“Your property?!”
“That’s right, this is our property, with a deed and everything.”
The pre-catastrophe thought of it made the man laugh a little, mortgage payments, tax assessments, water bills. He could see Thompson making out the monthly payments on his bunker, saving up to one day by a tank.
Thompson tried to keep the conversation’s momentum going. “Two refugees, one of them sick with possibly a deadly and highly communicable disease, wandering onto our property and heading right for the main compound. What do you think we should have done about it?!” Thompson was getting a little angry himself.
The man didn’t have a response.
Thompson could see he was at least making some headway. “Then we come to find out there is an adult male with a small child that isn’t even his and lies about it.”
“I didn’t lie!” the man defensively countered.
“You gave the patrol your full name and then just said the boy’s name was Joshua. You knew very well what they would assume and you hoped the question didn’t come up again so you wouldn’t have to explain yourself. A lie of omission is still a lie!” Thompson found it was he that was now becoming emotional.
Inside, the man knew Thompson was right and could find no words to defend his actions.
Thompson tried to remain calm. “You were probably afraid to tell us and I can’t blame you for that. But I hope you can now see that we were only doing what we had to do to protect ourselves and that little boy. If you can’t see that then there is something wrong with you!”
The man had no answer and he sat there completely still. Outwardly his eyes were looking across the room but they were really looking deep inside himself. He didn’t like what he saw.
Thompson brought the man back from his thoughts. “Who is this woman?” he asked while producing two photos from his chest pocket. Both showed the same woman, the first an old Indiana driver’s license in the name of Rebecca Bryce. The photo showed an attractive young brunette that would be nearing her twenty-ninth birthday if she were still alive, if. The second photo showed the same woman holding up for the camera a laughing little toddler.
The man knew it was time for the truth, all of it. There could be no less. But before he could answer, Thompson cut him off. He stared directly into the man’s eyes and the look of disgust showed on his face. “Did you kill this woman? Did you kill this woman and take her baby?”
“NO!” The man was stunned the question could even be asked, especially of him, after all he had done for the boy.
Thompson was in charge of the conversation and was not about to let it go. “We found these in your gear …,” waving the photos at him, “don’t bother denying they’re yours. Is this woman that boy’s mother? The baby in the photo certainly looks like it could be this child, is it?” Thompson was deliberately pushing the man and instinctively knew that if he pushed hard enough would get the truth. “Who is this woman? Where is she? Is she dead? What happened to her?” He continued his barrage of questions not giving the man any time to respond. Thompson was looking for just the right button to push and knew he would have the whole truth when he finally found it. And then he did, his condemning eyes cutting right through the man. “This woman is dead, isn’t she? This woman is dead and you killed her. You killed her and took her baby. DIDN’T YOU?!”
“NO! She was dying when I found her! I tried to save her! I tried to save her but I couldn’t! I couldn’t!” The man could no longer see Thompson, blinded by his own tears.
Thompson gave the man a brief moment to compose himself and then went on. He had thought the man innocent but now wasn’t completely sure. He had to know the whole truth, for his sake but more importantly for the child’s. He had to know everything and wasn’t going to let up until he had it. “I told you before we were going to find out the truth. Now you tell me what happened to this woman and I had better believe it.”
The man wiped the tears from his burning eyes. Thompson had broken him and he knew he could no longer keep his secret. He had hoped to take it to his grave and no one else would ever know but the man now accepted it was meant to be this way. Maybe it was never his to keep. Maybe he wanted Thompson to take it from him all along.
Thompson’s questions brought back painful memories for him, memories he avoided thinking about for so very long. Memories he had no desire to talk or to even think about, but knew he had to because the truth deserved to be told. The questions sent the man back to that moment and the first time he met Joshua. In his mind he could clearly see and hear it all again like it were happening right then. In his ears he could hear the pleading of a young mother and once more see the accusing stare of her child. His eyes began to well up again. “All right … I’ll tell you.”
CHAPTER SIX
He had been traveling nearly two months trying to get home. That’s how long it had been since the collapse and the world he fondly remembered disappeared, unlikely ever to return. Now in its place was a terrifying new world best summed up by the cliché but well-deserved phrase “survival of the fittest.”
Man had quickly degenerated to the animal instincts of the species and numerous bloody examples could be seen anywhere one looked. For many there were no more limits in this new world as it had only been the law that kept them from robbing or killing or raping each other, and the law was now gone. Only anarchy remained. Rotting murdered corpses littered his street like so much uncollected garbage. The smell was something of nightmares. It was like some bad science fiction movie but all too real. If it had been a movie the man would have found it laughable and changed the channel.
His long trip started just south of Nashville in La Vergne, Tennessee. Sixteen months before he took a job there and moved from his native Kentucky to start over. It was a good job, he liked it and felt productive. The pay and benefits were certainly better but the downside was he had to leave his home state, his family and friends. The move was difficult but he was a single man without a wife or children, or even a mortgage payment to tie him down. So it wasn’t as hard as he first thought to pull up his life and move to a new city. But now it was gone, his new job, his new life, everything, gone. What remained was his family, old friends, it was the only real question left. He had to get back to where this started and find out if any of them had survived. He had to know.
