Z Children (Book 1): Awakening (17 page)

It was too much.
I couldn’t handle this. How could I survive on my own? When so many were dying…
so much fear?

I pushed harder,
sprinting as fast as I could, fully focused on getting to my house. Getting to
a phone. Because I realized that I didn’t have to be alone. It was a stupid,
stupid time to realize that I needed Chris. But I did. I needed Chris. Not just
because the world had gone to shit, but because if the world went to shit, I’d
want to be with Chris until the end. It was just that simple.

Right foot down.
Left foot down. Right foot down. Left foot down
.

I could do this;
I could make it home, pack a bag, and take the Jag to Dallas. I’d get Chris.
We’d be safe together. And I’d wear that damn engagement ring with pride.

All I could
think about was Chris now. I should have been paying attention to my
surroundings.

Crossing the
last street, I didn’t look left or right.

Just a little
further and I’d be home.

The car seemed
to come out of nowhere- they always do when you aren’t paying attention.

There was so
much pain. I knew it was over. I’d never make it home. Never make it to Chris.
Those things would get me, bite me, turn me… all because I wasn’t paying
attention to the damn road.

I was curled
against the concrete, not wanting to move until I knew how bad my injuries
were. My mind was slowly shutting down, shielding me from the onslaught of
pain. I blinked, trying desperately to remain conscious. As I slipped into
blackness, I felt my body gingerly lifted and placed against a much softer
surface. Voices filled the space around me. I only caught three words.
Was
she bitten?

***

In an out of
consciousness and pain.

The aches
greeted me each time I woke up and they forced me to drift back into the sweet
darkness of sleep. Occasionally, during my brief moments of wakefulness, I
heard voices. There was a man, a woman… and maybe a child. I couldn’t be sure
and I really didn’t care. All I cared about was leaving the pain behind.

But I knew that
giving into oblivion like that was unwise. So each time my eyes fluttered open,
I tried to stay awake a little longer.

As my conscious
brain began to clear from the trauma-induced fog, I tried to self-diagnose. My
hips were sore and there was at least deep tissue bruising in my pelvis and
lower abdomen, maybe a few banged-up ribs. I could wrap those tightly… if the
people in the car with me had picked up my medical supplies along with me and
my busted body. I didn’t think anything was broken thankfully, but I hesitated
to move too much and draw attention to myself. I might have fractured my wrist
and my left ankle sent a sharp pain up my spine when I tried to rotate
it.   

I nodded off to
sleep again several times.

Finally, I awoke
and I felt wholly myself- alert and alive.

The car was
slowing down; the motion reminded me of being a kid riding in the back of my
mom’s conversion van. I opened my eyes fully now, curiosity beating out my
desire to remain unnoticed.  A new rush of soreness assaulted my senses
and made me wince. I wasn’t accustomed to this much physical damage and my body
was sending all types of signals to my brain, more than it wanted to process at
one time. I fought the urge to once again give in to sleep.

The daylight was
blinding, the late afternoon Texas sun shining through the glass right into my
sensitive eyes.

“Where am I?” I
heard my voice and it sounded strangely detached.

“Marvin, she’s
awake,” came a voice from the front seat, “It’s okay, Honey, you’re safe and
Marvin doesn’t think you’re too bad off.”

“I’ll be the
judge of that.” I sat up now, my body screaming in revolt “Last thing I
remember was getting run over…”

“That was us,
Ma’am,” a voice came alive to my right “and we’re awful sorry. You just ran
right out into the road. Dad couldn’t brake quick enough. Scared the dickens
out of Mom though. Never heard her curse before!” I looked at the voice and saw
that I had been resting next to a teenager with carrot-colored hair and a face
full of pale brown freckles. The boy looked like he could have been in the cast
of Mayberry R.F.D. or on the cover of MAD magazine.

“You hush!
Cussing is awful and impolite. I can’t believe I said something so foul.”

