CHAPTER 31

We Stop at Night

The caravan pulled off the highway, with the sun still above the horizon but night close.

Christie slowed down. She couldn’t wait to get out of the driver’s seat, to stretch her wounded leg out.

This can’t be good for the stitches, the healing, she thought.

Tomorrow, Kate would drive.

Apparently one of the cars had gone ahead and found a place for them to stop for the night.

And now the row of cars wound its way off the highway, to a two-lane blacktop road that seemed to lead nowhere.

Barren fields on either side, still in the grips of a winter chill, though spring—and whatever that would bring—was only weeks away.

And the evening seemed almost balmy. Christie had her window down.

The air cool, but refreshing, and when the road veered to the left, she was driving with the low-hanging sun right in her eyes.

In a few minutes, the lead cars pulled off the road onto a dirt driveway.

To a farmhouse. A barn. And a field.

Back in the day they grew corn here. Maybe had livestock, chickens?

Now deserted. Farms like this had vanished everywhere.

The cars stopped, and someone from the lead car, a middle-aged woman in jeans, with frizzy black hair speckled with gray, came back to her.

Christie saw she held what looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie in her hand.

“We’re going to make our circle here,” she said.

“Circle?”

“Just, um, do what I do.”

The woman then hurried back to her car.

“We’re staying here tonight?” Simon asked.

“Yes. Looks that way.”

“In that house?” Kate asked. “Or the barn?”

Kate didn’t sound thrilled.

But then Ben said, “I’ve never slept in a barn.”

And everyone laughed.

The line began moving again, the circle beginning to form.

The cars formed a circle tight against the farmhouse and barn.

When Christie had stopped, leaving a couple of yards between her and the car in front, the same woman got out and gestured to her to come closer, make the circle tighter.

Christie nodded.

And then finally she could shut off the engine, dying to get out. As painful as walking could be, it would be so much better than sitting here.

Simon beat her to getting outside.

There were other kids here.

And those kids looked at Simon. Some older boys. A girl that looked near his age. Even a toddler, stumbling around.

As Christie popped her door and got out, she saw a young mother with a baby.

A baby.

Such a sign of hope, she thought. A future.

That’s what a baby was, even when the world was falling apart.

Must have always been that way.

Kate came up to her. “Where we sleeping, Mom?”

Christie looked around for Sam—the man they called “Doc”. She spotted him at one end of the circle, talking to people with rifles as he pointed left and then right.

“Not sure, Kate. I’ll find out. Maybe the house. Maybe the barn.” She took a breath. “If we have to, maybe the car.”

Kate rolled her eyes at that.

Admittedly, the four of them sandwiched into the car didn’t sound too appealing.

And they all knew how loudly Ben snored!

And funny. It was good to see a little of the old Kate just then, as if her daughter for a moment felt that she didn’t always have to be so strong, always holding things together.

Just a bit of teenage girl there.

And that—like the baby—also represented hope.

“Okay to explore a bit?” Simon asked. “Just walk around?”

Christie looked at the tight circle of cars. The people that Sam had been talking to began to walk to different spots in the circle.

A few other people began stacking a pile of wood in the center of the circle. Mostly some splintery fence posts, but then Christie saw chunks of furniture being dragged out of the house.

A rocking chair. A bookcase. Some straight-backed kitchen chairs.

The sun nearly down, and in a minute, someone set fire to all that wood.

“Sure,” she said. “Just stay inside the circle. We can eat some food in a bit.”

She forced a smile.

“Okay?”

Simon nodded, and with his new guardian in tow—the lumbering Ben like his special giant—Simon started walking around the circle.

Been a while since he’s been with other kids, Christie thought.

And that was something she knew he liked.

To explore, to play.

To get into trouble.

“How about you, Kate?”

“I’ll take a walk too.” Then she added pointedly, Kate’s guard never even getting close to being let down. “Take a look at everyone.”

Christie nodded.

And then she was alone, the people with rifles positioning themselves around the circle, the fire now growing.

Way more than a campfire, massive, and with the barn and house part of that circle… more wood close by, posts, planks.

