Oakton

by B. Chen

  Chapter 4. The Town Meeting.

  In school yesterday I got to talk to Ben and Beth. They both struck-out trying to talk to their parents into having a town meeting. More town feud crap, I'm so over that.

  We came up with a plan to get their attention but I’m not sure if it’s legal or not. We're convinced that something’s wrong in town but you gotta see the big picture to really understand it. Someone is slowly taking all our animals and we’re afraid it’s people next. We made our plan and set it in motion that night.

  -+-

  My mom had left with Mel for some animal show up in Nebraska City at the county fairgrounds, this left me and Dad home alone. Mom already got us food, we nuked it while watching ESPN instead of the Omaha news.

  The plan was to meet Beth and Ben near the cemetery at 6:30 tonight. Beth was supposed to start working on stuff when she got home from town, and Ben was going to contribute the gasoline. Dinner was done, dishes in the washer, Dad was in his office playing farmer while I went outside with my .22 pistol in my back pocket, safety on of course.

  Right on schedule we met on the road walking north. Ben ran out from his place wiping off his face, must have just stuffed the last bite of dinner when he saw us go past.

  There’s lines of trees that run east-west and serves as a wind block along the north side of both Ben’s and Beth’s places. It's about four hundred feet long and helps block the winter wind and cuts down on drifting in their driveways. The trees served as cover for us but it was practically dark outside by 6:30pm.

  We turned into the field walking back towards the far side of Beth’s barn. She unloaded some of the firewood from the back of her truck and stuffed about four chunks into a few paper grocery bags. Most of it was split for their woodstove. All it needed was a little spark.

  The three of us carried them towards the county road behind their barn out to the street, over the ditch which was muddy and felt like walking on half-melted ice cream. We carried them to the intersection of the two roads, right to the middle and dumped the wood. Ben took off at a trot for his barn. Me and Beth stacked the dozen or so chunks of wood into a nice pile.

  “You really think this is gonna work?” I asked her stuffing my hands in my pockets.

  “Ben and me are sure it’s gonna empty out the houses but if they still won’t talk at least we know we tried, then it’s up to us to defend our homes and stuff.” She answered looking moderately worried, maybe even a little scared.

  “Can’t we get in trouble for setting a fire in the street?”

  “Well it’s a dirt road, the fire ain’t gonna damage anything. This late in the day about the only thing that passes along here is old man Stidams on his way home from work around 10pm, this’ll be long gone by then.” She sounded confident that nothing will happen, it’ll only be a local event. I agreed it can’t hurt the roadway but it will leave a black mark for months unless the snow plows run again.

  “Here he comes.” Beth said turning towards Ben’s backyard when she heard his footsteps on the wet grass.

  Ben approached with a gallon can of gasoline from their barn. We’d already arranged the wood pile into a pyramid of about a dozen or so pieces of split wood, not too big a pile really, just enough to burn for about an hour with a little help from that stinky gasoline. Ben twisted off the cap and sprinkled fuel all over the stack.

  He carried the gas can back towards his yard, set it at the street corner, then ran back to us. From the middle of the intersection in the center of town you can see in all four directions for almost five miles, except not to the north because the road ends about a mile north of the old river bed. There were no headlights to be seen anywhere except way over on the main highway heading towards Falls City. We gathered in a huddle one last time.

  “Y’all sure this is wise to do?” Ben asked looking at each of us.

  Then Beth grabbed her overalls suspenders kicked the road with the side of her shoe, “We gave them every chance to meet and talk. We know something serious is wrong and the killing ain’t stopped, I say we got no choice but to force them to face each other.”

  I added my two cents, “Yeah I suppose we could all get hollered at but we’re too old to beat or ground really. All of us get A’s and are college bound. As far as I can see the worst part of this will be forcing them to actually look each other in the eye for a few minutes. They won’t get mad at each other, only us. I don’t think we got a choice. Besides, they gotta be nice to us; we're the ones who'll be picking their nursing homes some day.”

  Then Ben added, “I tried to talk to the game warden guy at the hunting supply store in town about animals missing but every time we got to talking another customer would come in. I know I got my part said but he didn’t seem to listen or take me seriously, I think we sound like crackpots or stoners or something talking about all the animals in town coming up dead or just gone.”

  We stood there in a close group near the woodpile for a short time. Ben reached into his pocket to pull out a few wood matches. We stared at his hand then at each other. I stepped back towards the corner closest to my house, then Beth did the same on her corner.

  Ben stood by the pile of wood in the street with two matches in his hand. He looked down, then behind him over at the gas can, then reached down to the zipper on front of his jeans, pulled back the flap, struck the matches upward on his zipper lighting them, took a couple steps backward and tossed the flaming wood matches onto the pile which immediately went WOOSH and became a huge flame in the middle of the intersection.

