In the Midst of Tribulation (2 page)

Piper positioned herself nearest the cart. Since the women pulling it had to sling their weapons on their backs, they were the least able to defend themselves in case of an attack. Her eyes were never still as she constantly checked surrounding woods for danger.
The seven refugees continued down the cracked blacktop. The sounds of their feet didn't disturb the natural sounds from the trees of bickering squirrels and singing birds. Except for the weapons they carried, they could have been mistaken for a vacationing family out enjoying the late summer in beautiful California.
Since the Civil War of '04, no one in the country had much time to be outdoors enjoying much of anything. Riots followed that December when the Electoral College voted and sent to Washington a president that the majority of the country had voted against. Through bribery and a system where the people of Wyoming, the Dakotas and Vermont had their votes worth almost twice that of California and New York, the popular vote was ignored for the second election in a row.
In a move so bold that it had to have been planned well in advance of the election, the militia movement of the South and Midwest joined forces with the National Guards of seventeen states. Together, they seized control of the central military bases. Calling themselves the Confederacy of Christ, they demanded martial law in the cities and a revocation of all civil rights on the charge of treason for those who protested.
The federal government did not use the police powers of the FBI, ATF, or US Marshals to restore order in the heartland. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security arrested the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to keep them from overturning the Electoral College.
That Christmas saw the end of the United States. The first offensive act of the Confederacy was to use the missiles and ordinance that had been scheduled to go oversees to Iraq and turn them toward, what they termed, the godless cities of America. Every city with more than 4 million citizens was targeted by at least one bomb. The largest cities saw carpet-bombing that rivaled Dresden or Tokyo during the last world war. At the end of the cold war, the military had removed the nuclear warheads from most of the missile stockpile. Few of the survivors felt lucky that the weapons were only ballistic. The damage was still irremediable.
On the East Coast, the once beautiful cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and the District of Columbia were in smoldering ruins. Only craters remained of the Capital Building and White House. The Pentagon, which had survived 9/11, fell under an onslaught of ten cruise missiles.
Florida lost the bottom third of the state to missile strikes and the resulting fires. Furious over being targeted by those that they thought were allies, the surviving counties allied themselves with the government of Cuba to blockade any shipments to the Confederacy through the Gulf of Mexico.
In California, Los Angeles was the main target. Over 153 short-range ballistic missiles were fired into the city limits. The City of Angels was left a virtual wasteland and the surrounding farmland burned. Blown by the wind, the resulting forest fire became an inferno that consumed most of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada before the January rains finally doused the flames on the outskirts of Salt Lake City.
Sacramento, and the new Sodom, San Francisco, also saw more than their share of explosions. The bombs that fell on Eugene, Portland, Olympia and Tacoma destroyed the cities but left the countryside intact.
The Confederacy instituted the death penalty for all deviant behavior. They required that their new citizens must be reborn in Jesus Christ and swear, in English, an oath of allegiance. To reduce the populations of unbelievers they deliberately targeted communities of immigrants and homosexuals with SCUD missiles.
More than forty-five million lives were lost in the first week from the immediate impact. Many of those that pulled themselves from the rubble faced a painful death from their injuries because few hospitals, medical staff, or emergency supplies survived. Collateral damage to major highways and railroads left little routes of escape operational. Poisonous gases leaks and toxic spills from the attacks on the airfields and ports meant an immediate cessation of all imports and exports to the coasts that continues to this day.
The bombs triggered natural disasters as well. Massive earthquakes and seismic activity was recorded from Guatemala to Alaska. Registering 7 and higher on the Richter scale, the shifting of the tectonic plates toppled many cities that escaped the missile attacks. Central California's cropland was leveled and the resulting tsunami drowned most of the residents of the Hawaiian Islands and Kyoto.
Following the law of unintended consequences, the ones who pulled the trigger found themselves facing disaster. They faced the worst winter in decades without heat or electricity as the most of the country's power plants were in the impact zone. Shipments of oil, natural gas and food were disrupted when Mexico and Canada, with the support of the international community demanded reparations for the fallout to their countries. The Confederacy refused and so the Northern and Southern borders were sealed.
