WWIV - In The Beginning

The small fire made a world of difference for Brit. She was much happier being able to see the tiny world around our campsite. She even smiled for a little while until a frown came to her one more time.

  “What’s wrong, Brit?” This whole process was easier for me when she was happy. If I could figure out what changed her moods, I could stay on top of whatever issue bothered her.

  “Buddy didn’t come back yet.” She was right. In our afternoon of avoiding trouble we had lost track of our black furry friend. I looked around doing a quick 360 spin with my head.

  “He’ll find us by morning, I bet. He’s probably hot on our trail already.” She sighed, and we ate the last of our food except a sleeve of crackers. That would be breakfast and lunch tomorrow. I hoped it would hold us over until we got to Brit’s destination. It had better.

  In my backpack, I had an extra-long sleeved shirt and two extra pairs of white socks. Thankfully, I had my sweat top tied around my waist. Now we could perhaps stay warm tonight. I gave Brit my sweatshirt, and I put on the extra shirt. It was still fairly warm, and the fire provided just enough extra heat to keep us toasty. I knew by morning we’d be chilly so extra thought now would maybe, just maybe allow us to get a decent night’s sleep.

  I gave Brit the two pairs of socks rolled up and told her to use them as a pillow. I knew it was lame, but it was all I had. She leaned against a windfall that had collected some dead leaves over the years and started to drift off. She looked at me one last time before she fell asleep. “Thank you, Bill. I don’t think I’ve said that to you today. But I mean it. I know now what could have happened if you hadn’t come along. You and Jake traded a lot for my safety. Thank you.” She looked serious saying her sincere thank you.

  I looked at her with a smile as warm as our fire. “You’re welcome, Brit. Now close your eyes and get some sleep. We want to get to Grandma’s tomorrow, so you’ll need your energy.” She wrapped her arms around her tiny self and drifted away. I watched her for a while. I felt bad for Brit. Her family life left a lot to be desired, and her nasty, feisty disposition told me she was hiding anger and sadness as well. I hoped Grandma and Grandpa were as nice as she was making them out to be. She deserved that much.

  I sat back and pulled the map from my back pocket. I knew I wasn’t going to like what I found, but I needed to get a good read on just how many more miles remained in my journey. I found our approximate position and started counting the miles in small increments. Eight here, six, here, three there, four there; the miles began to add up quickly.

  I got to Stevens Point and stopped. Something had to be wrong with my math, that wasn’t the right number. I started again. And again the numbers began to add up quickly. Slowly, I looked up from the map and at the fire. How could this be? I’d been on the road two days. This couldn’t be right. I went at the calculations one more time. This time from Stevens Point to my current location. I stopped and cursed out loud. I looked at Brit to make sure I hadn’t wakened her. I frowned and shook my head. This was bad.

  Three times I added numbers. Three times I got the exact same result. I had worked for two days to travel to my destination. For almost a day and a half I pedaled. After that I, well we, walked. But we kept at it. I thought we had made good progress. Tonight though, I wasn’t so sure anymore. With my new course decided, Stevens Point lie 215 miles away. In two days I had traveled 55 miles. I was moving backwards by these numbers. My legs ached more. My back hurt leaning against the rock on the ground that I now found too hard.

  I had a problem. Actually, I had many. First, I was still on foot. I needed another bike. Brit and I had spent the afternoon avoiding trouble so I had forgotten about finding new transportation. That was something I needed to remedy right away in the morning. Next, I was low on supplies. Heck, let’s be honest, I was almost out of supplies. I had one sleeve of crackers, a half of can of pork and beans and three quarters of a bottle of tepid water. Along with that I had a gun and twenty extra rounds of ammo. Otherwise, except for some basic stuff, I had nothing. I needed to resupply tomorrow, I told myself.

  I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible on the ground. The fire had burned down and was a glowing bed of hot embers. I watched the heat radiate up into space as I felt my hope slip away. I needed to make changes in the morning. Positive changes. I resolved to doing just such as I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

  I’m not sure what woke me in the morning. I thought I heard a sound, but upon sitting up and wiping the sleep from my eyes I found nothing. The fire was dead, not even warm. I looked at my pocket watch, 6:12. The sun was up but just barely. No warm rays were reaching us thus far. I felt chilled and damp, just as I had suspected I would.

  I looked over at Brit still sleeping soundly. Curled up in a tiny ball, she had her thin arms wrapped around her equally thin legs. She had pulled her bare legs up into the sweat top during the night to keep them warm. She probably wished now she had worn pants instead of shorts during her escape from Dad’s house. By tonight that wouldn’t matter. She’d be safe and sound, sleeping in a warm bed at her grandparents’. And with any luck I’d be at least half way to my destination. I promised myself I’d make 75 plus miles, come hell or high water.

