Judgment

by Tom Reinhart

  Outside, the rain fell incredibly hard. It came down in a deluge on the roof, against the window, and splattered into quickly forming puddles in the parking lot. It was such a mesmerizing sound that it took me a minute to realize the banging on the door and window had stopped.

  I listened intently. Outside I could hear faint sounds, almost like whimpering, or crying. With the metal pipe firmly in my hand I approached the window. Lightning and thunder danced furiously in the sky. The rain slammed heavily on the glass as I eased open the curtain just enough to see out.

  The maledicted were collapsing. As I watched, they were literally melting before my eyes. The rain, pouring down upon them from the heavens, was melting away their flesh as if it were acid. I jumped back as a hand suddenly reached up and smacked against the bottom of the window. With fingers spread out wide, the hand slowly slid along the glass, leaving a trail of slimy melting flesh where the fingers touched it. I watched as the rotten flesh seemed to simply melt away in the rain. In just moments it was not more than a skeleton hand, and then even the bones began to disintegrate, bits of knuckle and fingertips washing away until the hand was gone.

  Out in the parking lot the maledicted were stumbling all around, beginning to fall as their legs melted away right underneath them. Lying on the wet pavement, they slowly dissolved, their bodies becoming liquid that blended into the growing puddles and disappeared. One by one, as each body disintegrated, I saw their faint, smoky souls rise upwards towards the heavens. I realized that this wasn’t just a regular storm. This was a cleansing. The suffering of the maledicted was ending. The world was being washed.

  I heard the bathroom door open, and the light footsteps of Evelyn coming up behind me. She joined me in staring out the window as lightning flashed in our faces and thunder rocked the building.

  “They’re gone,” I told her.

  “They’re gone.”

  Chapter 13

  Genesis; The End Is The Beginning

  “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

  ~ Revelation 21:4

  The rain lasted for days, although I’m not sure how many. When it finally stopped, the world had changed. The sky was clear and brilliantly blue. The trees seemed greener and the air purer. The ashes were gone, washed away into the oceans and the soil. That was perhaps the most noticeable thing; the damn dust was really gone. Stepping out into the motel parking lot, the world not only looked different, but felt different. I could just feel that something had changed.

  I had watched the maledicted melt away, and I hadn’t seen a Judge in weeks. Outside I couldn’t hear any hint of human life, neither alive nor dead; just the sounds of nature. Birds chirped loudly in the trees, and bumble bees buzzed around some new flowers that, with the rains, seemed to bloom overnight.

  We spent the next few days scavenging through the town without any sign of any other human life. We were actually able to almost relax for the last few days. We got new clothes, new sneakers, and were working our way through the soups. We even remembered the soap and had baths in a pond just up the road a bit. And through it all there was no sign of a Judge or a maledicted. They had all just disappeared.

  A morning came when Evelyn spoke for the first time. She was sleeping, but it was getting late in the morning and I was eager to get something to eat. I nudged her to wake. “Hey beautiful, time for breakfast.”

  Her lips moved slightly but I couldn’t hear any sound, and she rolled over on her side, away from me. Her pregnancy was really beginning to show now. Lying on her side, I could see the bulge of our child within her, and she had never looked more beautiful.

  “C’mon Evelyn, we need to get going. I want to get some breakfast and then check out those other houses across town.”

  Nothing.

  “Evelyn, hey…wake up. Evelyn…”

  Then I heard her speak for the first time. Low at first, like a whisper, but there was a voice. Surprised, I grabbed her by the shoulder and rolled her over. Her eyes opened wide and she looked at me slightly startled.

  “What did you say?” I urged.

  Her lips moved like always, but now she spoke, crackly, broken, but with a voice. “Stop calling…me… Evelyn.” The expression on her face showed she was as surprised as I was. “Oh my god” she blurted out, followed quickly by lots of coughing, her throat trying to adjust to the new vibrations.

  She sat up trying to clear her throat and I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Say it again.”

  She looked at me and swallowed hard, like a child does when they have a sore throat from a cold. Her eyes looked down and side to side the way someone does when they’re thinking. Then she looked me in the eyes. “Stop… calling me… Evelyn.” She smiled with the realization that her voice was back, and we hugged briefly.

  “Hi,” I said. “Welcome back.”

  She smiled again, coughing some more as I rose from the bed for a bottle of water. “Here, drink this.”

  She took several big gulps and cleared her throat.

  “What do you mean, don’t call you Evelyn?”

  She spoke slowly, in broken sentences, coughing every other word. “I was named….after my grandmother.” She paused to drink another sip of water and clear her throat again. “I’ve always…*cough* …hated it. So… old fashioned. I’ve always just… gone by Eve.”

