Monsters (35 page)

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” James replied as they began working their way around the building, heading toward the forest.

“But my leg.”

“We’ll use the waterways. Your limp won't matter in a canoe. We’ll double back down the river toward the sea and cut inland near Richmond. That’ll confuse them. They’ll expect me to make straight for Amersham across the mountains, but there’s an abandoned town to the south where we can take refuge. My father would take me there a couple of times a year to read in the library. We’ll be safe there.”

“If he catches us, he’ll kill you.”

“Well then, we can’t let him catch us.”

Two hours passed and James was horrified by how little progress they’d made. They’d barely cleared the forest next to the hangar and crossed the adjacent highway.

Moving through the desolate surrounding suburbs gave them a bit more cover and more places to hide, but as soon as the alarm was raised, there would be soldiers crawling all over the place looking for them. What had seemed like a good idea now looked like a deathtrap.

James found a wheelbarrow. The wheel was flat, but he was able to use a bike pump to inflate it to almost full pressure. He helped Lisa lie on a blanket, using it as a cushion for her back.

James had Lisa sit facing him, so her center of gravity was mostly over the single wheel of the barrow, making it easier for him to push. He was able to run at a light-jog pushing the wheelbarrow.

At the top of the rise, he paused, looking back at the hangar in the distance.

“He’s too concerned about his precious planes,” Lisa said.

Three planes sat outside the hangar, with another having been hauled up onto the back of a wagon using a makeshift block and tackle attached to the roof of the hangar. The prototype helicopter had been dragged out as well, and there was no doubt Gainsborough intended to see it fly again.

“There are still two hours till sunset,” James said. “If our luck holds, we can make the river. I’m guessing there’s so much commotion back there, they’re not going to miss us until nightfall, and by then it will be too late to send out a search party.”

They continued on until dusk settled across the land and they were within sight of the river.

An abandoned water tower sat on the edge of a small township so they climbed up, wanting to settle for the night out of any monster's reach. A maintenance platform running around the girth of a rusted steel tank that once held over a million gallons of water, giving them a high vantage point. From the platform, they were safe from predators and could see for miles.

In the distance, they could see the hanger.

Pockets of burning torch light lit up small sections of the forest surrounding the hangar as search parties went out looking for them. James was glad to see the soldiers were evenly spread, meaning they hadn’t picked up on their general direction from any careless footprints. Although that could simply be because they hadn’t started looking until last light, by morning the scouts would be scouring the area for any sign of their departure.

Hopefully, the search parties would trample over their tracks in the night. Lisa’s walking stick would leave a distinct mark in soft dirt, and James doubted their direction would remain a mystery for long.

James rigged up a ground sheet to keep the wind at bay, but he was careful to make their impromptu camp on the far side of the tower so as to not attract any attention from binoculars.

Huddled together under the blanket, Lisa said, “Just like old times, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. This is right up there with being chased by a bear and fighting off a pack of wolves.”

“Tell me about your Mom and Dad.”

“Well,” James began. “I never knew my mother. She died giving birth to me.”

“I’m—”

“No, don’t be,” James replied, cutting her off gently. “She was an amazing woman, from what my father tells me. She taught him to read, and made him promise to teach me to read. He tells me I have her eyes, and I believe him, as sometimes he stares at me like he’s lost somewhere in the past.”

Lisa moved to get more comfortable.

“My mother was a whore,” she began. Her words were coarse, surprising James. “My father kept it from me for the longest time, but these things have a way of getting around. Someone somewhere knew and had loose lips, and so before you know it, a twelve-year old girl is being told her mother is a harlot. I refused to believe it, of course, even though deep down I knew it was true. She abandoned me, I guess. Dad doesn’t talk about her or what happened to her. For all I know, she’s still out there somewhere.”

James was quiet.

“And so I’ve always put up walls, keeping people out. Life is easier that way. You don’t get hurt if you don’t let anyone get close enough to hurt you. I found it’s easier to be a bitch than a lady.

