Once they stopped for a bathroom break, and then they were on their way again.
So far, they had not seen anyone, hostile or friendly. It would be easy to think that they were the only two people left on earth.
At one point, Jim, smoking a cigarette, looked over at Bev.
“We have a decision to make,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Should we go around Jackson, or through it?”
“I’d rather go through it,” Bev said.
“Why?”
“Maybe we could hook up with someone. There’d be more safety in numbers.”
“Maybe,” Jim said.
“What about trying to find the Believers? Maybe we could hook up with them.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t want to be associated with them.”
“For the reasons mentioned?”
“Absolutely.”
Bev thought before answering.
“You’re right,” she said.
“How about taking 191 into Jackson?” Jim said.
“That’s the main highway.”
“I know. I figure we’d get on and off it fairly fast.”
“Okay,” Bev said. “I have a feeling you have good instincts.”
“I do when it comes to mountain trails. I hope it spills over onto asphalt ones!”
Bev laughed, and Reb, sitting on the floor beneath her, wagged his tail as if he got it too.
Jim nodded.
About five miles up they turned west, and soon they were on 191, heading into Jackson. It was weird. Jim knew 191 was a well-traveled road. But now, there was no one on it.
He wondered what would be going on in Jackson.
“How you doing?” he said to Bev.
“Okay,” she said.
“I find it curious that there’s no one on the road. But I’m also glad.”
As they got to within a few miles of Jackson they saw their first sign of human life. They had spotted three passenger cars going south at a high speed on 191. They knew that the people in the cars saw them but did not attempt to make any contact.
“I’m hoping those cars we saw are a sign that Jackson is free of hostiles,” Jim said. “They didn’t try to stop us, so they’re not Rejects, and if Rejects had taken over Jackson I doubt very much if they would have been traveling so freely.”
“You said you had visited Jackson.”
“I visited there when I was ten. I went with my father. I think it’s mostly a tourist town, everything designed to separate the tourist from his dollar.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I know. I’m just telling you what it is.”
“Okay.”
“I think the population is less than ten thousand, but on the day we went there it had to be three times that many, and I remember seeing license plates on cars from every state in the union. Don’t expect to see an old western town. From what I’ve heard about it over the years, there’re all kinds of gift shops, art galleries, fine restaurants, western-style saloons, and fancy boutiques.”
“Oh.”
“My father told me that other people in Wyoming don’t like Jackson, maybe because they’re jealous, but also because they consider it a false town, all just geared to sell things to tourists. But the country around it is pure. You got Grand Teton National Park or Bridger Teton National Forest.”
“That’s good.”
“The thing I remember most about it, though, is the antler arches.”
“What’s that?”
“Jackson has a town square, and they build arches of elk antlers.”
“Where do they get them from?”
“Bull elk. They fall off every year and people pick them up.”
“Oh.”
Almost abruptly, Jim and Bev stopped talking because they could see the town. They would soon be in it, and whatever it held. Both were alone with their own thoughts as they approached, but they shared one idea: it could be dangerous.
SIX
The HumVee rolled slowly into Jackson.
Jackson held no sign of life, but plenty of signs of death. It was horrific. The streets were virtually lined with dead bodies in various states of decomposition from skeletal to black and bloated. The stink seemed worse in certain sections as they drove along—and it was a cool day—thick enough to be visible. Jim rolled up his windows.
The entire town had been trashed. Buildings, exclusively stores, were intact, but it seemed that every one of them had their windows broken. Some of the buildings had the doors pulled off, while two had the roofing ripped off, and one small building was totally collapsed.
“It looked like a tornado touched down here, “Jim said.
“How horrible,” Bev said. “Let’s keep going.”
“Okay, but first I want to check something out.”
He stopped the HumVee and took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, then reached back and grabbed a bottle of water, opened it, and poured some on the handkerchief so it was damp.
He handed it to Bev.
“Here,” he said, “just breathe in it and concentrate on not breathing through your nose.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Jim had brought the HumVee to a stop in the middle of the town square where, indeed, U-shape arches made of elk horns were intact. One of them had a pair of bodies under it, a man and a woman, lying side by side. They were lying face up and looked as though they were taking in the sun. Jim grabbed the AK-47 and headed over to them.
Bev watched as he looked at the male body, then knelt down. He lingered a moment, then got up and went to the female body.
What, Bev thought, could he be doing?
At the point when she was about to join him—as ugly as she found the whole thing—he headed back to the vehicle. He got back in the HumVee and did not say anything until he had closed the door.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“What’s up?” she said as Jim put the HumVee in gear.
“It looks like half of these people died of plague,” he said. “But the rest were shot.”
“The Rejects?”
“I wouldn’t bet against that. The woman I looked at was a Believer.”
“How do you know?”
“She was wearing a Believer medallion, and she wasn’t alone.”
