by Ike Warren
Neither Allan nor Jennifer objected to the gang’s demands and instead turned and crossed through the barricade of cars and walked as fast as they could to get away from the area. As they walked on they passed a few people walking in the opposite direction toward the barricade and they warned them of the danger ahead and pleaded with the people to turn around. Most thanked them for the warning and stopped and headed in a different way. Still others proceeded on down the road towards the barricade without giving their words of caution any consideration. All of those that proceeded toward the direction of the barricade seemed to have long blank stares and the consequences of being robbed by the gang did not seem to concern them.
Chapter 18: The Pond
After a short time they walked under the overpass of I-30 and South Goliad Street and they walked up the eastbound on-ramp to enter the interstate again. With each step the broken sole of Allan’s right shoe made loud flapping noises and occasionally the shoe would bind up against the rough pavement causing Allan to trip.
“That’s not annoying at all.” He said sarcastically as he caught himself once more before falling over his broken shoe.
“It sounds like you’re wearing flip flops.” Jennifer teased.
“Flip flops would be better than this.” He sighed and then he changed the topic. “I’m sorry for losing the bike.”
“There’s nothing you could have done. Those men were setup in a perfect spot to ambush us. Stealing the bike wasn’t the worst thing they could have done.”
“Maybe it’s for the better. I always felt like we had a big target on our backs while we were riding the bike.” Allan admitted. “I think we were bound to cross paths with a situation like that sooner or later.”
“What do you think of the people that didn’t heed our warning about the barricade?”
“I think those people are desperate. They are apparently willing to do anything and face any danger at this point.”
“I can only imagine what they have been through or what they have seen to cause them to just walk straight on into harm’s way like that without giving it a second thought.”
“I fear that the longer we’re out here on the road, the worse it’s going to get.”
After walking along the interstate for a while Allan began to feel his bowels rumble for the first time in days. He remembered a friend from back in high school who had joined the Marines right after graduation. His friend had told him a story about the first couple of weeks of basic training about how no one in the entire boot camp had any bowel movements. His friend said that the rumor among the Marines was that the instructors put something in the food to keep new recruits from crapping on themselves under the intense pressures of boot camp. At the time, Allan believed the story, but now that his body was constipated after the events of the past few days he realized that it was the physical and emotional stresses themselves that messed with those new recruits bowel schedules.
“I’ve got to poop.” Allan announced.
“Well, go.” Jennifer replied.
“I need you to come with me.”
“What, you need me to hold your hand to help you crap? I don’t think so.”
Allan chuckled. “I don’t need you to hold my hand, but I do need you to be nearby. I don’t want us leaving each other’s sides anymore.”
Jennifer sighed and reluctantly agreed to go with him. They stepped off the pavement and headed towards a cluster of trees on the other side of the service road. Allan unzipped his pants but before he squatted down he noticed that Jennifer was staring at him with her arms crossed.
“Don’t look.” He said.
“You were the one who wanted me to come with you.”
“Yeah, but don’t watch me. Watch the highway instead.” He replied and he leaned out over her shoulder and asked for reassurance, “Is anyone coming?”
“I don’t think anyone’s interested in you taking a crap if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Allan sighed and squatted down next to one of the trees and began to relieve himself.
“Someone’s coming!” Jennifer yelled. Allan just about fell over himself trying to get to his feet as Jennifer burst out laughing. “False alarm.” She laughed.
“Not funny.” He replied and he picked up a nearby stick and threw it at her. Jennifer checked her leg where the stick had struck her.
“There better not have been poop on that stick.” She warned.
“I hope there was.” Allan replied matter-of-factly.
Jennifer looked back down at him and began to giggle again. “You really thought someone was coming to get you.”
“No I didn’t.” Yes he did. Being attacked while he was in the middle of taking a crap was always one of his worst fears. He always felt that it was when he was the most vulnerable. As he squatted there on the side of the interstate he began to notice the foul odor emitting from the ground beneath him. A breeze picked up and Jennifer raised her hand to cover her nose.
"That's awful. You should have let me stay on the highway." She said with a nasal tone with her hand covering her nose.
"And leave you there so more thugs can come and attack you? I'd rather you smell my crap. It’s just a small price to pay." He grinned up at her.
"Gee, thanks for the consideration." She said.
"You’re welcome." He replied as he tore at some grass near his feet and began to wipe his rear end. As he reached into the grass to grab another clump he discovered a small tin bowl that was half buried in the dirt. After he cleaned himself as best as he could with the grass he knelt down to inspect the bowl. “Hey, I found something that we might be able to put water in.”
