Stan Morris - Surviving the Fog

Still, Mike was determined to survive. He started requiring the kids who wanted to join the Spears to run several laps around the track before practice. He explained the danger of the winter situation to the kids at a night meeting, and he got them to agree to gather rocks to build the wall in front of the cave so that they could move the cabins. He asked Jacob to try to make snares to capture birds. Mike thought that they could eat the birds, and possibly get them to lay eggs. He did a dozen other things to try to prepare for the winter. And he made the Spears practice, and practice, and practice.

One day it came to him that of all the boys, the girls seemed to trust Ralph the most. He did not understand this until he realized that it was because Ralph was always trying to help Jackie to recover. Ralph liked Jackie, the way that John liked Desi. He would talk to Jackie calmly and gently. He did not badger her for advice like some of the other kids.

Mike thought about that, and then he acted. One morning, as Ralph was leaving the dining hall, he was surrounded by the Spears.

“What’s up, Chief?” Ralph grunted. He didn’t like Mike, and Mike didn’t like him, but they had reached a sort of truce at least.

“Come with us, Ralph,” Mike commanded.

“Why should I?” Ralph demanded truculently.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll hurt you,” answered Mike coldly.

“You mean that you’ll have your gang hurt me, don’t you,” Ralph replied angrily. “You’re too chicken to do it yourself.”

“Let’s go,” Mike said, ignoring his taunt.

Ralph was furious, but he knew that he had no choice except to obey Mike. Most of the kids now accepted Mike as their boss, and even the ones that didn’t follow the younger boy knew that the Spears would back him. Seething and surrounded by the Spears, he followed Mike down to the practice field. There, Mike handed him a spear and then pointed at a target on a hay bale.

“Throw,” Mike said.

Ralph gave the spear a half hearted toss that barely reached the bottom of the bale. Mike handed him another spear.

“Listen to me, Ralph,” he said very seriously. “You’re going to practice with us an hour a day, every day, until you can beat me in ten throws.”

Ralph was astounded. “You can’t make me do that!” he exclaimed.

“I can’t make you get better,” Mike answered grimly. “But I can make you come down here with us. Better get used to it. And if you want to stop practicing with us, you better be able to beat me. Now throw.”

At first, Ralph tried to sabotage the practice. Then he tried to avoid the Spears. But he found that if he wanted to eat, he had to come to the dining hall, and when he did they would find him. Finally, he started practicing for real, determined to best Mike and be left in peace. He started practicing more than the others, spending long hours throwing the spears. Mike also practiced more than the others, and sometimes in the afternoon it would be just the two of them, grimly throwing the spears again and again, trying to outdo one another.

One afternoon, two weeks after he began practicing for real, he and Mike were throwing the spears. The boys were matching each other target for target when Mike missed on the seventh throw. Ralph could barely contain his elation. He took aim, and when he threw, his spear hit the bull’s eye. Then Mike hit the eighth target. Carefully Ralph threw and hit the target. Then they each hit the ninth target. Ralph knew that if he hit the last target he would win regardless of what Mike did. Mike drew back, and then he threw at the tenth target. It missed. Ralph could barely contain himself. He had won. Confidently, he tossed his last spear. It was another bull’s eye.

“Good enough for you, Chief?” he asked, smirking at Mike.

“Good throw, Ralph,” Mike responded.

“So, can I go now and not come back?” Ralph asked sarcastically.

“Yes, but one thing, Ralph,” Mike replied.

“What’s that?” Ralph asked, eying Mike suspiciously.

“Keep your spear. Keep it with you always, especially when you’re down in the girl’s camp.”

Ralph gave a noncommittal shrug and walked away. Ralph was annoyed that he had to keep the spear with him. But he obeyed Mike’s command. He kept the spear, and sometimes when the other boys were not around, he snuck down to the practice field by himself. All of the boys became good at throwing spears. In early July, the teenagers discovered that this skill would save their lives.

It happened one morning. Later, someone said that it was about half past ten. The air was crisp, and the sky was slightly overcast. The faces of the blue bell flowers were wilting in the meadow. The Spears were down by the practice field. Some of the girls were in the meadow, some were hanging around their cabins, and some were over on the boys’ side of the river.

The sound of a motorcycle was heard and then the sound of more than one. There were four of them, all large black bikes, and they came roaring over the rise on the gravel road leading to the camp. The men on the bikes seemed huge after all of the time that the kids had spent together without adults around. The man on the lead bike was bearded, but he was not wearing a helmet, so they could see his face which they would remember, later.

Just over the hill he paused, looking around, and then he motored down toward the girls’ cabins. Jackie, hearing the noise, was struck by a sudden surge of hope, and she came rushing out of her cabin. She ran toward the cyclist hailing him loudly. He rode over to her. She was trying to hug him, when he took a pistol from his right pocket and slammed it against her head. Blood spurted from the side of her head, and she slumped to the ground. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the girls closest to the violence began screaming. Ignoring them, the man reached down and hefted Jackie’s barely conscious form onto the cycle. He maneuvered her leg over the barrel of his ride, so that she was slumped in front of him.

At that moment Pete, who had not been down at the practice field with the other Spears, came running towards them screaming at the man to let Jackie go. The man raised his pistol, and he shot Pete in the face, killing the boy instantly. Then he turned his cycle, gunned it, and quickly disappeared over the hill.

While this was happening, another of the cyclists had slowly cruised though the frightened crowd of girls who had gathered. He picked out a girl named Maria, and he gunned his bike toward her. She fled. When the man caught her, he grabbed her around the neck, and then he punched Maria in the face. He maneuvered the stunned and crying girl onto his bike, and he too quickly left the scene.

The third and fourth bikers were also scanning the crowd of terrified girls. The third biker picked out a girl, and then he began to chase her; but not to catch her so much as to tease and to taunt her. And that was when Mike finally arrived on the stage.

He had heard the screams, and he had shouted for the others to follow. There was a moment when they stood and gawked before hurrying after Mike. And so it happened that the other boys were a few seconds behind Mike when he arrived at the cabins and saw the third biker chasing the terrified girl. Mike stopped, planted his feet, and threw his spear.

It was at that moment that the legend of ‘Mike’s Throw’ began. In later times, people on either side of the river that day claimed to have seen him make the throw. But the truth is that there were only a few kids who actually saw the man on the moving bike, the spear flying through the air, and the way it sliced perfectly through the biker’s neck and severed his jugular vein.

For his part, Mike always claimed that it was a lucky throw.