The Mayan Apocalypse

by Mark Hitchcock

  “Okay, I’m working hard to not cross the line again, Mr. Morgan—”

  “Just Andrew is fine. I’m a casual man. Most people just call me Morgan.”

  “Okay, Andrew, how is it that the Mayan prophecies make so much sense to you?”

  He turned his head to face her. A smirk rose on his lips. “Call it faith.”

  DECEMBER 30, 2010

  The pastor was a chunk of a man, pear-shaped, who waddled more than walked. Morgan didn’t trust men who refused to take care of themselves. He spent a significant portion of his day working out and taking enough vitamins and health enhancements to constitute a small meal. Why every man didn’t do the same puzzled Morgan. Although the reverend wore an expensive suit, Morgan could tell that there was more fat than muscle beneath the finely stitched black material.

  Pastor Johansson sat in a red oak chair behind and to the side of the mortuary pulpit. Quincy Doolittle, the portly pastor who stood behind the lectern, was Berkley Street Baptist Church’s minister in charge of pastoral care. It had been explained to Morgan that Berkley Street Baptist was a megachurch and therefore need many staff members. It wasn’t news. The South was filled with such churches. He had assumed that the senior pastor would be the one doing the funeral and felt cheated because the duty had been passed off to another man.

  As the CEO of a major corporation, Morgan knew the importance of delegation. Still, it didn’t seem right. His wife and son deserved the best in life and even more in death.

  In his heart, he knew it didn’t matter. Dead was dead, and even if he buried his family in caskets of gold and hired the world’s most famous preachers to conduct the service, he would still go home alone to an empty house.

  Quincy Doolittle took care of the weddings, hospital visits, and funerals. Johansson was there for support. Johansson had been the first to visit Morgan after the crash. He deserved credit for that. After that one visit, Doolittle made all future contact. Why that bothered him, Morgan didn’t know. Of course, everything bothered him. Stop lights were too long, birds sang off key, grass was too green, and sugar too sweet. It didn’t matter what it was—it was wrong.

  Morgan took a deep breath and noticed it came in a shuddering flow. He promised himself he would not cry. He had done little else since the cops showed up at his door with the small words that ground his world to dust.

  A few moments ago, the room was filled with subdued action. Soft conversation bounced off the walls of the Benjamin Atwood Memorial Chapel in Oklahoma City’s most prestigious mortuary and cemetery: Eternal Trails. Morgan had been here twice before: once to bury his mother; once to bury his father. Now…

  He had no brothers or sisters, so an elderly uncle and even older aunt sat with him on the family pew. Marybeth had also been an only child. The pew seemed under-filled and for reasons he couldn’t explain, it bothered him.

  Behind him sat the twelve members of his board of directors. Each had shaken his hand as professional men do, said how sorry they were, and offered to help in any way they could. Morgan shook each hand and said thank you.

  Young people—people Hunter’s age—filled up half the seating on the right side of the large chapel. The girls wept; the boys tried not to. Behind them were teachers who had Hunter in their classes. Morgan had seen the principal of the private school enter. They exchanged nods—nothing more.

  When Morgan arrived, soft music, mostly hymns Morgan remembered hearing as a child in church, wafted from concealed speakers overhead like mist before a rain. They were smooth, soft, gentle, and meant to comfort the grieving. They irritated Morgan. The moment Doolittle stepped behind the pulpit, the music ceased. The operator failed to trail the music off; it sounded as if he just hit the off button. Jarring.

  “Good afternoon.” Doolittle talked through his nose. “My name is Reverend Quincy Doolittle of Berkley Street Baptist Church, where I serve as minister of pastoral care. It is my honor to officiate at this difficult time. On behalf of Mr. Morgan and extended family, I thank you all for being here. As we begin, I would like to introduce Senior Pastor Bryan Johansson, who will lead us in prayer and offer our first Scripture reading.”

  Johansson was unlike his fellow pastor: six-foot and stout. Morgan took him to be one of those guys who ran five miles a day—ten if he wanted to work up a sweat. He spoke with the kind of voice that made radio personalities envious. Although he needed no microphone, one had been provided, most likely for Pastor Wimpy.

