Tomda 7] News from the coast

After scooting out from the fence a bit on my butt to recover my squirt bottle, I rested for a while. Up until my stomach's demands for food became too much.

Eventually, I used the fence to climb up to my feet and managed to grab the two ice packs off the ground while I was still bent halfway over before I began to make my way home. I’m sure I would still have some kind of need for them in the future.

The chunk of cement was coming with me too. Who knows, I might need it again someday, and at least I knew it worked on these things pretty well.

As I passed by the body of the Lasher, I gave it a long look.

It had looked so much bigger when it had been preparing to tear into me. Now I could see that was only about the size of a six year old child.

Which I guessed answered the question about how many psychotic six year olds you could take on if locked in a gymnasium with them. For me, it seemed like it would just be one.

But it would be one that decisively lost.

“The size of a child…”

I made my way down the alleyway as I dug out my phone and flipped it open.

Yes. It’s a flip phone. I tend to drop things a lot, like the phone which slipped out of my finger right then, and a flip phone can take a fall onto cement without the little screen cracking.

Again, like right then.

Taking a long sad look at the phone lying on the ground, I sighed. Easing myself down with one hand on the fence, I got down low enough that I was able to just reach the phone. After failing to get it on the first two tries, and almost toppling over to do a face plant on the second try, I eased myself down a little lower and finally snagged it by the flipped up upper lid.

“All according to plan. Just not my plan.”

My granddaughter's mother answered on the third ring. Who she was in relation to my Beatrice was the only thing about her that mattered to me about her anymore. “Harry, are you okay? Or is he okay if this is someone else?”

I huffed. Like I would let someone else use my phone. “I’m fine woman. I’m calling to see if you and Bea are okay. Are there any of these Dungeons around your apartment?”

I could hear a little girl asking “Is that grandpa?” as her mom answered me. “The one closest to us has an industrial dump truck full of cops and volunteers with shotguns in the back picking off some things that look like wagon wheels with spikes around the edges and eyeballs in the middle. They are killing them as fast as they roll out of the storm drains into the river bed, and the ones that go deeper into the drains can’t exactly climb up a ladder.”

"I still kept her home from school, even before they called to say it was canceled, and then I called into work to take a few days off. We're good."

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She muffled the phone as she talked to Bea, “Just a second sweetie, I need to talk to him about something.”

I figured that last part wasn’t meant for me.

“So… Normally you never call, and I know you hate talking on the phone. Are you okay Harry? I know it was your birthday yesterday, but I didn’t know… Are you okay?”

I blinked a few times and looked down at the dead Lasher for a moment until Patricia asked again “Harry?”

“I’m fine… It’s just dangerous around the house right now, so I’m staying in and can’t go get Bea’s gift yet.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Sweetie, your Grandpa can’t get your gift yet, they have monsters there too. Harry? She wants to talk to you."

I hadn’t heard my granddaughter’s voice since… her last birthday I think. I heard her come on the phone in an excited chatter of which I only picked up about half of what she was saying.

“No Bea, I didn’t get a Class. I was born pretty late at night so I must have still been Seventy four when it happened. It will get me next year if this is still going on.”

I then had to endure a little girl and a middle aged woman singing Happy Birthday and telling me to stay safe before I could finally end the conversation.

Not just because I hate talking on the phone, but because it’s dangerous out here, and I need to get moving.

I looked at the phone for a moment. It was easy for me now to let myself care about the little girl since I didn’t have to deal with her that much anymore. Not since she and her mom moved out years after my son ran off on them along with all their saveings and they needed a place to live. But dealing with her wasn’t my job. It was her mom’s, and… her father’s.

Scrolling down my short list of contacts, I paused for a moment on Beryl's name, not that her phone would still be hooked up, and then I scrolled down to the last name at the bottom of the list.

Unforgiven.

My son answered after the second ring. “Dad?”

We hadn’t spoken to each other in five years. It took a day like this for me to break the silence.

“Reed…”

“Yes Dad?” I could hear the hope in his voice.

“I just wanted to say… Burn in hell you piece of shit.”

I could hear him make a few sputtering sounds as I ended the call.

He didn’t call back.

My son was a worthless piece of shit, but he wasn’t stupid.

Just heartless. Like father, like son.

I made it home with one arm tucked into the front pocket of my hoodie to support it so that its weight wasn't hanging off my sore shoulder. My other hand was pressed up against where it hurt.

I was hungry enough that the warmth I needed to channel life into my bad shoulder joint just wasn’t flowing, either into me, to send down to my hand, or from my hand to my shoulder.

“I really need to get to the grocery store.”

At least I managed to make it home without getting jumped by anything, and once inside the house, I pulled out the sirloin steak from the back of the fridge.

It was small, and on sale when I got it, but was still expensive.

And one of the few cuts of beef I could still eat due to the low fat content. A few minutes in the microwave and I was able to peel back the plastic and run it under some hot water while switching the hot outer edge of the meat from hand to hand as I thawed out the still frozen bottom from the absorbent padding between the meat and the Styrofoam packaging.

Eventually, I got it in a baking dish with a few shakes of some dollar store salt free spice mix, extra garlic powder, pepper, and dried parsley, along with some slices of onion covering it on top in overlapping circles.

Two quartered potatoes went in as well, the cheap yellow ones, and some little peeled carrots.

There wouldn't be any gravy, not for me, but cooking up some things in the beef grease would still make them taste better. I was sure it wasn’t healthy, but I had never looked it up to be sure.

Ignorance is bliss, and tasty.

As I sat and waited for the meat to cook, I snacked on a single sheet of four graham crackers with the last of the peanut butter on them, and some preserves, which left me with just the emergency back up jar of peanut butter and not much left to put it on.

"I really need to get to the store, and take my shot."

That’s when something thumped against the back door. Hard.

I looked at the back of the kitchen. The cops would have been at the front door again if they had come back.

Evil Monkey’s family?

There was another thump. I made my way to the back of the kitchen and peeked out through the thin curtain.

The Coyote was jumping up against my back door and whining.

Along with two pups lyying down at the bottom of my back porch steps. One with its head covered in blood, and lying very still.

“Damn it...”