Apocalypse Burning (23 page)

“You paint a pretty bleak picture, Deputy.”

“Yes, sir. I suppose I do. Only it ain’t no picture. It’s a photograph. That’s what’s going on here.”

Delroy rubbed his face. He’d shaved this morning, using the toiletries from his duffel, and his skin was soft to the touch. He’d also put on his dress whites because he’d felt compelled to. He wanted a piece of himself back, and those dress whites after all those years in the navy were like pulling on armor. Shaving and dressing had helped him get his sense of self back, but he knew it was all outward appearance. He felt just as confused and lost on the inside as he had that night at Terrence’s grave.

“Have you got a point to this?” Delroy asked.

“Why sure I do,” Walter said. “What? You think I just talk to hear my head rattle?”

Delroy politely refrained from comment. Silence and Walter Purcell wouldn’t have recognized each other.

Walter kept driving and sipped from the Styrofoam cup. “My point is this: Where you gonna go from here?”

“Back to my ship. Like I told you last night.”

“Yes, sir, that you did. And your ship’s part of that war going on between Turkey and Syria.”

“Aye.”

“And the Middle East was a powder keg with fuses lit at both ends after Rosenzweig invented his fertilizer even before Syria decided to up and invade Turkey.” Walter stopped at an intersection and got his bearings, then accelerated again. “I have to ask you what you think you’re gonna do when you get back to that ship of yours.”

Delroy tried to answer but couldn’t.

“You figure on stepping back aboard her and taking up where you left off?” Walter asked.

“Aye.”

“Do you really think you can do that, Chaplain?” Walter stopped the car and looked at Delroy. “Do you think you should? By your own admission, you were mostly a waste of air these past five years. I listened to you telling Clarice that last night.”

Delroy didn’t answer.

“How much good do you think you can do them boys that you’re gonna be talking to?” Walter shook his head. “No, sir. I look at you this morning in the clear light and I see you ain’t much better than you was the other night when I picked you up out of that graveyard.”

The accusation stung Delroy as if he’d been slapped. He got mad, but he only got mad at himself because he knew Walter was correct in his assessment.

“Oh, you cleaned up pretty good,” Walter said. “And you look good in that uniform.” He reached over and tapped Delroy on the heart. “But what do you have ticking inside there, Chaplain? You got any heart left? What do you have that you can give them boys that could be going off to die? What are you going to tell them when they ask you if God’s gonna be watching over them? They deserve better than some man givin’ lip service to God ‘cause he ain’t got nothing better to do with hisself and is too afraid to figure out—or maybe just remember—what he’s all about.”

“You’re a hard man, Deputy Walter Purcell,” Delroy said in a cold voice. “I suppose I’ll tell you thank you for your hospitality and find my own way from here.” He reached for the door release.

“Yes, sir, I suppose that I am a hard man. Been called a lot worse from time to time. Sometimes even had friends call me those things. If I’d told my wife what I planned to do today, she’d have flat give me what for. But I just can’t help myself and I knew better’n to tell that woman I was gonna be so harsh with a preacher. No, sir, she wouldn’t have stood for it.” Walter sipped his coffee. “But I’m gonna tell you something else, Chaplain. If you take a step outside that door before I tell you that you can, I’m gonna arrest you and lock you up.”

“For what?”

“General stupidity. And don’t think I won’t do it. You may be big, Chaplain, but I’ve fought hard and long all my life. And when I figure I’m fighting for something I believe in, I won’t quit. You’d have to kill me to make me quit. Giving up on something has never been in me. That’s why it hurts me so much to see quitting in you. Me and you, I don’t figure we’re cut too much apart from the same cloth. But somewhere along the way, you lost something real important to you.”

My father. My son. My wife. My God.
Delroy thought all those things, but he didn’t say anything.

Walter let the tense silence drag on for a while; then he broke it. “I’m going to show you one other thing, Chaplain. Then I’m gonna get you to that car lot and leave you there if that’s where you want to go.”

“Do it,” Delroy said flatly. “The sooner the better.”

Without a word, Walter took his foot from the brake and left the quiet neighborhood filled with bleak houses and fearful faces.

In less than a minute, Delroy knew where Walter was taking them. He looked at the deputy and felt panic growing in him. “Don’t do this.”

United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 0937 Hours

Talking to teenagers about the Tribulation wasn’t as easy as Megan had hoped. Too many of them lacked even the basic grasp of the book of Revelation, and the ones who seemed most familiar with the concept of Armageddon appeared to have learned details from horror movies. Most of these kids had been to Sunday school and church socials, but even these selected leaders lacked any real understanding of what would happen after the Rapture.

Megan stood in front of the group of twenty-nine kids she had handpicked. They sat at desks in the schoolroom where geography and political science were normally taught. World maps hung on the walls. A shelf to the right held dozens of books on countries around the world.

Eight of the teens had come from Camp Gander, which made them more or less a captive audience because Megan had awakened them, fed them breakfast, and loaded them into Goose’s pickup to get them here. The other twentyone had come because their friends had come, or because they’d wanted a chance to see and talk to the counselor who’d nearly convinced Leslie Hollister to kill herself. There were even rumors that Megan put “death messages” in her counseling sessions. Those lies had hurt Megan the most, but she had tried to ignore the bulk of the gossip.

