by J A Bouma
The blazing ball of fire was fast approaching from above, aiming for the wharf or the warehouse.
Or them…
The inflamed orb was growing in size by the second. Had to be the size of a magnacar. Which sent the crowd surging toward the beachhead down below, the waters foaming now as the earth continued its own psychotic break with reality.
Alexander joined them, pressed from behind with the surge of bodies. He offered his own pressing insistence, shoving past a pair of women holding wailing babies, feeling slightly bad about his rude, almost inhumane gesture. But it was every man for himself.
‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
Twisting back for another look, those words of Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel ringing in his ear, he hiked up his legs and pumped his arms and made for the water. It was automatic, primal, his body carried along by something buried deep in his lizard brain from an ancient, ancestral instinct to survive. He splashed into the water, the waves slamming into his torso as he waded farther out, mere seconds before—
It hit.
The force of impact by the alien rock, its phantasmic fire and fury was unbelievable. The pressure like one of those Queller disruptors that Solterra Enforcers dropped against threats to the Republic. But a thousand-fold worse, the moment being overcome by pressure and heat and light and sound and a radiating wave of all four that threatened to undo the beach.
The blast radiated out from the point of impact a beat later in a blinding, deafening explosion that sent everyone sailing from their feet and into the wicked water boiling from the seismic convulsion.
Alexander hit the surface hard, his chest stinging with a smack. Then he was grabbed down under by a mauling wave, the undertow fierce with continued seismic convulsions. He sank beneath the water but kicked and clawed with all his might for the surface. All the while the invisible claws of the water’s depth clung to him like a magnetic attraction, beckoning his legs and torso with yanking invitation to succumb to the darkness down below.
For a second, he considered accepting the invitation, letting it all just fade away. The world was on fire anyway, literally. While he had no earthly clue what was transpiring above, whether it was the apocalypse as some were shouting or some natural phenomenon or something spawned from the loins of Satan himself—all he knew for certain was that his place of employment and housing had just been obliterated in an instance. His life was over, for a third time in quadruple as many months. What was the point in continuing on?
But then his suicidal ideation was chased by another thought, something Father Jim had said to him: All things worth fighting for demand a leap of faith.
Something seized in his chest. An ember of responsibility and purpose that had grown cold the past few months, dowsed by a cascading set of circumstances but that had been preserved with just enough energy to come back to life.
And it did, blown back into a force by the Holy Spirit himself—first blooming into a will to live, and then into a desire to find out what the heck was going on. Whether it was all connected to what Jesus and his beloved apostle John had foretold.
‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
Those words clanged inside his head like a clarion call to arms. So he fought against the current dragging him down and out to sea, using every fiber of his being to kick and claw toward the surface—mostly for himself but also for the charge he had been given to preserve and guard the once-for-all faith entrusted to God’s holy people by Jesus Christ himself.
Because if the space rock that slammed into his life was any indication, Solterra was in a world of hurt. Which only the gospel of Jesus Christ had any hint of ameliorating.
With a sudden burst from the water, his powerful legs propelling him quickly to the surface. He twisted back toward the wharf to glimpse the damage.
A hell ten times worse than Dante’s vision was splayed before him.
Belching flames spewed from every direction, the heat of a thousand furnaces scorching the air and everything around it. Bringing the warehouse to its knees and sending the surrounding buildings of ultramodern gleaming glass and titanium along with previous-century brick and wood into inflamed piles of heaping rubble. But that wasn’t all of the destruction.
Those who hadn’t made it to the water before the incoming explosion had been caught in the hellish maelstrom, their bodies burnt to a blackened crisp littering the shoreline now. Some large, some small—even infant-like.
Other chunks of space rock continued falling farther out toward the village, and others yet beyond on the hilly horizon. Flowers of fire bloomed and plumes of ash and soot rained down.
Emotion seized Alexander’s throat and threatened his eyes, his mind reeling from the violent, vengeful display before him.
The world was on fire. And there was nothing he could do about it.
“Alex!” a voice rose with a shout above the din of chaos.
His heart leapt and sank in tandem; hope rising at the sound of his former life while sinking at being recognized.
What did it portend? And who on earth could recognize him all the way out in the middle—
“Alexander Zarruq!”
His breath seized in his chest, and throat constricted with a sudden rise in emotion.
He knew that voice! Seasoned, with a polished lilt from Britannia.
No, it couldn’t be…
He spun toward the sound, searching the blood-red waters with a splash for the voice connected to his former life.
When he caught sight of it.
A yellow submarine several meters out, bobbing up and down like one of those rubber ducks he’d adored as a child. And perched on top was a tall, trim man with wide shoulders in a black cassock, sporting a mane of silver hair and a wide grin of invitation outmatched only by his wide, open arms.
Father James Ferraro.
At last. Help!
And hope…
Chapter 3
The world around Alexander continued to foam and slosh with vibrating indignation, the darkened world of the horrific blood-red moon and fading stars inflamed by a furnace of a hundred fires.
Until it wasn’t.
