Pilgrimage: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story

by Abrahams, Tom

  Max and Sloane already claimed a spot to sleep, climbing on top of a frilly white duvet. Leigh looked at the clock on the armoire opposite the beds. It was the same type of clock as they’d had in the rental house on Peaks Island. It was a little more than three days since they ran from that quiet cottage, since they barely escaped with their lives.

  Her eyes glazed at the red numbers on the clock. It seemed so much longer ago than three short days.

  CHAPTER 26

  EVENT +75:13 Hours

  Nanticoke, Pennsylvania

  Vincent Gore stared at a near-empty, sweating refrigerator. His stomach grumbled as did he.

  “Where’s the wings?” Vincent called to his girlfriend, Lana. She was in the lone bedroom of their small home.

  “I ate ’em yesterday, Vince,” she called back, putting special emphasis on his name. Lana was reading a year old Ok! Magazine she’d swiped from the nail salon. “There should be some bologna in there! Eat that.”

  Of course she ate them.

  Vincent leaned on the refrigerator door, staring at the contents of the fridge. There was a package of bologna with a few slices left. There were two beers and a wine cooler. In the produce drawer, there was an unopened block of cheddar cheese and three oranges.

  “You want anything?” he yelled back to Lana. She didn’t respond. “Lana!” he called again.

  “No, Vincent,” she said, “I don’t want anything.” He’d grown to hate the way she said his name as much as he imagined she hated saying it.

  In three days without power, he had worked hard to save what little food they had. It didn’t really work and now they were down to scraps and a couple of soup cans.

  Vincent rocked the door back and forth and slammed it shut. It didn’t matter whether he kept it open or closed, the icebox was barely above room temperature.

  He stomped from the kitchen, through the living room, past the bathroom, small home office, and into the bedroom. The windows were open, the vinyl blinds rolled all the way to the top. Lana was on the bed in a Grateful Dead T-Shirt and cutoff jean shorts, her black ink “Only God Can Judge Me” tattoo visible above the low cut of the shirt. Her fried-yellow hair was pulled into a ponytail on the top of her head, revealing the row of six earrings running up her right ear. The bottoms of her feet were black with dirt.

  “We’re gonna starve,” he said as though he was talking about the weather. “We got almost nothing left.”

  Lana looked up from her magazine. “What do you want me to do about it?” She ran a finger along the edge of the magazine. Her nail polish was black. Kim Kardashian was on the cover.

  Vincent gritted his teeth and silently seethed.

  He didn’t expect her to do anything.

  That was the problem. It had been for months.

  “I’m gonna go check with the boys,” he said through his tightened jaw and turned to leave.

  He didn’t want to fight anymore. He didn’t want to be told how terrible a businessman he was, how lousy he was in bed, or how he couldn’t live up to her previous eight live-in boyfriends.

  “You do that,” she snapped, her eyes back on the pages of the magazine. “See if they got any brighter ideas about how to get food. You know the water stopped working this morning?”

  He hadn’t noticed.

  “I tried to flush”—she ran her pierced tongue over her top lip—“and the tank didn’t fill back up. Went to wash my hands. Nothing came out of the faucet.”

  “Nothing I can do about that,” he explained, looking over his shoulder.

  “Nothing you can do about anything,” she mumbled.

  He ignored her and marched back down the hall to his home office. It was a small second bedroom he’d converted to serve as the headquarters for his electrical wiring business, Gore & Associates.

  He thought the “& Associates” added a touch of class to his four-man operation. They were all high school buddies who never left town. Vince was the smartest of them and he’d learned a trade. Instead of flipping burgers or running the back of a garbage truck, he’d gone to night school and become an electrician.

  After working for a couple of larger companies in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Vincent thought it better to be on his own. He partnered with his friends, taught them some of what he knew, and staked his claim. He was hopeful and hung his shingle in November 2013, the month the pandemic hit.

  The banks wanted their loans back faster than he could pay them. Thankfully, with a little bit of cash his flu-stricken father had bequeathed him, he was able to stay afloat.

