Table of Contents

Title Page

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CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

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CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

Acknowledgments

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The

Camouflaged Cross

Tales of Christian Preppers In The End Times

Book One: Just Run

By Cal Wilson

The Camouflaged Cross

Tales Of Christian Preppers In The End Times

Book One: Just Run

Copyright 2015 Cal Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission in writing from the author.

Unless specifically referred to, all of the characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places or events are entirely coincidental, unless a specific person, place or incident is referred to in the text of this publication.

This publication is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The statements expressed herein are the opinions of the author alone and should not be construed as or taken to be legal, medical, or professional advice of any kind. The reader is responsible for his or her own actions.

The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher or any of the contributors who worked on this publication.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, by Biblica, IncTM. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

At times this book will quote Scripture from other Bible translations that do not have copyright restrictions.

Neither the author nor the publisher assume any responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of the purchaser or reader of this publication.

ISBN-10: 1511442182

ISBN-13: 978-1511442183

Dedicated to the One who is the way, the truth and the life

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you … when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again… If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.”

--Matthew‬ 24‬:4, 15-22‬ (NIV)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Somewhere In The Continental United States

In The Near Future

CHAPTER 1

“So Mr. Wells, do you know what I really miss about, you know, the time before all this started happening?”

“Sean, you can call me David, unless your parents insist that you call me Mr. Wells. And you know we aren’t supposed to talk about what things we miss about the past. Jesse specifically asked us not to. We are supposed to look towards the future, not talk about what we miss about the past. I think you were at the meeting when that subject came up.”

David and Sean were serving their turn at the advance look-out post of a Christian prepper group, totaling 40 people, who had only recently retreated into the hills outside their town. A smaller, Mormon group had a retreat nearby, up a common road.

The country had recently gone through a series of calamities, some with religious significance and some without, which ended most of the rule of law from the federal and state governments in the United States.

The American president, who had been widely distrusted by the Christian community, was attending a conference in Jerusalem, to celebrate the mid-point of his much-heralded seven-year, universal peace treaty. Most other world leaders also attended. This treaty had succeeded in keeping world peace as never before. Even skeptics had been impressed with the peace kept by this treaty, engineered by the American president.

The location of this conference, believed to be the location of Solomon’s Temple from biblical times, was chosen to emphasize the historical significance of the occasion.

However, during the conference, nuclear bombs concealed inside shipping containers exploded simultaneously at several American east-coast port cities. For those who survived the nuclear bombs, full-scale rioting ensued, making the cities involved a vast wasteland of death and destruction. Fearing the same attacks, other port cities that had not been attacked halted all shipping operations, resulting in shortages of essential supplies and food. People in those cities also rioted.

All the rioters in American port cities not only demanded a resumption of the shipments of food, but they also resented the fact that any semblance of privacy they had had was gone, ostensibly in order to protect against terrorist attacks like what just happened. Rational observers of the situation agreed that this was one of the few times when the frustrations of rioters, if not the actions, actually made sense. Government snooping of phone calls, e-mails, texts, computer hard-drives, credit card and online purchases, and all other aspects of life in America had produced no noticeable increase in security, as had been promised. Facial recognition cameras had even been set up in city centers, recording the identities and travelling of drivers and pedestrians through the cities. Yet, this end of privacy had still not halted the attacks.

Soon after the nuclear explosions in the American port cities, terrorist sleeper cells inside the United States began operations in which they attacked electrical substations – those unprotected junctions of electrical power lines where the voltage in the lines is regulated for further movement into a nearby city – with machine guns in an attempt to cut off the power grid and all communications. At first, the nationwide coordinated attacks on power substations, dubbed “Metcalfing” after the location of the 2013 dry run, had scattered success. Nevertheless, several major American cities still had power. A few nights later, after further attacks on substations, those cities too were in the dark.

The lack of power and communications freed up the terrorists inside the country to attack in other ways, like poisoning city reservoirs, bombing refineries, crop-dusting downtown areas with anthrax and blood from Ebola victims, and sabotaging train tracks to cause derailments. Stinger missiles, which had been smuggled across the country’s wide-open southern border, were used to shoot down passenger planes. These attacks resulted in the deaths of millions of people, who kept drinking the tap water, taking trains, flying planes and attending work, in the vain hope that normalcy would soon return.

Meanwhile, the American president, still at the Jerusalem conference, noticeably hesitated when asked by a reporter if he considered surrendering to the terrorists. The lack of seriousness of his answer to this question startled many, as it revealed the fact that somewhere in the highest offices of the country a surrender was even contemplated. Nevertheless, for a few days this open consideration of surrender seemed to work, as the terrorist attacks from within the country paused, and Americans looked forward to a return of peace and security.

But it was not to be. Once news of possible surrender fully reached the citizenry, several states that had always opposed the president and his policies, and even some counties within states that had supported the president, rejected any talk of surrender, and announced that they would not abide by any decisions reached with the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks. The American military was dispatched to quell the “disloyal” jurisdictions. It was another American civil war, except this time there were many fronts.

As with all wars, the United States government had to immediately spend much more money than it had, forcing it to go into even more deficit-spending than it had already been. In the most responsible of times, this would have led to inflation, as so many more dollars were chasing a limited amount of goods and services. But in this situation, the government had for years already been pointlessly overspending to provide government benefits to the citizenry. The result was inflation rates that fluctuated at 30% on up, depending on the week and month.

The people soon realized that their dollars and government benefit checks were almost worthless. Consumer spending for non-food items came to a stand-still, resulting in mass lay-offs. The official unemployment rate topped 35%, while the unofficial rate was much higher. The American economy plunged into a slow-down that was even worse than the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

By then, established Christian churches were long gone, either made to preach only from abridged Bibles, approved by the federal government, or shut down as purveyors of “hate speech.” The land and buildings of the churches that were shut down were confiscated and sold at government auctions. Many other religious groups, most of them Muslim, bought church properties at very low prices, and these groups began to establish and grow their congregations.

The shutting down of fundamentalist Christian churches as disseminators of “hate” ended any political influence the churches and their followers had, and this in turn enabled some state and local governments to restrict heterosexual weddings, so that such weddings may occur only after the couples trying to marry pay a high fee and take a course on “inclusiveness and tolerance.” Muslim weddings were exempted from these new rules.

Throughout the country, small pockets of Christians stayed together and worshipped in their homes. The “Bible study groups” from the Christian churches of old became the new Christian churches, except much smaller and underground. With these new churches, secrecy was second in importance only to the unabridged Bible that they studied.

These Christians, having read the many predictions in the Bible, realized that the End Times were here. Those who had prepared, like the group David and Sean belonged to, left their homes and jobs and met at agreed-upon retreat locations, where they hoped to survive the coming apocalypse. The coming days, weeks, months and years would see whether these families would survive as they had prepared.

One of the first observations made by the leaders of this group were that the people who came to the retreat were shocked and in many cases seriously depressed. After several weeks a policy was promoted at the periodic meetings the group had that they were to encourage humor whenever possible, and to minimize the talk of the “way things used to be.” Despite the obvious challenges, the leaders of this group began to highly prize a positive mental attitude among its members.

*****

“Oh come on,” Sean said. He paused. Both looked outside their hillside bunker, onto the empty dirt road below, without saying anything. A dark smoke cloud could be seen in the distance to the east.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” David broke the silence. “You don’t just go through life in a normal, you know, non-End Times world, and then begin what looks to be the End Times, and not talk about it. OK, I’ll bite. What do you miss, Sean?”

“All-you-can-eat buffets.”

“Yes, I can imagine. You are a very big, what are you, sixteen, seventeen years old?”

“Fifteen. And I can eat a lot.”

“I’m sure of it. If you weren’t being homeschooled, you’d probably be on a football team right now, being recruited by college teams. That kind of thing.”

“Every once in a while my mom would let me take a long lunch during my homeschooling, and she would bring me to lunch at a restaurant that had an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. She would just sit back and watch me eat. She would talk about how the restaurant felt bad about letting me in there because I ate so much. She worried that the restaurant would go under or something because I showed up.”

“I can imagine.” David chuckled. “It was probably a sight to behold.”

“Since all this started happening, we’ve eaten a bunch of vegetables and stored food, and some eggs here and there. And I haven’t really been full for a long time.”

“Same here, now that you mention it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate the people here who cook our food. Jose has been pretty good about killing deer and hogs and preparing it all for us to eat. But I really miss that feeling of being totally full of food. Completely full. Nothing more could fit in my stomach. Sometimes I would almost be in pain I was so full of food. It was a good pain.”

“You’re in pretty good shape. You’re blessed that you can eat so much and not get fat. As for me, now that I am in my 40’s, I can’t just eat and eat and eat like I used to, when I was your age. If I did I would get pretty big. You need to watch the old waistline when you get my age, you know.”

“That’s what I hear.”

A gust of wind blew the trees outside. Both Sean and David looked down onto the dirt road and watched a cluster of leaves get blown across the road in front of a roadblock made of tree branches and trash. There was another silent pause.

“Well, I miss a few things, that’s for sure,” David said. “I miss coming home from work and sitting in front of the TV or a fire with my wife, drinking some cabernet and eating some nice cheese and crackers. And olives. It was all so relaxing.”

“I never did like wine.”

“You will someday. Well,” David paused, “that’s what I would have said before all this started happening. Nowadays, who knows if you will ever have any wine?”

David changed the subject. “By the way, has anyone checked in with the other group over there?” He nodded to his right.

“Not in a while,” Sean said, “but the old school bus is there like always.” They both looked to their right and further up the dirt road. An old school bus, painted dark green, was barely visible in the trees on top of a hill nearby.

“Not exactly a great hiding place to listen and observe.”

“Yes, that is one of the things Jesse did right on this property, setting up these ‘el-pops.’” Sean banged on one of the metal legs that held up the dark green metal roof above them.

“Well, I for one feel like I am doing some good listening at this observation post.”

“Same here,” Sean smiled. “And observing, too.”

“Oh, yes, constantly observing. Maybe someday we will listen or observe something from this listening and observation post. That’s always possible. Right from under this car hood that Jesse had some welder turn into a roof for us.”

“If I have to spend a lot of time in a car, I would rather it be in the Whale,” Sean said, nodding uphill.

“What do you mean, a whale like in the book of Jonah?”

“No, the Cadillac that made it to the far back of the property.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that. One of the families who made it up here drove up in their old Cadillac convertible. A restoration project. And I hear that the ground clearance of that car was pretty bad, but they kept driving up the hiking trails and made it to the very back end of the property, then the car got stuck. I guess they didn’t want the car being visible from the valley below. Remember all the talk of camouflage and all. If I recall, that’s a red car.”

“It’s a really cool car,” Sean said. “People go to it and run the engine and charge their flashlight batteries and Kindles. It has cigarette lighters even in the back seat, for charging stuff.”

“Oh yeah. That car was made in the early 70’s. Everyone smoked a lot back then. And cigarette lighters were next to every seat, even the back seats. People certainly didn’t want to get caught unable to light up.”

“Apparently, the car has a great alternator. And while they charge the batteries they crank the CD player and turn up the AC or heater. It’s actually a fun place to hang out. Like a little vacation”

“Listen, that alternator will probably be taken out someday and hooked up to a wind turbine or something. You have to admit, it is a waste of gas to idle a big engine like that.”

“Yeah, I know, you’re right. But the last time I was at that car, someone cranked up the old music and Justin jumped in and acted like he was playing the drums. It was pretty funny.”

“Yes,” David said, “Justin was the drummer in some band in high school, or at least that is what I heard. There are some pretty funny photos of him out there, trying to act like John Bonham. But who knows, we’ll probably never see those photos again. They would have been great blackmail material.”

Sean smiled. “John Bonham?”

“Drummer for Led Zeppelin,” David answered. There was a pause.

“Oh, I see.”

*****

“But back to what I miss,” David said. “I guess there is more to it than drinking wine and eating cheese, although I miss that too.”

“What, were there all-you-can drink wine bars or something?”

David smiled, then looked serious. “No, it’s not that. I just miss the detachment of it all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we would go to church, back when church was open, and we would hear a sermon on the Book of Daniel or Matthew or Revelation, or other books of the Bible. And I never really,” David paused, as if looking for the right words. “I never really thought it would apply to me.” Sean nodded slightly, in agreement.

“We would read Matthew 24, and the whole book of Revelation, and I never thought I would be around to see all that stuff happen. I always thought it would be something that would happen to my grandkids or their grandkids, or,” David paused. “What I was reading was pretty scary, you know, Christians getting killed off, and I just wasn’t scared. I believe the Bible, of course. I just never thought I would be here when it all happened. For me it was so hypothetical.”

“Kind of like ‘ignorance is bliss.’ Or taking the blue pill.”

“Yeah, I guess. I was just so … I guess I was at peace, that there was just too much between our world and the times described in the Bible. I just thought there was so much that had to happen before you could look into the Bible and notice that the End Times were right here. I miss that sense of peace. That sense of ‘it won’t happen to me.’ The sense that I didn’t really need to worry about it. Of course it is good to know, and the book of Revelation says a special blessing will be given to those who read the book…”

David continued. “Now I feel pretty stupid. Just look how fast everything changed. I always thought that there was way too much that needed to change before we got to the stuff that happens in Matthew 24 and Revelation. But it seems just like, ‘poof,’ everything got into position and here we are. The gay marriage thing, for example. Only a few years ago, gay marriage was just a joke. Even gays didn’t take it seriously. Nowadays whenever someone opposes gay marriage they lose their job and practically get run out of town on a rail. And in some places, if you are a heterosexual man and woman, you are not even allowed to get married. I remember thinking, ‘Boy that was fast.’”

David looked at Sean. “Oh, I’m sorry. Your parents probably don’t want you talking about those things. I keep forgetting that you’re fifteen years old.”

“It’s OK. My parents have told me all about it.”

“Well, the point is, that the days of thinking this will apply to others is long gone. Long gone. And I was ignoring all the clues. I was busy with my job, keeping up to date with the company’s new product line, new ways to speed up financing, that kind of thing.”

“I never knew what kind of job you had,” Sean said.

“I was a sales rep for a dental equipment company. For this whole tri-state region. And I was a good sales rep, too. I would visit dentists’ offices and either try to get them to buy new equipment or update their old equipment.”

“You mean like drills and stuff?”

“Yeah, but it was a lot more than that. And for those who wanted to buy, I would line up financing. It all kept me pretty busy.” David paused. “And I was ignoring all the clues that were right there in the news. Right in front of me. In front of us all. Sure, I knew there were bad things going on in the world, and there was some talk of the new government requiring people to get some kind of faint bar code on their foreheads. Sharia put in place in certain parts of the country. Stuff like that. But I still thought the End Times were far, far off. Nothing to do with me. I guess that’s it for me. That’s what I really miss.”

“After my dad got laid off we lost our cable TV, so I was also ignoring the news. We couldn’t watch it at our house. In fact, we were about to lose our house.”

David shifted in his seat. “Your family was never going to lose your house. I know it never came to that, but several of us from church were going to pitch in and bring your family current with your mortgage. We weren’t really looking forward to it. At least I wasn’t. I admit that. But you guys were not going to lose your house.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. A little, too-late-to-matter reassurance for you there.” David smiled. “Who knows what is going on at your house nowadays? In fact, who knows what is going on in the world nowadays?” David looked out into the valley, then back to Sean. “But the point is, if this all wasn’t happening, you and your family would still be in your house.”

“That’s really nice of you guys.”

“That’s what a church does.” David looked into the valley below. “Give the glory to God.”

*****

David continued, “What finally woke me up was when I read about the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“I missed it,” Sean said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know what the Nobel Prize is, right?”

“Sure, I’ve studied that.”

“Well, one of the Nobel Prizes is for promoting peace in the world. It is called the Nobel Peace Prize. This one was a totally outside-the-Bible clue for me. Like God was banging me on the head, trying to get me to notice some clues of the End Times coming. They just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the religion of Islam. All those terrorists who kill people, and in fact Muslims have been killing and enslaving people for hundreds of years, but they insist that they are one big ‘religion of peace.’ They finally got the Nobel Prize committee to buy it. I just couldn’t believe it. It totally floored me.”

“Yes, my parents talked about that.”

“I know, the Nobel Peace Prize started getting a little tarnished through the years. In the 90’s once it was awarded to Arafat, who showed up to accept the prize and his check, in between killing people.”

“You get money when you win the Nobel Prize?” Sean asked.

“That’s what I hear. And then a few years later the prize was given to Al Gore because of his yammering on about global warming.”

“Oh yeah, that was a joke.”

“But the Nobel Peace Prize always had some legitimacy. Something to make you take it seriously. And then they went and awarded it to Islam. And not any one or two Muslims, or to a group of them, or a country or anything. They awarded it to the whole religion.” David paused. “That is when I sat up and took notice that things in the world were starting to get really screwed up. The Bible says that ‘truth gets traded for lies’ and ‘the wise become fools,’ and that’s what happened. At first I couldn’t understand how people could be so stupid. Could people even hear themselves talk? But the Apostle Paul wrote that God will send a strong delusion. And I got news for you, if God allows you to be deluded, you are going to be deluded. That’s all there is to it. So that has to explain all the stupidity out there, beginning with the Nobel Peace Prize getting awarded to Islam.”

“Still, that was pretty strange.”

“Very strange. Meanwhile, a little over a month ago I headed south on a business trip. I lined up about twenty-five dentist office visits to talk about the company’s new line. It was a pretty long trip, but the buying had slowed down and I felt I had to do it. The dentists I visited kept telling me ‘Not now. We might expand when things settle down a little.’ All I knew was that there was some giant peace conference going on in Jerusalem. I guess the dentists and their office managers were more aware of what was going on in the world than I was.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, without a single sale – not a single one! -- I checked back at the corporate office and they just told me to end the trip; just come back. And on the long drive home, I started looking for local Christian radio stations to listen to. I always do that when I go on a road trip. These stations were totally normal during the trip down, but on my way back… I started noticing that several of them were playing some strange songs, and repeating them, like on an endless loop. Just like our local station, K-Heaven, was supposed to do when Jesse and the others felt that it was time to drop everything and come up here.”

“What do you mean by strange songs?”

“Well, I knew of the usual Christian radio stations that would play worship songs, by groups like Casting Crowns or Steven Curtis Chapman, or replay a sermon or something. But they were playing songs like the old Rolling Stones song, ‘Gimme Shelter,’ and it was on an endless loop. The song would just keep playing over and over. Like someone in charge at that station had just turned it on, pushed some buttons at the station to just keep playing that same song, and the people working there just left. Some other Christian radio stations played songs like ‘Run Away’ by Real McCoy, that bathroom song, and --”

“Wait, did you say ‘bathroom song?’”

“Well that’s what I call it. It’s the Credence Clearwater song, ‘There’s A Bad Moon Rising.’ The words of the song sound like someone is saying that there is a ‘bathroom on the right.’ You know, one of those songs with lyrics that everyone mistakes for something totally silly.”

“That is pretty silly.”

“It’s a song from the 60’s, but a friend of mine saw the lead singer from Credence in a concert of his own a few years ago. True story: during a break in the concert, someone asked the singer where the bathroom was, and he said ‘Oh, it’s on the right.’”

“Really? That’s pretty funny. You’d think he would get mad at a disaster song being morphed into a song about, you know, the location of a bathroom. So what about the other Christian radio stations you heard? What were they playing?”

“Well, not all Christian radio stations, but I’d say almost half of them were playing these strange songs on endless loops. It got to be kind of a game to look around the radio dial, where I knew Christian radio stations were, to see if any were playing songs that were bizarre. For example, instead of the latest Toby Mac song, one radio station played the David Bowie song ‘This Is Not America’ on an endless loop. Another station was scheduled to replay a Voddie Baucham sermon at a certain time, and in fact I was looking forward to it. Instead, when I turned to that station, all I heard was the old Pink Floyd song ‘Run Like Hell.’ Over and over.”

“Didn’t we have some agreement with our local station, K-Heaven, to do the same thing?”

“Well, yeah, but for some reason I just figured our group was the only one. I thought it was a secret. Several of us… not me, but others, had talked our local radio station into just playing the song, ‘We’ll Meet Again,’ when it was truly time to leave our houses and come here to the compound. That is what I was hearing all along my drive home on that trip. Apparently other Christian prepper groups in other areas had the same idea. Well, let’s face it: that is a pretty good way to get the word out to our people, that it is time to go.”

Sean looked confused. “I remember hearing that song. Where did it come from?”

“It was played at the end of the 1960’s movie, Dr. Strangelove.”

“Can’t say I have ever heard of that movie.”

“It was way before your time. Well, mine too. It was actually a dark comedy about nuclear bombs blowing up the world. At the end of the movie as the world gets totally nuked, the song that is played is ‘We’ll Meet Again.’ It wasn’t my first choice, but the local guys decided that would be a good endless loop song to play to notify everyone that it was time to leave and come up here.”

“The Matthew 24 call to ‘just run.’”

“Exactly. Don’t even get your coat, although I know a lot of coats made it up here. Maybe the ‘don’t even get your coat’ language in Matthew 24 was a metaphor.”

“Well, I remember hearing that song. It’s actually a nice song. Our radio was playing in the kitchen. That song came on, and at the end of the song it would start again. And then again. I thought something was wrong at the radio station. My dad walked into the kitchen, and when he heard the song, he just grew pale. I mean, he actually looked like he was in shock. He made sure that it was K-Heaven playing it, and then he looked really nervous. He called my mom in, and they hugged each other, then they sat down on the floor in the kitchen. Just listening. My mom started to cry a little. I asked them if they were OK, and they said yes and just sat there for a while. Just listening. They pulled out a Bible and read some. Not saying a word. They wouldn’t even sit in chairs. They just sat on the floor there. Sitting on the floor -- that is what tipped me off that something big was going on.”

“What did your family do next?”

“I’d say they just sat there and listened to the song play about seven or eight times, while they read the Bible. Then they got up and started packing our Jeep. They got my sister and then we drove here. Not much talking on the drive up here either. It was a really strange day. Once we were out of town they told my sister and me what was up. They told us that we were moving up here. For good.”

“Yes. That song was the signal for local Christian prepper groups that people who were paying attention, unlike me, had decided that the world had reached the point of no return. The Abomination. Time to pack up and leave, and come to the compound here. We all thought we were being clever but apparently several other Christian prepper groups out there had the same idea. And I was hearing it all on my drive home on that business trip.”

“What other songs did you hear?”

“Some songs were more obvious than others. There was the old John Mellencamp song ‘Crumblin’ Down.’ Oh yes, I almost forgot. One station just had an air raid siren playing non-stop. Come to think of it, that was pretty obvious. And there was one song that, let’s face it, was really obvious: REM’s ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It.’ When we chose the song for our local station, well, I wasn’t there, but the idea was to have it a little concealed; not so obvious. We didn’t want to just come right out and say ‘Hey everyone, the End Times are here. We’re leaving now!’”

There was a pause. They both looked down onto the road outside. Sean said, “We might have another hour before our replacements come. What time do you have?”

“Oh, that’s another thing. I don’t have a watch anymore. I sold my watch during that drive home.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Well, I mentioned I was driving home and hearing all this strange music, on endless loops. I was also starting to notice that whenever I came upon a gas station, there were really long lines. I mean, lines that went on and on. As far as you could see. As I got a little closer home, instead of lines at the gas stations I started noticing fires at the gas stations. Billowing smoke that I could see from miles away! And no firemen or police! Just a big fire, people driving away, sometimes fighting, and no firemen or cops. It was totally bizarre. I guess the refineries getting bombed meant that gasoline became pretty scarce, pretty quickly. There were many gas stations like that. You could look across the horizon and see many of these gas stations on fire, sending smoke up. Like a bunch of black fingers reaching into the sky.”

“Kind of like that one over there,” Sean said, and pointed off to the smoke far away to the east.

“Yes, but on my drive home there were many of them.”

“That sounds pretty scary. So how’d that cause you to sell your watch?”

“Well, I noticed my own gas supply was getting low. So I turned off the highway onto a pretty deserted road. Just taking a chance. And I found a small gas station that was closed, and a mobile home was right behind it. I figured that’s where the owners lived. I knocked on the door and asked for some gas. They said ‘No, get lost.’ So I offered them my Breitling watch for a fill-up of gas. Gloria paid $4,500 for that watch a few anniversaries ago, and I just handed it over for a tank full of gas.”

“At least you got home.”

“Yes. I made it home OK. And I keep looking over at my wrist to see the time, but my watch is gone. Oh well, I can always ask the time on these walkie-talkies.”

****

CHAPTER 2

Some trucks could be heard driving nearby, and they were getting closer. Sean and David looked down onto the road. David said, “These might be some late stragglers, come to join the group.”

A tan Humvee rounded the corner and came into view. A black flag with white Arabic writing on it was flying from behind the driver’s door.

“Sean, can you please turn off the walkie-talkie? You know how those things make that chirping noise.”

“OK, sure.”

Two pick-up trucks followed the Humvee around the curve, so that all three trucks were in view. The second pick-up truck had six people in the back of the truck. It looked as if the people were all holding their hands behind their backs.

“What do we have here?” Sean whispered.

“Shh. This can’t be good,” David whispered.

The three trucks stopped at the roadblock, startling some black vultures there that quickly flew away. The driver of the Humvee got out. He was a middle-eastern guy with black hair and a beard. He wore green fatigues and a white and black bandana around his neck. He walked back to the driver of the second pick-up truck. They talked briefly. Then he went to the third truck and talked to the driver there. He then walked back to the Humvee and looked at the people in the back of the second pick-up truck as he walked by. He looked up into the hills before he got back into the Humvee.

“Who is that?” Sean whispered.

“No idea.”

All three trucks backed out of the road and out of sight, then returned in reverse, backing up to the roadblock. The trucks stopped at an angle, leaving some open space between the roadblock and the trucks. The drivers of the trucks got out. All five appeared to be middle-eastern men, dressed in dark green military clothing, and holding machine guns.

“This is definitely not good,” David whispered to Sean.

The Humvee driver looked up into the hills above the roadblock, then talked with the others a little. Two of the men made small fanning gestures with their hands, and talked about the bad smell at the roadblock. The rest looked into the hills beyond the roadblock, scanning as if to see if anyone was watching among the trees.

Sean ducked below the wall of their hillside hideout. “Remember they can’t see us here,” David whispered to Sean.

The driver of the Humvee went back to the Humvee and grabbed a megaphone that was on the front seat, and walked back to the front of the Humvee. He turned it on and a deafening ‘beep’ could be heard. He turned a nob on the side of the megaphone and the beeping stopped.

He looked up the hills beyond the roadblock. “Attention anyone up there, who may be watching us,” he spoke into the megaphone in English with an Arabic accent. “Let me have your attention please.”

“We have brought some of your neighbors here,” he nodded towards the direction of the people sitting in the back of the second pick-up truck. “We brought some of your neighbors here so that they can take the Mark of Allegiance, which is now required by law. We will show you how simple and painless it is. It really is no big deal. You will see for yourself.”

Two of the men went to the back of the Humvee and opened the back storage compartment, then removed a device that had a chin-rest and looked like an eye-testing machine, and a flat glass part that was to the right. They installed it onto the back of the Humvee.

Another man went to the back of the second pick-up truck and lowered the tail gate. The six people slid off the back of the pick-up truck. Their hands were tied behind their backs with black zip ties. They were directed to the back of the Humvee.

“I don’t recognize any of those people, except for Kirk and Jackie,” David whispered to Sean. “This is crazy.”

The guy with the megaphone continued, “This machine will imprint a bar code on the foreheads of everyone here. While the Mark is put on your forehead, you need to give a thumbprint, so that the machine can match the code on your forehead to your thumbprint held in government computers. You will see how painless it is, and the bar code that is printed there is something that can barely be seen with your eyes. It is something that a machine’s light can see, but you can barely see it. I had it done onto my own forehead and I cannot see it at all.”

Sean smirked. “He means without a mirror he can’t see it,” Sean whispered.

“Shh,” David whispered.

