God's Fastball

By Mike Ramon

It's been several years since a comet strike plunged the world into chaos. Hobb's Town, populated by survivors who have come together to form a community, lies in the path of Job's Army, an armed militia intent on pillage and plunder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Ramon
• Release date: Mar 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463594490

Mike Ramon

Born and bred in the Midwest.

Book preview

God’s Fastball

by Mike Ramon

© 2019 M. Ramon

Smashwords Edition

This work is published under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0). To view this license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter One

They were running out of time, and they knew it. The militiamen couldn’t be far behind. Of course, it was possible they had lost them in the woods…but was fortune ever so kind? Kimmy was bleeding heavily, her shirt stained a dark crimson, her face ghostly pale. Her eyes, when she actually opened them, looked glassy. Mostly she kept her eyes closed though, allowing herself to be guided by Hobie. Paul was glad she mostly kept her eyes shut; he didn’t like that glassy, dazed look. He had seen it in other peoples’ eyes. Those people weren’t around anymore.

A noise from the woods far behind them. Not far enough, maybe. They had to hurry, but Kimmy was hurt badly. Paul could already see she was straining against the pain, trying her damndest to keep from screaming out. Screaming out meant drawing the militiamen straight to them. Screaming out meant the end of everything. She was trying hard, and Paul made a silent promise to himself to express his deep gratitude once they were safe.

Anybody see them?

A deep voice, maybe about 25 yards behind them.

Just follow the fucking blood! another voice commanded.

Kimmy bit down on her lip as Hobie helped her over a fallen tree. Paul slid the pistol out of its holster, checked the chamber. Three rounds. Not nearly enough. There were at least a half dozen men on their tail. Even if he was lucky, and each round took out a man, there would still be three more. He had his knife, and Hobie had a hatchet clipped to his belt. Kimmy had lost her own blade somewhere between the spot where she’d been shot and the place they were now. The militiamen were all armed with assault weapons and who knew what else. No chance.

Paul caught Hobie looking over at him. There was a look in the other man’s eyes that let Paul know the big man knew they were fucked. Escape from a pack of militiamen would be a close thing under optimal conditions. Escape when one of your party was wounded and slowing you down, when you were outnumbered and outgunned? Well, that there was one FUBARed situation.

This way! I think I’m on their trail.

Kimmy whimpered quietly. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth a rictus of pain.

Go, the big man mouthed silently.

Paul shook his head.

Go! Hobie mouthed again, the force of the command evident even though no actual sound had escaped the man’s throat.

Paul wanted to refuse. He wanted to tell his friend everything would be all right, that they would stop here and make a stand. He wanted to insist that sometimes, every now and again, the good guys could win. But the world where the good guys won had passed in a flash of light and sound. That world had died with a shivering sigh, leaving this world behind. In this world the rule was survival of the cruelest. And so he didn’t refuse. He kept his eyes locked on the bigger man’s own eyes for another moment, hoping his friend read all that he wanted to say, but could not.

I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. Goodbye.

Then he looked at Kimmy. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t looking at him. She didn’t appear to be looking at anything, really. Whatever she was seeing belonged to another world entirely, perhaps the one that awaited them all. Paul turned away.

There was no moment in which he even considered asking Hobie to leave the woman behind, to escape with him. It made a cold sort of sense: why should two people die in those woods instead of just one? If Kimmy were lucid, if she were able to do the math, he had no doubt she would agree with the logic of it. She would tell Hobie to leave her. But even then, even if Kimmy herself had insisted, Hobie would not have left her side. Leaving her just wasn’t something he would have been able to do, no more than he could have taken flight and carried them all away to safety on his back.

Paul rushed through a thick, dense growth of bushes. He sped on as quietly as possible, leaving behind his comrades. Without Kimmy slowing him down he was able to put some distance between himself and the pursuers, and soon he was unable to hear their movement in the woods. He climbed a low rise and continued on, his heart jackhammering in his chest, air pulled into his lungs in hot gasps. He scanned the woods before and around him, wary of the prospect that one or more of the militiamen could have gotten ahead of them while they were trudging through the woods with the wounded woman.

