Rachel's Rapture Ch. 02

The last leg of her journey took most of the day and dusk was quickly approaching when Rachel arrived in the small town. As she crossed the city limit line, she was unsurprised to see yet another well-maintained sign. This one said: Greensburg Kansas, population 777, except that someone had crossed out the number, and the word, 'me' had been painted over the top where the number had been. "Population me?" she thought curiously.

One thing was immediately obvious to Rachel though, Loudon's signs had not lying, and the power grid was still functional here. Lights twinkled everywhere; it was as though every light in the small town had been set as a beacon to lead humanity out of the darkness and back into civilization. Rachel was impressed by all of the lights, but one thing was even more strikingly obvious to her; the town was brand new. It looked as though it had just been built.

Greensburg was different than every other little town that she had been in on her way back to civilization. There was absolutely no sign of the usual red brick construction that was common to this region. There weren't any old homes, nor were there old barns, or sheds... or anything that looked like it was more than a couple of years old. To Rachel, it appeared that the town had been built all at once, and fairly recently, at that.

She didn't think about this mystery for long though; she was still following the signs that were helpfully directing her onwards toward Loudon's home. Before she knew it, they had led her to the largest house within the tiny town, and in front of that home was, yet another, sign. It said, "Welcome to Greensburg Kansas, Population 'me', the honorable Mayor, Loudon Lizard III. There was a second smaller sign next to the large one; it said, 'The Mayor is', and the placard hanging underneath it said, 'out'.

Rachel found herself strangely relieved by this bit of information, but on the off chance that the sign was wrong, she rang his doorbell anyway. As she rang the bell, she wondered what sort of strange person would call himself something like 'Mayor Loudon Lizard the third', and she also realized that before the Rapture, there was no way that she would have ever knocked on this door.

The sign next to the bell said that the Mayor would be back on August 10th, but that wasn't really helpful either, since Rachel had no real idea what the date might be. In any event, no one answered the door, so Rachel read the next note. This one said, "Please make yourself at home; the house next to mine has been set aside for guests. You can have the entire house if you'd like. Keep it forever! I left the light on for ya!" Immediately below this sign was an arrow pointing to the house that he'd set up for guests.

"What kind of strange person leaves all these silly signs behind?" she asked herself, but despite her misgivings, she did decide to explore the guest home. She found that the home was very comfortably furnished. All of the furniture in the house seemed to be brand new, and though she didn't know much about such things, she thought that it looked very stylish.

"Of course there are," she mumbled to herself as she saw many more signs, notes and instructions left scattered through the house. Evidently this Loudon fellow had spent a great deal of time trying to make sure that any guests that he might attract would be very comfortable. He'd left detailed instructions for every mechanical or electronic item that the house contained; there was even a tutorial on operating the fancy multi-headed shower in the en-suite bathroom.

She found a working desktop computer in the game room, and she saw that the computer clock suggested that it was now August the third. If the computer was accurate, (and considering all of Loudon's attention to detail, she assumed that it was), she would have seven days to decide how she might greet this 'Mayor of Greensburg'.

Rachel had to admit that she was more than a little fearful of the man; something about all of his signs was unnerving to her, though she could not have articulated why they bothered her. They did though, so after a quick search of his 'guest house', she abandoned it. She did not feel comfortable remaining there; it felt more like a cage than it did a home.

Instead, she drove to the other end of town and selected a much smaller and more poorly furnished home, a house that came without notes or instructions. It did however, include a barn, and that was important to her for her truck would not fit in a normal garage, and maybe more importantly, it hid it entirely from prying eyes.

Once again, she wondered why she was trying so hard to hide from the very first person that she had located, but Brother Eli had been so adamant that the post Rapture time would be filled with and controlled by evil men. By now, Rachel had realized that Eli had been more wrong than correct in his prophesies, but she wasn't really sure how to deal with a good man, much less a minion of the devil, and just maybe...she'd be better served to be careful in her dealings with him.

