Persecution: God's Other Children. Book 2

by Rob Mclean

“How about we bring the car around to the front door?” She didn’t wait for a reply. She slipped out from under John’s arm and taking his hand, dragged him along behind her. She saw Zeke’s parents had been intercepted by some other parishioners. She sent her silent thanks heavenwards. She prayed that maybe Zeke’s parents would be held up talking long enough for them to escape.

  Striding as quickly as she could without drawing attention, she ushered John to his car and they had it parked out the front of the church in a matter of moments.

  She was sitting in the front seat, waiting and watching the front doors of the church, trying to decide if she should risk going back in to get her parents, when she saw the people that Zeke’s parents had been talking to coming out.

  She frowned; that settled it, they would have to wait outside, but John already had his door open and was getting out of the car.

  “Hey, where are you going?” she asked a little too briskly. She hoped she didn’t sound too worried.

  “To help your folks?” In spite of his defensiveness, he was nice enough to not add ‘of course.’

  “They’ll be okay.” She patted his driver’s seat and gave him what she hoped would be an alluring smile. “Come sit with me for a while.”

  He gave her a quick look that conveyed regret and a sense of duty. “Nah, I’d better give them a hand.” With that, he was out of the car and had come around to open her door.

  She clenched her fists into tight balls and felt her fingernails digging into the skin of her palms. The pounding in her neck filled her ears and made her throat feel clogged. ‘Oh God’ she said to herself while she drew in a few quick breaths. She hated to make a scene in public, especially at church. After the last time, when Zeke attacked the car, she had been dreading an encore performance, but it was more than that. As she thought about it more, she realized that she wanted to avoid a scene because it would force her to make a decision, to stop playing both sides and make a choice as to who she wanted to be with.

  She knew Zeke and all his shortcomings and despite that she could still see herself living happily enough as his wife, bearing his children and being the good Christian wife. It might mean that she would have to put some of her own dreams to one side and dutifully support Zeke in all his goals, but it would be a fair exchange for a good marriage, wouldn’t it?

  Before she could calm herself or decide what she should do next, John was holding her door open.

  “Coming with?” If he sensed any of her inner turmoil, his broad smile didn’t show it. She gave him a quick, brittle smile as she took a gulp of air and stepped out of the car.

  As they walked, hand in hand, up the steps to the front of the church, she suddenly saw herself in a white wedding dress, walking up the aisle, a red carpet lined with flowers, family and friends. Her wedding day. But as she looked across to John, she asked herself, ‘Could it be with him?’

  The trouble was that she didn’t know him anywhere well enough; certainly not enough to marry him. Sure, he seemed nice enough and easily good looking enough, but then, he would be trying to be nice in the first few weeks of a relationship. What she needed, she decided while holding John’s hand and climbing the steps, was time to get to know him better before she could decide if they could spend the rest of their lives together. So, as far as she was concerned, the longer Zeke stayed away sulking, the better she would get to know John. She could live with that.

  Once they passed through the front doors and into the church’s entrance foyer, her thoughts vanished when she saw Zeke’s parents. They were standing between her parents and the door. Mrs C had one hand on her hips with her elbow out wide, the other was hovering like a rattlesnake poised to strike. She was leaning in towards her parents, her neck jutting forward, making her point. Zeke’s father stood behind her and to one side with his arms folded. He was saying nothing, just nodding his support.

  Angela would have turned about quietly and snuck back out to the car, but John had her by her hand. He had seen the confrontation and was now dragging her into the midst of it.

  “My boy has not slept at all this last week.” Angela heard Mrs C say as they got nearer. Her voice was loud and strident. It carried across the hushed foyer where a small crowd politely pretended not to notice. “Not a wink. And he’s off his food. There wasn’t a lot of him to start with and now he’s literally fading away before our eyes.”

  Angela saw her mother hold up her hands in a placating gesture. She couldn’t hear what she said, but it had no effect on Mrs C.

