Batteryville

Little Boxes

In the morning we packed up and walked our bikes over the rough narrow trail for about half an hour until we got to the highway.

Erin said, "Wow," and I said, "Wow is right."

It was just a single road with a yellow line painted down the middle but there were people on it.

Going in both directions.

I said, "Were you expecting this?"

"People said there would be more activity as we got closer to the city," Erin said.

A bicycle slowed down as it passed us and the man riding it stared at us. Well, really he stared at Erin. When he was way past he finally looked back where he was going and sped up.

I said, "Well, that was creepy."

Erin said, "It's all creepy."

"Which way to we go?"

"To the right, that's the directions I have for here, stay to the right."

We got on our bikes and started riding.

We passed a lot of people and a lot of people passed us. We were scared at first, or at least I was, but no one seemed to care. Even when I looked right at people and nodded as we passed they never nodded back. A lot of people were on bicycles, lots of different kinds of bicycles, and they never slowed down or paid attention to us at all.

A couple times we saw big groups of people traveling together. Once there were a bunch of people walking beside what looked like it used to be the trailer for a big truck and they were all holding poles attached to the side and pushing it, walking beside it.

When they'd past us, and none of them had even looked at us while they did, Erin said, "I didn't think it would be scarier when there were more people."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought the scariest part would be the wilderness, you know? When there was no one around and just wild animals and, I don't know, nothing. I thought that would be the worst."

"But it's not," I said.

"No."

"It's the people."

"It sure is. You feel it, too." Erin glanced at me and then turned away, looking ahead down the road.

The highway was like two roads with grass between them. One side was in pretty bad shape, the pavement was broken with weeds growing through it and big chunks of it torn up and repaired, sort of. The other side was in really good shape, the pavement was smooth and there were no gaps or breaks in it as far as we could see in each direction. Which was pretty far.

There was also a tall fence like the one at the farm along both sides of the good road.

I did feel it, too, of course.

Way in the distance I saw something on the road, on the good side, and I said, "That's got a motor."

As the sound got louder we could see the trucks getting closer, a long line of them, maybe ten or fifteen big trucks pulling big trailers. But the first vehicle, the one in the front, was some kind of army truck that had guns on top of it. As it passed I couldn't see any people but I had a feeling there was someone behind every one of the guns.

I stopped pedaling and watched them pass. There were more armoured trucks in between some of the other big trucks.

It was really loud as they passed. I tried to count them but I stopped at ten trucks and five army trucks.