Mark Ethridge Week 196: I See Angry People (Part 18)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: Two

Title: I See Angry People (Part 18)

I always found it interesting to see people eat nothing but nuts, berries, and what they fondly referred to as weeds. As the five of us made our way eastward, into the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, the four women had their first experience of eating what was available. Of living on what the land provided.

They weren’t too happy about that.

We didn’t talk much, what was there to talk about? I couldn’t really understand the nightmare they’d lived in. And I was pretty certain they couldn’t remember how long, how many days, weeks, months, or even years, they’d been kept in that nightmare.

At first, they didn’t tell me their names.

The first day they joined me on my walk, I didn’t have anything to feed them. It’s not like I was expecting to feed anyone but myself. I shared what little water I had, shared what pine nuts and berries I had. Until they were gone.

I carried the weakest one most of the day. She was light, maybe 90 pounds. Too light for a full grown woman. There were scars on her. I didn’t ask where they came from. I carried her in silence.

After a couple of hours, we took a break, to give them a chance to rest, to catch their breath, and to let them care for the one I carried. While they rested, I hunted. I searched for anything we could eat. Any source of water.

I found nothing nearby.

We couldn’t stay where we were. That’s always the way it is when you’re walking in nowhere. You have to walk until you find a place you feel safe for the night. Trees were sparse, but you could tell they wouldn’t stay that way. Saplings, and small trees dotted the landscape. Another ten years, and they’re be a large forest that covered everything.

Bushes, and briars where everywhere. “I hope you all like whatever berries we find on the briars. ‘Cause that’s lunch.” That was the thing with the briar patches. They meant food. Not the best food. But when you have nothing, you’ll take what you can get. Wild blackberries and raspberries, chokeberries, and were everywhere.

It amazed me how the thorn laden runners of the briars always had edible berries. As long as I could find briar patches, I could find something to eat.

I let the four women eat all the berries they wanted, and I watched them help their weak friend.

It was four days before they said anything to me. Four days before the weakest one put her hand on my cheek, “Thank you.”

I made nothing of it. “They were evil men.”

I never touched them. Not once. It would have been wrong. They were wounded souls, I could see that.

As we walked, I scanned the countryside for trees. When I found them, I checked for nuts. Walnuts, chestnuts, hickory nuts. Hell, even acorns. Anything we could break open, and eat. I gathered what I could, and shared what I could.

When we came to a creek or river, we walked along it for a while. It gave them a chance to bathe. And yes, I had to wander off, and let them bathe in peace. They deserved privacy, after all. They thought about fish as a meal. So, I tried my hand at fishing. It took time, but we had a small fish dinner, and spent the night by the lake. Yes, I did make a fire, and I did cook the fish. It made them happy. And it let them rest for a few extra hours.

As we walked along the waterway on the fifth day, she declared she wanted to try to walk. I helped her to her feet, the other three gathered around her, and helped hold her up. We went slower that day. Took more breaks. Drank plenty of water.

That night, she spoke, “I’m holding you back.”

There was nothing I could say, so I shrugged. “You’re getting better.”

“You could leave us behind.”

“That wouldn’t be right.”

She thought for a while, and stared at the stars overhead. “I wondered if I’d ever see the stars again.” She was silent for a while. And she cried. I watched her tears, and felt that familiar ache I’d felt so many times. She tried to speak again. “You know what they did?”

“I know what that place was.” I nodded. “I know you weren’t free there.”

I sat on the ground, and looked at the stars. She sat too. I made started to move a bit further away from her, so she could feel safe, like I wasn’t a threat, but she stopped me. “We were objects to them. Things. Possessions.”

I could have told her to stop, that I knew what happened in that place. But I’d learned sometimes, you have to let a person say what they need to say.

“They did what they wanted.” She crossed her arms, pulled her knees toward her chin, made herself small. And her tears became an ocean.

I said nothing. What was there to say? Another man might have held her, let her cry on his shoulder. Maybe that would have been the right thing to do. Maybe it would have been the wrong thing to do. I let her cry. I listened to her, tried to hear the screams of anguish I knew her soul let loose.

With time, her tears slowly faded. She looked up, at me, with the most wounded eyes I’d ever seen. Eyes that relived all the nightmares she’d been through every time she slept. Every time she closed them. “Thank you.”

We sat in silence, and watched the stars for a time. “I’ll get you to Jessica’s town. You’ll be safe there.” I nodded, and tried not to look at her. “There are others there. They’ve been through what you’ve been through. They know.” I looked back to the stars, “They understand. And they can help.”

When she was ready to sleep, I watched her make her way to where her three friends were. Then, I found a plot of ground, and slept beneath the stars.

The sixth morning, everything changed. I woke to find an eagle standing next to me, staring at me. When I opened my eyes, it screamed. It was a friend of Jessica’s. The eagle had been searching for me.

“Yes. I’m Frank.” I nodded at the eagle. “Tell her. Tell her I’m alive.”

The eagle spread its wings, slammed them against the air, lifted from the ground, and was gone. But we all heard its cries as it flew. And I knew it was spreading the word. I’d been found.

The four women wondered what had happened. “That eagle was a friend of Jessica’s. Jessica’s asked them to look for me. To let her know if they find me.”

We continued east. As the day continued, one by one, the women approached me. They told me their names. Susan, Linda, Tasha, and Ellie. They each said thank you. I told them it would take a while, maybe another week. Maybe longer, until we reached Jessica’s place. But they’d be safe there.

Ellie was the weak one. She tried so hard to be strong. To walk on her own. Susan, Linda, and Tasha helped her as much as they could. But, when Ellie grew too tired to walk, the four of them decided the best way to keep going was to let me carry her.

It was a simple thing, a little thing, but I knew it was a big step, a big risk for them. I was, after all, a man. And it was men who’d done unspeakable things to them, who’d caused so much damage to their hearts, and minds, and souls.

For some reason, Ellie talked to me while I carried her. “My parents came here from Ireland, when I was a little girl.” She tried to smile. “I don’t remember much about the trip. We came in a plane, I remember that.” She seemed to enjoy riding piggyback, her arms around my neck, over my shoulders. Her head next to mine. “I remember seeing Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. It was beautiful.” Her story paused for a while, like she was thinking, or maybe remembering. “Mom and Dad were full of hope. We were coming to America, the land of opportunity.”

She was quiet once more. But I felt the dampness on her cheek when it brushed mine as we walked. I felt the silent raggedness of her breath, as her tears fell. And I knew enough to keep walking, and let her cry all she wanted.

A lot of dreams had died when the world went insane.

When Ellie’s tears fell no more, I finally spoke. “I’m glad you’re still in this world.”

I thought a moment as we walked. “Can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“Why haven’t you four left?”

She looked puzzled.

“You’re free to leave anytime.” I glanced at her. “You’re not possessions. You’re people. And after what you’ve been through, I have to wonder why you haven’t left.”

Tasha heard my question, “Because you aren’t like them.”

Susan was next, “You haven’t touched us. You’ve made sure we have something to eat. You’ve take care of us. And you didn’t have to.”

“You could have left us behind,” Linda continued. “You could have set a pace we couldn’t have kept up with, and left us behind.”

“Or, you could have slipped away during the night,” Tasha pointed out. “You could have abandoned us. Left us to fend for ourselves. But you didn’t. Instead, you made sure we were safe.”

I listened to their words, “But. I’m a man.” I paused, “I’m one of them. The same gender that did all those things to you.”

Ellie’s cheek brushed mine again as we walked, “But, you’re not like them.”

Susan summed it up. “You’re different.” She almost smiled, “You’re not evil.”

Ellie said it best, “You won’t hurt us. We can feel that. We know that.”

We walked another while. I’m not good at time. There are no watches anymore. Just the sun, and sunrise, and sunset. When I played out, we found a place to settle for the night.

It was the first night the four of them asked me to stay nearby. Where they could see me. Susan spoke the words, “We’d feel safer if we know where you are. If we can see you.”

That sixth night, I stayed on the far side of the same clearing they were in, as far as I could get from them without being beyond their sight. They slept huddled together. Sisters in their plight. Sisters who understood each other. Who understood their wounds. Who knew the hurt each of them felt.

I slept lightly that night, ready to wake at the slightest sound. And as I slept I wondered how long it would take to reach Jessica’s town.

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Mark Ethridge Week 195: I See Angry People (Part 17)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 17)

The main road out of that town lead into a foggy afternoon. The sun would set soon, and I would be invisible once more. I walked through the night, until I found trees, in the form of a forest. Where there were trees, there was wood. And I could make more arrows, which I needed.

I slept in that forest, for a few hours. My dreams were filled with Billy, the protected, innocent boy, who’d died at the hands of violent, cruel men. I woke in silence, fire in my blood. It was time to start my plan.