After all, tomorrow they’d just move on.

And when the sun finally slipped below the horizon, she started walking to the warmth, to the glow of that great fire.

*

Someone touched her elbow.

She turned to see Sam, standing there, warm smile on his face.

“Settling in?”

Christie looked around the circle of cars.

“I used to teach history. You steal this idea from the settlers heading west?”

Sam looked away, grinning, then back to Christie. “It worked for them. We keep guards all night on the perimeter, in shifts.”

“‘Circle the wagons.’”

“Why, reckon that’s the i-dea, ma’am.”

And Christie laughed at that, thinking, Been a while since I laughed.

She saw a car outside the circle though—a dark maroon, with giant fins, backlit by the glow from the setting sun.

“That car, not in the circle, is there…?”

Sam looked at the direction she pointed. “Oh, right. Well, when we travel we’re always scouting—another wild-west technique I guess!—in front and in back. And that… is our fastest car.”

“What’s it going to do?”

“Do just that—scout. Different teams take it out. It’s what they used to call—in the day—a muscle car. Real fast. Any trouble ahead for the morning—”

“Or in the night—”

“Yeah, that too. Well, it comes back, tells me, the other people.”

“Smart idea.”

Christie watched the car pull away, racing down the dirt road, vanishing into the darkness until just its twin headlights could be seen winding away.

Then she turned back to Sam.

“Mind if we sit? It’s hard on my leg.”

The man nodded. “Sure. There are some stumps by the fire. Nice night. What happened? Something bad? To your leg?”

Christie nodded. “Something? Could say that…”

And she walked along with him to the giant fire shooting glowing yellow spikes into the sky.

*

After Christie had told him what happened to her leg, Sam asked where they had come from.

And the big question…

Why were they on their own?

Christie hesitated for a moment.

So much to tell. Their history. All the terrible things. And Jack’s sacrifice that saved them all.

How they had all changed.

And though she felt like she didn’t want to talk about any of it, somehow the man’s voice—the way he asked a question, then let silence sit there for a moment—made Christie tell it all.

Fast as she could.

Not dwelling on any moment more terrible than the other.

Thinking she was holding it together.

But when she finished, she was crying, tears running down her cheeks despite how quickly she dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

For a moment she thought Sam would put an arm around her.

And that, she knew, would only make it worse.

Instead—in a quiet, steady way—he just sat there.

And when her tears stopped, and she took a big breath, ready to move on as the tear trails dried on her cheek, he said, “You have been through so much.”

The obvious.

But it was enough for her to turn to him, a sad smile on her face, “Why yes I have.”

Then, “One thing I can tell you. I talked to the others. If you want… you can stay with us. Move along with us. You won’t be alone.”

“Really? Everyone here okay with that?”

And now Sam laughed.

“Not everyone. Pretty—um—diverse group. But you got the votes. People here still have a heart. Most of them, anyway.”

Then, quietly, “Thanks.”

“Now you just need to decide.”

“Stay… or go?”

Christie looked at the man’s eyes. She knew nearly nothing about him, but she felt safer—even supported—sitting here with him.

She saw Simon over with other kids.

Kids with kids.

Good to see that.

And Kate? She seemed to have found a girl near her age.

The two of them nearly women.

But Christie had to remind herself, My daughter is still growing. She isn’t a woman.

Not yet.

She needs this as much as Simon.

And maybe I do as well.

“I need to talk to my kids. But I think they will want to stay. Ben good to stay as well?”

She had nearly forgotten about him.

“Sure. Sweet guy. Looks strong. We could use that.”

Christie nodded.

It seemed decided.

Then, “And what about you, Sam. Or ‘Doc.’ Your story? I mean, you don’t have to, but—”

And her question made the man look away. His beard glowed with a reddish tinge from the fire.

And in what seemed his pattern, he took a few minutes before returning to Christie, to her question.

And probably hoping to race through it, to summarize it just as she did.

He began.

His voice low.

The tale, like for all of us, Christie thought, so hard to tell.