The Seventh Seal (12 page)

“This way,” he shouted to Alex.

Both men’s ears rang from the exchange of gunfire.

They swung the door open and jumped inside.  John sprinted
through a mechanic’s garage where a tow truck sat in the opposite corner.  A
garage door faced Superior, and old windows marched the entire way down the
ceiling, allowing sufficient light to illuminate the garage.  John ran to the
truck while Alex moved as many fifty-five gallon drums as he could in front of
the door.  Alex wiped the greasy residue from his hands, casting a hopeful
glance at the wall of drums.

John pulled the door of the tow truck open and spotted a
filthy keychain dangling from the ignition.  He climbed into the driver’s seat,
and turned the key.  At first the engine coughed and protested, refusing to
awaken from its comfortable slumber.  John tried it two more times, spewing
gasoline fumes into the air.  He hesitated, fearful of flooding the
carburetor.  On the final attempt, the truck came to life.  John revved the
engine.  He turned on the headlights, nearly blinding Alex as he sprinted
toward the passenger side.  The gas-gauge needle vibrated along with the
powerful engine, hovering near the quarter-tank mark.

Alex jumped in the passenger seat.  Light appeared around
the edges of the back door as the soldiers pushed the drums of oil back into
the garage.  John pushed the clutch to the floor and threw the stick into first
gear.  The torque of the transmission in low gear startled the men.  John
thought to himself that they could climb a mountain with the beast.  He drove
forward, pushing the barrels of oil hard into the door. 

The truck beeped its reverse warning as John looked over his
shoulder.  He swung the truck around and slammed the accelerator to the floor,
heading right for the garage door.  Alex ducked below the dash as John drove
the truck straight through the flimsy, rolling garage door.  He turned the
truck hard left on to what he hoped was Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the
detached garage door still covering the windshield.  It slid down toward the
front like a sheet of snow melting off the roof.  The truck rumbled and shook
as it chewed over the door and spat it out behind the rear wheels.  Soldiers
scrambled out into Euclid Avenue, firing their guns at the fleeing tow truck. 
John put a hundred yards between them and the soldiers as shells kissed the
exterior of the truck, but none found their mortal mark.

Alex sat up and looked out the passenger window.  They heard
it before they saw it.  A military helicopter circled high above Lake Erie.  It
fell into a beeline toward their newfound transportation.

“They see us,” Alex said.

John shifted from second to third gear, pushing the truck
toward fifty miles per hour.  Although it was not designed as a getaway
vehicle, the tow truck handled well.  It raced down Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard, through the Cleveland State campus, and into Midtown.  Several
deserted and dilapidated buildings towered over the area, a tribute to the
once-mighty industrial power of the Rust Belt.  Before the copter could zero in
on their exact location, John jumped the curb and shoved the truck down into
first gear, the transmission of the vehicle crying in pain.  He drove it
through the open garage bay of one of the towering brick dinosaurs.  John
killed the engine.  Both men sat in silence.  Looking over their shoulders and
through the back window, they heard the copter overhead.

John climbed out first.  He crouched down and slithered
toward the open garage bay.  The helicopter circled back over Euclid Avenue,
searching like some vile bird of prey.

“They didn’t see us duck in here,” he said to Alex.

Alex appeared next to John, his rifle pointing out toward
the street.

“We gotta roll the dice.  Do we wait here or keep moving?”

“If they didn’t see us, we might be safe here temporarily. 
But, it’s a matter of time before they canvass the area.”

“True, but it would take them a helluva long time to search
every one of these abandoned factories.”

They stopped talking and listened as the copter’s blades
echoed off in the distance, fading away from their hidden location.  Several
jeeps raced down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard toward East Cleveland, past
the wounded buildings.

John set his gun up against the wall and pulled a bottle of
water from his bag.

“How’s your head?” he asked Alex.

“Must’ve slammed it off the steering wheel before.  I’ll be
fine. Nice job with the driving, man.”

