Pulling his handgun out, he looked at it and unconsciously let out a soft laugh. On the right side of the pistol frame it read “Heckler & Koch GmbH – Made in Germany” and for some reason the man found humor in it. At that moment the idea seemed funny to him somehow, the idea that this gun had come around the world just so he could kill someone with it. Rationally he knew it was an inanimate object incapable of doing anything by itself, it was only an extension of the man holding it. But emotionally he was conflicted. He couldn’t help but look down on it with hatred, for what it had turned him into. But at the same time he felt grateful knowing he would be dead now if not for it.
The man sat there rubbing his aching knee and wondered how we had come to this point where he was forced to gun down a teenage boy in the middle of the road, or die. He thought about how we, as a nation, allowed all of this to happen, and he questioned when exactly did it happen. He thought of it a while and his Uncle James came to mind.
His uncle was the first person he could remember talking about the terrible times coming to this nation. Uncle James was his dad’s older brother. He was also the family “Crackpot” and never had a problem speaking his mind. His dad told him his uncle first “stepped off the end” a year or two after the US stopped making coins from silver. That was in 1964. After that he was always boring his brother, or anyone else that would listen, about how this nation was slowly dying inside. He could even remember how he, as a little boy, listened to the tall imposing uncle and was frightened by his talk of riots and wars. He remembered the uncle that constantly smelled of pipe tobacco and always had an old dime or quarter to give the child. The uncle that could go on endlessly about the newest entitlement program, foreign aid to enemies or our government spending money “faster than they can print it.”
But what the man recalled the most was his uncle telling him that the dimes, quarters, half dollars and the occasional silver dollar he pressed into his nephew’s tiny hand was “real” money and he would admonish the child to “save for the rainy day that’s coming.”
The uncle was gone now, for a long time. But many of the fears that he lectured on and on about, that he was ridiculed over, were now very real.
The man never really thought too much of his uncle’s doomsday talk; we lived in the greatest nation on earth and it always would be. Yes, we had some problems but nothing that couldn’t be fixed, and then we would return to that greatness we had once known. He was sure his kind but crazy uncle was wrong and all the horror he envisioned could never come true. Then he remembered that one day he thought his eccentric Uncle James had maybe, possibly, been right all along. That was the day the stores stopped taking American money.
But this tragedy didn’t come all of the sudden; it had been a long time coming. It had begun decades before but the man hadn’t really paid attention until late 2008. He never really followed politics much prior to that but by then it was quite obvious to most Americans, including him, that government spending was completely out of hand. There were all the entrenched programs that had been going on all of his life, the “Ear Marks,” the “entitlements” and the giveaways of every kind. There were also the wars and starting in late ’08 came what initially caught his and many of his fellow citizen’s attention, “stimulus” spending, “job creation” and bailouts. The government even bought a car company and that’s when he first seriously started thinking about where all of this money was coming from.
A house of cards, that’s all it ever was. For a long time our government was running with borrowed money, and now it was running on money it was borrowing from itself. Investors, domestic or foreign, were no longer gambling on our great nation and the government was forced to buy its own debt with its own worthless money, if you can imagine a snake swallowing itself.
No matter what party was in power they kept spending their make believe money although occasionally the politicians would make a show of “big” spending cuts. But the tiny pricks at the constantly swelling government budget hardly had an effect at all. The debt was just too large and kept growing and it didn’t matter who was in charge as the spending had already been promised a long time ago. The dollars were being printed almost constantly and inflation growing, and our economy assuredly, inevitably, coming to a grinding halt.
The unemployment rate had climbed to an “official” 16.4 percent but everyone except the politicians agreed it was nearly double that.
Then starting in June it happened: the stock market began its devastating drop. In less than a month, the market managed to plummet almost 8000 points. Finally the government had to step in and “temporarily” stop all trading before there was nothing left at all.
Soon after the market began dropping, the runs on the banks began. Everyone needed their money and they needed it now. Before long the banks closed too and the Feds had to step in to cover the losses. They somehow managed to make even more of their increasingly meaningless money trying to stop the ending that now could not be stopped.
Overnight, prices began skyrocketing. Before the man knew it his favorite breakfast cereal was double, then triple and quickly ten times the cost. The money was worth less every day and it became almost like a game to get rid of it. You had to pass off the “hot potato” before it was worth even less than the day before.
The people were frantic to free themselves of their junk money, spending it on whatever they could, food or fuel the most coveted prize. You could go nowhere that the shelves weren’t quickly being emptied but at the same time the prices were soaring.
Then there came that day when a common phrase could be heard and seen plastered over the windows on store after store, “No credit - No debit - We do not take paper money.” By this time the little food left could only be had with items of real value like silver or gold.
Before anyone knew it the shelves were bare and no more was coming. Now nothing you had could buy any food at all.
