Lundt looks around, searching for a moment for his wife, before realizing that he is half a lifetime younger, his wounds are healed, and his hands have no spots, face no wrinkles, finding no scars that have been there for years, and having none of the continual pain he has born since his first trip downrange. How can this be? Lundt is a rather old soldier, being late in his fifties, but now not so much. He will find his wife and kids, and they will love him all the same, but he will need to learn a few things in his new old age.
In that flash of light, three and a half billion recently departed people return to earth, in the places where they want to be. Rita is standing in the crowd again, like the others, wearing what looks to be purple chamois vest over bright white shirt and jeans, not needing a belt, wearing sandals and smiles. There are vests of many colours and styles. Some are wearing tunics, because that is the style that they have always wanted, but could never justify in their society. Some of them look like the hippies of old. Still others look like people who lived on these plains a hundred years ago, and some look like the natives who lived here with them, the so-called Indians.
Looking around Rita realizes that the trees are taller, lusher, seeming stronger, and the grasses are all greener, with the breezes gently constant. Among the rest of the observant, the same is true all over the world. Orange groves in south Texas, which had all but withered away, were now full of fruit or blossoming to produce shortly. Olive trees in Greece, which just yesterday were producing olives a half inch in diameter, now produce in over an inch thick, and an inch and a half tall. Grains are taller, fuller, healthier than they have been in lifetimes. Even those growing wild along the roads are better than those in fields for many years. The pears and apples are sweeter and juicier than ever before, but that will have to be discovered in the next several hours.
Boot spins left and jumps right to race off to a motorcoach. He pops open the RIO command computer, types in a few dozen letters, bringing up the information panel, reading the radioactive status of the coach. Noting that, he sends out a feeler, checking with all extant satellites and geological study stations, discovering that he was right. He begins to dance a spinning, hopping dance, saying, “I was right!”
After a few rounds of that, Culver grabs his hands and dances with him a moment, before asking, “What were you right about, Pretty Boy?”
“You think I’m pretty?” he asks. She nods and they smile. “I was right that even though I detonated all the nuclear arsenals of the world, there is no fall-out. The world has been completely cleaned.”
There are a few billion others that came back, who were not part of any of the recent disappearances, having believed long ago, as far back as time reaches. Later, it will be learned that all the heroes of faith have come home, though for most of them, home is not America. Kacy comes up to Mark, wearing white jeans, tall boots, spurs, and a black chamois vest, and thanks him for taking her in, helping save her life, so someone could save her soul.
Mike is there as well, along with Boot and Culver, holding hands, still in late morning, admiring the recently star soaked sky. Things have changed. Standing there, Mark notices a doe has taken a lick of his hand. Rita reaches out to pet the deer, seeing many other creatures wandering about, coming to investigate the crowd. She locks onto Mark’s eyes and him on her.
“I thought you were gone forever,” says Mark to Rita.
“I was worried that you would be gone when I got back,” says Rita.
“What do we do now?” asks Mark.
“We have a thousand years for you to get it right,” is her reply.
He says, “I think, like Mike, it’s come to me now.”
“I hope so,” she says, somewhat chiding. “You’ve gotten more handsome since I saw you last.”
“No more shooting?” asks Culver.
“No more shooting,” says Boot. “One King, one rule, one family, I hope.”
About the Author
Keith T Jenkins is, among other things, a Biblical Theologian, sometimes fascinated by the “End Times.” There are myriad ways in which the Bible shows how things will be in those days, but not a lot of information as to how they come to be. Taking advantage of this lack of information, he takes the liberty of filling in the blanks, with a lot of faith, the lives of people involved, and of course, the Science Fiction that makes it more fun. As a Bible College graduate, his grasp of the source material, as he would say, is within “reasonable operating parameters” for our purposes.
This is not, at its heart, a theological tome to be studied and reviewed for its correctness in presentation of the future facts. Instead, it is a story of some people living the lives that the Author expects to be commonplace among those overcoming their circumstances. In this case, Jenkins is not attempting to present a theologically correct telling of the account.
As an author, Jenkins finds that, by application of imagination, the telling of the end can be engaging on multiple levels. By attempting to reach into the character of the players, he can make it personal. From the heart and smile of a church girl whose retreat went haywire, to the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Russia, a Prophet, and an Ayatollah, he enfolds and develops an interplay that reaches from the top of the food chain to the bottom, and right back up. It is this interplay that is often missed, usually by focusing all of our attention on “this level” and not the rest. Jenkins wants to display a possible source of some miracles, not just their effects, and how the love of an old soldier for a young woman can have global impact from a non-town called Zarephath. For Jenkins, it is all connected, and he plays it off, one to the other in a non-linear timeline that engages.
End Notes
* * *
[1] L. “Jackson Browne-The Pretender-with Lyrics.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 July 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR2Ee2UYrlI.
[2] Psalm 23:4 KJV.
[3] “The Merchant of Venice.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379889/reference.
[4] “The Untouchables.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094226/reference.
[5] Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar
[6] Genesis 4:24 NIV.
[7] “Streets of Fire.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088194/reference.
[8] “Mars Attacks!” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116996/reference.
[9] Deuteronomy 18:18 NIV.
[10] “Death Wish II.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082250/reference.
[11] Leviticus 4:2 NIV.
[12] US Constitution. 1789.
[13] Revelation 6:2 NIV.
[14] Revelation 6:4 NIV.
[15] 2 Samuel 1:15 NIV.
[16] Revelation 11:5 NIV.
[17] Luke 6:38 NIV.
[18] “True Lies.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111503/reference.
[19] “Vocabulit Lesson #4.” Quizlet, https://quizlet.com/232470798/vocabulit-lesson-4-flash-cards/.
[20] “Never Give a Sword to a Man That Can't Dance.” LiveJournal, https://archangel16.livejournal.com/124511.html.
[21] L. “Jackson Browne-The Pretender-with Lyrics.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 July 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR2Ee2UYrlI.
[22] Harris, Joel Chandler. “The Classic Tales of Brer Rabbit.” Amazon, Amazon, 29 Jan. 2008, https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Tales-Brer-Rabbit/dp/0762432195.
[23] Revelation 6:8 (modified) NIV.
[24] Revelation 6:10 NIV.
[25] L. “Jackson Browne-The Pretender-with Lyrics.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 July 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR2Ee2UYrlI.
[26] Revelation 6:12 NIV.
[27] B, Emily. “Don't Mess around with Jim Lyrics.” YouTube, YouTube, 1 June 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odkIEDi2x0g.
[28] Deuteronomy 18:18 NIV.
[29] “Infamy Speech.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Aug. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamy_Speech.
[30] Isaiah 40:31 NIV.
[31] The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, https://nationalcenter.org/ChargeoftheLightBrigade.html.
[32] Psalm 91:1 KJV
[33] Matthew 24:24 NIV.
[34] Luke 22:36 NIV.
[35] Psalm 91:4 NIV.
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 38
