by Ric Nero
“So how’d you meet Bazz?” I asked him as he looked at me. “I know, I know, questions right?”
He smiled at the idea. “We met Bazz, here,” he answered.
“You mean in the parking garage?” I asked him with confusion in my voice.
“No, I mean in Miami. He was walking down the street with a briefcase and Hawaiian shirt and linen shorts…and down here that would clearly say you’re a tourist. And if you a tourist with a briefcase you either belong in a building handling business or carrying something to go handle business, if you catch my drift.” He dropped his head and looked at me over those oval glasses.
“I know what you mean, I know how things go in the inner city,” I replied.
“Okay, so we got this routine where James goes up and tries to play innocent and sell white sand from the beach as a souvenir.”
I finish the rest of his explanation for him. “Just to catch them off guard while you snatch the bag, huh?” I smiled. I thought as smart as these guys are they would be more original or creative. “So, what was in the briefcase?” I asked him.
“Well, it wasn’t money,” he answered with a smile. It felt a little tad bit easier to deal with what was going on when I saw him smile, almost felt like a connection. “It was files and a laptop, so long story short, we found out a lot about the nation’s little secrets. We even had a couple of concerns about the government of our own before that really. Seeing as how they’ve been doing major concentration around the Bermuda triangle,” he said.
“Wait that was you Bazz was talking about this whole time? You’re his sources?” I couldn’t believe it, but at this point after all this I wasn’t one to doubt much of anything.
“Look I’m serious and passionate about certain things and this is one of them. I’m gonna see what was the big deal about that Bermuda triangle one day, mark my words.” He storms out of there, swinging the door open. With the door open, I see Shane and the others with cases and bags in hand.
“Did I miss something?” Shane asked me.
“No, but it seems I did. When did you learn how to fly?” I asked him.
“Well you probably don’t remember but I signed up for flight school and was working on getting my chief warrant officer, but it didn’t work out, but I still remember a lil’ bit.”
They all set down cases of medical equipment and supplies. “So, you steal a helicopter from the hospital?” I asked him.
“You sound surprised, Thomas. Even after all of this should you be?” Julie asks as she sets down a huge bag full of first aid kits.
“Hey, Auron wants you, he’s on level three with Jefferey and Dana,” Bazz says. “Oh and here, we got a few of these for communications. Let us know when you wanna move around and if something happens,” He says, handing me a walkie-talkie.
“Why don’t we just use our phones,” I asked him, but Julie answers with a numb demeanor about her.
“Sprint, AT&T, Boost, they’re all down, no signal,” she says walking out the door.
“She’s doing a little better I see,” I tell Shane.
“Better is an improvement we all could use,” he answered. I walk down the hall through the door and into the elevator and push the button with the number 3 on it.
Vrrrrmmm! The elevator begins to make a humming noise as it moves up to the third level. I wondered what he wanted to see me about, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to talk to him myself. What’s our next move, our purpose for being here, If this is all about God and we are the ones left after the Rapture, there has to be a purpose. The humming stops and the elevator door opens. I step out into the third level parking lot and scan the level for them. It was hard to find them at fist there are so many cars left here; Denalis, Mustangs, Chargers it was almost completely packed in here. But I see them in the distance looking out into the city over the half concrete wall.
“This is Thomas. I’m up here, kill the elevator,” I say into the radio.
“I’m already a step ahead of you, Soldier Boy.” A all too familiar voice tells me as I walk towards the others.
“I should’ve known you would get a radio, Jessie,” I say to myself as I approach the three leaning over the half concrete looking out over the city. I stand next to Dana and look at the city.
“All the hell that happened yesterday, and they’re not even worried or curious as to why.”
“Why, what?” I asked her.
“Why did it happen? Any of it… the fighting the stealing the burnings. Why was it at all necessary?” she asked, her glossy eyes are fixed on the Miami streets, but her mind is focused elsewhere.
“I know what you mean, Dana,” Jefferey said on the opposite side of Dana. “It all just doesn’t seem real, but there is no other way we can look at it,” Jefferey says. I convert my attention from them and back to Miami. The city that was once so alive is now dead. People in the Army used to dream of moving here and retiring after their twenty years. Hot sun, sandy beaches, and pretty women were all they used to think about when Miami was the topic. Now the same Miami they used to mention was a barren after effect war zone, lying desolate under the burning sun.
“Thomas!” Auron calls out to me from the other end of where Jefferey stood. “A word please?” he asked as he walked away from the others. I followed him as he walked up to an all white Camaro, where he opened the driver’s door. I followed him and got in on the passenger’s side closing the door. He places both hands on the steering wheel and look at Jefferey and Dana who are about fifteen feet ahead of us. “How do you feel?” he asks.
“If this is about yesterday I want to apologize for any disrespect that I showed you, I was just caught up in the feeling of hopelessness that I—”
“I’m not referring to that, dear boy.” He interrupts me. “I mean, how do you feel inside, do you feel any different?” he asks me. I look at him speechless. He looks at me then turns his head forward, dropping it in exhaustion. “I only ask because we need to know why everyone here is still here. Eveyone is accounted for except you, Thomas,” he explains. I noticed we were alone side by side and no one to hear us except God.
