Humanaty's Blight

by LeRoy Clary

I shouted for her to hit the ground and waited for a few more precious seconds. He filled the scope, the crosshairs centered on his chin. I wished he would turn and flee. His hand, the one holding the gun, came up. My index finger squeezed, and all kinds of things happened. But first, there was a crack so loud it might have been thunder. The rifle pounded into my shoulder like the punch from a big man.

  As my eyes flicked above the scope, his body left the bike. Because of the impact or because of his muscles twitching like when electricity is applied, I didn’t know. The bike seemed to ride out from under him, continuing on for a while, before angling off the road and disappearing into the forest on the other side of the road. The rider hit the pavement and rolled like a limp red rubber ball.

  I checked the man at my feet to make sure he was dead, a task I should have done sooner, then ran to Sue. She was already walking in the general direction of the man she had shot, and she smelled of vomit. That was a good sign as far as I was concerned. A natural reaction. A human reaction.

  Turning her shoulders to the dead guy I’d shot in the driveway, I said, “Go see if you can get that bike into the woods and out of sight.”

  I went to the road.

  A look behind told me the first man I’d shot was dead. He lay beside his motorcycle. I went to the other, the one I’d shot with the rifle, and found what had been a man in a tee-shirt emblazoned with the stylized image of a middle finger held high. No helmet, no leather. He’d fallen at probably thirty miles per hour and if my bullet hadn’t killed him, the pavement pounding and ripping his unprotected body had. He was a bloody tube of meat.

  Using a fireman’s carry, I got him onto my shoulder and off the road where he couldn’t be seen by searchers. His bike was long gone, on a ride of its own into the thick underbrush. There were no skid marks or other signs of what had happened. I went to the other side and checked.

  On the road was a puddle of drying blood. I scooped a handful of dirt and sprinkled it on the blood. The dirt absorbed most of the blood, and as it dried, it would change color and be hard to see.

  Again, I scuffed tire tracks from the dirt driveway and found Sue had hidden the bike. She had her hands under his armpits and was struggling to pull the dead man into the edge of the trees. I grabbed his collar and together we dragged him out of sight.

  She held up the rifle I’d used. “You might need this.”

  I took it and ejected the empty shell by working the bolt again as if I’d done it a thousand times instead of one. I saw and felt the next shell enter the chamber. It was as large and long as my middle finger. The rifle was probably for deer or elk. Maybe dinosaurs. It had stamps in the metal, crowns that probably meant England, and dates. The latter ones were nineteen-forty-four. World War Two. A lot of hunters used surplus guns from the war.

  She said, “Nobody else in sight.”

  Damn. With the noise the rifle had made, everyone in the county must have heard and I’d been stupid enough to be involved with the morality of killing instead of defending us. I lied, “I know.”

  “Shouldn’t we go somewhere and hide?”

  We were standing in the forest, in dappled shade. “No. From here, we can keep an eye on the road. It’s better than most places to ambush people.”

  Her voice came softly and with resignation, “I know. Do we have to?”

  “Only if they come for us.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sue and I stood at the edge of the woods, near the driveway, where we could watch the approach of anyone from either direction on the road. None did. We expected the bikers to send more men, bikes, or a car, but that didn’t happen.

  There had been four bikes chasing us. Four had ridden past. Then there were gunshots and three returned. Either the gunfight down the road had killed one, or there was still a rider out there. It was best to wait. If he was alive, he’d probably come roaring down the road before long. I moved a few steps to where the rifle had a good field of fire as I listened for the roar of another motorcycle.

  The ejected bullet lay on the ground. I hadn’t searched the rider for more. I picked it up, blew the dust off and wiped it on my shirt before ejecting the magazine and inserting it with the remaining shells. Five left.

  “My God, what have we done?” Sue whispered more to herself than for me to hear.

  “Nothing,” I grunted.

