Alone, Book 3: The Journey (11 page)

     I don’t know why, but I’m thinking that if Lindsey didn’t make it, then she’s trying to help me in the same way that Grandmother did.

     And I hope I’m wrong.

     Because as much as I’d like to have a guardian angel watching out for me, I’d much rather have my daughter.

     And if Lindsey didn’t survive, that opens up a lot of other questions.

     Does that mean you and Beth didn’t survive either? I mean, an airplane falling from the sky like a rock is a pretty tough thing to live through.

     It’s hard for me to believe that if that happened, if your plane fell out of the sky that you and Beth wouldn’t have perished as well.

     I also know for certain that Lindsey wouldn’t have been the only one to make it to heaven. You are three of the best people I’ve ever known. And you were just as righteous, just as deserving, as our Lind.

      Does that mean you’re separated in heaven? That you’re not together as a family, as you were here on earth? Does that mean that only Lind has the ability to visit me, to tell me things? If so, then why?

     And if it’s true that none of you survived, they why would Lindsey tell me about rabbits? Wouldn’t she have told me to stay put? Not to waste my time going to Kansas City, that there was no one there to rescue?

     I guess I can look at it two ways. I can assume that Lind perished. And that you and Beth, against all odds, somehow managed to survive.

     And that she wants me to come to Kansas City to rescue you.

     And that’s why she didn’t warn me not to.

     And the other option is that she hasn’t come to visit me at all. That I’m finally, after all this time, going mad. That my dream about her coming to tell me about the rabbits is just a dream. Just a stupid, senseless dream.

     As much as I don’t like the idea that I’m going mad, I hope I am.

     Because if she did visit me, it means my first born, that baby I once held in the palm of my hands… that baby who once looked up at me with those big eyes and melted my heart… that girl I watched grow into a strong and strong minded girl, and a hard-headed but wonderful teenager…

     That would mean that special girl is dead.

     And I’d rather be crazy than lose my daughter.

     Parents aren’t supposed to watch their children die. It’s unnatural. Kids are supposed to bury their parents. Not the other way around.

     In any event, I’m coming. I’ll take the fact that Lindsey didn’t tell me not to as confirmation she wants me to rescue you and Beth.

     I will continue to pray that I find not just you and Beth alive and well, but Lindsey as well.

     I may be selfish in the face of all the people who were lost, but I want my whole family back.

     We planned too well and worked too hard to get ready for this disaster. We deserve to come through it unscathed. If that makes me selfish, then so be it.

     I love you, sweetheart. Whatever the days ahead may hold, whatever I find when I get to Kansas City, whatever the reason it’s so important I take care of those stupid rabbits… I love you. I always have and I always will.

Chapter 22

    Dave put the journal aside.

     He was feeling melancholy, and… well, a lot of other things as well. His mind was a tangled mess of concern for his family, and fear for what he might find in Kansas City.

     And a little bit of frustration, for not being able to figure out what his daughter was trying to tell him.

     He sat there, in the cab of a Ford Freightliner, tears in his eyes, and not knowing for sure where they came from.

     Suddenly he lashed out, punching the oversized steering wheel hard. Then again and again.

     And, like the tears, he didn’t know where the anger came from either.

     He was a mess. He knew that.

     While he had the drive, and motivation, and even courage it would take to get him to Kansas City, he didn’t have what perhaps he needed the most.

     Answers.

     Dave closed his eyes and asked for help.

    
Dear God, it seems I’ve been asking for your help a lot lately. That may not be fair. After all, I haven’t always been as good a person as I should, and there have been times in my life when I’ve strayed from the path of righteousness.

     But I’m at the end of my rope, Lord. I want to believe so much that my family is still alive. My own life is worthless without them.

     I need to know. Is my family still alive? Can I get to them and save them, and bring them back with me? Is that what’s meant to be?

     I’ll be honest with you, Lord. I know you look harshly at those who take their own lives. I know that’s a sin, as much as taking any other life is. I’ve been tempted, several times, but have resisted.

     But you, Lord… You have given me life, and you can darn sure take it away.

     I don’t want to go on living if my family has perished. They are the only thing that gives me hope. All that I go on for. Without them, I have no reason to live.

     Lord, if you have taken my family, please take me as well. Strike me down with a bolt of lightning. Have some evildoer shoot me in the head. I don’t care. Just put me in another place. Put me with my family again. Please, God, if I have done enough good in my life to deserve your mercy, show me by doing that for me.

     If I am alive tonight I’ll go on. I’ll take it as a sign that my family is alive. Or at least some of them are.

     I don’t know what to say. Thanks for listening, Lord, and for considering my request.

     Amen.

     Dave laid his head on the steering wheel for the next twenty minutes.

     He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, exactly. Perhaps a massive heart attack. Perhaps the brilliant flash of bright light from the cloudless sky, then merciful darkness.