  “At times like these, there is no better place to turn for comfort and strength than to our Lord and Savior, Jesus, and to God’s Word. Stand with me as I read the twenty-third Psalm.” The sound of two hundred people standing—most of whom Morgan couldn’t name—echoed through the chapel.

  “The LORD is my shepherd…”

  Morgan stopped listening. His ears no longer wished to function, and he was grateful. His eyes, however, were a different story: They drifted to the pair of shiny black coffins at the front of the chapel. Unlike the memorial services for his parents, these caskets were closed and locked. No amount of wax and makeup could make what remained of his wife and son presentable. What lay in those boxes were the charred remains of what had once been the heartbeat of his life.

  He had not seen their bodies. The mortuary people had warned against it. “This is not what you want to remember.” He agreed. He didn’t need to see their broken and burned bodies. He saw that every time he closed his eyes. Instead of open caskets, large photos in gold-painted frames stared back at him: Hunter in his school’s basketball uniform; Marybeth in her Sunday best.

  Movement around him brought Morgan back to the moment. Lost in his thoughts, he was the last to sit. Doolittle was up front again, his mouth moving but Morgan heard only snippets, none sharp enough to bore through his grief.

  Johansson’s reading of David’s psalm swirled in his head.

  “The LORD is my shepherd.” Not my shepherd. Apparently not my wife’s or son’s shepherd either. “I shall not want.” I will forever want. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Or plunge my family to their deaths in a desolate desert after a thirty-thousand-foot fall. “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” He drowns me in sorrow. “He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” He driveth my soul away.

  It was at that moment that Morgan began his war with God.

  Morgan’s corporate jet set down at the San Antonio International Airport and taxied to an area reserved for private jets. The copilot exited the cockpit and opened the air-stairs, descended, and waited for Morgan and Lisa to exit. As she reached the last step, the young airman held out a hand, and she took it.

  “It was a pleasure having you onboard, ma’am.”

  She detected a New England accent. It sounded strange to her Southern ears. She smiled at the courtesy. “It was a greater pleasure being aboard.”

  The steps bounced slightly, causing Lisa to turn. Morgan was descending; the pilot stood in the doorway. He caught her eye. “A gentleman always walks a lady to the door.”

  “This is an airport, not my home.”

  Morgan smiled. It seemed genuine. “You don’t live at the airport?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Touché. Hungry?”

  “I’ve already put you out of your way.”

  Morgan placed a hand on her elbow and directed her to a stairway that led to the terminal wing. “I’m hungry. The crew is hungry. Besides, security has to go over the plane again. Did you know that we can’t carry golf clubs onboard?”

  “Why is that?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe terrorists like to play a few holes before destroying something. I’m sure security has their reasons.”

  “Seems strange to me.”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t say they were good reasons. Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?”

  “No, I can spare some time for the guy who gave me a lift on his private jet.”

  “In that case
, let’s chow down.”

  The terminal looked similar to every terminal Lisa had been in. It sounded the same. Although not a world traveler, she had been in most major airports in the United States. Each one proved form followed function.

  Finding a spot to sit proved more challenging than Lisa expected. Wading through the crowd reminded her of experiences as a child playing in the surf on family vacations to the Gulf Coast of Texas. The waves would rush her and then attempt to draw her deeper into the sea. Here, however, ocean waves had been replaced by swells of people, each lost in their own thoughts. Airports were great places to be ignored.

  “How about here?” Morgan gestured to a sports bar. A crowd stood around the perimeter, but she could see two or three empty tables. “It’s a bar.”

  “I can see that.”

  Morgan blinked a few times. “What I mean is—”

  “You’re wondering if I as a Christian can eat a sandwich in an airport sports bar.”

  “I just don’t want you writing an article about how I, a fallen man, tried to lead you to the road of destruction.”

  Lisa couldn’t tell if he was serious. “I don’t think I’ll melt. Let’s go.”

