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  “Oh, but I hated them,” she shook her head. “The Lord teaches that hate is the Devil’s hammer, and I believe that, but I swear Engle would test the patience of a saint! He sauntered into my kitchen, walked straight to my cupboards and helped himself to the food I had hoarded. Within minutes, he and his soldiers had emptied all the food out of the house and distributed it amongst his followers. The bathrooms were taken apart as well… all my medications, first aid supplies, toilet paper; absolutely everything disappeared in the blink of an eye. Engle never even looked at me—not once. It was as though I was invisible. He did, however, pay a lot of attention to the children. He eyed them with excitement and pride, like they were trophy trout on a string-line. It made my heart stutter in fear. He called one of his lieutenants to his side and said, “Separate these kids, Schmitt. Take the brownies outside…Jacks knows what to do with them. But I want you to take the whites upstairs. Find a good-sized room to keep ‘em in, and make sure they don’t escape.

  “The dapper little man with a nose like a blade and glittery blue eyes nodded once, and roughly shoved four of my kids in front of him out the kitchen door into the hall. I cried out, ‘What are you doing with my babies?’

  “Still Engle chose to ignore me. He gestured sharply to another man—a foul smelling, hulking beast of a man, with rotten teeth and dead brown eyes, who promptly lifted the rifle in his hands. Then he cracked me across the face so hard I flew across the room, and heard the sound of my teeth hitting the floor like pebbles. I lay in a pool of my own blood, watching as my babies were herded out of the kitchen like cattle. They wailed with fright. One of my favorites, a little girl named Stephanie Alexander, fought her way back to kneel by my side.”

  “‘Isshh ogay, mamey,’ I managed to mutter, before Engle reached down and grabbed her up by her hair. I passed out with the sound of her terrified squeals in my ears.

  “I woke up later to a nauseating vortex of pain. It was pitch dark, and my mouth was rank and gluey with blood. My nose felt swollen to twice its normal size. I was thirsty and disoriented. It took a few minutes to remember what had happened and decipher where I was. Then, by feel more than anything, I figured out that I was back in the root cellar.

  “I could hear the sound of footsteps overhead as Engle’s army made itself comfortable in my home. I gritted my teeth in frustrated rage, weeping as a wave of pain washed over my ruined face. I could hardly breathe through my swollen lips and nostrils. It was a wonder I was even alive.

  “I tried to open the door, but it was locked tight. The bars I had paid to have installed on the lower windows of the house for peace of mind and personal security kept me prisoner now, and I sank to the floor in hopeless grief. The words that Engle uttered, ‘Take the brownies outside…Jacks knows what to do with them,’ kept looping around and around in my brain. Although I couldn’t be sure, I thought I knew Engle’s intentions. It was in the way he spoke, and the casual cruelty in his eyes. Tears ran down my face, into my broken mouth, and the salt of them burned like fire.

  “I heard shots ring out, one…pause…two…pause…three…and then I heard panicked shouting and muffled screams. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom by now, and I saw a stack of old milk crates in the far corner of the room. I grabbed a crate and placed it upside down on the floor under the window, climbing up to peer through the bars.

  “I couldn’t see my children, thank the Lord, but I did see a lot of bodies rushing by, and heard their shouts of fear. Looking past the milling legs and feet, I saw something so amazing, so mind-boggling that, for a moment, I was transported back to my days as a little girl in southern Louisiana. I was attending Sunday services in our shabby old Baptist church on the banks of the Mississippi River. A circuit preacher by the name of Brother James suddenly started speaking in tongues. I was scared to death, watching as the traveling man trembled and jerked on the pulpit. His eyes rolled around in his head, and sweat ran freely down his face as strange words flew out of his mouth, words that made no sense at all, but rang with truth nevertheless.

  “He carried on that way for a minute or two, and then he sat down on a folding chair, and whispered Hallelujah. The sermon, which had started out being about the perils of drinking and gambling, took a turn down a different path. Brother James never looked at his Bible, or the congregation, or checked his file for notes, but began to recite the signs of the impending apocalypse.

