Revealing Revelations

by Ric Nero

  PAP PAP! I pulled up out front just as I heard a couple of dull gunshots. It was him with an assault rifle in each hand aimed and firing at the sky.

  “What’s wrong!?” I asked him.

  He runs down the steps sideways and says, “I was just letting off warning shots in case someone had any ideas or thoughts of trying me.”

  “Always did have to be Yo’ Simmity Sam, huh, Sarge?” I asked him in an angry tone. I was worried he was in real danger, but I was happy to see he wasn’t. Sergeant Birden was just being Sergeant Birden.

  “Help me with the other M-4’s and ammo.”

  I jumped out. And ran up the stairs and grabbed the three ammo bins and a stack of empty magazines he had put on top. I carried them to the truck and put them on the floor by my foot.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he shouts closing the passenger door as he jumps in.

  I skid off and swing the truck around and head the direction of the diner. Speeding down South Beach streets, we see the streets get worse, more and more buildings are now on fire. Police are just as divided. The few that stand to preserve justice are trying to stop people and other police officers from causing havoc. I watch as a teen beats what appears to be her mother with what looks like a purse. It must have a lot of stuff in there because the older woman does nothing but curl up in a fetal position on the ground. A bit further down, I see three men rush towards a red Ford Fusion and bust out its windows. Passing it up, I look inside to see what’s going on. It was her from the hotel lobby. I stomp on the brakes and hop out.

  “Thomas!” Jefferey shouted out.

  “Cover me!” I yelled back, running a few steps to the car. I grab the guy that’s halfway through the window and yank him out. He swings with all out fury with his right hand. I duck and raise with an uppercut to the chin and punch the guy next to him in the throat before the third guy gets a chance to get the drop on me. Before I know it, he wraps his big broad arm around my neck, but before he can squeeze good, Pop! The guy slowly removes his bare arm. It was Jefferey.

  “Hey, I was just jiving, man. No blood no foul, right?”

  Jefferey walks towards him, weapon drawn and aims it up the large nostril of the man. With a hard stern look into the man’s eyes he says slowly, “Get her and let’s go, Thomas.”

  I didn’t waste any time turning back around and opening her car door. At this point, she was crying heavily with eyes closed in relief at being spared from her attackers. She’s sitting with her back against the passenger door and her legs in the driver’s seat. She appears to be exhausted from fighting off her attackers.

  “Hey, remember me?” I ask her in a soft tone, trying to calm her down.

  Her face turns red as tears roll down her face. Her lips tremble, but she doesn’t let out even a whimper. She nods her head up and down.

  “I know this is too much to bear out here alone, but that’s why I need you to come with us,” I said, still using the soft tone.

  She opens her eyes and looks at me then at Jefferey who still has the barrel of the M-4 in the man’s face who tried to attack her. She leans up and peeks through the windows at the destruction around us.

  “Thomas, hurry up, I hear gunfire so that means were not the only one with guns!” he says quickly.

  I extend my hand out to her, she doesn’t hesitate to grab it and I help out of the vehicle. Standing to her feet, she turns and kicks the rear driver’s door. “Damn, alternator, piece of…” she stops, gets quiet and slowly backs up and turns around.

  “Alright, let’s move,” I tell Jefferey. I help her into the truck and she squats down in between the two seats where there’s only space. I climb in and Jefferey rushes to the other side. I look back at the man that grabbed me earlier, but he was already running into another building.

  “Let’s go!” Jefferey yells.

  We drive off.

  Sniff sniff.

  I look down at the receptionist from the Ritz. She sniffles and wipes her eyes as she regains her composure. I turn my attention to the road. I choose to kill the awkward silence. “My name is Thomas and that’s Jefferey.”

  He nods at her and turns his head focusing his attention back down the rifles cross sights pointed out the window, I guess what we learned in Iraq clearly stuck with some of us.

  “My name is Dana. Thank you for saving me back there,” she says.

  “No problem,” I reply, keeping my eyes on the road.

