Dies Irae: DAY OF WRATH
William R. Forstchen
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Copyright © 2014 by William R. Forstchen
DEDICATION
For those who stand watch against evil, for the two who told me I must write this book, and for a Third who inspired me to not turn back.
FOREWORD
This is a book that I did not want to write.
Several years back, I wrote a novel about the threat to our national infrastructure from an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack. One Second After was published by Tor/Forge, and became a New York Times bestseller. I never anticipated its impact and what some now claim: its leading role in the creation of the so-called “prepper movement.” After that, and far more pleasurable in the writing, was my next work, Pillar to the Sky, a novel about a positive future which we can fashion with a renewed support of our space program. Both books were challenging in different ways, but never hit to such a visceral level as this book now does.
Only weeks before this ebook, Day of Wrath, hits publication, the murderous forces of ISIS swept into northern Iraq and unleashed a reign of terror that this historian sees as a campaign that makes Hitler's and Stalin’s fanatical followers look like amateurs. I am an historian of warfare; I often describe my job as similar to that of an oncologist. I study that which kills and hope that one day humanity will find a cure. When one matures from being a young man to middle aged, and suddenly the scourge of war is no longer something that you will bear personally on the battlefield, but instead will be borne by your children, by young students in your classroom whom you come to love, the fear of it strikes far deeper and is far more poignant.
A few months back during a Saturday afternoon discussion with two who are very dear to my heart, the twin topics of ISIS with its barbaric outrages and the security crisis on our southern border came up. By the end of that conversation, both challenged me to write what became this book.
They argued and I had to agree that when a blood-lusting regime is openly declaring that they will take their murderous rampage into the heartland of America, combined with the fact that our border security is in tatters, it is time to take notice. (And any political leader who says that our borders are “secure” is either a liar or senile.)
Osama bin Laden made clear his intentions for us long before 9/11. Hitler made clear his intentions to all whom he declared were “racial inferiors.” The list of warnings from such hideous murderers goes back to the first pages of recorded history. Those who did not listen to such warnings eventually learned of their folly. Are we doing the same today?
ISIS, or whatever it now calls itself as this book is released, has made clear its intent: our deaths and that of our friends and allies in Europe and Israel. Beyond that, the deaths of all who do not adhere to their interpretation of the Koran, including fellow Sunni Muslims who they view as “weak in their faith,” and Shi’ites.
What is clear regarding ISIS and others like them: Their intent is to convert the world, both “Muslim” and “Infidel,” and if we are not willing to convert, then we must die. Second, and it surprises me that Western feminists are not more attuned and reactive to this issue, women are subservient on earth and are nothing more than objects of sexual fulfillment for martyred jihadists in their paradise. To say otherwise is to mislead, which their interpretation of the Koran states is acceptable. To mislead and lie to the infidel is acceptable until dominance over the “infidel” is achieved, at which point all must submit, convert, or die.
The twentieth century was the great battlefield of western liberalism, in its classical sense, against the forces of totalitarianism. In his seminal work, 1984, George Orwell's fictional character “O’Brien”, a leader of the “thought police,” declared that our fate would forever be the boot of a totalitarian state smashing in the face of humanity. We came damn close to that fate and that threat still exists. I believe the great struggle of the twenty-first century is now unfolding on the dust-covered plains of Iraq, where ISIS runs rampant, and could very well be fought in Europe and on our own soil. It is the struggle between a medieval murderous cult, filled with hatred against what Abraham Lincoln declared to be “the last best hope of mankind.”
There is a subtext within these pages that transcends ISIS; I’ll leave that for you to find. Recall the words of a politician who declared that any crisis presents political opportunity as well. You can accept my concern about ISIS alone, or with this other concern; at least in what is still a free Republic: that is something for you to decide.
One can find evidence of just how evil ISIS truly is in very little time. Turn off your television and its reality shows. Go and face a true reality. Run a few internet searches of what ISIS, and those like it, truly is. The information can easily be found for, unlike the Nazis and the NKVD of Stalin, this cult does not hide its crimes. They gleefully post videos on a regular basis of their torturing, beheading, crucifying and executing thousands. Look evil in the eye and have the stomach and courage to stare back and say “no more.” To become aware, no matter how disturbing that reality is, is the first step to the resistance that we must be prepared to make in response.
The final decision is in doubt. We can continue to sleep, to not face reality, and to turn a blind eye or extend tolerance to cults of hate, or we can openly call evil for what it is and stand against it. There was a time when we did not hesitate to say that some things are indeed evil. Why do we fear to do so now?
