299 Days: The Community

Chapter 75 Don’t Come Back Here (May 7)

Nancy Ringman had gone insane. After she got in the fight with Lisa Matson, she went over to Sherrie Spencer’s and started screaming about how Lisa had attacked her. Nancy was yelling about Grant being a terrorist and “POI.”

She went from house to house telling people that they needed to come to the neighborhood meeting that night to hear about how she would be organizing a safety committee to protect them against terrorists like Grant. Most people just stared at her, but some believed her.

Ron Spencer was standing guard at the neighborhood entrance when Nancy came by. She was yelling at him about having a gun out. He’d had enough.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled at Nancy. “I heard you attacked Lisa Matson and now she has left.”

Nancy started in about how Lisa had attacked her. Ron knew that wasn’t true. Nancy started yelling, “It’s you and your guns that are doing this. Things were fine until you and the others started all this macho stuff, like ‘guarding’ us. We don’t need you. Things were fine without you.”

Ron could see that there was no reasoning with her. He didn’t want to be distracted with a crazy lady when he had to watch to see if criminals were attacking, so he waved her off.

Ron was on guard duty for another hour or two when Len came running up to him.

“The Matson house got vandalized,” Len said, breathless. “Go see. I’ll take guard duty.”

Ron ran the two blocks to the Matson house. He rounded the corner and saw “POI” spray painted in big letters on the garage door. The front door was open. He went in, with his shotgun ready for quick use in case the vandal was still in there.

He couldn’t believe it. The house was trashed. Everything was destroyed. It looked like a bomb went off in the place. He had been in that house so many times, and now it was destroyed.

It was ugly in there. He wanted to leave. Before he did, he searched each room to see if the vandal, who he suspected was Nancy, was still in there. She was nuts and might try to attack him, too. The house was empty.

Now that he knew Nancy wasn’t there to attack him, he had time to think. Lisa needed to know what happened. He pulled out his cell phone and took pictures of the destruction. He sent them to Lisa’s cell phone. The message said, “Don’t come back here.”

He ran out of the house. He had to go arrest Nancy.