Pilgrimage_A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story

by Tom Abrahams

  James knew as he’d pulled the trigger it had been his only option. Now standing with his neighbors, he privately questioned himself.

  Another death…

  “What now?” Grant asked. “What do we do now?”

  “We finish the job,” Sonny suggested, nodding toward the stairs behind him. “Then we can go home.”

  Grant sucked in a contemplative breath and agreed. “Fine. Who goes first?”

  “I will,” said James, looking both of his partners in the eyes. “This is my fight. You follow me.”

  James glanced back at the stairs and saw a tall, dark figure emerging from the shadows halfway up the stairs. It was already too late.

  CHAPTER 53

  EVENT +1 Week, 2 Days, 9:17 Hours

  North of Lancaster, Pennsylvania

  Temporary Recovery Zone 4

  Watching a man’s head explode wasn’t on James Rockwell’s bucket list. Neither was drilling holes into necks or torsos with thirty-caliber bullets.

  But James did what was necessary to protect his family, even if it meant chipping away at his own soul in the process. In nine days he’d killed ten men.

  He’d dropped three of them to the bottom of Casco Bay, Maine. The others, he shot to death at Camp Driggers. In the days that followed, he shoveled their graves and rolled their rotting corpses into the holes.

  “I killed them,” he’d told the others. “I’ll bury them.” With each shovel stroke, he prayed about what he’d done.

  Was it forgivable? Was his soul redeemable? What lessons could he learn from this?

  James wasn’t necessarily a religious man. He didn’t wear a cross or go to church on Sundays. But he held a deep faith in God, the Golden Rule, and that sin was punishable. He was also a disciple of science, a physics teacher who believed in the coexistence of a miraculous God and the intellectual study of structure and order. In the days since the event, he questioned the reality of both.

  James looked at his wife, Leigh, in the passenger seat of their stolen truck, and thought about what they’d survived, what lay ahead. She was leaning against the window, her eyes closed, head bouncing gently with the movement of the truck along a stretch of US 222 between Ephrata and Brownstown, Pennsylvania. Despite everything, she was strikingly beautiful, a beacon in a sepia-dipped world.

  He rested his hand on Leigh’s thigh and glanced in the rearview mirror. Daughter Sloane was asleep. She was resting her head on her stuffed bear, Noodle.

  Max, James’s son, was staring out the window, his cheek pressed against the glass. He had a distant, steely look in his eyes, James thought. Max wouldn’t be the same kid he was just two weeks ago. He’d seen too much blood, lived too much on the edge of death. Max was hardening into a man too soon, James knew, forged by the harsh environment in which they now lived.

  James took a deep breath, inhaling the sadness of his realization, and put his full attention back on the road ahead. It was just in time. Seeing two men standing in the middle of southbound US 222, he slammed on his brakes, fishtailing for an instant before the antilock mechanism kicked in and thumped the truck to a stop.

  The men were armed. Both of them carried semiautomatic rifles against the camouflage ghillie suits. They were wearing wool beanies on their heads despite the warm late August temperatures. James had seen men like this before. They were bad news.

  “What is it?” Leigh awoke from her nap, stretching in her seat. “Who is that?” She blinked her eyes into focus.

  “I don’t know,” said James, trying to move his lips as little as possible. “Max, you good back there?” He checked his son in the rearview.

  “Yes, sir.” Max nodded. “I’m good.”

  One of the two men signaled for James to roll down his window as he approached the driver’s side. James kept his hands on the steering wheel.

  The man sidled up to the window and rapped his knuckle on it. “I need you to roll down the window, sir.”

  “I can’t do that,” said James. “I need to see some identification before I do anything you ask of me. We’ve run into some rough characters. Just being careful. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I understand,” said the man. He had a three-week-old beard that gave him the appearance of a Navy SEAL. “But I need you to comply with my instructions. Roll down your window.” His grip tightened around the rifle.

