The Last Pilgrims (38 page)

After another full day of walking, she made
her camp in a heavily wooded copse of trees on what must have been
a very large ranch. She found an elevated deer feeder made of an
old 50 gallon metal barrel that still had some corn in it, so she
filled her pockets and her plastic sack with handfuls of the dried
kernels. About a hundred feet away from the deer feeder she found a
windmill that fed clear water into a small concrete tank for
cattle, so she finished off the water she still had, then refilled
the water bottles from the tank.

Taking one of the empty bottles, she first
filled it about halfway with corn so that, in time, the water could
soften and rehydrate it. She sat down behind the water tank and ate
her last tin of tuna, then returned to her copse of trees where she
made a rudimentary bed and shelter of cedar branches before lying
down and falling into a deep sleep that carried her through the
night. Her last thought before drifting off was a very clear vision
of what was still going on back at the Interstate. She shivered at
the thought, though the night was quite warm. She was so glad to be
across that border knowing that there were no other major
Interstates between her current position and the lands of the
Vallenses.

She didn’t know if the Vallenses would take
her in, and she could not blame them if they would not. She knew
that she had nowhere else to go, so she rested satisfied in the
thought that perhaps God had brought her this far, against
impossible odds, because he had desired to bless the Vallenses
somehow… through her. Maybe she was called to serve them in some
fashion, or perhaps she could do something to help them. That
thought pleased her, and having had food and water, before long she
drifted into a deep and restful sleep.

She woke up to the sound of her plastic bag
rustling loudly, and in the scant light of dawn she could see that
a squirrel had worked his way into her grocery sack where he was
happily stealing some of her corn. Instinctively more than
anything, she rolled over and snatched up the bag, closing it
before the thief could flee out of the opening. Without even
considering what she was doing, she grabbed hold of the squirrel
through the bag and, finding its head, she twisted solidly until
she knew that the neck was broken. She had never killed anything
before, if you didn’t count a dog she hit with her car on the way
to work when she was 19, but killing the animal didn’t freak her
out or alarm her. She had seen it done on hunting shows and in
videos she had bought about processing chickens.

She didn’t really know what she was doing,
but before long she had taken out the pocket knife and, fairly
effectively, had cut out whatever meat could be found on the
squirrel. She wanted to cook the meat, but cooking without fire was
a mystery she had yet to solve, so she ended up talking herself
into eating the small bits of meat raw. She knew she needed the
protein, and she knew that life as she had known it was now over.
Her grieving period for Hamish and for the old world she had always
known was over as well. That life, and the love of it, had passed
from her during that interminable period spent watching the murder
and mayhem happening on I-20, and she no longer doubted that she
had to do what it would take to survive. So chewing the raw meat
wasn’t exactly how she wanted to start her day, but absent a nice
cup of coffee it would just have to do.

Just for a brief moment, she wondered what
she looked like—sitting there in the filthy clothes she had been
wearing on the day of the collapse—with squirrel blood on her hands
and chewing on the raw flesh of a rodent.

She had always been considered
attractive—remarkably so, according to some accounts. Many of the
problems and heartaches of her life, she had learned, were a result
of her good looks—or at least the pride she had always had about
her good looks. She had made bad decisions when it came to men, and
even her marriage—she now knew—had been a mistake, largely enabled
by the fact that Hamish had heavily fed her ego.

From Jonathan she had learned that a woman’s
beauty, in order for it to be real and not a tool of manipulation,
must come from inside. She must have a beautiful mind, a beautiful
heart, and be beautiful in her love of God and others. Her entire
life she had used her looks to manipulate men, and she had grown
miserable and sad from it. Humility and meekness were traits she
needed desperately, and she wondered if her current adventure was
how she was to learn these things.

She had hardly finished the meal, when she
heard footsteps coming towards her through the trees. Panicked, she
ducked down and tried to hide, but it was too late, and she had
been too slow. Looking up, she could feel her heart pound in her
chest, as two men and two women came towards her pointing guns at
her.

