Shaken

by Jerry B. Jenkins

Vicki nodded. “We think a lot more might pray at the next meeting. We can’t throw away this opportunity.”

  “What about Carl?” Darrion said. “He’s going to get caught.”

  “They’ve asked him to head up the transmission this time,” Mark said, “so he’s wiring a button underneath the control board that will let him switch back and forth without anyone knowing.”

  “But they’ll eventually find it,” Darrion said. “And even if they don’t, they’ll punish him for letting Vicki get on the air again.”

  Vicki took a deep breath. “You’re right. He’s in trouble if I go on again, but he wants to take the chance. He thinks this may be our last shot.”

  “If everything goes as planned,” Mark said, “he’ll get out after the broadcast.”

  “What about us?” Janie said. “Where are we going?”

  Vicki had thought about that question for weeks. The truth was, she didn’t want to leave the schoolhouse. It was the perfect hideout. There was space for the kids to spread out and not bother each other, and they had been able to take in unbelievers.

  “There are a few of you who came here during the locust attack,” Vicki said. “We’d love to be able to stay together, but we can’t. We’d like you to go back to your homes and tell others what you’ve learned. Help them know God.”

  Tolan squirmed in Conrad’s arms and got down. He went to his mother and hugged her. “Mommy cry?”

  Lenore picked him up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’d like to say something.” She handed Tolan to Shelly. “You kids saved my life. Literally. And you saved my son’s life. But that’s not the best thing you did for me. You gave me a reason to go on. You showed me how I could know God. For that, I’ll be forever thankful.

  “I knew this day would come. I didn’t want it to, but I figured eventually the GC would find this place and you’d have to run. My house is not big, but I’m willing to open it up to any of you who want to stay with me.”

  Charlie raised a hand. “Do I get to go, or do you want me to stay here?”

  Vicki smiled. “You’re with us.”

  Charlie smiled and slapped Conrad a high five.

  When the others had left the room after the meeting, Darrion shared an idea, and the kids agreed it was a good plan. They helped the others pack and said good-bye. Vicki held Tolan a long time and wiped away a tear. “I wanted to watch you grow up.”

  Conrad loaded the small car and handed Lenore the keys. “We won’t be needing this.”

  Lenore strapped Tolan in the back and waved. “We’ll be praying for you every day.”

  With the Global Community Gala approaching fast, Judd, Lionel, Sam, and Mr. Stein moved to General Zimmerman’s home to be closer to the city.

  “I talked with my neighbor today,” the General said.

  “Chaim Rosenzweig is excited about being invited to the Gala as an honored guest.”

  Judd shook his head. “He still thinks Carpathia is a good guy?”

  “Apparently so. I tried to talk with him, but he seemed tired. His speech was somewhat slurred.”

  “Did you tell him about the earthquake prophecy?”

  General Zimmerman nodded. “He wouldn’t listen. I tried to explain what happened to me at the meeting, but he said he has many Judah-ites trying to convince him to become one of them.”

  “I hope he does before it’s too late,” Judd said.

  Late Friday afternoon Vicki climbed into the bell tower to relieve Janie. Janie gave her a pair of binoculars, scooted to the other side of the small enclosure, and pointed. “They’ll come from that direction.”

  Vicki wiped away a bead of sweat. The intense heat of July and August had given way to a sweltering September. She closed her eyes and thought of her home in Mount Prospect. Her family had lived in a trailer that had only one air conditioner. On hot nights, the family crowded into the cool room or sought refuge in a screened-in porch her father had built. The constant hum of the air conditioner would put the others to sleep, but not Vicki.

  “What are you thinking?” Janie said.

  Vicki told her and Janie smiled. “At Northside we used to put wet towels over us on nights like this. We only had one fan per floor.”

  Vicki told Janie she could go, but Janie said she wanted to stay. “I’ve got a bad feeling I’m going to mess things up.”

  “What do you mean?” Vicki said.

  “I’ve done a lot of bad stuff. From booze to drugs, stealing to, well, you name it. What happens if I go back to any of that?”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  Janie cringed. “Never.”

