Arrived (23 page)

“I remember catching my mom praying for me one night. I've never told anybody about it. I was coming home late from some party that I shouldn't have gone to, and I slipped in without anybody hearing me. I thought they'd all be asleep, but when I passed my parents' bedroom, I saw my mom in her reading chair, the light on behind her.”

“What was she doing?” Vicki said.

“Crying. And she was whispering a prayer—I heard my name. I always felt bad that I didn't tell her I was home. I just went to my bedroom.”

Vicki groaned. “It makes me so sad to think what I was like before all this. It's almost like I wasn't alive—I was just a shell looking for something to numb myself even more, so I drank or smoked or did stuff to help me not feel anything.”

Judd nodded. “I guess if you don't have God, you don't want to feel anything because it's so scary. You're all alone.”

“Yeah, and that's what makes being a believer so great. You can finally be alive. I think about the verse that says the evil one comes to steal and kill and destroy but Jesus came to give real life.”

“That's what I want. Even though life can bring a lot of pain and can really be awful, I'll take living it with God's help rather than being a spiritual zombie.”

Mark nervously handed the larger man his energy bar. “I'm not really that hungry.”

The man tore it open, broke it in half, and gave some to the bearded man. They ate, then retreated to their bunks.

Mark looked for an empty cot but found none, so he went to the corner and sat on the floor.

A young man, Mark guessed he was in his thirties, slept nearby. The man opened his eyes. “What'd they get you for?”

Mark shrugged. “Guess I didn't want to cooperate with their rules.”

The man lifted his head and stared at Mark. “Hey, you don't have Carpathia's tattoo.”

“Don't like tattoos. Especially the GC kind.”

The man smiled, showing missing teeth. “Same here. I dodged it for as long as I could, then got caught and thrown in here yesterday. Sure seemed like the GC was in a hurry with something big. I guess they'll make us take the thing or chop us sometime today.”

“What did you do wrong?”

“Sure are nosy, kid,” the bearded man said from across the room.

“Lay off him, LeRoy.” He turned back to Mark. “I'm Steve. We were doing a little relocation of goods when the GC found us.”

“Problem was, it was the GC's goods we were relocatin',” LeRoy said.

“What do you mean?” Mark said.

“We got caught taking some electronic equipment we wanted to sell,” Steve said. “Some stuff out of a GC warehouse a few miles from here. That was LeRoy's idea that I said was too risky—”

“We'd have gotten away with it if you could have kept your big mouth shut,” LeRoy said. “This is the last place I wanted to wind up.”

“He was in before for murder,” Steve said. “Got loose during the big earthquake. Been on the run since.”

Mark looked at LeRoy, remembering Lionel's story about his uncle being killed by a man named LeRoy. “What's your last name?”

“Banks. What about it?”

That's it! This is the same guy!
“Nothing,” Mark said. “The name just sounded familiar.”

“Well, you can forget it because I'm gettin' out of here and away from this deadwood of a partner you're talkin' to. He's going soft on me anyway, talking about that Ben-Judah guy.”

Mark looked at Steve. “You've been reading Dr. Ben-Judah's Web site?”

Steve nodded. “Had a lady talk to me about God and tell me I should read it. I did, but I didn't understand it.”

Mark glanced at the men in the next cell. “Are there others here who don't have Carpathia's mark?”

“I don't know. Ask 'em,” Steve said.

Mark stared down the row of darkened cells. He had no idea how long he had before the GC came back for him. “Excuse me,” he began nervously. “I don't mean to wake you, but how many of you—?”

“Shut up!”

“We're trying to sleep, stupid!”

Others cursed him and threw things at the cell bars.

Mark took a breath and kept going. “Just give me a minute and answer this. How many of you in here don't have the mark of Carpathia?”

“Shut your yap, jerk!”

Steve hurried over to Mark. “You'd better watch yourself. These guys'll turn on you fast.”

“I don't know how much time I have left in here. I have an important message, and if I don't talk now they may never hear what I have to say.”

“Your funeral,” Steve said.

Mark continued. “If you haven't taken the mark of Carpathia, I want you to listen. You still have a chance to believe the truth.”

A handful of men rolled from under their blankets and looked at him.

“What do you mean, the truth?” Steve said.

“I think some of you are ready for what I'm about to say. God's been working on you.”

“I'm going to work on
you
if you don't shut up,” someone said. “LeRoy, take care of this kid.”

“Shut up and let him talk,” LeRoy said. “I got a feeling he won't be here much longer.”

Mark nodded at LeRoy and turned to face the men. “When the disappearances happened, did any of you lose friends or family members?”

“Of course we did,” a man said. “Everybody did.”

“Okay. Now think about those people. Were any of them religious? Did they talk a lot about God and go to church?”

“My mother-in-law vanished and it made me religious,” a man said. “I thanked God for a whole year!”

The others laughed.

Mark studied the unmarked men. “The reason those people vanished is because God came back for his true children. They were immediately taken to heaven, which is where they are today. That means every one of us in here didn't know God. Anybody who was left behind missed the truth.”

He took a step to his right. “You might have gone to church or grown up hearing stories from the Bible. I know a lot of people who lived good lives but were left behind. The truth is, everyone still on earth never asked God to forgive them, and they never turned away from the bad stuff they'd done.”

Mark lowered his voice and explained the prophecies about Antichrist and how each of the plagues the world had seen had been predicted thousands of years earlier. Then he spoke of the prophecies concerning the Jewish Messiah who would come not just to save Jewish people but all who believed in him.

