Remember us again next year! The Landry Family Apple Orchard
The card is trimmed in gold and red and a fragile little ribbon wound through a puncture at the top. I pick up the card, wipe the thin film of dust off of it, and tuck it into my back pocket. Dapper is busy sniffing every possible source of food and I keep a sharp eye on him, concerned that he’ll think a decidedly rotten piece of fruit is edible. His doggy curiosity does not include a matured sense of taste.
I explore the living room, the breakfast nook, the back porch. The upstairs is empty too, but my mother’s closet is still open, a trail of socks and underwear leading to the bed. There’s an impression on the mattress, a little square dent where maybe a suitcase sat. She got out, I think, she really did try to get to the apartments. I touch the mattress, forcing back a sickening wave of disappointment, she left and she never made it to the bookstore or the arena. There’s a third and worse possibility: that she arrived at the arena after the Black Earth Wives kidnapped Ned and me. She could’ve been caught in the chaos, in the blaze.
And still I don’t know why I want her to be here in the house. If she stayed she would be dead. Leaving, of course, was her only option.
I take some soap, shampoo, toothpaste and floss and go into my old bedroom. The windows are grimy and covered with the wispy patterns of cobwebs. I pack up some spare clothes in an old My Little Pony rucksack, the only thing in my closet with decent capacity. My grown-up things are at my apartment, but that’s too close to the thick of things, to whatever managed to survive the arena blaze. The clothes I choose will probably be on the snug side since they’re from high school, but it’s better than nothing. I try to find things of value to bring with me, things that might be worth trading for food or medicine. I find a box of old condoms underneath the mattress in my room; they’re past the expiration date but I know from the arena that they’re just as valuable as cigarettes. There’s a pack of those under my mattress too, stale and crappy, but maybe worth a can of green beans.
Before leaving, I go back downstairs and check near the phone. The phone is off the cradle, lying on a cluttered desk where my mom kept the mail and bills. It’s an antique, something from my grandmother’s attic and it still smells like sour books after all these years. The answering machine is there, but without electricity it’s useless. There is, however, a Post-it note near the machine, folded and faded but stuck in a prominent position. I pick it up, carefully smoothing down the edges.
Minny—
I hope you’re safe. Aunt Tammy called and she said they’re setting up a camp in Fort Morgan. Take 39 down to 88, then to 80. Just follow 80 until you hit 76. It’s a long way and I don’t know if we’ll make it. I’m leaving with the Andersons from next door. We’re going to find Allison first.
And then at the bottom, underlined:
See you soon in Liberty Village!
Fort Morgan. Fort Morgan, Colorado. I’ve been there a few times to see Aunt Tammy and her family. They’re good people—outdoorsy types, hunters, fishers, kayakers. But that’s many states away, many hundreds and hundreds of miles away from here. She’s left the note for her cousin Minny, a woman I’d met a few times at family barbecues and holidays. I bet Mom never expected me to get my hands on it. So they were definitely headed to Colorado after picking me up.
My mom’s on the road with my neighbors, then. She didn’t make it to the apartments and she didn’t make it to the arena but that’s not proof that she’s dead. There’s the purse of course, but that could mean anything, anything at all. What made them go without me?
I go back upstairs, feeling a strange heaviness in my hands, and go into my mother’s bedroom. She’s left her perfume behind. I always loved the way she smelled, and that she never ever changed the perfume she wore. The scent has breathed into everything in that room and Anna Sui’s name might be on the bottle, but it’s my mom’s scent. I take the perfume bottle and hold it up to the light. Through the purple glass I can see there’s just a quarter of an inch left in the bottle. I shove it into my backpack and turn to go.
But there’s a sound downstairs, footsteps on the porch. There’s a stumble and a crack and my ax is up and ready to swing. I whisper to Dapper, who begrudgingly sits behind me, staring up at me with those wounded brown eyes. “I know you want to help, boy, but it’s for your own good.”