Paul’s foot caught the root of a tree, and his forward momentum sent him sprawling in the undergrowth. He sat up, panting harshly. His left arm had been scraped pretty badly, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t live with. He regained his feet and took a moment to get his bearings. It wouldn’t do at all to get turned around and to go rushing right back into the maw of the lion. Once he was certain which direction was the right one, he continued on.

Shouting. Loud, masculine voices, and then a lone feminine voice raised in a scream. Then gunshots. At least a dozen, in quick succession. Then silence. Paul stopped in his tracks for just a moment. Only a moment, and then he was running again. There would be time to mourn his friends later. The thing to do at the moment was to ensure that nobody would be mourning him any time soon. The militiamen had seen the three of them together out on the road. Now that they had dispatched the two, they would search for the third.

Paul ran for what felt like eternity, but was probably closer to fifteen minutes. The woods ended at a river. His first instinct was to jump in and wade across as quickly as he could. Instead he stopped, allowing himself to catch his breath. He leaned down on the bank of the slow-moving river and dipped his injured arm into the blessedly cool water. He washed the blood away, and it stung quite a bit.

He could hear them. They were getting closer, and so it was time to get getting. He stepped slowly into the water and waded across, trying to make as little noise as possible. The river wasn’t very deep, reaching his upper thighs at its center. The bottom edge of his shirt trailed on top of the water. On the far side of the river he stepped out, water dripping off of him. It was time to run again. His shoes squelched as he hurried on, quick to get on the other side of a low hill.

The woods resumed ten yards beyond the hill, and Paul once again found himself rushing through haunted woods. He pushed forward, ever ahead of his pursuers. If they caught him, it was death. Or something worse.

And now he could hear them back there, splashing across the river. Were they truly on his trail, or were they just searching blindly? He thought about going back to ask them, and the idea made his lips spread in a small smile in spite of the circumstances.

Just stay ahead of the fuckers, he thought. Just stay ahead of ’em. Eventually they will get tired and will turn back. Then, back to camp. Back to safety in numbers.

Leaving camp had been a bad idea. The three of them had set out to look for small game, maybe a squirrel, though that hadn’t been the true reason; what they’d really wanted was to get away from camp for a couple of hours, to just enjoy the day and their friendship. And if they found some little critter to bring back for dinner? Then that was fine, too. But there were others out there looking for food as well, and they weren’t too particular of the source of their meat.

Meat is meat when you just gotta eat.

Where had he heard that? Maybe Dan the Man had said that to him once. Must have been two, maybe three years ago. But Dan the Man was dead now. He’d picked up some ugly bug, and had died in a tent, shitting himself to death because of something that would have been treated with a round of antibiotics and some bedrest back in the Before. Here in the After, it meant a smelly, messy death.

Paul was tired. His lungs were on fire, and his legs ached. He stopped every thirty feet or so and looked around, searching for cover. On his fourth such search, he found it. A tree with a trunk that was hollowed out at the base. It wasn’t big, and he knew that even if he managed to crawl in there, it would be a tight, uncomfortable fit. But it would have to do.

He ran to the sheltering tree, got down on his knees and backed himself through the opening. At first he wasn’t certain he was going to be able to make it, but with a little squirming he was able to do it. Sitting there in the dark of the hollow, blood pounding in his ears, his heart trying to beat itself right out of his chest, he tried to slow his breathing. He tried to listen, straining to hear his pursuers. His legs were pulled in tight, his knees drawn up to his chest. Something was poking into his back painfully, and he tried shifting around, but it did no good.

With my luck, I’ll pick up a damn tick from this tree, he thought.

Still listening. Waiting.

Time passed, and the woods grew darker. A bird cawed far off in the distance. Either the militiamen had given up the chase, or they were playing one long, patient game with him. No, he thought. They must have turned back, gone to rejoin their comrades on the road. He thought about going back to look for the bodies of his friends, but knew there was no point.

