Edith looks away as the Coors cans fall from the pickup truck’s passenger side. Her husband is a capable man, a good man even. He runs around the truck not looking at the strangers, who had only stepped back, and began to scoop out the pile of cans that had collected. They clattered to the ground before grabbing Edith’s hand to guide her into the seat.
“Oh, and of course the other car wouldn’t work.” She couldn’t help but say. “And with how much we paid for it! Beside this one leaks oil. I’ll be surprised it gets us anywhere.”
Lot unconsciously rubbed his nose, smelling the machine oil as if for the first time. “It’ll get us there. We’re just lucky you prefer me to park the truck around back.”
“It’s such an ugly eye sore.” Edith lets out a sigh and rests her head on a hand.
“I’m not sure it’ll get up the mountain pass anyway. It has a better chance than your car. Girls, come on! Get in.”
“Look at the night sky; are you telling me that God is going to rain down judgment on us? I can see every star tonight. Nothing is coming. We’re cursed because you brought these strangers into our home.”
Lot says nothing as he slams the door closed. Edith grunts with disgust as she looks out the dirty window as her daughters push in next to her. She can’t help the audible revulsion even though her husband has told her to keep quiet.
“Daddy, what about about….?” One of his daughters tries.
“He laughed at me.” Then looking at both his daughters, “They both laughed at me. Your fiancés are not coming.”
The door groans as he slams the driver’s side closed. He feels his face flush as he turns to look at the strangers. Wanting to speak to them alone, he knows his wife and daughters would only make this moment more uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry for my….”
“You need to leave now. Go as fast as you can to the mountains. If you slow down even a little, if you look back…” the strangers pause to look at the passenger door screeching as it opens.
“What?” Edith says.
She had been a soft woman once, kind even. Maybe living in these two large cities had done her an injustice. Maybe she could’ve been better if they hadn’t come so close.
“Get in the cab of the truck.” Lot turns back to the strangers.
“It reeks of cigarette smoke. We can’t breathe!”
“Lot,” the stranger says drawing him back.
“Yes.”
“Go. Don’t look back.” Then, turning to Edith, “See that no one looks back at what is to come.”
“How far?” Lot asks.
“The mountains and then maybe you will be safe. What is coming is going to destroy everything.”
Edith grunts in disbelief. Lot doesn’t blame her. He has trouble believing it himself. Even what he saw that these two did just a few minutes ago, well, it was clear these are not men. They are something more.
“Quiet.” Lot’s words are harsh as he turns to the strangers.
“Go. Don’t look back.”
“But up into the mountains?” Edith murmurs.
“Please,” Lot bows before the strangers, “let us go to that small village. I don’t know that the truck will make it up the mountain pass.”
“Fine. Go. Before it’s too late. Don’t look back.”
“We won’t,” Lot says before looking over at his wife. Her shrewd face gives nothing away before she repeats what he said.
Lot takes one last look at the pool and the house that he had built to his specifications. Things had happened quickly, but now, things were happening again. He exhales a silent prayer as he opened the truck door and climbed in, pushing his daughters into his wife on the long seat inside.
The strangers tap the hood of the truck twice as it rumbles to life. The radio clicks on. Lot turns it down. He recognizes the old Hank Williams song that he used to love so much. The old truck, Lot considers, is more faithful than he is. The gears grind a little as he shifts and, with a lurch, slowly drives around from behind the house where the crowd of men who had been there was mostly dispersed.
“Look!” Edith tries as she cracks the window for some air, “They’re no longer crowded around my car. Let’s take it.”
“There’s no time.” Lot says not slowing down, knowing Edith would jump out of the truck if she could.
“Just think what this will do to your status when we come back.”
“We’re not coming back.”
“We better not.” Edith tries shaking her head, then guffaws, “And you offered our virgin daughters to placate the crowd.”
Lot grunts.
“What?” one of his daughters asks as she puts her arm across his waist, leaning in close.
Lot pushes her away, but it does little good with no room in the cab of the truck. She implores asking him again. He shakes his head before relenting, “I don’t think it was so much as they did not want you, but that they didn’t believe you were virgins.”
“Ha.” Edith couldn’t stifle the laughter in time. “Perhaps many may have already had you!”
“Daddy! Mother!” They both smack at him but don’t deny it.
The headlights move across people in the street. Beggars lie on the ground. Some half-starved to death. Some move when the headlights hit them, but most don’t. In the morning, that is, if there is a morning, they will be brought out to the pile and burned.
“You did well for yourself here.” Edith began to roll the window up. The smell of burnt flesh is thick in the air as they begin to drive through the city gates. It always was. The burnt homeless were a constant vigil and sacrifice outside the city walls. “We will find another city. We will do well again. They will see how skilled a businessman you are. Although I will miss this city.”
“Do you not smell that? The burning flesh? This will be the smell of this whole land for a generation. Best to not stay and add to it.”