The man with the megaphone continued. “If for some reason you cannot have the Mark put on your forehead, then we can put it on your right hand. Very simple. Very easy. Free of charge. And it is required by law. You will then be able to buy and sell, have bank accounts, everything. And you won’t run the risk of being executed if you don’t have this code on your forehead.”

“This has to be a joke,” Sean whispered.

“Don’t do it guys,” said David, under his breath. “This looks bad.”

Three of the men with guns led the people from the back of the pick-up towards the back of the Humvee. Two of the people in line, a man and a woman, appeared to be arguing with each other. One of the people in line, a Hispanic woman in her 40’s, walked up to the machine, and one of the men cut the zip tie that held her hands together. She then put their head into the machine, and her right thumb onto the flat part of the machine to the right. A brief red light shone onto the women’s forehead. The machine stopped. She then backed away from the machine and rubbed her wrists. She felt her forehead, and checked her fingers for blood. She shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, “What’s the big deal?” She turned and walked to the back of the second pick-up and leaned onto the side of the truck, watching the others.

A second person, a thin guy with red hair, was directed towards the back of the Humvee. Two of the other people in line continued to argue with each other. The woman could be heard saying to the man “Just get it over with!” The man yelled back at her, “I’m not going to take the Mark! That’s it! We talked about this!”

“Good for you, Kirk,” David whispered. “And I cannot believe Jackie is willing to do this.”

“Should I shoot these guys?” Sean asked David, pulling his .22 rifle closer.

“No,” you will miss and just give our position anyway,” David answered. “Besides, I count five guys with machine guns. They could shoot back and we would be history.” He paused. “I cannot believe we are even talking like this.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No, it’s not you. I just never thought I would be seriously talking about shooting people. Only a few minutes ago we were talking about my messed-up business trip. This is crazy.”

The red-haired man then approached the machine and the zip tie holding his hands was cut. He put his face into the machine, and his right thumb onto the flat part to the right. A red light briefly shone onto his forehead. He then backed away, and he walked back to the second pick-up truck and stood next to the Hispanic woman, watching the others.

The next person to be directed towards the Humvee was an olive-skinned woman in her 30’s, with long brown hair. One of the men with machine guns cut the zip tie holding her hands and she put her face and thumb onto the machine, and one of the men with guns held back her hair.

As Kirk and Jackie’s arguing got louder, Kirk yelled at Jackie, “Just don’t do it. Just say no!”

“They’ll kill us otherwise!” Jackie screamed back.

“This is wrong,” Kirk shouted. “I’m not going to take the Mark, and that is final!”

“Preach it, Kirk,” David whispered. “Preach it good.”

A red light flashed on the woman’s forehead. She stepped back. She massaged her left wrist. She then walked to the back of the second pick-up truck with the two others before her.

A blonde, effeminate-looking college-age man was directed towards the Humvee. Jackie jumped in front of him, and looked back at Kirk. She yelled, “I’ll show you. It is no big deal. Just get it done and they will leave us alone and we can go home.”

Jackie nudged aside the college-age man and walked to the Humvee, where one of the men cut the zip tie holding her hands together and she quickly put her face and thumb into the machine. “Jackie, no!” Kirk roared. He tried to approach the Humvee but was held back by two of the men with machine guns.

“No! No!” Kirk continued to shout.

“Don’t do it, Jackie,” David whispered.

The red light flashed onto Jackie’s forehead. Jackie backed away from the Humvee, quickly squeezed her right wrist and massaged her right shoulder. She was directed back to the others, but she approached Kirk.

“See,” she said, taunting Kirk. She waived her arms. “Nothing has happened to me. I got the Mark and I am fine. No big deal. It’s done. Am I going to Hell? It sure doesn’t feel like it! I’m still right here. Just get this thing on your forehead and let’s get out of here!”

“Jackie, Jackie,” Kirk started to cry. “I can’t believe you just did that.” One of the men with machine guns directed Jackie to wait with the others.

The college-age man looked at Jackie, and then approached the Humvee. The man with the megaphone stopped him and asked, “You aren’t homosexual, are you? A gay?”

Startled, the man replied, “No, no. Of course not. That’s illegal.”

“OK.” The leader looked reassured, and he let the college-age man by. The man then walked towards the Humvee.

One of the men cut his zip tie, and the college-age man put his head and thumb into the machine. A moment later, it was over. He joined the others.

“I refuse to take that Mark!” Kirk yelled at the guy with the megaphone. “I don’t care. The Bible is very clear on this. I’m not going to do it.”

“Right on, Kirk,” David whispered. “Good for you.”

Two men holding machine guns grabbed Kirk and tried to walk him to the Humvee, but he resisted. Jackie ran to Kirk’s defense. “Leave him alone! You’re hurting him!” One of the men with machine guns pointed his gun at Jackie and directed her to go wait with the others. Jackie started walking back.

The men pushed Kirk to the ground. A couple of the men started to punch him. A third kicked him in the stomach. “I’m not gonna do it!” Kirk yelled. The man with the megaphone put the megaphone back in the front seat of the Humvee while the others continued to beat Kirk.

Jackie ran back to Kirk. “Get off of him!” One of the men with machine guns pointed his gun at her and she stopped. He followed her to the back of the second pick-up with the others. The others waiting there tensed and stepped away from the pick-up. The man with the machine gun kept his gun pointed at Jackie.

“Oh no,” David whispered. “God, please, make it stop.”

The men stopped beating Kirk and lifted him up off the ground. The man walking back from the Humvee again asked Kirk if he would take the Mark. Kirk shook his head “No.”

He asked Kirk again. Kirk yelled “No!”

“Are you sure? Don’t you know we could kill you?”

Kirk repeated, “There is no way I am taking the Mark.”

“OK,” the man said, and nodded to two of the men with guns. They walked to the back of the third truck. One of them lowered the tailgate and a long, silver chrome object could be seen laying in the back of the pick-up truck.

One of the men put his arm through his gun strap and put his gun behind him so that he could use both hands on the pick-up truck. He reached for some controls inside the truck bed, behind the passenger seat. The ‘wrrr” of hydraulics could be heard. The chrome metal device started raising up in the back of the pick-up truck. It was a guillotine, with the blade down. The man pulled a rope from the top and the blade was drawn to the top of the guillotine.

“No way,” David whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

“Maybe they’re bluffing,” Sean said. David nodded, “No.”

“If you don’t take the Mark, you will be killed!” The leader announced to Kirk.

“No!” Jackie cried out. She ran towards Kirk but the man guarding her slammed his rifle butt into her stomach. She fell on the ground in pain. The man pointed his gun at the others waiting nearby, and they held their hands up.

The men moved Kirk, who was struggling, to the guillotine. “The Bible is crystal clear on this! I will not take the Mark!” Kirk shouted. The men struggled with Kirk, who looked skyward. “Jesus take me …” Kirk continued, but the rest of his words could not be heard amongst struggle. Kirk was pushed over so that he was lying face-down down in the back of the pick-up truck. One of the men reached down and grabbed Kirk’s hair as the others pushed Kirk further into the position of the guillotine.

“You cannot do this!” Jackie yelled. “I just took the Mark, so leave him alone!” The man with a gun on her held her back.

“God, please…” David whispered.

The blade quickly came down, and the man holding onto Kirk’s hair lifted the separated head up. Blood poured out. The man threw the head onto the roadblock nearby.

Both David and Sean sat there in silence, mouths open. Jackie fell to the ground and cried violently.

One of the men reached into Kirk’s back pocket and got his wallet. He looked through it, then put it into his own pocket. Two of the men grabbed Kirk’s body and tossed it onto the roadblock. A “wrrr” hydraulic sound could be heard again as the man at the controls lowered the guillotine back down into the back of the pick-up truck. One of the men raised the tail gate.

Jackie writhed on the ground, crying.

The leader went back to the Humvee and got the megaphone. He looked up into the hills, turned on the megaphone, and spoke. “We are serious about everyone taking the Mark of Allegiance. It is the law. Receive it or die. On the other hand,” he paused and gestured to those waiting at the back of the second pick-up truck, “for those who take it, the Mark of Allegiance is the start of a bright, new future.”

He spoke to the other men there. “Let’s go.” They directed the other people who had taken the Mark into the back of the second pick-up truck. Jackie did not want to go, and they left her there. The men with the guns got in the trucks and drove back down the road and left. Jackie approached Kirk’s body and stopped a few feet away. She put her hand to her mouth and nose, still crying.

****

CHAPTER 3

David and Sean sat in silence, staring at Jackie at the roadblock. A sound of liquid nearby could be heard. It was David, wetting his pants. The two continued to sit and watch, with their mouths open, barely breathing.

Jackie stood nearby Kirk’s body, and she appeared to pray. She then turned and walked down the road in the same direction of the trucks. Before she rounded the turn in the road, she looked back for one last look at the roadblock area.

David and Sean continued to look at the roadblock area, in silence. Thirty minutes went by, and the two said nothing.

Sean whispered, “I cannot believe … that … just happened.” Sean leaned outside the observation post and tried to throw up, but nothing came out. He was dry heaving.

“No. No. No,” David whispered. “Poor Kirk.” He paused. “I can’t believe it. We asked him and Jackie to join us up here.”

“Huh?” was all Sean could say. There was no answer. The two sat in silence for another 10 minutes, looking at the roadblock and Kirk’s body.

“We are going to have to get up, Sean. Let’s get out of here. I can’t stand this, just sitting here,” David said. He took a deep breath and looked at Sean. “Let’s go back. I know our shift is not up yet. I can’t just sit here. I have to go.”

“OK,” Sean mumbled.

David looked towards the back of their post. “I don’t know if I can even walk.” He crawled out and laid on the ground. A few tears rolled down his cheeks. He wiped his face. “Let’s go, Sean. Just leave everything behind. The guns and the walkie-talkie. Just leave it all here.”

“Wait,” David looked more awake. He looked to a neighboring hillside, then back at Sean. “Hand me that walkie-talkie.” Sean handed it to David, who then turned it on and changed a channel on it.

David looked over to the school bus on the nearby hill. He pressed the button to talk on the walkie-talkie. “Alex, are you over there? Did you see that?”

A reply came back on the walkie-talkie. A man with a distinct southern drawl, whispered “I can’t stop throwing up.”

David answered “Kirk was a good man.”

Alex replied, “Heck yeah he was. He thought we were all jumping the gun up here, but he was a good man.”

“And what got into Jackie, I have no idea. What was she thinking?”

“Yeah, she really blew it.”

“Yeah, she took the Mark. She actually took the Mark. I don’t know. Well, we are going back.”

“Same here. No one’s going to believe this,” Alex said.

David looked at Sean. “I so wish none of that just happened. I still can’t believe it.”

Sean got out of the post and walked towards the dirt road above. “Can you walk?”

“I’ll try.” David turned off the walkie-talkie and put it back into the post.

David stood up, and a clear wet mark was visible on the front of his jeans. He looked down. “And I wet myself.” He sat back down.

“I almost threw up, so don’t feel bad,” Sean tried to reassure David. “Let’s see if we can get back.”

David stood back up and walked with Sean to the dirt road behind their post. David looked back at the roadblock. “I’m just … speechless. This is a nightmare.”

They walked in silence about another hundred yards towards the camp. “Sean, have you ever seen a person get killed? That was a totally new thing for me. A few years ago I was sitting at my mom’s hospital bedside when she died, but that was different. She was sedated and I knew that it was going to happen. She was in pain and I was actually relieved when she died. But this was different. I have never seen a violent death like that. Anytime I watched the news and a film was shown on someone killing someone else, like all the Muslim killings you see nowadays, I would look away. I can’t stand that stuff. I never thought I would ever see someone get killed right in front of me. Have you?”

“Never have. I knew I would eventually have to see that. I was thinking of joining the military, and that was something I figured I would eventually have to see.”

“I have to sit down, Sean. I’m sorry,” David said. “I guess I’m shallow breathing.” The two sat down on the road. Sean sat up while David laid down flat on the road with his knees up.

“I still cannot believe what we saw,” David said. “I’m just numb.” He paused. “I think this is why some soldiers come back from war as basket cases. With PTSD and all.”

“If it will help, you can just talk about it.”

“You’re a good kid, Sean. Thanks.” David’s eyes moistened. He wiped the tears away. “What about you? How are you taking this?”

Sean paused. “It’s a lot to take in, that’s for sure. I guess I keep thinking about how we are going to die someday, and let’s face it, that was pretty quick. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Well I guess that’s true. The actual death itself was fast.”

“Did you know Jackie?”

“Yes. We invited Kirk and Jackie both to join us up here if and when the end came. They don’t live too far from here. Kirk thought we were being silly. They could barely stop laughing at us. They said ‘we are also Christians, and we believe the Bible like you guys, but think about what you are saying. Kind of tin foil hat stuff, don’t you think?’”

“And now she has taken the Mark.”

“Yes, and that is something I would never have believed. Jackie taking the Mark was even more of a shock than Kirk getting killed. She really, really blew it.” David looked at Sean, and sounded like a teacher. “Taking the Mark is a horrible, horrible thing to do. A big mistake. There is no turning back for Jackie.”

“I know.”

“This is horrible. Whenever a Christian friend I knew died, I would always tell myself that I knew someone in heaven, right there with Jesus. Forever. Well, with Jackie, I can now say I know someone who is on their way to Hell. And nothing can ever change that. I know that is harsh thing to say, Sean, but it is true. It is right there in the Bible. Don’t even think of ever taking the Mark.”

David stood up. “I think I can go now.” Sean got up.

Sean said, “I think Kirk and Jackie have several friends up here.”

“Yes, Peter used to work with Kirk, and Kathy used to date Kirk. That’s what I heard.”

Sean stopped and looked at David.

“I mean Kathy used to date Kirk before Kirk married Jackie. I know it’s a little hard to keep straight.”

“Oh, I see.”

The two followed the dirt road uphill, out of sight of the observation post.

****

CHAPTER 4

The main compound was surrounded by tall pine trees, with a smoldering campfire in the middle. The woods around the center of the compound were populated with sheds and camping tents, with cars and RV’s parked outside a perimeter. Lawn chairs sprinkled the whole area. The property owners, Jesse and Mary, had a cabin to the west and uphill from the main camp. David and his wife Gloria had a cabin to the north and uphill from the camp. Behind David and Gloria’s cabin, tucked amongst some more hills, was an RV trailer in which Lawson, a retired Navy chaplain, and Lois, his wife and former nursing instructor, lived.

Nearby the fire were six men in their 30’s and 40’s, taking turns chopping and splitting wood with a single ax. All wore jeans and different colored flannel shirts.

It was Jesse’s turn. Jesse was an olive-skinned man in his 40’s, with dark hair and a short beard. He wore some jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt. As the ax was handed to him, he looked downhill on the driveway and saw David and Sean slowly walking towards the compound. David’s wet mark on his pants could be easily seen.

One of the other men also saw David and smirked. Before he could say anything, Jesse said “David, are you OK?” Jesse looked concerned, then he looked at Sean.

Jesse put down the ax and walked towards David, meeting him half-way. “David, if you need one of those adult diapers we have a ton of them in the container over there. Unless…”

David got closer. “That’s not it, Jesse.” The other men looked at David. One of them men said “David, what happened? Are you alright?”

“Not really,” David said as he walked towards the men and sat in a nearby chair. Sean stood next to him. “As you can see for yourself, I pissed myself.”

Jesse asked him, “So? What happened down there? Your replacements are there, right?” Jesse looked to the other men there. “Someone go get Gloria.” One of the men ran off.

Sean answered, “They should be there by now, but we had to leave. We just saw, uh…” Sean couldn’t finish. He looked down.

Jesse pulled up another chair. “Here, Sean, have a seat. Both of you guys look pretty bad. What happened?”

David tried, “We just saw Kirk,” he paused, his eyes teared up and he stopped talking.

Jesse said, “Yes, Kirk, the guy who lives down the road? What did you see, David?”

“We saw … there were a lot of guns.” David couldn’t finish. He looked into the distance and tried to stop tearing up.

Sean said, “Kirk got beheaded, and it happened right in front of us.” The men shuddered. One man, Peter, a shorter man wearing a dark green shirt, stepped close to David, went to one knee and leaned against the armrest on David’s chair. “What?”

“David, can you tell us what happened? How… ?” Peter asked.

David took a deep breath. “Remember how we were talking about the proposal to force everyone to take some kind of mark on their forehead that was mostly invisible except to machines? Some kind of bar code?”

Jesse answered, “Yes, we had heard that but I didn’t think the proposal had passed. Just a lot of talk, so far as I heard. And I know that,” Jesse paused and looked at the other men, “the Mark is something we Christians are just not supposed to take. Not ever.”

Sean spoke up. “Well, they brought up some people in a pick-up truck and pointed guns at them and tried to make them all take the Mark.”

“Who are you talking about, Sean?” Jesse asked.

“It looked like a bunch of Muslim men in trucks,” David said. One of the men nearby hurriedly walked towards one of the tents. “They came to the roadblock and had some kind of machine that would imprint the Mark on people, and one by one, the men forced everyone there to receive it.”

“Wait a minute,” another man, Andrew, said. Andrew was a thin man with black hair, looking older than his 25 years. “Some machine that would put the Mark on people’s foreheads?”

“Apparently,” David answered. He looked at Andrew and took a deep breath. “I guess you never heard the news about the proposal to get everyone to take a mark of some kind on their foreheads, so that the government could keep track of everyone?”

Jesse said, “Yeah, that was a crazy idea. Obviously satanic. But what was so strange about it was that no one in the government seemed to know how bad an idea it was.” Jesse looked back at David. “So I guess it’s here, and they brought some people up to the road block to take the Mark right in front of you guys.”

David paused and inhaled. “Yeah, and one by one, all the people there all took the Mark, including Jackie,” he paused again.

Peter leaned forward, “Wait! Jackie took the Mark? Are you sure?”

“Yes. It happened,” David sighed. “I saw Jackie take the Mark. No doubt about it.”

Both Jesse and Peter looked at each other, shocked. The other men there tensed up. One said quietly, “No…”

“Jackie …?” Peter tried to confirm.

“She did it right in front of us. Right there.”

“And then they beheaded Kirk?”

“They just killed him,” David answered without emotion. “They beheaded him. Right in front of us. They beheaded Kirk.”

Several slight gasps could be heard. No one said anything. Peter stood up and turned around as he put his hand on his mouth.

Several women and one man left a tent nearby and approached David. One of the women asked, “David, are you OK? What happened?”

Jesse interjected, “Some men drove up to the roadblock and killed Kirk.”

“Kirk the neighbor?”

“Yes.”

The small crowd grew confused and shocked, and started asking the same questions again.

“Look, guys, Sean and I were there at the observation post and we saw a group of trucks drive up and stop. It looked like a bunch of Muslim men got out with guns and started forcing everyone they brought with them to take what they called the Mark of Allegiance.”

Jesse started pacing nearby.

“How did the …?”

“They had a machine on the back of one of their trucks,” David continued. “Some kind of machine that would put the Mark on people’s foreheads and match it up with their thumbprint. Everyone there but Kirk took it. Jackie included. By the way… – “

One of the women interrupted David. “Excuse me David, but did you say that Jackie took the Mark?”

“Yes, I saw it with my own eyes.” Gasps could be heard from the women. David continued, “And they killed Kirk because he wouldn’t take the Mark. They beheaded him.”

“I can’t believe it. That is horrible,” Peter said. “I just can’t believe it. Where is Jackie now?”

“She walked back with everyone else,” David said. “You know, I didn’t sign up for this.”

Jesse re-approached David, looking angry. “You didn’t sign up for this? What a stupid thing to say! Of course you didn’t sign up for this! None of us signed up for this!”

One of the men snapped at Jesse. “Give him a break. He just saw Kirk get killed.”

“Hey Jesse, back off,” David said. “You weren’t there.”

“A dumb comment,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “Really, really dumb.”

“Give it a rest, Jesse,” Peter said, almost sounding angry.

“OK, OK, sorry.”

Peter looked at David. “David, did the men take Kirk’s body? He was a friend of mine. I worked with him in his shop a few years ago before I enlisted.”

*****

A lean, muscular, fair-skinned woman with short brown hair approached David. She looked angry. “David, is it true that someone killed Kirk?”

“Yes, Kathy, I saw --”

“Who did it?” Kathy insisted.

“Well, there were several of them, with guns.”

“Was there anyone in charge? Who was he? Or was it a she?”

“It was a ‘he,’” David answered. “They looked like Muslims. They don’t include women, except for maybe blowing themselves up once in a while. You know that.”

“Alright, what did he look like?”

“I don’t know, a middle-eastern guy, about 5-5, wearing fatigues, black hair and a beard, and he wore one of those weird scarfs they all wear.”

“Oh great,” Kathy said. “That narrows it down.”

“What, are we talking revenge here, Kathy?” Jesse asked.

“Yes,” Kathy said coldly. “I’ll kill the guy if I get a chance.”

“Look, Kathy, we leave revenge to God,” Jesse warned Kathy. “Whoever did this will be rotting in Hell soon.”

“Yeah, and I just want to help him get there,” Kathy blurted out, then walked back to her tent.

“Kathy, we’re not about revenge,” Jesse said, his voice trailing off as Kathy left. He held up his hands as if to ask what was going on.

Gloria, David’s wife, ran towards David. Gloria was short, slightly-heavy woman with dark blond hair. “David, are you OK?” David stood up and they hugged. David’s eyes teared up again. “Honey, I guess I’m not a good Christian soldier.” Peter stood up and backed away.

Peter looked back at David. “David, do you mind if I ask one more thing? What did those guys do with, you know, what was left of Kirk’s body?”

“They threw the body onto the roadblock.”

“The head too?”

“Yes.”

****

CHAPTER 5

Peter looked around. The people were all talking about what had happened, and expressed shock and horror. Peter approached Jesse.

“Jesse, we have to go get the body. We have to bury Kirk. Right now the vultures out there are probably starting to eat him. I don’t want to leave him behind. He was a friend of mine.”

“Peter,” Jesse answered. “Man, I’m just the owner of this property. I’m not some kind of military commander. That’s your thing, not mine.” He paused. “This sounds crazy. Kind of dumb. But I know you guys were close. I don’t know. Do whatever you want. It’s up to you.”

Peter left the crowd and walked to Kathy’s tent, and stopped by the front flap that had been zipped close. “Knock, knock,” he announced.

Kathy said, “Who is that, Jesse? I’m OK. I’ve calmed down a little.”

“No, it’s me, Peter.”

“Come on in.” Peter opened the flap and walked into the tent. Kathy rushed to hug Peter. “They’ve killed Kirk,” she cried. “It’s still sinking in. I hate this.”

“I know. I can’t believe it.” Peter breathed heavily to keep from crying. “Stubborn guy that he was. He should have come up here.” The two stopped hugging. Kathy sat on the only chair in the tent while Peter sat on the floor.

“Oh, sorry,” Kathy looked at Peter sitting on the ground. “Here, take my seat. Or we could open up the cot.”

“No that’s OK. I’m fine.”

“What do you think happened to Jackie?”

“I heard she took the Mark.”

“Well that was a huge mistake. What else could she have done wrong?”

“We don’t know anything else, and frankly I’m not eager to ask any more details. David and Sean looked pretty shaken up. In shock, really. I saw a lot of that in the Marines.”

“I still can’t believe it. He’s gone.”

Peter folded his arms, looking serious. “Hey Kathy, I was thinking …”

“What?”

“You know the back trail I go, to drop off the entrails.”

“What do you mean? Go to the roadblock?”

“I was thinking of getting Kirk’s body so that we could bring it back here and bury it.”

“Ugh. You’re a good friend of his.”

“I’ve been around dead bodies before. More times than I care to think about.”

“I guess Jackie’s not burying the body?” Kathy sounded angry at Jackie.

“No. Apparently Jackie just took off. She just left his body there. I distinctly heard that.”

“Pretty ironic, don’t you think?” Kathy said. “Bringing up Kirk’s body and burying it on a piece of property he didn’t want to go to.”

“That’s true. Well, he never saw all this coming. Let’s face it, if you told me a few months ago what we are going through right now I would say you are crazy. No one saw it coming.”

“Yes, that’s true. It was all pretty fast. What did Jesus say in Matthew 24? ‘Just run.’ Well, here we are. We ran.”

“And here we are.” Peter stood up, started to leave the tent. “I think I will go and get his body, before the birds start feasting on him. If you can come along, that would be great. To watch my back, or if I need help with something. I would rather not go down there alone. But I can understand if you don’t want to come.”

Kathy looked at Peter, thinking it over. “Kind of like in the Old Testament, when they went and got King Saul’s body.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. In fact, that’s exactly what it is.”

Kathy looked resolved, but said nothing.

“Just think it over, Kathy.” Peter walked out.

“Alright,” Kathy said. “I’m in. But you handle the body.”

“OK.”

“In fact I really don’t even want to see it at all. And I want to stay back from the roadblock. I hear that it smells pretty bad there. Just disgusting.”

“It’s supposed to. But that’s OK. I can handle the body.”

“When are you going?”

“Give me a few minutes. Not very long.” Peter walked out of the tent.

****

CHAPTER 6

“Alright, who is at the observation post right now?” Peter asked Jesse. Peter had with him a large heavy-duty, dark green duffle bag and a game cart that enabled hunters to bring home deer that had been killed. Except this time the cart would be used to bring Kirk’s body back.

“I think right now Justin and Tracy are over there. The Happy Twins.” Justin and Tracy, twin brother and sister, had earned a reputation in the church of always being happy and telling jokes, even during stressful times. “Not that you guys are going that way, right?” Jesse asked Peter and Kathy.

“No, we’re going the back way.” Peter said. “The hiking trail. And don’t worry, we will make sure to leave it all covered up. I was just curious who was up at the observation post.”

“Oh, OK.”

“By the way,” Kathy said, “is this duffel bag and game cart all you could find to carry Kirk’s body back up here?”

“Yeah, that’s all I could find. And like I said, I will handle the body.”

“Hmm, good.” Kathy said. Kathy rested her right hand on the black nylon gun holster that was connected to her belt.

“OK, let’s go,” Peter said, turning around.

“Peter, wait a minute,” Jesse said. “We have some more entrails for you to drop off at the roadblock.”

“What, like it’s not smelly enough down there?”

“Not yet. Here,” Jesse said, handing over a heavy black plastic trash bag to Peter.

“OK, thanks. Give us about an hour and we should be back with Kirk’s body.”

Jesse started walking away. “Alright, I’ll get someone to start digging a grave, and maybe we can ask Lawson to get ready to say a few words. It’ll have to be quick.” He stopped himself and turned back. “Wait. We should say a prayer before you guys go.”

The three of them bowed their heads and held hands. Jesse began, “Heavenly Father, we thank you for the life and friendship of Kirk, and we thank you for his brave example. We ask that you bless Peter and Kathy, and hide and protect them from the evil men who killed Kirk. We ask that you make this a good excursion, keep them safe, and keep their spirits up. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Peter and Kathy both said, “Amen.”

“Stay safe you two,” Jesse said as he gave a short wave and walked back towards to center of the compound.

“We’ll be back soon,” Peter said.

*****

Peter and Kathy began to walk into the woods, almost immediately disappearing into the dense forest. The hiking trail, more of a deer path, was covered with thick bush that was intentionally not cleared. It was hard to keep sight of the trail that they were walking on.

“Kathy, I noticed you brought your gun. Did you fill the magazine?” Peter pushed aside a few branches to walk on the trail.

“Yes, my Glock 45. I hope we don’t need it, but I want to have it just in case.”

“Just remember that a gunshot make a lot of noise. Those 45’s are very loud. But a single gun won’t protect much us from those thugs who killed Kirk.”

“That’s true, but it sounds like the guys who killed Kirk drove up here real fast. I just want to be ready in case they return.” Kathy said. “Hey, slow down.”

“Oh, sorry. I have just made this trip so much lately. It seems like,” Peter bent over as he walked so that he could walk beneath a thick tree branch that hung over the trail. “Lately it seems like I have been the garbage man around here. Not only deer entrails like these here, or that bobcat that someone killed and tried to eat a couple weeks ago, but also with just about any trash that might make the roadblock any smellier. I get sent down there to drop off whatever stinks.” Peter paused and walked slower, thinking that what he was about to say was funny. He tried to smile. “I came up with a name for this trail: ‘the Entrail Trail.’ Of course not many people think that’s very funny.”

