“We are here because we are survivors. We were faced with a challenge more difficult than anything we could even imagine, and we survived. Many did not, and for them, we pray.
“But we survived.
“For that, you should be proud. You should recognize your strength. Your perseverance. Your ability to rise up and overcome tremendous challenges.
“Take pride in yourself, because you are here.
“We. Are here.”
Jeremiah paused for a short while, allowing his words to sink in, to let them embrace the feelings he’d stirred up within them.
When enough time had passed, he spoke again.
“So where are we going now?” he asked, knowing his question would confuse them. He watched as they looked at one another, searching for understanding. No one wanted to leave the safety of the protective zone, and he couldn’t blame them. He didn’t either, and he had no intention of doing so.
“I sense your confusion,” he began. “So let me help you by clarifying something: we are not leaving the Protective Zone. We fought and journeyed to get here, because it is a place of safety, somewhere we can focus on more than just surviving.
“So let’s focus on that. When I asked you where we are going, I asked the question because I believe life is a journey. While we may be in one place, we cannot stop moving in here,” he said, pointing to his head.
“We must learn. We must grow. If we do not, we will become stagnant. Many of you have requested access to the library, and I have worked with the base commander to ensure that is available to you. There are two, now. The main downtown library, and the one in the north part of the city. Both are marked on the maps we have at the tables, there,” he said, pointing off to where the table stood.
“I have also managed to get three of the daycare centers open, thanks to the volunteers who stepped up to provide staffing so that you may drop off your children there, either for a few hours, or for the day. Everyone deserves a break sometimes, and the children could use some time with each other, to play and just be kids again, am I right?”
The crowd nodded and murmured in agreement. ‘Thank you!’ several people called out, raising their hands up to be noticed.
“Of course, my good people. I feel it is my duty to try to help those here that are in need, and it is a duty I take seriously.”
Jeremiah went on for another twenty minutes, sharing with them other news of things happening inside the Protective Zone, being sure to highlight the things he’d made happen. When asked of the progress towards finding a cure for the virus, he answered, “The government says they are working on it, but that progress is slow. I fear we may need God’s intervention at this point.”
The words were chosen carefully, and ones he’d practiced prior to his appearance that day. He knew they’d ask the question. Who wouldn’t? As he’d stated, the virus had taken everything from them, and he knew they viewed it as this thing, that was out there, waiting to attack them. They viewed it as their enemy, something that had to be neutralized. Something that had to be defeated.
His choice of referring to those working on the cure as ‘the government’ was far from accidental. While it was true that he didn’t know the names of those working on the cure, saying ‘the men and women working on the cure,’ or ‘the doctors working on the cure,’ would bring a sense of association to the people listening. Men, women, and doctors were things they could visualize. The ‘government’ was an amorphous ‘thing’ that could be viewed in many different ways, and when people were desperate, anxious, and eager for someone to blame for their situation, it was an easy target.
Which was exactly what he wanted.
Nearing the end of his speech, he knew it was time to begin working on the other part of his objective.
“My good people, as we finish here, I want to take a moment to say, thank you so very much for joining me today. Your presence, your companionship warms my heart. It gives me a reason to keep doing what I do.”
Pausing strategically once more, he copied his earlier gesture, lowering his head once more and bringing his hand to his mouth as he ‘struggled to keep his emotions in check.’ This time, though, when he lifted his head, he let a single tear run down his left cheek.
Choking back ‘tears,’ he said, “You are my everything. Without you, I am nothing.”
Lowering his head once more, he breathed deeply as he listened to the crowd respond.
“Don’t say that, Jeremiah!”
“You’re everything to me!”
“We love you!”
Controlling his urge to smile, he waited there for nearly a minute, visibly swallowing heavily and using his hand to cover his eyes. When he looked up, he stared up at the sky and blinked away a few tears before saying, “Thank you.”
Raising his arms and spreading them wide, he said, “Apparently, we need each other.” The crowd cheered appreciatively.
Alright, Jeremiah, last part.
“Now, before we finish here today, I’m going to ask you to do one thing. I’m going to ask you to pray with me.
“For those who don’t feel comfortable joining us in prayer, I simply ask that you observe a moment of silence.”
He waited until the crowd went silent in anticipation, then nodded towards Donald. The big man slowly and gently guided a blonde woman forward.
Gently putting his arm around her, Jeremiah lowered his voice as he spoke to her. “Come, dear. I’m here for you.’
Looking back out at the crowd, he said, “I ask you to pray for Kristen Maxwell and her daughter, Whitney. Whitney went missing yesterday.”
Gasps came from the crowd.
“I am hopeful that she is simply lost, and that she will return to her mother safe and unharmed.”
“Oh my God,” he heard someone murmur.
“Did someone take her?” another voice asked.
“I thought it was safe here…” someone else added.
“How could this happen?” another person asked.
With one arm still around Kristen, Jeremiah raised his free hand. “People, please. Have faith in God. If we give up on faith, we give up on God, and we can’t do that. He has brought us this far. Now, I’m sure Colonel Walters and his men are doing everything they can to help find young Whitney. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise if you saw some of the soldiers coming around, asking questions as they try to gather information. Please do what you can to help.