“I think that’s why I hate my Dad. It’s the whole rebellion thing, pushing back. It makes it easier if he’s the basket case and not me.”

She rested her hand on his knee as she spoke.

“Running away with you ... He’ll be sure it’s to spite him, but it’s not. Sooner or later, you’ve got to choose to live your own life, to stop reacting to others and start living for yourself. I found solace in picking holes in all his plans, in showing them up as shallow, but that’s not living my life, that’s living his. Running away with you, well, hobbling away with you, that’s daring, that’s adventurous. It’s my choice for my life.”

She turned slightly so she could look him in the eye as she spoke.

“You’re so confident. I dare say there’s no monster you wouldn’t do battle with. And you treat me like the lady I’m not. You’ve got big shoulders, James.”

Lisa leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. There wasn’t much in it, he thought, just enough to let him know where he stood. And for James, that was enough.

“So what about you? What’s your story?”

“It’s funny you see me as being so confident,” he said. “Truth is, I’m winging things most of the time. When that jaguar attacked my troop a couple of days ago, I thought it was going to kill me. I was so scared I couldn’t run. I had to fight. I knew if we ran we were dead, but I didn’t fight out of courage. I fought out of necessity. And that’s always been the way for me. I’ve never chosen a battle, they always seem to choose me. As for shooting at that bear. Well, up until then, that was the stupidest thing I’d ever done.”

“And,” Lisa added, “I guess you’re counting today as another hall-of-fame entrant under the topic of stupidity?”

“Absolutely. It doesn’t get any dumber than this.”

Lisa laughed. In the quiet that followed, Lisa said, “Tell me about your Dad.”

“His name is Bruce. He’s a good man.”

That was all James could bring himself to say. In the moment, he was surprised by the upwelling emotions he felt within. He hadn’t expected this kind of reaction to her question, but the need to be honest with her stirred something deep within.

“Are you all right?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah ... it’s just ... Well, we all have our reasons for running. For me ... I felt I had something to prove. I had to show my father I wasn’t a boy anymore. I was a man. Oh, he never expected that of me, and he’d tell me not to be silly, that I had nothing to prove, but by the time he was my age, he’d already fought in the war and had taken over the family farm. It seems like there was nothing he couldn’t do.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“What do you mean?” James asked.

“I’m saying you and your father sound very much alike.”

James nodded.

“When I was eight or nine, my Dad was attacked by an eagle. Damn thing picked him up out of the fields like a rabbit. The eagle flew high in the sky and would have dropped him to his death, only he wasn’t ready to die. I remember seeing him hanging on to one leg as the eagle soared through the sky. Stubborn old bastard, he refused to fall. He was swinging something, an axe or a spade or something, I forget exactly what, but he forced that old bird down.”

James paused, trying not to choke on his words.

Lisa was silent, waiting for him to continue.

“I remember seeing him lying there in the field afterwards. He was a bloody mess. His upper arms had been torn to shreds. His chest and back had been punctured by the eagle’s talons. His shoulder blades were broken, crushed by the giant bird.”

James took a deep breath. “You think of your father as invulnerable, as though he’ll always be there, as though he’ll never die, but that day I saw him dying and that scared me more than any monster ever could.

“Somehow, he made it through the day, and through the next week, but he never recovered, not fully. His shoulders didn’t heal properly, the bones became malformed, and he has trouble breathing. Although he puts on a brave face, I can see it in his eyes, his confidence is shot.

“So there you were, lying in the snow, running from your father just as I was running from mine. Oh, I love the old fart. But to see him humbled like that, to realize he can’t fight back no matter how much he might try ... The thought that the next monster he meets will kill him ... it was too much for me.

“I guess I’ve been on the run these last few months too. I wanted to be myself. And yet in doing that, I’ve turned my back on my father. It’s just so easy to forget, to get caught up in the drama of the moment and pretend nothing ever happened in that bloody field.”