I spent the day searching for the right kind of wood, the right weight, the right balance, to the tree limbs and branches. I gathered twenty, and spent the afternoon honing tips onto them, attaching carefully cut, thin strips of wood, like feathers, to them, so they would fly straight.

I’d had a lot of practice over the last few years. I was very good at making wooden arrows, at getting the tips sharp enough, getting the balance of weight right, getting the wooden fins that guided them in flight positioned properly, cut to the right length, width, and thickness.

They weren’t as good as store bought arrows, with metal tips, and synthetic, plastic fins to guide them in flight. But they were good enough for what I used them for.

An old shirt made the perfect sling shot, another weapon I was well practiced with. One whose ammunition supply was nearly endless. I gathered a bag of rocks, all with sharp, jagged edges, most between one and two inches in size. If I needed to use them, the sharp edges would cause more damage than flat sides, or curved surfaces.

Normally, I’d have set fires around the area, but I’d been on such a long walk, I’d run out of old butane lighters. And no one had made matches in years, those were long gone. So, I had no way to set fires. I’d have to come up with other plans.

I spent three days in the forest, planning. Gathering the things I needed. Drawing plans on the dirt, making models of rocks and pieces of rotten trees. Three days of laying out how to attack the unknown that was that house, and that town.

On the fourth day I headed back to the place. I waited until after midnight to enter the town. In the darkness, I moved from one home to another, one store to another. Over the next five nights, I studied the layout of the town. I studied where the people in that town set up watch points. Where they patrolled the streets.

I watched them drag two women into that house. Those women screamed, they fought, and they got beaten when they did. The men made their comments, awful as they were, about what they were going to do with those women.

I wanted to let my arrows fly. Strike at those men. Go down in a blaze of glory, taking as many of them as I could with me. But that was suicide, and would not accomplish anything. The women wouldn’t be freed. And I wouldn’t be able to bring an end to the evil things happening in that town.

I stayed hidden, out of sight, invisible. No one knew I was there.

A cache of arrows here. A cache of rocks there. Trees and fences used as blinds, hiding me from sight. Houses set up so I could run through them, front to back. Piles of fabric, dried leaves and grass, anything that would burn good.

The five days turned into six, then seven.

Then, I was ready. I’d knew where the men who walked the streets were, and when they were there. I knew where the guards of the house were, which windows they peered from. I knew when they changed who had guard duty.

As I said, starting the fires was the big problem. One I solved using a wooden torch I could carry from place to place. All I had to do was light it. Something I’d had years of practice doing using a fire plow. I’d made one in the forest, and it was simple to use it to light my torch.

Which I did, on the eighth night in town, in the dead of night, when I knew most of the men were sleeping. With my torch, I moved from one house to another, where I’d set up my fire starting piles, and I started fires, one at a time, making certain they all caught, and burned.

It wasn’t long at all before ten houses had fires in them. Then twenty. By that time, the first fires I’d set were raging, lighting up the night. I waited, then, for the men to start investigating what was happening.

That’s when I moved between houses, using the paths I’d set up, moving through houses, over fences, through brush. I started with one house, when a man came to see what was happening there, I shot him with an arrow, then moved to the next house, where I fired another arrow, and moved again. It took them three houses to figure out what was happening. By then, most of the fires were running wild.

That’s when I moved to the second set of houses I’d set up, and started lighting fires in them.

Fires turned the night an ugly orange, with ghostly shadows everywhere. Smoke filled the air, and the fires began to spread from house to house.

I use my slingshot to fire two rocks into the upstairs window of the house the men kept the women in. The one they’d murdered Billy in. When a face appeared in that window, it received a sharp rock from my slingshot.

And the man fell.

And I moved to another location, and attacked another window in that house. Then I moved again. And again.

Gunfire echoed in the night, as the men in that house fired from their windows, blindly into the smoke filled air, as they aimed at shadows in the flickering orange light of the fires.

I moved through the streets, arrows ready, and each time I saw a man, an arrow flew. I never missed. Arrows struck legs, arms, chests, shoulders. The idea wasn’t to kill them so much as to wound them, slow them down, hurt them, cause them to panic. And it worked.

In the end, I walked through the streets of fire and finished the wounded with more of my arrows. When I ran out of arrows, I pulled them from dead bodies, and then kept moving. I never stayed in one place.

As the sun began to rise, the men in the house had to give up, and come out into the open. The fires had spread through the town, and had reached that house. It’s wooden fence burned, the flames raced across the lawn, danced in the bushes, the vines, the trees in its front yard.

And as those men came from the house, I shot them with the guns of their dead.

Then, I moved into that house, drew my knife, and cut the bindings on anyone I found inside. “Run! The place is on fire! Run!”

The women that could, ran. Two couldn’t run. They limped and staggered from the burning house. One couldn’t walk at all. I threw her over my shoulder, and dashed from the burning house.

It was a scene I’d seen before. A fight I’d had dozens of times. A war I knew would never end.

I don’t pretend to know why, but several of the women followed me as I left the burning wreckage of that town. Outside, I lead them to a few bushes, where I’d hidden some clothing I’d gathered from the houses. “You can wear these.”

I didn’t wait for them.

They followed me anyway. Three of them. Plus the one I carried. The one who couldn’t walk.

It took that day to reach the forest. That night, they slept in fear, and nightmares, beneath the canopy of the trees. It would be many nights before they would sleep without waking. Many nights before they would begin to talk about what happened. Who they were. Many nights until they spoke to me.

All I could do was watch over them, and catch what sleep I could.

“You’re free to go where you want. You don’t have to stay with me.”

None of them left.

That night I promised Beth’s ghost I’d take care of them. I’d get them to Jessica’s little town in the woods in the mountains. They’d have a chance to live again.

Somehow, I think Beth smiled, wherever she was, beyond the veil of life.

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Mark Ethridge Week 193: I See Angry People (Part 16

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 16

Billy was hungry. He was always hungry, even after we found food, and ate something. I figured it was because he was a growing boy, and needed more food to grow. But it was frustrating to deal with his endless hunger. There were few streams, ponds, or other sources of water, and there were no farms, no gardens, no tomatoes, or beans, or corn.

Billy was hungry. He didn’t like dandelion salads, or berries from trees, and mushrooms disgusted him so much, he refused to eat them. “Well. I suppose you’ll eat when you get hungry enough.”

I tried to understand, his parents had grown the food he’d always eaten. His mother did the gardening, and his father hunted. They went fishing sometimes, in a stream near where he lived. They had rabbit, and deer, and other meats.

He kept talking about how he missed meat. How eating weeds wasn’t any fun, and never filled him up. “He’s just a boy,” I kept thinking. “Was I ever like him?”

The days became endless, a never ending session of Billy complaining about the lack of real food, having to sleep on the ground, with its bumps, rocks, weeds, clumps of grass, tree roots, and everything else. And sleeping on the ground was cold as hell. He wanted to know how far away Jessica and the town were. How many days it would take to get there, how many people lived there, if there were any other boys he could play with, what kind of food everyone ate.

I was ready to scream, but I never did. “I have no idea how many days it will take to get there. I have no idea where we are. It’s not on a map. I don’t have a map anyway, do you?”

The ground became hilly, and I guessed that put us in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Of course, which foothills was an open question, as I’d never ventured on such a wild, winding journey as the one I was on. I had no idea how long it would take to find my way home.

Billy asked about beds, and houses, and families. So, as we walked, I told him what I could.

“We don’t have any families. Not like you’re thinking. No one’s married, no moms, no dads. There’s not many men. Just a few. Last time I was there, there were six of us. There are lots of women. But, they’re not like your Mom.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most of them are younger than your Mom. And most of them are survivors.”

“Survivors?”

“Yeah. They escaped from the wild men.”

“Wild men?”

“You honestly don’t know, do you?”

“Wild men?”

“Billy, what do you know about what happened in the world?”

“Mom and Dad never talked about it. They said the world was dangerous, and I was supposed to stay at home, like they did. That we were safe at home.”

Billy’s parents had told him nothing.

“Billy, you’ve got a heck of a lot to learn.”

“Teach me.”

As we walked, I told him about the world going crazy. About how men started attacking women, raping them, then beating them. I told him about how the women started to fight back, about how everybody got guns, and killed everybody else. How it spread through the entire country, and how the men who started it were still raping, and beating, and killing women.

Billy listened, until finally he said, “That’s not what Mom and Dad said.”

“They kept you safe, didn’t they.”

Every night, I watched over the boy. Every night, I got what sleep I could, as long as I knew Billy was safe.

And we walked, as the hills grew, and the trees started to return. We passed the remains of towns and cities. Billy was curious, and wanted to explore them. I kept explaining that was about the craziest thing he could do. That’s where the bad men lived. The kind of men that would have hurt him.

