Ingram then made the same deal with Germany and France. Germany’s chancellor already bore an apocalyptic bent and eagerly accepted, having instituted some similar procedures of her own. She agreed with Ingram that it was important to separate the faithful from the diseased.
“As you know, our country is no stranger to selections,” she said. “Many of us have waited for history to prove us right.”
The French president was a little more wary, refusing to commit to a religious test in order to protect the country’s citizens. Ingram didn’t debate the man for long. He knew the man would be calling him in a few days as the bodies piled up and France fell apart, when even the most drastic solutions would prove acceptable. If Europe collapsed, Russia would ignore its own domestic crisis to launch an invasion. The geopolitical web was fragile.
After the calls, Ingram had Olin set up the studio to record a message to the world. Instead of a sermon, Ingram fashioned his script as president of the United States. He arranged to have the satellite feed simulcast to all the established shelters receiving government assistance and the remaining few radio stations. He also made sure it was broadcast on the massive flat screen in the sanctuary below so that the faithful of Promiseland could share in it.
“My fellow citizens,” he began. “As you know, we are facing the darkest times this country has ever known. Indeed, that the entire world has ever known. As your new president, I must make decisions for all of us. I’ve already spoken with the leaders of other Western nations, and they’ve agreed to work together to fight the evil that threatens our very existence.
“But you know this is more than a struggle for our lives. It’s a struggle for our souls, both individually and collectively, as a nation. I’m not just a president, I am also a man of God whose duty is to spread the Gospel. I can’t separate those two jobs, and I wouldn’t even if I knew how. Because we will need faith as we enter this long, difficult battle.
“We need to know who our allies are and who our enemies are. That’s why I’ve issued an executive order requiring all citizens to accept my mark to prove you are a believer. The Department of Homeland Security has been ordered to establish identification protocols to imprint the tattoos on every man, woman, and child. We must remain healthy as a people and not allow ourselves to be contaminated by either disease or heresy.
“Furthermore, anyone around the world requesting assistance from the United States must agree to our protocols. In the coming months, even nations will fall away, and there will be only one boundary. Those who join me will be on one side, and the rest will belong to Satan. These infected monsters that arose among us are called ‘deaders’ or ‘zombies,’ but we all know what they really are: demons from the deepest pits of hell.
“I wish I could offer more soothing words. But this day was destined to come eventually, and now it has arrived. If you’ve not yet chosen which side you want to be on when the Lord returns, it is time to decide. The Bible foretells that Satan will win the battle but lose the war. It is in the fight, even if we lose our lives, that we show God shall never perish from the hearts of men.
“I ask that you follow me to glory. God bless you, and God bless America.”
He stared straight into the main camera until he heard Olin say “Cut.” Sarah Beth came out of the control booth and gave him a hug, patting at the makeup on his damp face. “That was very strong, honey,” she said.
“It has to be. We’re almost out of time.”
“I’m worried about you. You’re taking so much on yourself right now.”
“It was given to me. Perhaps I’ve asked for it, though. I’ve always prayed for the Lord to call on me when needed.”
“It’s one thing to serve a congregation, even one that includes a television and radio audience. But now you’re speaking for the country. For the world, even.”
Ingram peered into her green eyes. “I’ve always been speaking for the world. But not everyone listened. Now they have to.”
“You’re right.” She smiled and put her hand on his as the crew broke down the spotlights and equipment around him.
Cyrus entered and told Ingram their quarters were ready. The couple owned a regal estate on the outskirts of the city, but Ingram had made no attempt to visit it. He didn’t even know if it was still intact. He’d been sleeping on the sofa in his office, but with Sarah Beth’s arrival, he’d ordered one of the administrative offices converted into a bedroom.
This would be the first real chance for them to be alone since the outbreak. The whirlwind tour of shelters that culminated in the Camp David trip had left Sarah Beth exhausted, but Ingram still had no desire to sleep. However, he looked forward to a period of quiet reflection, prayer, and privacy. Such opportunities would likely be rare in the days and weeks to come.
As they left the studio, the couple held hands as if they were the same teens that had met at Bible camp in their senior year of high school. She’d been in awe of his father and Ingram was in full Prodigal Son mode, drinking alcohol and indulging in several of the seven deadly sins. He’d intended to make Sarah Beth one of his victims, targeting her virginity and then discarding her, but it turned out that she determined the boundaries of their relationship. After her rejection, Ingram found himself thinking about her often, but it was only after he’d found his calling and dedicated his life to the ministry that he felt worthy of her.
For her part, she’d responded to his letters and calls with aloof warmth and support. She’d graduated with a degree in social work from UNC-Greensboro and had her career path plotted out. That path was intended to lead to a husband and several children, not a lifetime of service, but gradually Ingram won her over. As his ministry and status grew, she fully adopted her role as a preacher’s wife.
Their marriage had prepared them for the end, since they knew their real reward lay in the afterlife. Twenty years on, she still thrilled him. And although Ingram preached of Christ’s return, he didn’t expect it to occur in his own lifetime. And now he dreaded it.
