by Gabe Sluis
Chapter 9- Means of Conveyance
The boys walked through the night, but it was a bright night. The moon appeared to be several times larger than it should be and it lit up the area like an old movie shot through a dimming filter to simulate night. The three walked out of the pine forest, onto a paved path that was wide enough for a single car. Eucalyptus trees lined one side of the road, with rolling cow pastures beyond. The snow had stopped as they left the pines and all traces of its presence in the ground had melted away.
“North,” Jake said, “…looks like this heads in that direction.”
“I wonder how far the redwoods are…” Donny mused. “We should find out so that we can get a ride if it’s too far…”
“Something tells me, this is going to be more than just a walk up the way,” Chris said. He looked at the other two, walking on either side of him up the road. He began to say something, paused, and tried again. “I think you both have a good idea why we are here, so, thanks. Thanks for coming with me.”
“Anything for you, buddy,” Jake replied, straying from their collective path. Stapled on a tree trunk was a white piece of paper, standing out in the pseudo-dark.
Jakes feet crunched dried leaves as he stepped off the path to pluck the poster from the smooth bark. A corner ripped where a staple refused to give way, but Jake came away with the paper mostly intact. The other two stopped and waited for Jake to show them what he had found. Jake turned his back to use the moonlight and read the boldfaced type aloud.
“It’s a wanted poster… ‘Reward. Wanted dead or alive, for the armed attacks on of two sheriffs’ deputies, and the murder of a county selectman, one Terrance Golden, the Redwood Reaper.’ Holy crap! This has got to be the guy that Renault was talking about!”
Jake showed the flier to the other two, who read the brief headlines and looked into the face of the man they were meant to stop. The photo appeared to be an old mug shot of a skinny white man with a shaved head and ears that pointed away from his head. One eye was bloodshot and his mouth was set in a slight sneer. He had the look of a typical dirt bag. The boys continued to walk as Chris read the small description below the photo.
“’Golden is considered armed and dangerous after shooting a selectman and two sheriffs sent to remove him from his illegal occupation of preservation land in the Jenner Redwoods. Golden is an ex-Marine and described by his ex-wife as a ‘survivalist’ and ‘deranged.’”
“Great, so this guy isn’t just some yahoo, he knows what he is doing,” Jake said.
“He has been shooting a lot of people,” Donny began. “And it sounds like they have been hunting him up there. ‘Dead or alive’? Are we going to have to kill this guy?”
“He has already demonstrated that he doesn’t care about innocent people. And he’s obviously a crazy dude,” Chris argued. “He is just going to hide out there and hurt more people if we don’t stop him. I don’t have much of a problem with it.”
“I don’t know, dude. I don’t think I could kill anybody.”
“What if this guy broke into your house and was going to rape your wife? Would you kill him then?”
“Yeah, but this is just some guy trying to be left alone in the woods. Us going up there and just… blasting him, would be too cold-blooded. He has to pay for what he did, but why are we the ones to be another man’s judge? I don’t even know if we alone are going to stand a chance against a guy like this.” Donny had a serious look of doubt on his face.
“Jake has military training. We go shooting all the time. Your dad had you shooting since you could hold a rifle. We are good in the woods… It’s too bad Ryan is not here, but we can get this guy!”
“Stop, both of you,” Jake said. “First of all, Donny is right. We should try to stop him before we make a harder decision. Talking about shooting some psycho and actually looking down the sights at him when you pull the trigger is another thing all together. All of that is despite the fact that I don’t think this whole place is even real. Any people we might run into might just be fantasies anyway. So, Donny, we are not going to make you do anything you don’t feel comfortable with. We can cross all those bridges when we come to them. Shit, we have only been here a couple hours and met our so-called guide once. Who’s to know if that is even the whole story?”
They walked in silence, again considering their present and future. Chris brought himself to agree with Jake; in principle, he could shoot a man who deserved it, but when actually faced with the act, could he do it with no hesitation?
Donny could not get the phrase dead or alive out of his head. He began to dread the endpoint of the path they were on. He didn’t want to be stuck with that kind of decision, even if this place wasn’t real like Jake thought. He had been haunted by decisions he had made in the past, he didn’t need more little demons with different color eyes chasing him.
Jake held on to a small thing Chris had mentioned. He wished Ryan were here as well. He knew he could depend on both his friends, but there were doubts. Chris knew what had to be done, but was he as capable as he let on? Donny was full of doubts but most always came through when you needed him. Was there going to be any issues with reliability there? If his brother was with him, all he would have to deal with was his cockiness. In everything else, it would be like having another one of himself around. Maybe even better.
Jake’s thoughts were broken off by a cry from Donny.
