The Nation Chronicles: Book Two (The Nation Chronicles Trilogy 2)

by Wendell Sweet

"Well here goes nothing," he muttered under his breath as he moved further out onto the bridge. "Still okay?" he asked.

  "Good as gold," Gary replied. Frank was not entirely blocking the bridge, and Gary and John squeezed by on one side of the truck. "We'll be behind you," Gary said, as he paused at Frank's window. "I'll wait until you're off, and John will wait until I'm off." Gary looked at both men as they nodded their heads.

  "Let’s do it," Frank said.

  He eased off the gas and let the Jeep idle its way across the bridge. When he reached the other side he angled off the tracks, parked, and walked back to the bridge. He stood quietly beside Annie and watched until the other two Jeeps were across. As he stood next to her, he noticed how much more aware of her he was. Funny what a little kiss can do, he thought. In fact, he noticed, she seemed to be a little flushed, and with that thought, Frank began to wonder just exactly what the kiss had meant.

  Once they were back on the main road again, it was late afternoon, and by the time they finally reached the other side of Oswego, they had all agreed to stop for the day.

  As they entered the small town of Martville, and pulled into a large field, Frank found himself wondering more and more what the kiss had meant.

  They made a half-way decent meal out of the canned goods they carried with them, and once they tired of rehashing the day’s events, one by one they went off to find a place to sleep. They had sleeping bags, and rather than set up the tents they had also brought with them, they all agreed they would rather use the bags.

  Frank watched as Mike walked off in one direction with Gina. Obviously something had sparked with those two, he thought. He sat talking quietly with Gary and John, as well as Annie. When he finally said his goodnights, a few hours later, Annie got up, and saying goodnight, walked away by herself.

  While Frank waited for sleep to come, he found that instead of thinking of all the bad things that had happened, he was thinking of Annie, and all the good things that could happen.

  TWO

  ~1~

  The next morning they were on the road early. The going was still slow, but by noon they were on the outskirts of Alton, a small town about forty miles from Rochester. They were only thirty or so miles from Webster where they would turn off 104, and take route 250 into the small village of Fairport.

  A run-down general store, with two old gas pumps sitting on a chipped concrete island, was all that marked the small town. The low speeds and constant use of the four wheel drive, had taken a toll on the fuel tanks of all three vehicles, so when Frank had spotted the small store as they passed a sign for the township limits; they had pulled off into the dirt parking area. The other two Jeeps followed him in and lined up by the pumps.

  When Annie and Mike, along with Connie, had first picked up the jeeps, they had filled the tanks by siphoning gas from the dealership's underground tanks. It had been a fairly easy process as Mike had worked at a gas station before, and had been responsible for, among other things, checking the levels of the tanks and comparing them on a daily basis to the numbers on the pumps to make sure they matched up. He had known where to look for them. The tanks were fairly simple to access. A long piece of hose slipped down into the tank had been adequate to siphon the gas into cans and then fill the Jeeps.

  Mike had found a hand operated pump, mainly used to pump kerosene from cans into small heaters, at the department store back in Oswego, and, along with Dave, had adapted the crank operated pump to use it to pump gasoline. The adaptation had been simple. A long section of heavy hose had been slipped over the pumps short tube, and held in place with a small hose clamp.

  One by one the Jeeps were pulled over next to the underground tanks, and quickly filled. Annie had been impressed with the idea. It was a lot better than the mouthfuls of gas they had swallowed filling the Jeeps back in Watertown.

  After the Jeeps were gassed up they decided to take a short break and eat lunch. They were all getting sick of the canned meat, so they foraged through the small general store to see what was available. Once each had found what they wanted, they had carried it out onto the wide front deck to eat.

  Frank sipped at a cold beer while he sat in an old wooden chair eating a large bag of chips. Gary and John were talking quietly beside him.

  "Where do you think the best place to go is?" Gary asked of John. They had been discussing several different places where people may have gathered. They were all hoping to find other people once they arrived in Rochester, but until now they had not discussed where to go once they arrived.