Jennifer was too disgusted from the odors still wafting through the air to appreciate his discovery. The bowl was about the size of a large coffee cup and Allan figured the container would hold at least a couple cups of water. He began to dig his fingers around the perimeter of the bowl in order to free it from the hard soil.
As his fingers dug into the ground Jennifer sighed, “Just leave it and let’s go.”
The bowl was wedged too hard in the dirt and Allan’s fingers were starting to hurt when he became frustrated and gave up trying to retrieve it and he stood up and they turned back towards the road. As they were walking back to the interstate Jennifer noticed something odd about the power lines that hung above them. They were not as taught as normal power lines would appear and they seemed to sag as if most of the tension had been let out of them.
“Why are the power lines droopy?” She asked. Allan looked up wondering what in the world she was talking about. When he looked up and saw the power lines he realized that there was, in fact, something wrong with them. They were all sagging much lower than they normally would and they had a bit of a melted appearance about them. Even the transformers that sat atop the power poles that were normally white were now dark brown and black in places as if they had gotten extremely hot and burnt up. “What do you think happened?” Jennifer asked.
Allan looked ahead and saw that all of the power lines looked the same. He stopped and looked back from where they had just walked and although he hadn’t noticed it before, the power lines behind them looked burnt up and saggy too. “Some kind of effect from the blast I guess.” Allan replied. “It’s almost like there was an enormous surge of power and the lines couldn’t handle it and they burnt up just like the wires in all the cars.”
“If whatever caused this blast can melt power lines like that then the blast…” She paused as she tried to find the right words. “…is much worse than everyone thinks.”
She was right. Allan could imagine the delicate electronics in the cars getting burnt up, but these were high voltage power lines that were designed to handle high electrical current. Whatever caused the blast was on a much larger scale than even he could imagine.
They continued walking and they took turns carrying the baby and once they crossed out of the Rockwall area Jennifer handed him over to Allan once again. When he to
ok the baby into his arms Allan immediately smelled the odor of a dirty diaper-shirt.
“I think he pooped.” Allan announced.
Jennifer pulled the shirt aside to inspect its contents and confirmed Allan’s suspicions. “What now?” She asked.
Allan looked at the fields on either side of the interstate but he did not see any bodies of water nearby. “We’ll have to keep walking until we find a pond or something to wash the shirt out in.”
They walked on and soon they came upon a pasture on the side of the road that had a cluster of trees in the middle of the field. Allan could not see water from his vantage point but he knew from fishing rural stock ponds as a teenager that where there was a cluster of trees in the middle of a field like that it usually meant that there was water nearby. They stepped off the roadway and Allan ducked between two strands of the rusty barbed wire fence that ran parallel to the highway. Jennifer handed Allan the baby and he used his free hand and a foot to pry the fence open for Jennifer to cross through and once she was on the other side she took the baby from him.
As they walked across the field they both felt terrified that the owner of the land might see them and order them off his land or worse, shoot them for trespassing.
As they approached the thick cluster of trees Allan peered in between the mesh of branches and leaves and he was pleased to find that there was indeed a pond hidden between the trees. He moved some of the low lying tree branches out of the way just enough to step closer to the edge of the water as a frightened frog let out a croak and splashed into the water. That reminded Allan to look around and check the area for snakes or other critters that might like to hang out in the cool shade beside the pond. He surveyed the area and saw nothing besides a few dragonflies hovering near the surface of the water. He reached his hand to help Jennifer join him and she took a careful step up to the pond bank. When she got beside him she stopped with a frightened look on her face. Allan spun around expecting to see a snake slithering amongst one of the tree branches but there was nothing there and he turned back to look at Jennifer with a what-the-hell expression on his face.
“You’re standing right in the middle of poison ivy.” She said stepping back into the clearing of the pasture.
Allan turned around and looked at the bushes that he was leaning against. The plants looked like vines with three sets of leaves protruding off the stem. Although Jennifer was clearly alarmed he really didn’t see the harm. When he was younger he had gotten into a patch of poison ivy at his grandfather’s farm but his skin had not broken out and so he never put much thought into trying to identify the plant or staying out of it.
“I’m not allergic to it.” He said as he shrugged his shoulders to dismiss her concerns.
“Most people who aren’t allergic to it end up becoming allergic later in life.” Jennifer cautioned.
“I’ll be fine.”
Jennifer gave him a suit-yourself look and unwrapped the infant out of his swaddling shirt and carefully handed the shirt to Allan while trying not to come in contact with his skin. Allan leaned down and held the soiled fabric near the water.
“Wait.” Jennifer said just as he was about to dip it in the water. “Do you think we could take a drink of the water before you wash your shirt out? I’m so thirsty.”
