“Amen,” his men said in unison. The pastor nodded to them in praise.
“His victory will be ultimate for we who are destined to bring an end to hell here on earth. We are his champions, his instruments, and Revelations reads that his victory will be complete over Lucifer and his minions, and God will bring paradise here on earth.”
The woman shook her head. “This has nothing to do with God. This is a disease,” she shouted. The pastor held up a hand as one of his men, with an unkempt thin beard and long hair, stepped forward to strike her.
“No, Luke. She is confused.”
“I’m not confused.” She sneered at him. “It’s a virus. People are sick.” She shook her head. “This is madness.”
The pastor lifted his chin a bit as if he were lecturing a child. “This is a crusade. We will wipe the spawn of the devil from the earth, bringing peace to our world. Will you not join in something greater than yourselves?”
The woman frowned and the man grimaced. They glanced at one another, condemned lovers on their way to the gallows hand in hand.
“I can’t be a part of this madness,” she said, shaking her head. She nudged her partner with an elbow.
“No,” he whispered. They looked at one another, gaining strength in their defiance.
The pastor paced a moment. These are excellent minds that could greatly further our cause. But God’s will is his word. Yes, he challenges us all. They are tempting to appease for their expertise, but I will not fall into that viper’s pit.
“Repent and join. You can see God’s will before you, why do you not grasp it?”
“False prophets will show themselves. They dress like sheep, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You’ve corrupted yourself, Pastor,” the woman spat. The pastor grimaced, his skin drawing tight over his skull.
“A misinterpretation of Matthew’s gospel. I had faith that you would see the light, but God knew you would not join him when he made you. The Lord despises those with hearts of pride and they will not go unpunished.” The pastor nodded to Peter.
Peter bent down, pulling the plug from a red can of gasoline. The aroma of fuel engulfed the room. Peter swung the can, splashing the liquid onto the man’s face and body.
“What are you doing?” the man screamed. He scooted back on the bed, falling onto his shoulders.
The pastor took a deep breath, sighing out loud. “Your choice has been made.”
“No, you mustn’t!” the woman yelled at him. Peter continued to slosh the liquid around the room.
“Purification by fire,” the pastor said, almost disinterested by them.
Peter finished the can off by dousing their clothes and bodies.
“Please, Pastor. You can’t do this,” the woman cried.
The man spit gasoline onto the floor. “We will join you. We promise,” he sobbed.
The pastor looked down upon the groveling doctors, people that held high societal status in the old world. A world created by man, rotted through by mankind’s greed, lack of piousness, and self-gratification. Now that world had crumbled away, leaving only the righteous and those marked by the beast.
“Our Crusade is one of the righteous. Mankind will survive on the backs of God’s chosen people. You are the children of sin and will be washed away in the flames of time.”
The pastor and his followers marched outside, the clopping of their boots echoing off the wood floor and hallway walls. Pickup truck headlights illuminated over a hundred armed men that waited outside. They stood talking and waiting, holding their weapons ready. Shotguns, hunting rifles, clubs, bats, and hammers were held loosely in their hands. They were a mere fraction of his crusaders. His army of believers. They bowed their heads to him as he drew near. A few men knelt on the ground.
The pastor’s hands rose to the sky.
“Praise be to God.”
“Amen,” his followers said in return.
“Look at this house. This mansion. The people who live here have lived in affluence for years, hoarding their wealth, sitting on their pedestal, peering down their noses at the poor and uneducated in disgust. Feeling bad when they heard about their struggles on the radio. Horror when they watched the poor marching in the streets on television. The only action they took was turning the channel when they’d had enough.” His men watched him intently, nodding their heads in acknowledgment here and there as his words rang true with what they knew as worldly fact. “They milked a rigged system that exploits the lower and middle classes to line the pockets of the rich.”
His followers howled in the night, enraged by the injustice. The pastor raised his hands, and his followers quieted down in reverence. He pointed at the house.