But the government had one last game to play. From the back of trucks and in front of city buildings they were giving away food of all kinds. The military’s MREs, peanut butter, cheese, everything from government owned apples to zucchinis. It was all freely given away to the grateful and ever growing crowds. They were determined to buy themselves a little more time, and that they did. But the free government handouts couldn’t last forever and it wasn’t too much longer before the food, much like their time, was all finally gone.
And with that one last domino that came crashing down it truly was the end of it all. Worthless money and empty store shelves, wed with angry mobs, starving, desperate and afraid, does not for happy fairy-tale endings make.
The man was frightening himself as he thought of it all, how we had gotten to this point and what was yet to come. He sat there considering the horrors he could only wish weren’t coming and refused to think about it anymore. He picked himself up off the ground and between his rifle, heavy pack and knee, barely got back on his feet again. But after a wobbly start he was once more on his way, following the rails towards home.
Struggling along another half hour, the man then paused a moment and took a good look around. In the distance, he noticed two young boys riding their bikes in a field behind him. The boys were far off, about two hundred yards away, but seemed to be following him. They were deliberately keeping a slow pace so they wouldn’t overtake the man. The boys appeared very young, as far as he could tell maybe seven or eight years old. The man didn’t consider them a threat. He did question why they were out playing on the bikes at a time like this. Why aren’t they at home? Don’t they have parents? The man found the thought astonishing. The world was coming to an end and the parents of these children were letting them run free in the streets. People being killed, looting, the city on fire, and not that far off, and the parents of these children let them out of their sight.
The man decided he would talk to them and intentionally slowed down, even slower than his already clipped pace. After a while he looked back and noticed the boys had mad
e no progress, in fact they were further behind. They were moving so slow they were now walking their bikes instead of riding them. They were clearly lingering behind the man. He began to question what these boys were doing and his mind began creating numerous nefarious schemes the two youngsters might have in store for him.
The man then brought himself back to reality. He knew his imagination was getting carried away. These were just innocent children, not criminals, but even so he still wanted to know what they were up to. The man’s shoulder started hurting so he decided to switch the rifle to his left side.
“The rifle!” the man said with a revelation; he forgot all about it. He had been carrying it so long he didn’t remember it was there, not until the stinging pain of the sling reminded him. He had nothing to fear from the boys, it was the boys that were afraid of him!
It was now starting to make sense to the man. They were going in the same direction and when they saw him with his gun were afraid of coming any closer or trying to go around. The man thought of the very slow speed he had been walking and it was probably keeping these children from getting somewhere they needed to be. Then he thought there were probably some worried parents out there wondering where their children were.
The man decided to test his theory and started walking east, away from the rails. He also picked up his pace, as much as his sore knee would allow it. The boys came to a complete stop while the man shuffled out of their way. Once he got about one hundred yards from the track, the boys got back on their bikes, racing in the direction the man had been going. They peddled past him as fast as they could and never once looked in his direction or even looked back at all.
He supposed the boys would have an interesting story to tell when they got home that night. The man hoped they didn’t get in trouble over it and guessed their parents would probably be more happy than mad when they saw them. At least somebody is going to get home tonight. The man stopped, checked his bearings again and with a very short rest was heading back towards home.
As he continued his journey, after a while the man got a second wind. He was making better time now, his knee didn’t feel quite as stiff so he decided to keep up the quickened pace as long as he could. There was only about three hours of light left, it was late summer and he knew it wouldn’t be getting dark till after nine. He wanted to take full advantage of the daylight and get as far as he could before stopping for the night.
Forty-five minutes after the incident with the boys, he came to a split in the rail line, the one he had been following and another turning off further northeast. The man decided to take the latter as he reasoned the other was probably still heading towards Louisville, while hopefully his choice would take him to Lexington. He would keep a close eye on his compass just in case he was wrong.
After laboring down the tracks a short while longer, another road could be seen up ahead. As he had walked that afternoon, there had been a few secondary roads that crossed the tracks but he had not seen any traffic on them. But as he approached this new one he could already see this was a more traveled roadway. In the brief time he watched it, he already saw four vehicles. The man thought of the experiences he had that morning on the highway and continued pressing on to this new one, although now with extra caution and with an unavoidable sense of dread.
As he approached the road, he could see two vehicles coming from his left and he stopped to let them pass. The first was a newer pickup truck with a man driving, a bit younger than him. The driver saw the man and slowed but then was quickly on his way again. A second truck was not too far behind the first. The next truck was a few years older and inside was a middle-aged couple. Like the first truck, the second one slowed when they saw the man but this vehicle reduced to nearly walking speed for a brief moment, the couple inside taking a good look at him before they accelerated away.
