He lifted his face and breathed in the cold wintry air, felt the snowflakes touch his cheeks and melt. The snow would cover his footprints soon, but if he looked, he would see the curve of the mouth of the cave through the floating flakes.
He couldn’t stay, he realized with a start in his stomach. He had settled again, allowed himself to adapt to what was happening around him and become comfortable. The world he stood in wasn’t real. It was only an illusion, shielding him from the truth.
The odd thoughts brought fear, shoved at the peace he had felt moments before. Did he have the same courage Irv possessed? To go out into the reality of a war and face more death, possibly his own? He didn’t want to.
Frowning, he lifted his face again. The bones lining his back throbbed, like a dull headache. Had he dreamed of leaving? Joining Irv as he traversed through what America had become?
A burst of wind pressed into him from the back. Ashar braced against it, staring out over the trees. “God, are you telling me to leave this place?”
He didn’t expect an answer. The ‘yes’ that sounded in his head startled him. Immediately, Ashar told himself he had imagined it. ‘Go’ sounded just as strongly.
The words weren’t as if someone was talking directly to him. Not out loud. Still, it felt like something was speaking to him. He had asked. Ashar’s breath huffed out in front of him.
“Why?” he questioned out loud, testing what was happening.
‘Purpose,” flashed as strong as the other words had.
Ashar believed. God was communicating with him. He stuck his hand in his pocket and wrapped it around the Bible he had transferred to the coat. The pages talked about the Holy Spirit, how it lived inside of you and one had to learn to listen. Was that what was happening?
Convinced, Ashar re-traced his footsteps back to the cave, settled on one of the logs around the fire and accepted the breakfast of rice he was handed. He sought Irv’s eye, and spoke with conviction. “When you leave again, I’m going with you this time.”
Irv’s brow arched, his spoon paused in midair. “Huh?”
“God is telling me to go. I think He is telling me my purpose is not here anymore. I’m shielded from the truth. I need to face it.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “I don’t think you realize what you’re asking for.”
Ashar looked at the mound of rice on his plate. At his fingers curled around the edge. Was Marcus right? He shook his head, his anger surging. He had done this already, he reminded himself. Let others feed him their truths while he had been complicit. God had told him to go, he would go. He lifted his eyes, met Marcus’s head on. “Yes, I do.”
“I’ll go too,” Carl volunteered.
Marcus snorted. “You? Pretty boy? I don’t think so.”
“I’m going if Carl’s going,” Adam said, though his voice was uncertain.
“Okay.” Marcus stood up, setting his wooden plate down with a snap. “What are all of you thinking? It’s a war zone. Not a walk in the park. Not sight seeing. War. Men shooting at each other, killing innocent people. Poisoned water. People hiding like thieves. It’s dangerous, and none of the three of you…” his eyes pierced first Ashar, then Carl and Adam, “…are ready for it.”
Ashar didn’t care what Marcus thought. All he needed was Irv’s approval. Irv was listening intently to Marcus’s speech. He forked in another mouthful of rice and balanced his plate on his leg, rubbing one hand over his beard as though it itched, then went back to his rice. He said nothing.
“Why now?” Mariah asked curiously.
“God says go.” It was simple to him, even if his emotions were warring. Doubting wouldn’t change the strange conversation he had just experienced, and fighting it would make him miserable. But he didn’t know how to communicate that.
“Then you should listen,” Mariah said softly.
Another snort from Marcus. “He’s got you believing in God now? Mariah, come on.”
“It’s not Ashar, Marcus. Do you ever lie awake at night, thinking about the people you know that didn’t make it?” Mariah’s eyes glittered with tears and she stared off at a wall of the cave, memories playing over her face. “Thinking about why? There’s no answers for that. Just torment for your soul. Minutes that feel like hours while you try to find peace to go on living.”