“These people were doctors. Healers. Talented and intelligent individuals. God bestowed great gifts upon them in the hopes they would use them to serve.” He dropped his hands to his sides in disappointment. “Yet here they hide while good people such as yourselves that need their help suffer.” He turned and pointed at his young follower. “Gabriel’s new wife languishes, ravaged by illness. Yet, they would not help.” Gabriel, more of a boy than a man, gritted his lips, pained by the mention of his wife.
“They refuse to see the light. They refuse to do God’s will. They refuse the opportunity, no, God’s command, to remake the world in his image. Their mansion gives them no shelter when Heaven rains from above. Their science gives them no answer when God ordains those below.”
His men jeered the house and the rich inside. Brother Mathias walked forward and spit at the structure. The pastor took it in, feeding on the holy fervor of his followers. His soldiers of the apocalypse.
“They have turned their backs on God and now will pay the eternal price.” He nodded to Peter. The man hustled to the front of the house and flicked a lighter. Little orange and yellow flames leapt. The fire burst along a path leading inside the house. Soon the flames grew into a roaring inferno, the blaze of light conquering the darkness of night.
“God’s light triumphs over the darkness,” Peter said as he returned.
“You have done well, Brother Peter. Every day we grow the Kingdom of God,” the pastor said.
His men cheered the fiery collapse of the old order.
The pastor raised his eyes upward, looking at the smoke-filled night sky and a smile settled on his lips.
I was placed on earth for this.
STEELE
Shores of Lake Michigan
A gold cliff rose up over a hundred feet on Steele’s right-hand side. It was covered with small shrubs and stunted trees. Thin green palms of dune grass bent backwards in the wind, holding on to the hill with long shallow roots. The wind whipped off the far-stretching lake, forcing itself up the beach and into the hill. It buffeted the dune grass as it went, blowing sand, attempting to erode the hill away one cool breeze at a time.
On Steele’s left, waves crashed onto the shoreline, beating the sand with no remorse. The water was almost black, and the sky reciprocated the dreariness, reflecting a gray sunless sheet from above. The weather had been dismal since Colonel Kinnick and Joseph had left them on the beaches of Grand Haven.
“How much further?” came Gwen’s voice from behind him. The heavy packs weighed down on them, and the loose sand fell away from their feet. Each step felt like a battle against the elements, like they were walking on ground that could turn to quicksand at any moment. It wasn’t a nice little day hike but a soul-draining trudge enough for him to want it to be over soon. He looked over his shoulder back at Gwen. Her hair was pulled tight in a ponytail, her face set in a determined line of worry. Behind her trudged lanky Kevin and stout Ahmed, both looking equally as miserable. He stopped, facing them.
“We got about ten miles to go,” Steele said, pausing. “As long as we keep the cliffs on our right and the lake on our left, we will eventually get there.”
“Is there like a sign or something?” asked Kevin. The beanpole high-school teacher looked like a college student in an ROTC course with his
too large Army Combat Uniform on.
“There’s an old dead tree that sits just below the hill on our beach. It’s big and gangly and ours. I’ll know it.”
Kevin strained against his pack and bent his neck to the side trying to relieve the stress. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled because I ain’t walking any further than I have to.”
Steele smiled, ignoring the complaining of his comrade. Instead, he focused on the land trying to recognize something from his past. A house sat on the cliff above them. It leaned dangerously on the bluff as if prospecting its own private beach. All whispers of a different time. Echoes of summer in the midst of a dying fall.
Wood stairs with landings every fifty steps raced up the sandy cliff leading to it. Clean naval-gray painted wood lined the house. A wooden deck lining the back of the house sat empty. Long rectangular panoramic-style windows were broken in. Behind the windows was only darkness.
