Apocalypse Crucible (24 page)

“No. I was done with that.”

The thing walked around the edges of the grave, its hands clasped together behind it like a schoolteacher on hall patrol. “You dug that hole in the ground and are standing in your son’s grave. When exactly did you start believing again?”

“Now.”

“Convenient, don’t you think? Seems like believing for you people always comes when it’s most convenient. Ever notice that?”

The accusation stung, but Delroy’s fear and wariness were greater. Still, he stayed with the truth. “I realized how wrong I was.”

“I don’t believe you. There you stand with that shovel in your hands.” It gestured to the hole. “Your son’s casket can’t be much farther down.”

Delroy turned, taking small steps in the loose mud and pooling water so that he constantly faced the creature. “You came here to see me fail. That didn’t happen. That’s not going to happen.”

The creature smirked. “You haven’t failed? C’mon, Delroy, you’re still here after all those people disappeared. You failed a long time before you got here.” It lifted its arms and gestured to take in the graveyard.

Lightning split the sky for a second before a thunderous cannonade shook the earth. Electricity danced along Delroy’s skin while sparks spat from the thing’s hair and mouth.

“A navy chaplain who can’t find a billet in heaven after decades of service?” It shook its head. “Now that’s truly a sad thing. You’d think God was more generous than that.”

“My being here is my fault.” Delroy kept shifting. The loose mud beneath his feet became even more treacherous.

“Your fault?” It lifted its shoulders in an exaggerated sigh. “You’re stupid to blame yourself. You can’t help it because you don’t believe. Look at everything you’ve been through. You’re lucky you’ve been able to hide your true feelings this long.”

“I do believe.” Delroy’s protest sounded hollow in his ears.

The creature covered its ears. “Lies. You and I both know you’re telling lies. If you believed, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be up in heaven right now. Reunited with—” the thing made a show of reading the gravestone at its feet—“Terrence. Terry. Your son.” The amber tinted eyes fixed on Delroy again. “Instead, you’re here. With me.” A malicious smile framed the creature’s face. “Or maybe you’d be up there and notice ol’ Terry was among the missing.”

“No.”

“You came out here tonight to see if his precious soul was saved.

All you’ve got to show for your trouble is a big rock.” The creature kicked mud into the grave. As soon as the brackish earth touched the rock, though, rain washed the mud away. The creature cursed. “You don’t think he’s up there. You think he’s down here, locked in the earth.”

“My boy is up there.” Delroy clung to that thought because it was the only thing keeping him sane at the moment.

“Really? And what do you think he’s doing right now?” The creature cocked its head to one side. “ ‘Hey, Gramps, good to meet you. Don’t know what’s keeping Dad. He should be here any minute.’ ” It paused. “Only you’re not coming, are you? Not now. Not
ever.
”

Guilt flooded Delroy as heartache and uncertainty nearly crushed him. His faith was lost to him. He wasn’t sure he knew how to believe anymore. Even with all the proof around him—with the mass disappearances and even this malevolent creature stalking him, he still found it hard to believe that Jesus had died on the cross for him. God existed, but maybe He didn’t care as much as everyone wanted to believe.

“Do you think maybe that’s what’s going on up there, Chaplain?” the creature continued in a belligerent tone. “Big family reunion? Only you weren’t invited?”

Pain locked Delroy’s throat up tight.

“Your father must be feeling pretty disappointed right now,” the creature said. “There he is, surrounded by all these people he’s saved for the Lord, and his own son didn’t catch the ship when it sailed.”

Delroy firmed his trembling jaw.
God, help me. This is so hard. I know my father loved me. I want to believe You love me, Lord, but it’s so hard. Help me to hang on to that. Let me start with that and continue to build till I’m strong again.

“Nope.” The thing shook its head. “You’re right to blame God for all your troubles, Delroy. After all, He gave you those troubles, all that sorrow and grief. More than any one man should carry.”

“No.” Delroy’s angry response was a choked whisper.

