Nov. 30, 2011

It was 4:44 a.m. when we were jarred awake by a loud crash.

We found Vincent lying on the floor. He had apparently tried to force his large, bound body through the door and failed.

I dragged him out to the living room and hoisted his 240 or so pounds onto the couch.

“So what are we going to do this with this old hater?” I asked, while Carrie made coffee and fried some eggs.

“We have to bring him with us,” she said matter-of-factly.

“No way!” I reacted. “Not a chance. We don’t have room.”

“Then we’ll get a bigger vehicle,” she pushed.

Vincent smiled.

“Sister, you are a doozy,” he said. “A real doozy. You don’t deserve her, pal” he said, looking at me with sneering disdain.

“Shut your pie hole you goofy old bastard. You’re hanging by a thread at this juncture and she’s the only thing standing in the way of me dragging you outside and tossing you in Lake Cocolalla.”

“Robert! Please!” Carrie snapped, slamming the frying pan against the burner. “Enough already. This is all so messed up as it is, I don’t need you flying off the handle as well.”

She made sense. A wave of remorse flooded over me and I thought of my daughter — how she’d be disappointed in me, as Carrie was.

“All right,” I said, barely audible.

“Bygones, Vincent. We’ll take you with us. Nothing else we can do. But keep the hatred to yourself or you’ll just fire me up again and I can’t promise that I won’t shoot you or toss you from a moving vehicle or nail you up on a cross outside with a note saying that 1,000 ghosts of Ku Klux Klan victims did this. Pass the beans and grits.”

We finished breakfast, cleaned up the cabin, as if we’d be back in a weekend or two and loaded Ointment for a major cross-country ramble — including Vincent, our white supremacy spouting mad dog. And at 10:10 a.m. the Earth’s three remaining souls — as near as we could tell — headed south down Highway 95 toward Coeur d’Alene. Light snow covered the highway, which became more congested with cars and carnage as we neared the lake city.

Along the way, Vincent and I started up again. I told him I really wanted to know what made him tick and we actually exchanged words in a civil and polite manner.

He told me about his 11th Hour group and failed efforts to become mainstream. The fine folks of that pretty lakeside and ski town didn’t take to his efforts to join city hall, a decision, he said, showed “how completely entrenched the Zionist pigs have become, even in a white stronghold like northern Idaho. I came to Idaho as one of God’s chosen people and I was right. God has kept me here for a reason. Maybe it is to be your guide. Through me you shall find God’s salvation or you shall the join the rest of the soulless in hell.”

He told us about ‘The Order,’ a murderous group of white supremacists that he labeled “hackneyed and old school and messed up by drugs.”

As I carefully wound Ointment past a thick pack of cars, and had to back up and try again, he halted his tale of hatred to tell me the best way to go.

“Been through here already,” he said. “Best if you go around the Interstate overpass via Government Way, unless you’ve got a tank.”

I took his advice and turned off Highway 95 and we crept toward downtown Coeur d’Alene.

Carrie sat silently, staring out the window at the silent city, and Vincent continued with his dissertation.

He told us about how “niggerized Zionist America” had become a dictatorship, operated and masterminded by communists.

His delusions seemed to deepen as he ranted onward and Carrie shot me a look that insisted I stop speaking to him.

“We believe a third world war will lead us back across the ocean away from this heathen land and I must believe that that time is now. I was going home to Sandpoint to see if anyone was left around before I head east. I believe that what has happened to us is that Armageddon is happening. Somewhere a great conflagration is raging and I must join it. It is time for the white race to rise up to the light and leave the mongrels behind.”

Carrie, rubbing her temples, and now demanded Vincent to be quiet.

“All right. That’s enough. Do you honestly believe all that shit? I suppose you think the Holocaust never happened, too. Am I right?”

Vincent nodded enthusiastically, thinking Carrie wanted him to continue ranting down that avenue.

Government Way led to picturesque downtown Coeur d’Alene and told Vincent that it was a sign.

“What’s a sign?” he asked, forgetting to launch into his pro-Hitler, Holocaust denial position.

