by Brian Keene
“Gabriel,” I whispered. He’d mentioned something about the 144,000 as well, when Al the skinhead held me at knifepoint.
“Gabriel the Protector. You do know Gabriel was an angel of the Lord?”
“No,” I said. “But I do now.”
I tried to get my head around it. I was chosen simply for being Jewish? I didn’t even practice my own faith, let alone know the Christian Bible. It all seemed unfair. If this were true, and I was beginning to believe it was, why should I get special protection while others suffered?
We passed the exit for Parkton, and I thought of Charlie. What had he done to deserve all that had happened tonight? He was just trying to get home—same with Frank and Hector and everyone else.
“Why?” I asked. “Why would God do this? He’s supposed to be a loving God.”
“Yes,” Brady said, “and He is a loving God. But he is also a just God. A comedian who I enjoy once said that the God of the Bible had a split personality. In the New Testament, He is a God of love, promising forgiveness to everyone; but in the Old Testament, He is a God of wrath, demanding sacrifices and punishing those who displease him. People often forget that he is both.”
I considered telling the preacher just what I thought of that, what I thought of his God—of any deity that would do this to its people. But I kept my mouth shut and watched the mile markers rush by. This man could deliver me almost to my doorstep, so the last thing I wanted to do was offend him. If I did, I’d find myself walking again.
We passed the weigh station at Exit 36, and crossed over the state line. There were three small crosses off the shoulder, set up in remembrance of three teenagers who’d died there months ago in a drunken driving accident. Looking at them, I shivered.
“Pennsylvania.” Reverend Brady smiled. “Won’t be long now.”
I looked up at the road sign.
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING MARYLAND.
WE ENJOYED YOUR VISIT.
PLEASE COME AGAIN.
Please come again . . .
It was a fitting epitaph for the world.
We drove on in silence, past the deserted Pennsylvania Welcome Center and a few more scattered car wrecks. I watched the sights flick past, numb to the horrors. A farmhouse burned; no firefighters were on site. A decapitated head lay on the median. A teenage graffiti artist had tagged a billboard without fear of retribution or arrest, because the cops were all busy elsewhere. A large, black crow feasted on a dead dog.
The headlights flashed off a road sign: Shrewsbury—One Mile.
“You can just drop me off at the exit ramp,” I said.
Reverend Brady looked surprised. “Are you sure? It’s not a problem to take you to your front door.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m sure you’ve got people to get home to as well.”
He slowed down as we approached the exit and stopped at the top of the ramp. He checked the rearview mirror to make sure there was no traffic behind us. There wasn’t. The highway was a ghost.
I opened the door, and then offered him my hand. “Look. I don’t know how to thank you. Are you sure I can’t give you some gas money or something?”
“You can thank me by thinking about what I said.” He squeezed my hand. “I hope you find what you’re looking for when you get home, Steve.”
“I appreciate that. Goodbye, Reverend, and good luck.”
10
“I’ll pray for you, and for your wife.”
“Thanks.”
I started to turn away, but then he called out.
“Steve? Don’t lose faith. The journey will be hard, but something wonderful is waiting for you at the end.”
I nodded, afraid to speak. Despite the kindness he’d shown me, I felt like screaming at him. The car’s window slid closed, and Reverend Brady drove away. I stood there and watched him go until his taillights vanished.
“Gabriel?” I said out loud as I walked down the exit ramp. “You still with me?”
There was no answer, but I wasn’t really expecting one. If anything, Gabriel had proven himself to be pretty non-communicative.
“So if the preacher was right, if you’re some sort of guardian angel sent to watch over me, then I hope you watched over Terri as well.”
In the darkness, a whippoorwill sang out. The grass along the roadside rustled softly in the breeze.
“If not,” I said, “there’ll be hell to pay.”
Then I went home.
They were looting the Wal-Mart as I walked past. Surprisingly, the whole thing seemed pretty civil. Locals, people I knew and faces I recognized, filed out of the store carrying everything from food to televisions. They pushed shopping carts filled to overflowing with goods. There was no fighting or shoving. It was eerily calm. Neighbors greeted each other, and helped each other load up their cars and trucks. I heard laughter, saw lovers holding hands, children smiling. The scene was polite and friendly, almost festive. A carnival atmosphere where all that was missing was a Ferris wheel and a few cotton candy vendors. Maybe a trained elephant doing tricks for the kids, as well.
