Cataclysm - Part 2

When the cataclysm happened, my family lived in Texas but I wasn't able to get back to them. I haven't been in contact with them for some time. I remembered my Aunt telling me my Papa always said if anything ever happened, head towards what he knew as home. When he was a young man, he lived in a small town area of Southeastern Oklahoma. That's where I was headed.

Eventually, I found some people to travel with me. We were a bunch of stranger in the same situation trying to figure out how to survive. We all brought strengths to these circumstances.

There was Claudia and her husband Michael. I met them first. They had just been married two weeks before the catastrophe. We came across an older gentleman named Lee. He lost his wife before the event and his only son lived up north. Next a family with three children joined. The mom and dad Kim and Chris and their kids.

It was a daily focus on the five basics. Water, food, fire, shelter, and security. We banded together and stayed strong.

Scavenging abandoned houses and businesses we gathered supplies. Clean clothes, soap, occasionally some canned goods, to name a few. It was always nice to come across some toilet paper or a package of wipes. Most days our toilet paper was the largest leaves we could locate. The best find was a couple of tents, a rocket stove, some hammocks, and a garden wagon.

While traveling alone I found a map and a compass. GPS was now a thing of the past and I was grateful to have acquired the skill of reading a map in Girl Scouts as a kid.

The young family with children had grabbed their camping gear when they left home. They couldn't carry everything after their vehicle ran out of gas, but grabbed their most essentials. It was helpful to have some cooking gear.

Claudia was a great organizer and Michael was very ingenuitive. Survival at it's wittiest. A real survivor MacGyver. I loved that show, I remember well the original MacGyver when I was a kid. He could use a paperclip for everything. So could Michael.

Lee had been a prepper since 1989. Looting had forced him out of his home. Grabbing his bugout gear, he left.

There were a few times I felt afraid for my life. Once, a man came and threatened us at knife point for food. I slept with a weapon of some sort after that.

We made it through a riot and went through towns set ablaze by vandals. One town quickly engulfed in flames. Making our way through simmering ashes, you could only see a few feet in front of you. Hearing the screams of terror from those trapped in the flames was horrifying. The worst part was the helplessness to do anything.

Following the cyber war, we were all left without communications. EMP's a.k.a. electromagnetic pulse shut down all computers without a faraday cage. Any car newer than 1985 stalled. We saw airplanes drop out of the sky. It was lights out. Technology was obsolete. The people we crossed paths with gave us the only information we had.

Some told us FEMA had placed camp facilities all along the east side of Interstate-35W, which route stretches from Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota near Canada. We were on the west side of the highway.

So we all decided that was a good destination. I thought it would be a good stop over point. I would go from there to my family's.

The roads became crowded as everyone migrated to the camps. With no means of transportation, the walk was slow and arduous. It took months to get there.

When the asteroid hit, I had been working in Colorado, which was also where Sara's mom lived. Sara and her mother had been reunited and sought refuge at the camp after the chaos broke loose. That's where we met shortly after I arrived and instantly we connected. She helped me get into the routine of things.

When new people arrived they would bring news from the outside. Some told us how the volcanic eruptions combined with the drought and fires that had been happening in the Western parts of the country was turning the geography into desert lands. Stories of those who'd traveled to find family near Yellowstone said it was like a modern Pompeii. Monuments of stone. Remembrance of a society now gone.

The tsunami that hit California also took out most of the Hawaiian Islands.

The U.S. wasn't the only country affected by the compromised Pacific Ocean. In the ring of fire zone, Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Peru were all impacted by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The rest of the world had been devastated by the economic repercussions. Our great country, and it's revenue, now gone.

We felt somewhat safe but a few weeks in the military took over the FEMA facilities.

I have never worked so hard in my life just to eat and sleep. Comforts we took for granted, dishwashers, washing machines, hot running water, flushing toilets, conveniences were gone. In addition to the daily challenges of living in a post modern era, we had to make weapons. Each one of us taking turns rotating stations. Knowing how to make things for protection made the work tolerable. Staying positive I choose to see it as a useful ability.

One day, on a lunch break, an army personnel approached Sara. He said his name's was "Sergeant Ben Williams", and asked if she "was the Sara that had been trapped in the ash on Hwy 50 in Nevada with her grandmother Mary Thompson". She told him "yes".

