Authors: Michael Poeltl
“
I hear that. I don’t want us running into those people again unless it’s on our terms. Anyhow, we may not need to head there or north… we should try Joe’s first.”
We loaded empty canisters into the Caddy, got in, and rolled out of the garage, catching Sonny on his way into the house. He climbed into the back seat and we were on our way.
The ride into town was uneventful. We pulled into Joe’s and managed to fill the Caddy’s tank, but feared that we had asked our last favour of ‘Joe’s Gas and Snacks’.
“
I guess there were a few more gallons in here after all. But we are gonna need to head north. This pump is running dry, and we’re gonna need a good stash for the generator.” Connor struggled with the hose as he replaced the nozzle.
The lights on the Caddy fluttered as we raced down the 33. My heart skipped at the thought that the lights could stop working. The roads were in bad shape here too, full of vehicles and various debris. Suddenly a small dark shadow bolted in front of us and I swerved to avoid it. In doing so, I misread the angle of a truck that jutted out onto the road and had to veer so sharply that I lost control of the Caddy. Skidding past the truck, we slammed into a fence that guarded a small shack. The fencing stood little chance against the Cadillac and splintered into a million pieces as we passed through it. We jerked left, and the car stopped. Connor ended up on my lap, and Sonny could be heard cursing from the back.
“
Christ! Sorry guys, you okay?” I asked, shoving Connor off me. “Did you see that truck?”
“
Did you?!” Sonny retorted. “Jesus, I should check my shorts!”
Connor looked back at the truck that had sent us flying, and froze. “Guys, look at that- it’s a fucking GAS truck.”
At the sound of the magic ‘G’ word, we all got out and hurried to the silent vehicle.
“
How do we know it’s full?” Connor was excited.
Sonny slammed a fist against the hull. The resulting sound was a dull thud, not a clang. “It’s full,” he confirmed as a smile worked its way across his broad face. “It’s full!”
It was an absurd stroke of luck. Gas with wheels: it was ridiculous. We knew it was, but I also knew never to look a gift horse in the mouth, and that’s exactly what this was.
“
Let’s check the cab,” I suggested. “Maybe this rig’s got some life in her.”
Connor circled around to the passenger side while Sonny peered through the driver’s window. He tried the door and, finding it unlocked, opened it and disappeared into the cab. Then I heard the door on the passenger side open and something fall out, hitting the ground with a thump. I went a little white.
“
That wasn’t what you thought it was.” Sonny stuck his head out of the window, smiling. “Just a nasty old duffle bag. Get in, I’m gonna try startin’ this bitch up!”
I clambered into the cab. Connor and I watched as Sonny turned the key. We heard the familiar click of a vehicle that says ‘no more’ about a dozen times before the payoff. A few violent thrusts of the stick and stomps on the clutch, and Sonny got it running!
“
So you do know trucks!” Eyeing the gears and pedals, I certainly
hoped
he knew.
“
You’re the fucking truck whisperer man!” declared Connor, slapping the dashboard.
“
Sure, I drove a thousand miles once with my dad back in the day.” Sonny was proud; this was his shining moment.
“
Yeah, but have you been in the driver’s seat before? I think that’s the pertinent question here.” Sonny blew him off and threw it in gear. Off we went with a jerk and a stop, jerk and stop.
“
Whoa! Wait a second!” I shouted. “We can’t leave the Caddy behind!” I struggled with the door as Sonny slowed the rig to a crawl, and jumped out. Connor stuck his head out the window.
“
I’ll follow you guys there!” I shouted. Connor offered a thumbs-up as I hustled back to the Cadillac. The Caddy turned over on the first try. What a gem. I navigated it over the shattered fence, through the ditch and back onto route 33. Sonny was just a few yards ahead, still a bit jerky on the clutch but we were on our way. Things were looking up. The tanker’s cargo meant power for a lot longer than two months. This would be a major morale boost for the house.
