Chapter 33
“Friends. Fellow Believers that have become one with me as my family at our Sanctuary! I speak to you today as a loving father who wishes to share my gifts with his children.” Preacher Jeremiah Calhoun was standing on a thirty-foot platform looking out at the crowd of thousands standing in front of him. The crowd stretched northwest down Highway 28 to where the bend in the road prevented anyone from seeing the platform to two blocks south of where the Preacher was positioned. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder in Rocky Knoll New Baptist Congregation’s parking lot directly across from the street. And they surrounded the building housing the access point to the underground depot for the 2nd Battalion, 263rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment arms depot just to the left of the platform.
“What gifts do I have for you?” Preacher Jeremiah asked rhetorically. “My gifts of clarity of vision, of faithful leadership, of opportunity for a future free of alien oppression and satanic influence, and of good news. Are you willing to accept these gifts?”
A resounding “Yes!” came from the crowd.
“I have these gifts for everyone,” the Preacher continued. “All I ask is that you agree to follow the Righteous Path the Lord has set for us, and that the Lord has shared with me. That Path has brought us together, with now more than five-thousand people having joined us at our Believer’s Sanctuary. We have been so successful down this path that we expanded from our original grounds in Long Creek to the New Sanctuary in Mountain Rest, where we were able to house two thousand Believers in the former park lodge. And now the Lord blessed us with this wonderful former Army camp here in Walhalla. How appropriate! The United States Government decided to forego their responsibility to protect American citizens by shutting down this camp ten years ago during their short-sighted plan to reduce the size of the military. And where are we now? In need of a strong response to the invading alien force!”
“But where the United States Government has failed us, you, my fellow Believers, have stepped forth and volunteered for the cause! So it is only appropriate that we make use of this abandoned military camp to house another three-thousand of you in our fight against these satanic spirits that have descended upon Earth. Can I have an ‘Amen’?” the Preacher said.
“Amen!” the crowd shouted.
“Even though we have grown in number almost to the breaking point, we continue to welcome new arrivals. We’ve reached out to our neighbors next to our new dwellings, inviting the people in this lovely corner of South Carolina to join us. Some have welcomed us into their homes. Some have decided to pursue other opportunities away from here, and have left us their dwellings for us to use. But every person must make a choice, my fellow Believers! Everybody must decide whether they are going to join us on the Righteous Path of the Lord or not.”
“As it says in Joel Chapter 3, Verse14:
‘Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.’
“And now the time has come for the three members of the South Carolina National Guard in that very building to my left to make a decision. Join us on our Righteous Path. Or join those former neighbors that have left Oconee County to pursue their own paths. But they cannot block our way. They cannot make us stray from the path we have chosen. The Righteous Path we have decided to take.”
“So we ask these three proud South Carolina Guardsmen to make the right decision. Join us! Come out of that building and do not stand in our way! Join us!” Preacher Jeremiah said, extending his arms open.
“Join us!” some voices began saying from the crowd.
Then the voices synchronized and soon the majority of the assembled throng was shouting “Join us! Join us! Join us!”
The chanting continued for close to a minute, but no response was seen from the National Guard building. The doors remained closed. No message was sent out via comm or the speaker mounted on the side of the building.
The Preacher held up his arms to quiet the few people still chanting.
“I commend the Guardsmen for their sense of duty to their military commitments,” Jeremiah said, his voice carried by the speakers mounted on the temporary platform. “But, I beg each of you three to look deep within your soul. We have come to a time where our commitment to the Lord and to our global brotherhood must take precedence to the vows we have previously made to man-made institutions that have lost their moral authority. Listen to that inner voice and join us.”
“Join us! Join us!” a few in the crowd started chanting again, but before the entire throng joined in, the Preacher raised his hands again.
“Sometimes it takes the voice of a loved one for others to hear the message. In anticipation of that need, we have invited the family of one of the Guardsmen to join us here today, ” Jeremiah said, turning behind him and looking back at the small group gathered towards the back of the platform.
A woman in her late-thirties was pushed forward from the group. She looked concerned, staring back into the people standing on the platform. One of the men from the group stepped forward and urged her to move ahead with the back of the rifle he held, while two children struggled to break free from the arms of other adults holding them in place. Even if they had worked free from those arms, however, both children were fixed to their places via chains attached to the platform on one end and to a thick leather belt pulled tightly around their waists on the other end.
The woman mouthed some words to the children, who stopped struggling. She turned forward and gave a defiant look, striding to the front of the scaffolding to be next to Preacher Jeremiah.
“My family! Please welcome Margarita Flores Hernandez to be here with us today,” Jeremiah said as he turned back to the crowd. “She is joined here on this platform by her children, Rodrigo and Ramona. This is the family of Mateo Hernandez, one of the three National Guard soldiers in the bunker next to us.”
