Mike tried again. “Marie,” he said more gently, “he wouldn’t have left.” Mike looked up the stairs to see if Elly was watching them; she wasn’t. He turned back to Marie. “He could’ve brought in his friends, okay? He’s probably got more than one. Who knows what would’ve happened?”
Marie took her hands away from her face. She wiped the tears away from her eyes with a tissue. “What are we going to do?”
Mike surprised himself with his answer. “We’re gonna get the hell out of here. There are reports of fighting over in Minneapolis, gangs of people coming through, and this thug will come back with his friends. We have to go!”
Marie’s face was vacant.
Mike continued to try. “Ed Brock told me that the Fergusons already moved out.”
She looked at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. They’re headed for Canada. Other people are talking about it too.”
“Do you think we’d be safe there?”
Mike put his arm around her. “Yeah, safer than here.”
“I’ll have to start packing.”
They sat quietly for a few moments.
Mike kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, Hon. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Really. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Marie sniffed. “I better go up and see how Elly’s doing.” She got to her feet.
Mike stood. “Okay. Look. I’m going across the street to check on the Turners. I’ll lock the door. Don’t go out. I’ll be right across the street and I won’t be gone more than a couple minutes. Then we’ll start packing the camper.”
Marie nodded sadly and went up the stairs.
Mike walked out into the middle of the street, his hand on the revolver in his pocket. He looked around. He didn’t see anyone. He went in the Turner’s gate and knocked on their door. No one answered. He tried the handle; it was locked. He peered into their garage and saw that their van was gone. They must have left in the night. He went back to the door and looked through the window. Seeing nothing suspicious, he went to the house next door and found Ed and Carol Brock in their driveway, packing up their Toyota with gallon bottles of water, small cartons packed with boxes of spaghetti and noodles, canned vegetables and fruit, sardines, tuna fish, Spam.
Carol grimaced as he told her about finding the teen thug at his place. He omitted the part about shooting him in the hand. Ed continued to go and come from the house with cartons and bags. After filling the trunk he closed it and turned to Mike.
“There were three of them in the Turners’ last night. They must have broken in the back. I kept our lights out and fortunately they never tried to get in our place.”
Carol took Ed’s arm.
Ed shook his head as he looked at Mike. “We’re not spending another night here, Mike. We’re going up to Michigan. You should get your family out too. This place is too dangerous.”
Mike nodded, mentally counting the families left in the cul-de-sac: his, Ron and Cindy Simmons, and the Brocks. And now they were getting out.
“I know,” said Mike. “We’re getting ready today. We’ll probably leave sometime tomorrow.”
Ed started back toward the house, his face set with concern. He paused. “You’d better not wait too long. There’s nobody left to help us anymore.” He went in his side door.
Carol hugged Mike. “Good luck,” she said, her eyes misting up. “Tell Marie you’ll all be in my prayers.” She opened the back door of the Toyota and unfolded a blanket onto the seat.
Mike and Marie made a big meal of the perishables in the refrigerator. After Elly went to bed they sat quietly at the table.
Mike looked out the window. “We have about another three hours of light. We should get packed up before it gets dark and then lock ourselves in for the night.”
“Okay,” said Marie. “I’ll pack Elly’s things. You can pack ours. We can both pack the clothes.”
Later Mike jammed a couple dozen cardboard boxes as snugly as he could under the camper’s sleeping shelves and table.
Marie came into the camper with the last box of Elly’s things. “There’s something upstairs I want to show you,” she said.
“Okay.”
Mike followed her into the spare bedroom. Elly’s crib, playpen and highchair were arranged in the middle of the floor. Marie said nothing as she looked at him.
He smiled sadly. “We can’t, Marie. We just don’t have the room.”
“Can’t we fit them on half of our bed or something?”
He put his arm around her and pulled her to him. “We don’t need those things anymore.”
She laid her head against his chest. “Somebody might.”
“Maybe. But we’re gonna be living in that camper. We need the space.”
“You’re right,” she said.
“I wish I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
Mike kissed her and they turned off the light, closed the door, and went downstairs. Marie slept on the couch and Mike on the floor with the revolver heavy and reassuring in his pocket. They left the next morning. As Mike approached the Atlas Hardware to turn onto the main road, he saw the thug and his black friend. They stood talking to another transient. Two beat-up Honda dirt bikes leaned on their stands nearby. The thug noticed the camper and said something to the others. They turned to stare angrily.
The thug waved his up-raised, bandaged hand, yelling at Mike, “Your house is ours, motherfucker!”
Mike pressed down hard on the gas. He looked at Marie but she didn’t appear to have heard what he said.
III
Mike slowly maneuvered the Ford pickup through the ruts and mud puddles of the sandy road as the day waned.
“Do you think they’re following us?” said Marie. “On their motorcycles?”
“No. Those bikes were small, maybe 150 cc engines. I don’t think they could keep up with us. They’re probably ransacking our house instead.”
Marie put her hand over her eyes and said nothing.
Broad pillars of pale winter light fell gently down through the trees as the truck creaked and swayed due to the high camper in its bed. A laugh came from inside the camper—Elly, enjoying the rocking of the rig and the sweeping sound of the occasional drooping tree branch whisking along the fiberglass roof. Mike had wanted Elly up front with them so they could talk to her before they set up for the night. He’d wanted to go over their camping rules again, about whom she could talk to, and when, whom she couldn’t, and most importantly, never to be out of site of the camper and her mother and father. But Marie had given into Elly’s pleas to be allowed to ride in the back and listen to her music and fuss with her dolls. And with all that was happening, Marie was stressed enough. Why push it? He frowned in concentration, his hands gripping the wheel tightly. They needed each other more than ever now if they were going to get into Canada.
Another girlish giggle erupted from the back. Mike smiled sadly and turned to see if Marie would react. She didn’t. Mike guided the truck another mile down the muddy, rutted road and caught sight of some cars and campers a quarter-mile ahead. He pulled to the side of the road to assess the situation.
“You’re not going in?” said Marie, coming out of her fog.
“Not yet. We’ll go in. But I just want to check the place out from a distance for a minute or two.”
Marie said nothing. A year ago she would have objected. She would have accused him of being paranoid and anti-social, and would have insisted they park in the midst of the others and be sociable. But everything had changed. On the East Coast it hadn’t taken long for the thin veneer of civilization to come unglued. People were less trusting, and for good reason; petty crime was commonplace, and ignored; violent crime had ratcheted way up as packs of transients roamed the freeways, coming through the towns to take what they could. Bands of home-grown vigilantes had sprung up. They were inexperienced and heavy-handed, and the justice they dished out was left hanging where all could see, until the dwindling numbers of moralists and Christian do-gooders took them down. Government troops did their best, but they often didn’t arrive until after the trouble-makers had moved on. Once the troops established themselves, conditions stabilized to a basic level of civilization. Government script became available in the ATMs, twenty dollars per person per day, bulk food— flour, dried beans, rice, coffee, tea, canned milk, macaroni—at the local municipal building. People home-schooled their children. Deaths due to diseases and medical shortages became commonplace, especially among the elderly. Mental illness and suicides skyrocketed. And when the civil war had reached Chicago, it wasn’t long after until the thug had shown up in their garage.