I told Tom we’d be seeing Doc Freeman tomorrow about it, and he became obsessed with the idea that he’d somehow convince Doc to let us have the baby.
I couldn’t stand to hear him torture himself that way, so I read stories to Jessie and held her until we both fell asleep in her narrow child-sized bed.
June 25
We saw Doc Freeman today. Dale Oldfield confirmed the situation, then gracefully excused himself, saying he’d be in his little shack-cum-office when we needed him.
Doc Freeman poured all three of us a shot of his private stock of Jim Beam, then he began the apologies. Tom tried to argue him out of it, saying a birth would be good for morale, and we could certainly handle just one more in the Colony… but Doc told him quietly that, unlike many of the young couples, we already had a child and couldn’t expect special treatment. Tom finally gave in, admitting Doc was right—and I’d never loved him more than I did then, seeing his pain and regret.
He went with me to tell Dale we’d be needing his services next week, and Dale just nodded, his head hung low, not meeting our eyes.
Afterwards, in our own bungalow, Tom and I argued for hours. We both got crazy, talking about leaving the Colony, building our own little fortress somewhere, even overthrowing Doc Freeman… but I think we both knew it was all fantasy. Doc Freeman had been right again—we did have Jessie, and maybe in a few more years the time would be right for another child.
But not now.
July 2
Tomorrow is the day set for us to do it.
God, I wish there was another way. Unfortunately, even after performing a D&C three times in the last year, Dale still has never had the clinic’s equipment moved to the Colony. It’s ironic that we can send out an expedition for booze, but not one for medical equipment. Doc Freeman says that’s because the equipment is a lot bigger than the booze, and the Colony’s only truck has been down basically since we got here.
So tomorrow Tom, Dale and I will make the 18-mile drive to Silver Creek, the nearest town big enough to have had a family planning clinic. Dale, who has keys to the clinic, assures me the only dangerous part will be getting from the car to the doors of the clinic. They can’t get inside, he tells me, so we’ll be safe—until we have to leave again, that is.
Funny… when he’s telling me about danger, he only talks about deadheads.
He never mentions the abortion.
July 3
I didn’t sleep much last night. Tom held me but even he dozed off for a while. It’s morning as I write this, and I hear Jessie starting to awaken. After I get her up, I’ll try to tell her mommy and daddy have to leave for a while, and nice Mrs. Oldfield will watch her. She’ll cry, but hopefully not because she understands what’s really going on.
It’s later now—Jessie’s taken care of, and Dale’s got the jeep ready to go. Tom and I check our supplies again: An automatic .38 with full magazine, an Uzi with extra clips, a hunting rifle with scope and plenty of ammo, three machetes and the little wooden box. Dale’s also got his shotgun and a Walther PPK that he says makes him feel like James Bond. Everyone teases him about it, telling him things like the difference is that Bond’s villains were all alive to begin with. Dale always glowers and shuts up.
It’s time to go.
We climbed into the jeep. Tom asked why I was bringing you (diary) along, and I told him it was my security blanket and rabbit’s foot. He shut up and Dale gunned the engine. We had to stop three times on the way out to exchange hugs and good luck wishes with people who ran up from the fields when we went by.
We’re about 15 miles out now, and it’s been the way Tom said—quiet. After the gates swung open and we pulled onto the dusty road, it must’ve been 10 minutes before we saw the first deadhead. It was lumbering slowly across a sere field, still fifty yards from the road as we whipped by.
A few miles later there was a small pack of three in the road, but they were spaced wide apart. Dale drove around two of them; they clawed in vain at the jeep, but we were doing 60 and they just scraped their fingers. The third one was harder to drive around—there were car wrecks on either side of the road—so Dale just whomped into him. He flew over the welded cage at the front of the jeep and landed somewhere off to the side of the road. We barely felt it.
We’d just reached the outskirts of Silver Creek when Dale slowed down and cleared his throat. Then he said, Listen, Sarah, there’s something you ought to know about the clinic. He asked me if I’d talked to any of the others he’d already escorted out here.
Of course I had, but they had only assured me of Dale’s skilled, painless technique, and that they’d be there if I needed to talk. None of them had said much about the clinic itself.
I said this to Dale, and he asked me something strange.
He asked if I was religious.
Tom and I looked at each other, then Tom asked Dale what he was getting at.
Dale stammered through something about how the deadheads tend to go back to places that were important to them, like their homes or shopping malls or schools.
We nodded—everyone knew that—and Dale asked if we’d ever heard of Operation SoulSave.
I swear I literally tasted something bad in my mouth. How could I forget? The fundamentalists who used to stand around outside abortion clinics and shout insults and threats at people who went in. I was with a friend once—a very young friend—when it happened to her.
Then I realized what he was saying. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to ask him, but my words just tripped all over each other. He nodded and told us.
They’re still here.
Most of Silver Creek was empty. We saw some of them inside dusty old storefronts, gazing at us stupidly as we drove by, but they probably hadn’t fed in well over a year and were pretty sluggish. Either that, or they’d just been that way in life—staring slack-jawed as it passed them by.
That wasn’t the case, however, with the group before the clinic.
There must have been 20 of them, massed solidly before the locked doors. As we drove towards them, I saw their clothes, once prim and starched, now stained will all those fluids they’d long ago feared or detested. One still held up a sign (I realized a few seconds later he had taped it to his wrist as he died) which read OPERATION SOULSAVE—SAVE A SOUL FOR CHRIST! Several sported the obligatory ABORTION IS MURDER t-shirts, now tattered and discolored.
Their leader was the Priest. I remembered him from before, when he’d been on all the news programs, spouting his vicious rhetoric while his flock chanted behind him. Of course, he looked different now—somebody had snacked on his trapezius, so his Roman Collar was covered in dried gore and hung askew, and his head (he was also missing a considerable patch of scalp on that same side) canted strangely at an odd angle.
I saw Dale eyeing them and muttering something under his breath. I asked him what it was so I could write it down: Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. He said it was from the Bible. I was surprised; I didn’t know Dale read the Bible.
Tom responded with a quote from one of the more contemporary prophets: I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused. Then he asked Dale what we were going to do. Dale, who was practiced in this, said he’d drive around the building once, which would draw most of them away from the front long enough for us to get in. They wouldn’t bother the jeep when we weren’t in it.
Dale headed for the next corner. Tom pulled the .38 and held it, and I remembered.
I was thinking about the time I had to go to a different clinic with my friend Julie. It was before I started you, diary; in fact, I started you about the time Julie disappeared with most of the rest of the world. So I’ve never written any of this down before.