“Sara,” I said, softly, and gently touched her face with the back of my hand, feeling the hot perspiration. “It’s dark now and we’re gonna go.”
Not fully conscious, she nodded sluggishly at first, and then rose to her feet, still in that place between sleep and wakefulness.
“We’ll cross the bridge,” I said and put an arm around Sara’s waist.
We carefully stepped along the sloping embankment and out from our hiding place. A night wind puffed through the trees, rattling the leaves. We hunched and listened intently for other sounds, the snap of a branch or the clatter of hooves on the asphalt. I supported Sara and at a creeping pace we made it up the incline, crossed the bridge, and headed down a road cloaked in blackness.
We didn’t stay on the road long. Taking a circuitous route and traveling all the way back on roads didn’t make sense once the moon rose. Only a half-moon glowed out of the night, but the sky rapidly began to clear. Half-moon or not, the yellow light threw long shadows and etched a distinct outline of our shapes as we plodded along.
“Into the woods,” was all Joey said, before picking an entry point and stepping cautiously off the blacktop into the trees and bushes, which cast shadows we became lost in.
We moved in the right direction, among tall spectral vegetation, bending and fluttering with each cold breeze which would gust and ebb and gust.
“No rain, please, no rain,” I murmured, recognizing that significant threat of bad weather.
The wind shook the trees. Leaves whipped out of the dark above, but no rain came. No raiders were seen or heard, and the continual gusts covered the sound of our passing.
The moon arced through the sky, hours passed and sleep tugged on my eyelids. Sara stumbled once and nearly took us both down. Joey forged ahead, determination in every footstep, automatic still at the ready. The assaulting wind eased and clouds now filtered back across the sky. The darkness became impenetrable. In a low voice, I told Joey to slow down as he moved further and further ahead into the deepening blackness.
Sara lost her footing and went down on one knee. I knelt next to her and pulled her close to keep her from dropping all the way to the ground. I looked up and Joey was gone. In a throaty whisper I called to him, desperation in my voice.
No response returned. A chilling darkness surrounded us. I wrapped my arm around Sara and tried to coax her to stand. She tried, her legs worked to push her up, but sickness and exhaustion stole what remained of her energy.
“Oh, Stan,” Sara murmured as she put her arms around me.
I renewed the effort to get Sara to her feet, but the long walk and anxiety had taken their toll on my strength. I couldn’t lift the both of us. My exasperation became anger. “Damn it,” I said.
“Here,” Joey spoke out of the darkness in front of me.
“Yes,” I said. “But I can’t get Sara to stand—”
“This way,” Joey said.
I realized he wasn’t speaking to me as he stepped out of the trees. Someone followed him. The silhouette of a man moved rapidly to Sara. It was Mr. Hansel who knelt, his face a shadow in the night.
“I’ll take her,” he said.
I nodded.
“I got you, honey.” Mr. Hansel lifted her in cradling arms and headed back the way he’d come.
Joey held out a hand, helping me up, and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you behind like that, but I knew we were close.”
Another twenty yards and we would’ve been out of the woods on the ridge road. Sara wouldn’t have made it, and now she was unconscious. We broke out of the trees and onto ridge road. Mr. Hansel was part of the night patrol and Mr. Becker, who was his partner, had already been on the radio.
In a few minutes, Uncle Ray’s truck grumbled down the road, headlights on, but only narrow beams showed over the asphalt as black electrical tape over each headlight provided a slit of light to shine through like squinted eyes.
The truck stopped, the suspension squeaking, and Uncle Ray leaned inside the cab and popped open the passenger side door. Mr. Hansel lifted Sara and pointed for me to get in. Joey opened the second passenger and was about to slip into the back seat, but Mr. Hansel put a hand on his shoulder, and said, “You stay, and tell me what happened.” Joey gave me a wave and shut the door, and the truck began to move.
I wrapped my arm around Sara’s shoulder, pulling her to me. She breathed as if in a deep sleep. Heat radiated from her face.
