by Mark Romang
“I’m not so sure you can. Why did they put you into an isolation unit?”
Caleb blushed. “Some of the other pretrial detainees overheard a correctional officer say I was a former Navy SEAL. I guess they thought they could take me because I’m over fifty. I had to show them they were wrong. Look, I don’t mind being in an isolation unit. I get to do lots of thinking. And I’m spending quality time with God. He finally has me where He wants me. He’s got my undivided attention.”
“Were you always this spiritual, Caleb?”
“No, but as I get older I’m reminded that there’s much more around me than what I can see. It’s been said that space is the final frontier for mankind to explore. I disagree, Nick. I think the spiritual plane is the final frontier left to explore. And the crazy thing is we’re all going to get a chance to go there.” Brennan leaned closer to the Plexiglas partition. “There are two places one can reside in on the spiritual plane. One place is fabulous, the other terrible. Do you know which place you’ll be spending all your endless time at, Nick?”
“I’m hoping for heaven.”
“You need to know for sure. Don’t be stupid and piddle around and wait for the last moment to accept the Good Lord’s invite. I’m not so sure this planet will spin around for very much longer.”
Loomis glanced at his watch. “Our time is up, Caleb. I need to go.”
“Take care, Nick. And don’t give up the fight on Skymolt. You might be the last person left between him and the world.”
“I’m just one man, Caleb. There’s a limit to what I can do.”
“One man can accomplish great things when they have honor and valor pushing at their back. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.”
“Goodbye, Caleb.”
“So long, Nick,” Brennan said and hung up the phone. He watched Loomis go. And then a correctional officer came into the room and led him back to his cell.
Chapter 50
Southeastern Papua New Guinea
Three days later
I used to love treehouses, Sara thought as she tried to drift off to sleep.
Back at her childhood home in Colorado, her dad had built a sprawling treehouse for her and her older sister. She and Erin spent countless hours playing in the backyard treehouse, and often slept in it overnight during the summer months. But that treehouse had only been ten feet in the air and secured to an enormous bur oak tree. The one she lay in now swayed at the top of a skinny banyan tree 35 meters above the jungle floor. And she shared this treehouse with a clan of mostly naked cannibals.
Sara listened to the breathing of the others. The two adult Korowai males snored, while the adult females breathed softly. They’re just like me in a way, she thought. Humans that need food and water and shelter to survive. Humans struggling to raise families the best they can. The same emotions swirling in her brain, they dealt with too. The only real physical difference between them and her was the color of their skin and the fact the Korowai believed clothing was optional.
The Korowai women and girls in the clan wore only grass skirts, while the men and boys each wore necklaces of pig’s teeth and hollowed-out gourds on their penises. And yet Sara knew without question God loved this primitive Korowai clan just as much as He loved her. She told herself this fact often whenever she felt resentment toward the Korowai people, or felt she was better because she embraced civilization.
Until 1970, the Korowai people thought they were the only humans on earth. And Sara could see why they believed they were alone. This isolated region of Papua New Guinea receives around 200 inches of rainfall each year. The rainforest is so lush it’s nearly impenetrable. A maze of trees, bushes, grasses and vines grow together in a tangled mass to form a ground-to-sky canopy. In this harsh jungle environment the Korowai people live in lofty treehouses to stave off floods and to discourage the many demons they believe live in the forest and the Ndeiram Kabur River, and the khakhua—a male witch that is believed to be a family member—from entering their homes. Although deeply spiritual, they find it difficult to believe in only one god. They believe spirits are everywhere in the forest, and the Korowai practice sorcery extensively to keep the bad spirits away. And when the sorcery doesn’t achieve the desired results they sometimes resort to cannibalism.
The Korowai know nothing of germs and diseases such as malaria or tuberculosis or any of the other jungle-borne bacteria they are susceptible to. When a clan member gets sick they think a khakhua has entered the sick person and is eating away at their insides, replacing their vital organs with ash. Just before the dying person expires they whisper to someone who the khakhua is. And then the clan kills the khakhua and eats them, even though they may be a close friend or relative. The Korowai eat everything but the bones.
