HARD ROAD: Heaven Bound

by Terry McDonald

  Beth shuddered. “Maybe you should have,” she said.

  “I'm not positive they’re the ones who shot at Al and your uncle. I’d hate to kill them and find out later it was another group. They’re using a loading dock as part of their living area. That’s why there aren’t any signs of them out front. I looked out back for the army truck but didn’t see it. This bunch is so sorry I doubt they were with the group we ran into. Judging from the empty liquor bottles strewn around their sleeping area, they drink themselves into a stupor every night.”

  “Was this the most important place?”

  “Only in volume,” he replied. “There’s a Radio Shack about a quarter mile from here. I doubt anyone will be in there.”

  The Radio Shack was in a strip mall facing the main road. To their disappointment, they found the entire storefront secured with a metal security grid.

  “I can’t believe no one broke in at least for some batteries during the long winter.” Jake said with exasperation. “Even if we had a pry bar, we’d make too much noise getting in.

  “There was a sign under the big one by the road that said ‘EZ Pawn’. Do we want check it too?”

  They found the pawnshop at the end of the long line of stores. It was bigger than Jake expected. There were obvious signs of looting. Through the shattered glass door they saw merchandise strewn over the floor in front of the service counter. The gun and ammo areas behind the counter were empty. Most of the shelves in the main part of the shop still held goods. Beth stayed near the front to guard while he searched.

  There was barely enough light to see by. He found the place almost to be a department store, there were many new items and most were oriented towards hunting, fishing and survival.

  He almost shouted with joy at the contents of a long unit of shelves. Using his lighter to see better, he quickly pulled the things he wanted. In no time, the bag was too full. He unpacked and removed the items from their packaging. This allowed him to add more to the bag.

  He moved among the shelves picking other things until he was satisfied he had everything he wanted.

  “We can get out of here,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “Where to next, boss?” she asked.

  “Back to the cabin. This place was a gold mine. I took more than we need because I doubt we’ll be coming back. I’ll sort it later.”

  “Good,” she said with relief. “Now I know I don’t like people places, especially at night. Every noise or moving shadow makes me jump.”

  “We’ve been lucky so far. Until we’re back on the road home, we need to keep a closer watch. I don’t know why, but I’m feeling spooked.”

  They had to pass the Walmart again. They kept to the far side of the road and breathed a sigh of relief when it was out of sight behind them. They’d walked only a little further when Beth tugged Jake’s jacket with urgency.

  “I hear something.”

  He stopped and faced the direction she indicated. He heard it also. It was the unmistakable sound of engines running. The noise was faint, but after listening for a short time, it was obvious the vehicles were getting closer.

  “They’re several miles away but we need to get out of this area,” he said. “If we hurry, we should be back at our road by the time they get here.”

  Jake led the way, the heavy bag bouncing off his thigh with every step. Beth was hot at his heels. He didn’t throw caution to the wind, but they had scouted this road on the way in, and he felt confident it was still clear.

  They arrived at the point where their road turned off and traveled several hundred feet along it before he led her into an over grown field. He scuffed at the weeds to make a place for them to sit. They were winded and sweaty. Even though they were further from town, the sound of the vehicles was louder.

  “Will they come this way?” she asked.

  “I doubt it. This late, they’ll probably stop in Bainbridge.” He paused a moment to listen. “They are coming from the west. Most likely, they passed through Colquitt on the way here. The bunch we had a run in with were probably an advance element of this group. It sounds like several heavy trucks, maybe buses, could even be military vehicles. I think I hear smaller vehicles too. Either way, there are a lot of people coming in.”

  “Jesus, Jake, should we hurry back to Al and Janie? I don’t like being out here.”

  “We have to stay for a while,” he replied. “We need to know if they stop or pass through.”

  “You’re right. I’m just scared.”

  “Me too,” he agreed.

  They remained hidden in the tall brush by the roadside, the sound of the vehicles getting louder until Jake judged they must be at least to the outskirts of the town.

  A few minutes later, the volume of the sound began to fade. It was obvious they were stopping and killing their engines. Even though they were at least a half mile or more away, the crisp night air carried sound well. He could hear vehicle doors slammed shut, and muted voices shouting.

  “They’ve stopped near the edge of the town, close to where we were,” he said.

  “I hope you’re not going to say we need to check’em out.”

  “Oh no,” he answered emphatically, “there are way too many of them. The best thing we can do is get back to the cabin and make plans about how to avoid them.”

  They were standing to leave, when a high-pitched whine began. Jake pulled Beth back down.

  “That sounds like a loudspeaker,” he explained to Beth. She was obviously startled by the unfamiliar sound. “They may be getting ready to make some kind of announcement.”

  “What’s a loudspeaker?” Beth asked.

  “It’s a machine that makes voices extremely loud. Try not to be frightened if someone starts talking. Judging by the volume of the whine we heard, it’ll sound like the voice of God.”

  To accent his statement, a voice boomed, causing them both to flinch.

  “Testing, testing.”

  “That’s good enough, let me up there.”