Uncle Ray touched my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and then I told him everything.
***
Sara was bedridden for almost a month. The gunshot wound wasn’t the worst of it. She fought pneumonia. Somehow I felt that I was at fault. If I had seen the raiders soon enough, if I had moved fast enough after seeing them in the field from that second floor window, if I had done something else—
No one blamed me, but me. Mr. Marcus didn’t, nor did Uncle Ray, and Sara thought I was silly to even let the thought pass through my mind. That scar, pink with healing, ran along her right temple just below the hair line and would always be there, a constant reminder to be on guard. Always be ready.
With frequent visits to Sara while she recuperated, I smiled, held her hand, asked her how she felt as her face flushed with fever and perspiration beaded on her brow. The whole shooting incident played over and over again, me standing in the door way of the house. Sara and Joey looked so stunned and with fear white on their faces. Something happened there that day I couldn’t shake, something criminal and vile and I’d thank Joey. He needed that assurance. Because he’d changed. He’d killed.
“Joey,” I’d said, “You did the right, the best and only thing you could do.”
“But I killed that guy. I did it, not you.” Joey sat on one of the couches in the cabin in the darkness with a low red glowing from the fireplace.
“Yes, you killed him.” I stabbed him in the middle of his chest with a finger.
He gave a betrayed stare, with eyes wet with angry tears.
“If you didn’t kill him, he would’ve killed you and—and,” I swallowed hard, “I don’t want to think of what would’ve happened to Sara. Do you understand that?”
Joey clamped his teeth together tight, tension made the line of his jaw tight. He suffered from guilt over Sara’s wound, but the shot from the raider’s weapon was a wild pull of the trigger as the rider fell from the horse.
“You said it yourself, they are nasty people—and they are!” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You said that and you really know it’s true.”
Joey was changed. Seeing bullets fly in a town gunfight was different from killing face to face. He knew that now, and so did I. I told him about everything. I told him it had to be done. My hands shook, my guts twisted and my throat grew dry like dusty paper, but all of it came out, going to abandoned houses, taking those risks to explore those places and Robert and the men who’d tried to kill my uncle.
Sara, Joey and I had come so close to being caught. I didn’t feel lucky. I felt cold gnawing fear. The next day the news of the incident with the raiders passed through the valley. Joey returned home. He’d had enough and wasn’t interested in going back to the house. But armed and ready, Uncle Ray, Mr. Wheeler, me and others returned. No one was there, not even the corpse of the raider, just blood stained ground, tracks of the horses and riders peppering the grounds and the ransacked house.
I thought of that house, the missing people—the ghost family who use to live there. And of my parents. I couldn’t let them go.
That month passed and I worked on the map. Seated on the couch, I gazed from the atlas to the butcher’s paper; both lay out on the coffee table, and the flame flickered inside the glass chimney of the kerosene lantern set at the other end of the table. I carefully colored and plotted out the streams, lakes, swaths of green, and the thin black lines of the roads, adding features, filling in the details to a dark landscape which lay beyond the valley and the town.
Uncle Ray
glanced at me from across the table where he sat on the other couch and dozed. “You’re taking that very seriously.”
I nodded.
“You planning an escape, or what?” He stretched out his feet toward the fireplace hearth.
“Escape?” I grinned. “No, not escape.”
“Then what?”
I shrugged. “I . . .” Setting the colored pencils down, I leaned back against the back on the couch. “I’m bothered about what happened at the house, with Sara.”
“Who isn’t?”
“But . . .” I began, but still what was there to say. He sat expectantly, looking through the slits of his eyelids. “I’m just thinking about home more. You know, back in Springfield. With mom and dad.”
“Yeah, I can understand that. I do, too, but the map. That makes me wonder.”
“Wonder?”
Uncle Ray frowned and put his hands behind his head. “I’m wondering what you’re up to and why.”
“Oh,” was all that came out of my mouth with the sensation of being caught.
“Oh? Nothing else?”