Allan was pleased with Jennifer’s forethought to get a drink before washing the soiled shirt out, but the pond water looked stagnant. At most of the stock ponds that he remembered fishing at when he was younger there were always muddy open areas lining the pond banks with deep hoof prints littering the spot where livestock would go to drink. This particular pond had no such open areas but was instead completely overgrown with trees all the way around it. He looked up the slope that fed rainwater runoff into the pond and he noticed grey mounds of cow manure spread out across the field. There was obviously livestock in the pasture at one point but there were no signs that they actually drank from the pond.
Allan pointed to the manure mounds uphill, “See all that cow crap in the field? All that runs right down into this pond but it doesn’t look like the cows even drink from this water. I don’t think it would be safe for us to drink from this water either.”
“What if we filtered the water with my shirt?” Jennifer asked.
“I don’t think that would work. I think your shirt is too porous and would still let bacteria or viruses or whatever through. “
“We could try boiling it. What about that container that you found in the ditch when you were pooping?”
“You really want to backtrack to get that bowl to boil this nasty water in? What if when we get it out of the hard ground we find that it is rusted with holes on the other side? Never mind how we’re actually going to build a fire in the first place?”
Jennifer put her hand on her chin as she always did when she was thinking something over, “I guess you could work on building the fire first. If it works then we can go back and get the bowl.”
“What do you mean, I can build the fire? How? By rubbing two sticks together? I don’t know anything about making primitive fires.”
Jennifer smiled, "Cavemen were able to do it. Why can’t you?" She leaned in close to give him a playful nudge but she remembered that he was contaminated with poison ivy and she stopped herself before coming in contact with him.
"Well I guess I could give it a try." Allan said and he began to look around to find some sticks to use. When he had found what he was looking for amongst the trees and he arranged the sticks into a pile on the pond bank and when he was finished he stopped and stared at the arrangement.
"You don't know what you're doing, do you?" Jennifer asked.
"Not really. I've never made a fire from just sticks before. I can't decide if I'm supposed to twist the sticks between my hands or rub them together or what?"
"You should do what Tom Hanks did in the movie Cast Away."
"The air got to it!" Allan shouted, startling Jennifer and she looked at him like he was crazy. "That's what he said when he made the fire."
“Oh I got the movie reference just fine.” Jennifer giggled.
Allan looked around the trees some more and found a piece of wood that had a similar crack in it to let the air in like what was in the movie to use as a base. He found another stick that was straight enough to use to rub the two pieces of wood together to hopefully generate enough friction to create an ember. He began rubbing the pieces of wood vigorously at first but his arms quickly grew tired and his pace slowed. No smoke was produced after 10 minutes of the vigorous rubbing and he lifted the piece of wood in his hand to see if it was hot. Although the tip of the stick was warm it was nowhere near hot enough to create an ember. He tried again for a few more minutes but the results were the same and when he checked for an ember a second time and discovered that there was none he tossed the pieces of wood into the water in frustration.
"Maybe the wood was too damp?" Jennifer suggested, seeing that her husband was aggravated.
Allan looked back at the pieces of wood that were floating in the water. "Well if they weren’t too wet before they sure as hell are now." He sighed.
Jennifer smiled to show her appreciation that Allan had at least tried, though seeing the sticks floating in the water made her realize the gravity of their situation. She was terribly thirsty and she desperately needed to hydrate herself for the sake of both her and her baby. She took her shirt off and gave it to Allan with instructions to dip it into the water. Allan looked at the shirt and noticed how the pristine the new clothes that she had put on to go to the mall just a few days ago now looked haggard and dirty. He looked at her and saw that her bra had faded from pure white to a dingy gray and her pants were smeared with all the stains absorbed from their journey. Her body looked much thinner than before and he wondered if it was because her abdomen was beginning to return back to normal after having the baby or if it was her lack of nutrition and all the exercise over the past few days. He realized that it was a combination of both and he yearn
ed to get her home quickly so that she could care for and nurture her body in the way a nursing mother should do.
He leaned down and dipped her shirt into the water and gave it back to her without asking why. He expected that she was going to use the wet rag to dab against the baby's skin to give him a sponge bath but instead she raised the wet shirt high above her head and she squeezed it and let the water trickle down into her mouth.
"What are you doing!" Allan exclaimed. Jennifer did not acknowledge his question but instead kept drinking. “What about bacteria or viruses in the water?” He asked flabbergasted.
Jennifer finished wringing out the last drops of water from the shirt and she looked back at him. “Well, hopefully the shirt helped to filter some of that out. If not, well, I have to drink and like you said back at the lake, if I get sick then we’ll just have to deal with that later.”
