One came right back:Where are you?
She typed in her location and then watched the shadow of the vehicle. It came to a stop right in the middle of the road in front of the rec hall, and four doors opened. From where she stood, she couldn’t tell if the people who got out were men, women, or teenagers. But when they didn’t close the pickup doors, she figured they were up to no good.
The lights around the rec hall lit all of them up enough that Lottie could tell they were all guys. The metal of a chainsaw shone when the tallest one took it from the bed of the truck. Another one laughed when he slid a suitcase of beer down from the open tailgate. A third one twirled awrecking bar around like it was a sword, and the last one seemed to be bringing two large bottles of liquor. Even from a distance, she could tell by the shapes of the bottles that one was Maker’s Mark, and the other Jack Daniel’s.
“What’s going on?” Knox whispered so close to her that she could feel his breath on her neck. He held a shotgun in one hand and a fistful of shells in the other.
“I believe we are about to get vandalized,” she whispered. “We should video whatever is going on just in case…” A popping noise caused her to stop in the middle of the sentence. “There went the door to the rec hall.”
“Chainsaw?” Knox asked as he loaded the double-barrel shotgun.
Before she could answer, the saw revved up, and music that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard and a jackhammer on steroids made Lottie put her hands over her ears.
“We have vandals.” Knox handed the shotgun off to her and slipped his phone from his back pocket. He punched in 911 and told the lady at the other end what was going on.
“There are two patrol cars in that area. They can be there in ten minutes,” she said.
“Thank you,” Knox said. He returned the phone to his pocket and yelled above the noise. “Ten minutes, and I agree about videoing whatever they are doing.”
Lottie could tell by the change in the sound of the saw that it was cutting through something. “I’m not waiting,” she said and headed toward the rec hall.
Knox nodded and reached for the gun.
She shook her head. “I know how to use one of these. What’s it loaded with?”
“Number 8 bird shot,” he answered.
“That should sting if I have to use it,” she said and kept walking.
“When I open the door, shoot into the air, and stand back in case they are armed with more than a chainsaw,” Knox told her.
“Why into the air?” she asked. “I’ve got a good aim. I’ll patch whatever holes I blow into the wall.”
“Protection,” Knox said. “I’ll explain why later.”
The door stood wide open, and four boys with scraggly beards and bloodshot eyes didn’t even see them until the sound of the shotgun rang out. One of them immediately touched the screen on his phone, and the music stopped.
Knox set his phone on a nearby shelf and hoped that he was getting the right angle to film all three of them having a great time with a chainsaw and spray paint.
One of them took a long gulp of whiskey from a bottle and then threw it at Knox. It shattered on the floor right as the boy with the chainsaw finished cutting the table and turned off the saw.
“What the hell?” the kid yelled. “You didn’t leave any of that for me, and I’m doing…”
That’s when Lottie stepped into the room with the shotgun raised.
The kid shook the chainsaw at Knox. “This is our party, not yours, old man. Get out and take the gun with you, but you can leave the pretty lady.”
The look in the boy’s eyes made Lottie’s skin crawl.
“Not happenin’, son,” Knox said. “You are going to sober up in jail for all this damage.”
The teenager jabbed the saw toward Lottie that time. “ Are you crazy? My old man wouldn’t let that happen!”
The other boys pointed spray-paint cans sideways at Knox, like gangsters with guns in a mob movie.
“We have called the police,” Lottie told them.
“So what? My dad is a lawyer, and I won’t spend a single night in a cell.”