I sighed and stared into the fire. The yellow-red flames rose up, lapping at the logs. “I know it’s going to sound weird, but I want to go back. I want to see the house, see what’s happened.”
“You do?”
“Uncle Ray, you and I know what’s gone on, and how there’s nothing we can—or could do. I mean, I understand all that.” I sat up straight.
“I never thought otherwise.” He raised a hand. “I’m not grilling you, but being at that house, you’ve clammed up. I know life is hard . . .” He sat up putting his stocking feet on the floor. “I just want you to know that when you decide to take the trip back, you don’t have to go alone.”
Gazing at each other for a long quiet moment, I saw my father in Uncle’s expression, in the long face and in the intense brown eyes. A tightness closed around my throat as I swallowed a sadness.
“But,” Uncle Ray said, “right now, I want you to wait just a little while longer. You know those raiders haven’t gone away. They’re out there and my guess is something’s going to happen . . . something has to be done, especially with winter coming in fast.”
Lt. Brant worked with Joey’s father, coordinating with the townspeople, sending patrols out further; trying to learn more about where the raiders were. Another attack was always expected, sooner than later. The raiders needed to eat, too.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll let you know when.”
“Good.” Uncle Ray stood and stretched. “It’s almost dark. It’s time to get going to the party.”
Chapter 19
The festival was the event of the season, a special time, planned and prepared weeks in advance, though tensions ran high and our patrols roved further out.
The early October days brought cold frosty mornings and night came faster as a deep red filtered in from outside deepening the shadows in the cabin.
I folded the map and returned it to its place in my backpack, and cleared away the colored pencils and slid them under the couch along with the atlas. Uncle Ray tugged on his boots and camouflage hunting coat. Lastly, he secured a walkie-talkie to his belt. I laced up my boots, pulled on the sweater my mother had made and slipped on my jacket. The lantern flame guttered as I turned it down and then winked out. A wisp of gray smoke rose.
“Don’t forget yours,” Uncle Ray said, holstering his 9mm.
I did the same, buckling on the revolver in its homemade scabbard.
Uncle Ray pushed the fireplace screen snuggly into place. “No need to come back to a pile of ashes, right?” He grinned.
I smiled and shook my head. My uncle hadn’t argued, not about the map, not about wanting to head back home to a street I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Let’s go.” Uncle Ray shouldered a pack which contained a number of glass bottles filled with corn liquor, calling it his donation to the festivities.
Night flowed thick into the valley as we crossed to the west ridge. Our boots crunched in the hard soil of last summer’s cornfield. We ascended the ridge, and in the distance, the dim gleam of sunlight showed in a thin red line along the horizon. Off to the east, above the trees, the glow of the festival bonfire flared with orange and yellow light.
“I’m sure Ken Wheeler would be saying, I wish that fire wasn’t so damn big!” Uncle Ray said and chuckled.
The fire pulsed like a beacon, and I saw it as a lighthouse, a guiding light for those on a bad sea. The gathering took place at Mr. Harper’s farm, near the big barn. Days before planks were set on top of hay bales for use as tables and a healthy supply of logs was set aside for the fire. I joined the relay of people volunteering to stack the wood. I worked alongside Mr. Marcus. He gave me one of those solid pats on the back which meant that everything was going to be fine. Of course, we knew better, but the party was coming.
Uncle Ray and I walked the long dirt road to the Harper Farm. Sara said she’d be there. I saw her earlier in the day and she only began to perform small chores. But thinking of her renewed uneasy feelings, even the light of the festival bonfire couldn’t burn away the uneasiness as the flames swept into the air giving a ghostly illumination to the leafless tree and the dark spires of the pines.
“Smell that?” Uncle sniffed at the air.
Along with the odor of burning wood, the aroma of a roasting pig drifted in the air. Mr. Harper slaughtered one of his hogs and roasted the carcass in a large cast iron grill.
