Forever After (Post Apocalyptic Romance Boxed Set)

by Rose Francis

  Episode Five

  Episode Six

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  ***

  the end of Everything

  (The Risen Dead Pt. 1)

  By Katie Ayres

  I stood on the front step of my parents’ farmhouse, my heart in my mouth as I watched the road for my brother’s red pick-up truck. It was after five in the evening and the air had already turned cool. My mother’s azaleas were in bloom and a few bees flew from flower to flower gathering nectar. In the field that ran along the road to the house, Sergeant and Brownie, our two horses, grazed contentedly. The Holsteins were grazing or nodding off behind the barn. Everything was quiet, peaceful, but the calm in our little corner of Tennessee was deceptive. A few days ago, the world went mad and now chaos reigned in the cities.

  Nashville and Memphis were closed off and the National Guard had been called out but the trouble hadn’t reached our area. I still didn’t really understand what was going on. Ma and Pa were Born Again Christians and didn’t hold with too many new-fangled things so we didn’t have the Internet and we didn’t watch television or listen to the radio either. Satan’s Box, Pa called it.

  The first inkling something was wrong came when Pa went into Acadia, the nearest town to where we lived, last Friday. When he came back, he and Ma had held a whispered conversation before they turned to me and Gideon with such serious expressions on their faces I’d thought they’d somehow known what had happened in the barn between us. Gideon had kissed me. We’d kissed! I felt the heat enter my cheeks and I was like about to faint. I couldn’t even look at Gideon. Pa would kill us. I knew he would. The blood roared in my ears and I waited for lightning to strike. When nothing happened, I realized everyone was looking at me funny.

  “Are you alright, Faith?”

  “Yes, Pa,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “You look sick. I hope you ain’t coming down with that sickness I’m talking about…though how you could have gotten it…” His voice trailed off as he peered at me.

  “What sickness, Pa?”

  He sighed. “That’s what I’ve been talking about the last couple minutes. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

  I apologized again and he explained about the sickness that had broken out, not just in Tennessee, it was everywhere. He didn’t know where it had started, maybe New York City or Los Angeles, the modern world’s versions of Sodom and Gomorrah as he’d said a hundred times before. Thousands of people, maybe millions, were infected. People, ordinary people, were sickening, dying, and then rising again to attack and consume the flesh of the living. He called them the risen dead.

  My eyes widened when I heard that and an icy fear gripped my heart. “Are these the End Times then, Pa?” I’d asked.

  “I fear so, my child,” Pa had answered, a strange note of sadness and gleeful triumph in his voice. “God is cleansing the wickedness of the world.”

  “Is there no cure?” Gideon asked in his deep voice.

  “How can there be a cure for God’s punishment?” Pa had snapped.

  That Friday and Saturday our family prayer meeting lasted twice as long as Pa led us in fervent and lengthy prayers for our deliverance and salvation.

  I wasn’t surprised when, on Sunday, we found our small Pentecostal church full to overflowing, some people couldn’t even find seats and had to stand. The extra high attendance caused Pa to snort in derision. “Their sins are catching up to them and now they turn to the Lord but the Lord will not hear them,” he’d whispered fiercely to us. I’d quaked and wondered if that applied to me, too.

  Pastor Joseph apparently agreed with Pa because his sermon had been full of fire and brimstone as he’d ranted about the sins of the world. Pastor Joseph said it wasn’t a sickness that was afflicting people, it was the will of God. The End Times were upon us, he shouted. The world was ending and soon we’d see the Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding through the air, raining death and destruction upon the godless. The dead who were rising again hadn’t become infected by some virus, he’d yelled at us as we’d listened, riveted, to him. No, the risen dead were God’s instruments of destruction, earth angels armed not with a flaming sword, but with a hunger for sinful human flesh. I’d not yet seen any of the risen dead and I don’t think anybody in our area had either but, after that sermon, I imagined them as tall, mud-colored, wingless versions of their former selves.