  She turned to me; her voice shrill. “Nothing? We’re surrounded by people we killed in the last ten minutes and you think that’s nothing? And there were those in the town. I fired the shotgun right into the middle of a crowd.”

  After taking a step back to allow her to see I didn’t mean to attack her, my voice was soft and sincere. “Yes, we killed three people, maybe more, and for that I’m sorry. Not too sorry, though. They didn’t have to come after us with guns, did they? If we hadn’t killed them, we’d be dead.”

  My pause confused her. She knew more was coming, but she first glanced at the closest dead man with revulsion clearly written on her face.

  I continued, “Ask yourself one question. What did we do to them to cause this?”

  She remained silent.

  I got tired of waiting for her answer. “We had the audacity to ride a motorcycle peacefully along the road. For that, they chased us, shot at us and sent four assassins on motorcycles to kill us. Yes, assassins. Make no mistake about it. They were after us to kill us. For what? We had nothing of value.”

  “Then why?” she asked. “The world has gone crazy.”

  “Cockroaches is my theory. You see one and you step on it just to hear it crunch under your heel. To them, that is all we were.”

  “It can’t be that simple.”

  “Well, there are other things, too. They may have felt they were protecting their territory, or that we had something of value, or maybe they realized you are a woman and they wanted another female body to pass around tonight. The point is, we did nothing to deserve them trying to kill us. Those men would be alive if they hadn’t chased us, so if you want to assign blame, they get it all.”

  She placed her index finger on my lips to quiet me. “You’re right, I know that on one level. Saying those things and trying to make me believe them is one thing. Tonight, when you wake up from nightmares again, we will know there is another fear to face.”

  Fact versus feelings. She was right. And I suspected I would again wake wrestling with those demons again, the sounds of the impacts of the bullets, the ending of the lives of some mother’s children with their bodies rotting in the weeds beside a two-lane country road.

  After what seemed a very long time, Sue suggested we follow the driveway and see where it went before dark. My instinct was to remain where we were in case the fourth biker returned. Logic said he wouldn’t. He would already be here if he was alive. All those shots earlier were men shooting at each other farther down the road. At least one bullet had struck its target.

  We rolled our bike from under the trees. I thought about taking one of theirs, but they were too loud, attracting too much unwanted attention. Sue hadn’t learned to drive today, but maybe tomorrow. She climbed on behind me, carrying both the rifle and shotgun balanced across her knees. I made a mental note to return and search the one who had owned the rifle for more shells later—but considering the blank, scared expression Sue wore, that could wait.

  After fifty yards, the driveway bent around a thick stand of alders and evergreens. I went so slow walking would have been faster, but my eyes were on the dirt ruts we rode in. No footprints, no tire tracks, and no grasses bent by boots. The house came into view and I planted both feet to balance as we stopped.

  The house had been smaller at one time. It looked like there had been two additions, one for a garage and one to add space to the house. Neither had been done well. The roofs didn’t line up, the siding wasn’t a match, and the window frames were different.

  They had been done years ago as testified by the faded brown paint, overgrown shrubbery, and general air of disrepair. A ruste
d-out old car perched on blocks beside a pickup that had blackberry vines covering so much of it that the truck was hard to see. The house was wide, the roof slope shallow, and the effects of being near saltwater obvious in the rust and corrosion on metal, and the faded paint of the siding. Things age quickly when near saltwater, especially metal and wood.

  We moved forward and I parked the bike around the corner of the house, where it would be out of sight for anybody coming down the driveway. A wooden deck covered the front of the house, which was the side facing the water, and because the ground sloped downward to the shore, there was a basement level that was unnoticed from the driveway.

  The deck made a sunroof for the lower part of the house, and there was an outside door that stood open. Nothing else was out of place. No broken windows, none of the obvious signs of the owner’s absence. As Sue started to slip off the bike, my hand reached for the nine-millimeter.

  “I wouldn’t, if I was you,” the voice of an old man warned.