  “What happened back there, I mean you had a car, how’d they stop you?” Jefferey asked her.

  “It was my alternator that went out. I got a jump at work and was on my way to get it replaced in Old Miami where I stay.” She pauses and looks around seeing this hell on earth. “Or at least, used to stay,” she says.

  “What happened here, what’s going on?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine,” Dana says.

  Silence once again engulfs the air.

  We pulled up to Joe’s diner and the table was still up covering the window. I blew the horn to let the others know we were out here. I see multiple sets of eyes peek out through the blinds.

  Jefferey jumps out and opens up the back doors while the four others rush to hop inside the rear of the truck.

  I turn and see a slide window that was designed to enable communication and visibility. I see Shane and Auron sit on the left and the waitress across from them. Surprisingly, Jefferey loads the ammo and weapons and sits down, and the doors are closed behind him. I hear the patter of footsteps come up along my side of the truck. I adjust the long wide side mirror and see Bazz jog up to my driver’s side door.

  “I’ll drive,” he said opening the driver’s door. “We need a safe haven and I know just the place.”

  I hop out and he hops in. I run around to the passenger side and see Dana shake his hand. “Now that we all know each other, I guess we’re one big happy family, huh, Jerome?” I ask, jumping into the passenger’s seat.

  He ignores me and skids off.

  “What’s going on, why are people doing this?” Dana asks with a red face trying hard to hold back tears.

  Bazz glances at her, then his eyes go back to the road. “We don’t know, but we’re gonna find out.”

  I open the sliding window and make sure everyone is alright once more. As I look at each and every one of them, their faces all reveal the same things. Heads hung in fear, hopelessness, and more than anything, a sense of being lost. From Shane to Jefferey and all the others it’s all the same look in their eyes. All except one, Auron. He squints his eyes and as I looked closely he was moving his lips as if he was calculating something.

  “Has he gone mad?” I ask myself.

  The longer I study him I begin to realize he’s calculating. He knows something he always has, soon as things went wrong back at the diner he showed up exactly when things turned left. I was feeling down like the others, but now I’m growing angry. Clearly he knows something and he hasn’t come out and said anything to anyone. I want to say something through the peephole but I know it’s best I wait until I can talk to him alone instead of upsetting the others. Biting my tongue, I slide the peephole window closed, sitting back in my seat fueled with anger. We ride over the bridge and out of South Beach.

  “Yeah… Yeah… I know… I’m coming with a few friends and a couple stragglers. Alright, we’re almost there,” Bazz says, hanging up the phone.

  “Who was that?” Dana asked him.

  Bazz looks down at her then back to the road. “Nosey aren’t we?” Bazz asked her out of frustration.

  “The world is going down the drain, I was attacked and almost maybe even raped and now I’m riding in a S.W.A.T. truck. So, yeah, I believe I’m entitled to be somewhat inquisitive, not nosey,” she says rambunctiously.

  He looks at her for a longer period than before. “I’m sorry you’re right,” he replied. “That was a couple of friends, I was making them aware to be prepared for our arrival.”

  “So where
are you taking us?” Dana asked again.

  Taking one hand off the steering wheel Bazz points halfway over the city to a parking garage. Tall, but slender, it wasn’t hard to spot over other smaller buildings. “It’s safe,” he tells her.

  “How do you know?” I asked curiously.

  “I trust them because I know them, they’re… well, you’ll have to see for yourself I guess,” Bazz replied.

  We finally approach the closed metal garage door of the tall parking garage. I see Bazz pull his cell phone out and put it to his ear once more.

  “We’re here,” he tells the person on the opposite end of the phone. The garage door opens and a loud sound from the motor hums as the door reels up. “Thomas, make sure no one follows us in.”