“I figure we will trek another three miles up the coast and find a house to overnight in. That will give us about seven miles tomorrow.” He readjusted his thick pack that adorned his back, trying to free up some slack for his M4 carbine sling so it would stop chaffing the skin on his upper back. He shifted his tactical carrier vest, trying to regain some level of comfort from the weight of the black magazines of 5.56x45 mm NATO rounds. His chipped tomahawk hung from his right hip. In front of the hand axe rested his holstered M9A1 9mm Beretta. It wasn’t his preferred sidearm, but it had a similar double-single action design as did his former duty SIG he had grown accustomed to over countless hours of training in the Counterterrorism Division. He hadn’t had a choice. It was take whatever Colonel Kinnick had to offer him or have nothing for the long march home.
“Do you think she’ll be there?” Gwen said softly as if worried her words might reach him. Regardless, the wind carried her words away. Loose strands of her hair danced atop her head as she watched for his response.
Steele drew his mouth tight.
Steele pointed to the top of a short dune on their right. “Kevin, can you post up on that sand embankment and scout that way?”
“You got it, Captain,” Kevin said. He leapt up the sand dune with long strides and a groan of discomfort. Steele gave his back a dirty look. He hated when Kevin would call him “Captain,” a title he didn’t want or deserve.
He breathed through his nose and looked at her. “She was there six weeks ago. That’s the last I heard since phone service died.” The last you heard of your mother. What kind of son am I? She was here alone with no one, and I don’t even know if she’s alive.
“A lot has happened in the last six weeks,” Gwen said. Her words were pained and filled with worry. He gave her a flustered look. The puckering wound atop his skull reminded him that a lot had happened since the beginning and he still hadn’t fully healed from his last scrape with death. “I’m trying to forget.”
“Me too.” Her pretty lips frowned. “I’m only trying to manage expectations. A lot of horrible things have happened since the outbreak…” she trailed off.
The wound complained. The wind touching the exposed healing skin still sent weird pain and other shooting sensations through the nerve endings and into his neck. He gingerly ran a hand along the top of his head where the bullet had decided to spare his life. Instead, it left him with a wicked going away consolation prize.
“It doesn’t matter. I have to find out. If it were your family, you know we would do the same.”
“Would we?” she said. Her words took him aback. Unrepentant gray-green eyes stared at him.
Of course we would, but I can’t save us all. That’s one thing I know for certain. Then why do I keep trying? It was only another layer of stress piled atop him. It was hard enough to bear the losses he already had.
“But we’re here. So we’re checking on my family.” Waves continued their assault on the beach, roaring onto the shore.
“How will I ever know about my family?” Gwen said, her voice rising with emotion. He was taking them as far from people and cities as he could think of and basically the opposite direction of her family in Iowa. He considered them lucky to only have killed twenty or so infected in their entire four-day journey up the coast of Lake Michigan.
“I promise we will make sure they’re okay,” he said. Her face remained perturbed, her eyes almost matching the dark gray skies like a green thundercloud. Her eyes always seemed to change with her mood and the lighting. They spoke volumes of her soul and had only shown severe darkness since Pittsburgh.
He gave her a smile from underneath a beard that hung down to his chest like a castaway. Unwashed and unkempt save for lake water, it grew wild and free without oil or wax to keep it healthy. Just testosterone, sand and dirt fed the mangy animal on his face.
Her gaunt face paled as blood drained from her cheeks and lips.
He reached for her. “Gwen?” Her eyes grew wide and she smacked his hand away.
“What’s the matter?” he said as she spun around. She darted up a sandbank, clouds of tan sand springing up behind her. She bent in half at her hips, puking into the dune grass.
“Gwen? What’s wrong?” he called out. She continued to get sick as the swaying grass lapped her ankles.
Still bent over, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “It’s just something I ate,” she groaned.
Steele’s stocky Egyptian ally sidled up next to him. With his previously shaved head needing a trim, he looked a bit like a chia pet experiment gone wrong.
