Getting Home

20

John was the one who saw Georgia first.

She looked beyond exhausted. Her face had gone completely pale.

His first reaction was to grab his rifle and point it in her direction. After all, the way things had been going, there could easily be trouble. People behind her. People following her. Anything was possible.

He waited for Georgia to call out, for her to tell him that everything was clear.

But she said nothing.

He walked forward slowly, keeping his eyes trained on the surroundings rather than Georgia.

But there was nothing.

When he got to her, he gave her his arm.

“You OK?”

She nodded.

But she didn’t seem OK.

“Anyone follow you?”

“Don’t know.”

“Let’s get you back to the van. Are you injured?”

She shook her head.

She leaned most of her weight against him and together they limped back to the van.

Sadie, James, and Cynthia came running over.

“Mom, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, kids.”

“Get her some water. And something to eat.”

“Exactly what food are you talking about?” said Cynthia.

“Just get something,” snapped John.

There was food and Cynthia knew it. Just not a lot of it.

When Cynthia came back with some water and a can of tuna fish, Georgia started to feel a little better.

“What happened, Georgia?”

Before she would tell them what had happened, she ordered her kids and Cynthia to get back on watch duty. “And be careful,” she added. “There’s another mob out there.”

“Are they headed this direction?”

“Just get out there. We can’t all be here in the van, relaxing.”

John let out a little laugh. “Well, you heard her.”

James and Sadie seemed reluctant to leave their mother’s side, but they agreed, grabbed their rifles, and set off with Cynthia.

Georgia began to tell John the whole story, how she’d run into those two men, and how her old injuries had gotten the best of her.

“They’re not exactly that old. You’re trying to do too much, that’s all. You’re going to be fine.”

“I know I’m going to be fine,” said Georgia. Her voice had come back, almost to full strength. “But there’s a deer out there that I left. And there’s another huge mob of people.”

“How many?”

“Don’t know.”

“You think they’re coming this direction?”

“Really no way to know. But if they’re looking for something, they’ll end up here.”

“Why’s that?”

“We’ve got weapons. Some food. They’re desperate.”

John said nothing for a moment. He was running through the possibilities in his head.

“Well,” he finally said. “We got through it last time.”

“Just barely,” said Georgia.

“I wish Max and Mandy were back.”

“Me too.”

He told her about the ditches. They’d gotten about halfway done encircling the camp.

“You think they’ll be effective against a big group of desperate people?”

“They’ll do something. Sounds like we were digging in the wrong place, though.” He pointed to the other side of the camp, where’d they’d done most of the digging.

They hadn’t even broken earth on the side of camp that Georgia had come from, where the mob was most likely to come from.

“Well,” said Georgia, sitting up from the seat she’d been reclining in. “We’ve got work to do, that’s all.”

She was already trying to get up, with one hand holding onto the above-door handle, trying to pull herself out of the van.

“You’re crazy, Georgia,” muttered John, grabbing her by the sides and restraining her. “We’ll do it. You rest.”

“I can’t sit back and watch everyone else work.”

“That’s fair. But give it half an hour, OK?”

“All right, fine. Half an hour. I’ll be as good as new.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He took binoculars that he’d been carrying around his neck and handed them to her. “We’re going to need a good lookout if we’re all going to be digging.”

John was tired and hungry, but not too far gone to do some more work. He shook his fatigued arms as they hung at his sides, trying to get his muscles to loosen up.

With James’s help, he marked out a line that they could dig along.

“Is my mom going to be OK?” said James.

“She’s going to be fine, yeah. She’s tougher than she looks.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.”

John laughed as much as he could. There was something about exhaustion and hunger that sapped the laughter right out of someone.

It was a shame they couldn’t get that deer. They desperately all needed a good meal. A lot of protein, and plenty of fat.

John could almost taste the venison in his mouth. What he craved most of all was the fat, the delicious hot gristle, roasted over the campfire, that melted in your mouth.

There wasn’t anything to do but dig. And dig some more.

They kept going. John tried to set an example of going at a slow and steady pace. After all, James and Sadie were just kids. They needed someone to look up to, to follow. Cynthia was pulling her own weight, but she wasn’t always the best example. She had, as John knew well, a tendency to run her mouth, to make sarcastic remarks, and to complain when it suited her, without considering how it might affect the morale of everyone else.

“Hey!” shouted Georgia, out of nowhere.

John glanced back over his shoulder to see Georgia waving at him from where she sat in the open door of the van. He groaned. He wished that she hadn’t moved herself from the relative comfort of the van seat.

“What is it?”

“There’s someone out there!”

Georgia had dropped the binoculars back around her neck in favor of her rifle. Her eye was pressed to the scope.

James, Sadie, and Cynthia had already grabbed their rifles.

John took his from where he’d had it strapped to his back. It felt good to have it again in his hands.

But it didn’t feel good to know that someone was out there.

“Get back,” hissed John in a voice that was both a whisper and a command.

John didn’t see anything out there in the woods. It looked as it always had. Leafless trees. The ground. The sky.

It was all normal.

Then he saw it. A flash of movement.

A torn white t-shirt off in the distance. Heading towards them.

John wasn’t going to take any chances. Not this time.

The way he saw it, he was done with asking questions first and getting shot at second. If he kept doing that, he’d wind up dead before long. It was a surprise he wasn’t dead already.

The way John saw it, if someone was approaching the camp, then it was their responsibility to announce themselves, to declare themselves innocent, to put down their weapons and approach with their hands up.

He’d grown harsher, yes. But that was the way it was.

He already knew there was another mob out there.

John got the white shirt in his sights. It belonged to a tall, lanky man. He was unkempt. A patchy beard and long hair. He was smeared with dirt.

And he was coming towards them.

John pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked. The shot rang out.

The white-shirted man didn’t fall.

He’d been shot in the shoulder. A splotch of blood appeared there, but the man continued to stagger forward.

Before John could get off another shot, another rifle rang out. Then another. And another.

The white-shirt man crumpled to the ground. His chest had become pockmarked with bullet holes.

The gunshots faded away into deafening silence. No one spoke.

John waited, not moving.

He knew that if there were others, the gunshots would only attract them. To a group of people who had become so desperate that they’d lost their individuality completely, gunshots didn’t mean danger. To them, gunshots meant opportunity. It meant a chance to swarm, to find food, to find supplies, a chance to grasp at the possibility of living another day.

Sure enough, another person appeared. A woman. Off in the distance.

Then another. A man.

Then another.

And another.

It was happening.

John hoped they could hold them off this time.

They’d barely made it last time. And they’d been comparatively well-fed. Comparatively rested.

This was going to be tough.