by Tom Wright
My first thought as time sped back up was that the women could be restrained in the van. I slipped further under cover and waited to see what they did. If they couldn’t get out, I’d have to think of something. A woman stood and looked out the front. She turned and said something to the others. Then they all stood.
One woman came to the front and then stepped out of the van and approached the still man. He reached lamely for the rifle, but she grabbed it. All the women poured out of the van and surrounded him. I scanned nervously through the faces—unfamiliar all. One woman jumped on the man, grabbing him around the neck, choking him. They all began yelling and kicking him like wild animals. They tore at his face and spit on him. Finally, the woman with the rifle yelled: “That’s enough!”
The women all stepped back. The woman stepped over to him and placed the muzzle of the gun to his forehead. She pulled the trigger, and all the women jumped as half the man’s head vaporized and stained the street red.
The women began looking around. One pointed to the bullet hole, and then they turned in my direction. I bolted. Fear set in and I ran with everything I had. Branches slapped at my head, poking and scratching my face, and the gray snow whipped into my eyes as I dashed blindly through the forest. Then I heard yelling. “Wait!” They shouted. “Thank you!” shouted another one. I dropped back to a walking speed, panting. They wouldn’t come for me. And now they were free, their destiny back in their own hands, for what it was worth. More importantly, they weren’t my problem anymore.
I stopped to rest against a tree. My hands trembled as I thought of what I had just done. Killing a man is much more shocking than I would have imagined. I vowed to avoid doing that again at all costs.
Within an hour, I had Freeland in sight, just across an isthmus. The strip of land was about a half mile long, most of its length barely wide enough for the highway. Driftwood logs lay scattered throughout the strips of tall sea grass that lined both shoulders. Sand sloped down from the grass to the water’s edge.
I waited and watched nervously for a few minutes. Nothing moved. The lone house on the other side showed no sign of life. The only other way around would have added ten miles to my walk. I might have walked on the beach to limit my conspicuity, but I decided that the less amount of time spent on that exposed cape the better. So, I took off running down the pavement.
Maybe it was shorter than I remembered, because I reached the half-way point in just a few minutes. That’s when a bright, orange truck squealed around the corner and onto the road in front of me. Without breaking stride, I veered onto the shoulder and dove into the weeds. I scrambled lower on the slope and settled down amongst the grass. I tried to pull sand over me, but I had nowhere near enough time to bury myself as the truck rumbled down the road. At the last moment I took off my back pack and tossed it into the weeds behind me. I took out my gun and checked it. Safety off.
The high pitch squeak of brakes pierced the air as the truck decelerated in my vicinity.
“Who’s in ‘ere?” came a voice from the truck as it ambled in close.
The truck stopped, and the doors opened.
As always, they could have been good people or bad. Intuition told me that it was likely the latter. I nuzzled further down into the grass—a snake couldn’t have gotten lower. I listened as boots clicked on pavement and then gravel crunched under the men’s feet. They stopped at the edge of the grass.
“Come on up outta there.”
I struggled for an idea. I calculated the odds of each of my limited options. Scenes from action movies flashed through my head. Start shooting and hope to get three of them before they got me? I knew it wouldn’t turn out like that. Run? I had no valid option.
“Don’t shoot,” I said.
“We ain’t got no guns.”
I slid one knee under me and edged up to where I could see. All three men held guns pointed in my direction. I quickly ducked back down and cursed. The men laughed.
“Come up outta there or we’ll just open up on ya.”
I nestled my gun back into the waistband in the small of my back and stood up, hands in the air. I pleaded with them not to shoot. They ordered me up to the road, and I complied. All three had long, ratty hair and beards and were dressed in filthy work clothes. They looked like hobos. They ordered me down to the pavement, and the man to my right moved in and patted me down. He quickly located my gun and relieved me of it. At that moment, I knew I was dead.
“Stand up.”
“Please don’t kill me,” I pleaded again.
I heard two distinct clicks as the man to my left repositioned himself to get a better angle. I closed my eyes.
“Come on! What’s the point of killing me?”
“Less fuckers eating what food’s left,” the man to my left said.
“What the fuck you want yer life for in this shit hole?” the man in the middle asked.
“Just do.”
He chuckled. “How ‘bout that fellas. Everybody begs and gives us some bullshit about God or they got money or a poor Granny counting on ‘em for medicine or whatnot. But I believe this son of a bitch. He just said it straight out.”
I opened my eyes. He had lowered his gun and was scratching his beard. I wondered what lived in that beard.
“Awright. Let’s see how much you want to live. Take off ‘em clothes.”
I stood dumbfounded. I was prepared to do anything to stay alive and get to my family, but I honestly had never dreamed it would be that.
“Go on, bitch, get ‘em off,” the man on the left said. “And ‘em boots too.”
I undressed and threw my clothes over to them as directed. I stood buck naked and barefoot in the road.
“Look, he’s cold,” the man on the right said, pointing his gun at my crotch.