  James looked ahead at the second man, who stood astride the dotted white line in the middle of the highway. He took a step forward, his eyes fixed on the truck.

  “Yeah,” said James, turning to look at the man outside of his window. “That’s not gonna happen. So it seems we’re at an impasse.”

  “We’re with the Pennsylvania State Guard,” the man announced, pulling his shoulder back as he said it. “We’re in charge of all traffic through Brownstown.”

  “And?” James wasn’t budging.

  “Sir”—the proud guardsman rolled his eyes—“I’m aware of the danger out there, of the militias claiming authority. We’re a resurrection of the Reserve Defense Corps from World War Two and the Korean War.”

  “So you’re a militia,” James interrupted.

  “Yes,” the guardsman acknowledged, “but we’re authorized by the state’s National Guard. They’re overrun. We’re assisting, deputized by the governor.”

  “I believe him, Rock,” Leigh said under her breath. “It might be better to roll down the window.”

  James nodded and looked back at his children before pressing the button to roll down the window. He turned off the ignition and pulled the keys from the column, slipping one of them between his index and middle finger. If things went south, he could use it as a weapon to buy time.

  “Thank you, sir.” The guardsman leaned on the door panel. “We have a couple of options here before you can get on your way.”

  “I immediately regret rolling down my window,” James replied. His muscles tensed. He was ready to strike.

  “Just listen, please.” The guardsman stood and stepped back from the window. “Let me explain our procedure.”

  “Go ahead,” Leigh leaned over and said. “We’re listening.”

  “We can’t have weapons enter Brownstown,” he began. “So if you have any weapons—guns, knives, explosives—we’re gonna need to know that.”

  James said nothing, his eyes fixed on the guardsman in front of the truck, blocking the road.

  “I’ll guess by your relative hostility, sir”—the guardsman tightened his grip on his weapon—“you are armed. I’d expect it. If I had a family and I were traveling under these circumstances, I’d be armed too.”

  “You are armed.” James’s patience was worn through.

  “Given that you’re carrying weapons”—the guardsman ignored him—“you can turn around and find a way around Brownstown. We can confiscate them and allow you to travel freely through the town. Or you will allow us to escort you through the town, leaving you free to travel once you’ve exited.”

  James grabbed his chin with his left hand and rubbed the scruff. It itched. He looked at the guard outside the window, gauging his ability with the rifle, before returning his attention to the one standing in the middle of the road. He came to his conclusion.

  “We’ll take the escort,” James said. “I’m not giving up what little protection I have for my family, and I’m not lengthening our journey given what little fuel we have.”

  “Understood,” said the guardsman. “We’ll ask that you keep the vehicle off until we have a PSG escort available for you. It’ll be just a few minutes.”

  The guard turned and walked to his partner. The two of them talked, motioned at James and then at the road behind them.

  “I thought you were going to get us shot,” said Leigh. “Why are you so combative?”

  “Seriously?” James raised his voice, turning in his seat to face his wife. “The last time we ran into this sort of thing, we were nearly executed. I don’t trust other people with guns and uniforms. That’s it.”
>
  “I get it.” Leigh held up her hands in surrender. “But you might want to dial it down a notch. Everybody is tense. Everyone is trigger-happy. No need to incite something.”

  James grumbled and shook his head.

  He hadn’t incited anything, he reasoned. Leigh didn’t truly understand what was at stake, he thought.

  He was his family’s salvation, if there was to be any. If it meant becoming trigger-happy or edgy or violent, he would become it. Whatever it took to get his family home, to reclaim their lives in this new world, he would do it. If he had to condemn his soul for the sake of theirs, he would give it.

  Pure and simple.

  CHAPTER 54

  EVENT +1 Week, 2 Days, 10:00 Hours

  Brownstown, Pennsylvania

  Temporary Recovery Zone 4

  Brownstown, Pennsylvania, was a dying town before the event. As children grew into adults, they left the Turkey Hill Minit Market and the Sonic Drive-In in the smoke of their burning rubber tires.