  Morgan led the way, politely elbowing his way to the entrance. Lisa followed in his wake. She noticed very few people bothered to look at them. Their eyes were glued to the flat-screen televisions mounted to the walls.

  They sat at a sticky, round table barely big enough for two plates of food. Snatching up a menu, her eyes traced the soup and sandwich offerings.

  A teenage-thin waiter dressed all in black approached and stood in silence by the table.

  “Do you have a soup of the day?” Lisa barely glanced up from the menu. When he didn’t respond, she raised her gaze and looked at his youthful face. His forehead looked like a freshly plowed field; his eyes were fixed on one of the televisions. She pursed her lips in frustration and turned to Morgan. He too was fixated on the screen. She started to make a snide remark about men and sports when she noticed everyone—men, women, and children—were hypnotized by the image on the screens. She turned. A moment later, she raised a hand to her mouth.

  Images from what Lisa assumed was a helicopter filled the televisions. Dark, billowing smoke rose from a mountain. The gasses and ash were so thick they seemed more liquid than anything else. There was a caption at the bottom of the screen: VOLCANO ERUPTS NEAR MEXICO CITY. One of the bartenders behind the bar picked up a remote and cranked the volume. A man with a two-hundred-dollar haircut was speaking.

  “It’s too early for definitive reports, but estimates of dead run in the thousands. Popocatépetl has been rumbling for years. Scientists had earlier dismissed the idea of such a violent explosion. Villages in the San Pedro Mountains are the most severely hit.”

  “Oh my…” Lisa had joined the ranks of frozen viewers.

  The news anchor continued: “A team of scientists from MIT had been studying the volcano for the last few months. Nothing has been heard from them, and the worst is feared. Video from cell phones are being sent worldwide. We have one here.” He touched his ear and tilted his head. “I’m being told to warn you that this is rather graphic.”

  The newsman disappeared, replaced by a grainy, bouncy image. At first, Lisa could only see a dirt path and the feet of frightened people. Suddenly, the individual with the camera fell. The lens of the device pointed up, revealing a funeral shroud of black smoke hovering overhead. A face appeared. Lisa assumed it was the phone’s owner. Dirt covered his skin, streaked clean by flowing tears.

  He picked up the phone and turned it back to the wrathful mountain, just in time to see a blazing red explosion. Moments later, fiery pieces of molten rock began falling like blazing basketballs.

  The device recorded the screams of men, women, children, and even animals.

  The image changed from a boiling mountain to fleeing villagers to the face of the man who the owned phone. He spoke. Lisa knew enough Spanish to translate the man’s words: “I love you forever… forever…”

  The video stopped.

  “Oh, my soul,” Lisa said. “Oh, my dear Jesus.”

  “Quetzal was right.” Morgan spoke softly and respectfully. “It’s begun.”

  DECEMBER 30, 2010

  The funeral and reception lasted less than three hours, which seemed slightly less than a week to Morgan. After the funeral, scores of people came by and patted or shook him on the shoulder, each expressing the deep sorrow they felt for him at his loss.

  He nodded.

  He said thank you.

  And when they commented about how wonderful his wife was, how talented his son had been, he agreed and tried not to let on that each word sliced off a piece of his heart.

  They held the reception in a large fellowship hall at Johansson’s church. Volunteers had brought every imaginable form of casserole, fried chicken, potato salad, and Jell-O concoction. They had laid the food on a series of long tables that reminded Morgan of a buffet line.

  When he first arrived, a dour seriousness hung in the air. People spoke in low tones and ladies with decorative aprons ricocheted from the kitchen to the hall and back to the kitchen. None looked up from their work. One gray-haired woman moved a serving tray of spaghetti and meatballs to the end of one of the tables and then disappeared from view. A moment later, another woman with grayer hair moved it back. Morgan wondered if spaghetti protocol had been broken.

  A few days ago, the thought would have been funny.

  In the center of the room sat the largest table in the room. In the center of the table sat a placard with his name on it. A flash of memory burned his brain. The last time he saw his name on a table placard was at the fund-raiser he attended with his wife shortly before… well, before. The placard had more than his name on it: ANDREW MORGAN AND FAMILY.