“This is like a holy war,” Bev said.
“I think it’s more like a fight for survival. A fight to the death. What I don’t understand,” Jim said, “is what Believers were doing in Jackson. These people have been dead about a week, I’d say, and it doesn’t look like it was an all-out battle. More like plague mixed with executions.”
Jim was silent for a moment.
“It’s quite a shock,” he said. “This was once, like I said, a tourist town, full of life and kids and . . . just a shock. Hard to believe it could happen.”
Bev took the handkerchief off her face.
“I know,” she said. “I was shocked when I first encountered the Rejects near Salt Lake . . . and all the rest. I mean, you go through your life thinking that God will protect you from stuff like this. No, not even that. You can’t imagine it happening to you. And then it does.”
Jim nodded.
“Are you game to cruise some of the residential areas?”
“Where are they?”
“Outside the town.”
“Why?”
“In case someone asks about this place, I want to be able to give them a complete report on what’s going on.”
“Who, someone like General Raines?”
“Maybe someone like him. I hope there’s someone around like him.”
“You sound like a GI out on patrol.”
“Maybe in this instance I am.”
“Okay,” Bev said. “It can’t get worse than this.”
Jim glanced at the CB. Nothing. He put the HumVee in gear.
For the next fifteen minutes they drove up and down the reside
ntial streets that were close to the center of town, and then to one or two of the condos. When Jackson had started to grow exponentially because of the hordes of tourists that visited the place each year, so did the homes of people involved in the town’s activities, creating a host of expensive private homes and condos.
Jim did not check out all the homes, but he saw enough to realize that quite a force had been through. Windows were broken and dead bodies, some shot, some having died of the plague, abounded, ordinary people as well as Believers.
And a number of the buildings had signs on them in red paint that said god is dead as well as ones that were a lot worse, including fuck god.
“It’s just as bad as town,” Bev said.
Jim nodded, and after a while he didn’t have to be asked again by Bev to drive out of Jackson. It was depressing, and there wasn’t much to do, wasn’t much to say, and he felt that he had grasped, for the first time, just how sick the Rejects were.
“The Rejects have their own religion,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Murder. They believe in it totally.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Jim drove back to 191 and got on it, heading north. Both he and Bev couldn’t wait to get back into the country, God’s country, and cleanse themselves as much as possible of what they had just seen, smelled, and felt.
They had gone only a few miles when Bev said: “I think that the hardest part of religion is forgiving.”
“You’re probably right,” Jim said, “but you can’t forgive people like the Rejects.”
“I think you ultimately can. That’s the way of Christ.”
“Yeah, maybe ultimately. But the best way to handle them right now is to kill them.”
“Unfortunately,” Bev said, “I think you’re right.”
She paused.
“And what do you think, Reb?” she said.
Reb looked up at her.
“Look at the expression on his face. I swear that he seems depressed too.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Jim said. “He’s probably picking up on our moods. They say that while we can tell what dogs are feeling, they can do the same by us.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Bev said.
They had driven about five miles when they spotted a fair-sized white church set back a good hundred yards off the road with access to it by a narrow asphalt road.
“Could we stop?” Bev asked. “I’d like to say a few prayers for those poor souls back there.”
“Sure,” Jim said. “I wouldn’t mind going into God’s house myself.”
“I hope they haven’t wrecked it,” she said.
A minute later, Jim slowed the HumVee and made a right turn and went up the road toward the church.
From afar, they had seen that the church was lined with stained-glass windows, but when they got close enough they saw that it, too, had been visited by the Rejects. Every single one of the windows had been broken. Part of one looked like it been caved in, as if someone had driven into it.
“I guess,” Bev said, “that it was too much to hope for.”
The asphalt road widened into a lined parking area on the right. There were no cars in it. Jim drove through it, then followed the “road” around to the back of the church. There was a single vehicle there, an SUV, but it didn’t look like anyone was in it. Jim stopped abreast of the vehicle and confirmed that it was empty—of people. The back was filled with all kinds of boxes piled high to the ceiling. He had no way to tell what was in them. The presence of the vehicle meant that either someone was inside or had departed in haste or . . . Jim just wasn’t sure.
He continued driving down the other side of the church. There was a line of stained-glass windows there, too. All had been broken. Neither he nor Bev said anything, but their silence spoke volumes.
He stopped the HumVee in front of the church.
“What do you think we should do?” Bev asked.
“I’m going to check it out. It’s still a church. You can say a prayer if you want.”
“Maybe there’s somebody in there.”
“They’re not necessarily Rejects. When I first encountered the Rejects, all the vehicles they had were painted black. I would assume that they’re not. Or at least it’s not an official vehicle.”
“That doesn’t mean that some of them couldn’t be in there.”
“You can stay out here if you want.”
