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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:37:47 GMT -7
I wrote this, and it was posted in a sticky at Survival Topics in the Media section. The day ST went down this novel had garnered 6,294 views, so I know people were reading it. Here it is, from a copy I had on my own computer. Please save any comments for the very end of the novel or in a separate thread, to preserve the integrity of the chapter flow. Thank you.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:40:07 GMT -7
The Black Flu
Ch. 1 It started innocently enough, just a cough and a slight fever, but the businessman from Des Moines had to get back to the home office for an important upper level management meeting first thing Wednesday morning, so he bought a packet of Alka-Seltzer and some herbal cough drops in the Bangkok International Airport concourse and boarded the airliner for home. He tried to mask his coughing with his handkerchief on the plane, but by the time the plane set down in Los Angeles, seventeen people nearest his seat had been infected, sixteen of them passengers and the last the flight attendant. The executive hurried to another concourse to catch a flight to Iowa, running and coughing his way through the crowded passageways.
Los Angeles was the final destination for nine of the passengers; the remainder scattered among various other flights to other parts of the country. The flight attendant caught a few hours' sleep in the LA apartment of a fellow attendant, then reported back for her next flight, a packed planeload bound for Vancouver. If there were a war room for the disease, the huge lighted world map on the wall would show a small red bloom of light beginning in Bangkok, blossoming in LA, expanding and exploding with bursts of red beginning with the west coast of the United States and spreading across the country to New York and up into Canada, then creeping down into the Caribbean and South America. There would be a pause of an hour or so as the disease gathered strength, then red blots would come up in Europe, overlapping rapidly and jumping across the Mediterranean into Africa, back up through the Middle East and across India, finally meeting the westward-galloping blossoms coming from Thailand. The last to join the fray would be Australia and New Zealand, but even those relatively isolated outposts would also succumb to the red blots in time. Only Greenland, vast areas of Alaska and Antarctica and extreme northern Russia and Canada would be disease-free when the red blots stopped popping up.
A day later, the executive never knew what hit him. He collapsed at the conference table, his eyes rolling back into his head, his hand knocking a bottle of expensive imported water over the corporate merger documents arrayed before him. Compassionate to a fault, his co-workers rushed to his aid, stretching him out on the thickly-carpeted floor, loosening his necktie and opening his collar, touching his face in an attempt to rouse him. All such physical contact, of course, subsequently contaminated them in the process. The EMTs who responded to the call were not fully prepared for the scope of the emergency, either. They wore only standard blue scrubs, and while they followed procedure and donned surgical gloves before touching him, they did not put on masks, not standard masks or even the more spohisticated filter masks, certainly not full face masks with shields. They should have, of course. As luck would have it, the EMT team was composed of two rookies and one veteran, but the veteran had only three years' experience and was tired from lack of sleep. He had had a bad argument with his girlfriend last night and tossed and turned all night long, dragging himself to work exhausted, dozing in the crew break room between calls. It was not a good day to be on the job for anyone on the team, it seemed, because due to their team leader's inattentiveness in forgetting to insist they all wore masks, by the time they ran the man strapped on the gurney through the automatic double doors at St. Luke's ER, they were all infected. And they were medical professionals.
Thus did H7N2 arrive as an illegal alien on the shores of the United States, unwanted and dangerous, a burden on society, but here at last and not going back. And a threat to every human with which it came into contact.
Bonnie finished feeding the baby and turned the radio on. It was time for the morning news, and the reporter was saying something about the flu again. Lucy was fussy this morning and had spit up her oatmeal all down her new shirt, then she started crying and Bonnie couldn't hear what the man on the radio was saying. She grabbed a dishtowel and held it under the faucet briefly, then had to leave the water running while she mopped Lucy's face and clothing, so she could only hear bits and pieces of what the man was saying. "Flu symptoms...exacerbated...CDC announcement this aftern..." It was frustrating and now Lucy kicked off her little tennis shoe, which fell into a puddle of oatmeal on the floor beside the high chair. Bonnie reached for the handle and turned off the faucet just in time to hear the last of it. "...at the World Health Organization Headquarters. Stay tuned for more on this breaking news story. And now here's Brett Gordon with the high school football scores from last night." She lifted Lucy from the high chair with one arm, grabbed her purse, and turned off the radio with her free hand as she passed it on her way out the door. She had to get Lucy to the sitter and get herself to work before she got caught in the midtown traffic jam again. She just couldn't afford to be late this time, couldn't lose this job. It was rough being a single mother, divorced, trying to make ends meet on the income of a secretary. At least she and Lucy had their health. That much she could be grateful for, that and her adorable one year old daughter.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:44:16 GMT -7
Ch. 2 The H7N2 virus resembled a child's toy, a ball with spikes sticking out all over it, but it was difficult to see even with a microscope and it was lethal to humans to the tune of 85%. Out of 100 people who somehow acquired this bit of living matter in their bloodstream, 85 of them would most likely die. It was born on the pig farms of Thailand; the viral father was a relatively obscure pigeon flu virus named H1N2l and the mother, the other virus with which the first combined to create an entirely new creation, was a mutant of an old swine flu strain, H2N2. The new viral creation thrived in herds of pigs, which it affected only moderately. This relative non-lethality was, in effect, a self-defense mechanism of the virus; the longer the host lived while infected, the longer the virus also lilved to go forth and infect farther and farther afield of the original hog wallows where it was born. First to acquire the new virus were those who tended the herds, and they carried it home to their families, who in their day-to-day lives spread it into the streets and schools and marketplaces of nearby cities and towns. The new virus jumped by leaps and bounds on market days when the infected farmers and their families hauled infected swine to the teeming shops and street stalls where customers inspected the pigs carefully, also receiving and passing on the virus with everything and everyone they touched. The virus now found the human host ideal for travel and transmission purposes, and a couple of small mutations en route enabled the second and subsequent generations to more easily pass from human to human through body fluids, primarily through the droplets expelled in sneezes and coughs, and contamination on hands. This minute change in vector pushed the virus to the top of the viral food chain where humans were concerned. It was now king of viruses and could pass easily from human to human through casual contact in large crowded groups of people.
Bonnie made it to work with five minutes to spare, amazed that her car started without balking. She didn't particularly like her job, but it almost paid the bills. There was just her and Lucy to worry about in any event, as Bonnie's parents had died long ago and she was an only child. Lucy's father, who Bonnie divorced after he began beating her, only had one relative, an uncle somewhere in the northwest. Bonnie had sole custody and while her ex was supposed to be paying child support, he never did and had dropped out of sight. That suited her just fine. She could manage without him and his money, paltry sum that it was.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:47:14 GMT -7
3.