“Government Way. Must make you white separatist gits froth, that one, I bet,” I said.

He said it didn’t bother him because he had nothing to do with “faggot Coeur d’Alene and its faggot French name.” He also found correlation to take a swing at Barack Obama.

Carrie muttered, “That’s mature. Really makes me want to buy into what you’re saying.”

I then had a brainstorm.

“Vincent,” I asked, “Do you want us to let you go?”

He said he did.

“If we let you go — unarmed, will you head east or back to Sandpoint or whatever, and keep clear of us?”

Carrie shot me a look. “We can’t…”

I shook my head at her and mouthed, “yes we can.”

“You’d let me go? You kidding me?” He sounded giddy; like someone one scratch away from winning big on lottery scratch tickets.

I told Vincent that I wasn’t kidding and that we would let him go.

“I will drop you off at the Coeur d’Alene Resort front doors. If I were you, I’d have a nice weekend before embarking on a holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Long way from Idaho, Jerusalem.”

We rolled into the front parking area at the lakeside resort, situated beside a cluttered and carnage struck downtown Coeur d’Alene, and I hopped out in order to help a still-bound Vincent emerge from the back.

As I untied him, Carrie kept a Glock pointed in his direction and she repeated, “do you think this is a good idea? Shouldn’t we all stay together? I mean he’s… what he is, but he’s… he’s real.”

Vincent said he needed to get moving and I agreed. We didn’t need to be ground down by having this demented old fool to look after.

As Vincent rubbed his red wrists, I said, “Remember this act of mercy, old fella. There is something altogether wrong with you and your ilk and God only knows why the hell we encountered you. Lessons are surely being learned by all of us but I don’t wanna know what this lesson is. We are taking off now. Don’t try to follow us because if you do, I will take it as a threat and deal with it accordingly.”

I jabbed my .357 into his raspy chest as an exclamation point.

“Now beat it. And may I never lay eyes on you again.”

Carrie said a polite goodbye as if he were someone she’d just had a business lunch with.

Old Vincent took a couple of steps backwards, keeping his eyes on my gun, anticipating me to change my mind and blast him.

“Go on, beat it,” I said, as if he was a stray dog that had wandered by our picnic.

He turned and marched away, taking looks back over his shoulder every four or five steps, until he disappeared around a corner.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Carrie and it was 12:12 p.m. as we sped away from Coeur d’Alene, down a cluttered road that soon came out on the Interstate at Post Falls. We gasped a few times at the enormous volume of abandoned vehicles that we slowly wound our way past and around on the I-90 leading into Spokane.

Now that we had come across another person, our spirits were elevated, though the experience of having to comprehend Vincent’s particular obscenity muted things a fair bit.

We believed we would now start finding other people but we never considered how harrowing and dangerous that belief would turn out to be.

It took well over an hour to make it to Spokane. Every now and then I had to turn Ointment into a ditch to get around the packed maze of the Interstate.

Once we were in Spokane proper, I announced that we needed some new tunes and turned onto Division Street, a major north-south artery.

We crept through downtown, off guard and unaware. The biggest thing occupying my mind was how to get around all the vehicles and make it north to find some mall stores where I could snag some cds and other supplies.

Carrie noticed the tire tracks first.

There were several of them.

“Vincent said he’d been here,” I said, stopping Ointment to get a look at the tracks.

I don’t know why I did that. It’s not like I could make a snap judgment that the tire tracks belonged to X, Y or Z vehicle or anything but some ancient instinct told me to stop.

They ran in both directions over the Spokane River Bridge, on which I had stopped. Beneath the bridge, the river gurgled toward the nearby falls.

“These are different tracks,” I said to Carrie, who remained in Ointment, holding her Glock like a crazed Second World War Stalingrad mother clutching the long-dead body of her baby.

“We should get out of here,” she said, sounding worried.

“Look, we can’t assume that everyone we may come across will be dangerous and loopy like Vincent,” I said.

“What if he followed us?” She asked.