“That man's name is Jesus,” Mark said. “He was God in the flesh, and he lived a perfect life and died in your place on the cross.”

“Why would God have to die to let us go to heaven?” a man said.

Mark paused, trying to think of a way to explain. “God is the great judge of every person, and because he's holy, he can't let anyone into heaven who's not perfect. Is there any one of you who's done everything right?”

“My wife always thought she was perfect,” a man said, and the others laughed.

“Everybody falls short of God's standard,” Mark said. “We're all guilty and deserve to be separated from him forever. But instead of punishing us, the judge
himself
became a prisoner, lived a perfect life, and then took our sentence.”

“What's this got to do with us?” LeRoy said. “This ain't church.”

Mark focused on the few men standing who had no mark. “God is offering each of you a key to unlock the cell that's holding you. That cell is sin. It traps us and keeps us from following God. In the end it will kill our souls if we don't ask to be forgiven.”

Someone in the back moved and a cot creaked. That was the only sound Mark heard.

“What about those of us who took that mark?” a man said from a few cells away. “I didn't want to take it, but they made me.”

Mark pursed his lips. “I don't know what to say. The Bible says anyone who takes the mark of Antichrist is condemned.”

A clamor rose so loud that Mark thought the guards would come. He retreated to his corner and prayed for wisdom.

When things calmed, Steve tapped him on the shoulder. “Some of the guys want to know what to do. Will you tell us?”

Mark looked up and saw those without Carpathia's mark standing with their faces pressed against cell bars. A door opened down the hall, and Mark heard footsteps.

“Okay, listen carefully,” Mark said. “I'm going to tell you. Then you have to pass it on to the others.”

Steve frowned. “I don't know if I can—”

“There's no time! Even if you don't believe this or pray the prayer, you have to promise me you'll tell the others.”

“I guess I can try.”

“Good. You pray something like this from your heart: ‘God, I know that I've sinned, and I'm sorry for that sin. I believe you sent Jesus, your only Son, to die in my place, and then he rose again three days later. …' ”

Footsteps stopped in front of his cell. Someone unlocked the door.

“I ask you right now to forgive me, come into my life, and change me from the inside out. And help me not to give in to the evil one.”

“Rebel,” the guard yelled, “on your feet!”

“Do you have it?” Mark whispered.

Steve nodded. “I think so.”

“Rebel!”

“One more thing,” Mark said. “Afterward, you should be able to see something on their foreheads—that is, if you pray too.”

“All right, we'll have to come in and get you,” the guard said, taking a step toward Mark.

“And remember, tell them not to take Carpathia's—”

The guard jerked Mark to his feet by an arm, almost ripping it from its socket. Mark yelped and grabbed his shoulder as he was dragged from the cell. He looked back at Steve. “If they pray, God will give them the strength to face the blade.” He turned to the others watching in stunned silence. “Give your lives to God right now! Don't wait!”

With that the guard threw Mark up against the wall. “There's only one god and it's Potentate Carpathia!” He kneed Mark, doubling him over, then put a gag in his mouth and pushed him through the door.

Mark glanced back but couldn't see Steve or any of the others. “God, I don't know if I gave them enough, but I pray you'd use what I said in their hearts,” Mark prayed. “Help Steve, and give them the faith to see the truth and call out to you.”

24

MARK
was led into a room that had a table, three chairs, and a huge mirror on one wall. He guessed Commander Fulcire was watching from the other side but was surprised when the man entered and sat across the table from him.

Though Mark's leg wasn't hurting, his head and stomach ached from the guard's treatment.

“I was told you weren't cooperating in the cell,” Fulcire said.

Mark stared at him.

Fulcire tossed a folder onto the table. Mark's mug shot was on top. “Your name is Mark Eisman. You attended Nicolae High in Mount Prospect. I suspect you were part of the underground that began the rebel newspaper at that school. You were known to be a friend of Vicki Byrne, the same Vicki Byrne who killed her principal. Also known to the Global Community as Vicki B. She's been quite a burr under our saddle.”

Mark was shocked.

Commander Fulcire ran a hand over the file and pulled out a page printed from the Young Trib Force's Web site. “We've pieced together some of your movements. The old schoolhouse, the fire in Wisconsin, the Stahley hideaway. Tell me, is the young girl—Darrion, I think her name was—still with your group, or did you leave her behind like you did the others?”

“What others?” Mark said.

Fulcire raised his eyebrows. “That got your attention, eh?” He pulled a picture of Natalie Bishop out of the pile and held it up. “This face ring a bell? Would you like to see what she looked like as she pleaded for her life? As she told us everything she knew about you?” He held up a gruesome photo of Natalie just after her execution.

“You're a monster,” Mark mumbled.

“Excuse me? I didn't hear that last comment.”

Mark clenched his teeth and tried to keep quiet, but his anger boiled over. “You will pay for the way you've treated followers of God.”

“You mean followers of the false god. And I think the one who is about to pay is you.”

“She was a sweet girl. You had no right to—”

“That ‘sweet girl' helped several prisoners escape, gave vital Global Community information to our enemies, and was a wolf in sheep's clothing. But she became quite talkative near the end.”

“Right, which is exactly what you're going to say about me, though I'm not going to give you any more information than she did.”

Fulcire pursed his lips. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I suppose you prefer the more difficult path. Makes you feel like you're doing something noble, suffering like your so-called Messiah.”