“Something like that.”
She paused with a doubting laugh, “You are arrogant, aren’t you? You think you’re the only one with a brain and all the rest of us here are just mindlessly following whatever orders Michael shouts out. Let me tell you something, Michael does have complete say in security matters. He’s the only one with the training and experience. But everything else here is run as a democracy. On every other issue we all get a vote. That includes what to do with our own lives and who we help or don’t help. We had a vote the other day, thirty-three of us brainwashed followers decided to give you a chance to stay here and start a new life. Michael didn’t tell us how to vote. He wasn’t even in the room when the decision was made. All of us that voted to let you stay saw it as an opportunity for us, and for you. Let me tell you something else while I’m thinking of it, you self-important egomaniac. Michael Thompson is one of the finest men I’ve ever known, and one of the finest men you’ll ever meet. He’s a good Christian man and he really cares for people. He also believes in the law and tries to apply it fairly to everyone. I’ve seen people come through here, and that includes you, people that would have just been put up against a wall and shot if it were anywhere else. But Michael makes an effort to find out the whole truth and give people a fair hearing, and he gave you a fair hearing … and then we all made the decision together. I’ve been here three years now. These people saved me, after I lost my husband they took me in. I probably would have died out there, alone … or something worse. They gave me a chance to start over again, just like they were trying to do for you. But you won’t take the chance will you? You know why?! Because you’re an idiot!”
The man didn’t bother trying to refute her argument, because it was true, “You do have a temper, don’t you?”
“Yes … I’m sorry I exploded on you. I’ve been told I get it from my maternal grandmother, she was Irish.”
“You love him don’t you?”
“Excuse me? I don’t love Michael, he’s just a friend.”
“I meant Joshua.”
Amy continued to gaze at the man, unable to speak, the tears forming in her eyes.
“I first noticed it two days ago. You brought him back about seven that night and the two of you were laughing. Do you remember? As soon as I saw your face I knew it right then. I’m sorry, you are right, Thompson … Michael has been more than fair with me. If we hadn’t been caught I would’ve probably died out there somewhere. I don’t want to think what would have become of Joshua after that. I owe Michael … I owe all of you a debt I can’t possibly repay. But please try to understand that I just don’t belong here … and neither does Joshua.”
Amy could see that no amount of arguing would change his mind, and she turned, leaving while she could still hold on to her composure.
At dawn the next morning the man was up again checking his equipment and weapons one last time. After dressing himself he then woke the child. The boy was distant, somewhere off in his own little world as the man put on his freshly mended and cleaned clothes. Finally he too was dressed and ready, and finding some words of his own. “I like it here.”
The man bent down, looking right at the boy, “I know, this is a nice place, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve made some friends here too. Haven’t you?”
The boy just solemnly nodded.
“Sometimes you have to leave your friends, but they’ll always be your friends no matter where you go. We have to go now Joshua. The place where we’re going is nice too. I’ve told you about it plenty of times, you remember?”
The boy continued to nod, somberly looking at the man.
“You’ll make new friends, and don’t forget my niece and nephews. They’re going to love having you around.”
The man helped the child off the chair and led him to the door. As they were leaving one last time the man remembered that first night they arrived, wondering if they might never leave again. That night he never once considered this detour would save his life.
As he pushed the door open and led the child out into the bright morning sun, he found three soldiers waiting for him there. He only recognized one, Bob Tatum, the soldier that made him take off all his clothes at gunpoint. The man had to consider the strange twists life brought. At the time he was incensed over it, now, not even a month later the bitterness was gone. Although not grateful, the man at least recognized the necessity of what had happened.
The younger soldier spoke up as they both came through the door, “I’m to escort you off the property. I believe Michael mentioned it to you?”
“Yes he did.”
“I’m assuming you want to go northwest, like you were traveling before?”
“That’s right, we’re heading for Wyoming.”
“I’m going to need …”
Suddenly Amy Helton came running from the single women’s dormitory, “Wait! I want to give you something!” She ran up to them nearly out of breath. “I want you to have this.” She handed the man a small cardboard box lovingly tied with a piece of reused ribbon. “It’s just some things I thought would be nice for you to have.”
The man took the box, thanked her, and recalled their conversation from the night before.
She then gave all of her attention to the boy. “Good-bye Joshua, I’m going to miss you.”
“Bye.” The child then grabbed around her waist as tight as he could.
The man was glad that neither of them cried because if they did he knew he would start to.
She returned the child’s hug and after a while reluctantly let him go, and addressed the man once more. “You take care of yourself, and Joshua.”
“I will.”
She then turned to the boy one last time, “Joshua … good-bye.”
“Bye Amy, I’ll miss you.”
“Bye Joshua.” She then turned and promptly ran back to the hut. The man could hear the tears coming by then.
Tatum finally was able to finish his sentence, “I’m going to need you and Joshua to wear blindfolds while we take you off the property. You understand?”
“Yes.”
