Fail State, page 5
part #2 of End of Days Series
She breathed out, a hot lungful of air. She was shaking.
“Rox, it was scary as. I ain’t never seen nothing like this shit. Not before big storms or nothing. Peeps was fucking desperate. When I left they were this close to a riot. Wynette sent me a text. Said this guy had shot up the damn roof. Those tiles are asbestos too.”
Roxy frowned and ran her hands through thick purple-dyed hair. She was having trouble taking it all in. “I still don’t see why…”
“Roxy, I took the money from the till. All of it. Hundreds.”
“Shit Tammy! Why’d you do that?”
“I told you. Shit was getting crazy and I just had to get out of there same way I know we have to get out of here.”
“Well we do now. You’re a fugitive,” Rox said. “But where can we go? Hermanstown? Ain’t likely to be no better over there.”
“We’ll go to my brother Michael’s. It’s farm country; people won’t be fighting each other for food there.”
Roxarne regarded her skeptically.
Tammy pressed her lips into a thin line. “Well, I hope not, anyway.”
She gave Roxy a little punch on the shoulder. “C’mon, time’s a wastin’.”
“Wait. How much money did you take?”
Tammy dug the thick wad of notes out of her pocket.
Roxarne gaped when she saw how much cash her roomie was holding.
“Shit girl, I never seen so much green in one place. Business is good at the Dollar General.”
“Was today at least.”
Tammy counted the notes quickly. She had plenty of practice counting other people’s money. But even she was surprised by the take.
“One thousand, three hundred and eighty two dollars,” she whistled.
That settled it. No way could she just go back and slip this into the till. They would already have the FBI looking for her.
“We could get to Canada with this much,” Roxy said, her voice soft with wonder.
Roxarne turned this way and that, seeming to comprehend the enormity of it all for the first time. She put her hands on her hips and blew out her cheeks.
“Oh man, where do we even start?”
Tammy could tell her friend was getting invested in this now. Once Roxy committed, she always jumped in with both feet.
“Just pretend like it’s when we can’t make the rent and we got to get out,” Tammy said.
Roxy laughed. “We always done that in the middle of the night.”
“And this time we can see what we’re doing. So this time it’s different.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Tammy felt a sense of finality she didn’t really understand. Not in words. But this was different, for sure. They would never come home again. “And we’re taking every scrap of food in this house,” she said, moving to the tiny kitchenette and throwing open all the cupboards.
Roxy scrunched up her face. “The cans under the sink too? Half of them, the labels fell off.”
“If they ain’t bulging real bad or rusty, yeah them too.”
“OK, when you want to go?”
“Soon as the car is packed up.” She had a thought. “Don’t forget the photo box.”
Roxy nodded and called out to the kids who had dispersed throughout the house. They were screeching and yelling out to each other, but in the wild excited way that kids did when they knew adventure was calling. And these kids had already seen plenty of adventurin’, thanks to both moms’ consistently poor choice in men. The next hour and a half wasn’t so much controlled chaos as it was just chaos - plain and simple. Stuff got dumped out of Wal-mart bags; backpacks got packed then re-packed. Possessions went to the Olds and then out into the trash. There were arguments of course. And fights and tears. With four kids and two grown ups, space was tight. By the time they were ready to go, Roxy’s father’s prized car was sagging on its tired springs.
The money she’d stolen from the Dollar General lay heavy against her thigh, and she kept looking up and down the street, expecting a patrol car to turn up at any time.
But nobody came.
Tammy and Roxarne rented an old miners shack on the western edge of Dillonvale. The streets here were mean, but a real quiet and dangerous sort of mean. She knew of three houses on their street alone where you could buy meth out the screen door, straight from the cook. And if she knew that, the cops had to know too, but they never came around, so maybe it wasn’t so weird that nobody had chased her for Gutterson’s money.
Hell, that asshole for sure stole ten times as much.
Tammy cursed her foolishness.
Why hadn’t she thought to empty the safe?
