Occasionally she caught titbits of conversation behind her as the others, obviously unaware of how fraught the ride really was, relived the night’s events. As they began making their way down a relatively steep section, Jamie carefully pumping the brakes, she heard Rebecca’s voice, a little breathless.
‘I was so scared when he was up on top of that dresser with the rope around his neck, and I was thinking, what would Katniss do? You know, the girl from the Hunger Games series, but I don’t even remember grabbing that piece of wood.’
She lost track of the conversation when the Spyder did a sudden lurch, and Josh exclaimed, ‘watch it Jamie, easy on the brakes now.’
Then they were on the level again and there was only the low murmur of Lola’s reply, as the wind whistled in her ears. After a time she made out Deedee’s words,
‘…started firing arrows into him, I just copied Jamie, bad about the arrows though. We don’t have many left now.’
It had been a crazy, insane thing to do, Georgia decided, but had also been brave. So very brave, for if it hadn’t been for Rebecca galvanizing the rest of them into action, who knew what would have happened. Josh would without question be dead, and the rest of them would either be dead, or prisoners of a self-elected army and God knows what would have happened to Millie, Badger and Ant.
The world as they knew it had changed forever. But in some respects nothing had changed. The old adage, ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ had never really made sense to her before, but now it did. Get a group of people together, put them in uniform and they feel they rule the world, give them enough arms and ammunition and they put that belief into motion.
They become swept up by the power of the gun in their hands. Their beliefs become law. They become the law. In the heat of the moment, when the blood is up, when their blind justifications are supported by bullets, instead of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then there is no longer room for integrity.
It still frightened her, how rapidly civilization had collapsed. How sometimes, the past no longer seemed real or even believable to her. Had there really been light at the touch of switch? Supermarkets filled with food and doctors for the sick and infirm, and the internet at their fingertips? What about trains and cars and planes? Of course she knew all those things had existed, but at times like this, in the dark, fleeing for their lives, it was really hard to believe.
As the miles sped by, her mind kept going back to Lieutenant Wilson, the laughter lines around his eyes, the gentle way he had stopped Millie jumping up, and thoughts of a wife somewhere, with three young children, and of him not coming home to them.
Then she remembered how easily he had said, ‘right then, hang him,’ Four words, condemning someone to death. She recalled him raising the gun, preparing to shoot Rebecca, his threats to hang them all, and rage consumed her all over again. She had no compassion for him, she decided, no compassion and no regrets. Not for Lieutenant Wilson, or for the Corporal that died after being struck across the head and then stabbed in the throat, and certainly not for the man that had perished after being pierced by Jamie and Deedee’s arrows.
Georgia and her family hadn’t been the ones playing war games, they hadn’t been the aggressors. That had been the soldiers doing, and they had lost. If they had won, Josh would now be hanging. A lifeless form suspended from that rafter in the barn. And the rest of them would be incarcerated in some nameless place, and their continued existence dependent on the capricious whims of strangers.
They reached the M0-5 just over an hour later and Lola and Rebecca relieved Georgia and Josh.
Jamie insisted on remaining on the brake seat. ‘Now is not the best time to be learning how to do this,’ he said, and no-one could argue with that.
From then on, they swapped over regularly, and in this way they kept relatively fresh as they made their way from the MO-5 and down along State Highway BB. When they finally reached the I-44 it was Georgia and Josh who were pedaling again, but they were travelling a lot slower now, and it seemed to Georgia that the sky was just beginning to lighten along the horizon. They had been on the 1-44 for less than half an hour, when Josh spoke. ‘We need to stop, it’s going to be light soon and I doubt they are still behind us.’
Jamie leaned forward, his hands gripping the front cross post. ‘I agree, and from what Lola was saying earlier, there is not a chance they can catch us up tonight.’
