by Tim LaHaye
Before unlocking the door, Chaim demanded that Buck double- and triple-check that he was not accidentally bringing a locust in with him. Buck found Chaim still shrouded in the beekeeper getup and wielding the cricket bat. After demanding to know Jonas was still alive, Chaim grabbed Buck’s arm and dragged him to the window. Angry locusts, trapped between glass and screen, were front and center, ready for study. Buck knew that any unbeliever on the street had already suffered Jonas’s fate and that it couldn’t be long before the locusts would begin finding their way into homes and apartments. This was going to be the worst horror yet.
CHAPTER 17
Rayford grabbed Ernie by the collar and pulled him close, feeling the rage of a parent against a threat to his family.
“So you’re an impostor, hey, Ernie?”
Rather than fighting, Ernie tried to hold his hat on with both hands. Rayford let go of his collar and drove his hand directly under the bill of the cap. Ernie flinched, obviously thinking he was about to take an uppercut to the nose, and released his grip just enough so Rayford sent his cap flying.
No wonder Ernie’s mark had appeared so prominent. He had refreshed it with whatever he had used to create it in the first place. “You’d fake the mark, Ernie? The mark of the sealed of the Lord? That takes guts.”
Ernie paled and tried to pull away, but Rayford grabbed the back of his neck and with his free hand pressed his thumb against Ernie’s bogus mark. The smudge rubbed off. “You must have studied Tsion’s teaching really well to replicate a mark you’ve never seen.”
“What the heck is that?” Bo asked, seeming frozen to his spot.
“He faked the mark of—”
“I know all about that,” Bo said, his eyes wide with fear. He pointed past Rayford. “I mean that!”
Rayford looked into the distance where the cloud of smoke was turning into a swarming wave of locusts. Even from a few hundred yards, they looked huge. And what a racket!
“I hate to tell you this, gentlemen, but you’re in big trouble.”
“Why?” Bo cried. “What is it?”
“One of your last warnings. Or another trick by the fundamentalists. You decide.”
“Do what you want, Bo!” Ernie said. “I’m gettin’ outta here!”
He lit out for the tower, which apparently appealed to Bo too. When Ernie had trouble opening the door, Bo skidded into him, plastering him against it. They both went down, Ernie holding his knee and whimpering.
“Get up and get in there, you sissy,” Bo said.
“Yeah, well, so are you, you big sissy boy! Sissy boy Bo!”
Bo yanked the door open, and it banged Ernie’s head. He swore and spun on his seat and kicked it shut as Bo was trying to get in. Bo dropped to one knee, sucking his slammed fingernail, and Ernie jumped up and stepped over him into the safety of the tower.
Rayford arrived at the door and tried to help Bo up, but Bo wrenched away. The locusts swarmed Bo. He kicked and screamed and ran in circles, and when Ernie opened the door to taunt him and laugh at him, he too was attacked. The black man who had been in the car with Bo appeared in the doorway, staring in horror at the suffering man and boy.
He shook his head slowly and looked up at Rayford. They noticed each other’s marks immediately, and Rayford knew his was genuine because the locusts left him alone.
Rayford helped him fight off the locusts and haul the two onto a landing at the bottom of the stairs. As Bo and Ernie shook and swelled and fought for breath, Rayford accepted the man’s handshake.
“T. M. Delanty,” he said. “I go by T.”
“Rayf—”
“I know who you are, Captain. Ken told me all about you.”
“Sorry to sound rude,” Rayford said, “but it’s odd he never mentioned you.” Odder still, Rayford thought, was their getting acquainted with two suffering victims at their feet.
“I asked him not to. It’s great to know he was what I thought he was—a man of his word.”
Rayford wanted to talk with T, but he felt obligated to do something for Bo and Ernie. “Anyplace we can put these guys?”
T nodded to a reception area with couches and chairs but otherwise empty. “I understand they’re not going to die, but they’re going to wish they could?”
Rayford nodded. “You study, do you?”
“I’m in Tsion’s cyberclass, like pretty much every other believer in the world.”
“I’d better check on Tsion and the others,” Rayford said, pulling out his phone.
Chloe answered. “Oh, Dad! It’s horrible! Hattie’s already been attacked.” Rayford heard her screaming in the background.
“Can Doc help?”
“He’s trying, but she’s cursing God and already wants to die. Tsion says this is just the beginning. He believes she’ll be in torment for five months. By then we’re going to want to put her out of her misery ourselves.”
“We can pray she’ll become a believer before that.”
“Yeah, but Tsion doesn’t think that guarantees instant relief.”
That sounded strange to Rayford. He would have to ask Tsion about that later. “Everybody else all right?”
“Think so. I’m waiting to hear from Buck.”
Buck was surprised to learn he had more capacity for revulsion. As he and Chaim knelt by the window, their faces inches from the locusts, he saw Scripture come to life. He couldn’t imagine an uglier, more nauseating sight than the creatures before him. Tsion taught that these were not part of the animal kingdom at all, but demons taking the form of organisms.
As he took in their unique characteristics, he felt for Chaim. They both knew his protective covering would not save him in the end. These things were here to attack him, and time was on their side. They would find a way in, and when that happened, they would show no mercy.
