A Abba's Apocalypse (3 page)

              Paul is our new pastor. He had to keep resetting the locking system before finding the next chamber’s entrance. This took many attempts by resetting the device and trying, and retrying over and over. Resetting can only be done by sliding open and closing the original entrance stone. He was

ready to give up in the midst of his weeping when a

realization hit him. Revelation is found only in the cross itself. In his repentant position he touched the cross. He slid his finger tracing the cross’s incision feeling a slight burr of metal protruding. He pressed and slid it from the horizontal beam’s left side to its right side. Paul could hear stone rubbing against stone as something happened. There is a door in the floor half way back the corridor. It pops up only one half inch. Stepping on it will again lock it, and sound the intruder alarms in the underground cavern. You can step on the door and not even notice it. Its marble context matches the floor exactly. Sliding your feet is about the only way to find it. You will know it when you feel your shoe bump its lip. 

              Dave repents as I lift the unlocked stone door. We step down into a virtual city of supplies and information. The original pastor built his church over what must have been a huge underground military bunker. We cannot stay down here long though. This place has limited living space. It’s dedicated essential to supplies we need for living. It has running water, a small complete bathroom, and electricity. None of us have figured out where the electricity is actually coming from. We’ve found the pump bringing in the well water, just not the source of its electricity. We believe the former pastor installed and hid some sort of protected solar power system somewhere around the neighborhood.

              Upon entering this lower chamber you’ll see a makeshift chapel. It can hold thirty two of us. We assemble here on Sunday only. This is where we plan, pray, and replenish. We would love to all take safe harbor here, but we cannot all fit. The “T” members all agree no one will live here. This place is for supplies, information, and Sunday worship only. The only other time it can be used is in extreme cases of emergencies-like Dave and I am currently in. Today is Thursday.

              There are several room entrances jutting off this corridor with the main supply chamber at the far end. The

first room you’ll come to is the chapel. It’s on the left.

              A DVD dangles from a bent paperclip hanging over its entrance way. There is a laptop on a small table as you enter the chapel. I remember the first time I played that DVD. I live by its words now. “Don’t give up. You do have hope. You have repented and are covered with eternal grace of God’s mercy. Our God is on your side. He will help you. I will not lie to you. Your life will be extremely hard, brother, until Jesus returns with all the fellow Saints. You have one advantage no one has known before. You know exactly when Jesus will return. You have three options concerning your life here, and in eternity. One, don’t take the brand and stay alive exactly seven years. The seven year countdown starts on the exact day a particular man will broker a seven year peace accord between the Holy Land of Israel and its enemies. The second is being caught by the Son of Perdition or his followers. You will be tortured to death. Both of these options require extreme faith. There is one last option. It is to give up and believe his lies and wonders. Most everyone still alive will. You cannot and must not be willing to take this Great Deceiver’s mark. He may or may not end your torture. He might even promise you great powers and wonderful pleasures. But, it will be for a short time. He is the king of lies. You will know his mark. It will be his requirement to buy and sell. You will then worship him. His mark will be used to distinguish his followers. Stay away from him. Stay away from all his agents and his followers. They have sold their very soul to him. They are all damned to an eternity of pain in Hell.” This large black pastor left his words forever etched in my mind and in my heart. His last words were the most important. “The Holy Spirit now dwells in you my dear brother, and will help you towards Christ.” He left a file next to the laptop with written instruction surrounding the inventory of supplies and hundreds of one hour long DVD sermons. Each one’s filled with scriptures dealing with this particular time. We use a new one every Sunday. It gives us

the strength we need to make it through each week. At my

inauguration I was given: two each-three by five inch Bibles.

One’s for my personal use and one is to give away when the proper time arises. Both are now hidden in my home.  