  “It’s cruel, that’s what it is, to make my boy suffer like this.” She poked a purple fingernail at Clarice. “It isn’t right.”

  Angela cringed. She didn’t want to make anyone suffer, not even Zeke, not like this. He was supposed to be humble and contrite and make a good apology. Not selfishly sulk and punish her and everyone around him like this.

  Anger flared up in her mind. Part of her was satisfied, even gleeful, that he was now hurting. Justifiable, she reasoned, as he had ‘done unto her’ and now was reaping his reward.

  But any satisfaction she got was soured by the knowledge that he must be genuinely suffering. She knew that he was too self-centred to put himself through all this torment simply in the hope that it might make her feel bad.

  But it did make her feel bad; bad that he was hurting and bad that she had been revelling in it. To counter it, she shored up her defences on the moral high ground with vindication and self-righteousness, but it didn’t sit well with her. It would be easy to point her finger and condemn him, but she could see that it was not the Christian way. Part of her wept to know that Zeke must be hurting and that she had caused it.

  “Hello Mrs C,” Angela said, taking a deep breath as she stepped into the group.

  Carolyn Campbell spun around to face her and teetered on her tall heels. She wore black imitation leather tights with a loose draping top and a myriad of bangles and gold rings with a fortune of necklaces to match. Her hair was up in a stylish coif with wispy curls decoratively falling about her face. Her ever-present sunglasses were perched atop. “You! Don’t you ‘hello’ me. Have you any idea what you’ve done to our Zeke?”

  “No,” Angela said, quite truthfully. “Not until just now.”

  “I hope you’re satisfied with yourself.” Carolyn hissed.

  “Because he hasn’t called,” Angela continued, ignoring Carolyn’s venom. “For all I knew could have been out celebrating his new freedom.”

  Zeke’s father stepped closer. His clean crisp suit crinkled. “I understand that Zeke went to your house with the intention to make things right…” he glared at Angela’s father, “and you took a shot at him.”

  “Yes Gordon, that was unfortunate…” Geoffrey bowed his head and held up a bony hand.

  “Unfortunate?” You tell that to our lawyers,” Carolyn snapped. “You’ll be spending your last days in jail.”

  Both Clarice and Geoff started to protest, but were met with a verbal barrage from Zeke’s parents. Everyone else in the foyer had fallen silent and were now staring at them. Angela wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

  “Enough,” John said, cutting over the top of the quarrelling parents. He commandeered the wheelchair handgrips. “We’re outta here.”

  “Good idea,” Geoff said as he waved John on.

  Angela slipped her arm around her mother’s waist and started to usher her towards the door. Zeke’s parents stood aside as John used the wheelchair to clear a path. Their faces were hardened with anger. They were not used to being dismissed and ignored, especially in the middle of an argument.

  Angela’s family hadn’t got far before Carolyn found her voice. “Don’t think for a minute that this is over.”

  John waved them goodbye with one hand without stopping or turning to face them.

  “And you,” Carolyn directed her ire at John. “You incredibly stupid young man…”

  John stopped. His fists tightened on the wheelchair.

  “
Come along now,” Clarice urged.

  “Stupid, stupid fool,” Carolyn’s taunting voice sliced through the hushed atmosphere.

  Angela turned around and saw the lipstick glistening as a malicious smile twisted on Mrs C’s lips. Angela inwardly groaned as John turned around. His face was a mixture of anger and confusion.

  The smile broadened across Carolyn’s face when she saw that her taunts had hit the mark. She stepped closer, her eyes trolled slowly over John’s body, deliberately slowly. She gave John a leery approving grin that her husband, standing behind her couldn’t see. “She chose you well, didn’t she?”

  “Chose?” Confusion won out over anger on John’s face.

  “You deliciously stupid man,” Carolyn laughed and shook her head with mock pity. Her theatrics echoed around the hushed onlookers. “You don’t see it do you?”

