Apocalypse Crucible

by Mel Odom

  Not Mother with a capital M, or even Mom, Megan noted. And there’s anger there too.

  “—didn’t really stick around to teach me cooking or laundry.” Jenny took two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper from the paper sack. “Or how to fix my hair.”

  “Ah. That would explain the purple tint,” Megan said automatically, then wondered immediately if she had gone too far.

  Instead of taking offense, Jenny grinned.

  “I was teasing,” Megan said.

  “I know.” Jenny held out one of the sandwiches. “BLT?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I was afraid for a moment it might be peanut butter and jelly.”

  “That was a temptation. PB and J would have been quick and easy. Frying bacon with a houseful of teenagers banging around is about as much fun as juggling cats.”

  “I didn’t mean to put so much on you.”

  Jenny sighed and stared at the cup of soup in her hands. Her hands shook slightly. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean that. I just … I just … have a lot on my mind right now.”

  Megan waited. The rumble of voices sounded all around them as people whispered and talked.

  “Can I help?” Megan asked.

  Jenny slowly tore her BLT in half. “I wish you could, but you can’t.”

  “Try me.”

  With quiet focus, Jenny pulled a lettuce leaf from her sandwich and ate it.

  “Something happened since you called me,” Megan said.

  “Maybe.”

  “The kids—”

  “Are fine,” Jenny replied.

  “Joey—”

  Shaking her head, Jenny said, “Didn’t call.”

  “Okay, I’m all out of guesses.”

  After a brief hesitation, Jenny shook her head. “You have enough problems right now, and I’m … just not ready to talk about it.”

  “All right. But when you are, I’m here.”

  Jenny looked at Megan briefly. Glimmers of unshed tears showed in the young woman’s eyes. “I appreciate that. Really, I do. It’s just that … this is something really old. And private.” She held up her cup. “Let’s eat, okay? I mean, I did go to all the trouble to make it.”

  “Okay.” Despite her flagging reserves and screaming need to fix something and make it right because she felt all she’d accomplished during this day was a long string of mistakes, Megan calmed herself and turned her attention to the soup and sandwich. She doesn’t need a counselor now. She just needs a friend. And so do you.

  They ate in companionable silence, interrupted only by Jenny’s brief departure to the vending machine to buy fruit juices. With the odd combination of soup, sandwich, and juice, Megan felt like she was having a meal with Joey and Chris. All that was missing were the cartoons on TV.

  And home, she reminded herself.

  She finished the soup and had a second helping, not just to make Jenny feel good, but because the company and the warm broth made her hungry and felt healing. After they’d completed the meal, Megan and Jenny threw the trash away. Even during the short walk across the room to the trash cans, one of the MPs went with them.

  Jenny sent the MP a scathing look, then said to Megan, “These guys really take their job seriously. You’d think you were on the Top Ten Most Wanted list or something.”

  “It’s a serious situation,” Megan replied as they resumed their seats.

  “Look,” Jenny said with an edge to her words, “don’t buy into the whole guilt trip they’re handing out here. What happened to Leslie, it’s bad. I’ll agree with that. But she’s the one who lost it. Not you. You walked into that house unarmed when a small army of MPs was ready to go in with guns blazing. You did what you could, and you’re going to feel a little guilty that you didn’t make it all better, but you tried.”

  The young woman’s insight surprised Megan. You taught yourself the recipe for chicken noodle soup from a book in the library, but where did you learn such wisdom?

  Megan remembered the talk Jenny had given her the morning after Chris had disappeared, how she had brought up the book she’d read about the Rapture and the Tribulation. Jenny had pointed out that God had allowed Megan to save Gerry Fletcher just long enough that he didn’t reach the other end of the four-story plummet he’d started.

  “Thank you,” Megan said.

  Jenny crossed her arms and looked a little embarrassed. “No big deal. I just don’t want to see you tearing yourself up over this. The kids need you.”

  “I know.”