****
“
Are you kidding me?!” was Earl’s response to the massive tanker.
“
I know,” I replied. “Can you believe it?”
His head shook back and forth, a smile reaching both ears.
Everyone wanted to know how we located such a treasure, and we told them the story.
The celebration went deep into the night as the barbeque was pulled out of retirement and the last of our meat products cooked. We drank our alcohol and smoked our premium marijuana. Our future would be written one day at a time, and one day, someone theorized, our present would resemble our past.
W
e woke up the next morning with a start. Sidney’s voice rang through the house with news that rocked our foundation, a foundation we’d worked so hard to build.
Our south gate had been compromised. A parade of cars, trucks and motor homes drove slowly through our property, ignoring our barrier. Sidney had spotted them while on duty in Skylab with Sonny and Sara, pulling the four to eight a.m. shift. The entire house now assembled in the addition, peering through the windows.
“
Joel, what’s our next move?” Earl asked.
“
Just everyone sit tight.” I paused, conscious of what weight my next few words would carry. “You all have your weapons, yes? Alright then, we wait. If just one of these cars stops, we assume the position, but until then we do nothing.” Earl sent me such a disparaging look that I repeated firmly, “We
wait
.”
The next few seconds felt like a lifetime. The silence in the addition was palpable, our heartbeats now audible, the tension building to a crescendo. But the cars did not stop: they passed on, moving off into the distance. We could breathe again.
“
Shit, that was unreal.” Seth pressed both palms hard against his eyes. Then Kevin spoke up.
“
Great gates, Earl. Solid!”
He rolled his eyes. Earl punched him in the shoulder, lightly, as laughter diffused the anxiety that had permeated Skylab. People, regular people, maybe hundreds of them just drove right past us on a mass exodus north, like so many before them. Maybe we should too, I thought. The moment passed, and reality set in. This road hadn’t seen that kind of traffic since the highway to the west of us flooded some years back.
“
What do you figure: thirty, forty vehicles?” I asked Sidney.
“
Maybe more!”
These people were either running from something, or to something. North- where were all these people getting the idea to go north? Or if they were running from a threat, then what could it be, what could frighten a group that large? These were the questions brought up at the group meeting held in the addition immediately after the sighting. Surely the black rain we had only encountered upon our return to ‘civilization’ had reached the north by now, and the pristine conditions of our former campsite had long since vanished. We sat in the dark for some time, discussing the turn of events, popping our heads above the window line once in a while. The reminder that other people were out there, groups of survivors like us, was intoxicating- until you realized that not everyone was following the maxim of live and let live. To know we were not alone was a gift, but a curse as well.
During a break in the conversation, Caroline peered out one of the large windows that overlooked the back yard and forest. Her chest began to heave and her hands pushed unconsciously against the glass.
“
People,” she whispered. Then again, louder: “People... forest...THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE FOREST!”
She shrieked.
We sprang off the floor in unison and stood at the west windows. Squinting into the darkness, we saw several armed figures glide through the woods on approach to the pool. In Skylab, guns slid out of holsters and off shoulders. Windows were opened and barrels thrust through them.
“
Earl, get to my parents’ room!” I shouted. He’d have a prime shot there, as it had a large window overlooking the back yard. “Connor, go downstairs: Sonny, Kevin, Seth go with him! Sara, come with me.” I took her by the arm and led her to my room, where we knelt on the couch that backed against the window and looked out. The horde was almost upon us.
“
Sonny, hit the light!” I yelled.
The spotlight snapped on and illuminated the whole yard. There they were, stopped like deer in headlights. I counted them quickly. Six... seven... ten. Looked like around ten or eleven. I slid the window open and began my ‘first contact’ speech while they were temporarily stunned by the artificial sunlight.
“
Identify yourselves!” I yelled.
No answer.
“
You’re in no position to...”
