The Revelation

by Bentley Little

  Nothing happened.

  After the children had left, Father Andrews locked the door behind them and went into the chapel. He spent the night there, on his knees, praying.

  He prayed for guidance but none came.

  The earthquake hit at precisely ten after midnight.

  Gordon and Marina had been making love, and they stopped in mid movement hardly daring to breathe, as the ground beneath them jolted in harsh irregular waves. There was the sound of shattering glass from the kitchen, the sound of something crashing in the bathroom. The hanging lamp above their bed was swinging wildly. "What is it?"

  Marina screamed, clutching his back.

  "An earthquake," Gordon said, feigning a calm he did not feel.

  "Oh God," Marina said, closing her eyes. "Oh my God."

  They held each other tight.

  Jim had lain awake all night, waiting for this moment, knowing it would happen, preparing himself, but he still felt a helpless primal feeling of panic as he felt the earth shift beneath the bed. He jumped up, shaking Annette awake and rushing down the hall to the kids' rooms. He tookSuzonne in his arms and jerked Justin out of bed, running back to his own bedroom.

  He and Annette and the kids stood under the doorway, waiting, until the quake was over.

  Father Andrews, kneeling before the altar of the church, closed his eyes tighter, prayed more fervently, and hoped that the shaking would stop.

  On the "Today" show the next morning, John Palmer said it was the first recorded earthquake in Arizona in over a hundred years. He said the quake measured 4.5 on the Richter scale and was centered just above the small town of Randall on the Mogollon Rim.

  Jim sat in his office, the door locked, the phone off the hook, waiting for Gordon and Father Andrews to show up. He pulled a small piece off the glazed donut on his desk in front of him and swallowed it down with a sip of lukewarm coffee. The damage from the quake hadn't been that bad. He'd compared notes with Ernst at the fire department, and both of them had agreed that the damage was much less than either of them had expected. Of course the actual monetary amount of damages hadn't been assessed yet and probably wouldn't be for another week or so, but none of the buildings in town had collapsed and no one had been seriously injured.

  That hadn't stopped people from calling, however. He had tried getting aholdof Pete right after the quake had stopped, and it had taken him a full fifteen minutes to get through. The office phones had been ringing nonstop ever since, which was why he had taken his own phone off the hook. He didn't feel like listening to petty complaints about broken china or smashed teacups. He'd let Rita and Tom handle that.

  He had much more important things to think about.

  He took another bite of the donut and another sip of coffee. He knew he should go back and talk to Brother Elias, but he did not want to go back there. He was afraid. He would wait until Gordon and Father Andrews got here.

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Who is it?" he called.

  "Andrews."

  Jim stood up and walked across the room to open the door. The priest, he noticed immediately, was wearing the same clothes he had worn yesterday. He had not shaved. His skin, normally pale, now looked even paler. The sheriff looked at him with concern. "Are you okay?"

  Andrews shrugged. "I didn't get much sleep last night."

  "Who did?" Jim said. He glanced back toward his desk. "Listen, do you want to wait here until Gordon comes, or would you rather go back and see Brother Elias right now?"

  The priest licked his lips. "Let's see him now."

  Jim closed the door behind him and led the way down the hall, past the conference room, past the supply room to the thick iron door that led to the trio of holding cells in the back. Even through the door, they could hear Brother Elias loudly singing hymns to himself. They looked at each other. "Are you sure?" Jim said.

  Father Andrews nodded.

  The sheriff unlocked the door, and they walked over to the first holding cell. Brother Elias stared at Jim and smiled. "You have your proof," he said.

  The sheriff nodded. "Yeah. I have my proof." He unlocked the cell door. "What do we do now? I assume you have some sort of plan."

  Brother Elias rose slowly to his feet. He was clutching his Bible under his right arm. "We must wait until we are all here," he said.

  He moved forward. "We will wait in your office."

  "Okay," Jim agreed. "Come on."

  They returned to his office to wait.

