Chapter 82
The following Monday, summoned by Steve Drennan, Jason ventured into the office for the first time in weeks. It had changed. TV monitors hung high on the walls at opposite ends of the room, both tuned to MSNBC. He didn’t notice Nancy Evans anywhere nearby. Steve Drennan saw Jason and beckoned to him. Jason went into the Branch Chief’s office, where a black man, whom he didn’t know, sat adjacent to the desk in an armchair. Another monitor showed talking heads blathering on about the courage and recent impressive polling gains of Senator Toomey. Since the other man avoided his eyes, while Jason waited for Drennan to acknowledge him, he listened and marveled.
The disaster of Universal Children’s Day had been lain at the feet of the current incumbent in the White House. Somehow, he and his party were responsible for the deaths of all those who had gathered in this country to celebrate the younger generation, and also for those in every nation around the globe that had participated. One of the commentators glowingly introduced a clip from a Sunday show where Toomey had been interviewed.
To the softball questions he was tossed, Toomey took the opportunity to condemn those on the Right. According to him, they had opposed the celebration of the environment because they wanted nothing more than the destruction of all green and growing things through their polluting, corrupting capitalistic methods. Additionally, they had sabotaged the UCD event, deliberately causing untold misery on the unsuspecting crowds, while specifically fulfilling the Right’s death wish.
It was malicious slander to point the finger at the political opposition in such a specious way, but the host nodded and thanked Toomey for his wise words. Finishing the piece, Toomey’s presidential candidacy was spoken of as the only possible salvation for the future of America and the world. The network then displayed poll numbers showing that Toomey had surged and now led his opponent by a statistically significant fifteen points.
Unfortunately, from what Jason had seen lately, all news coverage in the mainstream media had taken a similar tone and stance. It was so wrong that Jason wanted to shout at the screen, but he knew that would accomplish nothing.
As Jason was processing these thoughts, Drennan finally said, “Isn’t it a tragedy that the nation has come to this? That one party—those on the Right—would stoop to such underhanded, destructive tactics? Thank the gods for Senator Toomey standing up for truth.”
He’d never had a conversation with Steve Drennan about religion given his own issues on the subject, but Jason doubted whether the man had anything to do with any higher power, at least the One of the Bible.
Jason bit back the response he wanted to spew forth, and waited. The other man remained silent and unintroduced. He had a detached air about him, was nattily dressed in an expensive suit and tie, and wore his hair in dreadlocks.
Drennan looked Jason over and shook his head. “Ruger, I’ve heard that despite being on leave, you’ve continued to operate as though you were on active duty. That’s a direct violation of our rules of conduct and your contract of employment with this agency.
He tilted his head at the other man. “Abioye here is with HR. Kwame, tell Ruger why you’re here.”
Kwame Abioye from Human Resources finally looked at Jason. His gaze was reptilian, cold, and hard. “The Internal Revenue Service is terminating your employment, Mr. Ruger. You have abused your position as a Criminal Investigation Division agent.” He pointed to a folder before him that lay on Drennan’s desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which he handed to Jason. “It’s all documented here. You can bring this to the union to fight it, if you wish, but based on your egregious actions and blatant misconduct, I assure you, such efforts will only result in dissolution of your pension rights. Any questions?”
When Jason had been suspended, it hadn’t been on good terms. He did, however, believe that he could come back after a period and resume his job. He knew that with Drennan in charge, he was under severe constraints, but he figured, one way or the other, he could work around them. This was a shocker—completely unexpected.
They didn’t give him any opportunity for rebuttal. If he felt the need to seek redress, he could contact the IRS with his attorney. As it was, they gave no ground, and within thirty minutes he was down in the lobby with nothing to show for his years of good work and numerous commendations, other than a small box with his personal effects. Since he’d previously had to leave his active CID badge, they now forced him to turn over the old badge he’d used to get at Toomey, removed his government cell phone, and took away his federally issued service pistol. It felt like they’d stripped him of all that he had of worth.
As he stood outside the metal detector for a few moments looking at the retreating backs of Drennan and Abioye, Nancy Evans came through the outer revolving door toward him.
“Oh, Jason,” she said, startled, eying the box in his hands. “What’s this?”
He told her.
Color rose in her cheeks, and her jaw set. “That Drennan is such a maggot. Have I ever told you about King David in the Bible?”
At his negative, she said, “He had numerous enemies, and we see in the Psalms where he called down terrible misfortune upon them.”
“Doesn’t sound very Christian.”
Evans laughed. “It was before the time of Christ. Even so, David would end every one of these Psalms with praises to the Lord. He knew that God was in charge and everything would turn out all right. When Jesus came along, He changed the paradigm, probably more along the lines of what you’re thinking. He said that we’re to forgive those who persecute us and do us harm seventy times seven. Along with that, we’re to pray for this person who meant us great harm so that a root of bitterness doesn’t grow within us.”