The day was packed. She had reports to collate and appointments to schedule for her boss, whose business involved scheduling conferences and regional meetings. Boring stuff that she never even tried to understand. She just did what she was told and if she could put her mind in neutral as she punched holes in stacks of papers, so much the better. It got her through the day and out the door on her way back to Lucy that much faster. Today she was so busy she couldn't afford herself the luxury of mental coasting, could in fact hardly even take the time to eat the sandwich and carrot sticks she'd brought for lunch. One crisis came hard on the heels of the next, and when she looked up, it was quitting time already. The day seemed only three hours long and it was time to go home. Once out on the street, traffic was snarled and slow, she had to roll her window down to save gas by not running the air conditioner in her car and then the fumes from all the other card gave her a headache, so she left the radio off and missed the big announcement. The sitter was preoccupied by something on television when Bonnie got there to pick up Lucy, so she hurriedly gathered up the child and her diaper bag and left. A few minutes later she was home, looking forward to a quiet meal, a bath and a long night's sleep. Television was the farthest thing from her mind. There'd be time to catch up on the news tomorrow morning. The day dawned cold and gray. Bonnie shivered as she shuffled across the chilly floor to the kitchen to start coffee. At least Lucy hadn't started crying to be changed yet. She filled the pot with water from the faucet, then switched on the radio as she poured the water into the coffee pot reservoir and reached for the coffee cannister. She stopped with her hand on the container when she heard the newscaster's shaky voice. All she could do was stand there and stare at the radio, prickles running up her back and into her scalp, holding her breath without even realizing it.
"...to repeat, this precedent-shattering announcement comes on the heels of cautionary warnings last night that this action might become necessary for the health and safety of all American citizens. The President urges all Americans to stay calm and follow all FEMA directives as they are announced. All incoming international flights, both commercial and private, are suspended until further notice. No passenger ships arriving from foreign ports will be allowed to dock and discharge passengers or cargo, including passengers on cruise ships that have docked in foreign ports. The borders on the north with Canada and on the south with Mexico are hereby closed. No traffic coming into the country will be permitted to pass through the border, and special crack forces with shoot-to-kill orders have already been deployed strategically along both borders to prevent any illegal entry by anyone on foot or off-road vehicle. Further details will be broadcast as they become available to the press. Please do not panic. These measures are being taken in order to halt the spread of the deadly disease that is now being dubbed The Black Flu. Stay tuned to this station for a full update and more explanation of the sumptoms of this flu, and steps to take if you or someone you know exhibits these symptoms. In the meantime, stay home, stay away from crowds and take all possible sanitary precautions. Wash your hands frequently, wear a surgical or filter mask if you must go out in public, avoid persons who are coughing or sneezing or seemm ill in any way. A phone number will be provided later for reporting anyone who seems..."
Bonnie felt a cold sweat break out over her body. This couldn't be happening. This had to be a joke. Was it April Fool's Day? No, it must be like that George Orwell radio broadcast, where people believed it and panicked thinking Martians had landed. That was it, wasn't it? She flicked the tuner and found another station. Through hissing and crackling she could hear yet another reporter talking, obviously reading something into the microphone.
"...never in the history of the country has this happened. The joint White House-FEMA statement was issued by a grim White House spokesman Dev Brubaker forty-five minutes ago. To make the point, as he finished reading the prepared statement, he brought out a green surgical mask and put it on."
Lucy woke up and began crying, and Bonnie automatically moved toward her daughter's bedroom. She had to change Lucy's diaper and get her dressed and fed. She had to do the things she normally did. That's the only way she could cope with this, just stick to the routine. After she got to work, she'd be able to stop and take a few minutes to think, get her head around this and figure out what to do.
As she lifted Lucy out of her crib, it hit her. She couldn't go to work. She couldn't take Lucy to the sitter's, and she couldn't go to work. The announcement said to stay home, hadn't it? How could she take Lucy to the sitter's anyway? What if Lucy caught the Black Flu? What if she did? How could she take care of Lucy then? What was she going to do?
The ringing of the telephone interrupted her thoughts. She hoisted Lucy onto one hip and lifted the receiver. "Hello?"
"Bonnie? You heard the news?" It was her boss. "I'm closing the office for the time being, Bonnie. Don't come in. Nobody is going to want to attend any crowded sales conferences now anyway. I'll deposit your paycheck and a nice little bonus into your bank account today, how's that? We'll keep our ears to the ground and if this thing goes away in a week or so, then it's business as usual, ok? Bonnie? You okay?"
She realized she was nodding dumbly, and when she opened her mouth to reply, her tongue stuck to the roof of her dry mouth. "Thank you, sir. Yes, thank you, just put the check right into my account. I'll--we'll--be okay, sir. I have your home number and we'll stay in touch."
He thanked her and hung up and she just stood there with Lucy on her hip and the buzzing receiver in her hand. She felt numb. When the phone started saying "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again, if you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again," she came back to herself and placed the receiver on the cradle, then looked at Lucy. Lucy had stopped fussing and was staring at her. Lucy was her anchor. She'd be okay because for Lucy, she had to be. She was all Lucy had and Lucy was all she had, so together they'd make it. So she took Lucy into the bath room and gave her child a nice warm bath and put clean clothes on her, then they both went into the kitchen and had breakfast together. Then Bonnie got out a yellow pad and a pencil and began making a list, and notes.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:49:15 GMT -7
4. It didn't take long to figure out she needed a lot of things. Food first of all. Then toilet paper, diapers, medicine, detergent. Should she buy water? Surely nothing would happen to the water. She put a line through 'water,' chewed on her pencil for a moment, then went back and erased it and re-wrote it. Better safe than sorry. Maybe she should buy some masks, too. And some of those hand wipies that kill germs. That would be a good idea. Bonnie glanced at her watch. Nine o'clock in the morning now. Good, the stores wouldn't be very crowded yet and she could get her shopping done and get home.
She stopped. What was she thinking? She couldn't go shopping! She couldn't go out where there were likely to be crowds of people doing the same thing she was, she couldn't expose Lucy to such risks! She couldn't expose herself to any risk, because then who would take care of Lucy if she caught it and...she felt a cold knot of fear settle in her stomach...if she caught the flu and died? What was she going to do now? There was so much she needed! They couldn't stay here for any length of time and survive without more food! Lucy had to have diapers. She wasn't even close to being potty trained yet. What was she going to do? Think, she told herself, think!
Lucy gurgled to herself in her playpen, in a sunny corner of the kitchen. They had a second floor apartment with a balcony, on the side of the apartment complex where the sun shone in during the morning hours. The balcony was separate from the landing where the stairs led up from the ground floor, so it was secure and private for her. This was one of the main reasons Bonnie had chosen this apartment complex. She had to have security and privacy. She had lived with pain and abuse for too long at the hand of her ex-husband and she would never put herself or Lucy in danger again from him or anyone else. The double doors to the balcony opened off the dining area and a heavy glass and iron enclosure around the balcony on three sides allowed light to fill the balcony and dining area. Lucy's playpen sat in a stream of light, and she was playing with dust motes that danced in the golden glow.
