Jacqueline Druga - No Man's Land

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “But old sixty loops up, too many hills and winding roads. Getting on I-64 cuts that all out.

“Hear me out,” Diana said. “We stay on old sixty. It crosses over I-64 right where we are.” She ran her finger. “Take it two miles, use the 1145 down here to get on I-64. Really we don’t lose anything.”

“Wow, I didn’t even see that.”

“Yeah,” Hannah said with disbelief and lifted the map. “How the heck did you see that little bitty road? Kinda impressive. I thought old people couldn’t see.”

I quickly folded the map. “Let’s get going. We need to be quiet though. When we go on the overpass, we don’t need them to hear us.”

“Calvin,” Hannah grabbed my hand. “I really think this is a bad idea.”

“Hannah,” I said passively. “Listen. We’re just running perpendicular. It’s fine. Looks like only a couple miles to this 1145, then we’ll be where we need to be. Okay?”

Hannah reluctantly agreed and continued on.

The highway was on flat land and a road leading to the fairgrounds was our original plan. That would take us to the highway. That was tossed out the window. Diana actually had a good back up route.

Leah didn’t follow us, she went directly to the highway. Maybe she sensed food there, or something.

Seeing the Vee blockade from the overpass gave me a whole different perspective. It was obviously done on purpose. Trucks and vehicles made a fence of a large area, keeping them tight in there. I wondered why anyone would do that.

Then again, the town of Grayson was on the map. It was a small town, maybe they were all alive, they wanted to keep safe. Or maybe the Vee in the blockade were their loved ones and like me, they couldn’t let go.

I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I just wanted to get going. We were close, so close.

Once we crossed the overpass, there was a short section of Old Sixty that ran ridiculously close to the Vee bull pen on the highway. It was a short section and by the time we had the coverage of trees between us and the highway, we had passed the blockade.

I noticed that the horse was stronger. The next day I would try to use the cart to bring us all to Sanctuary Sixteen. If I timed it right, and we left early in the morning, stopping to give Mary breaks every couple hours, we’d be there by nightfall.

I looked at my watch, it was pushing five o’clock, and the sun would set soon. I figured we would stop once we hit that 1145, which I learned by looking closer at the map, was Aden Road. It had an underpass, which was a great place to stop for the night.

I guess it was about a mile before the underpass when I spotted the Value Store eighteen-wheeler. I slowed down my walk and was apprehensive about moving forward. Was it another Vee blockade? Then I spotted the man on top of the truck. He held a rifle, but didn’t aim it. He lifted it in a wave and I continued walking.

“What is this, Calvin?” Hannah asked. “See, I told you it was a trap.”

As soon as I neared the truck, I saw what it blocked. Simple one lane road, led to two houses and a small white church with a Norman Rockwell steeple.

A few tents were set up on the land. There was a pig in a small pen and chickens roamed freely about.

I was curious about the place, but I had learned my lesson about stopping in populated areas outside of Sanctuary Sixteen.

I returned the wave to the man and kept going, only to be stopped by another man who came from around the truck.

A strong built man in his fifties with salt and pepper hair blocked the road. He did so almost arrogantly.

I zipped up my jacket so he didn’t see the Glock in the waist of my pants. “We’re just passing through. We aren’t stopping,” I said. “We would have been on the highway but it’s blocked.”

“Yep,” he said and smiled. “That was us. We blocked that so people wouldn’t come here.”

“Maybe you should have blocked the overpass then.”

He chuckled. “Maybe, but we need that to get supplies and we can see if someone is coming over that. Trent.” He held out his hand.

“Calvin.” I shook it. I looked beyond him to his set up. There was something off about it. Some sort of animal, maybe a pig, was roasting and not far from it was a long table where three women went through backpacks and stacked canned goods and other items

He snapped his finger in front of me. “You with me?”

“I was just looking at your camp. Sorry.”

“Beautiful horse.” His eyes shifted to our cart.

“Yeah, he is.”

“You fixin’ to set up house somewhere permanently around here? By looks of all the stuff.”

“No, we’re headed to Sixteen.”

“You’re close. It’s gonna be dark soon, I see you have kids and a woman. You sure you don’t want to stop here? We’re safe.”

“We have a baby and he makes far too much noise. For the safety of others, I keep him away. But thank you, though.”

“Are you sure? We do have a barter fee, it isn’t too steep. You can have a safe place to sleep, some of our meat in exchange for goods.”

For some reason, I looked at Hannah as if for approval. She shook her head then I told Trent, “No, thank you, we’re going to get going.”

“Good luck to you,” he said.

“Yeah, you as well.” I tugged on Mary’s reins and started walking. Trent stood there watching us.

“Why didn’t you want to stay?” Diana asked. “I would have given up my stuff.”

“It didn’t feel right,” I said.

“Really, Calvin, we should have stopped.”

“If you want to so bad…” Hannah yelled. “Go on. Catch us in the morning.”

I wanted to scold Hannah, but I didn’t. Diana was probably immune already to Hannah’s flying insults.

A little down the road from Trent’s camp, the highway came into view again. Sure enough, there was Leah walking in the same direction as us, all by herself down the center of the highway.

The underpass provided a great shelter and plenty of room. I lit a small fire for warmth, and placed a heavy rock over the rope to the horse. It was the best I could do, there was nothing to tie him to.

Hannah played with Edward, had a little to eat, fed him in the cart, then asked if she could sleep there instead of the road. I didn’t think that would be a bad idea.

I said goodnight to them both, grabbed one of my warm beers and walked to the road. I used the excuse that I wanted to take a piss, but I was really looking for Leah.

I didn’t see her, yet I did sense she wasn’t far.

“All better?” Diana asked when I returned.

“Yes.” I took another swing of my beer and stepped by the cart. I could see Edward’s dark hair peeking out from the carrier. His little fingers grasped a lock of Hannah’s hair. I smiled and untangled Hannah’s hair, lifted the carrier and placed it in the basket. I knew he was fine with Hannah, but I wanted him near me. I carried the basket and put it up the level part of the hillside just where the underpass met the ground. I figured that would block sound should he start to cry.

“Did you always want to be a father?” Diana asked.

I sat down across the fire from Diana. “Not really. When he was born, I knew I had no other purpose. There was something very special about him. Plus, I had lost his mother.”

Diana tilted her head. “Not really.”

“Okay maybe not.”

“You think she’s gone now?”

“No. I don’t feel it.” I finished my beer. “How about you? Did you always want to be a mother?”

“Yes. I love being a mother.”

“You didn’t use past tense,” I said.

“Because I believe they’re alive. They’re safe out there. I know it. I feel it.”