A Runaway, Chapter 10

*copyrighted material*

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    The rouge Leyland Tiger bus staggered violently under the unpaved road. The half-cab vehicle had left the nearest station a day and a half ago, occasionally stopping by for gasoline, food, and for those that had reached their destination early on. Unhurriedly and on the way, the bus emptied its seats one or two at a time. The vehicle was still three hours away from Nooktown. The way to town was surrounded by snow and grassy fields, an innumerable amount of unrecognizable winter flowers, and captivating pastures that Wyatt, from all passengers, did not care about. Fear had taken hold of him by the collar, the occurrence of unraveling a conciliatory solution with the authorities was at this time, dead zero.

    The Dahlgren family had got into business the moment Wyatt had found a payphone and called Archie at his workplace asking for help. Roughly thirty-five minutes after his encounter with the Visitors. Archie carefully instructed his friend to find the nearest payphone booth to his apartment building and dial the next series of numbers ‘93273784554373’ or ‘we-are-still-here’  as code. Wyatt stared at the scribbled note and questioned the lock, stock, and barrel of that morning’s occurrence. He felt this was a dry trust appointment overall, yet he was not part of

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the Dahlgren kindred. Somehow it felt invasive, but he dialed the numbers away and pressed the cone-shaped speaker to his ear. He waited a couple of seconds, then someone picked up on the other side of the phone.

   “Wyatt?” It was Ernest Dahlgren’s unflappable voice. Archie’s grandfather and mentor of the Renou Community in Yorkwich city.

   “S—sir. Yes, it’s me.” 

   “Listen carefully, son. I can help you get out of this pickle all buttoned up. But you’ll have to cooperate with us and our sources. Got it?”

    “Okay. S—sure.”

   “Good. Let’s dig into it . . . ” Grampa Dahlgren went on and told him he had assembled a clan gathering at Donna’s house at 07:00 P.M., giving the cabbie enough time to collect his belongings from his tiny apartment room and join the reunion. The senior was very specific about how to tackle the next tasks without raising suspicions. Those included keeping his valuable objects stored separately and in unusual places scattered all around his luggage. Returning his apartment keys to the landlord, but just after wiping all traces that he ever stayed there. Which resulted in getting rid of bills, and tax paperwork, and even secretly burning his trash, credentials, and identification papers. The landlord would have a hard time dealing with the law, but loose ends would amount to more victims if handled carelessly. Last but not least, renouncing his job as a cabbie while providing false information to Rowell’s Taxi, his employer. Ernest suggested to him telling the company he had contracted tuberculosis via one of his passengers, playing the part of a handkerchief. According to Grampa Dahlgren, employers were always the cause of death for many runaways considering businesses were forced to report their employees’ actions

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immediately to the Roanoke Military, as stated by the law. An act of routine that had ended the lives of many, the sooner the authorities knew the easier it got for them to grapple their targets, resulting in carnage. Wyatt followed Ernest’s every word with a fixed purpose. Grasping for any left courage resting dormant within and knowing it was not just his existence out on a limb. He had prayed, wishing his quest to find Calvin was a short one.

   Once he was done with all of the tasks, he stepped out of the taxicab company building and looked at the street-watch hovering above his head. 06:39 P.M. at sundown, there was no time to waste, so he headed to the Dahlgrens’ home and once on their porch, knocked at their door. Donna revealed herself from the other side and looked at him with empathic, heart-aching eyes. She was wearing a mustard-colored dress, her sleek back hair in a large chignon bun, and wearing shiny pearl earrings, all matching perfectly with her tanned skin. Archie’s mother finally extended her arms for him and welcomed him in with a tight embrace.

   “Mom is it—” Archie had come down from his room and stopped at the foot of the stairs. He attested his best friend’s sickly pale skin and appalled visage.

   “Yes, sweetie . . . ” She mumbled back, her arms still around Wyatt. “It’s him . . . ”

   Donna and her oldest son took him to the kitchen and gave him a tall glass of tap water to drink. The narrow-looking room shone yellow with a single light bulb hanging from above, a boiling cooking pot on the stove, and the smell of lit cigarettes coming from outside the window. His face took its natural color again after a few minutes. Donna placed a hand on his back to let him know Grampa Dahlgren was waiting for him in their living room. With far more company than he could have ever expected. He found the white-haired mentor sitting in his wheelchair. Donna’s husband was also there. Sitting on a dusty-looking couch right by his father’s side. The room was overflowing with people. Archie’s brothers and sisters, their cousins, uncles, aunts, and other

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individuals Wyatt had never met were there too. All of them were from the Renou Community. Accompanying them was also a very young woman with high cheekbones, slanted blue eyes, and long, burnished colored hair. Her peculiar turquoise cotton attires decorated with red and gold had stolen all of the attention in the room. The light was dim except for the red-yellow radiance of the chimney flames. 

