“Get down!” Nash shouted when a flaming ball came flying through the air directly at them.

  Austin and the rest dropped to the pavement and rolled in opposite directions. Austin rolled to a stop in the ditch and peered above the road line. The flaming ball smacked into the road a few feet from where they’d been walking. It was followed by another flame in the sky and a group of men coming behind it, carrying a variety of pitchforks, shovels, and what looked like hammers. A couple of men in the group were carrying torches to highlight their progress.

  “Come out now! This is our block!” one of the men shouted.

  There really was nowhere to run or hide without making targets of themselves, and so Austin got to his feet, his hands raised, his rifle still slung over one shoulder.

  “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just passing through,” he said as the men got closer.

  Amanda and Malachi stood up from where they’d been hunkering down on the other side of the road.

  “Where’s the other one?” the man snapped.

  Nash rose from the shadows and stood with his hands up, as well. Austin looked from side to side then, and realized the guns they were each carrying didn’t make them look remotely peaceful. Malachi had the Glock in a holster at his side while he, Amanda, and Nash had each opted to carry both a rifle and a back-up handgun. They looked outfitted for war.

  “Passing through, huh? You look like you’re out for trouble,” the man in front of the group said, stepping forward until he was within ten feet of them.

  Austin studied the middle-aged man, who had a scraggly, unkempt dark beard shadowing his face. His hair was shoulder-length, and looked dirty and greasy. His clothes matched the facial hair. He had the look of a man who was weary, with nothing to lose.

  “We’re travelers, trying to get through, nothing more,” Austin said quietly, trying to keep his words even and calm.

  The man studied him for another few seconds before looking to Amanda, then Malachi. His upper lip curled in disgust.

  “You’re traveling with them, huh?” he snapped. “All of you mixed together. What a disgrace.”

  Austin looked at Amanda, then Malachi, wondering what it was the man was referring to. Then it dawned on him. Their skin color. He looked back at the white faces filled with hatred in front of him, and had a flashback to the literature he’d read on the USB.

  “We’ll be on our way,” Austin said, hoping the fear he felt wasn’t showing.

  “Not with them, you won’t,” one of the men in the crowd growled.

  Austin stepped sideways, putting himself between the men and Amanda. “Look, I understand you have your beliefs, but we have our own. They’re as American as you and I. They’re not a threat,” Austin warned, noticing that not one of these men looked to be armed with guns, giving them the advantage. They’d thrown some flaming balls, and he saw more rubber in a bag, ready to set aflame, but even those wouldn’t do the damage of a bullet. These men were carrying what weapons they had, but they wouldn’t stand up to ARs.

  He cast a glance at Nash and made a point of looking at the barrel of the rifle sticking up high above his head. Nash nodded in understanding. The pitchforks and shovels and torches were no match for their guns.

  “We don’t want their kind around here,” the man in front continued. “This is our block and we keep it the way we want it,” he added, his bluster deflating somewhat. He must have realized he was seriously outgunned.

  Austin shrugged, meeting his eyes again. “We’re not asking to move in. We’re passing through.”

  “You think the others are going to welcome you with open arms?” he snapped.

  Austin shook his head, sensing that the conversation had moved more toward conversation than confrontation—and being glad for it. He didn’t want to shoot anyone who was just trying to survive, no matter how skewed their world view might be. “We’re not asking anyone to welcome us.”

  The man looked Austin up and down, and then his eyes lingered on the rifle hung over his shoulder. And Austin saw the very moment when the man recognized the black strap with gold thread.

  “You’re one of them!”

  Austin shook his head again, trying to keep his voice even. “No, we’re not. We relieved some of them of their guns after they attacked us.”

  The leader stared, unsure, and then another man came up to whisper in his ear. Whatever the exchange was, it worked in their favor. He turned to look at his small gang before facing Austin again. “We’ll let you pass. I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in the city, but it’s ugly. You’ll be killed.”

  “Ugly, how?” Nash asked.

  The man shifted, scowling. “Ugly, as in there’s no food and there’s a riot unfolding about half a mile from here. Some of those soldiers tried to take over a building that’s already been claimed by some preachers. The preachers and their people been real nice, trying to help the survivors by offering food and blankets. A couple of them are doctors and were helping all of us. The soldiers caught wind of what was happening and went in there, guns blazing, throwing grenades and trying to kill as many as they could. A bunch of the other groups living around here fought back. They’ll all be killed, which is why we’re staying over here.”

  “Why are you out here, on the road?” Amanda asked.

  The man looked at her and sneered before turning to look at Austin. “We’re out here protecting our block.”

  Austin was growing tired of the man’s open hostility towards Malachi and Amanda—many of the men in his group were glaring at them and whispering to each other at their expense, and doing nothing to hide it. Clearly enough, these men weren’t worth their time. “We’ll be going,” he said.

  “Then you’ll be going down that road. You’re not coming through here with them,” the man snarled. “They want to turn back, you and the young guy are welcome to pass through, but that’s it. Otherwise, you want to travel with them, you go around our blocks.”