“Heaven, isn’t it?” Uncle Ray placed the sack he carried on the ground and brought out one of the half dozen jars of clear liquor. He unscrewed the metal cap, drank and let out a powerful breath. “That’s good.” He shook his head and offered me the bottle.
I took the bottle, and for a moment, watched the firelight bend through the clear glass like a prism. I took a scalding swallow, gasped and gagged, but got the drink down.
“I guess that’s enough for you.” Uncle Ray chuckled.
I nodded and wiped my mouth as the drink softened the cold edge of the evening.
We walked closer to the circle of bursting firelight. Homemade music played. A man and a woman from the town played the guitar and violin, and Lt. Brant tapped out the rhythm on makeshift drums. Nearby, the lieutenant’s wife Lee sat on a log stump, cut down to the size of a stool. She wore a heavy black coat and their son Kiel played in the dirt with another boy. I spotted Jill standing beside Terry Keel. They held hands, leaning against each other in conversation. Others talked and some people had already begun to dance.
Uncle Ray set the remaining bottles of liquor on the plank table with the turkeys and venison. Corn on the cob, potatoes and pumpkin deserts filled the next table.
Life continued on right here, I thought, leaning against the front wall of the barn. The big barn doors stood opened allowing people to go into the barn and sit on makeshift benches where a short woodstove was positioned in the center of the barn, giving off heat. Gray smoke rose from a five foot tin chimney to hang in the air and then be swept out the rear door by a gentle night breeze.
The bonfire burned in a wide open space in front of the barn. And more people joined the dance. A number I didn’t know I didn’t know joined the dance, to see them singing and dancing . . . real happiness. I hadn’t had that experience in a long time.
“This is so great!” Sara’s voice startled me.
I turned and saw her broad smile. Her arms were crossed against the cold. A furry hat nested on her head she had crafted from rabbit skins. The brim of brown-gray fur covered the scar.
She didn’t realize that I’d been caught off guard, which was fine. I still felt uneasy about her being out, even though I saw her through the healing process.
“Yeah, it’s something isn’t it,” I said.
She nodded and continued to smile, nodding her head to the music. She grabbed my arm and pulled me over to a row of log benches running around the parameter of the bonfire. We sat and watched the bonfire and the people. H
er arm looped through mine. We sat some distance from the fire, but the heat was intense. Turning to Sara, to ask if we might move, I looked at the smile on her face and the way the flames glinted in her eyes
“What?” she said.
“I . . .”
“Yes?” She still smiled and leaned forward, bringing her face and her questioning eyes a little closer.
“I’m still sorry, about you getting hurt.”
Her smile eased to a grin, and she tilted her head, and touched the side of my face. Her fingers were cool on my cheek. “I know,” she said and leaned against me, tucking her arm more snuggly around mine. Her smile broadened again as she gazed back to the fire and the people, and hummed to the music.
The crowd grew larger as more people, dressed in heavy jackets or coats, walked in out of the darkness into the glow of firelight. Shadows floated over the ground or were cast across the barn or further out to fade into the darkness. Everyone danced and ate and the night didn’t seem that cold.
Mr. Harper hauled a log from the wood pile around the side of the barn and heaved it onto the fire. The bonfire exploded into sparks which shot up like an explosion of fireflies.
“Ohs!” and “Ahs!” went up from the crowd circling the fire and others clapped, and the shadow people continued to flutter and dance.
“I’m glad the summer is over,” Sara said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“The cold should keep most of the bad guys indoors, don’t you think so?” she asked.
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure and I wasn’t going to tell her.
On the other side of the fire, Mr. Marcus sat, his bad leg stretched out. Uncle Ray sat next to him and shared sips from a bottle.
“They’re having a good time.” I pointed.
Sara giggled. “Yeah, but tomorrow’s not going to be so good.”
I laughed and then paused as Mr. Sample walked up behind them. He leaned down between them and spoke. His narrow bearded face appeared controlled but had a conspiratorial quality, even with the music and all the noise of conversation, he appeared to be whispering.
Dark Land: An Apocalyptic Novel Page 13