  I hop out and check all sides of the vehicle to see if anyone is after us or watching. It’s funny how the whole Miami was going crazy, even in high society, but this one place in the poverty stricken part of town was somewhat quiet for the most part. The truck proceeds on and I back up slowly into the garage, keeping my M-4 at the ready position in case something goes wrong. The garage door lowers finally and I run back to the truck. I stand on the foot ladder and hook my left arm through the open window inside the truck.

  Bazz drives slowly down a single ramp to the lower level and swings right and reverses near a wall between elevator doors and a guard office. I hop down and rush to open the rear doors and the doors are already open, the doors block the bodies, but I see two sets of dark complexioned legs and tennis shoes. I walk over. Shocked at what I see, I gasp.

  “Bazz, you need to hurry!” Shouts a little kid with glasses as he opens the rear doors. “Everyone follow me,” he says, opening one door and runs back in the office that says ‘Security’.

  “Bazz, what the hell?” I ask myself. The others one by one come out and follow the kid. Auron comes last in the line of four. Overwhelmed with anxiety, I still wanted to know what he knew. Still wanted him to come forward and stop holding back bits and pieces. I walk through the security room doors and see the kid once more.

  “Hey, can you give me a hand?” the little kid asks me.

  “Not right now, kid,” I say to the little guy blocking my way. So anxious to get to Auron, I was stopped by another black kid with glasses that blocks my way. They’re identical twins.

  “You don’t understand. We all need your help,” the second one tells me.

  I give in. “Okay, what do you need?” I ask the twins who obviously aren’t any more than ten years old.

  “Surveillance!” the slightly smaller first one says with almost a demand in his voice.

  “Surveillance?” I ask him.

  “Come with me,” he says as I see his tiny frame scurry off inside the elevator. I look at Auron sitting inside the security room and chose to wait on dealing with him. I followed the little guy while the other ran into the security room as well, I hear a clanking as if he was locking the door. The elevator doors close and the little guy pressed the button numbered 5. It must be the top floor, seeing as how no other number comes after it. A slight jerk under my feet and humming from the motor makes it clear we’re moving.

  I eject and double check the magazine at the bottom of my weapon making sure everything was in order. “So, what’s your name, kid?”

  He looks at me with a mug through those thin wired oval glasses before turning his head back forward. “Jessie,” he replied, looking straight ahead.

  I see the kid has a little spunk about him, but he’s just a kid out here in the middle of this. What were his parents thinking? “Alright, Jessie. Why’d your parents send you up here instead of them?” I see a mug on his face as he stares directly into the elevator doors.

  “I don’t have any…parents. Me and my brother been in a group home for as long as we can remember. Our real parents left us at birth,” he said with a tremble in his voice. He turns and looks up at me. “So I hope you done with all the miscellaneous questions!” he yells out.

  I felt bad for prying, and recognized how I had irritated a serious situation. “I’m sorry. I just—”

  The doors open up and he runs out.

  I step out and look at the city of Miami. The elevator was in the corner of the roof. So I walk to the edge and see people yelling, fighting, as the mayhem continued on. Building and homes were being burned down, the fire department was trying their best to put it out, but it was just too much.

  “Hey, get over here, I need your help, remember?” Jessie calls out to me with sarcasm.

  I run back to the other side of the roof where he stood on the outer side of the elevator opening a box with a lot of wires bolted to the wall.

  “We need all surveillance cameras operational. I’ll need you to adjust the positioning of the camera while I try to see if I can fix it.” Sparks fly from the box as he sticks a flat head inside poking at wires.

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?” I ask him.

  His attention fixed on the wire box, he points to the camera mounted high above the elevator. “Up top is where I need you,” he says, squinting through those wired oval glasses into that wiring compartment.

  I didn’t ask any questions as I set my weapon down beside him and climbed on top of the elevator. I saw a surveillance camera mounted on a two foot high sturdy rod with a gray chord spiraling from its base up around to the rear of the camera. “Okay, now what?” I ask the little Einstein.

  “Do you think it is able see the entire roof from its current position?” he asks me as I continue to hear sparks pop out from the box as he pokes around.

  “Yeah!”

