by A. S. Hames
A man, maybe in his thirties, on the floor, shot through. A woman of similar age, eyes closed, sitting against the wall with a gun in her hand. She’s been shot too. I’m lost in time. Me and these people. It’s the stillness. It’s unreal.
She groans!
“I’m Jay. I’m not here to hurt you.”
Her eyes flicker.
I try to get a sense of her… and I can. Wow. I really can. She’s frustrated and angry. And she’s sad. And I feel her probing my mind. Reaching out for help.
“You’re an empath,” I say. “Same as me.”
The tiniest little smile creases her lips. Then she dies.
A creak!
The fifth tread!
Someone’s coming up the stairs!
My gun is ready. I’m pointing at the doorway. I will shoot. I will.
“Hey,” Ax says. “Thought you might need a hand.”
“No,” I say calmly while my head almost bursts with the pressure of the blood in it.
Now he sees the corpses. He brushes past me and feels the woman’s arm.
“Barely dead,” he says. “Those men we saw. Looks like they were four until they raided this place.”
I can’t see any glory or sense in any of it so I go downstairs and rummage through the kitchen cupboards. Not a scrap of food anywhere.
I go outside. Maybe there’s some fuel somewhere.
Ax comes out.
I check the outbuilding. He follows me. I get busy looking through junk.
“I’ll be at the car,” he says.
He walks off and I carry on searching. Although there’s no luck regarding fuel, I find some fishing gear – poles with lines, little wooden floats, and wire hooks.
If only there was some fuel.
I think of home. We hide a few cans so when undeserving folk ask to use our tractor we can decline on account of having little fuel until the next batch is released through the regional store. Of course, this can be overcome by them using their own damn fuel, but folk often don’t have the money to buy it. Farm Six springs to mind. Endless requests to use our tractor “for a few hours” and zero offers to use their own fuel.
I try the roof panels, pushing them up – but all I get is an eyeful of dust. I try under the floorboards. Nothing. Then I notice the wall of the structure is quite thick. Checking it, I find a loose wall board which hides a metal can. I shake it. Fuel sloshes around.
Encouraged, I pull all the wall boards off, but there’s nothing more to be found behind them.
Outside, I set all the fishing gear down by the path. Then I take the fuel into the house, up the stairs, over the dead raider, and into the bedroom. I haul the woman onto the bed, I drag her man up alongside her, put her hand in his, cover them with a blanket, and pour fuel over them. Next, I cover them with anything combustible I can find, pouring fuel over each layer as I do.
Now it’s just a matter of using my magnifying glass at a sunny window to light some paper, and use it to set fire to the bed.
I wait to make sure the fire takes hold, and I use the time to try to put things right in some small way.
“Dear strangers… I pray there is another life we go to after this one. And I pray you will receive balance there. I pray you will live long, happy lives together, hand in hand, God bless you. And if you see God, send all the power available from there to here to end this war and bring us peace. Amen.”
The fire is taking hold. A dignified cremation seems a small deal, but it feels right. With smoke and flame filling the room, I leave the house.
Outside, I feel a fire burning inside me as strong as the one taking hold in that bedroom. I look north. With all my heart, I want to drive back into the hills, find those men, and shoot them down.
I sigh. That’s not going to happen.
As I reach the car, I show off my little haul.
“Some fishing gear and about six pints of fuel.”
“Enough to get us to the Lake Towns?” Ben asks.
“Not by a long way.”
“I told them about the bodies,” Ax says.
I nod. “We’ll fish farther along the river,” I say.
3. Dangerous Ride
BEN
Once Jay’s topped up the tank with fuel she drives us away – and once again, Von sits on my lap and pokes his nose out the window. It’s quiet in the car. I guess none of us can get past the dead people Jay and Ax found. I suppose we’ll just have to get used to having our spirits improve only to be brought crashing down again by the business of war.
“You alright?” Zu asks me.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
It’s not long before we find a good place to stop. We soon dig up some worms, fix them to the hooks and dangle our fishing poles over the water. Now it goes quiet and I can think. But I don’t like my thoughts, so I just try to merge with the water and the line leading to a potential dinner.
But those people Jay and Ax found…
This is such a perfect place. I can see it all now. Those people would have operated a ferry for people crossing the river. I guess they charged a few cents. My lack of love for the Nation as a government is one thing, but I can see now it meant these people could live a good life. I understand people getting angry and fighting the Nation for a piece of freedom, but what freedom did the people who lived here gain when the laws of the land came to an end?
“Whoa!” I shriek. I think I’ve caught something. Everyone comes to help and advise me on landing what turns out to be a ten-inch trout – at least, we think it’s a trout, but none of us are fishing specialists. Whatever it is, we manage to catch four more over the next hour and, once we’ve cooked them over a fire, they taste like the best fish in the world.
After we’ve eaten, Ax and me take the opportunity of fresh water to shave away our stubble, although, in truth, I never had much.
“Should we stay?” Zu asks.
“No,” Ax says. “We have to keep moving otherwise we’ll never get to the Lake Towns.”
That throws up the unspoken question of whether we should even be trying to get there.