  “See what?” John asked. His anger had returned, but Angela knew the instant he asked the question, that she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “That she is using you.” Carolyn spelt it out for John with a smug smile on her face. It disappeared when she turned to Angela, transformed into a glaring accusation. Her jewellery clanged as she thrust her arm at Angela.

  “No!” Angela cried, pushing the accusing finger away. “It’s not like that,” she added, but to her, the denial sounded hollow. Guilt robbed it of any conviction.

  “Really? So just what are your intentions?” Carolyn savoured the question with a predatory relish. “You might play around with him up on stage, in front of everyone, putting on a big show, but Chelsea tells me that he’s not a Christian. You can’t really be serious about him, can you?” Carolyn eyes slid to Angela’s parents. They were met with a terse frown. “You’re just toying with him, using him to make our Zeke jealous, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for a reply, she took Angela’s stunned silence as an opportunity to press her advantage.

  Geoff tugged at John’s T-shirt. “Time to go before it gets ugly.”

  Carolyn’s expression softened as if to belie Geoff’s warning. “Perhaps, you’re worried about having never been with anyone besides our Zeke. Maybe you think you should get some experience…” She put a subtle emphasis on the word, but managed to make it sound so disgustingly sordid that Angela felt her face burning. “…to satisfy your curiosity about what it would be like to be with another man before you settle down. Maybe you think that’s what you need to be a good wife?”

  “No, it’s not like that. We have a chastity vow.” Angela felt her fists clenching involuntarily.

  “Oh yes, that.” Carolyn gave her a sad, pitying frown. “We all know how regularly you used to front up every weekend for special time with Zeke, how eagerly you’d skip up to his room.” Carolyn bent forward and in a loud mock whisper, said, “I know. I’m his mother. I wash his sheets.”

  Hot tears swelled up, blurring her vision. She stared at this vicious stranger, who was once going to be her mother-in-law. Funny, she thought, how through the haze of her tears, she now saw this woman more clearly.

  John’s bulk obscured her vision as he stepped between them. “Your nice little boy drugged her and left her at the night-club.” he growled.

  “But our lawyers tell us that he was only helping his girlfriend when he was interrupted, assaulted and thrown out,” she smiled. “But as that too will be before the courts soon, I’m advised not to talk about it, especially with the alleged defendant.”

  John opened his mouth to reply, but stopped. An internal debate played out across his face before his features hardened. He spun about, grabbed a wheelchair handle with one hand and gathered up Angela with the other. He then strode towards the door forcibly dragging Angela along. People leapt back to make way for him.

  “Try to keep up Clarice,” Geoff called back over his shoulder.

  Angela looked back for her mother as she was being led out the door by John, his mood fuelling his speed. Amid the multitude of gawking parishioners, she caught a brief glimpse of her mother and Carolyn exchanging wary looks.

  Chapter 8

  Through delirious moments of semi-consciousness, Akil’s mind drifted. Snatches of dream-like memories and voices wafted past like plastic bags floating in the breeze.

  As a boy, playing a thirsty game of football with his brother and their friends in the parched alleyway behind the markets. The ball leaving dusty dirt marks on the laundry strung across the laneway. The washer-woman yelling out of her window, as she always did when they played in the alley – didn’t she understand that there was nowhere else to play? In his delirious state, his memory of her turned into the U.N. doctor waving her clipboard.

  Running away, laughing, his brother and the other rascally boys disappeared down the alleyway. They would return to risk the washer-woman and play again tomorrow, but now, as he ran, he noticed his feet hurt. Sharp jabbing pains stabbed into the soles of his feet made him stop. Sharp broken bricks and unyielding lacerating fragments of concrete lay before him. The alleyway was gone and he stood amid the ruined city. His brother, his friends and all the millions of other souls in the city were all gone. Instead, he found himself in a vast plain of rubble.

  A small, mangy dog, its hair falling out exposing raw red welts, snuffled around his outstretched hand. It licked blood and sweat from him. It looked as thirsty as he felt. He didn’t have the energy to shoo it away and he wondered how long it would be before it gnawed his hand off.

