The Day Christ Returns – Chapter 3
As evening drew on, a pall of smoke arose in many cities: sirens of police and fire wagons screamed unabatedly. The rat-tat-tat of gunfire increased ominously neighborhood homeowners froze to their chairs.
The young gangsterw were on the march: burning, looting, killing. But now another crime was added to the catalogue of their sins: raping was like a madness with them. Good girls of Christian congregations who had ever refused to date with them seemed to be their favorite victims. Nuns were the next heaviest group of victims: attacked by the older adults.
“Hi, holy sister, you still here!” Invariably screams would follow, mingled with curses. As often as not, they got killed to boot!
The spirit of demonism was rampant! Revenge on society was the motivating drive. All scruples were thrown to the wind. Arsonists, looters, and rapists were shot down by the scores police seemed reluctant to arrest them. The day had opened in stunned bewilderment; the night took over with demonic fury!
Had Hell come to Earth to go on a rampage? What else could one question when seeing the thick billowing smoke; hearing high pitched screams and curses? Unprintable language filled the gutters. Robbery at gun-point, murder, and rape in the open. The criminal elements seemed energized by Hell itself: utterly unconcerned over time, place, and consequences, but with ferocity fought to kill (in defense of their own lives). Naturally, fatalities ran alarmingly high among the police.
Thousands of good citizenry were given arms and deputized with orders to shoot to kill any and all of criminal gangs. National guards and militia were quickly dispersed to as many points as possible, by midnight; many of the great cities were in a state of full-scale war which raged through the night! Without rhyme or reason, a great gangland roved through the night: demons in human flesh with their tops blown, venting in fullness the basest passions of the Pit’s vilest scum.
In sectors, curb gutters flowed with human blood: drains plugged with clotting blood! Towards morning, heavy trucks rumbled through the streets of our sprawling cities, civilians and soldiers with machine guns in charge. They were gathering the dead and dying. Morgues were plugged and closed. But prisons had as yet not been filled It was unrestricted war, civil war! Trucks dumped thousands of bodies in cemeteries. In some places, power-shovels were in operation to trench massive graves.
Nurses and doctors worked frantically through the night; hospitals were plugged; even on cots and mattresses in parking lots were scores of injured and dying. Student nurses and medical students, all were exhorted to render such aid as their intelligence and training permitted. Many were the good people without training who also succored the injured. On the priority list for attention by doctors and qualified nurses were the police, militia and deputized citizenry, as well as the swarms of fire fighters.
As approaching the hour of dawn, few and far apart among the multitude fallen in demonized gangland, were those who had received more attention than a kick and a curse. For, like an avalanche tidal wave from the Atlantic coast, racing to the Pacific, had a risen and ruthlessly swept through the land, a wave of unleashed crime and ferocity-unrecorded in the annals of man. Maybe equaled in cunning and savagery when nations are locked in mortal combat. But this was within our own cities. Multitudes of men and women, both black and white and of other races, “blew their tops” in a moment raging, screaming, cursing, as they stormed through the streets, seemingly with but one objective: to unleash without reservation the basest passions and ferocity known to unregenerate man.
Although fewer by number in the gangs, women were little behind their male counterparts. Within the gangs prevailed a spirit of co-operation between whites and blacks, as well as the sexes. Rapist girls in gangs of two and three would find their lone victims. Not always were they successful – unfortunately for the man who would forfeit his life. The mini-skirted demons took their turns – co-operatively.
Nudity was not uncommon, especially among the girls. Wearing little clothes to begin with, it didn’t take much of a skirmish to get such ripped off. In that spirit of obsessing madness which raged through the night, no one seemed to care. Bare bosoms or even buttocks were scarcely noticed.
Older people and the very young were frozen to their homes throughout the night: few of them getting any sleep. Fear was paralyzing. Women who didn’t lose their sanity remained indoors. Sound men who had not been mobilized to battle the mobs, stood at alert through the night with weapons cocked, at the ready to protect their loved ones.
Shortly after dusk, foreign wire services cut off. The black-outs followed the setting sun. The reason became apparent, the avalanche tidal wave of unleashed demonism had swept throughout Christendom, in wake of the setting sun. No country wanted to broadcast the internal situation for fear the desperate plight might be exploited by enemy forces.
Dawn broke upon the goriest America ever recorded on the blood-spattered pages of its history. No city had escaped: the same horrendous night of terror had seized and swept through the land. Only the smaller towns were comparatively the untoucheded. The entire continent lay bruised and bleeding, as well as exhausted. Sporadic gunfire continued through the day, but demons as well as humans were mostly too spent to be about until the afternoon.