“Good heavens, look at them!” Chaim said.
Buck could only shake his head. Contrasted with the beauty of God’s creation, these mongrels were clearly from the pit. Their bodies were shaped like miniature horses armed for war. They had wings like flying grasshoppers. When one alighted on the window, Buck edged closer.
“Chaim,” Buck said, his own voice sounding distant and fearful, “do you have a magnifying glass?”
“You want a closer look? I can hardly stand to peek at them!”
“They look like horses, but they don’t have snouts and mouths like horses’.”
“I have a very powerful magnifier in my office, but I’m not leaving this room.”
Buck ran off and got it from the study near Chaim’s bedroom. But as he dashed back he heard a dreadful, inhuman howl and the bumps and bangs of someone thrashing on the floor. The someone, of course, was Chaim Rosenzweig, and the howl was human after all.
One of the locusts had found a way in and had locked itself onto Chaim’s wrist, between his glove and sleeve. The old man lay jerking as if in the throes of a seizure, wailing and crying as he slammed his hand on the ground, trying to dislodge the brute.
“Get it off me!” he bellowed. “Please, Cameron, please! I’m dying!”
Buck grabbed the thing, but it seemed stuck as if by suction. It felt like an amalgam of metal, spiny protrusions, and insect slime. He dug his fingers between its abdomen and Chaim’s wrist and yanked. The locust popped free, twisted in his hand, and tried stinging him from one end and biting him from the other.
Though it had no effect on him, Buck instinctively threw it against the wall so hard it dented the plaster and rattled noisily to the floor.
“Is it dead?” Chaim cried. “Tell me it’s dead!”
“I don’t know that we can kill them,” Buck said. “But I stunned a couple of other ones, and this one is immobile right now.”
“Smash it,” Chaim insisted. “Stomp on it! Smack it with the bat!” He rolled to his side in convulsions. Buck wanted to help him, but Tsion had been clear that he found in the Scriptures no mention of relief to the victims of a sting.
The magnifying g
lass lay on the floor a few feet from the unmoving locust. Keeping an eye on the creature, Buck held the glass over it, illuminated by the chandelier directly above. He nearly vomited at the magnified ugliness.
It lay on its side, appearing to regroup. The four horselike legs supported a horse-shaped body consisting of a two-part abdomen. First was a preabdomen in the torso area made up of seven segments and draped by a metallic breastplate that accounted for the noise when it flew. The posterior consisted of five segments and led to the scorpionlike stinger tail, nearly transparent. Buck could see the sloshing venom.
Its eyes were open and seemed to glare at Buck. In a strange way, that made sense. If Tsion was right and these were demons, they were madly conflicted beings. They would want to kill believers, but they were under instructions from God to torment only unbelievers. What Satan meant for evil, God was using for good.
Buck held his breath as he moved the glass and his own face closer to the locust. He had never seen a head like that on any living thing. The face looked like that of a man, but as it writhed and grimaced and scowled at Buck, it displayed a set of teeth way out of proportion. They were the teeth of a lion with long canines, the upper pair extending over the lower lip. Most incongruous, the locust had long, flowing hair like a woman’s, spilling out from under what appeared to be a combination helmet and crown, gold in color.
Though no larger than a man’s hand, the grossly overgrown combination insect, arthropod, and mammal appeared invincible. Buck was encouraged to know he could temporarily shock them with a hard blow, but he had neither killed nor apparently even injured any.
He had no idea how to toss the thing out of the house without letting in dozens more. Buck scanned the room and noticed a heavy vase holding a large plant. Chaim was already incoherent, crawling to the door. “Bed,” he said. “Water.”
Buck pulled the plant from the vase and laid it on the floor, muddy roots and all. He turned the vase over and set it atop the locust, which had just begun to move about again. Within a minute he heard the metallic whirring as it banged again and again against the inverted vase.
It tried to escape through a small hole in what had become the top of its makeshift prison, but it could only poke its head through. Buck staggered and nearly fell when it seemed to shout, as if crying for help. Over and over it repeated a phrase Buck could not understand.
“Do you hear that, Dr. Rosenzweig?” Buck asked.
Chaim lay by the door, panting. “I hear it,” he rasped, groaning, “but I don’t want to! Burn it, drown it, do something to it! But help me to bed and get me some water!”
The creature called out in a mournful keen what sounded to Buck like “A bad one! A bad one!”
“These things speak!” Buck told Chaim. “And I think it’s English!”
Rosenzweig shook as if the temperature had dropped below freezing. “Hebrew,” he said. “It’s calling out for Abaddon.”
“Of course!” Buck said. “Tsion told us about that! The king over these creatures is the chief demon of the bottomless pit, ruler over the fallen hordes of the abyss. In the Greek he has the name Apollyon.”
“Why do I care to know the name of the monster that killed me?” Rosenzweig said. He reached up for the doorknob but could not unlock the door with his gloves on. He shook them off but could no longer raise an arm.
Buck got him up, and as they lumbered out of the parlor, he looked back at the locust trying to squeeze out of the vase. It looked at him with such hatred and contempt that Buck nearly froze.
