by Ryan King
There’s your way out, a voice said in his head. It’s the only way out you’re going to get. What do you have to live for anyway? You really want another day of this?
Walking slowly, Ernest approached the table and gingerly picked up the pistol. It felt good in his hand. .45s always had. Berettas and the new fangled handguns that tried to cram as many rounds into the magazine as possible had never appealed to him. It made the butt of the pistol too large. Unless you were a freaking wookie, you couldn’t really control a pistol with a butt like a can of corn.
But a .45 was different. It fit into your hand like a caress. Maybe even like an old friend.
There was a loud knock on the door.
Ernest turned slowly towards the door and clinched the pistol tightly at his side.
“That better not be you, Dale,” Ernest yelled, striding towards the door. “I told you not to come back here. No one’s getting any damn taxes from me. Not now, not ever again.”
He yanked open the door and pointed the pistol in the face of a dead man.
There stood a bald, slumped figure with hallow eyes. He didn’t even react to the pistol in his face.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The man licked his lips and coughed. It was obvious that talking was painful to the man. “Sergeant Major Givens.”
“Yeah, do I know you?”
This resulted in a slight smile. “It’s me. Sergeant Booker.”
It took a minute for Ernest to place the name. He had known a Sergeant Booker. The man who had fought with him in Paducah and helped him take the refugees across the river and then back into Kentucky, but that couldn’t be this man. This man was one hundred and fifty years older and twelve suit sizes smaller.
The man nodded as if he could read Ernest’s mind. “It’s me.” He then walked straight ahead at Ernest without asking to be let in, and Ernest was forced to step aside to keep the man from running into him.
Ernest looked after him in disbelief. He could now recognize the face somewhere down deep in there, but Sergeant Booker? He realized that all the time he had spent with the man he didn’t even know his first name. Or maybe he did and had just forgotten. If Melanie had been here, she would have told him that was typical.
Booker pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down in the small kitchen.
Closing the front door, Ernest laid the pistol back on the table beside his chair and went to sit across from Booker.
“You want some water or something?”
He waved the offer away.
“What happened?”
“Radiation poisoning,” Booker said. “After we made it back across the river into Kentucky, I went down to see my mom near Fulton. We were far enough away that the blast didn’t get us, but the radiation did. Probably from drinking the water afterwards, they say, but the truth is no one knows.”
“And your mother?”
“She’s gone. Didn’t go very nicely either. Radiation sickness is a very bad way to go.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. What are they doing for you?”
Booker’s mouth tuned up with the barest hint of a smile. “There’s nothing anyone can do. Probably only got a few weeks left, and those won’t be very pleasant days. The nurse who was seeing me was an angel and gave me a killer dose of morphine. Said it was the last she had. I’ll hold out as long as I can, but won’t go like my mom did.”
Ernest sat there, uncertain what to say or do. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Believe it or not, I’m not the only one. There’re hundreds like me. Down in camps around Fulton.”
“Really? I didn’t know.”
“Most don’t. It ain’t pretty, and there’s not much people can do about it now. Not after our own did this to us.”
Ernest sat quietly. He knew what David Taylor had done. Everyone assumed it was Nathan who had sent him. You had to be one cold-hearted bastard to send your own son to do something like that.
“Is this what we fought for?” Booker asked, looking around the room. “This?”
Looking around the trashy room, Ernest saw it as it really was for the first time in weeks. He remembered now that he was nearly naked and felt embarrassed, but didn’t want to leave this man to go put on more clothes.
“Yeah, it sucks, but what are you gonna do?” Ernest asked.
“Change it. Find a way to make it better. At least take the power away from those who don’t deserve it.”
“What do you mean?”
Booker sighed and looked at Ernest with those hollow eyes. “There’s a lot of people who remember what you did for them, and they’re grateful. Thousands would have died if you hadn’t saved them. What has Reggie Phillips ever done? What has Nathan Taylor ever done?”
Ernest shook his head. “I’m afraid I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lots of people aren’t happy about what is going on. They feel it’s time for a change, but there just aren’t any other valid options. As it stands now, Reggie Phillips will win the new presidency in a landslide, and then Nathan Taylor will take over for him in a few years. They’ll keep using us all and looking out for themselves long after the both of us are gone.”
“I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. I’ve been a leader myself and know it sometimes takes tough choices.”
“Don’t talk to me about fair,” said Booker with a hint of anger. “Go down to those camps around Fulton and talk to them. Talk to my mother or Major Myers or the hundreds of children dying by inches. I mean, what did they all die for? So one man can rule us unchecked?”
Ernest stood and went to the sink. He looked for a clean glass and couldn’t find one in all the mess and felt revolted by his own home. He finally settled on what looked like a mason jar that wasn’t hideous and filled it with water from the tap. Ernest drank slowly, staring out the window at his small backyard.