“I think you’ll
be okay, Mom. God’s not going to give away your seat in heaven for saying the
word—”

“Son, if you say
that word, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap, just like Grandmother Reynolds
used to do to me!”

“Sorry, Mom.”
But the boy didn’t sound sorry at all; he sounded amused.

 I cleared
my throat to interrupt the mother-son bickering. “Well, thanks for not leaving
me for dead.” I grimaced, the pain shooting through my ribs as I adjusted myself
in the seat.

“We couldn’t
have done that.” It was Marvin, the dad, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“I mean, it may be the end of the world, but we can still be civilized, you
know?”

Civilized?
I thought, acid
forming words in my mind.
There’s nothing civil about the end of the world…
zombie kids, zombie parents, damn murder and bloody mayhem. The situation was
as far from civil as it could get. Do these people even know what the hell is
going on outside their little van and idealistic morals?

“Where are our
manners?” The mother chimed in, “I’m Cindy; this is my husband Marvin, and
that’s our son Tye, short for Tyson. We’re the Gadsons.

I looked at her
thoughtfully; for some reason, her introduction struck me as funny. Formalities
at the end of the world. Just weird.

“Well, it’s nice
to meet you and your family, Cindy. I’m Dr. Virginia Lynn. I assure you, I
don’t make a habit of running into moving vehicles like a deranged woman. I’m
living a bit outside my normal routine today.”

“Oh, aren’t we
all.” She responded in a perky voice, “Marvin says it’s the tribulation and
this is God’s curse on the planet.  We’re on our way to the temple right
now to find sanctuary. Nothing can happen to us there.”

“Temple, what
temple?” I was trying to grasp what she was saying, but the pain had suddenly
worsened and was muddying my brain. Maybe I had broken something after
all.   Before I could ask if they’d brought along my medical
supplies, Cindy started speaking again.

“Why the Mormon
temple of course, Dear. Marvin says the Dallas temple will be too crowded so
now we’re heading to San Antonio. That temple’s fairly new and Marvin thinks
they’ll be less people going there.”

“Yep, that’s
right.” Marvin chimed in, “Less people means less children. We were actually
headed to the Dallas Temple when we ran into you, but decided to turn around
after we began running into clogged roads and a lot of the sinners outside your
town. We have to feel pity for them and pray; they’ll be spending existence
that way.”

“Sinners?” That confused
me… “What sinners?”

“Those kids, the
ones that are killing people. And then there are the adults, heaven knows how
many sins sentenced them to that fate!” Cindy’s voice was high-pitched and
frazzled. I stared at her, my mouth gaping at the ridiculousness of her words.
As if small children could be ‘sinners.’ My eyes left her face, focusing on her
lap. I was worried I’d say something curt and get my ass tossed to the curb.
Cindy’s hands were folded loosely against her thighs; a white undershirt peeked
out from beneath her gingham blouse. She caught me looking and hastily pulled
her blouse over the undershirt. “They’ll all need to be offered redemption. I’m
sure they’ll be doing round-the-clock baptisms for the dead at the Temple.
Because they are dead; aren’t they, Marvin? That’s what you said.”

“Dead as can be,
Cindy.” His voice was sad. “Like you said, must have done some real terrible
things to have to walk this earth immortal and evil.”

They really
believed that the children must be sinners; that they’d done something terrible
to make them change.
No, kids were innocent. It was something else; something that we adults caused
that robbed them of their childhoods and turned them into monsters.  I
didn’t say anything to contradict Cindy though. I’d known a few Mormons; they’d
been wonderful, decent people, but this was a family of zealots,
non-mainstream, and one scoop-full away from a whole bucketful of crazy.

“That’s right,
Honey. Only sinners would be fated to that sort of hell on an earthly plane.”
His voice was serious, matter-of-fact. Then, almost manically, a smile lit his
face. “Soon as I get some gas, we’ll be to the Temple in no time. We’re
actually not too far from where we hit you, lost a lot of time heading to
Dallas and then turning around.”

It finally
dawned on me. They’d been heading toward Dallas. Now they weren’t. And every
second took me further and further away from Chris.