  Ten minutes later, Gordon rapped softly on the door then pushed the door open. He stepped into the room and saw the sheriff seated at his desk, his fingers fiddling with a bent paper clip.

  If Father Andrews was sitting on the couch opposite the sheriff's desk, holding his hands between his knees, staring at the carpet. He looked up as Gordon entered the room and smiled, but his smile seemed wan and forced.

  In front of the window, silhouetted, staring out at the town, was the unmoving form of Brother Elias.

  Brother Elias turned away from the window, stepping into the center of the room, metamorphosing from a silhouetted shadow to an almost normal looking man. He smiled at Gordon, though his black eyes remained unreadable. "We have been waiting for you," he said.

  Gordon nodded slowly, unsure of what to say. He felt intimidated, though he was not quite sure why. He was aware that the balance of power in the room had shifted since the meeting yesterday. On the previous day, the authority had rested with the sheriff. Today, Brother Elias was in charge.

  The sheriff stood up. "All right," he said. "We're all here now. Why don't you tell us what's going on?"

  Brother Elias looked from Gordon, to the sheriff, to Father Andrews.

  "You have all been chosen by the Lord our God to combat the evil of the adversary. Satan has been banished for all eternity from the comforting presence of the Lord, and in his impotent rage he has vowed revenge on the Heavenly Father. He has been gathering to him an army to thwart the Lord's will, and if he is not stopped in time his efforts will be successful." He looked at Gordon, then the sheriff. "You have had nightmares, have you not?"

  Both men nodded.

  "The Lord has chosen to speak with you through visions," Brother Elias said. He fingered his tie clasp. "He has seen fit to warn you of the coming evil through your dreams, as he did of old, as he did with Joseph and many of the prophets."

  Jim cleared his throat. "So what's that mean? Whatever we saw in our dreams is going to come true?"

  "The Lord works in mysterious ways," the preacher said. He looked at Father Andrews. "As the good father can tell you, God often speaks in parables or allegories."

  Father Andrews found himself nodding.

  "Maybe that was true at first," Jim said, "but I've been having some damn specific dreams lately. A kid I knew was in those dreams."

  He looked hard at the preacher. "I dreamed about Milk Ranch Point."

  "Me, too," Gordon added.

  Brother Elias smiled. "As the time draws nigh, as the powers on both sides approach their peak, the visions become less vague. My visions, too, are clearer."

  "I've had no nightmares," Father Andrews said softly.

  "You were chosen nonetheless." The preacher looked at Jim. "Your friend, the boy. He was chosen by the Lord our God. Now he is guiding your visions, doing the Lord's work on the other side. You," he turned back to Father Andrews, "have been chosen to fill his role."

  "Why have I been chosen?" the priest asked. "Why have we all been chosen?"

  "You are psychic," Brother Elias said simply. "The Lord has blessed you with powers beyond those of ordinary men. Now he wants you to use those powers. You must speak with the adversary, you must communicate with the evil one."

  Father Andrews paled.

  "Your family," he said to Jim, "has always aided in the Lord's work. Your ancestors fought bravely against the adversary. Now it is your turn."

  "This has happened before," Jim said.

  Brother Elias nodd
ed.

  "At Milk Ranch Point."

  "Yes."

  "How far back does it go?" Jim asked. "How long has my family been involved?"

  "You would not believe me if I told you."

  "Tell me anyway." He paused. "My great-grandfather went up there, didn't he?"

  "Ezra Weldon," the preacher said. "And Ten-Hano-Kachiabefore him. And Nan-Timochabefore him. And Ware-Kay Non .. ."

  "And you were there, weren't you? All the way back then?"

  Brother Elias only smiled.

  Jim looked at the business-suited preacher and shivered. How had he appeared to his great-grandfather? he wondered. As one of those frontier ministers with the dusty black suit and stovepipe hat?

  And how before that? As a wandering Indian? How about originally? A caveman? He wondered how his very first ancestor, way back when, had gotten involved in all this. Someone, sometime, had to have made a conscious decision to go along with all this.

