I gave Thom a wave and set off through the forest to think, and to put down the rotter I’d seen. It hadn’t gone far.
Then I found them, way out along the river. Sadie and one of her young friends. Except it wasn’t them anymore.
I stabbed a knife through each little head and considered which words to use when I had to break it to their parents.
The next afternoon, I walked out to the parking area to assist Matthew. His only official job was to keep the camp vehicles in running order, and his work was never over, so I frequently assisted him. It would be impossible for anyone to keep up with the workload—even someone with access to the right tools and parts and an appropriate work area.
I realized we’d be better off when our gasoline went bad. We had a plan to convert some vehicles so they could be run on vegetable oil. Matthew and I already had a working, converted Mini Cooper stashed in a corner of the lot. We hadn’t told anyone about it.
That kind of conversion wasn’t our only fuel solution. We had plenty of other ideas sketched out. One of Matthew’s favorites was using wood gasifiers to provide fuel to run vehicles. The basic setup goes like this: a smaller barrel (closed, aside from a vent and the flange where fuel comes out) is situated in a larger barrel (left open), and wood scraps are placed in both containers. The wood in the larger barrel is set on fire, and once the small barrel gets hot enough, the wood scraps in there smolder and release wood gas. The wood gas is piped through a drained radiator to cool it (cooled gas contracts, providing more power) and then can be pulled by vacuum pressure directly into an engine’s carburetor, skipping the fuel tank.
This solution wouldn’t require conversion of vehicles or storage of gasoline at all, the fuel would burn cleaner, and the equipment would require less maintenance, but it would mean setting up several vehicles with gasifiers and training our campers in their use. We needed to be sure everyone who used them knew how to safely run and service the equipment. I think Matthew liked the solution because he thought the campers might understand so little about it that they’d consider the equipment more fragile than it would in fact be, and perhaps they would go easier on the vehicles as a result. Dream on, I thought.
Another fuel solution was solar power. We had a small, three-wheeled, two-person scouting vehicle known as “the trike.” It ran on an electric motor powered by solar panels and could carry a lot of supplies when loaded properly. Unfortunately, our campers had already managed to break two solar panels. We had the vehicle in working order once more, but Matthew would go through the roof if he had to fix it again. Thom might, too, because he needed solar panels for a big camp project of his own, and these clumsy setbacks cost him as well.
“We’re all doing the best we can, and sometimes it is… not that good.” Maria Bamford
Thom was accompanying Brian away from the vehicle lot as I walked toward it. Brian had what looked to be a burn on his hand. An ice burn.
“Got into the propane,” I observed as they passed me.
Thom nodded. He mouthed a sentence to me, and I couldn’t make it all out, but I got the bottom line: Matthew was pitching a fit back at the parking lot.
“I was only trying to help!” Brian whined. “I needed the loader and didn’t want to bother anyone.”
“Get trained on it first, huh?” I said before I could stop myself.
“I’ll get you fixed up,” Thom said to Brian, and they continued on.
I got to the lot, and Matthew was cursing and heaving heavy objects around.
“How much did we lose?” I asked. The stress from Matthew’s workload and hunger was beginning to show. I could see it around his eyes.
“Full tank. Our very last tank! The loader’s tank ran out, and he needed to switch to a new one. He couldn’t figure out how to attach it right away, and he left the tank wide open, so the propane kept leaking out while he was shitting around, guessing. And then he hurt himself, dropped the tank, broke the valve, and lost the rest of it. What is wrong with people?” He kicked over a pile of tires.
“The problem is they mean well, and usually fumble the execution,” I said.
“There should be an execution for wasting resources like that.” Matthew started swearing.
“I know where more propane is,” I promised. This bumped him out of his swearing fit. “I saw it on a flying trip. We can get there by truck, okay? We’ll go this afternoon.”
“I’m going to be busy killing Brian from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Beyond that I’ll need to check my schedule.”