His journey began four days after the riots started in Nashville. The rioting was spreading and he knew it wouldn’t be much longer before it reached his quiet community. There already had been a few isolated incidents nearby. He hoped they could be contained but didn’t think they would be. He had been there to live through the riots in Lexington in ’94. He thought those were bad and they had been, but they were nothing like this. Somehow inside he knew that this time there would be no stopping. They wouldn’t stop until everything was gone. They couldn’t.
Watching the news reports, it only seemed worse hour after hour. All around the country it was no better. We’re finally destroying ourselves, the nation, maybe the whole world, and the cause of the destruction seemed so absurd: harmless little bits of paper.
It was the money, our money. It was worthless now, the government, the politicians, the bankers, they had all made sure of that and we had let them, the rest of us complicit in our indifference. After decades of mismanagement, overspending, lying and unmitigated fraud, the US dollar was now worthless. Fistfuls of it wouldn’t even buy you a loaf of bread anymore. People began quitting their jobs by the thousands every day, those that had jobs. They finally had enough and who could blame them. You could work a full forty-hour week and still not bring enough money home to feed your family one day, and then later not even one meal. The demonstrations started small but continued to grow and it wasn’t too long before they were out of control, and then violent.
All around the nation it was the same. The rioting and killing started in the densely populated urban areas but quickly spilled into the suburbs and then out into the countryside, the bloo
d following the line of the highways like water obeying gravity. The mob ruled and the mob wanted blood. Now they would have it.
He quit his job a week before. He loved his job, it was hard work and at times frustrating, but it felt like he was making a difference, like he was helping. But the money wasn’t worth anything anymore. He still made the same paycheck as when he started but now it was meaningless paper that wouldn’t even get you enough gas to drive to work, if you could find gas at all. There were long lines for any of life’s necessities and cash, credit or debit was definitely not accepted; silver, gold, platinum, jewels, guns or ammo maybe, but certainly not cash.
With the food demonstrations in the last few weeks, his job became much more dangerous and now he couldn’t rationalize staying any longer. What was he working for? Not only was he working long hours for worthless money but now had a very good chance to have a bottle broke over his head, or be stabbed, or beaten into a coma with a baseball bat. Just like what happened to his only close friend in this city and coworker Tim Avery.
Tim was a nice guy that also liked helping others; now he lie in a hospital bed with tubes in him and a machine doing his breathing, the doctors very doubtful he would ever wake up again. The man wanted to help people too, that’s what made him get into this type of work in the first place, but the thought of dying in the gutter made him rethink it. He didn’t want to end up like Tim in the hospital, his pooled blood hastily hosed off of the city street before it dried and stained. He kept seeing the image of his friend’s blood washing down into the drain and knew he had to quit. He had a good reason. He wanted to live.
He watched Nashville burn on the television. As in other cities, they began as peaceful demonstrations and rapidly got out of hand. The police were sent in and while they were able to control the situation for a short time, it wasn’t too long before the army had to be called in to help. Things got progressively worse from there. The people wanted food and would not be turned back. It got violent fast, rocks, bottles and fists against gas and clubs.
For a short while the authorities were winning but then came a major change; the mobs starting arming themselves with guns. Then the police and army started using their own and from then on it was all out open warfare on the streets of Nashville.
But the authorities were destined to lose. The mobs continued to grow in size and ferocity every day while the authorities had a problem the mobs never have to contend with. Just like the man had, many police and soldiers began quitting their jobs and leaving their posts. They were risking their lives for no pay and most had families too. They continued to bravely jeopardize themselves to protect strangers while those they loved were left in danger. Large numbers of them stopped showing up for work or quit entirely. By the time the force was down to 50 percent strength, it was long too late, Nashville was lost. Now most of the central downtown area was on fire and like a cancer it was spreading.
The man knew it was time to leave and wished he had done it days earlier. He questioned how stupid it was to wait this long but something would not let him go. He had a hope that maybe, somehow, this could still all be stopped. Perhaps at the last second we could bring ourselves back from this insanity and end it before we reached that moment of no turning back. Deep down he knew it wasn’t going to happen that way but the alternative was not palatable to any sane person. He had to at least think there was a small chance of stopping this madness before we finally dragged ourselves to the point of mass suicide. Now we were there.
He hurriedly filled is hiking pack, a few items of sentiment and everything else of importance he could think of at that crazed, desperate moment. That included some food and water, his emergency medical supplies, his GPS and compass, an atlas and the extras he had for his rifle. And the last thing he packed were the two pistols he owned, the accessories, and the few boxes of ammo he had.
He put on his good hiking boots and as he did held the phone pinned between his shoulder and ear, it was still out of service. His cell phone had been out for three days, his apartment’s had been out for two. He didn’t think either would ever come back on. Then he picked up his backpack and rifle and grabbed the keys as he shut the door on the way out. As he left, the man turned around and looked back for a brief moment. He was certain he would never see this place again, although would have been happy to be wrong.
