by Ely Page
Over thirty people had come to Frank and Alice’s small two-bedroom home in the last three days. A fourteen-year-old boy named Cael was the last to arrive; he came to the house barely able to walk, Adults Porter and Greg helped him inside, some food, water, and a good night’s sleep seemed to help him.
“Listen up, everyone,” Frank shouted to be heard over the talk in the living room. “We need to leave here very soon. We have to get out of Charlotte and to the top of the Smoky Mountains as soon as possible.”
Everyone looked at each other with confusion.
“Why do we need to go there?” Reggie asked from the back.
“What are we running from?” Andrea asked with a little defiance in her voice.
“With the earthquakes and the meteor that probably hit the ocean, there is a really good chance that Charlotte will be hit with a tidal wave that will engulf us and sweep the entire city into the ocean.” Frank looked into every set of eyes in the room before continuing. “My job is to make all of you safe. You can question me all you want once we leave the lowlands here, but for now, please, we need to get all the supplies that Alice and I have stored up, and we need to get moving.”
“What do you mean ‘your job?’” Reggie almost sounded like a snob the way he asked the question.
“Look,” Frank said, trying his best not to let irritation creep into his voice. “Some of you believe in god, and some of you don’t. That’s all fine and good, but believe me,” Frank’s expression was like a slate of solid stone, “when we all get to where we are going, you will see God yourself, then you can judge for yourself if you believe or not.”
Nobody questioned Frank or Alice after that, nothing like putting the fear of God into everyone around. Everybody pitched in and gathered everything they could, putting it all in backpacks or in several garden wagons.
Just before they all started, walking Greg had a thought. “Why don’t we find a bus or use a bunch of cars to get us all there, wherever there is? It would go a lot faster.”
The man next to Greg, Dave, answered before Frank could. “Did you see the streets before you came here? There wasn’t anywhere that a bus or even a small car could navigate.” Greg looked even more defeated than when he had first arrived.
They all moved silently through town. Nobody could talk even if they wanted to; they were all too scared, what with the sun’s light hidden behind thick storm clouds and lightning constantly crashing all around them.
A loud clap of thunder came from behind them. All of them looked back except Frank. Charlotte was on fire; lightning had struck a fuel tank and now the city was burning. They had gotten out just in time.
After a day and a half of walking, the group had finally reached higher elevations. Some of the younger people in the group started to complain about being tired and that their feet were hurting. Frank, as patient as he was, was getting tired of hearing it, so as soon as they were up high enough above sea level, they stopped and set up camp at the first clearing they came across.
Most of the group fell asleep as fast as possible. Frank, Alice, and a few of the older people found a log to sit on and look back to the East. Someone started a fire and put a pot of coffee on; as soon as it was ready, everyone that was still awake had a cup.
The ground started to shake again.
“Oh no, not another earthquake!” shouted one of the younger kids.
Frank looked to see who spoke. It was the first one to come to his house, Dylan.
“It’s not an earthquake, it’s a tsunami,” said Ollie, one of the older men, never turning away from the East. Half a second later, a giant wall of water could be seen rushing toward them.
“We should run further uphill, now!” exclaimed Andy, one of the twentysomethings.
“Don’t worry, young man, we are up high enough right here,” Frank said calmly.
The younger group members were nervous and moving about; none of them were asleep now. The older ones sat on the log watching the ocean come further inland than anyone would have ever thought.
Frank took a drink of his coffee. He would have to find out who made it—it was the best coffee he’d ever drank. As he put the cup back down, the wall of water started to become nothing more than a rushing river in the valley just below them.
There would be more waves coming in, but they wouldn’t be as bad. Frank, however, was growing more concerned with the sky and the temperature. He and Alice had expected it to be hotter than it was, and they had not prepared for any cold weather, after all, it was July.
The tribe stayed one night on the eastern slope of the Appalachian Mountains. The next morning, Frank rounded everyone up to get a move on to the west.
“But what about all that lightning, Frank?” asked a very concerned Reggie.
“Well,” Frank said as he looked to the sky then back at Reggie. “We can stay here and have lightning strike one of the trees near us, possibly killing one of us or setting fire to the forest, or we can go west, where we need to go for safety.”
When Frank was done talking, Reggie hoped that someone would back him up, but nobody did.
The lightning storms that had raged for the past week and threatened the tribe as they slowly walked west had finally slowed. The group had gotten very close over the days, as everyone learned about the people they were with. Questions to Frank and Alice were nonstop; everyone wanted to know everything that they knew.
“I will tell you all everything that I know about what is going on as soon as we reach a cave a few more miles up ahead. There is a fresh water source underground, and it is big enough for us to spread out and relax for a day,” Frank said, trying to get everyone to stop pestering him.
They made it to the cave without much incident. Leah had tripped over a small rock and twisted her ankle. Dylan had helped her up and then given her a piggyback ride for several miles until she could walk on her own. Barry had offered to massage Leah’s feet when they stopped, but she turned him down, feeling a little creeped out by him.