But, he wanted to see what a town was, what a city was. And one night, I fell asleep, and Billy left. He headed toward a town. I woke up after a few hours of sleep, and saw he was gone. “Damn!” I knew the fool boy would get himself killed.

I followed his trail. It was like following a painted line through the trees, brush, and grasses. He’d headed straight for the last town we’d seen. I ran, I didn’t have time to walk. Everything in me screamed Billy was in trouble. Yes, the boy was a headache, but he was an innocent. He didn’t have a clue how to live in the world. He didn’t even know what the world was like.

It took two hours, but I got to the edge of the town. I stayed hidden in the brush outside the town, moved around its boundaries, looked for signs of life. Everything in me screamed, “Hurry!” But I knew I had to be careful. I didn’t know what was in that town. Before I raced in, blindly, I had to know what I was running into.

It was a moderate sized town, a small shopping district off the main road through it, and several blocks of houses to either side of that. It even had a sign on the road, “Old Road”. The place was large enough I couldn’t see from one side to the other. Once I’d circled it, I picked a place to start in. I came in from the opposite direction Billy had taken, just to be safer. I knew going into that town was crazy. I had my bow and arrows ready, one arrow set to fire.

I moved cautiously between the houses. The fences made it tough. They’d become impenetrable walls of twisted vines, and weeds. Nothing could get through those. I moved along the front of the buildings. There was nothing to hear, no one to see. One house, two, three. A dozen. I kept looking.

I peeked around the corner of another house, and ducked back as the corner of the house exploded from a gunshot. The echo of the shot rang through the town. Yeah, there were people in the town. And they weren’t friendly.

I backtracked, quickly, then climbed over the brush and vine encased fence, dashed across the yard, and climbed another fence, as I moved around the house. I peeked around the corner of the house a second time, and saw two men moving toward where I’d been. I shot them in the back with arrows, then moved back over the fence, through the yard again, this time into the neighboring yard. I crossed that, and came out a house further down than I’d been. I peeked out at the street. There were four other men, with guns drawn, running toward where the gunshot had come from.

I hid behind the fence, and waited for them to clear the gap between the houses. Then I went back to the street. It’s not fun when you’re armed with a bow and arrows, and the bad guys have guns. I got low to the ground, held the bow parallel to the ground, and shot an arrow. It struck one of the men in the thigh. He fell, screaming. The other three didn’t realize what was happening at first. I shot one of them with another arrow. It got him in the stomach.

The other two realized what was happening, and started shooting like crazy in my general direction. With each shot, their aim got better. I took one down with another arrow. It winged him. A fourth arrow missed the fourth man, but a fifth arrow got him in the shoulder.

They were down, but still could shoot their guns. So the arrow and gun fight continued until I’d hit them enough they stopped shooting.

No one else came running. Lucky me.

I took two of their guns, and made sure they were fully loaded. If any of the men were alive, I finished them with my knife. Then, I headed in the direction they’d come from.

It was a house. A pretty, white house. With a picket fence. Well kept, too. Clean sidewalks, fully edged. The lawn was cut somehow, I figured with an old push mower, with blades. It was a classic stable house for women.

“Damn. There’ll be more men soon enough.”

There was no way I was going to be able to get into that house without getting dead. I circled it, looked through any open windows. There were two guards on the top floor, one on the front, one on the back, each with rifles. They watched from a windows.

There was a guard by the front door. The back door was boarded up. There was only one way in.

Billy’s body was in the back yard. They hadn’t shot him. It would have been better if they had. It seemed some of them wanted to have a little fun with a boy. Some twisted sexual fantasy, or something. His body wasn’t alone. The bodies of two women were with his.

There was nothing I could do.

Not one damn thing.

I retreated to outside the town, and watched as men came in from the countryside that night, a good half dozen of them. They headed toward the house. I knew what was in that house. I knew how those men lived. How they treated women. How they treated boys.

That night, I decided I had to do something about that house. One way or another, I had to stop what those men were doing. It would take time. I had to figure out how many men there were. When they were at their weakest. And the best way to attack them.

I had to turn them into the prey, and I had to become the hunter.

“For Billly.”

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Mark Ethridge Week 192: I See Angry People (Part 15)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: 2

Title: I See Angry People (Part 15)

Another couple of days, and I reached the south end of the lake. From there, I turned south east. If I could find the animals who know of Jessica, I could find my way home. I knew I had a long walk ahead of me. The landscape was flat, with no trees. Just flat, sometimes a few hills, and a tree here or there, in the middle of nowhere.

It was terrifying in so many ways, being outside the protection of the forest, so easy to see, so easy to track, and so very much alone. It was one thing to travel by myself in the safety of a forest, or through the brush. But on the pains, it was stupid. I would be easy pickings for any group who found me, especially if they had guns. I was good with my hand made bow and arrows, but I had to be close enough to use them. And they had nowhere near the range of any gun.

I started spending my days hidden as much as possible, and walking at night. I hid in ditches, inside thickets of briars, anywhere I felt I wouldn’t be visible. I tried to sleep, but any sound woke me, birds flying overhead, mice running through the grass, the wind blowing through the briars.

Sleep was hell. Fragmented, tortured, hell. And never enough. Never enough.

Every time I saw a house, a shack, any man made structure on the horizon, I changed course to avoid it, to put it back out of sight. If I couldn’t see it, perhaps whoever was there couldn’t see me. Everything I did was to stay hidden, out of sight, where I couldn’t be found, wouldn’t be noticed.

It went on for days. Endlessly.

People always thought grass grew forever if you didn’t cut it, didn’t mow it. It doesn’t. It stops. A lot of the open fields had grass from ankle deep, to waist deep, with scattered bushes, like little oases scattered through the nothing. I used the bushes as my hiding places in the daylight. I wasn’t always alone in them. Rabbits, birds, mice, anything that lived on the plains called those bushes home. Sometimes, I was welcome, sometimes, I had to find other bushes.

And the days drug on, endlessly.

Until one day when the weather changed. And it changed rapidly. And it didn’t change for the better.

The clouds gathered in the sky, black, angry clouds. They grew in number, until they filled the sky. And they grew angrier, and angrier. At first, the temperature dropped, maybe 20 degrees, maybe more. And it grew darker. I peaked out from the bushes, and watched.

Then, there was rain. Light at first, then heavier. And it kept growing, until I couldn’t see more than 100 feet. I’d never seen rain like it. Torrential rain. Then, the wind kicked up, and the rain almost moved parallel to the ground. One moment, the rain came from the south, then the west, then the north. Always the direction changed.

And I couldn’t see a damn thing.

I hugged the ground, hoping I was safe in the few bushes I was hidden in. The wind kept growing, until it roared past my ears. The bushes were blown nearly flat, I laid prone on the ground, trying to dig my fingers into the dirt, to have anything to hold on to.

And the rain turned to ice. I’d never experienced hail before. But somehow I knew I was in a hailstorm. A nasty one at that. And I got pounded. I howled in pain, as hailstones hammered me. I had nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape them. And they fell like rain. Most were small, like frozen raindrops. Some were like blueberries, or grapes. And some were frickin’ ice cubes. A few were even the size of my fists. If I survived the hail I would be black and blue all over for days.

And the wind roared louder, and louder. I didn’t know it could get so loud. I couldn’t hear myself scream, couldn’t hear myself think. All I could hear was the howling of the wind. A howling I thought would never end. A howling that went on, endlessly, until I thought the world would end, and I would surely die.

And it ended. Just like that. Just that quickly. It ended. The wind stopped. The hail stopped. The rain stopped. And it was over.

Somehow, I got to my feet. Every bit of me ached, like I’d been beaten with a board. I tried not to breath, because each breath hurt. I wanted to curl up on the ground, and cry until the hurting stopped. Until my body went numb from the pain.

Something made me move. I tightened the straps holding my pack to me. I checked my bow and arrows, and made certain they were ready. Then I walked. Almost due East. I didn’t know why, I only knew that’s where I had to go.

I didn’t walk far before I saw what was left of a farm. A pile of twisted, shattered boards was all that was left of the barn. It looked like some giant has crushed it as he walked along. I kept heading east. Another few minutes, and I came to a small town. Really, just a few blocks. A lot like my home town. Small. Everyone who’d lived there would have known everyone else, and they’d have all been friends.

Half of it was destroyed. Two bare foundations were all that was left of two houses. Several more houses were partly gone, like someone swept parts of them away with a broom. The others were left alone.

I’d never seen such destruction.

My brain cells screamed at me as I walked toward the town, “No! You idiot! That’s the stupidest thing you can do!” And it was. A single man, armed with a wooden bow and arrows, walking into a town that might have people in it. People who might have guns. People who might decide to shoot me.

