The Beginning at the End of the World: A Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Series (The Survivor Diaries Book 2) (5 page)

Now that the snow has stopped falling for several days, the Village is starting to come back to life. Charlotte Copeland, our resident agriculturist, has even come back to work on the garden. During the deep snow, we placed heaters in the raised plant beds using one of our remaining generators. I have been apprehensive about burning our gas supplies on the remote possibility that our crops can survive this freeze, but we must have the food.

Adam came home on Monday with the smallest amount of supplies that our Out-bound group has collected yet. The team gathered a few cans of vegetables, including tomatoes, corn and green beans. They also were hunting, and they came back with four large bucks.

Ammie has been focusing on nutrition with Annie, who is in the kitchen again. We use our own kitchen at home since our old one was destroyed in the fire. Even though it’s a bit small, she is still able to make meals for everyone. We all gather to eat at Jill’s house in shifts. I can tell that the Villagers are growing impatient with this kind of dining, but we have no other choice at the moment.

Ammie and Doc Malcolm have been treating people for constipation, which is developing from our new high-protein, low-fiber diet. Ammie says that it is not a problem yet, just uncomfortable. And I can attest to that. I am also getting really tired of venison and rabbit. What I wouldn’t do for a big bowl of steamed veggies and some homemade chicken soup.

The one thing I can’t help but be really excited about is the eight turkeys we are storing in our recently built ice house. We are saving them for Thanksgiving. We have decided that we will celebrate it, if we can. I have found that making plans in this new world is usually disappointing, though.

Ironically, Cory’s trial came far more swiftly then it would have in the old world. This is ironic, since we needed to create a new justice system to deal with this fairly minor incident. We spent most of the week arguing about how it should unfold. It made me wonder if our Founding Fathers also argued about the ethos of justice in the same way that we did; loudly and with conviction.

Retired Judge Shayna Rosen was leery of becoming involved in the law again. I don’t blame her, but she was the most experienced person in the Village to help us create a fair system. It was she who insisted that in this world justice needs to be truly swift.

It was decided that we would have a jury of six randomly chosen Villagers. Judge Rosen would preside over the hearing; William Broderick for the defense and Shelia Akron for the Village - both lawyers in the old world - would serve as Counsel.

We all met in the ballroom, where chairs were placed in the same positions as a courtroom from the past. I was becoming increasingly concerned about so closely modeling our new legal system on the former one, but old habits die hard even when you are honestly trying to change.

The six jurors, including Steve Rolette, a man who has been leading a group of vocal dissenters of the organization that has been established in the Village, sat upright and attentive in their chairs. There was a palpable excitement radiating from the jury, and that had me nervous from the start.

“My client has been unjustly brought to trial,” began Broderick. “All because he simply stated his opinion to someone who violently disagreed…”

The three hour hearing ended in Cory being exonerated on the charges of creating undue threats to the “government” of the Village. He was found guilty of assault on Levi because he threw the first punch. The assault was deemed a misdemeanor and he was sentenced to three weeks of kitchen cleanup duties.

I dreaded Cory being in my home for his penance, but I felt that justice was served. Personally, I never had a problem with him stating his concerns about the next steps for our future. And it is only fair to admit that we were indeed considering the move he was complaining about when the fight broke out between the two men.

The scary part for me was that I was becoming more and more convinced that we needed to leave the homes that we have fought so hard to keep.

Today the Council was called at the request of a group of Villagers.

Council members were set to go half an hour before our eleven o’clock meeting time. I am proud of the people I have surrounded myself with. They are the best in their fields, and they are also some of the most ethical people I have ever met.

The buzzing began as soon as everyone found a seat. They all had a theory about what this group might want. Most thought that it had to do with the food rationing that began just last week. I knew that there was probably one person who knew exactly why we were called to meet, but Jackson sat there without saying a word.

An ice cold breeze announced the forty-six Villagers who walked solemnly into the ballroom without a word. The atmosphere became electric, and I had goose bumps up and down my arms. Each person had their hands clasped together in front of them, and each was holding a small, but thick book to their chest. My stomach did a deep summersault when I saw Steve Rolette and Cory Forsyth taking a seat at the rectangular table set up in front of the Council’s table. The remaining people, who bore no facial expressions, found a seat on the chairs set up in the gallery.