Her eyes shifted, slammed hard back to Marcus. “He speaks to you too, Marcus. If you would listen. I was reading the Bible the day Ashar let me borrow it and I heard Him.” Tears spilled over, trailed down her cheeks. “My soul wanted to listen.” Her voice caught on the tears in her throat. “I read so much. He died. They tormented Him. Like we are now, only so much worse. And I cried, I felt the pain, and I knew he did it for me. For you. For all of us.”
Mariah swiped at her tears and sniffed. She blinked several times to ward off more. “I can’t tell you why,” she continued, her voice stronger, more sure, “but I can tell you that I know God is real and He loves me.” Her voice broke on the last words, and tears spilled out again. It took her a minute to compose herself. “So you listen, Ashar,” she said, giving him her attention and a teary smile. “I know with all of my heart that you hear Him when He speaks. I have watched your faith and your strength, and though I’m struggling with doubt like the rest of us, I know that you know what His voice sounds like. Listen.” She whispered the last word, and Ashar felt a rush of heat along his bones. A confirmation.
He didn’t want to tell her that he felt she thought far too much of his faith. To him, it felt small and shaky, but he didn’t want it to any more. He wanted to claim it for his own and face whatever was coming — fearlessly.
“Right. So Ash will go,” Irv said finally, giving Mariah a soft smile of approval. “Carl and Adam, ya two need to be sure. So let’s plan on a few days from now, so everyone can be absolutely sure, and we’ll go from there, okay?”
Irv shoveled in his last few bites and rose to set his plate on the table for washing. Then he strode to his shelter area and Ashar watched through the doorway as he pulled the Bible from his pack and crossed to Mariah, who accepted it reverently.
God was changing lives, right in front of him. Showing him that things he didn’t understand were happening.
John and Drew came in just before nightfall, triumphant with success. They had shot a deer and hung it from a tree and pronounced that they would be teaching everyone how to process as much from a deer as possible. Drew regaled them with stories from their expedition and Ashar realized leaving them was going to be hard; yet another change he would have to process.
He would come back, he told himself. It was a short journey, not one intended to change his lifestyle. The forest would welcome him back.
The dreams came again that night, elusive but leaving him feeling unsettled and restless. He prayed, hearing Irv’s words that they had to continue to fight again and again like an echo. He was afraid that it would be a literal fight he would face in his future. He tried not to dwell on the feeling of premonition as he prepared to leave with Irv.
John, Drew and the others were busy handling the deer meat, cutting strips and hanging them over multiple thin saplings on the fire pit outside of the cave. John had formed a tripod and used a tarp to protect the meat from any possible snow and it was aiding the smoking process.
The process seemed simpler than Ashar had expected; cut the meat into thin strips, and hang it far enough over the fire that it wouldn’t cook but would dry out. Three or four hours later, you had jerky. The weather made it easy to store, since it was cool enough that it wouldn’t spoil quickly.
The brothers were talking about other parts of the deer they could use, including using the rawhide to make pouches to store the jerky in. Mariah had been intrigued by this idea and had encouraged the group planning their excursion to wait so each could carry a pouch of it with them.
Carl and Adam seemed as serious about going with Irv as Ashar was and prepared as readily, leaving Mariah and Marcus to help the brothers with the
deer.
Marcus hadn’t said another word about them leaving and seemed more withdrawn than was typical, keeping to himself and maintaining a stony silence toward everyone. Mariah’s attempts to soothe him failed and, after the first day, she stopped trying.
Ashar smiled as he mingled among the activities happening around him, trying to acclimate himself with the prospect of leaving them. They were his family, and some small part of him feared that he would not return, or that if he did, they would be gone.
His suspicions had risen anew to gnaw at him that perhaps the group harbored another Axis member and that Monty had not been working alone. If their numbers dwindled again, would another enemy reveal itself? If it were John or Drew, they knew now how to get out of the forest, what their homeland was like now. They had effectively set themselves up with the skills they would need to escape the forest if needed, and already had the means to feed and shelter themselves.