     He hoped he wasn’t taken.

     Not for his own sake, but for his family’s.

     If he was taken, it would mean his family was all dead, and his mission was over.

     And, in his mind, that wouldn’t be fair.

     He’d lived a full life. Yes, he was still a young man. But at least if he was taken, it couldn’t be said that he didn’t get to experience a lifetime of happiness, a lifetime of adventure.

     And, truth be known, the same could be said of his lovely Sarah.

     But his girls, they were a different story altogether.

     They hadn’t yet begun to experience all the joys that made life worth living.

     They had yet to fall in love. They had yet to have a first kiss.

     At least little Beth hadn’t. Dave hoped that Lindsey hadn’t either.

     They had yet to experience the independence of growing up and living on one’s own. The freedom of being able to make their own decisions. The happiness of knowing they’d succeeded. That they’d accomplished something, and smacked down all the haters in their lives who said they’d never amount to much.

     They hadn’t had the chance to have children of their own, and to feel the pride of watching as their babies took their first steps. Walked into kindergarten that very first day, their eyes filled with wonder and their hearts with ambition.

     If they didn’t survive, they’d never be able to grin from ear to ear, to stand and cheer as their children walked across that stage and were handed their diplomas.

     They wouldn’t be able to shed tears of happiness when their babies had babies of their own.

     And it wouldn’t be fair.

     Dave swallowed hard. He knew that life was anything but fair.

     He knew that he was luckier than most. Most families had been wiped out completely. At least he’d been able to survive.

     And if that was the hand he was dealt, if he had to carry on alone, he’d do it.

     If it was just him left, if he had to return to San Antonio alone, he would do so, a broken and soulless man.

     But he’d do it. He’d cry and scream and pound his fist. But he’d accept it as God’s way.

     And he’d accept that God spared him for a purpose.

     That purpose, he’d accept as fact, would be to continue to raise his rabbits, and his seeds, and to spread his extra food among the masses. To work with the other survivors, and teach them how to raise their own bunnies, plant their own crops.

     To survive, and to repopulate the earth.

     Dave suddenly had an epiphany.

     He wasn’t a big reader of the Bible. He preferred books he didn’t have to put a lot of thought into, ones he didn’t have to try to interpret.

     But he seemed to recall something in the Bible about Armageddon.

     He seemed to remember something about the day when God would call the righteous home. Take them into heaven.

     And the rest, the sinners, the less deserving?
     Well, they’d be left behind, to suffer an unimaginable fate.

     An unimaginable fate that was never specifically spelled out.

     Perhaps a solar storm that would send the unholy back to the Stone Age?

     “I’ve got to stop doing this,” Dave muttered aloud to himself.

     “I’ve got to stop thinking so much.”

     Sarah used to tell him the same thing when she wanted to give him a hard time.

     Dave always had a bad habit of jumping to conclusions.

     “Stop thinking so much,” she’d tell him with a smile.

“Stick to things you’re good at. Save the thinking for people who are better at it. People who have had more practice.”

     Dave hoped his sweet Sarah was still alive. He quite literally couldn’t imagine going on without her.

     Didn’t want to.

     But he would. If he had to.

     He finally shook himself out of his funk.

     It was fully daylight now, and he hadn’t been paying attention to the area around the big rig.

     If someone had been walking down Highway 281, they’d have been able to spot him with no trouble. Might have asked where he came from. What he was doing there. Whether he planned to take things from the back of the trailer that they had, perhaps, already claimed as their own.

     Or perhaps they’d have shot him dead, as he’d asked God to have them do.

     He looked around and saw nobody.

     And he realized how exhausted he was. This thinking thing, he decided, really wore him out.

     He crawled through to the sleeper cab, closing the curtain behind him, and collapsed on the bunk.

     He was asleep within seconds.

Chapter 23

     Dave awoke with a start around three in the afternoon, but didn’t have a clue why.

     He shook his head to knock out some of the cobwebs.

     He peered out the hole he’d made in the back of the sleeper cab at his Explorer.

     There was no one near it, and it didn’t appear to be broken into.

     Dave liked that the driver of this truck had been bobtailing at the time the EMPs hit the earth. He’d been driving only the tractor when the world went dark, probably on his way to pick up his next load.

     It was nice for Dave because he didn’t have to look over a long trailer to keep an eye on his SUV. Plus, he was closer to the vehicle and more likely to wake up if someone broke a window to get into it.

     But he wasn’t sure why he woke up, exactly.

     He couldn’t remember hearing a noise. He was comfortable, wasn’t too hot or too cold.

     And he didn’t need to go to the bathroom.

     He didn’t have a bad dream. Or, if he did, he couldn’t remember it.

     He weighed his options.

     He could forget it, chalk it off as nothing, roll over and go back to sleep.