Standing in the middle of the lobby, many people walked by. Some saw the box Jason held and raised their eyebrows, likely knowing what it meant. A few mumbled something to the effect of, “Bum luck, man.” His situation wasn’t so unique in the working world.
Jason wasn’t sure what else to do or say to Evans. She’d been a good friend, but this appeared to be the end of their working relationship. Maybe Lizzy with her newfound faith would connect with her now and then, but Jason didn’t think their relationship had enough ground to continue.
He thanked her for her support and was about to turn and leave. He took her hand to shake it goodbye.
At that moment, she vanished, the warmth of her grip lingering. He blinked at the empty space where nothing remained but Lizzy’s clothing in a heap on the floor, then he stared at his empty hand trying to figure out what had just happened.
Chapter 83
In the moment of the immediate confusion that Jason felt, the world went berserk. Suddenly, a crescendo of screams, the screech and thunk of colliding vehicles, and the wail of sirens all began and coalesced into an unimaginable cacophony of unending sound. The noise reached a fever pitch and continued without abating. Around Jason in the lobby, besides the absence of Nancy Evans, there seemed to be fewer people than there had been moments before. Others nearby raised their arms in questioning motions. They swiveled their heads back and forth and called out plaintively. “Joe, where’d you go?” “Mary, where are you?” Some were shrill, simply emitting plaintive wails.
He searched again for Evans with unbelieving eyes, not understanding where she might have gone. Eventually, he turned his attention more fully to the chaos among those left in the building and the bedlam that had uprooted the peace of a downtown summer afternoon.
Setting his box of possessions down in a corner and wandering baffled through the revolving door, Jason encountered people running and yelling, their hands waving in the air, wild-eyed and without restraint as they darted down the sidewalk and across the street, searching for people who had disappeared in plain sight. What they said made no sense; no more than his muddled thoughts. Car horns blared. Driverless vans and a city bus had collided with other vehicles, their drivers wedged behind airbags. The whine overhead of a jet engine alerted him to loo
k up and see a huge aircraft heading downward at a forty-five-degree angle until it was obscured by buildings. Not long after, a tremendous explosion erupted.
The only thing he could think to do was to dodge people and the twisted metal in the streets and somehow make his way home.
The journey was another nightmare. He found a taxi driver who was willing to take him to the suburbs for an exorbitant price. With no alternative, he agreed.
The taxi had to swerve around twisted metal and blocked streets. The Eisenhower Expressway crawled with cars following others like a snake that had to slither this way and that to go around objects in its path. It took hours until they finally arrived.
Exhausted, and with his wallet considerably lighter from the extended ride, Jason walked in the door of his house, calling, “Marcy! Lizzy!”
Marcy ran to him. “Dad! What’s going on? Nobody on television is making any sense.”
“Where’s Lizzy?”
“I haven’t seen her. She went into your room to read her Bible and pray a couple hours ago. I peeked in later, but she wasn’t there.”
“Darn, I wonder where she went. All this confusion might be dangerous. People in the streets are unbelievable. It’s like they’ve lost their minds, claiming others with them vanished into thin air. Of course…” The ghostly disappearance of Nancy Evans wouldn’t leave him. He had witnessed exactly what everyone else he’d encountered was raving about. He’d seen first-hand the melee of colliding vehicles that had inexplicably lost their drivers. It all had to be a bad, waking dream. He shook himself and stated out loud so as to make it real, “I’m sure Lizzy will make sense of this.”
They went to his room. A quick glance around revealed no one there just as Marcy had said. “Lizzy?” he called. Maybe she was in the bathroom.
But a check there was unproductive. “I suppose she could have slipped out for a long walk.”
“What’s that?” Marcy pointed to the easy chair by the window, where Lizzy’s Bible lay on the arm.
Jason wrinkled his forehead, not wanting to think the thoughts flooding his mind.
“Look, it’s her clothes!” Marcy exclaimed holding up Lizzy’s blouse. “Why would she leave that here and the rest of her things? Where is she?”
Jason sat heavily on the bed, eyes blank and unfocused.
“Dad? Dad? Do you know something?” Marcy was getting frantic.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t know anything.”
***
A further search turned up no sign of Lizzy. They drove the neighborhood with no luck. As hours passed, she didn’t return. Jason and Marcy watched the television in disbelief. News reports all over the world declared the vanishing of people in all walks of life in country after country.
“Was she among them?” Marcy was having as much problem processing this as Jason.
“I told you about Nancy Evans. She was there right in front of me. We shook hands briefly, and…then she wasn’t there. That’s the exact point when the pandemonium started. For all I know, that’s when everybody, everywhere disappeared. That makes sense in a perverted way.”
“But where’d they go?” Marcy’s question became a wail.