  There were some shuffling sounds, and then another man began speaking.

  “You people inside the Walmart. Do not try to leave. You will be processed in the morning. I repeat. We know you are in there. You will be shot if you try to leave.

  “We are the Army of Saints. My name is John Saint. We are here to assimilate you. Our scouts tell us you are whites, and you will be treated fairly.

  “Now hear this! If you are not a God fearing white American, you will be killed on sight. This is a warning to you niggers, Jews, chinks, and rag heads.

  “If you report the whereabouts of any stranger who may have come around in the last three days, you will be granted immediate membership into the ranks of the Saints. Several of our Saints were ambushed and killed near here. It is possible the killers will have come this way.

  “We have reason to believe the ones who did this were a bunch of cowardly, black assed niggers, who shot and burned our people to death. When we catch them, we will burn them alive.

  “I will repeat one more time. Do not try to leave the building. You will be shot. The exits are targeted and search patrols will be out.

  The sound from the speaker cut off sharply. Jake stood and motioned for Beth to follow.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said with urgency. “I know about the Saints.”

  “What are the Saints?” she asked, hurrying to match his pace.”

  “My words to you coming back to kick me. The Saints are the worst bunch of murdering scum we could run into. Save your breath and let’s get back to the kids. We can talk then. If we hear a vehicle coming, we’ll leave the road and stick to the woods.”

  They arrived near the cabin without incident. They did their best to hide any trace of exiting the roadway. His training of the kids over the past days made the job easy.

  At the cabin, Jake knocked to let Al know it was them. He allowed Beth to enter, then instructed Al to close the door and light one lamp at the back end of the cabin so h
e could inspect for light himself. When he was satisfied, he knocked again. Beth opened the door and quickly closed it behind him.

  “Is it okay to light the lamp?” Al asked.

  “It’s cool, we’re totally blacked out,” Jake said. He could hear Janie crying in the dark.

  The light flickered on and grew brighter as Al adjusted the wick. Janie ran to grab onto Jake’s leg.

  “We heard monster men,” she said.

  “It’s okay honey,” Beth said, shaking her head at Jake, “It was just regular people speaking with a giant machine. You don’t have to be scared.”

  Jake didn’t correct her on either point. “Janie, like she said, everything’s okay, but we need to leave here to make sure things stay that way. You want everything to be okay, don’t you?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “Yes, but if everything’s okay, why do we have to leave? I like it here.”

  Beth squatted and hugged Janie to her.

  “I like it here too, but if Jake says we need to leave, we need to leave. Could you hear what the big voice was saying?”

  “Some of it. It was loud.”

  “I know it was. Now I want you to lie down, while us big people get things ready.” Beth stood and led Janie to the couch in the living area and shook out a dusty comforter to cover her.

  “I’m still scared,” Janie said plaintively.

  “You don’t need to be, Jake’s here,” Beth stated, as if to convince, both Janie and herself that being with him was all it would take to be safe.

  Beth rejoined the others at the back of the cabin. She and Jake related to Al everything that happened. When they finished, Beth turned towards Jake.

  “What do we need to do?” She asked in a low voice.

  “We need to get as far from here as we can. The Saints are bad.”

  “What are the Saints?” Al asked.

  “They’re the worst gang we could have run into. Beth, I guess you know who he was referring to when he asked about strangers?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “us niggers.”

  “Don’t you ever use that word around me again,” Jake said in a harsh tone. “I mean it!”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just the way he said it. He made me feel like nothing.”

  “You are nothing to them, neither am I, but remember, they are nothing but a marauding bunch of criminals themselves. They’ll kill us if they catch us,” he said, keeping his voice low for Janie’s sake. “I met some men in Kansas who ran with John Saint until he became too crazy for them. He was an officer in the army for a while. After that, he worked with FEMA. He was sentenced to jail for committing crimes against humanity because of what he did in Haiti right after the quake of 2010. The government covered it up and the trial was held in secrecy. He buried over fifty orphaned children in a single mass grave while they were still alive.

  “Saint was a prisoner in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary when the plague came. Somehow, in the confusion and chaos during the die-off, he got free and joined with a group of anarchists in Montana. He killed their leader and declared himself the ruler of America. One of the rites of initiation into his gang is the eating of human flesh. I didn’t know he’d traveled this far south."

  “He buried children alive!” Al said.

  “Specifically black children,” Jake clarified. “In his mind, he was killing useless breeders. His goal now is to purge humanity of anyone who’s not white.”

  “Why?” Beth asked.

  “Because he’s insane. The trouble is, there are lots of people who think the same way he does. His gang grows bigger every year.”

  “The people we shot and burned, and those two who raped me and Beth, were they part of his gang?”

  “I’m afraid so Al. If we get caught by them we’ll be in deep, deep trouble.”

  Beth said, “Ever since we met you, we been running. I say this time we go so far away from here we never see or hear of the Saints again.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. It’s for sure we need to get out of here before daylight. He’ll have patrols searching every home within miles.”