Sara was thankful that everyone in the clan appeared to be healthy at the moment. No one had gotten sick since they’d been living with them. And the dreaded but imaginary khakhua hadn’t made an appearance.
Sara stretched her legs, stiff from lying on the hard floor of the treehouse. The last few weeks had been tough on her and Spencer, and she supposed Webb as well. Her grieving process still floundered in its infancy. The image of Andrew battling to the end haunted her. Their family unit took a big hit that day. Spencer seemed okay, as much as could be expected. But she wondered what his thoughts were, and if he was burying his grief deep inside as males usually do. He’d seen Andrew die the same as her. Regardless, Spencer seemed okay on the surface and played well with the children of the clan.
It was truly a miracle the clan allowed them to stay. The clan made their home across the pacification line, a place where clans war against each other and are fiercely intolerant of white people, who they call laleo—ghost demons. In divine foreknowledge, Gabriel gave them a cover story to tell the Korowai tribe and allay their fears and suspicion, and it seemed to be working.
When they first arrived in Papua New Guinea, she and Webb and Spencer stayed at a Korowai village established by Dutch missionaries. Some Korowai eventually migrate to villages called kampongs and give up their primitive ways. Instead of living in treehouses, the Korowai live in huts built on stilts, and they wear Indonesian clothing.
They stayed at the kampong for three weeks, helping another missionary family minister to the villagers. They used this time to practice their newly acquired language skills. Soon after the three weeks went by they hired a Korowai man who used to live with a treehouse clan to take them to the Korowai living across the pacification line.
It had been a harrowing journey. They canoed for miles in dugout pirogues up the Ndeiram Kabur River. And then they left the river and hiked for countless more miles in the sweltering rainforest, dodging giant spiders and poisonous snakes and malaria-carrying mosquitos. They were always wet from sweating and the near-constant rains. Their soaked clothing became a hindrance, and the miserable trek taught her why the Korowai didn’t wear clothing. It was practically useless in the incessant rain.
When they at last reached a small clearing they found three treehouses. And then without warning eight fierce-looking Korowai men surrounded them and aimed their spears. Their guide quickly said something to one of the Korowai. The thickly muscled man put his spear down and walked up to Coleton Webb, putting his scowling face inches from Webb’s. He demanded to know why they came.
Talking passably in the Korowai language, Webb told the clan leader that they were khakhua hunters, and that Ginol sent them to live with the Korowai and rid the rainforest of demons and khakhua. Ginol was what the Korowai called the one true creator-spirit god. Webb also said they were Ginol’s messengers, tasked with finding the Korowai people and sharing with them a message of hope. The message was simply the Gospel told in a way the Korowai could understand and relate to.
Long ago Ginol sent his only son to earth to be sacrificed, and the blood spilled during his sacrifice conquered wickedness, death and all demons, especially the khakhua. Ginol wanted the Korowai to know that if they only accept this message as trut
h, they can become Ginol’s children and the khakhua won’t eat their insides. And even when they get sick and die their spirit will live on eternally in paradise where they will never hunger or thirst, where the earth won’t quake and slide after the rains, where their treehouses will never see decay or fall from the sky.
Whether the Korowai believed all Webb said was still a mystery to her. But they welcomed them into their treehouses and allowed them to live with the clan. After the evening meal each night, Webb would tell the Korowai more of the creation story, working his way toward the crucifixion. Tonight they finished with the crucifixion and Jesus ascending into heaven. The clan had listened attentively. Webb also told them how Andrew, her late husband, used a flaming sword and fought to the death with Satan, the king of all demons. The Korowai especially liked this story and wanted Webb to repeat it often. And so the legend of Andrew Maddix grew larger each day in the eyes of the Korowai, as well as Spencer’s. During the retelling of Andrew’s final battle, Sara always cried no matter how hard she tried not to. The Korowai women would all come and sit next to her and hug her. Some of the women even wiped at the tears rolling down her face. Even in the jungle she found grief support.
