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Chapter 8
As it
happened, both Jenny and I climbed out onto the roof. We had a small deck at the end of the second
level hallway, which we never used but had seemed like a nice feature when we
bought the house. Unfortunately, the deck
seemed to be in the path of some kind of natural wind tunnel so it was
unpleasant to sit there for long.
But the
railing was low, and we could get onto the roof from there. We climbed up to the peak of the roof on all
fours, and sat gingerly, trying to gain our balance, and looked to the east.
We couldn’t
see anything but smoke now. Not a sign
of the Silverstein house. From here we
could also see Pederson’s old barn, and without the smoke we probably could
have seen the Underwood’s. We’d never
met the latter couple, who were usually traveling around Europe and who kept to
themselves when they were home.
“Barry…” My
wife’s voice was low and worried.
“We’ll be
OK,” I said, but then realized she was looking at something on the ground. Just a few yards from the house there was a
big hole in the side yard. Split wires
were visible from where we sat.
“Well, now
we know why we couldn’t call out,” I said.
She nodded
her head toward the spiral of smoke. “Do
you suppose?”
“Yeah, Carl
had gas lines. He was bragging about how
much money he was saving last winter. I
thought he was kind of nuts, since it only gets cold around her for such a
short time.”
“But
wouldn’t gas lines be metal, or something?”
“Something
pretty hard, I’d have to believe. But,
babe. Did you see the damage to the
outside of our front door?”
When I’d been making my -- what had seemed to
me -- slow motion escape from the pigs at the front steps, I’d seen heavy
grooves in the paneling of our door. The
marks had appeared to be at least an inch deep.
“That smoke
is going to bring emergency vehicles,” Jenny said. “Even if no one else calls them.”
We stared at
the smoke, contemplating it. Then both
of us seemed to have the same idea.
“We should…
“…signal
them.”
We slid
carefully down the roof on our butts, once scoot at a time, and climbed over
the railing.
“I’ll check
the kitchen,” she said, and hurried off.
I limped to
my den. On the bookshelf near the door,
I kept a flashlight tucked in the corner.
I reached for it, paused for a second to pray to whatever deity would
listen, and flipped the switch.
There was
light, but it was dim. I shook the
light, and it brightened for a moment, and then went even dimmer.
Shit.
Jenny was clambering
up the stairs. “Found it!” she said,
excitedly. She had the big light that we
took camping. It was supposed to be
heavy duty.
“Do we have
any extra batteries?” I asked worriedly.
“This ought
to be strong enough,” she said.
“It’s still
pretty bright out. I hope they can see
us.” By this time, we were hearing
sirens, which were rapidly approaching.
I tried to distinguish between the alarms, wondering if there were any
policemen coming. Policemen with guns.
We climbed
back on the roof. We could see the red
emergency vehicles rushing down the long road to the Silverstein’s. Looked to be a two-alarm fire. But then, two fire trucks was all the
township owned. I thought I saw the
cherry top of a cop car, too.
“Do we have
anything that will make noise?” I asked.
“I think I
have an old coaching whistle from when our niece, Sherry, was in soccer. I volunteered a couple of times. I think it’s in the junk drawer. Want me to get it?”
“Let’s try
signaling with the flashlight first.”
“When do we
do it?
The sirens
had stopped, but the lights were still flashing. Overhead, the pall of smoke was getting
darker, as the water from the firemen’s hoses began hitting the flames.
“Let’s wait
a few minutes. They’re going to be too
busy to be looking anywhere else.”
We sat close
together, and I put my arm around her as I was getting more and more secure on
our precarious perch. It suddenly
occurred to me that I was having fun…well, maybe not fun, but it was all very
exciting.
I don’t normally
look for excitement. I’ve always said that if you try to do
everything to eliminate risk, trouble will still find you. So why go looking for it?
But this
seemed to have awakened me out of a torpor I didn’t even know I was in. The situation was dangerous, my head told
me. It was exciting, said my heart. And my soul didn’t really believe that we’d
be hurt, either Jenny or me. We’d come
out of it, we always did.
The smoke
was really getting thick. When Jenny
coughed, I took my arm from her shoulders.
“I’m thinking maybe we should try now.”
Jenny didn’t
immediately respond.
“Are you
sure?” she finally said. “I mean, I
don’t see any of the pigs around. Maybe
we can get to the car and just drive away.
We’ll look pretty silly when we tell them we’re trapped by…by
javelinas.”
“Yeah, well
let them deal with the beasts. I don’t
mind looking silly.”
She
laughed. “OK. You’re right.
Who cares?”
She lowered
the head of the light and turned it on.
“What’s the S.O.S. again?”
That brought
me up short. “Three short. Three long.
Three short….I think.”
She started
to flash.
“Wait!” I
said, suddenly panicking. “Maybe it’s
three long, three short, three long.”
She started
chuckling, but didn’t stop what she was doing.
“I think they’ll get the message either way.”
It seemed
like she was doing it for hours, though it was probably only a few
minutes. I checked my watch. It was a quarter to four o’clock. If nothing else, we should probably save some
of the battery life for when it got dark.
There would probably still be firemen around.
Of course,
dark is when the javelinas really got active.
“My fingers
are getting tired,” Jenny said.
“Let me do
it for a while,” I said, but at the same moment, we heard the blare of a
sirens. Whoop, whoop, whoop! Beep, beep,
beep! Whoop, whoop, whoop!
“I think
they’ve got it,” I shouted. I dared to
stand up, there at the steepest part of the roof, and waved my arms and hooted
at the top of my voice. A vast relief
went through me, and I realized then that I’d been more worried and frightened
than I was willing to admit.
Whoop! Whoop!.....blaaaarch…blarrk, bl…
I sat down
abruptly. I could see what looked like a
dark wave washing over the emergency vehicles.
I couldn’t make sense of it. And
then I heard the gunshots. Just three or
four loud cracks before they abruptly stopped.
And then,
drifting from the Silverstein house, I heard screams.
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