  Even after most everything was back to normal, though, business was sporadic. He’d get a few subcontracting jobs here and there. He landed a couple of big projects, did some side work for friends. All in all it was enough to almost pay the bills, but it left little else. Since he’d met Lana, things had spiraled downward financially.

  Now, in the middle of whatever crisis had befallen Northeastern Pennsylvania, he was dumfounded. Vincent reached into a small lockbox in the office closet and pulled out a Glock nine millimeter. He checked the cartridge and then stuffed it in his waistband. He wasn’t about to venture anywhere without protection.

  There were bad people out there.

  CHAPTER 27

  EVENT +75:30 Hours

  Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania

  James Rockwell sucked in a deep breath before coughing it back. He was feeling better. The dizziness and headache were gone. The chills had subsided.

  “You look so much better, Rock,” Leigh said sweetly. She was sitting next to his bed, both of her hands wrapped around one of his. “The color is back in your face. Your eyes look a little brighter.”

  “I feel better,” he said, the phlegm thick in his throat. “Not one hundred percent. But better.”

  “I was so worried about you,” she said, rubbing his hand.

  “Sorry to worry you.” James looked at the line running from his foot to a liquid-filled plastic bag hanging from the bedpost behind him.

  “That’s another round of antibiotics,” Leigh explained. “The doctor gave you one bag at the clinic. He’s giving you another one here. He thinks two bags will do it. Then you can start taking the steroid.”

  “What doctor?” James had only a fuzzy recollection of the last several hours. He remembered watching the windshield wipers squeal back and forth after the rain had stopped, lacking the strength to tell Leigh to turn them off. He recalled a man lifting him onto some sort of table and the odor of antiseptic mixed with wet dog. And then he was here.

  “Steve Driggers,” answered Leigh. “We’re at his home”—she chuckled—“which is actually more like a retreat.”

  “Why aren’t we at his clinic?” James looked past his wife to the photographs hanging on the walls. He recognized them. One was Ronald Reagan on horseback in California. Another was George W. Bush chopping wood at Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas. Still another was former Congressman Ron Paul at a rally in New Hampshire. “Aren’t there other patients? Why are we here?”

  “He doesn’t have any other patients, Rock,” explained Leigh. “He’s actually a veterinarian. His clinic is a pet hospital. That’s where I took you.”

  James tried clearing his throat and coughed. “Really?!” He was pleasantly surprised at his wife’s resourcefulness. “That’s hilarious!” He tried laughing, but wasn’t good at it.

  “He’s been so kind, Rock,” she said, letting go of his hand and brushing his forehead. “He probably saved your life.”

  “You saved my life.” James grabbed her hand and kissed it. “You amaze me.”

  Leigh blushed and leaned in to kiss her husband’s lips at the moment there was a knock at the door.

  “I don’t mean to intrude.” Steve Driggers poked his head into the cottage through the crack in the door.

  “No intrusion,” said Leigh. “He seems to be doing so much better.”

  “Just wanted to check back with our patient.” Steve approached the Rockwells, hi
s hands in his pockets. “It’s so odd to treat someone who can tell me how he’s feeling.”

  James chuckled. “Thanks, Dr. Driggers, for helping us out. I don’t know how we can repay you.” He reached across his body to try to shake Steve’s hand.

  “It’s our pleasure.” He shook James’s hand. “Thankfully we’re able to help.” Steve checked the line. “Almost finished. It’s probably time to start taking the steroids.”

  “That’s good, right?” Leigh asked.

  “It is,” said Steve, pulling a small bottle from his pocket. “These should help open up your airways. Breathing should become easier within twenty-four hours.”

  “Leigh tells me you have a compound here.” James was trying to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his health anymore. “Quite a setup.”

  “Yes.” Steve nodded. “We built the place after the 2013 pandemic. We weren’t as prepared as we should have been. I vowed it wouldn’t happen again. So Kosia and I built this place. We call it Camp Driggers. Our friends call it Fort Knox.”

  “Fort Knox?” James popped open the bottle of prednisone and shook a pill into his hand. “How so?”

