by Mackey, Jay
By the time I get to the camp things seem to be under control, other than the lodge fire, which still looks to be growing. Jake and his group are marching a group of prisoners from out behind the lodge down to where Wilson and the others have gathered near the barn. Flip and Maggie are now wearing bandanas like the rest of us.
I give Rachel a hug when I get there, and then give one to Wilson, too. He winces. He doesn’t look real good. Happy, but beat up.
The guards and staff are locked into two of the cabins. The prisoners—I count nine, all young men in their teens or twenties—have pulled a militia truck out of the barn and are loading into it, all but Wilson and one teen that Maggie seems to know. He could be her son, I guess.
Wilson gets into Jerry’s pickup with us and the other kid rides with Flip and Maggie, and we all go separate ways. We’ve decided not to hide out in the woods somewhere, and instead are headed to Jerry’s farm. It will be safer than my farm for Rob and Wilson. We’re figuring the militia will soon be out in force, not just because of the escape, but because of the fire and the shooting of the guards. Besides the one I shot, I understand Jerry wounded two behind the lodge when they tried to escape out the back door.
Rob says that his group didn’t have to shoot anyone while getting the prisoners out. The men in the cabins on that side of the camp were all staffers, not militia, and they were only lightly armed.
On the ride to the farm Wilson tells us a little about the camp. The prisoners sat for several hours a day in a big room while staffers read what they said were Bible passages about gay sex, which they called unnatural acts, and the men were lectured on how that went against God’s laws.
Other times they met in groups and had to answer questions like how old they were when they decided to be gay. If anyone didn’t cooperate, they got beaten with sticks the staffers carried.
But the worst was when they were sent naked into a big open shower, doused with water, and told to wash each other. When they did as they were told, the guards would jab them with what Wilson thought was a cattle prod, giving them a jolting shock strong to knock them down onto the tile floor. The staffers hit them with sticks to make them obey if they refused to wash each other. Wilson says one of the prisoners, one who had been in the camp longer, said that the “showers” were to make them learn to hate the sight of naked men. That wasn’t what they learned to hate.
30
48 days until the Pulse Anniversary
I wake and don’t know where I am. There’s sun shining in a window, so I know I’m not home in my basement room. I feel like crap, a mixture of being pissed and being scared, and I’m not immediately sure if it’s because of a bad dream or something else. I also find that I’m lying on a couple pillows on the floor, and someone’s on the bed off to my left. Even though my brain isn’t quite working yet, I am able to figure out that the person on the bed is Rachel. So, this could be part of a bad dream. Am I awake yet? And why does my head hurt like this?
Slowly, things start to come back. What was that foul brew Jerry gave us last night when we got in? Or not last night, really, but very early this morning. He said it was homemade vodka, but I thought vodka wasn’t supposed to have any taste.
We were celebrating, he said. The successful raid to free Wilson and the others. True, we did free them, but I was in no mood to celebrate, I remember that now.
I moan. Turns out Rachel is awake. She turns over and looks down at me. “Does your head hurt as much as mine?” she asks.
“No.” I sit up and rub my temples. “Worse.”
We make our way from the bedroom, which turns out to be on the second floor of Jerry’s house, down to the kitchen, where we find Rob, Wilson, Jerry and Jerry’s wife, Linda, who is slight, with gray/blonde hair pulled back in a bun. She’s very pretty, and if she didn’t have frown lines on her forehead and laugh lines around her mouth, you’d never know she’s closer to my mom’s age than to Rachel’s. She’s also very quiet, nodding when we’re introduced but not speaking.
Jerry and the boys seem to be in better spirits than Rachel and me. They’re eating pancakes, with honey, something I haven’t had in a long time. Linda fixes a plate for each of us, and we eat greedily.
Our conversation turns from the raid, which I don’t really want to talk about, to what’s next. Wilson is obviously a fugitive, and will have to remain hidden. Rob, too, figures his days with the militia are over, not that he’s too upset by that. But he’s upset by the fact that he’s got to remain in hiding. None of us are sure what that’s really going to mean.
Rachel is afraid to go home, too, given how close she is to Rob and Wilson. I try to convince her that she can probably go home. There’s a chance that the militia doesn’t even know that Wilson lived with them, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know that she had anything to do with the raid.
“Because I’m a woman, you mean?” she says. Her tone is challenging, so I regret saying anything.
“No, but just because Wilson is close to your brother doesn’t mean you’ll go out and shoot people for him. Plus, what evidence do they have?”
“What evidence do they need?” she says.
Rob agrees with her. “Don’t you think if you were leading the investigation, you’d check into the family of people you know were involved?” he asks me.
“They don’t know you were involved.”
Jerry, too, disagrees with me. He says, “Why don’t you just hang out here for a couple days. Let’s see what kind of reaction this gets, what kind of action the government takes. No need to get in a hurry.”
Then there’s me. The problem I’ve got is that I went to Colonel Williams and asked, begged, to have something done to set Wilson free. Obviously, I’ve got to be pretty high on the suspect list. My one hope is that Williams himself doesn’t get involved directly in this. Rachel, who’s taking the opposite side against me just because she thinks it will kill her to agree with me, says I should go home, because just knowing someone isn’t proof that I’d shoot someone for him, and besides, “there’s no evidence against you either.”
