Desperate Times

by Nicholas Antinozzi

  Jon sized up Carl and offered him a fresh change of clothes. Carl accepted gratefully. He and Jon visited while Carl ate his breakfast, waiting his turn to get in the shower. They sat across from each other at the picnic table next to Paula and Jimmy. They discovered they had a common friend, and they both laughed about how small the world was. Jimmy didn’t think he’d ever heard Carl laugh before; in fact, he was sure of it. Paula finished her breakfast and stared into Jimmy’s eyes expectantly.

  “Stay here,” she begged.

  Paula was insisting that he stay, but Jimmy wasn’t listening. He explained to her what had happened and repeated again that they’d be back the following day. She pouted about this and took him by the arm and pulled him from the table.

  “Walk with me,” she said.

  Jimmy left Jon and Carl at the table, following Paula around the side of the house. She wore a white cotton shirt and a pair of tight-fitting khaki shorts; on her feet was a pair of women’s hiking boots. Her blonde hair was pulled back behind her ears, and she’d applied a dab of makeup. She looked as fresh as a spring daisy, and Jimmy felt his heart pound when she took him into her arms.

  “I love you, Jimmy Logan,” she said, kissing him with furious passion.

  Jimmy returned the kiss, his stomach churning in knots. He didn’t know what else to do. Paula’s hands were gripped tightly around his waist as if she’d never let go.

  “Oh, Jimmy,” she groaned. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, taking a breath before once again pressing her open mouth against his.

  Jimmy slowly pulled away, a wave of guilt burning inside of him. “I’ve got to go,” he said, looking deep into Paula’s blue eyes. “I’ll be back.”

  “Why does it have to be you?” Paula asked. “We could send Carl out with your friend. They could bring back a doctor.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ve got to go. End of discussion.”

  Paula reached out to him, but Jimmy stepped back. She nodded, giving up. “Okay,” she said, taking him by the arm as they returned to the back yard. “I’m so sorry for doubting you. Can you ever forgive me? I’ll be waiting for you, Jimmy. I’ll be waiting right here. And when you get back, you and I have some business to attend to.”

  Jimmy didn’t need to ask her what she meant by that. His head was spinning, and he wanted nothing more than to be on his way. Jon and Carl were still at the table, Carl chewing slowly as Jon told him about what had happened the night before.

  “Let’s hit it,” said Jimmy.

  “Right,” answered Jon. “Nice to meet you, Carl. I’ll see you when we get back with that doctor.”

  “I look forward to it,” replied Carl.

  Jimmy walked over to the kitchen window and called inside. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Can someone catch the gate for us?”

  Nineteen

  During the Second World War, relocation camps in the United States were known as “concentration camps” until the term was assimilated into the Nazi death camps. Political correctness aside, the camps were for the sole purpose of imprisonment. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during the war and would testify to the truth of the above statement.

  Many of these detainees have names you’d recognize.

  A patch of blue sky opened up as the two walked silently away from the compound. They followed the gravel driveway around the corner, each deep in his own thoughts. They walked for ten minutes before Jon spoke.

  “What are you going to do about Julie?” he asked.

  Jimmy groaned. “I don’t know,” said Jimmy honestly. “I really don’t know.”

  “This is going to break her heart. You know that, right?”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes. Of course he knew that. He also wasn’t entirely sure that it’d be Julie’s heart that he’d be breaking. They’d been through a lot in a short amount of time, and she’d nearly made him forget about Paula during that time. Paula had left him to ride this out with her parents. By some fluke or miracle, they’d escaped the burning cities and made it to their gate. He didn’t know how he felt about any of it. He knew he still loved Paula on some level. He also knew he was still attracted to Paula. She possessed a classic, Nordic beauty. Her blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes and high cheek bones still made his heart pound in his chest; this morning had proven that to him. She was tall and lean and had the flawless body of a swimsuit model. He tried to push those thoughts out of his head.