“Abaddon!” it called out, and the tiny but gravelly voice echoed in the hallway.
Buck kicked the parlor door shut and helped Chaim into his bedroom. There Buck peeled the rest of the beekeeper garb off Chaim and helped him lie back atop the covers on his bed. Convulsions racked him again, and Buck noticed swelling in his hands and neck and face. “C-c-could y-y-you g-g-g-et me some w-water, p-please!”
“It won’t help,” Buck said, but he got it anyway. Parched himself, he poured into a glass some from the bottle he found in the refrigerator and quenched his own thirst. He grabbed a clean glass and returned. He set the bottle and the glass on a stand next to the bed. Chaim appeared unconscious. He had rolled on his side, covering his ears with a pillow, as the haunting cries continued from the parlor.
“Abaddon! Abaddon! Abaddon!”
Buck laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Can you hear me, Chaim? Chaim?”
Rosenzweig pulled the pillow away from his ear. “Huh? What?”
“Don’t drink the water. It’s turned to blood.”
Rayford and T. M. Delanty stood outside the empty reception area at the base of the Palwaukee Airport tower, peering in at Bo and Ernie, who cursed each other as they writhed on the floor.
“Is there nothing we can do for them?” T asked.
Rayford shook his head. “I feel sorry for them and for anybody who has to endure this. If they had only listened! The message has been out there since before the Rapture. What’s their story, anyway? Ernie had me convinced he was a believer—had the mark and everything.”
“I was shocked to see him attacked,” T said, “but part of that had to have been my fault. For days he sounded interested, said Ken was urging him to log on and check out what Tsion Ben-Judah was teaching. He asked so many questions, especially about the mark, that between what he learned from Tsion and what Ken and I said about it, he was able to fake it.”
Rayford looked out. The sky was still filled with the locusts, but all but a few had moved away from the door. “I never thought about anyone being able to counterfeit the mark. I figured the mark, distinguishable only by another believer, was a foolproof test of who was with us and who wasn’t. What do we do now—try the smudge test on anybody who’s bearing the mark?”
“Nope,” T said. “Don’t have to.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re not testing my mark, are you? Why do you assume I’m legit?”
“Because you weren’t attacked.”
“Bingo. For the next ten months, that is our litmus test.”
“Where are you getting ten months?”
“You haven’t read Dr. Ben-Judah today?”
Rayford shook his head.
“He says the locusts have five months to find their prey and sting them and that the victims suffer for five months. He also believes, though he admitted it was just conjecture, that the locusts bite a person once, and then they move on.”
“Have you taken a look at these things?” Rayford said, studying one on the other side of the window.
“Do I want to?” T said, approaching. “I didn’t even like reading about them in Dr. Ben-Judah’s lessons. Oh, boy, look at that! That is one ugly monstrosity.”
“Be glad they’re on our side.”
“Talk about irony,” T said. “Ben-Judah says they’re demons.”
“Yeah, but they’re moonlighting for God for a while.”
Both men cocked their heads. “What’s that sound?” Rayford said. “Tsion said their flight would sound like horses and chariots riding into battle, but I hear something else.”
“Are they chanting?” T said.
They cracked the door an inch or so, and a locust tried to squeeze through. Rayford shut the door on it, and it squirmed and flailed. He released the pressure, and it flew back out. “That’s it!” Rayford said. “They’re chanting something.”
The men stood still. The cloud of locusts, on its way to fresh targets, called out in unison, “Apollyon, Apollyon, Apollyon!”
“Why would God do this to me?” Chaim whined. “What did I ever do to him? You know me, Cameron! I am not a bad man!”
“He did not do this, Dr. Rosenzweig. You did it to yourself.”
“What did I do that was so wrong? What was my sin?”
“Pride, for one,” Buck said, pulling up a chair. He knew there was nothing he could do for his friend but keep him company, but he was past gentility.
“
Proud? I am proud?”
“Maybe not intentionally, Doctor, but you have ignored everything Tsion has told you about how to connect with God. You have counted on your charm, your own value, your being a good person to carry you through. You get around all the evidence for Jesus being the Messiah by reverting to your educational training, your confidence only in what you can see and hear and feel. How many times have you heard Tsion quote Titus 3:5 and Ephesians 2:8-9? And yet you—”
Chaim cried out in pain. “Quote them to me again, Cameron, would you?”
“‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.’”
Chaim nodded miserably. “Cameron, this is so painful!”
“Sad to say, it will get worse. The Bible says you will want to die and won’t be able to commit suicide.”
Chaim rocked and cried in anguish. “Would God accept me if I relent only to ease my torture?”
“God knows everything, Doctor. Even your heart. If you knew you would still suffer, worse and worse for five months, regardless of your decision, would you still want him?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “God forgive me, I don’t know!”
Buck turned on the radio and found a pirate station broadcasting the preaching of Eli and Moishe from the Wailing Wall. Eli was in the middle of a typically tough message. “You rant and rave against God for the terrible plague that has befallen you! Though you will be the last, you were not the first generation who forced God’s loving hand to act in discipline.
“Harken unto these words from the ancient of days, the Lord God of Israel: I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.
“So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me. . . .