Safely hunkered down in the small farm, she figured that she had a week to do some reconnaissance, so she spent the next week exploring the small town. In truth, there wasn't much to see, although she quickly discovered why the power grid was still functioning here. Located in what passed for a downtown area, there was a large exhibit devoted to telling the town's story "Yet another sign," she'd mumbled, but at least this one pre-dated the disappearance of the townsfolk.

The display told the story of Greensburg's complete destruction during the tornado season of 2007. A F5 tornado had completely leveled the town, destroying every single building in its path. Those who had returned after the disaster had decided to rebuild the town, and to rebuild their homes using 100% green energy.

Because of their foresight, the town could exist either on or off of the national power grid. The rest of the country might be down, but the lights still burned in Kansas. The computers still worked here as well, although without access to the nation's servers, they were not good for much. Rachel hoped that someday, it might be possible to reclaim the information that was stored elsewhere; like everything else, it seemed like this would come down to an access of power.

And as she continued to search Greensburg, she wondered, "Were there other towns like this?" Would it be worth her time to look for a town that wasn't run by a man who called himself Loudon Lizard the third?

And as she pondered this newest thought, it occurred to her that she'd need to look for those towns as well. She still believed that God had commanded her to find others, so could it be that her job was to find all of those who had been left-behind, and bring them together into God's warm embrace? She was pretty sure that the Catholics believed in a place like that, and although Eli had always slammed the Catholics as being anti-Christian, it was becoming increasingly clear to Rachel that Eli had been wrong about a lot of things.

