Journal (32 page)

One
thing we said was that if our thinking of direction was right, and whoever was
out there was going our same way, we’d have to get past them somehow.  Another
thing we said was that just like we heard their engine, they could hear ours if
we were close enough.  That one brought up a whole bunch of other things to
talk about.

My
idea was to leave our car in the bushes somewhere and walk the rest of the way. 
We all agreed that we couldn’t be so scared to leave it behind that we took
chances that got us found out.  But we disagreed on whether to leave the car
now or wait until later.  I thought let’s just be done with it, leave it now
and get on our way.  Alan and mom thought we should keep the car awhile longer. 
(It was probably Petra’s body they didn’t want to leave behind and not the car. 
In my opinion, feelings like that can get you killed.  I didn’t say it, but I should
have.)

This
was a pretty serious argument we were having.  I didn’t get into a shouting
type deal with them or anything, but I didn’t back down either, which I think kind
of surprised them a little, to be honest with you.  I’d never done that before. 
Anyway, so even though it was their two votes to my one, Alan gave-in a
little.  He suggested we sit there for an hour or so and wait for these people
to get farther away.  In the meantime, he’d go ahead on foot and see if he
could spot them and figure out what they were up to.

What
could I say about that?  I was out voted anyway.  Besides, we were a team and
had to work together even if we didn’t agree.

He
told us that every quarter mile or so, he would leave little pieces of blanket
tied to something near the road to let us know how far and which way he’d
gone.  If he wanted us to stop and wait, he’d put a rock in the middle of the
road with a piece of blanket under it.  After the hour of waiting was up, mom
and I would start driving slowly in his direction.  We’d decide what to do with
our car after that.  I still thought we ought to just start walking.  We could
be in Woburn by night time if we started walking right away.

So
anyway, Alan took off, carrying his rifle with him, a pocketful of bullets, and
leaving the shotgun with me.

When
it seemed an hour had gone by, mom and I took off slow, just as we planned it. 
After passing like five of the markers, so I guess about a mile and a quarter,
we came to a rock in the road with a piece of blanket under it.  After we
pulled the blanket out, we hid our car in some nearby trees where we could see
the road if Alan returned.

Oh,
forgot, I suppose I should tell you that in that mile and a quarter or so, we
didn’t see any wheel tracks.  That told us that the vehicle we heard was probably
on a different road altogether and further away than we first thought.

We
waited for Alan a long time.  It was so long, in fact, I was starting to think
that maybe he’d been caught or something, and we should see about finding him. 
I was just about at the point where I was going to bring it up to mom, when I
saw him come trotting out through some trees and bushes.  He was across the
road from us, but a couple a hundred long paces away.  He kind of stood there a
bit, looking up one way and down ex-wife and daughter y point the other, I guess trying to figure out where
we were at, when mom stepped out of our hiding place and waved him over.

When
I finally got a good clear look at his face, I could see that he was kind of,
you know, worked up about something.  After he explained what he’d seen, mom and
I got a little worked up ourselves.

Alan
spread out the road map we’d been using, on the hood of our car and put his
finger on the two lane road we now traveled.  He pointed out that about half a
mile ahead was a bridge over the same river we floated the boat down.  On our
side of the bridge and river, was a major road that went both north and south
(the way we wanted to go).  Also on our side of the river, not too far from the
intersection of our road and the other, was a small town named Gasping
Willows.  Who comes up with these names anyway?

Alan
next told us that when he got to the intersection up ahead, he saw a set of
tire tracks going toward the town.  How he knew they were going that way and
not the other was because he also saw footprints going that same direction —
lots of footprints.  He said that was the point where he doubled back and
placed the rock in the road so we wouldn’t go any further.  After doing that,
he cut across country going south, the same direction as the highway and the
same way all these people were going.

He
told us that he hadn’t gone very far when he started hearing noises, manmade
type noises, banging and stuff like that, and voices, too.  So at that point,
he slowed way down, at times even crawling from tree to tree, until he got within
sight of where it was all coming from.  It turned out to be a gathering of mostly
men, about fifty or sixty in all.  They were grouped-up near some warehouse
type buildings at the far eastern edge of this town called Gasping Willows.

So
many people all in one place was strange enough, but he said there were some
other things that really got his attention.

First
off, as he watched, it seemed like more and more people were arriving, so their
numbers were still getting bigger.  He saw several small groups of men walking in
from the direction of the road carrying their belongings on their backs.  Some
of these people were riding bicycles, and two men even showed up on a horse.  According
to Alan, these weren’t very nice looking guys either.  They were rough looking
men, and women too, who were “up to no good,” as he put it.  Many of these
people were carrying rifles or shotguns, and most of the rest had other kinds
of weapons as well.  What he guessed was going on was that this was the place
where the people set on attacking Woburn were gathering, before they got on
with it.

Another
thing he told us about was a flatbed truck, a little larger than a pickup,
parked off to one side, kind of away from where all the people were at.  Mounted
in the back of this truck was some type of homemade cannon or mortar.  He
thought this because there was a tube that he supposed was the barrel of the
thing, sticking up above the wooden slat sides.  It was attached to something
sitting on the bed of the truck that he couldn’t see real good.  Also, I guess
people kept walking over and staring at it like it was some big deal.  At one
point, one of these persons started to climb into the back of the truck and was
yelled at to get down and warned that if he wasdon’t know whytifn’t careful, he’d “blow us all
to hell.”  Those were the exact words.

Canons
aside for a minute, maybe the worst news was that the person who was doing the
yelling at the man climbing in the back of the truck, was none other than Eric. 
He’s the same one who Alan calls Mr. Ponytail.  Of course you had to know if
Eric was there, Carla wouldn’t be too far away.  Alan said he saw her wandering
around, which made me regret all the more that I hadn’t killed her a couple of
days before.  I remember hoping for another chance at her, even flashing on the
moment in my head.  It was the big prize that I really wanted, though, Eric.  I
owed him for not only what he did to me but to mom also; especially to mom.  I
really hated Eric.

