“I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘okay.’”
“Is anyone injured?”
“Physically? No. Not yet. Their souls, on the other hand …”
“We’d like to see everyone if that’s okay. Just to make sure.”
“We’re a little indisposed at the moment.”
“It would put a lot of people’s minds at ease if we could just hear their voices. See the children. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“They’re fine. All of you, however …”
“All of us?”
“You have no idea what is coming for you.”
“I’d like to think you’re not threatening us, Evelyn. That would be a grave—”
“I think you may have this situation confused, Mr. Lippman.”
“How is that?”
“We didn’t come to your home. We’re not parked outside of your house with guns and strangers and threats of taking your children, now, are we?”
“Now, Mrs. Gunter. Let’s just talk about this. Valid concerns have been—”
“Let me just stop you right there. None of our children will be going with you. Do you understand me? None. I don’t expect you to understand it. I don’t expect you to like it. But I do expect you to accept it. This is a fact. It will not be changed.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Caleb couldn’t even hear the wind blowing through the speaker. Lippman had muted the phone, and Caleb imagined they were discussing their best course of action going forward. He wondered what their conversation consisted of. Nothing good, Caleb assumed.
The line clicked back on. Caleb heard static, followed by Mr. Lippman clearing his throat.
“I think that’s probably enough for now, Evelyn,” Mr. Lippman said. “We’ll be back in touch soon.”
THE CONGREGATION HOLED UP IN the service hall, crowded, cramped, and uncomfortable. They were scared. All of them. They bit their lips and spit brown, tobacco-soaked spit. Their faces long and desperate, they avoided eye contact with their brethren. They forewent their usual handshakes and hugs, their blessings and words of love. Instead, they sat down in the pews as a disparate group of individuals. They were thinking of themselves, their wives, their husbands, their children, not the community as a whole. A doubt permeated them, Caleb too, and it vibrated over their heads as something palpable and real. Caleb could feel it like the heat coming off a hot stove.
After they had all settled, Sam opened the floor to questions. And they had several, pointed questions, questions that jumped off the tongue in desperation.
“What are they planning to do?” they asked.
“Are they here to hurt us?”
“Are they going to make us leave?”
“Is this it? Is this the end of times?”
“Just what, exactly, are we going to do?”
The best answer Caleb’s mother could provide them was the same answer she’d been giving for months: “Yes,” she said. “This is the end of times.” She tried to calm them. She spoke slowly and assuredly, but the congregation argued, some even becoming defiant, a man standing, Ralph was his name, saying she was lying, that she and Sam and the rest of them were hiding something from the congregation, that this wasn’t the end; they were just trying to scare them. Several heads nodded in assent, but Sam and Caleb’s mother assured them, told them they knew this was scary, but “We must trust in the Lord. We will hide nothing from you. God has a purpose for us. He has chosen us. He has graced us with his Son. No matter what the devil places at our doorstep, no matter the trials, the tribulations, the very devil himself cannot walk into our home and compel us to give up our faith.”
“But how can you be sure?” the congregation asked. “How do you know for sure?”
Sam dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief, wiping up the sweat that beaded his brow. He’d lost a lot of weight since the tornado, fifteen pounds, Caleb guessed, and now his skin hung off his bones like laundry on a clothesline. More and more, he frightened Caleb. Not for his safety, but what might happen to Sam. Caleb wouldn’t have been surprised if he dropped dead at any moment, collapsing where he stood. He needed a doctor. All of them did.
“I have prayed about this,” Sam said. “Last night I prayed, and without the slightest bit of doubt, I’m certain. The Sixth Seal has been broken. Some of us will die. I may even die, but it has been opened, and the end of the world is upon us.”
The congregation was silent. They sat, and they listened. They fidgeted in their seats, but they didn’t seem surprised. In their faces were resignation and acceptance, perhaps sullied with doubt, but resignation nonetheless—they’d followed Sam and Caleb’s mother this far, and they couldn’t turn back now. Everything they’d fought so hard for would turn out to be a lie.
