As he took in their unique characteristics, he felt for Chaim. They both knew his protective covering would not save him in the end. These things were here to attack him, and time was on their side. They would find a way in, and when that happened, they would show no mercy.
“Good heavens, look at them!” Chaim said.
Buck could only shake his head. Contrasted with the beauty of God’s creation, these mongrels were clearly from the pit. Their bodies were shaped like miniature horses armed for war. They had wings like flying grasshoppers. When one alighted on the window, Buck edged closer.
“Chaim,” Buck said, his own voice sounding distant and fearful, “do you have a magnifying glass?”
“You want a closer look? I can hardly stand to peek at them!”
“They look like horses, but they don’t have snouts and mouths like horses’.”
“I have a very powerful magnifier in my office, but I’m not leaving this room.”
Buck ran off and got it from the study near Chaim’s bedroom. But as he dashed back he heard a dreadful, inhuman howl and the bumps and bangs of someone thrashing on the floor. The someone, of course, was Chaim Rosenzweig, and the howl was human after all.
One of the locusts had found a way in and had locked itself onto Chaim’s wrist, between his glove and sleeve. The old man lay jerking as if in the throes of a seizure, wailing and crying as he slammed his hand on the ground, trying to dislodge the brute.
“Get it off me!” he bellowed. “Please, Cameron, please! I’m dying!”
Buck grabbed the thing, but it seemed stuck as if by suction. It felt like an amalgam of metal, spiny protrusions, and insect slime. He dug his fingers between its abdomen and Chaim’s wrist and yanked. The locust popped free, twisted in his hand, and tried stinging him from one end and biting him from the other.
Though it had no effect on him, Buck instinctively threw it against the wall so hard it dented the plaster and rattled noisily to the floor.
“Is it dead?” Chaim cried. “Tell me it’s dead!”
“I don’t know that we can kill them,” Buck said. “But I stunned a couple of other ones, and this one is immobile right now.”
“Smash it,” Chaim insisted. “Stomp on it! Smack it with the bat!” He rolled to his side in convulsions. Buck wanted to help him, but Tsion had been clear that he found in the Scriptures no mention of relief to the victims of a sting.
The magnifying glass lay on the floor a few feet from the unmoving locust. Keeping an eye on the creature, Buck held the glass over it, illuminated by the chandelier directly above. He nearly vomited at the magnified ugliness.
It lay on its side, appearing to regroup. The four horselike legs supported a horse-shaped body consisting of a two-part abdomen. First was a preabdomen in the torso area made up of seven segments and draped by a metallic breastplate that accounted for the noise when it flew. The posterior consisted of five segments and led to the scorpionlike stinger tail, nearly transparent. Buck could see the sloshing venom.
Its eyes were open and seemed to glare at Buck. In a strange way, that made sense. If Tsion was right and these were demons, they were madly conflicted beings. They would want to kill believers, but they were under instructions from God to torment only unbelievers. What Satan meant for evil, God was using for good.
Buck held his breath as he moved the glass and his own face closer to the locust. He had never seen a head like that on any living thing. The face looked like that of a man, but as it writhed and grimaced and scowled at Buck, it displayed a set of teeth way out of proportion. They were the teeth of a lion with long canines, the upper pair extending over the lower lip. Most incongruous, the locust had long, flowing hair like a woman’s, spilling out from under what appeared to be a combination helmet and crown, gold in color.
Though no larger than a man’s hand, the grossly overgrown combination insect, arthropod, and mammal appeared invincible. Buck was encouraged to know he could temporarily shock them with a hard blow, but he had neither killed nor apparently even injured any.
He had no idea how to toss the thing out of the house without letting in dozens more. Buck scanned the room and noticed a heavy vase holding a large plant. Chaim was already incoherent, crawling to the door. “Bed,” he said. “Water.”
Buck pulled the plant from the vase and laid it on the floor, muddy roots and all. He turned the vase over and set it atop the locust, which had just begun to move about again. Within a minute he heard the metallic whirring as it banged again and again against the inverted vase.
It tried to escape through a small hole in what had become the top of its makeshift prison, but it could only poke its head through. Buck staggered and nearly fell when it seemed to shout, as if crying for help. Over and over it repeated a phrase Buck could not understand.
“Do you hear that, Dr. Rosenzweig?” Buck asked.
Chaim lay by the door, panting. “I hear it,” he rasped, groaning, “but I don’t want to! Burn it, drown it, do something to it! But help me to bed and get me some water!”
The creature called out in a mournful keen what sounded to Buck like “A bad one! A bad one!”
“These things speak!” Buck told Chaim. “And I think it’s English!”
