Joshua (Book 1)

by John S. Wilson

  On the nineteenth, late in the morning, as he was traveling north near Highway 68, another young couple came into view. A man and woman, probably both in their mid twenties, saw him as they walked south on the road. They were wearing business attire and their faces and clothes were covered with soot. Apart from their costly but dirty garments, they didn’t appear to have a possession in the world. The two just kept walking and never slowed down when they noticed him near a fence line just off the road. They gave him a wide berth and didn’t say a word or take their eyes off him and only quickened their pace when they passed him by.

  Suspiciously he watched them and noticed the young businessman kept his hand in his front pocket the entire time. The man wondered if there might not be a gun in the pocket and instinctively reached for the pistol on his belt that wasn’t there. These two were the first people he had seen since the Hawes and the man didn’t know if he wanted to speak to them or not. He supposed it didn’t matter as it was quite clear they didn’t want to speak to him.

  Later that same day he was walking up a sharp incline in the highway. Both sides were heavy with trees and although the man knew better, he took the easier route straight up the road instead of going around as he normally would. As he approached the top, he suddenly heard footsteps trampling through the dry leaves behind him. Before he could turn around he had a gun in his back.

  “Don’t move!”

  Unconsciously the man tried to get a look at the voice behind him.

  “Don’t move stupid! You want to get shot?!”

  Then out of the woods three more men appeared. At first glance he thought they were soldiers, they were all wearing some kind of camouflage. But as they got closer he was sure they were not dressed like the many soldiers he had already seen before. They were all dressed similar but not the same, the patterns on their shirts, pants and ball caps looked like the bark of a tree and their guns were not the military kind. One shotgun even had the same pattern as all of their clothes. These men weren’t soldiers, they looked like deer hunters.

  The three of them stood just a few feet in front of him, all looking him up and down, the gun barrel still stuck in the small of his back.

  The one behind him spoke again. “I want you to slowly take that rifle off and set it on the ground.”

  One of the men in front of him then pulled a revolver from a shoulder holster and aimed right at the man’s face. “You heard him.”

  The one behind was already becoming impatient with the man, pushing the gun’s barrel deeper into his back. “Do it! I’ll cut you in half!”

  Instinctively the man tried to see the voice behind him once more but the one with the revolver quickly turned his head again. “Put the rifle on the ground … and keep your finger off that trigger!”

  The man slowly took the rifle off his shoulder and carefully set it on the ground in front of him.

  The man aiming the gun at his face smiled. “That’s good. Now take three steps back.”

  He felt the gun barrel leave his back and then did as he was told.

  The one behind came around still aiming the shotgun at his belly. The man noticed he was dressed like the rest of them. “Just stand still.”

  The four of them stood there in front of the man, one with the shotgun aimed at him and the other with his revolver. Now the third picked up his rifle. “Nice … is it yours?”

  The man stood there silent and scared. He wasn’t sure what was happening and didn’t know how to respond.

  The one with the shotgun started speaking again and this time the man knew he was the one in charge. “Is that your rifle mister?”

  The man still wasn’t sure exactly what to say and was becoming more frightened by the moment. He decided it was best just to be honest. “Yes … that is my rifle.”

  The leader started laughing and so did his men, “Relax mister, we’re not here to rob you.”

  Despite all of their laughing the man couldn’t see the humor. “It is my rifle.”

  The hunter in charge decided to set the stranger straight. “We’re not thieves, but that’s what we’re looking for. We’ve had a problem with people coming through here thinking they could take whatever they want … and we’re tired of it. Somebody robbed a gun shop about twenty miles from here, this side of Lancaster. You got proof this is your rifle?”

  Even knowing himself innocent the man was still concerned. He cautiously motioned with his thumb to his backpack. “In there.”

  “Okay, let’s see it.”

  The man took off his gear and in a crouch rummaged through his pack on the ground, he was worried and it was clearly showing as his hands began shaking.

  They all stood over him watching, the one with a revolver still aimed at the back of his head. After searching forever he finally found the item he was looking for, a small bundle of papers, old photos and documents enclosed in a manila envelope inside a zip lock bag and then bound with a couple of large rubber bands. He nervously fumbled through his papers until at last found what he needed, the original receipt from when he purchased the rifle. He offered it up to the one in charge who instantly snatched it from his hand.

  The leader studied the paper for a moment, “Okay … this looks right. You from Tennessee? Is that where you’re going? You do know you’re going in the wrong direction?”

  The man had thought this was settled but evidently it wasn’t. “I lived there for a while, now I’m trying to get home.”

  “Where’s that?” he continued to question the man while double-checking his paper.

  “Lexington.”

  The leader looked up in surprise and all of his men reacted similarly, the one with the revolver finally lowering his gun.

  “You haven’t heard about Lexington.”

  “There was some riots.” The man questioningly looked into the pitying faces of all the men standing around him.