  “Well,” Steve explained, sitting on the edge of the bed opposite Leigh, “we have six acres here. The entire perimeter is fenced. We have a pretty advanced security system. The entire property is on its own well, so we don’t have to worry about government-supplied water. We put in natural gas generators to run the place as if the electrical grid were intact. We have a small vegetable garden out by the tree house.”

  “It does sound like Fort Knox.” James took a bottled water from Leigh and swallowed the pill. “Pays to be a vet.” He toasted the doctor. “Which by the way,” James added, “we’d like to pay you for your help. We don’t want to be a burden.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Steve said. “We were fortunate to own a lot of gold before the pandemic. As you know, it ballooned to more than twelve thousand dollars per ounce afterward.”

  “I wish we’d been smart enough to own some,” said James. “I heard a lot of people did really well financially.”

  “We were fortunate,” admitted Steve. “It allowed us to be as prepared as possible this time.” He stood from the bed. “I’m going to get back to the main house and help Kosia prepare our lunch. I’ll make sure we save a plate for you, if you’re up to it, James.”

  “Thanks,” he replied. “By the way”—he turned to Leigh—“where are the kids?”

  “They’re at the tree house,” she said, “playing with the Driggerses’ son, Connor.”

  “Good,” he said, closing his eyes. “They need to feel like kids for a minute.” James took a deep breath, wondering if it all seemed too good to be true.

  CHAPTER 28

  EVENT +75:50

  Nanticoke, Pennsylvania

  “I dunno, Vince.” Bruno Williams took a final slurp from his last can of Coca-Cola. He crumpled it up and tossed it into the dirt. “I think we’re all screwed.”

  “There’s gotta be a way to turn things around, right?” Vincent Gore was sitting on the porch that fronted Bruno’s rental house. “I mean, we’re gonna die otherwise.”

  “At least when I was in lockup”—Bruno sighed—“they gave me three meals a day. Maybe we oughta break into jail.” He laughed, exposing the gap in his mouth where three teeth should have been.

  “Right,” said Vince, closing his eyes to think, “break into jail.”

  “Hey brotha’.” A thickly muscled body with a small head attached to it trudged up the pine-needle path to Bruno’s house. “You wanted all of us here?”

  “Hi, Dunk!” said Vince to his childhood friend Leonard Dunkleman. Everyone called him Dunk. “Yeah, we gotta talk through some things. What about Gooz? Where is he?”

  “He’s on his way.” Dunk rubbed his bicep with his hand, flexing as he did it.

  “I’m here.” Chuck Guzman was a few steps behind Dunk. He was Gooz to everyone who knew him, which included most of the patrol officers with the Nanticoke Police Department.

  Gooz and Dunk greeted Vincent and Bruno with one-armed hugs and slaps on the back. They exchanged stories about what they’d been doing to survive the last three days, when Vincent got serious.

  “We can’t go on like this,” he suggested. “The grocery stores are empty and closed, the convenience stores are useless. None of us have enough gas in our cars to make it as far as Back Mountain. Forget about trying to get to Scranton or Pittsburgh. Even Wilkes-Barre is being run by syndicates.”

  “I heard Pittsburgh is out of control,” said Gooz. “I mean, like the army is taking control. There are bodies floating in the Allegheny. I mean, that’s what my cousin told me.”

  “All the big cities are bad,” added Dunk. “I got people who tried to get to Boston. They said it’s like Fallujah, all warlike and such.”

  “So we’re stuck here,” said Vincent. “Which means we need to make something happen.”

  “Like what?” asked Dunk. “Somebody gonna suddenly hire you to run wires?”

  “There isn’t any power, you idiot,” sniped Bruno. “How thick is your neck?”

  “Seriously, Bruno?” Dunk flexed. “You wanna go there?”

  “Actually”—Vincent raised his hands, speaking loudly enough to drown out the bubbling disagreement amongst his friends—“that gives me an idea.”

  “What?” Bruno asked.

  “See, I gave him an idea.” Dunk frogged Bruno in the arm.