The man first wanted to take his car but after a few seconds of consideration decided on his motorcycle. It was difficult under these circumstances, but trying to think about it calmly and rationally it seemed he would have a better chance of success using the bike instead of the car. He knew most of the main highways and city streets were already heavily congested. Many thousands of people already had the same idea and by this point the roads were choking with them. The last newscast he saw reported most of the devastation to the city was in the downtown area. It appeared to have spread as far south as Berry Hill but as of yet nothing notable was reported on the southeast side of the city towards the airport. He thought having a motorcycle would be a great advantage but he would soon find out otherwise.
His hope was to make it to the Briley Parkway and then follow the loop east around the city, bypassing the devastation. Then once around the war torn areas he would pick up Interstate 65. He hoped that on the north side of the city the interstate would clear up and would be a straight shot into Kentucky. After that he planned to take the back roads to get home to Lexington. At first he considered taking only the interstate highways but was sure most of his luck would be used up getting out of the city. If he could just get beyond Nashville he would then take the less traveled roads. He knew to stay away from the larger cities. It was just too much of a risk.
It wasn’t much of a plan and he worried it relied entirely too much on having good luck. He continually used the words “hope” and “if” which was not a good sign. Honestly examining his plan he knew it was questionable but what else could he do? He had to get out of here and right now. He had never really prepared for anything like this and why would he have to? He was fine, the city was fine, the country was fine, the world was fine. Never in his worst dreams could he have imagined what was now very much real.
The man was renting an apartment from an older widow, Mrs. Cooper. She was the owner of the home and it easily stood out from all the others in the neighborhood. It was a fine old two-story with white board siding while all her neighbors’ were ranch-style homes made of newer brick. The man bet that this house had been there forty years before any of the others.
Mrs. Cooper had converted her two-car garage into an apartment that was separate from the house and some fifty feet away at the end of the driveway. The man was very content with his new residence; it was small but comfortable and the price was right. His new home was also secluded and quiet. The small isolated building was over one hundred feet from the road and was surrounded by the neighbors’ backyards on the other sides. His new apartment offered the man a serene island comfortably nuzzled in the middle of a larger community, itself secluded from the harsher realities of the city just north of them.
Mrs. Cooper was gone. She left three days before, telling her tenant she was getting out of town and going to stay with her sister in Beechgrove. She told him, “I just don’t feel safe anymore.” His landlady had no idea when she would return but would call and give the man an address to mail his rent checks to. So far she hadn’t and now it didn’t matter anyway.
Being at Beechgrove was better than being here but the man questioned how long it would take before the violence spread there too. He didn’t think it would be long.
He prayed the kindly old lady would be all right. She had been very nice to him since he first arrived. The woman had only one child, a middle-aged son living in California. She had mentioned him a few times and how disappointed she was that he hadn’t come to visit her in years or hardly ever called. Although she never said it, the man always had the idea he reminded the gentle older woman of her son far away.
&n
bsp; Behind the home was a tool shed Mrs. Cooper had let him use. The man went to the shed, unlocked it, and then walked his motorcycle into the driveway and set it on its kickstand. The first thing he did was check the tanks and they were full. Looking down at the precious golden commodity shimmering there in the sunlight, he was glad he saved it. It was nearly impossible to find now and the man knew he would need every bit of it to get him home.
He then set the rifle in line with the rear half of the seat but the end of the barrel jutted out the back. The man then took some rope from the shed and securely tied both the rifle and his pack to the cycle’s seat. He did a very thorough job and was sure it wouldn’t come off. When he first started, he made certain to put the rifle underneath, covering it with the backpack as much as he could, although it wasn’t enough. He wrapped a large shop rag around the portion of the barrel that remained visible. It didn’t look very good but it completely concealed the long gun and the man thought no one would realize what it was. He hoped they wouldn’t. It was the best he could do with the short time left.
The man then checked a zippered compartment on the pack where he kept his large caliber handgun. He had intentionally tied the rope so the flap was left exposed; he could get at it anytime he wanted. The man pulled the gun from the pack. It was a .45 caliber pistol that he just purchased five months before. He only had a chance to shoot it six times. He checked the chamber to see if it was loaded and the magazine to make sure it was topped off; they were. He inserted the magazine back in the gun; it locked in with a reassuring click. The man then returned the pistol to the bag and zipped it back up.
The rifle he bought on the advice of his brother a year earlier. His brother was into guns, a “gun nut,” and the last time they were together he told the man to go out and buy this rifle and learn how to use it. At first he thought his brother was joking but after calling and repeatedly reminding him over the span of a month, the man realized his brother was deadly serious. He specifically told him to buy this model and advised what accessories to buy too. His brother went on to explain that he thought there would be coming to this nation many trying times and every adult man and women would need to know how to use one. It was their obligation to know how to use one, for their nation.
Joshua (Book 1) Page 5