“It went all the way through.” Kelly said looking at everyone as if she was delivering good news. “On TV shows they always say that is a good thing. Right?”
“Well it is certainly better than having a bullet stuck in you.” Billy suggested tentatively.
“Yeah,” Jorge began. “But I think he got me right in the shoulder joint. So unless someone knows a good post-apocalyptic surgeon, I have a feeling my arm is going to be pretty useless the rest of my life.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” The Hispanic teen girl that the soldiers had tried to take into the tent had walked up to their group with the rest of her family. “But look.” She pointed towards the fence by the side of the highway, some 30 yards away from the group. As everyone turned to look, they could see someone in camouflage clothing just mounting the top of the fence and then jumping to the other side. Gabe put his rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the scope.
“I think that was the kid they had lifting the gate arm opened and close.” Jeannie said putting her hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “He didn’t even have a gun and ran from these guys the first chance he got…”
Gabe brought the scope away from his eye for a moment and just stared after the young man for a minute. Finally he nodded his head and put the 308 back on his back.
Sensing that the moment was over, the young Hispanic girl began to talk again. “My dad, well everyone, especially me, we wanted to thank you for helping us.” She burst into tears and carefully reached down to hug Jorge being careful not to come near his wounds. When she was done hugging him she reached over and started hugging Jeannie and both of them started crying. This set off hugs and handshakes from both groups and Gabe was relieved to see that their son still looked a little dazed but was up and talking and the father was holding a shirt to the side of his face drenched in blood as he shook hands and said “thank you” in his best English to the group.
After hugs and introductions were over Kelly and Jeannie set the father down and began to tend to his face. The bullet had passed through the flesh of his cheek, clipped off a piece of his ear and skipped off his skull, knocking him out.
“Well healing isn’t one of my gifts but I think after this I would still like to pray and give thanks to God.” The Hispanic girl, who they had learned was named Gilda quickly translated for her family and they nodded their heads. The father asked something in Spanish and before Gilda could translate Manuel responded back in Spanish. Gabe raised a questioning eyebrow towards Manuel but this time it was Jorge that answered with a laugh.
“They asked if you were a priest. Manuel let them know you were just a pastor but that it was okay because our priest approved of you.” Everyone enjoyed a little laugh at Gabe’s expense including Gabe.
“Okay, Manuel, please translate. Father in heaven, we just thank you that we all came through this experience with our lives. We ask for quick healing for those of us that were hurt Lord, and we ask for continued protection for our travels and that your hand would be upon us as we go forward to fight the enemy.
#
“I still feel like I’m letting you guys down.”
“Nonsense Jorge, even if you weren’t injured, someone would have to guide the Martinez family back to the campground.”
“Yeah, but I never figured I wouldn’t be there until the end.”
“Well,” Gabe reflected for a second, “If we don’t make it back, we’ll need someone strong to take care of everyone back there.”
“Ha!” Jorge laughed looking down at his arm. “But I appreciate the effort to fool me.”
The others waved and watched as Jorge and their new friends the Martinez family walked back the way they had come. No one said anything or moved to continue their journey until the other group disappeared on the other side of a rise in the highway..
Seeing the last of them disappear over the hill down the road Gabe turned and started walking south. He was a little surprised when Jeannie quickly caught up to him and walked next to him but he found he didn’t mind it. As the group walked in silence Gabe began to reflect that Jeannie was very different than his wife. His wife had looked younger than her years, was slightly shorter than average and was very much petite. Jeannie was in no way a big woman, and Gabe couldn’t’ help but notice that she had a nice figure, but she was definitely built on a bigger frame than his wife. And where his wife had been blonde with a fair complexion and blue eyes, Jeannie was the antithesis of that. She had almost black hair, with natural dark brown highlights, the darkest brown eyes Gabe had ever seen and a naturally tan complexion that had only gotten deeper in the time Gabe had known her. He was also pretty sure that she was at least a couple years older than him.
“So… Come here often?” Jeannie said breaking the silence with a corny pickup line.
Gabe smiled. “Yes actually, but I am usually doing at least 55 miles per hour when I do.” Gabe replied getting a smile back out of Jeannie.
“So,” Jeannie started, motioning towards Billy who was out in front of the group keeping an eye out ahead of them. “Were you a little surprised by his little revelation?”
“I wouldn’t have even believed it a year ago, not even as a Pastor that believes in spiritual warfare.” Gabe thought about that for a second and then clarified. “Don’t get me wrong, I would have believed that he was in a cult, and I probably would have even believed that they were praying to demons, and getting their attention… But I wouldn’t’ have believed they could 100% make a politician’s or a racecar driver’s career hugely successful, or have the ability to cause all of this. I would have believed he was in a very un-Christian cult, if that is even a word.”
Jeannie shook her head in acknowledgment before he went on.
“But honestly, I didn’t doubt a word of it after everything I’ve seen and done. I was just more amazed that he happened to be with us when we saw that talking corpse.” They walked on in quiet for a few more steps before Gabe finished his thoughts. “God is good.”