But my heart told me I had to go in. I had to see what was there.

And that’s the day I found the little boy.

I heard him crying, calling, “Mom! Dad! Where are you!”

I knocked on the wall of the house he was in. The windows had been blown out, but the house was otherwise OK. “Anybody in there?” I called.

The boy went silent.

“I heard you calling? Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

He didn’t answer.

“You stay in there, where it’s safe. If your mom and data are out here, I’ll find them. OK?”

His quiet voice answered, “OK.”

I wound up searching the town. I couldn’t find anyone. I check all the good houses first. They were all empty. Most of them had been empty for a long time. Probably years. Their insides were wrecks, filled with dust, spiders, bugs, mice, rats, and God only knew what else.

Next I checked the wrecked houses, looking for any signs of life. “Anybody there?” I called out, knowing it was stupid to do, knowing it made me a target. But I had to try.

No one ever answered.

I found two bodies, one male, one female, in the twisted, shattered remains of a house. I knew they weren’t alive. I didn’t have to check.

It took hours to pull the bodies from the wreckage.

I went back to the house the boy was in. “Were your parents the only ones here?”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

The boy came to the window. “Did you find them?”

All I could do was nod.

“Where are they?” I helped him through the shattered window, then lead him to the two bodies.

When he saw them, his world ended. “Mom! Dad!”

I let him cry. What else could I do?

We stayed in the town that night. The next day, we buried his parents. I told him who I was. Told him where I was going. Told him about Jessica, and Valerie, and the others. About the little town we were building. Then I asked him if he wanted to come with me.

His name was Billy.

“Well, Billy. We should get some rest. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

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Mark Ethridge Week 190: I See Angry People (Part 14)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: Both

Title: I See Angry People (Part 14)

Morning came too early, but morning always did. I decided to try for something to eat, maybe a fish, if I could somehow catch one. Maybe a bird, if I could shoot one. Maybe another dandelion salad.

With that in mind, I departed the comfort of the room I slept in that night, and wandered among the townhomes, businesses, and condominiums of the town. I found a restaurant. I hadn’t seen one in years, so I decided to visit it. Inside I found the usual booths and tables. It was a small place, with a counter and signs that said, “Order here” and “Pick Up Here.” The kitchen, behind the counter, was also small, with a big, industrial refrigerator and oven.

Next to the front counter was a two door freezer, with glass doors, a showpiece for what was inside, to make someone want to order from its content. I stared at it a while. The freezer was filled, top to bottom, with beer. Six packs of beer. There were dozens of different brands. “So, the people here drank a lot.”

Of course, all the beer was several years old at least. Maybe older. None of it was drinkable, that much I knew. But, that it was still there told me more about the town. About how it was abandoned quickly, with people not taking anything with them. And how it hadn’t been found, or raided. Something strange had happened to the town. Something that caused everyone to leave. And it wasn’t the world going crazy.

After spending some time in the restaurant, imagining what it was like when it was busy, I decided to return to the town’s offices, and try again to figure out what happened.

That’s where I found the newspaper. And old newspaper, with a bold headline, about a chemical spill. Some toxic chemical was being transported along the road outside the town. There was a car wreck, and the truck transporting the chemical was involved. And the chemical leaked. It soaked into the ground. Tainted the ground water for the town, and started leaking into the lake. It produced a cloud of gas that burned people’s eyes, and lungs, and could kill them.

So, they’d all left. The police, the state police, the National Guard, had all come to the town, and took everyone away. No one had time to pack anything, time to take anything.

The date on the newspaper was too familiar to me. It was too close to a date I could never forget. Three days before the world started going crazy. Three days before the news reports on TV were filled with stories of dead, naked women in the streets, gangs of boys and men hunting women, and doing awful things with them, dead bodies of the men who tried to stop the chaos. Three days before everything that was imploded, and the world I’d always lived in came apart, and descended into hell.

They’d been pulled from the town to protect them while the spill was cleaned up, and before the cleanup was finished, the world ended. And no one ever returned.

Whatever the chemical had been, I knew it was gone. I knew the water in the lake was safe. I’d bathed in it, drank from it. Nothing happened to me. So, I wasn’t worried about the chemical spill. And I’d finally found an explanation for the empty town.

I decided to spend one more night there, knowing it was safe, and no one would bother me. One more night of rest from my endless walking, and exploring, and wandering around lost in the middle of nowhere.

The next morning, as the sun rose, so did I, and I headed south from the town, along the shore of the lake. I walked most of the day, and as the sun was getting low, I came across a huge house. A mansion. I’d never seen a mansion before. The place was huge. A four story building. It wasn’t a house, it was too gigantic to be a house. It looked more like one of those big government buildings, with a zillion windows. But it only had one front door, and one back door. And a small garage, next to it.

The place was huge. There were what had been gardens all around it, overgrown with weeds, and bushes, and new trees. The carefully landscaped grounds were gone, but there were still stone sidewalks through the weeds. No grass, no weeds, had grown between the stones. I couldn’t figure that out, weeds grew everywhere.

The house scared me. There could have been thirty or more bad people in there. People waiting to kill me. Maybe turn me into steaks, and have me for dinner. I couldn’t see through the windows without getting close to the house. Close enough I’d have no way to escape if there were anyone inside. So, I stayed away from the place. I made a wide loop around it, went inland a safe distance. There, I stopped for the night. The next morning, I went south again, then returned to the shore of the lake, well past the mansion.

When I reached the lake, I found a boardwalk along its edge.

The boardwalk was cared for. I found new wood in several places, fresh wood. I knew someone was taking care of it. I moved inland, away from the lake. I kept the boardwalk in sight, but I moved slow, with my bow ready, and an arrow set. I used what I’d learned from the predatory animals I’d worked with. I moved quietly, without disturbing the bushes, between the few trees. I kept low to the ground, my senses reached out, I listened for any sound, looked for any movement.

It took hours, but I found them. There was a small house, beside the boardwalk. Two men were outside. Both wore guns. I’d learned to recognize assault weapons. I didn’t know the specifics, couldn’t tell you a model or a make. But I knew they were assault weapons. Probably with thirty or more rounds each. All semi automatic, if not automatic. One banged on the door, “Move your asses! You got work to do!”

Three men came out of the house, carrying saws, hammers, and nails. They wore rags. The two gunmen led them away from the house. A short time later, I heard the sounds of wood being cut, and knew the men were the ones working on the boardwalk. I knew from the armed guard with them, and the attitude of that guard, those men probably weren’t working on the boardwalk because they wanted to.

I watched the house for a time, but if anyone was inside, they stayed inside. I decided to deal with the house later. For now, there was the problem of the men with the guns.

It was simple to get past the house. I moved inland, and went around it. No one watched, no one heard. I was the predator. The hunter. I hunted.

I headed toward the noise of the work on the boardwalk. I didn’t like men with guns. With guns, men thought they could do what they wanted to do. And make others do what they wanted them to do. Guns were tools. Nothing more. Like a bow and arrows. Or a knife. They could be used well. Or they could be used badly. They could be used to protect others, or kill them.

And when people had guns and those around them didn’t, those with guns tended to behave badly.

I moved silently through the brush, between the bushes, and the trees. I watched the men working, and the men guarding them. I listened. “Keep it moving, boys. You’ve got a lot of work to do today.”

Modern slavery.

I was angry. But I couldn’t afford to let my anger interrupt my actions, couldn’t let my emotions get in the way of what I needed to do.

I picked up a hand full of sticks, rocks, anything I could throw, then I moved within throwing range of the lake. I heaved a small rock into the lake. When it “plunked”, the two men aimed at it with their guns. One moved toward it. “Just a friggin’ fish!”

By then, I’d moved, and I threw some sticks. They landed in the brush, moved branches, caused the weeds to move. The second man moved toward them, his gun aimed at the motion. “Something in the brush.”

I’d moved again, and threw more sticks, at more brush. The second man didn’t bother investigating. He aimed his gun, and fired five rounds into the brush. The second man was watching him.

That let me shoot him with an arrow. He dropped his gun, and howled in pain. So, I shot him with a second arrow.

The other man turned when the first started howling. He saw the second arrow strike. He went nuts with his gun, and started shooting at everything. He was an idiot. An angry idiot. He shot blindly into the brush.

I shot him with two more arrows.

The men who’d been working stopped. They raced from where they were working, grabbed the guns, and headed back toward the house. “Now’s our chance!”

I didn’t care what they did. They were free from the bad men with the guns. That’s what I wanted. I figured, if they wanted to take the guns, and go to the house, and shoot whoever was there, that was OK. If there were more guns there, and they wanted those guns to go back toward the mansion, or wherever, and shoot things. Well. They were angry. And they deserved to be angry.