“Welcome,” I said, shushing the Council members who seemed to have missed the dramatic entrance. “It is nice to see you all here today. To what do we owe this honor?”

Steve Rolette stood, removed his jacket and smoothed his button-down shirt and tie with his hand. Steve’s hair was slicked back in an attractive way one might have seen in magazines in the past, and his deep voice filled the room when he spoke. “We would like to talk about the future of the Village - specifically, God’s plan for how He would like us to proceed.”

Thrown for a loop, I eyed my group, hoping to find someone with a clue as to where this was going.

“And how does God want us to precede, son?” Reverend John spoke patiently.

“Well, Reverend, some of us have been wondering when
you
were going to tell
us
that. Frankly, we feel like you’ve let us down. We have needed religious guidance since the Rapture, and you haven’t given us …”

“Rapture? And how did you come to the conclusion that the Last War was God’s doing, and specifically the Rapture?” Reverend John asked, now less patiently.

“What else could it be?” asked Robert O’Malley to my surprise. He had been one of our core group members from the start of our walkie-talkie communications while we were trapped in our homes, waiting for the bio-chemicals to clear the air.

“Exactly,” his wife, Tiffany, said. She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe we didn’t know that God had sent this all to us.

When it came to religion, I have always been one to dance to the beat of my own drum. And I have always been vocal, maybe too vocal, about things that made no sense to me.

“Why would God want to wipe everyone off the earth, including innocent children?” I asked defensively. “Why not just get rid of the bad people and leave the rest alone?”

Cory jumped up from his chair, nearly knocking it over. “Who are you to question God?” he pointed directly at me.

“What I think Laura is asking is, why do you think God did this to people who had never done anything wrong,” the Reverend said.

Unlike Cory, Steve kept his composure. “Certainly,” he said. “We are all sinners in need of faith – no one is truly innocent. Cory just has a deep faith that he is willing to fight for. Isn’t that what religion is about?”

Cory has a deep faith, ha!
I thought. The only thing that jackass believes in is causing trouble. I started to wish that I had listened to Mark and Jackson about him instead of setting up a nice neat hearing where he got off with a slap on the wrist.

Before Reverend John had a chance to answer Steve’s question, Mr. Slick continued. “We believe, and by ‘we’ I mean those Villagers who are willing to stand up to this government you all have set up, that God was showing his anger at America’s growing decadence and depravity. Let’s face it; before He let His vengeance out on the morally corrupt, the government was completely out of control. They were getting behind everything
He
hates; homosexuality, abortion, marijuana. God got rid of them and those who would follow them, before they could do any more harm. But now, your governing body is jumping right back into the sin. We have watched you get behind those two women, Carrie and Samantha. You act as if they could really be married. Not in the eyes of God.”

Holy crap, these people have jumped completely off the rails.

I began to open my mouth, my mind fuming, when Mark grabbed my knee under the table and squeezed out an order to remain silent. This was something he did often, and I have always resented it.

Cory opened his ugly pie-hole again. “Yeah, God got sick of all the terrorist, towel-head Muslims being let in, and all of those fag-bag weddings. And now you all are starting it up again, and he is gonna come down pretty soon and wipe the rest of us out along with ya if we don’t do something fast about your government.”

I couldn’t keep it in, no matter how Mark’s eyes begged for me to keep quiet. As a Black Muslim man, Mark had faced more than his share of bigotry, and I wasn’t going to allow it now, not after everything that has happened. The world ended because of this kind of ignorance and hate.

“So, God wiped out all of those people to pay the U.S. back for being open minded and non-judgmental, and you all,” I stopped and swiped a look at each and every face in the gallery in incredulity, “all of you— believe He did that just to prove a point?”

I saw Mark’s head drop just slightly out of the corner of my eye. I sat and waited for anyone on my panel to speak. The Reverend stood and walked in front of the group of onlookers who seemed very unhappy at my outburst.

“I don’t believe that God did any such thing,” he began, not facing me. He addressed the crowd as I could imagine he addressed his congregation before the war. “Man was at fault for the horrendous destruction that happened during that short period of time in July, not God. God has given us free will. It was humankind who decided to do this to itself. It makes no sense that we would have a war that ended like this, but it was not God’s decision. It was ours.”

