Judgment Day (3 page)

Ira found himself on the floor, an invisible hand pinning him, threatening to crush his chest. There was no give to the concrete floor and his ribs compressed. Breathing was impossible and even gasps were beyond him. His chest ached as his ribs bowed, his abdomen felt as if tons of brick were being piled on him. Just when he felt he could stand it no more, suddenly he could breathe.

He sucked in desperately, then when the panic of suffocation subsided, he could think again—he thought of Constance. Calling out he got no answer. He stood slowly, fearful of internal injuries, leaning on the end of the console that hadn't collapsed. Constance was lying facedown, a pool of blood spreading around her face.

"Constance? Are you all right?" Ira called.

He stepped toward her but then stopped. Suddenly his stomach felt as if it were in an elevator. Then he felt light-headed. As he watched, the cables that had been ripped from the instruments began to float. The ghostly fiberoptic cables mesmerized him. Then the blood surrounding Constance formed into globules and lifted into the air. Ira's skin prickled and his stomach churned. He felt as if he were falling. Equipment around him began to float and then to his horror, Constance lifted from the ground, floating limply in the air, slowly rotating as if on a spit. Her nose had been smashed and her face was covered with blood. The horror in front of him masked his own sensations and he was off the floor before he realized it. As he looked down, seeing his feet six inches from the lab floor, he suddenly shot into the air, slamming against the ceiling. The ceiling tiles collapsed, the aluminum brackets bucking as the invisible force pressed him into the air ducts above.

The sheet metal crumpled and sharp edges cut into his back. Again he felt his chest compressed and the terrifying feeling of suffocation returned. Constance was there too, he could see her body pressed into the wiring. Suddenly the rest of the false ceiling collapsed, hiding Constance. He wanted to protect his face but his arms were pinned to the ceiling. Then the room brightened. Like a white dwarf star, the vacuum chamber was glowing—white-hot, or electromagnetic radiation, he didn't know. The light was painful, but Ira stared, mesmerized. Then it exploded, the chamber becoming shrapnel, spraying the room with jagged pieces of steel. A piece slammed into Ira's face, burying in his left eye. He found he could scream, but he was also falling, reaching for his punctured eye at the same time. When he hit the floor the pain left him, replaced by darkness.

Slowly Ira became aware again. He felt no pain, no sensation at all; there was only darkness. Then slowly he could see again, even from his damaged eye—but there was little to see. All was blackness, except a pinpoint of light. With no reference point, Ira floated in the blackness, oblivious to up and down. The pinpoint grew, yellowing as it did. Now the size of a golf ball, it was joined by more pinpoints—six white dots that circled the bright center. As these new pinpoints grew they changed colors, only one remaining white. The closest to the core became silver, the next green, and the third red. The three outer dots grew until they outshone the inner dot, and they turned the green of sea foam.

Floating in the blackness Ira struggled to make sense of it. Then he floated nearer the circling dots, drifting in toward the center. The green dot grew, filling his visual field. Then he saw two more pinpoints circling the green dot, the larger chasing the smaller. Captivated by his vision, he was caught unprepared for the return of the pain.

Suddenly he was conscious, lying on the lab floor, his hand pressing on his ruined eye to stop the bleeding. Only then in his pain did the meaning come to him. Ruth's baby—their baby—God had punished him. An eye for an eye, that's what the Bible said. But he had taken more than just the baby's eye. Was this just the beginning? Even in agony, he knew the fires of hell would be much worse and he found his lips begging for forgiveness.

CHAPTER 3 GEORGE PROCTOR

Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.

—PSALM 142:7

H
e'd never been in a cell that didn't stink of human waste. Even the holding cells like this one smelled of it. Sick of the stink, he pressed his face between the bars, searching for fresh air. He found only the stink of hundreds of men packed together like animals. He wanted out of there more than he had wanted anything in his life. Twenty-eight months was the longest stretch he had done and he vowed it was his last. He wouldn't give up his guns, that was his constitutional right, but he would go underground. He'd give up his newsletter and cable show—become less visible. That way the FBI and ATF agents wouldn't target him.

