THE TRASHMAN (19 page)

On three, I jabbed the point into the lump. Hot fluid sprayed onto the hand holding the knife, more sprayed past the hand in a stream three feet farther before falling to the ceramic tile. It seemed at least a cup of pus came from the wound and more was running down my side from the hole I made. The mess on the floor looked like honey mustard dressing with swirls of catsup.

I used my fingers to mash more pus from the wound. Now that the pressure was gone, the pain was bearable. I pressed and pressed, changing the angle each time to empty pockets of fluid. I kept at it until the only thing coming out was blood.

I used paper towels to clean my side and to swab the mess on the floor. After that, I took a hot shower, letting the wound bleed more, using my fingers to encourage it.

I dried, put on a new bandage, and shaved. Dressed in clean clothing, I felt alive for the first time in days.

I knew I couldn’t stay where I was, couldn’t sleep in any of the bedrooms, and couldn’t bear the constant encounters with items that brought my loved ones to mind.

It dawned on me that I wanted to know about Sam and his family, wanted to know if Salvo and Mercedes had survived. I wondered about the two J’s, Jessica and Jerold, but had no idea where they’d gone.

I spent the next several days gathering supplies for my departure. It was slow going. The wound in my side seemed to be healing—at least there was no pus sack growing—but twisting and bending continued to be painful.

My plan was to recover the moving truck and use it until I found a smaller SUV to travel in. I planned only to pack essentials, all our weapons, a first aid kit, and a minimum amount of food. These I stacked on the dining table. I figured I could scavenge further food supplies as I traveled.

I also added to the pile our propane camp stove and lantern. In a basement closet of the main cabin, I discovered other camping gear. I put a backpack, a lightweight one-person tent, and a sleeping bag on the front porch to load later.

I was worried the truck had sat so long that the battery would be drained, but it fired up with the first turn of the key.

With each passing day, the pain in my side was easing. Even so, it took some effort to wheelbarrow the supplies up the trail to the truck. After it was loaded, I decided to spend a full day simply resting before leaving the area.

The morning of my departure, I went fishing. I caught two large trout with my spam bait. The fresh fillets, rolled in cornmeal and fried over a small fire in the pan I’d brought with me were delicious. I spent an hour sitting on a bench watching the waters of the creek flow past. I felt better than I had in days.

I also felt guilty. I left the creek and went to the grave. I stood for a long moment before speaking.

“I didn’t die, Becky. I don’t know why, but the plague didn’t take me. I wish you were here because I’m lost, and I don’t know what to do now.”

I wanted her to speak to me. To tell me it was okay for me to be alive, wanted her to tell me what to do. Silence was all I got, and at that moment, I knew I was on my own. I was alone.

Book two

Crap, double crap and triple crap. I left the cabin confident I’d made the right decision. Perhaps I had, but confidence couldn’t start the engine of the truck that decided to quit five miles down the road.

It ran well on the three mile graveled drive leading back to the highway, but shortly after I turned onto the pavement, the engine began sputtering and then it simply stopped running. I shifted into neutral while still rolling, used the key in an attempt to restart it. The starter turned, but nothing happened except the vehicle continued to slow until it came to a complete halt on a slight uphill grade.

The panel showed there was a quarter tank of gasoline and that it wasn’t overheating. When I turned the key, nothing lit the panel to indicate a problem. The truck simply refused to restart.

I climbed from the truck faced with either going back to the cabin or hiking farther to find another vehicle. The option of returning to the graves of my loved ones was a no go. I opened the rear rollup door and climbed into the box.

Deciding what to put into the backpack required three redo’s. It’s amazing how quickly the weight could add up. The biggest problem was all I had was canned food. The poundage of those made up most of the bulk, even though I weeded them down to only three days of supply.

The next heaviest item was water. I decided on only eight bottles based on the thought if I ran low before finding another vehicle I could refill from mountain streams that I reasoned should be clean enough to drink.