“Seriously. Let it go.” I remembered something he’d mentioned recently. “Didn’t you say the three-quarter-ton’s gearshift is coming loose?”
“Yeah, and I can’t get anything down in there to tighten it. I’m not converting the beast, but we need it to last as long as the diesel’s good. Come look.”
I followed Matthew to the truck and we climbed in. He’d tried sticking a number of implements into the gear shifter box, but couldn’t get a good grip on what he was reaching for because some part of it had broken off.
“See that piece right there?” he asked, shining a flashlight in and pointing to a small cylinder sticking out from where the shifter was attached. “It’s stripped, and it keeps working itself out. If we don’t get it tightened up, the whole damn thing will fall apart and I’ll have to rebuild it from the underside. Big ass-ache. It gets looser every time it’s used.”
I continued to peer into the mechanism, thinking about something else entirely: Matthew seemed miserable—underfed and overstressed—but he was trying to hide it. I didn’t comment on this. Campers were supposed to be merely supplementing their meals with the camp’s communal food, but many of them were just helping themselves to extra portions instead of bothering to find their own. As a result, there wasn’t enough camp food to go around. Where the other campers were lazy and mainly used up canned food, the brothers tried to extend their supply of it by hunting and conserving. Unfortunately, with camp chores and the need to sleep, they weren’t having much luck with the hunting, and as a result, they weren’t eating enough. And on top of this, Matthew had been forfeiting his shares of camp food so others wouldn’t be hungry. I determined to do something about it.
“I guess we could cut this thing off,” he said, smacking the metal box which contained the entire mechanism. “But that would cause other problems.” Matthew swore again, a mechanic’s Song About It, simple single-word swears in a series. He glared down at the metal that irked him so much.
“Must you always do things the hard way?” I asked him. I easily squished my small hand into the gear box and tightened the cylinder.
“Though a feather or two has been plucked from your wings/Flying is always the same/Let’s fly off together/I’ll love you forever for now/And forever’s to blame.” Meat Puppets, “Sapphire”
Eric and I were at the picnic area again. It was just far enough out of camp that most people didn’t bother walking to it, and because the tables were concrete, no one would attempt to move them. I lazed on the table’s bench while Eric sat on the ground beside my foot. He picked up a stick and poked at the dirt with it.
I reached down to put my hand on Eric’s leg, touching his bullet wound over his pants. “I don’t have one of those, but I have something that sorta looks like it.” Dangerous territory. I was diving into a shark tank and the sharks were hungry, and I was bleeding. Goose bumps popped up on my arms and I wrestled with my fear. “From the accident.” I pushed the words out. “Where I was impaled on the metal.” Shut up! Why had I even considered talking about this? Now it was too late not to.
He asked if I’d show him.
I shook my head no. I indicated, over my jeans, the front and back of my thigh where I’d been impaled. I sighed. This wasn’t the scar I’d meant, but it was from the accident. This one was shaped like an upper-case “E.” Eric had seen it before, even though he hadn’t realized what it was from. I wasn’t about to get undressed at the picnic area. With my luck, I’d do t
hat and a huge bunch of campers would finally rally themselves to walk out there.
I got to my feet and stepped to the gnarly old pine that stood sentinel over the trail behind us, and ran a finger over the rough bark.
Still on the ground, drawing in the dirt, Eric made a little grunt. Then his voice broke into the afternoon air, “Isn’t there another? You told me you’d been impaled in a couple places.”
He remembered that?
“Yeah, that’s the one I really meant,” I mumbled. I felt relieved. It had been uncomfortable, knowing I’d lied to him. Even a small lie.
Eric tossed the stick aside, stood up, and walked over. “Where is it?”
He stood before me and shifted his weight slightly, from one foot to the other.
“I…” See this through, wimp. I resisted the urge to bolt. I turned away, deliberately, showing it was in preparation to comply with his request.
His breaths were fast and shallow—he was nervous for me. He understood the inner battle I was facing. Now that running away was an option, I realized I tended to overuse it.
