by Jf Perkins
“Arturo, and this is my boy Jimmy.” Arturo shook Dad’s hand and let little Jimmy take Dad’s hand as well.
“This is my family. Beth, my wife, Lucy, Kirk, Bill, and Tommy.” Dad pointed to each of us in turn.
“Pleasure to meet you all.” Arturo smiled and nodded all around.
“Well, you’d better get behind some cover with us. No telling who’ll come out next,” Dad said.
“David, I don’t know if you need to worry too much. Not too many people left in there.” Arturo said with a grim look.
“What happened? We’ve been out here for hours, trying to decide if it’s safe to move.”
“When did you guys leave?” Arturo asked.
“We snuck out the back, right after the lights went out. We saw the crashes at the gate, and the guys trying to climb the fence. When things seemed to be getting really crazy, that’s when we left.” Dad replied.
“Good move. Me and Jimmy have been hiding behind the building all day, inside the fence where they keep the dumpsters. A couple of times, I was tempted to get in the dumpsters, but no one ever really looked. Must’ve been the smell.” Arturo made a show of sniffing himself, and we had our first real laugh of the day.
Arturo continued, “Anyway, I didn’t really see much until a little while ago. When it got quiet, I looked out and saw no one in the yard. Jimmy and I were heading around to the front, on the side with the playground. There was an elderly couple sitting on the see-saw, swaying back and forth. The man spotted us walking over and waved to us. He told us they were from Atlanta, and that they were going to wait for a while, to see if help was coming. His wife looked a little more alert, and she shook her head as if to tell us she thought that was a dumb idea. They told us what happened while we were hiding.”
Mom was listening intently now. “What did they say?”
“They said the guard outside the gate tried to keep people from leaving, some people got shot. Then the guardsmen inside the gate got swarmed by the angry mob, some more people died, but eventually the guard was overrun. When the outside guard saw that, they took off, towards the highway. People grabbed the guns and gear off the dead soldiers, and most of those people left too. The man said that there were some fights among the remaining people over scraps, flashlights and whatever else, but eventually the only people left were the ones who had not been fighting at all. Right now, they are huddled in the front lobby of the building, waiting for help. When the man was done with his story, he handed me this...”
Arturo carefully pulled a big combat knife from the back of his belt, in a nylon sheath. “The man said he wouldn’t need it. I asked him if he was sure, and told him that he might need it himself before the night was over. He said, ’Son, I’m dying of cancer. I’m on my way back from my last family visit to my daughter in Kentucky. I’ve got no fight left in me.’ I looked at the woman, thinking that she might have a different opinion, but she just said, ‘I’m with him.’ I thanked them and started looking for a way out. I know the lady was watching us when we escaped through the fence.”
Dad looked at the knife and knew it was from the soldiers. “I wonder how the old man ended up with that knife.”
Arturo shrugged and said, “Hard to say. Maybe he found it while everyone was fighting.”
“Maybe,” Dad replied.
The sun was starting to sink behind us, and Dad was thinking about setting up camp. He got us up and back into our packs. We still were amazed at how heavy they were.
“Arturo, you and your boy want to camp with us tonight? Safety in numbers.” Dad said.
“Yes, David, I would appreciate that very much.”
“Great. We can probably spare some food for you. I want to get farther from the main road first, just in case.”
“Good call, I think.” Arturo looked west, shading his eyes from the sun.
We hiked about a quarter mile across another fallow pasture and into a larger patch of woods. We kept going until we were well inside, under the canopy, deep enough to keep the undergrowth down. Dad found a flat spot among the trees and set his pack down. He had to help mom get her pack off, and then they both helped us to do the same. We crunched around on the old oak leaves until we found a place to lean the packs against the trunks of the trees. My dad started digging through the various packs until he had unearthed the tents, sleeping bags, and other gear Tommy and I didn’t really recognize.
