Andrew shut his eyes for a brief moment when he reached the first step, causing him to trip slightly on the rough rise of the concrete pit. The pressure from their grasp increased enough for him to regain his footing, keeping him from falling, as if they knew he had no energy to stop anything that might happen now. When God pulls you back from the abyss of death, there is a great weakness surrounding the body in the knowledge of His power, thought Andrew.
Three slow steps later, he stood at the top of the pit. Gradually, they let him go. He swayed to the right. The man there touched him briefly on the shoulder, steadying him. Andrew grimaced, bending his knees slightly to relieve the itch and pain of blood flowing into the numbness. He turned slowly, testing his feet, prepared to fall, even though the two handlers remained alongside him.
He turned and looked down at the pit behind him. Ten feet from one side to the other, the ancient pit canted toward the far side, where drainage ran across a rusty wire grating covering a twelve-inch iron pipe that carried the blood and runoff of the old slaughter pit from the barn.
As a lad, Andrew had followed the course of the pipe. It ran under the nearby dirt road to an overgrown drainage field created by the runoff from it and the septic tank of the nearby abandoned farmhouse. The stamped, ancient straw stomped into the bottom of the pit was soaked in fresh blood. Andrew looked at the drain cover at the far end where earlier in the day four other disciples had preceded him. Pieces of white flesh hung on the cratered edges of the drain cover.
God had not intervened in His display of love and worship for the four who preceded him.
Andrew stared for a moment, looking at the imprint in the blood-soaked straw upon which he had knelt for what seemed hours. He stopped a quick impulse to look at the knees of his blue jeans to see if the blood of his fellow believers had soaked into them. He knew it had; he didn’t need to look.
He turned away, nearly falling, but his handlers took him gently by the arms, softly offering gratitude to God. He was too unsteady. He’d fall, or the handlers would grab him again. The travail wasn’t over. He had to accept this as God’s will.
The gun had five bullets along with an empty chamber. Holding the pistol by his side, the handler had kept turning the cylinder throughout the hour of prayer — one spin after the other, over and over again — never looking to see where the unloaded chamber came to rest. The sound of the spin, the smooth clicking imprinting itself in Andrew’s memory, drawing his attention to the cylinder and away from his prayers, and still God had intervened to choose him.
Each of the young men chosen for the selection, the Lord had turned His back on. Then, without warning, his father had volunteered Andrew. He should have known eventually he would be chosen to go through the selection. His father had taken him for a walk this morning talking about God’s will and how the Bible many times required God’s followers to demonstrate their faith through sacrifice. He should have figured it out, but his father was forever sharing his thoughts with Andrew in their many walks. It was good he didn’t fully share this one.
A clear insight rushed through Andrew. His father had had little choice but to send him into the pit. The past few weeks had been a jumble of pastoral maneuverings that his father believed were leading those who oppose him into replacing him with another. When mumbling turns to whispers, the leader has little choice but to offer a sign of his faith before the whispers become shouts and fist-waving demands.
Andrew was that sign. As others in the Bible had offered up their firstborn as a sign of their love for God, so his father did with him. His father preached to all to never worry that God would be with them always.
But his father hadn’t been the one on his knees hearing the spin of the chamber or surviving the click of the hammer. Suddenly, his bladder was full and Andrew had an overwhelming urge to pee. He tightened, forcing the urge down. Joshua, his brother, probably had had no doubt he would survive the selection process.
Now, since Andrew was the Lord’s chosen one, his father’s — Ezekiel’s — leadership would not be challenged for a long time.
Andrew looked at the crowd chanting his name. There were more than a hundred crowded into the huge barn in the woods of eastern West Virginia. Andrew breathed deeply, fear dissipating quicker as the joy of being alive raced through his body. A few tears escaped from his eyes. His brother had not cried. The chanting increased in intensity.
“The purity,” someone said, and he knew they were referring to his tears.
“Holy.”
“Acceptance of God’s will.”
Andrew nodded at his handlers, standing near him, ready to grab him if he faltered. If he fell, no one would think ill, for God had chosen him, but if he regained his composure and walked with confidence, then when his father fell, he’d assume the mantle of God’s Army. The idea of replacing his father had never entered his thoughts until now. There was only one more trial to face, and then God’s Army would be his. But not until his father, whom he loved and worshipped, passed into God’s arms.
Andrew raised his arms wide, feeling the joy of his name being chanted louder and louder as the congregation swayed in unison to the love of God. His arms felt heavy as he held them aloft, and he fought the momentary urge to lower them; holding them in this position for a few minutes before bringing them down.
Andrew’s eyes roved over the crowd, stopping when he saw his father standing in the rear. His father’s trademark thick dark beard with streaks of white hair running down from each side of the chin, tracing a path like a waterfall to the beard’s very edge, which rested on the second button of the white shirt. Ezekiel’s eyes were hidden beneath thick eyebrows forever brooding.
Looking at the old man’s face, Andrew wondered if this man he called Father had cared whether he survived the selection, or if his father had been willing to chance Andrew’s survival as the only option for maintaining sole control of the people. It might not have been his only chance, but it was a quick one if Andrew survived, and survive he had.
“Sir…,” one of the handlers whispered. “The Bishop waits.”
The Bishop waits. His father would never willingly give up the title Bishop. His father communed with God. He spoke with Jesus. Ask his father, he’ll tell you. His father preached the righteousness of his faith. A faith grown from a handful when his father started God’s Army, to encompassing nearly six thousand in less than eight years; dedicated to whatever his father wanted. And within that six thousand were the core one hundred who plotted and planned the coming Armageddon. The core one hundred who sent followers across the globe to start the world toward Armageddon.
The Bishop preached, and they all believed, that with anarchy and the growing radicalism of Islam, the return of the Messiah would occur sooner, wiping bogus religions from the face of the earth and bringing peace for a thousand years. Ezekiel preached that the key to releasing the demons of Revelation was to rain destruction upon the world. The explosions at North Korean embassies in Canada, New York, and London had nearly achieved that goal. Alert police in France and across Europe had stopped the others — others who now languished in jails around the world, but who would die rather than betray God’s Army. They knew that when Armageddon came, their freedom would be assured.
If this first march toward anarchy had been successful, God’s Army would have led the people of America toward salvation as they waited for the return of the Lord.
A handler touched him slightly. Andrew nodded and started forward. The crowd shuffled apart, creating a path through which Andrew and the two men walked abreast. Someone tossed a small bouquet of flowers into the path. As Andrew passed, worshippers fell to their knees, giving thanks to God. A God looking down who had taken His finger and touched Andrew as the most faithful, most pure of the five men.