I pulled up one side of the back of my shirt, just slightly. He’d try for information on the rest of my back’s scars later, but Eric realized how precarious the situation was, and he didn’t ask about the off-topic scars.
With my free hand, I pointed out the scar I’d referred to, low on the left side of my back.
“This is from the car?” He reached out and touched it.
“That’s the exit wound from it,” I said, letting the shirt fall back. Then I tackled the harder part. “You’re already familiar with the entrance of it.” With my back still to him, I took his hand and pulled it around me to feel the entrance side of the wound. His thumb rested against the underside of my left breast; his index finger rubbed the edge of my sternum. His breathing quickened more as he realized the impalement’s magnitude. From the exit wound, no one would’ve guessed at the angle it went through. No one would’ve expected a person to survive it.
Soldiering on, I explained, “This is where it went in.” It had collapsed my lung, but that seemed obvious. “Clipped a piece of my heart on the way through. It’s another thing that almost killed me. It should’ve killed me.”
And I hit my limit. Unable to take a second more, I slipped from his touch and returned to stand by the table, retrieving the stick and etching my own hieroglyphs in the dirt. Eric still stood by the tree, motionless and silent. I turned to watch him. His hands hung limply at his sides. I couldn’t read him at all. My heart hammered and my head buzzed. I had no idea why I’d shared that with him. I regretted putting it out there.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
Eric fought off whatever thoughts had held him hostage and turned around. I kicked weakly at the dirt to obliterate my picture, but he saw it before I could erase it. A hawk, dead on its back, with an arrow sticking out of its chest. Its feet were in the air. Its eye was an “X.”
Eric hurried back and wrapped me up in his arms.
“Kittyhawk,” he murmured, and I smooshed my face into his shirt.
Darkness dropped over us like a curtain and crickets were chirping, and all around, lightning bugs flashed their yellow-green love songs in code. We didn’t even move apart when we heard his brothers approaching on the path. Matthew and Thom arrived with worry on their faces, then mild irritation.
“Dude! We were worried about you two!” Matthew punched Eric on the arm.
“This was important,” Eric told them.
“Okay, well, now going home is important,” Thom retorted.
They herded us down the trail.
Thom and Matthew had been exploring, and they’d come across an old Polaroid camera with film still in it. We took all the pictures remaining.
At the end of our photo session, Matthew declared, “Get one of the couple!”
Eric swept me up into his arms without warning and I threw my head back, laughing. Thom snapped the shot. I fastened my arms around Eric’s neck and kissed him before he set me back down.
One of the brothers, I’m not sure who, nailed the pictures to the back wall inside our lean-to. A few weeks later, Eric loaned me a too-long flannel shirt on a chilly evening. I named it Bob. In Bob’s pocket was a Polaroid picture of us kissing. I hadn’t known about this shot. I hadn’t even heard the camera.
We were walking through the woods, foraging. Eric stopped. And then he touched my back. He’d never gotten a prolonged, clear look at my back’s scars.
“I want to see,” he said.
I picked dirt from under my fingernails.
“Please?”
I moved to tug at the back of my shirt, but my unwillingness to make this happen had spread to my hands. I couldn’t do it.
“Go on,” I finally said.
Eric pulled my shirt up, unveiling the old wounds. Scars upon scars danced across my back. He pulled the shirt off me, and I waited while he scrutinized each ugly mark. I squirmed under the weight of his eyes.
“What’re these from?” Eric touched a series of lines on my back. Rows of old cuts, raised and faded. And all of a sudden, I remembered clearly. All the details this time.
Rose and Annie were in the kitchen with me, helping to clean the dishes. Annie slipped on a small puddle of soapy water, knocking into Rose, and Rose bumped into the table, hard. The dishes they’d stacked there were jostled off. I watched the pile fall, like a slow-motion video. They shattered on the floor. Triangle-shaped shards flew up. Rose and Annie looked at this new offense in horror.
“Go. Now,” I told them.