              Dave and I grab a meal ration from the supply room and return to the sanctuary to eat. I decide again to ask Dave about what happened earlier at my house. He starts begging me to stay at my place. I gently try refreshing the rules us Irreverent brothers all agreed on. “It’s safer if we all remain separate.” Dave already knows no “T” member knows more than one other member’s address. This is to prevent a captured member from revealing more than one other member. The added benefit is each person is commanded to state they live alone, or with their family members only. The theory is: if a member is captured, the LD most likely would just execute their prisoner; since there is no reason to torture them. But, where there are two, there are more. You’d most likely be tortured and be in the midst of Demons, until you die; that’s if they’d let you die. One last point to being alone is: your senses are better to distinguish intruders. The theory is: you know the sounds you make. You can even smell trouble better. “Our senses would be confused Dave. I might not know whether you made a noise or a LD, or if you were causing a particular smell or if it was from another source. Our advance warning would be compromised. The odds are just so much better alone.” He starts sobbing, “I can’t do it any longer all alone. I’m so, so scared; especially at night!” He bends over into a sitting fetal position blubbering, “Oh God, pleeease help me-I just can’t take it anymore!” I knew he experienced something horrific before his earlier intrusion. I bend close to him and whisper, “I guess we’ll somehow do this together Dave; Lord willing.” He reaches his right arm over my left shoulder, cupping the back of my neck. He remains fetal and pulls me slightly towards him while reverently gulping, “Thank you, thank you, thank God, and thank God for you.”

              I give him a minute to gain himself. I tell Dave, “Come on buddy, we got to go. The Demons will be out soon.”

Demons love the dark because of the fear it creates. We slide the entrance stone back over and dash, while bending over to run. We then race methodically to the tree line.

              Dave is bigger than me, but I’m battle tested in fear. It’s not that he’s weak; it’s just that I’ve been through more. I’ve seen war and experienced suffering. I guess my life has more surrealistic moments than most others. His life has been more real. Well, at least till “Harpazô Day.” That day he lost his wife, Becky, and his kids, Sammy, and Brittney. That day he also lost his mind.

              Dave heard something come on the news at work that day, while I was working under my truck in my garage at home. I drive a “big rig” across country for a living; or I used to. I live by myself, so I was not alerted to what was happening. I figured something was wrong a couple hours after. I live on the outskirts of town. Most all of the activity was in town a few miles away. I heard sirens screaming by my house; one chasing after the other. After the third one passed I rolled out from under my truck and lifted my garage door. There were pillars and pillars of fire off in the distance. Each one was belching enormous amounts of filthy dark smoke. Not the regular black smoke that comes from the occasional forest or house fire. I saw this type only in war. Only JP 5 (jet fuel) burning fuselage cause fires like these. It burns everything it touches with the heat of Hell itself. I knew each pile had a fuselage, and each one took a lot of lives. As I was looking, a fire engine and several rescue trucks raced towards the closest pillar of smoke about 8 miles past town. I counted a dozen fires before deciding to go help.

              Dave told me he raced out of work after hearing the commotion and mayhem coming from outside. Dave’s first concern was to go check on his family, but when he got outside he walked into a different world. He saw car after car crushed in accidences everywhere.

              People were frantically running and screaming. Some were grotesquely injured and others ran mentally impaired.

He tried to maneuver around all the devastation and drive home, but there were too many deformed vehicles and dead bodies in his way. Dave leaped from his car and started running towards home. He tried calling, but all communication went haywire. He remembered chanting, “My babies, my Becky,” like a cadence, all the way home. But, he didn’t get that far. He found a “big rig” with two cars crushed under it. He recognized Becky’s license plate ID. He dropped to his knees yelling, “My God,” as he continued crawling over the bloody asphalt towards the mangled mess. He imagined what he knew he’d see, but he was wrong. All the doors were compressed way past the point of opening. He could only frantically reach his arm inside to feel around, and felt no one. He then replaced his arm with his face through the broken window hole. There was no blood and no bodies in the wreckage. The last thing he saw was the clothes he remembered them wearing when he left for work that morning. The only thing he found in the car that day was three distinct sets of clothes in three individual piles. That’s when he lost his mind.

