When she got to me, she held out her hand and said it hurt. I could see two or three raised welts on her skin that were turning red. They weren’t spaced close enough that they could have been a snake bite or anything, which was my first thought, so I figured that they were probably just insect bites of some kind and no big deal. Mom took over and, as she was checking her out, Petra kept up her little dance, shifting from one leg to another. I remember thinking it was kind of funny, her bouncing around like that. I feel real guilty about that now.
While this was going on, Alan walked over to where Petra had been picking flowers and shouted back that she had probably been stung by a wasp. He said there was a nest and they were all over the place.
Mom gave Petra a big hug, kissed the spot that hurt, told her she would be okay, and walked with her back to our little car where she lifted her up into the back. After that, we all just started driving again, this time going right, (west) and this time with me in the back with Petra.
Petra, at this point, kind of leaned into me. She was resting her head against me and still holding her arm against her body, so I put my arm around her, you know. I could tell her hand and wrist was still that’s what I didwothurting her.
In just a short period of time, maybe only five or ten minutes, she started squirming all over the place. By this I mean that she kept moving her body around and rubbing her head and face against my side. A couple of times she also took a real deep breath. This went on long enough that I asked her if she was feeling okay. At my question, she sat up, looked up at me and said in this kind of raspy voice, “I don’t feel so good.” When I saw her face, it scared me so bad that I yelled right then and there for Alan to stop the car.
I swear to God, I almost didn’t even recognize her. Her face was all swollen up. Her eyes were half closed. Her lips were puffed out as if someone had sucker punched her. They were at least twice their normal size, maybe even more. It also seemed that she was breathing faster than she should have been.
As we came to a stop, she started rubbing the palms of first one hand and then the other, fast like, up and down her legs, making a sound as if she was really bothered or something. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “I’m itchy all over.” She began pounding the bottoms of her feet on the bed of the car and making even more sounds.
I think before the car ever came to a stop, mom was right there. That’s her, though. She doesn’t mess around in an emergency.
I heard her say, “What’s the matter?” and then, “Ah, honey your having a reaction to the sting.” She told Petra she was going to be all right, but there was something in the way mom said it that made me think she wasn’t really so sure about that, if you know what I mean.
She picked Petra up and carried her to the front of the car where she put her in the passenger side seat so she could sit up straight, with a back rest and everything. This didn’t seem to make Petra that much more comfortable, though. She started breathing a little faster, throwing her head back a little, and opening her mouth each time she sucked-in. It was like she couldn’t get enough breath in her lungs. She also asked if she was going to die. This time both mom and Alan told her she’d be okay, almost at the same time. That got to me a little bit for some reason. I don’t know why.
Mom put her hand on Petra’s chest and gently rubbed it back and forth, talking to her quiet, I guess trying to calm her down, but Petra would have nothing to do with it. She pushed mom’s hand away and tried to get out of the car. It was like she was panicked or something. I never saw her act like that before, even with all the stuff that has happened to us and her along the way.
Mom asked if she had ever been stung before. Petra shook her head no and yelled, “Stop talking to me,” but you couldn’t make out the me part hardly at all. It sounded like it was lost in her breath, kind of like running out of water before the glass is filled.
I think it was because she was having trouble breathing that she was acting like that, getting mad at mom. I guess that would make just about anyone panic. I know it would me. It seemed like her breathing troubles kept getting worse, too. She haddon’t know whytif this wheezing noise coming from her throat at one point. It was really bad sounding, and I guess that’s when I thought things were past help. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to help her, I really did, but I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think Alan knew what to do, either. We both just kind of turned it over to mom this time, who restrained Petra in the seat.
In response to a question from Alan, mom said that she thought it was Anaphylactic Shock (I had to look that one up). She said she had seen it once a long time ago when a neighborhood boy had an “allergic reaction to some peanuts he ate.” She explained that there is a medicine that is injected that helps with the symptoms, but of course we didn’t have any of that.
I asked her, “So, what do we do?”
She just looked at me and said the same thing as before, “It’s going to be okay.” But it was that tone again; like it wasn’t going to be okay, and she knew it wasn’t, and she was just saying that to make Petra’s less worried.
After only a few more minutes, Petra’s eyes were almost completely closed up from the swelling. Her breathing was more of a struggle, too. So Alan asked if maybe we should lay her down. Mom said no, that laying her down would just make it harder for her to breathe. She then asked me to wet something that she could press to Petra’s face. I’m guessing she thought the cool water might help with the swelling.
I went to the back of the car and got one of the pieces of blanket that Alan had cut and poured some water on it. I was just screwing the top back on the water jug when I heard Alan say, “I don’t think she’s breathing.” I looked up and saw that mom was holding Petra upright in the seat and at the same time holding her head back a little so her mouth was open. I remember thinking at that very moment that there was nothing we could do that was going to save her. As far as her living went, we were just watchers. She was either going to make it on her own or she wasn’t.
