Chapter 03

Freyja didn’t dream about the past often, but that night she did. A nightmare, of course, a muddled and remix of recollections from when she was eight, just before her brother had taken her with him far away from the Old Man.

“I don’t give a fuck. My son’s not some fucking fairy!” Their father seemed so big and scary.

Gunner hadn’t flinched when he was hit. He stood there and faced the Old Man down. When he left the room, probably to get a weapon, her brother scooped her up and ran for it. This wasn’t exactly how things had played out. She knew that. The dream had mixed things around. Their father hadn’t hit Gunner on the day they left.

The Old Man hadn’t even been home the day they left.

In reality, Gunner had made sure Freyja had a bag packed with clothing, a few of her toys, and waited until their father was busy with some of his friends at a local bar or something. They had left in the night. As far as she knew the Old Man didn’t notice they were gone for a day and half. Maybe longer.

He never filed a report with the police or anything.

Gunner had a hotel room for them to stay in and money he had saved from working a series of yard jobs here and there. The places they stayed after that were a blur. She was pretty sure several of them were from various charity groups in the area. One might have been in the back of a church, another was some other sort of temple, she wasn’t sure. For the most part the people who helped them had been kind.

“This sucks,” Freyja said as she laid on the inflatable mattress in the Armory. “If only he’d just die already.”

It was early morning, but at least it wasn’t cold.

She went ahead and got up, microwaving an enchilada dinner and eating it with a pineapple soda for breakfast. Then, she gathered her things, because no way in hel was she leaving any of her shit in this place, and opened the Armory door. Outside stood the largest, most world beaten gray tom cat she’d ever seen in her life. He had to be at least twenty pounds of scarred up fur and muscle. A particularly jagged scar crossed his missing right eye. Didn’t look like he’d seen a vet for whatever caused him to lose it either. His other eye had crusty dried fluid that had wept from it into the fur on the side of his nose. She stayed still for a moment until the cat chirped at her.

He sounded like a kitten.

But he looked like walking roadkill.

“You must be Odin.”

The cat, recognizing his name, sauntered over to her before rubbing his face and side against her shins, wrapping his tail around her ankles as he wove between her legs. She reached down to pet him behind the ears, feeling fleas jump on her skin almost immediately.

“Good boy,” she said. “I’m gonna get you some food...and flea drops. Oh my gods.”

Freyja locked up the Armory and hurried to her car, leaving the cat behind on the gravel driveway. She used a wet wipe from her backpack to clean her hands before driving to get supplies. Her first stop was a gas station to use the restroom and wash her hands properly. The Armory had no bathroom. Even if the one inside the Old Man’s house was in pristine condition, which she highly doubted, she didn’t want her ass anywhere near the guy’s toilet. After that she decided to make a list of things she needed, including a composting camp toilet. It would be more expensive but she did have a thousand dollars to work with for starters.

She swung by the local branch of her bank to deposit $900 and had the final one hundred broken up into smaller bills before going to a couple thrift stores for clothing. Six pairs of used jeans, eight random t-shirts, and a few long sleeve button up shirts would serve as her disposable clothing to wear while she cleaned out the house. She doubted it would be enough, but it would have to do. She even lucked out and found a used cooling jacket at the second thrift store. It had a note on it that the motor didn’t work, but she knew how to fix it. Next, she went to a big box store to buy the portable toilet, some other camping gear, and some additional groceries she could prepare with the microwave. Nothing needed to be refrigerated right away, which gave her time to have lunch as a Burger Hat around noon. The rented dumpster was in the driveway when she got back to the house, far enough back that she had plenty of room to park her car on the property.

A voice interrupted her as she was unfolding her portable hand cart at the back of her car, “Hey! You know Elmer?”

Freyja turned around. “Unfortunately, yeah.”

A twenty something year old man with short dark hair and a scruffy week old beard was standing on the porch of the house across the street. He wore aviator sunglasses, a pair of tan shorts, a tank top, and simple thong sandals. A vape pen glinted from the afternoon sun in his hand.

“He die yet?”

“Last I knew he was still breathing,” she called back.

“Damn, that sucks.”

It was kind of nice to know that the Old Man’s neighbors also hated him. There was no doubt her sparse memories from her childhood weren’t inaccurate, even if her dreams liked to remix the timeline of events in new upsetting ways.

“Sure does,” she said loudly.

“You gonna clean that place up?” The stranger asked.

“That or die trying.”

“He know?”

“Hell no, he does not,” Freyja said with a grin.

There was a pause while the stranger thought for a moment. Then he shouted, “You must love him a lot.”

“Fuck no! He’ll be super pissed about this,” she laughed.

“He’s super pissed about everything!” The guy shouted back. “I’m Sam, by the way!”

She hesitated before replying, “Freyja.”

Then came the question she dreaded most.

“How do you know Elmer?”

She pursed her lips together and shut her eyes. Taking a breath in slowly then letting it back out.

“Estranged daughter,” she called back.

“I didn’t know he had kids.”

“Good, because we disowned him a long time ago,” she said.

There was an awkward silence. After a few moments Sam spoke again, “Let me know if you need anything, yeah?”

“Will do, thanks!”

Freyja got to work loading her cart as Sam went back into his house. First, she took the groceries inside, then the thirty two pack of bottled water, followed by the portable toilet, cleaning supplies, cat food, and clothing. She had made a point of getting some disposable N95 masks as well as a respirator mask with replaceable filters. Her brother had joked she might need a new tetanus shot, but she was up to date on vaccinations and wasn’t super worried about it.

She set the toilet up in the back corner of The Armory next to two of the larger standing gun safes. The little tent the toilet came with worked well to create a polite little shitting room.

When she was done, Odin the cat, greeted her near her sleeping area in the front of the Armory. He had been rubbing his scarred chin on the top of the package of bottled water. She was glad she’d left the plastic wrap on them.

“Hey kitty,” Freyja said. “I don’t know what that bastard was feeding you but I got something for you.”

She grabbed the cat bowls from the grocery bag, a bottle of water, and took them outside. The big tom cat followed her out, watching her as she sat the two bowls and their stand on the gravel next to the building. She filled one with water and went back inside. He followed again as she opened the cat food bag and used a new plastic scoop to get some of the meaty smelling kibble. Then the cat got a lot more excited, weaving in and out of her legs as she lead him back to the bowls outside. It was hard to walk with a cat the size of a small dog, eager to trip her. She barely had time to pour the food into the bowl before Odin headbutted the scoop out of the way and went to town eating as if he’d never seen food before in his life. She hoped he wouldn’t eat too fast and throw up.

“You’re a pretty sweet cat, aren’t you?” She asked.

Odin answered by chewing loudly.

“You probably have worms, yeah?”

Again, the only reply was the sound of excited eating.

Freyja was sure to close the door behind her when she went back into the Armory. The building had a substantial AC system, which surprised her, but she was thankful for it. Even if this job was going to be hel, at least she had a place to cool off.

She poured the rest of the cat food from the bag into a water tight plastic container she had bought. Then she slipped it under the work table and put the scoop on top.

“Right, gonna fix that jacket next,” she said. “I think I saw a soldering iron over here. There it is.”

There was a lot to do, but the early summer heat was starting to take hold. She didn’t want to die because she got overheated cleaning out the house. Not to mention, spending some time to fix the jacket would help her put off looking inside the building.