  Vicki sat back and smiled. “God’s working on you.”

  “What?”

  “I know you think I’m some kind of saint, but the truth is, I was pretty messed up myself. I did bad stuff and didn’t care, because it was fun. After I came to know God, I wondered if I’d ever go back.”

  “Did you?”

  Vicki shook her head. “I’m not perfect, by any stretch. But after I understood how much God loves me, I didn’t want to do any of that. It’s like God opened a door. When I saw what was on the other side, I didn’t need the booze or hooch or anything else to make me happy.”

  “Sometimes the stuff I did comes back on me and I think maybe God made a mistake. He couldn’t love somebody like me.”

  “But he does. All I have to do is look at your forehead, Janie. That mark is God’s seal that says you’re his child.”

  Janie sat with Vicki and talked until dark. When Mark relieved Vicki a few hours later, Janie was still there.

  Carl Meninger made sure no one was in the control room very early Saturday morning when he checked the system a final time. He had asked Conrad and Mark to leave the camera on at the schoolhouse. He punched up the satellite feed and saw a volleyball with a face drawn on it. Underneath someone had written, “Hail, Potentate Nicolae Carpathia.”

  Carl grinned and tried the button below the console. He raised his knee a few inches and pushed it. No one would be able to tell he was the one allowing the kids to have their say.

  It was still dark when Vicki awoke and checked her notes for the broadcast. She couldn’t wait to tell more people the truth.

  Dr. Damosa walked swiftly to center stage of Teddy Kollek Stadium, beaming in the late-morning sun in Jerusalem. When he spoke, Conrad punched a button on his watch. “We’re on in exactly seven minutes.”

  “How do you know that?” Shelly said.

  “Carl’s instructions,” Conrad said. “He can’t communicate by phone, so we’re supposed to go on exactly seven minutes after Damosa begins.”

  Vicki took her place in front of the camera. Dr. Damosa welcomed everyone around the world and in Jerusalem and explained that some would be watching by tape delay. “Only two days from now we will experience the most exciting event in the history of the world. Already more than a million people are here to enjoy Potentate Carpathia’s Gala. We will celebrate without limits. Young and old alike are gathering. But you don’t have to be here to enjoy the party. You can participate wherever you are.”

  Damosa paused. “I need to mention something that happened at our last gathering. Someone illegally broke into our satellite signal. This is a criminal offense and will be treated accordingly. We believe the young Judah-ites are the ones responsible, but we have fixed that problem.”

  The crowd cheered.

  “I wish we could go on right now,” Vicki said.

  “Five minutes,” Conrad yelled.

  Carl Meninger checked monitors and different audio and video meters. The control room was crowded and getting hot. He asked someone to turn up the air-conditioning.

  Carl’s boss walked in and surveyed the scene. “Everything all right?”

  Carl nodded but kept his eyes on the equipment. “We’ve checked out every possible way they could get in. There’s no chance they’ll do it this time.”

  Carl took a deep breath. He hoped he could get away before the GC ar
rested him. He glanced at his watch.

  Three more minutes.

  Vicki sat straight and pulled her hair behind her ears. It had been a long time since she had cared about her looks. Shelly applied Vicki’s makeup and said, “Perfect.”

  Dr. Damosa announced the special musical guests and said they would be performing at the Gala the following week. The crowd cheered again.

  “But first, the real reason we are here. We have been talking about your responsibility as citizens of the Global Community. In order to live in peace, you must help us work for peace.”

  Damosa’s speech slowed. The camera focused on the man’s eyes, and Vicki felt uneasy. He spoke softly, as if he wanted to put his audience into a trance.

  “This is getting weird,” Shelly said. “You think he can do what Carpathia did?”

  “You mean put people under some kind of spell?”

  Mark said.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him to try,” Vicki said. “How much time?”

  “Two minutes,” Conrad said.

  “We need to start now. Is there any way to call Carl?”

