Chapter 17: Wrath

Earl ran for the church as soon as Cassie took off with the plane. He knew something was badly amiss. The two kids ambled slowly after him with no soul in their eyes. He rushed through the door, calling, "Pastor Moses, Pastor Moses, where ... what are you doing to Portia?"

The door slammed behind him as Cassie's zombified offspring inched closer. At the altar there was a ring of candles and Moses stood ready to violate the helpless 10-year old girl tied to a table. He wore the robe of a satanic priest, with a pentagram medallion on a gold chain. His wife wore the robe of a priestess, and the others surrounded the altar-table repeating evil phrases over and over.

"You're just in time to see the sacrifice of a virgin to our god," said Moses. "When I am done you can have her, and then you too will be like us, like gods."

"How dare you desecrate God's house like this?" challenged Earl.

"It's my god's house, not yours," bellowed Moses. "Accept him freely, and live."

"No, I deny your false god," countered Earl, and rushed the makeshift altar.

Moses motioned with his hand, and flung Earl against the front pews. On the overturned back of the pew, he spied a Bible, and took hold of it. Carrying it, Earl rushed the front again. The others saw him and parted. He freed Portia, the daughter of the fifth single mother, Zoe, who told him to leave the girl.

"Portia, is that what you want?" asked Earl. "You know it's wrong, don't you?"

"No, help me," she squeaked, "help me Jesus."

"I'm Earl Carter, but you can bet Jesus will deal with these people. We need to get out of here and find a place to hide before Cassie gets back."

"I want to go back to the other place," Portia cried.

"After them," ordered Moses, "don't let them escape."

Earl pulled the girl out the door and looked up to see a gigantic angel with a flaming sword raised to strike, and darted to the right. Michael's sword struck the false church and it and everyone inside vanished in a huge fireball. The blast forced Earl and the girl to the ground. The mass of fire slowly rose from the site, and then suddenly zoomed into the sky.

Earl put Portia into the ATV that Carl brought on the transport and started it, then headed to the right up the beach. "Where are you taking me?" she asked.

"I have a place I go to when I need to think. There is a fireplace, and a cave to keep us dry, and I have two fishing rods there to catch our food with," Earl revealed. "There's a ton of flounder and other fish out there."

"You ain't going to molest me or anything like that, right?"

"No way, I don't know if your mom ever told you who your daddy is, but I could be." Earl saw Michael up ahead, and stopped.

"Those who would harm you are gone," said Michael. "You may return to the town and wait upon The LORD to send help. Earl Carter, by risking yourself to save the child you shall be spared the penance that otherwise awaited you. There is plenty in your garden, and salmon enter the river. Take only what you need, and others will come soon."

"But you just destroyed the town," replied Earl, but Michael vanished. "Now what do we do?"

"He said they're gone, and to go home," answered Portia. "You have a lot of kids, don't you?"

"No, I only have you," said Earl. "I made a lot of kids, but it's not something I'm proud of. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I know it was stupid. Those guys in our band, well, we all passed women around, and thought we were so cool."

"You're lucky if you didn't catch AIDS," opined Portia. "Sex outside of marriage can kill you these days."

"Sex outside of marriage is what killed my daddy," admitted Earl, turning around on the beach. "It wasn't any disease though, unless you call stupidity a disease. The woman's husband caught him, and shot both my dad and his wife. Then he killed himself."

"So, three people died that didn't have to," reasoned Portia. "Look, there's a smoking hole where the church used to be."

"No, that's where the building was, and now I know that Pastor Moses never consecrated it to God, at least not ours."

"Will God give us a new church?"

"No, I believe this time it's up to us to give Him one. Look at it this way, it don't have to be very big for the two of us."

(New Eden Armory)

Putting the transport shuttle and weapons away, the construction crew left through the main Town Hall. Allen, Ben, and Aaron filled out a report on the events of the morning for future training. Each scenario, no matter how unique, offered a learning experience. This time Carl and Tim piloted the shuttle remotely.

"Considering what happened and the potential for harm to personnel," advised Carl, "I believe it will be safer. A remotely piloted vehicle could be recaptured by releasing ether into the cabin to incapacitate the hijackers."

"I would say it isn't that often we deal with possessed people, but once is too often," Allen admitted. "At first she was just plain belligerent, and why do they always pull the race card?"

