The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

  Our vehicle was filling up fast, so I put the driver’s side portion of the backseat down to open up more space in the cargo area. I couldn’t do this for the passenger side because of Jay’s car seat.

  As I worked, I noticed that Claire had finished her morning preparations and was watching me from the open back door. I glanced at her as I came back from rummaging around in the back of the SUV. She didn’t look happy, but I didn’t care.

  I walked over and handed her a medium-sized cardboard box, “Grab all your diabetic supplies and as many toiletries as you can fit into this box – contact solution, medicine, toilet paper, whatever you think we might need.”

  “John…” she started in one of her more exasperated tones.

  “Too busy,” I waved her away as I blew past her and back inside the house.

  Next up I headed to the bedroom. I grabbed some blankets, a couple pillows, and a variety of clothing for myself and Jason, some of which included certain winter items like gloves and hats and a pair of hiking boots for both of us. I threw the stuff into black plastic garbage bags.

  Claire was in the hallway; she looked miserable as she quietly loaded toiletries into the box I had given her.

  “Hope you know I’m not going to help you put all this stuff away when we get home,” she said in her best “I’m pissed” tone.

  “After you’re done with that,” I said, ignoring her attitude and handing her a trash bag, “pack yourself a bag with clothes – both summer and winter – and some good boots.”

  She stayed silent, but I knew she had heard me.

  After I’d loaded our bedding and clothes, I finished packing the back cargo area of the SUV with the camping gear and did some rearranging to make sure the 5-gallon gas tank was secure. The last thing I needed was the tank tipping over and leaving everything soaked and stinking of gas. Talk about Claire being pissed! Then I did a re-check of the items I’d strapped atop the vehicle’s luggage rack.

  I was sure I was forgetting things, but I knew that for as hard as I tried, I couldn’t plan for every eventuality.

  Claire finally ambled out with her bag of clothes. Her hiking boots – tied together by their laces – were slung over her shoulder. She dropped the supplies beside me at the back of the car, turned silently around, and stalked back to the house.

  “Just think of it as a fun weekend camping trip,” I called to her, putting her gear into one of the last open spaces I had inside the cargo area. “I’ll put everything away when we get home, so don’t worry about that.”

  “No place I’d rather spend a hot, sticky summer weekend than camping in desolate southern Illinois,” she stopped at the back door, turning around and cocking her head, a deadpan expression on her face.

  I gave her a big toothy smile as she whirled back around and walked inside the house.

  I finished packing and then headed inside myself. I found Claire with Jay in his room playing a stacking game with his blocks.

  “Does Jay get to bring anything?” she asked.

  “Uh…sure,” I said. I walked over to his closet and took out a small backpack. “Here,” I handed it to her. “Help him pick out a few of his favorite toys and books and one small stuffed animal.

  She nodded and silently took the backpack from me.

  I went back into the kitchen and flipped the television on to the news as I finished up my last few preparations.

  Baseball scores were being reviewed along with yesterday’s highlights. After sports wrapped up, there was a short piece about commuter train holiday schedules for the Labor Day weekend. This was followed by a brief snippet about hand-washing precautions while on the trains or in public areas accompanied by a brief statement from the commuter rail lines that they would have hand sanitizer dispensers on all trains due to concerns related to the recent flu strain.

  I fished some paper plates and plastic silverware that we kept for picnics and barbeques out of a nearby drawer as an afterthought and set them on the table next to the back door. The next news piece was about Labor Day weekend events taking place downtown and in the surrounding suburbs.

  It was all routine stuff. Everything seemed fine.

  But for my family, it was time to go.

  2:30 p.m.

  “We’ll be there soon, Jay,” I said, gritting my teeth while glaring into the rearview mirror. “Just hold it until then.”

  “I don’t see what the big hurry is,” Clare looked at me from the passenger seat. “We’re far enough outside Chicago that you shouldn’t be worried. I think I’ve counted seven cars in the last five miles. No one’s out here.”

  “It’s not that I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I’m just sick of driving. We’ve stopped enough, and we’re almost there. Plus, there’s nowhere to stop out here anyway. We’re in the middle of bumfuck.”

  “Fine,” Claire huffed. “And watch your mouth,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Momeeee…” Jay whined. “Pee-pee. Pee-pee now, please!”

  “John, I saw a sign for a gas station a few miles back. We’ve got to be getting close to it by now. Can’t we just stop? We’ve been doing so well with potty training, and he’s asking like a big boy. I don’t want him having an accident when he’s been trying so hard.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, if the place is open, we’ll stop. If not, we keep going.”

  “Deal,” Claire nodded. “Hear that?” she said, swiveling in her seat to face Jason. “Just a few more minutes my little big man.”

  “Maybe,” I muttered.

  It was another two miles of desolate woodland before we found the gas station that Claire had seen the sign for earlier. I had no idea if it was open.

  I slowed, pulling off the state highway and into the parking lot. We were the only car in sight.

  “Is it open?” Claire frowned.

  I gave her a shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t see anyone around, but we can give it a shot.”