“Probably because most normal people think entrails are gross.”

“Could be.” Peter resumed his hike. “Well I think it’s funny anyway. The entrails keep coming, and I keep bringing them down to the roadblock. And it is getting pretty smelly. In fact, smellier than we had hoped. That’s part of what makes it a great roadblock.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the smell’s pretty bad.”

“That’s for sure. The roadblock all started with a couple of tank traps, you know, those steel x’s that screw up trucks or tanks that might try to drive through.”

“Yes, I was nearby when Jesse ranted about getting overcharged for those things.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. $150 apiece for some pretty simple welding jobs. Jesse would have bought more but he was still paying off one of the camping sheds at the time.”

The two walked in silence for a while.

“Those tank traps weren’t very solid in the ground there. I think they were stuck there just with a couple of tent stakes, so we started throwing tree branches and trash onto it, then deer entrails and dead animals,” he paused. “And that is the roadblock we have today.”

“Well, it’s occurred to me that because that roadblock is on a cliff road, we could always just blow up the road,” Kathy said. The two followed the trail as it took a sharp turn left. “I think someone up here has a few sticks of dynamite. We could also make some more.”

“That’s kind of a big deal, but I guess it is do-able. Do you know if anyone up here has ever done something like that before?”

“Nope.”

“Well, that might be a good last resort. Of course we would also have to get the Mormons up the road to agree. The Alexes. This road leads to their place too. So we would have to powwow with them first.”

“I never knew why they are called the Alexes. Are they all named Alex or something?”

“No, but there are three or four of them named Alex, hence the group name. We just call them all Alex. It seems to fit.” Peter paused to catch his breath. “Another issue about blowing up the road: I would hate to have someone try that and hurt themselves. Or blow themselves up.”

The trail straightened out but a few low branches blocked the path ahead. “Oh well, let’s face it, who am I kidding?” Peter added. “I would be the one who gets volunteered to do it.”

“We could drill some holes into the middle of the road with the post-hole digger, then drop down a few sticks of dynamite. I don’t know. You’re the Marine. Isn’t that how it is done?”

“Yes, that’s the way to do it. Hey, watch your head.” Peter let go of a branch that would have hit Kathy’s head but she ducked in time.

“Thanks.”

“Kathy, I was wondering. Hey, watch this root.” Peter stepped over a tree root that came up about seven inches from the trail floor. He pulled the game cart over the root.

“Wondering about what?” Kathy stepped over the root.

The two continued down the trail. “Well, I know it is none of my business, and feel free to not answer this, but what happened between you and Kirk? I mean, I worked for him in his machine shop until I enlisted. Then I hear you started going out with him. You know, I was in Iraq and I got one of those letters with all the news from home. I read that you guys were getting pretty close, maybe even getting married. That’s all I heard. Next thing I knew, Kirk was getting married to Jackie and people were collecting money to help pay for the honeymoon.”

“Well, you’re right. It’s none of your business.”

“Alright. Forget I asked. I’m just doing some 20-20 hindsight here. I figure that if you were still with Kirk, he would be alive right now. But never mind. None of my business.”

“No, that’s OK. I guess I still have feelings for him. That’s probably pretty obvious. I know it’s been a few years. I still resent Jackie busting us up. Kirk never knew what hit him. Some women are good at that.”

Peter, trying to change the subject, said “Hey, did you notice how, when the news came out that Kirk was killed, it seemed like everyone looked at us. At least that is how it felt for me. I think you and I were his closest friends up here.”

“And Jackie…”

“Ho boy,” Peter sighed. “She really blew it.”

“Yeah, you got that right.”

The two walked in silence some more, rounding another turn to the right. One of the wheels of the game cart started to squeak slightly.

Kathy said, “If I ever start to take the Mark, you have my permission to kill me.”

“I think there is more to it than that.”

“How’s that?”

“Look, I’m not a theologian, but I do know this. The Mark is something that you don’t just choose to take. We are already marked by God. Anyone who takes the Mark has already, whether they know it or not, chosen to follow Satan. It’s an act of worship. The Mark just finalizes it. And there is no turning back.”

“Wait,” Kathy paused. “So you’re saying … are you saying the Mark is more like a symptom of some other problem? Something that comes along and happens when you have already made the decision before it?”

“That’s the way I understand it. There’s no turning back. See, if you are really saved, a real Christian, then you can’t lose your salvation. That was in 1st Corinthians I think. Your faith can grow dormant, but you will always be a Christian. So,” Peter got quiet as he saw a clearing up ahead. “That means that a real Christian will never take the Mark. You can’t. You’re already marked by God.”

“So anyone who takes the Mark was never a real Christian in the first place. That sounds kind of Calvinist. Like anything un-Christian that happens to a Christian means that the Christian was never a Christian to begin with.”

“Yeah, I know, it sounds kind of circular. But it is real. That’s how it is. A real Christian sins but will never take the Mark. By the way, I am always nervous about this clearing up here. I try to walk around the edges, closer to the forest, so I don’t stick out so much.”

“You are a well-trained Marine.”

“Oh right. I learned about hiding in thick forests when I was in Iraq,” Peter joked.

“I wish I could keep my wits about me in the middle of bad news like you can. You have had a pretty good attitude about all this.”

“Thanks.”

“As for me, I have been going from shock of our current situation, to sadness, and now to anger over the killing of my ex-boyfriend. For me, laughing or even trying to crack a joke is impossible. I’m not like the happy twins, Justin and Tracy, you know. Or, to a lesser extent, you. Laughing for me right now is a totally foreign concept. And it has been that way for me since that peace conference in Jerusalem. I haven’t had a big laugh in who knows how long. At least a month.”

The two followed the trail back into dense forest. “I thought that was smart of Jesse to tell us all at that meeting a few days ago to encourage jokes and laughter,” Peter said. “Even corny jokes. It lightens things up a little, and I think it works.”

“Not with me. I find it impossible to laugh or be happy when I’m in a stressful situation, or in a setting where I feel like I don’t belong. We’re in this retreat, and I know I have to be here, but it doesn’t feel like home. I can’t laugh. Laughing would imply that I am comfortable where I am.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Or, like today, when I’m nearby someone who gets killed. I’m too shocked to even think about anything funny.”

“Well, I remember the shock I had in Iraq. I had just finished training, then I flew to Iraq and within a day or two I started seeing real killing. I mean, killing that was right in front of me.”

“What did you do?”

“I started reading my Bible. And it wasn’t a casual thing. I read the Bible so intensely that I felt like I was almost memorizing it. I would dwell on a whole sentence at a time. I would read a sentence and wonder, ‘why did God have that sentence put there?’ I would think about it and then go on to the next verse. Anyway, they say that there are no atheists in foxholes, and they’re right. I was never in a foxhole but being so close to all the carnage there brought me straight to the Bible. There is something completely soothing about reading the Bible. The ‘peace that passes all understanding.’ That kind of thing.”

The two hiked for a while in silence.

“OK Kathy, we are getting pretty close to the road up here. When we get there I just need you to look out for me while I get Kirk’s body and load it up into this cart.”

“OK. Oh, this is disgusting. Here is the smell people have been talking about.”

“More like bragging about.”

****

CHAPTER 7

Peter came to the end of the trail, onto the dirt road in front of the roadblock. He looked both ways out onto the road, then he and Kathy left the brush and walked onto the dirt road, a quarter of a mile from the observation post. On the other side and downhill from the road was a steep drop, and beyond that was the valley below.

Peter carefully placed some branches back onto the opening of the trail. They walked on the dirt road towards the roadblock, right where the pick-up trucks had parked when the men killed Kirk.

“Peter, if you don’t mind, I’ll stay back.” Kathy covered her mouth and nose. She turned around and walked back toward the trail opening. She looked to the other end of the road from where David and Sean first saw the trucks arrive. “The smell here is… Well, I’ll stop complaining. I just didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“It sure is.” Peter approached the roadblock and started emptying the trash bag. Bloody deer intestines flowed out of the bag and onto some leaves and branches that were part of the roadblock. Peter looked to his right and saw Kirk’s body deeper into the roadblock, covered with flies.

“I see his head. It’s over here,” Kathy said, pointing. “I really wish I hadn’t seen that.”

“I’ll get it. You can go back into the trail if you want.”

“I just might.” Kathy stood at the opening of the trail.

“If you go back into the trail, make sure to keep the brush there that covers the opening. No one but us knows about that trail.”

Peter approached Kirk’s body with the green duffle bag. He grabbed a leg and pulled the body closer. Peter whispered, “You were a good man, Kirk. You didn’t deserve this. I love you, brother.”

Peter put Kirk’s body into the duffel bag, shoulders first. Kirk’s body fit into the bag but the boots stuck out the top. Peter looked up the wooded hill on the other side of the roadblock. He could barely make out where the observation post was, in the middle of thick forest. He nodded in the direction of the post, then walked towards Kathy.

“Peter, I really thought I would be better at this. This is really unbearable. I need to sit down.” Kathy sat down on the ground. Her gun holster stuck out from her waist. “I feel sick.”

Peter approached Kirk’s severed head. “That’s OK, Kathy. You can start back if you want.” Peter grabbed Kirk’s hair and picked up the head. “OK, now even I’m getting nauseated,” he whispered. He put the head in the bag and tightened the draw-string. Kirk’s boots still stuck out of the top of the duffel bag, which Peter then dragged onto the game cart.

*****

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Jackie stepped out from behind a turn in the road that had been hidden by a hill. She walked towards Peter. Her eyes were puffy. She had clearly been crying.

“Jackie,” Peter said. “How long have you been here?”

Kathy stood up and emerged from the trail with her gun pointed towards Jackie, who looked shocked at the gun pointed at her.

“Who are you?” Jackie asked Kathy.

“Oh give me a break, Jackie. You know who I am. Stop lying.”

“Kathy, put the gun down,” Peter said. Kathy holstered her gun.

“Oh yes, I remember you,” Jackie said to Kathy.

“Hey, why did you let them do this to Kirk?” Kathy asked as she walked closer and put her gun back into its holster.

“You weren’t there. I tried to save him.” Tears rolled down Jackie’s cheeks. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“Jackie, I’m sorry for your loss,” Peter said. “We heard about what happened and we came to get Kirk’s body so that we could bury it. You know I was a good friend of Kirk’s and I don’t want to leave his body out here.”

“Well, good,” Jackie said. She took a deep breath. “That’s good. Thanks. I can’t stand this area but I just wanted to come by one last time. It’s not like I could bury him myself.”

Peter put down the game cart. Jackie clearly tried to avoid looking at it. Peter asked, “Jackie, who were those guys and how did they get you and Kirk?”

Jackie looked Kathy over. She looked at the ground. “What?”

“The people who brought you and Kirk and the other people here, who were they?”

“Local Muslim enforcers. More like thugs. This is the stuff they do, and it is sanctioned by the provisional government. These guys just came by our house and banged on our door and pointed their guns at us. The guy in charge ordered us to the back of that truck and they tied our hands with cords. Stuff like this has been going on a lot lately. It’s a way to keep control over the people. Violence is pretty much all they know. The animals…”

Kathy asked, “How about some names? Do you know any of their names? What did they call each other?”

“I never heard any names at all,” Jackie answered, confused.

“The guy who was in charge, the leader: what about his clothing or marks like tattoos or anything? Anything you can tell me to help me find this guy?” Kathy asked.

“Anything to help you find him?” Jackie asked angrily. “Look, all I remember is a Muslim guy, middle-eastern, so-so English, a little on the short side, wearing dark green clothes. He had brown hair and a beard. That’s about it.”

“Any jewelry, like a watch or a necklace or anything?”

“No, nothing. It’s hard to notice these things when someone has a gun pointed at you,” Jackie snapped.

“Aren’t you even slightly interested in finding the scumbag who was in charge of these thugs? Wouldn’t you like to track him down?”

“Oh, and get myself killed, too? No thanks.”

Kathy looked at Peter. “I want to find that dirt bag someday.”

Peter looked at Jackie. “Did you really take the Mark, Jackie?” Jackie nodded yes. “Do you have any idea…?”

“It was nothing. A laser tattoo that you can barely see. Who cares?”

Peter continued. “That was big, Jackie. You know what the Bible says about those who take the Mark.”

Jackie started getting defensive. “Maybe I can ask Jesus about that. He is coming, you know.”

“Well sure, that’s true,” Peter said.

“No, I mean, he’s already here. There are reports that he will be making the rounds, visiting and speaking to people. Coming to see everyone.”

“What?” Kathy asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Jackie said. “That is the only thing that has helped me get through all this. Jesus is coming through this area. I can’t wait to see him.”

Peter took a step back and looked at Jackie like she was crazy. “Where did you hear this? Wait – it doesn’t matter. You know that is flat-out wrong, don’t you? It’s total BS.”

Jackie looked back at Kathy, then at Peter. “Jesus came here once; why couldn’t He come again? You guys wouldn’t know. You’ve been out of touch with the world. Up there, living like animals. You all should just come back down and live like normal people. It has to be pretty uncomfortable up in those hills. Just like camping, which I always hated. And when winter comes, you guys will freeze.”

“Jackie,” Kathy said, “I still can’t believe you and Kirk had the chance to come up here and you turned it down. Kirk would still be alive.”

“We’re free down here,” Jackie said.

“Oh, really free?” Kathy asked, sarcastically. “Kirk is dead and you are Marked.”

Jackie looked at Kathy. “He told me about you. The hot-headed, skinny one.”

“He’d still be alive if he stayed with me.”

“Shut up.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Jackie,” he paused. “Can you tell us this – what is going on in the world? What is up with the government? Or is there any government?”

“That figures. You people don’t even have radios up there, do you?”

“We have a couple radios, but the news is a mix of cotton candy and sports scores. We can tell that the real news is not being reported. We know we are being lied to. We want to know what has really happened out there.” Peter nodded towards the valley below.

Jackie looked at Peter, then back at Kathy. “I guess you all haven’t heard, have you?”

“Heard what?” The sound of an approaching helicopter could be heard in the distance.

“The government has changed. Well, it’s mostly the same, except elections have been put off for a while. The Muslim legal system, Sharia, is being phased in in some areas. And they are reviewing the rights of the Constitution to see what they want to keep and what will go. It’s kind of strange but at least they got some of the police and the emergency workers to go back to work. And the local cops have set up roadblocks everywhere to try and contain things. And the power has been off but it should be back on pretty soon. Things are getting better, getting back to normal. It’s true.”

Just then a low-flying helicopter emerged from behind a nearby hill and flew directly above the roadblock on its way north. The helicopter continued north but turned around and returned above the roadblock. Kathy ducked into the trail to hide from view, then waited for Peter. Peter grabbed the game cart with the duffel bag and waved at Jackie, as she started running back down the road. Peter hurried back onto the trail, pulling the cart behind him. Kathy quickly put some brush at the opening of the trail and then followed Peter. The helicopter returned and stopped directly above the roadblock, turning around so that the occupants could get a view of the area. The helicopter blew branches, leaves and dust from the roadblock everywhere.

****

CHAPTER 8

Peter and Kathy ran back through the trail towards the camp. Peter pulled the game cart with Kirk’s body in the duffel bag in it as fast as it would go. They ran under the canopy of trees towards the clearing. As they did on their way to the road, they stayed out of the clearing and into the woods so that they would not be seen.

After entering the forest on the other side of the clearing, Peter stopped to rest. Kathy stopped behind him. The noise from the helicopter made talking impossible.

The helicopter rose and left the area, leaving the area as quiet as before. “I guess word is getting around about our roadblock,” Peter said.

“They will be back, scumbags that they are.” Kathy sounded angry. “I wish I had more than my 45 here. I could have blown that chopper from the sky.”

“That would be hard to do with just a 45. Unless, I guess, you shoot at the back rotor. Or the pilot.”

“Kirk’s killers were probably inside the chopper.”

“Sure, that could have been them.”

“It probably wasn’t just a coincidence that the chopper came back to the roadblock where those creeps killed Kirk. For several weeks the roadblock area has been totally ignored, and now it seems to be a big deal with someone out there.”

“Yeah, could be,” Peter said. Kathy looked up the trail.

“Kathy, did you notice that the helicopter was a Huey? They are pretty old, Vietnam era. I don’t know why they would use a Huey. Less high tech than the new helicopters but a lot easier to fly. That one didn’t have any mounted guns, thank God. Those Hueys can strafe pretty good. And did you see how the insignia were painted over? That was really strange. Maybe it’s some kind of a vigilante helicopter.”

“I missed that.” Kathy paused. “I still can’t get over the coincidence of the curiosity of the roadblock. Ignored for so long, now this. I really think the pilot there had something to do with Kirk’s death.”

“You still want revenge?”

“Oh yeah. At least to protect our group. The guys in that helicopter are not just out here, looking around, admiring the scenery. You know they will be coming back.”

Peter started to talk, but Kathy interrupted. “And you’re darn right I want revenge. Do I ever.” Kathy paused and lowered her voice. “I’m really tempted to leave the compound right now and try and track down the guy who killed Kirk.”

Peter tilted the game cart onto its wheels and started back up the trail. He passed up Kathy, and she followed.

“Hey, maybe I can be in front,” Kathy said. “I would rather not look at your cargo there.”

“Sure. Sorry about that.” The bottom of the duffel bag had some noticeable blood soaking through it.

Kathy passed up Peter and the two continued walking up the trail.

“Yeah, I want revenge, alright,” she muttered. “Jackie seems like she wants to just go with the flow or something; I don’t know. I don’t care. If I were married to Kirk I would be tracking down and killing whoever did this to him.”

Peter slowed down. “You need to let it go, Kathy. Do your best. At least try.”

“Not possible. I really want to kill the guy. Sure, I wasn’t his wife but I still had feelings for him. I admit it. Yes, I want to kill the guy who did this, really bad. I have never wanted to kill anyone like I do right now.”

“I’ve been there, believe me.”

“Maybe it’s different with me. Kirk and I were in love.” Kathy lowered her voice a little, and sounded cold. “I want to find the scumbag who did this and squeeze his neck. And I want to keep squeezing. I want my face to be the last thing he sees before he dies. The very last thing.”

“You have to get control of yourself, Kathy. I’m serious.”

The two walked on the trail in silence for a while.

“I understand what you’re feeling. Very angry, wanting revenge. When the killing was all around me in Iraq I read my Bible. Just pick anywhere in the Bible. God will lead you to a part of the Bible that he wants you to read. In my case, I wound up reading a lot of Philippians. Paul wrote that book when he thought he was about to be executed, and it is a happy part of the Bible. That part of the Bible really spoke to me, and it calmed me down.”

“And that worked?”

“Yes. And the killing all around me in Iraq got much worse. I kept my cool by reading the Bible and praying. It got me through.”

“Could be,” Kathy agreed. “I was reading about David the other day. Not our David, but King David. He killed a lot of people.”

“Yeah, that’s true. And killing people really changes you, take it from me. King David, and all his men were probably in shock 24/7. I’ll bet they all had PTSD. And David still wrote parts of the Bible. Pretty incredible.”

“He did it with God’s help,” Kathy said, appearing to calm down a little.

“Yes, amen, that’s the only way he could have done it. Nowadays, anyone who has been around that much killing would be curled up in a fetal position in their apartment or something. David and Sean, for example, probably won’t be sleeping for a few days. They will be messed up for a while. At least David will be. For some reason Sean seems to be handling it better.”

The two hiked further up the trail in silence. “It’s starting to get dark,” Peter said. “But we’ll make it back in time.”

“Peter, how many people did you kill in Iraq?”

“A few. I never forgot my first one, though. At first, I got shot at, and I just stood there, stunned, standing like a mannequin. I realized that the shot missed me. Then I decided to shoot back, and I followed the guy who shot at me. It was weird. It’s like my brain was sitting back, wondering what I would do next. ‘Oh, there he is,’ I said to myself. Like I was watching someone else do this; not me. An out-of-body experience. I shot the guy with a burst from my machine gun. I thought I would be glad but I was just numb.”

“That’s pretty intense.”

“And another thing. It’s been almost seven years, but if someone told me that it all just happened yesterday, I wouldn’t disagree. That’s the thing. Time has almost stood still for me since I killed the guy. It really feels like it was yesterday and it just happened. I still remember everything about it. The sounds, the smells, every detail.”

“I’ve heard about that.”

“The next few times it was a little easier. Then there was a time I killed someone and I was surprised at how little it affected me. Like it was no big deal. I actually dropped a trigger on someone and didn’t feel anything. Couldn’t care less.”

“Huh. I guess after several times of having to kill or be killed …”

“I have to stop again, Kathy. Sorry. This is heavy.” Peter stopped and put down cart with the duffel bag. He rubbed his hands. Kathy stopped and looked back at Peter.

“That’s true, Kathy, you’re right. ‘Kill or be killed.’ After my first experiences near killing, I was in shock. Now Jackie is in shock like I was. That’s what it looked like to me.”

“Yes, she wasn’t making too much sense back there. ‘Jesus is coming to town’ or something. I think there is something in the Bible about watching out for people who say stuff like that.”

“There is. Jesus said something like ‘many will come in my name, claiming to be Me, and will deceive many.’ In Jackie’s case it’s just all icing on the cake to hear that she has been deceived about Jesus coming around. It’s kind of like ‘aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?’ It doesn’t matter. She took the Mark and she is really doomed now.”

“That’s a good way of putting it. I felt kind of strange even talking to her. Not only that she was the one who broke up me and Kirk, but also that she is signed, sealed and delivered for the devil.”

“Yes, I felt it too.” Peter looked down. “I still care for the old Jackie, but she is gone now.” Peter reached for the cart. “Thanks for the rest. I can go now.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They followed the trail further through the forest, towards the camp.

After a few minutes of hiking in silence, Kathy said, “It was weird how it seemed like Jackie had no idea about taking the Mark. I figured that Kirk would have talked to her about it.”

“They were definitely an unevenly-yoked couple. And of the two of them, Kirk is much better off, that’s for sure. Whether Jackie knows it or not. It sounds like Kirk chose death instead of taking the Mark. Good for him.”

“I’m still trying to adjust to the idea that we are living in the End Times, and taking the Mark is even an issue at all. I never thought I would be in this situation,” Kathy said. “Only a few weeks ago things were pretty normal. Now, who knows? It all started happening pretty suddenly. Now we could actually be in danger up here. The thugs who killed Kirk could be back up here soon, trying to kill the rest of us.”

“Yep, that’s true.”

“It sure would be a lot easier if we were all raptured before all this started happening.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the so-called ‘Pre-Tribulation Rapture,’ in which Christians get taken up before the Tribulation begins.”

“Oh yeah, I know what you are talking about,” Peter said. “I heard of that.” He looked at Kathy. “That way would have been nice. You know, Christians just getting taken up into Heaven before the bad stuff starts happening here.”

“Yeah.”

“There is no real support for that belief in the Bible, but yes, it would have been nice. But it is what it is, and here we are. Any Pre-Trib people still around right now are probably getting quite a shock.”

“Yep.”

“It was just wishful thinking.”

*****

The two hiked some more in silence for a while. “I’m just not used to being this close to dying,” Kathy looked back at Peter. “That really changes things.”

“Well, I have come to terms with it.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the way to handle it. Just accept it.”

“No, I mean… well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I could have something wrong with me right now. Either some kind of stomach disease or gallstones, or who knows. I don’t know, but I have been having these sharp pains in my stomach area. Kind of on the side over here.” He gestured to his right side. “I went to see Lois, you know, the nurse, and she said I might have something serious.”

“No way.” Kathy stopped and turned around.

“Yes.”

“Stop it. Lois just told you that and left it at that?”

“Well, Lois is a nurse, and in fact she used to teach nursing. She knows this stuff. But it’s not like we have a surgeon out here. That would be nice, but that’s just the way it is. And I would rather know what is wrong with me, and Lois told me what she thinks. That’s all.”

“How can you say that and, well, it sounds like you don’t really care? Aren’t you concerned?”

“Of course I am. But the thing is, I am totally at peace with it. I may be dying of something, and I am OK. Sure, I worry about the pain. If this is some kind of cancer, I have heard cancer can be a painful death. But we are all mortal. We will all die of something. And for those who don’t die, their time here is limited anyway.”

Kathy resumed her hike. “Well, that’s terrible. I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll pray for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Are there any pain killer pills up here?”

“Lois said she might have some morphine. That would be nice. And I guess anything is possible. Hey, watch the root sticking up. It’s straight ahead. But look,” Peter paused to catch his breath. “If you believe, as I do, that we really are in the End Times, I mean really believe it, then the clock is ticking for all of us. Even if I have something serious, I could still outlive everyone here.” He paused. “Or we could all be raptured and it doesn’t matter.”

****

CHAPTER 9

Jesse and a couple of the men had returned to chopping and splitting wood. Several other men were standing nearby, holding rifles. “Jesse, come in,” could be heard over the walkie-talkie in his pocket. Jesse reached in his pocket and pulled out the walkie-talkie.

He pressed the microphone button. “Yes, Tracy. What’s up?”

“We have a hiker here. It’s Wallace. And he wants to come up to the camp and donate the fish he just caught in the lake.”

“The lake? Are you kidding? That must be 15 miles from here.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m looking at Wallace right now, and the fish he caught. He has some good fish. One of them looks like a 10-pounder.”

“12!” Wallace could be heard correcting Tracy, then he chuckled. “Check that. One of the fish looks like it weighs at least 12 pounds.”

“And he wants to donate them to us?”

“Yes, he says he will donate the fish to us if he could use our shower and clean his clothes.” Tracy paused. “He could also use a shower; I can vouch for that.”

“Oh, I’m dying here! You’re a riot!” Wallace could be heard saying to Tracy.

“OK Tracy, send him up,” Jesse said.

“Alright, but you might not see him. He is dressed in camo and he blends in pretty good.” Wallace could be heard behind Tracy, laughing.

Jesse put the walkie-talkie back into his pocket. “Just what we need up here,” he said to himself. “A character.”

Wallace was a giant man, almost six and a half feet tall, weighing more than 270 pounds. He had a ruddy complexion, slight beard and mustache, and wore full camouflaged clothing and a green floppy hat. He carried a big, black backpack. A long, black nylon carrying case hung from his belt, containing a machete. One hand rested on an AR-15 rifle, which was hung over one shoulder, and his other hand carried seven recently-caught trout.

“Thanks Tracy,” he bellowed. Wallace was the type of guy who could not keep his voice down. Everything he said sounded like he was yelling. He headed up the road towards the central part of the camp.

****

CHAPTER 10

Kathy and Peter emerged from the trail with Kirk’s body in the duffel bag that was on the game cart. The bottom half of the duffel bag was soaked with blood.

“Oh no, here’s Peter and Kathy with Kirk’s body,” Jesse announced to the other men. The one who had the ax put it down near the wood pile and they all started walking towards Peter and Kathy. Their expressions turned to sadness and shock.

“Thanks for doing this you guys,” Jesse said to Peter and Kathy. Jesse made a disgusted expression on his face when he saw Kirk’s boots sticking out of the duffel bag.

“We’re OK, but a helicopter came and checked out the roadblock,” Peter said.

“Yeah, I heard the chopper. We got our guns ready, but then it left,” Jesse said. “Good thing there are no flat areas for a chopper to land around here.”

The crowd stopped. Peter put down the cart. “I think they are interested in us.”

“Probably,” Jesse agreed, “but who are they?”

“Whoever the thugs are who killed Kirk.”

“You think it’s the same guys?”

“Oh yeah. And somehow they got their hands on a Huey helicopter.”

Kathy looked back to the trail. “We actually met Jackie down there.”

“Really?” Jesse said. One of the other men said, “No way.”

Someone else asked, “Jackie, the one who took the Mark?”

“Yep.”

Jesse asked, “Did she give you any details about how they all got rounded up? Well, first things first. Let’s get Kirk’s body buried and you can tell me all about it.” Jesse turned to the men who were with him. “Jose, would you mind telling Lawson we are about ready for the funeral.”

“Sure,” Jose started walking further up the road.