She spent several full days considering the decision of whether she should stay and meet this man, or flee in the face of his eccentricity, but ultimately she was forced to decide that no matter how worried she was about the sanity of 'Mayor' Lizard; Christian charity required that she must remain in Greensburg and, at least, introduce herself to the man before she left again. Surely, God would preserve her!

~~~

According to the computer clock, it was August 9th when Loudon drove back into town. He'd been kind of hard for Rachel to miss as the engine in his old pick-up was coughing and sputtering as though it had tuberculosis. Rachel remained hidden in the shadows and watched him drive by. She was pretty sure that when the truck finally died, it wouldn't start again, and this made her wonder if Mr. Lizard knew about gasoline stabilizer.

When the old Ford finally shuddered to a stop in Loudon's driveway, Loudon climbed out of his truck and Rachel gasped quietly to herself. The man was huge and Rachel could tell that he would tower over her, even if she were tall for a girl. He was well over six feet tall and looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. He was wearing a black cowboy hat and had a scruffy beard that looked like he had gone days without shaving.

His clothes were filthy as well, and it looked as though hebadlyneeded a shower. But that didn't really bother her, she knew what it was like to live out of your truck for a few weeks, and seeing a tired and dirty man climb out of his truck wasn't any kind of a surprise. She hadn't been sure what she had expected to see in this man, but an imposingly tall cowboy hadn't been it.

She was somewhat surprised when he returned to his truck and pulled something from beneath the driver's seat. She remained quiet and just watched and tried to figure out what he was doing. When a large sign with the word 'in' was revealed, she had to stifle a laugh. He quickly attached the sign to the one in front of his home, and now it read, "The Mayor is in." Rachel wasn't sure if his consistency was a good... or a bad thing, so she continued to lurk.

He eventually entered his home and Rachel saw that it had been unlocked the entire time, and she found that to be strangely reassuring. She backed out of her hideaway and then circled into the backyard of the house immediately across the street from Loudon's own. She'd selected this house as it had mirror-tinted windows and she felt that she'd be able to observe him without being spotted herself. She positioned herself in a comfortable chair and began to wait.

...and she was forced to wait for quite some time. Many hours passed before Loudon was heard from again. In truth, she smelled his activity before she actually saw it, and it was an aroma that she had greatly missed over the past few months. She smelled wood smoke, and the mouth-watering smell of grilling beef.

"Where had he gotten beef? Shouldn't all of the meat be rotted away be now? No,"she thought,"There was power here, maybe he had a store of frozen meat, but how long would that last?"and still pondering the shelf life of frozen beef, she began to skirt around the perimeter of his home, moving to a position where she could peer into his back yard.

Night had fallen by now, so even though she was reasonably certain that she would not be seen, she made a wide circle around his location anyway, she had nothing but time. Moving slowly and cautiously, she spent several minutes creeping up on his position. When she stopped moving, she'd found a spot to peer over his back fence.

He was grilling a steak, no...he was grilling two large steaks, and he was singing. She was impressed with his voice. He had an impossibly deep bass voice, and he was making good use of it. As his singing was in-tune, it was obvious that he was a trained singer, and the banjo that he was playing only accented his voice.

He sang:

They say you're not alone,
But don't listen to them tell that very long
I did... then found out through misery
That the true population's me

Rachel thought, "There it is again. 'Population Me'... just like on his sign. ...and was he going to eat those two steaks, or did he know that she was lurking nearby? Had he spotted her when she was crossing the street? Had she left some evidence of her passing?" Her head filled with questions, so she made no move to reveal herself, she was content just to watch and to listen to him finish his song.

When he was through, he called out, "That was an old Dwight Yoakam song," and then he waited for a moment as if he was hoping for an answer. But he was only answered by silence, so he said, "Let me check on these steaks, and then I'll sing you something else. Do you like Trace Adkins? People used to tell me that I do a pretty good Trace."

He waited for a response once again, but Rachel was starting to believe that he was just fishing. He never once focused his attention in her direction, and he kept glancing off to his left where the guest house stood. After a moment, he frowned and continued, "I know that you are out there somewhere. The silent alarm was triggered sometime last week and there were footprints on my front porch... they looked like they were from a woman's shoe."

Then he removed the steaks from the hottest part of the grill and placed them on an upper rack so they would stay warm before he started speaking again. "Why didn't you stay? Surely you must be just as tired of being alone as I am. I know that I'm kind of scary looking, but I'm just a country boy. Here...let me see if this song can sing you out of hiding."

This time, Loudon grabbed a guitar and strummed it a few times before he began to sing "Ladies Love Country Boys." Rachel had never heard the song before, but she did allow herself a smile at the idea that a well-bred young lady would be attracted to a truck driving country boy, much less one who called himself Loudon Lizard. As she listened to his song, she decided that the steaks smelled divine, and if she were honest, the longer he continued to sing, the more harmless he appeared to be.

She waited for him to finish his song and before he could begin speaking once again, she inserted a round into her flare gun and then fired it into the sky. Without hesitation, she snapped a second round into the gun and then announced herself by saying, "Is that other steak for me?"

