Page 55 - 1979 VES Meteor

even
the
few jagged wall sections, and he
had cried for the first time since
the war itself. He had stopped : ful in the distance, steep brown
every
V.E.S.
of
aU the down
swept
He shook his head and lowered the gun again.
"Rl pondez-moi!" he asked, pointing to the setting sun.
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turned and wa"iked briskly away. The village had looked beauti-
15
Cont. from p. 3
":'HE METEOR brown eyes that danced
whenever she laughed.
"You shouldn't have come, Stuart," she said solemnly.
"Liss!" he cried and leapt for- ward. Then he fell, grunting with pain and surprise as he was hit, hard, in the kidney by a rifle butt.
•
DECEMBER 15, 1979
• Salem Dance
Poll
.
On November 3 a group .E.S. students ventured down
Salem Academy in W for a mixer. The
very tasty and the girls were sight for sore eyes. Thanks to a f"'w friends of mine and willing
.E.S. boys the dance got
started without much time of sit- around just listening to the
Immediately almost all of the boys were picked up or pick-
ed someone up. A friend of this reporter, named Anne Dozier took a pole after the dance
below are the results. AMOUNT OF "PREPDOM"
not preps 0 medium preps 11
•
very preppie 1
too preppie 2
HOW WE DANCED great dancers 4 good dancers 4 okdancers 4 would like to do nothing
more than shag 2
She also sent up various com- ments, they are listed below.
'"I liked them all, but Marshall the best." "Botts" "I love John G.""Lenier. John, Botts, Sterl- ing, and John of Bedford." "Very good sense of humor" " fun and nice" "Hello to Bob Sowers"
"Botts, no tie for a lie." "Trailer Park-Oakwood Mobile Homes" "Guys were rea! nice!"
Most of the way back on the bus we talked about the fine time that we had. Someone was even talking Jbout some girl from Florida. The dance was a big suc-
cess and we are all looking for- ward to another dance in the
spring. I would also like to thank Mr. McCormick for arra~ging the
then slung the pig over his shoulders and walked back. seen the cathedral at Chartres, Gently, he laid the pig on the
what you can of your life. Forget me, Stuart. I can't go with you, I'm not the same. Please go!"
F'or a moment he stood in a shocked, painful, silence. Then he shouted "No!" and threw the
. gun at her. She caught it without thinking and held it, pointed at
him.
"No!" he shouted again. "I've been looking for your for six months, and I've seen a hell of a lot! Do you know what's left of New York? A bay! Most of Eng- land isn't recognizable anymore. ninety percent of the people here
, are dead, and the rest would be better off if they were. In what's left of the cities, there are canni- bals. I've killed people! I can't remember how many anymore!"
leveled by a shock wave, but for a doorstep of the house. Then he
caring after a while, reducing his ; rooftops nestled tightly among
life to two simple goals: "find ' the hills. It was as if the war
Melissa, and get the hell out of hadn't happened here. But now,
here." More he couldn't handle. walking down the main street, it , him oughly on each side.
"Est-ee que vous avez vu une seemed deserted. He shouted fiDe?" he asked the old woman . several times, but there was no
"Melissa?" he asked.
"Yes, Stuart. Me."
"What are you doing here?" "I'm their leader. As it turned
out, I had the best mind for com- bat. I can lead them through raids and skirmishes better than
·anyone else, so they obey me." "But a gang of bandits! What's
happened to you?"
"1 had to survive, Stuart. It's very dangerous here."
"I'd expected anything but this?
"Why did you come here?'' "Looking for you, of course!" "That was very foolish."
"I love you!"
She almost smiled, Almost. "I never said that I loved you, even
once."
"That doesn't matter. Listen, Melissa, we've established our own society. We seceded from the United States, or what was
left of it, and we're independent now. About fifty square miles in the hills. Kentucky! Do you
remember midsummers? About three hundred of us. We're build- ing good houses, the crops are good, when I left they were try- ing to build a methane gas con· verter for the sewage: Hell, they
Finally, her features softened, and she smiled. "I believe you." with me, Melissa! Its safe there! . She closed· her eyes for a mo- ment. "Oh, Stuart, I could have loved you." she said tenderly.
· answer. He passed a car in the were two others parked behind
a house that looked outwardly unscathed. Perfunctorily, he checked the tanks. Of course,
they were empty.
As he reached the last few
buildings, he heard a shout, and spun to face two men standing in the street with rifles pointing at him. The gun was leveled at them, and he wondered if they
were bluffing, or if they still had ammunition.It was rare after six
haltingly, "Vingt ans."
"Oui, beaueoup. Ca m' est street, long stripped. There
'eg~" ·
"Hair, hair..." he ran his hands
through his own, "Rouge."
"Ca m'est 'egal."
"I do care, damn you!" he snap-
ped and raised the gun. She stop- ped hoeing and looked at him again, with no expression at all.
"Chartres." he whispered.
She waved a long, bony arm at
a small, sway-roofed shed on the months. Then three more step-
far side of a low stone wall, turn- ed and walked into the house.
ped into the street, one with an ancient shotgun, the o~hers with compound bows, arrows nocked.
He slept in the shed that night,
after spending hours poring over · He calculated odds for a moment. his maps and her letters, by an If he could get both bowmen
•
old oil lamp, trying to find some
clue as to where she'd gone. The
last letter, dated just three ifs. He lowered the gun, holding weeks before the beginning of it by the sling. Two of the gun- the war, mentioned a farm in · men rushed forward and snatch-
Normandy. He had found the
farm, but she was gone. So now
he wandered, aimlessly search-
ing, until he could find a destina- tion.
