by John Hunt
“I do indeed, Bob Thacker. Time for you to start catching up. Never too old to start learning.”
“We should’ve got some chickens,” said Bob in a morose tone, a few evenings later – he’d stopped whittling wood and was reading Swiss Family Robinson. I think it might have been the first book he’d ever read. Looked like he hadn’t got far into it yet, judging by the way the book folded.
“I’ve never seen a real live chicken,” Sue interrupted. “They’ve got feathers? Like birds?”
“They are birds, Sue,” replied Louise. “Domesticated fowl. Easier to keep your meat alive and kicking than have to hunt for it and keep it fresh when it’s dead.”
“Why do they give us their eggs?”
“We’ve bred them to do so over centuries, selecting the ones that lay.”
“I don’t know where they’re kept around here, if they are?” added Bess.
“We can find some next year,” said Mom.
“Be too late by then, can’t see any surviving the winter,” replied Bob. “It says here how you can catch wild ones.”
And, an hour or so later. “We should’ve got pigs, too. And a cow. That’s what they did.”
“Why don’t we go and rescue a cow,” asked Bess.
“They’re probably all dead now,” he replied. “Haven’t been fed for months – then there’s dogs, wolves, bears…”
“Bob, you’re so negative,” Bess grumbled.
“We should’ve got our own dogs, too. They’d help keep bears away.”
There was another few moments silence.
“Louise, what are you reading?” asked Sue.
“Pilgrim’s Progress.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a kind of novel, a story, written by John Bunyan, in the seventeenth century. For most English speaking people afterwards, for a long time, it was second only to the Bible. They lived their lives by it.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s not read much nowadays, but it used to be important.”
“Why not read a modern novel?” Dad asked.
“Good question. Somehow, they don’t seem to me so relevant any more. The world they describe’s gone, whereas this is as much about the next world as this one. And the themes are more universal, the bigger stuff – survival, salvation, faith.”
“Why did he write it?” asked Sue.
Louise hesitated. “Bunyan was in jail four hundred years ago, because of what he believed. People like him, the Pilgrim Fathers, they invaded this country. Everyone here used to read this book. It’s about what to do in life, what your priorities are, who you are, where you want to be, where you’re going. I wish they’d stayed at home, but I still find it inspiring. It lifts me out from where we are now, shows me a different, maybe better kind of way, even if I can’t believe in all of it, in the details.”
“Can you read me some?”
“Well, here’s the first sentence, from chapter one, if you want it.”
“As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep.”
“That’s us, isn’t it? We’re in a wilderness, and here’s our den.”
“Well, yes, but the language and the events aren’t something you’d recognize, it’s allegorical.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a way of expressing an idea, by shaping it as an event or a story. For instance, he talks about life as a journey. It’s a journey of faith, along a path, like up a mountain. The path might be steep, and you stumble and fall, but faith, belief, perseverance, that will keep you going till you get to the top.”
“Are we on a path?”
“I think we all are, dear, whether we realize it or not. And in a way, I think we’ve just started on our journey here, like he did when he left his home town.”
“Could I read it?”
Louise hesitated. “Of course you could, but the language is a bit difficult, it’s like the language we spoke in America four hundred years ago. It’s not quite the same as today. Perhaps I could read it with you, to help you out.”
“I’d like that,” said Sue.
“You lot are mental,” muttered Bob. “Tough enough to figure out what’s happening in this world here and now, just outside your door. Why bother inventing different ones?”
Something worried me about the conversation.
“What are we going to read when we’ve read all our books?”
“It’s been worrying me, Jim,” Dad replied, looking somber. “I know a bit, but it’s mostly theory. I’ve never built a generator, or a turbine, for instance. That’s what we’re going to need next year. It’s going to be difficult doing it by trial and error.”
“We’ll have to get back to Anchorage, sometime,” Louise added. “Fight our way in, if we have to. A set of Encyclopedia Britannica alone would be like gold dust.”
“If there are any books left there,” Dad responded. “Anyway, I’m bone tired. See you all in the morning. We should all help to finish off those berries tomorrow, before they go off. But well done guys, I think we’ve done a good job here. Mary, ready for bed?”
Mom got to her feet. “Goodnight all.”
We took our turns in the bathroom. Jessie and I walked over to our place through a light rain, the wind whispering in the trees, arms around each other, kissing all the way. The sleeping bags had been turned inside out to air, she zipped them back together, a double sheet inside, blankets on top. We didn’t need a fire.
THIRTY-FOUR
“Societies usually failed not because of the problems they couldn’t deal with, but the ones they didn’t anticipate,” I remember Louise saying in class. And she was right. Our first difficulty, a foretaste of problems to come later, came from an unexpected quarter.
It was a few days later. Bob was out checking his traps. He had a few dozen around in a five-mile radius and usually managed to bring something back for the pot. Matthew and Sue were out foraging for mushrooms, berries and greens. Jessie had the sharpest hearing. She straightened up. “Listen,” she said. “Can you hear it?”