“Get down!” the largest man yelled at her,
and she ducked her head while thrusting her hands up into the air.
“Stay down.” The four strangers came directly into her camp and
began rifling through her meager belongings, while the large man—a
clean shaven, dark haired man who looked like a salesman—kept the
gun trained on her chest.

“I’m trying to go south to meet some
friends,” she sputtered, her voice betraying her fear and
desperation. “My husband has been murdered. Our car died up near
Albany. I’m all alone… I’m… all… alone,” she said as she began to
cry.

“Stop crying, lady,” the salesman said
pitilessly, “everyone has a sob story. We’re just making sure you
aren’t a looter or some killer trying to harm innocent people.”

“I swear to you I am not. I don’t even own a
weapon. I’ve been walking for days. I’m trying to meet up with some
friends of mine down south of here. I promise.”

“Did you just eat that squirrel raw?”
Salesman asked. He looked at her askance, like she was some kind of
beast.

“I was hungry,” she replied, sheepishly,
trying to wipe the blood onto her jeans.

“Well,” the salesman continued, “you’ll have
to come back to the house with us. We’ll get it all sorted out
there.”

“Ok… Ok… Good. Back to the house.” She
looked over her four captors. They did not look like your
stereotypical ‘bad men’.
Maybe they work in an office somewhere
near here. Maybe a car dealership,
she thought. Their clothes
were dirty, but of good quality, and they weren’t tattooed or scary
in any way.
Middle-class office workers
. Maybe she would be
alright. Maybe they were just some people who were as scared as she
was.

The long walk back to the ranch house was
tense. Nobody said anything to her, and twice she noticed as the
women looked at her in a strange way—looking away quickly when she
caught them staring.
Almost as if they pity me
. She wasn’t
used to that. Why would they pity her? Maybe they were affected by
the fact that her husband had been murdered. Wow. She hadn’t
thought of that. To her, the catastrophe up near Albany all seemed
so long ago. Now, these women looked at her as if to say, “I am so
glad I am not her!”
So strange, to not feel that pity for
myself
.

When they made it back to the house, she
noticed that the area looked as if a long gun battle had taken
place there.

“We’ve had some trouble,” the salesman said,
almost too cavalierly. A black pickup truck was parked across the
driveway, and it had been ‘T-boned’ by a silver sedan that had
evidently been trying to back up speedily from the house. The sedan
was riddled with bullets and there was dried blood and broken glass
all over the place.

Upon entering the house, she began to be
frightened again. The house was a mess, as if burglars or spies had
gone through it looking for something. When she turned to ask what
had happened, she felt the gun poke her in the back, and then the
salesman grunted at her while pointing towards a closed door. “Down
there, squirrel lady,” he ordered, “down to the basement.”

Now she was frightened. In the basement she
saw more dried blood, and the whole picture began to congeal for
her in her mind.
These are the bad guys! Why are they dressed so
nicely?
She thought about running… about fighting, but there
was no way she would make it. There was nowhere to go.

Salesman began to tie her up to a support
post in the basement, while saying nothing to her at all.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Shut up, lady. Don’t you know what is going
on in the world? We all have to do whatever we have to do.”

“No. No. In fact I do not know what is going
on in the world! Tell me.”

“The stuff hit the fan…just like everyone
was saying it would. The whole world has melted down. There are
riots everywhere. No place is safe. That’s why we came here. Now
shut up, because I don’t need you whining or talking or making
trouble.”

“Making trouble? I’m an innocent person! My
husband has been killed. I need your help!”

Salesman started to laugh. “You need
my
help? Really? No, lady, because you are screwed.
Everyone’s on their own. No rules. That’s just the way it has to
be. You belong to us now, and we’ll keep you here as long as we
might be able to use you or trade you. If you stop being of value,
we’ll kill you and bury you in the yard with the family that lived
here.”

“You… killed them? Why?”