With all that sunshine, why couldn't Bonnie grow some plants on the balcony? What about vegetables? A job or two ago she had a co-worker, a woman named Marge, who grew the most astounding things in pots on her patio. Why couldn't Bonnie do that here? She grabbed the yellow pad and wrote down "seeds, pots and potting soil," then quickly added "garden book" to the list. But how was she going to get all this stuff if she couldn't go out in crowded places?
Did she have to? Suddenly she had an idea. She grabbed her list and her purse and Lucy and dashed to the door. Ten minutes later she was in the drive-up lane at The Happy Camper Liquor and RV Supplies. There were four cars ahead of her. When it was her turn, the young man at the window seemed completely unsurprised when she wanted hand wipes and bottled water, plus some other things on her list. She paid him, he handed her purchases through the drive-up window and she dumped them on the passenger seat beside her. After she drove away, she pulled over in the parking lot and flipped open the top on the plastic cannister of antibacterial wipes and thoroughly wiped her hands, the steering wheel and her purse where she had touched it to put her change away. In the rear seat Lucy dozed contentedly in her car seat. No worries there. Now for Walgreen's.
At Walgreen's, the line for the drive-up window was longer, seven cars this time, and when it was her turn the clerk --who wore a mask and blue rubber gloves -- was considerably less pleasant than the guy at the liquor store, but he filled her order and she left with toilet paper, diapers, surgical masks, latex gloves and some over-the-counter medicines. After that, she couldn't think of any other stores that had drive-up windows and Lucy was awake and fussing, so she just drove back home.
That afternoon as she watched the tv news reports about other countries closing their borders and setting up quarantine zones, she had an idea. She and Lucy had dinner early and they both went to bed about seven o'clock, Bonnie first setting her alarm for two am. When the alarm went off, Bonnie awoke confused at first, thinking it was time to get ready to go to work, then she remembered and set about getting the both of them ready. She dressed Lucy in an older pair of coveralls and herself in old sweatpants, sweatshirt and sneakers. Lucy screamed when Bonnie tried to put the mask over her nose and mouth, so finally she gave it up. She wouldn't really need a mask anyway, if everything went according to plan.
Bonnie drove through the empty, sleeping streets under a sky sprinkled with glittering stars. The parking lot at Super Wal-Mart only had a scattering of cars parked up near the entrance, but the lights were on inside. It was open 24 hours a day, and now was no exception. She parked as close to the extrance as she could and lifted Lucy's car seat onto a cart. She put on a pair of latex gloves and a surgical mask, cleaned the cart handle with wipes, then put the cannister into her purse and pushed the cart through the double doors into the brightly lit store.
There were almost no customers and only a skeleton crew manning the store and stocking the shelves, but music played in the background and it was Wal-Mart, good old normal Wal-Mart. She loaded her cart to the top, pushed it to the front where only one check out stand was open, and stashed it to one side, moved a sleeping Lucy to an empty cart, then she filled that one, too. As she checked out and her check went through with no problems, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks for her boss and this thoughtfulness, then she loaded Lucy and her purchases into her car and went home to settle in for whatever might come. She was ready.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:50:27 GMT -7
5. The worst thing the first few days was the loneliness and feeling of being cooped up, but Bonnie threw herself into organizing her supplies and planting seeds and the vegetable plants she'd bought at Wal-Mart. She had one nice big tomato plant that was in a good sturdy black pot, so she didn't transplant that one but stood it next to the wall on her balcony, right where it would get a good healthy dose of sunshine every day. It even had some little green tomatoes on it already! The rest of the seedlings went into inexpensive pots with potting soil: the cabbage, squash, eggplant, onions, herbs and other veggies, plus twelve strawberry plants in a special big pot with little openings on the side. She had a hanging tomato plant too, and it went on a hook that someone had already put in the ceiling of the balcony. When she'd finished and all the plants were arranged in place, it looked wonderful, green and lush, and she wished she had done it long before this crisis forced her to take these steps.
She kept the television turned on with news running constantly in the background as she worked. The reports from around the world were frightening, not so much in what was said as in what wasn't said. Gone were frivolous reports of unimportant time-filling stories, not even much about local news, but wall-to-wall solemn reports of death tolls, government edicts and panicking crowds. In Singapore, a mob of desperate people rushing the international airport were fired upon by riot control police, killing scores of them. A woman in England hung herself because she thought she had contracted the flu, but an autopsy showed that she only had an upper respiratory infection. Somewhere in Africa, a tiny nation was reported to have suffered the loss of 90% of its population to the Black Flu, but starvation was thought to have played a large part in that statistic as well. Bonnie shuddered when she heard these things, reminding herself that half the battle was mental. She had to stay calm and informed.
Luckily, her apartment had two bedrooms plus a large storage unit on the stairway landing. She moved a lot of things, mostly boxes of books and holiday decorations, into that storage unit and locked it up again. She needed the storage space inside the apartment for her supplies and extra food now more than she needed books and decorations. As she stacked the food, toilet paper and diapers in the second bedroom closet, she took mental inventory. She needed more canned fruit, more laundry detergent, and more flour and sugar. And yeast, she had forgotten to buy any yeast at all. If they were to have bread she would have to make it, and she had to have yeast for that. She knew there was a way to make bread without a packet of yeast, sourdough bread, but she had never tried it and wasn't sure she knew how even if she could find a recipe in one of her cookbooks.
There were dire predictions of the flu duration on television. A talk show featured several scholarly-looking people sitting in a semicircle discussing the disease and its implications on society as a whole, and individuals' freedoms relating to government controls and quarantines. One panelist, an upper level official from the mayor's office, felt that the pandemic would ease off as the flu season usually did as part of its cycle, but another person in the group, a woman who was a department head from a hospital, snorted in derision at this opinion. The flu could be around for a year or more, she retorted, and what would a pencil-pushing bureaucrat know about communicable diseases anyway? A law enforcement official sitting to her right tried to placate her but she stormed off the set and the program director cut away to a commercial, at which point Bonnie changed the channel. Enough of that. The program in progress dealt with ways to sanitize your hands and the importance of not touching your face, and Bonnie finally had enough of that as well, so she put a DVD of cartoons on and moved Lucy's playpen over nearer the set so she could enjoy the bright colors and funny characters. It was a relief to have something so normal in the background at last and she was beginning to relax when she heard sirens and saw lights flashing outside. She went to the window and saw an ambulance pull into the apartment complex and drive around to another of the buildings, and once again she felt a cold sweat break out on her body, and that icy fist in her stomach. The flu was here. Right here.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:52:24 GMT -7
6. A week later, he found her. She was watering the plants when she heard someone knocking on the door to her apartment. Fear clutched at her throat; without making a sound, she ran to the door and looked out the security peephole. There he was, dressed in a dirty white tee shirt and jeans, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He looked as though he hadn't shaved in a week and his hair was greasy and uncombed. She held her breath as he backed away from the door to look up at the number posted on the wall. He stopped for a second, took a long drag on the cigarette and squinted at the door as if wishing he could see through it. He knocked again, but not as decisively this time, then looked over his shoulder at the apartment opposite hers on the landing. She knew the people from that apastment were gone, had seen them moving out day before yesterday, so when he strode to that door and pounded on it she knew nobody would answer. She also knew that the staff in the manager's office, over in the clubhouse by the pool, had a policy of not revealing any information about residents. That was another reason she had chosen this complex.
