What could I say about that? I was out voted anyway. Besides, we were a team and had to work together even if we didn’t agree.
He told us that every quarter mile or so, he would leave little pieces of blanket tied to something near the road to let us know how far and which way he’d gone. If he wanted us to stop and wait, he’d put a rock in the middle of the road with a piece of blanket under it. After the hour of waiting was up, mom and I would start driving slowly in his direction. We’d decide what to do with our car after that. I still thought we ought to just start walking. We could be in Woburn by night time if we started walking right away.
So anyway, Alan took off, carrying his rifle with him, a pocketful of bullets, and leaving the shotgun with me.
When it seemed an hour had gone by, mom and I took off slow, just as we planned it. After passing like five of the markers, so I guess about a mile and a quarter, we came to a rock in the road with a piece of blanket under it. After we pulled the blanket out, we hid our car in some nearby trees where we could see the road if Alan returned.
Oh, forgot, I suppose I should tell you that in that mile and a quarter or so, we didn’t see any wheel tracks. That told us that the vehicle we heard was probably on a different road altogether and further away than we first thought.
We waited for Alan a long time. It was so long, in fact, I was starting to think that maybe he’d been caught or something, and we should see about finding him. I was just about at the point where I was going to bring it up to mom, when I saw him come trotting out through some trees and bushes. He was across the road from us, but a couple a hundred long paces away. He kind of stood there a bit, looking up one way and down ex-wife and daughter y point the other, I guess trying to figure out where we were at, when mom stepped out of our hiding place and waved him over.
When I finally got a good clear look at his face, I could see that he was kind of, you know, worked up about something. After he explained what he’d seen, mom and I got a little worked up ourselves.
Alan spread out the road map we’d been using, on the hood of our car and put his finger on the two lane road we now traveled. He pointed out that about half a mile ahead was a bridge over the same river we floated the boat down. On our side of the bridge and river, was a major road that went both north and south (the way we wanted to go). Also on our side of the river, not too far from the intersection of our road and the other, was a small town named Gasping Willows. Who comes up with these names anyway?
Alan next told us that when he got to the intersection up ahead, he saw a set of tire tracks going toward the town. How he knew they were going that way and not the other was because he also saw footprints going that same direction — lots of footprints. He said that was the point where he doubled back and placed the rock in the road so we wouldn’t go any further. After doing that, he cut across country going south, the same direction as the highway and the same way all these people were going.
He told us that he hadn’t gone very far when he started hearing noises, manmade type noises, banging and stuff like that, and voices, too. So at that point, he slowed way down, at times even crawling from tree to tree, until he got within sight of where it was all coming from. It turned out to be a gathering of mostly men, about fifty or sixty in all. They were grouped-up near some warehouse type buildings at the far eastern edge of this town called Gasping Willows.
So many people all in one place was strange enough, but he said there were some other things that really got his attention.
First off, as he watched, it seemed like more and more people were arriving, so their numbers were still getting bigger. He saw several small groups of men walking in from the direction of the road carrying their belongings on their backs. Some of these people were riding bicycles, and two men even showed up on a horse. According to Alan, these weren’t very nice looking guys either. They were rough looking men, and women too, who were “up to no good,” as he put it. Many of these people were carrying rifles or shotguns, and most of the rest had other kinds of weapons as well. What he guessed was going on was that this was the place where the people set on attacking Woburn were gathering, before they got on with it.
Another thing he told us about was a flatbed truck, a little larger than a pickup, parked off to one side, kind of away from where all the people were at. Mounted in the back of this truck was some type of homemade cannon or mortar. He thought this because there was a tube that he supposed was the barrel of the thing, sticking up above the wooden slat sides. It was attached to something sitting on the bed of the truck that he couldn’t see real good. Also, I guess people kept walking over and staring at it like it was some big deal. At one point, one of these persons started to climb into the back of the truck and was yelled at to get down and warned that if he wasdon’t know whytifn’t careful, he’d “blow us all to hell.” Those were the exact words.
Canons aside for a minute, maybe the worst news was that the person who was doing the yelling at the man climbing in the back of the truck, was none other than Eric. He’s the same one who Alan calls Mr. Ponytail. Of course you had to know if Eric was there, Carla wouldn’t be too far away. Alan said he saw her wandering around, which made me regret all the more that I hadn’t killed her a couple of days before. I remember hoping for another chance at her, even flashing on the moment in my head. It was the big prize that I really wanted, though, Eric. I owed him for not only what he did to me but to mom also; especially to mom. I really hated Eric.
At this point, mom said, “We got to get a look at that truck and whatever’s in it, and destroy it. We can’t let them use it on Woburn.” As you might think, that started quite a bit of talk between us.
Instead of telling you about the discussion we had and everybody’s opinions, I’ll just get to the point and tell you what we decided. It may not be as interesting that way, but it will be faster.
