THE COLLAPSE: Seeking Refuge Read Free Page B

he had the pages flipped over most of the cover.  The young man had a disgruntled air about him as the three females approached.
    “Poop or pee?” the kid asked in a bored voice.  Tarra was taken aback, but the Kays thought it was funny and giggled.
    “I beg your pardon, young man?” Tarra questioned. “What business of that is yours?”
    The teenager rolled his eyes with exasperation and replied, “It’s my business, lady, because if you’re gonna poop; you’re gonna need one of these.”  He reached down and lifted one of the buckets a few inches off the concrete and then set it back down, as if Tarra was the dumbest woman he had ever met.
    “Oh, my apologies,” Tarra said, somewhat embarrassingly. “We’re new to all this.” 
    The kid just stared at them, saying nothing as he awaited their reply.
    Katrina suddenly raised her hand and shouted excitedly at the teenage boy, “I have to go poop!”
    Kyla laughed at her sister and pushed her shoulder, “Ha-ha, you have to take a bucket!”
    After a few minutes the ladies finished their business in the bathroom and returned the empty bucket to the young man in the camp chair.  The teenager had glared at Katrina as she cheerfully set it down on the ground in front of him and told him, “Thank you.” 
    Once the potty party started to walk away, without saying a word the kid angrily snatched the empty bucket up off the ground and disappeared into the forest along one of the trails that connected separate portions of the campground.  Tarra assumed that he was off to get it refilled at one of the manually operated water pump stations in The Park.
    Back at site 62, Tarra said to Stephen, “That was weird, there was a kid handing out buckets of water by the bathrooms.  ‘Poop or pee’ he was asking.”
    “Interesting,” Stephen replied thoughtfully. “Do you think he was doing that for convenience or rationing purposes?”
    “Not sure.  I don’t think that he wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of his heart, though.”  Tarra answered.  She was staring at the still-snoring Fish on the picnic table.  Stephen knew that her brain was in the process of conjuring up the most obnoxious way possible to wake him up.
    Stephen intervened and said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “Oh yeah?  And why not?” Tarra grinned.
    “Because he’s still wearing a pistol under his jacket.”
    “Ah, good point,” Tarra laughed, and abandoned the thought.
     
    *****
     
    At precisely ten after three o’clock, an escort arrived at site 62.  A teenage girl a couple years older than the “poop or pee” guy.  Even without makeup and with her brown hair in a hasty pony-tail, the young woman was very attractive.  She introduced herself as Meghan and invited Fish and the Alexanders to follow her to the leadership meeting, which was held at a different location each day.  Before departing, Stephen helped Pharaoh climb into the tall truck and closed the door.  Meghan had eyed the dog suspiciously when she first arrived at the site, and Stephen didn’t want to take any chances on losing his opportunity for refuge in The Park.  For some reason, the Charlie Brown song “No dogs allowed…” echoed in Stephen’s head from his childhood.
    As everyone nervously walked with Meghan, Fish rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as one of the Kays broke the silence and curiously asked the pretty escort, “Do you like camping?”
    “It’s okay, I guess.  Kinda boring after a while, though,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I miss having my phone, too.”
    Tarra laughed and added, “Me too, Meghan.  Me too.”
    The group marched from the Forest Loop section of the campground (where site 62 was located) to Lower Loop.  Lower Loop ran parallel to the road that skirted Cranberry Lake, just like Forest Loop did, but Lower Loop was further west and much closer to the Puget Sound.
    Meghan led the extended family to site 137.  Several men and women were