Rosenzweig shook as if the temperature had dropped below freezing. “Hebrew,” he said. “It’s calling out for Abaddon.”
“Of course!” Buck said. “Tsion told us about that! The king over these creatures is the chief demon of the bottomless pit, ruler over the fallen hordes of the abyss. In the Greek he has the name Apollyon.”
“Why do I care to know the name of the monster that killed me?” Rosenzweig said. He reached up for the doorknob but could not unlock the door with his gloves on. He shook them off but could no longer raise an arm.
Buck got him up, and as they lumbered out of the parlor, he looked back at the locust trying to squeeze out of the vase. It looked at him with such hatred and contempt that Buck nearly froze.
“Abaddon!” it called out, and the tiny but gravelly voice echoed in the hallway.
Buck kicked the parlor door shut and helped Chaim into his bedroom. There Buck peeled the rest of the beekeeper garb off Chaim and helped him lie back atop the covers on his bed. Convulsions racked him again, and Buck noticed swelling in his hands and neck and face. “C-c-could y-y-you g-g-g-et me some w-water, p-please!”
“It won’t help,” Buck said, but he got it anyway. Parched himself, he poured into a glass some from the bottle he found in the refrigerator and quenched his own thirst. He grabbed a clean glass and returned. He set the bottle and the glass on a stand next to the bed. Chaim appeared unconscious. He had rolled on his side, covering his ears with a pillow, as the haunting cries continued from the parlor.
“Abaddon! Abaddon! Abaddon!”
Buck laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Can you hear me, Chaim? Chaim?”
Rosenzweig pulled the pillow away from his ear. “Huh? What?”
“Don’t drink the water. It’s turned to blood.”
Rayford and T. M. Delanty stood outside the empty reception area at the base of the Palwaukee Airport tower, peering in at Bo and Ernie, who cursed each other as they writhed on the floor.
“Is there nothing we can do for them?” T asked.
Rayford shook his head. “I feel sorry for them and for anybody who has to endure this. If they had only listened! The message has been out there since before the Rapture. What’s their story, anyway? Ernie had me convinced he was a believer—had the mark and everything.”
“I was shocked to see him attacked,” T said, “but part of that had to have been my fault. For days he sounded interested, said Ken was urging him to log on and check out what Tsion Ben-Judah was teaching. He asked so many questions, especially about the mark, that between what he learned from Tsion and what Ken and I said about it, he was able to fake it.”
Rayford looked out. The sky was still filled with the locusts, but all but a few had moved away from the do
or. “I never thought about anyone being able to counterfeit the mark. I figured the mark, distinguishable only by another believer, was a foolproof test of who was with us and who wasn’t. What do we do now—try the smudge test on anybody who’s bearing the mark?”
“Nope,” T said. “Don’t have to.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re not testing my mark, are you? Why do you assume I’m legit?”
“Because you weren’t attacked.”
“Bingo. For the next ten months, that is our litmus test.”
“Where are you getting ten months?”
“You haven’t read Dr. Ben-Judah today?”
Rayford shook his head.
“He says the locusts have five months to find their prey and sting them and that the victims suffer for five months. He also believes, though he admitted it was just conjecture, that the locusts bite a person once, and then they move on.”
“Have you taken a look at these things?” Rayford said, studying one on the other side of the window.
“Do I want to?” T said, approaching. “I didn’t even like reading about them in Dr. Ben-Judah’s lessons. Oh, boy, look at that! That is one ugly monstrosity.”
“Be glad they’re on our side.”
“Talk about irony,” T said. “Ben-Judah says they’re demons.”
“Yeah, but they’re moonlighting for God for a while.”
Both men cocked their heads. “What’s that sound?” Rayford said. “Tsion said their flight would sound like horses and chariots riding into battle, but I hear something else.”
“Are they chanting?” T said.
They cracked the door an inch or so, and a locust tried to squeeze through. Rayford shut the door on it, and it squirmed and flailed. He released the pressure, and it flew back out. “That’s it!” Rayford said. “They’re chanting something.”
The men stood still. The cloud of locusts, on its way to fresh targets, called out in unison, “Apollyon, Apollyon, Apollyon!”
“Why would God do this to me?” Chaim whined. “What did I ever do to him? You know me, Cameron! I am not a bad man!”
“He did not do this, Dr. Rosenzweig. You did it to yourself.”
“What did I do that was so wrong? What was my sin?”
“Pride, for one,” Buck said, pulling up a chair. He knew there was nothing he could do for his friend but keep him company, but he was past gentility.
“Proud? I am proud?”
