The sky was dark and threatening, as it had been for months. A hard, howling wind swirled, cutting through the tree trunks and porch posts like icy water rushing through jagged rocks. The storms were building again; as they took life, their anger could be felt in the air.
Janice Parklin drove along in her blue late-model all-terrain vehicle. Its rounded metal shell was already dented from the hailstorm of a few days before, and with a wary eye she looked up into the building clouds as she made her way along. Brown, brittle leaves and scattered pieces of litter darted wildly in and out of her path, carried along by the outflow of the descending thunderstorm. It would be upon her in minutes.
It had become a world of upheaval in the decades since T. G. had last visited her. In rapid succession, so much had happened. First, hundreds of millions had inexplicably vanished worldwide. Theories proposed to explain the event, however unbelievable, ran the gamut from massive-scale alien abduction to mass hypnosis to the second coming of Christ.
Then war had ignited on the Eurasian continent, spreading like wildfire carried by the wind. Biological warfare, banned yet instituted nonetheless, had introduced dozens of new plagues into the general populace for which there were no treatments. Quarantines had been implemented and strictly enforced, separating the Western Hemisphere from the Old World.
Then a cluster of small asteroids had impacted the Earth in a damage path stretching from the center of the African continent across India and into southeastern China, throwing thousands of cubic miles of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere.
As a result of the impacts, tectonic plates across the planet had buckled, opening new volcanic fissures, which further damaged the already reeling ecosystem. Weather patterns worldwide had shifted, the result of hundreds of eruptions and a smothering cloud of ash and volcanic gases that dimmed the sun by day and the moon by night. Food production had fallen sharply as crops failed worldwide, and prices soared.
Powerful earthquakes had rocked the world. The cities of Tokyo, Mexico City, and Los Angeles no longer existed. The enormous fault lines running beneath them had opened up and swallowed the great cities, and the tremors continued as the entire surface of the planet suffered. Volcanic activity had increased a hundredfold, burying thousands of square miles under many millions of tons of falling ash, flowing mud, and molten rock.
New wars had erupted in the wake of the onslaught, as some nations preyed upon others whose resources had been compromised. The combined death toll from the disasters, both man-made and natural, stood at well over 1.5 billion—approximately one-fourth of the worlds population. In large part, the northeastern United States had been spared the worst of it.
For the moment.
The neighborhoods and streets that Janice knew fell behind her as she reflected on the past. Even before the asteroids had struck, so much had changed in her life. Everything she had held dear had been stripped away by time and circumstances, leaving her alone to struggle through empty days made up of vacant hours and hollow memories. She had lost her husband and her only child, leaving her alone in a house that seemed large even when all three of them had lived there. Its wooden floors and brightly papered walls had become barren and cold. It was an old house where once a home had stood.
Over the years she had picked up books that stood dusty and forgotten on shelves throughout the house and pored through them, finding some measure of refuge within their pages. One night, with the cold snow of January silently piling up outside, she had even picked up a Bible before climbing into bed.
Years ago it had been a gift to Jenni from T. G.’s parents. Now it had saved her mother’s life.
So much had happened since—one major world event piled upon another, both physical and political, and the structure of her life was altered yet again. This time, however, the changes were invasive and unacceptable, and she could not merely roll with the punches. She was left with no recourse but to run, to try to stay clear of the new dangers and new ways that were sweeping the strange, new world and to hope she could get by on the fringes, unnoticed and secure in isolation.
She had doubts, but she had to try. The alternative was not an option for her.
The woman had left it all behind, years’ worth of accumulation. A few boxes of clothes filled the backseat of the vehicle, along with a handful of mementos. In the seat beside her was her purse, filled with cash she had emptied from her bank account. Paper currency was still worth something, at least for the moment, and if her luck held out it would maintain its value for just long enough. Gasoline had been severely rationed, but what she carried in her tank, she hoped, would also last until she reached her final destination.
She signaled at every turn and stopped fully at every light, making certain that nothing she did called attention to herself. Before long she would be out on the highway and headed toward her sanctuary.
A flash of movement caught her eye. Darting out from between two parked trucks, a man slammed headlong into her front fender, shaking the vehicle. The woman screamed as her brakes squealed and she slid to a halt. She leaped out of the car and ran behind it to the other side, shaken, her heart fluttering.
The man was on the ground, hurt but alive. He was struggling to get to his hands and knees, and as she leaned over him, helping him to find his balance, he looked weakly up at her. He was young, no more than twenty-five. His short, dark, curly hair dripped with sweat. His features were sharply chiseled yet kind, with brown eyes that were soft and wise. He was thin, too thin, as if his meals had come too small and much too far between. Blood ran from a wide cut on his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, wiping the blood away with a tissue. “I didn’t see you … you came out of nowhere!”
He was breathing so heavily he could barely speak, clutching at her fluttering skirt with a weak hand. “Please … help me …”
Only then did Janice see the tiny reddish mark upon his forehead. During the months before, she had seen it many times on the television news, but never thought she would lay eyes upon it in reality.
“Please,” he went on, bracing himself heavily against the side of the car as he managed to find his feet. “They are coming … they will find me …”
Janice knew the mark. She knew what it was, what it meant. For him, it meant persecution and arrest and torture.
For her, if she helped him, it meant death without trial.
Her mind raced. She made a decision.
She quickly helped the man into the vehicle, shoving her purse onto the floorboard as she cleared the seat. Once inside, he slumped sideways, bending low to avoid being seen. She pulled dresses and blouses from the backseat to cover him. Satisfied that he was sufficiently hidden, she closed his door and climbed back into the driver’s seat, her eyes constantly scanning the houses and streets around her for any sign of his pursuers. She saw none and prayed that none had seen her.
She raced off, her heart still pounding. Something new had been thrown into the mix, something that gave her life meaning once again.
It began to rain.