   “We are glad you’ve arrived safely, Wyatt, please take a seat. By now you must understand that by being your protectors, more than just one life it’s at stake here. Sadly, we’ve all lost a loved one to this war, so we operate as one family. We care for one another as brothers and sisters. Everyone is welcomed to this family, as long as we watch our backs collectively and leave outside this community our selfishness.” Ernest spoke, his gaze was of a man that had witnessed the affliction of others on countless occasions. Consumed by age, but with an imponent voice.

    “There’s no time to lose if we want your sibling and you to escape these lands safely. So, I’ll cut to the chase. According to our sources, the Visitors are a newly assembled group by the government. We call them ‘new’ but we are positive these people have been used as mercenaries before in the early years of the war and again a few years back later. The Visitors, as they are officially called now, are individuals assigned to extract and kill as many informants and potential enemies as possible. The assassins have been operating under this name for a couple of months now, killing dozens if not hundreds of civilians with highly valuable businesses as well. We are pretty sure the five names circled by your last client on the Red List belong to more of their victims, we are already investigating them including the drugstore owner you met this morning. They are all important people in the pharmacy world as owners as well, it is our first lead to this case.”

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   “We might have further information in a couple of days. For now, let me introduce you to our closest ally, which I invite you to keep close to your heart as your aide as well. Of course, reciprocally . . . ” Ernest placed a firm hand on the blue-eyed woman’s shoulder. “Wyatt, this is Ávrá Kappfjell. Ávrá represents the Renou Community in Bartleby city. Both of our communities joined forces along with the Rootstocks nearly three decades ago. However, our once fellow Rootstocks developed preposterous and manipulative views, which made us understand that our focus and their own were not the same anymore.”

     Ávrá smiled and spoke after him. “Though we chose to detach from the Rootstocks, we have vowed to help and stay vigilant for others in the shadows. It has been the best tactic to battle the government’s oppression on our terms. As you might know, we all have loved ones to care about just like you. Those we’ve already lost are a testament to our commitment to spy the Roanoke Military safely, as our families grow bigger, so do our spying forces. That being said, the really good news is there is a large Renou village at Mt. Mowaki. Our people live quietly a few kilometers up high into the woods of the mountain. Ernest and I have agreed that your best shot now is meeting our people up there with your brother Calvin. The Renou villagers will provide you both with supplies and all the necessary orientation to get to the other side of the border from that point on, and past the security system.”

   Ávrá stopped and asked, “Wyatt, have you ever heard of our representative at Nooktown? His name is Randall Haagensen. Do you know him? He’s been keeping a peaceful communication with Nooktown’s city hall for years and I’ve been told you grew up there.”

   “Yeah, I know Woodbone. I mean . . . Randall.”

   “It’s a good start, then!”

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   Ernest spread a map of Mt. Mowaki before Wyatt. They’d conclude that finding Woodbone at his small cabin on the outskirts of town would provide him some advantage. The wooden-legged man knew the place like the back of his hand, he’d let him know the best and shortest routes to the village’s secret place. Or in the best-case scenario, he’d take him there himself. Wyatt was warned, however, that by the time he reached Nooktown there were high chances that the Roanoke Military and the Visitors would have begun the deadly chase already. But they were running out of options, questioning or acting sluggishly could have them all killed.

   By the end of the gathering, Donna served dinner to her offspring while Archie and his father Ben shaved Wyatt’s head and facial hair in their backyard. The ex-cabbie then took a warm shower, tended to his wounds, and ate from their minestrone before they could handle him the bus tickets he needed to get to Nooktown. Archie had saved one last gift for his friend, a white skimmer hat to conceal his face and dawning bruises as best as he could. Soon came the time to say farewell to the Dahlgren family, and he thanked them deeply for what they had done for him in his predicament. As well as for the comforting years left behind. Ernest assured him he could keep him informed of his parents’ whereabouts once he touched safer grounds if he wanted to. The ex-cabbie said nothing but nodded at some point. 

   He had to step into the first large motor vehicle leaving Yorkwich that same night. With his suitcase and his savings in a tin boot polish box, just hours away from witnessing the savage murder of his last passenger. Impartiality saved no one, he’d grown to know quickly. The city lights had gone out that night, one by one while the heavenly bodies made their appearance to replace their inborn glow. 

    Wyatt softened his gaze and loosed his tight back muscles against the bus seat little by little, an elbow pressed to the window. The half-cab was now just an hour away from Nooktown, and

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he couldn’t help but take a quick cat nap after the hellish six-day trip from Yorkwich, traversing two entire provinces with his nerves on edge. And so far, he hadn’t been detained by authorities.

   He shut his eyes for a few minutes, resting a cheek on his fist. He could finally feel the tension over his upper back melting away and leaving his body. The murkiness brought him comfort, and suddenly he could hear the soft sound of chime bells ringing in the distance. In his dream, covered by the veils of twilight, he could see lights bursting out the bus window as if the pastures were dotted with flames. Large and big-boned figures were looking at him as the bus passed by, several of them. With majestic antlers pointing towards the firmament, large brow-ridges, and semi-conical craniums. Lacking any jawbones, empty eye sockets, and hulking knuckles.