In for a penny, in for ten grand after all.
She patted her pockets, found the car keys. The kids were all in the back, already complaining about being piled on top of each other. Roxy was leaned into the back seat too, for some reason. The sun was high overhead and the car had no AC.
“We ready, Rox?”
“Wynona has to pee again.”
“She can wait. We’re leaving.”
“Mommy...”
“No, Wynona, I watched you go ten minutes ago. It’s time to leave.”
Her daughter started to cry.
“But I don’t want to leave!”
Tammy ignored her, opened the driver’s door and climbed in. When you lived with four kids in a small, clapboard shack, you learned to tune out the small shit. Roxy folded herself into the passenger seat among bags and boxes and put on her seatbelt. She looked spaced-out. Shell-shocked, Tammy’s dad would’ve called it. For a brief moment Tammy looked at her friend and she wanted to hug her. Roxy had got her the job at Dollar General. Roxy had taken her in when Bobby Sr lit out for the fracking. Roxy was about the only good thing in her life, besides Bobby Jr. and Wynona of course.
Oh and Jakey and Liana, Roxy’s little ones, too.
She had a lot to be grateful for.
But they had to get going. Tammy turned the key and prayed.
The Oldsmobile answered. The engine turned over twice and caught. It ran with a slightly choppy idle and a “check engine” light, but it ran. That stupid light had been demanding someone check the engine since before Bill Clinton got blown in a White House cupboard. Tammy put the shift into drive and pulled away from the little house by the railroad tracks.
That first night they didn’t get nowhere near Michael’s place. Instead they stayed in a Motel 6, one hundred and sixty miles west of home and maybe three hundred north of her brother’s farm. Tammy had wanted to make it all the way there in one hop, but after seven hours of what seemed like a million detours, accidents, wrong turns, and traffic jams they pulled into the motel with a promise for the kids that they could have their own room, with two big beds, and a special feed for being so good on the drive out. The children hooted and cheered.
It’d even been fun, too, that first night on the road. There was an All You Can Eat Chinese place in a little strip mall across the way from the motel, and they’d showed those Chinese guys that maybe it was not such a great idea to computer attack America and leave your buffet undefended.
Hadn’t been as much fun after that.
The roads got no better. Gas was stupid expensive and the Olds was a thirsty beast. They listened to music the first day. Letting everyone choose a song in turn from Roxy’s Spotify. She had heaps of music downloaded onto her phone, which was good because they weren’t getting any cell cover by then.
Soon enough though, Tammy suggested they should listen to the news radio, just for a few minutes, to figure out what was up with the traffic if for nothing else.
They caught up on that at a roadhouse, where she bought sloppy joes and Cokes for everyone. The money seemed to be running through her fingers like water, but the kids really had been pretty good, all things considered, and she wanted to keep them sweet. This road trip was looking like it might take a while.
She listened to the public radio while Roxy took the kids inside for the cool air and the food. Her dad, a union man, had always insisted on the NPR because he didn’t trust the word of anyone selling news for a profit. Tammy preferred to get her daily news from TMZ, but she’d kept to her habits, and her dad’s prejudices, if truth be known, a long time after the black lung took him under.
She was glad nobody else was in the car when she tuned in.
At first she thought it was some sort of prank show. They were talking about the war with China and another one with Russia and about how computer hackers had done more damage to the cities and airports and power stations than any foreign army could hope to with bombs and stuff. She might have scoffed, another thing her dad had taught her to do, had she not just had the lesson hammered into her by two days on the interstate. Dozens of cars were lined up at every gas staton they drove past. Hundreds near some of the bigger towns and cities. Long lines of people snaked out of the grocery marts pretty much everywhere. It was like the Dollar General except worse.
At least the roadhouse still had supplies in the freezer on account of good timing with their weekly delivery. But those sloppy joes were not cheap.