  “But they need something more, too, Megan.” Jenny’s tone got a little harder. “Television and playing all-night Monopoly is only going to take them so far. At some point, if they don’t have more going on soon, they’re going to freak out.”

  “I’m listening.” Megan was surprised to see the strong side of Jenny McGrath come out when she was obviously in some kind of personal turmoil herself.

  “They need to know what’s happening,” Jenny said, looking straight at Megan. “They need to know what they’re supposed to do. A plan. That’s what they need most of all.”

  “We’re working on surviving,” Megan said. “That’s a plan.”

  “No.” Jenny’s voice shook with emotion. A tear slid down her cheek. She started to wipe it away, then stopped herself. She took a short, quick breath, and her face relaxed. Not another tear fell, and the first one spread so thin it couldn’t be seen anymore.

  Megan knew the young woman’s control was incredible, but she had no idea how Jenny had learned to exercise it.

  “Survival,” Jenny said in a calm and forceful voice, “isn’t good enough. Thinking about surviving something—that gets you through days. Maybe years if you really work at it and lie to yourself and tell yourself that’s all there is every day. But just thinking about surviving doesn’t get you through life.”

  Where did you learn that?

  “If you’re going to save the kids here at this base,” Jenny said, “you’re going to have to help them understand the truth of what really happened three days ago. And you’re going to have to let them know what they’re supposed to do about it.”

  Megan couldn’t speak. The last time she and Jenny had had a conversation like this, they’d been in the privacy of her home and talking over a breakfast of bagels. It was one thing to discuss religion and belief in the sanctity of her home, but to do so while being guarded by the two MPs was disconcerting. She wasn’t strong enough for that. Even Bill Townsend had sensed that and never made her feel uncomfortable.

  “I’m talking about the Rapture.” Jenny definitely wasn’t going to back off. “I tried talking to some of those kids today, to let them know what was going on. I even tried to get them to read the book I read. But maybe I didn’t explain it right.”

  “Maybe they’re not ready,” Megan suggested.

  “Megan, they … have … no … choice.” Jenny punctuated her words with her hand, like she was pushing each word into place between them. “The Tribulation lasts seven years. And if something happens to those kids before they learn what they’re supposed to do—” She let the rest of it hang.

  Then they go to hell? Is that what happens, God? Would You really let that happen to them? The fear burned bright and hard inside Megan because she knew Jenny was right. But she didn’t know what she was going to do about it. She bowed her head, breaking eye contact with Jenny. God, I know we’re not supposed to ask for signs, but if You could see Your way clear—

  “Mrs. Gander.”

  Hearing her name startled Megan. She glanced up and saw Dr. Lyons, the surgeon who had taken Leslie Hollister when she’d arrived in the emergency room. Lyons was a career military doctor, ramrod straight, and in his early fifties. During her time at the post, Megan had gotten to know him and his wife through her work and the occasional social function that accompanied it. Dr. and Mrs. Lyons were good people. He wore green scrubs and looked haggard.

  Megan stood and went to Lyons. She tried to ask the question, but she couldn’t make any
words come through her constricted throat.

  Lyons smiled tiredly at her and took her hand. “Leslie Hollister made it through surgery, Mrs. Gander. She’s a strong girl. A fighter. She just wasn’t ready to leave us yet.”

  Tears filled Megan’s eyes. Before she knew it, Jenny was in her arms, hugging her and holding her tight, and for just a moment everything seemed all right.

  Sunshine Hills Cemetery

  Outside Marbury, Alabama

  Local Time 0418 Hours

  Delroy woke lying facedown in the mud a few feet from his son’s grave. Small trickles of water ran past him, only inches from his face. Rain pummeled his back, constant and relentless. After everything he’d suffered through, he hadn’t had the strength to leave the graveyard.

  And where would he have gone? He didn’t know. Getting here had been his only mission.

  He didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep, just as he didn’t know what had awakened him now. The fecund stink of rotting vegetation filled the small, enclosed area of the makeshift tent he’d made from his rain slicker.