  Above the sun bore down on him with unrelenting fury, reminding him how thirsty he had always been; for as long as he could remember hadn’t he always had an unrelenting thirst? Behind him his bloody footprints were drying into a path of dark crimson stains extending back as far as he could see. Flies frantically buzzed about the edges of the bloody footprints nearest to him, like camels drinking from a waterhole before it dried out. It wouldn’t be long before they would be drinking straight from him.

  In the far distance the flies took the form of black helicopters hovering over the carcass of the city. But the helicopters were too far away and there was nothing near enough to be of any help. With a crushing thirst and an aching body his mind returned to the world of pain and desolation. He would have wept if he had any fluid left in his parched body. Instead he croaked a prayer out to God and closed his eyes.

  The sun went out. The burning brilliance replaced by a cooler darkness that, in his current state, felt almost as refreshing as one of the rare times he had snuck into one of the big luxurious hotels the Westerners stayed in.

  The sick dog had scampered away and Akil felt he probably should do so too, if he had the energy.

  He felt a smooth hand brush the hair from his face. He opened his eyes to see the envoy’s unblemished face floating above him. Behind him, his transporter vessel blotted out the sun, its edges outlined with a fiery halo of sunlight.

  “Am I dreaming?” Akil asked, his voice a barely audible croak.

  ‘Be at peace, friend,’ the envoys serene features and wise, compassionate eyes put the words straight into Akil’s mind. ‘Save your strength.’

  The envoy scooped Akil up in his arm. He stood and turned, carrying Akil a few steps. The effort involved didn’t disturb his composure. Akil felt his body lift. His head flopped backwards and an arm fell loose, dangled and swayed. The ground receded as the hover-disc floated upwards. The horizon opened up before him, revealing the extent of the devastation beyond the shadow of the envoy’s vessel.

  Through the smoke haze and sun glare, protruding like silent sentinels, the Great Pyramids stood resolute. A weak grin cracked Akil’s dry lips. The massive stone monoliths had survived the atomic maelstrom. They appeared no different from this distance, maybe their edges weren’t as sharp as they used to be, but the fact that they were still there gladdened him.

  Then, as Akil squinted, he saw that the Sphinx was gone. Only a mound of rubble was left where he knew the ancient sculpture had one stood. He felt as though a piece of his nation’s soul had perished. He tore his eyes away fr
om the scene of desecration.

  “Am I dead?”

  ‘No.’ The envoy answered while staring out into the distance.

  “But I am going to die, aren’t I?”

  The envoy took his eyes off the horizon to answer Akil’s concern. “We can’t let that happen,” the envoy said as a quick grin flickered across his face. When he read the confusion and relief on Akil’s face, “My friend, we can’t let you die.”

  “No?”

  “That would not do.” The Envoy returned his gaze skywards, towards the floating transporter as they approached, ‘for you must know that you are famous in more than eight-five thousand star systems.’

  Chapter 9

  The American girl, Michelle Mae Cheong, had been put back into the general prison population. She had been issued with a newer set of overalls and shoes, donated from some less fortunate inmate who no longer needed any worldly possessions. Her last ones had been stained beyond redemption from the fetid black waters of her coal mine isolation cell.

  As Captain Lau watched her from one of the observation posts, she showed no signs of permanent damage from her ordeal. If anything, one could be convinced that there was almost a deferential respect that the other prisoners now showed her in their body language and the protective way they sat around her. The Captain could imagine that they thought her special in some way that she had survived the isolation cells. Very few came out from there unchanged.

  Indeed she was a special individual, especially to her in ways that she couldn’t understand or liked to admit. It was a weakness on her behalf she knew, but one that she excused by the futility of not only the girl’s position, but that of all believers in the delusions brought about by all religions. The Captain further justified her leniency by reasoning that she was experimenting with a different method of persuasion. There was never any chance that the girl would emerge from this place without an altered perspective, one that was wholly sanctioned by the glorious state, either through her gentler new technique or by the more traditional brutal methods.