“Well, if he did, we’ll see him coming. It’s not like there is a crush of actual moving vehicles here,” I said. “Our eyes are open, right? Our ears, too.”

And then we saw the mob.

It was like being in a desert for three weeks and not seeing anything but sand dunes and then seeing a fat, juicy oasis. We didn’t believe our eyes and we looked at one another with amazement.

“Holy… look,” Carrie said quietly.

At the north end of the wide bridge stood about 20 people.

I reached into Ointment and grabbed the shotgun.

“What should we do?” Carrie asked.

“Not a clue,” I said, my grip squeezing the coolness from the gun.

One of the people, about 150 feet away, offered a half wave. The others just stood staring at us. As near as I could tell, a few of them were armed.

“Maybe you’re scaring them with the gun,” Carrie said.

I nodded in agreement but didn’t want to put the gun down.

“Who knows what is over there and what these people are all about,” I said. However, the journalist in me ached to break free and begin asking questions.

“Maybe they know something,” Carrie said.

“Yeah, maybe,” I said cautiously.

I waved at them and several in the crowd waved back.

One shouted something — probably ‘hello.’ The gusts of wind rattling over the bridge muffled the words.

“Okay — you stay here… but get behind the wheel… and I will go talk to them. Keep an eye out behind you, too,” I said. “Don’t let anyone sneak up on you.”

A cat meowed about 15 feet away. It was rubbing along the bridge railing, casually walking along the sidewalk. A murder of crows cawed up river, their cries echoing off the streamside downtown hotels.

I grabbed the shotgun like a riot squad cop heading toward a dangerous mob and told Carrie I loved her.

“Be careful,” she said weakly.

After I took about 10 steps I saw the first body — covered with a thin layer of snow — beside a car that was slammed up against the bridge railing. I stopped and leveled the gun toward the crowd.

Then I saw another body about 20 feet ahead. A pair of crows hopped around it and judging from the dark specks in the snow, they’d been having quite a peckfest.

I looked back at Carrie and, she told me later, my face was chalk white and panic-filled.

My feet wouldn’t move. I just stood and stared ahead at the mob.

Then a vehicle — a decked out Hummer — roared toward the Mob from behind the cockeyed line of vehicles on the roadway. They parted and the Hummer came to a stop at the north end of the bridge.

A figure hopped down from the driver’s side and another leapt out of the passenger side. They conversed with a couple of the people in the mob. I noticed figures moving in the riverside hotel to the east of the bridge – snipers.

I felt my hands tremble against the weight of the Mossberg and then noticed that one of the men who emerged from the vehicle had a gun — a nasty looking assault rifle.

The driver waved and just over the sound of the river and the crows, I heard, “We won’t harm you.”

I looked back at Carrie, who didn’t know about the bodies yet, and shrugged. I had no choice but to believe the voice and I took a few more steps forward, using vehicles as cover. I noticed there was no way for Carrie to move Ointment over the bridge because of the clutter of vehicles.

The man with the assault rifle walked onto the bridge deck and took up a position behind a vehicle — likely as concerned about my shotgun as I was about his rifle.

I lifted my hands in the air, with the Mossberg dangling askew, hoping to give off the signal that I didn’t intend anyone any harm.

The Hummer driver yelled, “We won’t harm you. Please come forward, quickly.”

I took a few more steps… and surveyed the group. I noticed now that some of the members of the mob held handguns and knives. It didn’t inspire courage within me.

Stopping again, behind a pickup truck, I shouted, “You’re the first people we’ve seen and you’re freaking me out. I will drop my gun if you guys drop yours.”

The Hummer driver’s head moved from one side to the next and people pocketed guns and dropped knives in the packed snow. The man with the rifle remained in his position.

I pointed at him and made a grand shrugging motion, hoping to convey ‘and you.’

The Hummer driver, a man of average height and weight, then began to step toward me. I leaned against the truck and pointed the shotgun at him. He strode forward, unconcerned.

When he was 20 feet from me, he shouted, “My name is Larry. We won’t hurt you friend.”