Arturo helped Dad with the tents, which kept the ‘no-words’ to a minimum. They discussed the situation as they worked, and seemed to come to easy agreements on how the camp should be set up. Dad apologized for the lack of extra sleeping bags, but offered Arturo his and Mom’s ground pads for the night, along with a couple of emergency blankets. Arturo told Dad that would be more than enough in the mild weather.
Mom was trying to arrange some kind of dinner, and failing miserably. Dad had always done our camp cooking during our twice-yearly state park campouts. Dad rescued her as soon as the tents were set up and Kirk was on the bed-making detail for us kids. Arturo and Jimmy would share the tent with our folks that night. Dad set up two tiny camp stoves between the tents, threw stainless steel pots on each, then dumped a dry mix of some kind in one, and a different dry mix into pot number two. Both pots received a long splash of water from a plastic bottle, and a quick stir before Dad set the tops on both of them. He pulled a squashed loaf of bread out of Lucy’s pack and spread peanut butter on half the loaf.
He handed these out in rapid fashion and announced, “No need to wait. Eat up!”
That first round of peanut butter bread lasted all of fifteen seconds. Dad repeated his peanut butter job with the other half of the loaf, and the second time, we ate for almost a full minute. After that, we were still hungry. We waited for more. Dad proceeded to hand out disposable paper bowls and plastic spoons to all of us. We were seated on the ground in a ragged circle, looking at each other like where’s the picnic table?
When he decided the masterpiece was done, he asked everyone, “Chicken noodle, or vegetable beef stew? Fresh from Wal-Mart...”
He half poured, half spooned the food into our bowls, and we ate greedily. I could see that our family, at least, was thinking this should be pizza night, and what was this crap? By the third spoonful, it no longer mattered. It’s amazing how being terrified can make you so hungry.
Arturo was ridiculously grateful, from our young perspective. Food was everywhere, as far as we knew. Grocery stores, takeout, sit down restaurants, pizza, drive-thru’s, you name it. We were soon to learn how wrong we were.
After dinner, we sat in the dark for a little while. Dad and Arturo had decided that a fire was a bad idea, until we knew more about the local situation. They took the opportunity to swap stories while Dad was sorting through gear with the help of a very small light. Dad finished sharing how we ended up here, at this random place, on this dark night. Then it was Arturo’s turn.
“Me and Jimmy were on our way to meet my parents, in McMinnville. They’ve been working at a nursery up there for years. After the Army, I was down in Florida hanging out with some buddies from our unit, and I met my wife, Juannie. After that, I never found a reason to leave. We live in a little place outside Orlando. We got married in 2003, and had Jimmy the next year.”
“Ah, Jimmy and Tommy are the same age. Tommy was a bit of a surprise for us,” Dad said.
Arturo chuckled. “Yeah, Jimmy was a surprise too... A good one,” Art replied, smiling at his boy. “Anyway, Juannie has a job at Universal. With the tourist season coming on, she couldn’t get away, but my folks were really laying it on thick, so right after school let out, we headed up for a visit, you know, so the grandparents can spoil the baby. This is how far we got. Another twenty-five miles and we would have made it.”
Jimmy got up, stepped over to his father, and gave him a symbolic punch on the shoulder for referring to him as the baby. We all laughed. So, far Jimmy hadn’t said anything really, but he was clearly aware of everything around h
im. With full night upon us, Dad took that as a good opportunity to send us kids to bed, while he continued to talk. I guess he didn’t realize we could still hear him from the tents.
“Arturo, I hate to bring up a tough subject, but what’s your plan? Are you going to try to get down to Florida?” Dad asked quietly.
“I just don’t know, man. I’m smart enough to know it’s going to be hard to do, but I’m not smart enough to know how to get there, or if it’s even possible.” Arturo replied.
“I wish I could tell you. Hell, I wish I could tell you anything useful. Orlando is one big city now, right?”
Mom rounded up Jimmy and took him with her to the second tent. Dad had made a pile of gear on one side of him, and empty retail packing on the other. He looked at both piles, and heaved a sigh.
“Yeah, David, one big urban sprawl. The crime is terrible down there too. I haven’t really had a chance to think about it, but it seems impossible right now.”
