Free Frantic by Jerry B. Jenkins Page B

eyes. “I made a little something for you.”
    â€œYou didn’t have to do that,” Vicki said.
    â€œI can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for Tolan and me. I’m sure we’d both be dead. And we wouldn’t have known anything about God’s love.”
    Vicki began unwrapping the package but Lenore put a hand on her arm. “Wait until you get on the road.”
    Vicki excused herself and ran upstairs. She wanted to say good-bye to Janie and Melinda, but both of them seemed not to notice her.
    When she turned to leave, Janie gasped, “Where are you going?”
    â€œTaking a little trip,” Vicki said. “We have to find some people down south.”
    Janie tried to sit up. She clutched her stomach and fell back. “Bring us some medicine or something for the pain!”
    â€œTry to eat,” Vicki said. “You’re both going to get skinny if you don’t.”
    Pete pulled out and drove the truck cautiously along the country road. Vicki opened Lenore’s package and found a notebook. She opened it and read: I took shorthand in college too. I think I got just about everything in here. May God use you mightily in the coming days. Love, Lenore .
    Inside Vicki found her complete sessions with Carl. Every word, all three days, printed perfectly. So that’s what she was working on, Vicki thought.

9
    VICKI couldn’t believe the room in the truck. Pete drove, Carl rode in the passenger seat, and Vicki, Shelly, and Conrad sat behind them in the sleeper. The truck had a satellite hookup for phone and video, an onboard computer, and a citizens band radio. Pete showed Vicki how to access the Internet through the satellite, and the kids surfed the Net as the truck rolled through Illinois and Indiana on its way south.
    The interstates were a disaster in some places and fine in others. In the more populated areas, GC crews had repaired roads. Other areas hadn’t been as hard hit by the earthquake. But nearly every overpass in Indiana had collapsed. Pete would take each exit and return to the highway on the other side of the collapsed bridge.
    The road was nearly deserted. Other than a few large trucks and an occasional car, they were alone. “We’re going to make good time,” Pete said.
    The kids picked up satellite reports from GC news sources. Other countries had suffered the same fate as the state of Illinois. Streets were deserted. People suffered. In South Africa, a news van passed a row of houses, and a high-powered microphone picked up the howls and sobs from inside. A doctor interviewed in China, who had the mark of the believer, showed beds filled with people who had tried to kill themselves. They drove cars into concrete walls, drank poison, cut their wrists, sat in garages with cars running, leaped into deep water, even jumped from high buildings in attempts to take their own lives. Though some of the patients’ bodies were torn and bleeding, not one of them had died.
    Vicki turned away from the monitor and watched the passing towns. In Kentucky, horses ran by the road.
    â€œEarthquake destroyed a lot of fences,” Pete said. “The farmers almost had them repaired when the locusts came. Now the horses are running wild.”
    Night fell and Vicki felt the familiar pop in her ears as they climbed the Smoky Mountains. A few years earlier she had traveled with her family in a small RV her father had borrowed from a friend. Her dad wanted to take the family to Orlando to a theme park, but the vehicle had broken down in Georgia. They spent the entire vacation in a little hotel about fifty miles from the ocean, waiting for the RV to be fixed.
    As she drifted off to sleep in the truck, Vicki recalled how much she had complained about that trip. Her mom and dad weren’t Christians at the time and they both drank a lot of beer. The pool at the hotel was the size of a postage stamp, there was no cable TV, and the air