HARD ROAD: Heaven Bound

by Terry McDonald

  “That’s not funny, now it’s worse.”

  Agnes gave Jake a look. “You’ve got an odd sense of humor.”

  “It’s an inside joke, right Champ?” he said, patting Al’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, but it’s still not funny. Now it itches even more.”

  “Tell you what,” Jake said. “Tomorrow I’ll make you a scratcher stick you can slide under the padding.”

  A bright flash, followed by a loud clap of thunder that rattled the cabin, caused them to jump. Al yelped in pain.

  “Sounds like we got a real storm coming in,” Jake said. “You might start thinking about going to bed before it gets too dark to see.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Agnes said. “I do expect to pull my guard shift tonight.”

  “I’ll send Beth in, and take the first watch.”

  As he left, Agnes began positioning padding under Al’s leg to elevate it. Jake, joined Beth, who was standing by the porch rail. A light rain was beginning to fall.

  “I’ll take the first watch, and Agnes can have the next,” he said. “You may as well go in to bed.”

  “I will in a bit. I’m not sleepy yet, and I love thunderstorms. The sun will be down in a few minutes. Thunderstorms are exciting.”

  As if to accent her words, the heavens lit, and a huge thunderclap shook the cabin. A strong gust of wind, filled with a chilly mist blew in. Beth jumped towards Jake, throwing her arms around his neck and clung to him.

  “That was close,” she said, her breath caressing his ear as she still clung, her slender frame pressed against him.

  Jake gently disengaged from her. “It wasn’t that close,” he said, making conversation to cover a feeling he’d felt with her contact, “the main storm is still a half mile away.”

  Beth turned from him, looking out at the rain. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Know what?” he asked, still flustered.

  “How far away the storm is?”

  “Oh. You count the time between the flash of lightning and the first sound. Light travels almost instantly, but sound only travels about a thousand feet per second. There’s a little over five thousand feet in a mile. Five seconds would put it at about a mile, and a little over two seconds would put it at a half mile.”

  Again, lightening flashed and thunder shook the porch and rattled the windows of the cabin. The wind blew a thick sheet of rain directly towards them, forcing them further back under the shelter of the porch roof. Beth pressed herself close beside him.

  “That one was about a second,” Beth said, raising her voice above the rising torrent of rain pelting the metal roof

  “Means the storm is practically on top of us,” he replied loudly. “I think we can take a night off from guard duty. I can’t imagine anyone being out in a rain like this. Lord knows this old man could use some more rest.”

  “You’re not old,” Beth said. She turned and rushed inside, leaving him confused, once again savoring the taste of sweet chocolate in his mouth. “Damn,” he muttered to himself. He stayed out longer.

  *

  The storm turned out to be the gully washer had Jake wished for. Five full days the winds and thunder shook the cabin. The rain would, according to Agnes, “fizzle to a drizzle”, seem as though it was going to clear and then another storm front would come in, releasing several hours of torrential, thunderous downpour.

  Jake, Beth, and Agnes spent many cold miserable hours pulling guard out by the edge of the utility line clearing. Al had several miserable days also. His leg stopped hurting after the second day, but the unbearable itching persisted for several more before finally subsiding.

  On the sixth day, the skies cleared, and the sun reappeared as though it had never left. Spring came rushing in behind the clouds. The weather turned perfect, and the days passed smoothly, a week and then a month. Al steadily improved thanks to Agnes’ constant nursing, and the stringent physical therapy she made him endure. Janie’s basement provided a pair of aluminum crutches and Al quickly learned to move around on them like a daredevil.

  Janie heard trucks on the highway several more times, but none of them stopped. It seemed, as Jake had suggested, Saint believed they had left the area and was searching further afield.

  Because of the food in the basement, Al and Janie were filling out, and it seemed as though they were growing taller by the minute. To Jake’s discomfort, Beth was filling out too, and she was acting differently. He knew what was going on. The way she tied her shirttails across her midriff, the way her hair was growing out, and the pains she took to make it lay perfect, the fact she was always finding ways to be near him, all directed towards getting him to notice her. To make things worse, she was developing all the attributes of a full-grown woman, and it was impossible for him not to notice her.

  Agnes took Jake aside and set him straight.

  “You know Beth’s in love with you?”

  “I know she thinks she is,” he responded.

  “Nope, she’s in love. You’re all she talks about when you’re not around. The first love is the strongest.”

  “I’m doing my best to discourage her,” he replied defensively. “It’s difficult because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

  “You’re getting me wrong. I’m not chiding you or telling you to discourage her. I’m saying, if you do respond, be sure it’s because you love her.”

  “Christ Agnes, she’s only eighteen….”

  “She had a birthday last Friday,” Agnes, said, interrupting him, “She’s twenty going on twenty one.”

  “She told me she was eighteen,” Jake said, bewildered.

  “I know she did. She lied when she first met you, hoping you would consider her too young to harm.”

  “But she looked eighteen,” Jake said.

  “Malnutrition... she’s developing with a vengeance now.”

  “She’s still a child,” he said emphatically.