"Because nobody wants to be called that, especially if they aren't," explained Ben. "It's an easy way for people like that to gain the advantage when the truth and facts are not on their side. That's just Cassie without the demon. Truth is nobody wants a bitter woman like her."

"She accused Marcia of hitting on her man, and Jared said they tried to drag her off into the night," said Allen. "I thought it best to pull everyone out until you guys could mediate the situation. They can't accuse you of it."

"Sure you can," countered Aaron. "We killed brown people, Arabs."

"In God's eyes having a different color of skin don't give you cover for calling another race names, even if it's socially acceptable," reasoned Ben. "That is bearing false witness against your neighbor in His sight. Now Allen here is prejudiced against certain folks, and it does show, I hate to point it out. He has this deep hatred for demonically possessed people."

"Yeah, and I keep getting in over my head with them, too," conceded Allen. "How were you guys already there?"

"We tried to warn you, but Cassie had a jamming device," said Carl. "She was between us and you, so we couldn't raise you, and deployed Ben and Aaron with the sniper rifles when her image lit up. Your losing the plane was not part of the plan."

"Yep, now we have to deploy the R-3 to look and see if anyone is left before we go in on foot," noted Tim. "The dome was picking up several possessed beings after you took off. If you didn't land thinking you'd help a woman with kids, and continued on in, Yeshua could've driven them out."

"That's it, heap the old guilt on Allen again," he replied. "You know what? I'm glad the plane is gone and that you guys are here to take my place in the militia. I'm going to stick to reporting instead of being the scapegoat. I don't know how many of your friends died because of me today, and I can't live with it. Consider me retired from the militia."

"That's kind of overreacting a little, isn't it?" said Carl.

"No, it's not. I was among those who dealt with the 12 giants after one training day. I nearly got myself killed by the first demonic enemy, Prescott. You can believe the Cassie entity would have been back to torment us." Allen poured a cup of coffee, and said, "Our Crystal Dome is designed to keep things like that out, but evil people invite them in, rendering it impotent."

"I wouldn't say detection and warning is impotent, Allen. It does that," opined Tim.

"After two weeks?" countered Allen. "It might have started with Cassie, but who all did it spread to? How many people did it infect? Those people might have been typical self-centric musicians, but they once were people that walked among us. I have to ask, who else still in New Eden did the demons taint?"

"You?" asked Tim. "The one who always calls on Yeshua for help, and has He once failed to do so? Now where is your faith?"

"His faith is strong enough to stand up to anything but being called racist," opined Ben. "Allen thinks he is compromising the rest of us. I've been there, buddy. What we faced in Iraq was bad, but whether they had demons or not, I don't want to know. I know it's scary, but you do what you have to do and go on."

"Do you think we weren't as scared as you were out there?" asked Aaron. "Michael said we had to do things a certain way or it would be much worse. We were under pressure too."

"It sounds like PTSD," Tim reasoned. "Yeah, it's a shame about those people, but like Yeshua said, they invited the devil in or he wouldn't be there. Allen, they weren't human anymore, they were zombies under the control of a voodoo priestess."

"Here comes the Galilee scan," announced Carl. "Whoa, there are just two life forms, one adult and one child, both show no demonic activity. There, we have ID, Earl Carter and Portia Watson."

"That's Zoe's girl," said Aaron. "Zoe was once a Wiccan, until she came to The LORD. Is that all there are? Portia was in our Sunday school group, and she had issues with her mother's weekend activities." Aaron looked worried, and revealed, "Zoe lost two other children when they were little, both boys. Portia told Opal her mom was preparing her for a special event when she turned 11."

"That don't sound right," opined Carl. "Then again, how do you let a witch and a voodoo priestess into your church? I believe in salvation, but that's like inviting a suicide bomber on a crowded airliner."

"Riverside Christian Fellowship welcomed anyone, for who among us is perfect in God's eyes?" answered Ben. "As long as they followed Moses Jackson's doctrine they were welcome. I often wondered if he didn't have such weird requirements for couples wanting to marry, if there wouldn't have been more weddings."

"Yeah, making the woman get a doctor's statement saying she was a virgin was way out there," opined Aaron. "Then two weeks later he conducted a same-sex ceremony for a couple of lesbians. Considering who all he let join the church, I think he was more about the offering plate than salvation. He never once told those women, anyone in a gang, or dealing drugs, that their lifestyle wasn't pleasing to God."