“Welcome!”
“Bless you, Margarita!”
and other encouraging words came from the crowd.
“Margarita, my Sister,” Jeremiah said, trying to put his arm around her shoulders. “You know in your own heart that your husband wants what is best and that he strives to care and protect you and your two beautiful children. While Mateo is the head of the household, and you should be subservient to his commands, today you can be the voice for your husband and share with all of us what he truly desires. Tell us all that he wishes to come out, to join us, and to carry on in his responsibility to protect his family from harm. Tell us this message and ask your husband to join us on this platform so he can also express this desire from his own mouth.”
The woman lurched her shoulders free from the Preachers grasp. She glared at the Preacher and spat at his feet. “That is the message I have for you, you bastard. And I am confident I speak for Mateo as well.”
The spittle missed the Preacher’s shoes, but the look of surprise and anger were evident from his reaction. He swung his arm and slapped the woman across her face with the back of his hand, knocking her to her knees.
Preacher Jeremiah motioned for some of the men on the platform to come forward. They dragged the woman to the group at the back of the platform and re-attached a third set of chains to the belt around her waist, holding her in place while she wiped the blood from her broken lips.
The Preacher leaned over and said something to another of the men standing near him. The man nodded, went back to the group, and said something to a teenage girl standing off to the side. The girl nodded and hesitantly walked up to where Jeremiah was standing.
The Preacher took her hand, to which she was only too happy to grasp firmly. “Most of you should recognize my wife, Rebecca. She told me before we came up here that she has a fear of heights. I assured her she would be well taken care of and no harm would come to her, as she is a faithful servant of the Lord. You can see the bulge is starting to show, now that she is nearing five months into her pregnancy.”
“Rebecca agreed to set aside her fears and join me on this platform to show us how serious we are about our desire to welcome the Hernandez family into our own,” Jeremiah said as he unclipped the microphone from his lapel and held it in front of the teenager. “Please share with them the wish that you expressed to me earlier, Rebecca.”
“I wi…” the girl’s voice trailed off.
“A little louder, dear,” Jeremiah said, pushing his young wife forward from between the shoulder blades.
“I wish that Captain Hernandez’s daughter would join my three sister-wives and take Jeremiah as her husband,” the teenager said, nearly eating the microphone. “He is a kind and gentle man, will care for you, and be a good father to your children.”
She looked at the Preacher, who nodded his head, took his hand from the girls back, and kissed her on the forehead. Then he motioned for his young bride to return to the group at the back of the platform.
Preacher Jeremiah then waved his fingers forward as if he were inviting Captain Hernandez’s daughter to join him. Except she could not move, since she was held in place by the belt chained to the metal structure.
The guards on the top of the platform understood what he was asking for, and quickly unhooked the chains from her belt and escorted the teenage girl to the front. On the march forward, the girl looked back at her mother, who smiled and nodded and mouthed that it would be ok. Once the guards had the girl standing in front of the Preacher, they continued to hold her by the arms, even though at this point she was not struggling.
“Welcome, Ramona!” Preacher Jeremiah said, echoing the greeting he had given her mother a few minutes earlier. The Preacher waved the guards away, which they dutifully stepped back two feet.
“I would like you, your father, and everyone gathered here today, even your mother, to see that we are united as a family,” Jeremiah said. “As a family, we ultimately seek reconciliation, we seek a desire to overlook faults and forgive each other. We offer second chances.”
“Ramona, I’m offering a second chance for you, your mother, your brother and your father,” Preacher Jeremiah said, looking directly into the young girl’s eyes as if they were the only two people all alone in the entire town. “I’m offering you the chance to join our family, and thereby provide for safe passage for your family. All you need to do is ask your father to come out of that building. Ask him to be a proud father and give you away in marriage, and he can live in peace in our midst with your mother and your brother. Ramona – will you be my wife?”
As Jeremiah was speaking, the teenager looked confused, not sure at the point the preacher was trying to make. Even when he spoke that last sentence, asking her the question, she was unsure. Then her eyes opened wide, as the understanding settled in. She looked back to her mother, who was trying to give her a calm, reassuring smile. Instead of the smile, though, her mother’s lips were quivering. She mouthed no words of encouragement or even guidance. Mother and daughter were frozen in inaction at opposite ends of the platform.
“Let her go, Calhoun!” a male voice boomed from the speakers on the outside of the National Guard building. “She’s not involved in this. It’s me you want, so let her go and talk to me.”
Jeremiah gave a slight smile. He continued looking at the teenager in front of him, but raised his voice to allow it to carry farther. “It is too late for you to try and call the shots, Captain Hernandez. We’ve attempted to talk with you all day, but you have ignored us. It is now time for your family to act on your behalf.”
“You want to discuss anything with me, you need to let her go first,” replied Mateo Hernandez over the speakers.
