So far, the ride had been a strange and peaceful one. The greatest thrill was to see the tint of yellow disappear from the sky as we rode further from Washington, and return to its native, depressing gray. After we set up the tent, we decided to skip dinner and go straight to sleep. I didn't even make it that far. I was too exhausted. I just propped myself against a tree near the fire we had managed to start and fell asleep.
The next morning, my body was stiff as a board, and the sky was overcast. No big deal; we hadn't seen a truly sunny day in almost a year. Soon after I awoke, Perkins clumsily thrashed his way out of the tent. He looked at me and laughed. "You're shitting me," he said. "Look at this. We start a fire without really clearing any ground for it. We don't find any rocks to put around it. We pitch the tent like three feet from it. You fall asleep with your foot practically in it. We decided to start the fire right under that fucking tree you're up against. And we didn't put it out. We didn't put it out! Jesus."
I laughed with him and shrugged. "Fuck fire safety," I said. "That's the most unsafe fire I've ever seen in my life, and nothing happened. You ever think that any of that fire safety stuff everyone taught us was bullshit?"
"Oh yeah, man. That and a billion other things. I mean, how many times do you wash your hands before eating? I know I never do. Ever. And I haven't been sick in years. On the other hand, there was this guy who we used to eat lunch with downtown. Before every meal he insisted on using one of those antibacterial wipe things. That son of a bitch was sick all the time. Speaking of which." He dug a brick of Ramen noodles from his pack and started crunching it up. I stood up for the first time in my hour-old day and stumbled down the hill to make my way down to the creek near the highway.
We had probably set up camp about a quarter mile from the highway out of fear of being noticed by the bands of thieves roaming the highways we had been warned about. I took the thermos from my mess kit, scooped up some creek water, dumped in a couple of tablets, gave it a good shake, and began to make my way up the hill. I stopped and turned when I heard an engine. It was far off, but certainly an engine. I squinted to watch it. Its tires were squealing; it was all over the road. Behind it, a pickup truck came into view. The truck began to ram the car from behind, and eventually managed to catch up to it and ram it from the side. The car lost control, skidded sideways, and endured a few rolls before finally stopping, upside-down, in the median.
A couple hundred feet from me, two men wearing green jackets got out of the truck and approached the overturned car. They dragged the passengers out of the car -- a young man and a young woman -- and stood them up. One of the men from the truck began yelling. "You knew you can't leave!" he said. "You know you couldn't leave!" He appeared to start sobbing. The other man pulled out a gun aimed, and shot them both. Their bodies slumped over. I grabbed a small tree with one hand to keep myself standing. A foot stumbled, and the dirt underneath it gave way. I observed them just long enough to notice one of them point in my direction and yell. I left the tree shaking, thrashing my way up the steep hill like a madman. After decades of accepting that I was to walk with my feet, I seemed to forget it all. My arms grasped for anything they could find and pulled me further up the hill. The yelling behind me continued.
I met Perkins halfway to the site. He tried to stare downhill past the trees, wide-eyed. "What happened? What was that? Was that a gun?" I grabbed him by the shirt as I ran past him back to the campsite. "Someone's coming. We have to go. Go!"
We mounted our bikes, leaving all else behind, and rode down the other side of the hill. We didn't get far; the brush was too thick and the trees were too close together. We heard another gunshot behind us. I turned around; they hadn't made it over the hill yet. I threw the bike to the ground and put myself flat alongside it, motioning Perkins to do the same. We lay, eyes trained to the top of the hill, breathless. The men appeared at the top, squinted in our direction, but never looked at us. They disappeared over the crest of the hill. We waited a full hour before moving again, and slowly began to ascend the hill.
The campsite gone. Our packs, our tent, everything. I looked to Perkins to study his facial expression. It was rather blank.