  “He stared up at the modest circle of stained glass over the church’s front door and talked about the four horsemen, the swarm, the ten-crowned beast that would rise up out of the depths of the sea, the Anti-Christ, the three sixes, the hail….”

  Lydia stared at me with shiny, tear-filled eyes. “It was the hail that recalled my memories so vividly. I could see it now as clear as day: white, icy balls of snow and rain the size of marbles that turned to fire and lightning as it hit the ground. The lightning reached fiery fingers around trees and shrubs, fence posts and telephone poles, men and women, cars and houses. It was God’s fire, His wrath. I knew then that the apocalypse was upon us.”

  Chapter 24

  The Lord has made everything for his own purpose, even wicked people for the day of trouble. 16:4 God’s Word

  Naomi –

  There was an intermission, and Naomi’s two sons, Josh and Gary, escorted their mother off the stage while servo-bots placed punch and cake on long tables at the foot of the stage in front of the amphitheater. There was a sense of awe and humility among the guests now. Quiet murmurs of joy and sorrow filled the air as old memories were made fresh again, and past hurts were felt anew.

  Many of the people in attendance were children of the Harmony ranch and remembered Naomi as a young woman: proud and fierce, fair-minded and valiant. Many of those people cried to see her now, so old…so frail. It seemed unfair that she was one of the people who could not be saved by modern technology. As was the case with Lydia Spence, the injury to Naomi’s body was simply too severe to deal with properly. Once first aid was administered to the fleeing refugees, they were placed in cryogenic tubes for the rest of the voyage.

  Although she didn’t know it at the time, Naomi was pregnant. While she slept, her baby boys grew inside of her until the medi-bots aboard the rock were forced to wake her for the delivery. There were four bullets lodged in her spine from the battle of the exodus. The medi-bots knew that she was in stable condition and decided to wait until the ship reached Harmony’s more advanced medical facilities before trying to remove the shards of metal and lead. Then they heard the twin heart beats. They knew that they had no choice but to remove the patient from cryo for delivery. The pain of childbirth and the excruciating agony of her wounds delayed her return to cryo for thirty-two hours.

  While the other humans on board slept in their frozen cocoons, Naomi labored. Every hour that passed on the rock represented a little under a year, standard earth time, so that by the time she was delivered of her sons, she had aged by almost thirty years. While she was out of cryo, the medi-bot team decided to remove the bullets that had lodged in her back, but the operation was risky, even for someone who had not been jerked out of cryo, and just delivered two six and a half pound baby boys.

  After the birth and emergency surgery, the medi bots wheeled Naomi back into the cryo-tube, and placed the twin boys in a specialized tank filled with frozen neutrinos. They saved the patient and her children, but the damage was done. Naomi emerged from her deep, frozen sleep on Harmony an old woman with bent, painful back and horrifying subliminal memories of alien robots working over her body while lost in a haze of pain, sorrow and fear.

  Once on the planet Harmony, the medical staff performed miracles on Naomi’s body. They managed to slow the aging process, and with the help of Nano-technology and a multitude of medicinal herbs, they were able to rebuild Naomi’s spine. Still, despite the medi-bots best efforts, Naomi was now almost ninety-five years old.

  She was happy though, and her thought processes were clear. That was evident in the way her
eyes sparkled, and the homey but accurate depiction of events that unfolded on old earth before the exodus.

  Twenty minutes or so passed while the audience mingled. Then a bell chimed and the stage lights dimmed. Naomi and Josh appeared on stage, and the people in the audience took their seats. Naomi sat down and laughed as harried parents found their offspring and herded them back to their seats. A moment later a speak globe floated to where the old woman sat, and placed itself a foot away from Naomi’s mouth. “That cake was good wasn’t it? Be sure to thank the historical society for the cake and punch if you have the chance, all right?”

  There was a polite round of applause, and then Naomi continued her story. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know that the Yellowstone caldera had blown until about a week after the fact. That black snow could have been anything, and in fact, it seemed pretty minor at the time. There were so many strange things going on. Trumble’s army, alien domes, flying school busses, Josh’s injury, Michael.” Naomi’s voice wavered for a second, and she looked down at her lap.