  Pastor Joseph advised us to pray forgiveness for our sins, to pray without ceasing. The truly saved would rise to heaven in the coming Rapture before the earth angels could attack them. They would not be harmed. By the blissful self-satisfied look on his face, I could tell he expected Jesus, himself, to summon him heavenward at any minute.

  Ma and Pa sat between Gideon and me so I couldn’t see his expression. Was he as worried as I was about what we’d done? Was that why he’d practically stopped talking to me? But it was just a kiss. Nothing more. Lot’s daughters had done worse with their father but I knew that was no excuse. Gideon might not be my brother by blood but we’d been brought up together and had called each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ from the time I knew myself.

  Pa and Ma adopted Gideon from an orphanage in Nashville twenty-one years ago when he was just a little baby. Her doctor had told Ma she wouldn’t be able to have children so they made up their minds to take in somebody else’s child and give it a good Christian home. But, then, a year later Ma got pregnant with me which is why she sometimes called me her Miracle Baby. Gideon doesn’t look like us at all. We’re big-boned and blond and I’ve got Pa’s green eyes but Gideon was dark-haired and dark-eyed, his angular face, fine-boned.

  As I’d grown older, my feelings for Gideon had changed, deepened, but I’d known they were sinful and wrong and had kept them under tight wrap. How could I ever have explained to him how the sight of his shirtless chest made my heart slush around in my chest? Or, how I felt like melting when he sent me one of his slow, lopsided smiles? Gideon was beautiful. He looked like how I imagined movie stars looked but, since we weren’t allowed to watch movies, I couldn’t say which one. I was sure any Hollywood person who saw him would have loved to put my brother up on the screen. With his open good looks, sparkling honey-brown eyes, and kissable lips Gideon would draw women in droves to whatever movie he appeared in. These were sinful, lustful thoughts. They were not the kind of thoughts a girl should be having about a young man, least of all one brought up as her brother. Pastor Joseph’s sermon about the wages of sin and the arrival of the End Times was like it was meant especially for me.

  After church, Pa and Ma spent a long time talking with their friends. Usually, people hurried home so they could prepare lunch and then relax for the rest of the day but, that Sunday, everyone wanted to talk about the End Times and about the plague of the undead God had sent among us. The president had called it a sickness, some kind of virus. He’d said his government was doing its best to maintain order and control and keep the sickness from spreading. He’d promised it would be over soon but he was in D.C. and nobody trusted him, anyway, because it was like he didn’t read his Bible and understand about the End Times.

  It made me anxious seeing how tense and worried people looked. I was eighteen, officially an adult, but I felt as frightened as a child who’d been told the bogeyman was on his way. Pastor Joseph seemed very sure of his own salvation but I didn’t think all his church members shared his confidence. I, for one, didn’t, and Gideon’s expression told me he didn’t either. I guess that’s why he stepped up his efforts to avoid me after Sunday. If I entered a room he was in, he’d leave. If I asked him a question, he either ignored me or, if Ma and Pa were around, he’d answer in a monosyllable without looking at me. I know Ma and Pa noticed but they hadn’t said anything, hoping we’d work things out without them having to get involved. The kiss we’d shared had made me hope there could really be something between us but his standoffishness aft
erward made me realize I was hoping in vain for a love that could never be.

  And now, here we were. It was Friday again and Pa and Ma had gone into town to pick up supplies and collect their mail. They’d left shortly after seven in the morning as they usually did and should have been back around lunchtime.

  Gideon had kept himself busy all day after we’d finished milking the cows, checking and repairing the fence that ran around our property. When he’d stated his intention that morning at breakfast I’d asked him why he was bothering? If these were the End Times, what did a broken-down fence matter, but Pa had said that was exactly the wrong attitude. God did not mean for us to simply give up and wait for his Angels to collect us. No, He wanted to know that we had enough faith to continue our daily lives just as if the end of the world was not upon us for His Chosen would know that their salvation rested with Him and that He would not forsake the righteous. I hadn’t been convinced but I didn’t argue. I figured Gideon just wanted to do something that would keep him away from the house and away from me during Ma and Pa’s absence.

