Angel of the Abyss: A Novel of the Great Tribulation (The Days of Elijah Book 3)

by Mark Goodwin

  Sarah was the first to take a shot. Everett, Courtney, and Kevin all joined her. Pop, Crack, Crack, Pop, Pop, Crack! The team opened fire and the six peacekeepers were dead before they could locate the source of the rifle fire.

  “Should we cross over to the other side of the road and use those bushes as cover to get closer?” Everett looked at Kevin.

  “It’s your show now, boss. You wanted to lead, now lead.” Kevin fumed.

  Everett huffed. “Cross one at a time with the other three providing cover. I’ll go first, Courtney next, then Sarah, then Kevin.” Everett made his way to the edge of the shrubbery, then darted across the road. Courtney followed, then Sarah.

  Everett threw his hand up to signal for Kevin not to come. The beams of at least a dozen more flashlights were advancing from a building behind the pump house. “Get down!”

  The team lay down in the bushes and waited for the peacekeepers to get in range.

  Everett was first to fire, striking the peacekeeper closest to him in the head. The other team members unleashed a barrage of rifle fire on the GR troops. This time, however, the peacekeepers not killed in the initial wave of the assault zeroed in on the muzzle flashes coming from Everett’s side of the road.

  “Courtney, Sarah, fall back!” Everett continued to shoot, intending to draw the enemy fire while the girls melted into the brush.

  Kevin stood up on the other side of the road and screamed as he opened up, killing three more peacekeepers. He’d made himself a more obvious target than Everett, and was now the focus of the GR troop’s gun sights.

  The flashlight beams shined all over Kevin’s body, illuminating the splatters of blood as bullets ripped through his torso, legs, and arms. Kevin continued to pull the trigger as his body dropped into the shrubs on the other side of the gravel drive.

  Everett’s heart sank as he watched his brother-in-arms and his brother-in-Christ fall to the cold earth below. “Oh no, Kevin.”

  Everett shot two more troops, leaving three flashlights still moving around and soon pointing straight in Everett’s general direction. Quickly, he began to move backward. He continued to take pot-shots as he retreated, in hopes of luring the remainder of the GR force to himself and away from Courtney.

  He turned around and began sprinting through the tall grass in the opposite direction from the truck. Pow! POP! Pow! Zing! Everett heard a bullet sail right by his ear. He felt the wind caused by the projectile breeze across the back of his neck. He rolled to the ground and spun about to engage his pursuers from a prone position. Crack, crack, crack! His rifle spit out round after round, dropping two of the GR troops. The last peacekeeper was still barreling right for him, firing at Everett as he ran. The man was nearly at point-blank range and the peacekeeper’s weapon ceased with a tell-tale click of his rifle bolt locking open.

  Everett looked the man in the eye. For a brief second, neither of them moved. Everett lay in the tall grass, with the barrel of his gun pointed up at the man standing six feet away. In turn, the peacekeeper stared at Everett, the man now holding his life in his hand. He stood motionless.

  Suddenly, the peacekeeper hit the magazine release button, dropping the spent mag to the ground. He instantly reached for another magazine on the front of his vest.

  POOOOW! The shot from Everett’s rifle rang out and echoed into the darkness. The man lurched forward, falling directly in front of Everett. The hole in the peacekeeper’s head landed just inches from Everett’s nose. Blood streamed out of the dead man’s head. Everett rolled aside to see the headlights of a Humvee turning off the gravel road and rushing in his direction.

  “Oh, no. They’ve got a man in the turret with a fifty-cal and a spotlight. I’ll never outrun them. And I’ve got nowhere to hide.” Everett quickly changed his magazine and prepared to fight it out to the end.

  The man in the turret worked the spotlight, shining it on each dead peacekeeper’s flashlights strewn about the field where they’d fallen. The spotlight went from one troop to the other, like a game of connect-the-dots. The final dot was Everett, and they were closing in fast. Everett lay still in the tall grass waiting. Soon, the light shined straight at him.

  Everett fired, taking out the light. He released a volley of bullets and took out the man in the turret before the fifty-cal started shooting, but now the vehicle was right on top of him. Someone else would soon be in that turret, and a flood of troops would come pouring out the doors of the Humvee. Everett didn’t stand a chance.