“No,” I say, “but as you said, what evidence do they need?”
At least for a while, then, all four of us are fugitives. Jerry says it’s no problem if we stay with him. There’s no reason for anyone to be looking at his farm for anyone. He’s only been here a few months, so he doesn’t have a reputation one way or another to draw suspicion. He says he moved west from Pennsylvania after the pulse. When he found this farm abandoned, he decided to stop and give it a go. The house is a bit rough—it looks like it’s been unoccupied for a long time, or at least the previous owners didn’t keep it up very well. It’s a little three-bedroom, two-story house, pretty typical for these farmhouses. It has a well and a septic tank, so we should be okay for a few days, at least.
None of us are happy being fugitives. I didn’t think about it before the raid, but now that it’s over I’m wondering how I’ll ever get back to a semi-normal life again. Not even a post-pulse normal seems possible now.
After dark I take a run over to the Mathews’ farm to see what’s going on. It’s about six or seven miles, so not that big a deal for me, although nobody else wants to join me.
Because I didn’t start running until after dark it’s pretty late by the time I get there. I’m surprised to find Clark out in back, throwing a knife at a tree, trying to make it flip over and over and then stick. He’s not doing too well, sticking just one of the three or four he throws while I watch from the corner of the house.
“Hey,” I say, approaching from the dark.
He jumps, startled, and then smiles. “Heard about the camp,” he says.
“Already? Did somebody come by today? Anybody looking for me?”
“Nah. Mrs. Mathews was in Juniper today and found out. I guess everybody’s talking about it.”
“What’d she hear?”
“Just that lots of people were shot. A church camp was burned.” He’s flipping the big hun
ting knife in the air now, catching it after it does a revolution and comes back down. “That was the camp with Wilson, right?”
“Yeah. And it wasn’t a church camp. Maybe it was once, but it’s more like a prison camp now.”
“Did you get Wilson out?”
“Yeah.”
He does a fist pump and says, “All right.” Then, “Did you shoot anybody?”
“No. And nobody was killed. Just wounded, and not seriously at that.” I’m not going to tell him the truth. Just saying it makes it worse, for me. But I can tell he’s disappointed. “How did you know I was going to try to get Wilson out?” I hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told anyone in the family, really. Didn’t see a need for them to worry.
“Dad.”
“He told you?”
“No, not really. But when Mrs. Mathews came back with the news, he was pretty upset, and kept asking all kinds of questions about who was shot was anybody caught, stuff like that. Plus, it was pretty obvious you weren’t going hunting.” He flips the knife again, missing it this time. It sticks in the ground about an inch from his foot. “Are you staying home?”
“No. Someone might be looking for me.”
“Where are you staying? With Rachel? Does she like you again?”
“No, and no. Just some . . . know what? It’s better you don’t know, all right?”
He shrugs.
“I’ll check in every couple days, make sure nobody’s looking for me, and everybody’s all right.”
“Okay.”
“Tell Dad I’m okay.”
“All right.”
31
Pulse Anniversary 8:42 p.m.
The captain stands, clearly mad at me. I’m sitting here numb, not saying anything, mostly because nothing is making sense. He claims they have my fingerprints from my gun, but I can almost guarantee that they don’t have my gun. Not unless the owner of that condo returned home all of a sudden and decided to take a long trip.
He’s asked me the same questions over and over. How did I get here? How did I get the gun here? Who am I working with? Where are they? What’s the escape plan? Is there an escape plan, or are we on a suicide mission? How long have we been planning this? How high in the government does this plot go? Is this government sponsored? If so, which government?
He’s pacing, rubbing his hands through his hair. He takes his glasses off, the ridiculous glasses with the duct-taped repair, and cleans them with a handkerchief he pulls from his pants pocket. After putting them back on, he seems to have made up his mind about something. He leans forward, supporting himself with his hands on the table, and says, “I’m going to level with you, because I’m running out of time.” He stands straight.
He sits back down and reaches over to turn off the old cassette recorder. “See,” he says, “I’m not supposed to be here. They’re going to find us here, and then it’s game over for at least one of us.” He purses his lips. “Maybe for both of us. So I need you to talk to me.”
I nod. I don’t know if this new approach is his “good guy” angle, vs. the “bad guy” he was before, but whatever it is, he’s got me listening again. “What do you want me to say?” I ask. Because I’ve been telling him truths all along. Not the whole truth, certainly, and not the truth he seems to want to hear.
“I want you to tell me what really happened out there.” He sees me roll my eyes, and shakes his head. “You may think this is all some game, but let me tell you, I’ve seen your confession.” Now he sees my look of confusion.
“I’ve never confessed to anything.”
“No. I’m sure you haven’t. Doesn’t mean we don’t have your confession, though. Hell, it’s even signed!”
Now I bet I look scared, because I am.
“It was probably signed before you even took the shot.” He looks pleased. At least, he has a smirk on his face. Or what I take for a smirk anyway. “You did take a shot, didn’t you?”