Marcus had tried to stop them. It should have ruled him out, but he, more than the others, seemed the most cunning. Perhaps it upset him that four were leaving before he could make his intended move to take them all out.
He’d had plenty of opportunities, Ashar argued with himself. Mariah had been alone with him for a while, and with the ledges and the rocky terrain, an accidental fall could be easily explained.
Ashar scoffed at himself for so easily coming up with scenarios that could eliminate one of those he considered his friends. He was thinking like an enemy, and he didn’t like it.
He refused to believe that it was Carl or Adam. He’d already traveled with them, and spent more than enough time searching for things that were not there. He had to trust them. He needed to.
Trying to prepare himself for what he would face outside of the haven of the forest was difficult, but soon they were saying their goodbyes and loading their backpacks onto their backs and walking away.
This time it was not for a new adventure, for exploration. It was simply to heed the call of his spirit, and though he prayed for God to take his fear, it was with him as they entered the cover of the trees and began their journey back toward what was left of civilization.
Chapter Twenty-One
He had given no thought to the cold. They had already been at home in the cave before the first snow had fallen. He and Irv had their hammocks with them and were able to hang them just above the freezing ground to keep it from seeping into their bodies. Neither Carl or Adam had one, and though both insisted that they were fine, Ashar suggested that they rotate.
There was no shortage of pine boughs and Ashar was warm enough after his first round of sleeping on the ground, but he preferred the comfort of the hammock, the weightless feel of it, the lack of hard ground pressing against his bones.
Snow drifted through in sections, dusting a patch of exposed ground, shaken loose from branches by the squirrels. It wisped along ground cover, driven by the wind. It was beautiful, un-trampled by man. Occasionally the tracks of animals would parade across the soft white and they would hunt, the footprints making it easy for them.
When they came across a manmade path through the forest, it also made it easy to know that no others had passed through.
“We can’t be the only ones who have taken refuge in the forest,” Ashar murmured, looking both ways along the trail.
“There are others,” Irv answered after a moment of hesitation.
“Have you seen them?” Ashar asked, surprised. He had never given a thought to other groups surviving as they were. Or dying as they tried. A wave of recrimination flowed through him that he had not made any attempt to seek and find more that needed help. What if they had been close and he could have helped them too?
“Relax, Ash, I can see your mind spinning.” Irv patted Ashar’s arm twice firmly. “You’re too hard on yourself. Why do ya feel such a need to save everyone? It isn’t possible.”
Ashar shook his head. Had he ever given a thought to anyone outside of the small circle of those around him? Prayed for them? His focus had been so narrow that he rarely had given a thought to those still living amidst the war, who feared daily for their lives. What did that say about him?
“Not everyone learned to survive before the war hit,” he answered irritably. “They don’t know how to find what they can eat. They’ve probably frozen to death by now.” Did Irv feel no responsibility for the lives of others?
“Ash. I told ya. Ya don’t approach anyone unless ya have to. They’ll kill ya for food or your weapons, or just because. It’s dangerous.”
“Maybe that’s narrow minded!” Ashar turned on his friend angrily. “They could have died because you were so worried about what might happen! What if they gladly would have accepted help? Lived because of it?”
Carl stepped forward. “Guys, hey!”
Irv had gone pale, taken a step back. “And you’re so perfect? Ya could have saved them, is that right? They would have just opened their arms and welcomed ya in and ya could call yourself their savior too?”
“I’m not calling myself anyone’s savior! I’m simply stating that you didn’t even give them a chance!” Ashar dropped his heavy pack, his hands fisted at his sides, his back tense. “You just abandoned them!”
“No, I didn’t! I was smart about my choices. Ya haven’t watched a group of men attack a family and kill them just to get their hands on a few granola bars. Seen a teenage boy get shot just for stepping out onto the street. Watched a church full of people burn to the ground.” Irv was shaking now, memories reflecting out of wide eyes, a hand clutched to his stomach. “This forest is an illusion, Ashar. It isn’t real.”