  “Get real Jake,” Agnes said, “In our time, before the death, she would still be a child. In this world, she’s used a gun, and killed people. She’s been a mother for her siblings, not to mention several times raped and victimized. She’s a woman, and you need to treat her with the respect a full grown woman deserves.”

  “So tell me how to handle this,” Jake pleaded. “I care for her deeply, and for Al and Janie and yes, you too. I don’t want to hurt or embarrass her.”

  “You’re the man here, just flip your mind to where she’s not a child anymore and see where it goes. Treat her as an equal the same way you do me. Who knows, you may even fall in love with her and live happily ever after. I will say this though. If you do, it won’t be a sin. A woman would have to search hard to find a better man. Hell, you’re damned good looking too. I’d probably be chasing you if I wasn’t gay.”

  “Jeez, life gets filled with complications no matter how hard you try to avoid them.”

  “C’est la vie,” she said, laughing at him. “You can’t tell me you’re not attracted to her. I’ve seen the way you look at her sometimes. You act like the most confused man ever born.”

  “I am,” he replied.

  *

  They profited from the forced delay in many ways. Agnes was highly skilled in several of the martial arts, and had won the regional championship in mixed martial two years in a row, “And I wasn’t fighting in the namby-pamby woman’s division either,” she stated with pride. “The first year I competed against women took care of that. The managers and sponsors sent a rep to ask me to kindly drop out, as I was unfair competition. I agreed, but with the condition, I could fight my weight class in the man’s division. They “agreed” in order to stop a discrimination suit.”

  She held daily classes for them, including Al, even though he could mostly only watch. Jake added to their skills by teaching them several brute force methods of disabling or killing an adversary. Agnes declared them artless, but effective.

  Janie found two lightweight compound bows, along with an assortment of p
ractice and hunting arrows in her basement. They took turns practicing with them. Janie soon outstripped them in ability, especially Jake, who had little talent for it. Now Janie always had her bow with her. Agnes made her a quiver large enough to hold a dozen arrows, using the leg from a pair of denim pants and some stiff wire. Janie could put five arrows in or near the bulls-eye of a target at one hundred feet in less than fifteen seconds.

  Jake spent time teaching them how to follow someone’s trail and how to conceal one’s own trail. Janie and Beth were soon better than he was in their tracking ability. When it was his turn to track either of them, he had to search to find the signs of their passing. He taught them how to improvise simple booby traps, like his favorite, which was to lay small twigs across a natural depression in the ground and cover the signs of his work with forest debris. Then he would plant, and conceal, short sharpened sticks protruding about three inches above the ground in the area where a person might fall. With practice, it took less than fifteen minutes to set this up. Frequently, when being trailed by them, he would set a trap of this nature without the stakes and, until they became aware of the tiny signs of his work, they would often find themselves flat on their faces, knowing if it had been a completed trap they would have been in a world of hurt. To their delight, they got him a few times too. He taught them other quick, nasty tricks that could maim or kill a pursuer. Their favorite was the bent sapling with a sharpened stake attached. They loved the few times he missed the signs of their work, and got whacked by tripping an unloaded trap.

  Jake and Agnes took turns in the basement with kerosene lamps, teaching the others math, language, and science.

  The three siblings were quick, Al especially. It was almost as if the ability to understand the logical concepts of math and science were inherent in his genes.

  Jake had played chess since childhood and was a strong player. He made a crude chess set, using stones of different sizes and colors from a nearby creek bed. Agnes didn’t care for the game, but soon, to his bewilderment, the other three were as formidable opponents as anyone he had ever played.

  He was about even in a contest with Beth or Janie, but after the first week of play, no one could defeat Al. His ability astounded Jake. He, himself, could see about five moves deep into the game, but sometimes it seemed as though Al could see clear to the end game after only a few moves.

  One evening, about three weeks after arriving at the cabin, Agnes skipped teaching and joined Jake on guard at the edge of the cut.

  “Jake, we’ve been talking about something.” She stated after sitting down.

  “What’s that?” Jake asked, giving her his full attention.

  “We want to know the whole deal about this place we’re going to. We want to know everything you know about the death, and what you and those scientists were doing there at the university in Wisconsin.”

  “That’s a long story Agnes.”

  “We’ve got time,” she said, “and we want to know what we’re getting ourselves into. There are some other things I want some answers to also.”

  “Ask away, I don’t have any secrets.”

  “I’m a nurse, and I’m going to speak from my years of knowledge. When I first met you, those three were so thin I could see their skeletons through their clothes.”

  “They sure were,” Jake agreed, “but they’re filling out now.”

  “I’m making a point here Jake. Three squares a day cannot account for the growth and improvement I’m seeing. Bones can’t grow that fast. It’s not just bones either. Al lost a tooth from the beating he took. It was a permanent tooth, Jake. It grew back, not only grew back, but did so in only a week. That’s impossible.”

  “Agnes I….”

  “Let me finish,” she said, interrupting him. “Just look at them. Janie and Al are at least three inches taller. They’ve put on weight at a phenomenal rate. Al still has his cast on, and normally it should stay on for at least twelve weeks, if not longer. I’m going to take off this evening to look at it, because I think the leg is well, and that’s impossible too.”

