Take the Long Way Home (13 page)

Sadly, despite the best efforts of everyone involved,
On A Pale Horse
fell through. Luckily,
Take The Long Way Home
was published several years ago as a beautiful little limited edition hardcover. Then it was reprinted in my now out of print short story collection
Unhappy Endings
. And now Deadite Press has released this new edition.

The story itself is based on the primarily evangelical interpretation of the Biblical scriptures, specifically the Rapture and how it relates to the Second Coming of Christ. The 144,000 Jews who become Tribulation Saints are a part of this belief.

I was raised by two Irish-American Protestant parents, attended a Methodist church, and was even the president of the church youth group at one point, if you can dig that. My grandparents were Presbyterians, my extended family hardcore Southern Baptists, and I once dated a preacher’s daughter. My point is; I was surrounded by religion, specifically Christianity, all through my childhood and teenage years. Readers have commented that my fiction seems to be primarily based on the Christian mythos—well, that’s why.

Readers have also said that they see a deep schism; that I often depict God as the ultimate bad guy, and I think that’s also a fair assumption. I trace that to adulthood. As a young man, I traveled the world and was exposed to many other religions and alternative ways of thinking. I came to realize that what I was brought up to believe wasn’t the whole truth, the big picture, and that there were millions of other people whose ideas and faiths were just as valid and deep and personal.

I’ve gone through phases: occultism, powwow, paganism, Buddhism, atheism, and finally, agnosticism. At forty-three, I’m no longer sure what I believe, and that bothers me more and more each day. I believe in an afterlife, but I’m not sure that it’s Heaven. I believe that there’s something more to this world, to this universe, something behind the veil, but I’m not sure that it’s God.

Sometimes, it seems like the more I learn, the less I know.

I do know this. I often feel like Steve does at the end of this story. Sometimes, that kid inside of me, the kid who read Marvel comic books and rode his BMX Mongoose and watched
Land of the Lost
and
Six-Million Dollar Man
, and listened to Rush and Ozzy Osbourne—and still made it to church every Sunday, speaks up and lets me know that he’s still alive, that this cold, hard, cynical bastard I’ve become hasn’t buried him completely. It is during these times that I remember exactly why I went to church each Sunday.

Fear.

Fear of getting spanked by my parents for not going; fear of not fitting in with my peers (because back then, most of the cool kids did indeed go to church); and most of all, fear of what God would do to me if I didn’t.

Fear of God.

I like to think I’m a new world man. I don’t think religion should have any place in our schools or government or courts. I think we should reach out to other cultures and ways of life, regardless of whether they believe in our God or their God or any god. In my novel
Terminal
, when Tommy O’Brien rants that religion has fucked this planet up since day one, that’s Brian Keene talking. It has. Most of the evils perpetrated by mankind aren’t the work of the Devil, but can be traced back to religion; all done in God’s name.

I’d like to think I’ve evolved beyond that. But then that kid inside of me, the one who made sure he sat still during the sermon and paid attention during Sunday school, speaks up, and reminds me of my fear.

I am afraid of God, and therefore, I believe.

I’m afraid not to.

Brian Keene

January 2011

BRIAN KEENE is the author of over twenty-five books, including Darkness on the Edge of Town, Urban Gothic, Castaways, Kill Whitey, Dark Hollow, Dead Sea, Ghoul and The Rising. He also writes comic books such as The Last Zombie, Doom Patrol and Dead of Night: Devil Slayer. His work has been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French and Taiwanese. Several of his novels and stories have been optioned for film, one of which, The Ties That Bind, premiered on DVD in 2009 as a critically-acclaimed independent short. Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. Keene lives in Central Pennsylvania. You can communicate with him online at www.briankeene.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-Keene/189077221397 or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrianKeene

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