Apocalypse Crucible

by Mel Odom

  “Don’t you see?” Leslie wailed. “The doctors could be working on me now! I could be in the ER on base while they’re trying to save me!”

  “Leslie, listen to me. That’s not what is happening.”

  Leslie pushed her sweaty hair back from her forehead. “You can’t say that! You don’t know that!”

  Megan knew the girl’s voice carried through the window and could probably be heard at least by the MPs if not the surrounding neighbors.

  “You’re me!” Leslie went on. “You can’t know anything more than I know! That’s impossible!”

  “Leslie, you’ve got to stay calm.”

  The girl started to pace like a caged animal, but she kept her distance from Megan.

  Megan respected the distance. In other counseling sessions under tense circumstances, she’d seen teens exhibit the same restlessness. The need to move seemed ingrained in so many of the young who had emotional problems and needs. That instinct made dealing with them even more problematic.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Leslie said, shaking her head. “I can’t stay like this. I’ll go crazy.”

  “It’s going to be all right,” Megan said.

  Leslie wheeled on her, stepping into the intervening space between herself and Megan. “How can you say that? You don’t know!”

  Megan held her ground, feeling a queasy sensation coil in her stomach. With Leslie approaching her with a weapon in her fist, Megan felt certain the MPs could scarcely contain themselves.

  “Leslie, you’ve got to stay calm,” Megan said. She didn’t move, fearing that any sudden attempt on her part to get away from the young girl—any visible sign that she wasn’t somewhat in control of the situation—would trigger the MPs into action. Maybe Kerby even had a sniper standing by, ready to kill or incapacitate Leslie Hollister if she looked like she was going to be a threat to the neighbors or his squad.

  “I can’t be calm!” Leslie roared. Tears poured down her face. “I can’t wake up, Mrs. Gander! Don’t you get it? I’m trapped here!” Her voice broke. “I just want out of here! I want my mom!”

  Leslie raised the pistol toward Megan’s face.

  Despite the fear that filled her, Megan stood on trembling legs. Her lungs felt like a vise had closed around them, making breathing almost impossible. Don’t shoot! God, please don’t let her shoot, and don’t let those young men outside make a mistake! Tears blurred Megan’s vision, and it was all she could do not to give in to her own panic.

  Shaking with anger and fear, clearly out of control, Leslie shoved the pistol barrel against Megan’s cheek.

  “Don’t do this,” Megan said softly. “Please don’t do this. You’re making a mistake. Everything is going to be all right.”

  Leslie quivered. Her eyes narrowed. More tears coursed down her face. “Will I wake up if I shoot you?”

  Mastering her own rampant emotions, Megan prayed that she wouldn’t faint. “No.” She put as much conviction into her answer as she could.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I know.”

  Leslie wiped at her mascara-smeared face. “I tried to shoot myself earlier.”

  Megan remembered the deafening report and the hole in the wall.

  “I couldn’t do it,” Leslie said. “I was just too afraid. I kept hoping everything would get better.”

  “It will. But you’ve got to trust me.”

  Leslie shook her head. “But that’s the problem! Don’t you see, Mrs. Gander? You’re not you!” She snuffled and hiccupped and cried out in frustration. “You’re me! And I can’t wake up!”

  Before Megan realized what was going on, the gun barrel was pulled away from her cheek. Too late, she saw that Leslie had turned the weapon on herself, burying the muzzle against her stomach.

  The sharp explosion echoed within the room.

  Horrified, Megan reached for the teenager as she twisted away and fell. But as Megan closed her hand on Leslie’s arm, the girl jerked away from her, propelled by an outside force. Even before the sound of the rifle shot penetrated the bedroom and the broken glass from the shattered window tumbled to the floor, Megan knew that one of Kerby’s team had fired, thinking that he was saving Megan’s life.

  Leslie’s body sprawled across the floor. Her blonde hair fanned out around her, making her look impossibly young, as blood gushed onto the carpet.

