Lilly rolled her eyes. This was not the kind of example she thought they’d ever be setting for their children, and she was just sure Jesus was crying for their souls up in heaven.
“You stay put. I’ll go steal yer jerky.” She huffed and shook out a couple of empty grocery sacks. “Come on Sissy. You too, Ernie. Cain’t have you pissin’ in the camper.”
Sissy followed her into the store, while Ernie found a patch of grass to relive himself in.
The front door had been left wide open. It looked like the place had already been sacked, but it could have just as easily been storm damage. Shelves were turned over on their sides, and even the glass in the Slurpee machine was busted, oozing blue goo all over the counter and floor.
Lilly grabbed Sissy’s arm before she could run off. “Make sure you grab yer brother’s jerky and plenty a Gatorade,” she said, handing Sissy a few grocery sacks.
Sissy set to work, scooping up candy bars and bags of chips that had been scattered across the floor, while Lilly found the restroom and loaded up the cleaning supplies under the sink. She grabbed all the paper towels and toilet paper she could find too, and even took the half roll on the holder next to the toilet.
When she was done, Sissy was already waiting near the front counter. The grocery sacks were stuffed, and she had emptied out one of the plastic tubs that cigarette cartons were delivered in so she could load it up with soda and sandwiches from the coolers.
Ricky darted inside the store and down the beer aisle. Lilly frowned when he came back up with a case of Miller Lite and a bag of pork rinds. He circled around the counter and grabbed a box of matches, grinning as he tossed them to her.
“Gonna need these to get yer stove fired up. Just snatched a pig a propane,” he said proudly, like he thought he deserved a cookie for his thieving.
Ricky helped Sissy carry the tub of soda and sandwiches outside, and Lilly grabbed an extra handful of jerky from a rack by the register before heading back to the camper.
Lester was still at the tank, holding a hose up to the side to fill the gas cans Ricky had brought with him from the garage. Fuel leaked out around his hand, dripping down his arm. He looked over his shoulder at Ricky. “You get my pork rinds?”
Ricky nodded. “We’re good ta go, boss.”
“Ernie!” Lilly shouted.
The mutt tore past her and inside the camper. He jumped up on Junior’s lap and whined. Then the ground rumbled beneath Lilly’s feet. She dropped the grocery sacks and fell to her knees. Lester let go of the hose and steadied himself against the side of the camper. He edged his way toward Lilly, creeping down on his hands and knees once he reached her. They clung to each other until the tremor passed.
Lilly looked up at Lester when the world had gone still again. “What’er we gonna do?” she said softly.
Lester squeezed her close. “We’re gonna get back in that camper and go find yer ma.”
Lilly blinked back a tear and nodded. She looked up at the camper and saw Junior and Sissy’s faces pressed up against the window, watching them with wide eyes. It wasn’t the time for it, but she leaned up and gave Lester a peck on the cheek anyway.
Ricky popped his head out the window and laid on the horn. It sounded like a dying duck. “We got company,” he growled.
Gunfire cracked through the air, followed by squealing tires and whoops of conquest. Lester yanked Lilly to her feet and looped the grocery sacks back over her arms before pulling Bub’s .45 out of his pocket.
“Come on. I don’t wanna hafta shoot anyone else today.” He cringed as soon as the words left him, and Lilly took a step back.
“Anyone else?”
Lester pressed his lips together and his forehead bunched up. “No time. I’ll explain later.”
Lilly was too thrown to care. “Lester Miller, thievin’ is one thing, but murder?”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the camper door. “Woman, if we don’t get a move on, there ain’t gonna be enough prayin’ in the world to save my sorry ass.”
An old beater truck swerved into the gas station lot. The bed was loaded down with half a dozen men, most of them scrawny and wild-eyed. One leveled a shotgun at Lester as he slammed the camper door shut behind him and Lilly. The blast pelted the side of the camper, leaving a spray of indentations along the inside of the door.