“What kind of car do you drive?” Dad asked
“2009 Sorento, but it won’t start. EMP.” Arturo replied.
“Yeah, but I was thinking about it, and...” Dad stopped talking, picked up something from the gear pile. It made a ratcheting noise before he threw it at a tree and listened to it break with a plastic crack. “You know what really pisses me off?”
Arturo opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but closed it instead.
“It pisses me off that I’m sitting here in woods, faced with survival, and my survival gear is cheap Chinese shit that I only need because of the goddamn Chinese!” Dad realized he was yelling, and closed his mouth as well.
“Yeah, David,” Arturo said cautiously, “But at least you have Chinese shit. All I have is a wallet, a lighter, a half pack of stupid cigarettes, the clothes on my back, and this big freaking knife.”
The two men sat in silence for a minute. During that minute, we were wide awake in the tent, trying to wrap our little heads around the idea that Dad was worried, really worried, upset enough to yell and break things. That just wasn’t our dad. Then they started to laugh, quietly at first, but it grew into something wild, loud, almost hysterical. Soon, with a few last hoots and wheezes, it was over.
“There’s never a good surplus store when you really need it.” Dad said.
Dad quickly stowed his new pile of Chinese doodads into a pack, left the trash on the ground, and led the way to the tent. We heard them rustling into bed, the slithering of synthetic sleeping bags and the sharp crinkling of aluminized emergency blankets. Strange sounds at the time, but destined to become all too familiar.
I snapped awake in total darkness. No, not total. I could see the beams of flashlights outside through the tent cloth, and two low voices, just barely audible over the loud crunching of dry oak leaves. I heard the zipper on our other tent, very slowly, more like a growl than a zip, and whispering from that direction. A flashlight beam crossed the wall of our tent, slid away to the other, and then it sounded like the time raccoons raided our camp in Pickett State Park. Someone was knocking the packs over and going through them. I could tell it wasn’t one of us, but I don’t know how. All I really knew was that I was suddenly afraid.
Then I heard my dad say, “Who’s out there?” It was the loudest voice I had ever heard, right at that moment. Then there was a shotgun racking into ready mode. I heard another mechanical clack, and then running from behind us. By this time, we were all awake, and Kirk was unzipping our tent door. I heard the sound of two bodies hitting the ground and then a weird, wet tearing noise. I stuck my head out just in time to see Arturo rising from the ground, and swinging his arm at a man with a gun. Another tearing noise, and the stranger was off and running. My dad was standing there with his shotgun, aiming at the guy who ran into the woods, but he couldn’t shoot, since Arturo was running right after the man. I was holding Kirk’s arm to keep him from following, the idiot.
Dad yelled, “Arturo! Talk to me!” Nothing except the sounds of running steps through the leaves returned. The steps became faint. We heard a three round burst of gunfire, a huge thud and nothing else.
It seemed like an hour before we heard steps coming back towards us. In reality, it was probably about three minutes.
“It’s me. Arturo. All clear.”
I could see my dad sag like the jump house at Tommy’s birthday party when Dad turned off the air supply. Arturo entered the clearing with a military rifle and what looked like a kid’s school backpack strapped to one shoulder. When he reached the cone of my dad’s light, it was also clear that Arturo was covered in blood.
“Don’t worry, folks. It’s not mine,” Arturo said, reading our minds, or more likely the looks of horror on our faces.
Dad asked, “What kind of Army did you say you were in?”
Arturo grinned and replied, “The kind we don’t talk about much.” He leaned the rifle against a tree, and set the little pack beside it.
Dad looked like he could not physically remove his fingers from the shotgun. Arturo stepped over, took it from Dad, and with clearly practiced expertise, safed the weapon and set it next to the military rifle. It almost looked like Dad was using that gun to hold himself upright, but before he could settle to the ground, Arturo said quietly, “We’ve got a body to move.”