  John answered. "Well, the compass is open. I think it would be a good idea to stay away from the North side though. The whole area has been run down for years, and I'm not so sure we'd want to meet anyone who was still alive in there."

  "That bad, huh?" Frank asked.

  "Actually, more than that bad," he replied. "When I was still living there, and still on the City Council, I remember we had constant problems there. The city was always being accused of not caring much about the north side, and to be honest it was based in fact to a certain extent. The city and the council, me included I hate to admit, did let it run down pretty much. Trouble was, when we tried to retake the neighborhoods we couldn't."

  "Why?" Gary asked. "Didn't you have support from the neighborhoods?"

  "Not really," John said. "Don't get me wrong. There were still a lot of good people trying to live there, but by the time the city stepped in, drugs had pretty much taken over. It got so the police couldn't even go in there after dark. The drug dealers knew it and used it to their advantage. After a while... well, the good people who had tried to change things just left. The last time I was there, on Clifford Avenue, it was pretty bad. We, myself, and two other board members, decided to take a tour through some of the neighborhoods ourselves, to see just how bad it had gotten. We had to have a police escort, and even then we ended up seeing only a small part. Most of the neighborhoods were full of drug houses, prostitution, burned out buildings. I'll tell you, truthfully, it scared me. That was one of the reasons I didn't run again and ended up moving to Watertown."

  "A lot of parts of Seattle were like that too," Frank said. "I got to the point where I really had begun to hate the place."

  "I know exactly what you mean," John said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not glad that this happened, but...who knows how much worse things would have gotten? At least now there's a chance to start over again, maybe."

  "You know what really got to me?" Gary asked. Both men looked at him waiting for him to speak.

  "You know where Mobile Alabama is?" they both nodded. "Well, I was down there a few years back to see a buddy of mine I was in the Navy with. We were always telling each other we were going to get together and finally we did. So we were driving down Airport Boulevard, kind'a the main Street so to speak, and I was, you know, sort of looking around out the window. Sightseeing, I guess you could say. Anyway, I see this young girl standing in the middle of the island that splits the lanes holding a sign. I figured it was one of those "Will work for food" signs, but as we got closer I saw it wasn't. I could also see she was pregnant, couldn't have been more than sixteen or so. I asked my friend to slow down so I could read the sign. I couldn't believe it."

  "Well, what did it say?" John asked.

  "Well, it was misspelled, you know, but it said, "I'm pregnant and abandoned, please help me." I couldn't believe it, so I asked my buddy to turn around and go back, but by the time he did she was gone. I couldn't believe that things had come to that."

  "That's bad all right," Frank said. "I've seen the other signs, the food signs, but I've never seen one like that."

  "I haven't either," John said, "but I can't say it surprises me a whole lot."

  "Well," Gary continued, "that wasn't the end of it. Two days later I picked up the paper and there was an article about her in it. I guess I wasn't the only one who had seen her. The police had picked her up earlier, and told her not to stand there with that sign. That was in the morning, and
it was afternoon when I went by, so she must have come back. Quite a few people had seen her back there in the afternoon, according to the paper. Well, the thing is that somebody did stop and pick her up, but not to help her. They found her body in the bay the next morning. If they hadn't picked her up the day before, they probably wouldn't have known who she was. But they did, I guess. The story said they had fingerprinted her, and taken pictures too. I guess they arrested her, ain't that a slap in the face? Anyhow, that's how they identified the body... I've always wondered about it. Who would just abandon her in the first place? I mean, being pregnant and homeless? I've always felt that I should have convinced my buddy to stop right there. Fuck the traffic, just stop and pick her up..."

  "...So, I've gotten pretty sick of the world myself. It never seemed to stop, and it seemed that people kept coming up with more ways to be cruel. To tell the truth, I'm glad it's mostly gone, I hated it that much."

  When Gary finished they were all silent for a few minutes.

