Resurrection (4 page)

     “Hi Zeke,” he whispered.

     Then he remembered the necklace and dug it out of his pocket as well. The chain was gold and had a charm hanging from it that was engraved with the words “Ezekiel 37:13. He put the picture in the book and returned the necklace to his pocket and lay it on his pack and allowed himself to soak in the sights and sounds of early morning. He thought how beautiful daybreak on the desert was and his mind began to wander.

      Curtains ghost dance in a listless breeze, electric blue streetlamp casts lacey shadows on the wall, forlorn twittering of a night bird calling to its mate in the darkness.

     The mattress quivered gently as father got out of bed. A sliver of soft yellow light spilled from the bathroom door out into the hallway. He pulled the blanket up around his chin.

  Frank Sinatra crooning “Strangers in the Night” wafted softly from The Town Crier radio that father had won at the state fair years earlier.    

      Charlie’s body jerked and he came back to reality and he instinctively reached for his weapon. He sat up and scanned the immediate area for any threats, and then cursed himself for his momentary lapse of reason. Perhaps in an earlier time he could afford the luxury of submitting to the siren call of lethargy.

     But this was not an earlier time!    

     Hastily he put his belongings in his pack and kicked dirt over the fire, he stopped and thought how absolutely absurd, in a world burned by disease and radiation, he was trying to prevent a wild fire. He stood and stared into the glowing red embers.     

     “That’s it Charlie, you wouldn’t want to start a fire, Smokey the Bear was right, only you can prevent forest fires,” he said through his laughter.

     He cackled loudly at the irony of it all, his laughter swelled and flowed out onto the desolate landscape where it was caught up in the wind and dispersed along with the dust over the flat ruined plain. Turning his back to the rising sun he began anew his long journey to nowhere.

     Late in the day he thought he could see faint footprints in the sand. At first it appeared to be the tracks of one person, but as he continued to follow them it became clear that several individuals had passed this way, and probably only a few hours earlier.

     He knelt down for a closer inspection, the depth and size of the impressions led him to believe they were left by several men.

      The sun had had reached its zenith and it scorched the desert sands. An endless mirage lake stretched out into the distance withdrawing with each advancing step. Fierce heat permeated the soles of his boots and he felt his feet may at any time burst into flame.

      He followed the trail for several hours. They led him to a deep arroyo. There was a low cliff several yards adjacent to the arroyo and he climbed up to position himself where he had a good view of the gorge as well the area around him.

     He reached into his pack and pulled out a set of binoculars and scanned the area; he saw nothing but miles of dry desert and dead scrub. He crawled to the side of a large boulder and sheltered himself from the sunlight and the withering noonday heat and waited.

     Later, a fair distance away through the mesquite he saw what looked like smoke. Using the binoculars he affirmed that is was indeed smoke and it was rising out of the arroyo about a mile from his location. He decided to investigate, but that would have to wait until dark.

     He found a spot under a ledge which offered better protection from the sun and which also concealed his presence and passed the day reading, and watching the distant smoke and nibbling on rabbit jerky he had made by drying the meat in the sun.

Chapter 9

July 2024

     The rains came and just never stopped. There were days when the sun shined but those days became fewer and fewer as time passed. Sometimes it was a flooding torrent but on other days it was just a very light mist. The grey days accompanied by the near continual drizzle became depressing.

     Elizabeth fell ill in early May. She had always been a frail woman and the disease ran its course rather swiftly. She began to lose weight, a few pounds at first but then within two weeks she had lost twenty.

     Soon she was nothing but skin and bones, her flesh took on a deathly pallor and her eyes sunk into her head. One day she lay down in the couple’s bed and she never got back up, alive.

     Laws had been passed in every country on the planet requiring those who had family members or relatives afflicted with the virus, or relatives or family members who were recently deceased to bring said individual or corpse to a properly licensed disposal site. The penalty for breaking this law was death in every country.

     He was well aware of the requirement and of the consequences of not complying, but he would not be bringing Elizabeth to such a site.

     He whole heartedly believed she would get better and he intended to have her at home with him while he nursed her back to health. He flicked the switch on a small battery operated radio on the dresser hoping for some music to lighten the mood in the room.

     “The CDC is urging all Americans to get their flu vaccine this year,” he clicked the radio off in disgust.

     With his index finger, he pulled the bedroom curtain aside just enough to see out, he knew just how much light he could let into the room, too much and his wife would scream in agony.

     “Would this rain never let up?” he whispered to himself. 

     He turned from the window when he heard a strange sound coming from Elizabeth’s disease wracked body. He put his hand on his wife’s forehead, she was ice cold.       Suddenly her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him, her eyes became fixed on his and she weakly grasped his other hand.