As much as we all wanted to get to Woburn, which we figured couldn’t be but three hours away by car, four at the most, more than twice that on foot though, we decided to hang out until nightfall and sneak their camp to see what we could do about that canon. As part of our plan, Alan and mom had to finally face the fact that we couldn’t go any further with our car. There was just no way it was possible. Not only would the bad guys be able to hear it, but they could easily find our tracks and follow behind. This of course meant burying Petra’s body. Again no choice; the animals would get to her if we just left her strapped to the back of the car until we could get back.
I didn’t tell them, I told you so. I wanted to, though.
So we buried her close by, near a patch of wild flowers mom found. After piling on the last stone, we stood around her grave, close-up, and each of us took a turn saying something about her, which seemed a little, I don’t know, weird I guess. I mean everything I knew about her, they knew, too, and the other way around. I think instead of talking about her out loud like that, I would rather have just taken a few minutes to picture her face looking at me, or her little hands pointing at birds passing overhead, or remember her voice when she talked about the safe place. For some reason, though, each of us actually talking about her seemed important to mom and Alan. I guess it was really no big deal, I’m just saying ...
We finished up our little ceremony with some hard promises that we’d come back and get her so she could be reburied in Woburn. In my mind, that was more a promise for Alan, okay and maybe mom, too, than a promise for Petra. When you’re dead, I don’t think promises mean much to you, or for that matter, nice words either. She was dead and her life is just a memory I have in my head, and when I’m dead there’s not going to be even that.
Afterwards, we marked the spot in a secret way and also the road to make it easy to find her later and spent the rest of the afternoon cutting branches and stuff ">Anna interrupted at with t to hide our vehicle.
We also packed up what we’d take with us, including the two cans of gunpowder wrapped with tape and nails. We thought they might come in ha
ndy for destroying Eric’s big gun. And about that gunpowder, Alan made a fuse out of a piece of paper tape that he sprinkled with gun powder and then rolled up lengthwise. You have to hand it to Alan. That was pretty tricky.
Just before dark came on, we finished a small meal and drank some tea heated over that stove we got from Hank’s place. Then we headed across the road and due south through the brush, sticking close together and walking as quietly as we could toward Eric’s campground. I will admit that I didn’t think too much of our chances of messing up that truck and getting away. We had trouble enough trying to avoid these people, now we were walking right into their camp.
It wasn’t hard to find them, either. I’ll tell you that. They were making so much noise we knew where they were five minutes after we got on our way. When we were close, Alan left us behind again and went looking for a good place to spy on them while we figured out what we were going to do next.
About a half hour later, he came back and led us to what must have, at one time, been somebody’s junk yard or something. I say that because it was this area filled with a bunch of old, old vehicles, all rusted out and of no use for anything, washing machines, stacks of worn down tires, busted-up toilets, used kitchen sinks, just a whole bunch of junk thrown-out in no particular order, laying this way and that all over the place. It made for a great spot to hide, though. I ended up next to this old freezer with the door torn off, resting on its side next to a great big tractor tire that had weeds growing out of the center of it. No way were they going to see me.
Laying there in the dark like that, I had almost a perfect view of the truck Alan told us about. I could also see the people who were, at that moment, just lighting up a nice, big old fire. The good thing about the fire was it made it easier for us to see them, and much, much harder for them to see us. I couldn’t help but think, though, how nice it would be to have a fire of my own. It was damn cold spread out like I was, there on the damp ground. You might think that eventually you get used to that kind of stuff, but you don’t. Maybe what you get used to is expecting it.
Getting on with what I was seeing, they were all standing around the end of this long, dirty white, single story, metal warehouse. A few of the doors, big roll-up ones, were open and people were going in and out of the place all casual like. I guess that’s where they were stashing their stuff and probably sleeping, too. The fire was near the end of the building and confined to a big metal barrel. Pretty soon another one was lit farther down.
Between us and them was a distance of about fifty or sixty yards, I guess. About halfway was that truck Alan told us about, parked in such a way that I could look right into the back end of the thing.
Now as for the truck goes, what I saw in the back of it was this tube looking thing, about five or six feet long and three or four inches in diameter, attached to another tube ordon’t know whytif pipe that was a little bigger around. The whole deal was mounted on some type of stand that was connected to the back end of the truck. Later, I was able to get a closer look at it. The wider tube, at the bottom of the longer one, was maybe eighteen inches in length and had some small pipes attached to it. Sticking in the end of this wider tube was a small hose that ran to what looked like a pretty good sized propane tank. And spread out over the rest of the truck bed, were these boxes. Much, much later, after what happened, happened, I learned from Alan that the boxes were filled with these firebomb like things. They were made out of large tin cans open on one end and stuffed with plastic bags filled with a gooey gasoline mixture. On the other end of the can, the closed end, was attached a wad of steel wool.
When I finally got back here to Woburn and told them about it, a man, who said he was an engineer, told me that it was probably a canon that used the propane to launch the cans. He explained that when the propane was ignited inside the shorter, wider pipe, the gases from the explosion propelled the cans loaded in the longer, narrower pipe and, at the same time, ignited the steel wool on the bottom of the cans. The burning steel wool fired-up the gasoline when the can landed and the bag broke open. He said it was crude and inaccurate, but effective if all you wanted to do is set things on fire. It was kind of like shooting a Molotov Cocktail from a canon. He also said that when he was a kid, he made a smaller version of something like I described to launch potatoes. Instead of propane, he used something else, but the idea was the same. That’s how he knew what it was, from just me telling him.
