Humanaty's Blight

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sue and I stood at the edge of the woods, near the driveway, where we could watch the approach of anyone from either direction on the road. None did. We expected the bikers to send more men, bikes, or a car, but that didn’t happen.

There had been four bikes chasing us. Four had ridden past. Then there were gunshots and three returned. Either the gunfight down the road had killed one, or there was still a rider out there. It was best to wait. If he was alive, he’d probably come roaring down the road before long. I moved a few steps to where the rifle had a good field of fire as I listened for the roar of another motorcycle.

The ejected bullet lay on the ground. I hadn’t searched the rider for more. I picked it up, blew the dust off and wiped it on my shirt before ejecting the magazine and inserting it with the remaining shells. Five left.

“My God, what have we done?” Sue whispered more to herself than for me to hear.

“Nothing,” I grunted.

She turned to me; her voice shrill. “Nothing? We’re surrounded by people we killed in the last ten minutes and you think that’s nothing? And there were those in the town. I fired the shotgun right into the middle of a crowd.”

After taking a step back to allow her to see I didn’t mean to attack her, my voice was soft and sincere. “Yes, we killed three people, maybe more, and for that I’m sorry. Not too sorry, though. They didn’t have to come after us with guns, did they? If we hadn’t killed them, we’d be dead.”

My pause confused her. She knew more was coming, but she first glanced at the closest dead man with revulsion clearly written on her face.

I continued, “Ask yourself one question. What did we do to them to cause this?”

She remained silent.

I got tired of waiting for her answer. “We had the audacity to ride a motorcycle peacefully along the road. For that, they chased us, shot at us and sent four assassins on motorcycles to kill us. Yes, assassins. Make no mistake about it. They were after us to kill us. For what? We had nothing of value.”

“Then why?” she asked. “The world has gone crazy.”

“Cockroaches is my theory. You see one and you step on it just to hear it crunch under your heel. To them, that is all we were.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Well, there are other things, too. They may have felt they were protecting their territory, or that we had something of value, or maybe they realized you are a woman and they wanted another female body to pass around tonight. The point is, we did nothing to deserve them trying to kill us. Those men would be alive if they hadn’t chased us, so if you want to assign blame, they get it all.”

She placed her index finger on my lips to quiet me. “You’re right, I know that on one level. Saying those things and trying to make me believe them is one thing. Tonight, when you wake up from nightmares again, we will know there is another fear to face.”

Fact versus feelings. She was right. And I suspected I would again wake wrestling with those demons again, the sounds of the impacts of the bullets, the ending of the lives of some mother’s children with their bodies rotting in the weeds beside a two-lane country road.

After what seemed a very long time, Sue suggested we follow the driveway and see where it went before dark. My instinct was to remain where we were in case the fourth biker returned. Logic said he wouldn’t. He would already be here if he was alive. All those shots earlier were men shooting at each other farther down the road. At least one bullet had struck its target.

We rolled our bike from under the trees. I thought about taking one of theirs, but they were too loud, attracting too much unwanted attention. Sue hadn’t learned to drive today, but maybe tomorrow. She climbed on behind me, carrying both the rifle and shotgun balanced across her knees. I made a mental note to return and search the one who had owned the rifle for more shells later—but considering the blank, scared expression Sue wore, that could wait.

After fifty yards, the driveway bent around a thick stand of alders and evergreens. I went so slow walking would have been faster, but my eyes were on the dirt ruts we rode in. No footprints, no tire tracks, and no grasses bent by boots. The house came into view and I planted both feet to balance as we stopped.

The house had been smaller at one time. It looked like there had been two additions, one for a garage and one to add space to the house. Neither had been done well. The roofs didn’t line up, the siding wasn’t a match, and the window frames were different.

They had been done years ago as testified by the faded brown paint, overgrown shrubbery, and general air of disrepair. A rusted-out old car perched on blocks beside a pickup that had blackberry vines covering so much of it that the truck was hard to see. The house was wide, the roof slope shallow, and the effects of being near saltwater obvious in the rust and corrosion on metal, and the faded paint of the siding. Things age quickly when near saltwater, especially metal and wood.