With a cozy fire going and the first warm meal they had all eaten in a long time, Frank called for everyone to gather around the fire. Barry sat next to Hanna, resting his hand on the ground behind her back, making her feel so uncomfortable that she got up to sit by Leah and Dylan.
Frank took a minute to look over the group of people that had been with him for what seemed like years but had only been a week. Frank and Alice were the oldest at retirement age, and the only couple. Ollie was next a few years younger than them. Then the age dropped into the thirties with Greg, Dave, Porter, Jenny, Reggie, Andrea, and a few others. The late teens early twenties crowd was the biggest. Leading the way was Dylan, who had become good friends with Ben, Will, and Andy, and he had noticeably started liking Leah. It seemed everybody knew it but Dylan himself. Also in that group was Barry, the only one in the group other than Leah and Dylan who actually witnessed death during the earthquake. He’d been in a store and just happened to be in an area that didn’t have much of anything that could fall down and crush him, which was what happened to everyone else in the store.
“OK,” Frank began with a deep breath. “You all want to know what is going on, what has happened to the country, to the planet.” He paused. “To your loved ones.” He paused again as some of the people teared up. “Some of you think this is the end; some of you wonder why you are still alive. Well, let me tell you. God has a plan for each of you.” Frank paused, looking for someone to balk at the mention of God. Nobody did.
Frank went on to tell them that they needed to go somewhere not yet known to meet up with other survivors. “Now, all of you get some rest. In the morning some of us are going on a hunt for some meat,” he finished.
When Dylan heard that, he hoped that he would be picked to go hunting. He went up to Frank as soon as he was done speaking.
“Frank, can I go hunting with you tomorrow?” Dyl
an asked. He was very excited and it showed in his voice and in the way he stood in front of Frank. He couldn’t stand still for a second and kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Frank grabbed Dylan by the shoulder. “Of course,” he said. He smiled and walked away.
Dylan was too excited to sleep that night. All he could do was think about hunting and Leah. He really liked her. She was so beautiful and so nice to everyone, but he thought that even though he was close to the last man on Earth, she was still way out of his league.
Frank picked a few younger people for the hunt in the morning. He also had Dave come along, as he was a big-time hunter. Before they left the cave, Dave gave Dylan, Ben, Leah, and Will safety tips to try and prevent any friendly fire.
The hunt was somewhat successful, as Dave got a small doe. “She is not much,” Dave said, looking at the kill with the others, “but she will feed us for a meal. Now who wants to gut her?”
Dave gutted the deer because he and Frank were the only ones to have ever done it before. Dave talked as he did it, giving instruction to the younger ones so next time they could do it themselves.
After the venison breakfast, the group gathered all their supplies, left the safety of the cave, and started walking again.
It started raining, and they were all getting tired and wet. Frank made the call to find a suitable place for them to wait out the rain and try to dry out. They were walking on a rural gravel road in what used to be Kentucky.
“Up ahead,” Andy said. “There might be a farm house beyond those trees.”
When Frank looked, he could see a silo and what appeared to be a barn up above the thick line of trees. “You might be right, young Andy,” Frank said, hoping that there was a place to rest his aching feet.
After another mile of walking in the downpour, Andy was proven right. A farmhouse was hidden behind the trees. Porter was the first one up. He checked the door to see if it was unlocked; it opened when he turned the handle. Dylan, Ben, and Greg all followed him in. The men checked every nook and cranny of the old house before giving the all clear for everyone to come in and dry off.
Heat was a premium to the tribe, and luckily for them, the house had a wood-burning stove and enough wood on the porch to last them through the night.
With everyone else going into the house, Barry stayed outside in the yard.
“You coming in?” asked Greg, seeing Barry hanging back.
“I am going to smoke a cigarette first,” said Barry.
Greg turned around and closed the front door behind him. Barry pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head to shield his lighter as he lit his cigarette.
He walked around the farm looking at all the rundown buildings and old farm equipment. Lightning was starting to pick up, and the clouds had darkened considerably in short time.
Barry seemed mesmerized by an old wooden corn crib. He thought that he heard a noise in there, but it was too dark to see if anything was moving. He lit another cigarette and leaned up against the open door of the crib. He took a drag and then put his hand down. Thoughts of why Leah and Hanna kept rejecting his advances bothered him. He thought of himself as a ladies’ man, and he didn’t take rejection well.
Just as he raised his hand for another puff of the cigarette, something came out of the corn crib and latched on to his hand. He dropped the cigarette and started to scream from shock and the pain of the bite.
Dave and Greg were the first ones out of the house, but they didn’t have shoes or shirts, as they’d taken them off trying to get them dry. Something had Barry’s arm in its mouth; it looked like a large dog or maybe even a coyote. Greg started to throw punches at the animal’s head, and Dave tried grabbing it and pulling it off of Barry.
“Let go, you bastard!” Greg shouted. Barry was losing consciousness at the sight of his own blood.
The rest of the group had come outside now, but stayed back as the three men were tangled up with the wild animal.