Charlie had been right. We should have taken the abandoned Cadillac when we came across it. Everybody else was doing it, and the Caddy’s owner doubtlessly wouldn’t have needed it again. Had we commandeered the car, I’d have been home already. We’d all be home. If I’d said yes, Charlie and Frank would still be alive.
There weren’t many abandoned cars in town, but there were a lot of dark houses. I wondered how many of their occupants had actually disappeared and how many more were simply hiding inside, hunkered down behind the windowsill, clutching a shotgun in the darkness and waiting for the hordes invading the Wal-Mart to attack.
On one block where the homes were close to one another, a fire had gutted four buildings, stretching from Merle Laughman’s antique shop down to Dale Haubner’s house. The sidewalks and street were wet and water dripped from the fire hydrant. I assumed that the firefighters here in our community had been less busy than elsewhere. Or maybe they’d just gotten to this one early. Whatever had occurred, they’d managed to save the rest of the block.
11
The pain in my legs and feet had dissipated during the car ride, and now I had my second wind. The fatigue lessened with each step, and I quickened my pace.
“I’m almost there, Terri. Almost home.”
The traffic light blinked yellow at the intersection across from my block. Shattered glass indicated a wreck, but there were no cars in sight. I crossed Main Street, turned right, and walked another few yards.
Then I stood in front of our house. I took a deep breath. The lights were on and I saw the flickering blue glow of the television from the living room window.
“She’s here!”
I ran up the stairs of the front porch and my hands shook as I fumbled for my keys. I unlocked the door and barged into the living room. A frazzled-looking newscaster was on television, reporting on what I already knew. The volume was turned up loud.
Terri’s spot on the couch was empty, but the cushion where she sat every evening still held her imprint.
“Terri? Honey? I’m home!”
I turned off the television.
“Terri?”
Silence. I was home, but my wife wasn’t. I searched the house, hoping against hope, but I knew what I would find. Or wouldn’t find.
Terri was missing.
After twenty minutes, I collapsed onto the bed and cried into her pillow. It smelled like Terri, and I breathed in her fading scent. Soon it would be gone, just like her imprint on the sofa cushion. And then there’d be no trace left.
I prayed. I asked for it to be taken back, that the day be rewound and erased. Prayed for a second chance. I prayed for Charlie and Frank and Craig and Hector and all the others. More than anything, I asked for my wife to be returned to me, or to be allowed to go where she was, and again there was no answer. God was deaf, dumb and blind. I pleaded with Gabriel to show himself, but he didn’t. The silence was a solid thing. Downs
tairs, our grandfather clock ticked off the seconds and each one was excruciating.
I lay there all night and continued to pray. My parents would have been so proud of me. Terri and her parents would have been proud, too, because I finally believed in something. Believed in a force beyond Judaism or Christianity or dogma or faith. Believed in something concrete.
Something real.
I prayed as only a God-fearing man can—because God exists. I know that now. God exists, and I fear Him.
I am afraid.
So I pray. I pray every day now, even as things get worse. The preacher was right. The Rapture was just the beginning. And still I pray. I pray for mercy. Pray for forgiveness.
Pray to go home.
It’s such a long way and there are many miles left to go.
AFTERWORD
Take The Long Way Home was originally written for an anthology called On A Pale Horse. The premise of the anthology was four religious themed, end-of-the-world novellas by four different horror writers—myself, Tim Lebbon, Michael Laimo, and Gord Rollo. Each of us began work on our novellas, and everybody agreed that I should write about the Rapture. Why? At the time, there was a very popular Christian horror series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins called Left Behind. The series spanned twelve-books and a subsequent young adult series before giving birth to its first prequel. That prequel, amusingly enough, was called The Rising. My own book, The Rising, which caused a stir among zombie fans, had been out for about two years at that point. You can imagine the fun that ensued for booksellers. Zombie fans who had read City of the Dead and were looking for the previous book picked up something about the Rapture instead, and Christian readers who were expecting more of LaHaye and Jenkins’ Biblical adventure got Ob and Frankie and a bunch o’ gut-munching zombies.