The man put the blindfold on the child and then his own. The three soldiers then led them on a casual stroll that lasted nearly three quarters of an hour.
Finally unknown hands brought them to a stop, Tatum’s voice coming in the darkness. “Okay, you can take them off now.”
The man removed his blindfold and the boy’s too, noticing the child’s was wet to the touch.
“You’re good to go. Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, one other thing. Michael told me to tell you they didn’t have any luck reaching your brother. But he wanted you to know he would keep trying.”
“Can you give Thompson a message?”
“Of course.”
“Would you just tell him I am truly grateful for everything he has done for Joshua and me, even though I might not have shown it.”
The man took the child by his hand, resuming their journey once again. As they walked along he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made the right decision. There would no doubt be more obstacles in their path, challenges yet to come. He thought of it all and accepted that he did the best he could, for him and the boy. He had to find his family … and he couldn’t leave the child behind either.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As they sat under a tree, taking a break from the midday sun, they both heard a faint rustling in the grass. The man looked to the boy, putting his finger to his lips. From numerous times before Joshua understood and paused, remaining perfectly still. As quiet as he could the man produced the .22 pistol and waited. It wasn’t very long before they both heard the soft sound again, something small in the tall grass. Then from about twenty feet it appeared, a large rabbit. The man took precise aim and prayed his speckled brown foe wouldn’t get startled and run. He knew there would be no second chance. The rabbit stood still just long enough for him to take his shot
, the bullet dispatching its target instantly. Without delay the boy got up and ran to where they last saw it. He searched around in the grass, finally reaching down, retrieving the rabbit by its hind legs. Then he turned back to the man wearing a wide grin on his face. They would both be eating well tonight!
They had traveled the rest of that afternoon and were getting tired. It wouldn’t be too long before they had to find a place to stop that night. While the man was walking along, thinking about dinner, suddenly he heard singing, a girl singing. The sound was coming up from just ahead over a small hill. He picked up his pace with the boy quickly following.
Approaching the top of the rise, they both lay down in the grass, gazing over the hill and onto an old highway below. There was a girl in the middle of the road and she was singing a long forgotten song. The man didn’t know the tune but it seemed a real one and not something the girl was making up. The girl was about 250 feet away but with his binoculars he got a much better look.
The girl had long blonde hair and wore a dark blue hooded down coat that nearly reached her knees. She had on blue jeans, black boots and pink mittens. She didn’t appear to have any other possessions with the exception of a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The man couldn’t see anyone else nearby and after watching a few minutes more decided to take a chance. He stood up and walked down the hill, the boy right behind.
He drew near the girl who was still singing and swaying to the music in her head, she had her back to them the whole time. The man announced himself at about fifty feet, trying to sound friendly, “Hello! We don’t mean you any harm. Hello!” The girl at long last turned to face them and while she appeared a little apprehensive didn’t seem frightened. She didn’t say a word. The man continued to move towards her, still cautious but sociable, finally telling the boy, “Stay here.” The boy immediately stopped in his tracks and the man walked the final ten feet alone. He now stood only a few feet away from the girl. But it wasn’t a girl, it was a woman.
The woman had long straight natural blonde hair that was the color of golden wheat. She had a sweet face with a rounded shape that made her look as if she were still carrying baby fat. Her face made her appear much younger than she really was, the man thought her to be around twenty-five, at a short distance she looked fifteen.
She had deliberately combed her long hair over one eye creating a nearly perfect curtain of medium blonde tresses covering most of the left half of her face. It reminded him of an old time movie star he once seen on TV. He thought the star’s name was Lake. Her hairstyle looked odd to him and he had to have a closer look.
He slowly inched closer to the woman trying not to alarm her and was now within reaching distance. The man gently took his fingers and tried to touch her hair.
She stopped him with her delicate hand and in a quiet voice begged, “Please, no.”
But he couldn’t help himself, something was not right and he had to know. After a brief pause he brushed the hair back to reveal an exposed eye socket, her one remaining eye a stunning cornflower blue, and now in tears. It appeared the eye had been deliberately gouged out and it was encrusted with old blood.
“Who did this to you?” He tried not to look disgusted as he stared at her. But the man already knew the answer before he asked the question. A gang had done this, Gamers. They were the only kind who could do this, who would do this.
She pressed her disfigured face against his chest and began crying like a frightened child recalling a bad dream. The man had to concentrate to understand what she was saying as it was all coming out as one long, sobbing, hysterical sentence. He stood there patiently trying to listen to it all. But in her current state he had some trouble completely understanding what she was saying, although he did get the basic facts.
It seems she had been captured by a group of several men who wanted her to “do things to them” and when she refused they beat her unconscious and then later raped her repeatedly. Afterwards, one of the men held her down and took out her eye because, as he told her, “You’re a whore and this what whores get.” She had no idea why they didn’t kill her and said she wished they had.
