Judgment (6 page)

              Ahead of us near the end of the block we heard a woman scream. Turning in that direction, I saw three people come running around the corner, one of them getting grabbed by an angel just as I looked. The remaining two, a woman and a man, both took off running in separate directions. Another angel, this one flying, came into view seconds later and pursued the woman across the street. They disappeared from view behind a building, but moments later I heard muffled screams, and then silence.

              Even though he didn’t have to say it, Joe warned us all that we shouldn’t go that way now, and he took a left turn down another alley between tall buildings. “Where are we going to go?” Jennifer asked.

              “We just need to find somewhere we can secure ourselves inside. I don’t trust any of these office buildings anymore. That’s where we started.” I told her.

              At the end of the alley Joe turned the corner onto the next street and ran smack into a woman coming the other way. She stumbled slightly, leaning momentarily against the wall of the building. Her skin was ashen gray, her eyes glazed over in a blank stare. She said not a word, paying little attention to us as she continued walking down the street.

              “That’s another one,” Margie whispered. “She’s dead.”

              “She’s not fucking dead,” replied Joe, much louder than a whisper. “Hey lady. Lady! Hey!” he yelled after the woman. But she paid him no attention as if she never heard or even noticed him. She just continued wandering aimlessly down the street.

              “She’s dead.” Margie insisted.

              “Bullshit. Let’s go.” Joe started off up the street in the opposite direction. Another block, another warzone with cars abandoned everywhere and dust covering everything. We passed by coffee shops and bakeries and a liquor store, all with broken windows or smashed in doors; nowhere that looked like a good place to take shelter for a while. It dawned on me that there were no bodies anywhere. Not a single one. It seemed as though there were three types of people left. You were either alive and on the run like us, or already a pile of ash, or you were dead but still walking. That was it. But nowhere were there any motionless bodies in the street.

              A half-block more, another corner, and Joe stopped. “There,” he said, pointing far down the side street. Lagging slightly behind with the barefoot Jennifer, I couldn’t yet see what he was looking at. Once we caught up, I knew exactly what it was.

              “Are you crazy?” Margie asked him. “The old cathedral? We’re going to hide from God in a church?”

              “Sure. Why not? I bet he’s not home.”

              A strange feeling came along with our next few steps. In the past, churches to me were just buildings where misguided and brainwashed people gathered together like a cult. Now, approaching the building with real evidence of Heaven chasing us through the streets, it took on a whole new meaning.

              On the outside, the gothic medieval architecture of the old church stood in stark contrast to the shining modern skyscrapers that surrounded it; the old world holding its ground against the new. As we pushed through the old wooden front doors, the surreal nature of the moment intensified. Inside, the sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows, painting the interior in a watercolor wash of archaic beliefs, now come to reality. Blatantly ironic, here we would hide from the soldiers of God in his own house.

              The creak of the door, and our footsteps, echoed deep inside. The church was empty, except for the ashes that lay in piles everywhere. It looked like an entire congregation had been caught and cremated here. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Steve whispered.

              Suddenly near the back of the church from behind the pulpit, a figure appeared; a man dressed in all black, walking towards us. As he drew nearer, the pastel colored light coming through the stained glass windows lit his face, and I could see the little white square on the front of his collar; the mark of a priest.

              “Come in,” he said. “I am Father Donovan. Close the door please.”

              Father Donavan wore a face of contradictions. His hair was graying, the salt and pepper telling his years like the rings in a tree trunk. Yet it was full with no sign of a receding. His face was marked with the wrinkles of experience, yet they seemed to signal wisdom instead of age. He was clearly somewhere just past fifty, yet carried himself in a youthful manner. A handsome man, he exuded confidence and leadership, even now as the very faith he had dedicated his life to had suddenly turned on him.

              “There’s water over there,” he told us, pointing to a small fountain in the corner. “It’s holy water, but it’s certainly drinkable. I’m afraid I have little else to offer but shelter, even if not a very safe one.”

              “Not safe? What do you mean?” asked Joe in his usual tone.

              “See the ashes on the pews, on the floor?” answered the priest, pointing to several areas around the church. “God’s Judges have been in here once already.”

              We had all seen the piles of ash scattered around the interior of the church; dozens of them. Steve moved closer to the priest. “Judges? What do you mean Judges? The angels? What are they?”

              The priest looked us over, and then sat in the closest pew. He leaned back heavily, almost slumping in the seat. He looked tired, defeated. “Your ‘angels’” he began, “they are Judges, the soldiers of God, sent to pass judgment upon all mankind. This is the time that marks the return of Christ. The end of days, Revelations, judgment day; call it whatever you want, but it’s here. Believers are granted entrance into Heaven, and the rest, I assume, are condemned to Hell.”

              Joe wiped holy water from his chin as he spoke. “Yeah, well, religious rhetoric aside, what happened in here? Why aren’t you a pile of ash?”

              Father Donavan rose to his feet before he answered. Standing in the middle of the aisle facing the large crucifix at the back of the room, he bowed his head and made a cross on himself, touching in sequence his shoulders, head and heart. “Forgive me father,” he whispered, before turning to face Joe. There was pain in his face as he spoke. “I am a hypocrite, and a coward.”

