by Sam Herrera
MARA
“Distribute the guns and rifles among the others,” I snapped at Caleb.
“Are you outta your mind?” Caleb stared. “We have to surrender. Think of our son.”
“I am. Have you forgotten the gas already? They’re here to kill us, not capture us. We’re going down fighting.” He took the gun, knowing I was right even if he hated me for it. I aimed my handgun as I lay face down on the sand, my eyes along the sights. Caleb and Kyle joined me on either side, still green and coughing from the gas, rifles in their arms. He, I, Caleb, Alison, Steven, Richard, Abby, Chloe and Sam formed a line of guns stretching all along the dune, taking what little cover we could find. I had been stunned when Kyle had given our hostages weapons as well and even more surprised to see them eagerly accepted. But, then I figured they were just as badly affected by the gas as we were and knew full well who’d poured it down their throats. They had pledged their faith in the faithless and it was too late to repent now. I pitied them.
“Glad you made it, by the way,” Kyle remarked. Caleb nodded and looked over at Ryan as he squirmed on the hot sand between the two of us. “What’s going to happen to him?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I snapped, blinking a lot, willing my vision not to blur. I felt so tired and wrung-out; I didn’t know what use I would be here.
“Kristen’s dead.” I looked over at him, aghast. I watched him blink back tears, not having a clue what to say.“It’s amazing, all the shit we’ve been through, huh?” he asked in a ragged, choked voice.
“It wasn’t all shit, if I recall correctly,” I smiled as I took his hand and squeezed it. I loved him. Looking over at Kyle, lying next to me, on my other side, I put my gun down as his hand found its way into mine. I loved him too with a deeper, purer love, the love I would have felt for Father had he not been Mr. Invisible.
“Guns at the ready!” Kyle yelled, wrenching his hand free and cocking his weapon. The first wave of marching troops was almost on us. We fired a deafening volley. I was glad my ears were used to it. What I wasn’t used to was seeing its effect. I gasped as my rounds took out two of them, the bullets entering in neat, small holes and exiting via sprays of blood and gore. I had seen it a hundred times on TV and pumped hundreds of chalked crosses fulla lead. But the difference in real life, with real people, was shocking. I felt sick, seeing the arterial pools spreading out from the corpses, soaking into the sand.
“Reload!” Kyle yelled, his voice practically a scream. It was too late for that. They were on us, leaping over the dunes. I hadn’t noticed before, I’d been too busy gazing at their massive rifles, but they had equally large machetes at their hips. Drawing them, they leapt all on top of us. I grabbed a screaming Ryan and held him close, firing blind. For a long while all was slashing swords, lashing fists and boots and blazing guns.
KYLE
When the dust settled we were entirely surrounded. It was over. There was no hope left. For every one of them we killed, ten more seemed to leap up and take their place. I looked down at the woman from the Statue of Victory, the OWO soldier that had killed David Grey, that we’d been fool enough to trust with a gun, lying dead at Sam Walker’s feet. He helped his sister up.
“Are you okay?” She nodded though her face was a mass of blood and bruises. We looked up to see a figure on horseback ride through the enemy ranks, right up to us. We all knew him: his face had been the symbol of the world for years and I’d actually met him once; I’d seen his eyes glaze over as he died. Those same large, emerald orbs smiled down at me now, bright and alive.
“The great Outcasts,” Matthew Karden sniffed demurely, brushing back a strand of dark hair. Dressed in his black, flowing leather coat over khaki army fatigues, he looked like some kind of Nordic or Saxon lord. If only.. They dropped like flies.
“My dear sister,” he smiled again, his voice dripping condescension and arrogance. What? A woman stepped up beside me, a woman who was the female version of him right down to the green eyes and midnight hair. In all the focus on Matthew Karden, most had forgotten he was an identical twin. Mersiha Karden glared venomously at her brother as she leveled a rifle up at his face.
“You promised me I would live if I served you. You promised me he would live!” she yelled, tears in her eyes. The boy who had been killed in the gas. He had been her son.