She had just lost her two children and gotten back some semblance of rational thinking after having seemingly been brainwashed for a long time. Now, at the cusp of sanity, Lizzy had apparently been ripped away. What was that doing to her reeling brain?
Jason had to fight to overcome his own disturbing thoughts in order to try comforting his new-found daughter. It was a losing battle. He had nothing to offer.
That night, he had nightmares of dark winged things attacking him with razor-sharp talons and ripping out his heart. He woke multiple times drenched in sweat.
***
Speculation grew in the news as to what had occurred. In the succeeding days, Jason saw that no one had any solid answers. Regardless, Senator Toomey‘s prominence grew. He was featured front and center as the one politician in the United States who could bring order out of the mess in which the nation found itself. The news media refused to even give the lame duck president any face time. Whatever words he might have said in comfort or strategy to pick up the pieces fell void to the ground. In the estimation of those who mattered, only Toomey had the wisdom and means to convey a message of any sort.
When Jason called his parents, his father answered. “What do you want?” he demanded.
“To see how you guys are. With all the commotion, I wanted to make sure nothing happened to you.”
“We’re here; you’re there. Stay where you are. You have no place in this house.”
Hostility still burned in his father’s heart, and Jason knew there was nothing he could say to change it.
“How’s Mom?”
“Resting.”
He wanted to throttle his father for being uncommunicative.
“What about Rick?”
“He thinks you’re a piece of excrement. Anything else you want to know?”
“No, Dad. I think about you all a lot. I just wish you had some positive feelings about me.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” His father hung up.
Marcy was with him in the room as he’d made the call. “Grandpa doesn’t like you much. Why?”
He looked at her with sad eyes. “He’s always liked Rick better. I was the black sheep. I wish things were different so I could bring you back and they would welcome you as the long-lost granddaughter to them that you are.”
She placed a comforting hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Maybe some time, Dad.”
***
It took a couple of weeks, but Jason finally picked up the Bible that Lizzy had left behind. He thumbed through it blankly, not having any destination in mind and no real reason for even holding it. A marker wiggled its way loose and almost lost its place, but Jason caught the page with a finger. Lizzy had underlined some portion of it and he thought, This may have been the last thing she read before she disappeared.
In perusing the passage with increasing interest, the words jumped out at him.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
It seemed significant, yet he had trouble comprehending what he read. Was there a connection to what had happened in the world where so many simply vanished? These verses seemed to say so much, but he understood so little.
They seemed to say that there would be a time when people who had died, and even those alive, would go up to be with Jesus. He didn’t remember hearing any trumpet, or a shout, but maybe those sounds were only for the ears of those who could hear.
The author addressed his audience as brothers, so they had to be those he considered close to him. As Jason read it again, the passage gave him hope, despite his well-founded suspicion that whatever was being related here had already just happened.
What did it mean that they would rise? Who were the dead in Christ? Were living believers also considered to be in Christ? If so, that might be the answer.
Nancy Evans and lately, Lizzy, were believers. Lizzy had recently professed faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. Was that what it meant by being in Christ? The disappearance of all these people around the world—were they all believers? All in Christ? Christians?
If that was the case, what about the billions who didn’t meet the Lord in the air? What did it me
an for them? More personally, what did it mean for Jason and Marcy?
Chapter 84
Cheshire Cat blog – September 13
Once again, it’s been awhile since I posted here. In that time, the world has changed. My life has been upended.
If you’re at all paying attention, you know that hundreds of thousands—millions?—of people around the world vanished into thin air not long ago. To most of the talking heads in the news media and to the political class, this mystery has become an opportunity. Social media has been abuzz with rumors, speculations, and innuendo. The most prominent reaction has been glee. It seems that the people who disappeared were inevitably ones these different groups despised. In the investigation I’ve personally conducted, the best theory I can devise is that the ones who disappeared were Christians.
Now you, dear readers, may scoff at that notion. You may tell me that I’ve had too much caffeine, too many sleepless nights, and too few doses of reality. But, my question is: Whose reality?
I’ve seen the madness grow all around with various radical groups arising and claiming that they—and they only—have the truth. In fact, I’ve had the not-so-great pleasure of dealing directly with some of them. If what they proclaim is truth, then this world is in for a whole lot more hurt than I can imagine.
Let me give you an example. Remember the incredible mosquito attack on Universal Children’s Day? You may not have heard that it was entirely manmade. Those mosquitoes were actually miniature drones; robots programmed to swarm and inject the encephalitis virus to as many people as possible here and at every venue that hosted UCD. The stated intent was to fête the next generation; i.e. to celebrate children and the glorious future that was in their golden hands. The real agenda was to kill, and they used the children as a red herring.
Whose truth is it that thinks this is all right?
In the aftermath of UCD, I thought, despite the tragedy that befell my family, that I might be on the way to a better life, which included improved relationships. That’s essentially fallen apart through the grief these events brought.
Green Dreams Page 30