Now he didn't look as sure of himself. He stood for a while on the landing, smoking and flicking the ashes over the railing and looking at the parking lot. She had changed cars since she last saw him, so he had no way of recognizing her vehicle. She even brought Lucy's car seat inside whenever she came home, so he couldn't tell by that, either. She breathed a prayer of thanks that she'd had the foresight to not put any tell-tale decorations or name at her front door, as she saw some others do. After a few minutes he came back to the door and knocked again, and again she kept quiet, watching him. Thank God Lucy was taking a nap and was a sound sleeper. It would give the whole game away if she woke up and began crying!
Now he walked back down the stairs and she lost sight of him through the peephole; she ran to a window and lifted one of the slats in the blinds the merest fraction of an inch and watched him; he stood at the bottom, looking around as if trying to decide which way to go, then he walked around the corner toward the back of her building. Oh no! Was there anything he could see from the back, where the balcony was? She mentally checked the balcony. No, the curtains were drawn. All he would see was the plants in pots and the hanging tomato plant. That should throw him off if anything did. While she was married to him she never had a green thumb; everything except silk plants always died on her. He used to tease her cruelly about that, too. No, if he saw the plants he'd never believe she lived in the apartment.
She tiptoed to the back of the apartment and chanced a peek out her bedroom window, barely moving the blind like she did before. He was standing on the grassy greensward behind the unit, looking up at her apartment. She almost felt like he was staring right into her eyes but knew he couldn't see her, not through the tiny sliver of space between the blinds. He just stood there, smoking fiercely until it was almost down to the filter, then he threw the butt onto the lawn and ground it in with his shoe. He glanced at his watch, spun on his heel and stomped off toward the parking lot. He was mad. She could read his body language. It was times like this he'd blame something on her and hit her, yelling and screaming at her, and when she cried or screamed with pain, or worse, put up her hands to try to fend off his fists, it made him angrier and the blows became harder, more punishing. It was as though he was a predator, excited into blood lust by the helpless noises made by his prey.
It all washed over her then, the feelings of all those years, the terror, the pain, the utter degradation. She sank to the bedroom floor, her knees shaking, and stifled a sob. No noise. Not a sound. He might have come back up the stairs, might even now be standing at the front door, listening. He had found her, and even though he might now have doubts that she actually did live here, he wouldn't stop until he knew for sure. He'd be back. When he did, she would suffer. And this time, he might turn his wrath on Lucy as well. No one could protect her. No police department would post an officer in her apartment on the chance that sometime in the next few weeks he might come back and assault her, and that was the only way she might be relatively safe. Once, voicing these fears to a co-worker, the woman had responded with the suggestion that Bonnie get a restraining order against him, an RO the woman had called it. She herself had to do that once with some sleazy boyfriend who had threatened her, and the woman assured Bonnie that it worked like a charm. But Bonnie knew him, knew that a mere piece of paper was about as useful as the Sunday comics in stopping his violent temper. No, Bonnie knew that wouldn't work. And up until now, she thought her efforts at hiding, immersing herself in a different city, had worked. But evidently it had not. Now he was here. And now she was trapped in this little apartment by both him and the Black Flu.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:54:38 GMT -7
7.
Nick was angry. He beat his fist against the steering wheel of his old Pinto, and some guy sitting in the Volvo next to him at the light turned his head and stared. Freakin' yuppie, Nick thought. Yeah, go ahead and stare, you creep. The light changed and Yuppie drove smoothly off while Nick's car coughed and sputtered, then caught and lurched forward. He needed to get it looked at, he knew, but didn't have the cash. He didn't have the cash for anything, dammit, which is why he was here in Centerville. Just thinking about his lack of funds made him mad all over again. Was that her apartment? It had to be, but what if it wasn't? He had to find her, had to get some dough from her. She'd give it to him if he could find her. He knew how to make her fork it over. All he had to do was say it the right way, smile that way that she used to like. He wondered where she was working now and how she was. And the brat, Lucy. He thought about Bonnie, let his mind linger over the memory, then thought about her maybe having a boyfriend, someone like that prick in the Volvo, and he felt the old familiar black cloud of rage start boiling up, but he had to calm down, couldn't let his feelings get in the way of his mission.
What he needed was cash and lots of it, not a pair of steel bracelets. Not that he was any stranger to handcuffs, no siree. He knew the drill well enough by now. Hands on the top of the car, feet apart, the cop's probing hands searching his pockets, feeling along his chest and legs and ankles, then the command to put one hand on top of his head. They always did that, made you put one hand on your head so they could cuff the wrist and pull it down behind you. Must be some sort of control thing. He didn't care anymore. It was routine now, and he could do it in his sleep. And probably had on more than one occasion. That made him laugh, his lips curling bacback from his tobacco-stained teeth, his cigarette cough barking at the end of it.
He wouldn't be laughing long if he didn't get hold of Bonnie and get some money, though. Where could that bitch be? Was that her apartment, or was his so-called buddy putting one over on him again? Ed claimed he could find just about anyone by going on the internet, and that's how he said he had found Bonnie, through some gas company security deposit records he'd broken into. But what if he was wrong? Or lying? What if he'd just said that to get rid of him? That lying little weasel! Nick slammed his fist against the steering wheel again and swore. He'd pay for this, if he was lying. Nick didn't forget or forgive, he got even, and he knew how to really get even. Ed better pack up that computer of his and move before Nick got to him, if he was lying.
