Pool Apocalypse
Eleven 100-word flashes from the Cold House City Pool series
If you need a refresher on the earlier Cold House Pool Stories, here is Part 1 and Part 2.
LUTHER’S DETENTION BOYS
When the state made Tallatippah High start teaching chemistry, the Cold House City Pool caretaker was the only man who knew a part per million from a pipe wrench.
So they gave old Luther a classroom.
The school got a chemistry teacher, and Luther got a steady supply of conscript labor—detention boys.
Detention was banked during the school year and met in the summer—5:15 every morning for Pumps & Pools 101.
Some of those boys learned a lot at the pool—one even went to work for Exxon.
The pool learned them, too, and behaved itself when they were around.
Mostly.
PETTIS SAID
Luther had been teaching his detention boys at the Cold House City Pool for years when Billy Ray Pettis said Luther touched him—touched all the detention boys when no one was watching.
Made them do… things.
It wasn’t true—probably wasn’t, people said. Pettis was just sore about detention in the summertime.
All of Luther’s former detention boys said it wasn’t true.
But it was the kind of accusation that had to be dealt with.
They locked the gates at the pool, and by the time school started back in the fall, Tallatippah High still hadn’t found a new chemistry teacher.
FOR THE CHILDREN
The problem with letting the Cold House City Pool stay closed was that it festered.
Over time, a skin of dead leaves and green algae sealed over the two feet of water left in the deep end. Spots, then streaks, then whole swaths of black mold crept up the walls.
The place went sour.
There was no rougarou rumpus. No self-respecting fae goddess would frequent such a place.
The uncanny and their kin drifted away.
By winter it was just a concrete hole full of bad water and old shade.
City council said it had to be done—for the children.
AT WHAT COST PROGRESS
The Cold House City Pool stayed shuttered for over two years after the Pettis accusations. Vines climbed the chain-link fence and the padlocks rusted shut.
Then in the spring of 1981, a councilman came up with a grand idea: fill it in and build a public library.
People got excited—there hadn’t been a public library in Tallatippah County since the one over in Winsome burned down in the mid-sixties (but that’s a whole nother story.)
Folks from the three counties praised the idea. The children mostly brooded, quietly mourning the loss of something magical they could not put into words.
THE END STOOL
Of course Luther was never prosecuted. The grand jury and everyone else saw right through Billy-Ray Pettis’s facile accusations almost immediately.
But Luther never held another job either, and nobody in Tallatippah County looked at him quite the same way afterward.
Tallatippah was just that kind of place back then.
It wasn’t long before Luther was drinking away his afternoons at the end stool in Harlan’s Bar, mumbling into his beer about chlorine and acid levels.
Harlan didn’t really listen to Luther’s quiet ranting either but at least he looked Luther in the eye when he slid him a drink.
CROSSED PATHS
Harlan’s Bar was the most popular drinking establishment in Tallatippah County for years, right up until they built the bigger, brighter, louder Slim Jimmy’s Country Western Barn out on the highway.
Pretty much every young man’s path carried him through Harlan’s sooner or later, trying out his taste for alcohol and billiards. So it wasn’t much surprise when Billy-Ray Pettis and Luther crossed paths again years after Pettis said what he said.
Luther recognized Pettis immediately.
If Pettis even noticed the old barfly at the dark end of the counter, he gave no sign of recognizing his former chemistry teacher.
THE BALANCE
The boy—nearly a decade older than when he’d accused the caretaker—was loud and proud. He drank and laughed and boasted to his friends while they played pool.
Luther got up to leave and—maybe accidentally—jostled Billy-Ray, spoiling his shot.
Pettis turned. Beer breath and fury.
“Watch it, old man!”
The bar quieted.
Luther looked him in the face. Gave him every chance to recognize him.
Pettis shoved him hard against the wall.
“Who you lookin’ at, faggit?”
Nobody stepped in.
Luther nodded—something had finally balanced in his head. He walked toward the back door.
After a moment, Pettis followed him outside.
CAN’T SHOOT US ALL
“Where y’at faggit?”
Billy-Ray and his buddies spilled out of the bar and didn’t see the old man in the shadows until he spoke.
“You’re no good at this sort of pool either.”
Pettis squinted. Then he understood.
“You’re that old pool guy…”
Luther stepped into the streetlight.
“I’ma beat your ass.”
Luther pulled a little .38 revolver, holding it low against his side, pointed at Billy-Ray.
The boys backed up.
“You cain’t shoot us all.”
“Wanna bet?”
The biggest one lunged. Luther pivoted smoothly and shot him in the thigh.
He hit the pavement screaming, and the others scattered.
SUDDENLY SOBER
Suddenly sober, Billy-Ray kept glancing back as he hurried through the dark.
Crazy bastard shot Roddy.
Luther stayed twenty yards back, the little .38 heavy in his hand.
How can the old guy keep up?
Pettis cut between the bus station and courthouse, then slowed when he saw where he was.
The new Tallatippah Public Library stood pale under the streetlights—the old pool site.
Pettis turned, panting, hands on knees.
“You lied, Pettis.” Luther stepped from the shadows and raised the pistol two-handed, steady as a surveyor’s instrument. “I lost everything.”
Billy-Ray looked at the gun and swallowed.
“Please, Mister.”
WET DOG SMELL
“Please,” Billy-Ray sniveled. “Don’t shoot.”
“I’m gonna…” But Luther smelled something old, familiar. Wet dog.
He turned.
The rougarou stood in the bushes by the parking lot, huge, almost man-shaped under the streetlights. All shoulders and teeth. Yellow eyes. A low growl rumbled up from somewhere deep inside its chest.
The little .38 slipped from Luther’s hand and clattered.
Billy-Ray screamed.
The rougarou lunged.
Luther threw his arms over his face and stumbled backward expecting claws and teeth.
Instead he heard flesh tear.
He looked up.
The rougarou had Billy-Ray on the concrete right where the deep end had been.
NOPE, AGAIN
Luther woke on cold concrete with his wrists cuffed and his cheek stuck in drying blood.
Red-and-blue lights strobed across the front of the Library.
Billy-Ray Pettis lay under a plastic tarp nearby. Too much blood for one body.
Deputy Collins crouched beside Luther holding the .38 in one hand.
“You shot Roddy,” Collins said. “But you sure didn’t do all… that.”
Luther swallowed hard. “Rougarou.”
Collins stared at the blood pooling where the deep end used to be.
“You gonna hunt it down?” Luther asked.
Collins squinted at the claw marks in the concrete and shook his head.
“Nope.”
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and I hope the Cold House City Pool lingers with you like it does with me.
Smacked me upside the head with that last one! I really enjoyed reading these - would make a great book.
O.O