by Wilson, Cal
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 g
rave.
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.”