Lilly threw herself over Junior and Sissy, pulling their heads down into the bench seat as Ricky circled the RV around the parking lot. The sharp turn made everyone hold their breaths and hunker down. Callie and Parker had crawled under the table, and Old Man Johnson was hanging on to his backpack with both hands.
Lilly poked her head up to peek out the side window. The truck of mongrels was blocking their exit.
“Hold on!” Ricky hollered.
Another shotgun caught the top of the windshield as he plowed into the side of the truck. It rocked up, like it might tip over, sending half the men out of the bed and onto the blacktop.
“Yeehaw!” Ricky howled as the camper pushed the truck into the ditch. Then he twisted them back onto AA and zoomed off. The engine grumbled and puttered, blasting the heathens with a shot of black smoke as they fled.
Chapter 6
Parker Thomas was a quiet kid, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty going on in his head. He thought about a lot of things going down the highway, while he sucked on his inhaler and the Millers’ dog barked in his face.
He thought about band camp, and how he probably wouldn’t be going this summer. Now that the world was coming to an end. He thought about Crystal Myers, the prettiest clarinet player there ever was. And he thought about how he would probably never see her again. He wondered if she had survived, or if maybe she was floating down the Ozark torrent in a little rowboat, fingering out a mournful tune as she pondered his fate too.
Parker glared over at Sissy as he rasped to catch his breath. The girl had brought along two guitars, and his jealousy was getting the better of him. His saxophone was probably halfway to Florida by now, with the way the flood waters had been moving.
Callie fussed with his hair, and he found himself wishing for the millionth time that his mother had found some annoying hobby to distract herself after his father died. Knitting, crossword puzzles, stamp collecting. He didn’t care, just as long as she stopped anticipating and analyzing his every need.
He hadn’t really noticed how helplessly dependent he’d become on her until that crazy old man had pointed it out. Still, peeing in the woods was not appealing in the least. There were snakes and all sorts of wild, rabid animals out there. Not to mention the Millers.
He’d had a momentary vision of a superhero when Lester Miller had blown away their assailant at the pawn shop. The giant of a man had rounded the corner with that AR, and Parker’s first thought had been of his dad, who had been killed in the line of duty over in Iraq. After Lester loaded him and his mother onto the RV, the vision of salvation faded fast.
Lilly Miller was possessed. She was a tiny thing with a frizz of red hair and a stained apron that she wore as proudly as if it had been given to her by the Pope. For all Parker knew, it had been. The woman certainly prayed enough. When she wasn’t praying, she was raising hell and giving brainless orders that nearly got them all killed, like driving over Hurricane Deck during a flood.
Parker had been excited when he first saw Junior. He didn’t have many friends at school, so a new face meant a chance to make a new friend. It didn’t take long for Parker to decide that he didn’t want to be friends with Junior. If Junior had gone to his school, he seemed like the kind of kid who would sooner punch him in the face than have lunch with him.
Besides his infatuation with jerky and his flea-ridden dog, Junior reeked of urine. The front of his shorts were soaked with it. If that old man wanted to point out childish behavior, he should have started there.
After the shootout at the gas station, the camper had gotten uncomfortably quiet. The chilly atmosphere seemed to radiate from Lill
y. She sat between Junior and Sissy with her arms folded and her eyes glued to the back of Lester’s head. Something had changed between them at the gas station.
Lester was doing his best to ignore Lilly, directing Ricky on the route they were going to take to get around Springfield. He pointed out the window, like he could see the entire country laid out before him.
“We’re gonna get offa 65 when we reach Buffalo and take 32 over ta Boliver. Then we’ll cut down 83 ta 13. Then BB ta Z ta 160.”
The string of numbers and letters made no sense at all to Parker, but Ricky nodded away like a bobblehead. When Lester ran out of directions, Lilly finally piped up.
“So you plan on tellin’ me who you shot? I reckon I should know, if I’m goin’ to be prayin’ fer ya.”
Lester sighed. “It was some meth-head back at the pawn shop.”
“He had a gun,” Callie added. “Your husband saved our lives, Mrs. Miller.”