  BOOOM! Light, fire, smoke, ash, rubber, and metal shot into the air as an intense flash of white-hot heat sent the Hummer into flight, flipping it upside down. The Humvee sailed over Everett’s head. Instinctively, he put his face down into the grass and covered his head with his hands. The seconds felt like hours as the vehicle was suspended a few feet above his body. Finally, he felt the earth rumble beneath him as the Humvee landed on its rear bumper two yards from Everett’s feet. He looked behind him. The truck was vertical, like a pillar of Stonehenge, in suspended animation. He could hear the distressed metal creaking as the giant monolith lurched to fall, but in the darkness, he could not tell which way it would drop.

  Everett wasted no more time in speculation. He jumped to his feet and lunged away from the descending mass of iron. SWOOP! The Humvee accelerated as it came crashing down to a more stable position. SMASH! The impact was enough to cause Everett to lose his footing and fall to his knees. The vehicle lay on its back, resting right where he’d been only moments before.

  Everett breathed a deep sigh of relief. He looked up to see two figures racing in his direction. “Oh, no! My rifle! It’s under the Humvee!” He rapidly drew his Sig from the holster on the front of his load bearing vest. It was no match for rifles, but he wasn’t about to surrender without a fight.

  “Everett!” One of the figures running toward him was Courtney.

  The other was Sarah. She still held the spent tube of the AT-4 she’d used to take out the Humvee.

  He lowered the pistol and sat back on his feet while he caught his breath.

  The two girls arrived at his location. “Are you okay?” Courtney asked.

  “Yeah, are you?” He looked her over in the light of the burning fuel from the Hummer.

  “We’re good. We have to find Kevin,” Sarah answered.

  Everett looked back at the blazing inferno of the Humvee. “My rifle, I need my gun.”

  “Forget it. Here, take one of the peacekeeper’s weapons.” Sarah grabbed a rifle from the nearest soldier.

  Everett took it from her as he stood up. “I’ll need their magazines then.” He hurried to discard the remainder of his magazines and quickly collected several from the fallen troops, stuffing them into the pouches on the front of his vest.

  “Did you see where Kevin went?” Sarah asked as they began moving back toward the GR compound.

  He couldn’t speak. His voice was gone, like in a dream when one tries to scream but can’t. Maybe it is a dream, he thought.

  “Everett, I asked you a question. Are you okay?” Sarah paused and turned to look him in the eye.

  Everett forced himself to open his mouth but once again, nothing came out. He dropped his head and wagged it from side to side.

  “Everett! What are you saying?” Sarah’s voice grew frantic. “Everett?”

  He looked back up at her with compassion.

  “No!” she yelled. “No,” she pleaded. “No,” she moaned. Her eyes welled up with tears. Her rifle dropped to her side, then she let go of it and let her weapon fall to the ground.

  Everett felt horrible for her, but a terrible thought crossed his mind as he watched her pain. A thought he couldn’t control, one that came like a reflex when the doctor hits the knee with a mallet. I’m glad it wasn’t Courtney.

  Then a thought far worse came. It too came without invitation or will. Unstoppable, unavoidable, a dirty little voice from the darkest part of his soul said, I’m glad it wasn’t me.

  The first thought was unde
rstandable, forgivable even. But not the second. It was reprehensible, shameful, and wicked. Suddenly Everett could not stomach being in his own skin. Instantly, the self-loathing set in, and he wished it had been him who’d died. Kevin was at peace. Everett was wracked by guilt and dishonor. No bullet could ever inflict the pain that Everett’s own psyche imposed upon his being in that moment.

  Sarah was paralyzed by grief, Everett was frozen by shame. Courtney grabbed Sarah and pulled her head to her chest. “Shhh. Sarah. We have to keep going. We have to wrap this up. We’ll find Kevin, but we have to finish what we came here for.”

  Sarah grimaced in utter agony. She wiped her eyes with her wrists and nodded her head. Everett also found the resolve to keep going forward. Courtney led the way back to the edge of the brush and knelt down.