  “Okay, look under the camera and push the reset button. It’s the only button under there, so you can’t miss it.” He instructs me.

  I look under the camera and see a single button, I push it in and a red light comes on for a few seconds and then turns green. “I did it,” I tell Jessie. I hear footsteps run inside the elevator.

  “Well, are you coming?” he asks again with sarcasm.

  I hop down, grab my weapon and walk around the side into the elevator. “Kid, it’s clear you need a good foot in the…” I paused for a moment and chose to pick a proper word to say to the kid other than what I wanted to say. “Keaster.”

  He smirks as he pushes the button that read LL for lower level.

  “Jessie, I understand why we need cameras, but why on the roof? And where’d you learn to deal with electrical wiring?”

  “I learned from paying attention. We had a handyman that comes to the group home all the time, so we just used to learn from him. It was either that or hang out on the streets out here in Dade County,” he said.

  I understood that. Crime and violence in Chicago wasn’t too different. “But, what about the camera? What was the point of that specific one?” I ask him.

  He stomps out of frustration. “All these questions, you’ll see soon enough, soldier boy,” he says to me. The elevator doors open and I see the black S.W.A.T. truck. He runs out and to the left. I follow after him and hear that clanking sound again. They must be unlocking the doors. The other twin opens the doors.

  “We got good visual on the roof down here?” Jessie asked his brother as he walked ahead of me.

  “Yeah, Jerome is going out in the morning. We all just need a minute to think for the night,” he tells Jessie. We walk down a long hallway with navy blue brick walls and a cement-like floor. At the end of the hall were two doors on either side of the hallway.

  “So what’s your name?” I ask the yet to be identified twin.

  He turns and looks back at me as he walks ahead of us and answers, “James.” He turns his head back around as he almost stumbles over his own foot. “And what’s your name?” he asks me.

  “Thomas,” I answered.

  “But you can call him, soldier boy,” Jessie blurts out.

  “Jessie, don’t be so rude,” James tells him in a mellow tone. It’s clear they’re identical in appearance but attitude wise they couldn’t be any
more different. We finally reach the doors and we all enter the door on the right side of the hallway. Everyone was inside sitting on the floor with blankets, with Vienna sausages, bags of Doritos and other miscellaneous small food portions. This room was just an empty room, maybe a twelve by sixteen in space. But there was a bunk bed in the corner to my left and surveillance monitors on the far wall with three chairs in front of it. It was basically designed with the same design as the hallway, a cement floor and dark blue bricks.

  I guess it was used for exactly what the door reads, “Secuity”. I lean against the wall and slide down into a sitting position, removing the magazine out of my weapon and setting it down beside me. I cover my face with my hands and slide them down as I yawn. As I look around, I notice we all have the same expressions on our face. Lost and confused still even here away from the perils of being out there. We still don’t know what is going on. I felt mad inside only because I didn’t know what to do. Or even what step would be next to find out what’s happening where could we get any answers for this present event in chaos. That’s when it hit me. “Auron!” I yelled out as I scanned the room for him. I jumped and the others looked at me startled. “Where is he?” I asked everyone. The door beside me opened and in came the man of the hour.

  “I’m right here, Thomas. There’s no need in getting loud and creating an uproar,” he said closing the door behind him.

  “Look, I’ll ask you this once and once only.” I pause taking my eyes off of him and looking down at the cement floor to prepare myself for whatever answer he may have. “Do you know what’s going on in this city?”

  Baaap! He slammed something on the desk where the monitors are. It’s a book, a thick black covered book with red pages. He eases into the computer chair next to Dana. “The Rapture has come,” he says with a look I never expected to see on his face. The fear has now even consumed him. “I assure you it isn’t just this city. What has happened in this city has happened all over the world.” I walk over and look at the book he slammed down. It’s the Bible. Auron continues on, “Because you have kept my word about patience and endurance, I will, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on earth. Scripture from the book of Revelations three and ten,” he concludes.