  Austin looked down the dark road behind the group, which led into what looked to be older apartments. This side of town had been the poorer one, with low-income apartments and convenience stores on every corner.

  They could have it.

  “We’ll go left,” Nash said.

  There was some laughter from the men. “They’ll be killed before they make it to the next block,” one of them joked.

  Austin took a few steps back, signaling the end of the exchange, and Nash led them down a road to the left as Austin kept his own focus half-tuned to the men behind them. Before they’d gone thirty feet, the men had melted back into the darkness of their claimed space. Austin turned back around, satisfied that that particular danger had been navigated and content to let Nash lead them. He knew the city, which was why he had come along in the first place. Amanda still walked backwards, keeping an eye on the road leading to the group that had confronted them.

  “What was that about?” Malachi asked.

  “From the way they talked and the looks on their faces? I’m guessing your and Amanda’s dark skin wasn’t their cup of tea,” Austin muttered.

  “It’s exactly what the NWO wants to happen. It’s what they’ve been encouraging. They want to divide the survivors, make them turn on each other. They’ve created gangs,” Nash explained. “Anything to separate people and pit them against each other—religion, blame for the EMP, skin color, whatever. They want us fighting each other instead of them.”

  “You mean they’re actively inciting racism?” Amanda asked.

  “Yes. Absolutely. But like I said, I’m sure it isn’t just different races that are turning on each other. It’s going to be a class war along with that underlying religious war we’ve all seen already,” Nash pointed out.

  Reading about the hatred had been one thing, but seeing it in person was entirely different. The moon provided little light, but as they went further, Austin could see graffiti sprayed on the streets, sidewalks, and the buildings they passed. The messages were hateful and racist, and clearly territorial, as if every citizen who remained in the city had claimed territory and joined a gang of like-minded, hateful fellows. Moving down the street, he read words he hadn’t heard used in a long time, and words that he imagined Malachi wouldn’t even know the meaning of. He had no desire to enlighten him, either. The decades of progress in striking down racism seemed to have been lost along with the electricity.

  “Over there.” Malachi pointed around the corner.

  Austin jogged the distance to catch up with him and Nash, and see what had caught his eye. It was a huge bonfire burning in the middle of a four-lane street through the heart of the city. They had made it to the commercial part of the city, which was lined with three- and four-story buildings lining the road—realtor offices, insurance companies, nondescript businesses, and a handful of medical buildings. Shouts and screams echoed down the otherwise quiet streets, and along with the fire burning in the distance, Austin felt the scene wouldn’t have been out of place in a high-budget horror movie.

  “Are they fighting?” Amanda gasped.

  Austin watched shadowy figures outlined by the glowing fire strike out to a nearby building, gunshot suddenly echoing. It looked to be at least ten people, maybe more, fighting right in the street. This was the riot they had been told about. Or at least a part of it.

  “Get off the street,” Austin ordered as one group struck out toward a building in their direction, not wanting their presence to be seen.

  “Oh my god! He’s gonna—” Amanda was cut off with the reverberating sound of a gunshot coming from a nearby building.

  One of the shadows that had been fighting dropped to the ground. Another shot rang out and another shadow dropped to the street, and suddenly a new crowd of people was flooding from between two nearby buildings that were no more than forty feet from where their small group had been hiding. They were preoccupied with the fight heading towards them, but Austin didn’t want to trust that that would last. Pointing in the direction they’d come from, Austin gestured with a sweeping hand, and they began to run. Amanda covered her mouth with her hand as they fled, and when they fell to the ground behind a building, Malachi began whispering a prayer.

  Austin shook his head. There was no amount of prayer that would help those people. The crowd had erupted into violence as some people fled and others had stayed to fight, only to be shot or beaten with what Austin guessed were shovels and pipes, judging by their shapes.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered.

  “Are we going to check any of the buildings?” Nash asked.

  “No, it’s too dangerous. This place is going to self-implode, and I don’t want to be anywhere nearby when it does. The NWO has succeeded. They’ve created total chaos—at least they have in Denver. We’re witnessing what amounts to the fall of civilization, and it isn’t pretty,” Austin said, sliding along the wall and heading back the way they’d come. They walked in silence along the sides of streets until they could no longer hear any sounds of the fight, and Austin was sure he heard the others breathe a sigh of relief that echoed his as they created more distance between themselves and the city behind them.

  “What will you tell your people?” Nash asked, without specifying who he was talking to. Austin knew well enough, though, and was sure Malachi did, as well.

  “My people?” Malachi asked, his voice gruff.

  “You know what he means,” Austin interjected, heading off any chance of discord. “He didn’t mean offense, Malachi. There’s no denying we’re in two groups, living together.”

  “They wanted you to come out here and see what it was like,” Nash said. “If they could help. Now that you’ve seen it with your own eyes, what do you think?”

  Malachi took a deep breath. “I think it is much worse than they can imagine. I think it is too dangerous to come back here. I also think it would be pointless to try.”

