What if all the nations of the world came together to avoid a planet-wide tragedy that doesn't happen? What happens to those that remained behind? How will humanity survive and change for the next few generations?
These are the questions I ponder on my current work in progress, Post Exodus. A young man leaves his family farm lands to travel the country. He visits small villages and towns delivering messages and carrying packages in exchange for supplies and a single night's shelter.
The piked heads on the road and the fact the vehicles were
deliberately headed to this dead end told me that these people knew
more about the area than I did. Some inner instinct told me that me
being a messenger is something that would only be discovered after it
was too late to save me from a fate similar to those back up the
road. A sense of fear mixed with a degree of curiosity about the
people that could perpetrate such violence and not wipe themselves
out within a couple of years. I felt the need to see these people
more closely yet do so from a discreet distance. I picked up my bike
and carried it as I ran to the edge of the road. There were numerous
trees on each side of the road, plenty of places for me to hide until
the oncoming vehicles left. I managed to get myself and my bike out
of sight before the roaring engines changed into visible vehicles. I
could still see the disconnected ends of the bridge and areas around
the opposite side from my hiding place. As long as nobody in the
vehicles looked directly towards me, they wouldn't know I was even
there.
As the vehicles came into sight I could tell they had been modified.
The three cars and one pickup truck looked nothing like the abandoned
cars and trucks I had seen around my hometown and parked on the sides
of some of the larger highways I had ridden across. These had
sheets of metal neatly attached over the windows. There was also a
person armed with a machine gun sticking up out of the roof of each
car. There were two guys standing carefully balanced in the back of
the pickup. Each of them was armed with a machine gun in their hands
and what appeared to be a shotgun holstered to their backs.
Everybody I could see was carefully looking around. Their hands
weren't gripping the triggers of their weapons, but they were held
close enough to quickly fire off a few rounds at a second's notice.
It was clear this was no simple group out for a leisurely drive.
They clearly had violence in mind. What I couldn't figure out was
who they intended to be so violent to. They were the only people I
had seen in a week, there was nobody around for them to victimize.
I kept myself absolutely still as the vehicles approached the end of
the road. A large individual got out of the lead car. He was both
tall and stoutly built. He didn't so much step out the door as he
extracted himself from the side of the car. He walked to the very
edge of the road. The river was flowing strongly far below his feet.
After a few seconds of staring across the water he turned to the
vehicles, looked stonily at them, and turned back to the opposite
side of the river. He bellowed in a voice that seemed to come from
deep within the Earth itself. I could hear his words echoing off the
far bank as clearly as though I was right in front of him. He was
calling for someone named Jack to get his hands out of his pants and
raise the God-damn bridge. The threats being made to Jack's person
if he didn't get moving were enough to make my skin crawl. If I
hadn't been doing my best to keep still and avoid notice, I would
have cringed with each word on Jack's behalf.
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