The heavy two-burner stove was not an option I even considered. I’d eat cold, straight from the cans. I packed the first aid kit, the tent, and the sleeping bag. I’d put fishing line, weights and hooks in a small plastic container thinking an old-fashioned wood pole would suffice. This container I packed along with a can opener, a spoon, a small tarp and three disposable lighters.

I had the loaded shotgun and the Beretta with a spare magazine, and Becky’s target pistol. Having the weapons was pure luck. At some point in my feverish delirium, I’d taken them to the couch with me. I’m sure if they hadn’t fallen to the floor with the blanket on top, the home invaders would have taken them.

My supply of ammunition was slim, ten shells for the shotgun and other than the full second mag for the pistol, thirty-seven rounds of .9mm. I counted myself lucky to have almost a hundred .22 long rifle rounds for the target pistol. The ten shells went into my pockets and the reloads for the pistols into the pack. The .22 with its long barrel proved too clumsy to carry without the holster so I ended up packing it, too.

I decided to hide the rest of my supplies in the forest. I’d brought several heavy plastic trash bags with me. I put one into the pack with the thought it could serve as a raincoat and then bagged what I wasn’t bringing and carried them a few yards into the forest bordering the road. I covered the bags with ground litter and went back to the road.

I stood in the roadway looking back the way I’d come and fought the tears that that wanted to flow. I deliberately changed my vision of the grave to one of Becky, William and Jennifer waving goodbye.

Even weeded down, the weight of the backpack sat heavy on my shoulders and made me glad for the padding my heavy coat provided. I slid the Beretta into the pocket of my cargo pants, took the shotgun in my hand, and left.

It was a sorry start. A quarter mile later, I realized I’d left the bottle of Keflex in the glove box and had to return to the truck.

Trekking along the paved roadway curving through the heavily wooded wilderness of the Smokies, feeling the sun to the left of me warming my body, began to lift my spirits. My step wasn’t jaunty, but it was determined. I didn’t remember very much from our original hectic drive to the shelter of the cabin, but I did have a faint remembrance of traveling through a sparsely populated area during the final stretch we covered.

I figured the last town we drove through, Robbinsville on the other side of Lake Santeetlah, was a good twenty miles away. In my condition, I couldn’t walk twenty miles without stopping for the day, but hoped to do at least half.

I’d walked an hour, covering roughly three miles when I came to a car on the side of the road, a white Chevy compact. As I approached, I could see a man and woman lying on the pavement near it. I knew something bad had happened to them. I approached the scene warily.

They both had been shot. The man was on his back, lifeless eyes staring into the clear blue sky. Three holes in his chest killed him.

The woman was on her side. Her dress was hiked to her hips. I saw her ripped panties on the pavement. A bullet through her head after being raped caused her death.

The blood on the bodies was darkened by time, but the middle of the huge puddle near the woman’s head wasn’t totally congealed. Considering the chill temperature, especially at night, I thought they had likely been attacked yesterday.

I looked inside the car. Their bags and luggage were opened and the contents scattered on the seats and floorboard. If they had supplies or weapons with them, they were gone.

I had nothing with me to dig with. I took a close look at the bodies. Both were in their early to mid-twenties. Their clothing and the car suggested they were ordinary working people.

Added to the fresh pain of the deaths of my family, these deaths brought on a sadness that struck me hard. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I apologized for doing nothing. 

Turning my back, I continued my journey, leaving the scene of horror the highwaymen had left behind them. The forest that seemed so peaceful, now felt like a sinister place full of evil. My grip on the shotgun was firm and I proceeded with more caution, alert for anything out of the ordinary. That’s why I heard the faint sound of a vehicle approaching from my rear well before I normally would have.

Leaving the pavement, I searched for a place to hide and still be able to see the road. A dense clump of rhododendrons twenty feet into the trees provided a shield to crouch behind, and a view for quite some distance along this straight stretch of road. The roar of the approaching vehicle grew louder. Moments later, an open-air jeep came into view. As it slowly drove past, I had a good view of the four men dressed in military style camos. They wore ski masks that hid their faces. The three passengers held rifles. The rifles looked like the sort the military used, definitely not what you’d picture hunters carrying.

