by Akart, Bobby
Chapman joined Isabella at the car, to remove debris that had fallen from the collapsed porte cochere. He paused to study their surroundings.
The parish house where they’d slept the night before was obliterated. All that remained was part of the block foundation and stubbed-up plumbing pipes. Along the highway, mud and debris covered parts of the asphalt, blurring the line between the shoulder and the actual road. Power lines, which had been unplugged from the grid for weeks, now hung like dead snakes on a tree limb. The telephone poles all listed at a forty-five-degree angle as if they’d been planted that way by the hurricane.
Isabella placed her arm behind his back and hugged him. “We are going to be okay.” She tried to reassure Chapman.
He nodded, although he wasn’t so sure. “The roads are gonna be a mess, but we don’t have a choice. The rain let up long enough to fuel the storm, and now it’s back again. That massive hurricane had no effect whatsoever on the cloud cover and the rain it’s producing.”
“It is okay,” she said as she took him by the hand. Without saying it aloud, she was telling Chapman that now was not the time for a pity party.
He looked down to her beautiful, rain-covered face and smiled. “Yes, it is. Let’s unbury Tommy’s car.”
They worked together to remove the plywood ceiling of the enclosure. Fortunately, the bulk of the structure had been lifted somewhat and thrown off to the side. The back window had been smashed in, and the trunk lid was dented. The windshield and front of the car were intact. They carefully swept the debris off the car and carried broken glass from the church away from the tires. After ensuring there weren’t any nails around the car or parking lot, Chapman retrieved the keys from his pocket.
“Let’s see,” he muttered as he slid into the driver’s seat and behind the wheel.
The car roared to life as he turned the key in the ignition. He slowly pulled away from the destroyed church until he was in the middle of the parking lot near the wagon.
As he put the car in park, Levi approached the door and opened it for him. “It’s not in showroom condition anymore, but we’re lucky it still runs.”
Chapman stood and pulled the driver’s seat forward to see the debris in the back. He picked up a piece of glass and tossed it toward the rubble pile next to the church. “We’ll clean this out and load things that can handle the rain pouring in on them. Guns and ammo can go in the trunk.”
Levi slapped Chapman on the back and began loading the cans of ammunition into the trunk. He and Isabella picked debris out of the back seat.
“Should we find a place to rest for the day instead of traveling?” she asked.
Chapman looked skyward and then glanced at the church. He could only imagine how Kristi was agonizing over her decision. She and Tommy wanted to make absolutely sure they’d done all they could.
“We only have a few hours of daylight; however, I think we need to get away from all of this.” He stood out of the car and motioned to the devastation.
“Perhaps a barn is nearby for the horses and this poor donkey. They are still traumatized.”
Chapman looked around to the neighboring properties. They all looked the same. Block foundation, plumbing sticking up out of the ground, and the occasional cast-iron tub lying amidst the debris.
“Maybe the hills protected the buildings in the valley along the creek? When everybody is ready, we’ll decide.”
Isabella pointed past Chapman, who turned to see his mom riding ahead of the two kids and Brooke who knuckle-ran through the drenched field covered with debris. Sarah had the large canvas cover for the wagon draped over her horse. It gave him an idea.
“Hey, Levi!”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have any duct tape?”
Levi laughed as he returned to the wagon and rooted around in a wooden box. He found a roll and tossed it to his brother. “Never leave home without it. Whadya gonna do?”
Sarah arrived with the canvas, and Chapman help her down off the horse.
Chapman responded with a question. “Can you help me out? Let’s see if we can cut a piece of the canvas to cover the rear window of the Mustang. We’ll secure it with duct tape to keep most of the rain out.”
Levi laughed. “Like those people who use cardboard after they’ve been broken into?”
“Exactly.”
The two guys worked together to fashion a temporary window and gave each other high fives. They cracked a few jokes and this lightened the mood among everyone.
Afterwards, they reattached the mostly undamaged canvas cover to the wagon, and where there was a tear or hole, Sarah used remnants from the other canvas to sew on a patch. The group seemed to be putting the storm behind them as the last of the supplies were loaded.
Then Kristi and Tommy emerged from the church. She was crying and couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. The group grew silent and the children began to cry. They all knew what it meant. Their attempt to look on the bright side of a horrible day was crushed.
Chapter 33
Gravel Switch, Kentucky
Despite the late afternoon start, the group followed the same procedure as before. Because they’d ventured south earlier that morning, Chapman and Isabella once again took the Mustang on a ride down the country back road until they reached the wooded area at North Rolling Fork creek. Other than destroyed farmhouses and outbuildings, the surrounding landscape appeared to be the same. Then they reached the bend in the road where the overflowing creek had appeared to them before. Only now it was wholly within its banks, albeit full of rushing water.
“What happened to the water?” asked Isabella.
Chapman smiled and responded, “Well, Mother Nature’s wrath requires food and water for fuel. The hurricane normally pulls moisture up from the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. Once it made landfall, it picked up fuel from the flooded rivers, streams, and farmland.”
