by Jeff Seats
Speaking of which, that boyfriend of hers was a real piece of work. Rubbing her nose in his shit was the height of meanness. Paul couldn't think of ever having witnessed such psychological torture as he had in just these past twenty-four hours. Not even the cruelest of drill instructors could do what Dick was doing to Ellie, but at least DIs had the intention of teaching you to keep your head down and to fight back. Dick, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to teach Ellie to keep her head down and be subservient. Still, she didn’t appear to him to be the type to continue to put with the crap that Dick was dishing out.
Paul decided to remain at the top of the hill and study the layout of the town for a while longer. There was something, a bit too...not right with this place which bothered him. From this perspective, he could see that the town was small and highly contained consisting of a grid of only four blocks each surrounded by pavement. Its overall parameter defined by streets which encircled the four blocks. On one side of this boundary, or “city limits”, were buildings and on the other was the wide open high desert.
The whole place had a “dropped from the sky” quality to it; like someone had planted “building” seeds in the middle of nowhere then watered them and up sprouted this town. This little out of place burg, combined with the mysterious death of the bus driver created a conundrum that filled Paul's head to the point of bursting; not to mention the slight issue of being lost in the middle of Eastern Oregon.
Right now, however, his focus was being redirected towards his throbbing knee which was stiffening up. He’d been standing too long and needed to move so he started to walk down to join the others. Even though the incline was gradual, it still gave him difficulty. Seeing a dried out branch, he bent to pick it up for use as a walking stick. Just as he touched it, he heard a cautionary rattle coming from a nearby rock. Paul froze. What was my warning to Steph? He asked himself rhetorically.
Then he wondered how the hell everyone else could traipse down this hill without disturbing a rattler themselves? Then again, how the hell did he get to be the only one who got injured when his Humvee got exploded by that IED? Dumb fucking luck, that's how.
Still grasping the branch, Paul slowly rose up and got a bead on exactly where the snake was. Keeping a close eye on it, he backed cautiously away as the rattling continued.
At the bottom of the hill, Ellie finally turned around to see where Paul was. She saw him about half way down the hill, standing fairly still, holding a stick over his head motionless then he began doing some sort of slow motion moon walk. What is he doing? She had him pegged as being a bit more firmly planted on the ground. Maybe he's having sort of PTSD attack. He did say he was in Afghanistan. She thought. Maybe she should go up and see if he was okay?
Paul slowly turned away from the snake, and as he cleared its territory, the rattling stopped. He mopped his brow with the sleeve of his jacket and put the tip of the branch into the ground and leaned on it to relieve the pressure on his bum knee. At the bottom of the hill, he could see that Ellie was staring up at him. Is that a good or bad thing? Paul asked himself. He chose “good” and gave her a wave. He raised the branch and pantomimed that he was going to use it as a walking stick and then began to hobble in her direction.
Ellie watched Paul do some more of his weird dance moves holding the stick in the air. She waved back at him. What did PTSD do to people? Should I be worried? She wondered. Not just because the bus driver appeared to have been killed, but should she be concerned by a potentially crazy soldier? No, she decided, she should be worried by her boyfriend. Richard was the only one that had harmed her in any way. What was she thinking? This guy, Paul, he'd been nothing but nice and he’d even gotten in Richard's face twice to protect her.
Paul finished limping down the hill and joined Ellie. “Thanks for waiting for the gimp,” Paul said weakly.
Ellie smiled. “I was mesmerized by your interpretive dance performance back up there.”
He looked at her quizzically.
“You know, picking up that branch and swinging it around in the air.”
“Oh! That. That was me trying not to get bitten by a rattlesnake. Was I any good?”
She laughed. “No, not very. But you pulled off crazy really well.”
“One of my shrinks would like to talk with you later,” Paul said smiling.
Then they both heard the sound of an airplane engine high above them. Ellie looked up and started to wave frantically, like they were going to be rescued, finally, from this desert “island”. “Hey! Down here!” She yelled uselessly.
Paul just watched her with bemused appreciation. “You know, you're not so bad with the interpretive dance moves either.”
“What?” Slightly embarrassed Ellie lowered her arms. "But how are they going to see..."
“First, it's too high up, and if it had pilots, they would have to be looking for us specifically with binoculars to be able to spot your arm waving.”
“And second, that's a drone. It's unmanned which means no eyeballs, at least not on board and again, they'd have to be searching for us to know where to look. It's probably BLM or some university program flying that thing, but nice try.”
“Oh,” Ellie flatly said as she watched the drone fly away to the East. “Well, come on then, Richard will be chomping at the bit for me to join him.”
“Even with Ste...”
“Yes. Especially with her.”
“Then you lead, and I’ll follow at a discreet distance. It’s not like I have much of a choice.” Paul said as he limped into town. Ellie gave him a warm smile of encouragement and took off in front of him.
««« ‡ »»»
ON THE BORDERLINE dividing the natural terrain of the desert and the man-built environment, the small band of lost bus passengers stood, not quite ready to cross over from the wilderness and into this oasis of civilization. Dick had continued to charge headlong into the town, assuming that they were still following his lead until he turned back and saw that no one was behind him, not even Steph. He stomped back to the hesitant group and asked angrily, “Why the hell have you stopped?”