The full moon that had ‘turned blood red,’ returned to its whitened luminescent brilliance; the stars, many of them still dimmed and darkened, missing now from their former place of perch, they had ceased to ‘fall to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind,’ the flaming balls of fiery rock no longer slamming to the earth now either; and the sun itself, which had ‘turned black like sackcloth made of goat's hair’ began to regain its shine as well, the world brightening as in the dawning light, the sun itself regaining its blinding brilliance. Even the earth no longer shook, however the waves still crashed, a delayed response from being stirred for what seemed like the better part of an hour, but no longer foaming and churning with menace.
The world seemed back to normal. Perhaps a new normal, given the apocalyptic happenings. For now.
Who knew how the Republic would function after what had just transpired. Whatever it was that had just transpired.
Alexander couldn’t make sense of it. He spun back toward shore, the coastline still on fire with towering flames and acrid smoke filling the skyline from every direction. Continuing to tread water, he spotted the Three Amigos several meters out, then Mateo, the man screaming and carrying on in full manic mode. Sounded like he’d finally snapped.
“Homefry!” someone called out across the waving water, another familiar voice. Strong and commanding, lilting with the Southern twang of Noramericana from south of the former United States, before it was broken up during the Reckoning.
John Mark Ford.
Alexander
spun back toward the yellow submarine he had spotted earlier with Father Jim perched on top. The cardinal was joined now by Ford, ex-Solterran soldier and former elite Purifier who had been deep with the Republic’s paramilitary arm before becoming chief of operations for the Ministerium, the remnant of ministers and priests and pastors for the Church, for Ichthus. That is, if there was any Ministerium left after what had happened over a year ago, the Republic having destroyed it in the crucible fires of persecuting destruction.
The man had also saved Alexander’s life and journeyed with him back in time to retrieve the memory of Jude Thaddeus. Yes, Ford plucked his nerves. And he could do without the Southern swagger and military bravado. But he was a man of integrity who handled himself well, putting it all on the line for the Church when it needed him most.
And there he was, motioning Alexander to swim toward the yellow personal submergence vehicle and calling out again for him to kick it into gear.
A smile flashed across his face, and tears edged to the corner of his eyes. He was being rescued. He glanced back to look for Mateo and Kye and the others, catching sight of them wading up the shoreline now. Satisfied they were as safe as could be under the circumstances, he swam for his friends, his family.
Reaching the underwater hydrocraft, strong arms pulled him up top the slippery submarine. He fell against the yellow surface trying to bring a leg up top, smacking his jaw with a clatter. It hurt something fierce, but he’d live. He had lived, several times over after enough brushes with death to last a lifetime. Soon, he was being ushered through a narrow circular hatch and down a red ladder into the belly of the fish—a cramped, narrow space of dim LED lighting and steel girding that extended back to front before splitting into a T at the rear. Seats ran along the sides, with a functional tin-colored aesthetic punctuated by navy. The steady hum of engines and fans and Lord knew what else filled the aural void.
A noise caught his attention up top just as his boots hit the floor with a wet slap. Ford had sealed the hatch and was descending below.
A chorus of voices greeted him, snapping him back to his new reality.
“Bratishka! You are still being alive!” Sasha grabbed him from behind, wrapping his arms in a bear hug before Alexander could turn around.
“Move it, would ya?” Ford bellowed from above. “We’ve got two more incoming fellas.” The pair shuffled out of the way as Ford and Father Jim descended.
Alexander turned around and returned the embrace. Before long, Ford was joining the reunion, as was Father Jim and Rebekah, the woman who had traveled with him last through time to the early Church, who had begun to steal his heart, who he had left at the beach along with the others. Jin Sung and Luciana Jane were standing off to the side, smiling and waving their greeting as well.
It felt like ages since he had felt real joy and anything close to human connection. He wasn’t embarrassed to admit it, at least to himself, that he had cried himself to sleep more times than he’d care to count the past few months in the darkened aloneness of hiding and running, wanting nothing more than to return to Father Jim and Rebekah and Sasha, even Ford, joining the cause and fulfilling his role as Master of the Order of Thaddeus.
But the news of his father being alive after believing him to be dead, of the man apostatizing from the faith and architecting Ichthus’s destruction; the burden of bearing the mantle to reclaim and retrieve the Church’s memory, to preserve and protect Ichthus and its faith; the fear over what traveling through time was doing to him physically and the dangers he had faced—all of it were far more powerful deterrents than whatever silly emotions he felt in the dead of night.
But this reunion...it was magical.
“Alright, alright, alright,” Ford said, easing out from the group hug and squeezing past Father Jim. “Enough of the kumbaya guys and dolls, because it’s crazier than a mule in heat out there! And my spidey senses tell me the sequel to the looney-toon Kirk Cameron after-school special from last century is unfolding before our eyes in ultra-definition color!”
The man motioned for Jin to follow him toward the front of the personal hydrocraft to a brightly colored panel of digital controls and sensors beneath a large windshield, half submerged beneath the glowing azure waters of the Mediterranean dappled in the full-on sun now shining above in a clear blue sky. Fires still raged across the horizon and the skyline collapsing under the destruction, while the faint yellow lighting of several personal submergence vehicles were spotted roaming below.