“Guys, let’s bring the body to the grave up there,” Jesse said, moving the game cart, looking at the other men there.

“This is really sad,” said one of the other men. “Horrible,” agreed another man there.

“Look guys,” Jesse started, then paused and stopped moving the game cart. “Hey, this could be us someday.”

“Shocking,” said one of the other men there.

“Wait a minute,” Jesse said. “Wait a minute. ’Shocking?’ Look guys, this is not shocking.”

The other men there looked at Jesse. “Have we been reading the same Bible?” Jesse asked. “This is anything but shocking. I can’t believe anyone said this was shocking, or a surprise at all.”

“Alright, Jesse, what’s your point?” Chuck asked. “You mean, you don’t think what happened to Kirk here was shocking?”

“Well, no.” Jesse paused, and looked like he was trying to choose the right words. “Look, we all saw what was going on in Jerusalem. We saw it on the news. We saw the Abomination of Desolation. If that wasn’t it, I don’t know what could have been. We were warned about that in the Bible. And the Bible is either true or not. Either it is a big fraud or it really is God’s word. And if it is God’s word, then we have been warned about stuff like this.” Jesse looked at the duffel bag containing Kirk’s body. “Jesus told us to run, and not even get our coat.”

“He said ‘cloak,’ not ‘coat.’” Andrew interjected.

“Andrew, not now. I know I told everyone here to bring out the humor wherever possible, and that is funny,” Jesse paused. “Well, kind of funny. But I’m saying something important here.”

“OK, sorry.”

“No, that’s OK. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Jesse looked at the other men there. “Look, whether Jesus said ‘cloak’ or ‘coat,’ He did say to just run when you see the Abomination of Desolation. That is what we saw, so we made the call to the radio station, they did their thing, everyone heard the song, and we all met here as planned. We are now in the End Times. Get used to it. And don’t be shocked.”

Jesse took a breath. “And one thing about the End Times is that Christians get betrayed, turned in, tortured, and killed. Jesus said that if God didn’t end it all and rapture everyone, all Christians everywhere would end up getting killed. Jesus told us that we are to expect some pretty horrible things to happen to us, and He didn’t even try to sugar-coat it. He told us to just run.”

“I see,” Andrew said. “So what you’re saying is that what happened to Kirk should not be a shock.”

“Well, yeah. In fact, it is going to get much worse than this.” Jesse looked around the camp. “I’m starting to think that we aren’t seriously prepared for what we have ahead of us. What is straight ahead for us. We’re not even close.”

Jesse looked back at the duffel bag. “Well, I need to stop ranting for now, because we need to bury Kirk’s body. We can take a few minutes to do that. But then, we need to all have a serious talk about what we can expect in the future, and what we need to do to prepare for it. We all got up here safely, but the guys who did this to Kirk might be coming back and we need to be ready.”

“What do you mean? Like, weapons training?” Andrew asked. “Sounds kind of silly, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’m just thinking it over right now. Give me a few minutes. Maybe a couple of hours. We will have another camp meeting on the subject. Maybe we can brainstorm.”

“Alright, first let’s do the funeral,” Chuck suggested. Jesse pushed the game cart towards a more wooded part of the camp, where a long hole had been dug, surrounded by some lawn chairs. Kathy and the other men followed.

****

CHAPTER 11

Jesse looked behind him, down the road, in the direction of the observation post. “This must be Wallace.” Jesse turned to Peter. “Peter, can you take the cart please?”

“Sure,” Peter answered, and took the game cart and wheeled it in the direction of the grave.

Jesse walked towards Wallace, and reached out his hand to shake Wallace’s hand. “Hi, I’m Jesse.”

“I hear you’re the platoon leader here,” Wallace shook Jesse’s hand. “Wallace Sturges. Nice to meet you.”

“Well, my wife and I own the property here. I’m just a benevolent dictator.”

“OK.”

“Nice to meet you too. Hey, I remember you from church.” Jesse introduced everyone. “Here’s Andrew, Jim, DJ, Don, Chuck, and Kathy.” Everyone shook hands. “Hi,” Kathy said.

Jim said, “Hey, I remember you from church. You sat in the back row.”

“Yep, that was me. Lots of good legroom back there.”

Jesse looked at the fish Wallace was carrying. “Oh, I hear you caught these at the lake, then hiked 15 miles to get here. How did you get through the roadblock?”

“I never came across it. I stay off all roads. Strictly an off-road kind of guy,” Wallace smiled.

“Incredible,” Chuck marveled.

“Well, make yourself at home, Wallace. We’re going to have a funeral pretty soon. A friend of ours got killed.”

“I heard. Tracy told me. And they guys who did it got away.” Wallace handed the fish to Jesse. “Were those the guys in the chopper?”

“Thanks. Oh, we don’t know. Probably.” Jesse looked at the fish. “I’ll give these fish to whoever is cooking the dinner tonight. Lately we have had a couple of Dutch ovens going with rice and beans for dinner. We can mix the fish in. That will be different.”

“Beautiful,” Wallace said.

The men and Kathy started walking back up the road towards the center of the camp.

Jesse continued. “I can show you where the shower is. It gets warm but it doesn’t keep a lot of water in the container there. So what you might need to do is wash your clothes first with the soap we have there, hang it all up to dry, and then refill the water tank and wait for it to heat up again. Then you can take your shower. We keep some shampoo, soap and cream rinse there. And a couple of towels.”

“Very impressive. Thanks.”

“And when you are done with everything, make sure to put it all back up like it was when you got there. You know, hang up the towels to dry and clean up.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Chuck added, “We also have a toilet nearby the shower.”

“Oh, OK, good.”

“Except we ran out of toilet paper the first week we were up here,” Jesse added.

“Well, next time.”

“Yes,” Jesse smiled. “Yes, next time there is an End Times, we’ll make sure to stock up on a lot more toilet paper.”

“Good idea,” Wallace smiled.

Chuck added, “We have been using travel bidets at the toilet.”

“Travel bidets?”

“Yes, one of those water-squirter things,” Jesse explained. “It was Chuck’s idea, and it was a good one. Instead of using toilet paper, which we ran out of, we use travel bidets. Like they have in Europe. They last forever, and you get used to them.”

“I’ve heard of those. And hey, if the frogs use them, they can’t be all that bad, right?”

“Yep,” Jesse agreed. “And after you clean your clothes and take a shower, maybe we can get some info from you. Like what is going on out there. What you know. I’m sure you have come across a lot of information.”

“Sure,” Wallace answered. “I can tell you what little I know.”

Jim spoke up. “Another thing, Wallace. We get a small fire going during the night, and only feed the coals at daytime. That way, there is no smoke going up that can be seen far way.”

“Smart.”

Don asked, “What is this, an AR-15?”

“Yep, I got a new camo stock. I also have a new Eotech scope, and in my backpack here I also have a PVS-14 nighttime scope. And this gun is modified so that it can be fully automatic.”

“This is a fully automatic machine gun?” Don asked.

“With the flip of a switch.”

“Cool,” Don said.

Andrew asked, “Do you have all your supplies in your backpack here?”

“Well, I have a lot here, but I have supply cache tubes buried all around this area. I probably have half a garage-full of stuff buried in different places.”

“Cache tubes?” Andrew asked.

“We have some of those here, Andrew,” Jesse interjected. “I thought you knew. They keep things pretty cold.”

“Yes, those ABS or PVC pipes that has an endcap at one end and a screw-off top on the other,” Wallace said. “You can bury them and they stay safe. I even have some food in them, and it stays good. Doesn’t go bad or anything.”

“I suppose you can even store some actual cash in one of those cache tubes,” Chuck joked. “That is, assuming the cash is still worth anything.”

“You guys are beautiful, man,” Wallace smiled.

****

CHAPTER 12

“Hello, Chaplain Lawson?” Jose said through the screen door on the RV trailer.

“Hello, come on in. I’m about ready,” answered Lawson from inside. “Come on in.” Lawson had just turned 88 years old. He was a fair-skinned, gray haired man who was a little unsteady on his feet when he walked.

“Come on in, Jose,” Lawson gestured for Jose to enter.

“Thanks,” Jose said, as he opened the trailer door and walked in.

Lawson emerged from his closet in a navy blue business suit, white shirt and yellow and brown tie with crosses on it.

“Wow, you look great, Lawson. I don’t think I have seen anyone in a suit in a while.”

“It’s all for the Lord. I am a happy servant.” Lawson picked up a worn-out Bible and walked towards the door. Jose joined him and they exited the trailer. Jose helped Lawson walk towards the gravesite.

Lawson and Jose sat in chairs nearby the gravesite. Others approached the gravesite and sat in some of the chairs nearby. About 30 people sat in front of the grave site, waiting for the funeral. Several Coleman lanterns were nearby, illuminating the grave area.

Jose told Lawson, “They killed Kirk with some kind of guillotine.”

“That’s what I heard,” Lawson said. “Terrible. But Kirk is in Heaven right now.”

One of the women nearby, Mary, asked Lawson, “Lawson, where is Lois?”

“She’s coming. Won’t be long.”

The sound of a shower, nearby and up the hill could be heard. Wallace was washing his clothes from behind a wall made of wooden pallets. His black backpack, machete, boots and gun were laid on the ground nearby.

“That guy is new here,” Jose told Lawson. “I think his name is Wallace.”

“Will he be staying here?” Lawson asked.

“I don’t know. He pretty much stays by himself. He walks around the area a lot. Kind of a military guy.”

“What’s his name again?”

“Wallace.”

“Did he go to our church?”

“I heard that he came every once in a while. I don’t think he ever really joined the church but he was there a lot. You might recognize him.”

“OK.”

More people came and sat in the chairs. Peter emerged from the tent area, holding something in his arms that was wrapped in a tarp. It was Kirk’s body. Lois and Jesse walked behind Peter.

“Oh, here they come.”

Peter knelt down and placed the tarp containing Kirk’s body next to the grave, then got into the grave and lowered Kirk’s body into the grave. Peter got out of the grave and sat on one of the chairs nearby. Lois sat next to Lawson.

Lawson stood up and walked to the grave, turned and faced everyone. “Brothers and sisters, we are here to remember and celebrate the life of our brother in Christ, Kirk Bryant. I will make a few comments, we will have a reading, then we will open it up to comments and remembrances from anyone here, then we will sing “I’ll Fly Away,” and then commence with the actual burying. I have been told that Kathy and Peter will be casting the first handfuls of dirt here. Let’s go to prayer.”

****

CHAPTER 13

Up the hill from the gravesite, Wallace could be seen emerging from the shower area, wearing a dark green bathrobe and some flip flops. When he saw the praying going on downhill at the funeral, Wallace stopped and bowed his head.

Andrew left the gathering and walked towards Wallace. He also stopped and bowed his head.

Lawson began the prayer. “Heavenly Father, we thank You for the life and friendship of our friend Kirk Bryant. We know that all good things come from You, and we thank You for Kirk’s friendship and love. We thank You for accepting him into Your warm embrace in Heaven, where we look forward to joining him someday. We thank You for that hope. We ask that You open our hearts to the brave example Kirk gave for the rest of us, as we know the End is near, and if it be Your will, we ask that You protect us and guide us during the hard times ahead. Amen.” Several people could be heard saying “Amen.”

Andrew walked up the hill towards Wallace. “I thought you could use some help with hanging up your laundry.”

“Oh that’s nice. Thanks,” Wallace said. “The hot water is out. When it warms back up I’ll take a shower.” He looked downhill at the funeral. “Now there’s something you don’t see anymore – a suit. Who’s that guy?” Wallace pointed down the hill at Lawson.

“Oh that’s Lawson, a former Navy chaplain,” he whispered. “After the Navy, he worked at the local veteran’s retirement home for 30 years.”

“I didn’t know that. I’ve seen him around though.” Wallace did his best to whisper, but he could be heard by some of the people at the funeral, and they looked at him.

“He was also in charge of the worship service at the nursing home in town,” Andrew said.

“The nursing home hear church?”

One of the women sitting at the funeral looked uphill to Wallace and Andrew. She put her finger to her mouth in a ‘shh’ expression. Andrew nodded back.

“Yep, that is the one,” Andrew whispered. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk for a while.”

“Yeah,” Wallace answered. The two watched the funeral going on just down the hill from them. Wallace and Andrew hung up some of Wallace’s clothing on a nearby clothesline.

“Thanks,” Wallace said.

When there was no more clothing to hang up, Wallace and Andrew sat on a couple of green plastic chairs and looked downhill at the funeral. Peter addressed everyone present, and it looked like he was choking up.

“Did you know the dead guy?” Wallace asked Andrew, doing his best to whisper.

“Yes, his name is Kirk. He used to go out with my cousin, Kathy.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear it.”

“Kathy is really angry. She wants to go out and kill whoever did this.”

“Well yeah, I can understand that.”

“I guess we haven’t talked about this, but aren’t there some police we can go to?”

Wallace smiled and looked at Andrew. “Not many of them are even on the job, and I can’t blame them. If you were a cop, would you rather go to your job or stay home and protect your family?”

Andrew looked confused. “Not that I have heard much of the outside world in a few weeks, but until this happened to Kirk and that helicopter flying by the roadblock earlier, it all seems pretty quiet out there. Just some smoke coming up, far away, but that’s it.”

“People don’t want to believe it yet, but things are really breaking down out there. I was walking by one of my buried cache tubes, you know, up in the hills overlooking town, and that Walmart…”

“The Walmart in town? That’s probably 35 miles away.”

“That’s the one.”

“Do you have a Jeep or something?”

“No,” Wallace nodded. “Too dangerous. A good hike keeps me in shape anyway.”

“So what did you see at the Walmart?”

“Well, it was being looted. There was a family coming out with stuff they paid for, with bags and all. They were wheeling out their cart to their car, and they looked really nervous. They probably didn’t even make it home.” He paused. “Then a couple trucks full of guys showed up and they went inside the store. Just grabbing stuff and walking back out of the store. Smashing stuff here and there. Then I saw one woman cop come out of the store with a few boxes of tennis shoes that she probably didn’t pay for. Some people were nagging the cop to arrest the others who were there, looting, but she wouldn’t do anything.”

“How long ago did you say this was?”

“A couple weeks ago. It was bizarre to see it all happen. A cameraman from a local news station drove up and started filming the looting, then tried to film the cop leaving the store with all the tennis shoes, and the gang just grabbed his camera and smashed it onto the ground. Then they kicked out his crew from the news van and drove off with it. The cop didn’t do a thing even though it happened right in front of her.”

“Are you telling me there is no law out there?”

“I know people don’t want to realize it, and all I can say is what I saw out there. But no, the rule of law has pretty much gone bye-bye.”

“There hasn’t been too much talk about what we are going to do about Kirk, but …”

Wallace interrupted. “Well, it’s not like you can just call the police. They might just laugh at you, if they even pick up the phone at all.” Wallace paused. “You know, whoever did that will be back. That’s how bullies work.”

Andrew nodded ‘no,’ as he and Wallace watched the funeral continue. Kathy stood up in front of the crowd, and addressed everyone. She sounded angry.

“Who is that?” Wallace whispered to Andrew.

“That’s my cousin, Kathy. I thought you met her. She used to go out with Kirk. I mean, before he married someone else. She’s pretty angry.”

“Yeah, I would be.”

Kathy pointed to the rolled up tarp that contained Kirk’s body, and then she pointed up, making a point. She was vowing to do something.

“Apparently Kirk was killed by a group of local thugs,” Andrew whispered.

“Yeah, I think I have seen them around.”

“Really?”

“Well, there are many like them. Muslims I think. A few weeks ago there was a rally in front of the police department, to try and get the cops to do something about everything that was going on in the city. The cops were all gone anyway, so it was a dumb idea. The chief of police had already committed suicide and –“

“Come again?” Andrew interrupted. “Did you say the chief of police committed suicide?”

“Yeah. Shot himself and left a note.”

“OK, so what happened at the rally in front of the police station?” Andrew asked.

“Well, a bunch of these thugs showed up and started beating everyone. Like they were having fun or something. Then five of them just grabbed the main guy who was calling for law and order, right near his podium, and they just pulled his clothes off and laughed at him. Some of the other thugs went through the crowd beating people. Some people tried to fight back but most just ran away.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, that’s how I got my AK-47. Not that I have much ammo for it. I’m an AR man myself,” he pointed at his gun. “But I won’t turn down an AK-47. Anyway, I was nearby and one of those thugs came after me with his gun. I figured that if I shot him the others would hear it and shoot me, or I could run and one of them would follow me. So that’s what I did.”

“What happened?”

“I ran. The guy followed me. I guess I look like I have a lot of stuff they could take, and he was probably right. Anyway I ran down an ally, and I knew the guy was following me. I hid behind a dumpster, and when he ran by I got him with a whack of my machete, which is a lot quieter than shooting him. After he died I tried to check his ID or something but all I found on him was a bunch knives, watches, cell phones, and wallets filled with cash. If money had still been worth anything, the guy would have been pretty rich. I took the watches, wallets, his knives and his gun.”

“Oh I remember cell phones.”

“They’re totally worthless. The networks will never come back up.”

Andrew looked back at Wallace. “Alright, so you killed the guy?”

“Yeah. And let me tell you about the knives I took off of him. Every one of those knives was bloody. That guy had been killing a lot of people. But yeah, it was either him or me. And he didn’t need that gun or those knives. I took his extra magazines too.”

“You got him with your machete?”

“I got one good solid whack into the guy’s neck as he ran by me. He was there on the ground, flopping around with blood pouring out. So I chopped his neck again. I could tell that he was trying to yell for his friends but he was totally quiet. I guess I cut his vocal cords. He stopped flopping around in a few seconds.”

“You didn’t want to just call the cops on the guy?”

“Hey, the police station was a block away, and there was a riot going on right in front of it. The cops weren’t anywhere to be found.” Wallace looked at Andrew. “This is the natural state of things, my friend. It’s a fallen world. Has been since Eve bit the apple.”

The two looked down at the funeral. David stood in front of everyone and gestured. He pointed in the direction of the observation post and then down towards the roadblock. He appeared to be explaining how Kirk was brave to the very end. David looked at the rolled up tarp and then bowed his head. Everyone joined in a prayer.

“So what are you saying?” Andrew whispered to Wallace. “This is how things normally are? Sorry but we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one.”

“The Bible said that after Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden, the world became ‘all evil, all the time.’ So God wiped the slate clean with the flood, and started all over. But everyone’s sin nature took over again, just like before. Jesus came down here and said He was ‘not of this world.’ It’s a totally evil, decadent world out there. That’s a fact.”

“Hmm.”

“And now we are at the End. God is about to take out the trash.”

“Never thought I would miss the rule of law, the state…”

“Hey, any government was just a bunch of gangsters. Our government just looked the most legit, but it wasn’t run by a bunch of angels, let me tell you. The taxes we paid went towards killing babies, and it was propping up Muslim governments that wanted to take out Israel. All that is just the tip of the iceberg. Now what is left of the government is setting up Sharia right here. Our government was always just a real fraud. A force for evil with a smiley face. Good riddance.”

“Well, sure, you can disagree with the government, and I had heard about the abortion stuff, but I don’t think things are ‘natural’ now. Like this is the ‘natural way,’ as you say.”

“There was always a thin veneer of civility in the world, and now that veneer is gone.” Wallace smiled. “The Bible says that lawlessness will increase – hey, we are way beyond that point right now. We are in the End Times here, and it is looking pretty good if you ask me.”

“You make it sound like this is something to be happy about. There is nothing in the Bible that says we are supposed to be happy when the End Times come.”

“True, but there is also nothing in the Bible that says we are supposed to be miserable and depressed when it happens either. Don’t be a weanie. The prophet Daniel wrote that in the End, people who know God will be strong and carry out great exploits. I’m going to make the best of this.” Wallace looked at Andrew. “You should too.”

“I’m not a weanie,” Andrew said.

“Well no, not you. I mean all Christians in general. Grab this bull by the horns. It’s beautiful.”

****

CHAPTER 14

The people at the funeral started to sing the song “I’ll Fly Away.”

“Oh, I like that song,” Wallace said to Andrew. “One thing I miss about church being open is hearing all those classic hymns.”

“Yeah, same here.”

“Hey Andrew,” Wallace looked back at the pallets that made up the shower. “I noticed there is a shaver and shaving cream in the shower. Would it be Ok if I use them?”

“Sure, but we aren’t supposed to shave more than once a week. We are trying to conserve those shavers.”

“Oh, I won’t be here more than a week anyway.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“I didn’t see a mirror in there, but it is dark anyway.” Wallace looked back towards the shower. “I’ll just try to shave myself in the dark.”

“There is a mirror in there. I just used it the other day. It might have fallen behind the pallets back there.”

“Thanks. I think the water in the container is warm enough now, so I’ll go start my shower.”

Wallace got up and walked back into the shower, turned on the water, disrobed and entered the shower. Andrew walked downhill to the funeral. He sat next to Jesse, towards the back of the group.

*****

“Is Wallace OK up there?” Jesse asked Andrew, loud enough to be heard above the crowd singing.

“Yeah, he’s OK. But I think he has a screw loose.”

“We’re talking about Wallace, right? The guy who goes to church wearing full camo, and you’re surprised to learn that he has a screw loose?” Jesse asked, sarcastically.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

“Oh, sorry. David just told us all the details of how Kirk got killed. Pretty chilling. I know, ‘what did you expect?’ but still.”

The song came to an end.

“Yes,” Andrew said, and lowered his voice now that the song was over. “That was horrible.”

“And to think it just happened right out in front of our property. It feels different here all of a sudden.”

Lawson stood in front of the crowd and invited Kathy and Peter to come forward. “We don’t have pall-bearers here,” he said. “So I thought we would have Kathy and Peter, Kirk’s closest friends here, cast the first dirt to bury Kirk’s body.” Kathy and Peter bent over to the pile of dirt next to the grave and grabbed some dirt. Everyone else lined up to grab more handfuls of dirt, and throw the dirt onto the grave.

When everyone had cast some dirt into the grave, Chuck took a shovel and started moving the rest of the dirt pile into the grave. Jesse walked to the front of the grave and addressed everyone while they were still there, standing.

“Hey guys, everyone,” he began. “I heard that dinner is ready, and like always, keep your dinner covered up so that it is pretty clean. I know the roadblock is almost a mile away, but the flies can go a long way. We don’t want diseases spread here if we can help it.”

“Yes, the dinner’s ready, and we got Wallace’s fish mixed in with it,” someone from the back of the crowd said. Everyone started walking to the campfire area.

“But before everyone goes,” Jesse continued, “I just wanted to say that we’re going to have a full camp meeting tomorrow afternoon sometime. We need to discuss some things. The guys who killed Kirk might be back, and that might have been them in the helicopter that showed up at the road block earlier. So be thinking about preparedness. I mean, camouflage and weapons. Stuff like that.”

“What are you talking about?” one of the teenagers present asked. Mary walked to the front and stood next to Jesse.

“I don’t know,” Jesse looked around at the crowd. “Those guys who did this to Kirk might come back for the rest of us. I just think we need to at least have some plans of what to do.”

Mary spoke up. “I think we were talking earlier about clothing dye. We have a lot of whites and pastels up here. That would be easy to see from the valley.”

“What do you mean, dye our clothing?” another woman asked.

“Yes,” Mary said. “That is why we stored so much Rit dye. We have a lot of it in the shipping container over there. Not right now, but over the next few days.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “We need to talk about stuff like this, blending in, and weapons. Everything.”

“What about the stuff that won’t dye?” someone asked. “Some of our coats are polyester fleece, and I don’t think that stuff will dye. Are we just supposed to throw it away?”

“No,” Jesse said. “I don’t know. Maybe mark it up with charcoal if it can’t be dyed. But however it is done, we just need to blend in a little better. And for anyone who goes out near the roadblock, we need to make sure they wear dark green or black.” Jesse looked uphill, towards the shower. “We have a visitor, Wallace, who might give us some pointers. He was in the city only a couple weeks ago.”

“He might be able to tell us more about the thugs in town and maybe the guys who killed Kirk,” Andrew said.

“Well, we will talk about it all at the meeting tomorrow,” Jesse said. “We also have a bright red Cadillac up the hill. I know it’s way back there, and that’s another thing that really stands out.” He looked towards DJ, who wore a silver cross necklace on the outside of his shirt. “And maybe people can hide their jewelry or color it so that it doesn’t reflect sunlight and give someone away.”

“Camouflage our jewelry?” DJ asked.

“Well, yeah.”

“Like a ‘camouflaged cross?’” DJ asked, looking down at his cross necklace.

“Yes,” Jesse answered. “I like that. Yes. A ‘camouflaged cross.’ I think you’re onto something there, DJ.” Jesse looked at DJ and nodded.

“I guess I could do that,” DJ answered.

“Anyway, everyone, let’s all meet and share ideas about all this tomorrow afternoon. And who knows how long Wallace will be here.” Jesse nodded uphill to the shower. “Let’s get some pointers from him while he’s here.”

Someone in the group said, “No offense Jesse, but I heard Wallace is some kind of weird paramilitary guy or something. A survivalist.”

“Well, yeah,” Jesse answered. “Isn’t that what we are all doing up here, trying to survive?” Jesse tried to hold back a chuckle.

“OK. Good point.”

The crowd walked towards the campfire area for dinner.

****

CHAPTER 15

Jesse and Mary sat down in a couple of the chairs in front of the grave.

“Wallace could have some good advice for us,” Jesse said. “I couldn’t imagine walking through town now and staying away from those gangs, but somehow Wallace did it.”

Wallace could be heard up the hill, singing while he took his shower. “When the roll, when the roll, is called up yonder,” Wallace sang. Mary smiled at Jesse.

“When the roll, when the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there…”

Jesse smiled back at Mary.

Wallace stopped singing. He called out, “Sturges, Wallace! Here!” The he sang, “When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more…”

Mary said, “Sounds like he’s calling his own roll right now, and then answering it.”

Jesse scratched his head. “Maybe he thinks he’s already in Heaven. And we’re going to get some survival advice from this guy? Great.”

“At least he’ll be good for a laugh or two. And let’s face it, we really need some laughs.”

Wallace finished the song, “When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.”

“So, are you glad we decided to open up the property?” May asked. “And invite all these people here?”

“Oh yeah. There is no way we could survive on our own. I’m sure problems will come up, but on balance, it is best to have a big group of Christian preppers here. And I like knowing we are helping them too.”

“And so far, the food situation is been pretty good. Remember, that was your biggest fear.”

“Oh yeah,” Jesse said. “God is good. We already had a good stockpile of food, and then most of the people who came up here also had their own stockpiles. A couple of shipping container’s worth of food. I never saw that happening. Of course I get a little tired of rice and beans all the time but it gets us through. Where God leads, He feeds.”

“Much more food than we had prayed for.”

“That’s for sure,” Jesse agreed. “And people like Wallace come through and add to things. That was different. I wasn’t planning on eating any fish with our rice and beans.”

“Yeah. One of the things we will have to ask him about is how he got to the lake off-road.”

Mary and Jesse sat in silence for a while, watching the others pass out bowls with dinner in front of the campfire, which seemed brighter now that the area was getting darker.

“And what about buying this property so that we could hide and fight back during the End Times? Was that a decision you still feel good about?” Mary asked.

“No question. If I were one of the early Christians in Rome, assuming I had a choice, I would go to the Catacombs, not the Coliseum.”

“I don’t think those guys fought. They just hid.”

“Well it’s the best analogy I have right now. Maybe if they did some fighting in the streets of Rome or something.”

“Some of the Christians in the Catacombs got killed anyway.”

“Yeah, well, and I hate to say it, but some of us might get killed. Who knows? It still hasn’t sunk in with me that they killed Kirk just right down the hill from our property. Did you ever think someone would get killed out here?

“Well, yes, but I know what you mean.”

“It just seems like yesterday we bought this place. Remember that?”

“Yes, nothing was here,” Mary paused. “Just … nothing.”

“And now we have a pretty good Christian prepper group here, and we’re worried about outsiders coming up.” Jesse looked at Mary. “I guess it’s serious now. Someone got killed right in front of our property. And he was a friend of ours.”

