The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  The young woman suddenly choked. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “He’s not, you know . . . he’s okay, though?”

  “As far as I know. Last I heard he was being pulled out of Iraq. All the American forces were being pulled back. He called once, a few days after the nuclear attack on D.C., saying he’d be back in the country within a short time. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  Simpson watched, his face soft and sympathetic. “I’m glad to know that he’s okay.”

  “Yes. I count that blessing every day.”

  “Still, like I was saying, you did everything you could to prepare, but now you find yourself in a difficult situation. We need to help take care of you; we want to help take care of you. Sure, my family has a pretty good supply, we’ve tried to listen to the prophet, but do you think I could live with myself if I wasn’t willing to reach out to those good people who need my help?”

  Caelyn listened, her eyes misting. “What do I do, though? I could come to the meeting, but I don’t have anything to offer. I’m a liability; I have no assets. And I’m a stranger in your midst.”

  Simpson shook his head. “I think you underestimate both yourself and your own people. And we are your people. You’re not a stranger. I mean that, Caelyn.”

  She nodded, her head dropping.

  “Okay, then. Now, I’m trying to think. Maybe I’ve got this wrong, but it seems to me that you’re a nurse?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Don’t you think someone’s going to have a need of your expertise? That’s the way it works. You give what you can. You help others. Others give what they can. They help you. We take care of each other and put the rest to God. We lay what we have upon the altar, then turn around, go to work, and hope for the best.”

  Caelyn lowered her head again. “What time is the meeting?”

  “One o’clock. It will take you a couple hours to walk there, but that’s okay, lots of people will be walking, that’s why we’re starting early. We want to get in, take care of as much business as we can, and give people enough time to walk home before it gets dark.”

  Caelyn was quiet as she thought. Gretta’s voice drifted toward them from the kitchen, and the two young men emerged through the screen door.

  Simpson glanced anxiously around the empty landscape. “You’ve got to travel careful,” he said.

  Caelyn didn’t understand.

  “There some rumors going round. Started in some of the other churches. Some of the more . . . hmm, how’s a good way to say this . . . some of the more believing Christians aren’t a big fan of us Mormons right now. They blame us for the last election. Say they lost because of us. Some of ’em are sayin’ we’re part of some conspiracy . . .”

  Caelyn laughed sarcastically. “Good heavens, are you kidding? With all the bad around us, they think that we’re the problem?”

  “Kinda weird, I know, but you know how it is. We’ve always been outside the mainstream, and that’s only going to get worse. Our Golden Age, such as it was, is over now, I figure.”

  Caelyn pressed her lips, pulling a strand of hair away from her mouth.

  “I want to see you at the meeting,” Simpson ordered as he watched her. “If not, I’m going to come and get you. I mean it, Caelyn, no way we’re going to leave you out here on your own.”

  Caelyn looked up, her eyes wet with tears now, a clear drop clinging to her cheek. “Brother Simpson . . .”

  “Walt is okay with me.”

  “Walt, did you know that I’ve been praying for someone to come here? I’ve been praying that for days. I needed you so desperately. How did you know to come?”

  He looked at her, his face firm but kind. “The Spirit brought me here,” he told her.

  She looked up, again not understanding.

  “I was going to turn around. I wanted to get home before it got dark. But I couldn’t. I knew that someone else was out here. It wasn’t until I saw your parents’ house that I remembered meeting you a couple years ago in church.”

  He cleared his throat. “I think you prayed me to you, Caelyn. Your faith is strong enough that God was able to use even an old fool such as me. And let me tell you, that’s amazing. My wife is going to be impressed. She’s been praying for me for almost forty years, so far as she can tell to no result.”

  Caelyn laughed with gratitude, then fell into his arms, giving him a hug. “Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Spirit. Thank you for being the kind of person who would come out here to find someone like me. Thank you for not giving up. And yes, I’ll be there Saturday.”

  The two boys walked past them. “Come on, Grandpa,” one of them said.

  Simpson glanced to the porch where Gretta was standing now and waved. “See you in church next week,” he called to her. “Don’t forget, wear something white for the baptism.”

  She waved him off and walked back into the kitchen.

  Simpson laughed and climbed back onto his tractor. The engine turned, then churned, black smoke rising from the exhaust pipe. He waved, used both hands to turn the heavy steering wheel, and drove away.

  Caelyn watched the tractor disappear down the road. She knew her mother was watching from the kitchen window, but she didn’t turn around.

  Standing there, she felt a sudden sense of loneliness falling on her like a blanket from the sky. She shivered from a heavy heart while staring at the completely lifeless road.

  Turning slowly, she looked east. The sun had set now and the sky was turning dark. It would be a few minutes more before the first star or the moon would appear. Overhead, a pair of swallows flew by, searching for the first of the nightly mosquitoes. Standing at the edge of the grass, alone, looking east, Caelyn was consumed by a longing for her husband. She reached out, lifting her arms sadly to the sky. “Are you out there, babe?” she whispered. “Are you out there? Are you alive?”

