Into Captivity They Will Go

by Milligan, Noah;

  “Will we have to fight?” Caleb asked.

  “Yes. That’s why you have to be prepared. What you will see will be like hell on earth. It may be slow at first. Things may not happen overnight. It may just be a simple act of aggression, but it will grow in intensity. It may be easy to miss. We will have to keep our eyes open, for when it comes, we will have to find someplace safe. We must keep safe the faithful to await the opening of the other Five Seals. There will be 144,000 of us, the chosen to be ushered into heaven, twelve tribes of 12,000 servants of God, and they will look to you for their salvation. I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but I have faith in you. You have to be ready. The first thing you must do is ask for forgiveness for all of your sins.”

  “A confession?”

  “Yes,” she said. “A confession. Your soul must be washed clean of all transgressions against God.”

  They were back at the dining room table. It was dark out, but Caleb no longer felt out of place so early in the morning. The solitude didn’t bother him. The quiet. It strengthened him now, as if the sleeping world fortified him against the devil himself.

  “We’re all sinners,” his mother said. “Even you. Even Christ himself.”

  Caleb contemplated the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt have no other God before him. No graven images or likenesses. Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain. Remember the Sabbath. Honor thy mother and father. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet.

  He was, if he was honest with himself, guilty of several of these. He’d prayed to God asking for selfish things, trivial things, things that later wracked him with guilt: a new baseball glove for Christmas, the Rawlings with the blonde leather that cracked when he caught the ball; he’d prayed to win the spelling bee so that he could stand up in front of the whole school with that trophy and be the last one standing; or, worse yet, he’d prayed for God to hurt Jonah, after he’d held Caleb down and tickled him until he peed his pants. That one he thought had even come true. Later, his brother was riding his bike, hit a crack in the pavement, and flew over the handlebars. When he popped back up, two of his teeth had been knocked out, blood gushing out onto his chin and shirt and hands.

  He’d lied to his parents. He once told them he was going to Clifton’s house, but instead he met up with Anthony and Margot and they shared a cigarette behind a house that was under construction down the street. He’d forged his parents’ signatures on report cards when he didn’t want his mother to see he’d gotten bad marks in science. Once, he’d even broken his father’s antique duck call, this funny wooden thing that had been passed down through four generations, and blamed it on a neighbor kid because he hadn’t been there to defend himself.

  And he’d stolen. He’d stolen candy bars from the grocery store and money out of his mother’s purse. He’d taken a baseball glove that wasn’t his, left in the dugout after practice one day. It even had a name written on it in black Sharpie: Ankit. Yet he took it home and hid it underneath his bed, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to play with it on the field—Ankit and everyone else would’ve known he’d taken it. Ankit’s parents had called around, including the Gunter’s house, asking if they’d seen it. Evelyn had asked Caleb, phone in hand, the cord dangling in a loose knot at her side, if he knew where it was at, and he’d lied. He said no, he hadn’t, even though he knew exactly where it was, collecting dust. On several occasions, he’d felt enough guilt he’d gotten it out and thought about coming clean, but he feared the rebuke from his parents, the shame he’d feel when he would have to apologize to Ankit, tell him he was sorry and that he’d never do it again.

  “Is that all?” his mother asked him.

  Caleb nodded.

  “I want you to think long and hard about this, Caleb. You have to be certain. And remember, I gave birth to you. I know you better than yourself.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Caleb. I’m giving you another chance here.”

  “There’s nothing else. I promise.”

  “The magazines, Caleb.”

  All the blood in Caleb’s body rushed to his feet, to his face, to his fingertips.

  “The magazines with the girls. I found them.”

  He’d found them in the garage, atop a refrigerator and stored in a box. There were dozens of them. The paper yellowed, edges tattered. The women in there were draped in scarves and lying in repose, legs enticingly spread, so that Caleb felt something he’d never felt before: lust. It had come at him in such a rush it surprised him, but he knew exactly what it was, and what he wanted to do with himself.

  “You coveted those women, didn’t you?”

  Caleb didn’t answer.

  “Jesus never took a wife for a reason. That wasn’t his purpose on this earth.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s good. That’s a good start. But it isn’t enough.”