  But he was making a conscious decision, wasn't he? This was his own choice.

  Not really. It had already been decided for him.

  "Why was I chosen?" Gordon asked.

  Brother Elias shook his head. "That I cannot yet tell you," he said.

  "You are not ready for it. I will tell you when the time comes."

  "Tell me now," Gordon said.

  "I will tell you when the time comes," Brother Elias repeated. His black eyes bored into Gordon's, and Gordon felt his will crumble beneath the gaze. The preacher moved over to the sheriff's desk and picked up a pencil and pad of paper. "We have little time," he said.

  "The hour of action is drawing nigh. We must prepare if we are to be successful."

  "And what if we are successful?" Jim asked. "Will that be it? Will that be the end of it?"

  Brother Elias shook his head. "We were successful in the past," he said. "If we had not been, the four of us would not be here today.

  Satan has been beaten and humiliated by Almighty God, and he will never give up in his attempt to usurp the power of the Lord. He is immortal.

  And though we may beat him in these small battles, he can afford to wait. He will try again and again, gathering to him new armies, until he is successful."

  "What if we lose?" Gordon asked.

  "Satan will walk the earth. The earth will be his, and all in it his subjects. He will twist lives to his own purposes and mock the creations of God. He will laugh in the face of the Lord."

  "Why doesn't God do something about it himself?" Father Andrews asked quietly. "Why must he work through our imperfect vessels?"

  "Do not dare to question the decisions of the Lord," Brother Elias said angrily. "Do not presume to know the mind of God."

  Jim stepped between the two. "How much time do you think we have?" he asked Brother Elias.

  "I do not know," the preacher admitted. "The evil has already started, and it will intensify as more are converted. I would estimate that it will be twenty-four hours before Satan and his minions have the strength to take what they are after. We must strike before then. If we don't, we are lost."

  They were silent, looking at each other, each of them feeling numb.

  Brother Elias began writing on the pad of paper. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to the sheriff. Jim looked over the penciled list.

  He handed it to Father Andrews, who read it and handed it to Gordon.

  Gordon glanced at the paper. "Items we need," it said in a thick bold hand. He scanned the list. Thick rope, an unspecified amount. Pickup trucks. Four copies of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

  Plastic tarp. Four crucifixes. Four pitchforks.

  Pitchforks?

  Four high-powered rifles. Four hand-held axes. Matches. A gallon of human blood.

  Gordon looked up from the paper at Brother Elias. "What are we going to be doing?" he whispered.

  Brother Elias ignored him. Jim took the paper back from Gordon, looking it over. "Most of this should be fairly easy to get," he said.

  "The blood might be a little difficult, but I think I can requisition it from the hospital."

  "I want you to get your families out of town," Brother Elias said.

  "Take them to a safe place, away from here." He looked at the sheriff.

  "Have your wife and children stay with relatives for a few days, until this is over."

  Jim nodded.

  The preacher looked at Gordon. "Make sure your wife is far away from this area," he said. "This is very important. She must not be here come tomorrow."

  "Why?" Gordon asked.

  "I cannot yet tell you. The time is not right. But you must get her away from here."

  Gordon felt his mouth go dry. He imagined Marina killed, torn apart like the Selways , likeVlad . He licked his lips, looking up at the preacher. "I don't know if she'll go. I don't know if she'll even believe all this when I tell her."

  "It does not matter what you tell her as long as you get her away from here."

  "It's her decision," Gordon said firmly. "I can't force her to do something she doesn't want to do."

  "Take her from this town," Brother Elias said. "for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.. . As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." Ephesians The preacher pulled out the Bible he had been clasping unobtrusively beneath his arm and began nipping through pages. He pulled a recently taken photograph from between two pages of the Bible, handing it to Gordon.

  Gordon stared at the color photo. It had been taken near a beach somewhere. In the background, he could see the ocean. In the foreground were several dead and bloody bodies.

  A tiny infant, with grinning bloody teeth, was pushing its way out of a pregnant woman's abdomen.