Desperate to keep herself occupied so she wouldn't obsess about Nick, Bonnie threw herself into cleaning and organizing her closets, shelves and drawers. It was while she was throwing out some magazines that she got the idea. Somehow some publishing house had gotten her address and sent her a free magazine about martial arts, and she had just stacked it with other reading material but never read it. The mailing label didn't have her name on it, just "resident," and that's what gave her the idea. She didn't have anything identifying herself at her front door. What if she did, but misleading things? What if she had, say, masculine things? Or something that could be taken to mean the apartment was occupied by a man only? This was a whole new thing to think about, something to give her hope that if Nick did come back and saw it, he'd give up and decide she didn't live there after all. For the first time in several days, she smiled. For the time being, having no other option, she dropped the martial arts magazine on the concrete landing just beside her door, as if it had fallen there as someone fumbled with a stack of mail and the door key. Maybe it would be enough if Nick came back.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:56:26 GMT -7
8.
Two and a half weeks in, Bonnie ran out of diapers. She tried to make do with a towel folded into a makeshift diaper but it was too bulky. It wasn't going to work and Lucy was too young to potty train. Once again she waited until the wee hours of the morning, two am, and put on the mask and old clothes. Lucy was sound asleep again in her car seat, so it was back to Super Wal-Mart. This time when Bonnie pulled into the parking lot it seemed a little more crowded than the last time, but she found a good parking spot right up close to the doors and under one of the lights.
She put Lucy in the shopping cart and headed directly to the baby department. First diapers, then more toilet paper and then if she could, fresh milk and bread and eggs. She was standing between tall shelving units looking at diapers when she happened to glance to her left, toward the aisle, and Nick walked past. He didn't look left or right, didn't see her, but hurried by holding a six pack of Bud. She went cold with fear and grabbed at a plastic wrapped jumbo pack of diapers, dumped them into the cart and turned her back to the aisle and just stood there, stock still.
He hadn't seen her. She knew he hadn't, but she was afraid nonetheless. What if he came into the baby department looking for her? Then she forced herself to calm down. He had no reason to think she would be in a Wal-Mart at two thirty in the morning. He had no reason to come into the baby department to search for her on the off chance she was here. She had to get a grip. But she still had to worry that he might just bump into her somewhere in the store, so she had to hide out for now. The Ladies Room. He wouldn't go into the Ladies Rest Room. He was just here buying beer. She had to calm down. She could go wait in the Ladies Room until she was sure he was gone. Where was the restroom? She couldn't think. Her mind was running in circles. Think! Where was it? Was it here at the back of the store, or up at the front? If it was up at the front, she'd have to go all the way through the whole store to get to it, and past the checkout counters, too, where he would have to pay for his beer. She would almost certainly run into him, and then what? Would the few employees on duty this late at night come to her assistance? Probably not. There probably wasn't even a security guard on tonight, and if there was, it probably was some grandfatherly man well past his prime and in no shape to defend her against someone like Nick.
Please let the restrooms be at the back of the store, she whispered to herself, as she slowly and quietly pushed the cart along the back row of shelves, where strollers and playpens in their cartons were stacked. In the background pop music played gaily. Then a voice behind her said, "Aren't you sick of it by now?"
She spun around to face him but no one was there. Then she saw a display monitor hanging from the ceiling and on the screen a man was holding up a can of bug spray, and he continued, "Aren't you sick of fighting ants in your kitchen, roaches under the bathroom sink..?" Heart hammering, grateful that Lucy slept blissfully unaware, Bonnie left the bug man behind and crept into the shoe department. She pushed the cart to the back of the stacks, back where boots were displayed on long shelves against the rear wall. If the restrooms were in back, they would be just along here, between shoes and crafts. But the only thing between the two departments was a pair of double doors leading into the warehouse, and beyond that was looming darkness. She pulled a try-on bench from the shoe department out a little way and stood up on it and craned her neck to look toward the front of the store. There it was, the big white and blue "Restrooms" sign, right up next to "Customer Service."
She would have to find somewhere else to hide out, or go all the way through the store to the bathrooms in front, and probably see him on the way. And he might...would!...see her. She stopped for a minute to think, leaning against an end cap display of travel bags. The tap-tap-tap of heels on the floor behind her made her whirl in alarm, but it was only a woman, an employee, carrying a stack of shoeboxes. Ok, so where in the store could she go? Not the grocery side. He might be here to buy food. Not automotive or sporting goods or electronics. He loved all those departments, even though he couldn't fix a car, was terrible in almost all sports, and never could afford the fancy electronic gadgets he always wanted. What about the garden area? Could she go outside and hang around out there until he left? How would she know he had left? But what if he saw her and followed her out there? That would be even worse, out there in the dark and probably no one there to hear her scream. No, the garden department was out. Maybe cosmetics, but that was up at the front too. Too risky.
Maybe she could edge her way to the front and hide in a changing room in women's wear. Maybe the manager would let her hide out in his office, lock the door against Nick. But that would depend on if the manager happened to be nearby when she needed him or her, and if the office had a lock. She tried to think clearly. It was so hard with all this pressure and stress. She tried to remember what she had seen of him at the end of the stack in that split second. He had a six pack of Bud. He was wearing a red plaid shirt and Levis. No hat, no face mask. Walking fast, as if he was in a big hurry. That was good, wasn't it?
Maybe that meant he was in a hurry to check out and leave. Maybe he was already gone. She decided to chance it.
She slowly rolled the cart out of the craft department, past a big freestanding display of bunches of silk flowers, pausing there while she peeked around orange and yellow sunflowers, looking left and right down the big aisle. Nobody there. She quickly darted into the women's wear area across the aisle, onto the carpeted floor, in among the racks of bathrobes and nightgowns, where there was at a least a little cover. It would be hard for him to see her here, but this wouldn't get her where she had to go. She crept among the metal racks closer and closer to the front, and now she was almost there. The main front aisle that ran the width of the store gleamed from the rotating brushes of the buffing machine an employee was pushing back and forth. She could hear the music playing and the beeping of code readers at the cash registers. Two registers were open, and there were maybe five customers waiting in line to check out. She edged the cart out from the women's wear department between two displays of stacks of folded sweaters and calculated the distance to the nearest register, and then he turned a corner at the end of the men's wear department and came walking toward her from the grocery section, six pack in one hand and a large bag of potatoes in the other.
Her knees turned to water and she couldn't breathe. A hundred and fifty feet away, he strolled as though he had all the time in the world. She could hear a pitch for Wal-Mart credit cards playing on a monitor above her head somewhere. It was all so normal, and still he came toward her.