  “Julie loves you, Jimmy,” Jon said, breaking the silence. “And she’s fighting for her life.”

  “Stop it,” barked Jimmy. “I get it. I love her, too. I’ve got to sort everything out. This isn’t easy for me, okay?”

  Jon smiled. “I just thought you should know. Trying to makes some conversation, you know?”

  “Well, let’s talk about something else,” Jimmy quipped, picking up the pace down the gravel road.

  “Okay, okay,” said Jon. “What can we talk about? Oh, why don’t you tell me about Carl? He works for the Petersons? What do you know about him?”

  Jimmy groaned. He hated Carl. He’d always hated Carl. He never let him forget about his station in life. Carl was a pompous jerk who toyed with Jimmy like a cat with a mouse. Carl had never had a lady friend the entire time Jimmy had known him. Jimmy quickly gave Jon a hard look.

  “He seems nice,” said Jon.

  “Right,” replied Jimmy sarcastically. “He’s a great guy.”

  “I think so,” said Jon with a grin. “Good looking, too.”

  They walked for an hour, making small talk as they plunged ahead into the unknown. They carried their guns at the ready, muzzles pointed into the ground as they walked. The roads were entirely deserted. They watched a doe with a spotted fawn barely weeks old in a ditch by the side of the road. The doe didn’t flinch, and the pair ducked down for cover in the tall weeds. They passed without talking; their footsteps were the only sound in the early afternoon air. The sky had become partly cloudy, and the sun warmed them for a few minutes here and there before being blotted out again.

  Jimmy barely heard Jon as he rambled on about something or other. He was torn, his emotions conflicted. His thoughts were spinning in circles inside his brain. Julie. Paula. They were as unalike as two women could possibly be. They came from entirely different backgrounds, and the only thing they had in common was him. Julie, like him, had come from a blue collar family. Her father worked at the feed mill, her mother at the grocery store. Julie spoke her mind and wasn’t afraid to mix it up if she felt she had good reason. Hadn’t last night proven that? How would Paula have reacted? Jimmy knew the answer to that. She would’ve been huddled with the women and children in the basement. There was no way she’d have picked up a gun, an M-16 rifle no less, and protected the compound the way Julie had. Julie had taken a bullet for them. Paula never would have done that.

  Then again, their situation had changed them all. How had Paula changed? The obvious answer to that was she had suddenly become quite passionate about Jimmy. She’d never acted that way before. Her emotions had always been held tightly in check by her upper class upbringing. Passion with Paula had always been more candlelight than the exploding fireworks he’d experienced with Julie. Jimmy had longed for her to feel that way about him. And there she had been that very morning, brimming with that sort of passion, looking like a vision in Jill Sandberg’s clothing. She’d even professed her love for him, something she’d done very few times during their relationship. Did she really mean it? Jimmy supposed she did. Who else did she have to love?

  Something cracked in the woods ahead, definitely a footstep and Jon scrambled for cover in the ditch. Jimmy followed, training his gun in the direction of the sound.

  Jon pushed down his muzzle. “Hold it. We don’t know if they’re friendly or not,” he whispered.

  “Who goes there?” shouted a man’s voice from the woods.

  “We’re heading into town to find a doctor!” replied Jon. “We mean you no har
m.”

  “Where are you coming from?” answered the man.

  “None of your damn business. We’ve got some people back there who are hurt bad!”

  “A lot of people are hurt badly! What makes you think you can get a doctor to come out this way?”

  Jon turned to Jimmy, his face confused. “We’re going to try,” he replied. “The doctor in Ely owes a friend a favor!”

  There was no answer to that. They waited for nearly a minute before the man emerged from the woods. He held his empty hands in the air. His face was haggard and his clothes were filthy. Jimmy and Jon stood cautiously, scanning the woods for any sign of ambush.

  “It’s just me,” said the man who looked to be the same age as they were. He was tall and thin, his face a tangled mass of beard. “Don’t shoot,” he said, walking toward the two of them.