His words were a direct hit, a powerful punch of the exact same thoughts he had concluded. Ashar stepped away from Irv, not wanting to hear it, but Irv continued. “I don’t want ya to suffer, but I’m afraid ya will when ya see how far the world has fallen.”
More than he was already suffering? Ashar wanted to run back to the cave, behind the thin wooden wall that shielded him from the others, and allowed him to be alone. That was what he knew. Not the things Irv was telling him. A part of him wanted to comfort Irv for what he had seen, but he was too angry, too afraid.
He was a coward. Just like he had allowed himself to be hidden inside of examination rooms, he had allowed himself to be cocooned in the forest.
Grabbing his pack, he continued his trajectory down the path. He could survive. Irv had left him the moment he had allowed the others into his life. Rejected him. Irv had chosen to leave and wander through the broken remains left behind. Ashar hadn’t asked him to.
Carl called his name, always the peacekeeper.
Ashar kept walking. They had more ground to cover before night fell.
He felt hot, despite the cold. He supposed it was his anger. One foot after the other, he tried to leave the tumble of shame and criticism behind. How many had died while he had paid no attention? He had used the others to shield himself from reality. Still, some of them followed along behind him as though he had something of worth to offer. Irv had always stood by him, but now after the things he had said, Ashar wasn’t sure his friend did any more.
He didn’t have it in him at the moment to tell Carl and Adam that they had made a mistake. They were following him for a cause that was meant only to prove something to himself.
Ashar shrugged his shoulders, trying to ease the heat that seemed to have settled along the bones that spanned the upper sides of his back. He shifted his pack, wondering if the weight was causing friction. He was tired, from the overload of emotions, or the sudden increase in his activity level, he wasn’t sure.
A glance at the sky told him he needed to find somewhere to settle for the night. The last thing he wanted to hear was that he had pushed too hard and been too caught up in his own problems to care about those with him. He veered off the path to find a clearing for them, saying nothing to the others when they followed his lead, quietly accepting his spot of choice and setting up their sleeping spaces.
No one
said a word. A tense silence stretched over them like a cloud and hovered as the shuffling of sleeping bags stilled in the darkness.
Ashar rolled to try and get comfortable. He felt muffled within his sleeping bag, but the cold prickled at his cheeks when he shoved the face cover away. Tugging it back to cover him, knowing it would be stupid to expose his skin, he unzipped his coat and wriggled free of the sleeves. Slightly better, he forced himself to be still and concentrated on falling asleep.
Rolling in his sleep, Ashar’s utility jacket and the sweatshirt he wore tangled around his torso. His breath escaped, short and fast. A sheen of sweat rose on his brow.
Far off, an owl screeched as it pursued its prey, like the scream of the dying. His mouth parted in sleep, a silent cry. Images flooded into the darkness and consumed him, and a scream formed deep inside of him and rose up, trembling on the verge of release when he startled awake, shaking and gasping for air, terrified.
Ashar clutched his sleeping bag closer, attempting to ward off the fear and the icy cold that now stabbed at his skin, everywhere except the bones on his back that did not belong. They burned, and this time, he was afraid to search them.
Unable to face the terror that had plagued his slumber, Ashar lay awake in the darkness, waiting for morning to come, his eyes fixed on a small patch of light that penetrated the fabric over him. Had God been speaking to him or was it only his fears chasing him even while he tried to find rest? Was it what Irv had said? That he didn’t understand suffering? Was he to be tormented now for his failings?
Ashar could remember nothing of the dream. He tried, hoping to make sense of the lurching emotions within him. His prayers brought no peace.
Dread still clung to him when Carl, Adam and Irv finally stirred, and he removed himself from his hammock and traipsed away to find a quiet place on his own for some privacy. He said nothing to them when he returned and Irv, still angry at him, didn’t speak either. Adam allowed them their space and silence.
Carl watched, his lips pursed, but he didn’t try to interfere. Ashar wondered if it was because he believed the things Irv had said about him.
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