The Road in Red: Of Rain and Rapture

A work of fiction presented in five parts.

“Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouth.  On that day a large-scale panic from the Lord will spread among them. One person will grab the hand of another, and one will attack the other.”
- Zechariah 14:12

Noah felt the pain of the old man’s bite rip through his thigh, as if someone had injected boiling water into the veins of his leg.  The filthy old man managed to break Noah’s skin despite the thick denim material of his jeans.  Noah howled in pain, which only seemed to make the old man sink his teeth harder, deeper, into Noah’s thigh.  His withering arms flailed at Noah, tearing at his shirt and jeans.  Noah reciprocated, jerking his body and kicking up his legs the best he could, fighting the dead weight of the old man.  Noah hit the man in the head with his fists, clawed up clumps of dirt and threw them in the man’s eyes but it didn’t stop him.  The man held his grip on Noah’s thigh.  Noah managed to inch himself closer to the gun that was bucked out of his hand when the man tackled him.  He kicked and clawed and screamed his way to the gun, wrapped his finger around the trigger and then aimed it at the hungry old man’s face.  He started to squeeze the trigger but thought better of it.  He didn’t want to waste any bullets if he didn’t need to.  Instead, he took the end of the gun and jammed it into the old man’s ear.  The old man immediately let go of Noah’s thigh, a ropey string of slime and saliva coming off the bite.  The old man, too, howled in pain, an inhumanly low gust of agony that escaped his bloodied lips.  Noah repeatedly struck the old man in the ear and face.  His skull didn’t give as easily as Noah had hoped.  He was a fresh one.  Noah freed his good leg from under the old man and kicked him in the chest with all of his might.  The old man fell back and Noah took advantage of the man's temporary disorientation and pounced on him, straddling him to keep him pinned to the ground.  Noah raised the gun in the air and slammed it down onto the old man’s face, crushing his nose and releasing a spray of coagulated blood and cartilage.  The gun came down again and again, slowly caving in the old man’s face until it was nothing more than fragile bone covered in a thick mass of blackened blood and disassembled brain matter.  His arms and legs fell to the ground.  Shaking.  Twitching.  Still.  Noah’s chest heaved in a rush of adrenaline and exhaustion.  Noah stayed on top of the man for a few minutes, allowing his breath and heart beat to slow before using the old man's shirt to clean the mess off of his gun.

Noah got off the old man and stumbled to his feet.  He wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm.  Looking down, Noah contemplated the bloody mess that once used to be a man.  No, he didn’t have time for that.  Noah felt a rush of nausea hit his stomach but he willed it away.  He pulled his pants down to his knees and inspected the damage.  Jagged red marks formed an ellipse right between Noah’s kneecap and groin.  The old man hadn’t bitten too deep or managed to tear away any flesh but it still stung like hell.  Small scratches from the old man's fingernails were scattered about Noah's arms.  Most of them weren't deep, just superficial and slightly raised.  His stomach was sore on the outside and nauseated inward.  No time to be concerned.  Noah had to get back to his destination.  He’d be okay if he could just make it there.

The dirt road seemed to stretch into oblivion, when in reality it was just a few more miles.  Noah was flanked on both sides by the density of trees, their trunks and branches and twigs intermingling and creating a web of cover that was both a good and a bad thing.  They provided good cover and protection for him but also for them.  Noah could see nothing but straight ahead, which didn’t bother him in the slightest.  It made his destination easier knowing he wouldn’t have any detours or distractions.  It also made it more dangerous.  Those people could be hiding behind any tree, lumbering around in the tall grass and he would never know until they were upon him.  That was the case with the old man whose skull he had just bashed in.  Noah lost his concentration for only a few minutes.  He wasn’t paying attention, got to close to the trees and the man lept at him.  Noah silently swore at himself for being so careless, for not being alert enough.  He ran his hand over the lump in his front left pocket.  It hadn’t fallen out during the fall.  Good.

The light from the sun that was illuminating his path was becoming dimmer.  The sky was graying.  Clouds were filling in the blank spaces in the sky, meshing the red dirt with the gray sky into a muddled brown.  The air was dusky and dark.  This was good.  He had heard they didn’t have good eyesight.  Unfortunately, neither did he.  Noah had been walking for so long.  How long, he didn't know.  The days were flowing into one another with the same monotonous activities of walking and evading, sometimes running and defending against those people.  Monday, Tuesday, Deadday, Rotday, one giant day of the week, one giant week of the month, one giant lifetime of oblivion.  It would have been nice to sit somewhere but to sit in the road would have been stupid.  There was no shelter.  He had to move quickly through the darkening sky.  It looked like it was about to rain. 

“Fantastic,” Noah said out loud, right before putting his hand over his mouth.  His eyes widened in fright. 

No sounds! he reminded himself.  It was bad enough that he had to walk the dirt road filled with crunchy leaves and twigs.  He didn’t need to bring any more attention to himself by speaking.  Those people could hear him and would for him.  They were attracted to noise and movement.  Noah calmed himself down and continued to walk the path as it continued to blur in front of him.  Rain was definitely coming.  Just how soon?  Noah felt an unease come over his skin, sinking into his stomach and coming up through his throat, thickening his tongue and closing off the air in his lungs.  He shuddered.