  Carl watched Dr. Damosa and sensed a change in the room. People behind him stopped talking. Damosa’s voice was mellow, inviting, and evil.

  Carl breathed a prayer for the kids in Illinois. He couldn’t let this go on a minute longer. He raised his leg slightly and touched the button underneath the control board.

  “You’re on,” Shelly whispered to Vicki.

  Vicki looked up and saw herself on the monitor. She smiled. “Hi, it’s Vicki B. again. I know many of you heard about me from the last meeting, but you didn’t get to see me, so the Global Community invited me back.”

  Vicki stood and crossed her arms. “Actually, that’s not true. Right now, there are technical people trying to figure out how we’re doing this. I really don’t understand it myself, but I do know this. Dr. Damosa and the other GC leaders don’t want you to hear what I have to say.”

  Panic. Chaos. People in the control room went into a frenzy when Vicki came on the screen. Carl’s boss grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Get that girl off there!”

  Carl glanced at a side monitor and saw Dr. Damosa at Teddy Kollek Stadium. The man glared at the screen behind him and ran off the stage. Seconds later the phone rang.

  Carl shouted orders and hit switches on the control board, but nothing worked. Vicki Byrne was on the air.

  As Conrad put the kids’ Web site address on the screen, Vicki quickly explained the truth about God. Vicki used Janie’s life as an example.

  “A friend of mine used to buy into the Enigma Babylon One World Faith. She had done some bad stuff in the past and wanted to follow God. But it wasn’t until she understood who Jesus was and what he did for her—”

  A ringing stopped Vicki mid-sentence. She tried to concentrate and keep going. Someone ran downstairs and burst through the door. It was Darrion. “They’re here! The GC are coming up the driveway!”

  Conrad turned off Vicki’s microphone. “Let’s go.”

  “No,” Vicki said. “Turn my mike back on and get out of here. I have to finish.”

  Conrad frowned. “Hurry,” he whispered as he turned the microphone back on.

  The others climbed down to the secret passage that led to safety. Charlie was the last in the group. He looked at his painting, then at Vicki. “I’m not leaving without you.”

  Vicki checked the monitor. She was still on. She had to finish her message and get out before the GC stormed the schoolhouse.

  25

  SWEAT trickled down Vicki Byrne’s forehead and her heart galloped. The moment the kids had dreaded was here. The Global Community had discovered their hideout. Vicki was frantic about getting to safety but also excited about speaking to thousands, perhaps millions, of kids around the world as she interrupted the GC’s top education man.

  Phoenix barked at the warning bell, and Darrion rushed into the house to quiet him as the kids scrambled into the secret passageway. Everyone was gone now except Charlie. Vicki waved at him to leave, but Charlie crossed his arms and stood by the door. He whispered, “I’m not leaving without you. Finish your talk.”

  Vicki turned back to the camera and smiled. “It looks like this is my last chance to speak with you. The Global Community is asking us to move out.”

  Vicki had to sit still because there was no one to work the camera. She peeked at herself on the monitor across the room, took a breath, and continued.

  “I was talking about my friend who bought into Enigma Babylon One World Faith. She’s been in a lot of trouble—used drugs, lied to her friends, and wasn’t a nice person. She thought God couldn’t forgive her, so she didn’t try to change.”

  Charlie walked out of the room and quickly returned.

  “They’re pulling up. Hurry.”

  “Maybe you think with all the people who have disappeared or died that it really doesn’t matter what you do with your life. I want you to know it does.

  “There’s a God in heaven who loved you enough to die for you. You’re not just a number to him. You were created to know him and live for him. And like he did for my friend who messed up her life, he can change you from the inside out.”

  A rumble shook the schoolhouse, and Vicki feared the walls would fall in. “If you want God to change your life, pray with me right now.”

  Judd, Lionel, and Sam stood outside Teddy Kollek Stadium and watched the huge monitors. Judd had gasped when Dr. Neal Damosa, the GC’s top educator, lowered his voice and tried to put the audience in a trance. But when Vicki interrupted him, it was all Judd could do to keep from cheering.

