Jacobson, seeing Kramer loping down his dirt driveway, was already in his barn. Kramer entered the outbuilding as Jacobson was tightening his saddle’s flank cinch.
“Ready to go!” The old man pronounced.
“You sure you’re up to it?” Kramer asked.
“Why, because I’m 84? Heck, I’ve never felt better. Been sitting on my butt for the last three weeks. I’m looking forward to getting out of here.”
Jacobson mounted his steed in a quick and smooth motion. Impressed, Kramer returned to his horse and mounted his saddle. Jacobson trotted over to Buttercup and held up a cloth sack.
“You need water?” He asked.
Kramer patted a leather satchel he had over the horse’s flank, shaking his head.
“Let’s do this,” Kramer stated.
Jacobson whistled loudly, and Ben came bounding out of the barn, tail wagging as he jumped up and down next to the riders and their steeds.
“You bringing him along?” Kramer asked.
“Yep, he loves the exercise. Besides, I don’t have one of those fancy rifles like you. Got to have some protection.” Jacobson retorted.
“Let’s go.” Kramer added, and they both trotted up the driveway and turned northwest.
The path Jacobson took was a mixture of country roads and overland through state and federal property. After a few miles of travel, Jacobson took them up a powerline right-of-way that paralleled the highway and cut straight toward Leesburg. Bypassing homes and the road-blocked road, they made good time.
“We need to get back onto Route 27,” Kramer said. “I want to make sure they don’t turn left and go toward the Coleman Federal Prison. That’s just south of Leesburg and the only place I can think of that they could go.”
“Makes sense to me,” Jacobson said. “Backup power, lots of beds. Just have to deal with the prisoners.”
“Well, I’m not sure of anything right now. Let’s just not miss the correct turn.”
Heading west, they moved through sparsely populated land. Twice, they passed by homes with blossoming gardens and suspicious but respectful homeowners who waved with one hand, and held a rifle with the other.
Most of the trip was through both old, abandoned orange groves and a few replanted orchards.
“There’s Dewey-Robinson road,” Jacobson said as they approached a two-lane street. They took the country road west and soon saw highway 27 in the distance.
A copse of trees and shrubs stood at the south side of the intersection, while across the street, a giant housing development call “The Plantation” stood with its hundreds of homes.
“Let’s take a break in those shrubs,” Barry said. “We can watch for busses from there without being seen.”
The two men and their mounts trotted into the underbrush, and they dismounted and tied their reins to a tree. Taking a draw from his water bladder, Jacobson gave his horse a drink, then poured some for his dog and they settled down on a small clearing within the azaleas and scrub oaks.
It was about a half hour before anything happened. The sounds of several engines could be heard coming from the south, and both men hunkered down in anticipation of seeing their first sign of a working car that day.
A moment or two later, and they were rewarded with the sight of four white busses rumbling up the road. The vehicles shot past them, travelling well over 50 miles per hour.
“Well,” Kramer said. “The busses were full so they haven’t turned off yet.”
“Let’s just go up to Route 48,” Jacobson said. “That’s where the turn-off for Coleman is. I can’t think of anything else it could be unless they are going all the way to Leesburg Regional Hospital.”
They agreed and returned to their rural route.
The turnoff on Route 48 was about five more miles to the north, and their present path would be blocked by several large developments on their side of the highway. They crossed over to the west side a mile or so up the road and continued to shadow the major highway.
Twice, they heard the sound of busses driving up and down the highway.
“Hey!” Kramer said. “It looks like the power plant is up and running!”
Jacobson looked north and a large plume of smoke was rising steadily from the distance, where the county had contracted with a private corporation to convert garbage into electricity.
“Wow,” Jacobson said. “That’s great. Maybe we’ll have power sooner than we thought!”
The two men continued their journey north, getting closer to the source of the smoke with each step.
“Let’s check it out!” Jacobson said. “We’ll come in from the backside of the plant and see what’s going on. It’s right off of Route 48, so we can sneak on by and observe the road.”
“Why not,” Kramer replied.
Soon, they were approaching the power plant. Thick, sooty ash was dropping down on them as they got within a mile of the facility.
“I didn’t know it produced so much soot,” Jacobson said as they dismounted their steeds and walked to the chain-link fence that guarded the back of the property. Signs on the galvanized steel mesh warned of dire consequences for trespassing, while a DHS logo was attached to the bottom of the company’s placard. It read:
Coventry Power Plant
Trash to Electricity
Beyond the barrier, a large field rolled down to the boxy metal, three-story building. Twin smokestacks were billowing thick gray and black smoke as Kramer watched bits of ash and debris drift down from the sky.
Jacobson had stopped advancing, while Kramer pressed his face to the diamond-meshed barrier and stared at the structure in the distance. Black-clothed military men were scurrying about the grounds, like ants around a nest, doing jobs that Kramer couldn’t fathom.
As he watched the scene, something happened that his mind refused to accept. His gut wrenched as the awfulness of what he saw finally registered with his disbelieving mind.
Feeling in the pocket of his jeans, he pulled out the crumpled transfer orders he had taken from the hospital the day before. He checked the orders again, his gut sinking deeper into his belly.
Behind him, he heard a wail. Turning back, horror on his face, Kramer saw his fiend sitting in the field next to his horse. Kramer staggered over to Jacobson and dropped to his knees in the dirt beside his distraught friend. Jacobson was holding a burnt piece of cloth, clutching it in his fists as he rocked back and forth, sobbing to the heavens.
Ben, ever the faithful companion, lay next to the old man, nuzzling his side and whimpering.
“I never thought I’d see this again!” Jacobson moaned, tears streaming and his chest heaving. “It can’t be happening here! It just can’t! Not here, not now!”
“Barry!” Kramer said, barely getting the word out of his mouth. “The white busses. They’re coming here! The Covington Power plant. That’s what COV stands for. Coventry!”
All Jacobson did was look up at his friend and hand him the scorched cloth that had fallen out of the heavens from the plume of smoke that was emanating from the furnaces in front of them.
Kramer took the charred piece of cotton and spread it out. After a moment, he too began to cry.
Dropping it at his feet, the material that had been burned on its edges and turned gray from the smoke, settled lightly to the ground next to the two weeping men.
As it came to a rest on the uneven shoots of the field’s wild grass, the charred remains of the scorched nightgown lay face up, giving testament of its origin to the December winter sky.
The tag, still intact, that was attached to the burnt elastic collar, simply read:
“Property of Brightside Nursing Home.”
>
Charlie's Requiem: Democide Page 37