I know this last part I wrote kind of got away from what happened to Alan, mom, and me. I just thought it’s real interesting how some people can always think up all kinds of special ways to kill other people just so they can take their belongings, so I thought I’d just mention it here. It also tells you a little bit about the kind of people we were dealing with. Hurting others and stealing things was a way of life for them.
So now getting back to what happened; I was laying there, just waiting for things to quiet down so we could get on with it, when Alan crawled up beside me with a big smile on his face. He said that he’d just left my mother and she’d fallen asleep on him right in the middle of his explanation of the plan he’d come up with for destroying the truck. He commented that he’d have to remember to work on his delivery in the future. I laughed along with him but thought it kind of strange of her to do that. She’d never before fallen asleep while on watch, at least that I knew of. We were all pretty tired, though.
About the plan, he said that after the people we were watching were asleep, he’d sneak up to the truck while I watched out for him from nearby. Mom, in the mean time, would move to a position south of us, which would be our direction of escape, to protect us just in case somebody chased us afterwards.
About this point in our whispered out conversation, we heard some loud talk at the end of the warehouse. It was two men, and they were in an argument with a lot of others sort of just standing around watching and making an occasional comment meant to keep them going at each other.
From what I could understand, one of these men, a little have only been my imagination6itskinny guy with a long pointy beard and a hat with ear flaps, was accusing the other guy of stealing his spare socks. The other man, who was much bigger and had his hair in a single braid that must have hung at least two feet down his back, was straight out denying it. It went back and forth like that for a couple of minutes with the little guy getting more and more mad about it. Finally, the bigger man pushed the smaller one away, told him that next time he should be more careful with his stuff, and turned back to the card game he’d been playing. I guess that was the last straw for the little guy because he jumped on the big man’s back and stuck a knife right in the side of his neck.
Well everyone jumped back at that point, and blood was squirting out all over the place. But the little guy didn’t let up any; he stuck the big guy again, this time in the chest and maybe another time as well. Just at that moment, the little half circle of men, who were standing around watching all this, parted as if a giant hand reached in and shoved everyone to one side or the other, and in stepped none other than Eric (Mr. Ponytail). He was carrying a three or four foot, two by four in his hands, which he swung hard at the little guy, cracking him a good one in the head. That put the little guy down on the ground, just like that, dead out of it.
I could tell, even from where I was, that that knock to the head messed the little guy up good. He was kind of lying part on his left shoulder and part on his back, with his hands curled up like a boxer, but down near his chest, and his body was jerking real bad.
Of course the show wasn’t over with, not by a long shot. Eric continued to swing away at the skinny guy, three, four, maybe half-a-dozen or more times, real fast like, as if he was killing a snake or something. It was all over after that. The little guy just laid there on the ground, deader than an electric clock, right next to the big guy, who was bleeding out while everyone stared at him doing it.
That tells you exactly how Eric keeps people in line. No wonder when he says be at a certain pl
ace, at a certain time, because we’re going to murder a town full of people and steal their things, they do what he says.
After all that, Eric threw the two by four on the ground, it actually landed on the big guy’s chest, pointed a finger at the people standing around, moving it back and forth like he was hosing them down or something, and told them to “get rid of em’.” He just walked off then, like he was late for an appointment.
Well, after that, nobody moved. They just stood around looking at each other, looking at the ground, looking at the sky, looking at the fire, stuck on stupid. Finally, this one man with a scarf wrapped around his neck, walked over to the skinny dead guy and kicked him in the ribs a couple of times. I guess scarf guy was making sure skinny guy was really dead and not just faking it. He could have also been kicking him just for the fun of it, though. You just can’t tell with these people.
I wonder if you had to do stuff like that to join up with them — kick a dead body or knife someone. Otherwise, how would you know if a good person wasn’t just pretending to be a bad person to keep from getting killed? to stay where with t
Scarf guy kind of nodded to someone else in the group to help him, and the two of them together half carried and half dragged the skinny guy off. Only thing was, they brought him right toward us.
Coming at us like that kind of got me going a little bit, but I should have figured these two lumps weren’t going to carry a dead body any farther than they had to, and so dumped him just inside the junk yard area next to a white porcelain toilet that was laying on its side. They started back after that, but the first guy stopped and returned to the body and cleaned out the skinny guy’s pockets. That must have prompted the second man to join in the fun because he took the skinny dead guy’s shoes and belt. He might have taken the hat as well, but it was pretty ragged after being whacked so many times by that two by four.
The bigger dead guy got pretty much the same treatment, except that they dragged him by his legs the entire way. Nobody went through his pockets, either. My guess is, it was because he was such a bloody mess, but someone did take his boots and socks.
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