The Seventh Seal (7 page)

Route 480 fanned out in front of the truck in a ribbon of
gray.  Alex and John brushed the beads of broken glass from their clothes while
exchanging weary smiles.

“Why are you alive?” John asked.

“What?”

“Why are you alive?  Why didn’t the Covenant gun you down
like the rest?”

Alex cocked his head to one side, peering into the silvery
guardrail speeding past.

“Because they needed me.”

“Are you telling me they had no medical support other than a
vet?”

John regretted the comment as soon as it left his mouth.

“You really are an asshole,” said Alex.

“I’m sorry, it didn’t come out right.”

“How long until we reach State Road?”

John looked down at his watch to calculate the time and
distance.

“Probably twenty or twenty-five minutes, unless we hit
another roadblock.

“That should be enough time.”

“Enough time for what?” John asked again, already tiring of
the conversation.

“Time for me to tell you what happened to me, provided you
want to know.”

“You’ve got a captive audience.”

Alex sat up and stared out of the front of the truck as he
spoke. 

“My wife said shit was going down in Cleveland.  We live out
in Chesterland, so I didn’t pay as much attention to it as I shoulda.  She saw
something on the news about a possible order to martial law because of a
terrorist threat.  I stood in front of the tube, watching the dolts on the
local broadcast.  They had grainy cell-phone video of troops knocking doors
down in the poor neighborhoods.  No surprise to me that they started there.  I
got pissed and shut the TV off.  I get so tired of it blaring and babbling
constantly.

“I went downstairs to help get the kids into their pajamas. 
We heard sirens off in the distance, nothing out of the ordinary.  After we had
them down for the night, I picked up a Bill Bryson novel, hoping to laugh
myself to sleep.  I think my wife was already in bed, but I can’t quite
remember.  Anyway, I heard what I thought was thunder, which was very odd for
November.  It seemed to get louder and the noise became more frequent.  Julie
came down to the living room and asked me if I had heard it.  I think at that
moment we both knew something wasn’t right.

“She flipped the TV back on.  There was nothing but snow on
every channel.  We have satellite TV, so I thought the storm was messing with
the reception, you know?  Julie went upstairs and turned on the TV with the old
rabbit ears.  Again, nothing.

“I started getting worried, so I went out to my truck.  I
turned the key and pushed the on button on the radio.  At first I thought one
of the kids had messed with the tuner, but every one of my presets generated
the same white noise, as if the stations had disappeared.”

Alex shifted in his seat again and stopped.

“Go ahead, I’m listening,” said John.

“Gimme a second.”

John squirmed and looked out the window, trying to give Alex
time to pull it together.

“The lights in our house and in every house on the street
went out.  At almost the same time, I heard bulldozers coming down the road. 
They weren’t bulldozers, but those damn Humvees sounded like it.  At the far
end of our street, I saw soldiers jumping out.  Within seconds, their guns erupted
with flashes of fire followed by loud cracks.  I heard screams and knew heavy
shit was going down.

“I stepped out of the truck at the exact same moment a jeep
stopped in front of my house.  Someone yelled ‘freeze’ and I did.  I have no
idea why.  The next thing I knew I was facedown in a pile of wet leaves off the
edge of my driveway.  A knee or club was pushing down in the middle of my back
and I had trouble breathing.  Someone had ripped my wallet out and I could hear
them talking about my business cards I kept in there.  Another voice said
something about being ‘useful to Father’, but I couldn’t really hear the whole
conversation.  They zip-tied my hands and feet, and lifted me by my arms.  I
saw three soldiers knocking in the front door.  I…I heard Julie screaming.  I
could see the terror on my kids’ faces in the window.  There were more bursts
like firecrackers, more blasts of light, and then my house was silent.  I
refused to believe what had happened.  A soldier barked into a two-way radio
and another military vehicle pulled up.  It looked like an old-fashioned paddy
wagon, and functioned like one too.  A driver got out, walked around to the
back, and opened the two doors.  Another soldier helped the one on the radio to
toss me into the back of the van.  My nose bounced off the wheel well, knocking
me out cold.  When I woke up, I was flat on a gurney and surrounded by priests
in black shirts and white collars.  I thought for sure I was in Hell, being
tortured by priests for abandoning my Catholic upbringing.”

John stopped the truck a half mile from the State Road
exit.  He placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder and pushed the vision of his own
wife from his mind.

“I’m sorry, Alex.”

“So am I, John.”

“Take your time and say your piece.  I want to hear you out,
but I also need you in a proper frame of mind.  We could meet trouble once we
get off the highway and you need to be focused.”

“There isn’t much more to tell.  I had been spared and
detained because I was not part of the established medical community.  I’m a
vet.  I think they killed most of the doctors because they linked them all to
abortion.  How sick is that?  Go ahead and ask me what you want to ask me.”