The man in the middle picked up my clothes. I heard a muffled sound from the truck. The man on the left grunted and scampered over to the truck. I climbed up on the wheel of the gigantic, brand-spanking-new, four-by-four pickup. The gaudy, metallic-orange color of the truck stood out like a sore thumb in the gray, dank scene. “I told you to shut…” he paused, raised his rifle and slammed it down into the bed of the truck. The butt of the gun made a dull sound like tenderizing hammer striking a steak. “…the fuck…” he raised it and slammed down again “…up, you damned chink!”
The other two all laughed and then moved toward the truck. “I can’t believe that shit,” one of the men said as they piled in. The driver flipped me off as they drove off in the direction they had been travelling. “Have a nice day!” one of them said as they pulled away. They all laughed at my predicament.
I began walking slowly down the road. As soon as the truck was gone, I scrambled back to the beach to find my backpack. The sharp blades in the waist deep grass cut at everything they touched. I located my pack and took off running at full speed toward Freeland—this time on the beach.
I hadn’t run a hundred yards before the adrenaline in my blood began to decrease and anguish overcame me. I scrambled carelessly up to the first house I came to. I ran around behind the house and hid in some bushes and cradled my backpack.
As the shock wore off and I realized how cold I was, I took out the only other set of clothes I had. Unfortunately, I had no other shoes. After I dressed, I stood up and cautiously looked in the window of the house. I quickly knelt back down. Defenseless and petrified, I struggled to summon the courage to do something.
The hopelessness of my situation settled over me like a darkness. To my recollection, I hadn’t had a prayer answered in my life, and even though I hadn’t attempted to talk to God in thirty years, the thought crossed my mind. I thought about Jill. Despite my skepticism, I decided it couldn’t hurt.
“Ok, I don’t know if you are even there, and if you are, you know that I’ve hated you since my mom died. I still hate you. What do you expect, right? Look around! Nothing but misery!” I paused, suppressing my anger. “I don’t know what you want from me, so I give up. I’m
fucked, ok? If this is what you wanted, you win! I don’t have any shoes, no way to protect myself, and everybody is out to get me. You’ve probably killed the rest of my family, and if so, I’ll be coming to see you as soon as I find out. I have nothing left. I quit. So if you are really there, really a God, and give a half a shit about me, now would be one hell of a time to prove it.”
Nothing happened.
The outburst did make me feel better, and I was able to move again. I decided against searching the house for shoes and went back out to the highway.
The Freeland Convenience Store was the first building of the town on highway 525. I approached the store carefully, but it was obviously deserted. I stepped carefully over broken glass and up to the side door. It was intact and locked. I sneaked around front and peered through the broken glass. Deserted and torn to hell. It literally looked like a tornado had gone through.
I moved to the front door, and instead of stepping through the broken door, I opened it. My heart nearly stopped as the doorbell chimed. “Shit!” I yelled, then ducked, then looked around, embarrassed. I bent down and looked at the chime. It was mechanical.
I walked quickly through the store, preferring not to linger. I found nothing much useful: some liquid soap, various toiletries, and nudie magazines. My eyes locked on to a pair of boots on a shelf toward the back of the store. The black rubber boots with the red rims and rubber pull-on handles were at least a size too small, but my feet went in, and anything was better than going barefoot amidst a sea of sharp objects. I had better get out of here, I thought, and headed for the nearest door.
22
town of Freeland, whidbey island, WA
“To believe in God is impossible - to not believe in Him is absurd” -Voltaire
I stepped to the side door and looked out the window in the direction from which I had come and saw nothing—all clear. I tried the door again, but it remained locked. Why wouldn’t it be?
I walked to the front door and was startled by a man walking down the road from my left. I froze and desperately hoped for him walk on by. He paused at the gas pump, lifted the nozzle, and squeezed. Nothing happened. He sniffed the spout, and, apparently discouraged, dropped the nozzle to the ground and turned and came toward the store.
Startling him inside the store could have gotten me shot, so I stepped through the broken glass of the door and said: “hello.” He jumped and scrambled back a few steps and began fumbling with his overcoat.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I yelled, holding up my arms. “I’m not armed.”
“Jesus! You scared the hell out of me,” he said, relaxing a bit.
“Sorry about that. I’m heading that way, and I wonder if you could tell me what is up there.”
We both kept our distance.
“Nothing,” he said. “Same as here.”
“What is that way?” he asked, pointing to where he deduced I had come from.
“Same.”
“Ok, then. I’ll be seeing you,” he began to walk away.
“Wait, where are you going?”
He stopped and looked back at me.
“Don’t know,” he said, finally.
We stood there awkwardly, neither of us knowing what to say.
He finally broke the silence. “All I know is that there ain’t nothing back there worth seeing.”
“You’re just walking for no reason?”
“I guess,” he said. “I’ll see what I find.”
He turned and faced me squarely. He let out a sigh and began to rub his forehead, as if kneading some thought that had come forward or to ward off a headache.
“I mean,” he continued, “what am I supposed to do? Go into a church and pray? Settle down and make a life? Find another wife?”
I had no reply.