The employee switched off the buffer and the noise died down, and the man in the blue vest smiled at her as he wound the cord around holders on the metal handle, and Nick was only seventy feet away. And she stood rooted to the spot, unable to breathe or think or run or speak, and then she saw that it wasn't Nick at all, not him not him not him, and she held onto the handle of the shopping cart and let the tears roll down her cheeks and soak into the white mask while her knees shook.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 19:58:24 GMT -7
9. Centerville was struggling to stay as healthy as possible, but it was getting difficult. Mercy General Hospital was discharging as many patients as it could to make room for the influx of flu cases, and beds were lined up in hallways in some areas. But even so, the full force of the epidemic hadn't hit yet. The season was still young. In some large crowded cities, the population was in siege mentality and the morgues were full to overflowing, but in this small city the worst hadn't yet come. Gas stations with kiosk-type cashiers were still open because there was minimal contact with customers, but the men in the booths wore rubber gloves and surgical masks anyway. Liquor stores with drive-up windows still dispensed liquid forgetfulness for those who needed it, and now some had expanded their inventory to include staples such as bread and milk and, of course, common cold and flu remedies.
Long stretches of shelving lay bare in what stores remained open, and as stock was depleted, stores took on an eerie hollow feel. Some chains mandated the use of gloves and masks by all employees, those who actually showed up for work, that is. Skeleton crews manned many stores, but lines at cash registers weren't long because customers were scarce as well, and even in what lines that occasionally formed, people kept several feet away from each other as they waited, none wanting to infect or be infected by another shopper. Oddly, there was only a minimal dip in the number of trucks on the highways delivering loads of goods to the warehouses.
Living in the cab of an 18-wheeler apparently wasn't much different from staying cooped up in a small house, and except for casual contact with other drivers at highway truck stops, for the most part truckers are a relatively sturdy group, so tons of merchandise continued to be delivered to warehouses all over the country. When the coastal dockside warehouses and shipping containers were cleaned out of pre-quarantine goods and the final loads delivered, trucking would most likely grind to a halt, but for now trucks still came and went. The big problems came at destination warehouses, which were down in almost all places to just a few employees to drive the forklifts and stack the cases. Not much from the warehouses was being delivered to stores. There just wasn't enough manpower any more, so shelves more and more just remained empty.
Restaurants in Centerville, except for some drive-throughs, were almost all closed. Fast food restaurants closed their dining areas and restricted all sales to the drive-up window only, and waits were considerably longer because of staff shortages. The person at the window usually wore a mask and surgical gloves, and was generally the manager or owner. Very few teenagers reported for work now. When deliveries of fresh goods stopped and the freezers were emptied, those places would close too. Even now burgers were served without lettuce and tomatoes, and in some places, French fries were off the menu too.
Schools, public and private, had been closed for a couple of weeks. Elementary school teachers had sent home long lists of homework for their students to complete and bring back when the school reopened. Ominous predictions of mortality rates, especially among the young, left more than one teacher sobbing in the break room after the children had been dismissed for the last time. Who knew which precious faces would be at their accustomed places when school resumed? Some high schools and colleges implemented on-line classwork in an attempt to keep some semblance of the education process going, but not all students had computers at home, and no one was going to suggest that those without go to the public library or a friend's house to catch up on the work. The public library was closed indefinitely anyway. So students could go online and hope their teacher was on the site to instruct, or do what was being called Self Guided Instruction, using hastily printed worksheets to try to keep up in their school books and study materials.
Looking from her balcony, Bonnie suddenly noticed pots and greenery blossoming on the proches and balconies of her neighbors. Evidently she wasn't the only one trying her hand at gardening for food. One man on the second floor of a building across the greensward behind her building had a virtual jungle on his balcony: vines hanging down and climbing up, something big and bulbous and greenish-red in a large pot, and several stalks in a rectangular container. She could see the vague outlines of other plants just inside the glass doors of his patio. The man, older than her and with gray showing at his temples, apparently lived alone; he puttered among his plants several times a day, lovingly watering and adding things to the soil, doing things to the vines, enjoying himself and the fresh air. She knew he enjoyed himself because he always had a big smile on his face as he worked, and sometimes he would stop and look around and seem to sigh with contentment, patting his stomach with both hands. Once he caught her looking at him and he waved cheerfully, and she waved back. She hoped he was taking as good care of himself as he was his plants. He seemed to be a nice man, and she didn't want him to get sick. Once when they were both outside on their balconies tending to their mini-gardens, an ambulance whined its way into the complex and drove to one of the buildings on the east side, out of view. She watched until she couldn't see it any more, then glanced at him the same time that he looked over at her, and she shook her head sadly, pointing. The man nodded back as if to say, yes, it is sad. For a moment it was a normal exchange, neighbors commiserating over the misfortune of another, a slice of ordinary life, and in spite of the regret at someone else's dire illness, it felt good, this brief communication with another adult, even if only for a few seconds. Then he raised one hand in farewell and went inside, and she turned and went back into her apartment, and a few minutes later she could hear the wail of the ambulance as it raced back out onto the highway and away from the apartment complex.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 20:00:03 GMT -7
10. It was strange, sitting and watching television with Lucy, eating canned ravioli and laughing at cartoons, while all the time knowing what was going on outside. A white van had pulled up to her apartment building about thirty minutes earlier, and when she looked out the window, she could read the letting on the side: Edwards County Coroner. It was someone in one of the downstairs apartments, two doors down toward the corner. The attendants, two of them dressed in green scrubs with masks and gloves on, wheeled a gurney into the apartment, then a few minutes later brought out a still form bundled in white plastic, strapped to the cot, and loaded it into the van through the rear doors. An older woman came out and followed the gurney, sobbing and reaching out with her hands, and one of the attendants gently led her back into the apartment, his arm around her shaking shoulders. Bonnie had seen the couple from that unit before, walking the grounds hand in hand. He had white hair and used a cane, and she was always smiling. Bonnie swallowed hard and turned away from the window.
Food was getting low again. She would have to go out shopping for more, and this time she had a better idea of what she needed to get. She had to make her remaining money go farther. She didn't know what she was going to do when it ran out; maybe she could get an advance from her boss, but if she couldn't, then she didn't know what she would do. This time she would buy more staples and make more basic foods from scratch. She had the time to do that sort of cooking now that she wasn't working. And diapers, she couldn't keep getting disposable diapers. She would have to get fabric and make some, or buy them if she could find any. Safety pins. She had to remember to get safety pins. Or maybe those cute little pins with ducks and chicks on the heads, diaper pins. She hadn't seen any of those in a long time. Did they still make them?
Thank goodness her plants were doing well! She and Lucy had already enjoyed a tomato from the biggest tomato plant, and when she picked it, she held it up proudly for the man across the greensward to see. He was out among his plants too, and he pointed at it when she held it up, and clapped and laughed to show his approval. She had begun thinking of him as The Plant Man, and they saw each other every day out on their respective balconies. It had almost become a ritual in the mornings. She got up, dressed, made coffee and took her first cup out into a patch of sunshine on her balcony. She put a white plastic stacking chair out there and that is where she sat until he came out with his cup, sometimes in a dark brown bathrobe with his hair sticking up. He held his cup up and she returned the salute, and thus they both began their strange isolated days. In many ways it was a good time for her. She was spending far more time with Lucy than she had been able to when she was working five days a week, she was teaching herself new skills--gardening, new cooking techniques--and she had made a friend.