I originally wanted to call this story Left Behind. My attorney said we couldn’t be sued for it, and I laughed with glee. But then a friend’s more sensible head prevailed, and I changed the title to Take The Long Way Home, which is also the title of my favorite Supertramp song. I think I like this title better.
Sadly, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, On A Pale Horse fell through. Luckily, Take The Long Way Home was published several years ago as a beautiful little limited edition hardcover. Then it was reprinted in my now out of print short story collection Unhappy Endings. And now Deadite Press has released this new edition.
The story itself is based on the primarily evangelical interpretation of the Biblical scriptures, specifically the Rapture and how it relates to the Second Coming of Christ. The 144,000 Jews who become Tribulation Saints are a part of this belief.
I was raised by two Irish-American Protestant parents, attended a Methodist church, and was even the president of the church youth group at one point, if you can dig that. My grandparents were Presbyterians, my extended family hardcore Southern Baptists, and I once dated a preacher’s daughter. My point is; I was surrounded by religion, specifically Christianity, all through my childhood and teenage years. Readers have commented that my fiction seems to be primarily based on the Christian mythos—well, that’s why.
Readers have also said that they see a deep schism; that I often depict God as the ultimate bad guy, and I think that’s also a fair assumption. I trace that to adulthood. As a young man, I traveled the world and was exposed to many other religions and alternative ways of thinking. I came to realize that what I was brought up to believe wasn’t the whole truth, the big picture, and that there were millions of other people whose ideas and faiths were just as valid and deep and personal.
I’ve gone through phases: occultism, powwow, paganism, Buddhism, atheism, and finally, agnosticism. At forty-three, I’m no longer sure what I believe, and that bothers me more and more each day. I believe in an afterlife, but I’m not sure that it’s Heaven. I believe that there’s something more to this world, to this universe, something behind the veil, but I’m not sure that it’s God.
Sometimes, it seems like the more I learn, the less I know.
I do know this. I often feel like Steve does at the end of this story. Sometimes, that kid inside of me, the kid who read Marvel comic books and rode his BMX Mongoose and watched Land of the Lost and Six-Million Dollar Man, and listened to Rush and Ozzy Osbourne—and still made it to church every Sunday, speaks up and lets me know that he’s still alive, that this cold, hard, cynical bastard I’ve become hasn’t buried him completely. It is during these times that I remember exactly why I went to church each Sunday.
Fear.
Fear of getting spanked by my parents for not going; fear of not fitting in with my peers (because back then, most of the cool kids did indeed go to church); and most of all, fear of what God would do to me if I didn’t.
Fear of God.
I like to think I’m a new world man. I don’t think religion should have any place in our schools or government or courts. I think we should reach out to other cultures and ways of life, regardless of whether they believe in our God or their God or any god. In my novel Terminal, when Tommy O’Brien rants that religion has fucked this planet up since day one, that’s Brian Keene talking. It has. Most of the evils perpetrated by mankind aren’t the work of the Devil, but can be traced back to religion; all done in God’s name.
I’d like to think I’ve evolved beyond that. But then that kid inside of me, the one who made sure he sat still during the sermon and paid attention during Sunday school, speaks up, and reminds me of my fear.
I am afraid of God, and therefore, I believe.
I’m afraid not to.
Brian Keene
January 2011
BRIAN KEENE is the author of over twenty-five books, including Darkness on the Edge of Town, Urban Gothic, Castaways, Kill Whitey, Dark Hollow, Dead Sea, Ghoul and The Rising. He also writes comic books such as The Last Zombie, Doom Patrol and Dead of Night: Devil Slayer. His work has been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French and Taiwanese. Several of his novels and stories have been optioned for film, one of which, The Ties That Bind, premiered on DVD in 2009 as a critically-acclaimed independent short. Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. Keene lives in Central Pennsylvania. You can communicate with him online at www.briankeene.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-Keene/189077221397 or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrianKeene
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