The REIGN: Out of Tribulation

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  Then Becky broke that silence. “What if this is like what the Bible says about Jesus coming back to Earth?”

  On this topic, the collected knowledge of the entire gathering would not have filled that single Web page. This reality squirmed in the murmured response to Becky’s proposed explanation.

  How much longer that Christmas party would normally have lasted is difficult to tell, but it would certainly have lasted longer, if they hadn’t seen that baffling video. After the Internet went down, the guests milled about, made docile efforts at helping with the cleanup, and then began excusing themselves and heading for home.

  Rodney and Emma left within thirty minutes, with half a pie remaining and Daniel trailing them, under protest. He wanted to get the Internet connection back, or at least try a while longer. But the adults insisted, and he didn’t want to walk more than two miles back to the house.

  In the van, Rodney driving, Emma in the middle and Daniel leaning on the window, the latter said, “Why do you think there’s no kids around here?”

  Rodney shook his head. Emma responded verbally. “It looks like there sure are a lot of them in Jerusalem.”

  Daniel looked out the window, watching his reflection appear each time they passed a stand of evergreen trees along the side of the road. He had the look of a boy who has outgrown childhood and who regrets the loss.

  Rodney and Emma each looked at him, but said nothing more.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For New Year’s Eve, Rodney invited Jay and Sara, and Pete and Jenny, to come out to the farm for a big bonfire. The weather had turned a bit warmer again, and the forecast, on Pete’s intermittent Internet connection, promised that the trend would continue. A little rain in the morning started Rodney doubting, but by afternoon it was sunny and in the mid-fifties. “Not bad for New Year’s Eve,” Rodney thought to himself.

  Daniel and Emma had helped him finish the second story decking. On the last day of the year, they carried the floorboards up the stairs and piled them in the center of the house, to form a peak over which they threw a temporary frame. A large, plastic tarp served as their weather protection.

  Emma made a run into town that afternoon to see what food or drink she could find for a celebration. At Jay’s store, she found palettes of wine bottles, boxes of fancy crackers, and the kind of little sausages that her mother used to serve at parties. As surprising as this abundance was, more surprising was the price. Emma had come prepared to trade some gold jewelry they had scavenged from a collapsed house, or hoped to get something on credit, if that was no good. Instead, Jay refused any form of payment.

  “I wouldn’t have done it for those weird Koreans, but I figured folks around town would like it, so I accepted. Those two odd balls had this delivered over here and insisted it was free,” he said, setting his disdain for the two Koreans out in front of his words.

  “Free? But where did they get it?” Emma said innocently.

  Jay snorted. “Who knows? They’re part of whoever it is that’s running things these days. I barely half trust ‘em.”

  Emma noted the change in Jay’s tone since before Christmas, when “mildly annoyed” better described his attitude toward the strangers. She decided to pursue his feelings a bit. “Have they done something to change your mind about them?”

  “Oh, I never did trust ‘em,” Jay said. “But I’ve been adding things up and I gotta think they’re part of some kind of crazy cult, if they’re not aliens. Maybe they’re witches or something like that.”

  Emma just raised an eyebrow at Jay’s explanation. She collected all the wine, crackers and sausage she could carry, and thanked Jay, deciding not to get into a debate with him, especially since she was so uncertain about what was happening.

  “See ya tonight,” she said as she backed out of the door with her arms full.

  Jay waved. “Yep, see ya tonight.”

  In the van, Emma sorted her loot, making sure she had included a bottle of non-alcoholic wine for Daniel.

  After an uneventful drive home, Emma pulled into the driveway to find Hyo and Young talking to Rodney. She felt self-conscious about what she had heard from Jay, now that she saw the smiling Koreans. Daniel scooted over to the van to help his mom carry stuff, thrilled to see the treats she had found. Their diet was sparse and unpredictable and the calories in this party food represented an important haul for all of them. Emma and Rodney had been discussing planting a garden, with the new weather patterns that seemed to be settling in. Rodney was starting to think they might have a much longer growing season, but neither of them felt certain enough to make a concerted search for the seeds they would need.

