by Crane, J. J.
Doc shouted at me. “Hey, let’s get as much in the car as we can… Let’s go!”
Fifteen minutes later, we had the vehicles full of supplies.
Using surgical gloves and towels from the store, Ted and Jason dragged the bodies to the edge of the woods and laid them just beyond some scrub, hidden out of sight.
“Should we bury them?” Ted asked as he emerged from the woods.
“Fuck them,” Max blurted. “They got what they deserved. Maybe if they would have approached the situation differently, they’d be alive, and we would have all ended the day on a happier note.”
Standing in the back parking lot, we said nothing for a good minute.
“It’s done,” Doc finally said, breaking the silence. “Let’s get out of here.”
On the way back home, Jason rode with Ted and me. I couldn’t help myself from asking Jason what the hell happened back there.
“I don’t know,” he said while staring out the window. “I knew something was wrong. I saw you guys frozen, and then I heard talking. I had a bin of supplies in my hand and put it down. I swung the gun around. I couldn’t stop shaking. I thought I might even piss myself. My hands got all clammy. I felt streams of sweat rolling down my cheeks. I completely froze,” Jason said with assured ease. “I heard Ted. He was alone in the standoff. I realized…this guy doesn’t know I’m in here. I felt I was our only chance. Then all those nerves just disappeared. I found myself steady. I could visualize the scene outside. I pictured our cars and had a feeling I knew where the people threatening us were standing. When I saw you put the bins down, I knew I had my chance to move and get off a clean shot. I managed two.”
“What about that war cry?” Ted said with almost a laugh.
Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. Something flipped the switch. I had to do something. He might have shot you. I had the momentum, and no one was stopping me.”
“You had the momentum all right,” I said. “You feel okay now?”
Jason looked at the two of us, his face relaxed as if he’d had an epiphany. “As strange as this may sound. I have never felt so free.”
I let the moment hang. With the car windows down, the sound of driving filled the silence while the oncoming night’s chill swirled around us. I looked back at Jason who continued to stare out the window. “You realize because you got that guy’s blood on you…”
Jason cut me off. “I know, quarantine. It’s fine. Jenny isn’t going to like it, but it’s for the good of us all.
Chapter 20
March in New England is a sketchy weather time. Beautiful early spring days filled with warmth and sunshine can quickly turn into bone-numbing raw days of rain and cold in an instant. Even the stray snowstorm can appear and leave behind a half foot of white, making one forget spring was just around the corner.
The days that followed our trip to the pharmacy a cold front passed through. Though it didn’t drop any significant snow, it managed to leave behind over two inches, enough to cover the roads. With the dank gray weather, tempers turned short. A few people engaged in screaming matches over small things like chores not done a certain way or someone misplacing an item. Ted and I had to break up a fight between Curtis and Paul while they were collecting firewood. I could never remember my son ever coming to blows with anyone. None-the-less, we saw these two young men connect fists to each other’s face then start wailing their arms about like hockey players until we could bust it up. When I asked what happened, neither could fully explain the reason.
Others began to go stir crazy, falling victim once again to Seasonal Affect Disorder. The last thing people wanted to do was once again scour the woods for more wood. People did not want to burn trash, and lastly, no one wanted to clean the two makeshift outhouses several of us assembled. After the water went, latrines needed constructing. Pam pointed out that if we continued to use water to refill the toilets that they would eventually back up because the sewage system wouldn’t be able to process the waste.
The Body agreed on a directive that indoor toilet usage was only for emergencies or extremely intolerable weather conditions – and for the women alone.
“You can tell people are in a lull,” June said one morning.
“How’s that?” I asked while eating the one staple of food I could enjoy that others weren’t clamoring for, oatmeal.
“Because we smell more. The BO is becoming much more apparent,” June answered. “People are bathing less.”
“I think people aren’t using enough deodorant,” I countered.
“Whatever,” June snapped. “Do you have to contradict everything I say?”
“What?” I said rather mystified.
“You always have an answer for everything, and if it isn’t your answer then it must be wrong,” June said before slamming palms on the table and running upstairs.
The conditions, the weather, all of it was affecting everyone.
After almost two months of looking at the same walls, people wanted to go to the mall, food shopping, anywhere but the neighborhood. Yet, they also knew there was no place to go. This realization often drove people into crying fits. The ordinarily mellow and affable Jenny, while trying to till her garden for spring preparation, began screaming and throwing anything she could grab in a wild fury. Betty and Ted came rushing outside to see her pounding at the ground in a sobbing mess. June went to see Jason and told him what happened. The poor guy broke down himself, feeling helpless he couldn’t attend to his wife’s needs.
Doc paid a visit to our house two nights after the neighborhood meeting, having taken note of the recent outbursts, he suggested a significant project, something involving lots of people, different roles and lots of cooperation. Ted mentioned that several of them talked about constructing a defense barrier throughout the woods. He produced a sketch, a copy of what Katie and others devised. It was for a fortification to protect ourselves from an attack, despite how insane the reality of it seemed.