A country that had never faced invasion by an external enemy had fallen prey to the internal politics of hate. Crawling out of the ashes, there were few survivors who retained their humanity.
Chapter Two - The Pilgrim's Journey
I would go the pilgrim's journey,
Onward to the promised land;
I would reach the golden city,
There to join the angel band.
Words: Fanny Crosby 1868 Music: W. Howard Doane
Grateful now more than ever that the mile markers remained intact, Martha leaned against one of the weathered green signs. Breathing deeply, she took in the rich scent of redwood. She waited for the stragglers to catch up. As the day wound on, the group stretched out over a couple hundred yards. They had been able to cover six miles since the brief break and they were all tired.
Martha stopped them as they reached a turnout. It had been a number of years since anyone had the gasoline necessary to drive these roads, much less use the passing pull-offs but the wider expanse of road offered them a quick and easy campsite. Martha wearily asked, "What do you think? Should we set up camp here?"
Piper nodded in satisfaction. The two of them had taken on the leadership role, falling back into their habits of when they were beat cops together. The section of road they were on was fairly straight and they could see several hundred yards in both directions. With the mountain to their back and a fairly steep descent to the river at their front, it was the best they could hope for. "It looks safe enough for one night," she agreed.
The tired band eagerly shrugged off their packs and sat down on the ground where they stopped. They were silent as they waited to see if this was their resting point for the night. The furious pace from the day before had exhausted their meager resources.
Martha and Piper stood together to talk. "Is there enough daylight left for you to get anything?"
"Won't know until I go," Piper answered.
"Well, a little meat would go a long way."
"Start a pot of water boiling."
"You're that confident?"
"Don't worry, I'll bring back something."
"No squirrel," the two girls begged in unison before falling into a fit of giggles. Eva and Carol had gravitated toward one another on the journey. Susan was glad that her brooding daughter had found a friend in Doris' only child. Since the murder of her older sister, Carol had withdrawn from her family and rarely smiled. The sound of girlish laughter was a balm on all their souls.
"We'll see," answered Piper, hiding her smile. Truth be told, she disliked the gamey taste of the bushy tailed rodent as much as everyone else. With her training as an Army Ranger, she was skilled in living off the land. She was also resigned to eating what she could find. Confident she could find something in the surrounding woods she took off her backpack and traded her rifle for a bow and a quiver of arrows.
She figured it would be best to make as little noise as possible. "I'll check our trail," she stated as she headed back the way they came. She would hunt for game but would also make sure that no one was following them.
During the first couple of weeks on the road, the group had been attacked four times. They lost precious time and ammunition in those early days as they were forced to set up camp well off the road. After traveling past the ruins of Sacramento, they came across fewer people and no longer felt so vulnerable at night.
Everyone in the group had an assigned task when setting up camp. They had the experience of over a month on the road to practice, and now they could prepare a meal and fall asleep with hardly a word spoken. Everyone was tired after walking all day and the sooner the chores were done, the sooner they could rest.
Cody and Carol collected everyone's canteens and a couple of pots and went off to find water. The road they were on followed alongside the Trinity River and they only had to go about a hundred yards downhill to go to find a shallow creek. Their biggest challenge was finding a safe trail that they could use to travel both down and up again.
Once at the slowly moving stream, the two teenagers took off their shoes and waded in the shallows. Showing their age and closeness, the two siblings splashed one another with the refreshingly cool water. Once they dried off again, they filled all the canteens and the cook pots before making their way back up the temporary camp. They only had to go back once to fill a dropped pot.
Doris and her daughter, Eva, went off to gather wood for their supper fire. They were looking for limbs and branches that had fallen earlier in the year. Dry wood wouldn't smoke as much as green and they didn't want to telegraph their position to anyone in the area who might be watching. It still was not safe to have a fire after dark.
