Apocalypse Burning (26 page)

“How old was he?” Shawn asked.

“Twenty.”

“More important,” Kyle said, “what kind of person was he?”

“He was a good guy,” Marcus said. Unconsciously, his hands drummed an almost silent beat on the desktop. “He was a great bass guitarist. Had an ear, you know? He liked comic books and fantasy novels. We traded a lot of stuff back and forth. If you needed help with something, Private Jurgens was one of the guys you went to first.”

“Did he talk about his faith much?”

“No.” Marcus hesitated. “I knew he was a Christian from the books he had on his shelves, but he never pushed anything at me. But we were talking one time when he was getting ready to ship out to Iraq for a peacekeeping tour. I asked him if he ever got afraid while he was out there, knowing he might get shot at any time. He told me he didn’t, that he’d made his peace with God a long time ago and knew that he was going to heaven.”

“And he’s gone?” Geri asked.

Marcus nodded. “After all this craziness went down, I went over to his base apartment. Had to break in, but I had to know because he was my friend. He came to our house last Christmas ‘cause he doesn’t have any family of his own. My mom and dad liked him a lot.” His dark eyes teared up and he couldn’t go on for a moment. “I found Marcus’s clothes on the couch where he must have been watching television when he … when he left.”

Megan let the quiet stay in the room for a time before continuing. “So you don’t have to go to Sunday school or pray before every meal or witness to others.”

“Faith is an internal thing,” Kyle said. “It’s not based on outward behavior. My dad used to tell me that all the time. Even when he was in ICU fighting for his life. He told me he wasn’t afraid of dying, but he didn’t want to leave me behind.” His voice hung just for a moment but he quickly mastered the emotion that tugged at him. “He told me God loved everyone and wanted a personal relationship with us. Sometimes God expects more from some people than He does from others.”

“Because they’ve got more to give,” Geri said.

The other teens looked at her in surprise.

“My aunt,” Geri said. “She told me that the Bible says, ‘To whom much is given, from him much will be required.’” She shrugged. “Aunt Lil was an EMT. I asked her one day how she could stand to look at everything she saw every day and not go crazy. You know—dead people, hurt people, decapitated people. Some of the stories her friends would tell totally creeped me out. I told her I couldn’t have done her job. She said that God had given her a gift and that she was meant to help others. So He made her strong enough to do that.”

“The stats I looked at involving the disappearances,” Shawn said, “show that a bigger percentage of EMTs, hospital workers, and firefighters disappeared than other professions.”

“People whose careers are to help others,” Megan said, thinking of Helen Cordell and how she had disappeared from the post hospital that night. “Have you talked with your aunt lately?”

Geri shook her head and tears glinted in her eyes. Stubbornly, holding true to her independent nature, she crossed her arms and shook her head. “She disappeared. I talked to my uncle Bob. He’s pretty upset.” She paused. “I think I’ll call him after we get out of here and let him know what we’re finding out.” She nodded toward the book in front of her. “Maybe he can get a copy of this book. Maybe it’ll hurt.”

“What about your aunt?” Kyle asked. “Did she advertise her Christianity?”

“No. She didn’t pressure you into faith either. But she was open to talk about it. She … she was just one of the coolest people I ever knew. Always there, you know?”

Megan remembered the aunt from her counseling sessions with Geri. There were a lot of issues Geri had with how things went in the Krauser household. Mrs. Krauser was a closet drinker and Lieutenant Krauser hadn’t been faithful to the marriage. Geri had brought those things up, but neither parent had been in to talk about it or even deal with it in the relationship. Aunt Lil had been Geri’s major confidante.

“A personal relationship with God is what my mom always talked about,” Susan said. “She said she enjoyed church and talking with people about God, and never forgot to thank Him for the blessings He’d given her. But she said the most important thing anyone could ever have was that personal relationship.”

“How do you get a personal relationship with God?” John Reynard asked. He was always quiet, always intense. He was gawky and socially inept to a degree, springing partly from the fact that his father was an artillery specialist and trained at several different posts, moving his family each time. He’d been overseas a number of times. John dressed and acted goth, with painted fingernails and dyed hair that drove his military father crazy and gave his mother more ammunition to argue with his father over. He had his arms crossed over his chest and peered from under a sheep dog’s forelock of dusty blue hair.

“You ask for it,” Geri said. “That’s what Aunt Lil always told me when I asked.”

“Not like you can dial up 1-800-GOD,” John said.

“You pray,” Susan said. “That’s what my mom told me too.”

“You pray and what? God answers?”

“Yes,” Susan said.

John looked troubled and shook his head. “You ever heard Him speak to you?”

“It’s not like that,” Susan said. “My mom said she’d pray about something that she couldn’t handle or needed guidance with; then she’d leave whatever it was with God. Kind of the way Kyle guided us in prayer a few minutes ago.” She shrugged. “You just don’t get an immediate answer.”

“Why not?” John asked.

“Because then it wouldn’t be faith,” Kyle replied. He took a deep breath. “When my dad was in ICU and the doctors told me he might not recover, I knew Dad was in a lot of pain. I could see it in his eyes when he was conscious those few times. I … I got the feeling that he was hanging on for me. That he wouldn’t go because he was trying to stay with me till Mom got there.”

Megan felt Kyle’s pain resonating within her. She hadn’t known that any of the kids she had assembled had ever had to be so strong.