The footsteps come up the stairs, scraping across the wood, elbows or arms bumping against the wall. I can feel a little burst of energy come to me, a caffeine and adrenaline tenacity—the will to defend what’s mine. They won’t come in my house, my mother’s house. They won’t get me, not here and not now.
See you soon in Liberty Village!
I move a few steps closer to the open door. I need to get the drop on them because I have no idea how many they are. It could be just one but it sounds more like two or three. Tiptoeing, I command my heart to slow down, to give me a rest so I can concentrate, but the adrenaline is coming too fast and making my hands shake.
There’s a peek of skin at the door, a hand maybe, and I wind up and let out a barbaric scream as I aim the blade at neck level.
Whud!
“Gah—I—Jesus!”
“Fuck!”
“Oh Jesus, Jesus Christ, Allison!”
It’s Ted and, thank Christ, his neck is still attached. The ax is buried two inches in the door frame and Ted is on the floor, his hands over his head. Renny stands in the doorway, clutching her chest with fright.
“Ted! Fuck! I could’ve fucking killed you!” I scream, jumping back and nearly tripping over Dapper.
“You could’ve fucking beheaded me,” Ted corrects, his shriek just about reaching the same panicked pitch.
Too overcome with excitement to stay sitting, the dog runs to Ted, licking his face and hands. If my heart was pounding before then it’s jackhammering a hole through my chest now. Ted looks at me from the ground, thunderclouds gathering in his eyes.
“Oh,” I say, straightening up as my pulse finally starts to regulate. Ted gets to his feet, busted glasses and rakish hair askew, placating Dapper with head scratches. “Funny meeting you here,” I say.
“We followed you,” says Ted.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“My idea,” Renny boasts, yanking the ax out of the door frame. “He said you’d be mad but I didn’t expect this.” She nods toward the mangled wood.
“I thought you were … Whatever. What are you doing here?” I ask, taking the ax back from her. A little shower of splinters falls on Dapper’s head.
“We asked Ned to come too. I think he wanted to, but Evan and Mikey could use a change of pace, you know, some time to rest,” Ted replies.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I say, shaking my head.
“You can’t make it on your own. It’s … it’s a stupid idea, Allison, and I think you know that,” he says.
“And I wasn’t going to let you pawn me off on a bunch of strangers,” Renny adds, glaring at me.
“But you know Ned,” I tell her. “And the kids.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t even know you but I’d rather be stuck with you all. Less chance of getting shot.”
“Collin and Finn know what they’re doing,” I say.
“Yeah? Then why’d you leave?”
“Oh I don’t know,” I say breezily. “Things were getting a little exhausting ever since my life turned into a fucking Mariah Carey song.”
“Lydia’s just … She’s just one person, you know? We could’ve figured it out. But I guess that doesn’t matter now. Not really, because we’re coming with you,” Ted says, peering at me from the long black fringe over his eyes. “There’s no point in arguing because we’ll just follow you and I know where you’re thinking of going.”
“Ted…”
“No, listen to me, please. I know I’m wrong sometimes but not always and I think you and me … We owe it to each other. We’ve been together from the start of this mess and we’ve managed to stay ali
ve. That means something, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that matter to you?”
“Sure it matters, but … I don’t know … I just thought it was time for a change,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “It’s nothing against you, or you, Renny. I thought maybe it’d be better somehow.”
“Well, it’s not,” Renny says, throwing up her hands. “It’s a dumb-ass idea and you could’ve gotten yourself killed. Here.” She hands me a gun, a narrow little pistol. “Ned said to take this. He gave all of us a few things. He said to wish you luck and to give you this.” And here she takes my hand and shakes it, hard, like one professional to another.
“Fuck,” I say, feeling like she socked me in the stomach instead. I want to see Ned again and I want to see his kids. But more than that, I want my mom. This is the cost.
“Wanted to double-check?” Ted asks. Of course. He was there. He saw the purse and the note and coming here instead of heading straight for Colorado must have looked suspicious.