Sectors of the cities commenced to organize in self-defense: they prepared to stagger shifts. One was to eat, rest and sleep while the other watched, defended and fought. There was no choice – lest the continent go under to unleashed demonism. All industry closed down tight. Only dairy farms, truck-gardeners, and slaughter-houses kept on delivering. Ford and other great motor firms broadcast special requests for their men to mobilize into defensive squads. The nation’s very life was at stake!
Washington counted its dead by the thousands: vast sectors thereof were in smoldering ruins, it was perhaps the hardest hit of any American city. Whole regiments guarded approaches to the unlit White House. The nations entire military and defensive systems were on the alert, fearful that in calamity’s hour the Kremlin might strike.
Russia too had blacked out like other European nations. Percentage-wise, few were those who had vanished into thin air out of the USSR. But enough had to give the Kremlin the severest headache ever known. Perhaps no more than they could have kept it secret, but newscasts were pouring in, especially from their close neighbors – like Scandinavia. By far the greatest percentage were reported missing throughout those little lands. Sufficient of Soviet citizenry had radios to get the dumfounding news from powerful broadcasting stations – beaming out to the world in different languages. Multitudes of Soviet citizenry went just as berserk as throughout Christian lands. They were embittered and frenzied because through governmental control, the gospel had been mostly denied them. The Kremlin trembled to its toes for fear that a second revolution was in the breaking. Never had they been further from the mood of launching a war than they were at that most dumfounding hour of their history.
Vessels at sea had received the stunning message: thousands vanish into thin air. Quite a number of the larger ocean liners found that an odd few registered passengers were actually missing, many of the vessels swung around in mid-ocean to return to the ports of origin. People were stunned, shaken: it was as if the world was coming to an end! There was no precedent. There was no rationalizing to explain the utterly impossible! Tens-of-thousands questioned their own sanity, and among them, percentage-wise, rated high the intelligentsia of our lands. The illuminati blinked, blurred, dimmed and went into hiding (hoping, with fingers crossed, that a spark of reason might again awaken them to a three-dimensional world, standing on its own feet).
Phil had been home with Mary, spending much of the night in prayer. To them too it was unrealism. Whenever through their twenty years of married, childless life had he ever wasted one minute in prayer? Phillip was a Catholic by upbringing, but by choice, an agnostic in adult life. Mary was an Episcopalian, who had fallen for the glitter and suave oratory of its modern priesthood. Because Phil had a reasonably restful night (compared to multitudes of others) he was assigned to go on defensive duty early in the afternoon. He would bear arms four hours, then get half, to one hour off for rest and nourishment – circumstances permitting. His daylight watch was uneventful, but much came to his attention – unto his consternation.
While home with Mary for a snackish supper he told her of being called into the basement of their church – where hung the dead Dr. Moderne. Many thought he had suicided, some others stated point-blank he had been lynched! Although he had not seen it, Bill – who lived in another part of the city, had told him how their priest had been found dead, nailed to a crude wooden cross outside the church! Bill’s word was sufficient, but he had heard other unconfirmed reports that in their own city, and in many other places, a number of priests and theologians had been lynched: some strung up to lampposts, some crudely crucified and shot, while still others had been decapitated, with their heads transfixed to the spire of the church or some other talkative place, while often their naked bodies would be flung to public display near the street. Occasionally the decapitated nude body of a nun would be found in their embrace! Hell was striking new chords in public horrification.
Mary was numb to the bone with these accounts of sadism and masochistic outrages Her mind wandered back to a childhood’s home and the small town in which she had grown up. There she had loved and trusted all whom she had known : she had played with whites and blacks, she had taken lifts from strangers, and with unconcern gone out hiking with boys whom she had barely met. She had seen her home town, to a man, come to aid and succor one overtaken by misfortune. She had seen her people weep with the bereaved, and stand up for the under-privileged. What had happened? Was this a different world? Wasn’t it still her great America? Had integrity and principle been lost in a moment – even as her playball in the woods when she was young? Could she believe her ears, and her own sanity? She looked inquiringly at her Phil, and knew that it was not herself, but that the worst and rottenest were the somber and tragic facts.
“Phil,” she said, “how can it possibly be that so many whom we have thought of as sound, solid citizenry were converted to beasts during the night? In fact, I may be insulting the animal kingdom and the slimy creatures of the deep, by likening some of these people unto them!”
Slowly Phil answered, fumbling as it were for words: “I too have asked that question in other words: I have fumbled and groped for the answer. Maybe I’m wrong – I do not know as yet, but I seem to think that those whom Christ our Lord has taken away from us, had the grace and unction to serve in our midst as a veil, as a covering, as a shielding and protective hand upon us, because of the closeness, and love and faithfulness to their Lord.