James looked her in the eye and spoke softly. “You’re no bitch. I’m the one carrying on like a bastard.”

“Hey,” Lisa said, rubbing her hand on his chest. “You’re a good man, just like your father. I’m sure he’ll be proud of all you’ve done. And not just what you’ve done, but why you’ve done it.”

James nodded his head without saying a word.

Tears welled in his eyes.

They talked idly for a while, but it seemed neither of them could forget what the other had said, and they fell asleep together under the stars.

James woke Lisa as dawn began lighting the horizon. He wanted to break camp and descend the water tower before the day broke. The chance of anyone seeing them from the hangar was remote and would have required binoculars, but it was a risk he didn’t want to take.

Lisa said she felt silly sitting in the wheelbarrow but James insisted, saying they could make better time that way.

By midmorning James had found a fiberglass kayak in the rundown remains of a Boy Scout camp at the base of Grand Falls.

A strong current carried them down the river, meandering through thick, overgrown forests, under bridges and across shallow swamps. For a while an eagle circled overhead, following them as they drifted down the river. From what James could tell, it had no intention of attacking and was probably being opportunistic, looking to scavenge rather than to catch prey. But it was something a good tracker would note, and James had no doubt Gainsborough’s men would have seen the bird of prey.

A broken dam opened out into a section of white water rapids. With two people, the kayak was sluggish and slow to respond to directional changes.

Once they cleared the rapids they pulled over to the western bank, on the far side of the river, and emptied out the water they’d taken on board. Ordinarily, James would have dried out their bedding but the prospect of being caught by Gainsborough forced him on. He wrung out the woolen blankets and repacked them, knowing they’d eventually have to stop somewhere to dry them out.

As they approached Washington D.C., the Potomac opened out into a river proper, with a broad water flow between the wide banks. Something followed them on the riverbank, hidden by the thick trees. James figured it was wild dogs, but they were following more out of curiosity than hunger. That there were wild dogs roaming around gave him cause to think they’d escape the city unseen by human eyes.

A couple of the bridges crossing the Potomac had collapsed sections, but the current naturally carried their kayak through the open spans.

Lisa caught sight of a black bear fishing in the shallows. James couldn’t help but feel exposed and helpless in the middle of the river. He knew Gainsborough and his men would never fire on them, but if they saw them and had access to a boat it would come down to an endurance race. Ultimately, escape would be futile as at some point they’d need to return to land and the soldiers would simply wait them out.

By late afternoon, they were still on the river. James estimated they’d travelled twenty five miles, but it was a torturous, circular route. They were probably less than fifteen miles from where they set out on the river, and perhaps only ten miles from the region he’d seen scouts moving through last night. Rather than outpacing Gainsborough’s men they could very well come up on them from behind.

As the sun sat low on the horizon they stopped, hiding the kayak on the western bank. James set up camp at the base of a giant oak tree. He would have loved to have had a fire to dry out the blankets and keep animals at bay, but the prospect of being spotted by scouts was too dangerous. He found a clearing and hung the blankets over branches to dry. They were damp, but not soaked, and he hoped they’d dry enough to keep them warm at night, even though he knew they probably wouldn’t.

Lisa helped collect several piles of deadwood, scattering them around their camp so any approaching animal would give away its position in the darkness.

The night was cold. James tried to sleep but found himself waking at the slightest noise, just a creak from the branches above moving in the wind. He wrapped the ground sheets around them to keep the wind at bay. Lisa slept well despite the damp blankets. James found it warm enough beneath the blankets but any time he moved he found himself woken by the cool damp wool.

The next day they continued south, drifting with the current. The tide was going out, which dragged them along at a steady pace for most of the morning. With the warmth of the sun, Lisa grew in confidence, but James knew their escape was anything but assured. By nightfall on the second day, they came across a small fishing village in the ruins of an old naval base. They still hadn’t reached the Chesapeake Bay proper, but they were far enough off the beaten track that James felt confident about stopping.