  Everett shook off his self-hatred long enough to resume the lead. He peered around the corner of the shrubbery and down the gravel drive. All was silent and motionless. “We’ll proceed with extreme caution. You two stay back at least fifteen feet from me.” If anyone else was going to get shot on this mission, Everett was determined that it should be himself.

  Twice, Everett had to go back and tell Courtney to stay off the road and inside the concealment of the brush.

  “But you’re out in the road,” she argued the second time.

  “Just stay in the bushes. Don’t worry about me,” he scolded.

  “But I am worried about you!”

  He turned away and kept advancing. Lights were on inside the building next to the pump station, but he saw no movement. He crouched down and waited for the girls to reach his position. “I’ll go in and clear the building. You two stay outside and take down out anyone I flush out.”

  “No way! You’re not going in by yourself. We’ve never trained like that, and we’re not going to do it now,” Courtney demanded.

  “Fine. Stack up behind me at the door.” Everett scowled.

  The three of them made entry and cleared the building room by room. The door at the end of the hall was locked. Everett looked in the window but saw no one. “There was an open gun safe in the front office. We’ll fall back and see if they have a shotgun to breach this door. It’s locked for a reason.”

  Sarah led the way back to the office, Everett watching their six and Courtney in the middle. Once in the room, Everett checked the safe. “Riot gun.” He slid the pump on the shotgun backward, ejecting the shell. “Double-aught buck. It ain’t a slug, but it should knock that lock off.”

  He racked the pump forward, sliding another shell into the chamber, and led the team back to the locked door. Everett held the barrel at a 45-degree angle up and out from the lock. “Boom!” He struck the keyed door knob with the butt of the shotgun and the fragments fell away.

  Everett dropped the shotgun and held up his rifle as he led the entry team into the room.

  “Stop! Stop! We surrender!” Four hands appeared from behind a desk.

  “Step out!” Everett ordered.

  Two men came out from behind the desk. Both wore casual pants and polo shirts. Neither looked like GR troops, and neither had the distinct accent of foreigners from other English-speaking countries that the Global Republic liked to send to police the former United States.

  Everett looked at the badges hanging from the lanyards around their necks. “GRSA. You two worked for NSA before?”

  “Yes, sir. We were the engineers who ran the pumping facility,” one said.

  “Non-combatants,” the other added.

  Everett chuckled as he leveled the rifle. “I worked for CIA.” He nodded toward Courtney. “She sub-contracted for NSA. There may be such thing as naive, stupid even. But don’t kid yourselves, just because you don’t carry a weapon doesn’t make you a non-combatant. Especially when you enable that hideous thing up the river from here.”

  One man shook his head. “We don’t want to know where you worked or anything about you. Just take what you need and go. We didn’t see you, and we won’t say a word.”

  “I’m supposed to trust people who knowingly support a system that beheads Christians? Even if I did believe you, you’re engineers. You’d help bring this beast, Dragon, back online. And we simply can’t have that. Do you both have the Mark?”

  The two men seemed to not understand why he’d ask such a thing in the midst of the assault. They each showed the raised bump on the back of their hands which held the pico projectors of their Mark implant systems.

  “Then we don’t have anything else to talk about, I’m afraid.” Everett fired two rounds in quick succession and dropped the two engineers dead where they stood.

  He lowered his rifle and turned to Courtney and Sarah. “If there were any other troops who wanted to engage us, they’d have done so by now. We’ll remain cautious, but most likely, all the peacekeepers are dead, or they’ve fled the scene.

  “Let’s go check the pump house.” Everett kept his rifle at a low-ready position as he led the team to the pile of rubble that had been the pumping station. The glowing embers of the wood-framed roof provided enough light to confirm that all four pumps were no longer operational, and were indeed, totally annihilated.

  Sarah looked on at the destruction. “So, we could have just hit it and run. Kevin died for nothing.”

  “Don’t say that.” Courtney put her hand on Sarah to console her.

  “Let’s find Kevin and get out of here.” Everett knew exactly where his friend lay. The valiant soldier had been called home, while the man who thought such disgusting things like I’m glad it wasn’t me, still disgraced the Earth with his presence.