Needing to collect enough to cook their meal, they resigned themselves to making several trips. The mother and daughter worked silently together, with Eva collecting almost twice as much wood as Doris.
Susan and Martha pulled out the three tents and began to set them up. Before the War, Martha had been an ardent backpacker and she had converted Susan's family to its pleasures. The family used to get away regularly to the parks around the Bay Area. Now, those spaces were armed encampments for competing gangs.
The tents they had were old but still waterproof. When the earthquakes that followed after the War damaged their home, they provided great protection from the elements.
"It's getting colder," Susan said. "Should we bring out the sleeping bags?"
Martha looked up from hammering a stake into the soft ground on the shoulder. "Yeah. Better to have them and not need them than to not get any rest because we're shivering all night."
"At least I have you to keep me warm."
Rocking back on her heels, Martha leered at her lover. "I could do better than warm you if you could keep quiet."
"Big talker," responded Susan, her arms full of bedrolls. Dropping them close to the entrance, she pulled out a tight roll of plastic. With a deft snap of her wrists, Susan unrolled the ground cover inside the largest tent. She crawled inside to smooth the plastic sheeting down. About to back out of the tent, soft projectiles suddenly pummeled her.
"Hey," she yelled, as she ducked and covered her head. When the barrage stopped, she saw that she was surrounded by all the sleeping bags. She looked over her shoulder at the all too innocent look from Martha.
"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there."
Susan rolled over on her back and settled her head on one of the sleeping bags. Making sure she had Martha's attention, she raised one leg. Watching her lover from under lowered brows, she languidly stroked her hand down the length of her body, being sure to draw her fingernails down her inner thighs. "You didn't see me?" she asked. Using both hands now, she hefted her small breasts and tugged at her shirt.
Clearing her voice, Martha tried to talk. "Uh…I'm sorry?"
"Sorry just doesn't cut it. Maybe you should come in and show me an act of contrition."
She didn't have to be asked twice. Martha glanced over her shoulder to make sure that they were alone at the campsite and she crawled into the tent, zipping it closed behind her. She started to undo the buttons of her shirt but stopped when Susan shook her index finger at her.
"If you really wanted to make it better, you would see to my needs first."
Tugging on her bangs, Martha answered, "As you wish, my Lady." She stalked over as best she could on hands and knees to straddled the prone body. She bent down and gently kissed the brunette. Walking her lips over her lover's lips and jawbone, she whispered into the delicate ear, "Tell me what you need."
"Oh, baby. I just love the feel of your lips on mine." Susan wiggled underneath her partner. She entwined her fingers through Martha's long, dark hair and directed their lips together again.
"Good 'cause I sure like kissing you."
Their lips met slowly, deliberately. Moving across each other's face, they touched and tasted one another. Martha's tongue teased the corner of Susan's mouth and lightly nipped the full, red lips.
"Mmm," Susan moaned as she opened her mouth inviting Martha's in to play.
Leaving her lips, Martha trailed bites and licks down the length of Susan's neck. She swirled her tongue around the pulse point and had just shifted her weight to free one arm to explore her lover's body when the sound of a crash outside the tent startled them.
Martha barreled out of the tent. "What's wrong?" she demanded, as she only saw her sister standing there.
"You," Doris spat.
"Come again?" she asked in disbelief.
"I can't believe that two of you would be satisfying your disgusting carnal desires, especially when the rest of us are working."
Out of the tent now, Susan stood beside her lover. "Now, hang on just a minute, Doris." Susan was tired of soft peddling her sexuality in front of the repressed woman. She could hardly believe that Doris was the younger sister since her attitude seemed so archaic. "Both Martha and I will complete our chores as we have every evening. There is no reason why we can't also reconnect intimately on occasion."
"There are children here."
"Where? I didn't see anyone but my lover, my lesbian lover, your sister in the tent with me."
"I don't care what you two do but I won't have my child exposed to it and you should be ashamed about exposing your own kids."