“Because they killed my friends, that’s
why!” Salesman was growing emotional and was emphasizing his points
by pointing a finger into her face. “Because they had stuff we
needed, and they weren’t about to give it to us! Didn’t you see all
that mess up there in the driveway? They killed two of our friends
when we tried to take their car. Our truck was out of gas. We just
needed their car, and they shot us! So yeah… we killed them. They
got what was coming to them. They should have just let us take the
car. But they wrecked it, and wrecked the truck and now we’re stuck
here too, and so are you.”

He finished tying her up and then smiled at
her.

“Someone will come along and want to trade,
and we’ll trade you for a car or a horse or something. Or perhaps
we’ll kill them and take a car… who knows? Anyway, I told you to
shut up, so shut up. You better not make a sound. You see, I don’t
care if you live or die and I’m not in the mood for trouble. Just
keep it quiet or you’ll be sorry.”

“I don’t get it. You all don’t look like
murderers. Why are you doing this?”

“Listen lady, I have a family too. You’re
not the only one whose life sucks right now, ok?” He paused for a
moment, staring upwards as if he were trying to remember something
that might have happened ages ago. “We were working at one of our
insurance branches in Abilene when it happened. Six of us were here
from the Dallas office. After the stuff started happening, we hung
around thinking things were going to get straightened out, but they
just got worse. A couple of days ago we gave up waiting and tried
to drive back home, but the Interstate was impossible. There were
ambushes everywhere, and a couple of times we barely escaped being
killed. So, we turned south and drove around looking for help until
we came upon this place.

“We were on fumes, man. We decided that we
needed a car with gas in it, and we saw these folks sitting in
their driveway. Apparently they were planning on going somewhere…
probably too stupid to know that the Apocalypse had happened.”

Salesman was now rationalizing, trying to
convince himself more than anything. “We had talked about it a lot
while we were driving around trying not to get killed. The gloves
were off, man. Everyone is, like, just doing whatever they need to
do, so that’s what we decided we would do. You try to play nice in
this world and people will cut your throat. I’m not dyin’ out here,
lady! I’ve got a family to get back to. Screw you and screw
everybody!”

She noticed that Salesman was no longer
really talking to her. He was talking to himself. He was
rationalizing his crimes, and he expected her to listen and agree
with him. She decided that it was best just to stay quiet.

“We decided we were going to take the car,”
he continued, “and if they had just let us, no one would have
gotten hurt. But, when we, like, rushed up on the car, the old man
just started shooting! Do you believe that? Shooting at us! He
killed two of our co-workers, Tyler and Reggie. They got it in the
chest… up close and personal. So we rushed the guy and I knocked
him out with a tire iron. You shoulda heard the sound! It sounded
like a melon popping. He had it coming, the bastard. Anyway, so we
killed ‘em. Who cares. They killed my friends, so I killed them.
Self-defense. That’s the way it goes.”

“You were trying to steal from them, that’s
not self-defense.”

“It ain’t stealing if you need it lady. And,
everyone is doing it.”

“Oh my.”

“Listen, I don’t need you judging me! Just
shut up, I tell you!”

“You are animals!”

Salesman smacked her suddenly and forcefully
across the face. He stood looking down on her with rage in his
face, and then he spit on her before wiping his mouth with his
sleeve.

“You don’t mean anything to me lady. I’ll
kill you too. I’ve got a family to get home to.”

“Would you like someone to do this to your
wife?”

“Shut up, lady! Everyone’s got a sob story.
Maybe yours will end well. But I doubt it.”

Salesman stuffed a small rag into her mouth
then gagged her violently before disappearing back up the stairs.
She was left alone.
I’m going to die here
, she thought. Then
she prayed.

After a few hours, she heard a ruckus
upstairs. There were some thuds and a few screams, but before long
it got silent. After a painfully long time she heard the door at
the top of the stairs open slowly, and she heard the sounds of
footsteps carefully descending the stairs. She looked up and saw a
rough looking man with a full black beard staring at her. Her heart
began thudding again.
Oh God! Oh God!
The man was dressed in
rough “field hand” clothing, and he had a very large knife. If her
captors were dressed like “good guys”, this guy looked like bad
news. She thought that she might faint.