Remarkably, during this difficult time living with the primitive Korowai in the rainforest, Sara could see the hands of God working, if not in the Korowai people, in Webb. His 180 degree transformation from a brash, self-centered jerk to a mighty man of God was startling to witness. When not patrolling the camp’s perimeter he spent hours devouring scriptures from a Bible lent to him by the missionary family they stayed with at the kampong.
She and Spencer were rarely out of his sightline, and he took seriously the promise he made to Andrew about watching over them. Webb only left their sides after dusk. The Korowai rarely left their treehouses when night fell. They believed the dark spirits were active then. That’s when Webb descended from the treehouse, brandishing a flaming torch and pretended to go khakhua hunting.
They still had a few pieces of manna left over from the tin Andrew shared with them. Sometimes Webb would eat a piece right before beginning his nightly patrols. He would always come back the next morning, practically glowing and happily tell her and Spencer about the angels he saw in the forest. They were the same ones who helped them escape in the cavern stream. Webb said there were at least a hundred angels guarding the treehouses, and that they lit up the forest.
Sara thought over all this as she tried to listen for Spencer’s breathing. He made a distinct sound whenever he slept soundly. But she didn’t hear him. Spencer lay with the males on one side of the treehouse, while Sara lay with the females on the other side of the partitioned treehouse. Counting her and Spencer and Webb, eleven people lived in the treehouse: two adult males, their wives, a grandmother and three children a little older than Spencer.
Sara took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could feel drowsiness finally settle in. But just before she drifted off, something stirred next to her. She felt a hand shake her gently. She opened her eyes and saw a form above her. Sara resisted an urge to scream. And then she recognized Spencer. She whispered, “What are you doing up, buddy?”
“I can’t sleep, Mom,” Spencer whispered back.
“Are you sick? Do you feel okay?” Exposed to so many germs and infectious diseases in the jungle, she became fearful every time Spencer coughed or sneezed. And every time she spotted a mosquito bite on his skin she was just sure he’d contracted malaria.
Spencer rubbed his chest. “My heart hurts. I think Jesus wants to come and live inside me.”
“Well, just ask Him to come in.”
“I want Uncle Webb to be here when I do it.”
“He’s outside in the jungle, honey. We’d have to climb down the pole in the dark. It would be dangerous not being able to see,” Sara whispered.
“That’s okay; I’ve done it before many times.”
“You have?”
“Sometimes I can’t sleep because I have to pee. So I climb down the pole and go. And then I climb back up.”
“Well, okay. But we’ll have to be really quiet so we don’t wake up the others.” Both excitement and anxiety flared up inside Sara. Webb had told her what the etching on the Eden sword meant. If Andrew had deciphered the etching correctly, the Rapture would happen as soon as Spencer confessed his sins to God and asked for the Holy Spirit to come live inside him.
She followed Spencer over to the hole in the floor. A pole with notches cut into it extended through the hole and up into the treehouse. Not just a way to get up and down, the pole shook whenever someone was on it and warned the Korowai someone was climbing up—a primitive alarm system. Spencer disappeared through the hole and scurried down the pole like a monkey. Sara followed him down but at a much slower pace. She didn’t want to make the pole shake too much. They both reached the ground several seconds later.
Sara couldn’t see a thing. No stars twinkled in the black velvet sky. Last night the moon had shone brightly, so bright that moonbeams shone through cracks in the treehouse walls and lit up the interior. Tonight she didn’t see the moon at all, which was odd. If she had the phases figured right, the moon should be full tonight. But it had been a strange day altogether weather wise. The sun had been oddly dim. She’d looked directly at it for a long time without hurting her eyes. Even the Korowai had noticed the difference.
“Uncle Webb,” Spencer called out in a low voice.
