by Ike Warren
"Do you want to go ahead and try to make it across?" Jennifer asked.
The sun was setting and the trees behind them were starting to cast long shadows across the open meadow.
"Let's wait a little while longer for it to get darker." Allan replied.
As they waited Allan began to feel an intense itching sensation on the back of his neck. He began to scratch but it seemed that the more he scratched the more it itched. After a few minutes Jennifer noticed.
“Stop scratching.” She fussed at him.
“My neck itches. Look and tell me what it is.”
“I don’t have to look. I know what it is. It’s the poison ivy.” She said as she leaned in close to confirm her suspicions. Sure enough his neck appeared to be broken out into little red boils. “You leaned up against the poison ivy back at the pond and forgot to wash the back of your neck off.”
“But I use to not be allergic to it.” He said confused, still scratching the back of his neck.
“You idjit, I told you people can grow allergic to it as they get older. The more times your body is exposed to it, the more it can react to the toxins.” She scolded him. Suddenly an expression of regret crossed her face.
Allan looked up and noticed her frown. “What is it?” He asked.
“I have to tell you something.”
Allan glared at here with an expression that said, “Just tell me already.”
“I have diarrhea.”
“How do you know?”
“Cause when you left me to go boy-scouting around in the woods, I went.”
“I told you not to drink that pond water.” He was scolding her now.
“You don’t know. It could have been the lake water that we drank.” She retorted.
“If it was the lake water then I would have been sick too.” He said. The sad expression returned to her face and he put his hand on her shoulder to console her. “Well, I guess we both screwed up. How do you feel other than the diarrhea?”
“My stomach is a little upset but that could also be because I’m hungry.”
“I’m hungry too sweetheart.” He continued to rub her shoulders. “We’ll find something to eat soon.”
When the darkness of night finally arrived they crept out from the cover of the woods and snuck out across the open field and ducked down in the tall grass beside the cattle corral. In front of the barn they discovered an old gravel driveway that led to a set of iron gates at the front of the pasture and they followed the driveway as they found that walking on it was easier than walking in the uneven pasture. When they reached the gates they looked down the length of the fence line in each direction and saw no signs of anyone around. The gate had a chain around it that was padlocked and Allan quickly climbed over it, received the baby, and helped Jennifer find her footing in the darkness. When she reached the solid ground on the other side she released her grip on the gate causing it to bounce and swing against its rusty hinges with an awful screeching sound.
Immediately they heard the sound of footsteps running down the oil top road towards them. Allan grabbed Jennifer's hand and they slipped down into the ditch beside the gate. The ditch was only a couple of feet deep and although there were some overgrown trees that lined the fence line, it offered very little in the way of cover and Allan knew that they were completely exposed.
Chapter 20: Tractor Trailer
The footsteps were coming from the direction of the residential houses and immediately three patrolmen appeared out of the darkness and stopped on the blacktop road right above them. In the moonlight Allan could see that each of the men were carrying bolt action style rifles.
"What was it Billy?" One of the men asked.
"I heard something coming from right over here." One of the voices replied.
"I didn't hear anything." Another man admitted.
Allan couldn't believe that the trio had not yet detected them. If climbing across the fence and then running into the ditch hadn't given them away then surely his racing heartbeat and his rushing adrenaline would reveal their location. Suddenly the sound of automatic gunfire could be heard in the distance.
The three men turned toward the direction of the sound which came from the north. The gunfire was coming from the interstate and the sound echoed through the darkness and the screams of men crying out in pain and in fear could be heard even though the battle was over two miles away. "That sounds like it's coming from the up at the barricade." One of the patrolmen said. The three men looked at each other with wide eyes and then ran off to the north to join the fight.
Allan and Jennifer watched as the faint shadows of the three patrolmen were swallowed by the darkness and then they scurried out from the limited cover of the ditch.
“Which way?” Jennifer whispered. The road that they were on ran north and south but just a few hundred feet away it appeared to curve around towards the east.
“Let’s follow that curve in the road and see where it goes.” Allan replied pointing towards the opposite direction from which the three patrolmen had just ran, wishing that he had a map to go by. They hurried around the long bend in the road and as it straightened out the oil top surface turned into gravel. As Allan walked along the gravel road the uneven rocks began to grab ahold of his broken shoe, sometimes wedging against his foot making his walk uncomfortable at best. The surface of the white rock road seemed to glow in the darkness and they followed it in an eastward direction for over a mile until they came upon an intersection between two county roads. In the black of night the best that they could tell was that one road ran in a northeast direction and the other curved off toward the south. They opted to continue traveling in the most eastwardly direction since east was the direction of home.