  Eve.

  It only took a few seconds for it to hit me. The word rang out in my head over and over; Eve, Eve, Eve.

  No fucking way.

  I said not a word but rushed out of the room. “Adam?” I heard Eve yell as I ran out into the parking lot. I looked around for a moment at the bright green foliage that had rapidly expanded its hold on the motel ever since the rain storm. I saw all the beautiful flowers that been blooming like crazy, helped along by dozens of bumble bees and humming birds. I ran to the motel sign by the roadside, the same one I had seen every day for weeks. The familiar words ‘The Garden’ were on it, but now I quickly tore away the overgrown plants that covered the rest of the sign. I pulled and ripped at the vines, until finally I could see it all. Now reading its full length, I fell to my knees as Eve came out of the room and into the parking lot. She walked up behind me as the full realization of it all hit me.

  I stood and turned to her, pointing to the sign; the sign that read “The Garden of Eden”.

  It took a few seconds, and then I saw the realization in her face. There we were, Adam and Eve, standing in the Garden of Eden.

  It now fully hit me that the Judges were truly gone. We hadn’t seen a maledicted since the rains that washed them away. We hadn’t seen or heard another living human being for a month. I had heard no screams, no guns, no cars; no sign of humanity whatsoever.

  Looking around, I saw and heard only peaceful silence. I walked out into the road and looked both directions. A large herd of deer about a half mile up the highway slowly crossed from one side to the other. In the sky were only birds. Neither Eve nor I left the parking lot for quite a while. We stood in silence, taking it all in, pondering the surreal enormity of our realization. I heard the wind blow, whispering through the tall weeds behind the motel. I heard the chirping of birds and the crickets. I watched the bees fly amongst the beautiful blooming flowers. The herd of deer walked right past us in the road, their hooves clopping against the cracking asphalt. Through those cracks grass grew wildly, slowly making the asphalt disappear. Nature was reclaiming the world.

  Over the next few weeks it became abundantly clear that Eve and I were entirely alone, the only human life left on the planet. We walked freely out in the open, our minds and bodies entirely care free, surrounded by a new paradise. The world had come full circle. Mankind had been purged from the earth, and the cycle begun again, just as it had been told in the bible; the story of Genesis; Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

  For days I thought about what had gone wro
ng. I remembered why I had generally hated people. I remembered all the things the dead cop had told me; how evil we were, how wrongly we had acted in treating each other and the world.

  When people would talk to me about the bible, I never believed it to be actual history or truth. I thought of it as just stories written by men. But when I thought of things like Noah’s Ark and how God cleansed the world in a flood sparing only a few; that actually made sense to me. I had no doubt that the world could use another good washing, I just never thought it would actually happen.

  I’ll never understand how someone like me could be chosen to restart the human race. After all, I drink, I lie, I cheat, I’ve stolen, I have sex for pleasure; sin is my middle name.

  I pondered this for a long time

  Then I remembered something my father had told me when I was a child. He said “As long as you’re a good person at heart, you’ll get into Heaven.”

  And I get it now. We are all born with the same instincts and desires. Pride, lust, envy, wrath; these are all born into us, a part of the human animal. Having these things, feeling them, does not make one evil. It’s how we react to them, how we act on them, what we do with them that matters. Father Donavan was right. It’s not the tools we are given, it’s what we choose to do with them.

  My father was right too. I know I’ve done some things that I wasn’t sure about, things I regret, but deep inside I always knew I was a good person. It’s not always about what we feel or what we’ve done, but the intentions we carry within our heart.

  Burden yourself not with the things that come naturally, don’t be afraid of the instinctive things you feel inside. Embrace them, but live with good intentions and stay pure of heart.

  Being human is not a sin.

  In another five months or so Eve will give birth. We’re going to name him Cain.

  ~ END ~

  Epilogue

  Other Voices

  The Jumper

  I couldn’t breathe, a combination of sheer paralyzing fear and the incredible wind pushing into my face as I fell. I saw the ground coming, fifty stories racing towards me like a freight train. I felt my heart stop and my bladder release. Every muscle in my body tensed solid in pure panic and shock.

  Oh my god I’m going to die.

  It probably only took seconds, but it felt like slow motion. My mind raced. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but all my loved ones did; my husband, my children, my sister. It seemed as though I had visions of their reactions to my death, and sensations of their grief. It made me feel guilty for doing this to them. In the final seconds before I knew I would hit the ground, I just prayed to not feel any pain.

  God didn’t hear me. I felt it all.