“Daddy, what about our wealth? Sure, we took the money we had at home, but what about the money in the bank, and what about the herd?”
“It’s lost.”
“Nonsense.” Edith shakes her head, “We’ll be back in the morning before anyone knows we’re gone. It’ll be like this terrible night didn’t happen.”
“We’re not coming back.”
“Lot, you can’t tell me you actually believe them.”
“Did you see them blind the crowd? Have you ever seen anything like that? Have you ever heard of anything like that? Aside from what….”
“Don’t say it.” Edith shakes her head back and forth.
“Say what, daddy?” One of his daughters says still reaching over and grabbing his arm.
“One of your grandparents, one of the older ones, they carry the story of our ancestor, Noah.”
“I remember!” the other daughter shouts excitedly. “The big flood!”
Lot looks at her. She acts younger than she really is. He feels sorry for her. Something about the city. It did worse for them than good. They did need to leave. She acts almost naive and innocent, but under it is a layer of cunning. It’s a game just like the women in the streets or the wives in the marketplace – they all are working at something. But what are they working at?
“They stayed. For all we know, they’re taking our stuff and claiming it as their own.”
It takes Lot a minute to come out of his thoughts before he realizes Edith is talking about the strangers. “They’re not.”
“And how do you know? All that you
worked for and all that you did going from being an outsider of Sodom to being
one of the primary leaders. You’re one of the judges!”
“One of the judges, hardly. A
lot of good it did when that gang wanted to break into our home.”
“Those men will take over our home and claim it as their own. They’ll take and everyone will be so upset with us, they’ll let it happen!”
“Those messengers, I think they are the ones that are going to bring about the end of this great city.”
“We should have stayed.”
“The people of Sodom are only concerned with their power and pleasure. They don’t want to help anyone. I’m so tired of being here that even if this place isn’t destroyed, I don’t think I want to come back here.”
“Then where are we to go?”
“Zoar: it’s a small city. We can go and wait.”
“For what? The destruction.”
“Yes.”
“What don’t we go to Uncle Abram? He’ll take us in.”
Lot doesn’t reply right away. He is ashamed not only of his role in Sodom but also of what his precious little daughters and his wife have become. “No, I don’t think we’ll go find him, at least not immediately.”
“I’m not selling my jewelry in Zoar. We won’t make half the money back at that dirt village as we would in Sodom or Gomorrah.”
“We will be okay.”
“I don’t want to leave. I don’t think it’s the right decision.”
“How can you say that?” Lot slaps the steering wheel in anger.
“You’re not so righteous yourself, so don’t pretend to be all high and mighty!”
“You backed me every step of the way. You helped me get ahead with Bera even when he would not give me an audience.”
“The king.” Edith lifts her chin. It’s not the first time Lot’s has the thought. He wonders about that day when she stormed off toward the center of the city to speak with Bera’s wife. He wonders about the night she returned. She didn’t want to speak to him about it. All she said was Bera would see him.
“Anyway,” Lot says, seeing a chance for spite, “Abram did more for us than anyone rescuing us during the war.”
“I did everything. I secured our position. I helped our wealth. Not your god. Not you. Not your family. I did. I did what it took and it made our family wealthy and powerful. Now you want to leave it. After everything I have done! You….”
“Mother, don’t.” One of his daughters cries.
“Don’t try me, you little harlots! Don’t you think I can hear you sulking outside our bedroom at night? I know you’re listening in! You’re as bad as the men of Sodom!”
“Edd…” Lot tries feeling sorrow that he had sparked this outburst. “Listen, I know….”
The front of the truck glows as the lights come rushing from behind them begin to illuminate the road ahead. The radio turns to static. He can see the briefest reflection in the rear-view mirror, which almost looks like a cloud, before turning the rear-view mirror away.
“Don’t look.” Lot coughs out swerving the pickup.
He reaches for his family. He can’t reach his wife, but he holds his daughters down as he hits the gas. He passes a sign that says:’ Zoar City Limits’ just a second before he sees the sign take off whirling in front of them and then disappearing behind them.
“Don’t look back!” he shouts out. He can hear the plea in his voice for Edith to listen.
“No!” Edith turns to look back.
As the place she loves is absorbed with fire, she can hardly let out a scream as she disintegrates.
The windshield wipers go back and forth causing the cab of the truck to rock a little pushing ash and whatever debris away from them.
“Daddy, are we one of the last people on earth?”
“No.”
“I think we are.”
“No.” He points out people in the city of Zoar coming out into the streets.
“We are. We are alone.”
“Daddy, what happened to mother?”
Lot pulls to the side of the road. A pile of small white crystals almost looking like sand is spread across the dashboard and seat and floor. He’s tempted to reach out and touch it, but it feels almost sacrilegious.
About the author
Kris Green lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and two savage children. He’s been published over 80 times in the last few years by the wonderful people at Nifty Lit, The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art, In Parentheses Magazine, Route 7 Review, BarBar Magazine, and many more.
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