Things had loosened up between us. Hearing a sample sermon helped. It told me that the Jason I thought was being pious had nothing on Jason the preacher.
But something else transpired in Jason, something else he wasn’t telling me. When at Malcolm’s business, I interrupted something he was saying. He had started to say he didn’t even know who he was anymore and I accidently cut him off. I tried to bring it up again, but he dismissed me and merely said, he’d tell me another time.
It could be he was dealing with the loss of his family differently than I was. That he was able to accept the reality of it, when I couldn’t. And it hit him like a ton of bricks.
He drank a lot. Something clicked and Jason started drinking. Not that I didn’t, but I didn’t keep drinking. Alcohol was a sipping treat for me. It appeared that to Jason it was a pain medication.
I tried, I really tried to talk to him about it and he just spoke over my concerns.
Maybe I was making too much out of it. After all, everyone we knew and loved was gone. Hidden behind some wall in a place called Salvation or dead. It was a lot to handle. And we were handling it differently.
But I needed to know him, how he felt, dealt with things, it was vital. If he and I never ran into the others again, there was a good chance it would just be him and I searching out Salvation.
From what we saw it was an empty world.
He was a good man, I was lucky to have him as my traveling partner and my friend.
It would be a lonely existence without him. I wasn’t giving up on Jason. And I prayed it was just my imagination that he would so easily give up on himself.
SEVEN – BY GRACE
Day Eight AR
“I will. Soon. One day,” Jason said. His voice was hoarse, head rested back in the passenger seat, as he sported sunglasses and a baseball cap that said Army of Jesus. One of the many items he found in a box on the third floor of his home. Jason had found a lot of things up there. Items he didn’t share with Nora, he only packed them away.
“Just that after you got that stuff from the attic, you drank.”
“I needed a drink.”
“You drank a lot.” Nora said.
“It was hard to handle seeing items I just saw two weeks ago, packed up and covered in dust.”
“You’re not gonna like check out on me, are you?” Nora asked.
“What do you mean, check out?”
“Check out.”
“Die?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
“So you’re not thinking about killing yourself.”
“What!” Jason blasted and sprang up. “Nora, no. No. I’m just dealing with everything. There’s a lot of me and who I was before all this, before… preaching that is haunting me.”
“What did you do?”
“Nora…”
“You killed someone?” she guessed.
“No.”
“Rape, assault, fraud….”
“Nora. No. One day I’ll share who I was. But there’s a lot on my mind. Like this. This reality we woke to.” He rested back again. “I wonder if this is real.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if this isn’t reality. What if this is hell and my purgatory for all I did.”
“What did I do?” Nora asked. “I lived a good life.”
“It’s not your hell, it would be mine.”
“Oh my God. Are you saying being stuck with me is hell?”
Jason groaned. “Stop. Were you like this with your husband?”
“Yes.”
“And how long were you married.”
“You’re not talking very preacher like right now.”
“I’m not a preacher anymore.”
“Yeah, well,” Nora said. “How can you divorce God? You married him.”
“No, I wasn’t a priest.”
“Still, Once a preacher always a preacher.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Jason said. “Just like once you’re funny doesn’t mean you’re always funny.”
Nora gasped. “Is that a dig toward my jokes? I’ll have you know it’s not easy coming up with jokes.”
“I believe it.”
“It feels tense. How about another joke?”
“How about not,” Jason said. “I’m still not over your Priest, Rabbi and Monk in the rapture joke.”
“It was good.”
“No, it was disturbing.”
“That’s the preacher in you being offended. This one is not offensive.”
“Fine.” Jason sat up. “Go on.”
“Why doesn’t anyone go to night clubs in a zombie apocalypse?”
Jason lowered his sunglasses. “Hating to ask… why?”
“Because the places are dead.”
Another groan and Jason stared forward.
“Get it? Zombies? Dead…”
“I get it.”
“I thought…”
“Nora stop.” Jason said.
“That’s rude. I was…”
“No, seriously, just stop. Stop the buggy.”
After a moment of wondering why and thinking he was sick again, Nora did. She stopped.
“Look.” Jason pointed ahead. “What is that?” He stepped out of the buggy.
Nora focused on where he pointed, also stepped out.
Not far from them was a small fenced in area. In the center of it was a white, plain, modular home. Small and quaint. All over the fence were warning signs. Quarantine. Keep out. And Danger contaminated area. The signs themselves were old as was the rusted fence. While the area around the house was mainly dirt and dead grass, weeds grew up around the weather worn fence.
“This is weird. I mean really weird.” He took a few more steps and touched a sign. “Biological warning, Must be our virus. The signs coated.”
“Protects it from the weather,” Nora said. “What’s that date?”
“Ten years after our stasis. Wanna go check it out?”
“It’s says contaminated. Do you think it’s safe?”
“It’s been decades, I’d say yeah. I mean look at Chernobyl.”
“Really? You’re bringing that up again.”
“It’s my only reference point.” Jason defended. “You up for checking it out? Gate’s right there.”
“Think the buggy is safe there?” Nora asked, pointing back.
“Nora please. We haven’t seen a soul,” Jason said assuredly. “We’re definitely not seeing anyone around here.”
“Hold it right there!” the worn female voice called out.
They were two feet into the area, when they not only heard the voice, but the distinctive sound of someone pumping a shotgun.
Jason didn’t know whether to be fearful or overjoyed that there was someone else.
Nora replied, hands in the air. “We didn’t mean to trespass.”
“Are you brash or just illiterate?” She asked.
“Ma’am,” Jason said. “Please. We’re just…”
“Answer the question,” she said.
“What question?” Jason asked.
“Are you brash or illiterate?”
“I thought you were insulting us.”
“Good lord,” she said and emerged from the house, holding a shotgun. “It was a question. Can you read? Cause if you can and you didn’t come here to start trouble, then why the hell are you here when the signs clearly says danger.”
Jason looked at the woman who could have been his mother. Middle aged, but rough and rugged. “I thought… we thought it would be safe.”
“If you’re not in Salvation. You must not be immune. So you can’t be here.”
Nora said. “We’re immune. We lived in a different place.”
“Uh, huh.” She nodded still holding the shotgun. “You aliens?” She pointed her gun toward the buggy in the distance.
Jason laughed. “Please, do we look like aliens?”
“Don’t laugh boy. I’m asking a serious question. You could be aliens. Took DNA from the dead, and the form of a dead person.