              Margie stepped forward in a gesture that seemed intended to comfort him. “Why do you say that?”

              “These were my people, my congregation. They came to me in their time of need, afraid, seeking answers, seeking comfort. I stood up here upon the pulpit, and I preached to them to accept the Lord and to accept his plan, to not be afraid. When the Judges came, most stood and submitted to their judging willingly even though they were terrified. One by one I watched them die. I watched fathers turned to ash in front of their children. I watched babies taken from their mother’s arms. And when my turn neared, I became afraid. I panicked, and I hid. I told them to do what I myself could not. I failed them, and I have failed my faith.”

              “Religious crap aside man,” blurted Joe, “You’re human. Surviving, that’s what people do. Where are the Judges? Is it safe in here or not?”

              “They are gone. But nowhere is safe. Do you think you could hide from the almighty father?”

              “We’re doing alright so far,” answered Joe, returning to the fountain for another drink of water.               Margie, her upbringing having been steeped in Catholicism, was trying to comfort the priest. They sat together, whispering to each other. It made me uncomfortable.

              “Father,” I asked as I approached them, “There are people out there that should've been killed, but they're still alive. Why aren't they dying?”

              Father Donovan wiped a tear from his face and seemed to sigh heavily before he spoke. “It was foretold in the bible, 'those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall rise up to be judged’. In Revelations 9:6, it says “And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.” On this day all of mankind shall be judged, and no person's soul can leave their body until that judgment is made. The living cannot rest until they have been judged, and those that have been dead, must awaken now to receive their judgment.”

              Joe returned from the fountain, holy water leaving little wet spots in the ash on the front of his shirt. “Hold on Padre. So you're telling me everybody that's ever died, their souls never left their body? People never went to Heaven or Hell. They just stayed here, until now? Until they could be judged?”

              Father Donovan avoided eye contact with Joe, instead looking at me while he spoke. It felt odd, like somehow he was comfortable with me even though we didn’t know each other. “Based on the biblical verses, and what I see happening now, that is my interpretation, yes.”

              Joe was quick to respond. “That's fucked up. So, what about some guy who died a thousand years ago, and his body is completely gone, what about that?”
              Father Donovan began slowly walking up the aisle towards the back of the room. “I don't claim to know all of the ways God works. But perhaps those are the ghosts people claim to see; souls without a body, waiting to be judged. It's certainly a fitting explanation.”
              Steve sat on the pew next to Margie, and looking down at the floor spoke a realization with a cracking in his voice that sounded like he was struggling to not cry. “My dad died when I was twelve. So all this time he's been just hanging around? A ghost? Stuck here just waiting for this?”
              Father Donovan turned to face us again, and moved closer to Steve as if he were comforting one of his congregation. “I don't know for sure, but if I am to be honest, I think so, yes.”
              Joe’s boisterous voice echoed through the large empty room. “That’s bullshit. I've never seen a ghost.”
              Margie stood and walked closer to the pulpit, looking up at the crucifix for several moments, and then she turned back towards us. “My grandmother died when I was a little girl. A couple nights later I knew she was in the room with me. I could feel her there. I swear she sat on the bed beside me and rubbed my back.” A tear fell from her eye as she finished.
              My question blurted out without conscious thought, there was just so much I didn’t understand and wanted to know. “I saw people jump to their deaths from fifty stories father, and they were still alive. So they can't die until they're judged? So then,
we
can't die?”
              Father Donovan suddenly had a hint of sarcastic smirk on his face. “Oh, you can die. At least your body can. You won't be alive the way we know being alive. The bodies of the dead are merely animated by their souls that are awaiting judgment. It may not seem like dying, but trust me; I doubt you want to be one of them. They are the maledicted, the cursed. No matter what happens to their bodies, they will have to suffer through it until they are judged.”
              Jennifer spoke for the first time since entering the church. “Damn...that must've been what was wrong with the guy in the subway tunnel.” We all just looked at each other, the chilling realization of what was occurring creeping up our spines.

              Father Donovan told us something else that was even more chilling. “Behind the cathedral is an old, small cemetery. No one has been buried there for years now, but the people that are, you can hear them now. They have awoken. I’ve been listening to them all morning, calling out and clawing at their coffins.”

              The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Everyone, including Joe, was silent. Margie broke the silence. “Father, I thought Jesus died to absolve us of our sins. Why are we still being punished this way?”

              “This is not punishment, child. It's simply the mechanics of the process.”

              I couldn’t stop myself from speaking out. “Some process. Kill everyone? Trap souls in limbo? Have people leap from buildings and break their skulls open, and then have to walk around that way still alive? Yeah, that's just wonderful. This is why I never bought into religion. This is cruelty, not the love of a God.”
              Father Donovan moved closer to me, and looked me straight in the eyes. “The birth of a mother's child is a most beautiful thing, yet it doesn't come without great pain. The pain is a necessary part of the process, but it doesn't diminish the beauty of birth, or the creation of life. Often to have greatness, there must be great suffering.”