    He opened his fatigued bloodshot eyes, coming across the fact that the creatures glancing at him from outside the vehicle, were no more than just a vast group of reindeer consuming the greens of the meadow. Their herder was nowhere to be seen. And as strange as it sounded, he felt meticulously observed by these animals. Somehow, he felt expected by something else rather than just his enemies.

   The bus reached the last stop thirty minutes later. Nooktown’s bus station looked deserted that afternoon with its turned-off streamlined sign structures and art deco column-like windows. The depot was a baby-blue edifice, prominent to the average eye with far-reaching sidewalks and diagonal parking spaces for each large motor vehicle in service. Wyatt grabbed his suitcase and stepped out of the half-cab bus stumbling in the snow. Three layers of clothing under his garments, gloves, and scarves proved insufficient to counter the piercing frost of the mountain. Mt. Mowaki looked like an oil painting picture book from where he stood. A thick fog covered

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the mountain’s distant sister, a peak that stretched to the North. Officially, Norway’s territory. Reaching that peak would be his goal.

   He walked up to the station where he lost footing on the icebound floor of the lobby and ended up grabbing onto a steel handrail near a handicapped ramp. The public space had endured and stood intact under the rough weather after so many moons, the last time he had walked through these corridors he had done it along with his little brother at night, ten years ago. 

   By the age of five, Calvin had known of extreme hunger and no sense of belonging after running away from the civil war, province to province for a handful of months. Somehow, the Elsner family had ended up where they started back in their hometown, but drastic decisions were made, which took the boys up Northeast. Calvin had shed bitter tears during the whole trip from Bartleby, up to the icy high grounds of Nooktown as a toddler. Wyatt had sat beside him in these hallways without uttering a single word. Unsure of what to do as he faced what he knew would be a life of poignant feelings. He’d stared into a void of desertedness for what could have been hours before leaving the town’s bus station dragging his brother with him.

    As he reached adulthood and his brother moved into his early teenage years, neither of them spoke about their home grounds. But they would both agree that living in Bartleby before the persecution had been the best time of their lives. Wyatt, being the oldest, remembered as much. The blazing tangerine sundown at the horizon, bicycle rides, the constant chatter at the cheese market. Still a snowy place, but much brighter. There was much more sun there than in any other place he’d ever lived in. With perfectly bulky trees and a lovely breeze all year round. Kids, his age played by the newspaper booths, folding paper planes, and letting them go with the wind. The owner of the stand handed over old pieces of scandal sheets to children for them to build them.

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Sadly, the image had faded from his mind through the years and the name of that man, he could not recall.

    He knew those cold but sunny were gone. 

    Nooktown’s poop-stinking barns, the smell of soaked wood, the slippery ground beneath his soles. He walked through the less traversed streets of the town, he walked past the tailor store, and the local superette but the avenues and boulevards he came across were completely emptied compared to their regular traffic. The snow-packed sidewalks, the smell of hot soup and spices, he remembered it all. A teenager working for two. He nosedived into those memories. Like the time he took Calvin to the bakery to buy their first baguette. Or the time he bought used clothes to fashion small socks and gloves for his little brother. An old woman at The Lodge House had helped the boys sew the willowy fabrics and had managed to create two matching-looking scarves as well. One for each of them.

    Wyatt re-imagined Nooktown’s map again in his mind. Ávrá had traced a fast route to Woodbone’s cabin that he’d been forced to memorize. She’d been very specific about not sidetracking from those alleyways or he’d probably be caught in a flash if authorities in town had already been alerted. Still, Wyatt’s nerves tricked him, as well as the fact that he didn’t seem to know certain establishments on the next street. He was sure those were new places he had never got to seen. He glanced up and frowned, becoming aware that he’d turned on the wrong street. His eyes spotted the sector where he knew the Booze Bucket Bar establishment was supposed to be. And then he shivered.

    Nelson’s inherited alehouse was now nothing more than a smoking pile of accumulated hunks and screes from its rooftop to its foundations. Fallen wall chunks were stained black with bruises only a fire could make, the traces of the flames. Between the burnt wood batches was a

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standing wall made of red clay bricks and the old chimney up tall, yet broken at the top. He stared in silence but quickly knew the meaning of it all. He acted like he paid no mind and quickened his pace, knowing he had to stow away his internal cries and think about his every move from now on. His mind rushed, realizing Ernest and his people had foreseen this narrative from the moment they had met him at the Dahlgren family home. All those warnings . . .

    Wyatt’s hands were trembling, but there was no raw weather that could compare to his pain and affliction in that instant. He’d trapped the agony in his insides, ready to burst open through his skull. The future he had envisioned for his little brother had no meaning now. Calvin was dead, he was certain. He looked ahead with empty eyes, a ritzy-plated automobile had been parked in the middle of the road just a block away. At this point he knew he was surrounded, knowing fully well who the familiar vehicle belonged to. With an irreversible sense of grief and defeat, Wyatt dropped his suitcase and any remaining healthy hopes cleared his lungs.

END OF CHAPTER #10