  Claire shivered. “Place gives me the creeps.”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “Reminds me of one of those horror movies we used to watch before Jay was born. Perfect setting and everything.”

  I pulled up to one of the two gas pumps and killed the engine. “Well, the pumps are working, and it looks like the lights are on inside the station. I’ll fill up with gas if you want to take Jay to the potty,” I grinned at her.

  “No way!” she scoffed. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going in there alone.”

  “Oh come on,” I grinned. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Uh huh, that’s what they always say in those movies,” she retorted, wide-eyed. “How about, I’ll get the gas, and you take Jay to the potty.”

  “Will do,” I shrugged. “Some hatched-wielding psycho comes charging out of the woods though, and you’re on your own.”

  “Thanks,” Claire frowned.

  “Come on, Jay man,” I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. I was hit by a blast of hot, humid air. It was in sharp contrast to the coolness of our air-conditioned SUV.

  “Ugh,” both Claire and I exclaimed at almost the same time as we exited the vehicle.

  Claire tugged at her shirt as a sort of makeshift fan, her tongue wagging out. “Great weather for a weekend camping trip,” she moaned, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I’ll just sleep in the car with the air conditioning on.”

  I ignored the comments, and she began pumping fuel as I carried our little man to where I hoped we’d at least find a mildly sanitary bathroom.

  The inside of the gas station actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. It was relatively cool, the floor looked like it had been mopped fairly recently, and there were all the trappings one would expect to find in such a place – candy racks, travel-sized foods and toiletries, refrigeration units full of sodas, beers, and bottled water, promotional signs for lottery tickets and cigarettes brands. What I didn’t see was an attendant behind the counter. There was a 64-ounce soda cup with an unwrapped, half-eaten candy bar sitt
ing beside it, but no one was there to claim ownership of said items.

  Finding the station unmanned wasn’t necessarily surprising. With us being the only ones around, it wasn’t like the joint was exactly hopping. The attendant was probably taking a smoke break or in the back watching television. Still, it was a little odd.

  I scanned the interior of the gas station for signs of the restroom. I found what I was looking for in the far back corner where there was a door with an outline on the front of both male and female figures indicating a unisex restroom.

  “Come on, Jay. Potty is over this way.”

  Just as we neared the bathroom, the door opened and a saggy-faced young man with about a week’s worth of patchy stubble strewn across his face met us coming out. He looked pale and was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Ugh,” he nodded at us as we squeezed past one another in the somewhat cramped quarters.

  The smell of vomit hit me as we passed him and the smell inside the bathroom was no better. There was only one toilet in the tiny space, and upon quick inspection, I noted that the upper portion of the bowl appeared to be spackled with bits of someone’s candy bar and soda lunch.

  “Okay Jay, make it quick,” I said, yanking down his shorts and pull-up training underpants and holding him above the toilet at an angle so that his tiny body aligned with the edge of the bowl.

  My mind was racing. What if this guy had the flu? Maybe he was just sick from eating too much gas station food. Maybe he’d done too much partying last night. Were we currently inhaling the exact thing that we were down here to try to escape?

  The thought that I might have led my family to their death simply by trying to protect them churned my stomach and made me feel as though I might add to the foul odor the attendant had left behind.

  As soon as Jason was finished, I maneuvered him in my arms, setting him on the floor to get his pants back up. And then we were out of there. I didn’t even bother to flush or wash hands. We would be taking a gel sanitizer bath in the car.

  As we exited the bathroom, doing our best not to make skin-to-skin contact with anything, I could see Claire at the station’s cash register, face-to-face with the sickly attendant. I dodged through the aisles, holding Jay tight. Claire was buying a pack of gum, a dollar bill laid out on the counter beside it.

  I didn’t even wait to explain. I just grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along out the door.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Wait, I…” she started.

  But I didn’t wait. I just kept going.

  Outside, Claire resisted a little more. “John! What’s the problem? I left my money in there!”

  “You want to trade a dollar for your life?” I said, unlocking the car and opening it for her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The attendant. Didn’t you see him? Or smell him for that matter? He was sick.”

  Claire climbed in the front seat and I closed the door behind her, moving to the back to load Jay into his car seat.

  Claire waited until I got in the car and started the engine.

  “What do you mean sick?” she frowned.

  “I mean sick. He’d been barfing in the bathroom right before we got there.”

  Claire was silent, and then she said softly, “Do you think he has…” her voice trailed off.

  “I don’t know,” I shot back a little harsher than I meant to. “What I do know is that we’re not stopping for anything else until we get there. I don’t care what it is. Now please, get the hand sanitizer out. I want everyone’s hands scrubbed down.”

  I looked in the rear view mirror. Jay had his hands up to his mouth and was merrily sucking on his fingers.

  “JAY! NO!” I yelled, swiveling in my seat and knocking his hands away.

  He immediately started crying.

  “Claire!” I said loudly.

  “I’ve got it,” she replied, turning in her seat and getting up onto her knees to attend to Jason behind her.