He gave up on getting a clean breath and flopped down on the bench. He knew the guards were doing this deliberately—he had given them trouble every day of the twenty-eight months. Always a smooth talker, and a natural leader, he had stirred up trouble among the other prisoners. A word here about the food, a word there about the amount of exercise time, and soon you have discontent. He stirred up two riots that way. No guards died, but five were badly beaten. The guards knew he was behind the trouble and paid him back every chance they got. He should have been released an hour ago, but instead they kept him stewing in the holding cell. He wanted away from the stink and away from the rigidity of prison life. Once out that door he would beeline for his cabin in the Idaho panhandle. There were supplies buried there, some money, and guns. Assault rifles mostly, converted to full automatic. That's how he made his living—a master machinist, he had the skills to machine the parts for the conversion. He could be back in business within a week, supplying survivalists with weapons of independence, but the government would be watching. He would have to be careful.

Now he stared at the ceiling—cracked concrete painted institutional green. Obscenities were scratched in the paint—that was the other common denominator in jail cells. He closed his eyes, trying to relax. When he did he could still see the ceiling.

Startled, he opened his eyes—the faded green paint was as before. With his eyes open, he traced a crack from one wall to the other. Closing his eyes, he could see the same crack just as clearly. Opening and closing his eyes made no difference. It was as if his eyelids had become transparent. Frightened, he squeezed them tightly closed, but the ceiling was as clear and bright as before. He touched his eyelids; they felt normal, although he could see his fingers touching his closed eyes. They had been ordinary eyes until a few seconds ago; bright blue eyes complementing his blond hair. He pictured his oval face, with his closely cropped hair and small ears. There was nothing unusual about him—until today.

Opening and closing his eyes, he experimented, finding no way to dim his vision. Closing them tightly, he looked around the cell, his fear diminishing but his puzzlement growing. Then, in the middle of a string of obscenities scratched in the wall, he saw a glowing cross. Someone had etched it into the green paint. He opened his eyes and the cross remained, but the glow was gone. Eyes closed, the glow returned. He stepped closer and saw words scratched below the cross in block letters, "GOD SEES ALL." The words glowed as bright as the cross. Opening his eyes the glow was gone, the words ordinary. Through his eyelids they shone with an unearthly light. Now he understood.

His eyes were still closed when the guards came. They always came in twos when dealing with him. He had never assaulted a guard, but he was six feet four, with a barrel chest and beefy arms, and they never took chances.

"Finally found your release papers," one of the guards explained. "They got stuck under the wrong stack. I don't have any idea how that happened."

The second guard snorted, stifling a giggle.

He watched the guards through his closed eyes, seeing them just as clearly as if his eyes were open.

"Wake up! We're talking to you," the first guard prodded.

With his eyes closed he stood and walked to the door.

"What's with him?" the second guard asked. "He sleepwalking or something?"

The first guard inserted his club through the bars, prodding him in the stomach.

"Wake up. Time to go."

Proctor smiled, then opened his eyes, although it made no difference. He could see as clearly with his eyes closed.

The guards opened the cell door, motioning him out. He walked in front of them, eyes closed, negotiating the corners and stairs to the property room. His eyes were still closed when the manila envelope holding his personal effects was dumped on the counter.

"Check the contents against the manifest and then sign here," the clerk said.

He pushed the contents around, interested only in his new ability.

"You gonna open your eyes?" the clerk asked. "At least count the cash. Eighty-seven bucks, right?"

Ignoring the guard he pushed the contents back into the envelope with the edge of his hand and then signed the receipt. The clerk was staring at his eyes, trying to see if he was peeking. Snapping them open he startled the clerk.

"Creep! Get him out of here."

The guards jerked him around and took him to the exit and down the road to the chain-link fence surrounding the prison. Opening the gate they pushed him through.