Doc wasn’t sure if that was the antidote, but he advised that Katie Burrell suggest it to the community and have Emma back her up, using her degree in psychology as an added method of persuasion. He felt anything coming out of the leadership council at this point might work against the whole rather than for it.
Emma felt empowered by the opportunity to contribute to the neighborhood. As a graduate student majoring in psychology at UConn (University of Connecticut), she understood, full well, the concept of stress in a restricted environment. She teamed up with Katie to reach out to some of the other women in the community as well as the older children about the project. They sold it as an opportunity to create something unique for themselves. Katie, with the help of Ted, Pops, and her husband Dave, finalized a defense perimeter using larger fallen branches, and trees. They also came up with the idea to dig booby-trapped pits, (shallow depressions with sharp wooden sticks pointing up).
Many embraced the project. With great zeal, several teams worked at pulling smaller fallen trees along an imaginary line that made up the perimeter, then stacking and fortifying other small trees and long branches on top to create a stable barrier. They also filled leaf bags with smaller debris and stacked them in various gaps in the line. The perimeter ran about seventy-five to one hundred feet, give, or take from the edge of our backyards. Ted suggested the borderline, saying that much beyond that, any shotgun fire would prove ineffective.
Katie and Dave came up with an idea to create a funnel, or as she delicately put it, a killing field. It would create the illusion of an entry point for which an attacking force could enter into our neighborhood, but what it really did was lead intruders into an open area with little room for cover. Once in the funnel, the only recourse was to retreat or die. She pointed to positions in my yard and Pops’ yard where we could cut down attackers as they entered through that portal, an area near the trail leading to the lake. She noted the slope in the land would make any movement into the funnel a slight uphill climb. Standing in the area they were talking about;
they illustrated the illusion of how the landscape made cover appear closer than it was. Upon walking the terrain, Ted, Max, and myself were surprised at how much the layout played a trick on the eyes.
“It’s something of a defensive feint trap,” Dave added. “By the time they realize their situation, it’s too late.”
I favored the plan as did others. We all agreed to start immediately.
Night watches, sadly, had become a bit rote. We still kept to schedules. We still walked perimeters. Yet, when it came to sitting in cars during watches, many began to fall asleep for more extended periods than anyone rightly wanted to admit. I know I slipped into longer naps than I should have allowed. More times than not, you’d only fall asleep for ten or fifteen minutes, but sometimes it happened for longer. Usually, you caught yourself snoring or getting a kink in the neck.
With a light snow falling one night, Max and Jason’s succumbed to sleep during the late hours of their watch. (Teenagers were sporadically participating in night watches). The reason for its noteworthiness is because, on that night, someone came through the cul-de-sac. The guys didn’t know how long they slept, but when they awoke, they immediately noticed something different, tire tracks. Even more disturbing, the mystery car parked, and two sets of footprints clearly gave evidence that whoever came into our neighborhood walked around the vehicle Jason and Max fell asleep in. What sent a chill through them was the outline of a handprint left behind on the snowy hood of the car.
“Maybe a half hour, a little more,” Max confided to me while we stood outside my house. “It was after four-thirty because I noticed it began to snow a little steadier and I looked at my watch. I felt relief once it slowed down after about twenty minutes.”
Jason became furious at himself. People understood. Many had done the same. It wasn’t that we didn’t care, but we lost our intensity for keeping a diligent watch. Yet now, we had a conundrum. Someone left a handprint. Someone spotted our watch and knew we had one.
“What’s done is done,” I said, trying to calm Jason down who was red with rage. “We just have to be…” I stopped talking. Something caught my eye, but I wasn’t sure what as I looked out towards the cul-de-sac from my front porch. I panned across the yards. An uneasy feeling came over me like I was being watched.
“What’s going on? You okay?” June asked, having come outside.
“What do you see, Rob?” Max followed up with.
I squinted. “Not sure. Something, though, isn’t right.”
June gasped. She placed her hand over her mouth and pointed.
“What? Where?” I asked.
“The mailbox,” June answered.
Sure enough, as I set my eyes to the mailbox, someone had turned the red flag up on it. I stepped off my porch, felt for my handgun and walked towards it.
“Be careful Rob,” June called out, trailing me by a few feet.
“Rob, wait,” Max said. “It could be booby-trapped.”
I looked at him with surprise. “Why? What would be the point to that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It just came to me.”
It was bizarre to see the flag up. It hadn’t been up since we all agreed to call in from work. I looked out at the other mailboxes. Everyone else’s flags were down.
Without another moment of hesitation, I opened my mailbox. Nothing happened. I looked in and saw a single piece of paper folded over. I took it out and opened it.
“What does it say, Rob?” June asked.
I took a moment. I read it twice then three times before
answering.
“It says, We know everything. We know you came to check us out. We know you’ve explored River Run and have ventured outside the town. You will be contacted shortly.”
“What the fuck,” Max shouted. “I’ll bet you it’s that asshole, Lasker and his gang.”
