Lang could see that the gunman’s hands shook as he pointed the gun first at Lang, then at Peter, then back at Lang again. Despite his superior position, the man was afraid and his fear caused his hands—and therefore the gun—to shake uncontrollably. Peter and Natasha did not see the man at first, as they fought through the branches, and Lang had to alert them, tapping Peter on the arm and indicating toward the gunman in the trees.
“Okay, okay, okay…” Lang said loudly, but calmly, bringing his hands up to show that he was unarmed. As he did this, Peter, and then Natasha, looked up and saw the man with the gun, and the woman behind him. Natasha instinctively dropped to the ground as if she were on fire. She brought her hands up as best she could into the air, though her face remained buried in the snow.
The quick motion spooked the gunman, and with a terrified squeal more than a shout he hollered for the trio to “freeze!” which they all did instantly. Natasha steeled her nerves and pulled her face out of the snow, straining to look up into the gunman’s eyes. Peter raised his hands slowly, and Lang tried to clear his thoughts and take in a fuller picture of what was going on.
The man is not going to shoot, Lang thought. Not on purpose, and not unless he is provoked. The young man with the gun was scared, and Lang determined that he wasn’t a killer. Judging from the look in his eye and the uncertainty with which he held them through the scope, he wasn’t going to murder them in cold blood. He might kill one of us on accident, though.
“Easy there,” Lang said, firmly. “Easy with the gun. We’re unarmed. Just take your finger off the trigger for a second, and let’s talk. We don’t want anyone getting hurt because a muscle twitches in all this excitement.”
It was not true that they were completely unarmed. Peter still had the Ruger 9mm pistol in the pocket of his coat, but the man with the rifle didn’t know that.
The man obediently took his finger off the trigger, actually moving his head from behind the scope and looking at the trigger guard to see if his gloved finger was clear. He wasn’t planning on shooting anyone; this Lang knew, and the knowledge allowed him to relax his body slightly.
“Easy there, and thank you for not shooting us.” Lang didn’t move, and made no motion as if he were going to approach. No need to be foolish. However certain he was that the man was harmless, at least in his intentions, Lang wasn’t taking anything for granted.
Lang concentrated and put on the best New England accent he could muster, though it wasn’t great. “Okay, pal. We’re just moving through, here. We’re just trying to get home, and we’re unarmed and we’re not going to hurt anybody. We’re not even going to approach you. Do you understand me?”
Peter looked at Lang and communicated wordlessly that it would be a simple thing to rush the man, to pull him down from the branch and disarm him, but Lang slowly closed his eyes, silently saying “No.” The two men agreed without saying a word.
The gunman nodded, and the woman next to him huddled closer behind him, as if she were a little less sure of the group’s lack of harmful intent. “Just keep moving!” he shouted. “Don’t make me shoot anyone!” He tried to make the words sound ominous and threatening, but Lang could hear the desperate uncertainty in his voice.
“We don’t want you to shoot anyone either, bro,” Lang said, calmly. “We’re just going to walk on. You’re welcome to come with us, if you want. We’re heading towards Pennsylvania.”
“Yeah?” the man said, with a voice that suddenly betrayed a hint of a sneer. “Well, you can have that!” He looked at them as if they would understand, but they didn’t. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near the highway if I were you. It’s a bloodbath over there.” This seemed to be all he was willing to give them as far as explanation, as if his reasons were too painful to discuss. He rattled his gun again. “You guys keep walking or I’ll shoot, I swear!” There was a little more certainty this time, seen in the steadying of the gun.
“Okay, man,” Lang said, nodding his head as he reached down to help Natasha lift herself out of the snow. He pulled on her with one hand and she was able to rise up. She dusted the snow off her coat and shook her legs as she did. Lang kept his other hand up, and he whispered to Natasha to quit dusting herself and raise her hands. She did so and then the trio backed slowly away. As soon as they were thirty feet or so past the shooter, they began moving faster, and soon they were over the next rise.
“How did you know he was harmless?” Natasha asked, after they had walked for a moment.
“He didn’t know what he was doing with that gun. Probably never shot it before. I’m not even sure it was loaded. He just wanted to scare us off. He was scared out of his mind. Probably peed himself.”
“I almost did too,” Natasha said. “I’m glad he just wanted to frighten us, but I don’t understand people. I’ve never been so afraid in my life… except… maybe when Mikail shot Todd Karagin.” Her hands shook as she wiped the melted snow from her face.
“Let’s try not to make that mistake again,” Peter said, exhaling deeply. He peered ahead into their path with a little more intention.
“You’re right, Peter,” Lang replied. “But we may not always have warning—and we may not always meet people who don’t know which end of the rifle to hold. It’ll get tougher when we cross 17 and get into farm country.”
“Don’t scare me any more than I am already, Lang,” Natasha said in protest.
If one listened closely, in that protest could be heard the faintest beginnings of strength.
