Neighborly ’Til the End by Michael D. Hilborn

Neighborly ’Til the End by Michael D. Hilborn

            On the evening the asteroid was calculated to hit the earth, Jim dumped his leaves in Frank’s yard. Frank, who had only been half-watching the news count down the final minutes to impact, stormed out of the house, nearly tearing off the screen door.

            “Hey! What the Hell are you doing?” he screamed. Other voices screamed, too, out in the streets. The riots had erupted the previous evening, when the belated discovery and subsequent announcement of the asteroid had been broadcast. But Frank hadn’t been concerned about any of that; he had kept an eye out for his neighbor, knowing, just knowing, the jackass would try to pull a stunt like this.

            “I’m finally getting your leaves off my damn lawn,” Jim said, shaking the last of them from the trashcan he held over the picket fence. In the distance, glass shattered. “I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, pick up the leaves your tree dumps on my grass.”

            Frank ran beneath the branches of the offending willow. “Your grass?” he huffed. The short sprint from the backdoor had left him winded–Jesus! He needed to start exercising. “You know damn well that’s my grass. You deliberately built that fence a half-foot onto my property.” He began scooping up the leaves and tossing them back over the fence.

            “City hall disagreed, you fat piece of lard,” said Jim, who stood amid the shower of leaves, some sticking to his overgrowth of a beard. “And so did the state court. So why not kiss my ass?”

            A trail of fire ripped through the sky. The meteorites had been raining steadily for the last twelve hours, precursors of what was to come, most burning up in the atmosphere. This one did not. Shrieking like a jet liner with a death wish, it tore into the house belonging to Jim’s other neighbor, Old Widow Hannaford. Frank had no time to prepare. The shock wave knocked him off his feet, tossed him into what he had nicknamed the Wabe, the gardens he had so painstakingly crafted around the centerpiece of his backyard, his sundial. He landed on one of the Wabe’s gravel paths.

            Moaning, Frank lay there for a few minutes, blood trickling from where the pebbles had raked him. While embers showered from above, he levered himself to a sitting position, trying to rid himself of the buzzing in his ears. He knocked his head, shook it, but it wasn’t until a few minutes later that he realized the buzzing wasn’t originating from his skull.

            Jim had his leaf blower out, and was busily sending wave after wave of leaves through the slats of the fence.

            “Son of a bitch!” Frank sprung up and ran over to his shed, the roof of which had caught fire. Ignoring the blaze, he threw open the doors, and dove in. “You want to blow the leaves through the fence?” he muttered, scrounging through his tools. “Is that what you want?” He grabbed the sledgehammer. “I’ll make it easier for you!”

            He charged back through the Wabe, the sledgehammer hefted before his chest, and halted a few slats down from Jim who, intent upon his own task, did not even notice. Frank lifted the sledgehammer high above his head and bellowed. His first swing missed completely, the head of the hammer whistling so forcefully between the slats that he nearly lost his grip on the shaft. The second blow, aimed more carefully, struck home. White wood splintered, then dissolved with his third swing.

            “What? Hey!” Jim, eyes alight, threw down the leaf blower. “Stop that! That’s my fence!” He stepped forward, balling up his fists, but Frank was certain his neighbor wouldn’t approach the windmill of the sledgehammer. Indeed, Jim backed away, shouting, “Jerk! You want to play that way? Fine!” He lumbered off, heading toward his own shed, which was also on fire.

            Frank hammered away, sweat seeping through his shirt, smoke from Old Widow Hannaford’s searing his lungs, soot stinging his eyes. He had the hole in the fence wide enough for his own girth when he heard the motor rev up. Not recognizing the noise at first, he continued demolishing the fence, glancing up only when he realized the motor was rapidly approaching.

            Like an overweight knight upon a warhorse, Jim and his riding mower shot from the smoke. “You want to put a hole in my fence?” shouted Jim. “I’ll show you how to put a hole in my fence!”

            Frank dropped the sledgehammer and dove to the ground as the mower careened through the remnants of Frank’s work. The slats cracked, shattered, as did a few of Frank’s ribs. He screamed in agony, heard Jim scream in triumph. When Frank was able to remove his face from the soil, he saw Jim aiming for his gardens.

            “No! Not the Wabe!” Frank cried.

            But the mower hurtled through his yard, chewing up anything it could. Jim, his grin cutting through his beard, his gut and ass spilling over the mower seat like slugs, swerved by Frank, covering him with spray of dirt, flowers, brush, gravel, and the viscera of garden gnomes. “I always hated this crap!” Jim trumpeted, veering back into the Wabe. “Such a damn eyesore!”

            Frank grunted, hauled himself up, and trudged toward the driveway. The silhouettes of looters streaked through the streets, their hooting and hollering transforming into a wail when a gout of flame burst up through them–apparently the fire from Old Widow Hannaford’s had hit the gas main. A steaming manhole cover landed squarely in the bed of Frank’s pickup truck, just as he was heaving himself into the cab.

            Despite his pain, Frank grabbed his keys, turned on the ignition. He released the emergency brake and threw the truck in gear. He gripped the steering wheel with bloody fingers, leveled an unsteady gaze over the dash, and targeted the mower which was now carving doughnuts around his beloved sundial.

            Frank gunned the engine.

            When the truck slammed into the mower, the jolt pummeled Frank’s ribs as if wielding a sledgehammer of its own. He lost control, and the truck swerved into the shed. His forehead hit the steering wheel with a wet thunk that reminded him of the pumpkins he had enjoyed smashing on Jim’s driveway last Halloween. The door popped open, and he slid out of the cab.

            More glass shattered from somewhere. Closer than before, probably from his own house. A car alarm blared.

            He struggled to raise his head, peering through the red haze that enveloped everything, possibly from the ghastly light appearing in the sky, possibly from the goop sloughing off his skull. Regardless, he saw Jim not too far away from the overturned mower, splayed against the sundial.

            Jim clutched his chest. “Oh! My heart!” he cried, then went still.

            “Your heart?” Frank murmured. “What about my head?”

            Frank’s vision faded, or ignited, he couldn’t be sure which. His final thoughts were of his neighbor, and how it was all Jim’s fault that they wouldn’t be able to make it to the end of the world.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Michael D. Hilborn 2023