“It’s hard not to feel God’s protection to survive everything we’ve all had to go through, but I can’t help to wonder why others that were better Christian’s than me, or those who weren’t born again, weren’t spared by God and had to die.” Jeannie said suddenly solemn.
Gabe looked at her and saw her eyes glaze over as she mentally seemed to drift off. Gabe guessed she was thinking about some specific people she had lost.
“Answering that is half the job of a pastor.” Gabe offered.
Jeannie snapped back to the conversation from her daydreaming and laughed lightly, “I’m sure it is now, but I can’t imagine that you got a lot of, ‘Why did the zombie eat my loved one and not me?’ questions in your early career.”
“Well no, no I did not.” Gabe acknowledged with a laugh of his own. “But ‘why do bad things happen to good people’ is a pretty big question in my profession.”
“Okay, that makes sense. So what’s the answer?”
“Most people don’t like the answer.”
“I’m a big girl, I can take it”
“Well,” Gabe took a deep breath, “the short version is that God created us in his own image. He gave us free will and the capacity for sin. And people sin and it hurts other people.”
“Well I can’t argue with that, but you’re right, I didn’t like that answer.”
Gabe saw she had a grin so he continued. “Once Adam and Eve sinned, and we were kicked out of the Garden, we lost the easy life. We all became victims of original sin. In fact, the Bible tells us that Christian’s in particular can expect a hard life by choosing to follow God. But I always figure that since we get an eternity of life, this is just a blink here on this Earth and we won’t even be that worried about it in a couple thousand years.”
Jeannie purposefully bumped into Gabe. “That’s very philosophical, I’m sure I’ll reflect on that the next time a zombie is chewing on my face.”
“That would be a waste.” Gabe blushed realizing what he said. He glanc
ed up at Jeannie and she was blushing a little too but she was smiling and looking right at him.
Gabe was stuttering for something to say when Billy jogged up.
“Gabe, you guys are going to want to see this.”
Everyone followed Billy as he led them back to a couple of cars that were sitting across the road. Billy had out his binoculars and was pointing down the road. Gabe could already see a line of six 18 wheelers strung across the highway perpendicularly forming a wall. Gabe was immediately impressed by the little unit of soldiers they had run into’s ability to maneuver the trucks so well as they were not only bumper to bumper, but the had been smashed into each other to seal the gaps and they went very precariously up the hills on either side of the highway. Gabe looked through the glasses and was just more impressed by how well they had made the wall of trucks.
“Look under the trucks” Billy said.
Gabe saw that the air had been let out of the wheels, making the trucks lower and harder to move he figured, and the jacks had been dropped to stabilize them further. And then he saw it. He had not even noticed the background, his brain had just been reading it as the ground beyond the trucks. But now he realized what he was looking at was hundreds upon hundreds of legs meandering aimlessly. There were hundreds of zombies on the other side of the truck.
“Oh.” Was Gabe’s only response, as he handed the binoculars off to Jeannie. She looked for a few seconds before handing it to Eric.
While the others continued to look Gabe headed towards the highways right shoulder. He went up a small hill and stood there with his hands on the chain link fence for a few seconds before returning to the group.
“Well, credit to those soldiers.” Gabe began. “They certainly did figure out a way to keep the highway clear.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t hard work and patrols like they wanted everyone to believe!” Piped in Kevin. “But I guess it makes sense to put it here, I-71 joins I-75 right past here.”
“Yeah, one barricade instead of two.” Gabe agreed.
“Okay, all we have to do is jump the highway fence and cut through that neighborhood.” Gabe pointed towards the neighborhood on the other side of the trees on the right side of the highway. “Dixie Highway shouldn’t be too far East of where we are. We should be able to follow it down to Covington.”
“True,” Said Billy “But won’t that take us right through a bunch of little towns?”
“I’m not making up the rules, if someone has a better idea, I’m up for it. I just know that going forward on the highway isn’t an option.” Gabe pointed towards the barricade ahead of them.
After no one offered any other options Gabe headed back towards the fence.
Chapter 22
Gabe noted that even with almost a month of neglect, he could still tell that the subdivision they found themselves in was a fairly nice one. The yards were unmowed and grass grew tall, but the landscaping in the form of bushes, mulched hedges and decorative rocks was still visible. Parked in front of the homes, along with the other more modest but new vehicles, the occasional mid-range luxury vehicle was visible. As he had on the highway, Billy tried a few of the cars to see if any of them had keys while Kevin covered him but they had no luck. They walked past a minivan that had been packed hastily by a family trying to get out of town. They walked towards it but could see from the curb that someone had already gone through it.
“Looks like someone got all the food and stuff.” Kelly said, disappointment in her voice. “Either that or they didn’t pack any, which I doubt.”
“Well we have enough food to get us there, remember we aren’t on a supply run.” Gabe said nonchalantly.
Kelly let out a little grunt that managed to sound sad and disappointed.
“But…” Gabe added, “If we find anything easy we won’t pass it up. And hey, no bloody mess, so hopefully this family is still out there doing well”
Gabe didn’t bother to turn around as he knew Kelly was already smiling gleefully.