I told him my name was Rob and I wasn’t going to hurt them, either.

He then flushed me with panic when he said, “We won’t hurt you but the fellas on your side of the bridge aren’t so nice. Those bodies,” he said, pointing a mitt-covered hand, “they took their time trusting us. That’s a hell of savage bunch over there. Don’t think you wanna mess with them — even with that decapitator.”

My head was swimming as I tried to come to grips with what was happening.

“My wife,” I said, looking back at Carrie, “I must get my wife.”

The Hummer driver clutched his hands together, as if he’d been handed a surprise gift.

“Good heavens — a woman? There are no women. You have a woman with you?”

I said I did and that she was heavily armed, too.

“For God’s sake, get her. If those sons-a-bitches know there is a woman there they’ll take little time mobilizing.”

I asked him, “who?”

“I don’t know who they are but they’re a murderous pack of bastards. For Christ’s sake, go get your wife.”

I took a few steps back and agreed. I turned and trotted back to Ointment, where Carrie was bursting with questions.

“Who…” I cut her off.

“We have to get over there. He said there are dangerous people on this side of the bridge,” I said. “Grab a few things. We can’t drive over.”

As she emerged from Ointment we both stopped and watched with building curiosity as the mob scattered.

The Hummer driver raced for cover.

I saw the muzzle flash from the gun being held by the Hummer passenger and flinched. He was shooting at something other than us, I realized half a second later when bullets didn’t slam into Ointment.

Carrie and I fell to the street and skidded into the curb, only feet from the first body I had seen.

She screamed when she saw the corpse.

A ‘ting’ sound made me look back and I saw about half a dozen men running onto the bridge deck from the downtown direction.  Another ‘ting’ sound made me realize that they were shooting at us and were actually hitting Ointment.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “We have to get the fuck out of here!”

Ting, ting… ting smash — Ointment’s back window exploded.

I caught a glimpse of people in defensive positions in the Red Lion Riverside Hotel; flashes signaled they were shooting – but not at us.

Carrie suddenly stood and shouted, “let’s go” and she bolted toward the mob. Instinctively I joined her and a few seconds later we passed by a group of ducking, armed people.

Once we made it to the north side of the bridge, I grabbed Carrie by the shoulder and forced her down behind a vehicle.

“Stay here,” I yelled at her and turned with the Mossberg.

A man shouted at me to “get down” and I obeyed him. I took a peek from my cover, a snowy curb, as a staccato of gunfire echoed and ricochets whined. It was pure chaos.

After a few more minutes of scattered gunfire, a burly man clutching a rifle duck walked over to us, careful to keep his head down and said, “It’s over, for now. You two are lucky.”

He was staring at Carrie, dumbfounded. “I thought there were no women,” he whispered.

A few moments later, the Hummer driver, Larry, appeared and offered me a mitt-free hand.

I shook his hand and we introduced ourselves again.

“This is my wife — Carrie,” I said.

He smiled broadly and proclaimed, “Well, today is a good day.”

Larry led us into the Red Lion hotel lobby and through it to a restaurant/lounge that afforded a clear view of the river and bridge.

“We’ve been in a stalemate here for two weeks,” he said. “When we arrived in Spokane and came upon other people, we thought we’d found something good. But they ain’t people over there. They’re monsters.”

I hustled out a legion of questions — who, what, where, when, why, how… the journalist’s mainstays.

Larry asked if we’d like a drink.

We did.

We took a seat and he pointed out where the “monsters,” as the ‘people on the other side of the river’ were called, held vantage points.

“We’re safe in here. We control this side of the river and they’ve got the other side. There is a no-man’s land between the other bridges that cross the Spokane and we have to remain vigilant.”

Carrie asked how many people were with him.

“There are about 60 of us and as near as I can tell, and about 20 or 30 of them.”

“And no women?” I questioned.

“Not that we know about,” Larry said.

I slammed back the can of Budweiser that had been handed to me by the man who scurried Carrie to safety, a small, plump Hispanic fellow named Oscar and felt like as though I had just gotten off work and was enjoying a cold one with fellow workers.

