The Wrath of God

by Jim Balzotti

  “Let’s move,” Lawrence told his men, “before we have company.”

  The men stripped the Chinese of ammo, packed the maps into rucksacks, and reloaded their weapons. One of the men went to the fuel storage tanks and opened the valve, spilling two thousand gallons of diesel fuel on the ground. An ancient thought of not polluting the environment surfaced. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Lawrence spread the topo map on the ground and indicated where he and his men would head next. They were dog-tired and needed a break. He knew there was an outpost of survivors from Maine holed up in a remote area of the Allagash. He had made contact with them before they knew that the Chinese could possibly be monitoring the shortwave radios they carried. Their leader, Matt, only using a type of reverse Morse code and only precisely at a certain time, could be contacted. It was a chance they all had to take, as it was imperative to stay in contact no matter what the risk. Lawrence decided they would travel there. Being with other people would be good for his men, since being in a constant state of vigilance took a toll, though for himself he couldn’t care less. He was born and bred for combat. It was the only life he ever knew until he met Amy. Perhaps he would drop them off and head out on his own for a while. It would be good for his head not to have to worry about his men. He could travel faster by himself and do a reconnaissance on the outlying areas.

  He indicated on the map where they would head, noting the steep and heavily forested terrain they would have to cross. His men nodded wearily. There were a series of fast-moving streams and rapids they would have to portage. The good news was they could be fairly certain the area was far enough and remote enough that they probably wouldn’t come across any Chinese. He knew they were hunting him now—they had to be, with all the carnage they left in their wake. At one of the last outposts they hit, one of the Chinese spoke enough English to let them know that they were known as the ghost soldiers, legendary as the witch in the woods. After Lawrence interrogated them, he left the dead bodies to let the Chinese know they were there. Sending the message…you’re not safe.

  The men followed Lawrence single file into the forest, quietly stepping on wet brown pine needles, following a deer trail that led away from the Chinese outpost and southwest into the dark woods. Where some feared the unknown of the forest—the nighttime sounds, the unknown dangers coming from the black, brown, and green shadows—Lawrence always felt it was where he belonged. Alone, away from the mindless chatter of civilization. They picked their way through the heavy brush, following the natural terrain silently, placing one foot in front of another, heads peering around for any shape that might not look natural or any metallic sound or smell that would indicate the presence of man. They communicated with hand signals and set a brisk pace. They would stop and rest after they put many miles between them and the Chinese. It started to rain lightly, and the dark clouds heavy with moisture moving in from the east promised an even heavier rainstorm. Without breaking stride, the men grabbed their lightweight rain ponchos out from their backpacks and pulled them over their heads. The ground became soft with the rain, covering both footprints and sound. They hiked until the rain stopped. The late fall sun, a golden orb in the midday sky, turned the day sultry. The men stopped in a grove of trees, halfway up a hill that afforded them a clean line of sight front and back. They stripped off their ponchos and, for the first time that day, drank deeply from their canteens. The men sat down, spreading out. Safer that way. Lawrence walked the perimeter, breathing in the smell of pine needles and wet bark. Knowing the area was secure, he had his men take off their packs and get some shut eye. He would keep the first watch while they grabbed some well-needed rest. Measuring the light still remaining in the sky, he decided he would give them an hour off their feet before they continued on their journey. According to their location on the map, the American outpost might be a good two- to three-day hike. With no one behind them, they could slow down their pace and arrive there somewhat rested.

  Lawrence pulled off his backpack and stretched out at the base of a large oak tree, looking backwards at the trail they just came up. He checked the action on his rifle, making sure he had a fresh cartridge in the chamber, and then placed it across his legs. His mind journeyed, drifting across the years. If someone had told him that the great America would fall without a shot being fired, he would have laughed. The policeman of the world toppled by a thug nation. He never considered himself what he would call a religious man. He had seen too much of mankind’s violence inflicted on his fellow man not to have doubts, and was plagued with questions of faith over the years. He believed in God, tended to follow the Old Testament rather than the New one, liked the eye for an eye mentality, and believed God gave us the Bible as His guide for living a righteous life; however, he also believed in the old saying that in order for evil to succeed it only needed good men to do nothing. He never believed or said he was doing God’s work while a soldier—he was far too humble—but he did have a strong sense of right and wrong. Indiscriminate killing of innocents could only be met with violence in kind. He had seen firsthand al Qaeda’s butchering of women and children. Men tortured before being beheaded for no reason, women raped and stoned, children’s hands cut off. No, diplomacy and threats of economic sanctions had no meaning for this kind of fanaticism. They only respected violence, and violence is what Lawrence brought them. Still he wondered why God allowed His children to act this way. He could only reason that good and evil was a choice. Right and wrong. God versus the devil. Amy convinced him to give up his battle, to turn in his uniform and come to America. Now here he was, back doing probably the only thing he was really good at. Killing. He hated the Chinese, not just for their war with America but also for their unnecessary, ruthless mass killings and enslavement of people. Lawrence understood war, the festering religious hatred, the envious greed. What he couldn’t grasp was the intentional killing of people who were mere bystanders of history, with no compelling role in the drama of war. How on earth could you justify killing an innocent child? Did each man harbor a seed of evil deep inside, just awaiting the right circumstances for it to blossom into a hateful poison?