“Can we talk about that?” I ask. “I mean we made some big decisions…”
“Changed your mind?” Ax asks.
“It’s not that. It’s not knowing for sure if we’re doing the right thing. Or am I the only one who didn’t trust the Representative?”
“It’s about hope,” Jay says. “If we can’t work out what’s in the letter, we just have to hope we’re doing the right thing. The worst thing would be for the letter to have the power to stop the killing… and we fail to deliver it.”
“It’ll be a shame to leave this river,” Zu says.
“I’m sure we’ll find another one,” Jay says, trying to reassure her.
Anyway, the sun is hot and high, and the thought of being in a moving vehicle is hard to resist.
“Where do you think the car came from?” Zu asks.
It’s a good question. Ordinary people don’t have cars.
“South of here, obviously,” I say. “Which means we might come to find out if it was their car or they stole it.”
“They stole it,” Jay says.
“Then let’s hope we don’t meet the people they stole it from,” Ax says.
“Maybe the car came from somewhere else,” Zu says. “Somewhere a long way off the trail so we’ll never get to meet them.”
“Let’s hope so,” Jay says.
It’s a pity to leave the peace of the river, but we’re soon driving away into the hills where the road is bumpy. Even so, Taff and Zu manage to fall asleep on the back seat, with Von sprawled across their laps. I stay awake. We won’t get far in this vehicle and I want to enjoy every inch we cover.
It’s strange watching Jay drive us. It’s like there’s so much more to her than I’m seeing. I wish her brother had a little of her manner, but he’s different. There’s a darkness about him. I don’t mean he’s evil or anything, but he’s not someone I want to trust in a tight
spot. My guess is Ax would let you die if it gave him a small advantage in a situation. And Jay? I can’t be completely certain, but I feel she’d risk her life to save someone. So, where does that place me? I’m no Ax, but I don’t feel I’m any kind of Jay either. And, of course, there’s something about both of them. Something I can’t quite explain.
JAY
These dry, barren hills would be a trial on foot – but they don’t last long in a car. What would have taken most of the day to walk over is covered in less than thirty minutes.
As we begin to leave the hills, my thoughts drift back to that house. Out of a whole war, it’s just two people dead in a bedroom. I’ve seen innocent people bombed and shot to death elsewhere. Aren’t these last two just more of the same?
Yes, they are, but like any tragedy that spills into my life, there’s a story that wants to play out in my head. My mind wants to fill in the missing details, even though I don’t want it to, so I concentrate on one aspect – she was an empath.
This brings a disturbing thought. I grew up assuming empaths were rare, with maybe a few scattered and hidden in Forbearance. But now I’m beginning to wonder about that. I suppose I shut down any thinking about it because I didn’t want anything to do with it. But now… is it possible there are more empaths than I thought? That woman in the house… I had a sense of something greater than her mind reaching out to me… but… no, I can’t get to it. There was definitely something more though. Something bigger. Something old.
I feel calm and untroubled now. Does that make me insensitive? I’m not sure. Of course, in my calm state, I’ve been getting a sense of those around me – emotions of fear, anxiety, and determination. Apart from Ax, that is. I get nothing from him.
Once we’re clear of the hills, we reach what looks like grazing land, except I’m not seeing any grazing animals. Even so, the scenery gets greener, telling me we’re nearing another river, or maybe it’s the same one coming around again.
A few minutes later, we’re crossing a wooden bridge over a tributary creek when Ax perks up.
“What’s that?”
I see it too – some huts and a sign, which I read aloud:
Welcome to
Pavey’s Town
Despite the welcome sign, there’s an armed man and two empty cars blocking the road.
“Don’t stop,” Ben says.
“I’m sure she won’t,” Ax says.
I slow to five miles an hour and Von growls.
“How far will our fuel get us?” Ax asks.
I’m more worried about the man with the gun and the other men coming out of a hut, but I try to do the figures.
“It’s likely to be thirty miles to the gallon, and we had around six pints. So, thirty divided by eight is…” I don’t like the look of this. “Three and three-quarters… multiplied by six is…” I hit the gas and we move swiftly up to thirty, forty, forty-five. The gunman waves us to stop, but l pull off the road to get around the blockage. He raises his gun, we duck.
Krak! Krak!
He’s shooting! I push the accelerator to the floor. More shots come in. The rear windshield goes through. It wakes Taff and Zu.
“Stay down,” Ben yells.
We’re through. We’re away. We’re okay.
“Twenty-two and a half miles,” I say, “and we’ve driven around twenty.”
Ben is looking back.
“They’re getting into a car. Are you sure about the mileage?”
“We have two, maybe three miles in the tank, Ben. Don’t ask me to work it out again.”
“I think Taff’s been hit,” says Zu.
“Hold your hand tight to the wound,” Ax says.
We thunder over a railroad crossing at 47 miles per hour. The road here isn’t built for this kind of speed. We’re thrown about alarmingly and some of the potholes threaten to rip our wheels from under us. For someone who’s only ever driven a slow tractor, this is frightening.
“Could be the car was stolen from Pavey’s Town,” Ben says.
“That would explain their lack of hospitality,” Ax says.