  Amanda sighed, and Austin saw her put a hand out to grip Malachi’s shoulder in quick support. “I agree. I know we all have that instinct to help others, especially those who are suffering, but this is out of our control. We can’t save them all. I fear it would be a suicide mission for you or anyone else who tried.”

  “Guys, I think we need to pick up the pace and get back to the forest before the sun comes up,” Nash said when a sudden explosion of gunfire echoed up over the road.

  “I agree. Now we know. I don’t even think it’s safe to attempt more scavenging missions,” Austin confessed, hating to admit that their one way of bolstering their own supplies was cut off. But, tellingly, nobody disagreed with him.

  From there on, the group traveled home in silence. The realization that civilization was truly crumbling, leaving nothing but rioting and death in its wake, was devastating. Austin had assumed it could never get so bad. He’d assumed people would see through the tactics being shoved down their throats. He’d been wrong.

  18

  Malachi had crashed on the floor when they’d made it back early in the morning. Nash had taken the bed in the room only at Malachi’s prompting.

  By the time they’d made it back to the house, everyone else had been up for the day. Malachi had simply promised his mother he’d fill her in on the details once he slept for a couple of hours. In truth, he needed some time to process everything and didn’t expect to sleep at all. His heart hurt at the thought of the death and destruction they’d witnessed, along with the pain and suffering of the survivors.

  When he woke up, he noticed the bed where Nash had crashed was empty. He rubbed his eyes, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how to tell his mother and the rest of the revivalists about what he had seen.

  He got up and, with a heavy heart, headed downstairs to find his mother first. She would know how to tell the others. He found her in the kitchen with Gretchen, making what looked to be flatbread. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, flour dotting her shirt and pants. It was something they had been eating often. The flatbread they made was filling, and helped stretch the various stews and casseroles they’d been making.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said, watching her work.

  “Hi there. Did you get enough sleep?” she asked.

  “Where is everyone else?” he asked by way of answer.

  She shrugged. “The usual. Splitting wood, building that shelter for the horses, and laundry, never-ending laundry,” she said with a quick smile.

  He nodded absently.

  “What’s on your mind? You said you wanted to talk after you slept,” she said.

  He looked at Gretchen, elbow-deep in flour, and quickly decided he could talk to his mom in front of her. She was going to find out anyway. They all were.

  He took a deep breath and met her eyes. “We can’t help them,” he said simply.

  Gretchen and his mother both froze. “What do you mean, son?” his mother asked.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked into her eyes, willing her to believe him. “We can’t help the survivors in the city. It isn’t safe. They were rioting and shooting people in the street. We ran into a small group of men who looked at me as if I were garbage, Mother. Austin said they were racist, and though I didn’t realize it at first, I believe he was right. It’s just not safe. If we try to go into the city and help people, we’ll regret it. The way those men looked at me, and Amanda… there’s no chance they would accept help from us. And that’s not to mention the violence we witnessed from others.”

  His mother’s eyes had widened, but when he spoke, Malachi realized she’d gotten stuck on his first point. “Racist against what? Why?” she demanded.

  “Does it matter? I guess because I have darker skin than some, maybe. I don’t know. That’s not really the point.”

  She rolled her eyes, still stuck on his previous comment. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re as white as they come.”

  “Mom, you’re missing the point. It would be dangerous for us to attempt to go into town and help survivors—me, you, Gretchen or Audrey or anyone.”

  “We can’t withhold help because people have small minds,” his mother answered quietly.

  He shook his head. “No. This is different. Austin said the stuff him and Nash have been reading has been encouraging hate and racism. Encouraging division in general. We’ve seen how bad that is first-hand. There’s no help to give. We couldn’t get to those who’d accept help if we wanted to.”

  “What about the plans to scavenge goods and supplies?” Gretchen pressed.

  “We can’t go back.” He knew it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. None of them did. They wanted to do what they had been put on the earth to do—to help others and share the word of God. How could they do that if they were isolated on the mountain?

  “You mean, this is all we have to live on for the foreseeable future?” Gretchen asked, her face paling.

  He nodded, though his eyes were still on his mother, who looked shell-shocked. “Yes.”

  His mother looked at Gretchen and then met his eyes, and then she went back to focusing on the flatbread as she answered, “Well, it is what it is. We’ll tell the others, and we’ll find a way to get by. Honestly, I think most of them were hesitant to venture into the city anyway. Drew might not be pleased, but I agree that we can’t risk our lives, not again,” she said, surprising him with her acceptance.

  He was about to ask her when she wanted to talk to the others when Austin came into the kitchen with Amanda behind him. They both looked rough around the edges, and judging by the bloodshot eyes and dark circles under their eyes, they had slept very little. Malachi exchanged nods of greeting with them, and then they all watched his mother and Gretchen work for a moment before Austin spoke.

  “I trust Malachi has filled you in on what we encountered?” Austin asked, his voice grim.

  “Yes, he did. Thank you for keeping him safe,” Tonya said pointedly, smiling sadly as she met Austin’s eyes. “I’m sorry to hear such devastating news. I’ll be talking with the others today and letting them know the city is unsafe.”

 

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