  A squirrel scurried down the tree, shoving fallen brown acorns into its cheek, oblivious to the silent man near it. Its concern was singular: storing enough food to last it through the harsh and long New England winter. It reminded Lawrence that this part of northern Maine was still untouched by civilization and all of its woes. It still remained in a primal existence the way God created it. What would God have to say about this new world? More importantly, what would God do?

  Fall 2028

  Northern Woods

  Lugging his brook trout over his shoulder, Matt followed the winding trail along the shoreline of the lake through the trees that would lead back to camp. Despite the pine needles on the well-worn trail, he could feel each pebble and stone through the thin rubber soles of his boots. He wasn’t sure what he would do once these wore out. Like some futuristic movie depicting mankind after a nuclear holocaust, there was no cobbler where he could take his boots to be repaired, or a Walmart where he could get a new pair of laces. Some of the men had taken green ferns from the forest floor and mixed them with the pitch from pine trees, stuffing them into the soles of their boots to fill the cracks. According to them it seemed to work pretty well. He whimsically wished there was a store where he could buy a new pair. He thought back to the time he went down to L. L. Bean with his dad and mom as a kid. It looked like a skyscraper and was the biggest store he had ever been to, with three floors and aisles and aisles of outdoor hunting, fishing, camping gear and clothing. His dad bought him a pair of rubber-soled hunting boots with tawny brown leather laced upper top, and a jar of mink oil to keep the leather soft and waterproof. Looking down at his feet, he now looked more like a beggar in some National Geographic magazine story. His boots, still wet with the mud from the shoreline, looked as though they could split and fall apart at any moment, his ankles stubbornly brown with dirt. Some of the younger men, even the g
irls, just went barefoot, their skin hardening like a natural form of leather. In the warmer weather the men went without shirts, their muscles hard and lean from living in the woods. Most wore their hair long, wild and unkempt, eschewing the offers of a haircut with rusty scissors. They were reverting back to a time and life none of them really knew. They were living with a consciousness above their normal way of life. Only a collective belief in God and an instilled respect for their elders kept them from sliding into chaos.

  As Matt crossed a gently flowing creek of clear, cold water, the scent of venison cooking on a spit over the open fire wafted through the air. An older woman was taking great care to slowly rotate the spit, evenly cooking the meat. As he rounded the bend, he could see a few of the women stirring a big iron kettle, the outside blackened with soot, no doubt filled with this evening’s dinner of stew. It was what they ate almost every night, as it was the most efficient way to keep a multitude of people fed. Over in the clearing, away from the trees, fish, rabbits, and haunches of meat were being cured on smoking racks above a wet fire fueled by green branches. Some of the children were running around half naked, screaming and throwing pine cones at one another. Some things will never change, thank God. A few of the men off to the side were in a heated discussion. One, Tom, a big-boned Maine farm boy, had been advocating joining one of the militias and striking back at the Chinese. Matt knew that he was swaying some of the younger boys who looked up to him, so he planned to address it after tonight’s dinner. It was the first real challenge to his authority in the group, and he knew people wondered how he would handle it. Normally every night the group would gather around the dinner table and partake in both prayer and storytelling. The youngest members couldn’t get enough of the tales of how life was before the great collapse of America. Some of the elders just wanted to reminisce about the good times before the war. A few people, including Matt’s mother, were charged with keeping a written journal as best they could, trying to keep track of dates, birthdays, and now, after some years living in the woods, deaths. While the births were both wondrous and strengthened the bonds of the community, the few deaths they had were equally difficult. One woman, only in her sixties, had taken sick and become bedridden. Without a doctor or hospital, no one was able to identify the cause of her illness. To ease her pain, she was given narcotics taken from the local pharmacy before they left town, but the years dissipated their potency, and frustration grew to anger as she suffered. When she passed, people gave thanks that now she was with God and her suffering had ended. Matt and George went to a clearing near the camp and dug the first grave of the newly christened cemetery. They wrapped the woman in a white sheet and gently placed her in the grave. The people stood silently, their thoughts no doubt wondering about what would happen if they too became sick. Matt gave the eulogy, remembering her life and her devotion to family, God, and friends. After placing wildflowers picked from the fields, they shoveled the dirt onto her body. One of the men carved a cross, and with his knife, put:

