The Event Trilogy (Book 1): Life After the Meteor

by Larson, Thomas

  He said to the radio, “I and only I am the true prophet of the one true God, If your God is so mighty, then have Him smite me down where I stand.”

  Matt simple said “Okay”.

  What seemed like about five minutes but was actually about 30 seconds of nothing happening Brother Gabriel laughed, looked into my eyes and said “See, I tol…”

  I heard a loud whizz by my right ear and then saw Brother Gabriel explode, his head was a bursting balloon and his body just flew apart. Stunned silence followed.

  Matt got on the radio and said “Thou shall have no false gods before me.” The remaining twelve in white, some now with blood splatters, dropped their guns, and fell to their knees, two or three of them in a dead faint, the others wailing for mercy.

  “Wow, that was ……”, but in my mind I could think of no way to describe what had just happened.

  We snapped back to reality and checked the cult members for other weapons, even though there was no fight left in them. I almost got the feeling that they were relieved at the demise of Brother Gabriel.

  While Mark and Cody watched them the rest of us talked about what we should do with them.

  “We should just kill them and be done with it. They are murderers” said Ron with malice in his voice.

  They are idiots, and yeah they killed, but they did so to survive. If they did not play the game, well there was a gun to their head,” shot back Cody.

  The rest of us were not so good with the killing idea either. I felt that they had been weak minded and fell under the sway of Brother Gabriel in the chaos that had followed The Event. It would have been easy to sell the idea that the Rapture was upon them all and that they had been spared for a very specific task.

  Fred agreed then suggested that a little “penance” might be good for them. It could give us a chance to see what they were really like. “They could finish the job of cleansing the town of the undead.”

  Frank agreed with him and added, “Talk to them, they know what is available here in town, it could save us time in our searching.”

  It wasn’t that he wanted to strip them of essentials for survival, but items that there might be good things for us to have that would go to waste. Besides, they had interrupted our hunt for fuels and such so this was a way we could make up some lost time.

  Ron did raise the question, “What is going to happen when they finished the cleansing? Are they going to join up with us? We did not know them, can we really trust them?”

  Good questions, I think we just leave them be with the understanding that they can go on as they please but that we establish a line to the east of the town that they could not cross.” I offered.

  We would have to have Matt sell that one to them.

  After having all the other radios turned off I explained to Matt what we had thought and had come up with for ‘The Brotherhood’. He understood and said that he would speak with them. I signaled Mark and Cody to turn on their radios and Matt began.

  “This is Father Matthew, do you hear me?” Heads moved up and down. “My God, Our God is not a God of vengeance to those who are of pure heart, or seeking forgiveness of their transgressions. Do you seek forgiveness?”

  Again heads moved up and down and there were a few “yeses” and “Amen’s” spoken.

  “If you wish forgiveness, this is the path you must walk.”

  Then he laid out the instructions to them. Although Matt went off script just a little and tossed in a couple of other things. Besides the handling the continuation of the cleansing and the line to the East, Matt asked that they find us a propane truck.

  One of the white robes spoke up, “I know where there is one, a whole bunch of them!” He shouted.

  Matt asked him his name. He was called Ezekiel. Matt asked if that was his cult name or his real name. He said that his real name was William, Bill actually. Matt tasked him with taking Frank and Cody to the truck.

  Matt added, “Our God is not unkind and although you will be on your own our group would help you”. He explained, “We will watch over the East and help you in times of dire need.”

  “We will meet with you the first day every month to renew the pact and to make certain that you are still on the path.”

  The white robes agreed to the pact and Matt turned the rest of the dealings with them back over to me.

  First thing I did was order them out of the robes. They were naked underneath and I suddenly realized that there were two women in the group, which was a little awkward. I told them to go two at a time to find some clothing. I sent the women first.

  Interestingly this was not so well received by a couple of the male members. I do not believe that it was out of voyeurism but rather a sexist attitude that women, being lesser, were sent first. I made a mental note on this.

  When the women returned, two more were sent and so on until all were dressed. While this clothing process was taking place I got on the radio; “I hope the little angel watching over us was not watching too closely.”

  Margo got on the radio and said, “Oh Tom”.

  I had to laugh, but at the same time there was a little twinge. Back in the old days before all this started that was her response to most of my silly statements or bad jokes. For the briefest of moments I was back there, in a kinder, gentler world.

  Ron was pushing me to get back to the railroad warehouse. There were more items in there that would be valuable to us. I wanted to get back there also, but needed to talk with the members of the Brotherhood. They must have some insights as to what was stashed away or what had been taken from the army. The machine gun and the lack of some other weapons bothered me. They had to be somewhere.