  Was this the way it was going to be? Reminders in every room, at every corner, in every sentence? Whoever made the little sign couldn’t have known it would evoke such a scorching memory. Not even he could have predicted it.

  Morgan took his place at the table and someone offered to fix a plate for him. He looked in the sad eyes of a woman who teetered on the threshold between middle age and matronhood.

  “I’m not hungry, but thank you.”

  “I’ll just bring a little bit of everything.”

  Morgan doubted she was strong enough or had a plate large enough to bring a sample of everything. “No, really—”

  Apparently the woman had never encountered a “no” she couldn’t ignore.

  People took turns sitting at Morgan’s table. Some made small talk as if his life hadn’t been snuffed out; others just sat and looked at him with pity.

  A half-dozen pastors and an equal number of deacons flew in, expressed their sadness, then flitted away like hummingbirds.

  He stayed for nearly an hour before excusing himself. He felt as if he were being rude, but it was either leave or explode. What did it matter if they thought he was rude? He would never see these people again.

  The drive home took four times longer than necessary. He needed time. Like a diver who has been too deep for too long, Morgan needed to decompress, if such a thing were possible. So he drove with no destination in mind. He cruised residential streets and plied the freeways. Tears blurred the traffic, and sadness rolled over him. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles threatened to break through his skin.

  As the fuel gauge tipped toward the large E on his dashboard, Morgan headed for home.

  Raw emotions wore him down. He had no energy and longed for the blissful nothingness of sleep. But he had one more difficult task to do. He disrobed, slipped into a pair of pajamas, and did something he hadn’t done since the accident: He crawled into the bed he shared with his wife. Surely he was weary enough to defeat whatever memories sought to keep him from a restful night.

  At 1:15, he thought he heard Marybeth breathing beside him. He reached for her but his hand found only cool sheets, unwarmed by
a body.

  At 2:10, he caught a whiff of her deodorant.

  At 3:10, he was certain he heard her soft snore.

  At 4:30, he heard her talk in her sleep.

  At 4:35, Morgan went downstairs and curled up on the sofa. In the darkness, he did something he hadn’t done since he was a kid. He prayed.

  “God, You killed my family. How about You kill me?”

  The last few days had left Lisa worn and frayed. Her dad would say she felt like a dog bone chewed to the marrow. Her apartment was large, and if she stood in just the right place and looked over the balcony at just the right angle, she could see a portion of the horseshoe section of the San Antonio River. It was one of the two hallmarks of the city—the other being the Alamo. Lights from the River Walk glowed warmly. Lisa had lived alone for many years, which left her subject to mild depression and loneliness. When the dark emotions clouded her heart, she would go to the shops and restaurants along the famous river and watch the stream of tourists meander the walkway, or dine on barges that plied the waters.

  A good meal, a fine coffee, or a clear night was usually enough to scatter the emotional gloom. A part of her—a large part—wanted to do that very thing. The last few days had been tense and a sense of foreboding rose in her. She took a moment to wonder about it, but could pinpoint nothing to explain the emotional haunting.

  “Too much travel; too much uncertainty.” There was no one on the balcony to argue with her.

  Her body longed for bed, but her mind wouldn’t settle.

  Still, there were some good things to ponder. She had been rescued by a handsome man who carried her off in a multimillion-dollar aircraft. That was a first.

  Could it be? No. She dismissed the idea. Her wakefulness and overactive mind had nothing to do with Andrew Morgan. She knew plenty of women who would salivate at the opportunity to fly in a corporate jet with a billionaire hunk. But she was different. Money, fame, and good looks had no effect on her. Or so she told herself.

  Moving back into the apartment, she strolled over the worn brown carpet, past the secondhand sofa and coffee table, beyond the small television, and into the kitchen. If she worked for a larger news organization, a secular news organization, she could afford a better place. But she didn’t, nor did she want to. Working for the Christian Herald was her mission. And since it was online, they could provide news in a more immediate fashion.