I heard my stepfather yelling as my sisters ran off, and I knelt to pick up the chunks of broken ceramic.
My stepfather entered the kitchen.
I struggled to forget, but remembrance washed over me so strongly I cringed away, bringing my hands up over my eyes.
“Whoa, sorry! Hey! Hey!” Eric exclaimed, startled.
I forced an answer. “Razor wire. Sorry. I hadn’t remembered the details. They just came back. Just now.”
“Cripe.”
Eric and I sat down on a fallen tree and he helped me back into my shirt. I gave a Telling Of about the day of the broken ceramic and the special punishment I’d received.
Up into the blue. We were flying again. I leveled out the plane and trimmed it. I let go of the controls to reach back for my drink. Eric looked stunned, and quickly grabbed the yoke on his side.
“It’s okay,” I said into my microphone. (We’d found the headsets.) “She wants to be up here. You can let go, or not.”
“So I…?” He let go, and relaxed when he realized the plane wasn’t going to plummet. “Huh!”
“Do you want an adrenaline rush?” I asked.
“Totally!”
“Hold.” I stretched my arm across his to keep him from trying to grab on to make a correction. “Hooold,” I repeated, and I gave my controls a shove. The plane dove toward the ground. Eric looked alarmed, but he held.
The plane continued its dive for several seconds. Then it bobbed back up and climbed. It dove and bobbed in diminishing arcs until it leveled out.
“How’s that work?” Eric asked.
On our first trip he’d scrutinized my moves, watching to see how I maneuvered the plane. I’d given him a few pointers here and there, but now he was hooked. He wanted to know everything.
“Trim wheel.” I pointed to a bit of black plastic low on the middle of the front panel. “That’s the ‘cruise control’ for the plane’s pitch. It allows us to maintain level flight without holding constant pressure on the controls.”
“Trim wheel?” he confirmed.
“Yup.” I demonstrated how to set it.
“That’s so cool!”
“Why don’t you take over for a while?”
I couldn’t fathom why Matthew loved MREs so damn much, but I made numerous trips to the military base and loaded up on them as a special present for him. I filled a cabinet in the airplane hangar with them, feeling relieved
.
Matthew had visibly been losing weight. Nights, I’d lie awake, listening to his stomach rumble. Part of my plan was ready: Matthew would be supplied with enough food to regain the weight he’d lost. It would give me time to work on step two: ensuring he got bigger portions at meals, and snacks throughout each day, going forward.
“Hey, M!” I found him working on a truck in the parking area. “What’s wrong with it this time?”
“What isn’t wrong with it? Needs a new radiator,” he grouched.
I considered the conundrum for a minute. “I have an idea.”
“Do tell.”
“We could attach a small external radiator to the front of the truck. It’ll help cool the engine without requiring us to replace the radiator itself. There’s an external radiator in a corner of the hangar, back at the airport. It’ll look janky, but it’ll work fine. I have a present there for you, anyway.”
Matthew smiled at this, eager to see what I had in store.
We drove out to the airport in a Willys Jeep and I showed him the part.
“You’ve never seen one of these?” I handed the little external radiator to him.
“Nope! Hey, this could work,” he murmured, checking it over. “Looks easy enough to put on.”
“I think even Eric could figure it out,” I said, and we both were quiet for a split second, then we cracked up.
“I can see the giant orange question mark forming over Trouble’s head already.”
“Come with. Present!” I led him to the metal cabinet in the back corner of the room, pulled out a key, and opened the double doors. The cabinet was filled with MREs.
“Seriously!”
“Yeah, these are yours. No sharing, no hoarding,” I said, poking him in the stomach. “These are to supplement what you’re eating already, not to replace any of it.” I could tell Matthew didn’t want me to comment further about it. I gave him a look that said, “I mean it!” and discontinued the lecture. “Let’s get them in the Willys and find a better place for them to go.”
Survial Kit Series (Book 1): Survival Kit's Apocalypse Page 21