Tammy was quiet when the others came back, full of sugar and high spirits. Even Roxy, who’d been subdued since they left Dillonvale, was much improved in mood now they were set on their course. Tammy painted a smile on her face for the kids as they returned, excited to tell her about the treats they’d been bought, but Roxy sensed the fragility of Tammy’s good cheer and she did not press her on the issue of what she learned from the radio.
“I’ll tell you later,” Tammy said quietly.
Later was after dark, camped out in a farmer’s field somewhere in northeastern Ohio. They were lost and hungry, but at least Tammy’s cash had bought them a full tank of gas at a little rural pump a few miles back. The owner had been happy to sell her fuel at twice the posted price, plus a hundred dollars for about twenty bucks worth of snacks.
The kids had all used the rest room, which was a blessed relief. Bobby Jr. was getting way too comfortable pulling his little badger out in public to relieve himself. Tammy and Rox cleaned themselves up as best they could too, grateful for the lukewarm water in the rust stained sink.
“It’s like a movie, Rox,” Tammy said, as she wiped under her armpits with a damp wad of toilet paper.
“What sort of movie is that?” Roxarne asked.
“The stupid sort with lots of shit blowing up,” Tammy said testily, before apologising. “I’m sorry, Rox, but I’m frightened. We’re running out of money. And I don’t know what we’re gonna find at Michael’s. He ain’t so far from Akron and the radio news said it was bad everywhere but worst anywhere big.”
“Akron ain’t so big.”
“Bigger than Dillonvale, and that was bad enough for me.”
“Well I didn’t see that, of course,” Roxy frowned. “We left on your say so.”
Tammy felt her temper flare but she doused it as best she could. Roxarne was one hundred percent right. They had left entirely on Tammy’s say so, and Roxy had been nothing but positive and bright ever since, at least with the kids.
“We did,” Tammy admitted. “And I still think we did right. But we need a lot more to go right for us now, Rox. We need to get these children somewhere safe.”
They were both quiet.
“Where the hell are we, anyway?” Roxarne said at last.
“Somewhere in Columbiana County, I reckon,” Tammy ventured. “I sort of recognised some of it as we was driving through at the end of the day. We shoulda stopped then.”
Rox shrugged it off.
“You’re right but we had to get the kids safe. Better to push on, which we will do tomorrow.”
Roxy gripped Tammy’s shoulder and squeezed.
They hugged and got back on the road.
The two other times she and the kids had visited Michael, Tammy had simply followed the directions on her phone. She would turn here and there as instructed, and the phone was always right. But now, when she needed it more than anything in her life, her piece-of-crap Samsung was pretty much worthless. There was no cell cover, anywhere. Not even in the towns they’d driven through. And by the true fall of night they were pulled up off in the pitch-black, at the edge of some cornfield in the middle of nowhere.
She wanted to cry. Bobby Jr., being the oldest and also the man of this adventure, spoke sagely as he pointed his flashlight around their campsite.
“So I guess we sleep out here?”
“Yeah,” Tammy said. “We’ll put up the tent for you and your sister, the little ones can sleep in the backseat.”
She could see his grimace by the torchlight.
“The Dora the Explorer tent?”
“Yep.”
“But that’s for little kids, mom.”
“It’s what we have.”
A raindrop splattered on Tammy’s face.
She woke up for what seemed the hundredth time around dawn, and she could not get back to sleep no matter what. She had taken the tent with Bobby and Wynona. Her back ached something terrible with the sciatica she sometimes got near her period. Her eyes felt crusted with sand, and she knew there was no coffee. She also needed to pee. The rain had stopped at some point during the night, so at least there was that to give thanks for. She turned and fumbled around in the space between the snoring kids for the roll of toilet paper. Thank God, she thought again, for Roxy. It had been her idea to steal every roll in the roadhouse toilets.
Tammy poked her head out through the tent flap, toilet paper in hand. She got out and looked around. She could see corn, the small rural road, a house in the distance, and not much else. She picked a spot to relieve herself, a small clump of bushes. When she was done, relieved no farmers or cows had come by, she stood, wiggled back into her jeans, and tried to decide what the hell they were going to do today. They absolutely had to get to her brother, but what they had seen on the road yesterday, that was not even halfway normal. It really was some shit out of a movie, she thought.