Me?

I slipped away, into the brush, as if I’d never been there.

I walked well into the night before I settled, and grabbed a few hours of sleep. I wasn’t worried about food. I was close enough to the lake, I had no problems finding sustenance. I hid in the brush, and soon drifted off to sleep.

And in sleep, I dreamed. Of Valerie.

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Mark Ethridge Week 189: I See Angry People (Part 13)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: Two

Title: I See Angry People (Part 13)

I headed south along the edge of the lake. It was a big lake, one I wasn’t familiar with. I couldn’t see the far shore. For all I knew, it could have been the ocean, except it didn’t smell like the ocean, there were no sandy beaches, no seagulls, no piers, no surf. The water was calm, with small, lapping waves. There were ducks, geese, even swans. And there were miles and miles of nothing but water, and a long, quiet shoreline, with grass, a few small trees, and brush, that grew, as I headed south.

I spent my nights by the lake, in my tent. I bathed in the lake each morning. I washed everything, even my backpack. It felt good to be clean, to wash away the days, and weeks, of dust, dirt, and sweat. Each night, the gentle lapping of the waves lulled me to sleep.

I fished. I sucked at fishing, but I pretended I could. I caught nothing. Except a few clumps of mud and rock from the bottom of the lake. I watched the birds, and wished I could swim, like they did. Instead, I stood on the muck at the bottom of the lake, and kept my head above the water. I could swim, but not well. Enough to avoid drowning.

Food wasn’t a problem. I found plenty to eat, including the leaves of some of the trees. “Salad!” I’d learned from the wolves, the foxes, and the other animals in the forest back home what to eat, how to find the food I needed among the trees, and the brush. Even some of the roots got added to my salad.

I gradually regained my strength as I recovered from my walk through hell. That desolate place that went forever. I’d have to remember to not cross that again.

On the fourth day of my hike south on the lake, I came across a town. At first, it was just a few bumps on the horizon, by the edge of the lake. A few hours later, I’d reached it. And empty town.

Something was different about this town. Normally I would have been on edge, drawn my bow, and set an arrow, and been ready to fight. I’d have moved slowly, cautiously. But something told me the town was empty. There was no one there. No danger. I walked it’s few streets, saw the architecture of the buildings. Apartments. Condominiums, I believe they used to be called that.

The town went clean to the edge of the lake, with a boardwalk over the water. There were a few boat docks, but no boats. The boats were long gone. Just like the people. The place was empty, and had been empty for years. There was a layer of dust on everything inside every building, every home.

Everything was left behind. Books. Clothing. Pictures. Everything. The people who’d once lived here had left rapidly. Perhaps they fled something. Maybe there was a fire of some kind. Perhaps they fled the crazy people when the world went insane. I had no way of knowing. There was no history. No story of what happened. No evidence. No warning. One day, everyone left.

I wondered where they’d gone. If they’d taken to their boats to cross the lake. If they’d gone inland, or fled along the lake’s shore.

I found a couple of small stores, more like shops. A small grocery, all the cans, boxes, and bags still on the shelves. Piles of dirt and dust where the produce and meat had been. Even the maggots and flies were gone. Whatever happened, it happened long ago. There was a bookstore, its shelves filled with paperback books, romance novels, science fiction, classic works, Twain, Poe, and many others. And Bibles, lots of Bibles.

Eventually, I found the town’s offices. That’s where I found what had happened. They had indeed fled the crazy men. They’d headed across the lake, on their boats. They had no guns, no means of self defense. They’d left quickly.

And the crazy men had found nothing of use. So, they’d left also.

I gathered what maps I could find in the town’s office, then decided it was safe to stay in that town overnight. I found a comfortable sofa in one of the condominiums, and settled in for the night.

Before I went to sleep, I spent time studying the maps. They named the lake, and showed several roads leading away from the town. The roads led to other towns, even cities. For once, I had a map, and could tell where I was. The maps didn’t show much more than the local area, no more than 100 miles in all directions. The lake was huge. Not one of the Great Lakes, but plenty big. The maps said it was Devil’s Lake, in North Dakota. But the lake I’d been walking didn’t look like the one in the map. The lake I’d been walking around looked bigger, wider. Perhaps the lake had changed. Perhaps it had grown in the years since the world went insane. I had no way of knowing. I had no map making abilities. And no way to tell directions other than by the sun, and the stars at night.

If the lake had grown, changed, since the world had gone crazy, it would have changed faster than I could have imagined. It was something I couldn’t explain.

At the least, the maps gave me a direction to walk in. A rough guide to find my way back to my home. In the forest. With Jessica, and her friends. And with Valerie.

It was where I belonged.

And that’s when I realized why I’d taken the walk I’d taken. Why I’d wandered so far, for so long. I had to find me. What I valued. What I cared for. Where I belonged.

And I belonged at home.

With Valerie.

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Mark Ethridge Week 187: I See Angry People (Part 12)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: 2

Title: I See Angry People (Part 12)

One step at a time, I walked, one step at a time, endlessly, across endless hills, with nothing on them. Barren land, no weeds, no bushes. Nothing. Scruffy grass, dirt, rocks. Nothing. I wondered where I was. I didn’t remember this on any map I’d ever seen of the country. The ones in school, all those years ago, where the USA was green, with rivers, and mountains. Nothing like this.

I hadn’t eaten in two days, I was low on water, I was lost. My only guide was the sun, it told me the directions, north, south, east, west. I knew, if I went in the same direction I wasn’t going in a circle. I kept going north east.

As I walked, the days grew shorter. The sun rose later, set earlier, the nights grew longer. It was fall, winter was coming. With it, cold, snow, ice. I found myself wondering how Valerie was doing, if she was ready for the winter.

It was the first I’d thought of her in days. That didn’t feel right. I was supposed to think of her all the time. The woman I loved. She’d saved me from myself, more than once. First, when I lost my parents, my sister, to the crazy men that destroyed my home town. They killed almost everyone. Dad made sure I’d escaped. Jessica found me, took me to her little camp, where I met Hannah and Valerie. Valerie pulled me into the group.

Every time I doubted myself, Valerie stood beside me. She loved me, held me, taught me it was OK, I was OK. I left on long trips all the time, sometimes I was gone for months. And always, when I found my way back to the camp, Valerie was there, waiting for me.

And there I was, in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where I was, no idea where I was going, and no idea when I’d have my next meal. As I walked through that barren wasteland, I wondered if I was going to die. If I’d run out of water, die of thirst. If I found water, would I find food? Would I grow too weak to keep walking, and end up a corpse, in a wasteland, never to be seen, never to be heard from.

I wondered if I’d ever see Valerie again.

I decided I would. A man’s got to believe in something. Something that matters, something he cares about. I believed in Valerie. I believed in her love, believed it was worth fighting for, staying alive for.

I kept walking. One step after another, endlessly.

At night, I slept in my small tent, bundled up as best I could, under all the clothing I had. I gathered dry, dead grasses, weeds, anything, and piled them around my tent. Anything to break the wind. At night, the wind howled, it cut through my skin, chilled me to the bone. I woke every couple of hours from the cold.

And still the wasteland went on, and on, endlessly.

On the fourth day, I ran out of water. That night was the worst, the coldest, with the fiercest wind. I stayed in my tent, my teeth clenched against the cold, the wind. I curled up, pulled my knees to my chest, made myself as small as I could to conserve as much heat as I could.

I knew I was running out of time. I knew, if I didn’t find water soon, I wouldn’t survive.

The next morning, as the sun rose, I packed my tent, and started walking again. I heard birds. Geese, actually. Honking. I wondered if it was my mind playing tricks on me. If I was delirious from exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. But, as I walked, I heard the geese again. And again. If it was real! If I wasn’t dreaming it, the sound of geese was good news. It meant I was getting somewhere. I was heading toward water of some kind. A place where the geese would be. A stream, pond, lake, river. Water.

I kept walking. I couldn’t rush, I didn’t have the strength. But I kept walking, and the geese grew louder. There. Along the horizon. I saw something moving, something changing. I headed toward that movement. In that wasteland, I had no idea how far the horizon was. On that wasteland I figured I could see forever. Fifty miles, maybe more. Would I be able to hear the geese from that far away? Would I see geese moving, flying from that far away? If they were that far away, could I last long enough to reach them?

I pushed such thoughts from my mind, and walked.

And the motion along the horizon grew. Things began to pop up above the horizon. They got higher and higher. And the sound of the geese grew louder.

The sun set, and still I walked. The wind grew, and still I walked. Through the cold, through the wind, the darkness. Toward the sound of the geese. Until I found them. Thousands of them. More than I’d ever seen. An ocean of geese. Around, and on a small lake.