The man didn’t know how to respond and just stood there through it all holding her. That seemed to be enough at the moment. The woman went on crying for few minutes more with the man’s arms wrapped around her. He tried to find something to say, anything, but he couldn’t find a single word, not one. He knew there was not much more he could do for the woman than he already was. The man felt both sad and angry for her.
The boy had watched it all open-mouthed, shocked, as he had never personally witnessed the horror men were capable of. Now he had some small idea.
Eventually the woman regained her composure and released the man from her hold. She could now speak coherently and told them her name was Adda Pedersen and she had come to this country eleven months before the collapse. She traveled here from her native Denmark to attend a special degree program in Chicago and fled like so many others as the city burned. Now she didn’t even know what state she was in. The man thought he would have never known she was a foreigner if she hadn’t told him, her English was perfect. She seemed like an all American girl.
He sat Adda down under a cottonwood beside the road, its canopy of leaves providing a welcome shade from the late day sun. He cleaned and then dressed her eye with a sterile bandage that was among the supplies Thompson had given him. The man then took a comb from her hand. She had been holding it since he upset her hair. He tried his best to duplicate her look as he first saw it and even had partial success, the white of the bandage only showing slightly through. He knew there was nothing else he could do but offer to share their meal and that she joyfully accepted with the glee of a small child.
The man didn’t want to set up camp near the road. He never slept near them if it could be avoided at all. He hadn’t in years. He noticed several trees with a lot of dead wood around them back on the other side of the hill and suggested they go back there and make camp. Once there he told the boy they would build a fire and the man began searching through his pockets for some cardboard he saved for tender. Joshua immediately began his search for wood or other fuel as he had done countless times before.
The sun had now set and they all sat around the fire, their faces engulfed in the warm glow of the dancing light. They shared a feast of roasted rabbit, crackers from an MRE, and some lemonade the man made from a small packet added to the water in his canteen.
Adda offered her own contribution to the banquet, her small hands producing two fistfuls of individually wrapped beef jerky from her coat pockets. Telling them she had found it at a half burned gas station a few days before. The man only took one and thanked her and the boy quickly mimicked him. They refused her repeated offers to take more, the man telling her she should hold on to them for “tough times.”
They sat and talked around the fire and for a while all forgot their troubles. Adda even told them they had been the first people in a very long time she wasn’t afraid of. Saying she knew when first seeing them they were both “nice people,” and while she had known many more in her short time in Chicago, hadn’t seen any in a long time, not until today. She speculated that all of the nice people must have been killed in the calamity and the only ones that survived were the “bad people.” More than once she spoke of her wish to have stayed in Chicago and died with all of the other nice people there.
As she talked, the man watched her closely. She was smaller than average, around five foot even, and her small size combined with her youthful face gave the appearance of an adolescent girl. Even though the man knew Adda was a grown woman, she looked as if she could be Joshua’s teenage sister.
Then the boy innocently asked about her homeland. To him Denmark sounded like some strange and exotic kingdom and he wanted to know more. The mood suddenly changed. She tried to tell the boy about her home and family but the man could see it was too much a burden for her to think about. She began crying once more and went on
and on about how she was trapped here in this horrible place and would never see her mother or her home in Aarhus ever again. She abruptly stopped as if she wouldn’t allow herself to think of it anymore. Then she graciously thanked them both for the meal and said she was very tired and wanted to go to sleep, wrapping up in the blanket with her back to the fire. The man and boy could hear her softly crying under the blanket, trying to restrain her tears, so they wouldn’t know.
The boy sat there staring at the heaving form under the blanket. The only sounds the crackling of the fire and the woman/child gently sobbing next to it. He carefully watched Joshua and thought he would start crying at any time himself, the light of the fire revealing the boy’s tear-filled eyes with its flickering light. The man got up and then sat back down again right next to the boy.
The boy was old enough and mature enough to realize the pain he just inflicted on his new friend. “I didn’t mean to …” he couldn’t finish the sentence, now nearly in tears himself.
The man began rubbing his back, “It’s all right …” the man trying to comfort him. “You didn’t mean anything. You didn’t know.”
The boy sat there silent, rubbing his eyes in a vain effort to keep them from overflowing. The boy then suddenly got up like he didn’t deserve to be comforted for what he had done. In a cracked voice he simply said, “Good night,” as he wiped his running nose with his small hand. He then took a place by the fire, covering up with his blanket from head to toe.
The man sat there a few moments stirring the fire with a stick thinking about the young woman a half a world away from her home. He stirred the embers once more and decided there was nothing to do but go to bed too.
He tried for over an hour but couldn’t fall asleep. All he could think of was Adda. She had lain there quietly crying for several minutes more but eventually found some peace as she drifted off to sleep.
The boy was completely still and hadn’t made a sound in a long time. The man had no idea if he was sleeping or not. He usually knew but this time he didn’t. He decided to leave the boy alone, to let him resolve this in his own mind, in his own way. If the child came to him for help he would give it, but this time he thought the boy needed to fight it out alone. He was growing up.
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