Winds of Ares: An Apocalypse Thriller by Druga, Jacqueline (most recommended books TXT) 📕

Suddenly, I felt the time crunch. We could do it; I was no longer confident it would be without incidents that would slow us down and hold us back.

I expressed my worries to Lane, our voices now had dropped to a whisper, and we had added another six people to the RV.

“We could cut that you know,” Lane said. “Cut the trip by a good hundred miles.”

“How?”

“Take the interstate.”

“There’s nowhere to go, Lane, if something hits. We would have no cover.”

“I know. But we could make better speed.”

My plan to stay on the secondary roads and avoid the highways didn’t seem so plausible when faced with the time constraints.

I knew there was some hope for possible answers when the red blinking stop light greeted us when we pulled into the town of Princeton, Kentucky.

It was a small town, historic looking. The windows of the shops on the main drag were boarded up. Homes we had passed had done the same. We even saw a few people walking, they looked at us as we passed.

“What do you want to do?” Lane asked.

I pointed to a lot and we pulled over. It was a parking lot to a church, oddly one of three churches in that block. All different denominations.

A church would be a good start. There was power, so hopefully there was water.

It was my hope to find a spigot outside of one of the buildings.

We had bottles and there was water in the RV, but it wasn’t enough to get the mud off of everyone.

It was kind of heartbreaking, seeing the beauty of the small town. The historic buildings marked with plaques, knowing they were bracing for something that was stronger than the boards they put up.

We all unloaded from the RV and the truck, it was warm, even with the overcast sky. Anita and Skip stayed with the kids while Lane, Martin, Rick and I looked for a source of water. I carried a pot and headed toward the nearest church. We had pulled in the back lot and were behind the building. There had to an outdoor faucet somewhere.

My skin was tight, and it pinched from the dried mud. I was in a half bent over position looking at the bottom of the building when the man called out to me.

“Are you alright?”

I stood upright and turned around.

“Oh, my, what happened to you?” he asked.

“We ran into a massive mudslide,” I said. “There’s a whole group of us. Just …” I lifted my pot. “Trying to get some water to clean up.”

“And you think that pot is going to be enough?”

“I doubt it.”

“Gather your people, come on in, we’ll get you cleaned up,” he said.

“There are thirteen of us.”

“That’s okay. Gather your people.” He pointed to the back entrance of the church. “I’ll meet you inside.”

At a quick pace, I walked back over to the others and told them about the man who invited us to the church. No one even questioned it. We were all grateful and just needed to get the mud from us.

I didn’t even think about cleaning up the RV, that could happen while we traveled.

For the time being, we needed to take a break, get clean and clear our minds. Our motley and dirty crew made our way to the church.

✽✽✽

Reverend Barrows was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, and he brought us to a back room where there were stacks and stacks of clothes for their upcoming bazaar.

“Didn’t know if you needed clothes, please help yourself.”

We all found something to wear and then he handed out bars of soap and towels, attached a garden hose to the stationary tub in the basement, and we all took turns getting hosed down. For most of us, splashing our faces wasn’t going to do it.

The only two who didn’t need to hose down were Carlie and Reese, they only had a few specks of mud here and there.

They joined the reverend above while we scrubbed down in the floor below.

The cleanup process took forty minutes of our time. I kept justifying it in my mind that we’d make up for it by taking the interstate for a little while.

Once we were all finished, we met them upstairs in the church banquet hall.

I felt so much better, my skin wasn’t tight, and the smell of fresh coffee was welcoming.

As he poured the coffee Reverend Barrows told us he was there at the church waiting for his crew to begin the near impossible task of boarding up the windows. He hadn’t been there all day and we had good timing. He and a few others had been working nonstop preparing the houses.

“It’s coming,” he said. “James Peirce does the weather for WSMV out of Nashville. He’s a local boy who had been communicating with his father up until about four hours ago when we lost all phones and cells.”

Hearing him say that gave me the first twinge of relief. Finally, we were going to hear something other than chatter on the radio. The internet information was bits and pieces.

In my ignorance I told him I thought the storms came from the west.

“Apparently, you don’t know about the hurricanes, do you?” he asked. “The East Coast, southeast, has just been battered. Hurricanes that dwarf any other in history. Hitting inland when it shouldn’t. The one we’re bracing for buried the entire state of Louisiana. It’ll be here,” he said. “Probably in the next six hours.”

Martin asked, “What do you know about the West Coast? We’ve been really out of contact for two days.”

“Typhoons up and down the West Coast,” he replied. “Massive tornados, dust storms, water funnels. They hit repeatedly from what James said. Ever hear the saying lightning doesn’t strike twice. Well, that doesn’t apply to this.”

“Has James been updating you on all the weather?” I asked.

The Reverend nodded. “He has. We’re bracing for the incoming. So should you. Stow your vehicles, and you’re welcome to stay here or we have a community