The congregation took each other’s hands, bowed their heads, and prayed. They prayed to God to give them strength, for safety. They prayed for their souls and the federal agents’ souls and all the souls of humankind on earth. They prayed for all to end well. They prayed to be welcomed into his bosom and the kingdom of heaven. They prayed for all these things with all the earnestness they could muster, and along with them, so did Caleb. He prayed with his heart and his mind and his soul. He prayed with everything he had, imploring God Almighty to grant them the reason to know what they were doing.
THAT NIGHT, THE CONGREGATION SLEPT in the service hall, or tried to. Mostly they squirmed and groaned, trying to find some comfort on the oak floor. They hadn’t dared go out for blankets and pillows while the agents waited for them outside their gates, too afraid of what they might do. This worried Caleb. Despite the OSBI agents and soldiers outside their gate, they still had work to do: water to tote, clothes to mend, hunting and fishing so they could eat, so they could maintain the semblance of humanity, but no one was allowed to leave. When they’d boarded themselves into the service hall they only grabbed the bare essentials, an extra pair of socks and undergarments, a toothbrush, a cherished memento passed down through the generations. And so, without the comforts of home, they sprawled out as best they could, feet to head, along the aisles and in the pews. It smelled of sweat and smoke. The humidity sat on top of Caleb, making it hard to breathe. His tongue swelled, and he was soaked with sweat.
Caleb heard the agents stirring outside, a car engine rumbling, and the screeching of a radio connecting with the correct frequency. He heard commands shouted across a crowd of otherwise distracted agents. Probably most disconcerting were the voices. They collected and reverberated throughout the service hall, a cacophony of hushed tones and whispers that had no discernible shape, words transmuted into the rattling of an invisible ghost, waiting for the congregants outside their own halls. At least once per hour, the phone in the service hall rang. Caleb knew it to be Agent Lippman, but no one answered, too afraid, Caleb supposed, of what might happen next.
Caleb took refuge near the pulpit. Sitting next to him was Catherine.
“What do you think is going to happen?” she asked. She wore nylon gym shorts and a Grove Ridgerunner sweatshirt two sizes too large for her. She smelled of wood smoke and peanut butter, and little red scratches spiderwebbed her calves, the victim of underbrush while hauling wood.
“I don’t know,” Caleb said.
“I thought you were supposed to know everything,” she said. “I thought you could see the future or whatever.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“You don’t know God’s plan? He doesn’t tell you those things?”
She sounded worried. She sounded confused.
“It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try,” she said.
Caleb sat up straighter, blinked to see her better in the dark, and searched for the right words.
“God comes to me in fragments,” he said. “It’s like coming in on a conversation that has already started, and I’m only able to hear about every third or fourth word. God comes to me in images, but they’re jumbled. They�
��re upside-down and pixelated, and they don’t make much sense. I have to dwell upon them. I have to study them. I have to decipher them through context and signs and the interactions I have here on earth before I can make sense of them. It’s like learning a foreign language but without a teacher or guide to help you along. So, for now, I don’t know what will happen. But I do know I trust in the Lord.”
“So, you don’t know this is right,” she said. “You don’t know for sure that this is the end.”
“What do you mean?”
“Scoot’s sick. My mother. I thought we were supposed to be the good ones. They’re saying the doctors could help him.”
“Who’s saying that?”
She scraped dirt out from underneath her fingernail. “It’s not important who. The point is, if we don’t do anything, he’s going to die.”
She was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He would die if they didn’t do anything.
A bright light illuminated the service hall. It was something piercing, alien even. It accosted the pupils and caused sharp pains in the back of Caleb’s eyeballs. It blinded him, and he feared when he opened his eyes next, he wouldn’t be able to see.