“No way,” Bev said. “I’m okay. I want to help you if you need help.”
She paused.
“It’s sad, though,” she said, “that we couldn’t find an intact church now. We’re afraid to go into a church—because something bad might be waiting. How bizarre.”
“I can imagine how the inside looks. This is not just any house but God’s house. I’m surprised, in a way, that they didn’t burn it to the ground.”
“So am I.”
Jim turned off the vehicle.
“We should go in loaded for bear,” he said.
“I got my TT-33.”
“Make sure the safety’s off.”
“It is.”
“Let’s go,” Jim said, grabbing his AK-47.
They got out of the HumVee and went up to the front door, a massive carved oak entry that had been left, for some strange reason, unmarred.
Jim, holding the AK-47 level with one hand, went first. Bev, also holding her gun up, followed him.
Jim turned the knob, it clicked, and then he pushed the door open with his foot, his body out of the line of possible fire, Bev behind him.
There was no sound, no gunfire. Nothing. Jim listened for ten seconds, then poked his head in.
The door let them into a kind of foyer that looked okay, except for a glass-encased announcement board on the wall to the left of the double doors that led into the church proper. The glass was intact, but someone had carefully spray-painted on it, again in red, a single sentence. GOD IS LOVE . . . MAKING. But someone had crossed OUT LOVE . . . MAKING and had written above it in smaller letters FUCKING.
Jim was startled when Bev made a quick movement and smashed the glass with the heel of the gun, obliterating the words.
“Bastards!” she said.
Jim looked at her.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I’m sorry. A rage came over me.”
“Well, if there’s a reception committee in there, they know someone has arrived.”
“Wouldn’t they know that already,” Bev said, “us driving around the church?”
“Maybe so,” Jim said, and thought: This girl has grit.
He turned his attention back to the doors, first leveling the AK-47, and Bev the TT-33. He tried the doorknob, just as he did the outside one. It turned. He pushed one of the doors open with his foot and he and Bev looked in.
It was a disaster. The pews were smashed, in a jumble, obscenities were spray-painted in red on the walls and on the altar, and the things on the top, such as the tabernacle, and around it, such as candles, were smashed. Above the altar was a large crucifix. Someone had looped a rope around the neck of the statue of Jesus Christ and pulled it down to the point where it stayed on the cross but looked like it was in bowing position. The only thing that seemed to be intact were two side-by-side confessional booths on the right wall of the church, and the ceiling. Why they had missed them was anyone’s guess.
One thing particularly bothered Jim. In the corner of a church was a statue of the Virgin Mary carrying the Christ child. Both had been beheaded.
“Good Lord! “Jim said quietly.
“Yes,” Bev said flatly, almost rhetorically, “the Rejects were definitely here.”
“I’m going to check the sacristy,” he said, referring to the room in the rear of the church where the priests and altar boys changed clothes.
“Okay. I’ll check in here under the benches to see if I can find anyone—dead or maybe alive.”
“Good.”
Bev started
to look carefully under the jumble of benches and debris, but had half an eye on Jim as he approached the sacristy door. He used the same caution as he had in entering the church foyer and the church itself. He pushed the door open, keeping his body out of the firing line, peeked in, then stepped inside.
Bev started to make a search of the church, looking as best she could in the dark spaces under the jumble of benches. And what if they found someone injured? Jim probably had some basic medical supplies, but they were not set up to help anyone seriously wounded.
But her mind was not totally focused. At any moment, she knew, she could hear the sound of gunfire.
Inside the sacristy, there did not appear to Jim to be anyone there. At least there was no one in the room. There were a couple of closets, and he knew he should check these out also.
He tapped on one with the muzzle of the AK-47, again keeping his body out of the line of fire. When there was no response he opened the door, stepping aside as much as he could.
The closet was empty, except for vestments and other priestly accouterments as well as shorter garments, red ones with white collars. Altar boy stuff, he thought.
Jim closed the door, then repeated the procedure for the remaining door, which was wider than the first one and, he guessed, a walk-in type.
It was a walk-in—but it wasn’t empty. On the floor were three bodies, a young man and woman and, next to them, a child, maybe five years old. There was a massive amount of fresh blood on the floor, so fresh it was still liquid, and Jim could see why. All three throats been cut ear to ear. A little blood, Jim knew, could always look like a lot of blood. But this scene looked like a lot of blood because there was a lot.
“Jesus,” he said softly, feeling a lump in his throat. Instinctively, he made the sign of the cross. There was just one shock after another. If it wasn’t plague it was murder. If it wasn’t murder it was nutcases running around the countryside.
He pondered what to do, and also wondered if he should tell Bev. She was obviously tough. So, he thought, was he. But why visit crap on people unless you had to? He would tell her what he had found, but in due time.
Survivor (The Ashes Book 36) Page 7