Megan knew that the teens—and the post—still talked about that night. She continued to get looks while she was in the commissary. That night seemed like a lifetime ago now, but Leslie was still in the hospital. She was doing fine, according to the reports Megan was given, and responding well to treatment. There was even some talk of letting her out of the hospital in the next couple of days if an adult could be found to take custody of her until Sergeant Benjamin Hollister returned from service in Turkey.

Trembling a little, afraid of the course of action she had set for herself, Megan resisted the impulse to cross her arms. Body language like that would have distanced her from the kids.

Devon Snodgrass frowned. She was a redhead who had a rebellious streak and had been a constant source of trouble for her mom, an army helicopter pilot currently assigned to the post. Megan had chosen Devon because, if she came around to Megan’s point of view, the young girl could be a firebrand, a natural leader.

“The world is going to end in seven years. That’s what you’re telling us?” Devon sounded completely skeptical about the information.

And that, Megan knew, was the problem in dealing with teenagers who didn’t want to hear what was being said. They painted everything in black and white, in yes and no, and in doing so, they stepped away from any kind of receptive mode.

“Yes.”

“How is the world going to end?”

“Jesus Christ will return and take all the believers and set up a kingdom that will last a thousand years,” Megan said. Even as she started answering the first of the questions, she hated how fantastical those answers sounded. But she was trapped by the very concepts of heaven and immortality. If heaven were a lot like the world around them, how was it any different? If a person could live forever, why didn’t he or she just do that now?

“Jesus,” Devon repeated with a note of sarcasm. “I have to ask you, Mrs. Gander, what is Jesus going to do with all those people whose religion doesn’t talk about Him or the Rapture or the Second Coming?”

Megan sincerely wished she had a chaplain here. Seconds after the class had begun, she’d trekked out into uncertain territory. What she knew about the Tribulation wasn’t enough. The knowledge and the concept were still so new to her that she knew she wasn’t a good representative to talk to the kids.

But you’re all they have,
she reminded herself.
This has to start somewhere.
She just hoped she didn’t bungle things so badly that no one would listen.
God, You may really regret not giving me some help with this.

“During these seven years,” Megan said as confidently as she could, “the people who have been left behind are going to see miracles come to pass. As these things happen, I feel that more and more people will turn to their Bibles to seek answers for what they’re supposed to do. They’re going to see for themselves, and they’re going to discover the same answers I’m bringing to you today. But only if other people point the way.”

“And that’s what you’re doing?” Devon asked. “Pointing the way? So you’re like what? A pathfinder to Jesus?”

Megan kept from reacting to the young girl’s challenging tone through sheer effort. She kept her voice normal. “That’s what I’m trying to do, Devon.”

“Who pointed the way for you?” Juan Rodriguez asked from the back corner. He was tall and athletic, a senior in high school and a crush for most of the girls on post. He leaned forward as if interested. “I mean, did you like get a vision or something?” His accent was faint, more put on than natural.

“No,” Megan answered, turning to face him, “I didn’t get a vision.”

“God talk to you through a burning bush or something?”

“No.”

“Maybe He talked to you through the Internet. A Web page or something.”

A few of the kids laughed.

“No,” Megan said. She struggled to think of how to bring the discussion back to the subject in the correct manner. The last thing she wanted to do was step into the disciplinarian role. She suddenly realized she was dealing with her emotions for a change. Her insecurities, her lack of knowledge, and her fears were on display now instead of those of the teens. She felt incredibly vulnerable and uncertain standing in front of them.

But she had come too far, said too much even in five minutes to back away now.

Juan shook his head. “I thought all of God’s prophets talked to Him in some special way.”

“God hasn’t talked to me,” Megan said.

“Then how are you so sure that the world is going to end in seven years?” Geri Krauser demanded. Like Devon, Geri was pretty and popular, but she tended more toward the geeks and the freaks than the preppies. She wore her hair in a punky spike and had piercings through her nose and eyebrows. She also maintained a 4.0 average and had scholarship offers from seven colleges at last count.

“Because I read the book I’ve handed some of you today,” Megan answered. She’d gone to the PX and found twelve copies of the book she and Jenny had read and liked so much.

Juan peered over the shoulder of the young blonde in front of him. Kristi Coker looked a little perturbed at Juan’s actions, but she let him take the book. Kristi had been a close call for Megan, and she’d added the girl to the class at the last minute. She was bright and articulate, but not much of a people pusher, which was what Megan felt she needed to have to get the word out.

“And this book says the world’s going to end in seven years?” Juan asked, flipping through the pages. “So, what? It’s got a date in here somewhere?”

Megan got a stranglehold on her anger just in time. She was beginning to feel that she was back in Major Trimble’s office. “The book doesn’t give a date,” Megan replied.

“Then how do you know it’s seven years?”

“Because the book shows that the Bible says the world will end seven years after the Rapture.”

Juan shook his head. “I’m Catholic, Mrs. Gander. My church doesn’t believe in the Rapture.” With obvious disdain, he dropped the book back on Kristi’s desk and leaned back in his seat. “
I
don’t believe in the Rapture.”

Megan took two steps toward Juan although she never moved her presence from the front of the room. It was all body language again, an effort on her part to narrow the room down and focus it all on Juan and her. For the moment it was a contest of wills. All she had to do was pull the belief and support in the room in her direction.