  A population of eight hundred and fifty at the turn of the century shrank to seven hundred and thirty a decade later. The average income was less than twenty grand. And the biggest news to come out of the stoplight town was the jackknifed tractor trailer that closed Route 222 in 2014 and the sixth-grade teacher at the elementary school murdered that same year.

  The Rockwells didn’t know any of that history as they slowly drove through the heart of Brownstown, PSG Jeeps leading and trailing their truck from Route 222 onto South State Street toward Stone Quarry Road. The guardsman told the Rockwells they’d closed the highway at the northern and southern end of the town. They wanted to tightly control the traffic.

  They explained that in the hours after the event, the town was overrun with people fleeing Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. They were seeking off-the-map safe places, and though many of them were well intentioned at first, the neighborly, benevolent behavior deteriorated quickly.

  Squatters took over empty houses, they broke into stores and businesses, and terrorized Brownstown’s residents. The guard moved in and settled things, but not without violence.

  The evidence of that battle was everywhere. The homes lining South State were boarded up with ragged sheets of plywood. Some were spray painted with warnings or lamentations. The side of the road was littered with abandoned or stripped cars and trucks. A couple of them were bullet-riddled.

  There was trash in the yards, the charred ash of impromptu fires in driveways. It looked to the Rockwells like a war-zone.

  “What really happened here?” Max asked, his nose pressed to the glass. “It looks like something from Call of Duty. I mean, like World War Two, you know?”

  “I know,” said James, noticing the armed guards on alternating street corners. They passed Main Street and continued south. “This was bad.”

  “What did he say about the squatters?” Max plopped his back against his seat. “What did they do?”

  “He said they showed up looking for safe places to stay,” James explained. “But they made things dangerous for the people who already lived here.”

  “How?” Sloane was awake, sipping from a bottled water. “Was it like the bad men who tried to kill us at Camp Driggers?”

  James glanced at his daughter in the rearview before catching Leigh’s eyes. She was hurting. He knew it. He shouldn’t have snapped at her. It didn’t do anyone any good. Hearing his daughter talk about what they’d experienced with such nonchalance was like a stick to the eye, unexpected and instantly painful.

  “Yes.” No point in sugarcoating it. “When people are desperate, they do desperate things. They take what doesn’t belong to them; they hurt people they shouldn’t hurt.”

  “Is that why we took this truck?” asked Sloane, rubbing her hand on the backseat armrest. “We’re desperate?”

  “Yes,” Leigh answered. “But the people to whom this truck belonged didn’t need it anymore.”

  “Because they’re dead.” Sloane shrugged.

  “Yes.” Leigh turned in her seat to look at her daughter. “We’re not desperate like the people who have nothing. We have food and water and each other.”

  “And love.” Sloane uncapped the water to take another sip.

  “And love,” echoed Leigh.

  The caravan slowed as it approached Stone Quarry Road, preparing to turn right and head west toward the highway. To the left was a low-slung, single-story brick home. It sat at the end of a long driveway, deep green stretches of grass on either side of the concrete. Just beyond the driveway and the grass was a narrow, muddy river.

  “Dad”—Max noticed it first—“do you see the house? The one to the left?”

  James looked at the home, or what was left of it. Strewn across the grass were belongings he imagined once decorated the interior: a chambray-colored sofa, a walnut coffee table, a couple of televisions, a wrought-iron headboard from a bed, and a dozen or so lawn bags full of who knows what.

  There was no door leading into the home, just the open frame where the door once hung. Two of the home’s four front-facing windows were shattered. A hole in the roof produced a wispy trail of white smoke dissipating into the air.

  On the driveway, there was a dark spot akin to an oil leak from a car. But it was larger, tinged with red. Splatter surrounded the spot.

  Just as they made the turn, a figure appeared in the front doorway. A tall, beefy man, shirtless and in boxers, leaned into the frame. He produced a cigarette and took a long drag before offering the passersby a weak salute. James instinctively averted his gaze to Stone Quarry Road.