Lilly huffed at her and looked back to Lester. “That so? If you thought you were doin’ right, why’d it take you so long ta tell me?”
“Maybe ’cause I’ve been too busy tryin’ ta keep us alive,” he shot back.
Lilly responded by closing her eyes and folding her hands. Her mouth moved silently as she prayed. When she was done she got up and went to rummage around in the pantry under the refrigerator. She dug through a grocery sack and tossed a pair of clean shorts to Junior.
“We got at least three hours left ’fore we get ta Granny’s. Best clean yerself up and look respectable,” she said, biting off the word respectable with a sour look in Lester’s direction.
Junior stripped out of his shorts in the middle of the camper, and Callie turned her head away with a gasp. Parker was stunned. He wasn’t even wearing underwear. He blushed and glanced away as Junior looked up at him.
“What? Ain’t you got the same parts I do?”
Parker didn’t answer. It was best not to engage. That’s what his mother always told him when he complained about bullies at school, especially if they were lake brats. That’s what his mother would have called Junior if they’d been in politer company.
The twists and turns of the highway made Parker’s stomach crawl like there were worms in it, and he wondered if his mother had been right about the uncooked hotdogs not being safe. He imagined tiny, wiggling creatures crawling through his intestines and escaping out of his bellybutton.
There’s wasn’t much to do in the camper besides imagine all the ways the situation could be worse. That always seemed to make him feel better. Of course, it was more challenging today.
Lilly passed out Gatorade and chips to everyone before taking a bag of pork rinds up to Lester. Ricky asked for a beer, but after Lilly smacked him across the top of his head, he changed his mind and asked for a Coke.
The Gatorade made Parker have to pee again. His mother insisted on scrubbing the bathroom down first, since Lilly had stolen some cleaning supplies from the gas station. Callie had looked horrified when Parker asked if he could grab a pack of gum. It seemed a bit hypocritical that she didn’t have a problem drinking and eating what the Millers had stolen.
Even through the fog of lemony cleaners, Parker was sure he smelled cat poop in the tiny bathroom. The toilet bowl was a crusty orange color, like someone had cooked spaghetti in it. It was getting dark outside. Headlights flickered through the back window, and even though he was sure no one could see what he was doing, it took a good five minutes to convince his bladder to let go.
The camper jumped back and forth, between big four lane highways and narrow, crumbling two lane back roads. No matter which way they turned, there was traffic. Cars were piled up in the highway medians. Half the towns they passed looked like they’d been put through a giant wood chipper, and the buildings left standing had busted windows.
When they finally pulled off onto a gravel road, Parker wondered if they hadn’t just made a great big circle back to Ricky’s garage. The trees crept in on them, forming a dark canopy over the road. The camper’s headlights reflected off a dented mailbox, and Lester pointed down a driveway just past it.
The trees thinned out half a mile later. A tornado had been here too, confirming Parker’s fear about the end of the world. He wondered if he should start praying like Lilly, or maybe ask Old Man Johnson to make him a foil hat. Everyone had a different theory about the what and why of the day’s events. Everyone except his mother.
Callie had gone into autopilot, it seemed. They had almost died, and then they’d been scooped up by a felonious band of rednecks. The world was falling apart, but the only thing she seemed concerned about was whether or not Parker had washed his hands after he went pee.
He used the kitchen sink, since the one in the bathroom looked like it had been sledgehammered out. The camper breaks whined as Ricky slowed to migrate around a fallen tree. They bumped over a few limbs, and Parker was tossed into Old Man Johnson. Their knees cracked together, and they both groaned.
Callie stood and ushered him back into the booth. He rubbed his knee and avoided the old man’s scowl by pressing his face against the window.
The sky was close to blinking out, and under the last streaks of daylight, shadows puddled around everything. Parker was sure he saw a set of eyes glowing deep in the woods. They were big and yellow. He imagined werewolves and vampires lying in wait. He imagined trolls and dragons. He imagined crazy hillbillies with guns. Well, crazier hillbillies with guns anyway.