****
After several more uneventful hours of walking, Peter called them to a stop with a motion of his hand, and they gathered near a rocky outcropping, and took some time once again to look at the map and compare it with the compass.
“We look to be right in this area,” Peter said, circling a section on the map with his finger. “We’ll be to Highway 17 in two to three hours if all goes well and the conditions hold up.” He turned and looked towards the sun, which was already past its apex, and he held his open hand with the top of his index finger just under the sun facing westward, and then moved his hand downwards four fingers width. He did this several times, then, adding a finger and a half for the hilly terrain, he turned to the others and told them that it seemed to him to be after 1 p.m. “Maybe 1:30,” he added.
“Well,” Lang said, “I guess we’re making good time?”
“Good enough,” Peter answered. “When we get near the highway—anywhere within a mile or so—we’re going to want to go very slowly and use all of our senses. Like the gunman in the trees said, the highway might be really rough, and we don’t want to get caught up in anything.”
The three pulled off their packs, and Peter let out a deep sigh when he dropped his to the ground. Of the three, he carried the heaviest load since his pack had the ammo can with the electronic equipment in it. In his mind he lamented his poor physical shape and was kicking himself for not getting more exercise. He felt the cramping in his muscles and reckoned that he would be sore and miserable for at least the first week of their journey.
They opened the ammo can and pulled out the radio. Peter put in the batteries and tried to tune in anything… anything at all… but all he heard was a vacant and incessant buzzing, the vacuous chorus from all the ambient electricity in the universe.
The three pulled out some of their food, and ate quickly, and Peter ate while standing guard. They all took deep breaths while stomping occasionally to ward off the cold. The three travelers were grateful for the rest, but the cold and the light in the sky gave them reasons to keep moving.
By around 4:30 p.m., they were within a half-mile of the highway and they occasionally heard the random blast or sharp staccato of gunfire. Their current location, because of the thickness of the forest, didn’t seem to be a regular path of ingress or egress to the highway, though they had crossed a few places where it had become obvious that masses of people had diverted from the highway as they set off into the forest. Peter told them that he wanted t
hem to stay away from any areas that had become cattle paths for escaping humans.
They moved slower now and with purpose, and, though they were still in the trees, the land was flatter here. There were fewer places for natural cover. They crept along slowly, spread out five to ten yards apart, and each covered and watched a given area. They moved in short hops as they made forward progress slowly.
By 5:30 p.m., they were within fifty yards of the highway and the gunfire had slackened, but only a bit, and now they heard the almost indescribable din of human traffic and misery. The sound was like a wailing that came in around the window on a cold winter’s night, a dull cacophony of random shouts and the background sound of feet shuffling and dragging, and the cries of pain and suffering. All in all it sounded like one imagines hell to sound, but maybe not down in the very deepest dungeons. Maybe up at the front, near the check-in desk, where they keep things nicer for the tourists.
It was entering early evening, and the shadows had grown long, and darkness—not full darkness, but the gloaming—would be upon them soon. They still had not seen any people, but in the distance, over the horizon to the south, they could see smoke rising, and they still heard sporadic gunfire, and they were frightened, though none of them spoke of this fear aloud. Instead, they clenched their jaws and waited for the night.
****
They approached the highway access road through the trees, and, crawling slowly through the snow, they peered out over the war zone that Highway 17 had become. There were cars on fire, smoke filled the air, and a gauzy fog hung ominously in the ether. Masses of people moved by like soldiers in full retreat, solemn in their drudgery. Occasionally, fights broke out in little pockets of disturbance, like dust devils swirling across the desert floor in a sweltering heat – only it was cold, and the sound reached them through the icy air like sharp reports or echoes.
The trio looked on helplessly as armed gangs opened fire on groups of the marching people. They watched as mothers, pulling carts with their children and belongings in them, were pushed to the ground by human animals so that unspeakable acts could be committed. They saw men beaten without provocation or limitation. Gunfire erupted so often, and with such alacrity, that in every way imaginable the three Warwickians could only describe what they were viewing from their vantage point as a massive, running gun battle the likes of which they’d only heard from the safety of their houses when the civil war had broken out in Warwick. Only Natasha had been out in the street during that battle; she swallowed and felt a bitter empathy for the people below.
To the right, northward up the highway but still in their view, a group of men rocked a van loaded with people, and the van eventually overturned, and the men hopped up on it and stomped at the windows until the glass shattered on the occupants inside. They reached their arms into the van and ripped the doors open, pulling the occupants out violently. A few of their victims inside the vehicle escaped and ran up the highway, slipping in the snow, trying to disappear among the crowds. Others, thrown to the ground, lay haplessly while the vandals stomped them and struck them with sticks, rods, or anything else that was at hand. The gang then rifled through the van, stealing whatever they could, before moving on to the next car and repeating the scene.
A high-powered rifle shot rang out from somewhere and one of the gang members fell to the ground, then another shot rang and another thug fell. The crack of the rifles echoed through the clearing like a gong. The surviving gang members took off running northward, leaving their dead comrades behind.