When he could wait no longer, Paul crawled out of his hidey-hole. His legs were asleep, numb beyond numb, and at first they refused to obey their master’s command. Eventually he was able to unfurl his legs, and to get them under him. He crawled out into the green-scented woods. It was difficult to see more than just a few yards ahead. The patches of sky visible through the spreading treetops were a bruised shade of purple. He worked his legs out until he was rid of the last of the tingles.

Paul continued on then, but didn’t run. He walked slowly, trying not to think of Hobie and Kimmy, but thinking about them anyway. As he walked along his vision blurred, the dark outlines of trees swimming as tears first pooled in his eyes, and then spilled over, running in tracks down his dirty cheeks. They were silent tears. The After had even taken the right to blubber away from a person. One never knew what might be out there, listening.

So he walked and cried silently. For a while he wasn’t entirely sure that he had not become lost, maybe even walking in circles. He did not come to the river again, which he took as a good sign that at least he had not backtracked that far, if he had backtracked at all. The blood on his scraped arm had long ago dried, and the pain was a low throb that seemed to come from some faraway place, a foreign country. His wet feet, on the other hand, had not yet dried entirely, and Paul could feel a soft skwoosh with each step. His leg, while no longer numb, were sore from the running and the cramped hiding.

But you know me, I can’t complain.

The punchline to an old joke came to him. He laughed softly in the twilit woods.

After a time he came out of the woods and found a road. Not the road where they had run into the trucks carrying militiamen, but the road leading back to camp. His feet step/dragged on cracked asphalt as he followed the road.

His stomach rumbled with hunger, and he thought about how nice it would be to sit down to a dinner of steak and potatoes, with a glass of wine. But no, the was Before thinking; only After thinking would get you through and keep you alive. So he put the thought out of his mind. Dinner would be tough jerky, with water to wash it down. It was more than some people had, heaven knew, so he would swallow it down and give thanks to whatever gods remained to watch over this preserve.

He came to a familiar bend in the road, and Paul left the roadway and walked toward a group of trees. Not woods, just some trees bunched together about fifty feet back from the road. It was full dark, and he could make out nothing within the shadows of the trees. He was struck by a momentary fear that they had gone, had simply got tired of waiting and had pulled up stakes. But as he approached, the challenge went up:

Lightning!

The call had the power of a shout, thought it had actually been said low, just loud enough to reach him from the trees.

Flash, Paul called back.

Bob and Ricky appeared from out of the gloom then, approaching him. They both looked past him, toward the road. They were looking for Kimmy and Hobie, he knew. They looked back at him, and perhaps the look on his face, half-glimpsed in the dark, told them all that they needed, or cared, to know. They didn’t ask about the others. Instead, they turned back, and he followed them into the trees, where camp was set up, camp being five tents, camouflaged to blend in with the foliage. Paul knew one of the tents would remain empty that night. The thought did not bring tears, however, silent or otherwise. He had shed his tears, and it was done.

Paul did in fact eat some jerky, and he washed it down with water, too. Then he unzipped the flap of one of the tents, crawled in, and zipped it back up. He lay down next to Sara in the darkness. At first he thought she was asleep, but she slung an arm over him.

Hobie, and Kimmy…they…, he started, meaning to tell her.

Tomorrow, she said. We’ll talk tomorrow.

They lay together then, both quiet and breathing evenly. His whole damn body ached, but Paul was glad to be back. In the morning he would relate the details of the failed game hunt. He would tell them about the big man and his woman. Perhaps some of them would shed their own tears. But for now all there was to do was to sleep, and so he slept.

Chapter Two

Gray morning light shone weakly through the grimy, dirt-streaked window, barely illuminating the sleeping face of her husband. Charlie had been a late sleeper for as long as she’d known him. Clarissa turned away from him, heading for the door. Sleeping late was all well and good for Charlie, but she enjoyed no such luxury, even if she had wanted to sleep away the day. Hobb’s Town was not a well-oiled machine, but a squealing, clanking one, and it always needed her attention.