  I looked around at all three houses and Patton’s barn and garage. The entire town was lit up by the fire, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. For about a half minute nothing happened, then one by one porch lights came on.

  Tiny glowing embers flew upwards towards the sky. The wood crackled and snapped. Ben stayed on his side of the fire, Beth on hers and I stayed over by mine. I could hear voices coming from houses as our parents slowly walked outside to see why there was a bonfire in middle of the intersection, the exact center of Oakton.

  Things got ugly fast.

  Ray Brown, Ben’s dad was the first. “What the Sam Hill is going on out here?” He yelled as he walked across their yard towards the street. He was heading right towards Ben and the gas can.

  Then came Harvey and Gwynn, Beth’s folks. Harvey was first walking right towards Beth. I saw their worthless dog follow them out into the yard. Made me chuckle that they actually got her out from in front of the TV. I’m referring to Daisy not Gwynn. I couldn’t hear them talking.

  There was some loud discussion started in Ben’s front yard I couldn’t make out since the fire was crackling too loud and it was right between me and them, when all of a sudden I got spun around by my father and he didn’t look happy.

  “What’s this all about?” He said looking mighty pissed off, Dad even had a vein in his forehead bulging out he was so mad.

  “Look Dad, we got a big problem, all of us. You gotta talk right now! No more hiding. See, they’re all here. It’s bad, really bad. They’re all gone.”

  “Why can’t you just leave well enough alone? This is bigger than you and me combined. Is all this because of Mel’s dog? You still freaking out about some aliens or something eating your little sisters dog, is that what all this is for?" He said yelling at me, arms rose in disbelief. I could tell he saw Harvey and Ray but didn’t want to be seen making eye contact or punching me out either but I could tell he was angry and getting madder by the second.

  “No dad! You gotta listen! This is not about aliens or crap like that. All the animals in town are gone! We're under attack!” I screamed back at him but I just knew down inside that it wasn’t gonna work.

  Dad stopped and looked all around town. We both turned to look at Beth arguing with her parents in the corner of their yard, Daisy was standing by Beth, she had one hand on the back of her neck. Harvey and Gwynn turned to look at Dad, he looked back but they never spoke. Hell, Dad didn’t even nod o
r smile or wave or anything.

  The fire was still burning and crackling like crazy. We could see Ray and Ben in the street at the corner by the gas can arguing but couldn’t make out what was being said. I saw Ben’s arms gesturing wildly, then I saw Ben point at the Meeks, they all glanced at each other but never moved.

  Dad grabbed my shoulder turning me towards the west, he pointed to Meek’s back yard where the light over the paddock clearly showed Bullet was standing by the fence watching our gathering. He pointed to the horse, then the dog next to Beth and said, “All the animals are gone, huh? Mister animal detective?” He yelled in my left ear.

  “They tried!” I said loudly back at him.

  Dad had a look of frustration and anger but didn’t want to make a public scene so he did what I thought he would, he turned towards the barn and walked back across the yard shaking his head side to side. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I figured there’d be another yelling match downstairs from my bedroom again tonight.

  When I was a little kid, before Mel was born we had three bedrooms on the ground floor. Once Artificial Intelligence on farm tractors came out and Mel was about four they remodeled the attic into two bedrooms and a bathroom, now instead of being at far sides of the house from each other my bedroom is right above theirs. I can hear all their fights. There’ll be one tonight I just know it.

  I thought about walking over to help Ben but my mind was numb plus I know when I get real mad I don’t think too good. So I stood my ground on my corner and watched as Gwynn first, then Harvey followed by 'Daisy the Wonder Dog' went back inside. Beth turned to look at me with tears in her eyes. She had about the same luck as me.

  I turned to see Ray grab the gas can, shove Ben hard once in the shoulder and walk back towards their barn. Ben bent a little at the knees and made two middle finger gestures at his father as he stormed across the yard. His mom never came outside.

  I just barely caught a glimpse of Ben's shadow from our fire across the entire side of his house doubly flipping off his father as he walked across the yard. A twenty foot tall shadow of him flipping off his dad, made me grin. I'm sure his dad saw it.

  We all slowly walked towards each other looking down. Ben had been crying too. We huddled near the fire which was a little smaller than when he tossed the matches.

  With our boot tips we slowly moved the firewood towards the corner on Patton’s side then kicked them one at a time into the ditch which still had some standing water.

  Beth walked into me. I pulled her in and held her. Ben walked up beside us and laid his head on her shoulder and put his hands on our backs. I could smell smoke and some gasoline fumes. It was starting to get cold without any more fire. There was steam and smoke coming from the bits of firewood in the ditch. The hottest chunks hissed as the water doused the last glowing embers and more smoke slowly rose towards the sky.