“Thanks. You going to show me how to shoot like that?”

“Not unless you want to invite all of those fuckers to
watch.”

John smiled.

“I guess that wouldn’t be a good idea, would it Rambo?”

“Rambo was a Green Beret, asshole.”

Alex sighed and the men shared a quick laugh. They heard
water dripping in the distance, pooling on the cement floor in an empty space.

“Oh, and by the way,” John said, “how come
you
were
asking
me
back at the Jigsaw about how to shoot a goddamn gun?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know exactly how much I could trust
you yet, to be honest, John. I wanted to know how much you knew about weapons.
I apologize.”

“Yeah, alright. Forget it. As long as you keep knocking
those fuckers over like shooting-gallery ducks.”

Alex nodded.

After a few minutes, John’s adrenal glands had finally
relented.  He closed his eyes, and contemplated the city: his city.

Cleveland, along with Buffalo and Pittsburgh, had once been
a crown jewel in America’s industrial corridor.  Millions of dollars of
manufactured goods crossed Lake Erie or floated down the Ohio River.  Raw
materials flowed west, headed to the Big Three automakers in Detroit.  Although
a dirty, cutthroat, and dangerous industry, the citizens of the Rust Belt
prospered.  A solid middle class established the classic suburban lifestyle,
complete with a car and disposable income.

The decline of the domestic steel industry changed all
that.  Japanese factories processed the resources twice as fast, at half the
cost.  The effect over the next fifteen years proved to be deadly.  Shipping
lanes dried up, factories shut their doors, and families fell into poverty.

The stretch of rotting buildings along Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard became a sore reminder of bygone days of prosperity.  Spray-painted
tags covered the walls of an industrial giant.  Weeds and junk trees climbed
through the brick, reclaiming the land like the overgrown temples of the ancient
Maya.  The smokestacks and chemical dumps stopped polluting the environment
years ago, but they continued to pollute the minds and memory of the citizens
of the dying metropolis.

John sat on the floor, staring through the broken windows of
the fallen king.

The cold stone of the church could not keep the warmth
contained.  Generators provided electricity, but the boiler broke down every
hour.  As more people took their seats in the pews, the temperature climbed,
one degree at a time.  A mix of white robes, camouflage, field gear, and
civilians filled St. Michael’s on the first Sunday since the beginning of the
First Cleansing.

Father peered out, from the back room behind the altar,
across the sea of pious faces.  He smiled and turned to make the final, girlish
adjustments on his vestments.

A murmur brewed before the start of Mass, but dissipated
when the altar boys took their positions at the back of the church.  The
organist, high in the mezzanine, struck a bellowing chord and began the processional
hymn.  Father appeared and stood between two altar boys.  A third held the
crucifix high above his shoulders and began the steady march toward the altar.

The congregation sang along with the organ, bellowing the
hymns of the Book. The faithful beamed at Father as he proceeded toward the
altar.  Aware of the attention, he took a luxurious pace to his destination.

The boy holding the crucifix stood at attention, riveted to
the stone floor.  Father and the servers flanking him bent at the waist in
reverence of the crucifix hanging above the altar.  They walked to the right
and turned to face the church members.  All four stood in front of their
designated chairs.

Once the Mass began, Father fell into an ingrained routine
of song, prayer, and reflection.  His fingers caressed worn rosary beads as the
words fell mindlessly from his lips.  A young woman performed the first reading
and led the church in the responsorial psalm. 

Father climbed to the pulpit.  It rose four feet from the
altar in a turret of red-veined marble.  Latin phrases in golden borders lined
the top and spread in an arch above the altar.  St. Michael, the archangel, sat
atop the marble canopy, ready to battle Satan’s minions.  Built in the late
1800s, with Cleveland a burgeoning industrial giant of the Midwest, St.
Michael’s proved to be the most populated and profitable of all the local
churches.  It stretched majestically into the air, overlooking the main
railroad line leading to the Erie Canal.  However, in the past three decades,
the church and its parishioners fell into destitution and despair.  Population
loss and unemployment forced the diocese to consolidate many parishes.  St.
Michael’s held out the longest, but could not stem the tide of the economic
downturn.  By 1995, the number of parishioners dropped below one hundred, a
staggering decline from over four thousand in the 1940s.