  Emma greeted the visitors, as she passed them on the way to the house, also self-conscious that they were watching her carry so much of the fancy food they had provided. As she passed, she heard Rodney telling them not to worry “about some frustrated talk.”

  When she came back out of the house, he was saying, “Things are still unsettled for us. People who’re uncertain about their future like to look for someone to blame.”

  Hyo said, “We are not concerned for our own safety, really we have nothing at all to worry about, ourselves. But it would be much better for your neighbors, if they would keep calm heads like yours. I don’t want any of them to get hurt trying to resist what they see as invaders,” he said. Then, as if anticipating Rodney’s reaction to that statement, “We would not harm anyone, of course; we are unarmed and have no need for weapons. The harm I refer to is what you would call ‘friendly fire,’ an inevitable fact of war.”

  The weeks of frustration Rodney had penned up inside emboldened him to probe these strangers more deeply than he had before. For a moment he looked at Emma, then, with a firm and steady voice, he asked them, “Where do you guys really come from? You’re with those people celebrating in Jerusalem?”

  Hyo looked at Young, who took up the challenge. “We are who we told you we are. I am from Korea and Hyo is from Los Angeles, though his parents were from Korea. That is our origin on this Earth. But we are, as you say, with those people celebrating in Jerusalem. That is where our King lives and where he spends most of his time. We like to go there to be with him, even though we can speak to him anytime and anywhere.”

  Bypassing elements of Young’s explanation that made no sense to him, Rodney sought to get to the root of some of the speculation he had been hearing. Again, firm and steady, he asked, “Who really is this king, where does he come from?”

  Hyo took back the baton from Young, answering Rodney with an expanded and intensified smile. “He is the King of Kings. He was born on this Earth, in Bethlehem, not far from Jerusalem, the way we count distance these days. But, before that, he was from another place entirely. Don’t you know who he is? Haven’t you understood?”

  Young stepped in again. “He is the Son of God. He is Jesus, returned to the Earth, as he promised, to rule for a thousand years.”

  Rodney felt shaken, but appeared steady from the outside. Again, pressing through his shocked confusion, he asked further, “Have you seen him? And you know that’s who he is?”

  Hyo and Young seemed ignited with joy as they thought about the answer to Rodney’s question. Almost in unison they said, “Oh, yes we have seen him and we know it is him.”

  Hyo continued. “You see, we were both killed by the Dictator, we went to be with Our Lord in Heaven, and we came back to the Earth with him. We know who he is.”

  The major conflict in Rodney’s relationship with Anna had focused where her faith clashed with his lack of religious sympathy. He had tried attending church with Anna and she had even agreed to sampling different churches. But they had made peace in their difference, with the understanding that the children would go to church with their mother, but that she would make every effort to prevent church from separating them from their father. Rodney, for his part, held his tongue when religion offered him another excuse to distrust any sort of church. If pressed, he would assess his difference with his
wife as a matter of tolerance. Anna was simply more tolerant than he was, she could look past the hypocrisy and emptiness of most of, what passed as, Christianity.

  Keeping the shortcomings of Christians up front, allowed Rodney to avoid the substantive issues regarding the existence of God and the meaning of the life and death of Jesus. He had never spent a single breath of his time wondering if Jesus would come back to the Earth. It was enough for him to wonder whether Jesus was who Christians claimed he was.

  Now, here stood these two men, one of whom Rodney had actually seen transport himself over miles, in the blink of an eye, and somehow affiliated with others that he knew could heal people with a touch of their hands. One of them had an obvious scar from a bullet to his head, a bullet that would have certainly crippled or killed anyone. These men were telling him that Jesus Christ had come down with them from Heaven and was sitting on a throne in Jerusalem.