  Everett’s pain, shame, guilt, and heartache hit him like a tsunami when he saw Kevin’s lifeless body lying in the shrubs where he’d fallen. Waves of sorrow overtook him. He knelt down by the man who’d become a brother over the past three years. He hugged Kevin’s corpse.

  Sarah bawled like only a widow could. Courtney sobbed softly as she comforted her friend. Everett dried his eyes and hoisted his fallen friend on his shoulder. Courtney helped Sarah walk behind, like an anemic funeral procession.

  Everett placed the body of Kevin in the bed of the truck.

  Sarah grabbed Everett’s arm and pleaded with him desperately. “Maybe God will bring him back to us again, Everett. Maybe if you ask him, He’ll listen to you.”

  Everett knew that if God would listen to anyone on the planet right now, it certainly wouldn’t be him. He shook his head. “No. I can’t”

  Sarah squeezed his arm tighter. “Why not? Why won’t you try?”

  Everett looked at Courtney as if to beg for help. “Because. God won’t listen to me.” Confronted by his own shame, he began to cry again.

  “Everett, just pray. Just ask. If God says no, so be it, but we have to ask.” Now Sarah’s pleas were like those of a small child who wanted to believe so badly.

  Everett dropped his head. Unable to cover up his sin, he confessed. “God hates me. You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know the thoughts I’ve had. I don’t even know if I’m a Christian.”

  “What could be so bad?” Sarah asked.

  Everett hated to disappoint Courtney. He looked up at her with self-condemning eyes and divulged his trespasses. “I couldn’t stop the thought, but after Kevin died, something inside me said, I’m glad it wasn’t Courtney.”

  Sarah put her arm around him. “Oh, Everett. She’s your wife. Don’t you know that’s normal?”

  His head sunk lower as he whispered the next dreadful phrase. “Then the voice said I’m glad it wasn’t me. Kevin was twice the man I ever was. I don’t deserve to live.”

  Sarah shook her head. “You snap out of it, Everett. That’s so common in battle. I had to go through counseling when I came back from the desert. I watched a couple of my buddies die, I thought the same thing you thought, and I went through exactly what you’re going through. It’s reactionary. It’s a reflex. It’s that deep-seated instinct of self-preservation. You can’t stop it. Don’t do this to your
self. You don’t really believe those things, or you wouldn’t be feeling so guilty. Don’t you see that?”

  Everett quickly did the math in his head. She was right. If he was truly glad that it was Kevin and not him, he wouldn’t be in the undone state in which he now found himself. Everett cleared his head. Still distraught, he nodded. “Okay. We’ll all pray together.”

  They each put a hand on Kevin’s body. Everett began, “Jesus, you are the resurrection and the life. He that believes in you, though he shall die, yet shall he live. We pray that you would send our brother back to us. We know that you can.”

  Courtney prayed a short prayer asking God to once again, resurrect Kevin.

  Sarah prayed last. “God, you’ve been too good to us. I thank you for our second chance, for salvation, for bringing Kevin back before, for restoring my leg. But God, he’s all I have on this earth. Yes, I cherish the friendship of Everett and Courtney, but Kevin was mine, and I was his in a way that only husband and wife can be. Please God, I would gladly give you back my leg to have him by my side for just one more day.” She sobbed, and they all waited quietly to see what God might do.

  Minutes later, Sarah looked up with sad eyes. “God’s not bringing him back. I can feel it in my spirit.”

  Courtney hugged her tightly.

  Sarah nodded as she cried. “But somehow, I can feel that God is going to give me the grace to get through it.”

  Everett put his arm around Sarah. “Thank you for not hating me for my evil thoughts.”

  “I don’t hate you, Everett. I never could. And for what it’s worth, you were right to back the truck out of the drive when we were being identified by the peacekeepers. Don’t let the devil tell you that this wouldn’t have happened if you’d stuck to Kevin’s plan. I’ll love him for eternity, but he was wrong on that one. And if he were here, he’d admit it. So, don’t feel like you left on a sour note. We’re family. Families disagree. Sometimes they even fight. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.”

  Tears ran down Everett’s cheeks as the Holy Spirit used Sarah to comfort his soul.