A vision took Father back to a time when men removed their
hats and placed them in the clips on the back of each pew.  In his mind, Father
heard the rumbling freight train as it passed through the valley.

Father looked up and realized he had been standing silently
in front of the congregation.  He finished the gospel reading and the members
of the church waited for the sermon.  Nobody shuffled or moved, as if awaiting
their shepherd’s command.

“God created all things.  Through the agency of your parents
He created you.  Thus, you came from God.  You hope by living a decent life to
return to God.  From birth unto death, or from God to God, you travel through
this world over a path known as God's will.  Thus, in all the eventualities of
life — misfortune, war, disappointment, disillusionment, sickness, and death –
you hear God-fearing people exclaim: ‘Thy will be done.’  No matter what your
vocation or job; whether you are a professional man, tradesman, defense worker,
soldier, sailor, aviator, or nurse, the same way must be traveled, and that is
the way of God's will.

“Therefore, we intend to present the lives of Saints who
happened to be servicemen, soldiers, to show that even they, amid all the
perils, and despite all the temptations they met as soldiers, could, with their
eyes on God and His will, live good, moral lives, even to the extent of
becoming perfect.

“We are all soldiers in this fight against the Infidels. 
Every one of us can rise up and beat Satan’s forces to Hell.  Many evil forces
will tempt you from His perfection.  Remember, ‘Thy will be done.’  The Holy
Covenant will prevail.  The First Cleansing required the Holy Spirit to guide
God’s hand in the same way the Spirit guided the waters of the Great Flood. 
Before we can heal, we must excise our sickness.

“I call on each and every one of you to serve His will. 
Whether it be with gun or Bible, volunteer work or prayer, you must all do your
part.  Satan will not surrender.  He will not lay down in front of the glory of
the Lord.  And he will not provide mercy.  Continue to alert our soldiers, the
chosen Warriors of Christ, of the location of any Infidel.  They may be your
neighbor or your brother, but they are also the concubine of Lucifer.  God
before all, so: ‘Thy will be done.’  Bow your heads and pray for God’s
blessing.”

Father sat and leaned back on his chair while the
congregation held his gaze in rapture.  He read the visions of an Earthly
garden in their eyes, and heard their hearts banishing the serpent and sin. 
The thought of the Thousand Year Peace allowed him to sleepwalk through the
rest of the Mass.

As was custom, the parishioners shook his hand as they filed
out the back doors of St. Michael’s.  Many commented on the beautiful, holy
sermon just delivered, and they spoke of the richness of a full church.  Father
shook hands with men.  He hugged women, and lifted little children in the air.

God’s love will triumph
, he thought.

***

“Just us?” asked Commander Byron.

“Is my conversation alone not adequate?” asked Father.

The general laughed.  He arranged his beret to cover a
receding hairline.  The medals on his chest clinked together with every
movement.  Commander Byron’s olive-green jacket had pressure on the lower
buttons.  His cane sat across his lap, and an eye patch hung in place.

“Of course it is, Father.  A brandy or cigar would make our
discussion quite palatable”

Father reached for the decanter before Byron even finished
asking for it.  Byron chuckled under his breath and followed the comfortable
ritual of their friendship.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Father.”

Father poured a two-finger dose of brandy into a paper cup
and handed it to the commander.

“As you can imagine, we may need to make adjustments,
Commander, until the Covenant has secured the region.”

Commander Byron took the cup from Father, held it to the
light, and downed the red liquid.  A burst of color filled his ample cheeks.