“Um, those two.” Kelvin pointed to Ellie and Paul as they approached.
Ellie reached the others first with Paul limping his way a few paces behind her.
“What the fuck were you two talking about?” Dick asked.
Marion shot Dick an icy look as she tried to cover Cindra's ears.
Looking at Steph, she answered, “He was telling me about the rattlesnake he almost grabbed instead of that branch.”
Kelvin jumped up in an overly animated fashion. “Rattlesnake? I walked that way, and I could have been...”
“Oh stop with the drama queen routine,” Jenna told her friend.
Kelvin shot her an overly harsh look. “Oh, you stop you lesbo from planet Femtron.” Then he broke his fake indignation and laughed. Jenna slapped his shoulder and laughed with him.
As Paul limped up and joined the group Dick gave him the stink eye. Paul returned the look, unafraid of the implied warning he had just been given then asked, “You gonna keep wearing the bus driver’s blood like some trophy?”
Dick rubbed his sweaty face and looked at the redness on the tips of his fingers. Alarmed he grabbed Ellie’s bag and pulled out a white blouse then wiped his face with a terrified frenzy.
Out! Out damned spot! Paul chuckled to himself as he watched Dick wipe down his head.
Marion removed a bottle of water from her bag. She started to offer to pour a little on the blouse but, Dick, being the “dick” that he was, grabbed the bottle out of Marion’s hand and drained most of it onto the fabric. With the damp blouse, he vigorously wiped the red stain from his face then poured the remainder of the bottle on his head giving his hair an agitated once-over in an attempt to remove the remains of the bus driver. The others just stood by and watched this self-centered clod of a man do his “thing”; resigned not to do anything that could further agitate him.
“I was saving that
water for my daughter.”
“Huh? What?” Dick asked as he finished turning Ellie’s white blouse pink. “Oh, yeah, well I’m sure there’s more water in town.” He tossed Ellie her blood tinged blouse and joined Steph. The two headed into the town with the others following.
Stunned by her boyfriend grabbing her shirt without asking, using all the O’Neil’s water, and by his bullshit pairing up with Steph, Ellie silently stood and looked down at her ruined blouse, at a loss of what to do. Very deliberately she rolled up her ruined garment as if it was worth saving, stuffed it into her bag, and zipped it closed. Dick had outdone himself this time. When she looked up, she saw that Paul was watching, gave him a weak smile, wiped her nose, and proceeded on into the town.
Paul rubbed his knee again and swallowed a couple more of the ibuprofen before he followed. I hope there’s a drug store around here; some more ibuprofen would be good. He thought. I may go through the rest of this bottle before morning. Then he continued to walk into the town taking up the rear of the group; his uncontested position.
As Paul had noted from the top of the hill, this was a perfect looking small, American town. It was the kind of place where you could see Andy and Opie walking back home from the pond with a couple of fish that Aunt Bea would fry up for dinner, but this town was only so big—four square blocks to be exact. As far as was visible, there was no sprawl of any type. No strip mall. No gas station or convenience store. There wasn’t even a visible road leading into or out of it.
The passengers walked up a street between two blocks that had several suburban residences to their right and a park on the block to the left. The neat, tidy houses he saw from a distance, upon closer viewing, showed years worth of weather damage and neglect; siding and trim paint peeling and missing shingles from roofs. Yards were overgrown, and grass was brown and dying. Cars at the curbs and in driveways appeared to have all been parked at the exact, same time considering the similar layers of dirt that had accumulated on them. The debris that was trapped between deflated tires and pavement answered any questions regarding how often these cars had been driven and how long they had been sitting idle. This observation applied to all of the vehicles that they saw. And anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to automobiles would notice that not one was manufactured later than the 1960s. Car enthusiasts would peg the newest at around 1963 and, aside from the dirt and tires, these cars were mostly in mint condition. At the very least, this town was a car collector's paradise.
As if all this wasn't odd enough, there were no signs of people what-so-ever; no indicators that anyone lived in these homes, walked these streets or even were breathing the same air. No clothes were out to dry on laundry lines. No kid's toys were left strewn about in mad abandon. There weren’t any newspapers left out on porches or overflowing mailboxes. Not even a yard gnome could be seen peeking out from its protective hiding place in a shrub. This was a seemingly soulless place devoid of life.
The park to their left showed the same lack of care. The patches of grass that were visible appeared to be dried and burned out islands in an ocean of red/brown dirt. The trees were in various stages of death for lack of water. Playground equipment sat idle and rusting. If a picnic had ever been held there, it had to have been an awfully long time ago. A gazebo had seen better days, its shingled roof all but disintegrated from years of neglect.
No one said a word as they walked through this seemingly dead part of town. The weirdness of the place was palpable, yet the passengers continued moving further into the town hoping that they would find help.
