A Town Called America (17 page)

He told her about his mother dying, the fact that his father hadn’t returned, and Jamie having taken her own life. The only reason he could see for her having done that was that she blamed herself for her parents’ deaths. Perhaps it was something else, but honestly Robbie didn’t know.

As it was getting close to sunrise, and they were tired, Chris told Robbie it was time for bed. She would sleep on the couch, and he could have the bedroom. As they both stood up, Robbie looked at Chris and said, “Thank you.”

With that Chris couldn’t contain herself any longer. She asked if he were thanking her for talking with him or the show he was privy to earlier. It took him a few moments to catch on to what she was saying, but when he did, his face turned bright red. He tried to speak, but no words came out. As Chris laughed, Robbie turned and went to his room for the night.

The sun had been up for some time when Chris stood up from the couch with a blanket wrapped around her. She walked into the bedroom where Robbie was sleeping and lay in the bed next to him, putting his arm around her before she fell back asleep. In Chris’s mind it was nothing sexual, just her way of showing him he wasn’t alone. In Robbie’s mind, however, it was something else entirely.

That night, after they woke up, they packed a few things in their bags, put out the lantern, and began the walk back to Robbie’s house.

TWENTY SIX

W
hen Chris and Robbie walked into the house together, Billy and Rick were sitting in the family room, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

It was evening. The sun had set, and the four sat down and talked. Robbie told them that prior to Chris finding him, he really had wanted to kill himself. In fact he’d had a gun in his mouth on more than one occasion but just couldn’t do it. He told them of Jamie’s beauty and his asking her to marry him. He told them how she had lost her parents and how he had lost his. For all that she was worth, his life never would be the same.

The three of them sat and listened to him speak. Then they shared stories late into the night. Billy and Rick spoke about “Hotel Jackie” and how they’d managed to escape, as well as how the entire building had burned to the ground in the aftermath.

It was a good night for the four of them, and for a short while, even Robbie forgot about the world they lived in. They Rick and Chris talked about the RV fortress and, after swearing Robbie to secrecy, even shared the story of how they had met Billy.

Before turning in for the night, Robbie shared one last story of how long ago he had a female guest in his house who was undressing in front of the bedroom window and how he had fallen off a log outside, burning his hand with his cigarette in the process. He never said
it had been Chris in the window, but in his young mind, by telling the story, he never would have to worry about keeping it a secret, because it was already out.

As he spoke, Chris looked at him with a slight grin. Rick didn’t notice the scar on Robbie’s left hand, but when Billy saw it, he just said, “Good for you, kid.”

After that, Robbie stood up and walked out of the room.

Not long after, they were all asleep in their beds. Rick was with Chris; Robbie was in his room; and Billy was on the couch. The small farmhouse was silent once more.

Over the next two years, Rick, Billy, and Chris stayed on the farm and grew even closer. In time Robbie welcomed his guests not just a friends but as family.

They all did their parts tending to the cows, horses, and chickens, and with the young man’s guidance, they became decent farmers. It had taken time, but between the four of them, they had managed to expand the barn for the horses. They made the frame for the walls first on the ground. Then, using a series of pulleys and ropes, they propped up the frames and nailed them in place. After that they closed in the walls and built the roof. They all were grateful that Billy had worked on construction sites for so many years; his knowledge and skills made the entire project possible.

They hunted for fresh meat in the evening and prepared it for the upcoming winter. Life on the little farm was wonderful for a time, but eventually Billy decided he and Robbie would move into the second house on the eastern side of the lake. It just made sense to give Rick and Chris some space.

They cut a path that led from the farmhouse directly to the house up in the woods. With the path the time it took to walk there was cut down to fifteen minutes. Billy and Robbie were no strangers after moving. They both spent time at the farmhouse, or everyone gathered at their house in the woods.

That winter hit with ferocity. By mid-December all four of them were in the farmhouse, sitting around the fireplace. They’d been snowed in for four days and only left the comfort of the house to check on the animals. As the snowstorm picked up and the winds became stronger, the little house was taking a beating. That fall they had closed in the front porch to keep the firewood dry for the winter and boarded up the windows to protect the glass.

Robbie was on the porch, sitting on a pile of chopped wood, picking at it with his finger. Every few seconds a piece would break off, and he’d twist it in his fingers until finally he tossed it onto the porch and started the process over again.

Burning next to him was one of his last cigarettes. Its faint glow in the darkness of the porch seemed to draw his eyes to it, as if it were some kind of focal point. Robbie had lit it with the intention of smoking it but soon became lost in his thoughts. By the time Chris came out to the porch, the cigarette had burned nearly to the filter. She had a plaid blanket wrapped around her in an attempt to stay warm. She stopped and stood next to Robbie, looking out through the screen door at the snow, not saying anything.

Over the past year, Chris and Robbie had become especially close, and he trusted her, as she did him. Then it came: the words Chris had known were coming from how reserved Robbie had been acting the previous weeks.

“Chris, I’m leaving come spring,” he said. “I wanted you to know first so you wouldn’t think it’s something brash or out of the blue. This place—I know you’ll take care of it. It’s yours now.”

“Why in the world would you go and do something like that?” Chris already knew what he was going to say, so she listened without speaking until he was finished.

“Chris, Jamie is gone, and there’s nothing you or I can do about that. I don’t have anything left here. I don’t know where I’ll go or what will happen, but I do know this: if I stay here, I’ll always be alone.”

