Desperate Times (20 page)

He walked the perimeter of the wall and
stopped at the gate. He had already made his decision. Like Buck,
he’d go under the cover of night. He would figure out how to get
into the campground when the time came. He had to know. Somehow, if
they were there, he’d find them. He couldn’t leave Paula there and
he knew he could never live with himself unless he attempted to
rescue her. How would the others feel about what he was about to
do? Would anyone want to accompany him on his trip? Did he want
anyone else to risk their life for Paula and her family? No. He’d
have to go alone. Would they try to stop him? Julie would, Jimmy
was sure of it. She would probably hate him for what he was about
to do. Could he blame her? Jimmy turned and walked back to the
house.

Had Jimmy known that Paula and her family
were actually at Bear Lake Campground, he would’ve left
immediately. They had made it that far, only to be turned back by
the militia. Stanley had foolishly tried to buy his way past the
guards. They took his money and turned them away. Their family home
had been looted and set afire along with the other graceful old
estates in the area. Paula had pleaded with her father to take them
up to Jimmy. She reasoned that they would be safe there. Stanley
Peterson was a broken man by that point and he reluctantly gave in
to Paula’s suggestion. He knew that they had to get out of the
city.

Stanley had bought them safe passage to
Duluth in the back of a National Guard supply truck. He’d paid
fifty thousand dollars cash to the driver who smuggled them north
with a load of ammunition. Riding in the back of the truck was a
completely foreign experience for all of them. The road was rough
and the ride was terribly uncomfortable. From there, they’d caught
a lift to the city of Virginia from an old couple in a station
wagon. That had cost Stanley another ten thousand. The highway was
strewn with abandoned vehicles, many of them were burned. There was
no sign of law and order. The fifty mile stretch of highway between
Virginia and Ely was blocked by two smoldering tractor trailers.
The old couple dropped them off there and bid them farewell.

Stanley and his wife, Mary, Paula and Carl,
walked the highway in the afternoon sun. They were ill prepared for
this type of travel and ate what little food they carried in their
pockets. From time to time a gunshot or two echoed in the distance.
Others passed them, some on bicycles, all heading in the same
direction. They took that as a good sign. They walked for two days
until being stopped at Bear Lake.

They huddled together under a pine tree on
the far end of the campground. They were starving and had no idea
what to do. The campground had boiled over on many occasions and
they’d witnessed dozens of fights among the desperate travelers.
Many of the fights were over food. They overheard rumors of an
assault on the militia. They heard other rumors that the militia
was readying itself for an attack on the campground. Children
cried. Paula cried. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs
and there was no one there to help them. Stanley followed a group
to the dumpster where they tossed it on its side and scavenged its
contents. He came away with half a loaf of bread, edges green with
mold. He stuffed it under his ragged white shirt and nearly ran
back to join the others. They hungrily ate the bread, tearing off
the mold and discarding it in the bushes.

This was a landmark moment for the Peterson
family—they had hit rock bottom.

Executive Order 10998: All food resources,
farms and farm equipment, shall be immediately seized to prevent
hoarding.

Julie was furious. She sat red faced on
Cindy’s bed. Jimmy stood at the window and looked out over the
wall. He then sat next to her and tried to put his arm around her
shoulder. She shrugged it off.

“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,”
she moaned. “You don’t even know if she’s there!”

“I have to find out,” Jimmy said, knowing how
foolish that sounded.

“What about me?” Julie asked. “Am I supposed
to just wait here for you? I can’t, Jimmy. I have to go with you.
It’s too dangerous for you to go alone. I won’t. I love you and I’m
not staying behind!”

Jimmy wasn’t ready for that. He had never
even considered that she’d ask to go along.

“I’m sorry, Julie. I have to do this
alone.”

“The hell you do! What, do you think I’ll
hold you back? That I’ll be a burden? Listen up, buster. I’m in
good shape, damn good shape. I’m going with you. End of story!”