“I lied,” he shrugged. “You know I always had my suspicions about you. So sorry to have them confirmed. But, now,” he continued, raising his voice so we all could hear, “throw down your weapons, accept me as your god and I’ll forget your pointless defiance.” Richard stepped forward. Dirty and bruised, but looking Karden in the face, with his dark-brown eyes blazing anger, he spoke with an equally clear, ringing voice.
“We believe in the one true God, the creator of Heaven and Earth and we worship him and him alone. We have faith that he will save us and protect us. But even if he does not, we will never worship you.”
“Never,” I nodded.
“Never,” Mara snapped, stepping up beside him.
“Never!” Chloe yelled.
“Never.”
“Never.”
“Never!”
“Fire!” Karden yelled, raising his arm and bringing it down.
MARA
I closed my eyes. I had scooped Ryan up in my arms, when the first wave had come upon us, and slung him across my back so as to save him from getting trampled. Now I reached behind my back and grasped one small foot, ready to shield him with my body if I had to. Then Caleb and I found each other and embraced tight. Please, God,. if you won’t spare any of us, spare our son. Let there be hope for him. I heard the deafening blasts of rifle fire and squeezed my eyes shut. After a while, I slowly opened them. What was going on? Were we dead? No, we still were standing right here and the great OWO army, surrounding us, was still right here. I looked down to see a pile of bullets at my feet. There were many of them, scattered all over the place. They had emptied an arsenal at us, but their rounds had fallen in little piles instead of piercing our bodies. What the hell? We looked up at the army, as they looked at each other, in confusion. It was then that I saw the light; a star suddenly lighting up the entire desert in a blaze of brilliant white, and a sky that had been either pitch dark or blood-red for years. For the first time, in all that time, I saw clearly the sea of visors in front of me. With a great rumble and roar the desert then began to shake to its very foundations. Great chasms opened at the feet of the enemy, swallowing them whole. Those that were agile enough to escape were struck down by fire that shot from the star.
“The wrath of God,” Richard whispered in awe.
“God?” I breathed.
“Yes. God.” I looked down at the ground we stood on, seeing that it remained as solid as a rock. How? The earthquake wasn’t touching us. The fire wasn’t touching us. This was impossible. Karden had fallen in the first quakes and now lay at our feet, abandoned by his panic-stricken horse. He was the last man standing out of the great legions that now lay scattered across the sand in a sea of charred bone and ash. He rose to his feet, a foot-long blade in his hand that he raised as the star came down to Earth. He dropped it, though, as soon as the rays of the star shone on his face and fell to his knees. We barely looked at him; all our focus was on the other stars in the sky that had suddenly appeared and begun to fall to Earth. They stood in a glowing throng before the first star that shone the brightest them all. I knew full well what, who, he was now even before he spoke.
“Matthew.”
Karden looked up and I was shocked by the difference in the man. The proud leader, riding at the head of his army, tall and great with his green eyes full of haughty arrogance, was gone. In his place was a ghost; a crippled, wasted, broken old man whose face was more like a skull.
“It is over, Matthew,” God’s voice said, his light fading from fierce, blazing white to a soft, sad blue. “Who am I?”
“You are the Christ, the Father, the Son, the creator of Heaven and Earth,” he sighed, his broad shoulders sagging.
“Who are you then?”
“No one,” he nodded, lowering his eyes again.
“And all you have done?”
“I was wrong. It’s all been for nothing. A mistake.”
“You could have been so much. I gave you the will and the means to be a boon to mankind throughout all the ages, giving you a rare and precious gift that I have only ever given to very few.” I saw Chloe stir beside me, her face alight in the glow of the stars and her eyes wide with understanding: Christ was talking of her gift. “And you used it only to advance yourself, riding to power on a wave of your own ambition. You began by murdering your brother and leading your nephew and all his descendants into incest and other sins so evil and horrific I had no choice but to eradicate man from the face of the Earth. I spared you, hoping you had seen the light and repented, but you then led Pharaoh Zephos, first of his name, to infanticide. You have been responsible for every evil since, from the blood-soaked abomination of Nazism to the oppression of the entire world.”