Handing her a package he explains, "I was there the day you were rescued. I helped your grandmother out of the car. She kept saying she needed her bag and calling out for Sara. "

"Over and over she wouldn't relent until I retrieved it. She asked that I find Sara but you were already gone with another crew. She made me promise I would give it to you. It's my understanding that her lungs were too badly compromised with ash debris and she didn't make it. After hearing that, I made it my personal mission to locate you."

"When the cyberwar started I was transferred to Washington D.C. to protect our leaders." District of Columbia was evacuated, when martial law was declared. That's when these facilities were taken over by the military."

"When they told me I was being sent to train new recruits at the camps. I had hoped that somehow I would find you. I knew her name because she had penned it into the" belongs to" section.

With the slight moment of a heavy heart, but surprised and elated all in the same, Sara conveys her gratitude. Cordially she excuses herself and takes the parcel to her quarters.

As she walked, her thoughts went to those last days with her grandmother. Sara was delighted to know she had something else to remember her by. She stopped at her mom's job and invited her to share in the moment.

That evening when her mom's shift was over, they sat on the cot in Sara's tent. Opening the package, she discovered some of her grandmother's clothes and a Bible, a book of books. Hanging out of the book was her grandmother's matching heart-shaped locket, with pictures and inscriptions of the same. As she opened the book to retrieve the necklace, it marked a page from the Book of John. She saw a double circle around chapter 3 and the number 16.

She considered those words and noticed her grandmother's notes in the margins. Things like other books to turn to with chapter references and things to ponder.

Turning the worn pages, she sees many underlined words and sentences. Lots of highlighting and jottings throughout. She begins to realize how even more precious this one last gift from her grandmother was.

It was her. Her love. Her handwriting. Her wisdom. Her life's story. It was her foundation, the roots of the person she had become. Her refuge in the storm. A manuscript to live by. A light of knowledge in a world that has lost it's information in the darkness.

As a person of belief, distraction of life kept Sara from engaging further into the Truth she already knew. She had not taken her time to really understand these books. Sara was so thankful. She would cherish it and glean from the insight that her grandmother had fought to leave her.

Encouraged by the words they read. She and her mother sat there flipping through the tattered pages. Sara gave her mom the matching locket from her grandmother. With tears of joy, her mother placed it on her neck and wore it proudly.

A couple of days later, she found Sergeant Williams and thanked him again. She asked him to join them for dinner to express her appreciation. He accepted the invitation.

Of course meals these days consisted of the basics. According to the size of the group you were in, we were allotted chickens for eggs and a small plot to grow veggies near our dwelling. The camp had certain things that were grown or raised to help the sustainability of the community.

At dinner, they served beans and potatoes. They sat, gave thanks for the meal, ate and talked for hours. Sara asked him why he'd carried it around for so long. He told her, it was the promise he had made.

He admitted to regularly taking out the book, reading the stories, and learning from the jottings left behind. After a while I couldn't help myself. I found myself going back to it almost every day. It changed the way I looked at things. A different perspective. I'm glad it was mine for a season.

That dinner was the start of a love story. Together every moment they could be. They spent most of their time learning from the pages of those books of her legacy. They began to share this gift of knowledge with everyone. They gathered with others, including me. Most of the group I had been with before joined as well, with the exception of Lee.

They started by reading the books from the beginning. After finishing, they were drawn back to smaller studies. Many of her grandmother's notes throughout left them curious. The pages of those books led them on a journey they didn't realize they were embarking upon. The book of Revelations was the hardest to understand but it seemed we were in the middle of these times.

Within a year of meeting Ben, Sara received two unexpected gifts as a result of her grandmother's endearment. A love for a Creator deeper than she'd ever known and a husband that had gotten to meet her before she was gone.

Ben and Sara were married. Their ceremony was like the young couple who married in the movie Fiddler on the Roof, so simple but so special. All who had grown to know them well, we were their family now and were all there.

We gathered wild flowers for decoration. Everyone pulled together and it was a great time. It was a survival potluck wedding feast. Someone even managed to barter for a bottle of homemade wine gifted to the couple.

Laughing, and singing, we danced the night away.

For the first time since the asteroid something was fun. I had forgotten what that was like. It was an exciting and joyous occasion. A glorious break from this life we now face.

Retiring for bed, we had such a fresh feeling. A renewed hope of what was to come as we work together to rebuild some sort of normal.