Monday, July 28, 2014

Tuskers. Chapter 8

Rough first draft. (be kind.)

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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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