“You can’t. Not in your
condition.”

Julie’s eyes bugged out of her head. What the
hell is that supposed to mean? Don’t you think I’m stable? Am I
acting crazy? No, Jimmy, you’re the one who is acting
unstable!”

“I don’t mean it that way,” Jimmy said
uneasily. He closed his eyes and finished. “I mean… you’re
pregnant.”

Julie looked as if she’d just been slapped.
She stood up, walked halfway out the door and turned on Jimmy.
“What?” she asked. “Are you kidding me?”

“Brenda told Patty that she found a pregnancy
test in your bathroom, Julie. It was positive. Patty told me. I’ve
known for a week.”

“And you believed it?” Julie howled. “You
couldn’t ask me, yourself?”

“What was I going to say? How could I ask you
that? I was waiting for you to tell me.”

“That’s great, Jimmy, just great. Well, chew
on this. Brenda doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The test
belonged to Amy Whitehouse. She’s pregnant, Jimmy, not me. She
didn’t want to be alone when she took the test. I’ll bet that’s a
huge relief, huh?”

Jimmy groaned and held his head in his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“You’d damn well better be. And the next time
anyone gossips about me, could you at least have the decency to
tell me about it?”

Jimmy nodded.

“And I
am
going with you. Make no
mistake about that. I’m going to stick to you like glue, Jimmy.
Just like glue.”

Again, Jimmy nodded, certain his brain was
about to explode. And his day had barely begun.

“Take a deep breath… hold it… now
squeeze.”

The Colt jumped in his hands and the gunshot
echoed through the woods. Jimmy was disappointed to see that he had
missed, again.

“Okay, you’re getting better,” Jon said,
taking the gun from Jimmy and sighting down the short barrel.

“Right,” said Jimmy. “I couldn’t hit the
broad side of a barn.”

“Sure you could, as long as it wasn’t
moving,” Jon said with a grin. You’re flinching when you pull the
trigger. A lot of people do that when they first learn to
shoot.”

Jon raised the gun and fired it three times
quickly. The can tumbled into the brush, tin pinging as each shot
hit home. Jimmy wished he could shoot like that. He knew there was
no chance of that happening. Still, he’d learned quite a bit over
the past hour. Jon had been patient as he introduced Jimmy to the
semiautomatic pistol. He taught Jimmy how to put in a fresh clip
and even how to reload one with new rounds. That had been easy
enough. Jimmy only wished he could hit what he was aiming at.

The sun was high in a day that was slightly
overcast. A breeze took the edge off the heat. Chipmunks with short
memories scattered with each shot, only to soon return. The women
were in the kitchen preparing lunch. Jimmy planned on eating and
taking a long nap. He had his things ready and would leave at dusk.
True to her word, Julie was watching his every move. There would be
no leaving her behind. The group had been split in their opinion of
Jimmy’s decision to go to Ely. Jon had flat-out vetoed the plan
when he brought it up, but Jimmy remained determined to go.

Jon replaced the target, this time using a
square of plywood the size of a trash can. He leaned it up against
a tree where the coffee can had been.

“This is embarrassing,” whispered Jimmy.

Cindy hollered something from inside the
house. At first Jimmy thought that she was calling them in for
lunch. He turned and could see that this wasn’t the case.

“They’re at the front gate! All of them!” she
cried.

Jon picked up his shotgun and raced Jimmy to
the front of the house. Most of their group was standing there,
unarmed, unsure of what to do. Brian Sandberg stood next to the
gate heatedly conversing with someone from the other side.

“What’s going on?” Jimmy asked Julie, who
stood behind Sandberg.

“They want our food—all of it. They say we’d
better give it to them. Can you believe it?”

“Hold it!” shouted Sandberg through the
fence. He turned to face Jimmy and Jon. “Okay guys, this is the
situation,” Sandberg said. He was a young, professional looking man
in his early thirties. “They want to trade us for our food.”

“What do they have to trade?” asked Jon.