“Reverend John, thank you for your opinion,” said Rolette in his booming baritone voice. “But we just don’t see it that way. His children were led astray by Satan, and it was He - who has all power - who decided how and where the rapture would take place. Now, the remaining must serve Him by turning our backs on the sins of the past, the sins of
the reigning government,
so that we might find the new Garden of Eden and begin the world anew.”

Before I could ask if that would happen with or without clothing, the cast of “The Crucible” stood and exited the room in a somber precession, Bibles in hand.

“What the hell was that,” I asked as soon as they were out of earshot. “I mean, where did it come from? Why are they acting like total loons?”

Katie cleared her throat disapprovingly. “I think I know where this is coming from. We have survived the apocalypse when so few others did. Sometimes the mind needs to find logic where none exists. Religion has always been comforting. It’s sort of like the old saying ‘there are no dead atheists in foxholes.’ My concern is about the way they are coming together and manifesting their fear for the future and anger for what has happened in such an unhealthy way. What just happened was disturbingly cult-like.”

“Thank you, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Jill. “They are acting like they are about to drink the Kool-Aid or something.”

“The real question is what we are going to do about them,” Jackson said. “This is exactly how wars begin, and we are talking about some real fringe crazies that have popped up in our own community.”

Katie looked at him thoughtfully. “Yes, I do have concerns about their mental states. I have known some of these people professionally, before …” she drifted off, probably considering the ethics of doctor/patient confidentiality.

Reverend John took advantage of the silence. “In my studies of theology, I found that this type of religious questioning during times of war and famine is historically quite common.”

“So, what do we do now?” I asked. “If we try to put an end to it, they will call us the ‘deviant government,’ and if we do nothing, they might be able to suck in more Villagers.”

∞

We remained in deep discussion for another two hours and came up with nothing.

As I was walking back to the child care, which was taking place in the old hair salon since the Town Hall fire, Shelby ran to catch up to me.

“Hey, Laura, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure thing, Shelby. What’s up?”

Shelby looked around uncertainly, as if she was hoping to find the words she was looking for buried deep in the snow.

“It’s okay, Shelby. Is it about Bailey? Is there something wrong?” I asked. I was starting to worry.

“No, yes, I mean. She’s doing really well for all that she has been through. It’s just, she was talking to me the other day, and she asked if she would ever be able to go back to her old house because it’s one of the few that is still empty.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt funny having anyone move into the empty house after Bailey watched her parents die there. I hadn’t thought that she might want to move back.

I stopped right there in a two-foot snow drift and gave Shelby a tight hug. At first she was stiff, but she finally just gave into it.

∞

I picked up Bailey from school, and we held hands and walked up the slick hill with her chatting the whole way. She seemed like any other eight year old, but I knew she wasn’t. She had seen more than any child should.

Still, she brightened my mood with her skipping and giggling as she told me about how Tommy O’Malley got into a big argument with Jesse Warner while they were making a snowman, and somehow it turned into a snowball fight, and Tommy ended up running and slipping in a big, freezing puddle and soaking his pants.

It was almost time for supper, so we were heading straight to Jill and Joseph’s house for a hot meal.

“Grandma Annie, can we help serve?” Bailey asked my mother when we got there. I wasn’t sure when she started to call her “grandma,” but I was really happy that they got along so well.

Ammie came over with a ladle and a steaming pot of some-kind-of-meat stew. Ammie and Bailey were becoming closer, too. I think that it was a good distraction for Ammie, who was becoming consumed with her medical and engineering studies.

I looked up to see the “cult” walking in together. It was bizarre how none of them talked and joked like everyone else. They went to a clump of chairs and set their Bibles down before they got in line for the stew and a small piece of bread. All eyes were on the group who had never acted like this together in public before, at least as far as I knew. It was surreal watching them.

Bailey and I got in place in order to serve, and Rolette was the first to make his way to us carrying a bowl and a spoon.

“So, I guess Cory is over at your place cleaning your kitchen,” he said. His voice was no longer so charming now that he didn’t have an audience of his groupies.

“I have no idea where he is, Steve,” I told him as I scooped a ladle full of the stew sloppily into his bowl. I felt bad as soon as I did it.

“Call me Steven,” he said as he walked away.

I looked at Bailey, and we both smothered a smile.