They wheeled the carts to the front of the store and found their vehicle still undisturbed. Though the town had appeared dead, in the literal sense, Chris had felt a sense of foreboding leaving their car without an escort in the front of the store. He reached in through the driver's side window and killed the headlights, since they no longer needed the extra light in the store.
They packed the majority of the food into the trunk, but Chris made sure to place the boxes of Little Debbie's in the back seat. Those were not going to be saved for later, those were for tonight. Their carts emptied, they resumed the walk back into the store. C.J. walked next to Chris, still quiet, but his gait appeared to have more purpose. The food had to have helped for sure, but Chris thought that maybe the new clothes gave him a psychological boost as well. It had been a tough day for C.J., much tougher than it should ever have been.
Chris felt like a failure; it was his duty as a father to keep him safe, and he didn't feel like he'd done a very good job. He didn't know what the stuff was spreading across C.J.'s chest, and he didn't know what he could do to stop it. He made a conscious decision to not focus on the negatives and to look at the positive side of things. They needed to stay resolute on getting to the portal in Guernsey tomorrow, avoiding Steve, and getting C.J. through to join Sarah and Angie. Chris knew that was the most important thing at this point.
“Do you want to pick out the camping gear for us?” Chris asked C.J.
“Yes, please,” C.J. said. He was favoring his left leg; Chris figured it was probably due to pain from the cut. Nothing they can do about it right now, but Chris decided he should watch and make sure it goes away.
“Mike, do you think we should get him some Tylenol?” Chris asked.
“That should be fine since the bleeding has stopped. I'll go find some while you guys pick out the camping gear. I want to find some more medical supplies anyway in order to be prepared for emergencies.”
“Sounds like a plan.” They split up after entering the store, C.J. and Chris to one side, and Mike back to the pharmacy on the other. Tents were set up along the floor in order to display their features, and Chris watched as C.J. crawled through each of them remarking on their unique characteristics.
“Dad, this one has two rooms, isn't that neat?” C.J. asked, sticking his head out of a zippered flap.
“It sure is. That way I wouldn't have to smell your stinky feet.”
“Funny, Dad.” Chris surveyed the gear lining the shelves and grabbed some packages of metal bowls, utensils, and thermoses. He also found some bug spray and made sure to grab several bottles. C.J. was still climbing through the various tents when Mike rejoined them, pushing his cart. Looking through the contents, Chris saw he had several pill bottles and an unopened medical kit that looked to be the big brother of the one he had used to sew up C.J.'s wounds.
“I found some antibiotics in the pharmacy. Hopefully they'll slow the spread of the infection across his chest, if not neutralize it entirely,” Mike said.
“If it's an infection,” Chris objected. “You heard what that Sam character said.” Chris frowned.
“That dude was a looney toon. He was a Loborian and everyone knows those cats are nuts.”
“Maybe, but what about the stuff that C.J. said to him,” Chris said, keeping his voice low enough that C.J. couldn't hear. “He doesn't even remember saying it.” He sighed, and said the thing that he was secretly dreading. “It was like he was possessed.”
“Possessed?” Mike said, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. He chuckled a little and slapped Chris on the arm, “Come on man, I'm sure it was just shock. He picked up on the mood of the people, saw the way they were looking at him, and his brain figured out a way for us to get out of there. I think he's just a really smart kid who was scared for his life. Plus, definitely in shock.”
They let silence hang in the air for a bit, and finally Chris called out, “Okay C.J., pick one of the tents for us so we can get out of here and try to find a place for the night.”
“Are we actually going to sleep in the tent tonight, Dad?” C.J. asked.
“I hope not, it'd be nice to find a sheltered building, but we may not have a choice. We'll be prepared in any case.”
