6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1

by Anderson Atlas

  Rice is the first in the shower. She moans the entire time like she’s in some soap commercial. It’s annoying, but makes me smile.

  Ben bumps my shoulder playfully, “She fingerin’ her lady harp in there or what?”

  I laugh.

  We all take a turn in the shower. Quick turns. The dial that says how much water is in the tanks is fried, so we don’t know how much we have.

  A week passes as we keep sailing south. We’re running low on food and water. Each one of us has a limit on how much we can drink and eat, and I hate it. I drink my part and I’m still thirsty. I eat my share and I’m still hungry. I don’t tell anyone, but I haven’t fed Kat in two meals.

  We’ve tried to find a place to dock the boat for over three days, but there were too many puppets. And they continue following us. We’re like fugitives on our own planet. Every time we get close to the shore we attract thousands. We would never make it if we docked. Isabella says it would be a suicide mission if we try and get food. I believe her. She, over anyone else, knows when we’re outmatched.

  So, we calculate our food and water and are making a push for Cuba. We all take shifts to make sure we stay on course. The night comes. It’s dark. Spooky dark. The stars are everywhere and there’s a sliver of a moon. I try to see the shore but there are no lights on the mainland. No one talks much. As it gets late, everyone goes to his or her rooms. I lie on my bunk, petting Kat. I can’t sleep. I don’t even like closing my eyes. A few hours later, Hana opens my door.

  “You sleeping?” she asks. I shake my head.

  “It’s my shift. You want to go up top with me?”

  I jump out of bed and go with her. Kat follows, naturally. “I feel like I’m sleeping right now…” I say to Hana as she takes the wheel and sends Ben to bed. I slump on the bench next to the steering wheel with my head lying on the back of the bench. “…and that I’ll wake up and be in my bed at home. My Ma will be down stairs, and my Dad in front of the TV watching football or something.”

  “I think similarly,” Hana says. “I was dating this guy before all this. We’d gone on our third date three nights before everyone started getting sick. He’s probably one of those puppets, walkers — whatever we’re calling them.” Hana sighs. “My parents were pretty old. They were really good people. Tried their hardest to do things right. They didn’t deserve what I did.”

  “What did you do?” I ask her. My pulse quickens and I sit up.

  She shrugs. “Nothing. I mean, they didn’t deserve to die.”

  “There won’t be a funeral or anything. Not for anyone,” I mumble.

  “Well, your soul goes where it’s gonna go with or without a funeral,” Hana replies, trying to make me feel better.

  “The Egyptians didn’t believe that,” Hana didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m kidding,” I mumble. “I did a project on the Egyptians last year. They were pretty crazy about the afterlife. It was kinda boring at the time. Now I get it. Death wasn’t the last stop, you know? It was like a waiting room for the next place. You’d get resurrected into the final world. That is, if you passed all the tests.”

  “What sort of tests?”

  I rack my brain, “Well, I remember it was dangerous. The dead had to be protected from all kinds of demons. They had to pass through seven gates. Finally, Osiris would judge your life. You had to tell a ton of different gods why you had a good life. Why you should get into the god’s world. You’d go in front of Anubis, the god of death. Then it was Maat, the god of truth. Then I remember Amemet would devour your heart if it wasn’t pure, and Seth would finish you off.” I look into the darkness all around us. I feel like we were passing through death into the afterlife right now. Maybe we’re dead right now and don’t know it. The darkness presses on me like I’m being squeezed. This creepy feeling fills me up. Tears threaten to burst from my eyes.

  “Well, I’m confident they’re all in a better place,” she says softly. I notice she looks more like a woman standing at the wheel instead of a cop. She’d taken off her cop belt and gun.

  “I like your necklace,” I say.

  She touches her necklace lightly. “Thanks.”

  The boat rocks gently after a gust of wind passes. Water slaps the hull regularly like a clock. I see my Ma in my head. She’s looking at me, ain’t sayin’ nothing, just looking. I can’t picture her any other way even though I try. “I wish I knew my Dad and Ma were in heaven. Like, really knew, like you do.”

  Hana shrugs. “Well, there’s a little skepticism in me, unfortunately.”

  Markus comes up the cabin ladder and sits on the bench across from us. He’d heard us and answers, “Even representatives of God feel doubt. Jesus cried and prayed all night before He was crucified. And He was the Son of God.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better.” I pick up the end of a rope and fiddle with it. “You know, the day before all this happened I caught my dad fuckin’ with another chick in his office. They forgot to lock the door.” Tears flood my eyes, finally.

  Hana tightens the wheel so it can’t turn by itself and gives me a hug. She sits next to me. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was so mad at him that I didn’t care what happened to him,” I say through snot and tears. I’m crying in front of Hana again.

  She returns to the wheel. “We have to believe that there’s a place after death for us to go, a place where everything is better.”