The next few blocks went by routinely, the few cars they saw were locked and there was a house with its garage opened but there was nothing of interest from the road.
“Stop” Billy surprised everyone with a harsh whisper, but they all froze, guns at the ready.
“Listen”
Finally Gabe picked out the sound Billy had heard.
“Is that a car?”
“No.” Billy Whispered, his head turned sideways listening, “That is a diesel truck of some sort.”
Billy now took the lead, and slowly continued walking the direction they had been going with everyone else following, gun at the ready. Right as they got to the next intersection and Billy pointed at large Humvee sitting in the middle of the road, they heard a loud metal crash behind them towards the highway.
“What the…” Eric said as everyone else flinched.
“Don’t know, but there is someone sitting in that Humvee…” Billy said.
“Fan out.” Gabe said, making a circular motion with his hands.
The group crept up towards the Humvee with their weapons trained on it. As Gabe came around to the driver’s side he saw a young black teen boy sitting in the driver’s seat. The teen hadn’t noticed them yet as he had his eyes closed and was singing along to whatever was playing in the earbuds he was wearing. Several of the group glanced into the back seats and back of the Humvee and shook their heads at Gabe to indicate they didn’t see anyone.
Gabe used the barrel of his rifle to tap on the glass of the driver’s window. The teen jumped in his seat and pulled the earbuds out of his ear. He flinched again seeing armed people all around his vehicle and put his hands up in surrender.
“Roll it down.” Gabe instructed calmly.
The teen reached down slowly and rolled the window down.
“What are you doing here?” Gabe asked.
“Don’t shoot man!”
“I’m not going to shoot you unless I have to” Gabe answered honestly. “Do you have a gun.”
“Of course.”
“Keep your hands up. What are you doing sitting here?”
“Nothing.” Seeing Gabe had relaxed a little the young man got over his initial shock. “Geez, even at the end of the world and black man can’t have a nice car without the ‘man’ giving him a hard time?”
Gabe gave him the same look he would give one of the guys in his youth group that had made a slightly off-color joke.
“Just kidding man.”
“HEY!” The strange voice behind Gabe surprised him and he whipped around to see who had yelled.
Two guys were already on the front steps of the house behind him. Their camo outfits and appearance matched the soldiers they had seen before, and had their AR-15’s up to their shoulders.
“He’s with us and I would appreciate it if you didn’t point your guns at my boy.”
“Boy! Who you calling boy! See, just what I was saying, end of the world and a black man still can’t get no respect!”
“Shut up Kenny!”
The soldier speaking was a middle-aged white guy. He was wearing a camouflaged baseball cap and as he started to move sideways away from the other soldier with him, Gabe could see the ponytail coming out from under his hat was too long to have grown in the couple months since things had gone bad.
The other guy with him was younger, probably in his mid 20’s. He had a serious look on his face and a crew cut to match.
While Gabe was sizing the soldiers up, two more soldiers came out of the next house down and immediately put their guns up to their shoulders. Both men were African-American and one of them wasn’t even in an actual uniform, wearing a uniform shirt but blue jeans.
Gabe realized that when the first guy had yelled “hey” it hadn’t been at Gabe and his group, but instead to alert his own friends.
“Crud, how many more are there!” Billy said, sweeping the other nearby houses with the sights of his gun.
“Okay, Calm down.” Gabe said. “It’s a diffe
rent world we live in, we are just being cautious, we didn’t hurt your friend and we mean no harm.”
“We’ve got you covered with snipers already, so why don’t you lay down your guns and step away from them.”
Gabe looked around nervously looking for any sign of snipers. Billy seemed to ignore the threat and turned to the young man sitting in the Humvee. “Kenny, you always the driver?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that because you are the best driver?”
“Shut up and quit talking to him” The guy with the ponytail yelled from across the street.
“Heck yeah, no one else can drive like me.”
Gabe saw Billy suppress an ironic smile and continued on.
“What about the other guy that drove today, you better than him?”
“SHUT UP KENNY”
“What other guy? They don’t trust no one but me to drive these streets.”
“Your and idiot Kenny!” yelled the guy in blue jeans as he began edging back into the house.
“Oh…” Kenny said as understanding dawned on him. He didn’t even move but sat in stunned silence as Billy reached in the window and took Kenny’s sidearm and the keys out of the ignition.
Confident that he had the superior numbers and firepower Gabe changed strategies.
“Okay, don’t take another step.” All the soldiers had been edging back towards the houses they had come out of except for Ponytail who had already come to far out and was now angling for cover behind a car sitting in the driveway.
“What are we doing.” Jeannie had a confused look on her face but kept her gun raised and pointing at the soldiers.
“They only brought this one vehicle, this is all of them.”
“Nice AR-15. Where did you get it.” Ponytail asked as he took another half step towards the car in the driveway.
“Same place as I’m going to get my next one if you take another step again.”
The soldiers now all looked nervous and kept pointing their rifles from one of Gabe’s friends to another, not sure who to cover.
“Okay,” Gabe started. “This doesn’t have to end badly. Just put your guns down.”
Dead Faith (Book 1): Dead Faith Page 14