  She stood and waited for an answer, but nothing came.

  “I miss you so much. We both miss you. Will you find us? Will you come home? How long will it be until you hold us both again?”

  Again she waited. Then, taking a long breath, she turned and walked into the darkening house.

  Chapter Fourteen

  East Side, Chicago, Illinois

  They ate together, what little they had, sitting around the kitchen table, some of them on the floor. Sara watched Luke carefully out of the corner of her eye. It was the first time he had joined them to eat, and he was looking better. She’d changed his dressing just an hour before and the wounds were clean and healing, the broken skin pink, the tissue bonding. He was stronger now; she could tell that from how much he ate.

  Luke realized the others were watching him and suddenly flushed. “I’m okay,” he said, embarrassed. “Y’all don’t have to stare at me like that.”

  Mary reached out to pat his hair, almost reverently, as if she were touching the Pope. She treated him like a saint, some kind of earthly manifestation of the power of heaven. Kelly Beth sat on her mother’s lap, playing with a pair of animal crackers they had found in the back of the cupboard. Sara watched and smiled.

  Sam looked at his watch. “I’m going to do a little recon in the morning to figure out what’s going on out there.”

  Ammon was staring at a road map. “You know, if we went down a different highway, we would pass our car. Think about the food and gold and things we left there. It’d be really good to . . .”

  Sam thought of the men on the road, the bandits who’d commandeered the bridge the night that Ammon had been shot. “All that stuff will be there later,” he said. “It isn’t our priority right now.” He nodded to the women on the other side of the table. “I want to gather it up same as you do, but I don’t want everyone with us when we do. There might be trouble. You and I and maybe Luke can go get it later.”

  Ammon pressed his lips together, then nodded.

  Ten minutes later, it grew dark. The sun was setting quickly now, with winter coming on. There was nothing to
do. It was dark. It was growing cold. They got out the bedding and sleeping bags and started getting ready for bed.

  * * *

  Sara slipped into the bedroom to check on Luke. He was lying on a mattress on the floor, his feet hanging over the worn edge, and though his eyes were closed, she knew he was awake. She watched him a moment, then walked quietly across the matted carpet and sat down in an old wooden rocking chair. Rocking gently, she closed her eyes and started softly singing an old song her father used to sing to her when she was just a child. The melody was slow and haunting but comforting to her now.

  Oh, don’t you remember,

  A long time ago.

  There were two little babes,

  Their names I don’t know.

  They strayed far away,

  One bright summer’s day,

  And got lost in the woods,

  I’ve heard people say.

  And when it grew night,

  So sad was their plight.

  The bright sun, it went down,

  And the moon gave no light.

  They sobbed, and they sighed,

  And they bitterly cried.

  Then those two little babes

  Just lay down and died.

  She stopped singing, drifting away, almost asleep, her mind lost in other thoughts. Then she heard Luke moving on the mattress and she looked down at him.

  “And when they were dead,” he started singing, and Sara softly joined in.

  The robins so red

  Gathered strawberry leaves,

  And over them spread.

  And all the night long,

  They sang this sweet song,

  Poor babes in the woods.

  Poor babes in the woods.

  Luke smiled at her. “Out of all the songs you used to sing us, that was always my favorite one.”

  “Are you kidding?” Sara laughed. “Talk about a song that just kind of makes you want to go out and slit your wrists or something.” Her face scrunched in the dark.

  “A little depression can be a good thing for a kid, you know: ‘song sung blue’ and all that kind of thing.”

  “Oh yeah, we need a bunch of that right now.”

  They both laughed again.

  “It’s a good song,” Luke finished, thinking of his childhood.

  Sara nodded slowly. “A good song.”

  Luke stared up at her from the dirty mattress.

  “You’re feeling better,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. She could see that he was stronger now.

  “Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good.”

  Sara leaned forward on the old rocking chair and the spindled legs creaked under her weight. “We’re going to be leaving soon.”

  “Good. Everyone is ready to get out of here.” He rolled to his side and rested his hand on his arm. “Do you think God talks to us in dreams?” he asked unexpectedly.

  She resumed rocking, the creaking chair soft and comforting in the growing darkness. “Maybe not to everyone, but to some people, I think he does.”

  “Has he ever talked to you in a dream, Mom?”

  She thought a moment. “No. I guess that’s not my gift. But I know that other people have it. Your dad did. He had warnings in dreams more than once. My mother used to talk about her dreams all the time, but hey, she used to talk to angels.” Sara paused and laughed. “She was such a character, especially in her older years.”

  Luke watched his mom. “Do you miss her?”

  “My mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure I do. I miss her all the time. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. I suppose that when I’m ninety-five, assuming I live that long, I’ll still miss her. It’s supposed to be that way.”