  “I say we go to the place your friend built, as fast as we can. I’m tired of being scared. Janie needs a safe place, and so do I,” Beth said, fighting back tears.

  “Yeah,” Al agreed. “I want to be where people aren’t going to eat us.”

  “It’s settled, we’re leaving tonight.” Jake pulled the convenience store maps from his jacket pocket. He chose the one he wanted and sat on the floor. “Al, grab the lamp, you and Beth help can me with this,” he requested, unfolding the map and spreading it wide.

  The two joined him around the map and Al set the lamp close.

  “Turn the wick a little higher,” Jake requested.

  Beth leaned over the map and stared at it intently. “We don’t know nothin’ about maps.”

  “You're about to get a quick lesson. This is a map of the southern half of Georgia and part of Florida The top of the map is always north. Down here at the bottom where it says, ‘Legend’, shows the scale in miles and other symbols to designate road types, rivers, parks and such. A mile is how far an average person can walk in twenty minutes at a steady pace. This map shows the length of this line equals ten miles. That’s about four to six hours of walking with breaks to eat and rest.”

  “Where are we?” Al asked.

  “We’re here,” he replied, pointing, “Just a little north of Bainbridge, and here’s Colquitt.”

  Beth put her finger on the map. “These black lines are roads?”

  “Yes... and the blue lines are rivers.”

  “So those men came down this road from Colquitt, and we came down just a little bit over from them on this road next to the river?”

  “You catch on fast. What we need to do is try to make our best guess which way the Saints will go after they’ve gotten what they want from Bainbridge.”

  Beth traced a line with her finger. “You think they’ll head to this place?” she asked, pointing.

  They could, but Tallahassee, Florida, is a big city. From what I know about Saint, he tends to avoid big places.”

  Beth traced another line with her finger. “Then he will probably stay on this road number 84. It goes to another small dot like Bainbridge.”

  “I agree with you, there are several small towns within a short distance of each other. That’s the road we were going to use to go to Lakeland, but we’ll have to take another route.”

  “Where’s the place you told us about?” Al asked. “Can you show us on the map?”

  “It’s called Heaven,” Janie called from the sofa. “Beth always says, if I be good I can go to Heaven, and that’s where Jake said he’s taking us.”

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping, little girl,” Beth said.

  “I can’t sleep ‘cause ya’ll keep talking, and I can hear you good. I’m scared of the Saint man, and we need to go to Heaven.”

  “Not much need in her going to sleep now,” Jake said. “We’ll be leaving soon. This is the place we’re headed for,” indicating on the map. “Even though it's out of our way, we'll head north to Highway 37,” he told them, moving his finger on the map. “Lakeland is here, and this is the Alapaha River. We’re going a bit to the south of Lakeland, to about here.”

  “And that’s Heaven,” Janie said again.

  “We can call it Heaven,” Beth said, standing.

  Jake stood with her, not bothering to reaffirm the name Haven. “I say we leave now. We’ll follow the road back the way we came from your farm, then turn east. Whenever we can, we’ll stay on the roadway. Like I said, scum like them use lights when they travel at night and they never walk if they can ride. As long as we pay attention, we’ll have plenty of time to get out of sight. We’ll only travel at night.”

  Beth folded the map and handed it to Jake. “Janie hasn’t had much sleep and the sun’ll be up in few hours. I don’t think we’ll get far tonight.”

  “We’ll go as far as we can, and f
ind a place to hide during the day,” Jake said. “No more staying in houses for a while. Let’s get the stuff from the pawnshop divided and packed away.”

  Beth was right about them not getting very far before the sun began to rise. They found a place under a large tree out of sight from the road and rolled out their sleeping bags. Al volunteered to take the first guard shift and sneaked back to be nearer the road. The rest were soon asleep.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jake awoke because the sun was cooking him. He sat, pushed away the dark fabric of the cover and fluffed his shirt to cool himself. The others were seated on the ground watching him.

  “We thought you were going to sleep forever,” Janie said, “we’re hungry.”

  Jake climbed groggily to his feet. “Let me wander off to take care of some morning business and we’ll get you fed.”

  He returned and fished in his bag for a packaged towelette to clean his hands.

  “Could you toss me one of those napkin things for Janie’s face,” Beth asked. “She looks like she’s been sucking a sow.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know, just something Mamma used to say.”

  “Three trucks went by early this morning while you was asleep,” Al stated.

  Al’s unexpected voice grabbed Jake’s’ attention. Al was sitting on the limb of the oak tree four feet above his head.

  “I see you found a different guard spot. How’s the view of the road from up there.”

  “Real good. The trucks were painted with mixed up colors, green and brown mostly.”

  “That’s called camouflage paint,” Jake informed him. “Were they driving slowly?”

  “Yeah. I could tell they were looking for something.”

  “Did they come back or are they still out there ahead of us?”

  “All three trucks came back about an hour ago.” Al replied. “They were still driving slow.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want them out in the direction we’ll be going tonight.”

  “I’m hungry,” Janie, reminded them.

  “We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we,” Jake said.