“So, if you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing off of the homestead? Especially with all this going on?”
The young man said, “It’s a long story, but if you want us to really get into it—”
But Gary interrupted him. “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we—”
“Aren’t at liberty to say,” Hatfield finished with a groan.
“I’m sorry,” Gary added.
Jess patted her husband on the thigh. “Let’s just be thankful we got some help when we needed it.”
He nodded, then twisted the key in the ignition and waited. A tense quiet fell over the Hummer as it wheezed a few times.
“You know, guys,” Andy chimed in. “With the rain easing up, we could probably walk from here. It really wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, no, hold on.” Hatfield tried again. After a few false starts, it whimpered to life. His face aglow, he turned to his kids and the strangers in the back. “Everybody ready?”
Enthusiastic “yep” from the back seat. But nothing from Jess.
Hatfield turned to see his wife wordless, head bowed, eyes shut. After the engine’s surprising start, he needed no explanation. “All right, guys, let’s go. Heads down.”
Confused, the younger guy asked, “I’m sorry?”
“Just giving thanks, that’s all.”
11
“Just take Decatur Street till you reach the school up ahead,” Gary said. “Then take a right on Delaware.”
The farther Hatfield drove, the more familiar the land looked. Kennedy High looked a lot different than it had the last time he’d been around. Wilton looked like a different place. Hipster coffee shops where Mike’s Garage used to be. A mall in place of a football field. A parking lot in place of E & R’s Diner. He kept his nostalgia to himself. This wasn’t the time to share unhappy adolescent memories with strangers.
Gary said, “Just keep going down Delaware, way past the lake. The homestead’s a good distance down there.”
The trip was beginning to feel downright eerie now. As they stayed on Delaware, he wondered if they would soon pass the place he and his family used to live. Maybe he’d see the homestead. After another half a mile stretch of abandoned land, a weird question snapped into his head. “Guys, this homestead of yours… where is it located exactly?”
“Out close to the river,” Andy said.
“About a mile and a half away from the river’s bank?” Hatfield asked. “Next to a clearing?”
The young guys looked at each other. “Yeah,” they answered in tandem.
By now, they could see the homestead in the distance. It was a giant cabin surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
From the back seat, he heard his daughter’s voice. “Dad, are they going to be able to help me in there?”
Grace, the woman, spoke for the first time, asking, “Is that thing broken?”
“Her wrist looks broken, yes,” Jess answered. “We were hoping there were supplies in there.”
“Sure,” Grace said. “We’ve got plenty. Sedatives, stitching equipment if she needs that too. Material for a cast.”
“Now, all we need is somebody who knows how to use it all.” Gary chuckled.
“We get by just fine,” Grace said.
Hatfield pulled up the barbed wire. From there, he could see the old trailer at the side of the house. “They keeping the trailer up as a souvenir?”
Andy answered, “Storage room. We got so much stuff, we have to stash what we can’t use at the moment in that old heap of junk.”
Hearing the home he grew up in referred to that way made Hatfield grin. He wasn’t sure whether he was insulted or amused. But he was sure that thing was a piece of junk when he lived there. And it certainly had to be by now.
A minute passed with all of them staring at the cabin. Hatfield was too engrossed by memories to notice how much time had passed.
From behind, Justin called, “Dad, what are we waiting for? Tami’s wrist really needs to be worked on.”
Grace, inspecting Tami’s wrist, said, “Guys, I’m seeing redness on her wrist. That can’t be good, right?”
“She’s going to need more ice soon!” Jess said. “Honey, scooch up a little so I can take a look at your wrist.”
Hatfield’s gaze hardened. “Guys, we really need to get past that fence! Can you open it up, please?”
The three homesteaders exchanged glances. Grace said, “We can’t do that.”
“What are you talking about? You told us if we gave you a lift, you could let us in and have a meal!”
Gary swallowed hard, his face growing red. “Maybe we shouldn’t have promised that much.”
“What?” Jess cried.
Andy said, “Look, when you asked why we had left the homestead—”
“You said you weren’t at liberty to tell us—for security reasons.”
“Yes,” Andy said. “And that was true. But there was a little more to the story than that.”
Hatfield aimed his eyes at him like lasers. “What is the rest of the story?”
More exchanged glances. Andy said, “Our reasons for leaving the homestead were a little… complicated.”
“How so?”
Hatfield saw their glances brush past him and onto something else that made their eyes huge. He turned to see what they were staring at.
Three men in camouflage trained M-16 rifles at them. Five more leaped out of the bushes. Within seconds, the Hummer was surrounded. A loud voice came from the cabin’s porch. “Please leave the area. You are trespassing on private property! If you continue to do so, you will be risking bodily injury!”
Enraged, Hatfield yelled to the back seat. “Will you tell these people you are with us!”
Gary said, “That’s the part that gets a little complicated.”
“What the hell does that mean!” Hatfield exploded.
Voice soft and humbled, Gary said, “The three of us were VVs.”
“What is that?” Jess asked.
Grace said, “It stands for voluntary vacate. It means we took off without permission.”
Andy said, “You could think of it as going AWOL.”
“What’s the punishment?” Hatfield asked.
Gary said, “There is no punishment. Only banishment. That basically means everyone is free to leave, but once they do, they’re not allowed back in.”
Hatfield pounded his fist against the dashboard, feeling his rage on the cusp of boiling over. His wife massaged his shoulder and address the three VVs in a calmer, softer voice. “If you knew that was the price to pay, why did you think you’d be allowed back in?”
Her husband yelled, “And why in God’s name did you promise we could get a meal and some help in there!”
“We’re really sorry,” Grace said. “It was wishful thinking, I guess. We had a VV take off a few months before we did and was later allowed back in. They made an exception for him. We figured they’d make an exception for us.”
“I guess things have changed since then,” Andy said. “The other guy was before the EMP attack. Now they know how scarce their resources are.”
Hatfield’s stare landed back at the armed men in camouflage. With his options running short, he said, “I’ll be back, guys. We gotta put an end to this!” He swung open the door and bolted out, knowing Jess would urge him to stay put.
As expected, she yelled, “Honey, no—” when he took off. But it was too late by then.
Emerging from the car, he lifted his arms in surrender when all rifles suddenly brought their scopes to him. The voice from the porch said, “Please leave at this time! You have been warned. If it becomes necessary to issue another warning, you will be fired upon!”
Another voice—from one of the armed men—joined him. “Sir, please step back into the car!”