Redeemer. Some of what we have heard, and what I’ve seen is not merely that of depraved humans, but naked demonism. Wherefore, I think that because of these blessed ones who were in our midst – now taken away, were our shield and protection against the hordes of a demon world now let loose upon us.”
Little did Phil know of what he spoke, for he had never read Revelation 12:7-12,neither had the late and learned Dr. Moderne ever used it for any of his sleep inducing texts.
There was a long silence, then Mary spoke: “Phil, panic fills our land; and what you call ‘demonism’is on a rampage. What is the answer – for you and me? What is coming to pass? What shall we do? Can there be any doubt but that an invisible hand has dipped down to lift out of Christendom a hundred-thousand people or more? Then what of us who remain, who have a measure of Christ in our hearts: who believe in what is right and good, and who try to live accordingly, even though we had been worldly and blind, yes, and even deaf to the simple ones whom God had anointed? Phil what is the answer for you and for me, and for our many friends in the same boat?”
Answering, Phillip spoke slowly, “Who among us in these hours of mad panic have not asked these same questions a thousand times of ourselves, and of our fellows? I cannot answer, but my God-given reason speaks to me along this line: ‘You, I, and our friends have been weighed and found wanting; we thought we had the answer to life, only to have been proven spiritually blind. Yet now it seems madness to deny, or even for a split moment to doubt that, as you said, an invisible hand has dipped down to scoop out of this world a company peculiarly fitted to stand by Redeemer’s side. Oft we heard from the lips of those who were taken, of the Savior’s love for man, and how on Calvary He yielded up his life through the cruelest of torture, that whosoever believed might have life everlasting. Then what of us who have, as you said, a measure of Christ within? I cannot believe that his compassion was confined to yesterday, while today He is a Savior of the past with a heart turned to stone. No, I cannot, I will not believe that.
Somehow, sooner or later – maybe very suddenly – we shall have the answer; and I believe that there will he another opportunity for you and me and for our friends. May be not another chance to partake in the selfsame glory of which Martha so often spoke; but as I recall her quoting to us words from her Lord of compassion, “In my Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you.” Has the Lord of this universe but a tiny house? and His requirements confined to but ‘a bride’? IF a God in heaven needs a ‘bride’ (taken from our earth) then surely, also others constituting a vastly larger staff. No, I don’t know the answer, but not forever shall we be in the dark. Surely, He who died upon the Cross, yet on the third day revealed Himself to disciples and chosen ones, will again reveal Himself to us – that we might know what to do, and precisely what is the score. Even His disciples of old were then told what to do.”
Mary answered, “None of us can know until these hours have passed, but something within tells me you are not far off the truth. And if you are somewhere near right, then might it not he proper for you and me to give our hearts to Him who died upon the tree – even in this late hour?
Simultaneously they rose, and with comforting assurance his arm compassed her shoulders as he spoke: “I believe it can never be too late to seek the face of a righteous God, and to implore mercy of our compassionate Savior. Mary, it was not in vain this morning: shall we pray again?”
It was the second time in their entire married life that they had prayed together. They had never known how to pray. Phil was brought up to read words off a paper – even like a parrot, or phonograph record. Mary too had done a little of that, (what grief that none had ever taught her to pray) but to her, prayer had mostly been the unthinking repetition of the Paternoster, or grace at table. But in these hours of madness, and their own extremity they had suddenly come to realize that they could talk to the ever living God without a formula – that they could speak to the Savior, even as one to the other. Never in the past had they known such peace and assurance; mumbling words according to rote had never granted them more than the satisfaction of imagining that they had done what they ought to do. But now they had spoken to God, they had even communed with the living Savior, while the peace and joy thereof, was something they could not put into words. They arose and embraced, but with a tenderness and reverence because of that Holy presence they felt in their midst.
Now Phil had to hurry out because it was rapidly dusking, they feared what the night might bring. They did not know if again they would see one another, but because of that sweet communion they had had with Christ their Savior, (untutored though they were in worshipping Him), they were both strangely happy, believing that come-what-may, His hand would shadow over and guide them through, unto and into an eventual day of their rejoicing.
Phil did not patrol for long until he heard the sporadic gunfire change into a screaming crescendo of lethal fire interspersed with mortar and bombs. Desperately, did he want to move into the field of battle, but his duty was to patrol the neighborhood blocks. Mary and other helpless ones at home, needed all that he could give in order to keep them safe. There was no telling when some demonized gang might explode into their midst.
As he walked and watched, he kept on praying, in substance saying and repeating: “Lord Jesus, I need strength for this hour, and alertness to watch. I seem to care so little what may happen to myself, but even though it should require my all, I want to keep Mary safe, and the many other wives and mothers with the little ones, all so helpless; yet in confidence, counting on me. Lord Jesus, throughout these maddening hours, I must know you as my sufficiency”.