C.J. crawled out of the gray and orange colored tent he was in, visibly disappointed with the answer. “I like this one.” Chris walked over, read the brand and model from the placard in front of the display tent, and found the matching box on the shelves behind them. Mike helped him load the box into the cart; it was long and jutted high in the air and attempted to topple the cart. Chris readjusted it so that the longest end lay back over his shoulder, and they pushed the carts full of supplies to the front of the store again.
They loaded the gear into the car and walked the carts back into the store one last time. Once that was done, Chris and Mike pushed the automatic doors shut again. You never know when you'll need to come back and get more supplies, Chris thought. It's better to leave things as difficult to get to as possible. If other people can reach these supplies without too much effort, then they probably won't even be here when we come back through.
Chris pulled the car door shut as Mike started the car. “So, where to? It's about seven-thirty, so we should probably find our place for the night, since the park didn't work out,” Mike said.
“This small town has a lot of countryside surrounding it. How about trying to find an empty farmhouse or something out in the country a bit? If we can't find one that looks secure, we can always just set up the tent in the woods somewhere?”
“A farmhouse would be cool,” C.J. added. “Not as cool as camping in the tent, but it would still be cool. Would it have a barn?”
“I don't know, C.J. We'll just have to see.”
“Sounds like you're both liking the farmhouse idea,” Mike laughed. “So let's give it a shot.” He shifted the gear lever into drive, turned on the headlights, and pulled out onto the road. It only took a few minutes to retrace the drive they'd made into town before they were back on the highway and leaving the dead town behind them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They drove for ten minutes without seeing much, and the exhaustion from the long day was finally taking its toll. Chris found himself nodding off, and his head would periodically bounce off the window as the car went over small bumps in the road. He glanced in the rear-view mirror after one such wakeup and saw C.J. bouncing along, in and out of sleep himself, his arms resting on the box containing the tent.
The road changed to gravel, which caused a rougher ride that increasingly interrupted sleep, so Chris sat up and forced his eyes to stay open. He scanned to the right for available shelter, and he knew Mike would be scanning to the left. They crossed over a small wooden bridge decorated with a sign warning them that only one car should cross at a time, and of course there wasn't another vehicle in sight to compete with.
Chris noticed the tiniest reflection of their headlights as they passed an area of thick trees to the left, just after the bridge. “Wait, Mike, turn around. I think there was a building back there behind those trees.”
“Are you sure? I didn't notice anything.” Mike doubted that there had been one but slowed the car to a stop. He looked in the rear-view mirror and didn't see any headlights or anything else of note that might be irritated with their stopped position in the road.
“No,” Chris frowned. “I'm not sure, but let's give it a look anyway.”
Mike pulled forward, found a field that joined with the road, and used it to pull in and back out to face the opposite direction. The car rolled forward in motion again, and both Mike and Chris kept their eyes focused on the patch of trees.
“Well, I'll be damned,” Mike said, noticing the small dirt road branching from the gravel. “There is something back there after all. Way to go, eagle eyes.”
“Let's see what's back there before we get too excited.”
“It's definitely pretty well hidden, in any case, and remote. I drove right by it.”
“Yea, it's very much out of sight and out of mind,” Chris agreed.
The car inched through the grove of towering trees, and the road opened onto a large unmaintained lawn spread between a small house and a large barn. There was a patch of worn dirt nearer to the house, presumably used for parking, and the grass surrounding it was long, waving gently in the evening breeze. No other vehicles were present save for an old tractor in the corner of the yard, which appeared to have been left to die of rust poisoning decades ago.
“You think it's empty?” Mike asked.
“There's only one way to find out,” Chris said. It was a rare thing to knock on someone's door unexpected nowadays, let alone go to a house in the country and do as much. If there was a family living here, they were likely to have a fit. Needless to say, being a door-to-door salesman was an occupational relic. “C.J., stay in the car, please.”
Mike and Chris exited the vehicle and walked together up a concrete sidewalk to the screen door. They stood alone in the darkness; only the sounds of the rushing wind and a squeaking metal wind vane greeted them. Knock, knock, knock.