The creature stood still and gazed down at Delroy. “Sure He did. God let that man murder your father all those years ago. God let those terrorists kill your son. And God left you behind three days ago when the least He could have done was take you up with all the others.” The forked black tongue slithered over its thin lips. “If you’re looking for someone to blame for your troubles, Chaplain, blame God. He’s supposed to be taking care of you. I submit to you that’s not what’s happened. How many people have you seen that God has saddled with that much bad luck?”

Swayed by his anger, Delroy felt pulled toward the creature’s way of thinking. God
was
powerful. There was a
lot
He could have done. If He’d wanted to, if He’d cared enough about Delroy.

“God has His plans for people,” the thing said. “That’s what I keep hearing all you people say. All you
would-be
believers. That’s just you trying to make something important out of the brief flicker of existence you’ve been given.” It scowled. “I’m telling you now that He doesn’t even care you exist.
If
He even knows.”

It would be so easy to blame God, Delroy knew. He’d seen people do it all the time. Sailors he’d counseled had blamed God for losses and fears and changes in their lives when Delroy had talked with them. People who had attended his father’s church in Marbury had blamed God for the bad things that had happened in their lives, too. For a time, Delroy had blamed God for his father’s murder but had somehow found his way around that.

Until tonight.

Or maybe I never did,
Delroy told himself.
Maybe I was only fooling myself.

Terrence’s death, so unexpected and so unfair, had caused those strong feelings to rear up again, and that unresolved anger had carried Delroy far from the Lord, although he still ministered in His ways. He’d been on autopilot, giving lip service to something he no longer truly believed in.

A memory returned to Delroy as he shifted. Josiah’s own father, Jonah, had lived as a hard man. He’d drunk and gambled and lived a life of violence, raising his family amid poverty and abuse, neither of which he tried to alleviate. During that time, Jonah had barely acknowledged his son.

When cancer had finally taken Jonah, Josiah had spent those last days with his father, caring for him and ministering to him in spite of the fact that his father had cursed him and God. At the end, though, Jonah had come to know Jesus and was saved through his son’s work. The old man had died peacefully in Josiah’s arms.

Later, in the quiet of the funeral home after the families had all gone and Josiah had sat with Jonah composing the eulogy he would deliver, six-year-old Delroy had returned to find his father still there. Without a word, Delroy had tiptoed over to Josiah and stood beside him. Tenderly, Josiah had picked Delroy up from the floor and set him in his lap. He’d wrapped his arms around his son and held him tight. Delroy had felt warm and safe in his father’s embrace, and he knew even then that his father had taken comfort from his presence.

“Are you okay, Daddy?” Delroy had asked. “You’ve been crying a lot.”

“Not all of these tears are sad tears, Son. Some of ‘em, why they’re tears of gladness because I know my daddy isn’t hurting anymore. It’s just hard to let him go.”

“I didn’t want to let Grampa go either, Daddy.”

“I know. But we had to.”

“See? You’re crying again, Daddy. Me and Momma, we’re worried about you. She says she’s never seen you so brokenhearted.”

“I’ll be okay, Son. God will heal my heart the same way He healed Grampa Jonah’s there at the end. The Lord will take away all the pain an’ fear an’ anger. I just gotta be a little bit patient till He gets around to it. I know Gram’pa Jonah’s in a better place, but it still hurts turnin’ loose.”

“He was your daddy.”

“Yes, he was.”

Delroy had sat quietly with his arms around his father. Even now he could remember the smell of his father’s aftershave, the same brand of bay rum the barber used when they got store-bought haircuts on days that Etta was too sick or too busy to do the job herself.

“Don’t you wish God had made Grampa Jonah love you sooner?”

Delroy had asked. “Instead of waiting all this time? Wouldn’t that have been better?”

Tears had glimmered in Josiah’s eyes, but he’d looked at his son and nodded. “Yes, I do, but I’m thankful for bein’ with Grampa Jonah as much as I could. I was there for him at the end, an’ that was important for both of us to end this thing right. Mighty important.”