He saw mounting columns of smoke increasing, at times the gun-fire was almost deafening. With increasing trepidation he realized that the second night of hell, far out-reached the previous. What, he mused, will remain of our beautiful city by morning, and what will the tally be? Trying to weigh the odds, he realized that their own forces of right, of law and order, far surpassed that of the demonized hordes, but with this difference: he and his fellows proceeded with caution, even though one and all were ready to fight with vengeance. But on the other side, there stormed the incensed and mad with utter unconcern : they fought like infuriated beasts; and, as they retreated by blocks, they would fire every building they could. This roaring inferno of flame ignited in hatred, hampered the civilians and militia. Their only effort at strategy was to have other contingents, all closing in from four directions. Thus, were dozens, scores, and hundreds exterminated.
No longer could the fire department cope with the hundreds of individual fires. The best they could hope was to safe-guard adjoining blocks, lest the whole city ascend in flames.
One certainty had developed during the investigations of the previous day: the bulk of the white and dead incendiaries who had been identified were found to be Communists or fellow travelers. Both groups ravaged as one, both groups had identical motives, although their ultimate ambitions were not in the spirit of co-operation. Both yearned to achieve power for themselves – through the destruction of the democratic structure. The Black had confidence he could eventually out-fight his White supporters, while the latter were serenely confident that theirs would be ultimate victory by invading legions from Cuba, or even from the more distant shores.
As he walked and prayed, Phillip also mused: no one could ever have believed this – but the children of faith like Martha. In the physical world we have seen the meteoring of our sciences to achieve the almost incredible: yet that we have taken in our stride. It has inflated our egos; our great scientists have been elevated to pedestals – almost like demigods. We have talked of men on the moon, and dreamt of exploring outer space. Our most ambitious dreams we have counted as certainties – given time. All of this tending to exalt our egos, and blind us to the realities of our Lord and Savior. So much we had gained in the material, yet so woefully we lost in the spiritual, yet the extraordinary achievements of our meteoring sciences should have intimated to us that ‘day of the Lord’ was near to hand. Martha had so little education and new even less about our world of science, yet more than once she reminded us of the Lord’s prophecy that in the end of our age, man would completely exterminate one another, as well as all life upon the face of the Earth – were not the Lord to personally intervene I still recall how she quoted His words, saying, “Unless those days be shortened no flesh shall he saved, but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” And this she so logically explained, now stared us in the face through the lethal fall-out of nuclear bombs -a s and when the giant 5 come to mortal combat.. Yes, we too have realized that possibility, but ever comforting ourselves with the assurance that the U N. was set up to prevent this; and our great statesmen ever working to achieve treaties of accord Her confidence about the fantastic and utterly incredible, that the Lord would take out of this world a people for His name, has come to pass like a titanic earthquake: even an unexpected earth shock as never before recorded in history. We have all said, in the expanse of our egos: it is utterly impossible – but a hope and delusion to comfort the simple and trusting. But now? an awesome, even a somber and quaking reality.
Can the U. N. survive this? – he mused. Will this earth-shock convert the Kremlin, and bring them to accord with Christendom?.. Convert them? Right here about us, the very opposite effect is now as an answering inferno! As yet, I have to hear of one Communist who has turned to God, because of the thousands missing. They seem to think that since they lost out on Heaven, it is time to take over the world!
Who knows, but that Martha’s simple belief was the right one? She believed that the Lord would catch her right out of this world – even bodily Her faith has been justified. She believed according to the words of her Lord, that the nations would not come to accord, but rather lock in a titanic death-struggle. Maybe in that too, she was right.
Through out three nights of heart-stopping terror did the ‘demons’ rage. The fire of great cities mounted to heaven. Our leaders were bewildered – unable to cope with the rising madness. Our beautiful cities were in shambles, as if invading legions had marched through our Land. Hundreds of thousands were dead, almost two million wounded. About the only thing of worth that Washington did was to outlaw the Communists and stage a massive drive to round up all their leaders.
As the fourth day dawned, few could see the sun. The smoke was choking, suffocating. Fifty years and more, said one old-time builder, will it take to rebuild our cities. This is not like Rotterdam, or Berlin: this covers the length and breadth of our Land! But Phil mused, will they ever be rebuilt?
Three nights had the inferno raged many were hopeful, but thousands had suicided. Not until the fourth night had passed, did authorities realize that the forces of Hell had spent their steam. Their death toll had been colossal. Like rotting rats, they littered streets, while mounds in cemeteries grew. The acrid smoke of burning human flesh was, literally, sickening.
By Mikkel Dahl