Hanover had a curated feel about it, like it was some upscale, money-fueled restoration of an idealized New England town. It didn’t feel like real people lived here, at least not in the town center. Think Disney World. Then again, that could just be my Florida in me talking.
Dartmouth dominated everything. Pieces of campus had metastasized into various houses and buildings sprinkled through the downtown area. Seemed like we found a Dartmouth sign lurking around every corner.
Despite the gentle rain, there were plenty of people hanging around the village center. I studied them like an anthropologist, curious to know who got to live in a place like this, wondering if it had room for someone like me. I kind of doubted it. I had felt more at home in Brynmawr and Luthersburg than here.
We cruised the streets on a dual mission: one, to find a place to make our stand. Two, to replace Wendell’s pizza with one less likely to have Fellstraw as a topping. Fellstraw or not, that artichoke and olive pie of Wendell’s had smelled awful good.
Downtown was out of the question for a showdown—way too much potential for collateral damage. I didn’t care about the fancy shops with their pretty facades, but there were, in fact, too many real and innocent people living here.
Young parents idling with their toddlers in a playground. Grandmas gossiping in front of the post office. Townie teens gathered in the parking lot of an ice cream shop. Wendell may not have cared what happened to them, but I sure did. We needed to find a spot that was a little more isolated and that had a little more room to unleash our spell craft.
We had better luck finding our pizza. The place was called ‘Everything But Anchovies.’ An unfortunate name, because telling me what I couldn’t have only made me want them more. And I didn’t even like anchovies.
We ended up getting sausage and pepperoni because Urszula insisted on meat. This pizza didn’t look half as good as the one Wendell had ordered for us, but at least we knew it was safe to eat. We paid with that black credit card. I figured, why not?
After we ate, me and the girls went on a shopping spree at Talbots and the Hanover Outdoor store. We all got new clothes because what we had been wearing was getting a little ripe and we didn’t have time to mess around with laundry.
We loaded up on all kinds of camping stuff. Fleece pullovers, rain jackets, sleeping bags and pads. Freeze-dried meals. A water purifier. A propane stove.
I didn’t know what conditions we would find ourselves in during the days ahead, or even if there would be any days ahead of us in this world. For all I knew, our current existence might only be measured in hours.
This atmosphere of uncertainty put an edge to our wanderings in the village. Every corner was a potential trap, every person who looked at us funny, a killer.
Our last stop was at a liquor store. I picked up a six pack of Heineken. Ellen got a bottle of Merlot. Urszula—a pint bottle of some kind of fancy schnapps-like crap with little gold flakes floating inside.
And then we were back in the car, searching again for the perfect battleground. We cruised back and forth across campus, weaving through leafy residential areas, across parking lots, past a hockey rink and an old, refurbished mill.
Night fell. Street lights flickered on. Still, we hadn’t found what we were looking for.
“Maybe we should just keep on driving around in random circles,” said Ellen. “That would confuse him.”
“We’re not trying to confuse anybody,” I said. “We’re just trying to gain a tactical advantage.”
“I do not recommend we stay in this vehicle,” said Urszula. “It confines us and the Frelsian can ambush if he detects any pattern to our routing.”