“Hey, Tam.”
She jumped a little, but smiled wanly. “Mornin’, Roxy. Sorry ain’t no Starbucks out here.”
“Yeah. So what are we gonna do?”
“Get the kids some food, then we’ll look for North Georgetown. It can’t be far, hell, we’re in the right county, at least. We got to be.”
Roxy looked at her and shook her head. “As long as the roads are open.” She paused. “I can’t believe our fucking phones don’t work. I just paid my bill too.”
Tammy spat. “Yeah.” She tossed her head in the direction of the farmhouse in the distance. “I’ll bet they know how to get there. We’ll ask for directions to Michael’s farm once we get to town.”
They got the kids up and sorted them out. Everyone ate a little, and Bobby put away the Dora tent. He was trying to be a man like his dad. Except of course Tammy knew Bobby Sr wasn’t much of a man at all. She prayed this would be their last night camping.
The kids ate Twizzlers and Pringles for breakfast and Tammy fired up the Olds and drove away from the sodden field; a few minutes later they pulled into the driveway of the little farm house. She took a deep breath and told herself it was all good. She breathed again, switched off the engine, and opened her door.
“I won’t be but a few minutes,” she said.
She left the open in case they had to get out of there, fast.
As Tammy walked toward the house, her runners crunching on gravel, she saw a curtain move.
They were watching her. She kept going, climbing the steps, which creaked underfoot. She began to raise her hand to knock when the door opened. Quickly.
Her bladder suddenly felt very tight.
A woman with a shotgun greeted Tammy. She looked like she could be anywhere between thirty and sixty. She was haggard, but it wasn’t a recent thing. This woman had lived hard. Tammy had seen enough of that in Dillonvale to recognise it in the woman’s face.
“No food here, little sister,” she said, and firmly.
“Not looking for food, ma’am.”
The woman seemed surprised by that.
“Oh. Then what do you want?”
The shotgun did not waver. The big black hole at the end of the barrel seemed infinitely dark.
“I’m trying to get to my brother, but the phone doesn’t work. I just want to know how do I get to North Georgetown?”
The woman lowered the shotgun, but only an inch or so. Now she was aiming to blow Tammy’s jaw into the wind, rather than the top of her head.
“You follow this road north to the 400, turn right and head into town. You’re not far. Could have made it last night you just kept going.”
Tammy nodded. “Thanks.”
“Hope you find your brother. Family’s all we got in times like this.” They were kind words, sincere, too, Tammy judged, but the barrel of the shotgun still didn’t waver.
She nodded, turned and walked back to the waiting car.
She imagined that big ass gun was pointed square between her shoulder blades the whole way and it was all she could do not to break into a run. Muscles ticked and jumped up and down her back. What had gotten into people?
She breathed hard when she climbed back into the Olds.
Shut the door.
Hands shaking.
Roxy spoke before the kids could start up.
“She didn’t seem very friendly.”
“She wasn’t. But I got directions.”
Tammy steadied her breathing and put the Olds into gear. Her nerves stopped jangling as soon as the engine caught and she pulled back out onto the tarmac road. She turned right and drove north through a patchwork of forest, farms, and small wooden framed houses. After ten minutes or so they came to a T-intersection. It was the 400. She turned right and drove into town.
“Mom, can we get pancakes for breakfast,” Wynona asked.
“No, I want an egg McMuffin,” Liana countered.
“Are we there yet,” Jakey threw in.
“We are,” Tammy said, ignoring the demands for breakfast. This place was a two-horse town and both horses had bolted. But at least there was a post office. She slowed as the brown slatted, wooden building came into view. The streets were empty, except for one car which had apparently broken down and been abandoned. Right there. In the middle of the damn road. Who could she ask for directions next?