Karden seemed to shrink further and further into himself as each of his crimes was read out to him. A parting in the glowing company revealed Simon Cale, the President of the United States. Like Karden he was bent and hunched; a small, crumpled figure on his knees with all his hope gone.
“Come forward.” The command was softly spoken, but Cale stood and shuffled towards the light. Karden recoiled as he came on, a look of disgust on his face, mirrored by Cale’s. The two of them seemed to want nothing to do with each other.
“What have you done, Simon? They are not just dead; they are damned, separated from me forever because of your lies. I gave you a great mind, capable of doing much good in the world, capable of ruling its most powerful nation with wisdom and strength. But you abused all these gifts, giving Matthew Karden control over all, knowing full well what he was. Between the two of you, Beast and False Prophet, you have brought more death and misery to my people than any before you. Now the time has come to pay. Michael.” One of the radiant stars, angels as I knew them now, stepped forward.
“You are sentenced.” Beneath their bent knees the ground opened and a bright funnel of flame leapt up and consumed them before they even had a chance to fall. When the flames ceased, there was nothing left, not even cinders.
“Caleb.” I looked over at my husband as he stepped forward into the light. All the fatigue and wounds seemed to melt away until I saw, again, the handsome, strong, talented young boy I had fallen in love with all those years ago. “Your very name means faithful and you truly did it honor. I gave you a warm, loving heart and I gave you my word, taught to you since birth. But most of all, I gave you an iron will and an unshakable faith. Then I gave you a wife and a son whom you protected and loved more than life itself, even in the darkest hour. Come.” He stepped forward and I gasped as I saw him begin to glow just like an angel himself.
“Richard.” Richard stepped forward and he too seemed filled with newfound strength. “You have proved yourself my most faithful servant. Through all the trials and hardship you remained strong and true and your faith in me never wavered, not even in the face of death. Come to me.” He walked into the glowing company.
“Kyle.” Kyle walked forward, his eyes lowered. “Kyle, why do you fear me? You have nothing to fear. You have earned this peace. You have guarded my people throughout all their persecution, keeping them safe and doing all that you could to aid them in their fight against evil. Come. Rest.” He looked up into the light and then stood tall and strong, every inch the father I loved.
“Sam.” Chloe’s brother looked up with tears in his eyes. “You looked death in the face and stayed true and loyal. Come.” Wiping his tears away, he came forward to join the angels.
“Mara.” I looked up, astonished. Was he serious? “Come to me.” The light dimmed until I could see his face, his smile. In his light I could also see my mother, aunt, Michelle, Ethan, Kristen, Chong, Jamie, Summer, David, everyone I had thought dead and gone. I couldn’t help it: the tears just came out, but I walked forward regardless. “Mara, I have been looking forward to this day for a long time.”
“I…don’t believe in you. I never did.”
“Your service to me is great and my love for you is even greater. Is that your son, Ryan?”
“Yes.” I handed him over, all my fear and shame suddenly gone. I trusted this being, instinctively, with the most precious thing in my life. I smiled as Caleb, wreathed in soft white light, wiped away my tears with the pads of his thumbs. We held each other and watched as Christ took our son in his arms. Ryan looked up into his eyes and smiled. He smiled back and returned him to me.
“He will be welcome in my home. Chloe.”
“No.” She looked away, actively sobbing.
“Chloe, why do you think such things? You, more than most, have earned your place at my side. You, long ago, saved Noah, the most faithful of my friends, from death when he was but a boy. You saved the life of Rosa Schneider, the mother of Richard my most faithful servant. You aided my people in the fight against Karden and you stayed strong and brave to the end.” She came forward and joined us as we all turned and left Earth together, walking the shining path, up through the gates. We were heading towards heaven. But Caleb walked beside me with his hand in mine, so I felt as though I was there already.