  “Far enough,” said Jon. “Who are you and what are you doing in the woods?”

  “I’m Jerry Jenkins. I had a cabin over on Black Island Lake. We got burned out last week. They took everything we had. We’ve been on the road ever since.”

  “We?” Jon asked. “Who’s we?”

  “My wife and kids. They’re still in the woods. I’ve got a really sick kid. We can’t wake him up, and he’s burning with fever. Can you help us? He’s only three.”

  “Oh, God,” said Jimmy under his breath. “What can we do?”

  “Where are you heading?” Jon asked.

  “We were heading into town. I don’t know what else to do. We were just stopping for a short rest.”

  Jon dropped his gun and waved him over to where they stood. “Don’t head into town. Take your family over to Hay Lake. Have you ever heard of Birkland’s Resort?”

  Jerry Jenkins nodded enthusiastically. “Sure, I know where it is.”

  “Well,” continued Jon. “The Dahlgrens live next door. The place is surrounded by a wall. You can’t miss it. Tell them what you told me. Tell them that Jon and Jimmy sent you. They’ll look after you and your family. We’re going to try to come back with a doctor. We can’t promise anything, okay? We’re just hoping that we can still find one.”

  Jenkins began to cry. “We’ll pray for you,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “When was the last time you and your family had something to eat?” Jimmy asked.

  “A while back,” Jenkins said. “Yesterday, I think.”

  “Here,” said Jimmy. He dropped his backpack and rummaged through the contents. He pulled out a large paper sack, finding a bottle of Tylenol at the bottom. “Take these,” he said, shoving the large sack containing their meals and the aspirin bottle at Jenkins.

  “God bless you,” said Jenkins, his voice quavering. “God bless you both!”

  “Go now,” said Jon. “Get some of that in your child. You’ve got to get him cooled off. Find a stream or a lake. That will help. We’ll see you back at the Dahlgrens’.”

  Jenkins nodded and scrambled away. He looked back at them twice as if they’d been some sort of illusion he’d conjured up in his mind. He was smiling now, his long legs crashing through the ditch and up into the woods, out of sight.

  “I guess we’ve done our good deed for the day,” Jon quipped.

  “I suppose we have,” agreed Jimmy.

  “Now, what are we going to eat?”

  “We’ll find something,” said Jimmy. “I’m thinking steak and lobster.”

  “No,” said Jon. “Sesame chicken and fried rice. I’m dying for some Chinese food.”

  “Sounds good,” agreed Jimmy.

  They continued walking and the only sounds in the woods were made by their natural inhabitants. Squirrels ran, birds flew, insects chirped. They were totally oblivious to what was going on in the outside world. Jimmy envied them.

  A mile from town they began to hear traffic, and the sound called to them like a long-lost relative. Though their feet were sore from their long walk, they began to jog. The highway rose before them, the last rolling hill before Ely. Jimmy stopped after three hundred yards; he’d smoked too many Camels to run any further.

  “Sorry,” he said to Jon. “Damn cigarettes.”

  “It’s okay,” Jon replied, who wasn’t winded at all. “We’ll get there.”

  Jimmy smiled, wishing he’d never started smoking. He bent over and tried to catch his breath. He could hear something strange about the sounds coming from town. The traffic sounded heavy, as if a convoy of eighteen wheelers was slowly cruising Ely.

  “What do you make of that?” Jon asked.

  Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know what to make of it. One thing was certain—he didn’t like it. The highway crested about a half mile ahead of them. The tall pines on either side of the road were thick and would offer cover in case they needed it. Ahead and on their left was a tall hill; the top would offer a bird’s eye view of town. He pointed that out to Jon.

  “I’m with you,” replied Jon. “Let’s get up there.”

  The floor of the old forest was thickly layered in pine needles. They prevented nearly anything else from growing inside. The tall pine limbs created a canopy inside the forest, blotting out the sky. The result was a soft, spongy walkway through the murky woods. Huge slabs of rock jutted out of the ground at all angles, tenacious pine roots clamping over and around them like huge talons. They walked a silent quarter mile into the woods before turning and heading toward the hill.