Even after they passed, I remained in the trees. I had a deep suspicion that the men in the jeep were responsible for the tragedy I’d come upon earlier. If so, there was a possibility they could return soon. I decided to give it an hour before continuing on.

I was spooning the last bit from a can of chili when I heard an engine and the jeep returned, now moving at a faster clip. I noted the jeeps did not have military markings and that the camos they wore were not all of the same manufacture.

Figuring whatever they were doing was done, I scuffed a hole with my boot to bury the empty can and went back to the road.

Another hour or so later, I rounded a sharp curve and came upon a sign. The fresh dirt around the two four-by-four posts supporting the full sheet of plywood told me it hadn’t been there long. Certainly, it had not been there when we first drove this road. I walked past and turned to read:

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE

THE BRADFORD CLAN HEREBY CLAIMS ALL LAND

BETWEEN LAKE FONTANA AND LAKE SANTEETLAH

DO NO TRESPASS PAST THIS POINT

THESE ROADS ARE REGULARLY PATROLLED

WE WILL KILL YOU

Now I could put a name to the murdering rapists, The Bradford Clan.

I hiked a mile farther south. My mind was on the dead young couple. There was no doubt the woman was raped and both were murdered in cold blood. What confused me was the rape. Why did the rapist, or rapists have no concern about the possibility of contracting the plague?

I decided I’d walked enough. I left the roadway, taking care not to disturb the undergrowth as I made my way into the trees. It was past noon, too early to make camp, but I did. Two hundred yards from the road in a small clearing, I set up my tent.

I’d never considered myself to be a tough man, a hero, but the whole of me screamed for justice. I thought back to the men who had so callously spoken of killing me as I lay on the kitchen floor gasping for air. These or some of their confederates were probably the ones. I wanted to avenge the desecration of my home. Beyond that, I wanted to avenge the young couple. I knew the men in the jeep were more adept at killing than I, probably tougher and well trained in weapons, maybe the martial arts, too.

It was this war inside my head that forced me to make camp. The sane part of me knew I was being stupid to even consider going against those men. It knew if what the sign said were true, it would take many more than the four I’d encountered to patrol such a vast area on a regular basis.

The deep me—the angry me—didn’t care about how many, or how tough they were. Mental wars are weird. My conscious mind was all against doing anything, telling me to turn away, yet I didn’t pack up. I sat inside the opening of the tent, listening to the birds chirping, and the sound of branches rustling in the slow breeze, and thought.

I wanted to know about Sam and his family. If there was a chance any of them were alive, I wanted to be with them. Finally, I came to a decision, made a deal with my crazy self. I would go check on Sam. If they were dead, I would return and do what I could to damage the Bradford Clan. If I found anyone alive at Sam’s, I would rethink my plans.

Rather than get back to the road, I decided to move my camp closer to the sign. I wanted to know one bit of information before I moved on. Did the Clan truly patrol on a regular basis?

I found another clearing for a camp a half mile north of the sign, not more than a hundred feet from the road. By the time I reset the tent, I was hungry. A can of beef stew and a half sleeve of saltines took care of that. The same slow breeze that moved the limbs of the pines carried a chill made more noticeable with inactivity. I figured I could hear a vehicle just as well from inside the tent. Rolled in my unzipped sleeping bag, with the opening of the tent closed I was snug and warm.

Hours passed and I dozed off, but not deep enough to miss the sound of the jeep returning. I shrugged from the sleeping bag, left the tent, and stealthily went to where I could see the road and still be hidden. The jeep had passed on by, but I knew it would return. Sure enough, I heard it maneuvering to turn around at the sign; the limit of their territory.

They drove past me. Because they were wearing ski masks, I couldn’t tell if it was the same four or a different batch of men. I wanted to point the shotgun at them and pull the trigger, but I knew that would be a mistake. The chances I would kill all of them was zero, but at least I had my answer as to the veracity of their claim of regular patrols.

I spent the night in the clearing. I awoke at 3:00 a.m. to the sound of a vehicle. It repeated the same pattern, turning at the sign and going back into their claimed area.