Apocalypse Burning (25 page)

Shackleton Heights
Marbury, Alabama
Local Time 0940 Hours

“You’ve got no right to do this,” Delroy told Deputy Walter Purcell. In the passenger seat of the car, the navy chaplain watched as the streets became more and more disturbingly familiar.

Less and less of this area had changed, but those changes had definitely been for the worse. What had once been streets lined with wellkept houses were now potholed thoroughfares punching a thin layer of civilization between decrepit dwellings. Screens still covered a few of the verandas and front porches, but rust clung to the mesh like cancer. Litter lined the cracked and peeling white picket fences that leaned first one direction then the other like drunks too far gone to make it home. Several of the homes were obviously abandoned, marked with broken windows, broken doors, and graffiti.

God,
Delroy wondered, drawn into the hypnotic spell of the oncefamiliar territory so far removed from everything he had known,
how bad can this be?

Walter didn’t look at the chaplain, just kept driving. “I don’t know what else to do, Delroy. Honest to God, I don’t. Now I was never much of a praying man before all this happened. I guess maybe I kind of got away from that when that drunk driver killed my boy. And truth to tell, I didn’t really think that much about praying even after all them people disappeared. But when I found you the night before last lying at your boy’s grave and next to your daddy’s, why I prayed that you’d be okay. Surprised the tarnation out of me, I have to tell you. Didn’t even know who you were then, and there I was praying for you. Didn’t even think about it. Just up and did it. Me, who ain’t been big on praying for a lotta years. I thought that was strange. Yes, sir, I truly did.”

Delroy sat back and tried to relax. A thousand memories spun through his mind, and he tried to avoid every one of them. “What you’re doing isn’t fair, Deputy.”

Walter sighed heavily. “No, sir, I suppose not. But when I got up this morning after listening to you and Clarice all night, this was the only thing on my mind. Tell you the truth, I thought it was plumb stupid, too. Knew it was unfair. But I figured that was the only way I could get your attention.” He paused. “More’n that, I’m halfway convinced this ain’t even my idea. As crass and forward as I am, I generally don’t take such liberties with another man and his problems. I figure it’s well enough to give that man room to sort ‘em out by himself. Only I seen you working at yours, and I know you’re stuck. That decision you’ve made about getting back to your ship? That’s a good call. But I listen to you, and I know you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.”

Less than two minutes later, Walter pulled the cruiser to a stop in front of the old church. Seventy years ago, it had been built on an acreage at the end of a dead-end street. The bell tower stood high with an iron cross atop it that had sometimes drawn down lightning but had never caught the roof on fire even before lightning rods were put in. Two parking areas had been cut out of the trees on either side of the church. Both had cracked asphalt and weeds that had somehow made it through the winter, and enough old cars to make them look like car lots.

Seeing the abandoned church sitting there as it was now—peeling paint and broken windows, missing shingles, and empty bell tower—almost broke Delroy’s heart. Multicolored, spray-paint graffiti marred the walls, much of it ugly and profane. The white picket fence that ran around the main building and the two outer buildings where Sunday school had been taught was missing planks, had broken planks, and needed paint.

The flower beds his father had put in and his mother had tended with love and tenderness lay choked with weeds. Tall weeds and lightning-blasted trees grew in back of the church where Josiah had always kept a truck garden to help keep food on the Harte table and give away to the needy in the congregation. They’d kept chickens and a milk cow back there as well.

A faded sign hung by one chain in front of the picket fence. Time and neglect had faded the letters but Delroy knew what they said: Church of the Word. A Gathering Place of God’s Faithful.

Despite the fact that he truly believed all he wanted to do was leave, Delroy reached for the door release and stepped out of the cruiser. “What happened? There was a minister who took over after my father was killed.”

“Reverend Stamp,” Walter agreed, getting out of the car. “He was the one who lasted the longest, though he never even came close to how long your daddy stayed. There were nineteen preachers that followed him. None of them stayed like your daddy did. None of them made this place a home. I asked around yesterday while you were sleeping. Don’t know what made me do it. I just did. I already knew the church was closed down.”

“When?” Drawn to the unbelievable sight before him, Delroy walked toward the church.
Daddy, can you see what’s become of our church? Can you see what’s happened to it? How could anyone let this happen after everything you did for it?

“Four years ago,” Walter answered, hitching up his gun belt and following. “The last preacher got beat up by a group of gangbanger wannabes. Put the minister in the hospital for a few days with a cracked skull. He was young, and they scared him good. When he refused to go back to the church, the community—what few of them cared because financially the church wasn’t even making ends meet—couldn’t find another pastor. So they put chains on the doors and closed the church down. Vandals have had at it ever since. Now and again I chase teenagers outta there that’s moved in with a few beers and an eye toward romance.”

“Glenda never said anything about this in her letters.” Delroy reached for the gate and tried to swing it outward, only to have the hinges tear loose with a screech and the gate come away in his hand. He set the gate aside and entered the church grounds.

“When I saw the surprise and hurt on your face,” Walter said, “I knew she hadn’t. I apologize for that. I thought you did know. I just felt I had to bring you here. Where your daddy was so strong for so long. Don’t ask me why. Just had a strong feeling to get you here this morning. I expect I owe you an apology. This is probably the last thing you needed to see.”