“For now, I ask you to join me in prayer.”
He waited for several seconds, allowing the crowd noise to die down. As he looked out at the mass of people, he saw many of them had already lowered their heads as they readied themselves to pray with him.
Good, the numbers grow.
“Heavenly Father, we stand before you today humbled and grateful for all that you’ve done for us. Your wisdom and guidance have helped us get to where we are, and for that we are thankful.
“Today, Heavenly Father, we ask for help once more. We ask that you bring young Whitney back to her mother safely. She needs her mother, and her mother needs her.
“Until that time, we ask that you give Kristen strength and fill her heart with your love. Help her to keep her faith strong, to never give up, and to believe that her daughter will come back to her.
“We ask this in your name, Jesus Christ, Amen.”
“Amen,” the crowd repeated after him.
“Kristen, I offer you Psalm One Hundred Thirty, Verse Five: ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.’
“Never lose faith, my dear. I am here for you, as we all are,” he said, waving his arm towards the crowd. “We will pray constantly for your daughter’s return.”
Nodding, with tears streaming down her face, Kristen Maxwell looked up at him. “Thank you, Jeremiah,” she said, before looking out at the crowd gathered before them. “Thank you all.”
“You are welcome, my dear, and I promise you this,” he said, before removing his arm from around her shoulders
and stepping forward.
“I promise all of you this: if I need to lead security patrols myself to keep people safe, I will.” Gesturing towards the men that stood nearby, he said, “Evan, Donald, Timothy, and Jeff have already agreed to join me in doing so, and I’m sure others will step up as well.” Cheers went up in the crowd at the suggestion.
“I will!” a man called out.
“Me, too!” another one said.
“Count me in!” yet another said.
Raising his hand once more. “Of course, you all find yet another way to make me feel blessed to be around you. Now that I see the desire for this effort to become a reality, along with the willingness of so many of you to assist in the effort, I will meet with my men here and start developing a plan. We WILL stand up patrols to begin providing security. We won’t be armed, of course, the Army here made us turnover our weapons, but we will be there when you need us. I will also look at a way for people to request a safety patrol. If you feel unsafe at any time, you would be able to contact the safety patrol, and they will come to you and accompany you during your walk to ensure your safety.”
More cheers erupted at this announcement, with the crowd’s enthusiasm growing to a near-fever pitch.
Knowing, as all good showmen do, that you should always leave on a high note, he waved at the crowd, and then lowered his hand, indicating that they should quiet down. They did so immediately.
When the noise died down once more, he looked out onto the crowd and made sure they were paying close attention. Once he was sure he had their attention, he began the mantra he’d taught them.
“Thank you all for joining me today. This day is better for me because you all are in it, and with that said, for those who know our words of love, please join me.”
“Our love is great,” he and his followers said together.
“Our love is kind.
“Our love is free.
“We give of ourselves, for the good of all.”
After they’d finished, he took time to shake each person’s hand and/or hug them, knowing that his personal touch was yet another way to bridge the gap between his words and their hearts.
As he did so, he was in an almost mechanical mode as his mind was mostly elsewhere, not that anyone would know. His smile was as electric as always, his eyes warm as he looked upon one person after another, connecting for those few seconds before moving on.
He’d already instructed Evan and the others to ensure that he kept moving through the crowd without stopping. Moving swiftly allowed him to greet more people in the short time he’d spend working his way towards the exit, but it also allowed his mind to work on what came next. He was always planning, strategizing, scheming.
The day’s gathering had gone even better than he’d anticipated. He’d pulled in new followers, which was always a priority, but he’d also begun to sow the smallest, slightest seeds of distrust in both the government and Colonel Walters.
The government was moving too slowly at finding a cure. If they were failing, perhaps only God’s blessing could keep them safe, and if they needed to feel close to God, who would they come to?
Colonel Walters’s ability to provide a safe, secure place for them wasn’t in doubt, per se, but cracks were beginning to form. If parents were worried about their children’s safety, they’d soon start to wonder if this was all Walters had promised it would be. With his promise of establishing safety patrols, when the people needed to feel safe, who would they come to?
Jeremiah smiled even more widely as he shook hands with a doe-eyed young woman, barely noticing as she bit her lip and pressed her ample breasts against him as she hugged him.
He was too focused on his objective, and remaining focused was everything.
No distractions, Jeremiah. Not this time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Outside of Kingston, Tennessee
Day 2
A half-second after the sound of the gunshot, Staff Sergeant Khan heard the sound of an automatic weapon firing off a short burst. As he brought his rifle to bear, he heard the sound of glass breaking, followed by a heavy thud outside the home.
The gunfire had come from the direction he’d sent Corporal White. Stepping forward smoothly but relatively quickly, he made his way down the hall towards the room on the north side of the home.