  In his confusion, Rodney stumbled on to another question that he had already asked them, “So you guys go back to Jerusalem all the time?”

  They nodded. Young said, “We go there every day and spend much of our time there.”

  “You sleep there?”

  “We don’t sleep,” Young said.

  Rodney’s dislocated brain reeled off in an unexpected direction. “That explains why Anna came to me at night,” he said impulsively.

  “She came to you at night because you were ready to see her, just then. She could visit you any time of night or day, if she is supposed to see you,” Hyo said, gently.

  Rodney looked at the short Korean with his pleasant face and unflappable demeanor. Hyo knew about Anna. How much did he know? How much beyond human limits and capacities had these recycled humans become?

  Then, another thought came to him. “Do you know about my kids?”

  Hyo shook his head, still smiling. “No, I have not been told anything.” He looked at Young, who also shook his head.

  Until that wordless question from Hyo to Young, Rodney had developed the impression that they communicated with each other telepathically or, perhaps, were both logged into the same knowledge source. The look between them, a sign of normal human interaction, soothed Rodney a bit.

  Emma had stood still during this whole exchange, her entire body frozen with the shock of what she was hearing. Rodney saw her pained, and unnatural, look and felt compassion for her. He stepped closer to her and put his arm around her waist. She relaxed and leaned into him, wrapping one arm around his waist, as well. Still, she couldn’t speak.

  Hyo concluded the conversation. “I see that you two have much to talk about. I understand.”

  Then, before turning to go, Young said, “I believe you are interested in planting a garden and were wondering when you could begin. A woman will come to visit you, to help you get started.”

  How did they know that? Rodney felt spied on. On the other hand, it would be very helpful to get some guidance regarding the new weather patterns. He nodded to the Koreans, acknowledging that parting message.

  Both of them bowed, and Hyo said, “If you will excuse us.” With that, they both simply vanished.

  Emma and Rodney stood staring at the place where the two men had been a moment before. Rodney didn’t know what he believed, or what he should do about all that he had just learned, but he was glad that Emma had been there to hear it. He tightened his hold on Emma, and she drew closer to him, reaching around with her other arm to lock her hands around his waist.

  Daniel, who had been watching this from the porch, quietly opened the front door and slipped into the house. He snuck out the back, not wanting to disturb the adults, whom he hoped were finally getting serious about their relationship. He met Socks by the back door and they set out for a walk around the property. Daniel decided to see if he could figure out the boundaries of the farm. Socks followed silently; glad to join the boy in checking their territorial boundaries.

  Rodney looked down at Emma, who was about five inches shorter than he. She looked up and then leaned her head on his shoulder.

  Rodney decided to voice his thoughts. “I don’t know what to make of the things they were saying. But I am sure that whatever I do, I want to do it with you.”

  Emma smiled broadly, a weight lifted off her, after weeks of wondering whether this man in her arms might be stuck in his past, despite all of the indications of his feelings for her. The look on his face just then, was precisely the sort of thing that had gotten her hopes up before, and now she welcomed that admiring gaze.

  Later that night, winter darkness landed all around, and an autumnal crispness welcomed them into the fresh air. Pete and Jenny arrived, along with Jay and Sara, all comfortably riding in Jay’s luxury, electric car, a recent acquisition.

  Daniel and Rodney had built the framework for a bonfire that afternoon and had gathered fuel enough to keep it going late into the night. When the guests arrived, Rodney handed Daniel the chemical fire lighter and the boy sparked the dried wood into a growing yellow blaze, to create a dome of light that sheltered them from the night. Emma had warmed and spiced some of the wine, made little sandwiches with bread and sausages and arranged plates of crackers. The guests brought fruitcake, brandy, muffins and hot chocolate. Together it constituted a feast worthy of the roaring blaze Rodney and Daniel had ignited.