“Well, this is what we have been planning for. We knew this would happen. We knew that that this property would someday go from being a picnic and hiking place to a survival hangout.”

“All those so-called birth pangs happening, like anthrax getting crop-dusted in town and the railroads getting sabotaged and causing derailments. And I would pray ‘Lord, come quickly.’ Well, now He is coming. No doubt about it. I wish it were quicker, but He is definitely coming now.”

“Yep, the End Times are definitely here.”

“And this property really feels different to me now. It will take some time to get used to this place being a life or death place.” Jesse paused. “We’re in danger here, you know.”

“That’s true.”

“If I could change one thing, I’d make it so that our group appreciates the urgency of our situation up here. A little paranoia would be nice.”

“Yep.”

“Of course, Christians have been in danger worldwide for some time now. We’re in the most-persecuted religion in the world, more than the Jews. Now we’re in danger up here, maybe the last holdout area. But at least up here we have a fighting chance. And I feel like God has guided us. He really wants us to be here, surviving.”

“I feel it too.”

“And who knows, maybe someday,” Jesse said, “our supplies might run low, but for now we are in good shape with food, supplies, ways to stay clean, blankets, sleeping bags…”

“Yeah, I always thought that a month after moving up here we wouldn’t be this clean. I guess we could use some darker clothes. I don’t know, something that would blend in better. Our crowd here wears a lot of pastels and whites, and something tells me that won’t last.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Some camouflaged clothing would be nice,” Jesse answered. “We could also use some more guns though. Combat guns. That might be a shortage we have now, and it could make a difference. We seem to have nothing but pistols here and there, and a couple of 22 rifles. Oh, David has a FN-FAL rifle. And I have my shotgun.” Jesse looked back at the crowd downhill. “We’re going to need some more rifles to protect ourselves up here. Something like that AR-15 Wallace has. He’s got a nice rifle. And the additions he did to it. Nice.”

“I think you have rifle envy.”

“Well, I’m a guy. It’s a guy thing.”

Mary smiled.

“But yeah, we could use some more serious rifles like that one. And some ammo too.”

“That would be nice.”

“I just want to make sure that if, God forbid, we get killed, we go down fighting. And maybe take down a few of the scumbags with us.”

“What state were you born in, again?” Mary joked. “That’s the Texan coming through.”

“You know, well,” Jesse began. “I know we have talked about this a few hundred times, but Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation were put in the Bible for a reason. Not just conversation.”

“Right. We’ve been warned. Jesus warned us.”

“And we have been told what to do. Jesus told his followers to run. Not just sit there and get captured and killed. We all made it up here but I kind of feel bad that we don’t seem to have enough rifles.”

“Yeah, Jesus was pretty urgent about it. He even told people to not even bother getting their coat. Just run.”

“Cloak.”

“What?” Mary looked confused.

“In Matthew 24, Jesus said to run and don’t even go back for your cloak, not coat.” Jesse smiled.

“Well, whatever.”

****

CHAPTER 16

“Hey everyone, this is Wallace,” Jesse announced to the crowd of people around the campfire who were eating rice and beans. “He caught the fish that is part of your dinner.”

It was dark outside but everyone could see Wallace in the light from the campfire. Wallace, now clean-shaven, wore his green camouflage clothes and hat as before and carried his black backpack, rifle and machete.

“Hi everyone,” Wallace said. Scattered “Hi Wallace” greetings could be heard from the crowd.

“Hi Wallace, I’m Kathy,” Kathy walked forward and gave Wallace a bowl of rice and beans.

“Oh thanks,” Jesse said as he laid down his backpack, rifle and machete on to the ground and accepted the bowl from Kathy.

“Here’s a spork,” Kathy said, handing Wallace a spork.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Wallace said, taking a bite. “Hey, what’s that? Spices?”

“Yes, we mixed in some creole spices with your fish. We always try to make things taste a little different.”

“This is incredible. Creole spices. I love it! It’s been a long time since I have had anything with spices.”

“Yes, without spices, we’d probably notice that we’re pretty much eating the same thing every day,” Kathy joked.

Wallace nodded and smiled.

“So Wallace, how have you been surviving out there? Word has it you have been lurking around in the countryside for weeks, eating wild honey and locusts or something.”

“Ha!” Wallace laughed. “I stocked up a bunch of food of my own, and I made a bunch of energy bars to carry with me.”

“Energy bars?” Kathy smiled. “That’s pretty smart.”

“Oh, not really. A few years ago I read a book on the subject and started stocking up.”

“Just what is your history, Wallace?” Kathy looked Wallace up and down. “Are you married or something? I don’t see a wedding ring. What about kids?”

“Well, I --”

“And then you come wondering in here with a bunch of fish. Pretty bizarre,” Kathy kidded.

“So what’s your story, Kathy? I think I saw you around church a couple times. You’re in real estate or something, right? Well, used to be, before all this started.”

“Oh, I was a bottom-feeder,” Kathy looked into the distance, a bit bored describing her former occupation. “Businesses that were about to go under would give me a call and I would check out their numbers. If I saw anything worth saving I would try and work something out. It was a good gig.” She looked back at Wallace. “Nothing as exciting as what you used to do, I’m sure.”

“I was a specialty home-builder.”

“Specialty?”

“One at a time. For a while I built homes for the tract-home builders, then I started on my own home-building business. I would build houses one at a time. Five bedrooms on up, game rooms, wine cellars, in-law apartments, whatever. I have worked with some of the guys here.” Wallace looked into the crowd. “Like Mike over there. He did some drywall for me.”

“A mansion-builder. See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Kathy smiled. “Let’s face it, your life sounds pretty exciting.”

“Yep, that’s me alright,” Wallace smiled.

“A real man of adventure. And I’ll bet your houses were all made of brick and steel.”

Peter walked towards Wallace and Kathy, holding his bowl and spork. “Hi, Wallace, I guess you met Kathy here.” Peter looked serious.

“Oh yes,” Wallace smiled and looked at Kathy. “She’s has been very impressed with my line of work. Very impressed.”

“He’s a pretty exciting guy, let’s face it,” Kathy kidded.

“Oh, right,” Wallace laughed.

Peter was still serious. “Kathy helped me retrieve Kirk’s body. She was a big help.”

Kathy’s expression turned from friendly to serious. She looked at Wallace. “I heard Wallace had a run-in with one of the types of guys who killed Kirk.”

“Yes,” Wallace answered. “That was my last time in town. Two weeks ago.”

“And it didn’t end well for the other guy,” Kathy said. “You killed the guy, right?”

“Yeah. Well, he was trying to kill me. I guess I just fought back and he didn’t expect it.”

“Yes,” Kathy looked at Wallace and got serious. “We definitely need to talk.”

*****

Peter felt his side. “Excuse me, I need to go sit down.”

Kathy looked concerned. “Peter, anything I can do?”

“No, thanks, I’ll be OK. I just need to go and lay down for a while. Maybe I’ll just go to bed now.” Peter walked away.

Kathy turned to Wallace and whispered “Peter might have something, a medical issue. Pretty sad.”

“Oh, what is it? What’s wrong?” Wallace said, keeping his voice low, looking in Peter’s direction.

“I don’t know. But he has a good attitude about it.”

Mary approached Kathy and Wallace. “Hi Wallace, I’m Mary.” She held out her hand to shake Wallace’s hand.

“Oh, sorry,” Wallace put his spork in his bowl and shook Mary’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Mary turned to Kathy. “And how are you doing, Kathy? Are you OK from what you went through earlier?”

“Oh, you mean getting Kirk’s body?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Not exactly something I thought I would be doing. But Peter got the body and put it into a big bag. I just accompanied him.”

“Oh, OK.”

“You knew Kirk, right?” Wallace asked Kathy, as he resumed eating.

“Well, yes,” Kathy said. “We used to go out.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Wallace said in between bites of beans, rice and fish. “Everyone here seems to have liked him.”

“Not everyone really knew him. Peter and I were probably his closest friends here.”

Mary asked Wallace, “Wallace, have you picked out a place to set down for the night? I noticed you have a pup tent tied to your backpack.”

“Yeah, I figured on that patch of ground right over there,” Wallace pointed nearby a big tent.

“That’s my tent,” Kathy said. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“In fact, I think I should start setting up,” Wallace finished his meal and looked for somewhere to put his empty bowl and spork.

“I can take that,” Mary said. “We also have some filtered water over there.” Mary pointed to the other side of the campfire, near a cluster of people talking.

“Thanks Mary. I think I’ll go get some water then set up for the night.” Wallace handed his bowl to Mary and walked away.

Kathy watched Wallace as he walked away. “I sure love a man in uniform,” she said to Mary.

“That’s not exactly a uniform.”

“Close enough.”

Wallace approached the crowd near the water filter, met and shook hands with a few of the people there, and drank a cup of water. He then retuned next to Kathy’s tent and began unpacking and setting up his tent for the night.

****

CHAPTER 17

The very first rays of the sun began to light up the otherwise dark sky. David, resigned to going through the night without any sleep, sat in a chair on the front deck of his and Gloria’s cottage, north and uphill from the main part of the camp. David was still in shock from what he had seen the day before. After some attempts at sleeping, he gave up and sat on a chair on the front deck of his cottage, looking at the stars in the sky and south into the camp downhill.

Jesse, Mary and Melissa were deep in sleep in their cottage, to the west. Jesse heard the walkie-talkie near his bed. “They’re back! Jesse, wake up! Get up, Jesse! Here they come!”

Startled and still asleep, Jesse reached for the walkie-talkie, but he could not find it in the dark. He fumbled some more for it. He heard the “womp womp” sound of an approaching helicopter.

“The helicopter’s here!” warned the person on the walkie-talkie.

Jesse found the walkie-talkie. “Bill, what do you see?” he asked. The helicopter sound grew louder.

“It’s a helicopter and it’s coming your way! Coming to the camp!”

“Oh no!” Mary said, wide awake. “Melissa, wake up!” She said to Melissa, nearby. “Get your 22!” Melissa rolled over and rubbed her eyes, then looked around. “Mel, wake up!” Mary yelled at Melissa.

Jesse put his feet into his tennis shoes and put on his bathrobe. He grabbed a nearby shotgun and put the walkie-talkie into his bathrobe pocket. “It’s coming!” he said to Mary. Jesse was still just waking up. He opened the cabin door and watched a helicopter to the south, flying low and approaching the camp. “Maybe you and Melissa can get ready to at shoot this thing!” Jesse yelled as he left the cabin.

Up the hill to the north of the main camp, David pushed open the door of his cabin. “Honey, hand me the FN-FAL! Quick!”

“What?” Gloria asked, still asleep. The helicopter was now directly over the camp.

“My long rifle,” David spoke loudly, over the sound of the helicopter. “I think it is over there, between the bed and the wall. Hurry -- hand it to me!”

“OK, here!” Gloria handed David a long rifle as she looked out the front of their cabin and saw the helicopter right above the camp.

“I think those are the guys who killed Kirk. They got a helicopter.” David looked back at the helicopter, hovering above the trees of the camp.

The wind from the helicopter blew dirt and lawn chairs everywhere. A couple of the tents fell over from the wind.

Back at their family’s cabin, Mary yelled at Melissa. “Hurry up! Get the 22 and get out here!”

“I’m coming!” Melissa insisted, still half-asleep.

Jesse ran downhill, closer to the area and tripped over something in the dark.

Someone in the helicopter turned on a spotlight and shined it on the cabins and tents below. A large door on the right side of the helicopter slid open, and an arm reached out, holding a pistol. Several shots rang out.

“Now they’re shooting at us,” David said to himself. He took careful aim with his rifle and began shooting in slow, measured shots at the side of the helicopter. Sparks lit up on the side of the helicopter. Gloria brought out a box of bullets and put them on the front deck at David’s feet.

The large door on the other side of the helicopter slid open, and another hand holding a pistol poked out and started firing down below. Now pistols from both sides of the helicopter were shooting downward.

Wallace emerged from his pup-tent, wearing an undershirt and boxer shorts. He looked up, then reached for his rifle.

The spotlight scanned the cabins and tents below, as the people inside the helicopter kept shooting downward. Screams and yelling could be heard throughout the camp.

Jesse pointed his shotgun towards the helicopter. A “click” could be heard. The safety was still on. Jesse looked at the shotgun and slid the safety button forward. He aimed again and shot at the helicopter, producing a loud “boom!” Sparks lit up the front of the helicopter. Glass could be heard crashing in the front of the helicopter.

Meanwhile, Wallace, almost directly below the helicopter, pointed his rifle at the helicopter and shot several single shots.

Kathy emerged from her tent, dressed in sweatpants and a dark green t-shirt. She pointed her pistol up at the helicopter.

Wallace looked at his rifle and pushed a nob in front of the trigger in order to make the rifle fully automatic. He called out to Kathy, “Shoot at the back of it!” he yelled at Kathy and pointed. “Shoot at the back!”

Kathy shot several times at the back of the helicopter. The spotlight moved to Kathy and fully illuminated her. More shots were heard. Pockets of dirt jumped from the ground around her. Kathy stood totally still as she shot several more bullets towards the back of the helicopter.

Back at their cabin, Mary continued to direct Melissa as Melissa went to one knee of the front deck and aimed her rifle at the helicopter. The two of them seemed too calm and methodical for the pandemonium surrounding them. “You’re shaking, dear,” Mary told her. “Stop shaking. Just stay calm, take aim, and squeeze the trigger.”

“I’m not shaking!” Melissa answered defiantly, and then shot at the helicopter. A single spark lit up at the front rotor blade of the helicopter.

“Good!” Mary yelled. “Now fire again.”

“I got it,” Melissa snapped back at Mary. Melissa slid the bolt back on her rifle and reloaded the rifle with another bullet. She then squeezed the trigger and shot at the helicopter. This time she missed, sending the bullet somewhere down into the valley below.

“That’s OK, try again,” Mary instructed Melissa. Melissa moved her rifle’s bolt back and replaced the empty shell with a new bullet.

A few feet away, Jesse pulled the slide of his shotgun back, reloading it. He then aimed and shot his shotgun a second time at the helicopter, producing another loud “boom!’ and lighting up the front of the helicopter with sparks.

The people inside the helicopter continued shooting down into the camp.

To the north, David shot several more shots into the side of the helicopter, half of the shots causing sparks on the side of the helicopter, while a few found their targets inside. The shooter on the side of the helicopter nearest David stopped shooting. David pulled the trigger and heard a “click,” indicating he had run out of bullets.

David leaned down to get the box of bullets he had near his feet, and he saw Gloria come out of the front door of the cottage with a pistol pointed at the helicopter. She looked very unsure holding the pistol, but she shot the pistol at the helicopter and then let out a short scream and dropped the pistol.

Melissa moved the rifle’s bolt back and forth, loading another bullet into the chamber of her 22 rifle. She shot at the helicopter again. A spark could be seen near the front of the helicopter. “That’s good, dear,” Mary encouraged Melissa. “Try to stop shaking and keep shooting.”

“I’m not shaking,” Melissa snapped back at Mary, she slid back the bolt of her gun, ejecting an empty shell.

Kathy again shot at the helicopter from directly below, and then Wallace pointed his gun at the helicopter and shot a full automatic burst of bullets at it. Multiple sparks could be seen from the front to the rear it. The spotlight went dark. The helicopter made a “wrr” hydraulic sound that could be heard above the sounds of the blades. The helicopter lifted and started turning around, first slowly, then more rapidly round and round. The helicopter elevated even further, and started to spin out of control.

Wallace shot two more bursts of bullets into the helicopter, and laughed out loud. Kathy stopped shooting and looked at Wallace, who continued to laugh out loud, and shot another burst of bullets into the helicopter. His laughter was now louder than the sound of the helicopter, which was pulling away and upward.

“A little 5-5-6 for you there, scumbag!” he yelled into the sky, then laughed some more. “Oh, this is beautiful, man!”

The helicopter spun more as it peaked in the sky, totally out of control. It slowly descended in the direction of the observation post to the south. The helicopter drifted further down, then dropped. It made a loud “crash” sound as it landed. A single flash of fire could be seen against the backdrop of the still mostly-dark sky.

“Jesse, the helicopter just crashed!” Bill could be heard yelling into the walkie-talkie. “I think it crashed near the Mormon camp!”

“Kathy,” Wallace yelled. “Nice shooting there, soldier! Let’s go kill some survivors! Grab an extra magazine and let’s go!” Wallace put on his pants and boots and quickly tightened his boots with a long nylon strap with velcro, named TacLace, and wrapped it around his boots. “This is great!” he shouted. “We’re going to hunt some scumbags!”

Kathy walked into her tent and emerged with another magazine, then walked to Wallace. She trembled. “You think that …?” She couldn’t finish her question.

Wallace put on his shirt and grabbed his gun, and said to Kathy, “Let’s go!” He started jogging on the road towards the observation post. He stopped and looked back at Kathy. “Come on!” Kathy followed.

A few groans and cries could be heard in the camp. Jesse put down his shotgun and held his hand next to his ear. He snapped his finger a couple times. “I can’t hear,” he announced to himself. He then looked around to see if anyone had been shot. “Someone go get Lois!” he yelled.

Kathy and Wallace ran down the road towards the observation post. Wallace laughed out loud again, loud enough so that everyone heard. “Just takin’ out the trash, folks! Takin’ out the trash!” He then laughed out loud again as he and Kathy ran behind a hill on their way towards the downed helicopter.

****

CHAPTER 18

Kathy kept up with Wallace as he ran towards the observation post. “They’re probably injured, so we’ll just finish them off,” Wallace shouted to her.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“How many bullets do you still have there?” Wallace asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you probably have enough.” The two of them slowed to a walk as they approached the observation post.

The area got lighter as the sun inched into the horizon, illuminating the area near the observation post. Bill climbed out of the observation post and onto the road behind. He was a stocky, fair-skinned guy with light reddish, brown hair, dressed in tan cargo pants and a dark green shirt.

Bill approached Wallace and Kathy as they jogged towards him.

“Bill, where did the chopper go?” Kathy asked, her voice trembling.

“It landed right over there,” Bill answered, pointing up the road towards the Mormon camp. Light smoke emerged from an area beyond the camp property, up the road. The area nearby the helicopter was rockier than the surrounding area, and there were no trees but lots of brush nearby.

“Wait here,” Wallace gestured to Kathy. He carefully peeked around the hill towards the helicopter. In the morning light he saw the helicopter on its left side, with the tail end pointing down the road towards the observation post. A curled rotor blade pointing straight up. The pilot, motionless, laid half-way out of the windshield on the front, almost touching the ground. The pilot was a tall, fair-skinned man with gray hair and a tan shirt. He looked like a fit man in his 60’s. A stream of blood emerged from his neck and dripped onto the ground off of his head.

A sound of electrical sparks emanated from inside the helicopter. A middle-eastern man wearing dark green clothing stood on one of the armrests inside and poked his head outside the helicopter’s right door, still wide open. He rubbed his head and looked out onto the road both towards the observation post and also behind him, further up the road towards the Mormon camp.

Wallace looked back at Bill and Kathy. “Kathy, it looks like there’s at least one survivor. Maybe more inside. I don’t know. Here’s what we need to do: take a shot at the helicopter there, about once every thirty seconds.”

Kathy mumbled, “Well, I guess …”

Wallace got closer to Kathy. “Are you OK to do this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can try.” Bill stood next to Kathy, looking at Wallace, then Kathy.

“You can do this, Kathy. Don’t be nervous.” Wallace smiled.

“I’ll go get my 22,” Bill said, and ran back towards the observation post.

Wallace put his hand under Kathy’s chin, and lifted her head slightly. She looked into his eyes. “Don’t be nervous, Kathy,” he said. Wallace had a helpful expression, surprisingly calm considering the circumstances. “You’ll have time to be nervous later.”

Kathy tried to smile. Wallace backed away, wrapped his rifle strap around his left arm and headed into some brush behind a hill, so that he could re-emerge onto the road on the other side of the downed helicopter. He looked back at Kathy. “Remember, shoot at the helicopter once about every thirty seconds. Just a single shot.”

Kathy looked around the hillside, towards the helicopter. She saw the man looking out from the helicopter, looking back at her. She lifted her gun and took a shot at him, missing him but hitting the bottom of the helicopter. The man ducked back into the helicopter, using its floor as a wall. Kathy hid back behind the hillside.

Wallace pushed some branches aside and made his way through the brush. Hearing the gunshot, he whispered to himself, “What a gal!”

The man inside the helicopter stood up and pointed a machine in Kathy’s direction. He fired four shots.

Kathy stood behind the hill, shaking slightly. She heard a few electrical sparks, then no more sounds from the helicopter.

Kathy waited a little longer, then looked around the hill and saw the helicopter. She raised her pistol again and fired another shot at the helicopter, then hid back behind the hill. The man in the helicopter stood up and fired two single shots back at Kathy, then stopped to look. He then fired another shot in Kathy’s direction.

Bill returned to Kathy’s location, holding his rifle. He whispered to Kathy, “Any luck? Did you hit the guy?”

“Nope. He must be injured or something because he’s just staying there, not moving. Just shooting back at me.” Kathy paused. “Listen to me, talking about shooting at a guy and being shot back.”

“How much ammo do you have?” Bill asked.

“I don’t know,” Kathy answered. Kathy was still shaking.

“Kathy, let me take a shot at the guy,” Bill said as he looked around the hill at the helicopter. He pointed his rifle at the helicopter and shot at it. Bill then ducked back behind the hill.

The man in the helicopter poked his head out of the helicopter and fired three more shots towards Bill and Kathy. While he was shooting, Wallace emerged from the hillside behind the man and shot him with a quick burst from his AR-15. “Oldest trick in the book!” he yelled as the man fell, lifeless, back inside the helicopter.

Wallace retreated back into the brush, watching for anyone else in the helicopter.

Kathy looked around the hill again, and walked out onto the road, closer to the helicopter.

“Kathy, get back!” Wallace yelled, gesturing. “We still don’t know…”

“Wallace, do you see anything?” Kathy yelled at Wallace.

Wallace looked through the front of the helicopter, and did not see any movement.

“Doesn’t anyone around here have a hand grenade?” Wallace yelled.

Bill whispered to Kathy, “He’s joking? Who can make a joke at a time like this?”

Kathy shrugged her shoulders. “Man, I don’t know.”

Wallace slowly walked to the helicopter, first to the front, then to the bottom. He looked inside. “I think we got ’em all here. Looks like they’re all dead,” Wallace yelled back at Kathy and Bill.

“Show’s over!”

Kathy and Bill walked closer. Wallace put his gun onto the ground and climbed into the right side door of the helicopter.

Kathy and Bill walked closer. “Are you sure everyone in there is dead?” Kathy asked.

Wallace poked his head out. “Looks like it,” Wallace said. He ducked back into the helicopter. “Well, not sure about the guy back here. Hold on.” A gunshot rang out. “Yep! Now I’m sure. Everyone in here is dead.” His looked back out of the helicopter, some blood has splashed onto his face. He stuck a finger into his ear. “It’s always a little hard on the hearing when you shoot without ear plugs.”

Kathy and Bill walked closer to the helicopter.

“Hey Kathy,” Wallace called out to Kathy.

“Your face is covered with blood,” Kathy called out to Wallace.

“Oh, sorry.” Wallace ducked back into the helicopter and wiped his face with one of the occupant’s sleeves.

Bill leaned towards Kathy as they walked closer. “Who is this guy?” he asked.

“Wallace,” Kathy mumbled.

“I know his name, but who is he?” Bill persisted.

“Settle down, he’s one of us,” Kathy answered. Kathy and Bill stopped a few feet away from the helicopter. Bill put his rifle on the road and sat down on the road. Kathy dropped her pistol onto the road and remained standing.

“Look, Kathy,” Wallace said from inside the helicopter. “If you want to hike into the hills there to go to the bathroom or something, I would understand. Bill, you too.”

Bill looked at Kathy, confused. Wallace elaborated, “It’s probably a little difficult for people their first time, you know, shooting at people.”

Kathy said faintly, “I don’t feel like hiking anywhere. In fact, maybe you guys can just look away and I can pee right here. Bill looked down at the ground.

Wallace could be heard inside the helicopter. “Suit yourself.”

Kathy pulled down her sweat pants, squatted and peed onto the dirt road.

When Kathy was finished, she sat back down on the road nearby Bill. She wiped away some tears. “I’m really not used to this.”

Wallace looked back out of the helicopter. “Say, do you guys have a policy on, you know, stuff you get from people you kill?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Bill asked, almost with some hostility, as he looked at Wallace.

“No, I’m not,” Wallace answered. He ducked back into the helicopter. “These guys have a lot of good things in here.” He tossed out a black handgun onto the ground. “That’s a good-looking Beretta right there. I’ll take that. And I know it works. I just used it.”

The sound of a belt being pulled off of pants could be heard. “This is a nice belt. Military issue. A belt can be used for a lot of things besides, you know, holding up your pants.” He paused. “Yessir, just clean off this blood right here and it’ll be good as new.” He tossed a tan belt onto the ground nearby the pistol.

Wallace called out to Kathy from inside the helicopter. “Kathy, what’re you packin’?”

“What?”

“What kind of pistol do you have? It looked like a Glock.”

“Yeah, a Glock.”

“A Glock 45 caliber?”

“Yeah.”

“How would you like a second one? Here, catch.” Wallace tossed a black handgun towards Kathy. She let it land on the ground nearby.

“Oh,” Kathy mumbled. “Thanks.”

“And there are a few knives in here too,” Wallace said. “A bunch of them. I’ll bring them back for Jesse and the boys.”

“And a few packs of cigarettes. These’ll be great for bartering.” Wallace threw out four packs of Camel cigarettes onto the ground nearby the pistol and belt.

Bill looked at Kathy in a confused expression, as if to say “I can’t believe this guy.”

She looked at Bill and shrugged her shoulders.

Wallace poked his head back out of the helicopter. “There are a couple of AK’s in here.” He stood up and put his right elbow onto the floor of the helicopter and leaned his head onto it. “You know, I have to say it,” he said. “I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning.” He looked at Kathy and Bill. “Something fun about it. When I was a kid my dad took me to the shooting range on Saturday mornings. I got to know that smell when I was pretty little. About fifth grade. Good memories.”

Wallace looked at Bill. “Oh, I’m sorry, we still haven’t formally met. Wallace Sturges.”

“Oh, Bill Hanner,” Bill smiled.

“Don’t get up,” Wallace made a short wave at Bill. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“And I have to say it. You two,” Wallace paused. “You guys were great. And I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

“Thanks,” both Bill and Kathy said.

“Bill, you should have seen Kathy back at the camp, when this chopper showed up, shooting at everyone. She was great. She just walked outside of her tent and pointed her gun straight up at the helicopter here and shot at it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought she was the Statue of Liberty, standing there so still and all. She even got shot at and didn’t flinch or nothing. She just kept shooting back.”

“Oh,” Kathy looked down. “Don’t confuse that for bravery. I couldn’t move.”

“No really,” Wallace insisted. “Kathy reminded me of a western movie I saw a few years ago. Don’t remember the name.”

“Really?” Bill asked, amused at the absurdity of discussing a movie in this setting.

“Yeah. I wish I could remember the name. Otherwise a pretty trashy movie, but the plot was -- well, maybe not the plot of the movie, but the main take-away I got from it was that in just about all shoot-outs, or close combat situations, most everyone freaks out. They just shake and shoot their guns everywhere, and they miss everything they shoot at. Then there was this character in the movie who walked in, and it seemed like he had ice water in his veins. Totally still, and every shot was dead-on. Very rare. It was a great movie.”

“And Kathy here reminds you of that movie?”

“Yep. You should have seen her.” Wallace looked at Kathy. “Very impressive.” Wallace ducked back into the helicopter to look for other things to bring out.

“Sounds like a Clint Eastwood movie.”

“You know, I think it was a Clint Eastwood movie,” Wallace could be heard from inside the helicopter. “Unforgiven. Yeah, that was the name.”

“So you are comparing Kathy here to Clint Eastwood.” Bill looked at Kathy. “Veins full of ice water. That’s quite a compliment, Kathy.”

“Oh, give me a break.” She wiped away a few tears.