  “So why even live on Earth?” I ask.

  Markus smiles at me. “Earth is our chance to feel a physical body. To feel things that our spirits don’t get to feel, like pizza and snow. We also get to feel the bad things, like death and hate. Opposing forces pull and push us through this physical existence. We become more aware and enlightened and we take that with us to the afterlife. We finally become whole.” Markus can see the doubt on my face because he changes his tone. “Scientifically speaking, there should be no reason there aren’t multiple dimensions that carry our souls between worlds.”

  “Like the Egyptians thought,” I say.

  Markus chuckles and nods. “Kind of. See, those thoughts you have in your head? They’re your body and your soul working together to give you intelligence. When you die you leave your body behind, and your soul passes from one dimension to another, along with all the knowledge you’ve gained.”

  “I’ve never quite heard a preacher say it like that,” Hana says.

  I shrug. Some old man can tell me how the universe works? Na. “I just want to know. Really know. That way, what I did won’t be — ” I catch myself.

  Markus puts a solid hand on my shoulder, “We all want that. If you need to know how to pray, you come talk to me. I’ll teach you.” Markus goes below to get some sleep.

  It’s just me and Hana again.

  “Earlier, you said something about doing something. What did you do?” Hana asks, looking into my eyes.

  I sit near the front of the boat, hanging my feet over the edge. Every now and again water splashes my feet.

  I pet Kat lightly. I don’t have enough energy to play with him. He doesn’t have much energy either. I feel guilty for not giving him food. He must be starving.

  Hana joins us and hangs her feet over the edge. “You can tell me. The boat can drive itself for a while. We’re going due south and won’t hit land for a long while.” She picks a strand of hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear. My Ma used to do that. I used to get so mad when she tried to groom me like I was a poodle. Now I’d give anything to be prepped by her.

  “What if Cuba is like the U.S.? Too many puppets to land?” I ask, barely able to push air through my voice box.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there,” Hana insists.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.” I think I’m going to cry. “I need to tell you something. Just in case. I need to tell someone.”

  She rubs my back weakly. Her energy is drying up too. “Go ahead, but I promise you, we’ll be fine.”

  Ian startles me. He�
��d been off on the dark side of the boat. Hana stands. I don’t have the energy to do anything but stare.

  “Shift is up. You guys can go to sleep.”

  I hurry down to my bunk. Andy is on the top one. He clicks his flashlight on and shines it on me. “Hey.” “Why aren’t you sleeping with Rice?” I cringe at the brightness and duck from its illumination. I lie on top of the sheets. It’s way too hot to bundle up.

  “She snores and takes the sheets. I’m old enough to sleep by myself.” He plays with the light on the ceiling. “Do you miss your mommy and daddy?” He says.

  “Yeah. Go to sleep.” A moment later I add with a sigh, “My parents were cool. I was lucky. Some of my friend’s parents were freaking wankers. Did you have good parents?” I ask.

  “Uh huh. My mommy read me stories and made the best cupcakes, and my daddy liked to swim with me. He was going to teach me to dive when he and mommy got back from their ‘parents only’ vacation.”

  The sinking feeling comes over me. That feeling has become so familiar it’s like an old friend. It swarms over my thoughts and body and turns the darkness into a tight space. I want to take back what I did. I imagine that moment when I stuck the USB in to the computer, but this time, at the last moment, I change my mind. The world doesn’t end and I go home like any normal day.

  “My dad taught me all kinds of stuff. He was the smartest guy I knew.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve. “Hey, I’ll teach you to dive if you want.”

  “Really? I’m a little scared to dive.”

  “Yeah, everyone is scared at first. But you just jump. And you remember that you’re falling into water. It’s like falling into pillows. You’re not scared of pillows are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you’ll do awesome. The next time we stop we’ll go diving.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Now really, go to sleep.” I can’t shake the thought that I have nothing but this damn photo. I’m alone. And I think, even though I don’t want to, that this is it. There’s nothin’ after that light in our brains go out. Nothin’ that lasts forever. No laughing or good times in heaven. But nothing means there are no sad things either. Maybe when that day comes for me I’ll be fine. I’ll fall into that endless nothingness and everything will be gone. It scares me shitless thinking about it. I press the photo of my parents to my chest.

  Chapter 1.28

  Markus:

  My rear end is so sore and raw from sitting on this camel day in and day out. According to Mitchell, we entered Algeria an hour ago. I can’t tell. All I know is that my posterior needs salvation in a big way, and the temperature must be over one hundred degrees. My doctor is going to smack me across the face for being so stupid with my old bones. The horizon is nothing but sand and hills, quite a sight. In contrast to the blue sky, the hills look yellow, their shadows crisp and dark. This is God’s creation, and it has its own beauty.