  Suddenly there was a knock at my window. I jumped and turned to see the station attendant standing there, a half-dazed look on his face and Claire’s dollar in his hand.

  “No,” I mouthed through the glass. “Your tip. Take it,” I waved him away.

  He kept staring then held up the gum.

  “No,” I shook my head. “We don’t want it…thank you.” I was looking at his unshaven face while fumbling for the SUV’s shifter with my hand. I thought I caught a peek of some chunks of stuff stuck to one corner of his mouth.

  Finally finding the shifter, I plunged it into drive and hit the gas. I rapidly maneuvered us back onto the state highway and watched as the attendant stood there staring, growing smaller in the rear view mirror until he disappeared completely.

  No other cars were on the road.

  Claire had Jay cleaned up and was back buckled into her seat.

  “Hit me,” I said, holding out a hand to her.

  She loaded up my palm with sanitizing gel and then squirted some into her own hand. I waited until she’d finished cleaning herself and then had her take the wheel while I cleansed my own hands. I then had her squirt some gel on a tissue for me and I wiped down the steering wheel while I drove.

  “How much further?” I asked Claire, who had the directions we’d printed out before leaving the house.

  “About another 60 miles.”

  I nodded. “Good” I said, feeling slightly better that we were almost there but also concerned about what else might now be riding with us.

  4 p.m.

  “I think that’s it,” Claire pointed.

  To our right, a rutted gravel drive led from the road we’d been traveling for the last half hour after exiting the state highway.

  The nearly hidden drive ran down a short embankment and disappeared into a thick tree line. We were in the heart of the Shawnee National Forest – about as secluded as we could hope to get in this part of the country.

  I slowed and pulled off the road. I could feel the tires start to rumble and crunch over gravel. A soft afternoon rain began to patter upon the top of the SUV and splatter tiny droplets on the windshield.

  “Bouncy, bouncy,” came Jason’s voice from the backseat.

  About 10 yards from the road, we came to the tree line. It got dark as we passed between the first few rows of trees and entered the forest, so dark in fact that I flipped the headlights on to see. The forest’s canopy enclosed us like a tarp, blocking out the rain completely.

  After another 20 yards or so, we came to a big steel horse gate across the road. A chain was wrapped around one end of the gate and attached to a big wooden post.

  I pulled up and stopped.

  “Hope it’s not locked,” Claire said.

  “Won’t be for long if it is,” I said, putting the SUV in park, unbuckling my seatbelt, and opening the door. “Be back in a minute.”

  The gate wasn’t locked. The chain was pulled around the wooden post and latched with a pin that was easily removed. Moments later, we were through and had the gate closed and re-latched behind us.

  From the gate on, the road switched from gravel to dirt, and but for a few rutted spots, it was in fairly decent condition. About a half mile in, we came to a wood plank bridge that spanned a small stream. We rolled cautiously across the bridge and on for maybe another quarter of a mile. Eventually, the trees began to thin until they opened completely into a wide meadow. Here the road came to an end where it met with a sizeable dirt clearing. There were several rock-ringed areas encircling the charred remnants of previous campfires.

  “Guess this is the end of the line,” I said, pulling up near one of the campfire sites and parking. The rain stopped as I killed the engine. “We’ll sleep here tonight and look for better sites to settle down and set up camp in the woods tomorrow.”

  “When you say, ‘set up camp,’ what exactly do you mean?” Claire eyed me.

  I hadn’t planned on having this conversation with her now, and
I really didn’t want to get into it after what had been a nearly seven hour drive.

  “Just a better campsite…in case it rains more…that’s all.”

  “We’re only staying tonight and tomorrow night,” Claire glared. “I have to be back at work on Tuesday,” she reminded me.

  “Uh, yeah,” I drawled. “Well, maybe you could call off on Tuesday and we could make it an extra long weekend.”

  Claire just looked at me.

  “But we can talk about that later. I’m going to get some wood together for our fire tonight. If you want to get Jay out and grab some of the bags and the tent, I can start getting stuff set up when I’m done. Just don’t take out too much stuff all at once in case it rains more.”

  It was damn hot out, and there was hardly any breeze. The air was a sticky, stagnant broth. I’d been out of the car for two minutes and I could already feel the sweat starting to bead on my forehead. I felt kind of bad about dragging Claire down here for the holiday weekend, but it was for her own good I reasoned.

  Even with the heat though, it felt good to have arrived. It was peaceful and I felt at ease. I stood still, listening. A bird chirped somewhere in the distance, but otherwise it was silent. So different from Chicago. No car horns. No sirens. No trash bins being noisily emptied and then pounded back down onto the pavement. No sound of beeping trucks backing up. No commuter trains rumbling past. No lawn mowers running…nothing…just silence.

  It was nice.

  I took a deep breath, inhaling the stale yet poignantly fresh air compared to the city. Then I walked over to the tree line to begin collecting wood for the night’s campfire.

  8 p.m.

  We sat on two large stumps that we’d rolled from one side of the clearing.