I went back over there and mom told me in this dead, calm voice to “get in the back and hold her head.”
I did it quick, and I saw mom put her ear to Petra’s mouth, listening I guess or maybe trying to feel her breath. After that, without saying anymore, mom pinched Petra’s nose with one hand, put her mouth over Petra’s mouth, and started blowing air into her.
I don’t think this was working the way it was supposed to because it seemed that the breaths mom was giving her weren’t getting all the way in. By that I mean her chest didn’t seem as if it was going up and down like it was supposed to. But mom kept at it, and after maybe a couple of minutes, she first checked Petra’s neck and then her wrist for a beat. She did this for a long time, moving her fingers around as if she was having trouble finding it. When she finally gave up, I heard her swear. “Shit!” That’s what she said, and she also told us Petra’s heart had stopped. Mom doesn’t swear too much.
After that, she pulled Petra from the car like she weighed nothing at all, and put her flat, on her back, on the ground. At the same tithat’s what I didwotme, she told Alan to push down on Petra’s chest and returned to giving, or I should say trying to give, Petra some air. Alan went right to it, and they both kept on for several minutes, I guess, at least ten. Long enough anyway they were getting tired. Sweat was actually dripping off the tip of Alan’s nose, down onto his hands.
As for me, I was just standing there like a mushroom, watching all this happen and feeling totally useless. Then the weirdest feeling came over me. It was almost like I wasn’t even there anymore, but instead maybe somewhere off to the side, looking at all this through a window or something. I wasn’t part of it. I was also perfectly calm, not even breathing fast, or biting down, or anything like that. It was a very strange feeling. Alan described the same kind of thing happening to him after he put Michael Bass to rest, so I didn’t think I was losing it or anything. It was just weird is all and I wanted to say it.
After a whi
le, I saw mom stop and check Petra for a pulse again, and like before, she went to both her neck and wrist. She put her hand on Alan’s shoulder after that and told him that Petra was gone.
He didn’t do nothing at first. He just, you know, kind of stared for maybe for the count of three or four, with his hands on her chest still but not pushing down. After that, he went right back to what he was doing before, pushing on her chest as if he didn’t hear what mom said or maybe didn’t understand her. At that point mom sat back on her heels just watching him. After a time, she sort of leaned over and wrapped her arms around Alan’s body and rested her head on his back until he finally gave up.
“Are you sure?” he asked, with his eyes never leaving Petra’s face. I’m pretty certain he was crying when he said it, too. It sounded like it, anyway. Even though mom told him “I’m sure,” he still felt Petra’s wrist.
While he was doing all this, Mom just rubbed his back and held on to him.
After a bit, Alan leaned back, folded his legs out from under him and just sat there on the ground, Indian style, with his head down, next to her body.
For a long time everyone was real quiet, especially Alan. He didn’t even move. He was completely turned in on himself. At first, I thought maybe he was mad or something. I remember even wondering if he was angry at me for just standing there and not doing anything to help, even if there was no help to be given. But I decided it wasn’t like that at all. He was angry all right, but he was angry at the way things were, not at me. See, I know Alan good enough to see he’s the kind of guy who has his mind set on how things should be and Petra dying didn’t fit with his ideas, and that made him mad, or sad, or what-have-you.
Don’t get me wrong. Alan’s good people. I’m not saying otherwise. However, good people who believe that the world should be this way instead of that, always get a sad heart when bad things happen. As I see it, that’s not the way the world is. The world is just the world; a place where we hang out for a time and then we don’t anymore. There is no meaning to life as some people claim. People don’t have a purpose. There is no big powerful force after the rain had stopped22itout there somewhere saying what should or shouldn’t be. The only meaning to life is the meaning that people make up to explain what they don’t want to face; that we live and we die, and that our life and our death only really, truly matter to us. Things just go along the same, good and bad, with us or without us.
I don’t say this stuff to take anything away from Alan or even from mom for that matter. She’s a little bit that way as well. They’re both nice people, and I can count on them to do what needs to be done, the same as they can count on me. It’s just that they believe in something bigger than themselves, than all of us, and this something is supposed to make things good, so they will always feel down when life doesn’t work out the way they believe it’s supposed to. I guess, too, when things turn out good, they’ll thank someone or something that doesn’t exist.
As far as Petra dying, I believe that death only means the end of life. I loved Petra for sure, but she’s dead now because an insect stung her into shock, and we will go on without her. Simple as that. If we get all depressed about it, or as some do, kill ourselves, we’re just being stupid and doing it for no good reason.
Man, just listen to me. I’m starting to sound like Alan now, thinking too hard about stuff. I should just get back to it.
After a little while, we wrapped Petra’s body up in one of the blankets, fixed it with a length of rope, and loaded it in the back of the car. We did that because Alan insisted that we bury her in Woburn since she had wanted so badly to reach the “safe place”. Mom and I didn’t say otherwise, so that’s what we did, and off we went again.