Delroy felt cheated. His father and his son had died away from him, both of them meeting violent ends with no family around to see them through their final moments. Neither event had been fair.

“See?” the creature asked in a soft voice, tearing into Delroy’s memory. “You know God doesn’t care about you. You know what I’m saying is true. If He’s given you any notice at all, it’s only been for the sake of torturing you on a more personal level.”

Pain and confusion reeled over Delroy. He’d never truly gotten over either of those deaths and he’d known that long before tonight. But he was certain he had never felt those losses more strongly than he did right then.

“How dare God take your father and then your son,” the creature said softly, barely audible above the steady rainfall. “How dare He do that when you have given Him so much of yourself.”

For a moment, Delroy was mesmerized by the solemn conviction in the thing’s voice. Everything it said sounded so right and true. His mind felt thick; thinking past his pain and anger got hard.

“God,” the thing continued in that soft, understanding cadence, “had no right to take them. He chose to break up your family. He even turned your wife against you so you ended up alone.”

The last part jarred Delroy’s thoughts. Glenda hadn’t left him; he’d walked away from her, burying himself in his pain and his work, and insulating himself from all the confusing feelings he’d had over Terrence’s death.

“She stayed there, content in her service to God and she left you all alone,” the thing whispered. “She didn’t feel any pain because her blindness made sense of their deaths. But you know better, don’t you? You know that God doesn’t care about you—or anyone. Worse yet, she wouldn’t allow you your grief either, constantly at you to ‘trust the Lord.’ I know she tried to talk you out of—”

“No,” Delroy said, pulling back from the creature, suddenly aware that he had started leaning toward it.

The creature smiled sadly, and without the lightning to slash away the human image, the expression looked warm and inviting. “It’s God’s fault, Preacher. You know it is. All of this is.”

“People faultin’ God, Son,” Josiah had said on a number of occasions. “You ever notice how much trouble people get theirselves into when they start that? An’ as soon as they get theirselves well an’ truly into trouble up to their eyeballs, why they start gnashin’ their teeth an’ pulling their hair out an’ callin’ on God for help they accused Him of not givin’ in the first place.”

Delroy staggered back from the creature, his father’s words ringing in his head. That day at the funeral home, he’d asked Josiah why God hadn’t found him a better daddy, the way God had found him a good daddy. Delroy had said that God should have known Josiah was going to be a preacher and would need a good daddy to raise him up right and treat him nice.

“Maybe it wasn’t about a son havin’ a good daddy when I was born,” Josiah had answered with a slight smile. “Lookin’ back on things here at the end, I’m thinkin’ maybe the Lord knew what He was doin’ all along. Wasn’t a boy needin’ a good daddy when this was all said an’ done. Was a troubled an’ lost daddy what was needin’ a good son. You see, God made me strong enough an’ believe enough that I helped my daddy finish his life off right with death lookin’ him in the eye ever’ day. I helped my daddy find Jesus when he needed Him most. An’ I’m mighty pleased about that. Mighty pleased. Pastor Crook always told me the Lord would never give me more’n I could take care of when he helped me move into our church. Just never planned on what the Lord had to give me bein’ this much. No, sir, never planned on that at all. But that’s the way it is, Son: them surprises an’ curveballs an’ change-ups the Lord keeps throwin’ at you just to keep you good at your game.”

“Dig, Preacher,” the creature coaxed. “Dig up this box and expose the lies your God has put before you. Set yourself free.”

Glenda.
Delroy kept his thoughts centered on his wife, remembering how strong her faith had been. It was the faith that she exhibited, the unshakeable certainty that everything was unfolding exactly as God had planned, that had ultimately torn them apart. She had accepted their son’s death; Delroy had not. He felt betrayed by her acceptance, then shamed because he could not find it within himself to forgive God while she trusted God’s hand in the matter.

Delroy didn’t even know if she was still … here. She had a phone. He had the number. But he had never called before leaving Washington. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to her. All he could recall was the continued pain and confusion and frustration that even long-distance contact had caused.