The road was heavily lined with trees on either side with long leafy branches arching over the roadway and joining one another in the middle to create a spooky cave-like passage. As they walked through the wooded cavern Jennifer leaned in close to Allan to shield herself and the baby against her fears of the darkness. When they were in the middle of the darkest part of the road the sound of growling erupted from the ditch beside them and then came the sound of something running out of the bushes towards them. Allan and Jennifer nearly jumped out of their skin as they leapt to the side of the road in a futile attempt to get away but the dark shadow of the animal was upon them in an instant. Allan could see against the glow of the white rock road that the animal was in fact a large dog. The dog let out a series of angry barks and Allan wished that they still had the screwdriver that was in Jennifer’s purse to jab at the dog with. Without any means of defense he puckered his lips and began making kissing noises and chanting, “Good doggy. Good doggy”. The dog leapt up on its hind legs and placed its front paws on Jennifer’s side and she twisted her body away to shield the baby from the snarling beast.
“Get it off me. Get it off me!” Jennifer shrieked. Allan could hear the dog sniffing the air feverously in an attempt to identify them by their scent.
“Just be calm.” Allan instructed but Jennifer’s state of panic seemed to become more elevated at his lack of response.
“Get it off me!” She screamed louder. Allan feared that if he did anything aggressive to forcefully remove the dog off his wife that the curious animal might attack.
“Who’s a good boy?” Allan asked in the friendliest voice possible. He wondered if the dog was a male or female and then he figured that the dog probably didn’t care one way or the other what he called it. Allan saw the dog’s tail wave in the darkness in response to his voice, “Yeah, yous’ a good boy aren’t you?” He continued as he reached over and grabbed the dog’s paws and gently lifted them off of Jennifer. Allan put his hand on the dog’s head to pet him and his tail wagged lovingly in response. He placed the dog’s front legs on the ground and the dog circled around them with both his tongue and his tail wagging in excitement for having just made new friends. Allan placed his hand on Jennifer’s shoulder and felt that she was trembling. “It’s ok
honey.” He reassured her.
“You two better just keep on moving!” A raspy voice yelled from behind the tress and Allan and Jennifer nearly jumped out of their skin for the second time on the dark gravel road.
“We’re just passing through mister.” Allan called out.
“You be glad you didn’t lay a finger on my dog or I’da blowed your heads off.” The voice said as the unmistakable metallic click of a shotgun chambering a new round rang out to inform them that that he wasn’t joking. “Get over here Buster you damn useless dog. And you two get the hell out of here!”
The dog sprinted off back into the woods and Allan’s broken right shoe flapped angrily against the rocky road as they ran away as fast as they could.
They finally stopped running when they reached a T intersection between the gravel road and a paved highway.
“Was that man one of the patrols?” Jennifer asked as she gasped for breath.
“I don’t think so or he would have stopped and questioned us more. I think that he was just an old man guarding his property and scaring would-be trespassers away.” Allan said between deep huffs for breath.
They looked up at the green highway sign beside the intersection and read the white reflective letters that said FM 36. Allan stepped out on the road and began to head towards the north when Jennifer stopped him.
“We need to go the other way.”
“The other way is south. To get back on the interstate we have to go north.”
“I know this road. When I was younger there used to be a dirt race track up ahead where my uncle use to race cars. They bulldozed it down a few years ago and built a school there in its place. This road dumps out right behind the barricade on the interstate that we’re trying to avoid.”
“I thought this road winds away from there.” Allan said confused.
“You’re thinking of the next road over, FM 1565, which is what we’ll follow if he head south on this road.” She said and Allan wanted to ask her if she was sure but she confidently took his hand and led them back in the opposite direction before he could say anything.
They walked southward for a mile down the quiet highway when Jennifer stopped. “I have an idea.” She said. “If we cross over this field it should save us at least a couple of miles walking.”
“How do you figure?” Allan asked.
“This road makes a V in the town of Union Valley where it joins FM 1565. We could bypass all that if we cross over this field.”
“You sure know this area well.”
“I told you that my uncle use to race cars here. He didn’t have a trailer to load his car on so he would drive his car on all the back roads to get to the race track and these were the roads that he used.”
Allan wanted to protest. He was afraid of running into another armed property owner who might not let them off as easily as the man with the dog had just done if they were actually trespassing instead of walking along a public road, but the idea of saving time and steps sounded really good to him so he went along with his wife’s plan.
The first fence that they crossed to enter the pasture had square slots in it that made finding a foot hold easy. They were up and over the fence in under a minute and they wasted no time crossing the wide open pasture. There was a grove of old oak trees in the middle of the field that reminded Allan of the place near the lake where the baby was born and they stopped and looked out and they could see the next highway directly in front of them. They scanned the area and saw no signs of any patrols and then they quietly crossed to the far end of the field. When they reached the property boundary they encountered another barbed wire fence that was stretched as tight as banjo wires and Allan looked in both directions hoping to find an H brace somewhere along the fence line to use to get across but in the darkness he could not see one.
