Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
“And if I don’t survive?” I ask as my airway constricts, the scent of the diesel mixing with the freshness of the mountain forest.
“Then your sin will die with you.”
Sin. Impurity. Temptation. Evil.
I press a fist to my chest, my heart frozen, unworthy of beating.
Never in all my life did I think wearing a little make-up, reading some fashion magazines and going to a modeling agency interview would put me here. Grandpa might be crazy, but I never imagined he’d abandon me.
“When will you be back?”
No answer. Not a word. He hops back in the truck, slamming the door. Wet gravel and mud spray from the tires onto my face, my hair, my jacket and legs as he guns the engine.
I stand dumbstruck until the sound of the engine is swallowed up by the nighttime wilderness. The only upside I can think of is I don’t have to listen to that radio preacher roaring about sin anymore more.
It’s right freezing up here and a hoot owl somewhere in the trees agrees with me.
Grandpa loves listening to the weather man almost as much as he loves listening to the preacher. He said yesterday there was a storm coming in set to head over the mountains then into Sherman where we live. Then, he dragged me outside and told me to stack the wood in his truck bed in obsessively neat cords along the side of the five-car garage.
All the fireplaces in his house are gas. But, you know, you can never be too prepared for the Rapture.
The air is heavy with a new chill behind it that cuts right through me as I lug the supplies inside up a cut stone path which keeps me blessedly out of the mud. The shack is musty, but I’m relieved to find the ceiling and walls intact, with no wind or water coming in. Thank God for small favors, right?
I turn the friction crank on the lantern about two hundred times until I’m panting and my arm feels ready to fall off. Then click on the light, and survey my surroundings. A wood stove, a pile of firewood. Waterproof matches. A lumpy-looking bed with a few old quilts and a tragically flat pillow.
I’m not a snob about most things, but pillows? I ask for a new one for my birthday and Christmas every year because where I have to lay my head for 1/3 of my life seems like something that warrants a bit of luxury.
I inhale the silence inside the small structure as the heels pinch around my toes and I imagine how ridiculous I must look all made up in my silk dress, high heels and the red down coat big enough to fit a grizzly bear. There are plenty of mountains in North Carolina and I’ve been to many on retreats and cleansing weekends, but this is not one of them. This mountain feels lost in time. This cabin made from hand-hewn logs must be a hundred years old.
With the light from the lantern, I note there are a couple bare bulbs hanging from wires on the ceiling, but when I tug at the little metal chain on each, nothing happens.
One good thing about my background—I’m up to speed on what to do if Doomsday comes around. I know how to get a fire to draw; I know at least a bit about how to take care of myself. But all those years, I’d been told I was preparing for the Rapture. Not getting ready to be dumped like an old loveseat out in the middle of nowhere.
Still, though. Still.
Maybe I’m stupid and naïve, or maybe I’m just relieved to be alone, but there’s actually some comfort in being by myself here, outside of Sauron’s ever watchful eye. Snort. I’d never call Grandpa that to his face, but it’s a tiny rebellion and come on, J.R.R. Tolkien knows how to write an evil overlord.
I read the whole series in my library time in high school. I could never bring a book like that home with all its fantasy and mystical creatures. Anything smacking of the occult is verboten. I’ve never even been Trick or Treating.
I think Grandpa believes this really is what’s best. It’s twisted and lacks insight into who I am, but he did raise me when he could have left me to flounder in the system ‘til I was eighteen.
With measured steps on the uneven floor I toddle close enough to the supplies to do a quick inventory of the MRE’s and the jugs of water. The food is enough for a couple months, if I ration myself, but the water? Not so much. I’ll need to find a creek or set up a rainwater collection system.
How I went from worrying about mid-terms at my private school and doing a modeling audition to wondering how to gather water for the next three months lest I die, it’s a little bonkers, but I’m a pragmatist and until the wolves tear the flesh from my bones, I’ll soldier on.