“I hope no one got hurt,” Carrie said.

Larry smiled and shook his head. “Fortunately, none of us are very good shots. None of our guys got hit and I don’t think we hit any of them.”

He explained how they held this hotel and the one across the street, the Oxford Suites, and the main “fortress” was the Holiday Inn Express, which loomed above the bridge on a dramatic outcrop of rock, offering a strategic advantage.

“We keep ourselves supplied by touring up and down Division. They keep themselves supplied from the downtown and down Sprague. It’s incredibly lucky they didn’t take you,” Larry told us. “Pure angelic luck.”

“When we saw you on the bridge, we figured you had to be newcomers but we couldn’t be sure. They have tried several things to lure us out. Usually, a show of force is all we need to do to spook them off. Then Mike (the Hummer passenger with the rifle) scoped you out and saw the B.C. plates and we figured you had to be wanderers, so we did what we could to get you across the river.”

Larry was clearly the leader of this bunch. Mike sat at the adjacent table. Despite it being a grey November day — he wore mirror shades and kept his rifle, an M-16, at his side.

The few other men in the lounge kept vigil over the bridge, smoking and shooting looks at us — mostly at Carrie. One of them spoke into a walkie-talkie.

 

“Why aren’t there any women?” I asked.

Larry said he had no idea.

“We’ve lost about 10 men since this all began and we’ve easily killed or maimed 20 monsters and none of us have seen any women.”

Carrie asked him where he was from.

“I’m originally from Tacoma but I’ve been… living south of here the last 10 or so years,” he said.

“And you?” I asked Mike.

“Me too,” he said.

“I know the area pretty good — where did you live? Pullman, Clarkston?” I continued.

“Walla Walla,” Mike said abruptly, still looking out the picture windows toward the bridge. Blue smoke reached out from his face, and enveloped his baseball cap.

They took their turn asking us about our experiences and we filled them in.

Eventually, I turned it back to the Spokane situation and asked why this standoff had occurred.

“At first we were all together. Some were from Spokane but most of us drifted in from all directions. Mike and me and a few others came north from Walla Walla and joined up with a guy named Pasquale, who we knew from Walla Walla. There was a lot of drinking and partying and mayhem, you know? Guys were losing their fucking minds — shooting things, blowing crap up and scouring the city for signs of life. Then Pasquale just up and shot this guy… Ted. For no fucking reason — he just wasted him.”

Mike butted his cigarette out and cut in. “He was a good guy. Didn’t get in anyone’s face; didn’t cause any trouble; helped out and gave to the cause.” He nimbly extracted another cigarette and jabbed it in his gob.

“He had this group of gang-banger shits who hung around him like he was God almighty. When he shot Ted — I was there — I kind of freaked out and asked him what he did that for. He actually told me because he felt like it. Well that was it for me. I split. A bunch of us split.”

Larry said he was already holed up in the Holiday Inn Express.

“My own personal castle on the rock,” he laughed. “Mike came to me and told me what had happened and I went across the river — over to the Doubletree, (a hotel tower) that the puke had claimed as his own — and asked him what his problem was. We all gotta stick together, ya know? And he tells me that the city is his and everyone else better do as he says. So I say ‘fuck you’ and these gang-banger fuckers circle me like a bunch of chickenshit pukes. Punk fucks. I whipped out ole bang bang,” he said, swiftly tugging a mean looking handgun from beneath his jacket.

“I pinned one of those greasy dogs into the wall and told Pasquele he was next. Surprise, surprise, he told me to chill and I left. And that was it. The war has been on since. He has the sick dogs and we are the rest… of the people. I assume every city must be like this.”

I told him that I had seen no sign of life in Calgary, a city about three times the size of Spokane and doubted if that may be the case.

“How many prisons are around Calgary,” Mike asked.

“Uh, none that I know of — nothing major at any rate,” I said. “Why?”

Larry and Mike looked at one another with one of those ‘we know something you don’t’ glances.