Sara added her voice to Spencer’s. “Coleton, where are you?” She listened attentively, hoping to hear a branch snap or clothing rustle. But she heard nothing and wasn’t surprised. Webb had been a SEAL alongside Andrew not all that long ago. He could still be stealthy.
Sara looked all around. And then she spotted a fiery torch headed their way. A few seconds later she saw Webb’s body materialize. He walked up to them. “Is there something wrong? Why aren’t you guys in the treehouse?”
“Spencer wants to become a Jesus follower. He wanted you to be with him when he says the prayer,” Sara answered, her voice quivering slightly.
Webb hugged Spencer. “You’re making a smart move, Kid. I waited until I was a teenager to become a Christian. And even then I didn’t do anything with my faith. I wasted a lot of time.”
“Mom, I’m not sure what to say in the prayer.”
“It’s not hard. It can be a really simple prayer. All that really matters is that you’re sincere and believe. Just confess to God that you’ve sinned against him and that you believe Jesus died and rose again for your sins.”
“Can you and Uncle Webb hold my hands?”
“Sure we can,” Sara said. She took Spencer’s hand with her left hand and held out her right hand for Webb to hold. Webb jammed the flaming torch down into the soft ground and grabbed their hands. Almost as soon as their hands came together Spencer began.
“Dear God, I hope you’re listening. I sin all the time. I just don’t tell you or Mom about it. Earlier this week Mom gave me saltwater taffy to give to the other children. But I hid the candy in a hollow tree and ate it all myself. And then yesterday I was playing soccer with the other kids with the new ball Kyle Miller and Cody brought us. My team lost and I got really mad and kicked the ball into the river. One of the other kids swam into the river to get it and nearly drowned. I don’t want to do bad things like that anymore. Will you forgive me? I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I want to live in heaven with you and Jesus and dad and the angels. Until I can go there, will you come and live in my heart? I guess that’s all. Amen.”
Sara opened her eyes expectantly. But the three of them still stood on earth in a clearing in the middle of a jungle. She looked up into the dark sky. Nothing had changed.
She looked at Webb. He looked back at her and shrugged. I don’t understand, Lord. I thought the Rapture would happen now. Sara frowned. Maybe Andrew had misread the etching on the Eden sword.
But then she realized how stupid and selfish she was acting. Her little boy just made the greatest
decision of his young life, and she didn’t even acknowledge it. Sara bent down and hugged Spencer tightly. “I’m so proud of you, Spence. Someday you’ll go to heaven and live with Jesus and your father and me and Webb. We’ll always be together.”
She continued to hold Spencer. Tears welled in her eyes. Her body shook. She would cherish this moment forever. But then she heard Webb gasp. And Spencer pulled back. “Mom, something is happening in the sky. I think I see heaven. I see Jesus coming down.”
No sooner had Spencer uttered these words when a great shout followed by an earsplitting trumpet blast sounded. The great blast shook the earth and trees. The ground shuddered and split open with a ripping sound. Graves opened, releasing the dead. Dust and bone fragments fused into skeletons and then into flesh, and the dead came to life and shot into the sky. And then a moment later the living believers from all around the world followed suit.
Webb and Sara and Spencer met Jesus in the sky. And then they were taken into heaven. And it all happened in a flash, as quick as lightning.
Chapter 51
Heaven—that same moment
Against the high tide of incoming saints, Andrew Maddix worked his way through the endless crowd. He wanted to find his family and could sense their presence. He knew they were somewhere among the joyous saints. But how could he spot them among all the people? It seemed like a daunting task. He figured there must be close to a billion people or more heading through the gates.
Angels gently guided the people through the pearly gates. Some went through the three gates on the north, while others went through the three gates on the east side of the wall, and the rest went through the three gates on the west and the three gates on the south. Remarkably, there were no fights or jostling or angry outbursts. All the saints cooperated with beaming smiles plastered across their luminous faces. Hands were lifted high and praises of thanksgiving surged from their lips.