  The tremendous impact was a mixture of sensations. I felt bones crack and push into my insides. My teeth breaking seemed to stand out the most. There was a brief moment of exhilaration when I realized I’m still alive, and there was a moment of hope. Then I realized my head was facing the wrong way, my neck severely broken. The pain grew steadily, starting with a surreal numbness immediately after the impact, and quickly increasing to an incredible magnitude that made it impossible to think.

  I saw people running past me. Police and ambulances went by. Yet no one stopped. No one paid attention to me. My own broken teeth on the sidewalk cut into my cheek as I tried to drag myself a few feet to get someone to notice me.

  I saw a man next to me, lying in the road. His head was cracked wide open, his limbs twisted unnaturally. I think he jumped with me. I can’t remember. I was sure he was dead, until his eyes opened and he tried to speak to me with what was left of his face.

  * * * *

  The Motel Man

  I watched the vulture tear at the flesh on my face, with the one eye I had left. I could only look upwards, as I lay in pieces in the parking lot. I feel every bit of the pain, yet I’ve somehow moved past being afraid of it. I wanted them to kill me, to end my suffering, and I am grateful that they tried. I guess I just can’t die, although I don’t understand why.

  It was just supposed to be a business trip, like I had taken every week for the last year. It was when I found the letter from my wife in my suitcase that everything went wrong. The letter that said she wouldn’t be there when I got home, that she was done with me and our marriage.

  I tried to call her all week, tried to concentrate on my work, tried to fight the urge to fly home and find her. I finally got her on the phone on Thursday night, when she told me she was in a year-long affair and had finally gotten the courage to leave.

  The personal trainer, she said, made her feel like a real woman again.

  On Friday morning I bought the shotgun.

  I’ll show her. Just wait ‘til they find me in this room with my brains splattered on the fucking wall.

  I felt every bit of the blast. I thought there would just be nothingness. Instead at first there was sheer panic. Incredible pain that I thought I would never know about now shocked every nerve in my body as I lay on the bed feeling half of my face missing. I saw my brains on the wall as I reached for the phone, desperately trying to call 911.

  Oh my god help me. I didn’t mean it.

  I couldn’t understand why no one answered the phone. It’s 911 for Christ’s sake. Where was everyone? I remember stumbling to the bathroom, seeing myself in the mirror, and vomiting. I remember the moment my heart stopped because there was no blood left to pump. I remember the moment I realized I was no longer breathing. Then came the confusion. My brain couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or awake. It was like being on some powerful drug and a bad high. The world became surreal, and the bathroom became my world. Time became meaningless. As I lay on the cold tile floor, I knew I was dead, yet I was self-aware. I slipped in and out of consciousness, often with hallucinations. At some point I thought I saw an angel standing in the bathroom doorway; a beautiful woman with golden eyes and large white wings. She stood in the doorway looking at me, and I was sure she had come to take me to Heaven. Then she turned and left me there, a living corpse on the bathroom floor. She left me, like my wife had left me, and then I remembered how I got this way.

  I knew days were passing by. Weeks even. I could smell myself. Flies filled the bathroom and I could feel the maggots burrowing into my flesh. And always was the pain. The pain never left, as if the shotgun was continuing to go off in my face, over and over and over. I surrendered to it until it made me laugh, and I knew I was going insane. All I wanted was to die. All I wanted was for this to be over. All I wanted was for that bitch to know what she made me do. All I wanted was for her to still love me.

  I heard those people come into the room. For a brief moment I thought maybe they’ll take me to a hospital and save me. Then I laughed, knowing the best I could hope for was for them to put me out of my misery. I didn’t mean to scare them. I wouldn’t hurt them, I don’t think. I’m just confused and I need this pain to end.

  I didn’t fight them as they beat me into pieces. I thought maybe this was the way to the end. Life is cruel. God is crueler, I know this now, as I lay here in pieces feeling the vultures eat me, wondering when I’ll actually be dead.

  * * * *

  Roses were red,

  Violets were blue,

  But the messiah came,

  Now they’re all the same hue.

  Blackened with ash,

  Covered with dust,

  The price of our sins,

  Greed, gluttony, and lust.

  I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. There is a lot more to come. I consider my readers to be my friends, and I love hanging out and interacting with them. I am their biggest fan. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and my personal website at www.TomReinhart.com

  If you did like this book, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, Goodreads, or anywhere else you like to talk about books. Often the success of a writer, and the ability to continue writing great stories like this, depends heavily on reviews.

/>   Thanks for taking this ride with me.

  ~Tom Reinhart

  www.TomReinhart.com

  Copyright © 2014 Tom Reinhart

  All Rights Reserved