A houseboat. Finegan Fine

nothing seems to have been left by the looters. He pulls at some

plumbing used to pipe carbonated water, and detaches a carbonating

device under the counter to take along.

He is still looking around, determined to find some booze. He is

pulling out half melted soda bottles, littering the floor with them.

Toward the back of this stash he finds what he is looking for, a half-

filled soda bottle that has a tape tag on it. The soda bottles toward

the back had not melted as much as those exposed to the air of the

room, and this bottle is intact.

Aha!

Finegan opens the cap and sniffs with satisfaction, taking a swing.

As tight as he was, the help had to hide any

booze they were stealing. . . Probably measured

the bottles daily.

Finegan holds the bottle high, sloshing it, smiling.

This is how they got around him. The whole

bottle went missing.

Suddenly he realizes there may be more, and drops down to dig around in

the soda bottle cabinet.

______________________________

Finegan and the fisherman are going down some concrete stairs into the

basement of the castle hulk – an external entry to the basement. The

door to the basement has been blown open, the doors in fragments

pointing inward. There is some standing water on one side of the

basement floor, from rain and damaged drains and the fact that the

cataclysms tilted the house on its foundation. The walls are severely

cracked.

To one side of the basement, in one wall, is the entry to the food

stash, the entry now one big hole due to the explosion that set the

house afire. Various pieces of cardboard are littered here and there,

some floating in the flooded basement corner, as the supply depot has

been sifted through repeatedly by looters. Finegan is going to have a

look, and starts walking toward the blast hole.

Maybe they left some soap.

47

The shelves in the center of the bunker are knocked over and somewhat

charred. All the shelves of the bunker appear to be empty, though some

items have been thrown to the floor, discarded. As Finegan suspected,

these include boxes of soap powder and packages of bar soap. He goes

over to start stacking them in a pile. A voice growls out of the

corner.

That’s mine.

Finegan jerks his head up to look in one corner of the bunker, and sees

a shell of an old man, huddled behind some broken and empty cardboard

boxes. His clothing is matted with dirt, his hair long and stringy and

also matted, his beard thin and long, and his face wrinkly and with a

perpetual sneer plastered across his face. It is clear he has been

using a spot nearby for a toilet, as a pile of dung and yellow pool of

water attests. Finegan says,

Make you a trade! How about some roasted

pumpkin and pecans, eh? Something to eat.

The owner was not expecting to be fed or treated fairly, and looks

puzzled, unable to answer. Finegan takes the initiative. He pats the

pile of powdered soapboxes and bar soap packages.

I’ll leave these here, and be back in an hour

or so.

Finegan steps toward the exit, holding his soda bottle half full of

booze to his far side so the owner cannot see this. He moves lively,

before the owner can speak, the astonished fisherman at his heels. When

they are clear of the room and on their way up the concrete steps, the

fisherman says in a loud whisper.

I thought he was dead! . . Huh . . Maybe he had

a bunker within the bunker. . . What’s he been

eating?

______________________________

Finegan and the curious fisherman are returning down the concrete

steps, holding a couple plastic buckets. One is filled with roasted

pumpkin pieces, skin still on and browned at the edges, and the other

is partially filed with shelled pecans. They make their way into the

bunker and look expectantly into the corner of the bunker where the

snarling owner was last seen. There is no one there.

Then they see the owner seated on the pile of powerdered soapboxes and

bar soap packages, glowering and sneering.

It’s mine!

48

Finegan calls the owner’s bluff, knowing he is not interested in soap

and has probably run through any secret food cache he had hidden in a

bunker within the bunker. Finegan turns to leave.

Suit yourself.

The owner snarls,

Wait!

Looking like a trapped, mean spirited animal, eyes shifting in every

direction and the sneer ever returning to his, the owner motions to his

side.

Bring that stuff over here and set it down.