The Grim Sleeper or Right Turn Clyde!

The Grim Sleeper

A short story by Dr. R. D. Charbonneau

The Grim Sleeper
or
Right Turn, Clyde!

          2012 HAD COME AND GONE WITHOUT A WHIMPER. Clyde and Lyla lived in a town of about 20,000 people on the border of Michigan and Indiana. In fact the ten acres of land on which their trailer roosted was on the North side of State Line Road as it headed West to the fringes. The place was a junkyard he'd inherited upon his dad's passing. His dad, Clyde Sr., was no rocket scientist. Clyde Jr., now a moot title, was a bit closer to that.

          Amid the stink of sulfur, alcohol and acetic acids, he had taught himself to understand higher math and chemistry, the latter stemming from earlier creative attempts to make wine from potatoes and even tomatoes. That was Clyde. He drew. He inked meticulously. He learned to paint. Everything was from a naïve artist's perspective. Once another friend, who was an educated artisan, made the point that he had none, meaning vanishing points and perspective. Clyde did it his way anyway. He started acquiring books and by the turn of the century, he was programming computer control boards, getting electric valves to work and to be controlled by those things he once called “Darned idiot machines.”

          After cleaning the Remington 357 Magnum, semi-automatic rifle's long bore, aligning the scope and oiling the mechanism, he opened the glass door to the gun rack, replacing the favored firearm in its resting place. The trailer was immaculate. Even from her motorized wheelchair, Lyla still managed to keep up with her husband's slovenly habits. In Clyde's mind, that was her main purpose. They had no kids. The only child she ever bore died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Clyde had suffered a prostate injury shortly after Clyde III's conception. It was God's intent they'd have each other and no other. It was probably kindness, Him knowing what their future held.

          As the years reeled on, he grew tired of children anyway. Across the street, on the Indiana side, much of the one time farmland had been bought by more than one developer and had grown into several strips of low rent apartment complexes. The same developers had wanted to buy his junkyard. He had laughed at the unconscionable offer they had made him, even going one step further to offer them an equally ridiculous offer of a million dollars for his property that stretched its ten acres for nearly half a mile of road frontage. The insults didn't end there.

          The managers of the apartment complexes were constantly complaining to the small town hall on the Michigan side till the building commissioner finally had to level threats at Clyde and Lyla to clean up their property or face fines. Luckily he had gone to school with the commissioner, so Roger came out personally and helped him keep the peace. Some friends helped them repair the septic system so it didn't share its succulent aroma with the apartment dwellers anymore. A privacy fence donated by another closed down auto junkyard up town was supplied to the couple, along with some more friends to bring it all up to code. The developers could no longer force their management to complain. It still didn't end.

          The projects, as they were called, harbored throngs of kids from all ages. It only took a few of them being slipped some money before the older ones enlisted younger hoodlums to harass the junkyard owners in any way they could. Their dogs were poisoned more than once over the years. Their trailer was egged and some of the older ones even ran a monster truck through their front yard, digging in deep and leveling Lyla's beautiful flower gardens at least once each year till Clyde had to put up a stone fence. It was a war that never ended, but he refused to give in and sell. He continued to scrap metal and sell it at a buyer in Goshen, Indiana. It was ironic that the state from where the trouble came also provided him with a reasonably good living for his hard work.

          Eventually the monster truck kids became monster truck men. The developers paid them to track Clyde who quite naively kept going to the same scrap recycler that paid him the best. Eventually that yard was bought and became a factory. Eventually the factory was closed, the developer having made back his money. Clyde was forced to take his scrap metal elsewhere for lower rates. Still, he refused to sell. The kids from the projects continued to throw trash on his usually attractive front lawn. They would spray paint and throw feces at his beautiful field stone fence. He was getting old and slowly wearing down. But then changes in the country came again and some of the gun and survival magazines started running ads on a new idea.

          A few years back he had bought a reasonably inexpensive set of plans on the Internet for this odd looking boat, so the designer called it. At first it seemed like a real complicated project, but once he'd built the other equipment the plans called for, it started making sense. The jigs and fixtures, as some of the equipment was called, were really the toughest parts to build. After that it didn't take much time. He had spent most of their savings on the thing, but it really did what it was advertised to do. It had a power source that used wind and the sun or even a furnace that burned about anything, wood, oil, or animal fat. That could warm the big sphere and even keep the electric power source charging the batteries. The plans recommended building this stone wall around the thing and making a tunnel beneath it all to get to the thing.

          It really made sense. There was a terrible war going on in the middle east and the security of the states was getting weaker. Criminals were being released from prison left and right with the dwindling funds available to the correctional system and crowding because so many facilities were closing. The bad guys were supposed to register and see psychiatrists and parole officers, but a lot of them disappeared. The bad guy biker and anarchist gangs were getting bigger, stronger and better armed. One of the worst massacres in history was a cluster of small farming villages that just one of the gang chapters rode on, killed the men and took all they had including their women and daughters. Things were getting threatening. Life was getting ugly, but now they had a bunker... of sorts.