"Oh, yeah," the first guard said. "The prison bus couldn't wait so you don't got no ride. There's a pay phone down that way so you can call a friend to come get you."

The guards chuckled, knowing he didn't have a friend within a hundred miles. No family either. They were still joking as they slammed the gate, leaving him staring through closed eyes at highway traffic. He didn't mind. He'd been given a gift—that's what his old Bible-thumping grandma would call it—a spiritual gift. He'd never been religious, but he knew this new ability came from God. But there were no instructions with the gift. It wasn't like the gift of healing, a person knew what to do with that—he needed a Bible.

George Proctor turned toward town, opening and closing his eyes, playing with his new gift and wondering what to do with it.

CHAPTER 4 SHEPHERD

"Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them."

—JOSHUA 1:6

M
ark Shepherd knelt alone in the hospital chapel thinking, not praying—he was thinking he'd made a mistake. Four years ago he decided to leave the military and enter the ministry. Trained as a weapons technician, he was a specialist in maintenance and repair of nuclear weapons. But he'd never been comfortable with his special skill. Walking away from the first weapon he repaired, he felt a twinge of guilt. After a year he wasn't sleeping well at night. When it came time to reenlist he'd declined the signing bonus and moved to San Francisco, enrolling in seminary. Too liberal for the conservative seminary he had chosen, he had been a theological misfit from the first day, arguing endlessly with faculty and other students over the role of sacraments in worship, whether baptism was by water or spirit, and whether the Bible was supposed to be taken seriously and literally, or just seriously. He left with a master of divinity degree and no sense of direction.

Still feeling called to minister, he looked for a congregation to pastor but found the doors of the church closed to him. Like his experience at the seminary, the Evangelical churches found him too liberal and the mainstream denominations lost membership every year, closing more churches than they opened. He applied for every opening but wasn't interviewed for any.

Mark moved back to Columbus, where he had grown up, renting an apartment near the university. To pay his bills he took a night clerk job at a Holiday Inn, then volunteered to assist as a hospital chaplain. The dying and the grieving welcomed him but only at the end of life. Honest remorse over past sins was rare. More often he prayed with those afraid of the unknown. To the terminally ill it didn't matter if he was selling Christianity or Buddhism; sometimes it didn't matter to him either.

He met Anita while working at the Holiday Inn. She was a college student working the desk to pay her tuition. A marketing major, Anita was outgoing, friendly, and popular with the guests. She struck the perfect balance between efficiency and cordiality, conversing with the guests as they checked in, her hands simultaneously registering the guests. Anita was pretty, not beautiful, with brown eyes and brown hair that she kept cut short. She smiled with slightly crooked teeth and laughed a little too loud. She didn't turn the heads of the men who checked in but they sought her out when they had special requests or problems to solve. Mark enjoyed working with her and quickly came to enjoy her company.

As a coworker, Mark worried about crossing the line into sexual harassment, unsure of her feelings toward him. He thought there were clues to her feelings, but wasn't sure. Didn't her eyes linger when looking at him? Wasn't her smile quicker and more genuine for him than other employees? Afraid to find out he wasn't something special to her, Mark shied away from taking a first step. Anita solved his problem. One morning as they left work, Anita asked him to breakfast. Mark said yes. Three months later they married and a year later Anita was pregnant.

They used the small inheritance Mark received after his mother's death as a down payment on a house. Mark's father had died when Mark was thirteen and his mother was a poor money manager. By the time Mark was old enough to give her financial advice her investments were seriously depleted. If she had lived five more years she would have been penniless.

They purchased a seventeen-hundred-square-foot starter home on a thirty-year mortgage. With three bedrooms, small family room, and a tiny yard, it was modest but more than enough for Mark and Anita.