I keep my foot down hard on the accelerator.
“Any sign of them?” I ask. “If their engine is cold, it’s going to struggle to get above twenty-five for the first quarter mile.”
“Nothing yet,” Ben says.
“How’s Taff?” I ask.
“Not good,” says Zu.
The road takes a long bend and we’re moving out of sight. It’s a relief but I know it can’t last. They’ll soon be up to their top speed and we’ll soon be out of gas.
“Is that a bridge?” Ben asks.
“It is,” I say, seeing an iron structure up ahead.
“We’ll use the car to block it,” Ax says.
But the coughing of the engine interrupts the plan.
“What’s that?” Zu asks.
I don’t answer because the engine dies and all I can do is let us roll with probably no more than a minute before the car following us appears.
A moment later, we come to a halt short of the bridge.
“How about pushing it into the river?” Ax says.
“We wouldn’t have much time to get away,” I say. Then I realize the point of his plan. “You’re thinking we wouldn’t have to.”
We all get out – except for Taff, who doesn’t look able.
“Come on, Taff,” I say. “You can make it.”
“I…” It’s all he can say. He’s too weak to move. His eyes are losing focus. He doesn’t have long.
“Jay!” Ax snaps.
We push, but it’s like trying to move a house. I can’t get enough grip underfoot. Ben, Zu, and Ax are at the back, grunting but having little impact. We can’t leave it here, so we keep pushing – almost killing ourselves with the effort.
An inch. Two. Three.
“It’s moving!” Ben says.
“Just keep pushing,” I say, hating myself because Taff is still inside.
All the same, we have real momentum now.
“Don’t ease off!” Ax yells, like I don’t know our lives depend on it.
Von leaps into the car through an open window.
“No, Von!” we all yell.
He licks Taff’s face then he leaps out again… just as the car rolls down the shallow embankment into the water. It moves out gracefully and swirls around in a kind of dance, creating eddies that glisten with rainbow oil. And there’s Taff at the open window, looking confused and scared.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
But now the dance drags the car lower, and all I can hope is the dull metal roof doesn’t stand out too much… and that Taff doesn’t suffer more from sucking in water than he would from having that bullet kill him. It makes me feel sick, but there’s no time for my feelings. I’m too busy running and diving behind some bushes at the river’s edge.
Within seconds, the other car comes along at high speed, its wheels crunching over the road chippings. Thankfully, it drives straight across the bridge, and I watch it disappear into the distance on the other side.
We take the opportunity to find a better hiding place in a hollow patch behind some thick bushes and we flop down. This will do. This will do just fine.
Now I can tell Von what I think of him.
“You big dope,” I say, like the thing with Taff never happened. “You nearly got yourself drowned.”
“I guess he was never trained with cars being pushed into rivers,” Zu says.
“Well, he’s trained now,” Ax says.
A few minutes later, the other car comes back over the bridge and heads off toward Pavey’s Town. It looks like they’ve given up on us.
“I think we’re okay,” I say, although we wait a few minutes before moving.
Once we’re up onto the bridge, I look into the water. There are no fish I can see down there, but it’s not like we can stay. We left our fishing equipment in the car and there’s a chance of the Pavey’s Town men returning. That’s two good rea
sons to keep going.
Once we’re across the bridge, we’re greeted by a roadside sign. Painted on a whitewashed board, the bold, red words are almost defiant.
THIS IS FREEDOM COUNTRY
“This is Freedom Country,” I say, trying to get a feel for it.
“What does it mean?” Ben says.
“It means trouble,” Ax says, and I reckon he’s right.
4. Ghost Towns
BEN
If there’s a mention of Freedom Country on the map then it’s lost under the Representative’s blood, which means we continue south with no idea of what we’re heading into. All we can be sure of is the need to find food in a land that appears to be turning increasingly barren.
“Do you think our uniforms might cause a problem?” Jay asks.
“There can’t be rebels all the way down to the Lake Towns,” Zu says.
“Why not?” I ask, because I can’t see any end to the places where rebels might be.
“The Representative wouldn’t have tried to get there if it was in enemy hands,” Zu says.
“Things can change,” I point out.
“We’ll keep our uniforms for now,” Ax says. “If we show up at a Nation town in ordinary clothes, they might shoot us as spies.”
“As opposed to rebels shooting us as Nation soldiers?” I add.
“We’ll keep the uniforms,” Ax says, “but we’ll see if we can find some alternate clothing – just in case.”
Over time, we cross a number of small wooden bridges over lifeless creeks. It’s like the whole world has dried out and everything in it has taken flight. We walk on through the afternoon and I think about Ma and Gran and home, and whether my old life will be waiting for me there. Then we walk on into the evening and I think about God and Nature and Humankind. And I think of young lives cut short. And I wonder about the meaning of it all.
JAY
Next morning, it’s hot and dry before it gets light. I’m awake early, unable to rest, and wondering about life and my place in the world. I’m an empath. I know I’ve buried it for all these long years, but it’s always been there. It’s just that time I was six years old… it comes back to me so vividly… people grabbing me, tearing off my clothes, wanting to remove certain organs and set fire to me…