‘Why was she so certain?’ Georgia asked, slowing her peddling to match Josh’s pace then quickly glancing back. The others had all fallen asleep. Lola and Rebecca slumped on Ruby’s shoulders, Deedee, at their feet, nearly hidden by snoring Bostons.
‘For starters, Lola said that there was no way that a horse can keep galloping for any length of time. She reckoned at best, providing they were alternatively trotted and walked, they might be able to do 15 miles in three hours or so, but after that they would be exhausted.’
‘That makes sense,’ Josh said, ‘also I seem to remember something about never riding a horse on hard surfaces. It can do serious injury to a horse, making them go lame.’
Georgia nodded, she remembered her brother saying something similar, that horses could get something called concussion impact, that the damage could be permanent.
‘I guess here is as good as anywhere,’ she said. Corn grew alongside the road, stretching off in three directions. ‘Trees seem to be in short supply around here, but a cornfield seems a good place to hide.’
‘I reckon,’ Josh said, ‘we can push this baby in there and no one will ever find us.’
Hating to do it, she woke the others and they pushed the Spyder into the corn, carefully straightening the rows of corn behind them as best they could, praying all the time that it wasn’t full of snakes. Then once they were far enough from the interstate, they stopped, trampling down a wide circle of corn to give them a sleeping area.
As they settled down under a dawning sky, Georgia flicked the lighter just once, looking at her watch. It was already 5.30 a.m. If it had been just after nine when they took off from the Jenkins Place…, then that meant they had been riding for…?’
She was still trying to do the simple math when she fell asleep.
Chapter Seventy Three
September 5th, Day 57
The days had begun to blur into each other. Biking from dawn till three or four in the afternoon, when they would stop, pull the Spyder out of sight, and set up camp. Sometimes they hunted, sometimes they dipped into their rations, but they ate corn with every meal.
That first morning, after their marathon effort to get away, Georgia had woken to Lola’s shrieks. She had stumbled from the bedding, clutching her shotgun, only to see Lola dancing around, waving four or five silky ears of corn in the air and grinning like a shot fox. She skipped to and fro, indicating the rows of corn fanning out in all directions as the Bostons leapt up around her. ‘It’s full of ripening corn!’
‘It’s a miracle,’ Rebecca said, staring bleary eyed and somewhat in awe at the bounty and Georgia had to agree.
‘There isn’t this much food in the whole world,’ Deedee added wide eyed, as she snapped a fat green head of corn free from a nearby stalk and began peeling back the husk.
‘Corn bread,’ Josh said to no one in particular as he began searching through the rows.
Deedee’s eyes began to sparkle. ‘Popcorn,’
‘And corn fritters,’ Rebecca said, then hastily added, ‘not together though,’
Ruby who had been searching through her handbag looked up, ‘I rather think a bowl of chicken and corn soup would do me.’
‘Nope,’ Lola said, ‘simple is best, nothing better than freshly roasted corn, dripping with…,
‘Don’t you dare say it,’ Georgia exclaimed with mock severity, but it was too late. Lola had an almost reverent look on her face as she continued, ‘dripping with butter.’
‘Instead of standing round discussing how to eat it,’ Jamie said dryly, ‘perhaps we should
be picking it and moving on before the farmer turns up and shoots us!’
‘Or the Ozark Free Army arrives,’ Georgia thought, as Jamie’s words brought them back to the reality of their situation and spurred them into action.
They hastily packed up the bedding, then loaded up the Spyder with as many of the luscious looking heads of corn as they could gather. Any that showed signs of having been attacked by rats or mice were discarded. There was so much, they could afford to be picky.
Besides which, the fact that wildlife had been eating it, was a good sign. At first Georgia had been a little bit apprehensive, questioning why the corn hadn’t been harvested. Could this be some sort of test corn, poisoned so no one would eat the results? Hadn’t she read something about that? Then again it could be that no one lived around here anymore. It was after all, in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the farmer who had planted out these fields, had simply left, or more likely died. There was no way of knowing, not that it really mattered. What was important, was that the corn showed signs of being feasted upon, and that there were no bad smells around, so no dead or dying rodents.