In closing: The opinion I voice here is my own, not that of friends, of colleagues, or of the college where I am privileged to teach. I hated writing this book. I had looked forward to a relaxing summer after working on a morally uplifting book about the promise of our space program. I did not want to write this one, but, as I expressed to friends, I feared that if I did not write it, and this nightmare happened, which it surely can, I would be responsible in some way for remaining silent. If you read on from here, it will not be an enjoyable experience. I hope that it will make enough of us think things through to ensure not only the safety of our children, but of our Republic as well. And, as always with such works that speculate a dark future, I hope that awareness will bring preparedness and thus the nightmare never happens. If so, the effort will have been worth it.
William R. Forstchen
August 10, 2014
"Dies iræ, dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiæ, dies calamitatis et miseriæ, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebulæ et turbinis, dies tubæ et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angulos excelsos."
That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high bulwarks…
Zephaniah 1: 15-16
"And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder, unbelief) and religion should be only for Allah."
Koran sura 8:39
"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them."
Koran sura 8:12
Dies Irae: DAY OF WRATH
William R. Forstchen
CHAPTER ONE
7:25 a.m., Near Portland, Maine
“We have lived with the abnormal for so long, we believe it to be normal.”
Bob Petersen gazed at the screen for a moment, not sure if he should continue. He had long ago come to the conclusion that blogging and posting commentary on Facebook was a supreme act of self-indulgence. A few friends might read it, act polite, and give a thumbs up. There had been a time, before he m
ade the wiser career choice of going into IT education versus creative writing, that he fancied he might make it as an author. After all, he lived in Maine, home to a lot of writers, and had even attended a few writers’ workshops. The workshops were finally enough to convince him to pursue a more stable line of work, especially after he met Kathy, married, and started to think about a family.
Facebook for him was not a place to vent… but today, this morning…? The news of the day, echoing from the kitchen where Kathy was preparing lunches for their daughter Wendy and him to take to school, was yet another overwhelming litany of bad news and it triggered a sense of foreboding.
The offensive by ISIS in Iraq was on the march again. More images of mass executions, beheadings, and Christians being crucified. These were the horrors committed under the guidance of the one who had declared himself to be the returner of the caliphate, a man who, to Bob, was every bit as threatening as a Hitler or bin Laden.
Bob's younger brother had died over there back in 2004. For what, in light of this latest news?
Reports echoed from the television in the kitchen about the border along Texas: not all trying to cross were refugees from impoverished Central America. New indications were that it was a route Middle Eastern terrorists were using to infiltrate… but for what? A commentator on his preferred news network just last night stated that he felt the “perfect storm” was about to explode.
It had been a somewhat sleepless night. Kathy always told him he worried too much about what he could not fix, but this morning he was up an hour earlier than usual to just jot down some thoughts. It was as if some inner voice whispered that he had to make a statement now; to do it this morning before he left for work. Later in the day he would look back at it, and hopefully today would be an ordinary day like all the others across the years, and he’d be slightly embarrassed that he had posted these ramblings.
“We expect to be lied to,” he continued to write. “In fact, the truth is so rare these days that we think it is spoken only as a maneuver of the moment to cover yet another lie. Our leaders tell us to believe in them, that they do all for our good. They tell us that they fight for our rights while they travel about in entourages costing millions for their monthly vacations. They tell us to conserve, for all is running short, while their private jets take them to their next gathering. What are proclaimed to be our entertainers are experts on all things simply because they act a role in a movie. Their role model to our youth is one of dissipation, mocking any of us who try to teach our children any type of values.
“News last night was of yet another thirty-thousand dollar-a-plate fundraiser to pay for yet more lies to blanket their hypocrisy, to opiate us while the worshipful media stands awestruck. Every night is Oscar night in Washington with some self-congratulatory award. Every day, a new scandal of the day (at least for that twenty four hour news cycle) is examined with about as much critical skill as that of entertainment reporters gasping about who left her husband for a new affair. Politics are merged with entertainment and entertainment with politics, though one used to be only for diversion while the other truly was, and still is, a matter of life and death.
“The death of a second-rate actor to drugs draws more media and mourning than the sealed metal boxes returning from the Middle East.”
He paused after writing that line. The morning that he and Kathy were preparing to head to Dover Air Force base, to greet the returning casket of his brother, the headline news was about the accidental death of yet another entertainer to a drug overdose. Several days later, the media lavished attention on tearful fans weeping at the funeral. His brother and four others of his squad were buried that day, and it hardly made local news. The only ones who wept at his brother’s funeral were his family, friends from high school, and a comrade who had been assigned to escort the body, or what was left of the body… they never opened the casket… home from Iraq.
He sat in silent reflection for a moment, then continued to write.
“The new daily scandal of Washington has become business as usual, to be forgotten a day later with a new scandal, a new affair. The reality show has become reality, and the real world an increasingly anesthetized dream to be ignored.