  Frank thought about the food signs. How many times had he seen them? Countless, he guessed, but he had never stopped. He had been, well, sort of afraid to.

  "I think we all made our share of mistakes," Frank said. "I know I did. I wish I hadn't, but I did. I guess maybe things are better, in a way," Frank finished his beer, got up, and retrieved three cold ones from the cooler in the Jeep. He handed one to each of the men before he sat back down in the chair.

  "So," John said, easing back into the conversation of where to go once they arrived in Rochester. "North side is out I think, there's no way I'd want to go back in there, especially now. East side is mostly old mansions; East Avenue, Park Avenue. West is made up of mostly poor neighborhoods and shopping centers, and farther out small business. South side is a mix, some places are as bad as the North side, and others are as nice as the east side. Farther out though, it's all malls and big discount stores. I'd say downtown would be a good place to start looking."

  "Why?" Gary asked.

  "Just a hunch, I guess," he replied. "But where did you go after it happened?"

  "I see your point," Gary said. Downtown, Gary thought, was the first place he had thought of going. It made sense to him that it should be the first place to at least check.

  "We'll have to walk, at least I'm pretty sure we will," John said.

  "I believe you," Frank agreed. "A city that size has a lot of traffic I suppose."

  "Unbelievable," John said. "An awful lot of it ends up on the Can-of-Worms, but its heavy downtown too. There are still a lot of small companies down there, so I'm fairly certain we'll have to walk down. We should be able to get within a block or two of the War Memorial though, and that's dead downtown. City Hall is across from that, and if there are people, that's where they should be. Of course the only real way to find out is to get there and see."

  The small caravan pulled back out onto the highway and continued on a few minutes later. Long before they reached Webster the stalled traffic began to back up, and they lost a great deal of time winding their way through it, or where that was not possible, pulling into the center traffic divider to get around it.

  Even the center divider, a narrow sloped grassy area double the width of the two lane highway, began to fill up with stalled vehicles, and several times they were forced to get around some other way. Fortunately the areas along the highway were crowded with small restaurants, shopping malls, and gas stations; the closer they got to Rochester. And they all had feeder roads. Roads that were mostly empty now.

  The parking lots were fairly empty, and they managed to get around the stalled traffic that way.

  When they reached Webster it was nearly 6:00 PM, and a light rain had begun to fall. The exit and entrance ramps were packed solid with cars, and impassable. As a consequence they were forced to drive the Jeeps down the side of the steep embankment to the road below. Some of the cars appeared to have either been trying to enter or exit using the wrong ramps, and the results had been catastrophic.

  Most of the cars were crushed and blackened shells. A large gasoline tanker sat amid the wreckage. The tanker had apparently tried to exit the entrance ramp and had crashed and burned.

  It looked as though gas, from the ruptured tanker, had spread the flames under the entire bridge, and everything had caught. Frank supposed that several of the cars gas tanks had probably exploded too, helping to fuel the inferno.

  Once they had negotiated the steep and muddy embankment and driven out of Webster the stalled traffic eased up.

  "Most likely everyone stuck to the main routes," John said. "I'd hate to see what the Thruway looks like though, it's probably packed tighter than a drum." The others nodded agreement.

  Even though the stalled traffic had lessened, they were still forced to detour off the road several times to avoid accidents or vehicles that seemed to have been abandoned in the middle of the road. It was well after 8:00 PM when they reached the four corners in the small village of Fairport, and the sky was beginning to darken. The rain was coming down harder.

  Frank angled the Jeep into a small gas station and they all ran towards the door which had been left propped open, thankful they were out of the rain.

  They were no sooner inside, when the rain began to pelt the tarmac outside in great sheets. The sky darkened rapidly and a stiff wind kicked up, blowing the trash that littered the streets through the air.

  Frank was staring out the wide glass window when suddenly the street lights began to glow. Within a few minutes they were all glowing brightly, illuminating the wind driven sheets of rain. Annie walked over and flicked on a switch next to the door, and bright fluorescent lights buzzed to life overhead. She clicked on several of the other switches next to the first one, and the outside sign, along with the pump islands lit up.