  “Shut up!” Gooz tried to quiet them so he could hear Vincent’s idea.

  “I did a job a few years back for a rich dude.” Vincent’s stare was beyond his friends. He was speaking quickly. “I ran wires for his security system.”

  “So?” asked Bruno, rubbing the sore spot on his arm.

  “He lived over in Sweet Valley, right off of 4024,” Vincent recalled. “He had like three or four buildings. It was at least four, maybe five acres. Super nice. Right near one of the game preserves.”

  “He fenced off the whole place.” Vincent was talking with his hands. “The guy had these huge freezers, a ton of storage. It was in a barn.”

  His friends were quiet, listening to Vincent intently.

  “I remember the super on the job telling me that the guy was building a survivalist compound,” he said. “He built the place with his wife in case there was another flu outbreak, he’d be prepared. I think he was a veterinarian.”

  “That clinic up off 29?” asked Bruno. “I took my cat there once.”

  “Maybe,” answered Vincent. “I don’t remember.”

  “How does that help us?” Gooz asked. “This vet with a bunch of refrigerators?”

  “I wired the security system,” explained Vincent. “I know how it works. I can get us in. We can get what we need and get out. They’ll never miss a few cans of beans and some jugs of water.”

  “Dude,” said Bruno, shaking his head, “I dunno. I don’t want to end up back in jail. I was just kidding about the free food.”

  “We won’t get caught.” Vincent smiled. “It’ll be easy. In and out. Who’s with me?”

  CHAPTER 29

  EVENT +78:05

  Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania

  “Is everyone okay with quinoa and boiled chicken?” Kosia Driggers worked her way around the large farm table at the center of her dining room. At each of the twelve plates, she spooned a steaming mound of the goosefoot grain. Her husband followed with shredded pieces of chicken.

  Those gathered at the table all nodded or spoke their approval. No one was in a position to forsake a meal of any quality.

  Along with the Driggerses and Leigh and her children were the Kelly family and the Starlings. Mike and Michelle Kelly were longtime friends of the Driggerses. They both worked at a bank in Scranton. Their children, Mitch and Molly, were high school age. The Starlings, Felix and Denise, were an older couple without children. Felix was a realtor. Denise was a part-time nanny.

  “What’s quinoa?” w
hispered Sloane, her hand cupped around her mouth and her mother’s ear.

  “It’s like rice,” answered Leigh. “You’ll like it.”

  “Shall we say grace?” asked Kosia, taking her seat next to Steve at the head of the table. They held hands, as did their guests, and Steve blessed the food. He prayed for health and guidance and safety.

  Amen!

  “Have you heard the latest?” asked Felix Starling, pointing his fork at Steve.

  “What’s that?” Steve sipped from a glass of iced tea.

  “It’s a false flag,” Felix said. “It’s not the Chinese at all.”

  “How do you figure that?” asked Mike.

  “The government has been trying to erode our freedoms for years,” explained Felix as he chewed on a piece of chicken. “Take the Patriot Act after 9/11, the martial law imposed after Katrina and Sandy, not to mention the way police shut down Boston after the marathon bombings.”

  “What does that have to do with this?” pressed Mike. “You’re saying all of those horrible events were concocted by the government? The government can’t stir up a hurricane, Felix.”

  “I’m not saying those events were all false flags,” Felix clarified. “I’m saying they proved to the government what people would be willing to accept, the loss of freedoms to which they’d agree.”

  “So how is this a false flag, then?” asked Mike. He was leaning forward in his seat, his elbows on the table.

  “What’s a false flag?” asked Mike’s son, Mitch.

  “It’s when a government attacks its own people,” explained Steve, his eyes on Mike, “and then blames someone else. The government then uses that attack to remove the civil liberties of its citizens.”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Mitch, his eyes darting between his father and Felix. “I don’t understand that.” He grabbed his tea and took a nervous gulp.

  “To take away our freedom,” Felix said. “The government can’t take our liberty, but if they create a situation in which we ask them to take it from us, then it does so without argument.”