  He stood under the porch roof behind a stack of split firewood piled chest high. He held a double-barreled shotgun pointed at my stomach from a distance of a dozen feet. He couldn’t miss.

  “We’ll leave peacefully,” I said.

  “And bring ten more back here?”

  “No, sir.”

  A deadly silence followed. He cleared his throat and asked, “You got a story? A short one?”

  Sue answered, “We were just riding through town when two men on motorcycles chased us and shot at us. I fired back and may have winged one or scared him because he dumped his bike. The other went back to check on him.”

  “There was a hell of a lot more gunfire than that, and your story doesn’t fit the facts of what I just heard.”

  Sue didn’t like the tone he used, and she placed her fists on her hips and moved a few steps closer as she snapped, “That’s because you didn’t listen to the whole thing.”

  “I said to keep it short.” He grunted.

  It was not like her to back down and I thought about speaking before her, but she had moved closer and he hadn’t shot her. She continued, “Four more came after us. We did nothing to cause that. We hid at the top of your driveway in the trees. They passed right on by and we thought it would be okay, but then we heard gunshots and only three came back. They searched every driveway.”

  “That’s cause they knew you hadn’t gone past the roadblock the Indians set down the road. You had to be around here. I guess you ambushed them when they returned?”

  She nodded. “We did and I’m sorry they died, but damn it, they should have minded their own business.”

  “You Indian?” He asked Sue.

  “Hispanic. Maybe some Indian from Mexico, I don’t know.”

  “Too bad. If you go to the roadblock, you can probably pass through easy enough if you lie to them about that. Tell them you’re from a tribe they don’t know and they’ll let you pass. Where you go after that, I don’t know.”

  “We just wanted to get as far as one of the little beach communities.”

  He lowered the shotgun as he asked, “Why’s that? You planning on taking a vacation?”

  “To grab a couple of kayaks,” Sue said without hesitation.

  He waited. Finally, wagged the barrel of the shotgun and spat, “Steal them, you mean.”

  She didn’t elaborate.

  A gull landed and perched on the rail and watched them stare at each other. I watched the gull.

  He broke the impasse. “Then what?”

  “We’re going to try stealing, if that’s the right word, a sailboat from Everett. Not from anyone alive. We were hiding out in a mining tunnel above Darrington and could see that wouldn’t work out for us for summer and next fall. We decided we’re not going to live by raiding empty houses and killing everybody we meet. Sooner or later, either we’d make a mistake or meet up with a larger gang. So, Bill came up with the idea of getting a sailboat and hiding in the islands.”

  “Smart,” he muttered. “You thirsty?”

  “Yes,” we both said at the same time. I didn’t mention that the idea had been all hers. She was giving me far too much credit.

  He pointed to the open doorway. I started to put my gun on the bike seat. He said, “Better keep that with you.”

  We entered, Sue carrying the shotgun in one hand and the rifle in her other. The basement was shallow, meant to hold up a house on a slope, but had been modified over time into a usable basement. The roof was low, with exposed beams. Across the rear, which faced the driveway, was a row of little windows I hadn’t noticed from outside. They were only about six inches tall, but two feet wide, and they slid open. Five were open now, providing a good view of the driveway. They were also good places to fire a gun from.

  He saw me look. “Painted the inside and outside of the glass with spray paint so no light gets seen from the road. Open, they give me a good view of the driveway and work as rifle ports, but so far that hasn’t been needed. You’re the first visitors to come calling.”

  He was older than I had thought. His left knee didn’t seem to work right, and he limped. The hoarse cough was probably from the overflowing ashtrays. His skin was pasty. I said, “Are you well?”

  “Does it look like I am?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “That’s twice you called me, sir. The first time probably saved your life. Now you can quit.”

  Sue said, “The drink?”

  He went to a smaller refrigerator and pulled a soda for her. He looked at me and asked, “Beer or soda?”

  I can’t stand warm beer. Warm soda isn’t much better, but beads of moisture were already forming on Sue’s can. “Hey, is that cold?”