Alexander pulled back from the group and offered a grateful grin before it faded and the truth of Ford’s words came crashing into him. “What the heck is going on out there?”
“You tell us, oh wise Master Zarruq,” Ford said from the submarine’s tiny bridge, turning back around and bowing with his hands pressed together.
Ignoring the man, Alexander turned to Father Jim. “Padre, what is this?” He gestured up toward the closed hatch above. “What just happened outside? Because surely you all saw what I saw, right, felt what I felt, even inside here? The darkness and crimson moon, the disappearing stars and fireballs falling to Earth, the earthquake and…”
He trailed off, swallowing hard and that blasted ache at the middle of his head returning. He felt faint, his stomach clenched with anxious dread at the meaning of all that had transpired. It was catching up to him now, the adrenaline high of the moment wearing out and reality settling deep into his bones.
Had the apocalypse truly arrived? Had the sixth seal to the Lamb’s Scroll just been broken?
Was the Day of the Lord neigh, ushering in the next phase of the world’s existence?
Father Jim grasped Alexander’s shoulders, resting his large palms on either side and leaning close, face drawn and ashen and older than Alexander had remembered the man. He said, “You best sit down for this one, my boy. It’s going to take some explaining.”
“Yeah, strap in, homefry,” Ford said, gesturing toward a row of four seats along one wall that faced another set. “And get us out of Dodge, Jin. Last thing we need is an Enforcer Stingray creepin’ up on our asses.”
“John Mark…” Father Jim said, fixing him with a look that told the man all he needed to know.
He frowned and nodded, leaning over Jin’s shoulders at the controls and busying himself with operating the personal submergence vehicle. Engines engaged, the hydrocraft sank and dipped and propelled forward on command.
Alexander swallowed hard, a mass of flutters overtaking his stomach and head swimming with the claustrophobic realization he was quickly diving deep under several kilos of water, his worst nightmare. Hated the water. Avoided it at all cost, even refusing to travel throughout the Republic because of it. Yet there he was, being whisked away under the water to who knew where.
And who knew what. Because Ford and Father Jim meant the Ministerium. Which meant trouble.
He took one of the seats, wrapped in navy and feeling surprisingly plush. Who knew the Ministerium knew how to outfit a PSV with proper lumbar support?
Father Jim took a seat next to him, fixing him with tired eyes and an open mouth, seemingly searching for as many answers as he was. “First of all, Alex, how are you?”
Alexander took a breath and swallowed. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?” There were those eyes again, probing this time. As if sizing him up for whatever was coming.
He cast his eyes down to the steel floor grating. He muttered, “I’ve been better…”
Father Jim placed an empathetic hand on his knee. “I understand discovering Martin Zarruq, your father, was not only alive and well but the chief architect behind Panligo and the latest destructive, persecuting designs against the Church was frightfully devastating. It was for me too, for all of us with the Ministerium. To have one of our former foremost prelates, a cardinal and former member of the Fidelium, no less, a faith-keeper—having been entrusted to guard the faith to not only abandon it but seek its destruction!”
The man’s voice echoed with a st
raining rage Alexander had never before heard from the man. His face was red and eyes brimming with emotion. Apparently, the revelation had affected his former mentor as much as him. And why not? They had been close friends through both graduate school and serving together in ministry, his father having tapped Father Jim as the godfather to his only child and son. True, there had been a painful rift between the two after Father Jim basically moved for Martin’s excommunication from Ichthus, stripping his father bare because of his apostasy. Yet this was at a whole new level. Because rather than merely seeking to progress the Christian faith, now Martin was seeking to destroy it. Replace it, even, with an abomination straight out of the Book of Revelation. Father Jim knew it; it showed.
The cardinal sighed. “Forgive me, son. But as you can imagine, we’ve been having a time of it since you went missing, what with the destruction of the Ministerium and the Republic designating Christians as Unfits and the Purge being waged against brothers and sisters in the faith across Solterra. And that’s not even touching on the constant worry for your own safety!”
He raised his voice again, without rage but with the same strain. He had clearly been distraught over Alexander’s absence.
“Forgive me for leaving, Padre. I just…” Alexander paused, swallowing hard as emotion overtook his throat. He cleared it, continuing: “I’m sorry. I really am. I just didn’t know what to do with the news. And after all that had happened, all that I had seen, all that I had lost—my ministry, my parish, Zakaria! I just didn’t know what to do.”
Father Jim smiled and nodded. “I understand. I’m just grateful you are safe, and that the Lord Almighty sought fit to return you to us by his good graces.”
“How did you find me, anyhow?”
“That would be me,” Ford said, turning around and leaning against the captain’s chair with arms folded. “You’re welcome by the way.”
“But how? I made sure that I destroyed my DiviNet device, that I erased all traces of my identity, staying off the grid and lying low.”
Ford scoffed. “As if any of that could keep a resourceful former Solterran Legion like me from discovering your whereabouts! Do have to give credit where credit is due, though. Did a bang-up job hiding out. Enough that the Republic sure left you alone. But word gets out about mystiks hiding out in Solterra’s many armpits.”