  8

  Sunshine Hills Cemetery

  Outside Marbury, Alabama

  Local Time 2148 Hours

  “I’d feel better if I could pay you for the shovel.” Delroy Harte stood in the drizzle beside the old truck at the front of Sunshine Hills Cemetery. Wild and frenzied, the wind yanked at his slicker and buffeted his back. A jagged blade of lightning ripped through the black sky, followed immediately by a thunderclap. The rain had abated somewhat, but the storm remained, regaining strength.

  George spoke through the open window. “An’ I don’t feel right about chargin’ you for the use of one knowin’ you ain’t set on keepin’ it.” The old man took a last drag on his hand-rolled cigarette and filled the truck’s interior with the warm orange glow. As he exhaled, he pinched the cigarette out between a callused thumb and forefinger, then fieldstripped the charred and spit-wet remnant so the tobacco and paper blew away.

  Over the years, Delroy had seen several soldiers practice the same procedure out in the field. “That a habit?”

  “Smokin?” George lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Been doin’ it for years.”

  “Stripping the butt away like that.” Delroy nodded toward the overburdened ashtray sticking out of the pickup’s battered and sunripened console. “Looks like you normally use the ashtray.” Observing men’s mannerisms had become second nature to him as chaplain. Most sailors aboard a ship weren’t predisposed to saying when they had a problem or what that problem was.

  George looked at the full ashtray, then back at Delroy. “Hadn’t paid attention. Guess I been doin’ that for some time these past few days.” He glanced around the cemetery. “Just don’t feel safe here, I reckon. Guys in-country, where they ain’t supposed to be, fieldstripping cigarettes comes as easy as manners at your momma’s table.”

  An old habit of soldiers in dangerous places, Delroy thought. Trained to move on and leave no trace of themselves behind. Over fifty years later and the life-or-death training returned as if learned yesterday. Comes from serving in the war, and from getting left behind. He knows this isn’t a safe place.

  “These here times, Delroy,” the old man said in a soft voice barely audible over the crack of the branches slapping each other overhead, “why I’m afeared they ain’t safe for man nor beast.”

  “God sees us through the darkest times,” Delroy said automatically.

  George squinted and studied Delroy with bright interest. “You really believe that?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “An’ you a-standin’ there with that shovel in your hand.” George shook his head sadly.

  Guilt flushed through Delroy; he knew then that the old man had guessed what he planned on doing, but he made no apologies for his decision. He had to know. He had to know for a lot of reasons.

  Glancing ahead where the ancient pickup’s dulled yellow headlights played over the wrought-iron gates of Sunshine Hills Cemetery, George said, “This here ain’t no place to be in the dead o’ night, boy.”

  “It’s the place I have to be for right now.”

  “Be better to come back in the light o’ day.”

  “Can’t.” Delroy couldn’t imagine accomplishing the task he’d set before himself in broad daylight. He was also afraid that if he got a good night’s sleep, fatigue wouldn’t again numb him enough to allow him to set foot into the graveyard. He tightened his grip on the weathered shovel handle.

  George sighed and crossed his arms over the steering wheel again. “I wouldn’t like it none, but if you needed me to, I reckon I could wait out here for you for a spell.”

  Delro
y shook his head. “Couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  The pickup’s windshield wipers slowly swept the drizzle from the smoke-stained glass in brief waves. “You wasn’t askin’. It was me was offerin’.”

  The prospect of remaining alone in the graveyard left Delroy edgy. Still, he couldn’t ask the old man for that. And no matter how things turned out when he finished, Delroy was certain he’d need some time alone. “You’ve got people waiting on you.”

  “An’ they’ll be waitin’ till I get there. You probably ain’t even got a dry place to sleep picked out.” George looked at him. “Ain’t even thought that far ahead, has you?”

  “Marbury has hotels.”

  George gave a grudging nod. “That they do. Yes, sir, that they do.” He paused and scratched his whiskered cheek. “You got this to do, don’t you, boy? An’ you knowin’ it ain’t fit nor proper to go questionin’ things like this.”

  “Aye.”

  “Then you best be at it.” George shoved the clutch in and ground the transmission gears. He fumbled inside his shirt pocket, took out a business card, and handed it to Delroy. “All that writin’ there on the front, don’t pay no nevermind to it. People give me them cards all the time. Fancy cards. Expensive cards. All about who they is an’ what they does. What you need to know is writ on the back.”