  Without saying anything we all knew it was going to be up to us to deal with whatever was coming, our parents were too old and stubborn to talk to us or each other.

  I pulled my right arm off Beth’s shoulder and slipped it on Ben’s back squeezing the back of his neck, he did likewise. Our foreheads were touching. Ben had stinky breath still from dinner. Luckily we had history, the three of us.

  I leaned in and placed a kiss on Beth’s cheek and patted Ben on the butt like we do in football practice, Ben turned to walk home.

  Beth and I turned in unison towards the west still somewhat emotional. I took her hand but when we got close to the bus shed I got an idea, and stepped inside releasing her hand. She followed me sitting on the other side.

  "So what are we gonna do now?" She asked.

  "I'm stumped. I'm also as prepared as I can get. Nobody else at home thinks we have a problem except Mel, but she's a baby."

  "I also got a horse and dog to look after, they're vulnerable and they're both my responsibility, so that limits what I can do." She added.

  "Well, the good news is there's four of us against whatever is out there." I offered.

  There was a brief pause. Beth raised her head slowly and asked, "Four of us?"

  "Yep. You, Me, Ben, and Bullet. How old is she now?"

  "She's seventeen. Her birthday was three weeks ago." Beth answered with a bewildered look on her face. "Why is she in the count?"

  "Because of her size and utility. As much as you may not like it, we may end up needing her if something bad goes down. Like I said before, you should keep her inside until we figure out what's going on."

  Beth leaned over to stick her head out the door of the bus shed to see if Bullet could be seen in the paddock, "She doesn't like to carry two riders, it's bad for her." She added.

  "Not to worry, I'm not making any plans, just considering everything." I replied trying to put her at ease. Beth is very protective of her animals. In my head I estimated the two of us combined were still less than two hundred seventy pounds. She should be well able to carry us.

  We sat there in the dark bus shed not talking for a moment when I got a vision of when we used to ride her to go fishing along the big river.

  "Remember when you taught me how to ride?" I asked her.

  Beth turned to look at me, then slowly smiled again. "Yes I do, when was that? Fifth grade?"

  "Yeah, somewhere around there."

  "Yep, a little, that was a long time ago. I'm surprised you remember." She added.

  "We rode her down to the river because your bike was broken or something and your parents weren't home. You were in front, I held on from behind." I reminded her trying to get her to tell the story.

  "Yep. We got part way and you asked to ride in front, so we stopped in a ditch along the road so we could lower her a little, then we both slipped off, then I helped you get on, then you pulled me up behind you. We rode the last two miles down to the river." She reported smiling more and more.

  "Yes, and you wouldn't tie her up at the river because you wanted her to get the grass she wanted and you were convinced she wouldn't wander off, and you were right!" I replied.

  Then Beth added, "We never caught any fish worth bringing home, so we rode her back, first with you on front to that same spot, then I was in front in case my mom was home when we got back. Yep, I do remember. She does like you doesn't she?" Beth asked.

  "Who?"

  "Bullet!" She replied with a chuckle.

  I was wondering who she was talking about, her mom or her horse. I remember holding on to Beth wishing she could be more like a girl friend than my twin sister but I kept that to myself.

  "I guess she sort of is like one of the neighborhood teenagers."

  "I know you two are really close, and Daisy too."

  "Yep, they're part of the family." She answered.

  We sat there for a while leaning back into the walls with our knees intertwined in the tiny bus shed. "We better go inside, I think we both got some crap to face with our families."

  Without speaking we both got out of the shed heading towards our homes in opposite directions.

  All the way across the yard I told myself that if he starts any crap with me I’m gonna keep right on going up stairs ‘cause I know Dad won’t follow me up to my room no matter how mad he gets.

  I got inside just in time to see Mom’s car round the corner. Dad must still be in the barn tending to his only true love, his Deere 8360. While I slowly trudged up the stairs I had a picture in my mind about Dad and his 8360 in wedding clothes getting married, with Mom as their maid of honor!

  In my room I kicked off my boots onto the shoe drying tray and flopped onto my back, rolled to the side, turned on my alarm clock, and shut off my lights and just laid there on my back staring at the faint light on my ceiling coming in the window from the lights behind Beth’s house, hoping to be sound asleep before the yelling started downstairs.

  -+-

  I laid there thinking that this was not the time for any of us to give up. If we were being invaded we had no choice but to defend ourselves. The best t
hing to do now was to come up with some sort of Plan-B.

  I rolled onto my side with my eyes closed thinking about who or what was after us and what all we knew so far. Didn’t seem any weapons were being used. That cat in the bag didn’t look sliced or butchered, it looked like it got cooked and pulled apart with something blunt, sort of like how Bullet got cut up too. Next thing I knew it was a few hours later and I was waking up but it was quiet downstairs.