  Caleb’s mother rose from the table and headed to the kitchen. When she returned, she carried a paint stirrer.

  “Place your hands on the table.”

  Caleb hesitated.

  “Do it, Caleb. God is watching.”

  Caleb placed his hands on the table, palms down. His mother raised the paint stirrer, and then brought it down upon Caleb’s knuckles. The pain shot through his hand, up his arm, and into his neck. He flinched, but kept his hands in place. Again, his mother swung. Then again. And again. And again, until his flesh cracked and blood trickled in between his fingers. When she was done, he expected to feel different. Repentant. Conscience clear. Soul reborn. But he didn’t. He felt the same, wracked with shame and guilt, coupled with an incensed throb coursing through his body.

  For days they continued. He prayed. He atoned. He read scripture. They discussed the remaining Seals to be opened. The black horse would follow the red, and with the opening of the Third Seal, the meek and the poor would be stricken with famine while the wealthy and wicked would be enriched. They were besotted with greed and with lust, living their lives in sloth while the 144,000 would suffer with hunger.

  “We will be tested then,” his mother said. “Our faith will be tested. Our bodies will be tested. And the faithful will look to us to be their guides. We must remain strong. You must remain vigilant.”

  To prepare, his mother made him fast. He wasn’t allowed to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner, his mouth watering as he watched his father and brother wolf down meatloaf or waffles. The only sustenance Caleb was allowed was right before bed: a piece of dry, white bread and a glass of tepid water.

  “You have to get your body used to functioning on few calories. This is important. Your very life and others will depend on it.”

  He lost weight. First, he noticed it in his face. His cheeks sunk in, and his flesh pulled taut against his bones. Then he noticed it in his torso and waist. His ribs protruded from his body, and he had to pull his belt in two notches tighter. He felt weaker and tired, though he couldn’t sleep. Nausea kept him awake, acid burning his esophagus as his body ate itself from the inside out. When his father asked Caleb why he wasn’t eating, he replied, “I’m not hungry,” and left it at that. Caleb could tell his father was worried. He’d leave Caleb an extra plate in the fridge, but his mother would throw it away.

  The fourth and final horseman, the white horse, would then come, and along with him, death. One-fourth of the earth’s inhabitants would die, and it would be the finale of the war started by the Antichrist, who right then, Caleb’s mother said, walked the earth. He walked the earth proud, and he walked the earth scornful, and he would leave behind him fields of bodies. They’d pile up on one another and be scourged with flies and maggots, and the living would become sick with the smell of death.

  “You must get used to that smell. You must get used to the putrid, to the acrid, to flesh rotting.”

  His mother took him hunting on the weekends. She loaded up a couple of rifles in the b
ack of the Bronco and headed west out to a friend’s ranch. It was cold out, frigid actually. Despite the layers Caleb wore, he shivered. His skin cracked dry from the wind, and his joints ached and popped as he trekked through the underbrush. Soon, Caleb’s hands went numb, and the rifle slipped in his grip. The cold caused cramps in his calves and thighs, and he feared he hadn’t brought enough water. He just had a single canteen with him, and all he’d had to eat for weeks was bread.

  He couldn’t remember as harsh a winter. The previous summer, a drought had scorched most of the state. Farmers had entire crops wither away underneath the heat, turning brown, brittle, and worthless. The price of corn and soybean and wheat had skyrocketed as a result. The drought left a shortage of hay to keep cattle and hogs warm over winter, causing them to die by the hundreds, and the government was doing little in the way of subsidies to help out the farmers and ranchers. Caleb’s mother, of course, called it a sign.

  “The Third Seal will soon be broken. Famine and disease will follow. Mark my words.”

  Caleb had gone hunting before with his father, brother, and mother. Every year, they tried for three deer. The heads, his father stuffed and mounted on the walls of their home, if they were big enough, an eight point or higher. The meat, they froze and stored away in one-pound increments, some of it fileted, most of it ground. Some people, Caleb knew, didn’t like venison. Either they thought it tasted gamey or had an aversion to eating a deer, as if it were the equivalent of grilling up a pet dog. Caleb enjoyed the taste, however. It was tough and chewy and salty, and he liked the way it felt to tear at a piece with his canines.