It was, as Rebecca had said, a miracle. To have found themselves surrounded by food, when they weren’t even looking for it, couldn’t be anything else!
They had pushed themselves to their limits, always afraid of the Ozark Free Army. Their road map had not been detailed enough. They had become lost at one point when it had not shown the maze of roads that crisscrossed through an area they were trying to shortcut through. Frustrated they had gone back to using the compass as well. Occasionally, guessing at their route, riding down secondary roads, windy back streets and narrow dirt tracks, zig zagging, as all the while they tried to keep an easterly direction. Bethel now lay due east of them and everyday it had drawn tantalizingly closer; the scraggly lines on the map ever closer to the dot that represented home.
They rarely saw people, though sometimes they saw smoke trails; cooking fires far off in the distance. Proof as they pedaled past, that they were not, as they had begun to feel, the only living people left in Missouri. At times the smoke was so thick that it nearly blocked out the sun. Smoke from towns that were burning; the funeral pyres of humanity.
One time as they rounded a bend, they came across a group of people, heading north. They were pushing wheel barrows, and shopping trolleys, their worldly possessions piled up. Their bodies thin, their faces tired. They looked unkempt and ragged, with running sores and some were even barefoot.
As they neared, the strangers scattered like wild animals, into the scrub that grew along the side of the road, abandoning their possessions as they ran for cover. Their eyes seemed empty and listless, the eyes of a people who have given up. ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’, came into her mind, and then they had sped past.
Refugees, no different from the refugees she had seen a life time ago on the news and maybe not so very different from their own little band. Is that how she now appeared to strangers? What about Lola and the rest of them? Did they all appear tired and ragged and dirty and forgotten?
She considered this as they sped on. Overall they looked healthy, a little on the lean side perhaps, but toned and muscled. Even Ruby was looking fit. Their skin was bronzed and their eyes clear. Obviously, they all had tiny telltale brown scars on their arms and legs, testament to grazes and bites that had itched and been scratched, but no running sores or infections.
Their clothes were faded and their shoes beginning to show sign of wear, but they were freshly laundered whenever possible. They bathed regularly, did their best to keep their hair combed, and their teeth polished white with charcoal and stick brushes.
So no, she finally decided, they were not the same as the empty eyed strangers they had passed. The ones who had seemed to lose hope. And then she thought she understood. Perhaps the difference between them was the hope they carried in their hearts, the hope and support of each other, and the knowledge of a house that awaited them in Bethel. The fact was that they were now a solid family unit always watching out for each other.
They were on the I-44E, shortly after Stanton, Missouri, when they came across the wreckage of an aircraft; a passenger plane that had fallen out of the sky at precisely 3.18, on the 11th of July. There was very little left to show what it had once been. An outburst of metal shrapnel scattered as far as the eye could see. The ground blackened, with startling green tendrils here and there, new growth daring to come up amongst the tragic debris.
They had stopped, and dismounted, not fully believing what they were seeing. Twisted metal, bent seats, shredded luggage strewn in every direction. Everything charred and burnt, and intermingled with shattered bones, chalky and bleached white from the relentless sun.
Georgia briefly wondered if Lydia, Jamie and Rebecca’s mother had been on this plane, but kept the thought locked up within herself. It made no difference anyhow. Not anymore. They pedaled on in silence, their mood somber. Possibly the same thing had occurred to all of them.
Later that night as they had sat by the fire, Lola had commented that perhaps the passengers were the lucky ones. Their nightmare had lasted but a few moments, and they had died without the knowledge of all that was to come. Georgia remained silent, not quite sure how to respond to that.
On the fifth of September, just over an hour after sunrise they turned onto State Highway H. That line on the map was inching closer! Suddenly Georgia felt excitement surging through her and she burst out, ‘I know where we are, I recognize the road. We are very close to the Mississippi river now.’