  I sighed. Thinking about a future for myself and Gideon, together, had been silly even before the End Times. Now, as I waited for him to return from Acadia with our parents, I understood that I’d been just plain ridiculous. Gideon had shown me quite plainly that he didn’t want that kind of relationship with me.

  I grimaced and forced my thoughts away from the sad turn they’d taken. It was rapidly turning dark but I didn’t see any lights approaching on the road that led to our house. Where were they? Gideon knew how worried I’d been about Ma and Pa before he left to go look for them. Why hadn’t he called to let me know they were okay and to set my mind at ease? What was keeping everybody? I debated whether I should walk out on the road to meet them. I’d never liked being on my own and, now, the house had a yawning sort of emptiness that made it suddenly feel kinda creepy. I went inside and turned on all the lights on the bottom floor. Father didn’t like us to, as he put it, waste electricity, but it made me feel a little better seeing the rooms all lit up.

  I returned to the porch. The road remained dark. Could they have been in some kind of accident? But, if so, somebody would have called to tell me about it. Gideon or one of the townsfolk. Somebody. I wrung my hands, growing increasingly worried the darker it got outside. Could one of the Risen Dead have showed up in Acadia? But, even so, Pa and Ma should have been alright because Pa always carried both a revolver and a rifle in the pick-up even when he went to church. Then I remembered what Pastor Joseph had said about how the Earth Angels couldn’t be stopped by bullets.

  Goosebumps rose on my arms. I rubbed them quickly away but the sense of dread remained. Maybe Ma and Pa and Gideon, too, had been caught in the Rapture. The idea of this brought tears to my eyes because it meant I’d been left behind. A bout of self-pity overtook me and I started crying. I couldn’t believe I’d never see my family again. I should have been happy they’d gone up to heaven to be with God but I wished I’d either gone with them or that they’d stayed.

  Fear wrapped its icy hand around my heart. Did my being Left Behind mean I’d be among those destroyed by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? The thought brought on a fresh spate of tears as I remembered every nightmarish thing I’d heard about them or had read in Revelations.

  I don’t know how long I stayed there, sobbing my heart out but by the time I was in control of myself the fireflies had disappeared. I went into the kitchen to check the clock and it was after eight. I wondered what I should do. It was an hour away from my bedtime but if the Rapture had come and gone and if something had happened in Acadia I wanted to know what it was. I picked up the phone book and found the name of the butcher and his wife who were close family friends of my parents but, when I dialed the number, the phone just rang and rang. I tried to tell myself they were probably just out or maybe late getting home from the butcher-shop.

  Next, I called Miss Mae from the Beacon Bible Bookstore, another family friend who’d been to our house lots of times. She didn’t answer, either, so I called the bookstore, itself, but nobody picked up. My unease grew. I dialed, maybe, ten more numbers, including the sheriff’s in the next town over and the emergency 911, before I gave up. Not getting any answer on 911 shocked me. I couldn’t deny the truth anymore. God’s plague had finally arrived in our area and, somehow, my family had gotten caught up in it.

  I told myself I should lock the house up tight, turn off all the lights and go to bed. It was dark and there was nothing I could do about my family’s disappearance now. In the morning I would walk to Acadia and find out what happened. But the more I tried to tell myself I should remain in the house, the more I felt I needed to go. Why wait? I knew the way well enough and yes, it would take a few hours to get there on foot, but I was too nervy to go to sleep. I’d just stay awake the whole night and then I’d be too tired to go anywhere the next morning, assuming what had gotten everybody hadn’t yet come for me.

  My mind made up, I grabbed a flashlight from a drawer in the kitchen and set out after locking the house up behind me. I turned off all the lights, too. I don’t know what made me do that but I just felt like it didn’t make sense to leave it all lit up. If there really were Risen Dead around it might attract them like moths to a flame.

  Luckily, the moon was half-full and it was a cloudless night so I didn’t need to turn the flashlight on. In about ten minutes, I reached the outer gate to our property, pushed it open and walked through. I latched it behind me, wondering if I would ever pass that way again. The thought made another sob catch in my throat but I squared my shoulders and started off down the road. I was letting my imagination get the best of me. I had no proof anything had happened to my family. A sense of foreboding wasn’t a fact, I told myself resolutely as I set out. But it was a fact that nobody had answered their phone, not even the sheriff or the emergency responders.

