0012 All Thumbs... and Toes

 Fear was the first thing to arrive in Raven's mind when he awoke. The twins and kids were all slumbering peacefully, with a soft snore. He heard no knocking from his door for the first time in a week or so. No Frank asking for guidance. 

 "Frank?"

 Nothing. Had he gone back to his mother's house? Frank's house now he supposed. He went outside and could hear conversations over near the garden. As soon as he left the gate, he could see several men milling about in the garden area. The one the others called Thumbs saw him, waved, and headed towards him.

 Marc, Thumbs, was smiling ear-to-ear, "mornin boss man. Figured I'd get these wanderin souls up an around and occupyin their time. Hope ya don't mind I got the front half sectioned off and tilled up. Wasn't sure what ya had in mind for the area, but that front half seemed a bit obvious to me."

 "Yeah bubba, that sounds good to me," he smiled, "hell, looks good to."

 "Lemme show ya what we got done so far."

 They headed over towards the empty city land. Twelve sections, with four rows in each, stood separated. He wouldn't have put it at quite half but damn these guys could work. The fence had been neatly finished with very little wood wasted. At least he thought it had been finished. He noticed several tents next to the alley along the grass. The fence worked it's way along the alley until it lined up with his neighbor Candy's chain-link fence.

 "Come on, come on," called Jim, "I see ya lookin. There's a reason we done it that way."

 Raven walked slowly over, lookin at the rest of the work that had been done. It looked like something was going up in the northeast corner of the garden. From what he could tell, it looked like a watchtower, something he had planned on putting similarly over there.

 "Hey boss, how're ya'll doin this mornin," he asked.

 Jim just shook his head, "same ol same ol. We keep gettin older and our bodies keep on lettin us know. I seen ya eyeballin the fence over here though. We wanted to talk to ya abut an idea."

 "Ok..."

 "Yer neighbor there, Fruit Chew or whatever."

 "Candy."

 "Alright, Candy, ya'll seen her in a bit? Cause she has a lot of stuff that could be useful if things go south."

 Raven ran his fingers through his hair, "well, no, I don't know when the last time we saw her was. She usually just pops in and out. Never really see 'er more than a few weeks in a row. I don't know what she does."

 "She's got a nice sized place. We could run a gate across to that corner right there and replace that whole side."

 "What about when she comes home? There's a bit of legal problems there bubba."

"Boy, shit is hittin the fan. Gov'ment done shut down and e'erbody is tryin to act like things are normal. Folks done lost their damned minds."

 Raven shook his head and sighed, "alright, how bout this- we do the whole gate thing to her fence and across the front. Give it a week or two and then we see if she shows back up or which way the wind is blowin."