Every since Noah was a child, the rain had made him uneasy.  He was particularly troubled by the Bible story of Noah, for whom he was named after, and the flood, which he learned about in Sunday school.  Being a small child, Noah was more than a little freaked at the idea of God swooping in and drowning the entire world.  Although the story of Noah continued with God promising not to destroy the world in such a way ever again, Noah always wondered if God might change his mind and usher in the rapture in the form of rain.  Noah's little boy brain began to spin with apocalyptic scenarios of ever running bathwater or eternal rain, water that would collect until it covered his entire house and swept away his Mom and Dad before coming after him, the gray sky blanketing everything in wet death.  Any time it would rain or even hint at raining, Noah would get upset and cry.  The only person who was ever able to comfort him was his grandmother.  She was very heavy and very religious woman.  She knew the Bible like the back of her liver-spotted hand and if anyone knew about God, Noah’s grandmother did.  He trusted her.

Noah's parents couldn't afford a babysitter, so when they had to work or went out, they'd drop him off at his grandmother's house.  Her house always felt warm to him, an acceptable alternative to his own home.  Gran, as he called her, always wore what the family referred to as "inside clothes," mostly muumuus or sleep pants and over-sized shirts.  Her hair was long and gray and always in a ponytail.  She didn't wear makeup like Noah's mother but her face was pleasant anyway.  Her large size made her fun to cuddle with.  She was like her own bed and Noah often fell asleep on her pillowy breasts.  Gran kept a chest full of old toys from when his father was a little boy: green army men and Legos, simple toys that other children might consider obsolete when stacked against articulate action figures with karate chopping spring action or multi-cannon launching capabilities but Noah didn't mind so much.  The simplicity allowed him to create his own attributes to toys.  The Legos became buildings or forts or roads or cars and Gran's sleeping body often became hillsides and vast desserts on which epic battles  would take place, that is until he got too loud, startled Gran awake and lost some of his soldiers in the cracks of the couch.  Gran made very good cookies, too.

One day, while Noah was enjoying a fresh batch of chocolate chip gooeyness, he heard the first drops of rain hitting the screen door of Gran's home.  The cookies lodged in Noah's throat.  The unease wrapped itself around his torso and squeezed.  Suddenly, the droplets of rain turned into a thunderstorm.  Rain pelted the door and the room dimmed from the clouds that masked the safety of the sun.  Noah started to cry.  Gran came in from the kitchen, scooped him up in her giant arms and laid him across her lap.  She stroked his hair and talked in a smooth and slow tone.

“The rain is only God’s tears, sugar,” she’d purr.  “It’s His way of letting us know He’s watching over us.  When the world has become too wicked, the Lord becomes sad and cries.  His tears fall from Heaven and wash away all the bad.  When the rain dries up, man's sin has been cleansed and everything is made good again.  So, see, it's actually good when it rains.  It let's us know God has not abandoned us.”  This made Noah feel better.  Well, a little bit.  The fear in his little boy brain wouldn't allow him to be entirely convinced.  Why didn’t God just wash away man’s sin the first time around?  Why did He have to go and kill everyone?  Maybe He was just really angry.  What if He became really angry again?  Noah tried not to think of such things.  If his grandmother said the rain was good then it was good.  Gran always made him feel safe, always found a way to make everything feel okay.  The cookies helped, too.  Still, like most childhood fears, that unsettling feeling never completely went away.  The rain always reminded him of the rapture.  Something about witnessing the end of the world, seeing and hearing all of the widespread panic, the horrified faces and the undeniable anarchy that would ensue really upset Noah.  As Noah grew older, he learned to control his fear of the rain but it never fully relinquished its control over him. 

Noah was glad his grandmother had passed away in her sleep two years ago, long enough not to have to witness this.  He hated to think like that, as a part of him still wanted Gran around, but he couldn’t imagine his grandmother frail and helpless, unable to defend herself from those people.  The sheer agony of being pulled apart, the pain of each bite multiplied all over the body must be the worst way to die.  Even more horrible, he couldn’t imagine her as one of those people, killing others and…my God, eating them!

I suppose I should shake off this fear of rain, Noah thought.  Obviously the world won’t end in water.  It’s ending right now, like this, with people maiming and devouring each other.  It's ending in teeth and disease, in blood and broken bodies. 

Noah looked down the path of the road, squinting his eyes to sharpen his vision.  The path stretched out like silly putty into the nothingness ahead.  Noah had no idea how much farther he'd need to go.  As he walked, the quiet allowed Noah's nerves to get the best of him.  His head wasn't good at soothing him.  Just like when he was a little kid, thinking about the world ending in water, he began to wonder how many of those things were between him and his destination.  He began to wonder how many of them were close by, how many he might have to take out like the old man.  In reality, he had no idea if they were anywhere close to him.  He could have been completely alone but his mind wouldn't let him think that way.  His skin began to tingle with anxiety.  Tension built up in the muscles in his arms, contracting, constricting his bones.  They were there.  He couldn't see it.  He could feel it.  They were all around him.  He could smell them.  Maybe they could smell him, too.  They might be far enough to outrun but they were still there.  Distance didn't mean much when he could practically feel their eyes on him.  If he couldn’t run, couldn’t walk, he’d be dead.  They’d catch up to him and rip him apart.  His gun would run out of bullets.  His legs had to hold up.  Just then, the pain in his leg spiked, like little needles poking the exposed nerves in his leg.  Noah undid his pants and lowered them again.  The bite was looking worse, a red halo surrounding the wound.  He touched the area around the bite and it was blistered and tender.  It was also hot.  He sucked in a sharp slice of air.  It hurt.  The bite itself had raised along his skin.  It looked like it was becoming infected.  Red blood caked along the irregular wounds but it was no longer leaking fresh blood.  Noah pulled up his pants and continued down the road.