“Your wife, your kids?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re gone.  I’d like to get back to
Chesterland to find out, but it’s not worth the risk.  Once they realize we’re
not at my Shaker office, and that John the Revelator is gone, that house will
be one of the first places they check.”

John sat in silence.  The truck idled, begging for another
run at a pile of twisted metal when Alex spoke.

“Your wife?”

“No,” was all John could bring himself to say.

“What the fuck do you think is going on, man?  I would not
have been surprised if Al Queda, or the Iranians, or even the fucking Russians
pulled shit like this.  I would not have been surprised if a warhead had
detonated over DC.  But this… this shit is unreal.  These are our own troops,
goddamn it!”

John shook his head and massaged the lumpy steering wheel
with his hands.  His voice rose.

“Somebody, somewhere high in the ranks snapped.  Hitler did
the same thing with Nationalism in Nazi Germany.  It’s all I can figure.  The
hardcore Born Agains have been frothing at the mouth to launch a final Holy
War.  Imagine all the nut jobs out there with guns and ammo.  From where I sit,
it looks like our own government has been compromised, but it’s possible that
these soldiers we see are part of a paramilitary force being controlled by the
church.  They could be hired guns in army camo.”

“Dude,” said Alex, “I never thought it would go down like
this.  Global warming, dirty bomb, maybe.  But never did I think men of God
would gun down people in their homes.”

Alex wiped at both eyes and suppressed his hitching chest.

“Let’s get off of 480 and see who’s playing at the Jigsaw
tonight.”

John took the ramp and turned left onto State Road.  Like
all the neighborhoods they drove past, everything stood in darkness.  The saw
the flames as soon as they made the turn: a raging fire consumed a dozen
vehicles on a used-car lot.  Spastic flames leapt from the showroom windows,
illuminating the cold neon signs above.

In the next block, smashed tables and chairs lay in
splinters on the road.  The storefront windows of a mom and pop furniture
dealer sat in pieces on the littered sidewalk.  To the right, a convenience
store was bathed in blood-red pentagrams.  The men looked at each other with
raised eyebrows and low whistles.

“Home of the resistance?” Alex asked.

John nodded in agreement.

“Something went down here.”

“Isn’t the Jigsaw up ahead?”

John nodded again and guided the truck into the right lane. 
Streetlights stretched across the road a foot or two above the ground.

“I think this is as far as we can take the truck,” John
said.

“Yeah, whether it’s planned or not, we’re not getting past
those.”

John pulled the truck over and killed the engine.  The
lights died and cast the street back into orange, flickering shadows coming
from the auto-dealership inferno.  The air smelled of burning fuel and
plastic.  Alex grabbed a rifle from the back of the truck and jumped back.  The
breakout and subsequent escape had tossed their dead passenger about like a
ragdoll, leaving the man’s limbs pointed at various grotesque angles. Alex
suppressed the urge to vomit.

The two men exited the vehicle and dropped low to the ground
as they hurdled fallen light posts.  John saw the vertical “Jigsaw” sign a
block down the street.  Glass crunched under their boots as another blast threw
debris in their direction from the car lot.  Alex stopped and ducked behind the
side of a pharmacy.

“If we approach in camo and with guns, they might fire on
us,” said Alex.

“Shit, you’re right. Do you think anyone is in there?”

“Do you think those light posts fell like that on their
own?  Yeah, they’re in there, and I’ll bet they’ve already seen us.”

Alex hesitated for a moment.

“You still have that radio?”

John rummaged through the bag on his shoulder.  The force of
the collision with the minivan had thrown it into a much harder object. Plastic
shards of radio fell through John’s fingers to the sidewalk.

“That ain’t gonna help us,” said Alex.

“What if we yell something that will distinguish us from the
Covenant?”

Alex nodded, and stepped out from behind the wall.  He took
a few steps toward the Jigsaw, to a point where he knew he would be heard.

“I hear Sleep is reuniting for a show,” Alex yelled.

A light hit the pavement in front of John.  Bouncing red
dots found their mark on the forehead of each man. Then a booming voice.

“Drop your weapons and walk towards the side door where the
bands load in.  If you so much as step on a crack, we’ll shoot you.  Consider
yourselves lucky that we didn’t blast your ass for wearing camo out here, you
dumb fucks.”

John dropped his weapon to the pavement, as did Alex.  They
walked side by side toward the door, the red points dancing lively patterns
across their chests.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, the one
who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Blank, compliant faces stared up at Father, who sat atop the
highest chair while the rest of the group scrambled at his feet.

“Amen,” the group responded.

“In Chapter 5, John writes about the sacrifice that must be
made on the Lord’s behalf.  He tells us to follow the obedient examples of the
angels.  He says worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches
and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!"

“Amen, yes Father,” said one man with greasy hair and hollow
eyes.

“What do you think the Revelator means?”