Moving through the doorway, he found White on the floor, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to his midsection. Across the room, a pair of drapes waved back and forth inside the frame of a broken window. Stepping to the window, Khan aimed his rifle at the ground underneath, expecting to find someone. No one was there, but there were scrapes on the ground where the dirt had been disturbed. Bringing his eyes up towards the horizon, he saw the shape of a heavyset white man in jeans, a red ball cap, and a red flannel shirt with its sleeves cut off, running towards the treeline a hundred yards away.
Aiming carefully, Khan placed his sights on the middle of the man’s back and pulled the trigger. ‘If he was a threat a minute ago, he could be a threat a minute from now,’ he thought.
The man stumbled just as he pulled the trigger, and as a result, the bullet caught the man in the upper right shoulder instead of the middle of his back. He flew forward, falling and tumbling in the long, overgrown grass. The weeds and grass hid him from view as Khan sought to find another shot. Behind him, Corporal White groaned.
“Shit!” Khan cursed, as he turned and rushed back to the young man’s side, his eyes registering the stream of blood that was rapidly staining the home’s cheap carpet. Grabbing the mic to his radio, he practically yelled into it.
“Man down! Man down! Need medical ASAP!”
Doctor Chang heard the desperation in Staff Sergeant Khan’s voice as it came through the speaker inside the Humvee and just reacted. Grabbing the medkit he knew was under his seat, he threw the door to the Humvee open, leapt from the vehicle and ran towards the house as both Healey and Snyder yelled for him to stop. A second later, Gunnery Sergeant Jeffries’s voice joined in, imploring him to wait.
Ignoring them all, he ran into the house, oblivious to the fact that Lisa was barely two steps behind him. He charged into the living room just as two Marines disappeared down the hallway on his right. Following them, he found a large bedroom with a broken window. On his left a wounded Marine laid on the floor, bleeding heavily from a wound to the upper right side of his stomach.
‘Shit,’ Chang thought as he forced his way past the three Marines that had gathered around the man. Without looking at anyone, he ordered, “Someone get me three clean washcloths soaked in clean water and a couple of dry towels. Lisa, please get the rubbing alcohol and tweezers from the med kit.”
He heard Staff Sergeant Khan bark out orders, telling the men to do what he’d requested. A second later, one of the Marines said, “But the water’s not working.”
Having zero patience for people unable to understand the urgency of the situation, he turned to the young African-American man and shouted, “Then go to the Humvee and get some!!” The man’s eyes widened for a half-second before he turned and bolted away.
Focusing his attention on the injured young man, Chang knelt beside him and said, “Hey! What’s your name?”
Taking breaths between each syllable, the Marine replied, “Ah..dam...White...Sir…”
Staring into the man’s eyes, Andrew ordered the man to meet his gaze. “Look at me, Adam.” He waited until the young man’s eyes met his. “You’re going to live. That’s what you want, right?” he asked, intent on keeping the man’s consciousness engaged.
“Yes...Sir…”
“You sure?” he asked as he pulled a vial of morphine from the medkit and used it to fill a syringe.
“Yes...Sir….of...course.”
Glancing up at Staff Sergeant Khan, Chang said, “Good, because if I see you starting to doze off, Mister Khan here is gonna smack the shit out of you.”
‘Where did that language come from, Andrew?’ he asked himself. Sinki
ng the tip of the needle into a vein on the man’s muscular forearm, he breathed heavily as he thought of what he needed to do.
Control the bleeding.
Remove the bullet.
Clean the wound.
Bandage the wound.
‘Here we go,’ he said to himself as the young Hispanic Marine returned, holding a pair of dry hand towels, two soaked wash clothes, and several bottles of water.
“I brought extra water in case you need it, Sir.”
“Good. Thank you,” Andrew replied, as he gently tilted the Marine’s body towards him. Leaning forward, he checked the man’s back.
‘Not good,’ he thought. There was no exit wound, which meant the bullet was still inside the man. The bright side, if there was one, though, was that there was less blood being lost than if there had been an exit wound.
As he grabbed the second dry towel, Lisa leaned in. “Here. Rubbing alcohol and tweezers.”
“Thanks,” Andrew replied, taking the brown plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol. Unscrewing the cap, he poured the fluid onto the towel, soaking it. Taking the end of it, he used it to clean the wound, grateful for the fact that the morphine had already kicked in.
“You still there, Adam?” he asked.
“Yes……..Sir……” the man replied, weakly.
Glancing up at Khan, Chang said, “I need you to keep him engaged.”
The Marine drew a deep breath, then looked knowingly at Corporal Sanchez.
Lowering himself down at the wounded Marine’s side, Sanchez said, “I got this Doc,” without looking at Chang. Reaching forward, he took the other man’s hand firmly.
“Adam. Look at me. I’m here,” he began, before leaning down and gently wiped sweat away from the man’s forehead. Pulling back, he waited until the other man’s eyes focused on his. “I need you,” he added.
Swallowing heavily, Corporal White nodding slightly, his eyes fixated on Sanchez’s.
Surviving Rage | Book 5 Page 15