“I can’t go to
San Antonio.” I muttered. “I need to get to Dallas. It’s a… a medical
emergency.”

“Didn’t you hear
me saying how the roads are all chummed up? Those sinners roaming everywhere?”

“It’s important.
I have to get there.”

“There’s no
emergency worth getting yourself killed over, Virginia. If all those cars and
sinners were any indication, then Dallas is the last place you want to go. All
you’re going to achieve is getting coaxed into sin yourself. No, best come to
the Temple with us. We hit you for a reason; we can save you.”

“Save your
physical body and your immortal soul.” Cindy’s voice now, breathy and full of
the Holy Spirit no doubt. Nothing a religious zealot liked better than saving a
prospective sinner. It was like molten chocolate cake and ice cream to them.

“None of that
matters.” I responded firmly. I could feel the strength coming back into my
body and that strength was accompanied by a touch of anger. “I’m not going to
San Antonio; so unless you want to kidnap me, I suggest you find a place to
drop me off.”

“All right,
Dear.” Cindy was just placating me; her tone was transparent and sugared.
“There’s really no need to work yourself into a tizzy. We’ll take care of you.”

“Course we
will.” Marvin pressed a button, releasing windshield cleaner so the wipers
could clear off a bit of bug goo and road filth from the windshield. “We’ll be
getting gas soon and we can talk about it. If you still want to head out on
your own afterwards, we won’t stop you.”

I wasn’t
satisfied with their reassurances; they just wanted to keep me calm. Would they
actually kidnap me? Hell if I knew. There was no point fighting now. I couldn’t
make a break for it in the middle of nowhere. The gas station, that’s where I’d
make my move if they decided my soul was worth more than my freewill.

I stared out the
window at the passing countryside trying to get an idea of where I was, but it
was futile. Maybe we weren’t far from my home, maybe we were. Nothing looked
familiar. So either they were lying about our location or Marvin had taken some
obscure backroad I’d yet to explore near town.

I wasn’t
distracted by the scenery for long before I heard the turn signal begin to
tick. For the second time, I was struck by the ludicrous family and their rigid
adherence to societal protocols. After all, who the hell were they signaling
for? There was no one around, no one to warn.

The van eased
off the road and onto a combination parking lot of a gas station and small ice
cream shop- one of those mobile kinds that could be moved from place to place.
It seemed deserted, but there were half a dozen abandoned cars and it made me nervous.
Ice cream- a kid’s favorite food group.

“Now, Marvin,
you be careful.” Cindy sounded as nervous as I felt. Finally, a little show of
common sense from this idiotic family.

“It will be
fine, Honey. You know what I say. If God calls you home, there’s not a thing to
do about it.” He smiled serenely. “Come on, Tye. Grab the good word for
protection.”

“You’re going
out there armed… with a book?”
These people were bat-shit crazy.

“This book is
the word of our God, given to us through his servant Joseph Smith. We could ask
for no better armor against peril. Isn’t that right, Tye?”

The teenager
nodded dutifully. “But, well, Dad, it wouldn’t hurt to keep Grandpa Leslie’s
shotgun handy. He believed in faith and self-defense. So does Bishop Holden.
Just last Sunday he was telling us how we are called to do everything we can to
protect our families. And…”

“Son, I will not
have this discussion with you. Our family does not use deadly force. We can
protect ourselves with faith and reason.” It was the first time I’d heard
Marvin’s voice pass stern and drive into the angry zone.

“Okay, Dad.” Tye
was sullen, grabbing the Holy Bible and Book of Mormon for good measure.

I watched as the
father and son exited the van and headed toward the pump we were parked next
to. Just another episode of crazy- there was no way the pumps would be working.
There was no one to pay, no one to turn them on.
I got hit by a loony bin on
wheels
. Moments later, as Marvin slid his credit card and began pumping
gas; I had to eat a tasty slice of crow pie. Cindy must have seen the surprised
look on my face.