We moved forward and I parked the bike around the corner of the house, where it would be out of sight for anybody coming down the driveway. A wooden deck covered the front of the house, which was the side facing the water, and because the ground sloped downward to the shore, there was a basement level that was unnoticed from the driveway.

The deck made a sunroof for the lower part of the house, and there was an outside door that stood open. Nothing else was out of place. No broken windows, none of the obvious signs of the owner’s absence. As Sue started to slip off the bike, my hand reached for the nine-millimeter.

“I wouldn’t, if I was you,” the voice of an old man warned.

He stood under the porch roof behind a stack of split firewood piled chest high. He held a double-barreled shotgun pointed at my stomach from a distance of a dozen feet. He couldn’t miss.

“We’ll leave peacefully,” I said.

“And bring ten more back here?”

“No, sir.”

A deadly silence followed. He cleared his throat and asked, “You got a story? A short one?”

Sue answered, “We were just riding through town when two men on motorcycles chased us and shot at us. I fired back and may have winged one or scared him because he dumped his bike. The other went back to check on him.”

“There was a hell of a lot more gunfire than that, and your story doesn’t fit the facts of what I just heard.”

Sue didn’t like the tone he used, and she placed her fists on her hips and moved a few steps closer as she snapped, “That’s because you didn’t listen to the whole thing.”

“I said to keep it short.” He grunted.

It was not like her to back down and I thought about speaking before her, but she had moved closer and he hadn’t shot her. She continued, “Four more came after us. We did nothing to cause that. We hid at the top of your driveway in the trees. They passed right on by and we thought it would be okay, but then we heard gunshots and only three came back. They searched every driveway.”

“That’s cause they knew you hadn’t gone past the roadblock the Indians set down the road. You had to be around here. I guess you ambushed them when they returned?”

She nodded. “We did and I’m sorry they died, but damn it, they should have minded their own business.”

“You Indian?” He asked Sue.

“Hispanic. Maybe some Indian from Mexico, I don’t know.”

“Too bad. If you go to the roadblock, you can probably pass through easy enough if you lie to them about that. Tell them you’re from a tribe they don’t know and they’ll let you pass. Where you go after that, I don’t know.”

“We just wanted to get as far as one of the little beach communities.”

He lowered the shotgun as he asked, “Why’s that? You planning on taking a vacation?”

“To grab a couple of kayaks,” Sue said without hesitation.

He waited. Finally, wagged the barrel of the shotgun and spat, “Steal them, you mean.”

She didn’t elaborate.

A gull landed and perched on the rail and watched them stare at each other. I watched the gull.

He broke the impasse. “Then what?”

“We’re going to try stealing, if that’s the right word, a sailboat from Everett. Not from anyone alive. We were hiding out in a mining tunnel above Darrington and could see that wouldn’t work out for us for summer and next fall. We decided we’re not going to live by raiding empty houses and killing everybody we meet. Sooner or later, either we’d make a mistake or meet up with a larger gang. So, Bill came up with the idea of getting a sailboat and hiding in the islands.”

“Smart,” he muttered. “You thirsty?”

“Yes,” we both said at the same time. I didn’t mention that the idea had been all hers. She was giving me far too much credit.

He pointed to the open doorway. I started to put my gun on the bike seat. He said, “Better keep that with you.”

We entered, Sue carrying the shotgun in one hand and the rifle in her other. The basement was shallow, meant to hold up a house on a slope, but had been modified over time into a usable basement. The roof was low, with exposed beams. Across the rear, which faced the driveway, was a row of little windows I hadn’t noticed from outside. They were only about six inches tall, but two feet wide, and they slid open. Five were open now, providing a good view of the driveway. They were also good places to fire a gun from.

He saw me look. “Painted the inside and outside of the glass with spray paint so no light gets seen from the road. Open, they give me a good view of the driveway and work as rifle ports, but so far that hasn’t been needed. You’re the first visitors to come calling.”