As he escorted his wife to their makeshift apartment, Ingram realized he didn’t want to die. His life was perfect. He was admired and loved. He held great power. Promiseland was a flourishing monument to Ingram’s greatness. Physically, he felt better than he had in years. And he had love.
Why should he leave all this all behind just because God demanded His destiny be fulfilled?
“What’s the matter?” Sarah Beth asked as they reached their door.
He almost lied to her, afraid she would be disappointed. But she would read the lie in his eyes. Sometimes he felt as if she saw deeper into him than even the Lord did.
He opened the door and ushered her inside. Desks had been pushed to one side, and Cyrus had made minor attempts at hominess by adding a vase of daffodils on the windowsill and spacing floor lamps along the room. He sat her on the cot—it would be cramped if they lay down there together—and said, “I’m suffering my Doubting Thomas moment. I’m not sure I’m up for this. After all, I’m only a man.”
“You’re more than a man. You’re Cameron Ingram. The man who owns the world. Everyone will take your mark. Isn’t that the only sign you need?”
She held up her hand so he could see the symbols embedded under her skin. The flesh around the tattoo was red and angry-looking.
Had Big Jones injected her with contaminated needles and caused an infection?
Then he took a closer look. The infection wasn’t just around the mark. It appeared along her wrist.
As he studied her face, he saw it there, too.
The virus.
“Cameron?” she asked.
His wife was a demon.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kit and Bill had watched Promiseland from afar for part of the morning as military troops and government trucks moved in and out of the compound. A helicopter landed on a street nearby where cars had been cleared away for a pad. People in street clothes unloaded supplies from the helicopter, all under the watchful gaze of a
rmed guards along the walls. The civilians bore the same mark that Chuck had shown them.
Others came and went, some of them carrying shovels and others returning with sacks and backpacks that bulged with salvage. All of those who entered the gates were checked for a mark. Some of the trucks that exited were loaded with civilians who were apparently assigned to work crews. Their faces were somber but otherwise healthy-looking.
Military posts were scattered around the perimeter, and Bill and Kit had spent much of the morning evading the troops that patrolled the streets. At one point, several weary people came out of the ruins of the city and approached the main gate. Although Bill couldn’t hear the exchange, it was evident the guards wouldn’t allow them in. One of the people threw herself down and wailed in anguish, but the soldiers didn’t yield. When one of the men tried to push his way inside, he was punched and kicked until he crawled away across the asphalt.
“Jesus,” Kit said, perched in the broken window of a restaurant. “Tough crowd.”
“Those people don’t have the mark. It’s like Chuck said.”
“I thought he said you could get inside if you pretended to accept Christ as your personal savior. And how can they ever tell if you’re putting them on? I always assumed most Christians were fakers anyway, judging from the way they treated other people.”
As the people who’d been turned away shuffled back towards the outskirts of the city, Bill said, “Maybe they were sick.”
“You don’t think we can talk our way inside?”
“You could, maybe, if you don’t smart off. I don’t have much of a poker face.”
“I thought all old farts played poker,” Kit said.
“Can’t stand it. The whole point of the game is to be the best liar. And I only like to gamble on things I can control.”
“Can anybody really control anything?”
“I guess not,” Bill said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in the zombie apocalypse.”
“We’re going to need some food soon,” Kit said. “Looks like this place has already been looted.”
“Yeah, the soldiers have cleaned out everything for a good mile or so. We were lucky to run into Chuck and his family, but we can’t count on staying lucky.”
“Another thing you can’t control, huh?”
“At least the soldiers have cleared out the zombies around here. Maybe we could just hang out a while and see what happens.”
“Just look at all those supplies.” Kit tilted back her head and sniffed at the air. “And smell that? I swear to God it’s bacon and eggs.”
Bill did smell something, but he was pretty sure it was burning rubber from a distant fire. But she had a point. Promiseland was organized, defended, and well-supplied. It looked like a good place to be while the government got around to the task of rebuilding civilization. And Promiseland’s towering white cross was the highest manmade point still remaining on this end of the city.
Bill sat down on the hard floor and something poked into his butt cheek. He felt for it and remembered the magic marker.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. He pulled out the marker and note pad.
“What are you going to do, write Reverend Ingram a love letter?”
He tossed the note pad to the floor. “No. We give ourselves the marks. You saw Chuck’s. It was kind of basic and easy to duplicate.”
“A tattoo is different. The ink goes under your skin. A marker will rub off after a while.”
“It’ll last long enough for us to see if we want to stay.”
“And what happens if they find out we’re faking it?” Kit asked.
“I don’t want a tattoo. Once you have it, you wear it the rest of your life.”
“What are you worried about? You don’t have much longer, one way or another.”
“I want to go out of this world the way I came in,” Bill said.
“Squealing and crying and gasping for air?”
“Pure.”
“Are you sure you’re not a religious nut?”
Bill picked up the pad and practiced drawing the eye-shaped oval with the squiggly numeral three in the center. It took him a couple of tries until he got reasonably close to the mark Chuck had shown them. “Give me your hand,” he said.