  When the hills level out I can see the famous mirage that looks like water just past our reach. And that’s where it stays, just out of reach. We camp in the middle of nowhere, without a tree in sight for the second night in a row. The temperature at night drops to near freezing. It’s so cold my muscles cramp up. We sit around a small coal fire. It will be our last fire because we have no more coal. Mitchell pours hot water into my mug. I stir in a spoon of sugar and some instant coffee. We’d run out of the good stuff yesterday.

  Mitchell studies the folder that I’d stolen at the mosque. “It seems like these guys were mapping out the flow of a virus across the United States.” He shows me the diagram. “They illustrate multiple infection points. It would seem that the best place to release a virus is in New York. From there it has the best chance of spreading across the continent.”

  “New York, huh?” I say. “The city that never sleeps.”

  “Millions come and go every day, two international airports and lots and lots of people shoulder to shoulder.” He scratches his beard. “Why would someone want to kill the world?”

  “God doesn’t want the world to end, but He’s going to sacrifice it one day in order to make a Heaven on Earth. See, it’s not about death; it’s about redemption. It’s not God’s will; it’s His truth. You see, God doesn’t live by our definition of time. He’s already witnessed the Apocalypse.”

  Mitchell looks surprised. “Have you lost your marbles, old man?”

  I shake my head, “The Apocalypse will come. Some think the signs are happenin’ today. I believe we should all be living pure lives in preparation for the Second Coming.”

  Mitchell waves me off, “I’m not a religious man. To me that sounds like the same crazy stuff radical Muslims blow themselves up for.”

  “There are Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine and Death. Conquest has already come.

  The Book of Revelation says, I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the Seven Seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. The arrow symbolizes advanced technology. If you had a bow in those days you were advanced. The bow and the crown, which symbolizes modern technology and greed, spread across the world in the ultimate conquest. Some call it globalism.

  The second horseman is War. Again in Revelations it says, When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. That would be the Antichrist. The man that fits that description is Liam Gershald. He’s the CEO of the Cantel Corporation. It was the Cantel Corporation that hired a military to fight rebels in Somalia to protect its assets, a historical first for a corporation. Now, because the rebels were really bad guys, the world did not protest or sanction the action. Gershald is working to get the United Nations to depose of the Sudanese and the North Korean governments. Some say he’s got influence in our White House. They are talking about building the largest army in history to do it, a private army, fighting three wars financed by corporate interests.”

  Mitchell huffs, “Conspiracy theory. Blah, blah, blah. You can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it. Convenient for your argument.”

  I continue anyway, “The Third Horseman is Famine. When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hands. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

  This period of famine is important. It’s not a famine of food you see. It’s a famine of energy. The oil is drying up. The world hit peak oil production in 1998. That was sixteen years ago. We use over three billion gallons of oil a day. Oil will become so valuable it will ignite small wars on the planet that eventually lead to one big war and the final days. We already have five wars over oil in Africa. Three belong to the Cantel Corporation and the United Nations alone.

  When the Fourth Horseman arrives it will bring Death. When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the Earth. That’s when most of the people on this Earth die. It will restart humanity. It may end a lot of suffering as well as bring the righteous to God.”

  “That sounds lovely, but isn’t it true that in every century there are signs that the Second Coming is on our doorstep? Weren’t the Crusades started because the church thought that the war over Palestine was the war that will return Christ to Earth?” Mitchell asks rhetorically. He’s a well-read man. “During World War II people thought th
e same thing.”

  “Yes. It is true.” I pull out a piece of jerky and take a bite of it. “Whatever God’s plan is, I’ll always be His humble soldier. And I do not pretend to know what His plan is.”

  “You do that.”

  I flip through the red folder, find a particular page, and show it to Mitchell. He reads it for me. “The Stone of Allah is the hammer of Allah. It has brought death. It will bring death again.”

  “So, these guys think this stone will pave the way for Allah to return?” Mitchell asks.

  “We’ll, in truth, our version of the end of times and the Muslim version aren’t that different. Details are different, but the outcome is the same. The righteous will survive,” I say. “You see, God plans things. There are reasons for things. A purpose to all that we do.”

  Mitchell takes the red envelop from me, “So, you were destined to find this stuff? Why?”

  “I will know in the days to come.” As I try to sleep in the icy, dry air I can’t help but wonder why God has sent me to this place and this time.

  I relax into my bed, roll over, and stare into the stars. The Milky Way stretches across the heavens like the most intricately sewn silk embroidery, so perfect in its light, and so vast. God is so much bigger than us. I can really unwind in His presence. His plan for me will be known, and He will take care of me.

  Chapter 1.29

  Hana:

  I wake up in one of the staterooms of the Pioneer. I’d never slept on a boat before. It’s such a nice feeling, the rocking back and forth. My nose instantly picks up the smell of bacon. I leap up, throw on my dirty sports bra, check my hair in the mirror — I regret looking — and hurry out for breakfast.