Pilgrims in the tens of thousands shuffle westward. Heat tornadoes shimmer in the distance; cloud formations press menacingly upon the Earth. Khamsin-driven grunge compels each trekker to seek protection beneath hoods and head wraps. Beneath Bedouin-style robes we spy not shoes or boots but bare feet and worn, open-toed sandals.

We have entered the Bible.

Ahead, Manning’s Humvee is honking, trying to clear the throughway.

Ben-David shouts down from our cab to one ragged straggler.

BEN-DAVID

Where is everybody going?

STRAGGLER

Gehenna.

BEN-DAVID

Why?

STRAGGLER

Who knows? People just started moving. It’s crazy.

I’m recording the spectacle on my phone. The sense is of collective derangement, of mob energy mounting out of control. Threadbare trekkers are hauling themselves up onto our running boards. Others are clambering up the outboard rails.

Ben-David swings out onto the flank of the truck. Giora shouts at him to get back in. Over the comm channel I hear Dana reinforcing this call. Ben-David ignores both of them. He’s trying to protect the tech gear in the cargo beds. The tailgates of the trucks are sealed only by canvas. Already free-riders are tearing their way aboard with pocketknives and bare hands.

I’m on the channel to Manning, reporting the emergency.

MANNING’S VOICE

(from comm channel)

Follow me. We’re cutting cross-country.

I’m squinting right and left across the wasteland. The dust bowl as far as I can see is carpeted with tent encampments and hobo jungles. Vans and camper-shell pickups, sedans and mini-buses squat not only along the shoulders of the highway but fan rearward across open country, first in ordered rows, then in chaotic clutches, finally in a mad jumble back, back into the flat, burned-out badlands.

Giora is shouting to Ben-David to get back to the cab. Manning’s Humvee is pulling away. Already its taillights are being swallowed amid the multitude.

Around our convoy flows a river of the desperate and the devout—children and ancients, male and female, the hale and the infirm. Aged indigents hobble on crutches and walking sticks, enfeebled crones are being borne in wheelbarrows and towed under blanket wraps in wagons and two-wheel carts. I’m thinking, These are the church ladies we saw boarding buses on Central Park West. They’re the Chasidim from Crown Heights and Borough Park. Plus tens of thousands from Europe, Asia, Africa. How have they survived in this hell? Where do they get water? The faithful must be perishing by the hundreds every night.

Ben-David returns. He hauls himself inside, dropping hard into the seat beside me.

BEN-DAVID

Go. Go!

Our convoy commander points left, to an unpaved agricultural road. Giora turns onto it. The column picks up speed over open ground, shedding the last of the hangers-on.

An hour passes. We’ve lost Manning and Rachel. We’ve lost the road.

DANA

(over comm channel)

Amos, are you watching the needle?

Ben-David checks the EXT TEMP gauge: 121° Fahrenheit.