  “Mister, most of the city is gone, burned to the ground … and there’s martial law. There’s nothing to go back to, even if they did let you through. Hell, that’s half our problem here, all these people fleeing from Lexington … and Louisville.”

  The one in charge couldn’t help but look sorry for the man and handed back his paper. “You’re free to go, but if I were you I wouldn’t go to Lexington. Go somewhere else.”

  Brutal reality finally hit the man. “I’ve got to go, I’ve got nowhere else to go. I’ve got family there … I’ve got to know.”

  The leader of the group seemed understanding and motioned to his friend holding the man’s rifle. The one with his rifle took the magazine out and cleared the chamber, the round landing on the faded asphalt at the man’s feet. Then he handed the unloaded rifle back to the man. The leader then took the magazine and picked up the extra round and shoved them both into the open compartment of the man’s backpack. “Don’t put them back in until you’re out of our town.”

  The man packed up his gear and put his pack and rifle back on but he was still in shock thinking about what he had just been told. The man felt numb and just started walking north up the highway towards Lexington again.

  The four men had a short conference and then ran after the man who was still walking down the middle of the road in a haze. The leader called out but he wasn’t hearing. Finally he caught up to the man and grabbed him by his shoulder, stopping him once more. “Here, I wish I could do more for you mister … but I’ve got to take care of my own.” He then handed him a small plastic grocery bag that contained two baloney sandwiches, an apple, a can of soda and four small bottles of water. Then the four of them all offered him wishes of luck. The man unthinkingly took the bag but he was still in a stupor, still thinking about what he had been told.

  He continued his journey up the lonely road and the man told himself again and again that while Lexington might be burning everyone he loved would be all right. He would find them, maybe at home, or maybe at that camp near Ft. Knox. That he didn’t know. But he was sure they were safe and they would all be reun
ited. He wouldn’t allow himself to think otherwise for even a brief moment.

  Although he tried to conserve them, it wasn’t too long before his food and water were gone once again. While he had been slowly starving all along, keeping his stomach full of clean pure water had made a huge difference. Without his water filter, that growing ache of hunger in his belly could be contained no more and it consumed him inside.

  With a bit of cloth, he tried to improvise a filter. He sifted the water through it several times before drinking but obviously it was not the same. There was still plenty of water to be found but he had no idea of its quality and didn’t want to take the chance. The man knew that dirty water was a quick way to sickness and death and he would use just enough to keep him alive.

  Without his filter, starvation had become an excruciating reality. Like most Americans the man never knew real hunger until then. To him “starving” was when he skipped breakfast and was waiting for the lunch hour to come. Now with nothing to eat and very little to drink, that lingering, gnawing feeling in his gut only got worse day after day.

  He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. He was getting weaker by the day and now it was rare he could get a full night’s sleep, the pain in his belly keeping him up every night. He desperately prayed to God for relief but none was coming, no game animals were to be found and it had been over a week since he had even seen a rabbit or a squirrel. It was like anything worth hunting was now suddenly gone.

  As the man traveled north and got closer to the city it became more common to see abandoned vehicles there by the road. He had seen a few before but they were appearing much more often now and all of them were nearly the same.

  Most were just out of gas and were deserted when they could help their owners no further. Nearly all had been picked clean of anything, the man knew because he checked each and every one. At first he felt guilty about it, but quickly justified it in his mind, telling himself that these people had abandoned their cars as if they were garbage and it wasn’t really stealing from anyone.

  He never did find much, not food anyway. Occasionally he would find an odd candy bar, maybe a packet of crackers or gum in a glove box or some other forgotten compartment. One time he did find a box of .22 Magnum ammunition, although there was no gun for them. On the last day of September he found a heavy cotton duck work coat that was one size too large. It was in the trunk along with some cold weather work gloves. Although he didn’t need them now, the man was grateful because he knew there would be use for them soon enough.

  On the fourth of October, he saw them in their car, dead. They appeared to have been there at least a day or probably more. An older couple, Luke and Emily Vincent, their Kentucky licenses said they were both born in 1944. Looking at them, the man didn’t have to guess, he knew what they had done. Between them in the seat was a large empty jug of Kentucky bourbon and on the dashboard he found a prescription medicine bottle. The bottle contained Vicodin and it was made out to Luke. The label said a month’s supply but there were only four tablets left inside. Wedged in the seat under Luke’s hand was a Taurus .38 revolver, nothing but five spent shells were left in it with no more to be found. Their nearly new Lincoln had handicap tags and would have been perfect except for two small bullet holes in the trunk lid and another in the back fender. That and it was out gas.

  The man took out a small folding shovel from his pack and worked much of the day digging them a single shallow grave next to the road. It took nearly all his strength but he buried them together and then made an improvised marker for the lonely site. He cut a branch from a nearby tree and along with some duct tape from his pack fashioned a simple cross. He took one of his plastic water bottles and opened up the top of it with his pocket knife, placing their driver licenses in it. Lastly he taped it to the cross.