Loudon's eyes were still adjusting to the bright light of the flare, and his nerves were still on edge from the report of the gun, not to mention the shock of hearing the first voice that he had heard in almost a year. It took him a moment to gather himself and reply, "Ma'am, if you promise not to do that again, you can have both of them."

Rachel giggled nervously as she came through his back gate. "I'm Rachel," she said quietly while maintaining a safe distance from the large man.

"I'm Loudon," the gruff man said in return.

"Yeah, I saw your signs. You are the Mayor, Loudon Lizard the third."

"Yeah...well, I'm not really the Mayor. I was just... ya know... bored and lonely, and it seemed like a good joke at the time."

"...and Lizard, surely that isn't yourrealname."

"You've never heard of my band?"

Rachel replied in confusion, "Band? I'm sorry... but no, I've never listened to any secular music."

"We used to call ourselves 'Loudon and the Lounge Lizards', but then we found that another band had trademarked the name 'Lounge Lizards', so we had to change our name. We became Loudon Lizard and the Sheep Skillet Three."

"...the Sheep Skillet Three?" Rachel said, as she started to consider fleeing back out of the yard.

"I know, I know," Loudon said hurriedly. "It sounds crazy, but we were mostly a cover band. We did fun shows; we weren't one of those bands who took ourselves very seriously. We just liked to make people laugh and have a good time. I probably should have gone back to my birth name, but I got used to being Loudon Lizard, so don't be afraid of me. I'm really not crazy, and...umm...I've made dinner, and I'll bet you have not had a steak since...well, whatever this is. Stay. Please. Talk to me; I'll keep my distance. I promise."

Rachel came to a decision and then stepped into the light. Loudon saw her and gasped in surprise, stammering, "I called you 'ma'am'; I can see that I probably should have called you 'Miss'. I had no idea that you were so young.

"I'm seventeen now," Rachel said defensively. "I know that I look younger than that though; everyone tells me so. Well, they used to."

"Please...forgive me for being so surprised. I guess I had not considered the idea that someone who was so young would be here, umm... wherever this is. You just wait here and I will go in the house and get the rest of our dinner. I've made enough for two; I really hoped that you would join me. You can sit over there," he said, pointing to the far side of his patio. "I'll give you your space; I know that you don't know me or trust me yet, and I don't blame you for that."

Rachel nodded her acceptance of his terms and Loudon rushed back into the house, hoping against hope that she'd still be there when he returned. He wasn't gone long and when he returned, Rachel could see the instant look of relief on his face as he realized that she was still here. He immediately said, "Thank you for staying. Really, you can trust me to behave myself. I will do whatever it takes to earn your trust."

He then sat the dishes down before continuing, "I know that I'm way bigger and stronger than you, but if I mistreat you or if I do you any evil, you could easily flee or even kill me while I sleep. Besides...my mama taught me to treat women with respect. I'd be a complete fool, if I drove away the first woman that I've met.

Rachel liked the sound of that, so she holstered her weapon and said, "Take the food to the table; let's eat together; I think we might need one another. I guess that I can give you that much trust,"

A relieved smile spread across Loudon's face as he began to serve their food, although it faltered a bit when Rachel stopped him before they could begin eating with a request to give thanks to the Lord. Rachel could see that he wasn't sure what to make of her request. Although he had noticed her odd dress and her extremely long hair, he hadn't connected any of that to religion before she'd made her request.

Loudon hadn't said a prayer in many years and the only one that he could remember was the children's prayer that his grandmother had taught him when he was six years old. Rachel had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing, when this man in his early middle age began the same prayer that her little brother had always used.

Loudon's face turned a lovely shade of red as he recited, "God is great; God is good. Let us thank him for our food. By his hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread."

Rachel joined him in the 'Amen'. The unrepentant grin on her face told Loudon everything that he needed to know.

"Okay, okay, so I'm not much of a church-goer," Loudon grumbled in his deep voice. "I am a believer...well, I was before all of this started, but I never went to church much."

A look of shock came over Rachel's face as she gasped, "You've stopped believing in God?"

"No... not exactly," he said, hurriedly, "I still believe in God, but I'm wondering if maybe some of the things that we believed about him weren't true. I mean...look at us now. How many of us are actually left? And where is everyone else? I've started to think that our holy men were not really hearing what He was saying."

Rachel was silent for a moment, taking the time to process what he'd said. Instead of responding, she began to eat her dinner slowly, savoring each bite of the best meal that she'd had in almost a year. Finally after she'd eaten about half of her steak, she said, "So...how do we listen to Him?"

Loudon chuckled before saying, "Rachel girl...I'm just a country boy. I'm pretty sure that I don't really know. I suppose that we try our hardest to listen to Him for once, instead of trying so hard to tell ourselves what He...or She wants from us. It seems to me that the men who claimed to know what God wanted from us all seemed to hate one another. They seemed to spend their days arguing with everybody else."

Rachel frowned and she considered his words. Then she said, "I hadn't thought of it quite like that; but I think that maybe I agree with you. Brother Eli and the elders in my church were so sure that they had all of the answers, but in the long run, Eli shot himself when he was left behind."

This time, it was Loudon who was shocked. "What?! Not only have you seen someone else, but it was someone that you actually knew? What did he say?"