Accompanying the light was a loud shriek of static. It sounded like a radio tuned to a long-dead frequency. There was abrupt scratching, followed by intermittent sections of white noise. Catherine and Caleb covered their ears. It was so loud he could feel the enamel of his teeth rattle. Babies cried and frightened yelps escaped the lips of a congregation already on edge. After a few moments, a song played over a loudspeaker. It was Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping.” It played loud, and the sound was terrible, the bass cackling in the background. The noise made Caleb grind his teeth. It made his temples throb. It made his blood scrape the insides of his capillaries.
CHAPTER 10
IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE THE CONGREGATION ran out of food. It had been a week since the OSBI agents had shown up at the property. The congregation only dared to go outside one or two at a time, sneaking back to homes for basic supplies, blankets and pillows and clothes, too afraid of what might happen if they lingered outside the service hall for too long. Before the occupation, they’d survived on hunting whitetail, rabbit, squirrel, and quail, but with the OSBI outside their gate, they had to ration their food. They only used water to drink anymore, all of them having gone days without bathing. It caused the service hall to smell ripe, the air thick with sweat. After a while, they just had corn to eat. They ate corn for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. They ran out of butter and flour and so all they could do was boil it, choke it down with tepid water, and pray for a turn of events, but it never came.
Evelyn, Sam, the Finches, and Caleb slept near the pulpit, furthest away from the door, elevated so they could see the entire congregation. The sick had deteriorated the past month or so since Scoot first started showing symptoms. They slept mostly, their breaths weak and raspy, but Scoot was the worst. He’d turned yellow, then pale, then bluish, to the point his skin seemed almost transparent. When he was awake, he simply moaned. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t urgent. It was barely audible. He no longer had the energy to even let the rest know he was in pain.
“Mom,” Caleb said. “We need food. We need to go hunting.”
Caleb’s mother looked haggard and worn, like she hadn’t slept in days—skin jaundiced, face bruised, eyes the color of eggshells. Caleb had only seen her like this once before, right after his papa had died. She’d stopped eating and sleeping, instead surviving off coffee and cigarettes. Her state scared Caleb. She had trouble pronouncing words, the consonants sliding off her tongue without purpose. Clothes hung off her like on a hanger, and she often got dizzy, having to bend and grab her knees so she wouldn’t faint.
“It’s too dangerous, Caleb. We don’t know what will happen.”
“But we do know what’ll happen if we don’t. We’ll starve. There’s no other choice.”
“There’s always a choice, sweetheart. Always.”
“And we need to make the right one.”
“He’s right,” Sam said. “The boy’s right.”
Sam sat in the corner. His eyes darted and his movements were shifty like he’d drunk too much caffeine.
“We’re going to die if we don’t do something. Just look at us. We’re weak. We’re hurting.”
Scoot coughed, choked, and turned his head to the side, a bit of blood and phlegm painting the corner of his mouth. His mother sat next to him, using a damp rag to dab his face, trying to keep him cool despite suffering herself. Mr. Finch sat by the window. It had been boarded with plywood, and Mr. Finch had his back to it. Occasionally, he looked toward it like he could see the OSBI lining the street in front of the property. Of course, he couldn’t, but the congregation didn’t need to see them to know they were there. They still blared pop music at all hours of the day, and they still surrounded the property on all three sides, cornering the congregation into the lake at the back of the property. Caleb’s mother paced. Or tried to. The place was so crowded she had to step over legs and congregants napping on the floor.
“This is a bad idea,” she said. “A very, very bad idea.”
“We need to eat,” Caleb said. “We need food.”
“It’s a mistake. I just know it. It’s a mistake.”
Three of them volunteered to go hunting: Sam, Mr. Finch, and Caleb. His mother urged him not to go, but Caleb insisted, and his mother, too weak to fight him, relented. The rifles were kept in Sam’s house, locked in a safe. Caleb hadn’t been outside since the OSBI had descended onto their compound, and though he was afraid to do so, he felt compelled to help the congregation. They were hungry and weak and scared. They deserved to feel normal for a little while. They deserved a good meal.