  We began to talk with the members of the Brotherhood to get an idea of who they were and how they had become part of the Brotherhood. It seemed wise since we were going to be neighbors and in the future we might find that the groups or parts of the groups would unite. It would also be good to know if any of the Brotherhood had unique skills that could be valuable to us.

  We found a nice shade tree in the center and sat down. We had brought some sandwiches with us, and as usual Nick had overdone it with his preparations so we had plenty to share. In the course of lunch we started to get an introduction of the members. It was a loose, casual, but definitely a guided chat. I almost felt I was at an AA meeting.

  Grace was the first to open up. She said, “My name was Grace.”

  “What is you real name?” I asked

  She said “Grace”.

  I had thought that she might have had that as a cult name. But no, she was Grace. Grace was a 36 year old slightly chubby woman. She was kind of a talker and well versed in who was doing what and who. I guess that is a skill one learns when they are the local hairdresser. Her husband had left her years ago. They had no children, which was part of the reason that they broke up.

  She smiled and looked at Armand, “He’s my man now!”

  Armand, who had the cult name of Peter smiled back.

  Armand was a plumber and in his 40s. He looked the part.

  “I think that much of this problem would have been solved if the states had not gone nuts trying to take our guns away from us. The Libs really are to blame for a lot of this. If we still had our guns when this started we could have solved the problem quickly.” He said. “I joined the Brotherhood to try and set things right.” (A note to self, this one might be someone to keep an eye on.)

  Stephen, or should I say Saint Stephen and his sister Michelle were next to pipe up. They were in their late twenties or early thirties. He was a born again stoner and she had been a stripper, neither had any skills that seemed useful to us. But they were some of the more interesting members of the group in that they would probably have been considered ‘sinners’.

  I took a little time to tell them who I was and what I had done before The Event. I always found that if you gave a little information you would get a lot of information in return. It is a natural feeling of returning the favor or
an attempt at one-upmanship. I went into a little detail about how we had gotten to where we were but did not get so detailed as to reveal our exact location. In fact, I gave a little misdirection just in case. I spoke about Otis, and the plane crash on the Mass Pike and finding the puppy. I also brought up Captain James and how he had visited us and how he was looking for his family.

  When I ended Pedro, picked it up speaking in broken English. “I a migrant worker who snowplow and landscape for company not far from Hinsdale.”

  He was in his late fifties. He would probably be the best prepared for this new world order because he still had connection with the old ways of living. He was a simple working soul who had joined the cult because it was a way for him to survive. I remembered reading the Don Juan series years ago and this was a man of honor. I felt we could trust this one.

  There was the truck driver, Larry. He was actually a religious man. I think that after 40 years of driving cross country runs in the truck listening to the Christian Radio it had gotten a good hold on him.

  “I did not agree with killing the soldiers or for that matter anyone who did not follow the teachings of Brother Gabriel, God will settle the score on that one but I have no problem sending the undead to Hell.”

  He did not have a great love of old school sinners, repentant or not, he just did not like them very much.

  John was a science teacher and boy’s track coach at the regional high school. There was something about him, it did not come out, but something was not right. I wouldn’t want to dig up his backyard. I felt like I was talking to a John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer.

  There was an old research study done on serial killers and it was found that during times of war the numbers of serial killings would drop. I think that it could also apply to the zombie apocalypse. I wondered if such a person would change from cleaning up the dead to going for the living.

  Alexander seemed to be a very unremarkable individual unless you consider a mouse with glasses remarkable. He did accounting before The Event and saw the group as a way to survive it.

  Anthony was in his 40’s. “I am the sole survivor of the bio-contamination team.

  I am, was a corporal, and all I did was to work at the setting up and tearing down of the equipment. I heard things about the disease before the nuclear cleansing and also after it.”

  It would be a good thing to have him sit down with Charlene and Anne to pick his brain about what he knew. It would also be a good idea for him to take us through the warehouse and show us what items were there that we might have missed.

  Ethan was a college student who was finishing up an independent studies program concentrating on the impact of global warming. There was not much there on the surface.

  I did not get to interview William or as we knew him earlier, Ezekiel until he returned with Frank and Cody. His was a one on one interview. He is actually not a bad guy, his weakness was that he had always been a follower. He fell into the group more because he could not cut it on his own. He was brainwashed by Brother Gabriel. William had flunked out of college, and basically lived hand to mouth for years as a homeless guy in tent cities here and there. So for him this sudden stability of the Brotherhood was a step up.

