Going Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

He was trying to talk. “Help me, h-h-help me.”
    I leaned down to him so he could hear me. “Just think, if you would have just left me alone, you wouldn’t be lying here covered in your own blood, piss, an’ shit, you stupid motherfucker. One more thing, you are going to die a miserable death, you stupid fuck.”
    The old man talking to me brought me back around. “Son, you bess go on now. Day goin’ to be cummin’ back with some more prolly.” I stood up and looked at him; he pointed across the street to the other store. “Run on over there. Go on ta the back, pick up da trail an’ get gone. I’s goin’ to tell ’em you went up da road here.”
    I reached down and picked up my stick and took off across the road. He may be setting me up, but I knew I had to go and right damn now. Running wasn’t exactly an option; the pack was so damn heavy that anything resembling a run was out of the question. I was moving at a good double-time. I hit the trail; it fairly well paralleled 19. The path cut between houses and through yards; it looked like it was the neighborhood shortcut to the store. I kept going; the cleared areas gave way to a tree line. It was thin enough that I could see through it to the other side. I got through that little stretch, open field again. In front of me was another tree line; this one looked more substantial and looked like a planted pine. That’s not an ideal place to hole up, but it’s better than being out in the open.
    I crossed the field without incident and got into the pines. I took a knee to catch my breath and to do a quick security check of my six. Looking into the pines, there was hardly any underbrush; it was wide open. About a hundred yards into the timber, it appeared to be thicker. I took off in that direction between the rows of pines. There was a bay head out there; I could clearly see the cypresses. Pausing at the edge of the swamp, I took a look around, searching for anywhere I could hole up. About forty yards into the swamp was a small island; it had two sable palms and a couple of large cypress trees growing on it. The remnants of a grape vine were clinging to the palms and creeping up the cypress. It would be a good place to hole up. I had decided to find somewhere and go to ground and wait for dark before trying to get out of the area. I didn’t know what kind of friends ole Gol’ Dolla’ had.
    The weather had been dry; there wasn’t really any standing water, but a poke with my walking stick told me it was soft mud. I didn’t want to walk straight to my hideout; a blind man would be able to follow my trail. I circled to the south a bit, looking for a way to get in, and finally managed to pick my way through to the island, stepping on downed logs, high clumps of pine-needle—covered earth, and the occasional properly placed cypress knee. Once on the island, I started to rearrange the vines a bit to provide better cover. Laying my sleeping mat on the damp ground, I sat down, and the weight of what had occurred landed on me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone; all I wanted to do was get home. If things were this bad only two days in, we were in for a world of shit.
    I pulled the can of Cope out of my pocket and took a dip. Damn, that’s good. After taking a long drink of water, it was obvious that the water situation needed some attention. The two-quart canteen was empty as well as the one quart. The Platypus bag was almost full, and the water bottle was half full. Tomorrow, I needed to keep an eye out for decent water.
    It’s about two thirty; it’ll be dark in a few hours. I need to grab some sleep and get ready to move tonight. I laid the poncho liner out on the sleep pad. While rooting around in the pack, I found a little bag with my radio. It was a GP-L4 from County Comm. It was not the greatest radio, but it had AM, FM, and shortwave. It was in an antistatic foil bubble wrap bag, the same thing the NVGs were in. Since I worked for an electronics manufacturer,