Finally, the animal let go of Barry’s arm, but not before it did its damage. Barry’s hand was gone, ripped off just above the wrist. As Barry fell to the ground, the animal turned toward Dave and bit into his arm before Greg leveled a final blow to the animal with a shovel that Porter had given him.
“Quick, Barry and Dave need medical attention right now!” Porter yelled. Hanna and Alice came rushing up to the scene.
“I’m OK,” Dave said, holding his arm. “It’s just a bite, check Barry first.”
The ladies turned from Dave to Barry, who was lying down on the wet grass.
“Oh my, it looks bad,” Hanna observed first. “We need to get a tourniquet ready and hope he doesn’t get an infection.”
“Wake up, Barry!” Alice said, slapping him lightly on the face. Frank stayed back; he wanted to help, but it was a medical matter and all he knew was how to put on a bandage.
After the initial excitement wore off, Ollie, Greg, and Porter turned to the animal to try and figure out what it was.
“It is a coyote,” Ollie said. “It is bigger than a dog, and I know a lot of dog breeds. Unless it is some kind of mutt I’ve never heard of, yeah, I am almost positive that’s a coyote.” The animal must have been starving. Its rib cage could clearly be seen under its matted hide.
Barry was not waking up, and even with the tourniquet, they couldn’t stop the bleeding from the torn flesh where his wrist used to be.
Jenny and Andrea came to help Dave, who was holding his arm were the coyote had bitten him.
“Can we see your arm, Dave?” The women were taken back when they saw the arm. It was more than just a bite, and it looked broken.
“Dave, why didn’t you say anything?” Jenny scolded him like a concerned mother would chastise a son.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal. It will heal,” Dave said.
It turned to night. They had managed to get Barry in the house and laid out on a couch. He was running a fever. Alice put a fresh, damp washcloth on his forehead every couple of hours through the night. She chose to watch him; she knew that she would be unable to sleep after an event like that. Frank stayed close to his wife; he slept off and on, never getting comfortable enough to get any deep sleep.
With the morning came a change for the worse. Barry started breathing erratically; his fever had risen and, with no medicine to ease it or stop his excessive bleeding, they feared the damage had already been done.
Frank asked everyone with any medical experience, including Hanna, who had just graduated from nursing school, if there was anything they could do to save Barry.
“Only if we get him to a hospital, and fast,” Hanna said. Jenny, Andrea, and Alice all agreed.
Without knowing where the nearest hospital was, they came to the realization that Barry could not be saved. The group waited around till after they had finished lunch.
After Barry had taken his last breath, some of the men went to the back of the house and dug a hole so they could lay his body to rest. He wasn’t the most popular of the group, and he gave the girls the creeps, but he was still one of them, and the first to die. Frank gave him a proper Christian burial, and Greg tied two sticks together to make a cross, which he put in the ground just above Barry’s grave.
The group left the farm feeling somber but knowing that they had to move on. Dave needed to get some penicillin before his broken arm would get infected.
They came across a small town a few hours down the road.
“OK, everyone, see if this town is big enough for a pharmacy or a veterinary clinic,” Alice said.
“Why a vet?” Will asked.
“Animals use penicillin too, and that is what Dave needs before he loses his arm,” answered Ollie.
They found a veterinary clinic. Hanna, Alice, and Jenny went in with Dave while the rest of the group stayed outside.
Unfortunately for Dav
e, there was some bad news.
“It looks like gangrene has set in,” Alice said, looking at Dave with sad, concerned eyes.
“What is gangrene?” Dave asked worriedly.
“It is dead tissue around your wound that is now infected,” Hanna said.
“What does that mean? What will happen?” Dave asked. The ladies told him that his arm would need to be cut off above the infection. “I need to think about that for a minute,” he said somberly. Dave walked around the clinic holding his dead hand with his good one.
After a few moments he came back into the exam room. The women all looked at Dave, waiting for his decision.
“OK, let’s do this,” Dave said, then laid his infected arm on the exam table.
Finally, with the ordeal of Barry’s death and Dave’s amputated arm fresh in their minds but now in the past, the group moved on, ready to leave the area behind them.
As the days passed, the tribe questioned where they were going. Frank smiled and said, “A new place,” and nothing more. Not because he didn’t want to tell them; he did, but that was all Frank knew. He didn’t have a name or a location, nor did he know how long it would really take to get there. All he knew was to go west and more information would come to him.
Every morning Frank led a small group out for a hunt near where they had set up camp the previous night. As the days went by, Dylan became second best with a gun behind Ben, and he was the second best with a bow and arrow behind Leah.
At night when everyone else went to sleep, Dylan stayed up and listened to the stories that Frank and Alice told. Over time Dylan had become the couple’s favorite person, although they would never tell anyone they had a favorite. Dylan had grown up fast, from a skinny, shy follower to a stronger, somewhat fiercer warrior who thought about nothing but survival not only for himself, but for the whole tribe.
“What’s that clearing up ahead?” Greg shouted as the group was coming out of a small forest.