     “Elizabeth, Elizabeth,” he said as he gently shook his wife. Her eyes slowly dulled, the light went out and she was gone.

Chapter 10

     Gradually, the sun settled on the horizon, orange hues turned to blues which in turn faded into black. He carefully moved out of his hiding spot and sat down on the side of the bluff and put his binoculars to his eyes. He could see a fire and two men moving around a campsite, he put the field glasses around his neck and tucked them under his jacket.

     Carefully he began to make his way toward the camp. He found a dry, sandy wash and followed its natural flow toward the arroyo. Soon he was within about seventy-five yards of the encampment. He squatted and observed. Through the binoculars he could now see there were several more men.

     He had not been watching long when he heard a scream, and then another and it sounded very much like that of a female. He moved in for a closer took. When he was within twenty-five or so yards he stopped again.

     Through his binoculars he saw a woman, she was tied to a post not far from the fire and had a look of anger mixed with fear on her face. A man approached her, she screamed and spat at him and the man slapped her knocking her head back hard against the post.    

     Charlie put his binoculars down and sat in the sand. He pulled his pistol out and checked the magazine, it was full, and then he pulled the twelve gauge from the scabbard on his back and quietly chambered a round. He put the pistol back in the holster stood up and moved toward the camp.

     All of his attempts at stealth were for naught for when he was within a few feet of the fire brightened perimeter of the camp he lost his footing and fell into the arroyo. He quickly recovered but his position had been compromised. The men in the camp heard the sound of his fall and they began firing in his direction, he lunged for the side of the arroyo.

     One of the men came around the bend in the gulley, he could not see Charlie in the darkness but Charlie could see him and let go with a round from the shotgun, the man fell back in the gritty sand. Charlie ran for the other side of the arroyo firing as he went, one round fired, and two men went down.

     Suddenly he was pounced upon from the rim of the arroyo by three men and knocked to the ground, the men held his face into the sand. Soon he was surrounded by the others.

     They beat and kicked him and then dragged his limp body to the center of their camp next to the fire. Two of the men subdued him from behind while the others relieved him of his weapons.

     “Who the hell are you,” one man screamed at him.    

     “He’s here for the girl, ain’t that right you’re here for the girl,” one of the men who was holding Charlie from behind bellowed into his ear.  

     “That right, you here for the girl?” the man standing in front of Charlie yelled.

     “He’s here for the girl, ain’t ya boy, ain’t ya?” The man who was restraining him repeated.

     “Shut up Bear, just shut the hell up!”

     The man jerked Charlie’s goggles from off of his face and he screamed in pain and turned his face to the ground. The man pulled his head back up.

     “Damn boy what’s wrong with your eyes?”

     “He’s a secondary, damn we got us a secondary, and they’s a bounty out for them!” Bear yelled.

     “That right boy what Bear says, you a secondary?”    

     Charlie was silent; the man grabbed him by his hair and punched him hard in the face.

     “You don’t talk much do you boy?”

     The man punched him again, harder this time and blood streamed from a cut above his left eye. Charlie’s body tensed and he glared at the man.

      The man drew his fist back for a third round on Charlie’s face but he quickly threw his head back smashing it into Bear’s face and he immediately released his grip on Charlie.

      Charlie ducked and caught his antagonist’s fist in his hand and crushed it and then broke the man’s arm. He then spun round and grabbed Bear by his hair and tossed him violently into the fire; he yelped in pain and fled with his clothes ablaze.

     The other men in the camp rushed him en masse. He seized one of them, picked him up over his head and then threw him into the others.

     Shots rang out and Charlie hit the ground and rolled to where his weapons had been tossed. His shotgun snapped several times in succession and each time several men fell to the ground until none were left standing.

     He stood up and surveyed the carnage he had wrought. Some of the men were not dead and lay moaning on the ground. He picked up the rest of his weapons and his goggles.     

     “Who are you?” cried the man whose arm Charlie had shattered, his words gurgled in his throat.

     Charlie held his pistol at his side and then walked away without answering. He turned his attention to the woman still tied to the post on the other side of the fire and pulled a knife from his boot.

      She saw the gleaming blade in his hand through the flames that separated them and let loose a blood—curdling scream. Charlie approached her, she let out another scream and spat in his face, he reached behind her cut her hands loose.

     He walked around the campsite picking up weapons from off the ground and then he turned and started off into the night

     “Mister, hey, where you going?” the woman called to Charlie.

     He did not answer and she ran after him cautiously, rubbing her wrists.