“What?” Carrie asked.

“Near as I can tell, we’re all from prison,” Larry answered.

“Mike and I were in Washington State Prison when this all began. So was Oscar – and a bunch of other guys here.”

Carrie and I glanced at one another. I didn’t know whether to be relieved to be in the company of dangerous cons, when apparently even more dangerous cons were across the river, or afraid that we’d stumbled into a vipers’ nest. Carrie, being the lone female among us, became a central theme of a terror that smothered me.

Carrie became quiet as I pushed Larry for more answers.

“I killed a couple of men,” he said bluntly.

“Me too,” Mike said.

“Near as I can tell, everyone here is a killer or a rapist, or both,” Larry said, slamming a horrifying chill over our conversation.

The beer can in my hand turned molten. My shotgun was lying across a table about 10 feet away.

I gulped.

“Near as I can tell, the only people left are the truly rotten,” Larry laughed. “So what did you do that you’re not telling us?”

Mike laughed and looked at Carrie. “You must be a nasty little thing,” he said, lighting another cigarette.

I decided to maintain the humour and said, “I’m worse than you guys. I am a journalist. And she’s a photographer. See what I mean? Way worse. Plus we’re Canadian.”

We all enjoyed a big laugh, except Carrie, who was hunched in a tight ball in her seat, her right hand holding on, with all her strength, to the Glock in her coat pocket. Her intuition was telling her we had to get out of Dodge. I was thinking the same thing but was trying to play along. My intuition was saying “one more beer” but I nursed them — not wanting to be caught unaware at any time. We were in a situation — a bad situation.

Larry and Mike told us about their ‘escape’ from prison.

“We pretty much just walked out the front door,” Larry said, scratching at his stubbly chin.

“We were down in the yard, having smokes and talking when… when there was this really loud bang. I hit the dirt, thinking one of the guards had flipped out or a riot was starting or something.”

Mike chimed in: “I was reaching for a smoke from old man Hepburn when he just disappeared.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that — gone. I nearly shit myself.”

Larry continued, “I had no idea what the fuck was goin’ on. I just lay there looking around and then I started to realize that there weren’t many of us left. I mean, there are… what? Maybe 1,800 inmates in Walla Walla. At most, maybe 200 out in the yard at any one time. Guards all over, too. And there was just me an’ Mike and a couple of others, wandering around dazed. Took about 10 minutes before someone said ‘everyone has gone.’ So we checked out the nearest guard post. The door was open – wide open – left open, I guess. So we walked upstairs to the tower. The radio was crackling… guns were lying around… food and shit. But no one was there. Really fucking bizarre, man.”

Eventually, the inmates made their way back inside the prison, utilizing sets of keys they found on the ground, in piles of clothes and on a table and, with rifles and shotguns in hand, they scoured the prison.

My attention, not needing a tweak, was renewed when Mike said, “and then we checked out the death row guys.”

Larry noticed my raised eyebrow. “I know, right! How wild. I mean, we killed some guys and shit — we ain’t goody two-shoes by any stretch. But Ridgeway and Bianchi and those guys — they’re pure fucking evil. If I am evil — out of 10, I’m a two. But those guys are tens. I was scared, man.”

Excitedly butting out a cigarette, Mike cut in, “And there he was… Gary Ridgeway — the fucking Green River killer himself, just sitting there. He looked at me like I was bringing him lunch or something and he asked me ‘what’s going on?’ I swear to God, it was like I was talkin’ to a celebrity or something.”

I felt a chill trickle backward s up my spine.

“And a couple of cells down was Bianchi!” Larry added. “The Hillside Strangler. Just sitting in his cell, looking scared as hell.”

They paused, reflecting on their encounters as a sports fan would after meeting a favourite player.

“So… what did you guys do then?” I asked.