“Seems clear,” Mike said, shrugging. He tried to look through the glass pane of the large wooden door behind the screen, but the darkness prevented him from making out any details of the world hiding behind it.
The unmistakable shape of a shotgun barrel pressed into Mike's neck. He froze.
“Seems clear?” a man's voice repeated, with a country twang, from behind him. “Are you boys looking to rob my house? I'm the sort of man that shoots first and lets God sort them out. I see that you have yourself a young'n in that car over there. Are you all one of them rainbow dancing man-loving couples, or what?”
“No, sir,” Mike said, raising his hands. “We were just looking for a place to stay tonight, and your house looked abandoned. We're more than happy to just carry on our way and leave you to your business.”
“Well now,” the man said. “Is that it? Why don't I just let you in, and you can sleep in my bed with my wife? Maybe I can have one of my daughters come over for the other one of you? I can set you up real nice and have my old lady make you some breakfast in the morning. What does this look like to you, boy, a bed and breakfast?” He emphasized the word “boy” by shoving the shotgun barrel hard against the back of Mike's skull, forcing his head down.
“No, sir.”
Chris wanted to tell this man that it was just a mistake. But how could he get this man to see that if he wouldn't believe them, no matter what they said? Without turning to face him, certain that he didn't want the gun turned on himself, he said, “Sir, he's telling the truth. My son is injured, and we were just looking for a safe place to sleep tonight. We made a bad assumption that your home was unoccupied, and this is all just a misunderstanding. We are sorry for causing you any trouble, and we'd just like to be on our way.”
“Now, Gus,” a woman's voice scolded, walking around the corner of the house to stand next to the man. “Put that gun away, you old crabby bastard.” She swung a dish towel at him, hitting him in the face as if he were a puppy that had just peed on the carpet. “Please forgive my husband, he's not much a fan of people in general, let alone strangers that come knocking uninvited in the evening. The way I see it though, you have to make do with what fortune gives you, and take advantage of any opportunity for company that comes your way.”
Gus's shotgun lowered from Mike's head, and Mike slowly lowered his hands, though no such permission had been given. It seemed like the woman wore the pants in this relationship, and she had apparently diffused the situation, for the moment at least.
Mike and Chris both turned and found an old, but farm strong, man wearing a dirty white shirt with what appeared to be drying blood on the front. His stained blue jeans were held up by a pair of red suspenders. His wife was short, plump, and reminded Chris of a Russian Matryoshka doll. Part of him waited for her to split in half and allow a smaller version to jump out.
“You look ridiculous in that shirt, Gus. You should have changed.”
“I'd just got back from hunting, woman,” he said. “I was prepping food for the winter, so we can keep you fat, happy, and such a pleasure to be around.”
The woman frowned. “So you boys are looking for someplace to stay?” she asked, choosing to ignore Gus's mocking.
“Yes,” Chris said. “We can just carry on our way though, we really didn't mean to cause you any trouble.”
“Oh it's no trouble at all,” she said. “I'm Louise, by the way, and this is Gus. You know the term a 'grumpy Gus'? Well, they basically coined that phrase after my husband. Gus here is probably the grumpiest they come, and just doesn't know how to be a good host. Isn't that right, Gus?”
“Hrumph,” Gus sounded his disapproval. Geez, Chris thought. If they had been looking for a third contender in that Grumpy Old Men movie, we'd have the perfect person for the role.
“Let's get you boys and the little one from the car inside, and we can find you a place to rest,” she said. “It's just Gus and I out here now; our kids have grown up and moved out, so it's usually pretty quiet. We do appreciate getting visitors, though Gus may not make it seem like we do.”
Chris walked to the car, where C.J had been watching from the rear seat. He knocked on the window and C.J. rolled it down. “It looks like we're going to be able to stay with these folks tonight,” he said.
C.J. frowned. “So no camping?”