  The card belonged to an insurance agent. Flipping it over, Delroy found a phone number scrawled across the back in childlike writing.

  “Can’t guarantee that phone number, boy,” George said, “what with all them lines an’ such bein’ down an’ tore up as they is. But if it works an’ you need me, give it a call. Girl who minds that phone for me, she’ll know where I’ll be.”

  Delroy slid the card into his shirt pocket. “I appreciate that.”

  George nodded. “An’ if you find yourself to town an’ you want some company for a spell, ‘cause maybe they ain’t none to be had that you was countin’ on, mosey on over to Mabel’s. Ever’body in town knows where her place is at, so you ain’t gotta worry none about directions. You find me there most days about noon. You catch me there, I’ll set you to dinner. Mabel’s done went an’ passed on to her reward, but she up an’ left most of her recipes to her granddaughter Essie, who runs the place now. Ribs, red beans, corn bread, an’ peach cobbler with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. Guarantee it to hold you over till suppertime.”

  The offer of a meal and fellowship touched Delroy in ways he hadn’t expected. Living so much of his life on bases and on ships around the world had conditioned him to a hurry-up world of schedules and meetings. Such an invitation reminded him of all he’d left behind when he’d taken his first berth.

  “I’ll do that,” Delroy promised.

  The old man reached onto the seat beside him and hauled out a pair of gardener’s gloves. “Reckon your hands ain’t seen the workin’ end of a shovel in a spell. These here’ll help.”

  Delroy caught the gloves when they were thrown to him. “Thanks.”

  George waited for a moment more, but he sensed there was nothing left to say and no way to change Delroy’s mind. The old man offered his hand through the window.

  Delroy took it.

  “God keep you in His sight tonight, boy,” George said.

  “And you,” Delroy said, but the reply felt forced.

  Lightning strobed the sky again, illuminating the area briefly, seeming to dim even the pickup’s headlights with its passing.

  “An’ He’s gonna have to look hard for both of us ‘cause it’s shore near as dark as I’ve ever seen.” George didn’t immediately release Delroy’s hand. The old man held on a moment longer and spoke in a lower, fiercer voice. “Whatever you got to do out here in this place, boy, you keep Jesus close to you, you hear? You keep Him in your heart, way you was taught in Sunday school.”

  The admonishment shocked Delroy a little and made him feel even more uncomfortable. The warning touched the fear that he strove to keep locked up tight. For a moment, he considered tossing the shovel back into the pickup and riding on into Marbury with the old man.

  But Delroy’s doubts assailed him. No. I came out here to see. To find out if I misplaced my faith all these years. God, forgive me. I have to know. Delroy pulled his hand back. “I will. I’ll see you in town the next day or so.”

  “I can tell your missus that you’re here.”

  “No.” There was no hesitation about that. Glenda deserved better than to hear about his presence from someone else. Besides that, if things went badly in the cemetery, he knew he probably wouldn’t even go into town. There also remained the possibility that she wasn’t there, that she had gone on with the others who had disappeared. “I’ll tell her myself. Got some fence-mending to do.”

  “Take care of yourself, boy. Stay dry an’ warm.” George gave a small wave, then backed up. The truck’s tires sluiced through small puddles created by the rain. The transmission ground again; then the engine revved and George pulled onto the highway. The tires whickered with the rain as they gained speed on the asphalt.

  Holding the shovel upright in the crook of his arm, Delroy turned up his slicker’s collar. He hated the cold and wet, but he knew the rain would make the ground easier to dig.

  United States of America

  Fort Benning, Georgia

  Local Time 2149 Hours

  “Oh, God,” Megan cried as she stared in horror at the girl lying in the pool of blood spreading across the light-colored berber carpet.

  As that frozen moment released, the sound of the second shot invaded Leslie Hollister’s bedroom. The crack of the rifle came flat and horrible.