Robbie then told Chris about the visions and dreams he’d been having—visions he first thought were the ghost of Jamie. He knew it sounded strange, but they were so real. He went on to tell Chris he’d
been seeing her everywhere lately. When he was on the water, he had seen her standing on the shore. When he was in his room, she was in the doorway. He had seen her body lying in the bed, just as she had been when she’d died. The visions were powerful and uncomfortable, as they’d caused him to break down emotionally on more than one occasion.

Chris listened and watched as he told her all this. She then explained that although she wasn’t an expert, she thought he was doing too much and needed rest. She said she’d had a hard time sleeping as well because of nightmares she had from time to time. All the events she’d been through in her past crept up on her occasionally. Chris also told him she was able to cope because Rick and Billy had been so supportive toward her.

“You don’t need to go,” she said. “Stay with us, and we can help you just as Rick helps me.”

Robbie returned her smile and told her he’d think about it. “Chris,” he said, “please don’t tell the guys about this. I’ve kept your secret all this time, even when though you never asked me to. Now I need you to do the same for me. Please?”

“What secret, Robbie?”

“When we met near the ravine, I saw how you moved. I don’t know what kind of powers you have, but I do know normal people don’t do what you did. But I do trust you, and I hope you trust me too.”

“Robbie, I know how much stress you were under back then, so I’m sure it’s not what you think you saw.”

“When you’re ready to talk,” he said, “I’ll be ready to listen, but please don’t lie to me.”

Robbie crushed out his cigarette and went inside the house, leaving Chris on the porch. Chris, lighting a cigarette of her own, sat there, dumbfounded that Robbie had seen her move up the ravine like she did. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry because she’d been so careless to let him see her or whether it was something else.

As winter drew on, Robbie’s nightmares weren’t gone, but they did begin to ease up. Even in the dead of winter, the group had no desire to leave the farm, as they were happy there. Life was without killing
and death, which didn’t bother any of them. The farm was their paradise, and Rick, Chris, and Billy would have stayed there forever. Rick and Chris hadn’t found a town called America, but as far as they were concerned they were home.

TWENTY SEVEN

I
n retrospect the one thing they did wrong while living on the little farm was let their guards down. They’d become comfortable there, rarely picking up weapons other than to hunt game or shoot targets. There was no sign of distress, no issues that threatened any of them; the four friends had no intentions of ever moving away from the farm, even Robbie had decided that life with his family would be better than the alternative. They all realized they were at home and planned to stay for as long as they could.

It was spring, and the rain was soft and comforting as Chris sat on the porch with Rick, talking late into the night. The moon was bright, and stars filled the sky. Then gunshots suddenly rang out in the air. The sheer surprise and the fact that the shots had come from seemingly nowhere startled them.

Rick pushed Chris to the floor of the porch and joined her there. They crawled through the front door of the house, where Rick kicked the door closed behind him. Chris, squatting to avoid the bullets that were scattering throughout the house and blowing through the windows, moved as fast as she could to get to where they kept their weapons in the bedroom.

The bullets were striking the walls behind Rick, destroying anything in their path: pictures, a vase, and everything that was on the wooden bookshelf. Rick crouched under the living-room window,
attempting to keep cover. He then reached out and caught his Colt 1911 and a Remington 700 rifle, which Chris threw at him from the bedroom door just down the hall.

Chris ducked, closing the bedroom door behind her, and moved toward Rick’s side as bullets flew past her, narrowly missing her head. “What now?” she yelled over the gunfire.

“Hell if I know. Can’t even see where they’re shooting from!”

There was a slight break in the firing, which told Rick a lot about who was outside. They all had stopped shooting at the same time. If trained properly, some of them would have continued to fire while others were reloading. With this opportunity Rick sat up, placing his rifle through the window. Scanning the area through a high-powered scope, he saw three people on the left of the lake in the tree line and two more crouched behind the canoe near the water.

Rick saw they were all wearing black jumpsuits. “They’re M.M.,” he told Chris.

“What a surprise.”

Rick, positioning his firing eye directly behind his rifle’s scope, took aim at one of the men in the trees to the left. Although he knew the ones behind the canoe were closer and more of a threat, he chose that target because the other two wouldn’t know the people behind them were dead.

Controlling his breathing and with a steady aim, Rick squeezed the trigger. The powerful rife went off with an enormous boom that echoed throughout the house. As the bullet traveled through the air, it moved faster than anyone could see. By the time the M.M. soldiers heard the echo of the rifle, the round had hit its target directly between the eyes. The target flew off his feet, landing in the fetal position, dead before he hit the ground.

After a moment bullets riddled the house once more. The only thing Rick and Chris could do was wait and try to hold off the offenders.

“Hopefully the cavalry will get here soon,” Chris yelled.

“Yeah, well, those two had better hurry the hell up.”

Chris, next to Rick under the window, was taking aim at the two men behind the canoe. She pointed her shotgun and blasted at her
targets, narrowly missing and hitting the canoe instead. She then dropped back to the floor to reload her weapon.

Unknown to the attackers, Billy and Robbie were at the house in the woods when they heard the weapons firing.

“Oh, shit,” Robbie said.

Without a second thought, they grabbed their weapons and made their way down the path toward the farmhouse, moving as fast as they could in the dark of the night. Billy ran faster than Robbie thought possible for an older man; Robbie was trying hard to keep up with him. Billy was now directly in front of Robbie, moving down the path with an intense fury as adrenaline rushed through his body.

Now within sight of two men on the right side of the farmhouse and a dead body on the ground, Billy and Robbie moved in behind the enemy. After pulling a Bowie knife from his waist, Robbie ran up behind one of the men and stabbed him directly in the neck, while Billy, with his two revolvers, shot the other man in the chest six times.