In the distance, there arose a mechanical growl of grinding machinery rolling over the boisterous frenzy, and the three turned their heads to see what could be making such a noise. Eventually they saw it. A line of military vehicles, evidently spared or shielded from the worst of the EMP, crawled clumsily up the highway from the south, and most of the vehicles had guns mounted on the top of them. Soldiers, probably National Guardsmen, perched on top of the vehicles, operating the guns. Quite often though, the gunners disappeared because they ducked down whenever gunfire erupted from some unseen attackers.
The convoy moved slowly but did not stop for anything, and groups of people ran alongside, pawing at the metal of the vehicles. Occasionally someone would try to climb up the outside of the armor, whereupon a shot would ring out from a trailing vehicle and, like a flea picked cleanly off the dog, the climber would slink to the ground and be trampled underfoot by the crowd.
The vehicles slowed a few times, and when they did, the crowds would clench around them, forcing the convoy to push forward again, clearing abandoned and crippled cars in their path by pushing them to the side as they advanced. This give-and-take uncertainty caused the mass of crowd and metal to be intermingled, and sometimes when the convoy picked up steam it would lurch quickly and run over something, or someone, lying in the road.
Heedless, or perhaps spellbound and in shock, other refugees along the highway kept up their march, heads bowed and gathered tightly in packs, their children huddled in the midst of them. These people didn’t even look up to notice the bodies of the dead and the dying. Screams broke through the cold air like glass breaking, but the packs of humans huddled even more closely together, shuffling like zombies into the coming night.
The trio sat under the cover of trees and watched the scene in its horrifying extremity. Lang looked down and wondered how they would ever get across the highway. It is odd where minds go for answers in such moments. Lang unsnapped his backpack and lowered it slowly to the ground. He wondered for a moment if there was anything in Clay’s bag that would provide them a solution, or perhaps comfort, in the present situation. Maybe Walt Whitman, or Hemingway, or C.L. Richter had some advice for crossing through a war zone highway… for passing through death, he thought.
Probably not…
From Walt Whitman:
Allons! through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.
Have the past struggles succeeded?
What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?
Now understand me well- it is provided in the essence of things that
from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth
something to make a greater struggle necessary.
My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,
He going with me must go well arm'd,
He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies,
desertions.
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe- I have tried it- my own feet have tried it well- be not
detain'd!
CHAPTER 20
Prophecy is a funny thing, but not for the reasons one usually assumes. Of course, there is the humorous aspect of it in the common mind, with its messengers in sackcloth, pulling the twigs out of their beards as they stand before the people like mad messengers of doom. That is funny as far as it goes. And it is funny that no prophet is received in his own homeland. It would seem that the people should be more likely to accept the word of someone they know rather than someone they don’t, perhaps especially so if they knew the courage required to stand up and warn one’s neighbors. However, this is distinctly not true with prophets. The people would rather they go warn somebody else and leave them be with their pesky opinions.
No. All of that is true, but none of it is the reason that prophecy is funny. Rather, it is funny because prophecy often tells us one thing, but we distinctly hear something else. It is as if God in heaven decided to give us a message, and chose to do it through one of our fellows. Somewhere along the line, the message is garbled, like in those games we played as children where we sat in a circle and passed some sentence around, so that the last person heard something totally different from the original intended message.
Couldn’t God, if he were inclined to give us a message, find a more suitable way than to pass it through gossip? Couldn’t the people be saved from their vices if they
were simply inclined to listen a little better, perhaps to see with their own eyes?
Of course not. Because prophecy, by definition, is pointing to something that hasn’t happened yet. And we, in our moment, only see what affects us in our immediate space. Everything that hasn’t happened yet to us is speculative in our eyes.
That was the case with Lang as he sat as still as he possibly could, pressing his head against the stone wall, feeling its cold against his temple. His memory suddenly flashed to a prophecy given by his hero, the great writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. “The next war...” Solzhenitsyn said, “…may well bury Western civilization forever.” That should have suggested to him the larger picture of the wider world. It should have made him remember the long talks with Volkhov in which the old man had told him of impending worldwide calamity.
Instead, as he sat nursing his bullet wound, trying not to cry out in pain, all he could think about was how “western civilization” had come, in his own mind at that moment, to equate with him—just him. That somehow he was the entire focus and culmination of history. Being wounded, and living through it, had a way of drawing a man inward, and as he sucked in his breath and felt the tug as Peter stanched the blood, he wondered whether the war that was around him would bury him like it seemed to be burying western civilization.
****
The crossing of Highway 17 hadn’t gone smoothly. They’d decided from their vantage point at the tree line overlooking the road that they would move as silently as possible up the highway access road, camouflaged within the thick stands of trees that pushed up against the clearing. They were looking for a better place to cross. Peter explained that they wanted to make their move sometime after dark, and they looked for a place where the clearing between the trees narrowed and the crowd thinned somewhat.
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