  Megan turned toward the window and faced the sudden onslaught of bright light that blasted through the sea green, sheer curtains. “Don’t shoot!” She held her arms up. “Don’t shoot! She didn’t hurt me! You shouldn’t have shot her! You shouldn’t have shot her! There was no reason!”

  Shapes raced in front of the harsh spotlight. A girl’s scream ripped through the night.

  Ignoring everything taking place outside the window, horrified at what had happened to Leslie, Megan turned to the girl. As a counselor, she’d taken several first-aid classes, including what to do for gunshot victims. But she’d never seen a gunshot wound up close and personal until tonight.

  Stop the blood. That’s the first thing. Megan dropped to her knees beside Leslie.

  The girl still breathed.

  Thank You, God, Megan prayed. Please stay with us. Please help us. The suddenness with which Leslie had decided to shoot herself still staggered Megan. She’d watched the girl turn the pistol on herself and hadn’t believed she would pull the trigger.

  Frantic, trying desperately to stay calm, Megan knelt and pulled the girl’s shirt up to expose her midsection. Blood ran everywhere. The hole looked big enough for Megan to put her fist into. For a moment she thought she was going to get sick. She grabbed a pillow from the bed nearby and shoved it across Leslie’s middle to slow the bleeding. The pillow started to soak through immediately. She looked at the girl.

  Leslie’s eyes flickered and went out of focus, quivering in their orbits. Her breathing rasped and caught in her throat.

  “Leslie.” Megan pressed on the pillow in an effort to staunch the flow of blood. God, it’s everywhere. You’ve got to help me. Please help me. This girl isn’t supposed to die. How can You let her die like this? She’s just a child. For a moment she experienced déjà vu, remembering how she had felt on the rooftop three days ago when Gerry Fletcher started slipping from her grasp, started sliding into that four-story fall to his death or serious injury.

  She’d lost Gerry, but the boy had never hit the ground. The Rapture had swept across the world in a twinkling and stolen Gerry from that fall.

  There’s not another rapture, God, Megan reminded. She kept the pressure steady, hoping it was enough. “Leslie.”

  The girl shuddered and stopped breathing for just an instant.

  “Leslie,” Megan called louder
. “Stay with me. You stay with me now.”

  Leslie’s head rolled toward her. Her eyes tried to focus. She gagged; then a worm of blood crept from her mouth and leaked down the side of her face.

  Panic set in. Megan figured that the bullet had pierced one of the girl’s lungs. If that was true, Leslie’s lungs would fill up with blood in a matter of minutes and she would asphyxiate. Megan tried to remember what to do, tried to remember if she was supposed to turn Leslie over or try artificial respiration or—

  Without warning, the MPs, with their rifles up and ready, suddenly filled the hallway.

  In some distant corner of her mind, Megan heard them talking quickly over the walkie-talkies, reporting the situation to the provost marshal’s office, requesting backup and an ambulance.

  Megan looked up and saw Corporal Kerby leading the MPs. The young soldier’s eyes reflected shock, but he conducted himself with confidence and purpose. Two other MPs stood on either side of Kerby, pointing their weapons at Megan.

  “Back away from the girl, Mrs. Gander.” Kerby’s tone was polite but firm.

  Megan couldn’t believe what was happening. “She’s bleeding.”

  “I know that, ma’am.” Kerby came into the room, but he remained left foot forward so he presented a smaller profile. “Back away from the girl now.”

  “She shot herself.”

  “We need to take care of this situation, ma’am.” Kerby kicked the pistol away from Leslie’s outstretched hand. It slid across the carpet to another MP, who entered the room. “Secure that weapon, Private.”

  Dumbfounded, Megan watched. She hadn’t even thought to knock the pistol away.

  The new arrival put a foot on the pistol. “Weapon’s secured, Corporal.”

  “Don’t touch it. Forensics will want to examine it. They don’t need to sort through your fingerprints, too.” Kerby looked at Megan. “Mrs. Gander, I need you to move. If you don’t, we will move you.”

  The concept was so alien to Megan that she had trouble comprehending. She couldn’t leave Leslie; she had taken responsibility for the girl.

  “If I have to move you, ma’am,” Kerby went on, “I’m going to have you handcuffed.”