He was older than I had thought. His left knee didn’t seem to work right, and he limped. The hoarse cough was probably from the overflowing ashtrays. His skin was pasty. I said, “Are you well?”

“Does it look like I am?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“That’s twice you called me, sir. The first time probably saved your life. Now you can quit.”

Sue said, “The drink?”

He went to a smaller refrigerator and pulled a soda for her. He looked at me and asked, “Beer or soda?”

I can’t stand warm beer. Warm soda isn’t much better, but beads of moisture were already forming on Sue’s can. “Hey, is that cold?”

“Course it is. What sort of man would drink warm beer?”

“Cold beer! I didn’t think there was any electricity left.”

“Propane,” he said. “Besides, I got a couple of solar panels and a small rack of car batteries.”

“Propane? Like what’s in cigarette lighters?”

He handed me a beer so cold it hurt to hold and popped the top of one for himself. I ignored that it was a lite beer. After chugging about half, he fell into a recliner and said, “Never did understand it myself. Camping trailers have fridges that work off propane. Sounds opposite, to me. You heat it to make things cold.”

“Why do you have one in here?” I asked.

“This was what you call a man-cave when my wife was alive, and a shelter when the power went out, which was regular. There was only the power from town on the poles set along the road out there for the next ten miles. Anybody driving drunk and hitting one took out our power for hours or days. Got tired of it and when a guy had an old camper that he wanted to sell cheap, I bought it.”

I looked around and noticed the cooking stove looked the same vintage as the fridge, and a heater was mounted to the wall near the stove, along with cabinets along the wall. “All of that came from the trailer?”

“And more. The lights down here in the basement are twelve volts. Dim, but enough. Say, if you’re going to live on a sailboat, you better get used to this stuff.”

“Why?” Sue asked.

“Damn, kid. You ever even been on a boat? This is how they’re set up, you know what I’m sayin’?”

I didn’t know. “Propane gas runs the fridge, stove, and heater? It makes some things cold and others hot.”

“Yup. Don’t understand it all myself, so I just accept. Before you take a boat, you better steal yourself a bunch of twenty-gallon cylinders of propane from other boats if you want those things to work.” He opened another beer and I realized I hadn’t yet tasted mine. I had been too entranced in what he was sharing. He was smiling and it looked good on him.

His eyes flicked to the little open windows behind me now and then, keeping watch on the driveway. “How did you know we were coming so you could set up your ambush? You set an alarm, didn’t you?”

“Well, besides hearing a gun-battle in my back yard, I placed a couple of pressure switches on the driveway and covered them with old pieces of plywood. Kicked a little dirt over them and the wires I ran to the buzzer.”

I was glad he was smarter than me with my shotgun alarms.

Sue sat on a small sofa next to him and asked, “You don’t seem upset that we’re going to take a boat.”

He finished off his second beer and said, “Stealing is taking something away from someone who owns it and doesn’t want you takin’ it. I suppose nobody owns most of those sailboats in the marina anymore. Not one in ten of them is still alive, by my count. And if they are, they’re too busy trying to feed themselves and avoid the blight to go for a leisurely sail.”

My lack of basic knowledge for so many things struck me hard. He’d explained more of what I needed to survive in a few words than all my planning. Making things cool with propane, twelve-volt lights, solar panels, and probably a hundred more things I didn’t even know what questions to ask next. The nameless old man in front of me had made an effective alarm system, blackened his windows for protection, and drank cold beer.

I hadn’t considered inviting a third person to join us, but I was wrong for that. His contributions to our survival would exceed both of us combined. I blurted, “Will you come with us?”

“I’m too old and sick.”

I continued, “Not to steal the boat. We can do that. What if we sail back by here and pick you up?”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you can teach us so much.”

He lifted an arm and pointed to the water in front of his house. “Sailboats draw a lot of water. At low tide, there are mudflats from here to Everett. A few channels to drain the river, sloughs, and creeks, but mud as far as you can see. The water out there is often three feet deep or less. No way to get a sailboat through unless you know the channels and sail out into the bay and back up here again.”