“You guys here that? A waterfall!”
Up ahead, the sound of roaring water became clearer as they quickened their pace to the top of the next rise. Ahead in the darkness, they could see the road winding upward to a high pass. The river traveled down the mountian, and suddenly found itself in freefall, crashing into a pool at the point where the road began its climb. Hidden in the trees on the opposite side of the road from the water was a dark structure, immediately noticed by the boys as they came closer. A mailbox stood at the edge of the road, and a wide driveway created a gap in the line of trees. The farmhouse and big barn stood close to the road, casting moonlight shadows, no electric lights showing. The three stopped at the edge of the drive and stared.
“Looks abandoned” Donny said in a whisper.
“No need to keep your voice down, we could use a ride, or at least directions, we have been walking for hours,” Jake said.
“HELLOOO!!??”
“Are you sure about that?” Chris questioned.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” he said to Chris. “Anyone home?!! Anyone at all?!!!”
Jake walked into the middle of the driveway, halfway between the barn and small house. The other two cautiously followed. Jake began looking around and pointed at the barn.
“Lets see if there is anything we could use in there. An old car we could borrow, maybe.”
Chris walked to the barn and pulled the big front door open as Jake went the opposite way to the house. The closest door facing the barn opened easily, revealing the smell of mildew and garbage littered across a dirty linoleum floor. Looking around through the side entrance, Jake noticed the window above a big sink was broken, and no signs of everyday household supplies could be found.
“The kitchen,” he reported to the others. “And I was right, no one lives here. Looks like it was abandoned a while ago.”
“I got a quad over here!”
Jake and Donny joined Chris in the doorway to the opened barn, looking at the vehicle sitting in the rectangle of moonlight.
“Oh! No, it’s a three-wheeler!” Donny said, forgetting his feelings of breaking and entering. “Looks in good shape. We had one of these when I was a kid. One winter it sat for so long we couldn’t get it going the next spring, and we just never used it again. I bet it’s still sitting in our shed at home.”
“Pull it out and lets see if it works!”
Donny walked around to the side and placed both his hands on the handlebars. He set his feet and used his body weight, but nothing happened. He tried again, this time letting out a littl
e grunt.
“Hold down the clutch, maybe it’s in gear.”
“Let me try,” Chris jumped in.
Chris traded out with Donny and took hold of the bars, this time pumping the clutch a few times as he rocked it back and forth to get it moving. But the wheels did not budge.
“I don’t know why that thing won’t move,” Donny said. “They don’t have parking breaks… This thing looks like it should move, but it just won’t. Feels like the wheels are stuck.”
“Oh well,” Jake said looking around the rest of the barn, “it wouldn’t have been a comfortable ride anyway. Here we go!”
Walking into the shadows Jake lifted a bicycle from a hook on one of the main beams of the barn. It had thin wheels covered in cobwebs and dust, but dropping it down onto both wheels, the bike appeared intact.
“Take a look back there and see if you see any more,” Jake said, putting his hands on the handlebars and swinging his leg over to a riding position. “If we could find one for each…” Jake stopped mid sentence as he attempted to push off and harshly began to fall over. “What the…”
He caught himself in a whirlwind of flailing movement, recovering clumsily off to one side of the road bike. “What is going on?”
“What happened?” Chris asked, looking around outside the barn rapidly.
“I went to go and it just wouldn’t move! What the hell?”
Chris knelt beside the bike, taking the forks in one hand and attempted to spin the front wheel in the other. The wheel turned slightly underhand, but on its own, it came to a stop.
“Really, dude, really?”
“Well that was a good idea, but it looks like a dead end. Wheels don’t seem like they want to cooperate,” Chris said.
“We are going to have to walk,” Jake said to himself. “I knew it. Would have been too easy if we just got a ride.” He let the old bike drop and walked out onto the driveway. The other two felt his defeat, and stopped what they were doing to follow. Donny started to move to close the barn door, but changed his mind and ran to join Chris and Jake who had posted up at the end of the drive.
In his hands, Jake had the wanted flier for a one Terry Golden. He stood staring out at the waterfall beyond, folding the paper. When Donny arrived, Jake spoke.
“So, it looks like all transportation is out, and we at least have a hike over this hill before we get to the forest,” he said waggling the filer which had taken shape. “Who’s to know if what we saw in the barn is going to be the same everywhere else. ‘The laws of physics are in play here, for the most part.’ I guess we were warned.”
Jake let the paper airplane go. The bright white paper sailed from his hand and surfed away on a wave of moist air traveling away from the cascade beyond. It lifted and dipped, drifting away gracefully.
“No point in putting it off boys, lets get moving.”