He had all her letters in the pack,eventhosefrombeforeshe left, and he read them again, knowing what they_said. One of
them contained two snapshots, one of her, gaily brandishing her flute. He had taken it; he
ed the gun. One of them in- spected it smilingly, then tossed it to one of the others as another
took his pack and began going through it. They quickly found
the spare magazines and stacked them beside the gun, then started going through the let- ters. Meanwhile, the two holding him chatted amicably in French, deciding what to do with him. He wasn't sure, but he thought they
were deciding to kill him. "Should have known be~tertha?, to surrender to a bandit gang. he berated himself silently.
I
remembered 'the day well. Mid-
summers, a year ago, running
through the mountains for hours
playingbyinstinct. Hehadloved
her more that day than ever There were ex~i~ed words from
Go back and take that life! You~re nineteen years old. You can still have it. Don't lose that, Stuart.
Its too precious now."
"I don't understand." he said,
"You're nineteen too."
"Am I? Am I, Stuart? I feel so
old sometimes. My family was in Paris. Did you know that a kiloton nuclear blast can ignite
. fires ten miles away on a clear day?
"The entire northeastern sea- board was one big firestorm from Boston to D.C. They didn't even
aim the missiles at cities. They just laid down a grid which put
· everything radius."
Then she pulled the trigger. They dug a grave under a tall oak, and laid his body in it with his pack. And she stood beside it with the gun, a tear hanging
delicately on one cheek. It would be so easy, she thought, to simply drop the gun into the open grave, and bury it, out of reach. So easy. She held it out,
over the edge. "No," she said,
· slinging it over her shoulder, "I · was right. You would have found
before. He slowly put the photos away. He knew that the second was of him with his violin but he was afraid to look at it. His face
the man going through the pack, and the other two quickly joined him. There was more whispering and one of the men holding him
dance.
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was changed, more guant, the joine~them. . .
eyes sharper. He went to sleep saying grimly, over and over, "I'll find you."
Long before the·dawn he was up, walking slowly along the road near the house. The stars were just beginning to fade. The
sounds of night were soft. Some- where, he could hear a soft, con- tented grunting. Wild pig. He
stepped off the road, into a small wood, holding the gun in both
1
ThiS was hiS chance, he reahz- ed. He tensed to hit the man hold- ing him and run; he was between
them and the gun. But he waited too long. The one who was ap- parently the leader sn~pped several commands, and they col-
lected the gun, and him, and mov- ed quickly out of the village and into the hills, as one of them ran
ahead. \
They took him to a small camp
hands. The sound stopped then in a valley. There were several he heard the pig break th~ough! tents set up and a small fire. At the underbrush. He ran after least five others were there, him, the gun held before him including the one which had been
bending under low branches: in the village with the~. The watching the ground for tangles leader shouted somethmg as of vines. Ahead, he could hear they entered, and the others
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have been anything to bury. Did you lose anybody, Stuart?"
"I didn't think so. Please come back with me! There's still time!"
"No Stuart. Not any more."
"She turned to one of the men and said with a tone of authority,
"Lui Donnez le fusil" _they look- ed at her, shocked, and several
protested. "J'ai dit de lui donner le fusil."
Reluctantly, one of them step·
ped forward and handed him the
gun.
"Now go.;, she told him, "Go
back to Kentucky, and salvage
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• .
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the pig squealing. As he hurdled
~fallentree, he spotted it caught
Ill a mass of creeping vines. It one of the tents. The flaps broke free and ran just as he spread, and a woman stepp~d
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slammed to a stop and raised the
gun. Twice he fired the gun h1gh, archm~cheekbones, and
cr k' '
ac Ing, breaking the stillness
of the morning. The pig fell in- stantly. The bullet that hit had gone straight through the neck ·
~ndout near the opposite ear. He : rapped a rag around both buUetholes to stop the blood,
•
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1
before they,shot him. If all three guns were empty. If. Too many
gathered around the~ as they brought him to a halt m front of
Diuguld Funeral Service
PEARSON'S DrugStore
The Dru1 Store WIJere V.E.S., Boys Meet JJJelr Friends
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-
o~t. A girl. with long, red ha1r,
The men grabbed him and jerked him to his feet again, one holding
might J!.ave electricity by the time we get back. Come back
We can have our own life there!" "Then go back there, Stuart.
within _a "Paris too. There wouldn't
a way to die, Stuart. It wouldn't have been hard. If you could have only understood. The woman you loved died when the first bomb
fell."
She turned and walked away,
as they began to fill the grave. She looked at the gun. The first winter would be dangerous. She would need it.
flash
favorite
remember? We made that model
out of sand."
"The tide came in and washed
it away."
"I still have the picture." "Burn it."
"No! Its all that's left now!
They leveled it. I've seen the . ..
rums.
"So have I."
"Yes, I've seen what the
world's become. I've seen as much as you have! I know what the world is like and I won't like in it without you. Either come back with me, or shoot me now!"
They stared into each other's eyes for a long time. Neither spoke.
"Put it down." he thought furiously. "Please put it down. Come back."
"Y our
building,
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Don't•or~et~''t-•ller-,
Sub Shop''
rllhl"' lroftlj """'"'' Ylrllttla'• lfloootsu•s
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