She let herself out of the shack quietly, lifting the hood of her jacket up over her head against the light rain that had begun to fall shortly after sunrise. Rainwater trickled off the low roofs of all the shacks along Main Street, Main Street being a wide dirt track running through the middle of Hobb’s Town, bisecting it, and which would be a lane of mud by day’s end if the rain kept up or, god forbid, fell any harder.

Her boots left impressions in the soft dirt road as she walked up toward Howard Lane. The man who had given the lane its name was dead, as was the one who had given the town its moniker. Yet the town, and the lane, both remained as a reminder of the departed. Maybe someday they would have a vote to rename it, as some townsfolk wanted. Or maybe not. Clarissa didn’t really care either way.

She passed both Jerrys, Old and Young, as she turned onto Howard Lane. Old Jerry doffed his cap, and Young Jerry gave her an almost imperceptible nod. She nodded at the men, and walked on. She turned right onto the Boulevard, so named ironically, as it was just a narrow dirt track that ran from Howard Lane all the way out to the northwest corner of town, where the town’s well was located. The well was Clarissa’s destination.

As the well came into view, she saw that Gary and Kayla were still working on the windlass. The damn thing hadn’t been working right, refusing to turn, for the better part of two days. Clarissa herself had no idea what was wrong with it, or how to fix it. That was Gary and Kayla’s job. All she knew was that they had better get the damn thing working, because the town needed fresh water. River water was fine for bathing and such, but drinking or cooking with it was always a risk. Without the windlass, they couldn’t bring up the well water.

How’s it going? Clarissa greeted them.

Gary looked over at her, rain gathering in his beard in little beads. He stretched out, his hands planted firmly in his back, letting out a tired groan. Kayla barely spared Clarissa a glance, busily rooting around in her toolbox for something.

Morning, Mayor, Gary greeted.

The title still seemed strange to Clarissa, even after a year. It didn’t seem to fit. She had never wanted to be mayor, and hadn’t run for it. But the residents of the town who were of voting age had elected her anyhow, and by a comfortable margin.

Good morning, Gary, she returned. So?

It’s going fine, Kayla answered. It’ll be good to go in an hour or two, tops.

Gary nodded in agreement.

That’s good to hear. You know most everybody keeps a jug or two of water in reserve, but a jug or two only goes so far. I can tell you that Charlie and I drank the last of ours last night.

No need to worry; this old bitch will be working again soon enough, Gary said, gesturing with a nod of his head at the windlass.

Get it done, and there’ll be a round on me at McConnell’s, Clarissa said,

It was a joke. There hadn’t been any alcohol served at the pub for nearly two years, but people still gathered at night at McConnell’s for a glass of homemade apple cider (if there was any), or water (if there wasn’t).

I’ll hold you to that, Kayla said.

Clarissa left them to their work, but instead of following the Boulevard back into town, she followed the edge of town with no real aim in mind. The air smelled like damp earth, a somehow invigorating odor. She breathed that morning air. The rain first tapered, and then ceased. Clarissa pushed the hood off of her head, letting it fall back. Her boots left a trail of prints behind her in the soft earth, marring an otherwise unmarked path. He steps crunched over a few fallen leaves as she walked.

From somewhere near the center of town came the sound of the school bell ringing out, which Kathy Sanders rang at the start and end of every school day. Right now the town’s children would be heading into the Hobb’s Town Combined School. The school served all grades, separated into four age groups: Grade 1, 5-7 years; Grade 2, 8-11 years; Grade 3, 12-14 years; Grade 4, 15-17 years. There were some children in town who did not go to school, for one reason or another. Mostly that their parents did not see the point of pretending like the world had not utterly changed. School attendance was supposed to be compulsory for all school-aged children in town, but nobody made a big deal out of it if a few parents didn’t bother to send their kids. There were more important things to worry about.

As she walked, Clarissa looked up, seeing an unbroken ceiling of gray. She thought it might very well rain again