“Come out of the building, Captain, and we can discuss our options,” the Preacher responded.
“I said you need to let her go first,” the anxious father’s voice said.
Jeremiah’s volume reduced, and his full focus returned to the girl.
“Ramona, you must decide,” he said, although his voice was sufficiently amplified by the label microphone picking up his words. “Will you join the Believers Sanctuary family, save your parents and brother, and become my bride?”
Ramona began to turn her head back to her mother, but Jeremiah grabbed her chin and ensured her gaze was solely on him. “You must decide – join us or be considered an obstacle on the Righteous Path,” he said to her.
The color in the teenager’s face flared. She balled up her fist and broke his grip on her chin, shoving his hand away with her arm.
“Go to hell!” Romana spat out. “I would never marry you in a thousand years, you fucking piece of shit!”
Preacher Jeremiah took a step back, clenched the hand that had just been punched by the girl, and shook his head. He gave a motion to the guards, who quickly came forward, grabbed the teenager by the arms, and locked her hands behind her back in cuffs.
“Ramona Hernandez, you have made your choice,” the Preacher said, turning to the assembled crowd.
“My family, Paul has warned us about people like Ramona. In Romans Chapter 16 Verse 17, he says
“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.”
Jeremiah nodded to the guards, and a third came forward from the group at the back of the platform, carrying a bag with two hands, obviously dealing with something heavy.
“And Isaiah instructs us what we must do in his book, Chapter 57, Verse 14” the Preacher continued.
And it shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.”
The third guard reached the other two, pulled out a heavy chain similar to the ones used to hold the hostages in place on the platform, but this chain was strung through a solid metal scale model of one of the alien landing craft, one foot tall and two feet wide, complete with legs. The guard lifted the chain and was able to place it over Ramona’s head and around her neck as she struggled to get free from her captors.
The guards began dragging her to the front of the platform, with Jeremiah right behind.
“What are you doing?” the girl said in fear, as the guards turned her around, with her back to the edge of the platform.
Preacher Jeremiah pointed to Ramona and said, “This person has become an obstacle, she must be cast aside.”
Her mother screamed from the far side of the platform. “Stop! She’s only a child!”
But before Margarita could get out any other pleas, the guards removed their hands from Ramona’s arms, the girl struggled to stay upright, and Jeremiah pushed the teenager by the shoulders off of the platform. She fell backwards with her hands still cuffed behind her back, the weight of the solid metal object tipping her upside down.
Some of those in the crowd screamed in surprise at the unexpected action.
Ramona’s head hit the pavement of the parking lot, with the alien craft model smashing into her chin, simultaneously snapping her neck and shoving her mandible and face bones into her brain.
As Ramona’s mother was screaming hysterically, the door to the National Guard depot burst open. A man in his late-thirties in fatigues ran out, carrying a semi-automatic rifle. He immediately turned and faced the top of the platform, already pulling back on the trigger to fire his weapon before his target was fully in the crosshairs of his rifle.
Almost as quickly, two people, also armed, who had been standing near the doorway to the building ran forward to catch the door before it closed. They held the door while four others ran inside, and then followed their compatriots, guns at the ready.
The people closest to the action retreated, trying to rush away from the gunfire. Screams and shouts rose from the crowd.
Other Sanctuary members at the bottom of the platform fired their own weapons at the man who had appeared from the building.
One of the bullets from the Guardsman’s rifle hit one of the guards on the top of the platform, but none got to Preacher Jeremiah before the National Guardsman on the ground was hit multiple times by gunfire from Sanctuary members stationed next to the weapons depot.
As that noise was ending, yet another sound of gunfire was heard. This time, however, it was much more muffled. Some in the crowd looked down the road to see where the shots were coming from. But those closest to the building looked at the door, while more people were pushing their way through those behind them, trying to put distance and others between them and the commotion.
Almost as quickly as it began, the gunshots ended.
One of the guards on the platform near the front cupped his hand over his ear, nodded, and walked up to the leader of the Believer’s Sanctuary to tell him something.
Preacher Jeremiah himself nodded and then turned to the assemblage on the ground, shouting to be heard about the mayhem of the crowd. The speakers set up by the Sanctuary members amplified his voice even more. “Please, my friends! My family! Please calm yourselves. The cause for alarm is over!”
Jeremiah waited for the Believers to get themselves under control. While the crowd was quieting, the Preacher talked with the Sanctuary guard who was communicating with others off the platform. The Sanctuary guard eventually nodded and gave the Preacher a thumbs-up signal.
“My friends, quiet, please!” Preacher Jeremiah said, holding up his hands to silence the crowd. “The Lord has heard our cries. Sadly, I must let you know that it was Captain Hernandez who, overcome by the temptation of the Devil and power of evil spirits, began shooting at our peaceful assembly. Thankfully our Sanctuary Guardians were at the ready. Those outside were able to remove the threat that Captain Hernandez posed. And others were able to finally enter the building.”