  Michele Shaw

  Age 67

  Loved by all

  Killed by the Chinese

  Matt stepped out of the forest path and into the open area where people were gathered. He added his lone trout to the pile of food being smoked, taking a little ribbing from the ladies about his big catch. He walked over and took his traditional seat at the head of the communal table. It really only consisted of two large hand-hewn planks that had been cut from a fallen pine tree, planed smooth and cobbled together. Equally long matching benches were made and were placed on either side. While there was no formal dinner time or seating, when the food was cooked, most people took the same seat, with Matt at the head. His mother, now frail, sat on his right side. The cooking duties fell evenly amongst the men and women. Most ate sparingly, conscious of the long winter coming around the corner. One by one the others took their seats. Bowls of fish with flaky white meat in a stew, grilled rabbit meat with plates of forest greens, were passed around. Juices from berries served as the salad dressing. They drank from pitchers of cold water freshly pulled from the stream. Matt looked around the table at both the smiling and ever-concerned faces. When he said, “Let us pray,” everyone grew silent and bowed their heads.

  “God, thank You for the bounty we are about to receive, and thank You for Your love and safekeeping. We have placed ourselves in Your hands.” Then he began to recite the Lord’s Prayer:

  Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

  Thy Kingdom come,

  Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses,

  As we forgive those that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation,

  But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever

  Amen.

  Softly everyone said amen.

  The men started talking excitedly about the abundance of deer sign they had seen in the woods, and wanted to know how many they would need to kill to get them through the winter. One man walking with his wife had seen a large black bear on a distant ridge, and she joked it would make a nice fur coat. While this was normal dinnertime conversation, everyone knew the real topic tonight was Tom’s pushing to leave the camp and go fight the Chinese.

  Tom didn’t waste any time to voice his views. They had just begun to eat when he blurted, “I know what you’re going to say, Matt. Killing is wrong, and I can accept the fact you feel that way, but you have to understand that some people deserve to die. We should join in the fight against the Chinese. We can’t let them get away with killing our families.” He nervously pulled on his black scraggly beard and looked around the table for support. Some of the younger boys murmured their agreement. The air in the camp became heavy with tension, although the night began to blow a cool breeze through the pines. This dissention had been coming for some time. Matt knew some of the younger men just couldn’t accept that this was their life. Rather than being grateful for escaping the Chinese and having an opportunity to live in peace, they were restless. Itching for action.

  “Maybe so, Tom. Maybe so. But that’s God’s judgment…not yours, or mine, or anyone else’s. You don’t get to decide who lives or dies, and you sure don’t have the right to take a human life. If you’re looking for guidance…if you want to know what God asks of us…” Matt turned to point to the tree behind him, “I carved those sacred Ten Commandments when we arrived here for everyone to see. Now notice I said ‘Commandments’…not wishes or suggestions. It clearly states ‘thou shall not kill.’ When we came here, we agreed together that we would not bow to the Chinese edict to abandon our faith. We all had bloodlust that day we lost our friends and families at the church. But we swore an oath to go deep into the woods and keep holy His Word. We forswore any acts of vengeance…and that still stands now.”

  “Other men in other groups have taken up arms and are fighting.”

  “Yes they are. And you can join them if you want. But Tom, you remind me of the bird that leaves its nest before it can fly and falls to its death. What have you to gain by sacrificing yourself? That’s what will happen. You can’t fight the whole Chinese army. You’re apt to get not only yourself killed, but everyone here in this camp. It wasn’t our bombs, planes, or warships that kept America safe all these years. It was our belief in God. This country was founded by Christian practices that were based solely on the Scriptures, not some new modern church traditions or civic customs. America went astray when we traded our Christian values for the glitter of golden greed.”

  “It wasn’t just greed,” an older woman sitting in the middle piped in. “We let the government change our way of life. Why, I remember every town had a nativity scene set up in front of their Town Hall come Christmas. Then some genius starts yelling about separation of church and state, and the next thing you know we weren’t allowed to do it anymore. It was against the law! Whose law? Not mine! Not God’s! Can you believe i
t?”