There was only one exit to the service hall, and it faced the main gate of the compound. About a hundred yards separated them from the nearest OSBI agent. When they opened the door, Caleb could feel their collective eyes on them as they exited and made their way to Sam’s house. He tried to ignore them, but they were in plain view. They hid behind the hoods of their Suburbans, watching through binoculars. A few of them made excessive gestures, waving their arms above their heads and signaling with their hands. Caleb thought he could see their mouths moving, but he couldn’t make anything out over the music. An electronic dance song reverberated over the countryside, drowning out all noise and making communication impossible. Despite this, though, Caleb knew they were prepared for the worst. He could feel their scopes trained on him, their crosshairs aimed at a kill shot if he even so much as looked like he was being threatening.
Once inside Sam’s house, they took a moment to collect themselves, plan their next move. It was hot in there, humid like a sweat lodge. The guns were kept upstairs in an extra room. Caleb stayed downstairs to keep a lookout, peering out at the army of agents lest they decided to ambush, and counted. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi. Five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi. He wondered what was taking Sam and Mr. Finch so long, why he couldn’t hear them upstairs, and for a moment he thought maybe they’d abandoned him, that this was a trap, that they had signaled to the soldiers and the OSBI that the cause of all the problems was alone, downstairs, and the OSBI was about to pounce. They didn’t, though. They didn’t even move.
Sam and Mr. Finch returned with three rifles and a box of ammunition. Knowing they couldn’t simply walk outside carrying arms, they placed them in a large duffel bag, and Mr. Finch hoisted it onto his shoulders. He labored underneath the weight, his back arched at an awkward angle, but he declined any help. “If things go south,” he said, “you two will need to run.”
Caleb, Sam, and Mr. Finch exited through the back door and headed east toward the lake, their backs to the agents. Caleb kept telling himself not to look back, but he couldn’t help himself. He peered over his shoulder. The agents were still there, growing smaller in the distance. They didn’t appear to
be reacting to Caleb, Sam, and Mr. Finch. Caleb didn’t see a group of them convening or tracking, and he didn’t know whether to be encouraged or scared by this. They were cautious. Patient. They simply watched from the safe confines of the road.
In the cover of the woods, Caleb, Sam, and Mr. Finch each took a rifle and loaded it. The gun felt heavy in Caleb’s hand, burdensome. He’d never particularly liked guns, but viewed them as a necessity, one of survival. And he’d gotten pretty good with them. Since moving to Grove, he and Sam had gone hunting many times, and now he could hit a deer in the heart from a hundred yards away. He was proud of this fact, taking it as evidence that he was maturing, growing into a self-sufficient man. And he liked the attention, the way Sam would ruffle his hair, smile with pride, and tell him “Good shot, son. That was one hell of a shot.”
They ventured into the underbrush parallel with the lake. It was dark in there, the early morning sun covered by white clouds, and quiet. Caleb didn’t have much hope they would find anything. The music still blared in the distance, electronic bass beats reverberating over the canopy, probably scaring any type of game for miles, spooking them to take off out of earshot from the strange, deafening sound. Despite this, Sam, Caleb, and Mr. Finch trekked in a single line, their eyes darting back and forth for any sign of movement. Caleb couldn’t see much of anything, just an endless barrage of oak and Bradford pears, his line of vision no more than fifteen yards in each direction.
Caleb searched for any sign of life, whether animal or human. It was the latter that worried him the most, National Guardsmen with assault rifles and scared OSBI agents with itchy trigger fingers. Though, if he thought about it, not finding a deer was equally as frightening. His flock, his friends, his family, they were starving. They’d been a couple days without food, and they were growing weak, their spirits waning, questioning if they were doing the right thing. He couldn’t let them down. With each step they took through the woods, Caleb felt the urgency pulse through him as if the earth itself was trembling.
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