  They walked ten feet apart, guns at the ready. Mosquitoes buzzed their ears, and they swatted at them. The rumble from town grew louder with each step they took. They began to climb, and the ground became more rugged. They climbed rocks the size of buildings, up, around, and over, zigzagging their way toward the peak. They continued to climb, Jimmy following Jon who moved slowly in front of him, being careful not to step on a pile of rubble and send the both of them crashing back to the bottom. They were sweating when they reached the top, and slowly they poked their heads over the peak and looked down below.

  “Hey,” said Jimmy. “It’s the National Guard. Look at the trucks!”

  “Quiet,” shushed Jon. “What the hell are they doing?”

  Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and continued to observe the activity. They were high above Ely, and their vantage point offered an excellent view of town. Empty beer cans and discarded cigarette butts told them that they weren’t the first to discover this spot. Looking down, they could see the trucks moving from house to house, soldiers kicking in doors and removing the occupants. They loaded the people into the trucks like cattle, or like criminals? Jimmy thought with disgust. The longer he watched this process, the angrier he became.

  The trucks swept down the streets in pairs. Ely was crawling with soldiers in camouflage uniforms, guns drawn. They worked methodically and efficiently, seeking out and removing anyone who hadn’t left their homes or businesses voluntarily. What disturbed them most was the sound of casual gunshots. They popped here and there, like children playing with firecrackers on the fourth of July. They had seen enough, and they scrambled halfway back down the wall of rock, taking refuge in a deep crevice.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” Jimmy whispered, his hands shaking as he tried to light a cigarette.

  “Refugee camps,” said Jon, shaking his head. “They’re rounding everyone up and hauling them away. The bastards!”

  “Refugee camps?” asked Jimmy. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s our government’s plan for dealing with disaster. Lock everyone up in a relocation camp and hold them there until they decide that it’s safe for them to return home. It’s complete bullshit. What they’re doing is hauling away all of the law-abiding citizens and leaving behind the scum.”

  “We’re not scum.”

  “Right. And we’re certainly not getting into any of those trucks.”

  “What do we do now, go back?” asked Jimmy, blowing a stream of smoke away from Jon. “We can’t do that.”

  “No. We’ll have to wait this out and see how long t
hey stay in town. My gut feeling is that when they feel that they’ve rounded everyone up, they’ll drive them to wherever the camps are and head to the next town. Babbitt or Tower, maybe even Virginia if they haven’t been there already.”

  “And then what will we do?”

  “We’ll head for the hospital and see if anyone’s still there. If not, we’ll grab as many medical supplies as we can and return to Ken’s. I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” said Jimmy.

  Jon stretched out on a slab of rock, using his backpack for a pillow and closed his eyes. “I’m going to catch a nap,” he said. “Wake me in an hour, but keep your ears open. I’ll relieve you then, and you can catch an hour. This might be another long night.”

  Jimmy nodded, feeling the past twenty-four hours catching up to him as well. He climbed back out of the crevice and up to where they’d been watching over the town. The trucks continued to crawl along, the soldiers moving from door to door. Jimmy let Jon sleep nearly two hours; then it was his turn.

  Here and there, a gunshot echoed across the hills.

  “Jimmy, wake up,” Jon said, tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

  Jimmy sat up and rubbed his eyes. Dusk was approaching, and crickets roared in his ears. “What time is it?” he asked, trying to see the face of his watch through his bloodshot eyes.

  “Almost nine,” said Jon. “We’ve got to move. We’ll never make it down in the dark.”

  “Nine?” Jimmy asked, that meant that Jon had let him sleep for nearly three hours. “You should’ve waked me up. What about the Guard?”

  “Do you hear any trucks?”

  Jimmy listened. He didn’t hear any trucks, only the chirping of a million crickets. “When did they leave?”