  There were no streetlights out our way since we were so far from town but, like I said, the moon and the stars lit up the night well enough so I kept the flashlight off to save the batteries. The chirping of crickets and my own footsteps were the only sounds but that didn’t disturb me none since it wasn’t unusual. Noises would have been unusual. It felt eerie being on the road like this all by myself but this wasn’t someplace like New York City or D.C. where, like Pa always said, one had to fear for one’s life just going to the supermarket.

  I trudged on through the dark silence trying to keep my spirits up by murmuring little prayers. Dear God, please let my family be alright. Please let me find them. Please, please, dear God. Like that. I don’t know if He heard me or not. Pa and Pastor Joseph claimed to speak with God on a regular, real conversations where they spoke back and forth, but I guess I didn’t have that kind of relationship with Him. Or, maybe He didn’t talk to women too much on account of their wicked sinfulness.

  It had always made me feel strange and sad inside when Pastor Joseph talked about Eve and about how bad women were, that men had to be on the look-out all the time that they weren’t led to sin by the women in their lives. He didn’t exempt none of us, not even his wife. I guess he was trying to beat the sin out of her which was how come she sometimes came to church with bruises on her arms and face. At least, Pa never beat Ma and had only put his hand on me twice. First, when I was about seven and I’d lied about breaking one of Mother’s vases. The second time was when he caught me fingering myself between my legs in my room. That had been years ago when I was just fourteen, but it still made my cheeks hot thinking about it.

  I’d seen Sergeant mount Brownie in the fields and it had made me feel all tingly between my legs. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen them doing it but it was the first time I’d had such a good view of Sergeant’s huge member. It had hung down from his body, thick and dark and so very long. When he’d risen over Brownie and pushed himself into her I became so warm and quivery in my own private parts that I’d rushed up to my room, thrown myself on my bed, raised my dress, and shoved my hand down ov
er my stomach and past the elastic waist of my panties.

  To be very honest, I’d done that before. It felt really good to play with myself like that but I’d never done it during the day. Anyway, Pa saw me go into my room and he came to tell me something. Well, he didn’t take too kindly to seeing his little girl being wicked and nasty as he put it.

  If he’d known it had been Gideon I’d been imagining impaling me on his penis like how Sergeant had impaled Brownie, Pa would probably have flayed me alive. As it was, I couldn’t sit down comfortably for a week after he’d taken the birch rod to my backside.

  It was years before I touched myself again. In fact, I’d only just started a few months ago. I tried to think of other boys I knew but my imagination always turned to Gideon. It was his calloused hand I imagined stroking my soft privates and making my juices gush from me. It was his lips I dreamed of kissing as my hands caressed his nipples and wandered over his hard stomach to touch his penis. I’d never seen it but I longed to hold it in my hand. I knew my thoughts were sinful and wicked and that I was a sure sinner for thinking of him in that way, but I couldn’t help myself. Gideon was the most handsome boy around for miles and I saw him every single day. I’d felt sure God would forgive me for my impure thoughts but, maybe, he hadn’t and that was why I was walking on the dusty road, looking for my family. Because my sinfulness had caused me to be Left Behind when they ascended to heaven.

  I thought it was unfair of God to blame me for the kiss I’d shared with Gideon. It had just happened so naturally. I’d been standing behind him in the milking parlor as he fixed one of the machines and he’d stepped back, unexpectedly, right into me. I’d almost fallen but he’d grabbed me and then it just happened. The pressure of his lips on mine robbed me of reason and filled my soul. It had lasted only a minute, one single minute of heart-melting bliss. Then he’d wrenched himself away from me and, without a word, strode out of the barn before I could say anything or try to stop him. And I would have stopped him if I could. Was that why God had left me behind? Did He think of me as a modern-day Eve, steeped in sinful lust?