“I don’t know,” Sandberg said. “They won’t
say. This guy on the other side keeps telling me that we’d better
open up, that things will be bad if we don’t.”

“Bad?” asked Jimmy. “What the hell does he
mean?”

Outside the wall, Jimmy could hear many
voices. They sounded anxious as they quietly talking among
themselves. A few of the men were laughing. Jimmy didn’t like the
sound of the laughter.

Jon was already scrambling up the walkway on
the side of the wall. He poked his head over the top and surveyed
the scene below.

Jimmy squinted in the bright sunshine.
“Well?” he asked. “What do you see?”

“Oh shit.” said Jon, taking another quick
look before descending the walkway.

What Jimmy heard next made his skin
crawl.

“Jimmy!” screamed Bill from the other side of
the fence. “Help me, Jimmy! Oh God, help me!”

Jimmy turned to Jon. His face was ashen and
he was breathing hard as if he’d been winded by what he had
witnessed. “What the hell is going on out there?” he asked. “Tell
me!”

Jon looked down at the ground and kicked at a
clod of dirt. “They’ve got Bill. He’s tied to a tree and I could
smell gasoline. They’ve got him standing up to his waist in dead
branches. My God, it looks like they’re going to burn him
alive.”

“Dad!” screamed Cindy. “Daddy!”

Rita ran to Cindy and held her close. They
fell to the ground as Cindy pleaded for them to save her
father.

Jimmy couldn’t believe they’d do such a
thing. This had to be an empty threat.

Didn’t it?
Jimmy wasn’t sure. He knew
how he felt after spending a lot of time with Bill; grimacing, he
quickly changed his mind, they just might do it. They knew Bill’s
daughter was on their side of the wall. That would give them
leverage. They had nothing to lose.

“What do you want?” asked Jon between the
gates.

“Food!” replied a gruff voice. “All of it!
Give it to us and you can have that one back. If you don’t, we’ll
roast him like a pig!”

“Give us a minute,” said Jon.

“Jimmy!” screamed Bill again. “Please! Give
them what they want!”

“We’ll burn him!” shouted the voice behind
the gate.

“You’ll be dead before he is,” Jon shouted
back. “Now give us a minute!”

“One minute, that’s what you have. We’re
hungry out here.”

“What can we do?” asked Julie, wild-eyed. “We
can’t just let them burn him alive.”

“No we can’t,” agreed Jon, looking at Cindy
who was still on her knees and crying, inconsolably.

“We can’t give them all of our food,”
Sandberg said. “What the hell will we eat?”

“No, we’re not going to give it all to them,”
agreed Jon. “But we do have to give them something. If we give them
what’s in the shed that should satisfy them. There’s enough out
there to feed them for a while. We’d still have what’s in the
freezer and in the basement. Ken has cases of canned foods down
there. We could survive.”

“They’ll be back,” said Jimmy.

“No,” whispered Jon, “this is an act of war.
We’ll let them settle in for a few days and then we’ll take the
offensive. It’s the only way.”

“What?”

“Just play along with me. Let’s get that
blubbering fool out of there before they put a match to him. After
he’s safe, we’ll come up with a plan to deal with them.”

Jimmy nodded as Julie clung to his shoulder.
Sandberg shrugged. The others stood a safe distance from the gate
as if they feared it would fall over. They looked frightened and
angry at the same time. Jimmy could see that Jon wasn’t going to
have trouble selling his plan of retaliation. They’d follow him no
matter where he took them.

“Okay,” said Jon to the gate. “We’ll give you
the food. I’m going to cover Bill. If anyone comes close to him,
they’re dead. Do you understand me?”

“Whatever,” the voice replied, sarcastically.
“Open the gate!”

“Not so fast,” said Jon. “Here’s how we’re
going to do this. You guys back off. Send in your women and they
can load up. That’s the deal. You can have everything in the shed.
That’s all you’re taking. There’s a lot of food out there.”