By now I’d picked it up, the sound of an engine, the first one we’d heard, apart from our own, since the Event. We dropped our tools, I picked up my rifle and we ran up to the fence. An old Land Rover was coming along the track, looked like it should have been in a museum, apart from the dirt.
Dad opened the gate, we went out and met the driver as he was stepping out of the cab. He was in his twenties, stick-thin, slight, ravaged face, already balding, a goatee beard, unarmed. He leaned heavily on a stick as he hobbled toward us carrying a basket.
“Hello there,” he called. “My name’s Paul. So nice to meet you.”
We introduced ourselves. “I’m Donald, this is Mary, my wife, Louise Maclaren, Jim, my son, Jessie and Bess.”
“I’m on a mission to the Kenai peninsula,” he said. “I’d heard on the radio that you were in these parts, thought I’d come along and see if I could encourage you to join us.”
“A mission? What kind of a mission?” asked Dad.
“To bring people back to the faith,” he replied.
“Which faith?”
“The true faith. Believing in God, the only, one, God. Following His commandments in the Bible. We’ve ignored them for too long and that’s why this judgement has come on us. I’d like to explain it better, if you have a bit of time to spare.”
Dad hesitated. “I don’t think this is for us,” he replied. “I think it’s best if you move on.”
“Do you speak for everyone? We’re a democratic society, aren’t we? I’ve come all the way from Fairbanks. I’ve brought you some fruit here, as a goodwill gesture.” He handed over the basket, it was full of figs, dates, raisins, some scrawny apples. My mouth started watering. “Won’t you give me the chance to explain what I’m talking about? We’re a large group, we could help you. You won’t survive here for long by yourselv
es.”
“In all the time we’ve been here, Donald,” Mom intervened, “this is the first visitor we’ve had. Let’s not turn him away like that. Besides, I’m very partial to figs. That’s very generous of you, Paul.”
“OK,” Dad allowed, “as you’ve come this far. Have you had much luck yet, in your mission?” he asked as we walked over to the lodge.
“We’ve set up a number of groups along Highway 3,” Paul replied, as he limped along. “But Anchorage is a terrible place. A Sodom and Gomorrah. A den of sin and evil. The inmates have taken over the jail and they run the town from there. It’s like a fortress. It used to keep people in, now it keeps them out.”
“Might have been one of those guys we saw on the rooftop,” muttered Dad.
“They capture people from the street, lock them in cells, there are bad rumors about what goes on there,” Paul added. “I tried to appeal to them to let me through the prison gates, they said “go away, you’re too scrawny to eat.” Though their language was less polite than that. I appealed to their better natures, to let some light in. They started shooting at me. I took a ricochet in the arm.”
“You poor man. Here, let me look at that,” Mom offered, waiting as he rolled up his sleeve for her to see. Examining it carefully, she nodded. “It’s infected a little. Come with me, I’ll deal with it. We picked up some things in Anchorage that could help.”
“So what’s your story?” asked Dad, as Mom cleaned and patched the wound.
“I used to be an unbeliever, like you,” he started, placing a Bible in front of him. “I lived in darkness, dedicated to the sins of the flesh – to sex, alcohol, heroin. When the Event happened, the lights in the sky overpowered me, went right through me. The Lord spoke to me, telling me to turn away from my path to destruction, back to Him. He directed me to Calvary Chapel. There was a joyful service going on, hands raised in the air in worship.”
He paused, his eyes distant. “I’ve never felt anything like it. I was overwhelmed by feelings of love and peace. This was the true life, the real life, rather than the dark shadows I’d been living in. There’s nothing like it on earth, talking with God, knowing him as a Father…” He looked around us all. “Later that evening, Pastor Elizabeth prayed over me, anointing me with the Holy Spirit. Since then I’ve been baptized, and given a new name. I felt washed clean, saved by the blood of the Lamb. I was a new person, born again. I know that’s hackneyed, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it. I dedicated myself to spreading the word, to bringing sheep into the fold before this world ends. I’m here to ask you to come with me on this journey. To implore you. This life is not about scratching a living from rocks as the darkness gathers around us. The lights showed a glorious future that’s there for us in the presence of God.”
“But I haven’t been a heroin addict,” Dad said. “Maybe I don’t need saving as much as you did.”
“The Bible says, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Here,” he opened his Bible, “it’s in Romans 3.”
“But why should we believe the Bible?” asked Louise. “It’s a collection of old documents, no one knows who wrote them – centuries after the events, which took place in the Stone Age, somewhere on the other side of the world.”
“Because these words have power. They’re God’s words. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…2 Timothy 3.”
“But how did Paul know that?” Louise asked levelly. “And which scripture was he referring to? The gospels hadn’t been written when Paul sent that letter to Timothy. So what’s scripture, exactly?”
“It’s true, because it says it is?” added Dad.