          The country was still in a slow ebb toward getting better. The president's policy had been difficult to sell. Nonetheless it continued to go forward. The next best man to win was a woman. The trade market wavered about as bad as the Northern trade winds. Clyde had a green thumb, though, and a mechanical mind to keep processor tanks and separators and condensers and scrubbers, digesters and boilers, mostly made from recycled water heater tanks, old air conditioner parts, pickle jars and motors from anything and everything the junkyard had to offer. Lyla never really got into computers and all the gadgets, but she loved Clyde, his ink drawings, sketches and it was a woman's lucky dream to have fresh vegetables and eggs from their own chickens finding their way via conveyor belt, right into her kitchen. Now the plans he had bought made some additions to what he was already doing. The system was set up to make plant food, dispense it, make nearly any pesticide or herbicide or even medicinal ointments, the computer had all the information from the Internet stored and ready for any situation. The machines could even fire a shotgun or make a fog bank to protect Lyla and him from burglars. Still, it seemed a joke to have a machine be the protector when both of them were crack shots.

          Clyde and Lyla were both in their 60's in 2017. Both could draw social security that year, but the cost of living had gone up. The changes in the government had meant changes in business methods. If the government was to tax businesses more, they would either have to take it out of employee wages, fire some people or raise prices. It turned out to be a little of all three, but that year more jobs were opening up. Clyde wanted to work a few more years and wait to retire at 70, so he went after some of the jobs that were opening up in South Bend. They really didn't want 66 year old guys.

          The job hunt had taken him along the US31 bypass both directions. In South bend he had taken a few minutes to stop and have the sack lunch Lyla had packed for her man. He had filled out close to ten applications that morning and a few more that afternoon. None received any better than a handshake from a personnel manager and a “We'll call you if...” response. Tired and a bit dejected, he headed home considering the standard retirement that would produce a check for less than a thousand dollars each month. He regretted not putting in more work at higher paying jobs over his best years.

          On the way back to the trailer, he watched as long strings of motorcycles poured off the highway. All had riders on the backs carrying backpacks. He thought he saw more than one with the butt of a rifle or shotgun poking out of a pack or a saddlebag. Another string of the bikers whizzed by him in his slow, old 3 ton Ford truck. Eventually he arrived at his exit and, after a few turns, he pulled up outside the trailer. Inside he hung his Fedora hat on the coat rack. He could smell the spaghetti bubbling away in the kitchen.

          Lyla motored out of the kitchen in her power chair. “Any luck, Honey?”

          “No.” He sat down on the old sofa. It was time they bought a new one. “Did you hear anything about one of those motorcycle rides for Muscular Dystrophy or something for today?”

          “No, Clyde.” She looked puzzled. “They'd have mentioned it on last night's news, I'd imagine. Why?”

          “I saw a bunch of them while I was on the way home.” He took off the work shirt he always wore for factory job interviews. “That got me thinking just a bit.”

          “D'ya suppose it could be some of those renegades?” Her brow was furled in just a bit of worry.

          “I don't know.” He pulled off the work boots. “Honey, what d'ya think about staying in that survival boat... bunker... tonight?”

          “If you think we should.” She still looked worried. “Do we need to take anything else in with us?”

          “Not really.” He was down to his drop-seat long johns. “Y'know it is around time for that MD telethon.” He looked at the gun rack. “It could be nothing. They ride like that to raise money just about every year.” He got up and went to the rack. “Maybe we should take our guns in with us.”

          “I've thought that was the best place to keep them all along.”

          It was close to seven when they made their small exodus into the so-called TOM. It was a funny name because most of the survivalist types always talked about a BOB. They took a lot of extra food and supplies just to be certain. If there was a bad moon rising, they would be prepared to sit it out for a month or two. All the computers were kept in the bunker. It was big enough for two people. Two levels inside. Once inside they turned on the security lights outside and called in their Golden Retriever. Watching some TV they heard on the news station that he'd been right and that South Bend was under siege. The bikers had taken over the National Guard armory first, so had an immediate advantage.

          “It looks like you called it square on the nose this time.” Lyla sat next to her man on the sofa. It seemed strange to be away from flat, square walls, still it wasn't so bad. The cozy little loft above was neatly arranged. She looked at all the inside gardening. Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, even corn was growing in one window or another. “I could stay here for a while if I had to.”

          Clyde squeezed her shoulder, drawing her near. “I doubt if they'd come out this way.”

          Before they turned in, he placed a disk in the computer that came with the TOM. He thought about the name of the thing. He hoped that TOM wouldn't end up TOMB. It had been the plans he'd bought that told how to make the chemical synthesizer and the fog bank generator. The synthesizer had saved them a lot of money on Lyla's pain medications and yard chemicals over even the two years they had it in use. He wondered what would happen if the gangs did overrun the junkyard. Would there be enough of the system left to keep making her needed medications if everything fell apart?