  Jay nearly jumped out of his skin when Socks approached him. He hadn’t met the four legged member of the family yet. Pete nearly choked to death at the hilarity of his big, brash friend flipping into flight mode, before being reassured of the animal’s good will.

  Pete and Jenny brought enough camp chairs to supplement Rodney and Emma’s few, and they all found a seat on the smoke-free side of the fire, once they had a drink and something to eat in hand. Daniel wore the new jacket Jenny had passed on to him, much to her delight. Everyone had layered on a significant percentage of their wardrobe against the cold. But the huge blaze, and the unusually mild New Year’s Eve, left them draping jackets over chair backs. Daniel kept his jacket on, cherishing the first clothes he hadn’t had to foraged for himself, since before the war.

  That Christmas hadn’t been a rich one. He counted the jacket as one of his gifts, one given a bit early. His one most cherished gift, however, was a five-year-old tablet computer that Rodney had acquired in a trade for some carpentry work. Daniel had tweaked its settings and attempted connecting to the wireless Internet, but had found no success so far. He felt sure it was just a matter of time before the Web became active and reliable again.

  Around the fire, sipping warm drinks, joking with each other, and discussing light and pleasant occupations, the party settled into a cheerful and serene mood. But Jay seemed only half engaged in that serenity. When Rodney got up to get something from the house, Jay followed him. Jay held the door behind Rodney and looked over his shoulder quickly, to make sure they would be alone. Rodney could sense his friend’s mood and braced himself for what came next.

  Jay cleared his throat, as Rodney opened boxes, looking for the extra spoons. Rodney looked at Jay briefly. “What’s on your mind, Jay?” He tried to sound friendly and not annoyed.

  “There’s been some talk in town,” Jay said. “Me and Warren were talkin’ with Todd Rice and Nick Hoffman, and it seems pretty clear to us that this new bunch that’s taking over is trouble.”

  Rodney found the spoons for stirring cocoa, counted half a dozen and closed up the box. He looked at Jay to see how serious he was.

  “These strangers aren’t human, they’re not like us, and we don’t feel right just letting ‘em take control of things,” Jay said.

  Rodney nodded. “So what do you propose?” He was remembering his conversation with Hyo and Young that day, impressed by how well they had anticipated this turn of opinion.

  “At this point, we’re just getting the word around, that we’re on the lookout for ways to hold onto things and not let them take over,” he said. “For now, we need to gather information on ‘em, their strengths, where their command and
control is located in this area and what weapons they have.”

  “I think you’ll find they don’t have weapons, at least not like what we would think of as weapons.” Rodney was considering whether to try to protect the strangers and keep what he knew to himself. But he quickly decided that, if they were who they claimed to be, they didn’t need his protection. If they weren’t who they claimed, then he had no business withholding information.

  Jay nodded. “Yeah, that’s what they say, I know. But what would you expect them to say?”

  “Did Pete tell you what they did for Jenny, when she got hurt and what they did for Daniel?”

  Again Jay nodded, acknowledging the sympathy factor, but he was clearly not converted by these incidents. “It only makes it more obvious that they’re not human. They must be some kind of aliens.”

  Rodney could feel himself getting sucked into the vortex of the conflict, but decided to say just one more thing before trying to get back to the party. “You know who they say that they are, don’t you?”

  By the disgusted smirk on Jay’s face, Rodney could tell that Jay had heard some version of what he had heard. “People come back from Heaven, to rule the Earth with Jesus Christ?”

  Rodney nodded. Jay had always been even more anti-religious than Rodney. The stubborn independence that kept him from conforming to the rule of the Dictator, had first kept him out of any sort of organized religion.

  Jay said, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe they took that story from one of our religions to get us to trust ‘em, to make ‘em seem less alien. But it doesn’t make sense that they would have these super-human powers if that’s who they really are.”

  Rodney surrendered to the vacancy in his own understanding of such things, resigning from challenging Jay’s last statement. He really wanted to enjoy a peaceful party.