One morning he didn't appear on the balcony. She sat there for a long half hour, growing more and more worried, trying to remember if she had heard sirens in the night. She was almost positive he lived alone. She had never seen anyone else there, not even a shadow moving beyond the sliding glass doors. What if he had fallen ill in the night and had no one else to take care of him? Should she go over and check on him? Was that wise? Well, why wouldn't it be? They were friends now, weren't they? If she was sick, wouldn't she welcome someone like him to come take care of her? That thought made her feel uncomfortable in a vague, undefined way. The Plant Man coming into her apartment, finding her sick, maybe delirious and half-dressed, in bed. Him taking care of her, bathing the sweat from her body, giving her medicine. Him taking care of Lucy too, feeding and dressing her. Bonnie didn't want to think things like that, and she certainly didn't want to even think about Lucy getting sick. He wouldn't be able to get into the apartment anyway if she didn't come to the door, because she always kept it locked, double locked in fact. That should reassure her but it didn't, and always her thoughts came back to Nick. She fretted and frightened herself for a good hour, sitting there with her coffee now grown cold, then he suddenly appeared, opening the sliding glass door in his robe, yawning and stretching, and she felt herself go weak with relief. In fact, she even felt tears stinging her eyes, just a little bit, but quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stood up and waved at him. He waved back with a sheepish grin and made a motion with both hands against the side of his head. He had overslept. With a rush of emotion, glad he was okay, Bonnie hugged herself, then pointed at him to indicate sending a hug, then flustered and confused (WHY had she DONE that??) she quickly waved goodbye and went inside, where she sank into an easy chair in her living room and cried.
Three days after she had dropped the karate magazine at the front door, it was gone. She never knew if Nick had come back and taken it or if it had just blown off the landing and ultimately been thrown away by someone, but it was gone. She debated trying to get a pair of men's boots somewhere, maybe a thrift store, and standing them at the door, but then she remembered that she couldn't go to a thrift store. She would just have to tough it out and keep quiet if he ever came back. She knew he would. He wouldn't stop until his suspicions were confirmed or proven wrong. He'd be back. It was just a matter of time.
It was a week later. The Plant Man, whose name was Robert Donohue, woke up earlier than usual. He made his coffee and took a cup out onto his lushly-planted little garden of a balcony, intending to sit and enjoy the sunrise while he waited for The Girl to wake up and come outside. He was really getting a kick out of seeing her every day; he felt like he knew her now, knew she lived alone with her baby, knew she was struggling to cope in this quarantine, knew she was scared of the flu that was ravaging Centerville. He suspected she was worried about money, about taking care of her baby alone there like that. That's why she was growing the vegetables on her balcony, trying to set up a source of food for them both. Robert, who liked to be called Bob, had plants he could share with her, but he didn't want to come off as a jerk just trying to get close to her to take advantage of a crisis situation. He knew all about crisis situations. He had handled his share of them in the past, during his career. He had done a lot of things over the course of his 42 years, some of them good, some of them bad, most of them carefully planned and executed. Bob could be a dangerous man when he had to be, which wasn't often but was always highly effective.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 20:01:01 GMT -7
11.
Now Bob sat upright suddenly and very quietly. Someone, a man, was standing in the greensward watching The Girl's apartment balcony. Whoever he was, this was not a good scenario. The man had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and he wasn't standing easy, as though he belonged there, but tense. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder, looking around, checking the space. In just a short while The Girl would wake up and come out with her cup of coffee or whatever it was she drank. Probably tea. And the intruder would see her. Bob came to an instant decision. He rose silently and slipped like a shadow through his open door, threw on sweats and pulled on a pair of running shoes, and let himself out his front door. He trotted down the stairs to the sidewalk, and ran to the side of his building, where he took a quick recon around the corner. Yep. The guy was still there, grinding his cigarette out in the grass with one heel. Bob ran quietly in place for a minute, then headed around the corner on the grassy lawn, panting loudly for effect. Ignoring the intruder, he ran the length of the lawn, then back again and stopped and leaned over with his hands braced on his knees and gasped as though he had just run five miles. The man was twenty feet away, watching him and lighting a fresh cigarette.
Bob mopped his brow with one arm. "Hi," he said, panting deeply, "Just getting in my morning run. Gotta keep in shape. So," he paused and looked significantly at the man, "you wanna see me?"
The man gaped at him. "See you?" he replied, surprised, "Why would I want to see you?"
"Well," Bob said with quiet deliberation, slowly now and in control, "you've been standing there looking at my apartment, haven't you? So to me, that means you want to see me."
"That's your...? Uh, hey...buddy...I wasn't..." the man stammered, suddenly off guard.
Bob knew the type. Tough guy until it came down to the nitty gritty. Probably got off beating up women, too. "Yeah, you were." Bob said quietly, "You've been standing there for some time now looking at my apartment. You think I didn't see you? And I'm not your buddy." Bob let his arms hang loosely, flexing his fingers, primed and ready. He planted his feet solidly in the sweet green grass and made sure his face was neutral, his eyes boring into the other man's, which now shifted uneasily to Bob's ready stance. "We gonna do this thing? Or you gonna get the hell out of here?" Bob let the words roll easily off his tongues, solid and sure, no uncertainty, almost anticipatory.
"Hey, no man, I musta made a mistake!" The guy started to back off, raising his hands placatingly. He stumbled briefly, caught himself and stumbled again, "I'm outta here, man, sorry! I'm gone!" and he all but ran toward the parking lot.
What scum. Bob followed him with an easy lope, waiting where the grass met the concrete sidewalk until he heard the clatter and cough of the man's car as it ground to life. It was a Ford, an old one with a big patch of gray Bondo on the fender. He watched until it pulled out the complex, knowing the driver could see him standing there, hands on hips, watching him go.
Now birds began their pre-breakfast twittering in the trees around the apartment complex, and someone somewhere was frying bacon, and the smell drifted across the grass. It was the beginning of a bright new day. Who knew what it would bring next?
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 20:02:45 GMT -7
12.
He waited until he saw her come out onto the balcony, cup in hand, and sit down in the white chair, then he gathered two pots in his arms and went across the lawn to her building. He knew she could see him walking across the grass, knew she knew he was coming to her apartment. As brave as he was, as stong as he had been all his adult life, fearing almost nothing, that short morning walk scared him in ways he couldn't even begin to comprehend.