  "Looks like you were right, Gary," Frank said. Gary, grinning, blew lightly on his finger tips and rubbed them on his shirt. "Elementary, my dear Watson," he said, still grinning.

  He was still grinning a few seconds later, when Lisa began to point out the window and screamed excitedly.

  "Look!" she exclaimed, "a car, people!"

  Everyone quickly crowded toward the windows to look out.

  A long, gray, older Lincoln sat at the curb idling, its wipers throwing great sheets of water from the windshield. The darkened side windows gleamed, reflecting back the bright glare of the station lights. Lisa, and several of the others were waving through the glass in an attempt to get the drivers attention.

  "Where did it come from?" Frank asked, puzzled.

  "I don't know," she replied. "I turned around and there it was. Aren't they going to come in?"

  "Maybe they're afraid," Annie said, shrugging her shoulders. "They must see us."

  Everyone stood silently for a few seconds staring out at the car. It still sat at the curb, and it appeared to Annie that the person or people inside it were not going to come in. Just as she had the thought though, the car reversed, and began to slowly back up towards the entrance to the station.

  When it reached the station entrance, it pulled slowly onto the edge of the pavement and stopped.

  "What are they doing," Mike asked, sounding slightly afraid.

  Everyone else turned towards Frank expecting that he might be able to answer the question.

  "I don't know," Frank said. "Could be they're afraid like Annie said, I guess."

  "Might be better to flick off the inside lights," Gary said, in a low tone of voice. "It doesn’t look as though they intend to say hello." He peered out at the gray Lincoln.

  Annie reached over and flicked off the inside lights.

  Almost immediately the Lincoln's headlights came on and it pulled ahead slightly, angling the beams into the station interior. The lights flicked up to high beams, flooding the interior in harsh bright light. Almost as soon as the lights had flicked up however, they winked out.

  Tiny spots floated in front of Frank’s eyes and he quickly blinked them away. The car was backing slowly into
the road, away from the station.

  "What the hell is he doing?" Dave asked, looking at Gary. "What the hell was that all about?" he asked again.

  "Whoever it is, they're curious, I think," Gary said.

  "I didn't much like that either," Frank said as he looked over at Dave. Bob stood beside him, his eyes locked on the car.

  Once the Lincoln reached the roadway it pulled slowly up to the stop sign at Route 250 and once again sat idling, its lights still off. Frank tried squinting his eyes tighter, to see into the darkened side windows, but they almost seemed pitch black, like a limousine, he thought.

  "What should we do," Gina asked? Frank looked at her, and it was obvious she was frightened. In fact, he noticed, everyone, himself included, seemed frightened. Except Bob, who still seemed as he had for the last couple of days. Out to lunch, Frank thought. Mike was the only one who had brought a rifle into the station with him and Frank noticed it.

  "Mike, give me that," he said motioning at the rifle.

  "Be careful, Frank," Gary said, "no telling what they're up to. I don't know if it's wise to go out there."

  "Don't!" Annie said, turning to face Frank. She seemed on the verge of panic.

  "Don't worry," he said. "I only want to show them we're armed... maybe they'll take off. Think they're armed, Gary?" Frank asked.

  "I doubt it. Who knows how friggin' long they were sitting out there watching us. If they'd wanted to shoot us they could have easily. The lights in here probably lit us up like a damn Christmas tree," Gary stated. "I ain't so sure you should be going alone if you're going out there though. I'm going too." Mike and Dave followed them out the door.

  The four men advanced slowly toward the car in the pouring rain. The car stayed put, its engine softly idling, and curls of white exhaust floating up through the sheets of rain. They stopped about ten feet from the still idling car, and Frank stepped to the front of the small group with the rifle clutched in both hands. He didn't want to seem too threatening, but if whoever was in the Lincoln was up to no good he wanted them to see the rifle.