“I can live with it.  Maybe you can fill it again?”

Father repeated the process and removed two cigars from his
desk.  He unwrapped them, used his cutter to remove the ends, and lit one with
the deep-blue flame from a cigar lighter.  He handed the cigar to the Commander
and lit one for himself.  Since John’s escape, they’d relocated the field
hospital to a local school a mile away.  The administrative assistants, with a
night off, chose to pray together in the convent attached to the church.  A
lone guard stood by the steps leading up into the entrance.  Father nodded
toward the man.  With one flicker of his hand, the Commander dismissed the
guard, leaving them in complete privacy.

“Ummm.  I love the Acids,” said Commander Byron.

“As do I, my old friend.”

“Although I enjoy it, I’m sure you did not invite me down
here for a brandy and a smoke.”

Father tilted back in his chair.  He loosened the white
collar under his black shirt and looked at the commander.

“I need John the Revelator.”

“Of course, of course. Why?” asked Commander Byron.

“I can’t explain.  I simply know it’s God’s will, and I know
this man is crucial to our victory.”

“Do you want him alive or dead?” asked the commander.

Byron blew fragrant smoke circles into the stillnessof the
basement, as the question itself also hung in the air.

“I need him alive.”

“What do you know?”

“Very little.  We have a physical description.  We also know
he has paired with a vet that helped him escape.”

“Which war?”

Father’s laughter erupted causing the commander to drop his
cigar.  Byron had heard this sound very rarely.

“He’s a veterinarian.”

The commander giggled a bit, then a bit more.  Eventually,
the medals on his chest shook with each uncontrollable fit of laughter. 
Military tears of contempt streamed down his face.

“Do you have any intel on the vet?”

The word elicited another smile from Father.

“We have his name, address, business address, and other
random items.  It should be enough for you to run through the database and get
a decent profile.  That might lead you to John.”

“And him, John?”

“Practically nothing.  He is probably not a priest, although
he was found wearing the collar.  You cannot let the troops know he is secular
as it could cause, shall we say, public-relations issues?  The clerk will hand
you a photo and physical description on the way out.”

“Are you asking me to leave, Father?”

Father waved both hands in the air, gesturing in exaggerated
movements.

“There is more brandy to drink and more cigars to smoke. 
Stay until you’ve had your fill.”

The commander nodded and smirked.

“Not even a priest, eh?  Perhaps I can help you with your
‘Revelations Reading’?  It’s been a while since I had such a malleable
congregation.”

Incensed, Father exploded across the table and grabbed the commander
by the back of the neck.  He slammed his face down into the hard, oak desk
twice.  Blood from his nose smeared the rest of his face.  Before Commander
Byron could even reach for the revolver on his hip, he heard a sharp metallic
click in his right ear.

“Insult me?  God will guide this bullet through your diseased
brain if you so much as sniffle.”

The commander raised his gun hand and placed it on the
table.

“Commander Byron.  If you ever –
ever
– mention that
again, I will send you to your Judgment Day.  Do you understand me?”

Father let go of Commander Byron’s neck and handed him a
white handkerchief to wipe his face.  The commander sat back and grinned at the
priest.

“You are one tough son of a bitch, I’ll say that.  It’s no
wonder we’ve been friends for so long.  Is there anything else I need to know
about John the Revelator?  I think I’ve worn out my welcome here.”

Father fixed his shirt and dabbed the commander’s blood from
his own shirt.

“There is one more thing.  He has a relationship with a
woman named Jana.  You can use her to draw him out, if she is still alive.”

The commander stood and extinguished his cigar in the
remnants of his brandy.  His nose still dripped blood on his uniform.  He wiped
it, unconcerned that the seventh broken nose would not heal any better than the
previous six.

“Jana.  Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem at all.  I’ll start
with the Cleveland white pages.”

He spun around on Father and headed for the door, hoping the
jibe would not earn him a bullet in the back.