              Dave leaps ahead of me taking point. I carefully scour the surroundings. We are close to home and it’s getting shades darker. It’s pretty close to sunset now. I suddenly spot a female LD, and worse-she sees me! My only defense is to stay far enough away so it can’t spot the fake “Trinity” brand on my forehead. I shake internally as I stand in my fear, but I remain unemotional exteriorly. I decide to fake that my shoe came untied and bend over to hide my forehead in the process. I begin silently praying for divine protection that she stays far enough away from me that our spirits won’t conflict. If she gets to close she’ll be able to sense my spirit is sanctified. I nod a “good day” and stand to notice her empty presence continue walking by on the opposite side of the street.

              I return walking robotically and unemotional as possible passing the hidden body of Dave below in the bushes. I continue staring out of the corner of my eyes that

lock onto her black empty ones. Her direction influences my direction of travel. My blank stare seems long enough to convince her I am LD too. I think, “If she only knew how scared I really am?” My head snaps from my sideward glance forward to what lay ahead. I can feel her stare as my inner consciences says, “Continue on, and don’t fear.” I’ve made it a block without any alarm. I turn the corner and proceed to duck and cover behind some bushes. I see Dave dodging, observing, and covering as he makes his way to up to my location. I see that the sun is almost completely down while waiting for Dave to catch up. I reinsure my confidence by realizing it’s only one block more till we’re home.

              Most of the debris filling the streets has been cleaned off the streets the last year. That use to help hide us as we’d travel back and forth to “T”. It’s getting much harder now to maneuver without getting caught. We make it to my house and sneak onto my property. Its abandon appearance has so far kept “Trinity” agents and the LD away. I hope no one noticed that the window was open. The last thing I want is to raise any suspicion. I crawl up the side of the house first, and then through the window. I view the perimeter and wave Dave up. We slide the plywood back in place and secure it.

              We’re finally in for the night. Dave snaps and shakes the green glowing light into a “glow stick” then hooks it on a wire that I impaled in the middle of my front room floor. The wire sticks up about a foot and is shielded 180 degrees. It only gives its green glow inwards, producing just enough light to read a little before sleeping, or to light my escape route-just in case. Dave looks at me and whispers “Thanks brother.” Feeling safe, he rolls over and slowly drifts off to a better place.

              I remove a blanket from my upstairs bed and return to cover Dave. I take the glow stick and check the damage he caused to my back door. I then secure it temporarily by forcing a chair under the knob, and then sliding it tightly against the door. I return to my bedroom while whispering a

prayer of protection over this house, and on us.

              I sit on my bed shaking my head in disbelief. Why didn’t I believe? Why didn’t I at least research it? Everyone I love disappeared that day. My momma and sis invited me to share in their faith, but I refused to be indoctrinated. I don’t want some set of rules condemning everything I do. I refused to know their compassion as they tried over and over throughout the years. They’d always end each conversation with, “I’ll pray God reveals His love to you,” or a simple, “God bless you Joey.” I weep now every night before retiring. “Thank you God for your revelation, and answering the prayers of my momma and sis.” They both went in the great snatching away.

              I now know the truth. Not only do I know it, but I feel it. I open my Bible to read a chapter as I do twice a day. I’m starting in the book of “Titus” tonight. I try memorizing a verse a day. It is like soul food that provides protection. It answers every question I can come up with. It is not about a list of rules no one can follow. It’s about the love of God. It’s about a relationship with God. It’s about accepting the gift of God by just saying, “I need you in my life Jesus.” These words won’t make you perfect. These words just make you forgiven. Then, God’s Holy Spirit (His helper) fills you. No evil can enter the house where God dwells. I am protected and have peace amidst all my fears. I am eternally forgiven and eternally loved by my Abba, my daddy. My eyes grow heavy as my hearing grows more alert. I mumble thanksgiving to my creator and ask for blessings while dozing off.