  “What happened there?” Max turned back to keep his eyes on the house. “Did you see the smoke and the driveway?”

  “I saw it,” James admitted. “It didn’t look good, did it?”

  “Do you think that guy was a squatter?” Max asked, gripping the top of James’s seat and pulling himself closer to his dad.

  James considered the man’s oddly muscular physique, the condition of the home, its proximity to two major roads in town. “I don’t know, Max,” he said. “Could be. But whether he’s a squatter or the owner, I wouldn’t want to be him.”

  “Neither would I,” said Max. “That place was a disaster.”

  James feigned a smile and accelerated to keep up with the Jeep leading them west toward Route 222. To their left was brown farmland, the crops long harvested with nothing new on the way. They passed the entrance to a neighborhood on their right, two uniformed guardsmen standing watch. The Jeep slowed ahead of them as they approached the intersection with the highway. The driver waved them forward and James pulled even with the Jeep. Leigh rolled down her window.

  “This is where we leave you,” said the driver. His eyes were deep set, bracketed by crow’s feet on either side. The line running along his nose and past his mouth gave his cheeks a droopy appearance. “You’ll head south on the northbound lanes until you cross the Conestoga River. A couple of our guys will direct you back into the southbound lanes and you can head on to wherever you’re headed.”

  “Maryland,” Leigh offered. “College Park.”

  “Oh.” The driver nodded. “I think Highway 30 is in good shape. You could take that west, north of Lancaster, and then hit the gate for Zone Five when you cross New Freedom. It’s just north of the border.”

  “Zone Five?” asked James.

  “Yes, sir,” said the driver. “You’re in Temporary Recovery Zone Four. TRZ Five is most of Maryland, south to Norfolk, Virginia. Delaware is a mess, though. You can’t get there. It’s restricted access.”

  “But we can get to College Park?” Leigh asked.

  “I think so,” said the driver, pushing his boonie cap back on his forehead. “That’s what the National Guard told us in a briefing yesterday, before we deployed here.”

  “Thank you.” Leigh waved. “Be careful.”

  “You be careful,” said the driver, twisting his hands on the wheel. “This town is just like all of them, from what we hear. An
ywhere that was safe isn’t anymore.”

  CHAPTER 55

  EVENT +1 Week, 2 Days, 14:14 Hours

  New Freedom, Pennsylvania

  Northern Gate Alpha Checkpoint 1, Temporary Recovery Zone 5

  “I don’t like doing this at night,” said James. He was motioning to the back end of the same Mercedes S-Class sedan at which he’d stared for the last two hours. “It’s not as safe.”

  “Nothing’s safe.” Leigh leaned her head back against her seat and closed her eyes. “Remember?”

  “I remember.” James sighed. He thumped his hands on the steering wheel, anxious to make his way to the front of the line and through the security checkpoint. He rolled up his window to dampen the rumble of the generators powering the large, bright lights shining into the vehicle.

  The Mercedes inched forward to an armed, helmeted soldier positioned on the driver’s side. Beyond the Mercedes, James could see a pair of concrete highway barriers set just far enough apart for a vehicle to slip past.

  James watched the body language of the soldier, the way he gripped his M16. He was all business but in control. The soldier directed the Mercedes to the right. It did not go through the barriers. Instead, two other soldiers approached the car and ordered the passengers out of it. There was yelling that James couldn’t hear. Two men and a woman climbed from the vehicle and were forced away from the Mercedes while the soldiers rifled through it.

  “Rock,” said Leigh, “it’s our turn.”

  James turned his attention to the soldier in front of them. He slowly pulled up to the guard and rolled down his window.

  “Sir,” said the soldier, who James imagined couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty years old, “who are you and where are you headed?”

  “My name is James Rockwell. This is my wife, Leigh, and our children, Max and Sloane. Our home is in College Park, Maryland.” James forced a smile. “We were on vacation in—”