  They took position atop a ridge. The gulley was long and deep, cut jagged with limestone boulders and overrun with Bluestem and Indian Grass. They sat against a couple of oak trees, rifles resting atop their laps. The wind was at their faces, so any deer moving up the ridge wouldn’t catch their scent. It was peaceful out there. Quiet. It was hard to imagine the apocalypse was upon them. Caleb wondered if all of this would be awash with flame come the final war between heaven and hell, if all the trees and grass and animals would burn. It seemed unthinkable to Caleb. The world was so vast, so remote, that it almost seemed impossible it would all soon be gone. But it would. The ground would be gone and the trees would be gone, the sky would be gone and the moon would be gone, and all that would be left were the souls of all the people in the world, either anguishing in an eternity of hellfire or saved by his grace.

  A doe appeared on the western end of the ridge, trotting along the edge of the tree line. It moved at a beleaguered pace, stopping at a tree, zigzagging left then right. It appeared to be wounded already, limping along the underbrush. Behind it about twenty yards approached a buck. It was young, its antlers stunted and sparse. It followed the doe intently, perhaps ready to mate with it, but kept its distance. Caleb raised his rifle and aimed down the barrel at the buck. He knew where to shoot, right behind the front shoulder so that he’d hit the heart or lungs. He clicked off the safety and moved his finger along the trigger, waiting for the buck to come to a stop so he’d have a clear shot, but before he did, his mother raised a hand.

  “The doe,” she said, which confused Caleb. He’d always been taught to kill the larger animal, which more often than not happened to be the buck.

  “The buck has more meat,” Caleb said.

  “Have mercy on the suffering.”

  He raised his rifle again, this time centering the doe in his crosshairs. She stopped alongside a fir tree about sixty yards away, downward at about a thirty-degree angle. It was an easy shot for Caleb, and he took his time, breathing in, then out, in, then out, calming his heart rate, minimizing movement. He pulled the trigger. The buck darted north up the other side of the ridge. The doe dropped where it stood.

  When they reached it, it was already dead, tongue hanging from its mouth, a splattering of blood staining the leaves. Caleb had been right—it had been wounded before. On its hind leg, an arrow stuck out of its thigh, the plastic having been broken in half, the remaining shard jutting into the flesh at an awkward angle. Some other hunter must’ve hit it earlier in the morning, but it had escaped without being hit with a fatal shot. Cruel fate, Caleb thought, to have lived a day perpetually stalked by predators.

  Caleb pulled his hunting knife from his belt. It had been a gift from his father last Christmas, an eight-inch Kabar, the same knife Marines used. He plunged the blade into the sternum and cut down through the hide and membrane to the crotch. Once open, the smell hit him. It was warm and thick and dug deep inside of him, swimming through his nostrils and crawling down his esophagus. He thought he’d be nauseated, prone to vomiting, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was filled with relief, and joy. Surprising joy. His body warmed, and the feeling returned to his fingers. It was like he could sense the doe’s relief from her pain, entering a state of zero misery, forever comforted by the Lord. She thanked Caleb for this. He’d saved her, and brought an end to her suffering.

  WHEN THE FIFTH SEAL OPENED, they would see under the altar the souls of those who were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. The faithful would be martyred. They would be dragged from their homes and their churches, beaten with whips and chains, stabbed and burned and stoned. There would be no mercy from the wicked. Of that much, Caleb’s mother was sure. To prove her point, she taught Caleb about Polycarp, a bishop of Smyrna who was bound and burned at the stake; of Saint Pothinus, bishop of Lyon, murdered by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, along with Alexander, Attalus, Espagathus, Maturus, and Sanctius, who were eaten by beasts in front of roaring crowds; and of Saint Euphemia, a Greek woman who refused to make sacrifices to Ares, struck down by a lion.

  “Know their names,” his mother told him. “Know their stories. They will become your flock’s story. It will become my story. And it will become yours as well.”

  She told him a great earthquake would follow the opening of the Sixth Seal. “The sun will become black, and the heavenly stars will fall to the earth. A great wind will destroy the trees, and all the islands and continents will drift away from each other and out of place. And all the great men, the rich men, the wicked men, they will hide from you. This will be the time when you must be ready, for the great day of your wrath will come; and who shall be able to stand?”