“That is one less thing to be concerned about, oui?”
Chapman shrugged as he picked up speed through a series of S curves. “Unfortunately, the rain is coming down just as hard as before the hurricane passed over us. It won’t take but a few days for the banks to overflow again.”
“Watch out!” Isabella slammed both hands on the dashboard to brace herself.
Chapman jammed on the brakes, causing the Mustang to come to a sliding stop just before it hit the top of a fallen tree.
“Wow!” he exclaimed. “I need to pay attention. Thank you.”
“You are welcome. But we are blocked.”
Chapman shut off the ignition, and the two of them walked up to the oak tree that blocked the road. Standing on the trunk, he shielded his eyes from the rain so he could see farther down the valley. He sighed and shared his observations with Isabella. “Okay, I see a couple more fallen trees. Maybe pines and cedars. We can deal with it. Levi has two chain saws and extra gasoline.”
“How long will it take to cut one of these trees?” she asked.
Chapman gestured for her to return to the car with him. “An hour, maybe. The good news is we don’t need a very wide opening. The wagon is only slightly wider than the car. I would guess about eight feet is all we’ll need to get through.”
“Should we have them wait at the church?”
Chapman slid behind the wheel and started the engine. “No. Tommy, Levi and I can drive ahead and clear a trail. While we do that, you guys can start in this direction. We’ll cut as many as we need to and continue the process tomorrow.”
As Chapman spun the car around to head back to the group, Isabella pointed up a gravel road to a cabin nestled in the trees. “Do you see?”
“It survived the storm. Let’s go see if anyone is home.”
Chapman backed the car up and drove up the driveway, careful to miss a few fallen tree limbs. Once they arrived, he honked the horn and rolled down his window.
“Hello! Is anybody here? We wanted to make sure you were safe!” He glanced at Isabella and smiled, pleased with his subte
rfuge.
There was no response.
He got out of the car and yelled again. When he was greeted with silence, he went to the front door and knocked. The door was slightly ajar, and it opened under the force of his knock. He immediately covered his face from the stench of death.
Isabella stood twenty feet behind him and quickly turned away from the horrific odor.
“Somebody or something is dead in there,” said Chapman as he retreated off the porch.
“Should you look?” she asked.
“Nah. I’ve seen enough death already. There’s no way we could go into the cabin for days.”
He started back toward the car, but Isabella stood still, staring at the log-cabin-style home. She didn’t follow Chapman but, instead, walked around the side of the house on the gravel driveway.
“Where are you going?” he called after her.
She ignored his question at first, and then she began to spontaneously applaud.
Chapman called out again as he jogged toward her. “Did you find something?”
She was laughing with her hand over her mouth. Then she replied exuberantly, “It is a Scooby van! This was my favorite cartoon as a child. Scooby-Doo!”
Her enthusiasm and adorable French accent earned her a hug from Chapman. “Whoever died in there must’ve been a hippie or something. Let’s check it out.”
They walked cautiously toward the van, glancing around for any onlookers, although Chapman was comfortable the owner was dead. He studied the grille and walked around the side of the van.
“Ford Econoline,” he mumbled as he opened the door. Stale air rushed out and invaded their nostrils, but after the smell of death that had greeted them on the front porch, this was tolerable. “And it has a built-in pop-up camper on top.”
Isabella pushed past Chapman to look inside. She studied the dashboard and then smiled. She reached for the ignition and pulled out the keys. She turned to reveal her find to Chapman, but he wasn’t there.
“Isabella, back here!”
She ran toward the back of the van, dangling the keys. Chapman stood proudly over a small Featherlite horse trailer that was backed into an aluminum carport. There were two gas cans attached to its tongue with a bungee cord. Chapman looked around for a horse but didn’t see one.
Isabella proudly announced, “I have keys.”
“And we may have a replacement for our lost wagon,” Chapman added. She handed him the keys. He smiled and shrugged. “Now for the moment of truth.”
He walked around the far side of the van and checked the tires to make sure they weren’t flat. He glanced around one more time for anybody observing him and to see if the deceased person had other transportation. This appeared to be it, so Chapman suddenly got excited.
He jogged back to the driver’s door. It had a three-speed manual transmission mounted on the steering column, three on the tree, as his grandfather used to say. Chapman settled into the seat and inserted the key. He took a deep breath and turned it.
Ruh—ruh—ruh—vroom!
“Woo-hoo!” Chapman exclaimed.
He was like a teenage boy who was hustling off with somebody’s vehicle. He allowed the Scooby van to idle while he and Isabella hooked up the trailer. He glanced around the backyard for anything else of value before he slowly pulled to the front of the house. He exited the van and walked slowly toward the porch.
“Are you going inside?”
“No, not yet, anyway,” he replied as he covered his face with his shirt and pushed the front door open with his foot, where he saw the remains of a man sitting on a sofa. He beat a hasty retreat off the porch, drawing some of the stench with him.
“Why?” Isabella simply asked.
“This man deserves better than to rot inside. We’re taking his van, the least we can do is give him a proper burial. I’ll get the guys to help me when we come back.”