Dad was careful to keep his flashlight pointed away from the corpse, but in the light of a half moon, we could see everything. He and Arturo each grabbed a booted foot and dragged the body well away from our camp. It left a broad black stain on the leaves and dirt, and a channel carved through the leaves into the darkness.
The rest of our group was standing around the tents, too shocked to move, but looking in every direction. Since the unthinkable had already happened, I’m sure we believed that there was no way it could possibly be over. It took a long time before it made sense to me.
Dad and Arturo came back after about five minutes, carrying another combat rifle, a handgun, and a camo military pack. My dad looked much steadier by then. Whoever those guys were, they obviously had gotten the best of some guardsmen. The confiscated gear set aside, Dad and Arturo sat down against another tree, both still breathing heavily.
Arturo finally said, “I’m sorry I didn’t suggest a watch earlier. I really didn’t think we would need it yet.”
“It never occurred to me,” Dad said, “This morning I thought I was prepared. Hell, I almost shot you. I guess being prepared has more levels than I thought.”
“Yeah... Listen, David, you did well. You held their attention while I moved in, and you didn’t panic with that shotgun. I figured it was about fifty-fifty for me getting shot in the back. As for the rest of it, well, things are changing fast. You’ll just have to change with it. We’ll talk about it more in the morning. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll keep watch.”
“No way I’m getting to sleep anytime soon,” Dad said with a snort.
“Me neither. Wide awake on the chubby Mexican side of the tree.”
Chapter 2 – 3
It was gray daylight when I woke again. I think it was the sound of someone taking a leak that did it. I unzipped the tent flaps, and stood up outside. Dad was asleep against the tree, and Arturo was walking back from his ‘nature’s call’ in the woods.
“Good morning, Bill.”
“Good morning, Mr. Arturo”
“Aww, it’s just Arturo.”
“Ok, Arturo. What happened last night?”
“Well, when everyone is up, we’ll talk about it, ok?”
“Yes, sir.”
Just then, Dad woke up and leaned his neck side to side before his eyes began to focus.
“What’s going on?” He asked Arturo.
“All quiet. You ran out of adrenalin pretty fast last night.”
“Yeah, I was wide awake, and now it’s morning.” Dad said with a bewildered look.
“It’s a hard drop the first few times... I suspect, sad to say, that you’ll get used to it.”
Dad’s face took on
a look of sober understanding, and he got to his feet by turning around and walking his hands up the tree. “Sucks to get old...”
Arturo laughed and said, “I say that, and I’m only 34.”
Dad looked at him, groaned, and replied, “Don’t ask.”
“Yes, ma’am. Lady’s secret.”
This got Dad chuckling. He rummaged around in Kirk’s pack and came out with three breakfast bars, tossing two in our direction. It was a magic moment for me, I recall, sharing the quiet pre-dawn with men. For a little while, I was an honorary man too.
Dad spoke up, “Listen, Arturo, I was thinking last night, before all the excitement, that we may be able to get our car running. I replaced the ignition with a newer solid state unit back in the 90’s, and it’s probably fried, but if we’re lucky, we can find an older car with something that might fit. That way, you can at least make a decent try at finding your wife. We can keep Jimmy here with us.”
“You’d do that?” Arturo asked.
“Well, I figure we owe you our lives right about now. The least we can do is give you a chance to put yours back together. Don’t get me wrong, though... I’d be more than happy if you wanted to stay. Somehow, I doubt you will be satisfied until you find Juannie.”
“Thank you.” Arturo’s eyes were shining.
“No, seriously, we owe you, ok?”
“Ok, we’ll give it a try.
“Good, I’m lousy at combat, but I’m good at machines.” Dad said, closing the deal.
“Why wouldn’t I just take the car with the working parts?” Arturo asked.
“It may work out exactly that way. Depends on the car, and the location in the yard, but I know my car inside and out, and I would trust it to get you there and back, as long as we can get it to run,” Dad replied. Then he added, “Plus, it’s a freaking tank. Early 70’s station wagon...”
“Ah, yes. Point taken.”
“Good. We’ll head over there after breakfast.”