“Even if you don’t agree with me...with all of us...about what they have done, do you really think it’s a good idea to have an election with only one candidate?”
“Of course not,” said Ernest, turning, “but look at me. Do I really look like the man for the job?”
“Not at this very moment, no.”
“So?”
“So, you get your shit together. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. The Sergeant Major Givens I knew was better than this. Do something.”
Ernest stood there, looking at the shell of the man in front of him, and wanted to be angry, but couldn’t. “Excuse me,” he finally said and walked into his bedroom and threw on a t-shirt and some jeans. As he was leaving, he saw the broken mirror and glass bottle.
I am better than this. Oh dear God, please let me be better than this, or I’m going to die in here.
He walked back in and stood at the sink again, gazing absently out the window. “What exactly is it you’re asking me to do?”
“We’re asking you to put your name on the ballot to run as JP President. That’s all. Others will take care of the rest. It may also help if you made some effort to win.”
“Against Reggie Phillips? Like that’s going to happen. That man is a god around here.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. You don’t think he’s made mistakes? Did you listen to his last radio broadcast?”
Ernest shook his head.
Booker looked like he wanted to say something else, but just sort of deflated. He stood slowly, with difficulty, and turned towards the door.
“You leaving?”
Booker nodded. “Not much time left now, and I did what I set out to do.”
Ernest opened the front door for him, and now saw a group of people waiting by the curb with what looked like a bed on wheels.
“Let me know if there is anything I can do for you,” Ernest said.
“I already have,” answered Booker. “Goodbye, Sergeant Major. It cost me a lot to come up here; please don’t make it have been in vain.”
Ernest watched the dead man who used to be one of his soldiers slowly
shuffle away.
Chapter 11 – Dangerous By-Ways
The next morning, Trailer roused Simon from the corner of the small shed they had rented for the night. Simon offered to split an MRE with the big man, who eagerly accepted. They then packed their belongings and walked down to the courthouse square.
The street was quiet and filled with shadows from the barest hint of the sun to the east. Simon thought his town looked almost normal in this light. He could imagine that it was maybe the morning after the annual peach blossom festival or possible following a few small tornados.
“We’re early,” said Simon, looking to the east. “You told the girl dawn.”
“She’ll be there anyway,” Trailer said. “Probably been there for hours already.”
“How do you know?”
“Didn’t you see her? She’d welcome anything different at this point.”
“That’s a common feeling I’ve noticed.”
The big man was right. They saw a small two-wheeled handcart loaded down with what were presumably bags of dried rice, covered by a ragged piece of blue tarp. The cart rested on its two long pull poles. The small woman sat under the cart, her back resting against a small pack, and she looked out at them.
“Good morning,” said Simon.
She just glared back at them.
“Guess your daddy didn’t feel the need to come see you off,” said Trailer.
The woman climbed from under the cart and pulled the pack out behind her.
“What’s your name, girl?” Trailer asked.
“What’s yours?” she asked back at them, strapping her pack to the side of the cart.
Trailer shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m Horace, but everyone calls me Trailer, not sure why. And this is Simon.”
“I’m Jessica,” she said.
“Excellent,” said Trailer, pointing with his stick east. “Let’s get started.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be going north?” Simon asked.
“Only if Mud Island is your destination,” the big man answered.
Simon watched the big man stride away and then turned to see Jessica struggle to lift the wooden pull tongues off the ground and work herself into a leather harness. She then leaned all of her weight forward with the cart wheels moved ever so slightly.
He went around to the back and gave the cart a helpful push that speeded her along.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked without stopping. Her legs were in motion and the cart was moving surprisingly fast now.
Simon jogged to catch up to her. “Just helping.”
She cut her eyes at him, her face straining. “And just what do you expect in return for helping me?”
Taken aback, Simon stopped walking for a second and then had to jog again to catch up to her. “I don’t expect anything, just helping.”
Jessica chuckled and pushed a strand of black hair out of her face. “I may not have traveled all over like you two, but I know enough to know help is never free.”
Sure it is, Simon almost said, but then thought. Did he want something from her? Sure, he thought she was pretty. Would he help her if she were an old hag? Probably, but that didn’t change that he was interested in her. Being interested in another person was a new sensation for Simon, and he liked the feeling.
“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.
“Not as old as I feel,” she sighed. “How about you?”
Simon had to calculate in his head. “I turned twenty-six last month.”
“Congratulations,” she said. “Living another year is a bigger accomplishment than it used to be.”
He looked at her again as she strained against the straps attached to the cart. “Why didn’t your father come instead of you?”
“He’s not allowed to depart our field this time of year. Besides, we couldn’t leave our home unguarded. Someone would come in and take it. If he had come and I stayed, that would just invite people to...bother me.”
“Are you going to miss your father?”
“No,” she answered.
“Why not?”
She didn’t answer and then began to pull harder. “Just shut up for a while, will you?”
Simon did and walked beside her.