I kept going. I had to keep going. I had to keep moving. I couldn’t stop. Something told me I couldn’t stop. I watched the lake grow. I smelled the water in the air. And still I walked. Until I reached the water.

Water.

Fresh water.

I drank. I filled my canteen, and I drank.

Only then did I rest, make my tent, bury myself under every shred of clothing I had, and slept.

I woke to the sound of the geese.

They’d saved me. Their honking, their noise, guided me to the lake, to the water I desperately needed. They had one last thing to do for me. Surrounded by geese, I drew my bow, set an arrow, and did what I had to do to stay alive.

I ate. Raw goose. It didn’t matter. I ate. For the first time in days. Solid food. I’d have cooked it, but I had no way to set a fire. And nothing to set on fire.

The lake was a gift from nature. I followed it’s shoreline. One day. Another night spent by the lake. Then, more following the shoreline the next day. The lake turned into a stream. I followed that to grasses, brush, and trees.

I found food there. It’s there, if you know how to find it, if you know what to look for. Certain types of tree leaves, mushrooms, grasses, roots. Not the best, not the tastiest. But it kept me alive. Pine nuts, acorns, berries. The same food the squirrels and birds ate. And I followed the stream.

Until I found a cabin, then another, and a third. And more. Cabins scattered through the landscape. Small places. All empty. But, they were what I needed. A place I could spend a night, shielded from the wind, from the cold.

I picked a cabin to stay in that night. One room, with a small, single bed, a table, a chair, and a fireplace. A useless lamp sat on the table. I had no light to look around. I pulled the covers off the bed, and huddled in them for the night. For once, I was warm. For once I slept.

I slept for hours. Well past the sunrise. I wasn’t in any hurry to move. I don’t know how I knew it, but I knew no one was around, and no one had been around for a very long time. So, I had time. I had time to rest. I was able to bathe in the stream. It felt good to get clean, to wash away the dirt of the long walk I’d taken across that barren landscape. I foraged for food, edible vegetation. I found plenty. I decided to stay put for a day, maybe two. To rest. To gather my strength.

That afternoon I explored the cabin, There were some towels, sheets, and other sundries in the small closet I hadn’t noticed that night. There were a couple of books on the table, they stood neatly between two bookends. Centered on the table was an envelope, with something in it. And a notebook, with a flowered cover, and a pen. I hadn’t seen such a reminder of how the world had been in a long time.

The notebook was small, with few pages inside. All of them were filled with drawings, all done by hand. A goose, a tree, the cabin, the stream. Simple drawings.

I kept it. I wanted to show it to Valerie. She’d like it.

As the sun set, I settled in for the night in that cabin, and I wondered if I’d ever find my way back to Jessica’s little town in the woods. If I’d ever find my way back to Valerie.

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Mark Ethridge Week 186: I See Angry People (Part 11)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 11)

On my northward trek, one day I came across a clearing filled with a picnic table, chairs, dishes, and food. Every brain cell in my head screamed, “Danger, danger, danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” so I remained hidden in the brush, grasses, and trees. Instinctively, I drew my bow, set an arrow.

I made a wide circle around the clearing, searching for signs of other people. They were there, if you knew how to find them. Whoever had put the picnic in the clearing had not wanted to be tracked. I moved as I’d learned from the wolves, slowly, cautiously, ready to shoot if needed.

The weight of my quiver, with the arrows I had left, concerned me. I had maybe a dozen arrows, probably less. Not enough for a protracted fight. I’d been searching for good wood to make more, but the terrain had changed. Trees were in small clumps, scattered across the hills. Bushes, briars, and vines filled the landscape, with weeds taller than I was. It was different terrain, and I did not like it. I felt exposed, easily seen, an easy target, walking in the open.

I had found no wood I could use. None. The wood was gone, like the forest.

I moved away from the clearing, away from the fragments of trail left in the brush and weeds, and followed their general direction, toward the northwest, until I spotted a house among the scattered clumps of trees. The area around the house was not overgrown, it had been cleared in the recent past. Someone took care of the land around the house.

Carefully, I moved through the brush, until I reached one of the clumps of trees. The trees provided me with some sense of protection, some sense of safety. I knew I couldn’t be seen while I was in them. Once in the copse of trees, I stopped, and waited for the sun to set, when I could circle the house in the dark.

After a nap, and a small snack of what remaining nuts and berries I had, I watched the house from the safety of the trees. There were people there, maybe a dozen, a mix of men and women. It wasn’t easy to count them, or identify which gender they were, but my best guess put it at nine men, three women.

There was something to the west of the house, I couldn’t tell what it was, only that it wasn’t natural. It was a pit, or a hole, or something. Something dug in the ground. Whatever it was, it was several hundred yards from the house. Every time I looked toward it, my brain cells screamed it was evil, that it hid great darkness.

After the sun set, I stayed in the safety of my little group of trees and watched the house, and the brush around it. I watched four of the men move across the open space around the house, and disappear into the brush, heading southwest. Back toward the clearing with the picnic table.

Three more men crossed the clearing, heading toward whatever it was my brain screamed was evil. The last two men hid in the brush that surrounded the clearing. They moved through it, as if hunting, searching for something, or someone. “They’re good,” it was hard to track them.

I stayed in my trees, and waited. When the night was its darkest, I drew my bow, set an arrow, and set out to the west, to the unnatural thing in the brush. It took every skill I’d learned from the wolves to move without disturbing the weeds, to leave no trail. On footprints, not broken stems among the brush. Every movement was slow, cautious, deliberate. My ears listened for any sound, the sound of voices, the snap of a twig on the ground, the swish of a bit of brush being moved.

Halfway to the evil, I heard the chirp of a cricket to my left, answered by the chirp of a cricket ahead of me. My hands and arms reacted on their own, two arrows flew. My ears heard one strike home, that thunk an arrow makes when it hits a target, followed by a flurry of sudden breath, a fall to the ground, an attempt to remain silent, and the call of another cricket from the source of the noise.

Then, more sound, something moving more rapidly through the brush. My hand found my knife, my arm extended, my body launched into the brush directly ahead of me, at the movement, the sound.

Blood. Not mine. More noise. My body used the knife again, then a third time. One of the two men I’d seen searching the brush was on the ground, his blood leaking out of the wounds. My knife silenced him, sliced through his throat.

I moved toward the other cricket. Motion, through the brush, the swish of the grasses being pushed aside. My bow came out, an arrow flew, the motion stopped. I found the man in the grass, and made certain he was dead.

In the dark, I studied the two men. They had strange bracelets around their wrists, strange necklaces. Some kind of bone.

Bone.

Suddenly, everything was wrong. Everything I’d learned about hell, about fire and brimstone, burning flesh, souls damned to unending torture, became a child’s fairytale. The bones were finger bones. Human finger bones.

On each of them men I found knives. I took them, added them to my meager arsenal, checked my quiver. I was down to six arrows. Six arrows, seven men. The math didn’t work.

I made my way to the edge of the clearing. There, I used an old butane cigarette lighter, and set a fire in the brush. I moved a hundred feet, and set another fire, then another, and another. Then I moved toward the trail to the south west. I set another half dozen fires there.

In the dark, in the dry brush, the fires caught, then grew. I moved to the northeast. I didn’t need to see the thing in the west. I knew what I’d find there. Bones. The bones of the dead. Bones of the victims of the people in that place. As I left, I lit two arrows on fire. I fired them at the house. They struck with somewhat loud “thack” sounds, like they’d struck a wooden structure. I watched to make certain the fire from the arrows spread.

Then, I headed north east, away from that place. I didn’t need to be told what went on there. What those beings did. They’d found a way to stay alive in the world. They hunted. They killed. They ate what they hunted.

They hunted people.

And I knew, if I encountered them again, I’d be ready, with a quiver full of arrows, with the wolves, the eagles, the hawks, and any other animals I could convince to join me. And I’d finish what had started that night. None of them would walk away. None of them would escape.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I couldn’t.

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Mark Ethridge Week 185: I See Angry People (Part 10)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 10)

With the sunrise, I headed north. It was time to try something different. I started west, but the longer I walked west, the more I became certain I was not meant to head west. I wasn’t meant to head east, back the way I’d come. South and I didn’t like each other. So, I stopped, and headed north.

I found nothing the first day, other than the feeling I was closing in on something important. An answer to a question. I suppose it would have been best if I knew the question. I didn’t. I wondered if I would recognize the answer, if the answer would tell me the question.

The second day I came to another town, like the one I’d found, the one with Christopher’s journal. Like the first town, it was empty, except for one house. Inside I found the skeleton of a long dead person. Next to the remains I found a digital camera, the battery had drained long ago. I wondered what I might find if I could turn the camera on, but I knew I had no way to do that. I pulled the battery from the camera, it was a small, thin rectangle, rechargeable. I had no way to charge it. I looked around, found a charger, the kind you plug into the wall.