To the right, the road curled out of view around a long stand of trees. While the man couldn’t see the oncoming traffic, he could hear something coming. He decided there was enough time to make it and quickly limped across the road.
Just as he got to the other side, another car was fast approaching. It was a large luxury car and inside was an elderly couple. The man continued his pace trying to put some distance between him and the highway. The car came to a stop on the tracks with the man about forty feet away. He looked back to see the older couple staring through the open passenger window, very carefully examining him. The man then stopped and after a moment thinking it over, decided to try talking to them, hoping he could get a ride. He turned around, heading back towards their car but it abruptly took off, its engine roaring and the woman in the passenger seat rolling up her window as it sped out of sight.
The man thought about the reactions of those drivers for a moment and right away understood it was his rifle again. The people in the cars saw a strange man walking around with a rifle and were scared. What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they know what is happening just down the road from them?
The man then began questioning himself. Maybe he overreacted to the situation. He hadn’t seen anyone else today walking around with a high-powered rifle slung over their shoulder. Or maybe he was just going crazy. That seemed a reasonable explanation too. But then the man thought of the news reports over the last few weeks and of all his experiences today and knew he wasn’t crazy. It’s these yokels that are crazy! The man yelled out at the top of his lungs, “I’m not crazy! You people are the ones that are crazy!” the now quiet highway the lone victim of his brief tirade. Even though he felt stupid, he had to admit he also felt a little bit better. He then turned back down the tracks and as he did wondered if screaming at people that were not there was an automatic fail on the crazy test. The silence was broken by the man’s hardy laugh.
As he hobbled along, another thought occurred to him: what if one of those people had contacted the police? He started getting nervous now. The man didn’t want to get in a confrontation with some small town deputy or sheriff. At best he would probably have his guns confiscated and the worst he didn’t want to think too much about, the image of him rotting in some country jail while the entire town burned around him flashed in his mind. The man decided it was best to get away from the tracks for a while and he also increased his pace, even though his knee was only getting worse.
After a long difficult afternoon in his self-imposed march, the man looked down at his watch. He tried not to look at it too often. There was only about one hour of sun left now and he felt like stopping right where he was. The man was in good shape, a lot better than most men his age. He took pride in that. But now he felt completely spent; he felt like a broken down old man twice his age.
There was the knee of course. The man knew he should have gotten off of it hours ago. His back and shoulders were hurting too as he wasn’t used to carrying so much weight and for that long. He was also badly chafing and it had become quite tender in the last hour or so. But the worst was his feet. They had become increasingly painful throughout the day and he was sure he had several good-sized blisters now.
The man had walked and ran regularly and even went hiking occasionally but he never experienced anything as bad as this. He knew he should stop now but just had to go a little further. He did stop a few times through the afternoon for short rests but they weren’t nearly enough and now his body was paying him back for the abuse it suffered. He decided to limp on a half hour more and then find someplace to rest for the night.
Up ahead the man could see another road and was already planning how to cross it. He thought it best to avoid being seen by anyone else today. He stealthily approached the highway from a row of underbrush on its south facing side. He crouched there for a moment completely still, listening for the noise of any approaching cars. It sounded clear so he broke through the bushes and just as he did a truck came flying around the corner.
He saw it and immediately tried to back out of its way only to fall, landing flat on his back by the edge of the road. The truck swerved ar
ound him and came to a screeching stop about fifty feet past where he sat on the ground. The smell of the truck’s burning tires filled the air.
The man picked himself up as fast as he could and it took all of his effort with the heavy pack and rifle weighing him down. The man was reminded of a turtle on its back. Finally on his feet again, he made his way across, his broken gait more exaggerated than before. As he went he didn’t dare take his eyes off the truck that sat there idling in the middle of the road.
It was just an old blue Ford truck. It was blue but only in an academic sense as the entire truck was covered from front to back with spots of flat gray primer, especially along the wheel wells, around the edges of the door and all across the bottom. Now it was probably as much the new flat gray as it was the original dark metallic blue. The truck appeared well used, but cared for, and had the look of a trusted companion that faithfully served someone a very long time. The rear bumper was missing and in its place hung a Tennessee license plate from under the tailgate. The plate read “Vietnam Veteran” and had the symbol for a Purple Heart citation. The man had never served in the military but even he immediately recognized it as the medal awarded to those injured serving their country.
The man continued suspiciously watching as the truck sat there still idling in the road. The back window was so darkly tinted he didn’t know who or how many were inside. He decided he didn’t want to know and then turned to continue his journey. The man could then hear the sound of someone forcing the old truck’s manual transmission into reverse, grinding the gear until it fell into place with a resounding clunk. The truck promptly backed up and came to a stop right across from the man. He tried to ignore it as he limped away.
Suddenly someone shouted, “Hey, you all right?”
Joshua (Book 1) Page 8