  The Vincents would not be the last suicides he found there by the highway. As he made his way closer to the city the man would find another two, each different although in one way the same. One middle-aged couple, the Millers, killed themselves with a Colt .32 “Hammerless” pistol. There was a bullet hole in her left temple and one in his right. On the floorboard two empty cases, four live rounds left inside the gun still in his hand.

  A little further up the road another older pensioner left this world without leaving a name or any identification. He took some type of poison, the man thought maybe it was rat poison as it appeared he didn’t go peacefully and it took him a while to die.

  The one common problem between them was they had all run their cars dry. Although the man really didn’t want to believe it, it was as if their will to live had ended when their gasoline ran out.

  He didn’t even bother trying to bury the others, the man knew that his strength was nearly gone and he wouldn’t be able to finish the job. At first it bothered him to leave them there. His conscience troubled him but not for long.

  Because he would soon discover that there weren’t enough hours in the day for him to bury all the dead.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The man was in front of his home on his knees, weeping. The tears burned his eyes as he covered his mouth with a rag, trying not to choke on that putrid sour stench making his stomach turn. He couldn’t believe, nor did he want to believe, the horrific picture there in front of him.

  It had taken fifty-four days to get here. Fifty-four days of walking and starving, keeping away from people and police, avoiding whole towns along the way. Fifty-four days on a trip that should have only taken hours. Only fifty-four days for him, but a lifetime for others.

  They had been laid there at the end of the driveway, three rotting bodies put there like trash. Two he thought were his parents but he couldn’t absolutely say for sure. They had been dead for a long while, probably a month or so. About the same time he met the man on the tree. The birds and animals had got at them by now, numerous bits of flesh and many smaller bones were already gone.

  He was in the quiet suburban community he grew up in. The driveway that he rode his bike up and down, had played basketball on, where he happily returned from school to be greeted by his mother, too many times to even count.

  Examining the neighborhood he grew up in it resembled any number of war torn cities he had seen on news programs numerous times before. But until now they had always been somewhere else, never in his country, always “over there.”

  Looking down the street he could see more of the same. More burned houses and cars, most pockmarked with gunfire, scattered debris, and plenty of corpses. Seven other houses appeared just as his own with dead bodies neatly placed there at the end of the driveway. Just like they were waiting for the garbage man to come pick them up.

  It took every ounce of his strength and resolve to get off the ground. He felt like lying down and dying right next to them there. But he didn’t because he wanted to live, that sense of self-preservation still strong inside the man in spite of it all.

  At first he tried to bury them in the front yard with a shovel he found in father’s tool shed. But the bodies were just too decayed and were already coming apart. So he decided to just burn them right where they were.

  But before that, he carefully studied the three and checked their pockets. From their clothes and shoes he was reasonably sure two were his parents. The third he never could decide who it was. On top of the bodies he piled on broken pieces of furniture from his parents’ home. Then he drenched the rancid mass with a bottle of lighter fluid found in their charcoal grill and a bit gasoline drained from his dad’s push lawnmower. The man burned his parents there at the end of his driveway, where as a child he would sometimes play with his toys.

  As the flames consumed his parents in front of his boyhood home, he went around the neighborhood collecting the other victims in their driveways. A few at a time he brought them all back with a lawn cart borrowed from a neighboring backyard. As he stood there trying to stay upwind of the stench and shoveling them into the fire, he felt nauseous, and it was only his empty belly that k
ept him from retching. Even so, nothing could stop the dry heaving, the convulsions painfully tearing through his gut.

  It was all finally done, his gruesome chore had taken hours and when it was finished he was completely exhausted, and by this time it was getting dark. He made his bed that night in the backyard he knew so well, as the house that held his childhood memories was burned and gutted.

  Spent, he wrapped himself in his old blanket and as he stared at the starry sky above couldn’t help but remember better times. Cookouts and Fourth of Julys, birthday parties and playing with one of his many dogs, and “camping” overnight in this same backyard, the distant but comforting sound of his parents’ television coming from the house, easing a little boy’s fear of the dark. All of these tortured memories now filled his mind and the man began sobbing again and found himself unable to stop. After hours of fighting, the fatigue eventually won out over the sorrow.

  The next morning he was up with the sun again, in the last two months it had become a habit he never would break. He began sifting through the ruins of his parents’ home looking for clues to what happened, or anything he could eat or use.

  The front room of the house was completely burned and part of the roof over it had buckled. The rest of the house seemed structurally sound but there was broken debris and glass everywhere, not a single window was left intact and all the splintered shards were inside. The house had obviously been attacked and then rummaged, probably more than once, not a single morsel of food was there to be found.

  As he explored the rest of the upper floor and then the basement, he discovered nothing of value at all. It was like the place had already been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. All of his father’s guns were missing, most of their clothes and shoes gone too. There was nothing remaining that could help him survive.