  I got up and stretched. I used a few drips of water to wash the sleep from my face and looked at Brit now stirring on the ground. I wanted to let her sleep as much as possible. She needed that. She’d burnt up a lot of energy between her physical activity and mental anguish. I hoped she hadn’t had bad dreams. I would know soon enough as she stirred.

  Brit sat up and looked around. Her short brown hair stuck up in a funny way in several spots. I smiled at her as I handed her the bottle of water. She shook the sleep from her head surveying her surroundings.

  Finally she looked up at me blinking. “I dreamt I was at my dad’s house in my bed. I don’t think he was home, but I remember I felt safe.” She was chatty already so early in the morning. “But the bed had leaves all over it. Like I was sleeping on a pillow of wet leaves or something.” I reached down, pulled a leaf from the back of her head and showed it to her.

  “Something like that?”

  Finally, she smiled. “Yep. I guess that dream makes sense then, right?”

  I glanced around our hiding spot. “I’m not a dream expert, but I’d say your sense of smell dictated that dream at the very least. Smell is one of the most powerful senses.”

  She stood to stretch. She let out a loud yawn and looked around more. “We’re still here I see.” She searched for the main road. Finding it she looked back at me for confirmation.

  I showed her our spot on the map. “We are just about to this corner.” I pointed at the spot where the road to a 90 degree turn north and joined up with Highway 35. “That means we need to cover seven or eight miles today. That should get us to Grandma’s house. Four hours tops.”

  Brit took two crackers from the half-full sleeve. She studied the map carefully as she nibbled on the white, salty meal. “I’m still not 100 percent sure which road they’re on, but I think it’s 280th Avenue. Just down on the left maybe a mile.” She nodded at her own words, she was fairly certain this morning about the road. “Do you think we’ll have more trouble on the road today?”

  I had already been wondering the same thing. “I haven’t heard a thing from the road yet, and I’ve been awake almost an hour. So that’s a good sign.”

  She looked around. “Yeah, still no Buddy. Sorry.” She frowned and looked past me into the woods. “I have to pee.” She jumped up and went on the other side of the trees for privacy. I politely turned away. She was back quickly, she didn’t want me out of her sight too long. “Toilet paper would be nice. And I wish I had long pants on. My legs got cold last night.” She helped pick up the few items lying about, and we packed up for the day. We were hungry, we were thirsty, we were tired, but we were optimistic somehow that day the road would lead us to our desired destination. We hit the blacktop with a new spring in our step.

  Twe
nty minutes later we were once again crouching in a ditch peering out from behind a tree on the side of the road. A group of men stood at the corner of the county road we were on, and the main highway, trying to decide which way they would head. They were maybe 300 yards away, and we had spotted them before they had seen us. I counted six, but Brit was sure there were seven. It didn’t matter. They looked like trouble.

  One man had some sort of long gun on a sling over his right shoulder. Two others carried bats or some type of hand weapons. Two more were pulling a large cart on wheels. The last thing I wanted to do this morning was duck back into a cornfield. We had spent too much time hiding out like that yesterday. Brit was anxious, on guard. She was convinced we should take to the corn for safety’s sake. I told her to hold her ground for now, maybe they would take the other road.

  As luck would have it, our bad luck of course, they chose to come straight at us. Once again we ducked into the corn, maybe twenty feet or so. I wanted to be able to hear them as they went by. I needed us to get back on the road once this danger passed. I was not going to spend one more night sleeping in the dirt. We heard them plain as day on the road, speaking amongst themselves.

  “If we could have gotten into Luck it would have been great. I heard they’ve got a nice stockpile of food and water. Bastards. There was just too many of them.” Whoever was speaking sounded angry.

  “Maybe Balsam Lake will have food.” Another man spoke. “No sense in dragging this stupid cart around if we can’t find something to fill it with.” This man sounded more dejected than anything.

  A third voice sounded more positive. “Too bad this is all field corn. If it was sweet corn we could load up on that. I know just how to cook that crap over an open fire. We get fresh corn and another deer, and we’ll be set boys.” Maybe this was a group of decent men just looking for food. Perhaps they were harmless. One look at Brit’s face told me she had no interest in finding out. For now, we remained children in the corn. I chuckled at a lame movie reference.

  “You’re laughing?” Brit stared at me harshly. “You find this funny?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, I just find it humorous we find ourselves in the corn again. You know, like that movie? Children of the Corn.”

  She didn’t seem to find the humor. “Old people are so weird.” I guess she hadn’t seen the film.

  Within ten minutes we were back on the road. I was half tempted to start singing Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again, but I was sure Brit probably wouldn’t find that funny either. So I hummed to myself. At least the road seemed clear ahead.

  Chapter 27