They painted the baby's room yellow, since they didn't know if Anita was carrying a boy or a girl. They couldn't afford new furniture so they spent their days off shopping garage sales, purchasing a crib, changing table and dresser, then refinishing them in their garage. Two baby showers, one by Anita's college friends and one by employees at the Holiday Inn, provided room decorations, bottles, diapers, and toys. By the middle of Anita's seventh month the room was painted and furnished, baby clothes were washed and waiting in the dresser, and baby powder, wipes, and diapers were lined up on the changing table.

As Anita entered her eighth month they had narrowed their choice of baby names to one boy's name—Austin—and two girls' names—Judith and Melinda. The Shepherds and the little world they had created were ready for their baby.

Since they were short of money, Anita planned to work through her eighth month at the Holiday Inn. She didn't make it to her last day. The first snow of winter came in mid-October, catching motorists unprepared. There were fender-benders throughout the city but the worst accident occurred on the outer belt. Two young men in a pickup lost control as they passed a tractor-trailer. The pickup went into a spin and the truck driver jackknifed his truck as he tried to avoid them. The pickup spun into the guardrail, out of harm's way, while the semi slid sideways across three lanes of traffic. Then the pileup began.

Anita was three cars back, following a Ford Expedition. The Ford rear-ended the Lexus in front of it, just as the Lexus hit the skidding truck. Anita slid to a stop inches from the Expedition. She was safe, but only for a few seconds. Behind her was a semitruck pulling a flatbed stacked high with lumber. The truck was skidding, finding no traction in a thin smear of wet snow.

Anita's Honda was slammed into the Expedition, her car folding like an accordion as the rear bumper collapsed toward the engine compartment. Anita was caught among the crumpling steel.

Anita was brain dead by the time firemen cut her out of the wreck. At the hospital they performed a cesarean section to try to save the baby but it was too late. One of the surgeons told Mark the baby was a boy. He never understood why the doctor thought he would want to know that.

Mark buried his wife and baby together, buying an expensive headstone to mark their passing. He visited the cemetery daily for six months, keeping fresh flowers on the grave, brushing the snow from their tombstone in winter, then in spring, making sure the new grass growing over his family was watered and weeded.

Too depressed to work, Mark quit his job at the Holiday Inn, staying home, staring at the television, watching the bills pile up. The bank eventually took his house and sold it at auction. The collection officer who supervised the repossession told Mark he was sorry for having to take his home away. Mark believed him.

Once the mortgage, penalties, interest, and repossession costs were paid, there was nothing left for Mark. His mother's inheritance was gone. Mark held a garage sale just before the bank evicted him. He sold Anita's clothes and the baby furniture and most of the rest of his household goods. Then he went through the few pictures there were of him and Anita, filling two photo albums, then burning the rest.

After the sale he had enough to rent an apartment. Again, he chose an apartment close to the university, enjoying long walks on the campus and the noise and bustle of the bars and restaurants along High Street. After three months his money was nearly gone and he had to choose to follow Anita and their son into the afterlife or find a way to go on living.

Mark felt no joy in living, had no sense of direction for his life, and refused to be comforted by friends, pastors, or former coworkers. The only thing he felt certain of was that he wasn't ready to die yet. He feared living, because of the painful memories, but part of him insisted it wasn't yet time to let go of his soul.

He got his job back at the Holiday Inn and two months later returned to his volunteer work as a chaplain. He wasn't ready to return to worshiping with a congregation—he couldn't bear their sympathy—but he did feel he could sympathize with others.

Tonight he knelt in the empty hospital chapel, meditating, opening himself to God, looking for something to fill the emptiness inside. He heard nothing from God and felt no presence of His Spirit. He began to wonder if he should return to the military. At least as a nuclear weapons repairman he carried out a useful function. Growing up in a church, he had loved Sunday school and the stories of the great biblical heroes—David, Samson, Joshua. He had listened to the sermons too, while his friends wriggled in their pews. He believed it when the pastor said that God had a plan for everyone, a purpose for everyone's life, and he prayed nightly for God to make it known to him. Now, life had taught him otherwise. Sitting in an empty chapel he found he not only didn't believe God had a plan for everyone, but he doubted God's existence at all.