  Overall the entire group was a combination of weak willed individuals or people who saw the group as a way to survive. Most of the Brotherhood seemed harmless unless under the direct guidance of a strong leader. But there were a couple I would not necessarily trust, particularly John or Armand.

  I made a radio call into Peru and spoke with Charlene. I gave her the rundown on what we had found with the Military Contamination Unit and asked if she and Anne could come up to Hinsdale to take a look and to also talk with Anthony.

  “I can take one of the Hummers back to pick them up,” Ron suggested.

  That seemed like a good idea, I did not want the two of them just driving up here by themselves. I knew they could handle much of it but we were still in a position of figuring out what was going on. We could have the HumVee escort the propane truck back.

  I was digesting what some of the various Brotherhood members had said or for that matter not said. Like I mentioned earlier I was not sure about John, the school teacher. I was also pretty sure that Armand had tucked away the 50 Cal. He had seemed to take particular interest in our mentioning that we had found the boxes of ammunition.

  Then there was Anthony. The more I thought about him, the less likely it seemed that he was a corporal. He was too old to begin with, and seemed to be a little too smart.

  Mark and I talked a little about the Brotherhood. He expressed some concerns of observations that he had made. We both were concerned about John and decided that sharing those concerns quietly with the rest of our people was a good precaution.

  He and I agreed that getting into one on one conversation with some of the folks would be a good idea. There might be information that could be obtained in just a little friendly social contact. Each of these individuals was a potential iceberg. After all it was the iceberg below the water that sank the Titanic. .

  When Charlene and Anne got up to Hinsdale we hooked them up with Anthony. I had them take Ron along as an extra set of hands but his real purpose was as a bodyguard. While they were going through the warehouse I spent some time talking with Grace.

  I figured that if Armand had the 50 Cal. she might know it and I considered her a weak link in the secrets of the Brotherhood. I learned a lot about the gossip of the town before The Event as well as some tidbits about the members of The Brotherhood but she didn’t know anything about the gun.

  In our chat she expressed some strong opinions on John. He had been the topic of a lot of talk and speculation for years.

  “Rumor was that he had been involved in sexual misconduct with some of his students. But that was never proven. It was rumored that it was male students he had been playing with.”

  I think with everything else that was happening in the world a little homophobia was misplaced. The serial killer thing was what I worried about and although he creeped me out I had no evidence.

  There were routine interactions and explorations going on throughout the remainder of the day with the Brotherhood members, there was little else discovered about them that seemed significant.

  It was about five o’clock when Charlene and Anne returned with Anthony. They had a load of materials that Anthony had shown them. The supplies they had brought were based on dealing with a large living population so our taking a share had no impact on the living conditions that would face the Brotherhood. We acquired things like contamination suits, MREs, medical supplies, some test equipment and a portable water purification unit.

  Charlene took me aside, “There was a couple of things that Anthony told me that are concerning.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, there was a very good chance that the illness that turned people is a blood borne. If we get into it with hand to hand combat with the Zoms, we should make certain that we wash and decontaminate. We should also keep a close eye on any open, non-combat wounds that could become contaminated.”

  “Okay”

  Then she handed me a military ID card for a Major Anthony Barkley MD. It appears that our corporal had assumed false ID when or before he joined the Brotherhood.

  I smiled thinking, “We have a wolf in the fold.”

  “I haven’t confronted him on this yet; I think we should do that together.”

  Charlene, Major Barkley and I found a little real estate office where we could sit down and chat. Charlene began by filling me in on what they had found in terms of materials as well as information. At first I just listened then slowly I slid into my best Colombo imitation with general questions like that was interesting, but what about this, or that. I think that after a little bit of time the Major began to figure out that this Q&A was a much more serious game than he thought and that we were perhaps on to him.

  I asked him, “We had heard that the President and government wer
e gone and about the sinking of the armada of dignitaries”.

  He confirmed that he had heard it.

  “How did you know?”

  He said, “It was shit rolling downhill from the chain of command.”

  I pressed him on a lot of the information he had given regarding medical protocols. Again he used the stuff rolling downhill excuse. But he was getting edgy.

  Finally he tried to bully me, “The country is under martial law and I am military. I don’t need to answer to you.”

  It was time for “Bad Cop”. My answer was cold; I simply told him “With all due respect soldier, you are in a place with no government, with no laws, with people who are hanging on to life by a thread. Your group attempted a hostile act against us and I am in no mood to play.”