Bill asked Wallace, “So what is it you were saying about AK’s in the chopper there?”

Wallace answered from inside the helicopter. “Well, I’m an AR man myself, but a lot of people around the world use AK-47 machine guns. It’s been called the weapon of choice for terrorists. Not too accurate but very durable. They don’t even need much cleaning. And they last forever. There are some AK-47’s out there, still killing people, for over 50 years.”

“What is it about the AR that you like better?” Bill asked.

Wallace looked back out of the helicopter. “Well, there are a lot of accessories for the AR that are available everywhere, at least here in the US. Like for example,” Wallace stopped, and looked at Kathy. “Kathy, are you OK?”

“I’m OK, just a little numb,” Kathy answered. “I don’t have shootouts every day. It was only minutes ago that I was being shot at. I’m really shocked. It’s going to take me a while to de-stress. Sorry.”

Wallace agreed. “Sure, I can understand. It’s traumatic. Take your time.”

Wallace looked back at Bill. “Anyway, I bought a bunch of accessories for my AR there,” and nodded towards his rifle on the ground nearby. “But when it came right down to it, I just don’t like the look of the AK. Turn on any news channel and watch the latest Muslim atrocity, all the shootings they do all the time, firing squads and whatever, and what type of machine gun do you see? The AK-47. I just associate that gun with evil guys, killing innocent people. I know, it’s a prejudice on my part. I know it doesn’t make much sense. I just didn’t want to have one. I want to have the type of gun that protects good guys, not kills them. That’s all.”

“Well, why don’t you bring them out anyway?” Bill said. “We can just bring them to the camp.”

“Sure.” Wallace ducked back into the helicopter and could be heard moving things around inside. “Hey, they have a ton of wallets in here. And gold watches. I guess whoever they kill, they take their wallet and jewelry. Kind of reminds me of that scumbag I killed in town.” Wallace looked around more. “Oh, and here’s a purse. I doubt that belongs to this guy.” Wallace paused and smiled to himself. “Unless, he’s, you know, one of those …”

Another belt could be heard getting pulled off of pants. “Tell you what,” Wallace said. “Why don’t I just get these guys out of the chopper, onto the ground out there, and we can search their pockets out there. It’s kind of cramped in here.”

“Yeah, OK,” Kathy said.

Wallace strained as he lifted one of the bodies. “Stand back, guys,” he called out, and Wallace threw a dead body out of the helicopter and onto the ground. It was a middle-eastern man with blood streaming down from a bullet hole on the side of his head. His right shoulder was also covered with blood.

“And here’s the guy I shot,” Wallace said, as he threw a second dead middle-eastern man onto the ground outside. The man had several shots in his back.

“One more coming out,” Wallace said as he threw a smaller man out of the helicopter. This man’s torso was covered in blood.

“And here is the last one.” Wallace threw a fourth dead body out. “I mean, besides the pilot. This is strange. The pilot here looks kind of Anglo. I wonder what he was doing with these guys.”

Bill quickly looked at the dead men on the ground and then had a disgusted expression on his face, and looked away. “So that’s what the Mark looks like.”

The sounds of rattling metal could be heard inside the helicopter. Wallace looked out, at Bill. “Hey Bill, let me hand you these rifles.” He handed Bill two rifles from the helicopter to Bill, who then put them on the ground nearby the bodies. “Those are AK-47’s,” Wallace pointed to them. “Not too accurate but they just keep shooting. You don’t need to clean them as much as my AR-15.”

Wallace went back into the helicopter. “And what is this? It looks like an M4. Yeah, I think it is. Three of them.”

“What is that?” Bill asked.

“Well, it’s a military-issued gun. Civilians are not allowed to have these. I wonder where they got this? The magazine here,” Wallace pulled the magazine from the underside of the gun. “30-round capacity. This is military only. Where did they get all this?”

“I heard that the guys who killed Kirk had a Humvee,” Kathy said.

“I’m starting to wonder if,” Wallace speculated, “I’m starting to wonder if the military bases have just opened up their supply warehouses or if they were, you know, taken over or something. This is not making much sense.”

Wallace handed the three M4 rifles to Bill. Bill then put them on the ground near the others. “And another thing that doesn’t make sense here,” Wallace said, looking at the bodies. “Four scumbags and one guy, the pilot, who was probably taken at gun-point, and five rifles.” Wallace looked at Bill and Kathy. “We have an extra rifle.”

“So?” Bill, confused, looked up at Wallace.

“Guys don’t usually go into combat with more than one rifle apiece. That means that …” Wallace jumped on top of the side of the helicopter and looked north into the retreat property. The helicopter wobbled slightly. Wallace scratched his head.

“What are you looking for?” Bill asked.

“Oh, never mind.” Wallace climbed back into the helicopter and gathered some more items. “Head’s up,” Wallace announced, and threw out several knives, each in its own sheath, gun magazines, some men’s wallets, some gold watches and a single, brown purse, which landed on the ground.

“Still more magazines,” Wallace said as he threw five more magazines out, each one landing near the rifles. “Magazines that can hold this many rounds are military only.”

Wallace climbed out of the helicopter. He pointed at the dead bodies and looked at Bill and Kathy. “You can see their pockets are stuffed. More magazines and stuff. Let’s empty them.”

Bill got up and walked towards the brush. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Bill said, then threw up into the bushes nearby. Bill coughed and spat a little, then he returned and sat down next to Kathy.

Wallace pulled off the cargo pants from one of the bodies. He pulled out two wallets from one of the pockets.

“Bill, check out the knives here,” Wallace pointed at the knives on the ground. “I’ll bet they’re all covered in blood.”

Bill walked over to the knives. He picked one up, opened a strap and pulled the knife from it sheath. The knife was red with blood. Shocked, Bill dropped the knife, and rushed over to the side of the road. “This is too much,” he said. He looked nauseous.

“Kathy,” Wallace said as he looked into a wallet taken from the pants of one of the bodies. “What was Kirk’s full name?”

“Kirk Bryant.”

“Here’s his wallet.” Wallace tossed the wallet to Kathy.

“Thanks,” Kathy caught the wallet and looked inside it. “So I guess we did it. We killed Kirk’s killer.”

“Yep,” Wallace looked back at the bodies around him. “And a few of his thug friends here.”

“They were all in it together.”

“Do you feel any better now?’

“Yeah, a little.”

Wallace poured the contents of the purse onto the ground. It was empty but a single diamond necklace hit the ground. Wallace picked up the necklace and studied it. “I think I know the person this necklace belongs to, well, probably before she got killed. I think this necklace belonged to the wife of a client of mine.”

Kathy looked at the necklace. “It looks pretty unusual.”

Wallace picked it up and put it into his pocket. “I think I built a house for this woman and her husband just last year. They were a nice couple.”

Wallace took the dark shirt off of one of the men and placed it on the ground and put the rifles, magazine, knives, wallets and cigarettes onto the shirt so that it could be carried all together. “Let’s bring all this stuff back to Jesse.”

****

CHAPTER 19

“Hey, what’s going on out here?” asked a man from up the road, walking towards the helicopter. Wallace, Bill and Kathy looked up the road to the west and saw three men walking towards them. The men were all fair-skinned and wore dark pants and white, button-down short-sleeved shirts. Two of the men looked to be in their 30’s, and one of them held a shotgun over slung his shoulder, pointing up. The younger men stood on either side of an older, distinguished-looking man, who looked to be in his 60’s. They had come from the Mormon camp up the road.

“Oh hi, Elder Jacob, I remember you,” Wallace greeted the man in the middle. Wallace looked back at the bodies on the ground. “These guys came to kill us, shooting at us from this helicopter, so we shot it down. Now we’re getting their stuff. They won’t need it.”

“We think they killed also Kirk, you know, Kirk and Jackie, who lived down the road,” Bill said.

“Are those guys dead?” the unarmed younger man asked, looking at the dead bodies Wallace had thrown out of the helicopter. He looked disgusted and put his hand to his mouth.

“Yep,” Wallace answered. “You guys are lucky they didn’t come to your camp.”

“We heard about Kirk,” the other young man said. “That was horrible.”

Bill answered, “Yeah, they chopped his head off. Right out in front of the roadblock out here.”

Kathy turned to Bill. “No need to provide that much detail, Bill.”

The three men shuddered. “No, we heard all about it. That was horrible,” one of the younger men said. “Something about taking the Mark on your forehead.”

“We’re all supposed to take the Mark,” Kathy answered. “It’s a new law.”

Elder Jacob looked at the man to his left. “Looks like those guys all have the Mark on their foreheads. Look at that one.” He pointed.

“Yeah, I see it.”

The other younger man who held the shotgun put his hand in front of his mouth. “Not used to being around dead bodies.” He looked at one of the dead men on the ground. “Yeah, I can see the Mark on that guy’s forehead. A little, gray bar code or something.”

The other younger man began, “Kirk has a couple of friends in our group.” He paused. “Well, he ‘had’ friends in our group.”

“We buried his body a few hours ago,” Kathy said. “Just last night. Next thing you know, this helicopter shows up at our camp and starts shooting at us.”

The three men stood a few feet away from the front of the helicopter. “Hey, I think I know that guy,” Elder Jacob said as he looked at the dead helicopter pilot. The younger man who had thrown up joined the other two in front of the helicopter.

“Yes, I think I know him,” Jacob said, tilting his head to the right as he studied the pilot. The other two men looked at the pilot and leaned their heads to the right as well.

“I figure these guys forced the pilot here to fly this thing,” Wallace ventured. “They are definitely not friends or anything. Look,” Wallace lifted the pilot’s head up so that the others could see the pilot’s face and forehead. The pilot’s eyes were slightly open, looking down. “The pilot doesn’t have the Mark on his forehead.”

“Yeah, you may be right,” Jacob said as he looked at Wallace. He held out his hand to shake Wallace’s hand. “Good to see you again. I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“Wallace. Hi. Good to see you again.” Wallace appeared to quickly wipe his right hand on his pants, then reached out his hand and shook hands with Elder Jacob. “My name is Wallace, and my friends here are Bill and Kathy.” Bill and Kathy stayed seated and waved at the others.

“Meet Alex and Caleb,” Wallace shook hands with Alex, the one with the shotgun, and Caleb. The others waved at each other.

Elder Jacob looked back at the pilot. “Yes, I think the pilot had a crop-dusting business. He had several planes and he bought this helicopter at some Army surplus auction. He had a lot of fun with it. I don’t think he ever thought it would be used to try and kill anyone. That’s too bad. Tragic.”

“I thought he looked familiar,” Alex said, looking back at the pilot. “I think my family hired him to crop-dust our soy bean field a couple years ago.”

“Hmm,” Caleb looked at the pilot. “Isn’t he the one who took in a couple of grand-daughters?” Caleb looked at Elder Jacob.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” Elder Jacob spoke up. “His daughter died from a drug overdose, so he took in his grand-daughters. Five and seven-year-old girls. He was a good man.”

Wallace approached the pilot and reached in to unbuckle the body. He then pulled the pilot’s body out, and laid it on the ground outside the front of the helicopter, in front of the three men. Both Alex and Caleb avoided looking at the pilot’s body.

*****

Alex turned away from looking at the pilot’s body. His attention was suddenly drawn to the south. A column of smoke filled the southern sky. He started to exclaim, “Holy …!”

Elder Jacob looked at Caleb, “Hey, watch your lang –“ Elder Jacob stopped his comment as he also saw the smoke in the south. A huge black smoke cloud filled the southern sky. Despite being thirty miles away, it blacked out so much of the sky that the morning was not as bright as it would otherwise be.

“Oh no. Oh no. Look at that.”

Everyone else there looked to the south. Kathy and Bill stood up, their mouths wide open. “Oh no,” Bill said, sounding like he was trying to talk himself out of what he was seeing.

“Oh no, look at that,” Wallace said.

“Could that be a forest fire or something?” Caleb asked.

“No way,” Wallace insisted. “It’s not dry enough for a forest fire here. It just rained last week. No, that’s coming from town. And that’s not a house or two on fire. That’s half the town on fire.”

Kathy and Bill looked at each other, then back to the south. “I can’t believe this,” Kathy said. “That looks like the whole town is on fire, not just part of it. That’s a lot of people getting killed right now. Lots of people we knew.”

“I can’t believe this. Have you guys in your camp heard anything about what is going on out there?” Wallace asked Elder Jacob.

“No, not really. Nothing but what you guys might already know. Some talk of Sharia being put in place. That kind of thing. We haven’t heard much lately because the electrical grid has been really spotty lately. You know, with all the machine gun attacks on electrical substations.”

“Oh yeah, ‘Metcalfing.’” Wallace agreed. “It takes its toll. The poor-man’s EMP attack.”

“Now this,” Elder Jacob gestured to the south.

“Yeah, it looks like whoever it is is killing off everyone in the town,” Wallace asserted. “Everyone.”

“There have to be thousands dead right now,” Bill estimated. “Getting killed or already dead. I never thought I would see anything like this.”

“Bill, come in,” Jesse could be heard on the walkie-talkie in Bill’s pocket.

Bill pulled out the walkie-talkie, but with his attention still fixed on the huge smoke column in the southern sky. “Yes, Jesse, this is Bill.”

“What happened with the helicopter? Any news?”

“Yes, it crashed on the road out here and all five occupants are now dead. The pilot may have been forced by the others to fly this thing. We got Kirk’s wallet.”

“You’ll have to repeat that. My hearing is pretty bad right now.”

Bill spoke louder and slower into the walkie-talkie. “I said that all five men in the helicopter are dead. One of them had Kirk’s wallet.”

“Did you say that one of the guys in that chopper had Kirk’s wallet? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, good work! I never thought we would be killing people but, yeah, they attacked us. So, yeah. I guess stuff like this happens. We have maybe one person injured back here, but Mike looks OK.”

“Jesse, I have some bad news.”

“What, is everyone OK? How’re Kathy and Wallace?”

“They’re fine, but … look to the south.”

“What are you …” The walkie-talkie went silent.

“Jesse, I know there are some hills between you and the view we have here, but …”

Jesse came back on the walkie-talkie, and this time was somber. “No. It doesn’t matter. Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this.” Jesse paused but left the microphone button pushed. “All those people. That’s got to be the town right there. That’s the whole town, up in flames. It can’t be anything else. All those people…”

Jesse could be heard talking away from the walkie-talkie. “Mary, look at that.” A gasp could be heard. Frantic talking could be heard nearby Jesse. He finally let up the microphone button, so there was silence from his end.

“Listen, Jesse,” Bill resumed talking from his end. “We’re done here. We have a bunch of guns, knives, ammo, wallets, jewelry and stuff, and we’ll be bringing it all back to you.”

“You do that.” Jesse kept the microphone pressed again. Expressions of shock and commotion could be heard among many people at Jesse’s end. “Yes, come on back.” Jesse then sounded like he was praying. “Lord, come quickly.” Jesse then asked someone on his end, “Who’s turn is it to go to the observation post?” He went silent again.

Wallace announced to the three men standing nearby, “OK, I think we’ll be heading back.”

“What about these bodies?” Elder Jacob asked. “And this wrecked helicopter?”

“We can toss the bodies over the side,” Wallace suggested.

“Wait,” Caleb said. “Why don’t we bury the pilot’s body? Looks like he wasn’t a part of this.”

“Yeah,” Elder Jacob nodded. Elder Jacob grabbed the shirt collar of the dead pilot and dragged him further up the road a little. He looked back at Wallace. “Can we toss the helicopter over the side too?”

“Why? It might make a second road block to help protect your camp.”

“Well, we still want to use the road someday. When things settle down a little.”

Wallace and Kathy looked at each other. Wallace looked back at Elder Jacob. “You mean, you think things will get back to normal?”

“Yeah, someday. Things will blow over and get back to normal. You’ll see.”

“You know, well,” Wallace started, trying to be diplomatic, “I just don’t see that happening.” He looked to the smoke in the southern sky again, then back to Elder Jacob. “I don’t think things will ever get back to normal. We’re in the Last Days here. There’s no turning back.”

“I don’t agree. No offense, but you evangelicals tend to jump to conclusions. You’ll see. This will all blow over, the lights will come back on and things will get back to normal.”

“Well OK, I can toss these bodies over, but I’m not sure about the helicopter here.” Wallace tossed one of the bodies over the cliff.

Wallace walked over to another dead body. “Hey this guy had some nice boots.” Wallace took the boots off of the body. “And cargo pants. And a nice 5.11 shirt.” Wallace pulled the pants and shirt off of the dead body, leaving the man in boxer shorts and a t-shirt.

“That’s really sick,” Alex said.

“Hey, we can still use this stuff,” Wallace answered, as he put the clothing and boots into the pile and threw the second body over the cliff.

“It’s not like we can go online and order some more boots and cargo pants,” Kathy said.

“Oh, so I guess you’re feeling better now?” Wallace asked Kathy, as he approached the third body. “Some of the shock worn off?”

“A little.” Kathy looked to the south. “I still can’t believe what’s going on in town. A lot of my old friends are probably getting killed right now.”

Wallace picked up the third body.

“Won’t that cause disease or something?” Alex asked. “Just to have dead bodies out there, rotting?”

Wallace turned around to face Alex, who looked disgusted and turned away. “Not really,” Wallace said. “Unless there is a water source down there, and I know there isn’t.” He then tossed the third body over the cliff.

“So long as we stay away from the bodies,” Elder Jacob agreed.

“It’ll be OK,” Wallace said as he dragged the fourth body and pushed it over the side.

“Hey, can you guys help us with the chopper over here?” Wallace looked at the three men near the front of the helicopter. “You seriously want it out of the way, right? Off the road?”

“Yeah,” Elder Jacob answered as the three of them approached the bottom of the helicopter and started pushing on the landing skid. “These things are kind of top-heavy,” Elder Jacob pointed out as he pushed. “That’ll help.”

“Here, let me help,” Wallace stood next to Elder Jacob and pushed on the landing skid. Bill and Kathy stood up and joined the pushing of the helicopter. First, the tail section rotated over the cliff, and then everyone moved to push the front of the helicopter. Eventually the helicopter fell over the cliff, landing with a crash on some rocks below.

“Thanks guys,” Elder Jacob said to everyone as he stepped back, dusting his hands. “I think we’ll be going back now. We’ll come back for the pilot’s body later.” Elder Jacob waved at Wallace, Bill and Kathy, then turned around and started walking back up the road to the Mormon camp. The other two men waved and followed Elder Jacob back to their camp.

*****

“Guys, let’s get this stuff together and go back to Jesse.” Wallace bundled all the rifles, pistols, knives, magazines, cigarettes, wallets, clothing, and his own rifle in one of the shirts taken from the men in the helicopter, and slung it over his shoulder and looked at Bill and Kathy. “Let’s go.”

The three started walking up the road.

“Wallace, I gotta ask you,” Kathy asked, as she caught up to Wallace. “Have you ever been in the military or something? I mean, how did you know to do all this? We were in combat here.”

“Nope, I’ve never served. I’m totally arm-chair.” Wallace looked back at Bill as Bill began to follow. “It’s kind of a long story, but I can shorten it. A good friend of mine in high school joined the Army, became a Ranger. He did his time, took his honorable discharge, and then he saw the kind of money that private military contractors were offering. So he signed up with a contractor.”

“You mean like for Blackwater or something?” Bill asked.

“Not that contractor. Another one. There are many private military contractors out there, you know.”

“OK, so your friend got hired with a contractor, helping out the military. That’s what they do, right?”

“Right. Meanwhile I was in college football, a defensive lineman, getting bored. So my friend talked me into joining too. He really took me in under his wing.” Wallace paused. “I knew I liked to shoot guns, and I was kinda dumb. I guess I didn’t know any better. It seemed fun, and the pay was great.”

“So you signed up,” Bill pressed Wallace.

“Yeah. At first I was the type of guy who said, ‘hey guys, I’ll be right behind you.’ Then I got a little more involved, putting myself in the parts of the group that got shot at and returned fire, that kind of thing. Pulling triggers. For an action-junkie like me it was kind of fun. Then I got a reputation of being kind of crazy, if you can believe that.”

“No kidding,” Bill said, in mock surprise.

Wallace looked at Bill and smiled. “So that’s it. No military, just private military contacting work. It was a great job, but you never settle down and do a job like that. After a few years and some really close calls I figured I should go home and try doing something normal for a while before I get myself killed.”

“Oh, so you put up your gun for good?” Bill asked.

“Well, I still hunt. But yeah, I’m out of the private contracting business. I build homes now.”

The three of them walked together in silence for a while. When they came to the opening of the road on the left, Wallace stopped and looked to smoke rising above town in the south. “There it is, folks. Proof that we didn’t jump the gun in bugging out. I don’t care what the Mormons say.”

“What do they know?” Bill grunted.

“Mormons,” Wallace started. “Excellent preppers but distorted theology. And that’s too bad. Pretty good neighbors though. And friendly. I’ll give ‘em that.”

“I’ve never met them,” Bill said. “Here we have been living nearby for over a month and this is the first I have seen them.”

“Yeah,” Kathy agreed. “I knew they were Mormons the second they walked up. Just by what clothes they wore.”

“It’s those white, short-sleeved button-down shirts,” Wallace smiled. “I think Mormon boys come out of the womb dressed in shirts like that.” Bill and Kathy smiled.

Bill looked south. “Never thought I would see a whole town on fire like that,” Bill said, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, which was now in the southeast. “Such a huge smoke column and the town is over 30 miles away. Look at that -- it takes up such a huge part of the sky!”

“Hmm,” Kathy nodded. “Lots of people dying there.”

“Probably,” Wallace said.

The three turned into the road and started walking into the retreat property past the observation post.

“Wallace, I have another question,” Bill started. “How is it that you wear camo everywhere? I remember, back when church was still open, you were the one who was in camo, sitting way in the back of church. What was that all about?”

“Well, that was a function of my relationship with Jesus Christ.”

“What do you mean by that?” Kathy asked, confused.

“Well, the Bible is the word of God, I know that. And every single part of the Bible is put there for a reason. Not just for conversation or something. I mean really; on purpose. And several parts of the Bible are pretty explicit about what happens at the end. The End Times. It’s downright scary.”

“Yeah,” Kathy nodded. “I agree.”

“Well, after I moved back to town and got saved and started going to church, I figured that if God told us what to expect in the End Times, and, in that passage in Matthew, Jesus told Christians to ‘just flee,’ then we were being told to take it all very seriously. Deadly seriously, in fact.”

“That’s true,” Bill agreed.

“You know, if you think about it, everything else Jesus said in the Bible seemed so, I don’t know, just different. Kind of cerebral, preaching. A parable about a wayward son, telling people that his yoke was easy, forgive your enemies, ‘let your light so shine,’ that kind of thing. Everything He said was kind of parental and reassuring. One Sunday school teacher of mine used the term “salvivic.” Then, when Jesus’ disciples asked Him about the End Times, He said ‘just flee to the mountains.’ It just sounded a little out of character. ‘Just flee to the mountains’ He said. That really stuck with me.”

“I never thought about it that way.” Bill looked at Wallace with a new seriousness.

“Then Jesus followed it up with ‘I have told you in advance.’ As far as I’m concerned,” Wallace continued, “any Christian who really takes the Bible seriously needs to wear camouflage all the time, stockpile a bunch of food, guns and ammo, and be ready to go at any time. If you aren’t really alarmed at what the Bible says about the End Times and what we can expect, then you aren’t taking the Bible seriously. All of it. Sure, I wear normal clothing to client meetings or whatever, but most of the time I would wear camo, just in case. Always ready to go. Jesus said that the End Times will come at a day and hour that neither He nor the angels knew. Only God knew.”

“Yep, good point.” Bill nodded.

“And then, just to top it all off, the final book of the Bible, Revelation, says that God gives a special blessing to anyone who reads that specific book of the Bible. And of course Revelation talks about how all sorts of horrible things will happen to end humanity. Just about all at the same time. I just couldn’t see being a real Christian and not being a prepper at the same time. One goes hand in hand with the other. In fact, we’re being told to be preppers.”

“Like Noah and Joseph,” Bill suggested.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

The three of them walked further in silence for a few moments.

“OK,” Bill sounded convinced. “One more thing. I think I figured out the reason why you always sat in the back of church all the time. The Bible says ‘the last shall be first, and the first last.’ So sitting in the back of church was your way of making sure that under the Bible you will actually be first. Am I right?” Bill had the look of someone who had just solved a complicated puzzle.

“Well, no,” Wallace answered. “There was better legroom in the back of church. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Bill and Kathy nodded and the three of them continued walking up the road towards the camp.

*****

The trio continued walking on the road to the camp, with Bill and Kathy on either side of Wallace, who carried the shirt full of all the items gotten from the helicopter. Wallace looked at Bill. “So Bill, what’s your history? What were you before this all started happening?”

“I was a mechanical engineering major at the university, in my junior year.”

“And you were in this retreat group?”

“Yep, since before the church got shut down. I was in the Bible study group with Jesse and Mary. One day they invited me up here for target practice, which was a blast. I didn’t have too much experience with guns. Eventually they let me in on what was going on up here – that they were preparing for the end of the world.”

Wallace put the shirt down and grabbed one of the M4 rifles and held it with his right hand. He picked up the shirt full of items and carried it over his other shoulder.

“And your family? Your parents? What about them?”

An expression of sadness and worry came across Bill’s face. “That is the first topic in my every prayer. I know my parents were part of a retreat group in the eastern part of the state, but I haven’t heard from them. I hope and pray that they’re OK.”

Wallace looked back at Bill. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll be praying for your parents.”

“Thanks Wallace.”

The trio walked further in silence for a few minutes. Wallace aimed down the road with the M4 rifle. “These really are cool guns. I still can’t get over how those guys had some military-issued guns like these.”

“So, Bill,” Kathy started, “what were you doing when you heard the song on the radio? The song repeating, as a signal to drop everything and come up here?”

“Well, I had my petition for sabbatical ready to go. I am an engineer, you know. And when I heard the song on the radio playing over and over again, as we had discussed, I knew it was a signal to go to the retreat. I scanned some recent news, read parts of the Bible to confirm, and then tried to call my parents. The phone lines were all dead. So I dropped my letter in the mail and headed up here. I sent the letter just to cover my bases. If we were wrong, I wanted to be able to return to class and graduate with a decent GPA. In retrospect that was pretty unnecessary. My old campus is probably a killing field right about now.”

“Yeah, I’ve wondered what things are like back there,” Kathy said. “I finally paid off my condo, and I was early. Then I had to leave it. It’s probably in flames right now, along with the rest of the town. Oh well, my money situation was on the up-swing, so easy come easy go.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Bill smiled.

“Hey, it sounds like you guys are both doing better now. The shock and nausea you both had after the shooting and seeing those bodies back there. Look like it has subsided a little. I heard two jokes, well, almost jokes, in the last few minutes. Not bad.”

Kathy and Bill looked at each other. Kathy announced, “Well, I doubt I will sleep for a while, but having you in charge here made things a lot better.”

“Yeah, Wallace,” Bill agreed. “Thanks for taking the lead in all this.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Kathy agreed. “We couldn’t have done any of this without you. You probably saved a lot of lives today.”

“My pleasure. You guys were great back there. Just beautiful! I was blessed to be hooked up with you two.”

*****

Just then a gunshot rang out from the forest to the left of the road. Bill screamed out “Ah!” and grabbed his right temple as blood flowed down onto his face, then he fell onto the dirt road.

Wallace dropped the shirt he was carrying onto the ground and aimed the M4 towards the location of the gunshot. A middle-eastern man dressed in dark green was standing up, leaning against a tree about 50 feet away, holding a pistol. One of his legs dangled down in an unnatural angle, obviously broken.

The sun reflected the man’s smiling face as he yelled out several words in Arabic. From the evil smile on his face it was apparent that he was thrilled that his shot had hit one of the three who were walking on the road. The sun reflected and illuminated the slight-gray bar code on the man’s forehead.

The man shot his pistol a second time at Wallace, Bill and Kathy, but missed. Wallace pointed the M4 rifle and shot a quick burst of three bullets, all of which missed the man. Wallace then shot a second burst of three bullets and one bullet hit the man’s neck. The man then fell back onto the ground. Wallace ran towards the man.