BANG! A gunshot cut me off. I couldn’t tell you who shot first, us or them, but it took roughly two minutes to end the confrontation. I heard Earl shout, “They’re trying to shoot out the spotlight.” I aimed at a ragged stranger who was pointing his rifle at the light, and fired. He fell, and his companions looked around wildly. I was on the higher ground, and shrouded in darkness. They could not see me.
When the shooting began Sara shrank away from the window, curling up next to me and hugging my arm. I tried to shake her, as her hold was interfering with my marksmanship, but she held on, terrified. Her rifle came in handy when my cartridge was spent. A shot broke through my window, screaming past my ear: it would have killed Sara had she been actively involved in the shootout.
I saw figures fall one after another. The scene was surreal. I dropped another one myself. Then the firing stopped.
Earl stumbled into my room seconds after the silence. “No more movement,” he assured me. “I think we won.”
Shit, he sounded like we’d just finished a paintball game. “Earl, we just killed maybe ten people! Jesus, you see this hole in my window? My head was two inches from here.” I knew I was too hard on him but my emotions got the better of me. Why hadn’t he broken yet? What was his secret? “This isn’t a game! We are not pretending!”
His grin sank and his head followed. He knew I was right.
Sara was still clinging to my arm as the others gathered at my door. “Everyone’s okay. No casualties on our end,” reported Connor.
I asked the guys to go outside and perform a perimeter search to double-check our status. “Be careful. Check the bodies first. Take whatever weapons they may have. We’ll bury them later.”
Connor, Sonny, John, Kevin, Seth and Jake filed out. Freddy and Sidney sat with Caroline and Julia on the couch, trying to control their post-battle trembling. “Cover their backs,” I told them, meaning our team outside. “We don’t know who else may be out there.” Then I hurried to throw up in the bathroom.
The scouts came back an hour later. They had collected some nice new guns and ammo, three crossbows, a spear, and a pair of Japanese swords. With bated breath I waited to hear whether the dreaded flag was included in the bounty. Upon receiving a negative response, I exhaled loudly. The idea of a flag-toting clan of murderers being out there upset me to no end. But for now, they weren’t here. Our enemies were strangers.
*****
Our next task was to bury the dead.
We decided to simply dump them into the garbage pit out back and cover them with the wet muck from the forest floor. The deed was gruesome but necessary. On closer inspection we noticed that most of the corpses were covered with red burns and welts. Sara called them radiation burns.
“
They’re like flash burns. I wouldn’t wish these upon anybody. They must have been in constant pain.” She studied one man’s abrasions, trying to ignore the bullet wound in his face.
The job done, we returned to the house and washed up in the basement bathroom. As we retired to Skylab, our minds wandered, thinking about the fight, the killing. Kevin, Sara and Seth stood guard at the windows while the rest of us sat in the remaining chairs and opened the floor for some healing deliberation on the subject.
Emotions ran high and tears were shed. Buried in the forest, not a hundred feet away, were the remains of eleven people, people we’d killed. In order to appease our fragile consciences, we would reiterate to each other that we killed in self-defence. Some couldn’t seem to bear the weight of their actions and swore never to take up arms again.
“
Listen.” John took it upon himself to give us a reality check. “It was us or them, man. Joel tried talking them down but no go. We were left with no alternative but to fire back. They asked for it! They signed their lives away by firing at us.” With each spoken word John became more determined. “Christ, I think I shot two of them dead myself. You think I feel guilty about that? You think I feel bad about protecting my girlfriend, this house and my friends? Screw that, I’ll do it again in a heartbeat, I look forward to it!”
Jake nodded and sipped at his water. Shit changes everyone in some way. Jake, I now believed, had had a helping hand; that was the accepted word around the house. Just to have been present for Jake’s transition was enough to believe in a higher power.
The evening saw Sara, Kevin and Seth finish their shift and join what had transformed into another victory party. We’d essentially accepted our decisions, accepted who we were and who we would have to become in order to stay alive. The weed made us laugh. It also made us forget the awfulness of the afternoon.