“No camping buddy. It's safer to spend the night inside a locked home, and we want to make sure we are as safe as we can be. I know you wanted to camp, but you just have to trust me. I'm trying to keep you safe.”
“Yea, I know.” He unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, stepped out with a sigh, and closed it behind him. Chris opened the front passenger side door, leaned in and pulled the keys from the ignition, and locked the doors. He wished there was a hidden corner of the yard he could park it in, but it didn't seem like the appropriate time to be asking their prospective hosts. Chris led C.J. back to Mike and the old couple.
“Well, who might you be?” Louise asked, bending forward a little to look down into C.J.'s face.
“I'm Chris, this is Mike, and my boy C.J.” Chris said, pointing to each of them in turn.
“It's nice to meet you, C.J.,” Louise smiled. “Would you like to come inside, and I'll show you where I hide the good snacks so Gus doesn't eat them?”
“Okay,” C.J. said. He toed the ground nervously with the tip of his tennis shoe.
“Come on, y'all, let's get out of this cold weather.” She walked to the screen door, pulled it open, and opened the door behind it. “This is actually the rear of the house; the front faces toward the road but the trees have grown to hide it. So anyone that ventures out this way typically does the same as you, and knocks on the back door.”
She ushered them into the house, and they stood just inside the opening, unsure of where to go. It was too dark to see much, and light didn't seem to escape from any of the connecting rooms. Louise closed the door after Gus followed her in and walked to the front of the crowd. “Step this way, be careful of things leaning against the wall, it's a bit of a mess.”
Chris wasn't sure of how he could be careful given that he couldn't see anything at all, but he tried his best to follow her voice as she continued talking. She informed them of the basement downstairs with two large rooms that had been used as bedrooms by their older kids (who had already flown from the nest, thank you very much) and their food storage. Across the room, diagonal from the door they had entered from, they ascended two stairs into a small hallway that joined with the dining room. Louise walked to the table, lit a candle from a pack of matches, and light danced about the walls of the room.
“I imagine you boys are hungry?” Louise asked. “I was just about to make Gus and I some dinner, and you're more than welcome to join us. We have plenty.”
“Oh, thanks, but we don't want to impose,” Mike said. “We picked up some canned and boxed goods
, and we ate some before we came out this way.”
Louise's face puckered with discontent. “Canned and boxed goods? That is no kind of meal, no sir. I'm talking about a real meal, with some meat, green beans, and apples. How is this little man supposed to grow up big and strong eating that nonsense?” She smiled at C.J., and he smiled back.
Chris's mouth watered at the thought of having a steak, a roast, or even a nice chicken breast. They must have their own cattle out here, or Gus performs his nightly hunting ritual on a regular basis. That would be an advantage to living in the country, Chris thought. You can just walk out in the woods, wait for dinner to walk by, and take your shot. You wouldn't have to forage as much as we have to do in the city. “If you're sure it wouldn't be an imposition,” Chris said. “I know I wouldn't complain of a second dinner. Especially one like that.”
Gus was clearly not pleased at having to share his food but didn't argue with his wife; once must be enough for her to assert her alpha qualities each evening. He'd lost enough battles to know when to just go about his grumpy way and keep his mouth shut. “No dear, it’s no bother at all. First, let me show you boys where you can set up for the night. Gus, go and get yourself cleaned up as well. I'll start dinner shortly.”
She led them further into the house, past what Chris supposed was the front door, and into a living room with large windows opening onto the side of the house they hadn't seen. It was too dark to see much, but he was sure those windows would provide a great deal of natural light during the day.
She opened a closet placed in one of the walls and pulled out a handful of blankets. She dropped them onto a reclining chair, reached back in the closet to pull out several matching pillows and dropped them on top of the blankets. “There,” she said. “That ought to be enough, and if it gets too cold, then feel free to dig in this closet and grab some more.”
“Thank you very much,” Mike said. “You're very generous.”
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