  After he’d made his decision not to open Terrence’s grave, he’d remained awake as long as he could and awaited the thing’s return. He had no doubt that it would put in another appearance. The creature was bound to him; it wouldn’t go away until it got what it came for.

  And Chaplain Delroy Harte was very certain that what the thing was after was his soul. As trite as that sounded, he believed that with every fiber of his being.

  You can fear and believe in a hellish creature that torments and persecutes, he berated himself, and you can’t let yourself believe in God’s mercy. That didn’t seem possible, but there it was.

  At the moment, though, Delroy felt there had been little in the way of God’s mercy to believe in. Unfinished business had drawn Delroy from his ship during the fiercest trouble the crew had ever known, and had left him up to his thighs in his son’s open grave.

  God, help me to understand, he prayed, because I can’t see the mercy in that.

  During the time before he’d fallen asleep under the slicker, Delroy had admitted that maybe he hadn’t returned home at God’s behest. He was more convinced now that in his weakness Satan, not God, had drawn him here. For a time, thinking like that had helped. If he could believe that Satan had led him here, that Satan could take an interest in his life, wasn’t it possible to believe that God did, too?

  In the end, he’d had to admit that line of thinking was arrogant and decidedly wrong. He wasn’t Job for God and the devil to fightover. And it was horrible to contemplate that the only way he could believe in God was to first believe that some devilish thing was out to get him.

  High-intensity white light blazed onto the ground around Delroy. The light cut into the darkness under the slicker.

  Cautiously, Delroy raised his head, exposing his face to the muddy rain that spattered against the ground beyond the slicker’s edge. He felt certain the creature had finally gotten over its vanishing act and come back to torture him more. Despite what it said, Delroy knew he wasn’t going to open his son’s grave. Whatever was in that casket, whatever wasn’t in that casket, Terrence wasn’t here anymore.

  A pair of black rubber rain boots with yellow piping followed the light. The light reflected against the shiny black surfaces.

  “Hey,” a deep voice said. “Come on up outta that mud.”

  Delroy didn’t want to push up from the mud, though. When he’d first lain on the ground, the cold had seeped into his flesh. Now it felt like his body had made peace with the mud, and they shared his warmth between them.

  “Get up outta there,” the voice said again. “You’re gonna catch your death laying there like that.”

  Delroy ignored the man, thankful that it wasn’t the creature, and closed his eyes. He didn’t know why he’d woken up. There was no reason to. And catching his death in the cemetery? It was a perfect place for it.

  The light shifted; someone grabbed Delroy’s left arm and flipped him over, exposing him to the cold rain. Only then did he realize how numb his body was. His teeth started chattering almost at once. His arms shook as he reached for the edges of the slicker to draw it around him again. After one try, he discovered that he was too weak to roll back over.

  “C’mon. Get up outta there. Get on your feet.”

  Delroy squinted his eyes tight against the harsh light but still felt it stabbing into his brain.

  The man holding the halogen light nudged Delroy with one of the rubber boots. “Can you get up?”

  “I don’t think so.” Delroy struggled to stop his chattering teeth but couldn’t.

  The man sighed in tired frustration. “I’m gonna give you a hand.”

  “No.” Resentment at the man’s intrusion bubbled inside Delroy. He’d placed his life in God’s hands by lying here on the cold ground. If there was a God, if He was really interested in saving Chaplain Delroy Harte, then let Him do it. That wasn’t for some stranger to do.

  “You lay here much longer, you ain’t gonna be here come morning,” the man promised.

  Suits me fine, Delroy thought, but he immediately felt guilty for thinking that.

  The light shifted again, dragging up the man’s thickset body. It settled on a badge revealed when the man lifted his raincoat out of the way.

  “I’m a sheriff’s deputy, mister,” he said in a flat, no-nonsense tone. “You’re getting up offa that ground. Whether you do it under your own steam or I hook onto you with a set of handcuffs and drag you feetfirst, you’re coming with me.”

