Richard and Avery slumped back through the snow, arriving back at their refuge across the street. The mont the door closed behind them Richard pounded his fist on the wall before picking up and throwing a cupboard across the room.
"Fucking prick! He’s gone absolutely fucking insane! This can’t stand!"
Avery had overco her shock of nearly having her head blown off on the slow trudge back to Richard’s place. She bit her finger in frustration, cracking the skin and causing her blood to flow down her thumb.
"We should call the police! He shot at us, right in the neighborhood! That’s a cri, right? It’s got to be?"
Richard scrambled through his pockets and found his phone; he thrust it into Avery’s hands with a wicked smirk on his face.
"Yeah... Go ahead and work your magic, there’s no way the police can say no to you! I’ll be laughing at that asshole when he’s dragged off to prison! Then we can take whatever he has stashed away in that house of his."
Avery dialed 9/11 and waited for the signal to collect. It was spotty at best; the static was heavier than she had ever heard it. And when it finally connected she was quick to force herself to tears.
"Hello? My neighbor just shot at with a machine gun! Please send help!"
She interrupted her tears for a mont to flash Richard a nasty grin, that is, until she heard the voice respond to her. It was an automated ssage....
Avery’s face imdiately shifted to shock, fear, and then anger as she threw the phone at the wall, causing it to shatter into pieces.
"God fucking dammit!"
Richard imdiately grabbed Avery’s shoulders and shook her.
"You stupid bitch! You just destroyed my phone, what the hell is wrong with you!?!"
Avery finally realized what she had done and imdiately beca sullen.
"I’m sorry... It’s just... I didn’t get through to anyone... It’s a fucking machine!"
Avery may not be intelligent to fully understand the aning behind those words. But Richard, he was just streetwise enough to get a proper grasp on the situation.
"Holy shit.... Avery, this is actually good news!"
Avery looked up at Richard as if his IQ had suddenly dropped by half.
"Are you stupid? The police won’t arrest him! They won’t even take our call! They’re too busy!"
Richard shook his head and sighed.
"Avery, you’re lucky you’re pretty... If the police are so overwheld by the storm and the other calls they’re getting. The law effectively no longer exists... at least for the ti being. We can do whatever we want! And sure, Dean might have a machine gun... But how many of our neighbors can he really shoot before we tear down his door? This is exactly what we need!"
When Richard put it like that, Avery suddenly understood what was really happening.
Avery’s breathing slowed as the pieces finally slid into place.
This wasn’t just about Dean anymore.
It was about fairness.
While everyone else froze, while pipes burst and food ran low, Dean sat in warmth and light. He cooked real als. He watched movies. He drank beer like the world outside wasn’t dying inch by inch beneath the snow.
And worse than that; he hadn’t shared.
The mory of his house crept back into her thoughts uninvited. The blackout shades. The silence. No smoke from chimneys, no lights bleeding through the curtains. A fortress pretending to be a ho.
Who does that? She thought bitterly. Who prepares like that and doesn’t tell anyone?
He could have helped. He could have warned them sooner. He could have shared what he had. Instead, he rebuilt his house in secret, flipped off the neighborhood , and dared anyone to question him.
That wasn’t preparedness.
That was hoarding.
And hoarding, in a crisis like this, wasn’t just selfish; it was dangerous.
The more she thought about it, the more righteous her anger felt. If people were suffering while he lived comfortably, then he wasn’t a victim.
He was a problem.
And problems were ant to be dealt with.
They were all alone in this storm, and that ant that the law, was whatever they as a community made it.
And there were more than a few complaints about Dean to go around. Especially after the last month where he flagrantly violated HOA guidelines and told everyone who complained about it to "fuck off."
Knowing this, Avery was quick to add an extra layer to her clothing before grabbing Richard’s hand and dragging him out the door.
"Co on, let’s go lodge a complaint with the HOA...."
---
At the front of the suburban housing developnt, within its "gated community," was a front office and an attached community center.
Under normal circumstances, this would be where potential residents would co to check out the floor models for future houses.
It was also where the local community gathered to express concerns to the HOA once a month.
As the storm grew fiercer and people’s houses beca compromised, these buildings beca an ergency shelter for many of those in the community who had been displaced by the ferocity of the blizzard.
Every fifteen to thirty minutes a mber of the HOA would dare the cold to shovel out the doorway lest it pile up with snow and they be trapped inside.
Luckily for Avery and Richard they approached the building shortly after the path had been cleared, allowing an easy entry. The door fought the wind itself as it shut behind them.
It was here that they found the displaced residents huddled together, doing their best to warm up their collectivized rations, to eat a proper al.
Avery imdiately played up her concern as she addressed the room.
"Is everyone alright? I heard a gunshot earlier, and I rushed over as quickly as I could to check on you all."
The ntion of the gunshot imdiately drew the interest of everyone inside the community center. There was no doubt that they had heard a slight burst of gunfire earlier. How could they possibly not have?
But the burst had been brief, and the snow was so cold... Nobody was daring to go investigate the matter when it hadn’t reappeared since.
However, one woman in particular stepped forward, pressing her glasses further up her nose. She was quick to interrogate Avery on the matter.
"Did you see who fired the gunshot?"
Avery and Richard imdiately knew that the HOA representative had taken the bait. Her pen hand was practically waiting to sign a citation.
"Yes, I know exactly who it was. It was Dean Winters..."
Avery then went on to give all the details of what she had "witnessed" unfold, using Richard as the "target" of Dean’s sudden homicidal outburst.
She obviously spun the story into one of "concern" on their parts, all the while painting Dean in a bad light.
At the end of the story, the community was deeply concerned about Dean and his behavior.
The room didn’t erupt into chaos. It didn’t need to.
A low murmur spread instead, subtle at first; the sound of shared unease finding a common shape.
"I thought I saw lights over there last night," soone said quietly.
"My house hasn’t had power in two days," another added. "But his looks fine. He doesn’t even have snow on his roof, and yet I’ve never seen him out there clearing it!"
A man near the back muttered sothing about generators, about how long fuel should realistically last. A woman folded her arms tighter around herself and said Dean’s renovations had never sat right with her.
"He told the HOA to fuck off," soone else recalled. "Said he didn’t answer to anyone."
That drew a few nods.
The HOA representative cleared her throat, trying to reassert control, but the conversation had already begun moving without her.
Fear was giving way to resentnt, and resentnt was easier to hold on to in the cold. No one said the word hoarding out loud.
They didn’t have to.
By the ti the HOA volunteers offered to "handle the situation," the decision had already been made in the minds of the people huddled together.
Dean Winters wasn’t just a neighbor anymore.
He was an exception.
And exceptions, in a starving community, were intolerable.
This caused Avery and Richard to leave with a sense of satisfaction. When the HOA confronted Dean at his house, they knew it would end very poorly for them, and whatever happened would only serve to further antagonize the community against Dean.
---
Though Avery and Richard didn’t know it. Dean had tracked all of their movents and interactions from above.
He didn’t exactly have an audio feed to confirm what they discussed. But Dean was a man who could easily put a pattern of behavior and personalities together to surmise more or less what would happen next.
Swiftly the drone flew back to his balcony, where Dean retrieved it from the ledge. He then brought it back inside to recharge its batteries. All the while, sitting back down on his bed.
He didn’t need to make any moves today. Avery and Richard could poison the neighborhood against him if they wished. It didn’t matter in the slightest to him.
In the anti, there were chores to fulfill, maintenance to be perford, and defenses to be prepared.
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