*******
After several hours of walking east, they turned north at an intersection. The roads north passed through several small towns, some completely abandoned and picked clean, others occupied with various degrees of neighborliness towards outsiders. In each case, Trailer did all the talking and appeared very adept at soothing suspicions and calming itchy trigger fingers. Most of the big roads were still packed with stalled cars, and it was at times difficult to get the handcart down the middle path between abandoned cars or on one of the road shoulders. Despite her declaration of not needing any help, both Simon and Trailer at times had pushed the cart through particularly rough patches.
Trailer avoided the big roads most of the time, and they followed a bewildering maze of turns and twists from hardtop to gravel to dirt back to gravel and so on. Once they saw a long line of men and women attached to each other by a chain connected through padlocked dog collars on their necks. Most were in rags and had their hands tied together in front of them. Their eyes were downcast and steps shuffling.
“Are those actual slaves or something?” Simon asked.
“Criminals,” said Simon. “No one can afford to run a jail or prison where people just sit on their ass and eat free food all day. If that were the case, we’d all find a way to get in there. They’ll work for awhile and then be released. The chain boss there probably had to pay a good deal to get ownership, and now he gets to keep any proceeds from labor they earn.”
“How dangerous are they?” asked Jessica.
Trailer looked after them. “Probably not too much. Thieves and vagrants mostly. The dangerous ones they just execute.”
Occasionally, there was a road block with armed men where they would demand a toll or safe passage payment. Sometimes, Trailer was able to talk his way through without paying, but most of the time, he would turn to Simon or Jessica and tell them to give him something from what they had for the payment.
“Don’t you have anything to give them?” Jessica asked once.
Trailer smiled, measuring out a cup of rice from an open bag on her cart. “They don’t want anything I got.”
They camped at night in abandoned gas stations or homes or just out in the open if they had to. Trailer was careful about banking their fire so it couldn’t be seen from very far away. The first night Jessica had said she needed to go into the woods to go to the bathroom.
“I’ll come with you,” Simon had offered.
“Do I follow you around and watch you pee?” she asked him.
Trailer chuckled. “She’s got you there, I guess. Just don’t go far, and if you’re not back in five minutes, I’ll come looking for you.”
Over a number of days, they seemed to settle into a routine that involved mostly mind-numbing walking and then exhausted sleep at the end of the day. Simon had woken up once in the middle of the night to see Trailer sitting by the fire leaned against his pack. His stick was beside him and a pistol rested in his lap. The big man was staring right at him with unblinking eyes.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” he asked.
Trailer appeared to rouse himself. “What? What is it?”
“I asked if you ever sleep?”
“Hell, I was sleeping till you woke me.”
Weird, Simon thought, and rolled back over to try and rest but found himself staring at Jessica’s sleeping form. He realized it was difficult not to look at her face, especially when she was sleeping and not on guard. Her dark hair fell around a petite, almond-shaped face with full lips, narrow nose, and large eyes. When she breathed, she let out the very faintest of snores. Simon thought it would be impossible to sleep while looking at her, but the next he knew it was sunrise and Trailer was kicking them all awake.
They saw a few other travelers on
the road, some of them even in the company of their own guides. Trailer either exchanged greetings or insults with these as they moved in opposite directions.
Trailer appeared to get more nervous the further north they proceeded. Several strange painted symbols on trees or buildings seemed to particularly concern him, and as often as not, whenever Simon or Jessica said anything, he would tell them to shut up in a hushed voice.
“What are we worried about, exactly?” Simon asked Trailer one night around a fire.
Trailer looked up from where he had been staring into the fire. He stared at both Simon and Jessica’s expectant faces and sighed. Pointing west, he said, “Memphis is that way. Still a little hot. No one knows how much, but its best to steer clear.” He then hooked a thumb over his shoulder east. “Over there is the Creek Nation. Haven’t run into them myself yet, but word is they take it very badly if you’re caught on their land. That leaves us a very narrow corridor.”
“It seems okay so far,” said Jessica.
“You seen those signs?” Trailer asked. “The ones with the pentagrams and those with what looks like a knife?”
“I thought that was an upside-down cross,” Simon said.
“Well, none of them are good artists. They’re rival gangs, the Road Devils and the Cossacks, in a turf war over this valuable little corridor. They were both motorcycle gangs at one time, but now there’s not enough gasoline, so they roam on foot, which makes them more dangerous.”
“Why’s that?” Jessica asked.
“Because you used to be able to hear their motorcycles coming.”
“Can’t you pay a toll and get through?” Simon asked.
“Used to, when only one group was in control, but now that neither really owns the roads, each feels the need to take everything they can from a traveler knowing the opposing group will do the same. I used to go east around them, but the Indians have that locked up now.”
“So we’re trying to thread the needle between two dangerous elements that will both likely rob us or worse if they catch us?” Simon asked.
“That’s about right,” answered Trailer.
