The Pursuit of Salvation

Chapter 5

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.
Edward Gibbon

As he screamed down the road tracing the path of the little convertible he had seen only hours earlier, Darryl replaced his fear with anger. He had filled every gas container he could fit into the trunk of the Ford, got the rifle and ammo out of the survey truck and headed over the rough terrain to his secret highway.

The weather was clear, there was no wind, so the path of the car was evident by the debris it had cleared off where it had passed. He would follow this path until he found this guy who had ultimately gotten him banished from his world. He remembered thinking the driver was a girl at first, with that long hair flying in the breeze, until he had gotten close enough to see his stubble and bare chest. The guy looked like a pansy, if there were more like him Darryl was sure he could handle the whole lot, especially with his little friend; Mr. Remington.

He would show Bobby who's delusional and then kick his ass just for good measure. There was no doubt that ever since Pop died 5 years ago that Bobby had gotten way too big for his britches. Yeah, he was the oldest, but he wasn't as big as Darryl, or as smart as Dale. Accident of birth that he got to be in charge, that's all it was. Too chicken-shit to go into the danger zone without his suit for 45 long years. If he had any stones you'd think he'd give it a shot or at least send one of those punk kids for a trial run.

Darryl's life was a bad country song. After Pop had died he fell apart. Too much drinking, fighting and carousing with the bad boys and young girls got him thrown out of his house by Jessie. She kept the kids, the dog, the whole ballad. Bobby declared them divorced and banished him to a shack in the lower forty. He still showed up at the big house for dinner like everybody else but the rest of the time he spent mostly by himself, plowing the field or secretly exploring the outer world.

The plague was long gone, he knew this, but to tell anyone would be blasphemy. He never told anyone except his Jessie once when he was drunk, and she didn't believe him. Just another in a long line of drunken stories and lies he had invented since his breakdown, she told him. He hadn't had a drink in over a year and worked his tail off 6 days a week. This still wasn't good enough for the Johnson clan, they still treated him like shit and he was damn well tired of it.

"I'll show them"; he muttered to himself.
He'd bring this fairy back and make him tell the whole stinkin' village how he'd been living in the danger zone the whole time while pussy Bobby was hiding out at the farm scared of his own shadow. Then we'll see who they're gonna listen to.

His fear and anger had crystallized into determination. He saw himself as the big man around town once he brought this guy back. He'd send Bobby out to the shack and take over the big house.

He'd been driving almost two hours when he saw where the path of the vehicle had swept left off the road onto a gravel road. He turned off the motor and glided in that direction.

Got to take him by surprise.