I’m tempted to say something, but I keep my mouth shut.
“One thing I’d like to know is why didn’t you use the silencer. It was sitting right next to the rifle, but yet you didn’t use it. Why? It would have given you more time to escape, not drawn every law enforcement officer in three counties directly to you.”
Fuck. I didn’t have a silencer. What’s he talking about?
32
41 days until the Pulse Anniversary
After a week of hiding out at Jerry’s, I’m so bored I’m thinking of taking up knitting, just for something to do. By agreement, we’ve all stayed in, not showing our faces in the daylight, not even to go help Jerry and Linda with the farm work. I go out and run at night, and Rachel’s come along twice, though it’s not like it used to be when we ran together. For one, we have to be on our guard when we’re out. It wouldn’t do to run into a militia patrol. For another, Rachel still doesn’t talk to me about anything other than the weather. I don’t know, but I doubt we’ll ever get back to be as close as we were once.
Jerry went into Lafayette once this week, taking his horse and wagon, to conserve fuel, he says. I think he’s a little uncomfortable showing the pickup around where someone might recognize it as one of the vehicles that were seen near the camp that night. When he came back, he told us that the raid was a big topic of conversation. There are wanted posters up on all the news bulletin boards with a picture of Flip. Jerry brought one home. The picture is an old one, maybe an old driver’s license photo or a school ID, showing Flip with short hair and a mustache, but he’s still recognizable. The poster says he’s wanted for attempted murder. A reward is offered, but the amount is not specified.
Rob asked Jerry if they were looking for anyone else. Jerry said he didn’t think they have any others identified. He met up with Rick, who told him the militia has been harassing some friends and family members of the prisoners. Maggie has been accosted, but not arrested. She’s worried, though, and may leave town and try to disappear.
That was two days ago and we haven’t heard anything since. As far as I know, no one has come out to interrogate my family. I talked to my brother again last night, and he gave me the all clear.
We’re all surprised when a car pulls up in Jerry’s driveway after dark. It’s been a week since the raid, but it feels much longer. We’re all sitting on Jerry’s front porch, trying to catch a little breeze on a humid night. I quickly recognize Flip’s old Toyota, the same car he took to the raid. He bounces out, a big smile on his face, and walks to the porch. Jerry’s upset, and tells Flip to pull the car around to the back of the house so it won’t be visible from the road. Flip says not to worry, no one is coming, but Jerry insists so Flip moves the car.
He comes back, still all smiles, and we shake hands all around. We share our news, which takes about a minute, and he confirms that Maggie has left to go into hiding. Jerry shows him the poster, and he laughs.
“I knew I should have taken out those guards at the gate. They saw my face, but Maggie wouldn’t have it, so I went against my better judgment. And that’s the result,” he says, pointing at the poster.
Everyone says, “Yeah,” and nods their heads, but I’ll bet I’m not the only one who thinks Flip’s mistake was not wearing a bandana or a disguise from the beginning. I’ll never understand why he went after the first guard like he did, unless he planned to kill him all along, and now it sounds like he intended to kill both guards.
Flip says he’s staying hidden, moving around every day or two, and wonders if he can stay here tonight. Jerry readily agrees, but says he’d like to put Flip’s car in the barn.
Jerry breaks out his homemade vodka and we sit around toasting our successful raid. Flip is really effusive in his praise of Wilson, who he says is the one who triggered the whole thing.
“You, Wilson, and Brady, who made it his mission to get you out,” Flip says, toasting us. “It’s great to have such motivated friends. The whole lot of you made this happen. It’s the event that is going to forever stand as the launch point for our revolu
tion. It’s our Boston Tea Party!”
I ask whether the militia has pinned the raid on the RIP.
“No,” says Flip. “And I’ll tell you why. Shanna delivered her petitions the morning after our raid. The fact is, she knew nothing of the raid, so it was a pure coincidence, but it gave her perfect cover, too. Here’s the supposed leader of the resistance, standing at the steps of the government, which is currently in Columbus, Ohio, making some complaint. It gives her a perfect alibi, plus I understand it would have been impossible to act well enough to have her expression when some flunky took the petitions and announced, ‘Thank you very much for the list of suspects for the murderous attack on our law enforcement people last night.’ She had no clue.”
“So her petitions didn’t work quite like she thought they would, huh?” I say.
“No. Total waste of time.” Flip doesn’t look upset by it. “I didn’t sign with my real name anyway, so no harm done.”
“I did,” says Rachel.
“So did I,” say Rob and Wilson.
“And me,” I add.
Flip shrugs. “No big deal. There’s tens of thousands of names. They’re not going to check them.”
I wish I was as sure as he is.
Later, much later, I’ve had enough of Jerry’s vodka to fall asleep on the couch. Wilson has gone to bed, as he’s still recovering from some of the abuse he took at the camp, Rachel and Linda have disappeared into their rooms, and Jerry, Flip and Rob are still drinking in the kitchen. I can hear them talking. Flip is going over the raid, how he got the guards at the gate by just pretending he was a previous guest at the church camp. “This is still a church camp? Right?” he says, laughing.