Isabella kissed Chapman on the cheek. “Very nice.”
Chapter 34
Gravel Switch, Kentucky
The group didn’t make it far on that afternoon, as nobody had the strength to push themselves a single extra mile. It was agreed they’d camp under the tree canopy of the cabin of the man who’d died and, for all intents and purposes, left his van and trailer to the Boone entourage.
Out of reverence, under Kristi’s careful guidance, they buried his body in a shallow grave behind his house, careful to avoid contact with any body fluids. Based upon her cursory examination, the man had been dead for eight to ten days.
The human body progresses through five basic stages of decomposition—fresh, bloat, active decay, advanced decay, and skeletal remains. At this point in the active decay process, his body had turned from green to red as his remaining blood decomposed and the organs in his abdomen accumulated gas.
They’d found several emptied vials of insulin inside his home and his refrigerator door left open. Apparently, the man was a diabetic, and without a continuous supply of insulin to inject, his body entered ketoacidosis and began to shut down. He’d probably died quickly, she opined, and most likely in severe pain.
After he was buried that evening, everyone turned in early. The guys planned to rise early to begin clearing the road, with Isabella’s help standing guard.
The next day, as they cut through the trees, they had a conversation about their changing world.
Tommy began with a question. “Levi, were you into survivalist stuff? You know, apocalypse movies, Walking Dead, stuff like that?”
“Yeah, I watched The Walking Dead, but mostly I’d try to catch some of the survival shows on the History channel or National Geographic. How about you?”
“Not really. When I was young, I was into the whole Mayan calendar thing. I couldn’t get enough of the end-of-the-world theories.”
Chapman joined in. “I think there were people who wanted something like this to happen.”
“Seriously?” asked Tommy.
“Yeah. Think about it. We enjoy movies or books that kinda take us away from reality. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t one of those people. My parents would’ve given anything for me to stay home and read a book about the apocalypse instead of driving into the middle of a tornado.”
Levi laughed as he carried a six-foot tree branch to the side of the road. “Dad trusted you to be safe about it. Mom, well, she worried a lot.”
“That’s a mom’s job,” interjected Tommy. “I have to admit, I was an action-movie guy. I was never into the apocalyptic stuff. I wish I had been, in hindsight.”
Levi continued moving logs while Tommy and Chapman cut the tree up. They were almost finished and ready to move down the road. Isabella continued to pace up and down the shoulder, watching for movement. They were already concerned that having an operating vehicle might draw the attention of someone who had bad intentions. Running a noisy chain saw to clear the road could be heard for miles through this valley.
Levi stopped and shared more of his interest in survival stories. “Did you get to see the movie about the Mariana Trench that came out last spring?”
Tommy asked, “Wait, is that the one about the giant whale thing? Meg, or something like that?”
“No, this was way better. One of the things that has always worried me are these diseases. Think about what Kristi was talking about when we buried the old guy. It’s so easy to pass a bug from one person to the other. Sometimes they’re incurable and even weaponized.”
Chapman wiped his brow and gave Tommy a thumbs-up. The guys were finished and began to make their way back to the car, where Isabella joined them.
“I’m familiar with the Mariana Trench,” said Chapman as they loaded the chain saw and gloves into the trunk. The four of them piled into the Mustang as he spoke. “What’s that got to do with viruses or diseases?”
“No, man. I’m not gonna spoil it for you. You might want to see it on Netflix or something.”
Levi appeared to be sincere until everyone looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
He burst out laughing before adding, “I’m just kiddin’, y’all. Lighten up!”
They enjoyed a laugh and drove down the road to the next tree. Levi told them the plot of the story, and they all agreed it would’ve been a good movie to see, but they had their own apocalypse to deal with first.
They arrived at a tall pine tree lying diagonally across the road. This one would be a little easier, so Levi and Tommy handled it while Chapman and Isabella returned to the group to get them started.
The farther south and east they traveled, the less hurricane damage they saw. This led Chapman to believe they were on the east side of the eye wall and the storm, oftentimes the most devastating. The number of trees they had to clear diminished as the day went on, and apparently, from the looks of their surroundings, many of the buildings were only lightly damaged by the high winds.
With lifted spirits and new transportation, they were able to travel nearly thirty miles that day to just north of Liberty, Kentucky. This time they found an abandoned duplex that had survived the tornadic winds. The Green River, one of Chapman’s concerns as they were plotting their course at Riverfront Farms, had swelled at one point, as evidenced by debris and sediment on both sides of its banks. But as had been the case with the creeks farther north, the water had been temporarily sucked out of the lowlands to fuel the massive hurricane. The rain, however, was quickly refilling the saturated farmland.
The next day, their route took them across U.S. Highway 27 in the vicinity of Somerset before they crossed into the Daniel Boone National Forest. Levi’s continued discussion of apocalyptic movies coupled with Tommy’s description of the societal collapse evident in Chicago when the power grid was first taken down was a grim reminder that their fellow man was capable of anything in their desire to take advantage of the weak, or simply to survive.