Chapter 7
“Ain’t this a fine mess,” Suzzy Craw said to herself.
There was no one else to talk to, and her legs were pinned under a rafter. She lay sprawled across the cold cement floor of her basement, wondering if anyone would find her before the coyotes started sniffing around.
A patch of dusky sky peeked through the crumpled remains of her roof, and she couldn’t tell if the howling that whistled through was just the wind or Death calling to her on his way down. For the first time in twenty years, she folded her hands together and prayed.
“Dear God, I know it’s been awhile. But if you let me die in this undignified state, I swear to—well—to you, that I’ll pop ya twice when I get to heaven. Once for Hank, and then again for me. Amen.”
It wasn’t the most elegant of prayers, but to be fair, she was a little rusty. At any rate, there was no doubt in her mind that she’d be going to heaven. She’d followed most of the top ten to a tee, even after all she’d been through.
She’d been faithful to her husband. She never stole anything, even when Hank’s death had left her in a tight spot. She hadn’t killed anyone, though there were a few people she had wanted to. She was certainly no liar. And while she didn’t go to church, at least she hadn’t started carving up golden calves to pray to in His stead.
She sighed and looked around the basement where most of her home had fallen in on itself. The twister had come through like a buzz saw, splitting right through her living room during Wheel of Fortune. A sofa lay upside down just a few feet away. She reached for one of the cushions, stretching as far as she could, but still came up a few inches shy. Her back was going to hurt in the morning, she decided.
The whistling through the roof was suddenly replaced by the sound of crunching gravel and a tired old motor. A door slammed and the sound of anxious feet circled around outside.
“Granny?”
The familiar voice made her heart squeeze, and she choked out a laugh. “I’m here!”
“Oh, thank God!” Lilly sighed. Her face appeared in between a tear in the siding. “Ur ya hurt?”
Granny shrugged. “I’ll live, just as soon as someone gets this beam off my legs.”
“Lester!” Lilly shouted over her shoulder. “We still got that tow rope?”
A minute later, her son-in-law and a scrawny feller with a ponytail climbed down into the basement with her.
Lester tilted his head. “This here’s our neighbor Ricky. He’s gonna help me dig ya out, Granny.”
Ricky nodded.
“Ma’am.”
Together they lifted the beam enough for her to slide her legs out from under it. The house groaned like it wasn’t done falling in just yet. Granny stood gingerly and looked around, trying to decide if there was anything she could salvage before the place quit for good.
Lester made a noise in his throat. “We best be movin’ on outta here.”
Granny frowned and scooped up one of the couch cushions. She shoved it at him. “Hold this. I need to grab a few essentials first.”
“Essentials? Granny, the only essential you got left is yer life, and unless you’d like to leave it down here too, I suggest ya git movin’.” Lester tossed the pillow to Ricky and made a grab for her arm.
Granny swatted him away. “I gotta photo album in what’s left of the TV cabinet over there, and I’d like my house slippers. If that’s alright with you,” she added sharply, looking him up and down.
Lester sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Git yer slippers. I’ll grab the photo album.”
Granny stepped over a fallen beam and around a pile of smashed dishes. Half the kitchen had blown away, and the other half looked like it had been sucked down the garbage disposal and spit into the basement.
She picked through the remains of her dining set and was delighted to find that her house slippers were right where she’d left them, under the table. They were fuzzy and pink, and they made her feel at home no matter where she was.
The house groaned again, and this time Lester did grab her. “Ya got yer slippers, yer photo album, and a couch cushion. Time ta go.”
He hoisted her up along the basement wall, and Ricky stepped in beside him, bumping shoulders so she could sit on them like a throne. Lilly dropped down a tow rope for her to grab onto. Her slippers weren’t very good for climbing, but she made do.
When she tumbled out of the basement, Lilly, Sissy, and Junior surrounded her in a fierce hug. Her graying frizz of red hair stood out among their brighter manes, confirming her matriarch status.
Backwoods Armageddon Page 6