Mark sighed deeply, saddened by his losses. He had no house in the suburbs, no wife or baby, no money in the bank, no meaningful career. Now, he knew there was no omnipotent being who cared about individuals and set the direction of their lives. With that realization, Mark pressed his hands to his face and began to sob.

Suddenly he was dreaming—in vivid color. He was alone on a great desert, striding across the great emptiness. The sun was bright overhead, but not hot. Effortlessly, he climbed a dune and looked in all directions. There was nothing but golden sculpted sand, even his footprints erased by the wind. He looked into the distance, seeing much farther than his myopic eyes normally allowed. Instead of curving out of sight, the Earth curved toward the sky, as if he were inside a sphere. He turned slowly, seeing every horizon curving toward the sky, but when he looked up there was no sun. The desert hung above him, the sands threatening to pour down as if from an hourglass. Confused, he stepped from the dune, trodding down the other side. When he reached the bottom he heard a great commotion. Turning, he saw a great horde of people coming over the dune. Afraid, he ran to the top of the next dune, but they followed him up and then down the other side. He ran from dune to dune and still they followed. They became a great burden to him, and he pleaded to be left alone, but still they followed.

"Excuse me, are you the chaplain?"

Mark turned with a start to see a nurse leaning in the chapel door. Disorientated, he looked around. He was back in the chapel, kneeling, as if in prayer. Had he fallen asleep? Was he dreaming? He didn't feel sleepy, he felt exhilarated.

"I said, are you the chaplain?" the nurse repeated slowly.

"I'm his assistant."

"The patient in 303 is asking to see a minister or rabbi, or someone. I think he wants to pray or something. Can you do that?"

"Of course," Mark said.

Mark got to his feet while the nurse watched him curiously.

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone in here before," she said as she led him out into the hall.

Stopping at the nurses station, she retrieved a chart.

"His name is Ira Breitling. He seems pretty young to be asking for a minister. I guess he thinks he's dying."

"Is he?"

"He's in serious condition but it's mostly broken bones. They had to remove his left eye and he ruptured his spleen."

"Car accident?"

"No, he was the one that survived the explosion at the university. It was on the news."

Mark remembered hearing about the incident. A young woman had been killed. There was little else he needed to know, so he excused himself and entered the room. Ira Breitling had one leg suspended above the bed. His left arm was in a cast and a thick band of gauze covered the left side of his face. His right eye was closed but opened as Mark approached the bed.

"I'm Chaplain Shepherd," Mark said. "The nurse said you wanted someone to pray with."

"No. I mean sure, but it's more than that. Do you believe?"

Mark hesitated. Only minutes ago he had abandoned his belief in God and wept over the loss. Then he had had a remarkable dream—a vision. He didn't know what to make of it but it was more than a dream.

"Yes, I do believe in God," Mark said.

"I mean really believe!?" Breitling pressed.

Mark had never had anyone question his faith in this way. People frequently wanted to challenge his theology, wanting to know his stand on creation and evolution, and a host of other theological issues. All this young man cared to know was whether he had taken the first, most critical step. Did he believe there was a God? No qualifiers, no theological litmus test, just a simple fundamental belief in a higher being.

"Yes, I honestly believe there is a God," Mark said. "But that's all I can say for certain. Everything else about God, and the worship of God, is a mystery to me."

Ira closed his good eye, relaxing back into his hospital bed. Then he mumbled, "Thank you, God." When Ira spoke again he told an incredible story—it was the story of the explosion but with detail Mark never read in the newspaper. Then Ira shared his vision of the bright dots circling each other. As Mark listened, he knew what he had experienced in the chapel wasn't a dream, it was a vision—a message from God. When Ira Breitling finished, Mark shared his vision with Ira. They talked for hours after that, alternating with prayer. The nurse insisted Mark leave three hours later. He came back every night after that. When Ira was released from the hospital it was Mark who picked him up.