Kathy rushed to Bill’s side. Bill’s hand fell off of his head and exposed the gunshot on the side of his temple. His skull was barely visible and blood oozed out. Bill passed out. “Stay with me Bill,” Kathy pleaded. Bill opened his eyes and looked at Kathy and she pressed the wound with her hand to stop the bleeding. Bill’s eyes closed again as he passed out once more.

Wallace stood directly over the man he had just shot. He shot another three bullets directly into the man’s face.

“Kathy,” Bill managed to say, as his eyes opened and focused on her.

Kathy reached into the pile of items that Wallace had dropped nearby, and she grabbed a green shirt, rolled it up and pressed it against Bill’s head. Bill passed out again. “Stay with me, Bill,” Kathy pleaded. “Don’t go.”

Wallace yelled back to Kathy, “Press on the bleeding! You have to stop the bleeding!”

“I am!” Kathy looked back at Bill. “Stay with us, Bill.” Some tears rolled down Kathy’s face.

Bill opened his eyes again, and looked at Kathy. “Why?” he was able to say. “What’re you going to do? Kathy, I’m toast. Don’t bother.”

“Don’t give up, Bill,” Kathy said. Bill passed out again.

Wallace ran back to Kathy and Bill. “Alright, let’s leave the stuff here, except for one of these rifles, and get Bill to the camp. You guys have a nurse there, right?”

“Yeah. Lois.”

Wallace stuck his left arm through the rifle strap so that he could carry the rifle he had just shot. He then picked up Bill and held him in front with his two outstretched arms. “Try to keep the pressure on his head,” he told Kathy. “Head wounds bleed a lot. We need to stop the bleeding if we can.”

“OK,” Kathy said as she pressed the rolled-up green shirt against Bill’s head.

“Come on,” Wallace said as he managed to walk quickly on the road towards the camp.

Wallace carried Bill and walked as fast as he could, while Kathy ran alongside and apply pressure to Bill’s head in hopes of stopping the bleeding.

Wallace and Kathy followed the road around a small turn to the left and came into view of the main part of the camp.

****

CHAPTER 20

The camp was still a mess from the helicopter attack the night before. Several tents had been blown over, and everyone visible was either trying to set up a tent or repair something. Nerves were frayed.

Some people were crying out loud or yelling at others. Only one person, Mike, had been shot by the people in the helicopter. But Mike had been shot in the back of his upper left arm, and the bullet had gone all the way through, so there was nothing for Lois to do but stitch the wound close and give Mike some antibiotics from the fish antibiotics that had been stored by Jesse and Mary.

The first people Wallace, Kathy and Bill came across were Beth and one of her daughters. Beth was a tall, fair-skinned woman with short blond hair. She was comforting her teenage daughter, Keira, who was crying.

Keira was taking their situation pretty hard. “I can’t stand it here,” she sobbed. Beth hugged Keira as she cried. “Every morning I wake up and can’t believe I’m still here,” she cried. “I don’t want to be here. Now we’re getting shot at! What’s that about? What did we do to deserve getting shot at?”

“Keira, this place is our only hope.” She hugged Keira. “Try to stay strong.”

Beth looked behind Keira and saw Wallace quickly walking as he carried Bill, with Kathy pressing Bill’s head to stop the bleeding. Beth stood up and turned around, looking behind her, towards the main part of the camp.

“Lois!” Beth yelled.

“Where’s the nurse?” Wallace asked Beth.

“Beth, where is Lois?” Kathy asked.

“Probably working on Mike,” Beth answered. “Mike got shot.”

Jesse was nearby, helping to set up a tent. “What happened to him?” Jesse yelled, louder than necessary. His hearing was still compromised. “I was just talking to him a few minutes ago and he was fine. What happened?”

“He got shot,” Kathy answered. “We need to get him to Lois.”

“Jesse,” Wallace stopped walking near Jesse. One of the men’s dogs, a German Shepard, approached and sniffed Wallace. “Apparently one guy from the helicopter fell out up the road. He shot at us and hit Bill when we were walking nearby.”

Sean approached, alerted from the excited sounds nearby. “What happened to him?”

“Look,” Wallace yelled at both Jesse and Sean. “What I’m trying to say is that there might be another scumbag or two in the woods here. I don’t know. The guy who shot Bill fell out of that helicopter and he was waiting in the woods next to the road up there. I killed him but there might be another one or two who fell out of the chopper.”

“Oh come on …” Jesse sounded like he was complaining. “More killers out here?” He turned to Sean. “Sean, we need you. Can you go with someone and check around to see if anyone else fell out of that chopper? They might be hanging around in the woods here to kill us.”

“Yeah.” Sean looked around. “Anyone know where Peter is?” Sean hurriedly walked back towards the campfire area.

“This really sucks,” Jesse complained.

“I’ll take you to where Lois is,” Beth volunteered to Wallace. “Come on.” They followed Sean into the main part of the camp.

****

CHAPTER 21

Gloria searched in vain for the laundry she had only hours ago put up on a clothesline to dry. “My laundry is gone!” she yelled out, assuming everyone wanted to know. “Just vanished! I washed it, put it up here to dry, and some helicopter comes by and … now it’s all gone. Disappeared! If anyone finds my and David’s clothing, let me know!”

“I hate to tell ya,” someone answered. “But you and David spent way too much on clothes anyway. I mean, we have this end of the world retreat up here, and you and David show up with designer clothing. Kind of awkward. You guys should have shopped for clothes at BJ’s or Walmart.”

“Oh that’s funny,” Gloria answered, half mad and half amused. “Look,” she argued back, “last I checked, the book of Revelation does not have a dress code.”

“I found a t-shirt,” Jose said as he approached Gloria with a white t-shirt. “Looks like you might need to wash it again.”

“Thanks Jose,” Gloria said, then looked around. “Everyone keep your eyes open for my clothes, OK?”

Nearby, Jim toiled on the top of his RV trailer, trying to fill in the gunshot hole in his trailer roof with caulk. “I just can’t get this caulk to set in place!” he angrily announced to everyone nearby. “Now I will have a leak in this thing. Every time it rains.” Jim stood up straight, acting like he had something profound to announce. “I tell ya, all Muslims are scum. Total scum! Every last one of them.”

Lawson, who was walking nearby with the help of David, corrected Jim. “Don’t be hating. The Bible says for us to pray for those who persecute you.”

Jim jumped off the top of his trailer and approached Lawson. “Lawson, what do you know about war or being shot at? We are in a totally different kind of war here. What kind of war were you in?”

David intervened. “He enlisted in the Navy in World War Two and also in Korea.”

“Oh, tough guys,” Jim mocked Lawson. “The Navy waited around for the atom bomb to be dropped and then they came ashore to clean things up.”

“Hey,” David stepped between Lawson and Jim. “Back off, Jim! Lawson’s a war hero.”

Jim angrily looked at David. “Why should I, Davy? What are you going to do to me Davy, piss on me?” Jim pushed David’s shoulder provocatively.

“Maybe I will,” David said as he punched Jim in the jaw. Jim punched back and the two grabbed each other and rolled on the ground. Cries of “hey!” could be heard from several people nearby as David and Jim fought.

Chuck and DJ stepped in and pulled David and Jim off of each other and pushed them away from each other on the ground. Several others crowded around, calling for calm and an end to the fighting.

Jesse rushed over and angrily looked at Jim. The crowd nearby went quiet. Jesse pointed his finger into Jim’s face, only a few inches away. “There might not be any more rule of law,” Jesse said in a low-pitched voice and extremely angry, “but this is still my property and I can throw you off of it.”

David, sitting nearby and checking the blood on his lip, said, “Jesse, he’s OK. Just let it go. Our nerves are just worn out. I don’t think anyone up here has ever been shot at. Just leave him alone.” Another few more seconds passed, with Jesse motionless, pointing at Jim. The crowd nearby stood in silence.

Jesse shook his head, as if waking from a trance. “Alright, I’m sorry. You’re right. We need you Jim. I’m really sorry.” Jesse reached down and pulled Jim to his feet.

“No problem,” Jim said. “I guess I let my mouth loose for a while and I shouldn’t have.”

David stood up. “Hey, I’m sorry, Jim.” He reached out his hand to shake hands with Jim.

“Alright, I’m sorry, David. I’m really sorry. I was dumb. Are you OK?” They shook hands. “And Lawson, I apologize to you too.”

“That’s quite alright,” Lawson answered gently. “But for the record, I have been shot at before.”

*****

Wallace and Kathy found Lois, who had just finished stitching up the wounds on both sides of Mike’s left arm. Lois looked up. “Oh no -- was he shot too?”

“Yeah, just a few minutes ago,” Wallace reported as he brought Bill to Lois.

“Let me see him.”

Wallace went to one knee next to Lois so that Lois could look at Bill’s temple. Kathy lifted the bundled shirt she had been using to stop the bleeding.

“It doesn’t look like the bullet penetrated his skull,” Lois reported. “We still need to stop the bleeding. Has he been passed out since this happened?”

“In and out,” Kathy said. “He said a few things after it happened and then he passed out.”

“What do you think? Will he make it?” Wallace asked.

“I don’t know. I hope so, but it doesn’t look too good. We won’t know for a while.” Lois looked behind her. “Kathy, could you hand me my bag please?”

“I don’t see it.”

“That black leather bag over there.”

“Oh, I got it.”

“Thanks.” Lois looked at Bill. “Why don’t you put him down,” she said to Wallace. “You’re Wallace, right?”

“Right.” Wallace laid Bill onto the ground, and put the rolled up shirt under Bill’s head.

Lois reached into her bag and pulled out a small bottle and a bandage. She poured some liquid from the bottle onto the bandage and then patted the wound with the wet bandage. The wound had stopped bleeding. Lois then pulled a needle and dark thread out of her bag and started stitching the cut.

Jesse, Andrew and several other people walked towards Lois. “Remember everyone,” Jesse announced, we’ll have a camp-wide meeting today after lunch.” Jesse looked at Lois, stitching Bill’s forehead. “How’s it look, Lois?”

“I’ve seen worse. But it would be nice if he came to.”

Jesse looked at Kathy. “It looks like Kathy did a good job of stopping the bleeding.”

“Thanks.”

One of the teenage girls nearby said to Andrew, “Pretty exciting stuff up here, huh Andrew?” Andrew looked at her. “I mean, getting shot at and all. More exciting than the days when you were homeless and hooked on meth.”

Andrew looked down. Jesse was outraged. “I did not just hear that, did I?” Jesse looked at the girl. “No way you just said that.” The girl turned away.

“Hey, shut up.” Wallace angrily said to the girl. “Andrew’s a good man.”

Jesse looked at everyone around him and raised his voice. “Will everyone here please keep their heads on? Please? Is that asking too much?” He shrugged his shoulders. “You know, we get shot at, we survive it all, but now we’re turning on each other. Let’s keep our wits about us, people. Let’s stick together. OK? Try to remember that we’re on the same team!”

“Yeah, leave Andrew alone.” Wallace sounded angry. “When I leave here I’ll remember this camp as the camp that fought off a helicopter attack but then turned against itself. This is ridiculous.”

“Why? Where are you going?” Kathy asked.

“I’m going to check on my friend. The guy whose house I built. You know, the one whose wife’s necklace I found in the chopper.”

“Oh yeah.”

“I might also check out what happened in town. From a distance.”

“You’re welcome to stay here for a while,” Jesse suggested. “I was hoping you could be at the meeting and talk with us about some military issues. You know, stuff we should do. We don’t really know where to start.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Wallace answered. “I could wait a few days.”

“Hey, what are you doing?” Bill woke up and asked Lois. He sounded annoyed.

“Oh, good to see you’re awake,” Lois said. “You are awake now, right?”

“I guess.”

“Bill, do you have any allergies? We’re going to have to give you some antibiotics.”

“None that I know of.”

“Good.” Lois cut the dark thread and finished the stitching.

“It stings,” Bill said. “And I’m thirsty.” Bill looked at the group of people nearby. “Could someone get me some water please?”

“Those are good signs, right Lois?” Kathy sounded hopeful.

“Oh yes. Awake and thirsty are good signs.”

****

CHAPTER 22

Everyone except DJ and Andrew, whose turn it was to be at the observation post, was at the meeting. DJ and Andrew were told to use the walkie-talkies and listen to everything discussed.

The group met at the location of Kirk’s funeral, less than 24 hours earlier. Some of the group members were still in shock from the gunfire a few hours before, and dabbed the tears on their faces with rags and handkerchiefs. Various small groups conversed as they waited for the meeting to begin.

Jesse stood in front of the group, and all chatter stopped. He held up a walkie-talkie and talked into it. “DJ, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” DJ could be heard in the speaker.

“OK, I’ll get someone here to keep the button pushed so you can hear what is said.”

“OK.”

Jesse looked to those sitting in front. “Chuck, could you please be in charge of this walkie-talkie?”

“Sure.”

“And check back with DJ every few minutes to make sure that nothing is going on at the roadblock.”

“Will do.”

“Alright,” Jesse addressed the group. “Before we start the meeting let’s go to prayer.” Everyone bowed their heads. “Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day and the protection You have given us. We thank You for our group of fellow Christians we have up here, the food we have and the comforts we have, none of which we would have thought that we would have up here at this time. We ask that You continue to bless our group, bless our fellowship, and bless the planning and training that we have ahead of us. We also hold up and ask for a special blessing for Mike and Bill, who were shot in the attack. We ask for Your healing for these two men. We also ask for reuniting with family members, like Bill’s parents, and a few others. I also want to thank You that my hearing is back. We also ask that You keep us close, keep our emotions positive, and calm the nerves of all of us up here, as we have just gone through an attack that most of us has ever experienced, and it has left our nerves pretty raw. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Several group members said “amen” out loud, and everyone looked up at Jesse.

“OK, everyone, we’re entering our second month of being up here, and as with other meetings, I encourage everyone to keep your wits about you, and stay positive. Laughter is good, so long as you are not laughing at someone else and hurting them. In fact, I cannot emphasize this enough: stay positive and laugh whenever possible. Ease up on the talk of the past, as it is pointless and will only bring you down. I know I have said this before, but I’ll say it again because it is so important: morale is extremely important. Treat morale as part of your survival supplies. Stay as positive as you can, all of the time. A person with bad morale will make stupid mistakes.”

“Amen,” Lawson said from the outskirts of the group.

Jesse looked at Lawson and then continued. “Another thing. I have had a few hours to digest what just happened to our group, and believe it or not, I’m feeling pretty good. Really good, in fact. We had this helicopter attack us, and apparently it was flown at gunpoint by the same guys who killed Kirk. They might have thought that they would fly up here and pick us off one by one, but I count six guns that shot back at them.”

“Six guns?” Jose asked.

“Yes,” Jesse answered. “David, Gloria, Melissa, me, Wallace and Kathy.”

“Oh, I didn’t hear about Gloria,” Jose said.

“Oh, and Bill took a few shots at the chopper after it had landed. So I guess that makes seven. And sure, granted, Melissa’s 22 rifle might not have brought down the helicopter.” Jesse looked to Mary and Melissa. “But Mary told me that Melissa took several shots at it. Not bad for a nine year old.” Melissa smiled and looked around.

“But the point is,” Jesse continued, “for a group of Christian preppers with little or no weapons training, we did pretty darn good. I’m really proud of us. Honestly. Good job, guys.”

“I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Kathy said. “At first I couldn’t move at all. I just shot at the helicopter. Then it flew away, I don’t know,” Kathy looked around. “The helicopter flew away and I would have just stood there for hours, in shock. But Wallace shook me out of it and we hunted down the guys who were shooting at us.”

“And I have to say,” Jesse interrupted and looked at Wallace, sitting nearby. “You and Wallace were great. Bill too.” Several heads in the group nodded in agreement. “I feel like Kathy, Wallace and Bill saved our lives. And I’m not exaggerating. I mean it. You guys saved our lives.” More heads nodded. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

Kathy looked at Wallace, sitting next to her. “Thank you,” she said softly. Wallace held up his hand as if to say “it was nothing.”

“In fact, Jose,” Jesse continued. “As the person in charge of food, could you please get that canned tri-tip that is stored way in the back of the second shipping container, and serve it for dinner to Wallace and Kathy here? As much as they can handle. Oh, and for Bill too, if he feels up for it.”

“Will do,” Jose answered.

“And some desert, either some canned desserts or some of that Mountain House freeze-dried stuff we have. I hear that that blueberry cobbler is pretty good."

“I’ll get it.”

“And let’s open a bottle of some of the cabernet that I made a couple years ago.”

“OK.”

“Thanks you guys,” Wallace answered to everyone. “This is way too much.”

“Not at all,” Jesse said. “It’s the least we can do.”

“Thanks,” Kathy said to Jesse.

“One last thing about the attack,” Jesse continued. “Even though we fought off the attackers in the helicopter, we let our morale slip. Earlier today we argued a lot and the insults flew, and I even snapped at Jim, for which I apologize. We need to make a concerted effort to stay positive, despite the hardships that confront us. Myself included.”

Jesse looked at Peter. “Regarding the attackers, Peter and Sean went out and checked for anyone else who might have fallen out of the helicopter. They found no one.”

“Right,” Peter spoke up. “According to Sean and David, there were five armed men who killed Kirk, and there are now five armed men accounted for from the chopper. And they’re all dead.”

“Peter and I hiked where we think the chopper went after being shot by members of our group,” Sean reported. “We hiked to the east, then south, ending up where the chopper landed on the road about half-way to the Alexes. We didn’t find anyone else.”

“Good work,” Jesse answered. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Peter continued, “I still have no idea how those guys got military-issued weapons. Those M4’s are not legal outside of the military.”

“I noticed that,” Wallace agreed. “And the high-capacity magazines. Totally illegal.”

Jesse looked back at the group. “OK, now I have a few minor issues to bring up here, and then I will give the floor to Wallace.”

Jesse paused, gathering his thoughts. “Whoever was working on the roof of the shed up the hill here left some board and nails pointing up. Someone could step on those nails and really hurt their foot.”

“Sorry, that’s my fault,” someone from the back of the group spoke up.

“Well, let’s learn from this,” Jesse said. “Nails on the ground, whether they are in board or not, are always a safety issue, even before all of this started happening. And now, there are no hospitals we can go to, so we have to be extra careful.”

“Understood.”

“I have also noticed that the people at the observation post have slacked off rotating the batteries of the walkie-talkies. It’s been haphazard. These batteries, the Eneloops, are the best rechargeable batteries ever made, but they need to be recharged in order to work. So let’s remember to get a new set of batteries whenever there’s a shift change at the observation post, and make sure to put the old batteries back into the solar charger.”

“One other thing,” Jesse continued. “Before everything started happening with Kirk and all, I noticed from the telescope that the cattle ranch across the valley might be unattended.”

“You mean the ranch all the way over near the foothills on the other side of the valley?” Jose asked.

“Yep, that’s the one. It looks to me as if the cattle have been trying to live off of grass and weeds, and maybe drinking from the pond, unattended. I haven’t seen any human activity over there in weeks. Usually I see a pick-up truck dropping off straw bales or something.” Jesse looked around for the news to sink in. “But lately I’ve seen nothing going on over there.”

“Interesting,” Jim said. “I’m getting a little hungry here.”

“I’m bringing it up because, well, let’s face it, if the owner of the cows is dead, which might be the case, then we can either leave those cows down there all alone, unattended, or we can bring a few up here to feed, then slaughter, or just get the milk. I’ve seen a calf down there nursing, so there is at least one cow producing milk.” Jesse looked at Mary. “We might not have everything needed to make cheese, but we have lemon juice, and that will help make some kind of cheese, right?”

“Yeah,” Mary answered. “Cheese made with lemon juice will produce kind of a gentle, white cheese. Almost a mozzarella cheese.”

“Well, I love cheese, and it’s something we should check out. Our food situation is pretty good for now, but we need to keep our eyes and ears open for more food, and some beef and cheese would be nice.”

“Wait, are you saying we should get some people together and go out to that ranch?” Beth asked.

“Yes. A quick recon over to the cattle ranch. Just to check things out and then return. Off-road hiking only, so no one will be seen. Then we will meet back here and decide what do to.”

There was some talking in the group. “I may have something to say along those lines later,” Wallace announced.

*****

“I guess that brings me to our newest member here, Wallace Sturges. You all might remember Wallace from church,” Jesse smiled. “As I recall, he sat way in the back of church, usually wearing camo. From all that I heard, Wallace, Kathy and Bill single-handedly killed off the guys in the helicopter. Those guys would have killed us all if they were able to. That is, if they hadn’t come across Wallace, Kathy and Bill first! Wallace has agreed to give us some pointers on military matters. Thanks Wallace, take it away.”

Wallace stood up and walked to where Jesse had been standing. Jesse walked over to a chair nearby and sat down. “I can’t say I’m actually a member here, but ...” Wallace was interrupted by a few claps in the crowd.

The clapping became louder as more camp members joined the clapping. Eventually the entire group clapped and everyone stood up. Wallace smiled at the group.

“You guys are beautiful,” Wallace said. He stood there and looked back at the clapping crowd. “Kathy and Bill deserve this too,” he spoke above the clapping. “And Bill still needs our prayers.”

As the clapping died down and people sat back in their seats, Wallace resumed his talk. “Thanks, guys. As I was saying, I’m not a member here but if you can put up with me resting here for a few days, I plan on going to check on my friend, whose wife’s necklace was in that helicopter. He was a client of mine but we got to be good friends and I’m concerned that his wife’s necklace was found in the helicopter. I can also go check on the cattle ranch across the valley. And while I’m at it I also want to go and check on the town and see what happened there. From a distance. I will be staying off the roads and staying off of everyone’s radar screens. Strictly off road, in-the-brush travel, which will be very slow but safe and unseen.”

Wallace looked at Kathy, who was sitting next to his chair. “Kathy wants to come with me, and I can take a couple others.”

“You mind if I go too?” David asked. Gloria looked annoyed and whispered something to David.

“Sure,” Wallace answered. “And if anyone else wants to come let me know.”

Wallace looked back at the group. “OK, Jesse wanted me to give some military or survivalist tips to the group. I don’t claim to be an expert in all things military, but I’ll give it a try. The main thing I wanted to say is this: whether anyone here wants to believe it or not, you are a military unit, right here, right now. Let that sink in for a while.” Wallace paused. “Not tomorrow or next week, but right now, you are a military unit. Even as you are sitting here. The world and the country are in total upheaval, chaos reigns out there, people are hungry, killing others, killing over scraps of food, killing for the heck of it … basically the end of the world in every sense of the word. We were attacked up here last night, and there will probably be more attacks up here in the future.”

Wallace looked at Jesse. “I know that Jesse mentioned camouflaged clothing a few hours ago, and he’s right. You won’t get a warning for the next attack, so whatever you wear needs to blend into the surroundings here. If you can dye your clothing dark brown, green or black that would be great.”

“That’s right,” Mary spoke to the group. “We packed a bunch of Rit dye. Dark green. So tomorrow we will start dying our clothing dark green. We shouldn’t have any pastels or white clothes up here at all.”

“Good,” Wallace answered. “Also, it would be great if you guys could get together some ‘ghillie suits,’ which are nets that hold some dark bandages so that you can blend into the surrounding foliage. That is more advanced, but it is something that you could work on later on.”

“A person wears that, right?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah, and they’re pretty cool. You can lay down on the ground and people won’t know you’re nearby. They think it’s just a pile of leaves or something.”

“Cool.”

“Also,” Wallace resumed his talk. “I haven’t seen much jewelry around here, but gold and silver watches, necklaces, whatever really reflects light, so it should either not be worn or covered up somehow.”

“Yeah, we have talked about that,” Jesse said. “DJ and I talked about camouflaging our jewelry, like his cross necklace.”

“You mean like a camouflaged cross?” Wallace asked.

“Yep.”

“Interesting,” Wallace responded. “Very clever. I see the symbolism there. Don’t tell me. A camouflaged cross, so that it is still seen, identifying us as Christians and spreading the Gospel, but in the final military setting of the End Times. Interesting symbolism there.”

“Not exactly,” Jesse answered. “Just a shiny piece of jewelry that we want covered up so that it doesn’t reflect the sun and give away our position.”

“Oh,” Wallace paused. “Well, there’s another thing I wanted to bring up. I noticed you have one good observation post, but it might be time for a second one, a little further to the north. Looking over that footpath that comes down to the road on the other side of the roadblock.”

“Oh, I thought no one knew of that,” Jesse said.

“I did a recon of your place here, and of the Mormon place up the road before I came here, and that is when I saw it. It’s a good trail, and it is pretty well-hidden. But it needs its own observation post, just like the other,” Wallace said. “I think there is a bend in the hill near the road that make the opening to that path not visible from the current observation post.”

“We will probably need more walkie-talkies at some point,” Jesse answered. “But yeah, we need to work on that.”

Wallace continued. “And speaking of leadership, I figure Jesse is in charge here, but leadership and chain of command is also an issue. So whoever is in charge, like Jesse, needs to have a second and third in charge. That way there will always be someone in charge up here.”

Jesse stood up. “Well, I consider you all my friends but if I were to say a second and third in charge here, I would have to say Mary and David, the two who have been with me on this retreat property project since the beginning.”

“Not to mention the fact that Mary is your wife,” Jose pointed out and smiled.

“Well, yeah.” Jesse sat back down. “Sorry, Wallace, go ahead.”

Wallace smiled, and continued. “It sounds like first aid and medical care is handled by Lois here, and she should keep everyone updated on medical supplies, which never seem to last as long as you think they will.”

“OK,” Lois, who was sitting next to Lawson, said. “I could do that. But everyone needs to keep in mind that I am only a nurse, not a surgeon. I can bandage wounds and give stitches, and maybe give some advice here and there, but for serious issues, we will probably need a surgeon up here. Someone who can actually operate. And that is something that as a group we don’t have covered.”

“Well, Lois,” Wallace answered. “If you could just keep up to date on what medical supplies there are up here and tell everyone when shortages come up. If anyone leaves the property, you will need to give them a list of supplies that are needed, and maybe you can get what you think everyone needs here.”

Wallace looked at the group. “Similar thing for food and water. I hear that Jose is in charge of food, right?”

“Yep, that’s me,” Jose nodded.

“Could you also be in charge of water?”

“Sure.”

“And when I say ‘be in charge of it’ I mean keep track of the supplies, figure out how much you have and how long it will last, and report back to the group on any concerns you have. Shortages, that kind of thing.”

“OK.”

“Another thing: it looks like your group has begun to accumulating some weapons, and someone should be in charge of keeping track of all the weapons and ammo here. And cleaning the weapons and making sure they don’t jam. Stuff like that.”

Everyone looked at Peter. “Look, you guys, I’ve handled many guns, but trading in my M-16 at the Marine version of the ‘Golden Conex’ is the closest I ever came to cleaning a gun and making sure it won’t jam. I think what Wallace is talking about is a gunsmith or something.”

“Yeah, actually I am. And if you don’t have a gunsmith here, maybe you guys can educate yourselves on guns and gunsmithing. Cleaning guns after you use them, and making sure they’re good to go. Field strip them. Do you have any books up here on gunsmithing?”

“Not really,” Jesse answered, looking down.

“Well, maybe everyone can pray on this,” Wallace suggested.

“Yeah.” Jesse nodded.

“OK, there is another important issue that need to be covered, and I know that it won’t be popular but I will just say it. Someone needs to get everyone here in shape. Physically. That way you will be ready and able to fight back when you need to.”

“What do you mean, like push-ups or something?” Keira spoke up.

“Oh, that’s the start of it. Push-ups, sit-ups, running, patrol formations, hand communications, being cohesive military units –“

“Wallace, thanks,” Beth said, “but I’m not sure that will work. We have some eighty-somethings here, and some of us here are bona fide soccer moms.”

“Well, the eighty-somethings I would give a pass to, but for everyone else … like I said, right now you are a military unit, whether you realize it or not.”

Sean answered, “I could do it.”

“Well, yeah, Sean,” Beth said. “You were about to go into the military anyway. The rest of us, come on. Sit-ups?” Several other nodded in agreement. “Wallace, I appreciate your speaking here, but really…”

Wallace looked at Beth. “Sorry, what is your name?”