  And so, they proselytized. He skipped school, and they went to downtown Bartlesville, in front of Frank Phillips Tower where the rich oilmen worked, and preached the word and anger of the Lamb. They waited until lunchtime, when there would be the greatest amount of foot traffic. It was cold out, still a few weeks away from spring’s thaw, and their lips chapped and their tongues dried. The men walked by in tight-fitting suits, all black or gray or blue, their shirts ironed stiff, their ties strangling their necks. Women clicked by in their high heels, faces painted, hair pulled back in tight buns. They all looked strained, concerned, riddled with anxiety, their minds polluted by the trappings of the everyday, by deadlines and mortgage payments, taxes and exhaustion.

  When Caleb and his mother first started to preach, most simply ignored them. They rushed by with their purses or briefcases swinging by their sides. Some even threw change at their feet, quarters and nickels and dimes clanging against the pavement. The change piled there, untouched by Caleb and his mother. Occasionally, a passerby, one who didn’t wear a suit, one who looked hungry and needed a shower and shave, would stoop to pick up the money, and Caleb and his mother would smile and encourage him to buy a sandwich, some hot coffee to warm his body. To amplify their voices, Caleb’s mother brought megaphones, and they warned the men and women to repent, to confess their sins, to find Jesus and ask him to be their Savior, for the end was at hand, but no one listened. They were too busy with their lives to take a moment for their souls.

  “Look at you,” his mother belted out over the megaphone. “Look around you. Look how beholden you have become. Look how greedy you have become. Look how you slave for rich masters while you and your family struggle. You c
ontinue to serve them thinking you’re doing good, but you’re not. You’re not doing good. You’re serving a false master, for the only one who you should serve is Christ Lord.”

  Caleb listened mostly, learning from his mother. He learned her cadence and her demeanor, the way she domineered the makeshift stage. Her voice never wavered, never cracked or faltered. It was stern, resolute like rock.

  “And for each second, minute, hour, day, week, and year you serve your false prophet, the one true God is watching. He is watching, and he is judging. His mercy is only reserved for the meek, for the faithful, for the truly repentant. If you do not repent, you will soon anguish in eternity in the depths of hell. You will be bound. You will be tortured. You will forever suffer for your sins.”

  A few would stop and listen. They’d be eating a ham sandwich and chips pulled from a brown paper bag, eying Caleb and his mother out of their periphery, leery yet intrigued. Caleb recognized many of them. Some of them were his friends’ parents: Mrs. Rogers, Mr. Abernathy, Mrs. Caldwell, and Mr. Redcorn. Others attended church with them at First Baptist. He used to see them at service on Sundays, the men dressed the same in their suits, the women in more colorful sundresses, their teenage children in tow, dropping a few dollars into the collection plate for their tithe. He wondered if they were truly repentant, if they had confessed their sins or if they were actually spies for the devil, demons sent from hell to prepare for the end of times. His mother had told him they walked among them, posturing as human beings, living their lives like any normal man or woman but lying in wait, sending back reports to the rest of the fallen angels about where they were most vulnerable.

  Caleb had nightmares about them. They started right after Papa had died, or at least Caleb thought that’s when they’d started. It could have been much earlier than that, perhaps since birth. In his dreams, they stalked him. He was fleeing from them, and he was alone. He’d be in a strange place with a strange topography, full of rolling hills and fog, the light from the stars and moon brighter than he’d ever seen them before. Crooked, thin trees blocked his path, the limbs seemingly reaching out to him whenever he drew near. Strangest of all, though, was that instead of running, Caleb flew. He didn’t have wings, but rather he floated, guided haphazardly by thought alone. Yet, he didn’t have much control over it. It was like he was a sailboat amid a vast ocean, the mast having splintered in a storm, and now he wandered at the current’s whim. He never did see the demons, but he knew them to be there, just out of reach, their grasp continually reaching, their fingertips grazing against his boot heel, and when they finally grabbed ahold of his ankle, he’d awake to a start, his heart threatening to burst from his chest.