“Maybe not intentionally, Doctor, but you have ignored everything Tsion has told you about how to connect with God. You have counted on your charm, your own value, your being a good person to carry you through. You get around all the evidence for Jesus being the Messiah by reverting to your educational training, your confidence only in what you can see and hear and feel. How many times have you heard Tsion quote Titus 3:5 and Ephesians 2:8-9? And yet you—”
Chaim cried out in pain. “Quote them to me again, Cameron, would you?”
“‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.’”
Chaim nodded miserably. “Cameron, this is so painful!”
“Sad to say, it will get worse. The Bible says you will want to die and won’t be able to commit suicide.”
Chaim rocked and cried in anguish. “Would God accept me if I relent only to ease my torture?”
“God knows everything, Doctor. Even your heart. If you knew you would still suffer, worse and worse for five months, regardless of your decision, would you still want him?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “God forgive me, I don’t know!”
Buck turned on the radio and found a pirate station broadcasting the preaching of Eli and Moishe from the Wailing Wall. Eli was in the middle of a typically tough message. “You rant and rave against God for the terrible plague that has befallen you! Though you will be the last, you were not the first generation who forced God’s loving hand to act in discipline.
“Harken unto these words from the ancient of days, the Lord God of Israel: I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.
“So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me. . . .
“I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens . . . increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me. . . . I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, . . . yet have ye not returned unto me. . . . I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me. . . .
“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of hosts, is his name. . . .
“Thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: . . . Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name. . . .
“Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. . . .
“Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
“But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”
“Wow,” Buck said.
“Please, Cameron!” Chaim said. “Turn it off! I can take no more.”
Buck sat another two hours with Chaim, helpless to ease his suffering. The man thrashed and sweated and gasped. When finally he relaxed a moment, he said, “Are you sure about this getting worse and worse until I despair of my life?”
Buck nodded.
“How do you know?”
“I believe the Bible.”
“It says that? In those words?”
Buck knew it from memory. “‘In those days men will seek death and will not find it,’” he said. “‘They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.’”
CHAPTER 18
During the ensuing five months, the demon locusts attacked anyone who did not have the seal of God on his or her forehead. And for five months after that, those among the last bitten still suffered.
The starkest picture of the interminable suffering came from Hattie’s ordeal at the Tribulation Force’s safe house in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Her torment was so great that everyone—Rayford, Tsion, Chloe, and Floyd—begged her to give in to Christ. Despite her anguished screams at all hours of the day and night, she stubbornly maintained that she was getting what she deserved and no less.
Listening to her around the clock became so stressful to the Force that Rayford made an executive decision and moved her to the basement where Ken had lived. As weeks passed she became a shell of even the unhealthy frame she had been. Rayford felt as if he were visiting a living corpse every time he went down there, and he soon quit going alone. It was too frightening.
Doc Charles tried to treat h
er symptoms, quickly discovering it was futile. And the rest took turns delivering her meals, which were rarely touched. She ate much less than should have been required to keep her alive, but as the Bible predicted, she did not die.
It got to where Rayford had to visit Hattie with one of the others, and even then he didn’t sleep well afterward. Hattie was skeletal, her dark eyes sunk deep into her head. Her lips stretched thin and taut across teeth that now looked too big for her mouth.
Eventually she could not speak, but communicated by a series of grunts and gestures. Finally she refused to even turn and look when someone came down.
Hattie finally forced herself to talk when Chloe somehow located her sister Nancy, working at an abortion clinic out west. All the other members of Hattie’s family had died in various ways before the plague of locusts. Now Hattie spoke to her sister for the first time in months. Nancy had somehow avoided for a few months the sting of a scorpion locust, but now she too was a victim.
“Nancy, you must believe in Jesus,” Hattie managed, though she spoke as if her mouth was full of sores. “It’s the only answer. He loves you. Do it.”
Floyd had overheard Hattie’s end of the conversation and asked Rayford and Tsion to join him in talking to her. But she was more belligerent than ever. “But it’s so obvious you know the truth,” Tsion said. “And the truth shall set you free.”
“Don’t you see I don’t want to be free? I only want to stay alive long enough to kill Nicolae, and I will. Then I don’t care what happens to me.”
“But we care,” Rayford said.
“You’ll be all right,” she said, rolling over and turning her back to them.
Chloe, getting toward the end of her pregnancy, finally couldn’t navigate the stairs. She told Rayford that the prayer of her life now was that Buck would somehow make it home before the baby was born.
Tsion was busier than ever. He passed on miraculous reports from the 144,000 witnesses who had fanned out to serve as missionaries to every country, not just their own. Stories poured in of obscure tribal groups understanding in their own languages and becoming tribulation saints.