“Wait, is this supposed to be some type of confession booth?” I asked Auron. “I thought you were done with your priestly hood?”
He shakes his head fiercely. “No, this is nothing like that! Understand everyone has come to the realization that we are still here because we did not…Please the Lord Thy God!” He shouts in agitation. “So, I need you to think, if you did something or if you didn’t do something, I ughh!!…” He pauses. “I don’t know how to say this, but we have a job to do,” he says.
“I know what you mean we all have to work together to survive,” I said.
“Yes, yes, we all have to work together to coincide. But that’s not what I mean.” He begins to use his hands to move back and forth between us to refer to us as we. “What I’m saying is that we, you and I, we have a job to do,” he says.
“A job? You know something and once again you’re holding back.” I told Auron. “I guess what you said about not holding back was a lie.”
“What God has revealed to me is not meant for me to reveal to you, only the Father in heaven shall show it unto you,” Auron says.
I slam my fists against the black dashboard in frustration. “Enough! Enough! I’ve had it with all these riddles, all these sayings. Where are the answers?” I asked Auron. I began to shake and tremble like I did last night, but I managed to hold back the burning sensation in my eyes.
“Nothing is ever physically certain when it comes to these matters. It is the way of faith.” He explains to me. “Evidence in things hoped for, and the substance in things not seen. Build your faith so nothing can bend or break your trust in God. Considering our present situation we all could use a little more faith. After all, yes it’s a hard situation to be in, but we’re not dead. It isn’t over. God still has a place for us in heaven.” He continues.
“Everything in life just all of a sudden switched to being
all biblical and about God,” I said.
He chuckles. “My dear boy, it was always about God. Some of us were just too consumed in our own vanity to realize it.” He was right and I knew these things all along.
“Green, be glad you’re already in a better place ‘cause right now it’s crazy down here,” I say under my breath, almost in envy of her. Static on my radio comes in.
“Uh, guys. Do you read me?” a young feminine voice asks, coming from the other end of the radio. It had to be Julie.
I unhook my radio from my belt.
“There’s something going on. The vice president is on the air at the white house, announcing the thirty nine percent drop in military manpower due to the unexplained disappearances of people. They’re still calling it the Croatoan Theory,” Julie says.
“Wait, why the vice president?” I ask talking into the radio.
“What do you mean, why?” she asks.
“I mean where’s the actual president?” I asked her. The transmission is interrupted by another radio.
“Maybe he was one of the ones that vanished,” Shane says from another radio. I look at Auron who shakes his head slightly from side to side.
“I don’t think so, something’s going on,” I said speaking into the radio.
“Wait, the screen just went blank,” she says. And as soon as she said that, Dana and Jefferey go hysterical before us, waving their arms and screaming at the top of their lungs. But, they are so frantic that I can’t make out their words. They point over the half concrete wall into the horizon.
Auron and I get out of the car and run to them as we look in the direction they point. It was a maelstrom of fire vacuuming from the ground up into a gigantic cloud in the sky. Something exploded way off into the distance of epic proportion.
Dana wrapped her arms around me and buried her head into my shoulder as she cried. I believe I’m beginning to feel worse than even her. All my life I was taught and influenced anything that posed a threat against me in one way or another, always had a way to fight back. But no, not this time there was no fighting back, no way to fight back. I just couldn’t do anything, but look at the blast in the distance. It was clear the blast wasn’t anywhere near Miami, or the state of Florida for that matter. But it didn’t matter, for us to see it at this distance surely said one thing – it was devastating. The blast was so huge that the sunlight in that region became black and the darkness began to stretch out, as if it were a spilled ink on God’s beautiful portrait. It destroyed it completely. And we all just stand here, unable to do anything. Helpless. I think I was just as afraid as Dana who has yet to stop crying. No, I was worse. I felt numb and lifeless as if the fact of me being helpless consumed me so much that I wished I were dead. My chest is beating so rapidly, but my heart is no longer there. I can hear nothing, say nothing… feel nothing.
Jefferey pulled Dana off of my shoulder and ran towards the elevator. Auron, who stood before me, turns around and said something to me as he walked passed me. I remained there looking at the explosion and the land around it. I feel drained inside, but not tired. Like I had no more fight left. So much destruction and death has infected the world more than ever in the last twenty-four hours. “God, why?” is all I could think to myself.
Everything around me begins to happen so fast and I wasn’t a part of it. Every second, every minute was just a blur. I see everything move around me, but I’m in slow motion. From the elevator ride down to somehow going into the surveillance room, I find myself leaning against the wall as my chest continues pumping at a high speed. Everyone is looking around the room at each other just as we did last night. Shane stands in front of me looking into my eyes and moving his lips. But, for some reason I can’t seem to hear him, nor do I care to. He oddly waves his large Caucasian palms from side to side before my face. It wasn’t until he grabbed my shoulders and shook me did I hear the words, “Snap out of it!”
Coming back to reality, I inhale deeply and exhale heavily, slowing down the beating in my chest. “Alright.” I tell Shane as I remove his hands from my shoulders. “What was that?” I asked the room of sad face people. “What was that explosion?” I repeated because they didn’t answer, or maybe they didn’t answer quickly enough for me.