I put the battery in the charger, plugged the charger into a wall outlet, and was surprised when the red light came on, saying it was charging. Somehow, there was power, electricity, in the house. I stared at the charger for a while, wondering how it was working.

The only answer was solar power. I dashed outside, looked at the roof of the house, found an array of solar panels. There was power, electric power, still flowing into the house. As long as there was sunlight, as long as the panels worked, as long as the rechargeable batteries inside the the house somewhere kept working, the power would continue, filling in the batteries, flowing through the house.

After the camera battery charged a while, I decided to see if the camera turned on. It did, and I checked the pictures on its memory card. There were not that many of them. A picture of an old woman. A picture of a dog, one of a litter of puppies, one of a puppy in a pink toy car, another of a puppy in a blue toy truck’s bed.

The pictures changed. A dead, naked girl, bruised and broken. A second one, then a third one, followed by pictures of old men, with guns. Then pictures of women and girls in the house. I couldn’t really tell how many. Pictures of dead men in the streets of the town, blood pooled everywhere, stains on the walls.

There’s been a war in that little town, between the old men, and the men who went crazy. I wondered how many on both sides had died. Fathers had protected their daughters, and died doing so.

There were more pictures, of women and girls, leaving the town, a few men with them. They headed north, I could tell by the shadows, and the buildings I could see in the pictures. It was the north edge of the town.

They’d headed north.

I had something to look for. A reason to go north.

I spent the night in that house. The next day I explored the roof, studied the solar panels, found the batteries, studied how they were hooked to the panels, where the power inverters and regulators were placed in the wiring. I didn’t know how it all worked, but I drew some sketches, and figured I’d have to play with solar power eventually. There would be much to learn. How to build an inverter, how to build a battery, how to make wire. Maybe it was something we could use. Maybe we could use a simpler form of solar power.

When I was ready, I headed north, along the same path I’d seen the women walk in the pictures. I didn’t know what I’d find, but I knew it was north.

So that’s where I went.

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Mark woke up in 2010, and has been exploring life since then. All his doctors agree. He needs to write.

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Mark Ethridge Week 184: I See Angry People (Part 9)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 9)

Always, I walked west, parallel to the fence. I wondered how big the fence was, how long. I walked for hours, and never reached its end, or a corner. I knew from the size of the fence, there were a lot of people inside it. People who believed they were safe.

As the sun set, I found a place to camp for the night. Water, some carefully selected mushrooms, tree leaves, and weeds, and I was ready to sleep. The night was peaceful, quiet. I felt safe. I hadn’t seen anyone inside the fence when I checked, and I was several miles north of it. So, I went to sleep when the sun set, and didn’t wake until the sun was up.

I walked west all day again, before I reached the corner of the fence. East to West, the fence was over a two day walk in length. There could be several small towns inside it, hidden where I couldn’t see them. I figured I’d study it some more, on my way back. And I’d figured out I would head back. Something inside me said my journey west was nearing its end.

The next day was another day of endless walking to the west. Until the sun was low to the horizon. That’s when I came to a small place. A ghost town. Most were anymore. This one felt different, though, as if it were hiding something. Something I was supposed to find.

I skirted it’s edge, peered down the streets, between the buildings. Most were one or two stories, though a couple reached three. The streets were old. The place felt old, like it had seen a lot of lifetimes, and had a lot of stories to tell.

I moved away from it, to the north, and settled for the night. I hadn’t seen anyone since I’d demonstrated to the fence people their guns did not make them invincible. As I rested for the night, I considered what to do the next day.

I rose before the sun and returned to the old place. I finished my circuit around its exterior. Several of the streets were brick. Old brick that had separated as the ground moved, as people walked on them, so weeds and grass had taken hold between them. I saw no one, no sign anyone had been there recently.

I was always nervous heading into a town of any kind, there was no way to tell what was inside, who was inside, who might be waiting, ready to attack me. I drew my bow, set an arrow, and cautiously headed in. I picked one of the old brick streets, figured if I couldn’t see any disturbances in the grass and weeds, no one had been there.

“Could this be a place where people once worked?” I’d heard old stories about companies setting up places for people who worked for them. Boom towns that grew, then went bust when the work ran out. Usually some kind of mining. Maybe oil, or gas. When that ran out, the work would have gone away.

I inched along, checking each doorway, each window. I wasn’t being watched, I could tell that. I headed toward the closest three story building. Its doors were open, like someone, in a rush to leave, forgot to close them, or didn’t bother to close them.

The inside of the building was empty. All the chairs, tables, any kind of furniture, was gone. Nothing but bare walls, and some paintings and pictures hanging on them. I figured out the building wasn’t a place where people lived. There were no bathrooms, no laundry rooms. Everything was like an office. I found public restrooms. The kind with lots of stalls.

There was nothing inside.

I checked several of the two story structures. Apartments. Small places, with separate baths, separate kitchens. All of them were stripped, like the three story place was.

All of them, except one. That one was on a corner, where two brick streets crossed. It’s door was still shut. I tested it, and it opened with no problem. The first floor had a kitchen, and a room that reminded me of my family’s living room. A sofa, a couple of chairs. A useless TV on one wall. I followed the stairs to the second floor. A bathroom, and two rooms. One a bedroom, with a bed, still made. Dusty, but otherwise, well cared for.

The second room was a study. There were pictures piled in boxes, several books on cartography, several on photography, and something I hadn’t seen in years. A Holy Bible. Those were rare since the world went nuts. Used to find them everywhere. In book stores, churches, hotel rooms, people’s houses. They’d all vanished.

This was a small one, well worn, well read. I checked inside, found a bookplate, said the book belonged to someone named Christopher, as if that mattered.

Beneath the Bible were maps. Hand drawn maps. They showed the fence, and the area outside the fence. There were several empty towns on the maps. One map was different. It had a black hole in its center, and a label next to the black that said, “The Cave”.

I found a journal, a diary. I didn’t care for them, I’d seen plenty of them. Someone’s ramblings about life. But something made me pick the journal up, and turn to the last couple of pages. I read the crisp hand printed letters, the same letters from the maps. Christopher, it seemed, was the last. Everyone else had gone to the cave, or to the fence. He’d lost count of the bodies at the fence where not everyone was accepted. He didn’t know what was in the cave. His last words were how he was tired. He was alone. And he was going west. To see what he could see. He was out of food. Out of everything. He had no choice but to leave.

Christopher, it seemed, decided to head west, to see if he could find help, a place to live, with others. The last two pages of the journal showed a sketch of an old highway, headed west, into the Rocky Mountains. Christopher’s notes said that’s where he would head. To see if there was anywhere he could live. If there was anything left.

I checked the photographs. Pictures of women, victims of the insanity that destroyed everything. Pictures of children, nothing but skin and bones, their stomachs bloated, they’d died of hunger. Pictures of people, carrying nothing but what was on their backs, heading anywhere. Pictures of men, lots of men, with guns, raiding all the buildings, taking everything. Pictures of the end of the town Christopher lived in.

Christopher’s last words in his journal, “Time to start over.”

I spent the night outside the town. When the sun set, so did I. But I knew, I was close to finding something. If I only knew what.

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Mark woke up in 2010, and has been exploring life since then. All his doctors agree. He needs to write.

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Mark Ethridge Week 183: I See Angry People (Part 8)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: 2

Title: I See Angry People (Part 8)

I woke before dawn. I’d taught myself to sleep when I had to, and wake up when I needed to. I packed my tent in my pack, pulled my pack on, and made my way back to the fence and waited for the men inside to start their journey beyond the fence.

They would be hunting me, which didn’t bother me at all. I’d faced many men with guns over the years. Their guns made them arrogant, brash, loud. Their guns made them feel safe. They’d have never met a true predator before. A practiced, seasoned killer.

They’d never met me.

I moved through the trees, the brush, like a wolf, silently, never waiting in one place. Always watching them. When the sun rose, they formed a group of ten, and planned what to do. As was typical of arrogant, well armed men, they didn’t keep their plan a secret. They talked about it among themselves. “You two stay here, watch the fence. If you see anything move outside the fence, shoot it.”

The other eight men formed a group. They unbolted a section of the fence, and moved through it, bolting it back together when they were outside. Then, they formed a line, each one about ten feet from the other. I observed their hand signals to each other. It was easy to figure them out. One for move forward, another for stop, others for shoot and investigate. They had surprisingly few signals. Anything they couldn’t signal, they spoke.

“Yeah. That’s how to sneak up on someone.” I easily stayed out of their way, hidden in the brush and trees, watching them move. Watching them become bored, distracted. “That’s right, fellas. Lower your guard.”