At ten a.m. they passed the burned out shell of a gas station. Memories of the last time she had been there filled her mind. Nathan coming out of the store, his face breaking into a smile, as she reached across for the cappuccino he had bought her. The memory so clear she could almost taste the hot sweet liquid, a little foam clinging to her upper lip. Of Nathan, reaching over to wipe it off, and leaning in to kiss her gently at the corner of her mouth. Then settling back in his seat and clicking his seatbelt closed, as he said, ‘Kansas City, here we come.’ Such a long time ago, back before he was a cheating low life bastard. Back when he had still loved her.
Pushing the memory from her mind, she cheerily exclaimed, ‘not long now. We should be in Chester in less than an hour!’ When they finally caught sight of the river, they stopped and Georgia fished out the binoculars as the others anxiously waited.
She almost felt dizzy with relief as she focused on the long steel bridge that crossed over the Mississippi. ‘It’s not barricaded,’ she said, ‘and there doesn’t appear to be any one around, it looks like we have a straight run in.’
Twenty minutes later, excitement mounting, they rattled their way over the bridge; the water sluggish and brown, the level lower than she had ever seen it before. Then with a final clatter they were off the bridge, leaving Missouri behind, and riding into Illinois.
Suddenly Rebecca and Jamie whooped with joy. ‘Popeye,’ they yelled at exactly the same time. And there ahead of them, was the six foot bronze Popeye statue set on a high square base, the familiar landmark reminding them of another life, another time. The road was empty, not a living soul to be seen. Leaves, caught up in a dust devil, swirled across the way ahead of them.
‘We are nearly home,’ Georgia said in a husky voice, her throat was so thick with emotion she could scarcely get the words out.
They did not ride through Chester, even though she was sorely tempted to. Just a quick detour, going by the Popeye museum, and the apartment above it rented by friends they had once known, and on past so many other memories, but instead when Josh said, ‘which way now?’ she pointed down towards the heavy truck bypass.
She was not sure she could face the certain destruction that would have taken place in Chester. For now, she wanted, needed to keep those memories intact and to have her other friends, John and Sally, forever sitting on their porch, enjoying the sun, with their dogs laying at their feet. Mavis, English as ever, bustling around h
er shop.
The factory workers gathering outside for their morning break. Smoking hurriedly and exchanging gossip in their ‘whites’, as trucks loaded with flour and sugar waited in the bays.
To know the open sign was swinging on the door of the Popeye museum, with the owner wrapping up souvenirs for overseas orders, in readiness to take to the post office. The ladies from the bank, prim in their uniforms rushing to get morning tea, while tourists stood in the park taking their photos next to the statues.
‘Yes,’ she sighed to herself as they began the last stretch of their journey, ‘better to leave those memories untarnished.’
Behind her, Rebecca chattered away eagerly, pointing out landmarks and describing the house for the umpteenth time. The six bedrooms and the water tanks, and how there was a trampoline in the back yard, and a river nearby, with the perfect swimming hole. Lola and Deedee constantly interrupting with questions, and Jamie adding to the conversation with things he remembered.
As they drew closer, Georgia’s stomach tightened with excitement and trepidation.
‘Please let the house still be standing,’ she whispered to herself, ‘and unoccupied,’ she added. Then she thought of Nathan. Would he be there? With that woman? Or would the house be empty, the rooms silent? Not even the familiar ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway.
She didn’t know which would be worse. What if he was there, alone, and wanted them to be a family again? Would she take him back? Forgive him? If she didn’t, would he take the kids away, or tell her to leave? After all she no longer knew who Nathan was. Had she ever?
She stopped that line of thought, her hands gripping the handlebars so tightly her knuckles were white. She was getting ahead of herself. But in her heart she hoped he would be there, ‘but only for Rebecca and Jamie’s sake,’ she whispered to herself. But she was not entirely sure if that was the whole truth.
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