“I found this,” I say, handing them the Post-it in my pocket. I’m glad they have something to look at so I can quickly dab my eyes with the backs of my fingers. I don’t say to them “I’m so glad you’re here” or “I could really use the help” but I’m thinking it. The relief of having them there—of having them inadvertently correct my enormous blunder—makes me feel like a weepy baby.
“Liberty Village? What the fuck kind of joke is that?” Renny asks, chuckling.
“It’s not a joke,” I say, snatching the Post-it out of her hands. “This is where my mom went and it’s where I’m going too. This is the second time she’s mentioned it. I found a note in her purse a while ago. It’s the place, I know it. It’s where we’re going, if you two insist on following me.”
“Liberty Village it is then,” Ted chirps. “Watch out … Uh … Where is that again?”
“Colorado.”
“Oh. Right! Watch out, Colorado, here we come!”
“Stirring,” I say, tucking the pistol into the back of my waistband. “Come on, let’s get downstairs and see if there are any canned rations left.”
“My Little Pony, eh?” Renny asks, patting the big pink insignia on my backpack.
“Yeah. You know how I roll.”
COMMENTS
Norway says:
October 28, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I’m so glad that you are still alright.
Scared me half to death when you said you were going by yourself!
Keep strong Allison and please; keep safe.
steveinchicago says:
October 30, 2009 at 5:24 pm
you’re lucky to have such good friends. it’s obvious you should stick together. strength in numbers, allison, don’t forget that.
Allison says:
October 30, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Yeah, yeah you were right, Steve. I guess I’m stuck with these jokers forever.
October 31, 2009 (Halloween)—The Demon-Haunted World
“That’s close!”
“It’s not close.”
“Did you hear that one? That was definitely close,” Ted says, covering his head as if we’re stuck in an earthquake and not driving on the interstate. But I can sympathize; the rumbling is making me nervous too. There are bombs falling on Iowa City tonight.
We reach the city limits in good time. It’s amazing how fast one can go when there are no speed traps, no cops, no traffic at all except for the occasional detour. In some places the highway is backed up for miles, empty cars standing in neat rows with dead drivers or no drivers at all. It’s strange to see this go on for miles, hundreds of cars all waiting patiently for some unspoken signal. Every time we come upon one of these blocks I’m convinced the cars will start moving or someone will hail us for help but it never happens. There’s just the bleak feeling that whatever battle was to take place there happened long ago.
To be honest, I’m not sure if there are actual bombs falling, but it sure sounds like it. The noise is deafening on certain stretches of road and there are flickers of orange light in the distance, gunfire, the muted roar of far-off engines. The thunder of war ripples across Iowa City on Halloween Night and there’s not a trick-or-treater in sight, not one friendly house with the lights on, nobody home.
The old Chevy Cavalier we managed to steal has what we need to keep us going on the road but not much more. There are few amenities; the heat sputters, beginning in fits and starts, warming the car for a few minutes before dying down to a fan that blows neither hot nor cold. I can’t complain—with the three of us and our body heat we manage to keep it at a decent temperature. It’s not really the time to be picky anyway; finding a car that a) worked and b) had keys and gas was a misadventure convoluted enough to make Odysseus point and laugh. I think we must have tried three dozen cars before we discovered the Cavalier parked up on the curb in front of an Ethiopian restaurant. The keys were on the ground outside the open driver’s side door. We take turns driving but Ted never wants to sit in the passenger seat; there’s a mysterious stain on the slate gray upholstery. I try not to think about the mauling that may or may not have taken place directly beneath my ass.
Dapper curls up in the backseat with Ted, his furry chin resting on Ted’s thigh. He doesn’t care when it comes to cuddling—no human is safe from the laser-guided mutt love.
The road to Iowa City down Route 88 is spent in long stretches of silence followed by short bursts of conversation. Renny drives like there’s a demon on our backs and maybe there is. I like when she’s behind the wheel—she’s aggressive without being stupid. At one point, near Davenport, she mows down a line of straggling Floaters that have wandered into the road, nailing them right at knee level. Watching them spin up into the air, arms and lungs akimbo as they somersault into the ditch is nothing short of breathtaking.