“It was Russia. They dropped a Hydrogen bomb on the capital,” Shane said.
James, who was sitting in the same computer chair as when I last saw him earlier, spins around in the chair and says, “Not just the capitol, but the state of New York, too.”
“But what about nuclear deterrents and military counter measures, how’d they get through?” I asked.
“Remember it was just reported thirty nine percent of all U.S. forces had disappeared in the Croatoan... I mean, the Rapture,” Bazz interjected, sitting on the table with the monitors directly behind Shane.
I bend my knees and slide down the wall into a sitting position, grabbing my knees that are in front of me. “If the whole world is suffering the same way, how hard is it to realize we need to come together?”
“Together?” Aurons says. “The world was at each other’s throats when things were peaceful compared to now. How can there be any reconciliation now?” he asks but seeks no answer. “These are perilous times, need I remind you?”
“Auron, I need to ask you, is this part of God’s plan, the nuke I mean?” Jefferey asked aloud.
“Yes, but I believe there’s more to it,” Auron answered.
Jefferey’s eyebrows rise, I guess from Auron’s extra statement to his question. “What do you mean more to it?” Jefferey asked.
“Of course, it’s biblically written that the stars will fall to the Earth, bombs fell, the sun will turn black and the sky has been black in that direction for a whole day now.”
“A whole day!?” I burst out with a surprised tone. The room looks at me startled. “A whole day passed?” I ask again.
“Yeah, today is May the 15th; you were pretty much just around here like a zombie since then. We were all hoping it was just a phase you were going through,” Shane says to me. I couldn’t believe it, a whole day passed. I was obviously more out of it than I thought. “I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”
“No, it’s okay, Shane. But, Auron, continue on about what you were saying,” I said.
“Right, all these things have come true that were written in the book of Revelations. But what seems extra is the fact that it seems like another act by secret societies,” Auron said with a peculiar certainty in his voice.
“You’d think we weren’t still dealing with that type of issue,” Bazz says to us, lying down in the middle of the floor staring up at the ceiling.
“What changed that would make them stop?” Auron asked him.
“So what you’re saying issss…?” I asked Auon.
“What I’m saying is that even though everything was prophesied long ago things are going according to God’s will now. There’s just another tool in which he chooses to use as well, and they’re the ones.” Auron explains.
“Not to say I don’t believe it, but it’s kinda ironic a basic group of devil worshippers are being used to carry out God’s plans,” Bazz says.
“Wait, shouldn’t we tell Dana and Julie about the whole take-over-the-world thing?” I ask the others while looking at Dana who stands next to me with crossed arms.
“They’ve already been brought up to speed while you were …well, you know,” Jefferey answered me.
“While your mind was gone is what he means, Soldier Boy.” Jessie busts out in his usual personality as he sits next to the monitors on the table.
“We vaguely understand, but we understand enough, I guess,” Dana says looking at Julie, who in return nods her head.
“Why do you think they had a part to play in what’s going on?” I ask looking directly at Auron.
“Well, you asked the question yesterday during the open press conference. The nation has morally, ethically and in every way possible fallen apart. And at a time like this, isn
’t it only proper for the president to address the nation to uplift the distressed of the nation? Where was he when the Russians attacked? Safely tucked away I suppose?” Auron asks questions targeting answers that we couldn’t give him. But it opened our eyes instead.
“So, what you’re getting at is the president knew what was going to happen and set his vice president up for sacrifice while he disappeared?” I ask Auron.
“Precisely! Though he didn’t disappear, two hours later the president surfaced and did another press conference somewhere out west. But, where exactly they won’t say, security issues probably.”
“What makes you think west?” I ask Auron. “Because they did the conference outside, and in the background I saw mountains. And seeing as how Russia pretty much eradicated the majority of the east coast there isn’t many directions to go, now is there?”
“So, the mountains, huh? Isn’t it also written, and the kings of the Earth, great men and rich men, chief and captains hid themselves in dens and in the rocks of the mountains?” I said trying to paraphrase the best I could.
“Yes, it is,” he replies looking at me in the most peculiar way with a smirk almost saying he was happy I knew that verse.
“So, why are they doing this, I mean, total world domination I understand, but why tear it down?” Julie asked.
“Despite their methods their goals are still in place,” Auron says.
“Now that I come to think about it, this is the blueprint to their long anticipated New World Order. Destroy and rebuild, right?” Bazz asks.
Auron nods in response.
“They blew up the capitol so could that really create a difference?” I asked.
“I forgot how much you missed in that day, Thomas,” Shane said. “You see, it wasn’t just one bomb, it was two.”
“Two?” I asked almost in disbelief.
“Yeah, the first one landed in D.C. destroying the white house, house of congress and the U.S. treasury. The other went off in New York, directly above the world trade. Our whole economy infrastructure is pretty much wiped out. Of course we retaliated with nuclear strikes in Russia and China. Where exactly we’re trying to find out, but I’m pretty sure it tore their economy down as well,” Shane says with a glowing red face.