As you might think, we were still pretty quiet after that. I guess everyone was just sort of figuring things out, probably about Petra and probably about dying because you can’t help but wonder if you’ll be next after something like that happens. You know, what it will be like when it happens to you? Will you be scared? Do you just stop thinking and then no more? Those were my thoughts anyway.
About that — man just listen to me, I’ve got to stop talking about this stuff — I’m not really afraid to die I guess, but I just don’t want to. From what I’ve seen it’s usually over pretty fast and, if it hurts, in the big picture the hurt doesn’t last too long. It’s just something everyone has to go through. Once you’re dead, you’re dead and there’s nothing to feel or think about. I suppose that’s all there is to it and all I’m going to say about it anymore.
So we drove on toward the west after that. I think mom was driving at this point. She’s a pretty good driver. After fifteen or twenty minutes, could have been more I guess, we came to this road to our left that went in the direction we wanted to go, south. Like I said before, it was one of those minor roads that didn’t show on our map, so we talked about it a little and decided to take a chance on it instead of sticking with the for sure but longer way of getting there.
About five miles into it, this little two lane road turned into a one lane road. Pretty soon after that, it became just a trail you could hardly even see, cutting have only been my imagination6it across some pretty rough land with lots of ups and downs and other things in the way. In fact, the only reason you could tell it kept going at all was because animals were using it to get from one place to another, so they wore down the weeds.
We might still have been able to keep going. The little car was built solid. The trouble was, for all we knew there could have been a river or canyon or something up ahead that would have stopped us dead cold, wasting even more time than we already had.
As you might guess, all this brought us down low. So we pretty much decided that from then on we’d stick to the roads we knew for sure would get us to Woburn.
Around we turned and drove back the way we came, again pretty much keeping our thoughts to ourselves. I tried to think of something to say or a question to ask that would get Alan and mom out of their moods, but everything I thought of seemed like a stupid thing to talk about. So I didn’t say anything, and nobody talked much after that.
When we got within sight of our turnoff, mom all of a sudden stepped hard on the brakes, slid a couple of feet and shut the engine off. I was in the bed of our car with my feet hanging over the back, so it put me on my back like one of those roly-poly bugs you sometimes see, wondering what the hell just happened. As soon as I sat myself up again, I got my answer. I heard an engine, a loud one, like the one we heard when mom and I were searching for Petra and Alan after they fell out of the boat. It didn’t seem too far away, either, maybe half a mile or so. Even though noise can sound like it’s coming from one way, but turn out to be coming from another, we all pretty much thought it was coming from the west. What really sucked about that was, west was the direction we wanted to go.
Once I started thinking about what all this meant, I felt like somebody had just knifed my tires, if you know what I mean. In other words, here I had been thinking we’d just cruise right on into Woburn like some kind of heroes on parade, and now it was looking like we were going to be back to running, and hiding, and sneaking around.
I mean isn’t that how you’d feel if you were me? Wouldn’t you be thinking like maybe you’d stepped in a big pile of bad luck, back there at the farm, and it’s been stuck to your shoes ever since. I know I’m sounding like a cry baby here, but it’s true. Think about it; the shootings, my falling, all of us practically starving, the boat accident, and the worst thing of all, Petra dying from a stupid wasp sting, and now this. But what are you going to do, huh?
I started swearing to myself then. If we’d done the smart thing in the first place and went the way we knew for sure would get us to Woburn, instead of taking a chance on a shortcut, we would have already been past whoever it was out there making all that noise.
As we sat there, I guess trying to figure out what to do next, you could hear the sound getting farther and farther away. That helped a little bit. At le
ast we didn’t have to go sneaking off into the bushes right away. We had a little bit of time to talk it out, which is what we did.
One thing we said was that if our thinking of direction was right, and whoever was out there was going our same way, we’d have to get past them somehow. Another thing we said was that just like we heard their engine, they could hear ours if we were close enough. That one brought up a whole bunch of other things to talk about.
My idea was to leave our car in the bushes somewhere and walk the rest of the way. We all agreed that we couldn’t be so scared to leave it behind that we took chances that got us found out. But we disagreed on whether to leave the car now or wait until later. I thought let’s just be done with it, leave it now and get on our way. Alan and mom thought we should keep the car awhile longer. (It was probably Petra’s body they didn’t want to leave behind and not the car. In my opinion, feelings like that can get you killed. I didn’t say it, but I should have.)
This was a pretty serious argument we were having. I didn’t get into a shouting type deal with them or anything, but I didn’t back down either, which I think kind of surprised them a little, to be honest with you. I’d never done that before. Anyway, so even though it was their two votes to my one, Alan gave-in a little. He suggested we sit there for an hour or so and wait for these people to get farther away. In the meantime, he’d go ahead on foot and see if he could spot them and figure out what they were up to.
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