  “Agnes…”

  “I’m not done yet. You’re forty-six years old, and could pass for much younger, not a grey hair or a crow’s-foot on you. The four of you are so fast I doubt I could lay a hand on any of you in a real contest and I hold medals in the martial arts. Now, you can talk and I want to hear something I can believe.”

  “I was only going to say maybe I was wrong and I do have secrets, but I didn’t realize I did until now. I think I have been denying what’s been staring me in the face. I think we can take a chance this evening and skip guard duty for a while. Let’s go to the basement so I can talk to all of you together.

  CHAPTER 9

  Excerpt from Diary by Agnes Loudermilk

  The death and its causes as told by Jake Markett, April 11, 2026 or year 9 ATD (after the death)

  The death was a simple disease. You got tired and more tired until you slipped into a coma and died. It didn’t take long either, five or six hours and that was it. My girls went that way. Oh Lord, it tears my heart out to write those words, I still see them in their beds, fading away. So helpless, hopeless, knowing there was nothing I could do to save them. I can still see their faces, beautiful even in death. It’s good the death was such an easy killer. If they had died in agony, I would’ve gone insane.

  I had discounted as science fiction the reports that the plague was caused by machines, and assumed the plague was a man-made pathogen distributed by terrorists. Jake said that was a false assumption. He said it definitely wasn’t a pathogen. Jake isn’t crazy, and if he says we were attacked by machines, then by God, we were attacked by machines.

  Jake isn’t dumb either. He was a ranking officer in the military and graduated from West Point. He suffered a severe wound in the Yemen conflict in 2014 and lost an eye and his left arm at the elbow. That’s how he ended up as the ROTC Commander at the University of Wisconsin.

  About fifty people from the university and surrounding area who survived the death banded together to protect each other.

  It seems there are things going on in the world I don't know about. Not only did the nanobots cause the death, but now they are dismantling our cities and other structures. They even destroy dams, reducing them from the top down so there’s no flooding.

  He says you can actually see the nanobots at work. Even though they are microscopic, they look like a thick white fog because there are so many of them. The scientists speculate that these nanobots can make copies of themselves like von Neumann machines. I’m educated, but most of what he told us was way over my head.

  A tank of liquid nitrogen Jake was moving ruptured. The blast threw him into a cloud of the nanobots. His injuries were so bad the researchers thought he was dead and didn’t attempt to remove him.

  Jake doesn’t think he was dead, but he’s not sure. All he knows is, he awakened days later in perfect health, and the arm and eye he lost in war had grown back.

  He doesn't understand everything the researchers tried to explain, but what it came down to was that a cluster of the microscopic particles acting together, have very strong computing powers, along with the ability to manipulate matter at the atomic level. The technology behind the nanobots is beyond anything humans can equal.

  The strangest thing he told us about was the death. The researchers figured out it weren’t random. It was genetics based. If children survived, the parents survived as well. That’s why my adopted darlings died. Our genetics didn’t match. The nanobots spared individuals too. Jake said the machines used their own system to decide who died and who didn’t and the scientists couldn’t figure it out. Jake doesn't know why they let any humans live at all.

  That’s it for now. It took him a long time to tell this part because we kept interrupting with questions. I’ll keep updating my diary, because it’s important a record is kept for history.

  *

  The death and its causes as told by Jake Markett, April 12, 20
26 or 9 ATD (after the death)

  I just finished wrapping Jake’s wrist. Today I was bragging about how good the girls were doing with their martial arts training. Jake decided to put it to the test. He told Janie to walk without looking back and he would come from behind and grab her. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back staring at the sole of her little boot poised to stomp his face.

  My respect for him grows constantly. A little girl tossing them to the ground would have been an ego blow to most men. His reaction was to smother her with praise.

  His wrist began swelling from being tossed, thankfully only a minor sprain. Admittedly, he didn’t attack her aggressively, but the fact she executed the move perfectly fills me with pride for her and for myself. I am truly beginning to feel like I belong to a family.

  A storm rolled in shortly after lunch and Janie pressed Jake to tell us more about Haven. She still calls it Heaven and so do I. To her, Heaven has become a mystical place, a dream place. I surely hope that’s what we find there.

  Jake told us about his friend, Avis Johnson. Avis Johnson is the man who built Heaven. Jake said Avis was the sort of person who worried about things. He made a fortune from selling a virtual reality game engine he developed, and then added substantially to his fortune during what Jake called, the second great real estate bubble.

  Jake met him at the university. Avis asked him many questions about weapons and defending an area. Jake said he thought at first he was dealing with a whacko, but as he came to know him, he realized Avis was simply a man worried about how to protect his family if something did go wrong with the world.

  Jake says Avis spent over two hundred million dollars building Heaven and stocking it with things needed to survive and rebuild after a major disaster.

  Jake came to share his concern and used his military connections to help Avis get weapons and other military equipment and supplies a civilian couldn’t acquire.

  He and Avis became close friends, and planned to move their families to the sanctuary. The weather began to change with the beginning of the long winter caused by the nuclear weapons used over in Europe and Asia. By then there was so much chaos in the US, communications became non-existent most of the time.