“What do you think it was? The fish?” Ahmed asked. He held his gun uncomfortably as if he wished it were a baseball bat instead. They both watched her heave, the two of them concerned. Ahmed had saved her life early in the outbreak, and his attraction to Gwen had caused tension in the small group. The two men bonded over their mutual care for Gwen while destroying the bridges of Pittsburgh at the behest of Colonel Jackson.
“We all had it,” Steele said. He watched the woman he had been in a relationship with for years heave.
“I haven’t been feeling that great,” Ahmed confirmed.
“The only other option is the MREs with enough sodium and preservatives to back you up for about a month.”
Steele’s eyes ran from Gwen back to Kevin. Kevin crouched in the grass, only his head sticking out. The lanky man gave no signals of approaching dead. Steele’s eyes never rested. He was always scanning for something out of the ordinary. Go with your gut feeling. Last time he had ignored his gut screaming, “It’s a trap!” he had almost lost his head. Not again.
“I’m just thankful we have food,” Ahmed said.
“A little variety couldn’t hurt. Let’s go check on her.”
The two men hiked up the embankment. Gwen held her abdomen, hunched in a miserable position.
Steele placed a hand on her back, rubbing her gently.
“Babe, you okay?” he said.
“I’m fine,” she snapped. She spit hard in the sand. She stood upright, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Color returned to her cheeks in uneven blotches as if they still weren’t sure she was better.
“I can carry your pack,” Steele said, reaching for her. It would be horribly inefficient and exhausting, but he would do it. She dodged him, throwing a shoulder out of his reach.
“I got it. You have enough.”
“I could carry it. I got less,” Ahmed offered. Steele was already maxed out, having been forced to ruck most of the ammunition for the group generously offered by Colonel Kinnick.
Gwen straightened her back.
“No. I can do it myself. I don’t need either of you carrying my pack for me.”
Ahmed gave her a sorry smile. “Just trying to help.”
“I’m fine. Let’s keep moving,” she said with an apologetic smile for Ahmed but nothing for Steele.
I cannot wait for this conversation later, he thought.
“Steele, come look at this,” Kevin half-shouted. Steele scanned the beach quickly, looking for movement. That was one of the
only good things about their enemy. They were noisy and moved like blacked-out drunks. He ran along the dune ledge, bounding alongside Kevin. Steele quickly took a knee, decreasing his profile next to Kevin. The gangly man pointed down the beach.
“Well, I’ll be damned. More than we’ve seen yet,” Steele said as more of an afterthought. A ragged pack of infected hobbled down the beach a couple hundred yards away. Wind whipped their torn clothes. Fractured bones protruded from gray dead skin, and intestines peered out from open gut wounds.
“What about up the stairs?” Kevin asked, straight brown hair flipping around his head. The beach had provided them with ample protection from the infected. Something had now driven them this way. Steele was wary to find out. Every time they engaged the infected, they chanced infection themselves or expended too much ammunition putting them down. Ammunition was a finite commodity at best. Only a headshot will do. Save the bullets for when you need them.
Steele nodded to Kevin. “Up the steps. We’ll follow the coastline up top along the cliff.”
They jogged along the sand embankment. When Steele reached Ahmed and Gwen, he slid down the dune, letting the collapsing sand take his weight down a few feet.
“We got infected incoming. We’re going to take the cliff,” Steele said.
Gwen eyed the houses as if they were wolves, peering down upon them from atop the lake cliff. “What if there are more up top?” Gwen insisted. His girlfriend was a voice of concern and reason in a sea of doubt, but doubt bred doubt. Indecision got men killed in warfare all the time. Indecision when facing the infected was a final mistake.
“Then we will have to come back down to the beach.”
“We could get pinned between two groups,” Ahmed said. Steele stared at him. Sometimes he wondered if he was even in charge, or if this was some cruel prank where if the infected didn’t kill him, their nagging would. The Arab man looked expectantly at Steele.
The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 74