  The implication was obvious.

  Gordon handed the photo back, sickened. His rational mind wanted to protest, to label the photograph a fake, to attribute the horrible scene to darkroom trickery, but he knew the picture was genuine.

  The preacher turned to Jim. "We need a camera as well," he said.

  Jim reached over and grabbed a pencil. "Camera," he wrote at the end of the list. "Film."

  "What exactly are we going to be doing?" Gordon asked.

  But Brother Elias had moved back in front of the window and was staring out, unmoving, at the black shape of the Rim far above the town.

  Ted McFarland pulled his white government-issue Pontiac into the closed and abandoned Texaco gas station next to the Colt Saloon.

  Shutting off the engine and the headlights, he sat in the darkness for a few moments, staring out the windshield, thinking. He felt lonely, depressed. He knew he wasn't doing a damn bit of good on this investigation, and he could feel the resentment of the local authorities every time he tried to make a conjecture or offer an opinion. He sighed. He didn't know why Wilson had assigned anyone to this case at all. State police shouldn't have the responsibility of bailing out locals when they screwed up.

  A pickup truck pulled in behind him, the bright headlights reflecting back off the rear view mirror and almost blinding him. He tilted the mirror up to keep the light out of his eyes. A minute or so later he heard the sound of the truck's doors being slammed and the sound of boots on gravel as its occupants made their way toward the bar.

  He knew he should call Denise. She was probably waiting by the phone for him to call. But listening to her talk, hearing her voice, would probably only accentuate his loneliness and make him more depressed. He stared out the windshield of the car at the lighted doorway of the saloon. He could hear, from inside the building, the raucous sounds of people having a good time, the music of Charlie Daniels. He knew that, in the state he was in, if he didn't call Denise he would be likely to do something stupid, something he would later regret.

  A young buxom woman wearing tight jeans and a skimpy halter top came stumbling out of the bar, her arms around a tough-looking man in a cowboy hat.

  McFarland looked at her, thought for
a second of Denise, then rolled up the window of the car door and got out, locking it. He walked over cracked slabs of asphalt and hopped the low, crumbling brick wall that separated the gas station from the Colt. The parking lot of the saloon was filled with pickups. A few were high riding customized jobs; a few were small foreign gas savers. But the vast majority of them were good, healthy, American stock trucks. Fords primarily. Nearly all had the obligatory trailer hitch on the rear bumper and the gun rack in the back window.

  He walked into the bar. It was smoky and humid, the smell of cigarettes and beer and human body odor almost overpowering. The music was loud, too loud, and conversation appeared to be difficult if not impossible. He scanned the room for a familiar face and, seeing none, made his way toward the bar. He motioned for the bartender. One song ended, and before the next began he shouted: "Coors!"

  There was a hard clap on his shoulder. McFarland jerked around. Carl Chmura, Weldon's right hand man, was standing behind him, grinning.

  "Hey," he said. "How's itgoin'?" McFarland nodded as the bartender brought his beer. "All right." He stared at the deputy. CarlChmura had been one of those who had resented his presence the most, and he had made it clear that he did not want and would not accept the help of the state police, though he would comply technically with all of the sheriff's orders. Now the young deputy was smiling at him, apparently friendly, all hostility gone. Apparently, he was one of those people who could successfully separate all aspects of his job from the rest of his life--something McFarland had never been able to do.

  He tried to smile at the deputy, but the smile felt strained and he was aware of the fact that it probably looked false. "So," he said, "what are you doing here?" The question was stupid, and he knew it was stupid, but he could think of nothing else to say.

  Chmuratook a swig from the bottle he held in his hand. "I have the night off, I just broke up with my girlfriend, I thought I'd celebrate.

  Want to join me?" He looked around the bar. A group of cowboys and their dates were two-stepping to the Marshall Tucker Band. Several unattached women stood around the fringes of the dance floor, looking around for partners. "I bet we could pick up on one of those bimbos there."