I can’t say why, but I felt at ease with him. God knows, I had every reason in the world to be suspicious of people, but my intuition told me that he was probably all right. Maybe I just felt better being in the company of someone whose first intention, apparently, wasn’t to harm me. I still didn’t want him to know exactly where I was going, but I gave him the gist of my story.
He reciprocated by telling me more about what had happened while I was at sea. There hadn’t been any nuclear attacks around Seattle, but he did hear of some back east. Terrorists continued to terrorize, but The Red Plague did most of the killing. In his estimation, most people were dead. The cities were horrible. Those who weren’t dead and decaying in the streets lived like rats. The worst imaginable situation had come to pass. Finally, having had enough of his home town, he simply left and began to walk—just hoping for something better. At least that’s what he told me.
“My name is Joe,” he said as he extended his hand.
I looked at his hand and hesitated.
“It’s ok. I haven’t had any direct contact with anyone for over a month. If we don’t have it by now, we probably won’t get it.”
I introduced myself and then said: “If it’s all the same to you, I won’t take the chance.”
“What if it’s not all the same to me?” he asked, chuckling nervously.
“Then I guess you’ll feel slighted because I still won’t chance it.”
His face straightened.
“Fair enough,” he said as he lowered his hand and straightened his overcoat.
“Is there anything to eat in there?” he asked, motioning to the convenience store.
I considered offering an exchange of what food I had for any sort of weapon. But I had already given away too much when I told him I wasn’t armed. He had either forgotten that I said that or didn’t realize that he had the upper hand. I decided not to push my luck.
“I didn’t see any,” I said. “But I wasn’t really looking for food.”
“I’m starving,” he said. “Haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. I got chased out of Clinton before I had the chance to look around. And I don’t want to go up to any of these houses.”
Suddenly, I felt the urge to get away from there, but I was paralyzed by fear. Even though I didn’t know Joe from Adam, I felt safer in his company than not.
“So if you weren’t looking for food, maybe you’ve got some to spare?” he asked.
Here we go, I thought. This is the part where Joe takes my remaining belongings. Maybe he’ll just shoot me and get it over with. Of course, I didn’t actually know if he was armed. I decided not to go down without a fight either way.
“I’ve got to save what I have,” I said.
“Maybe I should just take it,” Joe said. He slid back his jacket to reveal a huge silver gun in his waistband. “You said you weren’t armed.”
I froze. A million thoughts raced through my head simultaneously. He is only a few feet away. I’m bigger than him, but can I get control of him before he gets his gun out? Gouge out his eyes? A punch to the throat is pretty effective. No, I should just go straight for the gun.
Joe laughed. “I’m just messing with you. I’m not one of them.”
I must have been holding my breath because I let out a tremendous sigh and suddenly felt light headed.
“Hey, take it easy,” Joe said, reaching for my arm to steady me. “I was just kidding.”
“I’m ok. I’ve just been through a lot.”
“I’ll remember to go easy on the jokes,” Joe said, studying me. “I think I’ll look around in the store.”
He walked to the front door and pushed it open. Broken glass fell out of the door and onto the floor. The mechanical doorbell chimed and gave him a start. I followed Joe into the store and watched as he rifled around in a pile of debris in the corner. He came up with a miniature can of franks and beans. He set the can down on the floor, took out his gun and slammed the can with its butt. The can split at the seam between the side and top. He squeezed the can as far open as it would go and poured its contents into his mouth and swallowed it in one try.
“Delicious!” he exclaimed as he threw the empty can on the floor.
; “And good for you too,” I replied sarcastically.
He walked to the next aisle and grabbed a small bottle of liquid hand soap off the floor and stuck it into his pocket.
“What were you looking for in here?” he asked.
I showed him my new boots.
“Nice,” he said.
He stood thinking for a moment and then with a confused look asked: “How did you lose your shoes?”
I told him of my mugging.
“Damn,” he said. “That sucks. I saw those fuckers driving around, real dumb shits.”
Noticing my embarrassment, Joe said: “Hey, I was hiding and they didn’t see me. It could have happened to any of us.”
We continued walking around the store and poking at the trash.
“Ho….ly……shit!” Joe exclaimed as he ignored the “employees only” placard and walked into the manager’s office. “How did they miss this?”
He threw a stainless wire shelf out of his way, reached down, and held up a pint of Jack Daniels.
“Now we are in business,” he said, bouncing out of the office.
His genuine smile told me that he had found a modicum of happiness that had eluded him for a long time. He hurriedly twisted off the cap and smelled the mouth of the bottle, deeply inhaling the aroma from the liquor, and then took a drink. Then he offered it to me.
“I don’t really like Bourbon,” I said.
“Good, because Jack Daniels isn’t technically bourbon. It’s whiskey,” he said, shoving the bottle into my hand. He went behind the counter and continued his rummaging. “Not a cigarette in sight,” he mumbled.
I decided that my frayed nerves could use some calming. I took a sip of the whiskey and thoroughly enjoyed the taste. I had forgotten how smooth it was and didn’t realize how much I needed a drink of something, anything, at that point. I took another, larger pull. It’s amazing how hard liquor can begin to calm one’s nerves immediately.
“Whoa, there! Save some for me,” Joe said, laughing.