“And those of us who dare to question do so with voices lowered, for, in America today the worst sin of all, the real sin, is no longer racism or hatred… it is simply fear that you might offend.
“The Republic was not founded by those who feared to offend. It was not created by those who were afraid to fight back. Is it time to fight back? But how do we fight back? What do we fight back against? How do we fight back?”
“Hey Bob, you’re gonna be late!”
He looked at the screen, scrolled back over what he just wrote, highlighting it, and poised his finger over the delete button. Why bother? I’m just pissed off this morning. Vent here and I get eighty comments back, most of them inane, asking what the hell is bugging me. It will disappear while everyone prefers to see the latest video clip of who twerked her ass last night at some awards ceremony or had a dress “malfunction,” and after all, we are being told that all the scandals are phony anyhow.
“Come on!”
He stood up, looked again at the screen, and let his finger drift from delete to enter. He hit the enter button, posting his musings, and felt a twinge of regret and embarrassment. Which friends would be offended today?
Kathy was waiting out in the kitchen, making the loving gesture of holding out a cup of coffee. She was wearing what he called her frumpy bathrobe, her hair still something a tangle and no makeup… all factors which made her even more lovable to him. Given their “surprise” a year ago, she had resumed the role of staying at home for a few more years.
He gladly took the cup and drained it halfway in two gulps. She had mixed it nearly half and half coffee and cream, even though she was on his case about the cholesterol in the cream.
She had taken on the ritual of getting up an hour earlier than he to cook breakfast for their older daughter and make his coffee. He simply couldn’t stand food other than some caffeine to provide the jolt for waking up to face the outside world, after, of course, he engaged for a few minutes in his fantasy of being a writer.
They had met in their junior year at the University of Maine in Bangor, had scandalized their very Catholic parents by living together their senior year, and then stilled that scandalizing by marrying a week after graduation. Kathy had been a secondary math education major, he a computer education major. He had taken his father’s advice to “get a degree that will get you a job,” and chase the dream of writing afterwards.
They had actually scored positions at the same school, in a suburb of Portland, teaching side by side for four years until Wendy came along. Kathy had taken a couple of years off for their first daughter, then gone back to teaching… until their mid-life surprise of two years back. Every morning now he could see her duality. She adored being a full-time mother again, but as she handed him his cup of coffee to pack him off for another day at school, he could sense her longing, her missing of “their kids” at Joshua Chamberlain Middle School.
The day was one of those glorious Maine autumn days, a touch of frost was on the car out in the driveway, and he remembered fondly their first year of teaching: leaving the apartment, he would go out first, when it was down near zero degrees, to scrape the car and heat it up before she dashed to its warmth.
Their daughter Wendy stood behind her mother. She bore such a striking resemblance to the family album photos of her mother at the same age: lanky, long-legged and coltish. Her red hair was tied back in a pony tail; already the clear signs were there of the stunning beauty she would grow into, but she was still very much “daddy’s girl,” even though she tried not to let that show, especially around her friends. And she was obviously ticked off that Dad was running late. Her morning gossip circle awaited in homeroom. She could barely spare a quick glance to her dad as he pecked her on the cheek, then she was back to her cell phone, t
exting away and chortling about how someone named Janey was definitely going to get it good today for being caught kissing the boyfriend of some girl named Hallie.
He glanced at Kathy and said nothing. Wasn’t that supposed to start when they were fifteen or so? Even though he taught middle school, he still looked at his charges as children, though popular culture had been putting girls such as Miley Cyrus at age fifteen on the cover of Vanity Fair for years.
Kathy made no comment about the scandal at school as she tucked a packed lunch into Wendy’s backpack, leaned up, and kissed Bob on the cheek.
“Have a good day.”
He kissed her back and looked over her shoulder to Shelly, their one-year-old, sitting in a high chair at the kitchen table. She was happily smearing her face and hair with chocolate pudding, laughing away at whatever was the inner delight of one-year-olds when putting on disgusting displays.
Wendy spared a quick glance at her kid sister and gave a grunt of disgust.
“You were just as gross at that age,” Bob offered. She simply rolled her eyes.
“I was perfect compared to that,” Wendy bragged, but he could see a bit of an affectionate smile regarding “the brat’s” display.
“Wanna trade jobs for the day?” Kathy sighed, eyeing Shelly then back at the two of them heading off to school.
“You were the one who said it’d be fun to have another,” he replied a bit defensively.
“Yeah,” was all he could muster out of her. “Just one day, come on! You guys can stay here, clean up the smeared chocolate, change the diapers, watch that damn purple dinosaur dancing around on television, and I can at least have a five-minute intellectual conversation with some twelve-year-olds.”
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