  “It would be easier to leave me here,” Delroy said, trying to point out the unwise investment. “I’m not worth your trouble.”

  “Say, are you drunk?” the deputy demanded.

  Delroy had to work to answer. He was so cold and numb his body didn’t want to respond, and his head felt so thick and full that he could hardly think. “No. Not drunk.” Just bereft of belief. Abandoned by God. Punished because I wasn’t perfect.

  “Well, I can’t leave you here.” The deputy squatted, grabbed Delroy by the back of his shirt and slicker, and muscled Delroy to his feet in an amazing display of strength. “Man, you are a big ‘un, aren’t you?”

  Delroy didn’t say anything. He felt like he was in a dream—no, a nightmare—and couldn’t get out.

  Once he had Delroy standing, the deputy tried to get him moving. Only Delroy’s legs were too numb to work. He keeled over.

  “Whoops,” the deputy said, moving around quickly to catch Delroy across his shoulder so he folded at the waist. Even from that brief moment of being vertical, Delroy knew that he was a head taller than the deputy, but the man was broad and hefty, with shoulders an axe handle wide.

  With surprising strength, the deputy shifted Delroy’s considerable weight across his shoulders, then stood again and started walking. His rain boots sank deeply into the mud and made sucking noises when they lifted as he carried Delroy through the graveyard.

  A car with a light bar and a whip antenna was parked a short distance away. The lights speared into the darkness, turning the rain gray and showing the downpour. SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT stood out on the door over a seal that Delroy couldn’t make out.

  The deputy put his long-handled flashlight on top of the car, opened the door, and levered Delroy onto the rear seat. Delroy sprawled across it. The heat from the car’s heater blew over him, waking throbbing needles of pain all over his body where the cold had soaked in bone deep.

  Standing in the doorway of the car with the interior light showing on him, the deputy peered down at Delroy with irritation written on his beefy face. He was in his late fifties, a solid, husky man used to hard work. He had big hands and a neatly clipped mustache and round-lensed glasses.

  “Haul your feet in,” the deputy said.

  Delroy did, but the effort lacked strength because now that he was out of the cold he was shaking all over.

  “Get outta that slicker. I got a blanket in the back.”

&n
bsp; At first, Delroy didn’t move.

  “Get it off,” the deputy said in a rougher, louder voice. “I come in there and have to skin you myself, I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

  Too tired to argue or resist anymore, Delroy starting shrugging out of the slicker.

  The deputy stepped to the rear of the car as Delroy forced himself into a sitting position and continued pulling the slicker off. He couldn’t get it off himself, but the deputy helped him when he returned with an olive army blanket.

  “I’m going to get you to the hospital, get you checked out,” the deputy said.

  “I’m fine,” Delroy said, shivering beneath the blanket.

  “Mister, you laying out in a cemetery in a March rainstorm in the middle of the night, why if you check out fine physically, I’m gonna have your head examined, too.” The deputy closed the door.

  Seated now, letting the cushions take his weight, Delroy looked back at Terrence’s grave. A mild burst of lightning strobed the sky and lit the grounds briefly. The fresh mound of earth that covered his son’s grave stood out in stark relief. He’d covered the grave site back up before giving into the soul-draining fatigue that filled him.

  The deputy slid in behind the steering wheel and knocked the mud off his boots before pulling his feet inside. A wire mesh screen separated the back of the car from the front. Switching on the overhead light, the deputy opened Delroy’s wallet and flipped through it.

  Delroy hadn’t even noticed when the deputy had taken his wallet. Now, he didn’t care.

  A look of surprise showed on the deputy’s face as he glanced over his shoulder through the wire mesh. “You a navy man?”

  “Aye.”

  “What are doing here?”

  Delroy didn’t want to answer, just wanted to be alone. But he couldn’t find it in himself to be rude to the man. “My son’s buried in this graveyard. My father before him.”

  The deputy studied him. His eyes were pale blue and quick as a fox’s. “That grave I found you by. Somebody dug that up.”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I felt I needed to.”