Kyle took another deep breath and tears ran down his cheeks. “The second morning after he had his attack, I prayed to God to give me the strength to let my dad go. A few hours later, when my dad was conscious again, I felt okay about everything. Even though Mom wasn’t there. I’m talking about a real sense of peace, guys, and I haven’t felt anything like that since that morning. I told my dad that I had talked to God and that if he needed to go, it would be all right because I knew God would be with me.” Kyle gulped air. “Less than an hour later, my dad died. Peacefully. Like it was no problem at all.” He wiped his tears away. “It was hard to do it, but I thanked God for His mercy.”

“I couldn’t have done that,” Susan whispered.

Still teary-eyed, Kyle smiled gently at her. He whispered in a hoarse voice, “That’s the whole secret, though. Dad always said that you never knew what you could do until you asked God to help you.”

“Then why are you still here if you believe in God so much?” Marcus asked.

“That’s just it,” Kyle said. “I didn’t believe. Not really. Not even after that morning. I asked God for a favor and He gave it to me. Kind of like asking a stranger for help. Sometimes you get help from that stranger, but sometimes you get ignored. Even if the stranger helps you, you still don’t know him.” He looked around at the group. “I think if you’re going to truly become a Christian, you have to go to God in prayer, ask Him what you can do, and then listen to what He has to say.”

“I thought we just agreed that God doesn’t talk to you.”

“Not directly,” Geri said. “Aunt Lil said sometimes He puts things on your heart. Like me with this seminar. When Juan got up and left, I had every intention of leaving too. Only I couldn’t after Susan said what she did about her mom. It reminded me too much of Aunt Lil. In that instant, things just seemed to get clearer. I’d prayed about that this morning. Which is why I came here in the first place.” She frowned a little as if struggling to make the others understand. “I think that if you listen, you’ll understand what you’re supposed to do.”

“But first,” Susan said, “you have to ask. Like Kyle did at the prayer we had at the beginning of this meeting.” She pursed her lips. “I think it’s made a difference. I know I feel better about everything.”

The others quickly agreed.

“We can’t forget about the Antichrist,” Shawn said. “I think we should keep our eyes open for him.” He flipped through the pages of the book on the desk. “I mean, look at this. War. Famine. Plagues. An earthquake. And that’s just the beginning. One simple fact of the situation is that the farther we are from the Antichrist, the safer we are.”

“The Antichrist!” The voice ripped through the schoolroom, jerking everyone’s attention to the doorway. A Ranger captain stood there, dressed in a crisp uniform and staring at Megan with a narroweyed and hostile gaze. He was fit and tan, with a mustache that colored his narrow upper lip beneath his hooked nose. “Mrs. Gander, just what do you think you’re teaching these kids?”

Taken aback, not believing she hadn’t heard the approach of the captain or of the six MPs that flanked him, Megan didn’t know what to say.

Church of the Word
Marbury, Alabama
Local Time 1001 Hours

Delroy stared in helpless confusion and rage at the damage that had been done to the church where he had spent so much of his young life.

Dust filled the cavernous vault of the church’s main worship area. Sunlight streamed in through broken windows. Only a handful of pews were left, and most of those were broken or in a state of disrepair. More graffiti, all of it lewd and vicious, colored the church’s walls. Beer cans and bottles littered the floor. The vandals hadn’t had any regard for the craftsmanship Josiah Harte had put into his church.

Taking his hat off and tucking it under his arm, numb from the shock and overwhelmed by the memories coursing through his mind, Delroy strode into the sanctuary. His steps sounded hollow and loud against the scarred hardwood floor and the silence that filled the church.

Four years. It looks like an eternity has passed.

Walter’s walkie-talkie buzzed for attention. He tried to reply but the signal wasn’t clear. Excusing himself, he walked back to the cruiser.

Bitterly Delroy looked around the church. He remembered running through the building as a child, squealing in delight as his daddy chased him while he took a break from whatever work he’d been doing. Hundreds of summer days and winter evenings had been spent inside this church with other kids, all of them playing checkers and Monopoly, trading baseball cards and dreaming of being on baseball cards.

But on Sunday mornings their faces were scrubbed and they had on their best clothes to listen to Josiah Harte tell them of God’s love and God’s punishment of the wicked. They’d learned of heaven and they’d learned of hell, and Delroy had never been prouder of his daddy than when he’d seen him in front of the congregation stoking the fires of righteous indignation and preaching the fear of God.

Dazed and bewildered, Delroy walked slowly through the church. Strains of the songs sung by the choir, his momma’s voice pealing among them, seemed to come to his ear. One particular Sunday morning, Josiah had invited Glenda to church shortly after she and Delroy had started dating. When he closed his eyes, Delroy could still hear her sing:

“On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.”

Delroy remembered how Glenda had looked that morning, so full of life and love and hope. She’d worn a pale peach dress that emphasized her dark skin. Her voice had filled the church, mesmerizing all those in attendance, drawing tears from some of them because she sang so beautifully.

People had talked about her singing for weeks. When she and Delroy walked down the street together people would come up and congratulate her, telling her how much it had meant to them. Glenda had been so embarrassed by all the attention.

Even you, Daddy, even you were surprised by her voice and her conviction to the Lord.
A lump formed in Delroy’s throat as he looked at the defaced picture of Jesus Christ behind the water tank where baptisms were done.
God, why did we have to have all that innocence taken away from us? Why couldn’t we just have remained simple and loving in Your eyes? We would have served You forever.