THREE
- 1 -
Ira came awake with sunlight streaming in through the windshield of the small car. He recalled waking in the night, but could not recall why. The memory left him feeling somewhat uneasy, especially since he could not recall the why of it. Most probably, he thought, just the strangeness of the surroundings he found himself in.
The vines had advanced while he had slept, and now almost completely covered the roadway. They were much thicker too, he realized, and small green shoots were continuing to grow out of the twisted,wooden-looking vines winding away towards the west. Broad dark-green leaves sprouted from the vines in countless numbers, and if it had not been for the opening the road cut through the trees, Ira thought, the sun would not have peeked down from the sky to awaken him. The vines were that dense.
Telephone and power poles were swallowed whole by the vines, and they crept across the wires from one side to the other of the road. In many places the wires had succumbed to the weight of the vines and fallen, but in others they had traversed the lines and established a firm grasp on either side, supporting their own weight. Ira turned his attention away from the endless vines and back to the interior of the small car.
A small white-plastic key fob dangled from the ignition switch. Ira pumped the gas pedal twice, and then reached forward and turned the key. The car turned over slowly, but eventually caught and sputtered to life. A blare of static pealed forth from the radio, and he fumbled with the controls until he managed to turn it off. He looked around the interior of the car.
The old blue vinyl seats were ripped and stained. The Honda insignia, although cracked and dirty, was still firmly attached to the peeling and split dashboard. Trash littered the floorboards, and the shifter knob was so worn he could barely make out the pattern imprinted into it. The motor sounded like a small sewing machine, but the choppy uneven idle smoothed out after a few minutes to a low hum. Ira shifted the car into first and pulled from the side of the road bumping over the vines as he went.
The driving was slow going, but an hour later he reached the outskirts of the city of Oswego. For the last twenty minutes he had been following deep tire tracks that cut around the stalled traffic, and the closer he had gotten to the city the more he had found himself having to slow down and cut around the stalled traffic, following the muddy tracks.
He knew who had made the tracks, or at least some of the people who had made them. He also knew he was a good day behind them. He had no idea why God had chosen to put him behind them, rather than in front of them, but, he supposed, if God had wanted him to know, he would have told him. He hadn't, so Ira assumed it was simply His will.
He had given up trying to understand all of the whys involved with God, and had instead just accepted what he chose to tell him. He knew only that he would meet Frank Morgan in Rochester, along with some others. What he was supposed to say to him, or what God might want from him, was a different matter, and God had not chosen to tell him.
He wound slowly through the stalled traffic, going around where he had to, and he was almost into the downtown section when the car became hopelessly mired as he tried to get around several vehicles blocking the road. It had been close before, but the front wheel drive had pulled the small car through despite the churned up ground. This time it was buried up to the undercarriage, and there was no hope of getting the little car out.
Ira shut it off, and leaving the keys in the switch where he had found them, walked off into the downtown district.
When he came to the first bridge, he scrambled over the cars as the others had before him, and walked to the second bridge. He saw the same scene that Frank had seen the day before. The bridge had collapsed into the river. A large steel service walk that had run beside the bridge, however, was still intact, and he carefully walked across it to the other side.
He walked slowly down the crowded roadway, and eventually out of the downtown section. It had been eerie to say the least.
The vines, although not covering the entire city, were beginning to take their toll. Here they were still thin green twists, but they had only been thin green twists last night when he had fallen asleep in the car, he reminded himself. He knew that they would soon strengthen and become the stronger brown wood-like vines which were covering the roadway he had traveled. They hung down from the overhead wires and climbed up the buildings, swallowing everything in their path with their wide green leaves.
When he reached the other side of the city, he stopped at a used car lot by the side of the road. An older Chevy pickup sat among the line of cars and trucks, and Ira walked over to examine it.
The four wheel drive truck looked to have been used fairly well. It was dented and rusty, but Ira liked the look of it. He walked around it and looked it over. The tires appeared to be in good shape, and wider than most, as well as being tall and aggressively tread. He looked in the corner of the windshield, noted the stock number, and headed in the