“Beth.”

“OK, Beth, you would be surprised at how short it would take to train yourself to be a pretty good soldier.”

“He’s right,” Peter agreed. “I’ve seen it.”

“This is just not realistic,” someone from the back answered. Many nodded in agreement.

“Look you guys, you wanted me to give you some survival tips, so here they are. If you don’t want to listen to me, fine.” Wallace sounded frustrated.

Jesse stood up. “Hey, if Wallace says it needs to be done, it needs to be done. He knows this stuff. Do you want to survive or not? Live with it, people.”

“Yeah but,” Jim started to object.

“Hey, someday the enemy will come again,” Wallace spoke out above the murmuring from the crowd. “You guys need to get ready. Exercising, military training, all of it. If you aren’t ready, you die. That’s all.”

*****

Wallace focused his attention far behind the group. “Excuse me, everyone, is he with your group here?” Some of the talking died down. “I don’t know this guy. Is he part of your group? Who is he?”

Jesse stood up and looked behind him, where Wallace was looking. “No,” he said. “I don’t know him.”

“Who is this guy?” Wallace asked again. Several others stood up and looked behind them. A man with short black hair and dressed in dark green military clothing, with a machine gun strapped around his side, emerged from the forest. After hacking away at the few remaining bushes in his way with a machete, he put his machete back in its sheath at his side, and walked closer to the group. The man looked very tired and dirty.

The man walked closer to the group. Wallace pulled out a pistol and pointed it straight up, ready to use if needed, which startled some in the group. David and Mary stood up on either side of Jesse.

“Who are you?” Wallace called out to the man.

“First Sergeant Black, of the 303rd Training Unit from Fort Leonard Wood.”

“What are you doing here?” Wallace asked him.

“I’m a deserter,” the man answered, already out of breath. “I had a dream, and it was horrible. So much killing and screaming. I deserted my unit.” The man fell to his knees, took off his rifle and backpack, and threw them to the ground in front of him.

Jesse approached him. “Why did you come here?”

“You were in my dream too,” the man answered. “I saw you,” he said as he looked closely at Jesse. “That part of the dream was good. After I saw all the killing in my dream, I saw your face. I was told to come here.”

Jesse looked around the group. “Lois? What do you see? He looks kind of dehydrated to me.”

“Yes, he looks very dehydrated,” Lois answered. “And very tired. If we had a hospital, I would admit him and hook him up to an IV drip.”

David spoke up. “Does he have the Mark? Someone check him.”

“No,” the man answered. “Taking the Mark is still optional in the Army, but I knew it was wrong. So I never took it. Here, look at my forehead, and my right hand. The Mark is not there; never will be.” The man held out his hand.

Wallace put down his gun.

“OK, Sergeant Black” Jesse asked again, “what’s your first name?”

“I’m a deserter.”

“OK, yes, I know. You said that. But what is your first name?”

“Josh.”

“What did you do for the Army before you deserted your unit and came here?”

“The Army rotates assignments,” Peter said.

“Right,” Josh answered, still out of breath. “My last assignment was drill sergeant.”

Mary looked at Jesse. “A drill sergeant,” she repeated.

People started to sit down.

“Could someone please get Josh here some water, mixed with salt and honey?” Jesse called out. “Looks like he needs some electrolytes.”

“OK,” Jim said and left with Jose.

“Thanks,” Josh said. “I’ve been on the run for four days. My canteen and camelbak ran out two days ago, so I’m pretty dry. And I didn’t bring any water filters or anything.”

“You’ve been on the run for four days?” Peter asked.

“Yes, it was the worst dream I’ve ever had. Much worse than a nightmare. And it was so real, that’s the thing. It felt totally real. Killing all around me, screaming. Screaming that was so loud, I was deaf for almost a day. The dream told me to leave. Now. And come here, and, like I said, I saw your face, sir. So I grabbed my stuff and ran. I didn’t stop running for about four hours.”

“And this dream left you without hearing?” Jesse asked. People pulled up chairs to hear the debriefing.

“I know it sounds crazy. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, the dream left me without hearing for a few hours. And I thought I had really heard it. All the screaming. It was horrible.”

“Here, have a seat,” David offered one of the chairs.

“Thanks.” Josh got off the ground and sat in the chair.

“What have you been doing for four days?” Jesse asked.

“I hiked here, off-road. The dream just pointed me in this direction and I ran. And when I got tired, I just walked. There are some very dense forests to the north of here. I haven’t eaten since I left.”

“That must’ve been some dream,” Mary said.

Josh looked at Mary. “You have no idea.”

“Well, I’m sorry. You look pretty tired,” David pointed out.

“He also needs a shower,” Keira pointed out.

Josh looked at Keira. “Yep, I admit it, I probably smell pretty bad.” The mood of the group improved a bit.

Peter inspected Josh’s gun on the ground. “Looks like this gun has been fired recently.”

“It really is all bad out there,” Josh began. “All of it. I never thought our country, our world would go down the tubes like this. I read the Bible, and I know all this was predicted, but here we are. It’s horrible out there.” Josh paused and caught his breath.

“When did you shoot your gun?” Peter asked.

“A couple nights ago, I found a place to sleep for the night, or to try and sleep. It was near an electronic substation.”

“Electronic …?” Chuck asked.

“Well, I’m not an electrician,” Josh explained, “but, as I understand it, electricity travels a lot better when it is very high voltage. Then the electricity lines come into a substation where the electricity is transformed so that it can then go to individual houses and be used at lower voltage. It takes really big transformers to do that. So that is what is done at all these electronic substations, all around the country. And they are all totally unguarded.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I found a place to sleep for the night, and there was nothing around except for this substation. It was pretty desolate there, and I thought it was a safe place to try and sleep for the night. Next thing you know, I get woken up by a bunch of guys shooting up the substation with AK-47’s. They couldn’t care less about me.”

“Oh, you’re talking about Metcalfing,” Wallace said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard the term,” Josh agreed. “They just shot up the substation to cut off the electricity to the town nearby.”

“You say these guys didn’t care about you?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. They just stood there, shooting at the substation with their AK-47’s. It woke me up and I just started shooting at them.”

“Yeah, this is how it happened a few years ago outside Silicon Valley in California, at the substation in the area called Metcalf,” Wallace told everyone. “Back then it was a dry run, and the electricity around Silicon Valley was re-routed so that there was no interruption. Of course, all the powers that be shrugged their shoulders and said that it was not related to terrorism. Not even remotely terrorist-related.” Wallace smiled a sly smile. “But it was clearly a dry run terrorist attack on the electrical grid. Studies have shown that if this were done at many substations around the country, at the same time, the entire electrical grid would go down, not to be replaced anytime soon. Transformers that big are very rare, and they are only made only in Korea and Germany.”

“Sounds like you’ve looked into this,” Josh observed.

“Yeah,” Wallace answered. “Anytime the government says that ‘nothing to see here, move along,’ I sit up and take notice. The story of that Metcalf event was buried in the news.”

“I guess the gunmen did their damage and moved on, right?” Jesse asked.

“Oh, yeah. Haven’t you noticed how clear the stars are at night, at least from the north? I know this area is pretty remote, but all it takes is a little bit of civilization to cloud up the night sky a little.”

“What else did you see out there, Josh?” Peter asked.

“Well I was almost part of an attack on a National Guard base when I left.”

“Attacking the National Guard? Why?” Peter asked.

“Some of the states have effectively seceded. I guess you haven’t heard. Some states seceded, but of course they haven’t used the word ‘secede.’ But it works out to be the same. And those states have taken over the National Guard units within their borders. We had orders to take them back. A few shots later, and we had a civil war on our hands.” Josh looked around. “You guys must be really secluded up here if you haven’t heard about that.”

“Incredible,” Peter said. “Attacking our own troops…” Peter started looking through Josh’s dark green backpack.

“You can have my stuff, I’m done with it,” Josh told him. “I’m no longer in the Army.”

“Just curious what you brought with you,” Peter replied.

“Hey, if you don’t mind,” Josh pointed at a small orange book that slipped out of his backpack and onto the ground. “That’s my Bible, and I would rather not see it on the ground.”

“Oh, I agree.” Peter picked the Bible up off the ground.

Jim and Jose returned with a cup of water, salt and honey. “Here, drink this,” Jim said.

“Thanks.” Josh swallowed the water in a single gulp. He handed the cup back to Jim.

Jim turned in the direction of going to get another cup of water, but he stayed and listened. “You must have seen a lot in the last few days,” Jim said.

“And only yesterday,” Josh continued. “I forget what day it is. Anyway, whenever it was, I came across a train derailment that burned down a nearby apartment complex. Apparently the train was carrying some crude oil. The terrorists have gotten pretty good at derailments. I saw at least 35 dead bodies at that apartment complex. The lucky ones died of smoke inhalation, while the unlucky ones just burned to death.”

“It’s like I keep telling everyone,” Jim said, sounding a little too matter-of-fact for the conversation. “We need to approve the building of oil pipelines from the north, where they drill the oil, to the refineries in the south.” Jesse, flanked by Mary and David, looked at Jim. All three started nodding ‘no’ to what Jim was saying. “Pipelines are a lot safer and cheaper to transport the oil,” Jim continued. “And building oil pipelines can generate some good, high-paying jobs. It’s a real win-win situation for the country.”

Jim looked at Jesse, Mary and David, all nodding in disagreement. “What? What did I say?” Jim asked.

Jesse quickly cleared his throat. “Jim, we are in the End Times here. Politics doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, politics is totally irrelevant at this point. It’s time to give the political talk a rest.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right.”

“You were sounding pretty good there, Jim,” Jose said, smiling. “You should run for Congress or something. I’d vote for you.”

“Except -- oh that’s right,” Jim said with a smile, “there are no more elections. Minor detail there.” Jim and Jose chuckled.

Josh looked at Jim and Jose, confused. “Laughter? I haven’t heard laughter in ages. What’s with the laughter?”

“It’s better than the alternative, don’t you think?” Jesse asked.

Josh sat forward in his chair and asked Jesse, Mary and David, “I have to stay here. Can I stay here? I can more than pull my own weight. I was in the Army, you know. I can help you guys out with a lot of things. Will you let me stay here, please?”

“You’re a Christian, right?” David asked.

Jesse interrupted. “We’ll have to talk about it, Josh. This is another thing we haven’t planned on. What to do when someone wants to join us. I guess we’ll have to talk it over. Just keep in mind that this is not a peaceful area here. You might have just hiked from one war zone into another. We were attacked by some scumbags in a Huey last night.”

“A Huey helicopter? How’d it go?” Josh asked, then looked around. “Well, I guess you guys did OK. You’re all here. Unless the casualties are somewhere else.”

“We got ‘em,” Wallace said. “Two of us got shot but they’ll pull through.”

“Oh, they were shooting at you guys here?”

“There were five of them,” Wallace reported with pride. “And we killed them all.”

“Not bad. Not bad at all.” Josh looked over the group. “Lately they have been using crop-dusters and helicopters to throw out Anthrax or Ebola germs on cities. I guess they thought they would just shoot at you guys here.”

“Yep,” Wallace nodded.

“Forgive me, but you guys don’t look like the types who have had much weapons training.”

“Well,” Wallace started.

“We’re not,” Mary interrupted. “Aside from a few of us, most of us don’t know one end of a gun from the other.”

“Maybe I can help you change that,” Josh offered.

“Yes, maybe you can,” Mary agreed.

Jesse looked at Jim. “Jim and Jose, could you two please walk Josh back to the camp and help Lois work with him? He still needs a lot of water and electrolytes. We should also feed him some of our leftovers from lunch. He’s probably pretty hungry too.”

“Sure.”

Peter and Jim walked with Josh back towards the center of the camp where they planned on feeding him more water mixed with salt and honey, and Lois planned on checking on Josh’s vital signs and addressing the medical issues that she could address. Everyone sat back down in their chairs with Jesse and Wallace both standing in front.

“I think that’s all I had to say,” Wallace concluded. “I hope I helped with some ideas of surviving. The main thing is that everyone needs to be ready to defend this camp at any time. You need to be fit, dressed in camo, and trained to go in a moment’s notice.”

“Thanks Wallace,” Jesse said.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an early dinner to go to with Kathy, and it’s gonna be a beaut.” Wallace started walking towards the camp, followed by Kathy and Jose.

“Let’s close in prayer. Lawson, could you close our meeting in prayer?”

“Sure,” Lawson said, and then slowly walked to stand next to Jesse. Everyone bowed their heads. “Heavenly Father, we thank you for a good meeting with a number of topics for us to consider. We thank You for the guidance You have given us so far, and we ask that You bless our group here, and protect us in these dangerous times ahead. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Wallace, Kathy, Jose, followed by most everyone else got up and walked towards the camp center. A few others stayed in their seats.

“Chuck, you can turn off the walkie-talkie microphone now. Let’s hope our friends at the observation post heard the meeting.”

****

CHAPTER 23

Jesse looked at everyone still there. “Hey guys, we’re done with the meeting.”

“Jesse,” Beth began, and then looked around. “I think I can speak for all of us here.” She noticed nods of agreement. “Our nerves are really shot. As for myself, I’m not sure if I will be able to sleep for at least a week.” A tear streamed down her cheek. “It’s that bad.”

“I never thought I would be shot at,” Natalie, a teenage girl sitting next to Keira said. Her voice started to break, as she started to cry. “It’s just too much for us. One day we’re learning to drive, dating and … well, thinking about dating, getting mani-pedis, going to shoe sales, then a few days later we are up here getting shot at by some people in a helicopter for reasons I don’t even know. Now it looks like the town is being burned to the ground.” Natalie quickly pointed to the south, where the huge smoke column from the direction of the town was still prominent in the sky. “My friends from school are probably getting killed right now. I never thought I would …” Natalie stopped talking and put her face in her hands and cried. Keira put her hand on Natalie’s shoulder.

“Have you taken your feelings to the Lord in prayer?” Lawson asked.

“Yes, I just …” Natalie answered. “It’s just …” Natalie stopped trying to talk through her crying.

Beth cleared her throat and began, “Jesse, you guys chose us to be part of your group because we are all Christians and we could survive better together. And you, Mary and David chose well. We are all Christians and we believe the Bible. We know what it says is true. Some people just say that, but for all of us up here, it’s real. We really believe the Bible. And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God. And yes, Lawson, we have prayed over this. But it’s still hard for us. Really hard.”

“I think what she is trying to say is,” Natalie tried to talk as she cried. “We know what is ahead, and we know where we are going. We’re just scared what will happen before then.”

“OK,” Jesse said. “I guess it is a little hard to get used to the shock. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes it is,” Beth answered. “I keep trying to stay positive. And you are right about trying to make jokes. Sometimes that helps.”

“I know, Beth,” Jesse answered and looked at the others. “It’s not easy. I think everyone up here has a little fear of what is in store for us. Getting attacked and all. You wouldn’t be human if you never felt afraid.”

“What about Wallace?”

“Alright, well –“

“I heard that Wallace laughed as he was getting shot at by the men in that helicopter.”

“OK, well, except for Wallace,” Jesse said as he smiled. Some people nearby smiled as they wiped away tears. “What I meant to say was, except for Wallace, you wouldn’t be human if you never felt afraid.”

“And we’re pretty sure that even Wallace is human,” Beth said as she sniffed and smiled, then looked at Keira.

“Look,” Jesse continued. “I don’t claim to have all the answers. But we all read and believe the Bible, don’t we? And these things, all of this, is predicted by the Bible. So we need to just stand firm and realize that God is in control. And, like the Bible says, all things work together for good for those who love God.”

“You said for us to stay strong,” Beth said. “That will take a while.”

“Sure, it will take some time to get used to the new world that we live in. But you need to stand firm. Remember what the Bible says about the devil prowling like a lion, looking for weak believers. Be strong.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Beth said. She cleared her throat and looked at Keira and Natalie.

“I guess I’m feeling a little better after talking about it,” Keira consoled herself.

Natalie sat up and looked at Jesse. “Same here. Maybe it helps to talk about it.” She looked at Keira.

Keira sniffed. “I admit it, Jesse, I would rather not be here. I think you know that.”

“That’s OK Keira,” Jesse answered. “I totally understand. I know exactly how you feel. We would all rather be back at our homes, pampered with soft beds, air conditioning and all of it. But it is what it is. The Last Days are upon us, and we need to do what it takes to survive. We don’t have any choice. Jesus said ‘the one who endures to the end will be saved.’ He was talking about us; our little group here. You too. And yes, Heaven is ahead for us, and not just for a year or two. Forever. Can you imagine that?” Jesse paused to let it sink in. “So stay strong.”

“OK, I’m feeling a little better,” Beth looked at Keira, Natalie and the others. “How are you guys feeling?” A few people wiped tears away, but the remainder of the group nodded in agreement.

The group sat quietly, sniffling and wiping tears. The mood improved somewhat.

“You know what I could use?” Beth asked Jesse, sounding more positive and trying to smile. “A Three Stooges movie. Or the Marx Brothers. Something silly that we can laugh at. Something funny.”

Justin, one of the so-called Happy Twins, spoke up. “I have a concert scheduled at the Eldorado Amphitheater in a few minutes. You are welcome to join us.” Justin held up and dangled the car keys. “That might be kind of silly. It might make you laugh.”

Tracy added, “Justin on the air drums, and I have been tuning up my air guitar. It should be a pretty good concert up there.”

Jesse smiled. “’Eldorado Amphitheater?’ Is that what you’re calling it now?”

Justin answered, “Yep, and people should bring their cigarette lighters, because they’re going to want an encore when we’re finished.”

Beth smiled. “I haven’t seen any of your shows yet, so this will be my first. They sound kind of funny. Who wants to join me?”

“OK, I’ll come,” Keira said, and looked at Natalie.

“Me too.” Several others nodded in agreement.

Melissa looked at Jesse and Mary. “Can I go too?”

Jesse looked at Beth. “Could you watch Melissa for us please?”

“OK.” Beth walked to Melissa. “Let’s go, Sweetie.”

“As the leader of this group,” Jesse said to the crowd as it began walking to the trail leading uphill and to the west, “I order you guys to have a good time up there. Work on your morale. That’s an order. Enjoy the show.”

****

CHAPTER 24

Justin, Tracy, and ten fans for their performance made their way up the hiking trail to the Cadillac Eldorado convertible that one of the families drove uphill and far in the back of Jesse and Mary’s property before getting it stuck. The car was located so far back on the property that no one at the camp could hear the music played there. Justin got inside the car, started the engine, disconnected the front convertible roof locks and pushed the button on the dashboard to fold the roof back.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me present, Led Zeppelin! ‘D’yer Mak’er’!” Justin said to the people sitting down along the side of the car. He pushed his hits CD into the CD player, and turned the volume up high. He sat down on the top of the driver seat’s headrest and held two small, hard tree branches acted like he was playing drums on the top of the front windshield.

The song started with some drum beats that Justin matched exactly. He sang along with the song that he had heard so many times before. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you don’t have to go!”

Tracy stood along the side of the car, and smiled as she watched Justin display his craft. Smiles broke out in the audience sitting next to the car.

*****

Jesse and Mary hiked up the steep trail on the way to the Cadillac, but stopped about fifty feet away, under the shade of some trees. They wanted to be near enough to watch the fun but yet far away enough so that they could talk and not disturb the party.

“You know,” Jesse began talking to Mary. “We have a great group of Christian preppers up here, and everyone has a skill or purpose to help everyone else. But there is something to be said about people whose best abilities are just to cheer other people up. Making people happy. That’s an important skill.”

Mary nodded.

“I think inviting Justin and Tracy was your idea, right?”

“Yeah. We didn’t know much about them, but it just felt right.”

“And of course being known around church as ‘the Happy Twins’ had an advantage.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Jesse and Mary looked behind them and saw David helping Lawson walk up the steep trail behind them. “Lawson wanted to see what all the fun was about,” David told Jesse and Mary as he helped Lawson walk by.

“Yeah, this looks fun,” Lawson agreed as he did his best to walk on the trail. “Let’s see if I can make it.”

“Let me know if you need any help, Lawson,” Jesse said.

“Thanks. I think he’ll make it,” David answered.

David and Lawson slowly walked closer to the car and Justin’s performance. Tracy jumped in front of everyone when the song had some guitar playing, and she acted like she was playing the guitar. It wasn’t so much that she was matching the guitar sounds with her imaginary guitar strumming, but it was her jumping around to the music, and her facial expressions that made it so entertaining. She bit her lower lip and acted like she was really fixated on playing her nonexistent guitar. More smiles broke out among the people sitting next to the car.

The Led Zeppelin song came to an end and the audience around the car applauded. Justina and Tracy bowed, which brought about some smiles and claps.

The next song began. It was the 70’s song ‘You Should Be Dancing.’ Justin and Tracy asked everyone to get up and start dancing to the song. First Beth, then Melissa began dancing, and were soon joined by a couple others. Those who remained seated smiled at the dancing.

“Oh, I think I’m going to have a 70’s song overload,” Jesse told Mary. “At least they got a smile out of Natalie.”

Mary got serious and looked at Jesse. “On a serious note, in a few days we have several people going out into the world. Leaving our camp here. Wallace, Kathy, David, and I think that’s it.”

“I think I’ll ask Sean to join them. I’m not convinced that Wallace won’t leave, and we need someone with some military experience or know-how to get David and Kathy back.”

“Assuming Kathy doesn’t stay with Wallace on the outside.”

“Yeah, they might be an item. Kathy might not be around here much longer.”

“Could be.”

“Peter would be better, because of his military experience, but we need to keep him nearby.”

“That’s true. Who knows what his medical issue is. He needs to stay right here.”

Jesse and Mary watched the dancing going on at the car for a few minutes. When Lawson and David arrived at the car, Lawson stood still but wiggled his arms in front of him, matching the beat of the song, in an attempt to dance with the others. This caused more laughter and smiles from everyone else there.

Jesse and Mary smiled at the dancing. “So what do you think Wallace and the others will see out there?” Mary asked Jesse.

“Oh, some hunger, death, desperation, and a lot of cruelty. Let’s face it, what they will see will probably be very ugly. I still can’t believe that column of smoke coming from town.” Jesse gestured to the south. “That is either some kind of slaughter or a forced migration out of town. Or both.”

“We need to make sure Wallace, Kathy and whoever goes with them know how important it is to stay invisible. Not be seen by anyone at all, and if they are noticed, not to talk about our compound up here. And certainly not to be followed back here.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll make sure David tells everyone else in the group that they need to stay invisible, not to get followed home. That kind of thing. That’s key.”

“Are you working on a list of things we need more of? Like more walkie-talkies and flashlights?”

“Oh yeah. Lois also said she will need more pool shock to make bleach. There are a couple other things too.”

The song ended and everyone clapped. Those who were dancing began to sit down. Lawson asked if the car stereo could be turned off and if everyone would be willing to sing the song ‘Amazing Grace.’ Jason turned off the car and everyone stood up and began to sing.

The crowd sang, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a retch like me…”

Mary lowered her voice and asked Jesse, “Speaking of stuff we are getting together up here, have you started to notice a pattern?”

Jesse watched the singing around the car for a few moments without answering. Without looking at Mary, he answered, “A pattern? Oh yeah, I have noticed a pattern, but I wanted to hear your theory first.”

The crowd at the car moved on to the second verse, which was not as well-known. The singing was fainter. They sang, “T’was grace that taught my heart to fear…”

Mary spoke to Jesse, “Well, we were worried about feeding forty people up here, and just three months before everyone came here, you filled up two storage containers with food.”

“And here I was, thinking I was so brilliant, because I was keeping track of what was going on in bankruptcy court. That ‘Prepper’s Wherehouse’ store went belly-up, and I bought their whole inventory for pennies on the dollar. Then I got it all delivered up here.”

“Oh you were brilliant, alright. It just wasn’t you.”

“Thanks.”

“Then we started talking about how we needed some serious guns and ammo, and within hours you get handed a few machine guns and ammunition. So good that some of the guns are military issue.”

“Those M4’s are totally cool. And I never thought I would own a single machine gun, let alone several.”

“We even talked about how we wanted everyone up here to take our situation more seriously, be a little paranoid. Remember that?”

“Yep.”

“And minutes later, we all get shot at. That has a way of convincing people to be concerned of their military situation.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“And just today, Wallace starts telling everyone that in so many words we need a drill sergeant, and a few minutes later a real drill sergeant stumbles into our camp, asking if he can stay and offering to help us do whatever we need him to do.”

The crowd singing at the car uphill finished the second verse of Amazing Grace. Lawson asked everyone to sing the final verse. No one knew the words, so it was only David and Lawson who sang this verse alone. They sang, “The world shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine …”

Jesse smiled at Mary. “Getting the food, guns, ammo and drill sergeant here right as we needed them were all amazing coincidences.”

“’Coincidence’ is what non-believers say. You’re kidding, right?”

“Of course I’m kidding,” Jesse said. “None of this was a coincidence. Not a bit of it.”

“Yeah, it seems like whatever we see a need for, within hours or even minutes, it’s delivered here and the need is solved.”

“Yeah, He has our back. I’ve been noticing His help. Whenever the need arises.”

“No kidding. In the past we’ve prayed about how He is all around us, and it always seemed to me a little metaphorical. This time it is literal. I feel like He’s right here, watching over us and making sure that we have what we need to survive.”

“I’ve felt it too.”

The singing at the car came to an end, and Lawson led the group in prayer.

“We’re going to have a very interesting End Times,” Jesse said to Mary.

“Interesting? Maybe. More like a very ‘divine’ End Times,” Mary answered.

Jesse paused, then looked at Mary and smiled. “Yeah, I think you’re right. The word is ‘divine.’ We’re going to have a very divine End Times.”

Jesse and Mary were both right. Within only a few days they would find out exactly how interesting and divine the End Times would be for them and their group.

END OF BOOK ONE

[T]he people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.

-- Daniel 11:32 (NKJV)

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the following people for their help with the preparation and writing of this book:

Captain Patrick Weeks, Captain USMC 2009 – 2014, and founder of the website officercandidateschool.com, for advice on guns and all military matters.

Mark Goodwin, author of the books The Days of Noah, Book One: Conspiracy, and The Days of Noah, Book Two: Persecution, and owner/manager of the website Prepper Recon for marketing suggestions, giving abundant prepper advice and general encouragement. Prepper Recon also has some great podcasts. Watch for Mr. Goodwin’s soon-to-be-released book, The Days Of Noah, Book Three: Perdition.

David Kobler, for his advice to me on military and prepping matters, and for his very informative YouTube videos on all sorts of prepping issues. David Kobler has co-authored a book with Mark Goodwin entitled Retreat Security. Watch for Mr. Kobler’s up-coming book, co-authored with Mark Goodwin, entitled The Seven-Step Survival Plan.

James Price, of Death Valley Magazine, for some very helpful information about the lives and careers of private military contractors.

Bob Mayne, owner/manager of the website Today’s Survival, for some helpful ideas on prepping found in his forum and in his podcasts. Mr. Mayne’s recent medical issues were the subject of our family’s prayers for many months, and I am happy to report that Mr. Mayne has been diagnosed as cancer-free.

There were some books that I found helpful in the writing of this book: On Killing, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenary Fighting In Iraq, by Steve Fainaru, and Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story Of Blackwater And The Unsung Heroes Of The War On Terror, by Erik Prince.

I still find all of the sources listed in the back of my last book, Dirt Cheap Valuable Prepping, to have been helpful. (Please see the Epilogue in that book.) But I wish to highlight the book by Scott Hunt, entitled The Practical Prepper’s Complete Guide To Disaster Preparedness. Scott can be reached at his website, practicalpreppers.com, where he sells his books, DVD’s and consulting services. His YouTube (under “Engineer 775”) videos are also very informative.

I also wish to thank various church friends for their advice on End Times references in the Bible, and applicable commentary.

As always, I wish to thank my patient wife, who is a great editor and sounding board for new and/or different ideas.

***

Check out these other books by Cal Wilson:

http://www.amazon.com/Cal-Wilson/e/B00UVSA67S/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1