At
this point, mom said, “We got to get a look at that truck and whatever’s in it,
and destroy it.  We can’t let them use it on Woburn.”  As you might think, that
started quite a bit of talk between us.

Instead
of telling you about the discussion we had and everybody’s opinions, I’ll just
get to the point and tell you what we decided.  It may not be as interesting that
way, but it will be faster.

As
much as we all wanted to get to Woburn, which we figured couldn’t be but three
hours away by car, four at the most, more than twice that on foot though, we
decided to hang out until nightfall and sneak their camp to see what we could
do about that canon.  As part of our plan, Alan and mom had to finally face the
fact that we couldn’t go any further with our car.  There was just no way it
was possible.  Not only would the bad guys be able to hear it, but they could
easily find our tracks and follow behind.  This of course meant burying Petra’s body.  Again no choice; the animals would get to her if we just left her strapped
to the back of the car until we could get back.

I
didn’t tell them,
I told you so
.  I wanted to, though.

So
we buried her close by, near a patch of wild flowers mom found.  After piling
on the last stone, we stood around her grave, close-up, and each of us took a
turn saying something about her, which seemed a little, I don’t know, weird I
guess.  I mean everything I knew about her, they knew, too, and the other way
around.  I think instead of talking about her out loud like that, I would rather
have just taken a few minutes to picture her face looking at me, or her little
hands pointing at birds passing overhead, or remember her voice when she talked
about the safe place.  For some reason, though, each of us actually talking
about her seemed important to mom and Alan.  I guess it was really no big deal,
I’m just saying ...

We
finished up our little ceremony with some hard promises that we’d come back and
get her so she could be reburied in Woburn.  In my mind, that was more a
promise for Alan, okay and maybe mom, too, than a promise for Petra.  When
you’re dead, I don’t think promises mean much to you, or for that matter, nice
words either.  She was dead and her life is just a memory I have in my head,
and when I’m dead there’s not going to be even that.

Afterwards,
we marked the spot in a secret way and also the road to make it easy to find
her later and spent the rest of the afternoon cutting branches and stuff ">Anna
interrupted at with t to
hide our vehicle.

We
also packed up what we’d take with us, including the two cans of gunpowder
wrapped with tape and nails.  We thought they might come in handy for destroying
Eric’s big gun.  And about that gunpowder, Alan made a fuse out of a piece of
paper tape that he sprinkled with gun powder and then rolled up lengthwise.  You
have to hand it to Alan.  That was pretty tricky.

Just
before dark came on, we finished a small meal and drank some tea heated over
that stove we got from Hank’s place.  Then we headed across the road and due
south through the brush, sticking close together and walking as quietly as we
could toward Eric’s campground.  I will admit that I didn’t think too much of
our chances of messing up that truck and getting away.  We had trouble enough
trying to avoid these people, now we were walking right into their camp.

It
wasn’t hard to find them, either.  I’ll tell you that.  They were making so
much noise we knew where they were five minutes after we got on our way.  When
we were close, Alan left us behind again and went looking for a good place to
spy on them while we figured out what we were going to do next.

About
a half hour later, he came back and led us to what must have, at one time, been
somebody’s junk yard or something.  I say that because it was this area filled
with a bunch of old, old vehicles, all rusted out and of no use for anything, washing
machines, stacks of worn down tires, busted-up toilets, used kitchen sinks,
just a whole bunch of junk thrown-out in no particular order, laying this way
and that all over the place.  It made for a great spot to hide, though.  I
ended up next to this old freezer with the door torn off, resting on its side
next to a great big tractor tire that had weeds growing out of the center of it. 
No way were they going to see me.

Laying
there in the dark like that, I had almost a perfect view of the truck Alan told
us about.  I could also see the people who were, at that moment, just lighting
up a nice, big old fire.  The good thing about the fire was it made it easier
for us to see them, and much, much harder for them to see us.  I couldn’t help
but think, though, how nice it would be to have a fire of my own.  It was damn
cold spread out like I was, there on the damp ground.  You might think that
eventually you get used to that kind of stuff, but you don’t.  Maybe what you
get used to is expecting it.

Getting
on with what I was seeing, they were all standing around the end of this long,
dirty white, single story, metal warehouse.  A few of the doors, big roll-up ones,
were open and people were going in and out of the place all casual like.  I
guess that’s where they were stashing their stuff and probably sleeping, too. 
The fire was near the end of the building and confined to a big metal barrel. 
Pretty soon another one was lit farther down.

Between
us and them was a distance of about fifty or sixty yards, I guess.  About
halfway was that truck Alan told us about, parked in such a way that I could
look right into the back end of the thing.

Now
as for the truck goes, what I saw in the back of it was this tube looking thing,
about five or six feet long and three or four inches in diameter, attached to
another tube ordon’t know whytif pipe that was a little bigger around.  The whole deal was
mounted on some type of stand that was connected to the back end of the truck.  Later,
I was able to get a closer look at it.   The wider tube, at the bottom of the
longer one, was maybe eighteen inches in length and had some small pipes
attached to it.  Sticking in the end of this wider tube was a small hose that
ran to what looked like a pretty good sized propane tank.  And spread out over
the rest of the truck bed, were these boxes.  Much, much later, after what
happened, happened, I learned from Alan that the boxes were filled with these firebomb
like things.  They were made out of large tin cans open on one end and stuffed
with plastic bags filled with a gooey gasoline mixture.  On the other end of
the can, the closed end, was attached a wad of steel wool.