  “I was actually convinced that there was a forest fire somewhere,” she continued. “Besides, there were other things going on that took precedence in my mind. I watched as a giant swarm of yellow jackets covered the alien’s protective dome like a blanket. There must have been millions, maybe billions of them. Their buzz filled the air inside the barn and seemed to shake the whole structure. I was sure that they would find their way past the alien’s dome, but thankfully, the barrier held firm.

  “There were over 350 people inside the barn. We shared what little space there was with the cattle, sheep, three dogs, a few chickens and the pigs in the corn patch outside. Thankfully, the barn was huge: 120 feet long and 40 feet wide. There were three levels; the hay loft upstairs, the main floor at ground level, and a milking facility in the basement. It was a squeeze, but the people of the Harmony ranch made do.

  “Luckily, we were able to go outside as well. The dome covered the greenhouse, the little makeshift graveyard by the side of the barn, and most of the garden and orchard area. This was a good thing because we stayed within the dome for almost a week. There was food put by in the greenhouse, mainly root vegetables, and we butchered a couple of steers and a pig to eat during that time. There was a small area, just past the frozen corn stalks, where the men dug a latrine. It was messy, but adequate.

  “We watched as members of Trumble’s army staggered around outside the dome. Many were stung to death by the swarm of bees, and later we saw that folks were choking to death in the toxic air. It was a terrible thing to behold and we tried, as a group, to keep the children from seeing the devastation. Most of the time, I stayed upstairs and entertained the kids.

  We were so blessed! Despite all the bad things that were happening around us, the alien’s protective dome had kept all but three of us safe. Unfortunately, three young men had apparently taken the horses out to scout for deer, or to check the perimeter lines for trespassers. They had not been seen or heard from since. Steven was angry about it; anyone who planned to leave the ranch was supposed to ask for permission, and sign out before they left. I was just sad.

  “On the third day, I was, as usual, holed up with the kids upstairs when Michael climbed the stairs and sat down by the back wall. Most of the little Indian kids that flew in with him exclaimed with joy and ran back to cuddle up close to the giant man. He grinned and put his arms around them as they squirmed and wriggled close to him, like a litter of puppies.

  “I immediately lost my place in the story of Hansel and Gretel and stared at the toes of my boots in embarrassment. I knew all the signs, and I was mentally kicking myself: I was crushing on Michael Anderson, and I had it bad! Zack and Josh had filled me in on the playboy basketball player. I didn’t want anything to do with someone famous, someone who was used to hanging around supermodels and movie stars. I didn’t have time to be thinking romantic thoughts about anybody, much less a player like Michael Anderson!”

  A ripple of laughter flowed over the audience like a wave on the ocean. Most of the children that Michael and Gary Anderson saved at the bus barn in Deer Park were in the audience, grown up now, with children of their own. Suddenly, a cheer went up, starting softly and rising in volume, “Michael! Michael! Michael!”

  Naomi stared out at the shining faces and tears fell from her eyes. Her son, Josh, stepped up behind his mother, and placed his hand on her shoulder while the cheering surrounded them and lifted them up in joy and comfort. Gary had stepped off the stage during the intermission and now sat in the front row. He met the eyes of his mother and brother, and nodded once, smiling.

  Finally, Naomi held her hands up and said, “Thank you…thank you! Please, sit down, before I start blubbering like a fool!” She laughed again, and wiped her eyes with the tissue her son gave her. The applause and cheers died down, and she went on.

  “Well, anyway, you all know what happened!” There was a roar of approval from the audience. Naomi let the applause continue for a minute or two. Then she grew serious again.

  “So, I was just asking the kids to remind me where I was in the story, when I saw Michael look at his hand. A grimace of pain filled his eyes and I asked, ‘Michael, what’s wrong?’

  “He stood up and began pacing back and forth. He shook his hand and said, ‘The Remi is acting up… it burns!’