“All Scripture is God’s Word, Louise,” Paul replied, holding up his Bible reverently. “It’s quite simple. God loves you and has a plan for you. God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. We are sinful, and separated from God. God sent Jesus to reconcile us to Him. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We are saved by His sacrifice. All we have to do is believe it, and turn from our sins – repent.”
“So my ancestors, going back ten thousand years here, and the hundreds of generations before them, they’re not saved because they weren’t in the right time and place when this unknown guy appears in the Middle East, a couple of thousand years ago?”
“I need a break,” Dad interrupted. “Let’s get some food. I can hear Matthew and Sue coming back. You’re welcome to eat with us, and then we’ll carry on.”
We should have paid him more attention, in the light of what happened later. We should have taken him more seriously, been more worried. It’s odd, thinking back to that visit; the fundamentalists believed the Bible explained what was going to happen. Dad thought it was down to us to make things happen. And he didn’t like the direction we’d ended up following – the old ways…but at least if you looked at the birds and the animals, you knew when winter was coming, when spring was arriving, and then it was a short step to reading signs into how they acted, interpreting their behavior, their entrails. But the fundamentalists had convictions from their sacred words of scripture that it was hard to match. Nature was less certain. We respected life, whereas for the believers this life didn’t matter. They had no compulsions about taking it, torturing it. And so they nearly defeated us.
THIRTY-FIVE
“Let’s start again. Do you believe God sent the superstorm?” asked Louise, as we started tucking into a venison stew, packed with mushrooms and greens that Matthew and Sue had picked.
“Of course He did. The sun didn’t explode by accident. He controls the sun, the stars, the universe, holding it in His hands. He sent the flares to give everyone a last chance to turn back to Him. The clock’s ticking down. The Bible already warns us, Luke 21:25-28– And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. What could be clearer? The end times are here. The last day is coming. Do not be blind to the signs. As prophesied by Daniel, we are in the times of tribulation, the seven years of grace that God gave us, to enable us to repent, to turn to him. Read Revelation 6, you have a Bible here? I can leave this one with you. Look here,” he turned the pages, Before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. Do you not see this happening now?”
“So all those people who’ve died,” asked Mom, “that was His doing?”
“It’s because we rejected Him, and brought it on ourselves. We’ve turned away from His laws.”
“I’m sorry,” said Matthew, “but I can’t see how bombing us back to the Stone Age with solar flares is going to turn us all into believers.”
“But don’t you see? The greater our suffering, the more likely our repentance. The more we lose, the greater our gain. Of course, the workings of God are a mystery beyond us mortals, but perhaps He’s put us into the position of the Israelites in the wilderness. We’d turned away from him, living for idols, for gold. We believed in ourselves, in our own strength. He has brought us to our knees, so we can be raised up again. To the thirsty God will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.”
“You mention laws,” said Dad. “You mean the ten commandments?”
“All of them, they’re all scripture.”
“But there are hundreds of laws in the Old Testament,” said Louise. “So eating rabbit, or pork, for instance, makes you unclean?”
“Of course, even pagan Muslims and Hindus know that. The fact that we still do eat it, when we’re meant to be a Christian country, just goes to show how far we’ve fallen from grace.”
Louise hesitated, and then
spoke, clearly enunciating the words. “How about, If your brother, or son, or daughter, entice you, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, thou must surely kill him, stone him with stones, that he die. You really believe we should do that?”
“I don’t know that one.”
“It’s Deuteronomy 13.”
“I see you know your Bible, Louise,” said Paul, his face hardening.
“I don’t know all of it,” Louise replied, quietly. “But that one is personal to me. My mother told me that my grandfather quoted it to her mother when he threw her out. He’d made his money, he’d got saved, and he didn’t want reminders of his old life around. She was too ashamed to go back to her own people, and she died that winter. There was no help for a cast-off squaw. So he didn’t stone her, but he killed her, sure enough. So I do agree with you that words have power. But for evil as much as good. And much of the Bible seems evil to me.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. I looked at Louise open-mouthed in astonishment. Did people do that kind of thing?
Paul crossed himself. “There are harsh things in the Bible, certainly. That’s because it’s about the truth of things. And life is harsh. And Hell is a lake of fire. And the word of God does not change. In his infinite wisdom He has brought us back to Old Testament times, to give us a last chance. There’s no room for false gods, for other faiths. We’ve allowed them into our country, and that’s brought judgement down on us.”
“What about the New Testament – turn the other cheek?”
“Of course, individually we turn the other cheek, to give the aggressor the opportunity to repent. But vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and the day of vengeance has come.”
“Have you stoned anyone yet, in Fairbanks?” asked Dad, drily.
Paul hesitated. “No. We do our best to accommodate those who haven’t seen the light. But some who couldn’t follow the edicts of the Council have been expelled.”
“What’s the Council?”
“Fairbanks is a godly place,” said Paul. “Not like Anchorage. We’ve two hundred churches to support a population which was thirty thousand. It’s around half that now, but thanks be to God, our prayers meant that we’ve been far less devastated than other places. The churches came together to elect a Council. The Council rules the city, under God.”