After a couple of hours, they were hungry, and thirsty. They stopped moving, gathered in a group to have some water, and eat something. I didn’t care what it was. I knew it was time for me to make my first move. I drew an arrow, and picked a target. The farthest man from me. He sat on an old fallen tree on the ground. When he turned his drink up, I let my arrow fly. It struck him in the chest, sank a good six inches into him.

I didn’t watch what he did. I didn’t care what he did. I drew a second arrow, and targeted the man closest to me. In the chaos of watching my first victim lean back until he fell off the tree, and landed on his back on the ground, his water spilling everywhere, and an arrow sticking out of his chest, and the panic of drawing their guns, none of the men noticed, at first, that a second of their party had an arrow in him.

I didn’t wait to see what they did. I moved. I raced into the trees, away from the men, because I knew what they would do. And they didn’t disappoint me when seconds after I started my departure, gunfire echoed through the trees.

They shot at nothing. At everything. At perceived danger. “Anybody see him?” “No!” “Sweep the area! Back to back!” I knew they formed a circle. I knew each of the six who could still shoot were shooting the hell out of the trees in front of them. They couldn’t know I had already moved away. Oh, there was a chance one of them would get lucky and I’d get struck by a random bullet. But that chance shrank with each step I took.

I grinned. I knew they’d never seen me. I moved until I was safe, then waited to see what they did. I was far enough from them, I couldn’t hear their voices. But I did hear their guns. And after a few minutes those guns fell silent. Once the silence held for five minutes, I headed back toward them.

I watched as four of the remaining men hauled the two I’d shot through the trees, and the other two guarded their withdrawal.

They hadn’t seen me, so I proceeded to the next step of my plan. I moved parallel to the guardsman on the left. I stayed a good distance from him, and knew he never saw me. As they walked, and he paused every few steps to scan the trees, I paused. Until the time he paused, and I let another arrow fly. It was a tough shot, through the trees. It caught him in the arm. He howled in pain, dropped his gun, grabbed his arm. “I’ve been shot!”

I drew another arrow, and tried again. This one got him in the ribs.

It was time for me to disappear. I moved away, into the brush and trees, and started a loop back to the other side of the men, where the other guardsman was. He’d moved to the one I’d shot. “Jesus, he got you twice!”

The guy was still alive. I didn’t care if he lived or died. I kept moving in my wide loop. It took several minutes for the men to gather, and try to figure out how to deal with their injured comrade. That gave me the time I needed to finish my loop. I hid, maybe 50 feet from them. I knew they’d never see me. I drew another arrow, and let it fly. It struck the calf of the second gunman. It didn’t stick, but it drew blood. A second arrow caught him in the thigh.

I left them in the woods, shooting the hell out of the trees.

I moved back to the fence, and watched the two men they’d left behind. They’d taken up posts about a hundred feet apart, and they sat, bored, watching the trees. “You see anything?” “No.” “Me neither.”

It was too good. I aimed and fired again. The arrow hit the fence, which wasn’t a big surprise. I drew a second arrow, and tried again. This time the arrow went through one of the openings in the fence, and found itself embedded in the left knee of one of the men.

He howled and fell to the ground. At least he was organized, and smart enough, to get his gun, and try shooting into the trees. But he had no idea where the arrow came from. He fired randomly. I was already moving to the side.

His fellow guard was stupid, and headed toward him at a run, “Benny! I’m coming! We’ll get him! We’ll get him!”

The second guard came up short in his run, one arrow in his left thigh, another in his right shoulder. He pitched face first into the ground, and howled in agony.

I walked away. I left. I headed west, parallel to the fence, away from the remaining men in the search party. Away from the two guards. I headed west. I kept moving the remainder of the day, until well past sunset. Then, I moved north for a mile or so. That’s where I set up my tent.

I planned to take a few days to find more good wood, make more good arrows, find things to eat, plenty to drink. If you know where to look in the wild, it’s not really that hard. Water collects in places. Streams form. Things grow.

I needed to unwind a bit before I could sleep. And I knew I would only sleep a few hours before I started moving west again. I couldn’t stay put, I figured the men would put together a bigger party, and shoot up everything for miles and miles.

I pulled out my knife, and the block of wood I was carving. My dad had taught me to whittle. He’d said it was relaxing, a way to wash away the stress of the day. I pulled out the old picture I’d found a couple of years back. It was of an old toy train set. The engine was blue, with a smoke stack, and big black wheels. I didn’t have any paint, or any metal to make axles for wheels. All I had was wood. I’d carved out that train a dozen times. Each time I did a better job.

I whittled away for an hour or so. Until I was ready to sleep. In a few hours, it would be time to wake up, and get moving. It was all about survival. And whatever I was searching for, whatever part of me kept me heading west, wanted me to survive.

That night was the first time I found part of my answer. “There’s got to me someone who’s not angry.”

Maybe that was what I was hunting for. A place where I could rest. Where I could be safe. At least for a while. Maybe.

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Mark woke up in 2010, and has been exploring life since then. All his doctors agree. He needs to write.

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Mark Ethridge Week 180: I See Angry People (Part 7)

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Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: Two

Title: I See Angry People (Part 7)

I left before the sun arrived, I placed a thank you note on the front porch of Tommy’s house before I headed south, back toward the fence. There were things about the fence, and the people living inside the fence I needed to learn. And a lesson I needed to teach them.

It took a while, but I retraced my steps to my tent. I kept thinking, “I don’t remember the walk. I don’t remember anything but following the eagle.” But, I’d learned from experience in the woods, and let myself feel my way back. “It’s a straight line.”

I’d been injured on the way north, and hadn’t realized how much of a trail I’d left. Between the disturbances I’d left in the brush, and the knowledge I’d walked in a straight line, I was able to find my tent, and my pack.

My bow and arrows were where I’d left them. I would need them. I’d need more arrows. I checked the area for good tree branches I could use, but found nothing that would work. I headed east, slowly, checking the trees and the ground. With time I found a dozen good branches. I set up camp for the night, then pulled out my knife.

It took several hours, but I added a dozen arrows to my quiver. I planned to use them soon. I was angry, and someone needed to be taught a less in humility.

The next day, I rose before the sun, and headed south, to the fence. once more, I saw the ten foot wide clearing between the fence and the trees. I stayed hidden in the trees, and moved with the stealth I’d learned from the wolves. I headed east and found my way back to the guardhouse where Mr. Trigger Happy had shot up the trees. For no reason.

The fence wouldn’t be much protection for him. It was chain link. I could see the links, and I knew how to shoot arrows through them. I picked a spot in the brush, set an arrow, and waited.

I was rewarded shortly after sunrise with the sound of an alarm clock, the incessant ringing of a metal bell. There was movement in the cabin. I waited. I watched. And when the guard exited his dwelling, carrying his assault weapon, I was ready for him.

He didn’t say anything, just looked through the fence at the trees, then pulled his gun up, aimed at nothing, and prepared to fire.

He got an arrow in his leg.

He screamed, of course, and fell to the ground. The idiot tried to pull his gun around, so he could shoot back. But he had no idea where I was. He sprayed the trees with his weapon. I wasn’t in the trees. I was flat on the ground. I set a second arrow and shot the guard in the shoulder. “Put the damn gun down, and I won’t have to kill you.”

I set a third arrow.

The crazy guy with the gun screamed nonsense, put a fresh clip in his gun, and resumed firing. So, I shot him in the chest, which stopped the gunfire.

The way I figured it, he wouldn’t check in, so they’d send someone to check on him. Maybe several someones. Of course, they’d find him dead, with three home made arrows stuck in him. I figured that would cause the people inside the fence to react badly. I figured they’d come outside the fence to track me down, and shoot me.

I figured they didn’t stand a chance outside the fence. I was in my element. The wild. I moved silently through the brush and trees. The wolves taught me to leave no trail. To be invisible. I moved away from the fence, further into the brush, waited, and watched.

It took until dusk for anyone to show up. Two men, both well armed, walked into view from the south, headed toward the guards dwelling. Their guns were drawn. As they got closer, they saw their dead comrade. One took out a radio, and spoke into it.

“Gunner dead. Three arrows.”

The radio answered back, “Arrows?”

“Yes.”

“Well. That’s something new.”

“We’ll stay here tonight, secure the area.” He motioned the other man to check the guards home. “Send a team. We’ll check the area outside in the morning.”

“They’ll be there at dawn.”

I smiled. The hunt was about to begin. “A lesson in humility.” I also knew it was my chance to learn about the people inside the fence. They types of guns and tools they had. The way they behaved in a group.

I retreated to my tent, to grab a few hours sleep. I was going to need it.

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Mark woke up in 2010, and has been exploring life since then. All his doctors agree. He needs to write.

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