“Your restraint is admirable,” I tell her, a little stunned.
“If you wanna make it to Colorado before Christmas I suggest you let me drive the way I like to drive.”
“I take it this is a newly acquired habit? Or were you creaming pedestrians in your former life too?”
“Pedestrians? You’re fucking crazy. Those things aren’t pedestrians. Pedestrians have a destination in mind, they have brains. Were those motherfuckers skipping across the crosswalk, heading to the drugstore for Tylenol?”
“I’ll keep score,” Ted says, chuckling from the backseat. He takes off his bent glasses and breathes on the lenses, inspecting them before rubbing the fog off on his shirt. “Ten points each.”
Renny looks at me but I keep quiet. I’ve killed my share of them, but it seems a little inhuman to treat them like bowling pins. Having the car, being inside of it, makes me feel strangely normal again and all those pesky things like morality come slithering back from whatever rock they were hiding under. They look so vulnerable out there, the undead, wobbling on their mangled legs, stumbling toward us as if they had a chance. I don’t know why I care but I do, and I close my eyes every time Renny tries to hit another one.
Things get boring for a while after Davenport so we start trading stories about Halloween.
“Evan and Mikey were so excited. I hope Ned managed to make them costumes,” I say.
“Out of what?” Ted asks. “Grass and Scotch tape?”
“I don’t know, dickhead, use your imagination. I’m going to make Dapper a moose costume at the next pee break,” I say, reaching back to ruffle the dog’s ears. He rouses long enough to lick my hand and then Ted’s pants. “Would you like that, boy? You’re a great big moose, aren’t you?”
“I went as a TV one year,” Renny says. “I put on a leotard and my dad cut a hole in a box and stuck some rabbit ears on top. We got fancy with it in my house. Oh and once, once we had the interns at the office trick-or-treat to the other firms in the building. We made them get all dressed up like rabbits and pumpkins and ghosts and sent them around to get candy for us. ‘Do we have to?’ one asked, God he was a whiny bitch, and I said, ‘If you wanna keep your job you do.’ S
o we sent them out, but no one had candy, they had no idea trick-or-treaters were coming so the interns came back with Red Bulls and cough drops and Altoids!”
Renny was in advertising. There are a lot more stories like that from her and most, if not all of them, involve terrorizing the sad, gullible interns. “Tough love” she calls it, something they all had to do too when they were young and stupid and desperate to enter the professional world.
“My mom slaved over this mermaid costume for me,” I tell her, resting my heels on the dashboard. “She wasn’t much of a seamstress but she made it work and I remember I was heartbroken because that was the year there was a fluke snowstorm right before Halloween. Waddling around in that fin in two feet of snow was … Well, I looked stupid as hell. I remember she and her friend had to lift me up the stairs to the neighbors’ houses to get candy. Why the fuck do they do that?”
“Who?” Ted asks, taking off his glasses to mess with the tape wound around the edges. It doesn’t matter what he does, the glasses are beyond salvaging.
“Parents. It’s … the fact that she lifted me up every single one of those stairs, and just because I had chosen the dumbest possible costume.… A fin … Christ. And of course it was ruined by the end of the night, absolutely soaked through from the snow. She was so cheerful, so happy for me when I got home and showed her all the candy I had gotten. I bet she was exhausted too but she never showed it, not to me.”
“This why we’re doing this? Driving to Colorado because you feel guilty for ruining your mermaid costume?” Renny asks, smirking. I know she’s prodding me so I shrug it off.
“Maybe. Maybe that’s exactly why.”
“Boring!” Ted shouts from the backseat. “Next!”
“Fine, how’s this: last year, I accidentally ordered a book about the sex trade for the store’s Halloween display. The word trick, you know, has two very different meanings,” I say. Ted cracks up, pounding his fist against my headrest to show his approval. “… One of which is not appropriate reading material for a nine-year-old in a Princess Jasmine costume. We figured it out, thank God, before any customers saw it.”
Allison Hewitt Is Trapped Page 22