  Luke rubbed his hand through his short hair. “I had a dream last night.” He cleared his throat.

  “Yeah?” Sara said so that he would go on.

  “I was walking with some of the handcart pioneers. Kinda weird, huh? None of our ancestors walked across the plains. Heck, most of what we know about our ancestors could be written on the back of a three-by-five card, yet there I was, walking up a steep and snowy mountain trail, pushing an old handcart. There were hundreds of pioneers around me, families without their dads, without their moms—almost all of them were missing children. They talked all the time about the loved ones they had lost. I was walking, sometimes crying, my feet were frozen. I was so hungry, so tired. I didn’t know if I could make it.”

  Luke hesitated, his eyes turning to stare at nothing, his face thoughtful, his head slightly cocked. Sara waited, listening, not wanting to interrupt. “It grew dark and a pack of wolves came, dozens of them, thick hair bristling on their necks and shoulders, their teeth flashing in hungry growls. I was alone now. They prowled so close. You could see them in the shadows. They weren’t afraid of my fire anymore. And it didn’t matter what I did, I couldn’t scare them off. They wanted me so badly. Thin as bone, I could see that they were starving, but there was something more. You could see it in their yellow eyes, hear it in their growls, feel it in the air. It was like they didn’t want to just kill me, they wanted something more. And no matter what I did, they didn’t go away. All night long, I could see their yellow eyes glinting in the firelight, never blinking, getting closer, always closer.” Luke fell silent and lay back on the mattress.

  They sat a long time in the quiet darkness.

  “Do you think it means anything?” he finally asked.

  Sara brought her hands together in a fist before her face and gently bit her finger. “I don’t know, son. I really don’t. It might mean something, but I don’t know what it’d be. If I were to think about it, maybe pray about it, maybe I would know.”

  Luke took a deep breath and held it before he sighed. “I’ve thought about it, Mom.” He looked away. “They’re out there, the wolves. Yeah, we’ve got to worry about food and water and the cold and where we’re going to go and all that kind of thing, but that’s not the thing that’s going to kill us. It’s going to be the wolves. They’re not afraid anymore. No matter what we do, they’re not going to go away. And they hate us. They want to kill us, to destroy us. All the other stuff, I think it’ll be okay. But not the wolves. They’re the thing we’ve really got to worry about.”

  * * *

  Sam was staring out the kitchen window when Sara came up behind him and stood close. “I need to talk to you,” she whispered.

  Sam turned around. “Yeah, Mom.”

  She put a finger to his lips. “Alone.” She nodded to the door.

  They slipped out of the apartment and stood in the hall. “Azadeh told me you have a cell phone that is working.”

  Sam reached into a thigh pocket and pulled it out. “I was in the Metro subway in D.C. when the EMP struck.”

  “It’s working, then?” She sounded so hopeful, he thought she was going to cry.

  “No, Mom. I mean, the cell phone is working, yes.” He flipped it open and held the green switch to turn it on. The screen glowed red and blue and he showed it to her. “But there’s no coverage. All the cell towers are down.”

  “What about the military stations on the lake? I know there’s some navy and coast guard stations along Lake Michigan.”

  “I’ve tried them, Mom. Nothing.”

  “When was the last time you tried? How long has it been?”

  Sam thought. “I don’t know. When we first got here.”

  Sara took his hand, pulling him toward the stairs. “Let’s go try again.”

  Four minutes later, they were standing on the roof. Sam watched his mother carefully. “Mom, it’s time you told me what’s going on.”

  Sara ignored him, reaching for his phone. The soft light from the small screen bathed her face in a ghostly silver. “I know the military has all kinds of communication facilities,” she said. “They contract with local carriers for their service, even for the military stuff. It’s not like the coast guard or air force own their own phone lines, cell phone towers, th
at kind of thing. They’re going to push to get that stuff up so they can use it.”

  Sam continued watching, not saying anything.

  “Where’s the nearest military station?” Sara asked.

  Sam hesitated, thinking, then waved vaguely off to his right. “I don’t know, Mom. I think there’s a coast guard training facility somewhere east of here.”

  She pointed the cell phone in that direction and lifted it over her head. “They would have hardened some of their facilities. They would have the equipment to rebuild.” She gasped suddenly. “Look at this,” she whispered.

  Sam took three steps toward her and looked at the

  phone. A single bar. Sometimes two. “Whoa,” he said. “No kidding . . .”

  Sara gasped again. “Good, good, good. Okay,” she dropped the phone as she thought, suddenly flustered and unsure of what to do. “Okay, okay, who, who, who do I talk to?” She acted as if Sam wasn’t even there. “I can’t call the Pentagon. No one there. No, no, not no one, nothing there. Okay, okay, who? How do I get a hold of them? What am I going to say—”