In stunned disbelief, Delroy walked up the short flight of stairs he’d helped his father build. Delroy had been ten when they’d put the new steps in, and he could still remember the pride he’d had when he’d helped pour the concrete to set the support poles, framed the structure, put the steps on, and watched the congregation come up the new stairs the next Sunday. The support poles still stood, weathered and faded, but solid as ever.

“You can go on up,” Walter said. “That porch is a fine piece of work.”

“I know,” Delroy said. “My daddy and I built it. He was always one to build something to last. Always said that a building, especially a church, knew when a man put his heart into it.” He walked up the steps, listening to his footsteps thump against the wood. “I didn’t come here much after my daddy was killed. Too many memories. I should have, but I didn’t. Just didn’t have the heart for it. But I brought my boy—I brought Terrence—here a few times. I wanted him to see where his granddaddy preached.” He stepped onto the porch and looked at all the destruction. “I was married here. Did you know that?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.” Walter took his hat off and held it in his hands. He waited at the foot of the steps.

“I was,” Delroy said, remembering how he and Glenda had stood in front of the pulpit and said their vows that Saturday morning. “I told Glenda I wanted to be married here the night I asked her to be my wife. My daddy was killed a few months later. Before he could marry us. Before he even knew we were getting married. He never got the chance to give his approval.”

“I expect he knew,” Walter said. “Daddies know things like that a lot of times. And if he hadn’t approved of your wife, I’m sure you’d have knowed that too.”

Delroy ran a hand along the double doors. “I wasn’t going to have the wedding here afterwards, but Glenda talked me into doing it. I was glad she did. Reverend Stamp married us.” He shook his head as the memory swelled within him. “I swear, Walter—” emotion choked his voice for a moment—“I swear that on the day I married Glenda I felt my daddy standing next to me inside this church.”

Walter spoke softly and earnestly. “He probably was, Delroy. I heard your daddy put a lot of himself into this place. Man leaves a mark like that, I don’t figure God will prevent him from coming back now and again to check on things.”

Delroy pulled at the chain securing the doors. “I’ve never seen this place locked up. My daddy always kept these doors open. He always said that people who needed to pray needed a place to do it in.”

Walter came up beside Delroy with a key ring. He went through five keys before he found the right one. Then the lock snapped open and he took the chains away.

“If that was your daddy’s policy,” the deputy said, “I don’t see no reason why we should go changing things now.” He pushed the double doors open. “Go on in. Have a look around. I just want you to know: what you see in there is probably gonna break your heart.” Walter pushed the doors open wide.

8

United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 0958 Hours

“I think one of the key points we need to work on is identifying the Antichrist.”

Megan looked up from the book about the end times and focused on Shawn Henderson. “Why?”

“So we don’t fall into his traps.”

Shaking her head, Megan said, “I don’t know if I agree with that.”

“Mrs. G,” Shawn said patiently, pushing his glasses back up his nose, “knowing the enemy is like one of the most important things you do when you’re at war. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this whole section dealing with the Tribulation seems to center on the war that will be fought between heaven and hell for those who have been left behind.”

“It’s not our fight,” Megan said. “We just need to survive.”

“And work on our faith,” Susan January added. “That’s what kept us here when everyone else left.”

“Before we do that,” Kyle Lonigan said, “I really think we’re going to have to define what faith is. We need to know what it is we’re looking for.”

Everyone in the room looked at him.

“How do you define faith?” Megan asked.

Kyle looked uncomfortable. Over the years that she had known him, Megan had always found Kyle to be insightful, something that he usually tried to hide around the other jocks he hung with.

She hadn’t often seen Kyle in counseling sessions, but he had lost his father a few years ago to a heart attack. His mother was a drill sergeant on base, a dedicated Ranger, and one of the few to have served in active duty in Iraq during both wars as well as other hot spots around the globe that had captured American military attention.

His father had died while his mother had been overseas. Kyle had been staying with another family on base at the time and had experienced a lot of trouble coping with the loss of his father. His mother had struggled with her husband’s death a long time before finding peace within herself. Kyle had actually come to terms with the loss before his mother had because she’d been carrying the double whammy of survivor’s guilt as well as having been away while her husband had lingered for nearly two days in ICU before finally succumbing. Even Red Cross assistance with the air connections hadn’t gotten her home in time to see him alive. Kyle had continued family counseling sessions for a while, more to keep his mom together than for any personal needs.

“Okay,” Kyle said, then took a deep breath, “my definition of faith. And this is just a baseline, a starting place to give us something to look at. Evidently going to church every Sunday and giving thanks for every meal isn’t exactly what faith is all about. We’ve got people in this room who do that now.” He nodded toward Susan. “But that wasn’t enough.”

Susan looked miserable and her lower lip trembled.

“Yeah,” Geri Krauser said. “But when you think about all the kids our age and the adults who vanished, those are the people who are missing.”

Kyle spread his hands. “So more often than not, those people we perceived as good Christians are gone. We can only make one assumption from that: those people’s faith was true.”

“But those aren’t the only people missing,” Marcus Raintree said. He was a full-blooded Seminole Indian and new to the post. He was fifteen and totally into music, having put together two bands that reflected his interest in rock and roll and jazz. “Private Jurgens, one of the new privates who’s been playing in my rock band, is gone. He didn’t go to church every Sunday. I know because a lot of Sundays we jammed when he wasn’t at post.”