The water looked deep enough for me.

He went on, “When you get yourselves a sailboat, take it out to the breakwater and go south to the end of the rocks, then sail directly west until you get most of the way to Hat Island. The water there is hundreds of feet deep and you’ll sail around the south end to Whidbey Island and then around it. You’ll turn north all the way to your San Juan Islands. Remember that.”

The thought of getting the keel stuck in the mud as the tide went out and left us exposed like a single fly on a white sheet of paper, helpless to defend ourselves, didn’t sound pleasant. I’d remember exactly what he said.

For lunch, Sue opened a can of pork and beans, his last bag of potato chips, and cooked his last hotdogs in a frying pan. He and I talked strategy and he taught me the essentials of how his stove, heater, and fridge worked. I paid attention to every word.

He took me outside and showed me how easy the solar panels worked, and the batteries, but what ran the system was a little controller box that changed light into battery power and managed the voltages. That was the key. I needed the controller-box and the panels. My mind was working at lightning speed.

He said, “Know why we’re looking at this?”

“So, I’ll know what I need to scrounge?”

“No. The solar panels are what you’re going to look for when you’re selecting a boat.”

I gave him a puzzled look.

“The sailboats,” he said. “When you’re picking out which one to take. First, look for solar panels on the roof of the cabin. Probably your most important item. Many will have them, especially larger, newer ones. If it already has them installed, you don’t have to mess with learning anything but how to use the power.”

I hesitated. “I’ve never sailed before. Only been on a few small powerboats, so I was thinking of taking a small one, then decided maybe a little bigger, but not too big.”

He opened two more cans of beer and handed me one. “You’re right to ask me along. You’re so ignorant you need help, but not from me. Best to go it alone and learn as you go, these days. Now, listen. A larger sailboat is probably easier to steer and will carry your supplies and all you need. Imagine trying to fit six propane tanks and fifty cases of bottled water into a smaller sailboat.”

“Fifty cases of bottled water?”

“In those islands you’re going to, where are you going to get fresh water to drink if you don’t take it there yourselves?”

My mind went to the image of a small cabin the size of my closet at home, to a boat stuffed with propane tanks and cases of water and God knows what else. Where would we sleep? What about all else we’d need? My initial ist would sink a small boat, let alone the real items.

“Okay, I see that brain of yours going like a racing jalopy and it needs to slow down a mite. You just went from picking a small day-sailer to something as long as a semi-truck, right? Now, let’s take it down a bit. Something in between. Ever start a diesel?”

“No.”

“Depending on a lot of things, remember this: many require up to thirty seconds before you can start them. Some have a yellow light that turns green when ready. But you have to wait—then they will start after heat builds up in the engine.”

“Maybe I should just look for a gas engine.”

“Gas fumes have a habit of settling in low places, like inside the hulls of boats where it can’t escape. There is more than one sunken ship out there in the bay you’re looking at that exploded from gas, so you want a diesel. A little nine-dot-nine horse-power outboard wouldn’t hurt, neither would a little tow-behind rowboat. But remember, all that can wait.”

“Wait?”

“There have been other sailboats out on the water in the last few days. You’re not alone in thinking it’s a good idea to get out of Dodge. Take whatever boat you can safely get, sail north and hide. Let all these local idiots kill themselves off before you consider replacing the boat you steal with a better one, but by then you’ll have a good idea of what will fill your needs and you’ll only face half the people you will now because it’s my estimation half these fools will kill the other half within a month.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed.

He opened two more beers. I refused and he kept both for himself. He downed one and turned to face me. “Think about this. You survive in baby steps. It’s late winter now, so you just have to last until spring. You do what it takes to survive the rest of the winter. After that is spring and summer and by then you will either be dead or know something about sailing and what you need for a better rig. There are other marinas up by Bellingham and other cities. You can use the small boat to scout out what you want for a long-term choice. Right now, it’s all about living for one more day and planning for a week. Do that, and you might make it. Take whatever boat you can get away with and survive a few more days. That’s the important thing.”

It was good advice.