Kit extended her hand without comment, watching as Bill lightly traced out the symbols and then went over them more boldly. He then duplicated it on his own hand.
Kit held hers up and blew on it to dry the ink. “Mark of the Beast,” she said. “Should be cooler, like a dragon or something.”
“Inking something as intricate as a dragon into people would take days or weeks,” Bill said. “That’s a factory. Looks like the reverend has an assembly line going.”
“You can probably carry your pack inside, if we act like we’ve been sent out to scavenge. But what about your rifle? Only the soldiers have weapons.”
“I guess I’ll hide it here.” He looked around at the dusty chairs and tables. The restaurant bore the name “Venducci’s” and the décor was vaguely Italian, but it smelled more like a pizza-and-burgers place. He carried his rifle to the service counter where customers had once chosen their toppings. A few moldering crumbs were all that remained after the food had been picked over by survivors and rodents. The shelves of empty tin pie pans were undisturbed, so Bill wrapped the gun in hand towels and stowed it behind the pans.
“If we get separated, meet back here,” Bill said. “Can you remember how to get here?”
“We’re only two blocks from Promiseland,” Kit replied. “Do you want to draw a map or something?”
Bill realized he was still holding the marker. He slid it into the inside of his boot. “Better not let them catch me with this.”
He found a couple of paper takeout bags and filled them with bottles of condiments from the tables. He stuffed them into Kit’s arms. “Make yourself look useful.”
Bill led the way out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk. Despite the cars that had been pushed to one side, the broken windows, and lingering storm damage, the street was free of bodies. Then Bill realized the trucks full of workers probably included burial details, or at least disposal units.
“Just act normal,” Bill said as they walked toward Promiseland.
“Which normal would that be? Like I’m a normal weird teen, or a normal weird teen whose parents just died in a zombie apocalypse and I’m about to join a doomsday cult?”
They almost immediately encountered a couple of civilians in rumpled but relatively clean clothing. They, too, carried bags and backpacks. Bill noted the marks on their hands. He gave a curt nod of acknowledgement without meeting their eyes.
They passed a soldier leaning against a dented newspaper dispenser and smoking a cigarette. The soldier paid them no attention, watching a Humvee prowl through the intersection. Another helicopter approached, the air throbbing with the beat of its rotors, and a crew of civilians gathered around as it touched down. A couple of older men in suits debarked, accompanied by a group of officers.
“Looks like some high muckity-mucks,” Kit said.
“Yeah,” Bill said. “Whatever Reverend Ingram’s doing, he has full government support.”
The new arrivals were escorted inside the gates without a search, and the crew of workers began unloading boxes and parcels from the helicopter’s cargo hold. As Bill and Kit drew closer to Promiseland, more people carrying packs, bags, and equipment emerged from nearby buildings and side streets and headed toward the main gate.
Bill and Kit fell into the crowd as it formed into a line. The guards performed a cursory search of the bags being brought into the compound. The person in front of them carried bars of soap, razors, and bottles of hair products. One of the female guards grabbed a bottle of shampoo and slipped it into her jacket pocket.
“Chamomile,” she said to the guard beside her. “I’ll finally smell like something besides a coyote’s crotch.”
“You are what you eat,” the other soldier said, which d
rew him an elbow to the ribs.
When Bill’s turn came, he opened his pack to show the items he’d taken from his house. “Got it from a house down that way,” he said, craning his neck toward the direction from which they’d come.
“What a bunch of junk,” the male guard said. “Whoever owned this is better off as a fucking zombie. Take it inside to the distribution desk.”
The guards waved him through without even glancing at his mark. They looked into Kit’s bags, saw the condiments, and laughed.
“I’m doing the best I can,” she said, unable to resist a flash of arrogance. Bill believed someday that weakness would get her killed. Maybe even today.
Then the female guard grabbed Kit’s hand and studied her mark. “This thing’s a mess. You must’ve been one of the early birds.”
Bill’s heart thudded in his chest, but Kit was cool. “They didn’t know what they were doing yet,” she said. “I wanted a dragon.”
This drew another laugh from the guards as they waved her inside.
“What the hell were you thinking, smarting off and drawing attention to yourself?” Bill asked as they merged with the people milling across the parking lot.
Kit shrugged. “You told me to act normal.”
They followed the other recent arrivals bearing scavenged goods. A row of FEMA trailers were lined against the brick wall on the west end of the compound, and several damaged transport trucks had been converted into shelters. Soldiers were everywhere, swarming like ants, and a woman with a bullhorn directed the vehicles that came and went from the main building. Hordes of people were gathered around a set of large wooden doors bearing crosses, evidently the main entrance to Ingram’s church sanctuary.
When they reached the distribution table, they plopped down their offerings and waited while the workers there sorted the goods into various bins and piles. Some people had rolled shopping carts instead of carrying bags, and the ground was covered with litter. Despite the attempts at organization, the compound exhibited more of the feel of a gypsy camp than a government shelter.
Revelation: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller (Arize Book 2) Page 14