  “Michael had told us how the Remi would burn like hell-fire whenever it had to do something; like be a weapon, or a drill, or a seamstress for the shield that surrounded us. It had been quiet for almost three days now, and the first thing I thought was that we were under attack again. I ran to the small dusty window to see what was happening outside, but Michael said, ‘Naomi, look!’

  “I turned around and walked to Michael’s side. His hand was glowing red and I gasped. Michael seemed serene though, and I looked to where he gestured. The far wall was lighting up in shades of pale yellow and pink. Grey swirls, like clouds, skittered across the makeshift screen, and suddenly I could see the shapes of two tiny gray aliens. I gasped in surprise along with the other forty adults in the loft, while the children cried out in delight.

  “‘Auntie…Uncle, Hi!’ the Indian children ran toward the wall as though they could hug the aliens, and stopped short. They jumped up and down in excitement, and the looks on the little alien creature’s faces was indescribably tender. Not to be outdone, the other kids got up and ran to the wall as well. Suddenly there were thirty-four kids jumping for joy, and adults were running up the stairs to see the cause of the ruckus.

  “Pastor Edgington walked up to stand at my side. ‘Will wonders never cease,’ he murmured.

  “I put my arm through his and we watched as one of the aliens said, ‘Sit down, little ones, and listen to us, please. We do not have much time.’

  “Michael whispered, ‘That’s Auntie, Naomi.’ Then he raised his voice and said, ‘You kids hush up now, and sit down like Auntie told you!’ His deep, bass voice echoed off the rafters, and the children and adults in the loft sat and listened.

  “Zack and Josh joined me, while Steve stood at the top of the stairs. He was trying to keep any more people from entering the loft. He was worried about the weight load, although I thought that the stout old building would take it. We usually had at least five tons of hay in the barn every winter, after all. I made Zack sit down on the floor, and then the other alien began to speak.

  “This one was obviously Uncle. He was taller and his voice was deeper than his partner’s. He made a couple of adjustments on a table in front of him, and then looked up.

  “‘Michael, observe please. These signs have been foretold, and now they come to pass.’ The angle of the camera slewed up suddenly, and then hovered over the table, where several different screens blinked into existence. Somewhere in the world, snow was falling and turning into fire as it hit the ground. Somewhere else on the planet a huge column of smoke and ash rose up into the sky. It was absolutely enormous, covering at least five square miles on the
ground. The vortex shimmered and seethed with dust, dirt, debris, animals, broken houses, bicycles, clothing and people. The column was perfectly cylindrical. Rainbows of light danced along it, and shot prism shards of radiance as far as the eye could see.

  “That picture was replaced by another; small towns and large rolled by in the camera’s pursuit of data. The people of the Harmony ranch gasped as they saw the age-old sign of evil. I could hear a groan of grief rise up around me as one person, and then another whispered, ‘It’s Satan…it’s the sign of the devil.’

  “The camera showed buildings, and telephone poles, cars, and semi-trucks, road signs and blacktopped strips of highway. On each one, the numbers 666 were scrawled. Someone had used paint, someone else magic-marker. Someone else had used blood. Although I was not a particularly devout individual, even I felt a chill.

  “All the smaller screens disappeared and we found ourselves looking at the surface of an ocean on the big screen. The water seemed normal enough, if a little gloomy and gray. (I found out later that blue skies overhead would not be seen by mankind again on earth.) Suddenly the water started to boil. Fish jumped and flipped into the air from the seething seas. We saw dolphins and sharks join in the fray. Orca whales flew from the water, snapping hungrily at larger fish like tuna and halibut. Then, unbelievably, colossal sperm whales and giant squid writhed out of the boiling cauldron.

  “A trough was opening a seam in the ocean, and we saw that something huge was emerging from the depths. I could tell that it was some kind of ship. At first I thought that a submarine was surfacing. Then I realized that no ship on earth was as big as this was. I had no way of knowing, but Michael was peering at a series of graph measurements that ran along the bottom of the screen. ‘That thing is almost twenty miles in circumference!’ he exclaimed.