          He looked at the emergency information again. Then he looked at the product catalog again. One of the things that caught his eye was the weird flying car the site advertised. He thought that would be nice to have. It looked like something a one time classmate he used to call a friend would have come up with. He set the computer to automatically protect them. The aluminum windows swung shut, the solenoids clicking the locks shut. They were in for at least that night.

          They lay in bed, tired from the extra job of stocking the bunker, as Clyde usually referred to it, and hoped for the best. “Well, Lyla...” He looked into her eyes. “let's see what the morning brings. We'll be alright I imagine.” He kissed her and they turned out the lights.

                                          ***************************************

          Clyde woke with the beams of sunlight streaming into his face. He smelled bacon cooking. He looked over the railing of the loft to see his wife in her power chair “That smells good, Honey.” Still wearing his signature long johns, he decided to test the fireman's pole instead of waiting for the elevator to come back up to the loft.

          “We have a lot of it in the freezer, so you can have it for a long time to come.” Lyla put a plate on the table in front of him.

          Clyde grabbed his fork and scooped up a healthy piece of the bacon, dipping it in the yoke of an egg. “Did you open the windows?”

          “No, dear.” She seemed happy that they had made it through okay. “The computer seems to have done that for us.”

          “Maybe we jumped through our hats for nothing.” He stuffed in the mouthful.

          “I don't know” She joined him at the little table. “My cell's not working and it's pretty quiet out there.”

          “Well, y'know we're down in here where it's hard to hear all the traffic from across the road.”

          “Do you think it's safe to go outside?” The worried look fell over her brow again.

          “Do you feel strong enough to walk?”

          About a half hour later the two emerged through the trailer to the front lawn. Each carried a 10 gauge pump action shotgun in their hands. The sight wasn't pretty. No. There were no deep tire tracks where someone had somehow managed to run another yard job on them. Instead there were motorcycles strewn around the area. Near or under or on top of a bike were bodies. The rough ones, the weaker, men in jeans and T-shirts, children, women, some naked, covered in blood, rifles, handguns, shotguns and baseball bats strewn about everywhere. The carnage could be seen far wider spread in the projects. Motorbikes were laying everywhere.  Birds and other wildlife had been dropped in flight or in their tracks.

          The streetlights were out, but the sun was gleaming through a sparse set of white and grey clouds, so that would be expected. Cars had crashed into telephone poles, into ditches or even into the buildings where people once lived. All was frighteningly still. The smell of blood and gunpowder was thick in the air.

          Clyde walked to a scene where a young girl had been stripped of her clothing and murdered. Beside her lay the assailant. The dirty, long haired punk had huge, red blisters all over his exposed skin.

          “Don't touch any of them, Lyla.”

          He walked about some of the other bodies finding much the same. Most of the innocent people had been murdered or raped, then murdered, but the bikers and anarchists had been wiped out by something else. “Nerve gas, Lyla.” He looked in her eyes. “Nerve gas.”

          “How did that happen?” She looked confused.

          “I'm not sure I want to know.” He thought about the disk he last put into the computer. Clyde looked up, hearing something approaching. It sounded like... bees? No. It was more like a lawnmower, but it was getting closer and fast.

          There it was! It was an odd looking flying machine. Lyla raised her shotgun, but Clyde pushed the barrel down. The machine was some kind of hovercraft moving along the road, kicking up a cloud of dust as it approached. They watched as it came to a rest in front of their trailer. He heard the dog barking in the junkyard.

          A moment later a hatch opened and out stepped a man in a spacesuit. His hair was long and much of it was gray, the same as his long beard. He was unarmed and approached the two without reserve. The hovercraft was the same as the one he'd seen in the catalog.

          The man stretched out his open, gloved hand. “Clyde.”

          “How do you know my name?” He reluctantly shook the man's hand.

          “You bought some plans from me.” The man handed him a roll of hundred dollar bills and a bulky package wrapped in clear plastic displaying two spacesuits similar to his. “I'm not certain how much longer this cash will do you any good, so I'd be stocking up as wisely as you can.”

          “What has really happened? Where are the police?” Lyla asked.

          The man was already returning to his hovercraft. “There's nobody alive except you two for thirty miles around. It's all like this.” He was reaching up to close the hatch. “A lot of the country is in this same condition. Probably a thousand people either bought plans or had me make those TOM's for them.” He paused for a moment. “Don't handle those bodies without a haz-mat suit. I'd just stay in the TOM and only go out for supplies.”

          “Wait!” Clyde stepped forward. “Don't I know you from somewhere?”

          “Did you ever get in the habit of laying out your vanishing points?” The man grinned and shut the hatch. A moment later he was back in the air, zipping along the road and then right up into the sky.

          “Well, I'll be darned.” Clyde, held his shotgun pointed toward the ground.

          “You know him?” Lyla held onto his arm. She was weakening and needing to get to her power chair.

          “Yeah.” He smiled a bit. “We all went to school together.” He chuckled. “It's old Bob.” He put the safety on. “I guess its a good thing I turned on the computer and visited his site.”

          “Yeah.” She smiled and reached up to kiss her man. “I'd say you took a right turn, Clyde.”