  As Vicki talked, Judd watched the kids nearby. One tall boy who looked no more than fifteen said, “Not her again! That girl is a Judah-ite!”

  Another shushed him. “If the GC didn’t want her back on, she wouldn’t be up there.”

  Lionel put a hand on Judd’s shoulder. “Something’s wrong.”

  Judd studied Vicki’s face. When he first met her more than three years earlier, Vicki looked a lot older than fourteen. Now, at seventeen, she had grown into a mature young woman. But Lionel was right. Her eyes darted off camera. Someone said “driveway,” but Judd couldn’t hear the rest.

  “Aren’t your friends in a secure hideout?” Sam whispered.

  Lionel stared at Judd. “The GC has found them.”

  Judd pulled his friends to the back of the crowd near a fence. He put one arm around Lionel, the other around Sam, and bowed his head. “God, you know the trouble Vicki and the others are in. They need your help right now. You’ve done incredible things here for us. Now do something incredible there.”

  Mark Eisman called for quiet as the kids walked through the Civil War-era tunnel. They had all heard of the Underground Railway in school. This tunnel was a secret passage that had given safety to runaway slaves. Mark hoped it would give them a chance to escape too.

  The tunnel led down the hill from the schoolhouse and ended just before the river. Mark turned on a flashlight and noticed the muddy ground. When they came to the end, he turned and put a finger to his lips.

  Water trickled and gurgled against the riverbank not far from them. A light rain soaked the ground at the tunnel’s end. In the distance, a GC diesel truck chugged up the driveway to the schoolhouse. Mark turned the flashlight on the others and counted five: Conrad, Janie, Melinda, Shelly, and Darrion, who still held Phoenix by the collar. Phoenix whimpered, and Darrion clamped his mouth shut.

  Conrad broke the silence. “We shouldn’t have left Vicki.”

  “Charlie will get her out of there,” Mark said. “We have to get to the satellite truck. If we leave before sunup, we have a chance to get back to the main road before the GC finds us.”

  “Wait!” Conrad said. “The computer. We left it inside.”

  “Too late.”

  “But that’s the only way we’ll keep track of the Web site and communicate with Judd and the others.”

  “We
can’t go back now,” Mark said. “Let’s get to the truck.”

  Mark wondered if Vicki was still on the air. A long cable ran from the back of the truck to the makeshift control room Conrad had built inside the schoolhouse. The kids would have to unhook it before they pulled away.

  Mark crawled through the muddy opening at the end of the tunnel and looked back. Four GC vehicles approached with headlights on high beam. The huge GC truck led the way.

  Conrad peeked out and gave a low whistle. “You think that thing’s filled with Peacekeepers and Morale Monitors?”

  “I’m not staying to find out,” Mark said. “Quick. Everybody!”

  The kids crawled out of the tunnel and headed for their truck. Phoenix barked.

  “Let him go, Darrion,” Mark said. “He’s going to give us away.”

  Darrion let go and Phoenix scampered into the night.

  Earlier, Mark had parked the satellite truck deep in the woods on an old logging road that snaked behind the schoolhouse. Janie slipped and fell in the mud. Shelly tried to help, but she fell on top of Janie. By the time the kids reached the truck, they were all wet and muddy.

  Mark opened the back door and spotted the monitor screen. Vicki was still on, her head bowed.

  “Conrad, I want you to unhook the cable as soon as she’s finished,” Mark said.

  No answer.

  “Conrad?”

  Darrion wiped mud from her face. “He’s not here.”

  Carl Meninger guessed this was the end of his Global Community career. He had started as a communications specialist in the GC Navy, where he had met John Preston, one of the kids from the Young Tribulation Force. John had shared the same message Vicki was now giving just before a meteor slammed into the ocean, creating the biggest tidal wave in history. John had given up his place in a minisub so Carl could live. It took Carl time, but he finally believed the message and became a member of the Young Tribulation Force. By that time, the GC had assigned him more responsibility, and he finally wound up in the satellite communications division in Florida.