and Tarra had surprised Olivia the morning after the ladies had arrived, when they had awoken and made their way into the kitchen. In all the hoopla the night before, after the girls’ and Elmer had come home, and with Puck getting shot, Jake and Grayson didn’t even think to tell Olivia she had company. She’d gone straight to bed after surprising everyone by taking charge and cleaning and wrapping Puck’s wound. Olivia was very maternal and she took to the boy like a
Mother Hen.
After that, she was exhausted from their long journey home. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of each other until long after the sun had come up.
Gabby had discovered the two women when she’d assumed she and Jake would be sleeping in the guest room. She’d barged in, waking Tina and Tarra, and after the shock of finding out who they were, she was thrilled that Jake had happened upon them and brought them home.
She’d even refused to take the bed from them and instead, made pallets on the living room floor for herself, Jake, Emma and Graysie—Elmer had slept on the couch.
Gabby had absolutely no problem with Tina and Tarra having been alone with her husband while she was gone.
Emma and Graysie had given them a warm welcome, too.
But not Olivia.
This morning they’d been met with suspicion and looks that shot daggers from her inner green-eyed monster.
More than once, Olivia had questioned Grayson on their ability to feed the two strangers. He’d assured her they had plenty, trying to gently shush her before she came across rude.
Too late.
That’s not what it was about anyway.
Olivia didn’t trust them, and they knew it.
They weren’t like her. Although they were both married, they took their lives into their own hands. They could handle a gun better than most guys, could hunt, fish and clean their kills, and cook it, too. They didn’t need a man; although they both missed their husbands and families dearly.
Olivia had been shocked to hear they’d travelled in from out of town for a shooting competition—against men. She just couldn’t wrap her head around their independence.
And they made her whiny ass look bad.
Tarra pointed. “Look, there it is.”
In unison, they stepped off the dirt road, each to a different side, taking cover behind the trees and squatting, guns at ready.
Silently, they watched.