“We left the fuckers there,” Larry said. “No way am I letting some bad ass mother like that out. But you know, he (Ridgway) didn’t even ask me to let him out, even after I told him that everyone had just disappeared, except us. He told me everything happens for a reason and went back to reading some magazine. I thought, fuck it, and checked out the other creeps on death row. And you know what really pissed me off? There were a bunch of empty cells. I mean, if only the evil survived — and this must be hell on Earth — then how come some guys on death row were taken away?”

Mike said the cells might have just been empty and Larry replied, “No way. There was stuff in the cells. Someone had been in there. Man, it was creepy.”

I asked about Bianchi, a sadistic piece of shit who kidnapped, raped, tortured killed at least 10 young women in Los Angeles in 1977/78, along with his equally fucked up cousin Angelo Buono.

“What did he say?”

Mike said he asked him to let him out.

“Did you?”

He laughed. “No way. I laughed at him and told the old bastard he was gonna die a slow and cruel death.”

Carrie shivered beside me.

“You know what was the best thing about all that? They were screaming and crying at us to let ‘em out when we left – other than Ridgeway,” Mike said.

Between guffaws, he added, “Larry told them, ‘you guys would have been better off injected’ and we walked away. But Mike went back later and gave Ridgeway a bunch of food and some bottles of water.”

I tried to visualize what it would have been like as he gave one man provisions, who wanted nothing from his potential liberators, and ignored those who wanted him to set them free.

They explained how two dozen men walked out of Washington State Prison that day, about two hours after ‘the disappearance.’ Other men, on both sides of the river, had drifted to Spokane from “near as I can tell,” as Larry said, Idaho Maximum Security Prison at Boise and Sea Tac Federal Detention Center in Seattle.

“Is everyone from prison?” Carrie asked.

Larry said he wasn’t sure. “Well, you aren’t, or so you say.”

I thought about all the prisons in America — of the some 7.2 million people behind bars in the most jailed nation in the world and tried to internally postulate how many may now be free.

Honestly, Larry, Mike and Oscar didn’t seem that evil. I was usually a pretty good judge of character. Vincent was evil, I was sure of it. Didn’t like him from the get-go. But I didn’t mind these guys;  they did save us from the bad guys across the river. Or did they? Maybe those guys are the good guys? I hoped Carrie wasn’t thinking the same thing. But she was.

We dined with a pack of murderers and evil scum and it was a fine meal — prime rib and potatoes, washed down with wine and beer. We shared stories of the road since ‘the disappearance’ and Carrie and I learned more about a few formerly incarcerated types than we’d ever want to know before. I thought about what a great story it would all make and longed for a newspaper to send it to.

Larry made sure we had a comfortable room for the night and, what a guy, he even posted a guard outside our door to make sure we were extra safe.

Once in the room, we whispered our plans to escape this crazy place.  They weren’t sound plans, by any shape. I still had Ointment’s keys and she wasn’t too badly damaged from her scrape against the bridge railing and I didn’t think any of the bullets that slammed into her did any damage. But she was damaged.

“We are going to need a new vehicle,” I said finally. “I guess Ointment’s had it. If she isn’t, I can’t see how we can get to her. Let’s see if we can go ‘shopping’ tomorrow and we’ll and see how far we can push things in terms of freedom of movement. One thing is for sure, we stick together,” I whispered.

Carrie said she doubted we’d be able to just drive away and I agreed. We’d have to be clever — and deceitful. And when the chance was presented, put the pedal down and flee. But to where?

Carrie was determined that we get to Vancouver.

“Maybe we can just tell it like it is,” she said. “I want to go to Vancouver to see if my son is there. I doubt he is, seeing as how he is such a good boy, but I have to know. I just have to know, Rob,” her voice broke and tears filled her eyes.

I said I understood and told her we would get there, one way or another.

“But things have a whole new light on them now,” I said. “We’re not alone in this world. For some reason we are here with a bunch of demented cutthroats. I don’t know what you did in your life before I met you, but I swear I didn’t do anything close to what these guys have done. Forget that for now, though. Let’s just get through this. We have a whole bunch more intel now than we did a few days ago — and where there is evil, there is good — we’re the good, as it stands. So we must keep our heads, stay together and not tip our hand.”

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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