I nodded. “I’ll take that bet.”
“You think it’s the cops?” asked June, wary of that being an answer.
“I do. I feel it in my bones,” I said as I looked up towards the Stop sign.
“What are we going to do?” June asked.
“We’re going to take it to them,” Jason said, turning his anger to our unknown adversary.
“Relax there Custer,” I said. “Let’s see who this is. Let’s see what they want.”
“That’s rather cavalier, don’t you think?” Max said.
“It’s prudent, is what it is,” I said. “We have to inform everyone about this. The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, we should probably keep close to our homes. If you need to be outside, travel in pairs. No one is to be without a rifle of some kind.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Max said, with a huff in his voice.
“Everyone’s gotta be on notice,” I said. “They’ll be expecting that since they already know everything. We’ll work on going about our daily business, but I will understand if that proves difficult.”
“Magazines full then, right?” Jason asked but stated it more like an affirmation rather than an assumption.
“Yes,” I responded. “We need to be ready.”
“Rob,” June said, worry dripping in her voice.
“Sweetheart, this is the world we are in. No chances. We’ve already shed blood once. I’m afraid it may not be the last time we have to face that option.” I turned to Max and Jason, “I think we’ve got a situation coming up. We have codes and communication methods for defensive maneuvers. Let’s brush up.”
It was dusk. The slow wall of night began seeping between the trees, enveloping the empty spaces into darkness. I was in my shed organizing tools and taking inventory on our fuel supply when a police siren sounded. The siren went on and off in short bursts. It attracted the neighborhood’s attention. I grabbed my rifle and walked cautiously towards the front yard.
At the entrance of our street, two police cars, and a pickup truck blocked our way out of the neighborhood. It took only a minute or two for most of the community to appear standing in their front doors, yard, or on their porch.
A voice then spoke through the police vehicle megaphone: “Rob Knowles. Rob Knowles. I request your presence at the top of the street. Come unarmed.”
Before I came out in the open, I placed my shotgun against the house, along with my handgun. I then spoke into a walkie-talkie, “Condition Red. We have a Red situation.” I looked up and saw Ted standing on our front porch, affirming he received my message. I winked then tossed him my walkie-talkie and tapped at the left pocket on my flannel shirt.
“What are you doing Rob?” June asked as I walked out into the front yard. “Be careful.”
I could feel the length of this long invisible arm of hers reach out and try to keep me from going. I turned to her. “It’ll all be fine.”
June said something, but she said it too soft for me to hear. I entered the middle of the street and headed towards the Stop sign. I wasn’t ten strides into my walk when I saw the lead police car door open. Officer Lasker stepped out.
“I suspected as much,” I said as I continued my approach. Beads of sweat traced the contours of my face, but as I came closer to the vehicles and Lasker, I felt them evaporate. An ease washed over me that I could not explain. I watched as Officer Lasker stood tall, chin out, uniform freshly ironed, tight, and trim around his still well-built figure. I couldn’t help but think that he was still eating well.
“Rob Knowles,” Lasker said, addressing me firmly with a hint of a question in his voice.
“That’s me,” I said. We were two contrasting figures standing fifteen feet apart. He, in a proper dress uniform, half reminding me of some Nazi SS officer - me, in torn jeans, a couple of smelly t-shirts and a raggedy flannel. I hadn’t bathed in two days either.
“I’ve come to serve terms,” Lasker said, standing at what looked to be, attention, perfectly centered in front of the three vehicles in the road.
“Terms?” I questioned. “What on earth for?”
“I am t
aking over this region. The county in fact,” Lasker said to me with an air of derision as if I should bow to him.
“Wait a minute, what?” I asked, somewhat confused by this blatant claim. “I’m still going on the premise that we have a government. It may be off the tracks at the moment because of all that has happened, but I am honoring that system, that set of laws which means the basics of the Constitution still has authority here. This isn’t a dictatorship.”
“In case you missed it, there is no government. It’s all gone,” Lasker said as he set his deep dark marble like eyes at me. “There is little left except for those who take the opportunity when it arises. That is what I am doing.”
“So, what do you need of us?” I asked, not quite believing his entire tale.
“I need people to help me secure the area, collect supplies, look for other survivors, that kind of thing,” Lasker stated.
“If I am following you correctly, you want to set up a kind of provincial government?” I asked.
He said, yes.
“What about the mayor?”
“He’s dead,” Lasker said with no emotion.
“Town Council?”
“Jane Mortimer is with me. The rest have died or fled the area,” Lasker said.
I looked at the three vehicles. A quick count gave me eight faces, not including Lasker. “Why isn’t she the one here organizing some kind of coalition? I would imagine the chain of command falls to her.”
“It’s martial law,” Lasker answered, his tone getting sharper.
“Still, it falls to the council or a member therein to authorize that. Even if what you say is true about the federal or state government, she represents the rule of law as established by the founders of this nation, no matter how primitive or skeleton its existence.”