Coming to the end of the residential block, they stopped at an intersection. The street signs indicated that they were standing on the corner of A Street and B Street. “Not very original around here, are they?” Jenna observed. Not even Kelvin could muster up a laugh at that line, the creep factor being as overwhelming as it was.
“I noticed from the top of the hill that these two streets cut the town into quarters forming four blocks. There are also four streets surrounding the blocks which seem to constitute the city limits.” Paul said.
"I saw a sign when we crossed that street and entered the town." Wilson injected. “That sign said First Avenue. So, maybe the other streets that surround the town are Second, Third, and Fourth Avenues."
"Makes sense," Paul said approvingly.
“Okay, so they have a small, ordered life around here. So what?” Dick spouted off, obviously getting irritated with the situation.
Standing in the middle of the intersection they looked around, to their rear was the residential neighborhood and park. Ahead of them was a block on the left that seemed to have commercial buildings of various types and to their right was a block with office buildings and official looking types of structures.
“See anything? Anyone?” Paul asked as he turned around looking at this strangely laid out community. “Because I see no one.”
“Not even any traffic,” Ellie stated.
“Or anything living, not even cats or dogs,” Kelvin added.
“Maybe it’s a town holiday or they're at church,” Marion suggested.
Dick was starting to get fidgety. “Well, they gotta be somewhere.” He took off to the right down B Street. Lacking any other helpful ideas the others followed.
They passed a post office on the corner. A bank was next to it, and then there was a mid-century style glass office building of three stories.
Marching ahead, Dick took a left around the corner and onto Second Avenue. Most of the others were right behind him, trailing like sheep, on his quest to find someone.
Paul didn't follow but stayed put, in the middle of the intersection, and turned in a circle taking a panoramic picture of the town with his mind’s camera. As he finished his slow 360 turn, his lens caught Ellie standing next to him.
“What're you thinking?” She asked.
“Well, it’s like there's...it’s just so odd. Look at these buildings. There seems to be one of each kind of structure that would be in small town America. But it’s like they were placed here all at once, not built over a period of years. You know?”
Ellie looked at the buildings and shook her head, not quite sure where Paul was going with his thoughts. “Nope, you lost me.”
“Alright. Let's say that you are constructing a model town for a toy train set. There are these plastic kits that you assemble and put on the spot where you have decided the town should be. Look.” Paul pointed across to a building. “There's the kit model of a post office. And one for a bank next to it and an office building… Really? A glass facade, mid-century modern building in the heart of cattle country?”
She had never really noticed buildings much before, but Paul seemed to have a point.
“And look at those houses. See, a two-story Victorian next to a fifties ranch which is next to a Cape Cod.” He continued to point out the differences in the buildings. “And the materials they used. That one there is all brick, and over there the building is stone and of course there's that glass-encased office building.”
Ellie thought that she was starting to understand his line of thinking. “Yeah, like someone had a checklist, and they ticked it off. Check, one post office. Check, one bank. Check, one farm house.”
“Exactly.”
She gave Paul a studied look, “You an architect?”
“Naw, military. Doesn’t the hair cut five it away?” He said brushing his hand along the short cropped side of his head. “I just have always been interested in buildings. A hobby I guess.”
Kelvin jogged around the corner from Second Avenue. “Hey you two! We found a city hall or a police station. Both I guess.”
They moved to join Kelvin, but he stopped Ellie at the corner. “It might be good if your boyfriend doesn't see you two walking together. You know? He's been asking where you are and not in a nice way.”
“Thank you.” She said to Kelvin and gave Paul a hesitant look. “How’s your knee?”
“Hey, I’m fine. You should
get going. You don’t want Richard to have an aneurysm do you?”
Ellie smiled mischievously at that thought.
“Go. I'll hang back with Kelvin here and tell him my thoughts.”
Ellie gave a wave and disappeared around the corner.
“What thoughts you want to tell me Mr. Man?
“First of all, I want to thank you for diffusing the situation back there.”
“Me? What situation?” Kelvin said feigning a lack of understanding.
“You know, when Dick almost had a cow as Ellie and I caught up with you all.”
Kelvin gave Paul an overly dramatized questioning look on his face. “You mean about the snakes? I hate snakes!”
Paul smiled perceptively. “Well, thanks anyway. I didn't have the energy to fight that asshole.”
This time, it was Kelvin's turn to smile knowingly. “Just doing what I do.”
“Something tells me that there is more going on inside that head of yours than what you let on.”
Suddenly feeling awkward that someone had seen through his wall, a flush of red spread across Kelvin's cheeks. He cleared his throat. “So...anything else you wanted to tell me other than how fucked up this weird town seems to be?” Kelvin asked.
“Took the words out of my mouth.” Paul put his hand on Kelvin's shoulder. “Come on and let's catch up.”
««« ‡ »»»
THE POLICE STATION was in the middle of the block. City Hall was there too, right next door. Kelvin ran ahead and waited for Paul at the top of the stairs before entering the building. Paul gritted his teeth and climbed the short flight joining Kelvin who held the door open for him.
“Thanks,” Paul said appreciatively.
“Age before beauty.”
Paul gave Kelvin a little poke with his walking stick as he passed.