  “Course it is. What sort of man would drink warm beer?”

  “Cold beer! I didn’t think there was any electricity left.”

  “Propane,” he said. “Besides, I got a couple of solar panels and a small rack of car batteries.”

  “Propane? Like what’s in cigarette lighters?”

  He handed me a beer so cold it hurt to hold and popped the top of one for himself. I ignored that it was a lite beer. After chugging about half, he fell into a recliner and said, “Never did understand it myself. Camping trailers have fridges that work off propane. Sounds opposite, to me. You heat it to make things cold.”

  “Why do you have one in here?” I asked.

  “This was what you call a man-cave when my wife was alive, and a shelter when the power went out, which was regular. There was only the power from town on the poles set along the road out there for the next ten miles. Anybody driving drunk and hitting one took out our power for hours or days. Got tired of it and when a guy had an old camper that he wanted to sell cheap, I bought it.”

  I looked around and noticed the cooking stove looked the same vintage as the fridge, and a heater was mounted to the wall near the stove, along with cabinets along the wall. “All of that came from the trailer?”

  “And more. The lights down here in the basement are twelve volts. Dim, but enough. Say, if you’re going to live on a sailboat, you better get used to this stuff.”

  “Why?” Sue asked.

  “Damn, kid. You ever even been on a boat? This is how they’re set up, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  I didn’t know. “Propane gas runs the fridge, stove, and heater? It makes some things cold and others hot.”

  “Yup. Don’t understand it all myself, so I just accept. Before you take a boat, you better steal yourself a bunch of twenty-gallon cylinders of propane from other boats if you want those things to work.” He opened another beer and I realized I hadn’t yet tasted mine. I had been too entranced in what he was sharing. He was smiling and it looked good on him.

  His eyes flicked to the little open windows behind me now and then, keeping watch on the driveway. “How did you know we were coming so you could set up your ambush? You set an alarm, didn’t you?”

  “Well, besides hearing a gun-battle in my back yard, I placed a couple
of pressure switches on the driveway and covered them with old pieces of plywood. Kicked a little dirt over them and the wires I ran to the buzzer.”

  I was glad he was smarter than me with my shotgun alarms.

  Sue sat on a small sofa next to him and asked, “You don’t seem upset that we’re going to take a boat.”

  He finished off his second beer and said, “Stealing is taking something away from someone who owns it and doesn’t want you takin’ it. I suppose nobody owns most of those sailboats in the marina anymore. Not one in ten of them is still alive, by my count. And if they are, they’re too busy trying to feed themselves and avoid the blight to go for a leisurely sail.”

  My lack of basic knowledge for so many things struck me hard. He’d explained more of what I needed to survive in a few words than all my planning. Making things cool with propane, twelve-volt lights, solar panels, and probably a hundred more things I didn’t even know what questions to ask next. The nameless old man in front of me had made an effective alarm system, blackened his windows for protection, and drank cold beer.

  I hadn’t considered inviting a third person to join us, but I was wrong for that. His contributions to our survival would exceed both of us combined. I blurted, “Will you come with us?”

  “I’m too old and sick.”

  I continued, “Not to steal the boat. We can do that. What if we sail back by here and pick you up?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you can teach us so much.”

  He lifted an arm and pointed to the water in front of his house. “Sailboats draw a lot of water. At low tide, there are mudflats from here to Everett. A few channels to drain the river, sloughs, and creeks, but mud as far as you can see. The water out there is often three feet deep or less. No way to get a sailboat through unless you know the channels and sail out into the bay and back up here again.”

  The water looked deep enough for me.

  He went on, “When you get yourselves a sailboat, take it out to the breakwater and go south to the end of the rocks, then sail directly west until you get most of the way to Hat Island. The water there is hundreds of feet deep and you’ll sail around the south end to Whidbey Island and then around it. You’ll turn north all the way to your San Juan Islands. Remember that.”