A woman with a purple bruise on her cheek pushed spindly
legs underneath her bottom and spoke.

“John is telling us that we must sacrifice ourselves to
God.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

Father peered at the group over the top of his Bible.  The
ritual of the Holy Gauntlet always delivered a range of emotions, including
sorrow for the souls that would not survive it.

“The Infidels bring death and destruction.  They have
spent many decades and generations contaminating our Christian way of life. 
They drink, lie, smoke, cheat, fornicate, and abort like the Beasts of Hell. 
God has called his Holy Covenant forth to cleanse His place of the abysmal sin. 
‘And when the fourth seal was opened, I heard the voice of the fourth being
saying, Come.  And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and the one who is
sitting upon it, his name is Death, and Hades is trailing after him; and
authority to him is given over one fourth part of the earth, to kill them with
war, and famine, and death, and by the wild animals of the earth’.”

With the fervor building, Father watched as they devoured
the passages.

“Are we Death?” one man asked.

“No, we are the Light.  Death has ridden down the wicked. 
There is no saving them from eternal damnation,” replied Father.

“Would another care to read from The Revelation of John?”

A short, slight man stood and pushed his way to the feet of
Father.  A sling held his left arm, and he limped with a grimace.

“I would, Father.”

“Then come to me, son.”

The man accepted the Bible held out by Father and picked up
the narration of The Sixth Seal from Chapter Six.

“And I watched when he opened the sixth seal, and a mighty
earthquake took place, and the sun became black like animal-hair sackcloth, and
the full moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as
a fig tree shaken by a strong wind casts its unripe figs, and the sky retreated
like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from
its place.  And the kings of the earth, and the great people and the generals
and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in
the caves, and among the rocks of the mountains, and they are saying to the
mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the One
sitting on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of
their wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?’”

The man’s mouth foamed and his eyes glazed over in
delightful rapture.  Others on the floor stood and started to shuffle around
the room.  Father glanced at the armed guards while beaming with satisfaction.

“My sons and daughters, be still.  Your opportunity to serve
Him is coming.  We must finish our study so as not to be fooled by Satan. 
^‘
And when
he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an
hour.  And I saw the seven angels which stand before God, and seven trumpets
were given to them.  And another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a
golden censer, and many incenses were given to him so that he might present the
prayers of all the saints at the golden altar which is before the throne.  And
the smoke of the incenses went up before God from the hand of the angel
together with the prayers of the saints.  And the angel took the censer and
filled it with the burning incense, and he hurled it to the earth; and there
came rumblings and noises and peals of thunder, and earthquakes.

“‘And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets readied
themselves to play.  And the first one sounded his trumpet; and there came hail
and fire mixed with blood, and it was rained upon the earth; and one third of
the earth was burned up, and one third of the trees were burned up, and all the
green grass was burned up.

“‘And the second angel sounded his trumpet; and something
like a huge mountain burning with fire was hurled into the sea, and one third
of the sea was turned to blood, and one third of the creatures that have lives
in the sea died, and one third of the ships were destroyed.

“‘And the third angel sounded his trumpet; and a huge star
fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and it fell on a third of the rivers,
and on the sources of the waters.  And the name of the star means ‘Wormwood.’ 
And a third of the waters were turned into bitterness, and many of the people
died from the waters because they were made bitter.

“‘And the fourth angel sounded his trumpet; and a third of
the sun was struck, and a third of the moon and a third of the stars, such that
one third of their light was darkened and a third of the daylight would not be
shined, and the same with the night.

“‘And I looked, and I heard an eagle flying at zenith saying
with a very loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those dwelling on the earth because
of the remaining sounds of the trumpet from the three angels about to sound!”’”

With this, the entire group vibrated as one, turning and
thrashing, spittle flying from their mouths.  Father stood on the chair, his
voice echoing off the ancient, yellow brick of St. Michael’s church.  He
smelled the excitement in the men and women, the musky scent lifted on the warm
rise of collective body heat.  The survivors, the true believers, would serve
Him for all eternity.

“My flock, please settle.  The time for service is near. 
But before we go, there is more we must examine.”

“Father, what must we do with the survivors, those that have
proven their loyalty to Him?” asked the tiny man who had read earlier.

“My son, their fate lies with God.  Those that do not repent
will face certain death.  Those that have worshipped false idols and practiced
sexual immortality will bleed the rivers of His paradise red.  John says, ‘And
the rest of humanity, those who were not killed by these plagues, they did not
repent, neither of the works of their hands, such that they worship demons and
idols made of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which can neither
see nor hear nor walk, and neither did they repent of their murders, nor their
potions, nor their sexual immorality, nor their thefts.’  You see, he has plans
for those without faith.

“Fallen!  Fallen is Babylon the great, which had given the
nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her whoredom.  Suckle at the teat
of the witches and raise the demons from their hiding places.”