He pushed the little round white button beside her door with the finger of one hand, shifting the pots so their leaves didn't obscure his face. She opened it almost immediately and stood there in jeans and a pink sweater. She wasn't surprised, but she was puzzled. He didn't let her wonder long.
"These are for you," he blurted, thrusting one of the pots are her as he fumbled with the other one, transferring his grip around the brown plastic so it wouldn't slip out of his grasp. "This one is Kentucky Blue beans, and you'll need to give it somewhere to climb.
This one," he sat the other pot on the painted concrete just outside her door and pointed at it, "is dwarf zucchini. I hope you like zucchini." Now he looked her in the eyes. They were blue. "Both of them produce over the whole season, instead of making just one crop." He smiled. "Hi. My name is Bob. I'm the one..." he gestured vaguely "...I have the plants..."
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 20:04:31 GMT -7
13.
"I know, she replied with a smile, "I saw you coming across the lawn. Thank you very much for the plants. My name is Bonnie." She sat the bean plant down just inside her front door, on the table there.
"How do you do, Bonnie?" He stuck out his hand and then pulled it back, flustered. Should they be shaking hands in the middle of an epidemic? There was an awkward pause while they smiled nervously at each other and he stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. "Uh, flu and all...you should't be shaking hands with anyone..." Now he sounded like an idiot!
But she grinned and bent to pick up the potted zucchini and when she straightened, she pushed the door fully open. He could see the living room beyond, and she saw his glance. "Why don't you come in and have a cup of coffee?" she asked, holding her free arm out toward the kitchen.
"Thanks, I could use a cup," he said, which was a baldfaced lie, because he had already had a whole pot just waiting for her to wake up. "Actually, there's something I need to discuss with you, something that happened this morning, so thank you, yes, if you don't mind, I will."
He scraped his shoes on the concrete--might have stepped in something coming over, didn't want to take a chance--and followed her into her kitchen. She sat the pot on the table and pointed him to a chair, then went back for the bean plant and closed the apartment door.
She moved both plants out to the balcony, poured two cups of coffee and sat down across from him at the glass-topped table. Beyond her he could see through her sliding glass doors, across the greensward to his apartment. It looked nice from here, very green. Interesting perspective on his living quarters.
"What happened this morning?" she said quietly, sipping her coffee. In another room he could hear the soft baby noises of the child, playing and rattling plastic toys. The apartment smelled of coffee and laundry detergent. A good smell. Comfortable.
"I woke up really early today. I was out on my balcony and saw a man there," he pointed toward the glass doors and the lawn beyond, "scoping out your apartment." He saw her stiffen in alarm, her eyes widening, her breathing quickening. So he was right. "I confronted him, made him believe this was my apartment. Look," he paused and looked down into his cup for a couple of seconds. "you and I are strangers, but not really, you know what I mean?" She nodded and he continued, "so I felt justified in what I did. The guy, whoever he is, is bad news. I made him believe I was going to beat the crap out of him, and if I had to, I could have and would have. I know how to handle myself and dirtbags like that, too."
She was pale. Her hand shook slightly where she held the handle of her cup, but she looked at him and smiled. "Thanks, Bob. Yes, he is bad news. He's my ex-husband."
Ahhh, so that was it. Bob knew the rest. "He beat you." It wasn't a question.
"Yes. And I divorced him and was awarded sole custody of Lucy." A girl. So the baby was a girl named Lucy. Bonnie and Lucy, living here alone and a slimeball stalking them. Bob felt the anger start to rise, so he calmed himself as he had been taught. He focused and brought himself back to the task at hand. Wadded the anger up into a tight black ball and tucked it away for safekeeping.
"You don't know me from Adam," Bob said. "You have no reason to trust me, but I'm going to ask you to anyway. You don't have family here, do you?" She shook her head no. "Didn't think so, or you wouldn't be here like this. I know this carries no weight with you and your every instinct is to not believe me, but I can deal with that guy I...have the training." Her eyes flashed with alarm and he chuckled softly. "No, I'm not a mafioso or anything like that. Think of me...as an ex-cop. A weapons expert. Sort of a martial arts instructor."
She took another sip of coffee and he did the same. She made a **** good pot of coffee. "Okay," she said. "I trust you. I don't know why, but I do. And I think of you as a friend, too. An ex-cop who grows vegetables," and she laughed. In the other room, Lucy giggled too, maybe just from hearing her mother laugh. It was a sweet sound in that sun-dappled kitchen.
"So, Bob, have you had breakfast? Do you like pancakes?"
"Do I like pancakes? Do I? Do bears...uh, never mind."
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 20:05:37 GMT -7
14.
Nick was still mad about the encounter at the apartment complex. How could he have been so wrong? And where did that bigshot jogger get off talking to him that way? Some guys just didn't know when to shut up for their own good! The ashtray in his car was full, overflowing onto the floor, so Nick hung his left arm out the window of his car and ground the butt out on the outside of the door, then let it drop into the dirt. The Circle K parking lot was almost empty now, and from his vantage point across the street and behind a closed auto repair shop, he could see the last customer, his car parked at one of the pumps, walk toward the store to pay for gas. This was gonna be a piece of cake, and when it was finished, he was gonna enjoy going back to the apartments and taking care of that guy once and for all. Nick didn't like unfinished business and that guy with the attitude had insulted him, run him off like a stray dog. Nick wouldn't stand for that. But all the same, sitting there in his old car, he felt a sickness in his gut when he thought of that guy with the muscles and hard eyes and calm, confident way of standing there. He reminded Nick of cops and firefighters. Maybe he'd just let the guy off easy this time and not go back. First things first though, and the Circle K came first.
Across the street, the customer came out drinking a Big Gulp, got in his car and drove out of the parking lot and away. It was now or never. Traffic was light even though it was the middle of the day, and with all the plague crap or whatever it was, the cops were probably back at the station house, afraid to go out. Piece of cake. He started the car, pulled across the street and parked off to one side, where the clerk within wouldn't be able to get a good look at his car. He'd already removed the license plate so they would have a hard time finding him, and he laughed at his genius. He'd thought of everything. Piece of cake. Nick grabbed the little chrome-plated pistol off the seat beside him and stuck it in the waistband of his old jeans, opened the door and got out. Five minutes later he yanked the door open, threw himself into the driver's seat and scrabbled for the keys in the ignition, a handful of bills in his left hand, the gun shoved hastily back in his waistband. As the old car clatterred out of the parking lot, the terrified man behind the counter was stammering into the phone to the police, giving a detailed description of Nick and his Pinto, which Nick drove right past the front windows in his haste to get away.
Nick congratulated himself on the successful robbery right up until he parked the car behind a thick tangle of bushes down by the river, when he counted the money. "TWENTY BUCKS?" he screamed, flailing the money at the windshield, "that sonofabitch only had twenty bucks in the till??"
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