“Again, with a heavy heart I have to let you know that one of the two National Guard soldiers in the building resisted our peaceful outreach and fired on our Sanctuary Guardian brethren who had gone into the building to talk with them. The threat from that soldier has also been removed. But, praise be to the Lord,” the Preacher said, pointing to the doorway of the National Guard armory, “the third Guardsman in the building has listened to the word of God and has accepted the offer to join our Believers Sanctuary.”
And as if on queue, the doorway opened, and three Sanctuary Guardians appeared, escorting a National Guard soldier out of the building.
“Welcome! Welcome, my brother! You have chosen well to join us!” Jeremiah said. Then he turned to the people at the back of the platform. “And know, everyone, that goodness can still come from the suffering that has occurred today. For Paul tells us in Romans, Chapter 3, Verses 3 to 5:
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
“The Holy Spirit is still at work among us today,” the Preacher continued. “He is talking to me still, telling me to trust in his ways. Please, bring Rodrigo here.”
The guards on the platform quickly unshackle the boy and bring him, whimpering, to stand next to Preacher Jeremiah.
“Please,” the boy’s mother sobbed, “please let him go.”
“Margarita, I cannot in good conscience let this boy go,” the Preacher said, firmly holding the boy by the shoulders as they both stood near the edge of the platform. “He has lost his father and needs someone to guide him in the ways of right and wrong. But the Holy Spirit has spoken to me. He has reminded me of my responsibility as written in Deuteronomy, Chapter 25, Verse 5.
“the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.”
“I can take this boy into my house and raise him as my own son, Margarita. But only if you will it and agree to become my wife.”
The mother looked at her son, whose face was frozen in terror, staring at her, his body trembling as he waited for her response.
“Yes,” Margarita Flores Hernandez said in a weak voice.
The Preacher looked at one of the guards standing next to him. The guard shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes!” Margarita said loudly. “Yes, I’ll do whatever you want. Please, don’t harm my son!”
Jeremiah smiled and released the boy from his grip. The boy ran to his enchained mother as both wrapped their arms around each other in shock and grief.
The Preacher turned back to the crowd.
“Today has been a day of struggles, my friends. But the way of the Lord is not meant to be an easy path. The Lord tells us in his own words in Luke, Chapter 14, Verse 27
“Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
And again in Mark, Chapter 8, Verse 34
“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
And again in Matthew, Chapter 16, Verse 23, when Jesus rebukes Peter for trying to talk Jesus out of taking up His own cross, the cross that has saved us all from sin and eternal death
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
“So think about the events of this day, my friends. Think of the struggles that we continue to face. But know the Lord blesses us in our struggles.”
“Look outside of our small corner of South Carolina. The Lord is supporting us with his awesome might while we continue to build our strength and work through our struggles of growth. It was one month ago nearly to the day when God raised his hand and caused the sinkhole to open beneath the Satanic structure the aliens were constructing near Sparta. The aliens’ own version of the Tower of Babel right next to us in Georgia was brought down when the hole opened and swallowed the construct. And how appropriate that over one-thousand of the sinful humans collaborating with the aliens were crushed by the falling debris when the pieces of the tower fell on the buildings and camps around their so-called elevator.”
“Do not be surprised, my friends, that God will again show His glory and power as the aliens try to build a new tower outside of Fort Stewart. The Lord is with us! The Lord will give us the will and the tools to persevere. We cannot resist the call of the Lord, the words of the Holy Spirit, and the Way that Christ Jesus has set before us. Ponder all of this and you will know in your own heart of hearts that the Way we are following will allow us to overcome our struggles and free the Earth from the shackles the Devil and his alien spawn wish to place on us.”
“Now go in peace, my friends and family. Let us all return to continue our work in support of the Lord’s calling.”
And with that, Preacher Jeremiah took off his lapel microphone, handed it to one of the guards standing next to him, and walked to the rear of the platform.
As the crowd began to disperse, and the crane arrived at the top of the platform to bring Preacher Jeremiah, his pregnant teenage bride, and two bodyguards to the ground, the door to the armory opened again. Two of the six armed men who had stormed the building were being carried out, one in shock and the other appearing unconscious, both dripping blood from gunshot wounds. Another person walked out carrying over his shoulder a body wrapped in a cloth, red stains soaking through the fabric. All three Sanctuary Guardians were loaded into a transvan and quickly driven from the scene.
A loading bay door was unlocked and another transvan pulled up. A group of other Sanctuary members began loading a steady stream of weapons and ammunition into the vehicle emblazoned with the logo of the Believer’s Sanctuary, and an exhortation written below it “Come, join us, and follow the Way of the Lord!”