“You folks can cross up here.” A man’s voice called out from the darkness and Allan and Jennifer’s hearts leapt in their chests. They both stared into the darkness in the direction from where the voice came from but they could not see anyone. “Please don’t cut my fence. There’s a walk through gate that you can use right up here.” The voice called out again and Allan and Jennifer waited for the other to decide what to do. Just when Jennifer expected Allan to turn and run the other way he took a step into the darkness towards the sound of the voice. When they reached the man they saw that he was standing next to an open gate that was just big enough for a person to walk through. The man looked to be in his early 20’s and he was heavy set and Allan could see that his hair was oily and his cloths looked tattered. He reminded Allan of the man that he had seen at the Brookshire’s grocery store weeks ago who looked so down on his luck and, in Allan’s imagination, just waiting for a disaster like this to go on a criminal rampage.
Is this the same man that I saw at Brookshire’s? Allan wondered. He looks just like him. But that’s impossible. Everyone has oily hair and tattered clothes now.
The man had a rifle hooked to a sling that went around his shoulder and he shifted it around to his back and stuck his hand out and smiled. His white teeth glowed in the darkness like the white rock road that they had walked along earlier.
“Name’s Ennis.” The man said as he shook each of their hands and then he reached into his shirt pocket and fumbled around for a cigarette. “I watched you cross my field. I thought, oh damn, here comes some folks gonna cut my fence and let all my cows out. But then I saw you was carrying a baby with you and I figured you folks weren’t gonna cause any trouble. I’m right aren’t I?” He asked as he lit the cigarette.
Allan marveled at the man’s uncanny ability to see in the darkness and he stuttered, “No, no sir, we’re not any trouble. Just trying to get home to Greenville.”
“They wouldn’t let you through at the barricade would they? I don’t know why those asshole cops have to be so territorial. They got to control everything and everyone around here. You guys hungry? I got some dehydrated banana slices and some beef jerky.” He offered them with a glowing smile as he reached into his pocket and pulled out two zip lock bags of the food. He placed his hand out to offer the bags to Allan but then quickly snapped his hand back. “What you got for trade?” He demanded.
Allan looked around nervously and put his hands up to indicate that he had nothing to trade.
“Oh I’m just joshing ya. Here take a bite of that jerky. It’s the best damn jerky you’ll ever sink your teeth into.” Allan and Jennifer stood at the gate tearing through the beef jerky and banana slices like it was manna fallen from heaven.
Allan stopped eating when he saw that the two bags were just about empty. “I don’t want to eat all your food.”
“Oh it’s alright. I got more back at the house.”
“I have a question for you mister. How did you see us crossing your field, and identify a baby in my wife’s arms no less, when I can barely see my hands in front of my face?”
“I was watching you through my rifle scope. With the safety on of course.” Ennis said as he swung the rifle off his back. He touched a button on the scope and a bright green light began to emit from it. “It’s a night vision scope. Wanna take a look?”
He raised the rifle and aimed it down the long fence line and Allan leaned over and looked through the lens. Everything became illuminated in a green glow and he could see down the entire length of the fence line and into a row of trees at the far end of the field.
“The night vision works better when there’s more background light than this but the sky is pretty clear tonight and the stars are shining bright so it does ok.” Ennis said.
“How did the electronics in the night vision survive the blast?” Jennifer asked.
“I don’t know. But it was the only electronic device that I own that’s still working. I kept my rifle in a metal gun safe. I can only guess that maybe that had something to do with it.”
Allan remembered the reporter on the news in Europe on the day that they left to go to the mall who was talking about how he kept
his satellite phone in a metal box and that it must have shielded it from the blast.
Ennis handed Allan the two bags of remaining food. “You two go ahead and take the rest of this with you. Be safe on your journey and take care of that little one.”
Allan and Jennifer thanked Ennis and then stepped onto FM 1565 and the man closed the gate behind them. After they had walked a ways they opened the bags of food and finished them off.
“That man was nice.” Jennifer commented.
“Yes he was.” Allan replied and his thoughts turned back to the man that he had so coldly judged back at the Brookshire’s grocery store a few weeks before. “I think I’m going to see people in a much different light from now on.” He said.
“How’s that?” Jennifer asked.
“The whole judging books by their covers that society seemed so quick to do before. Everything has changed now. All of our previous assumptions and prejudices and biases are out the window.”
“We can only hope.” Jennifer said and Allan nodded his head in agreement.
They reached the interstate and they were exhausted. Allan's right foot had long stopped flapping and was now it just dragging along the pavement like a zombie who had lost control of his leg muscles. When they reached the north end of FM 1565 where it met with the interstate they looked back and saw no signs of the armed barricade. There was no one walking on the road and the sounds of the gun battle had long gone quiet.
"I'd like to walk along the service road so that if we run into trouble we can dart off a side road or into a field if we have to." Allan said with a tired voice.
"Do you think people will give us trouble now that we're on the other side of the barricade?" Jennifer asked.
"It's possible. Especially after whatever happened as a result of that gunfight earlier."
"Should we rest before we move on?" Jennifer asked in a tired voice similar to Allan's.
"I'd like to walk a couple miles to the east to get as far away from this place as possible."
