Liberators: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

25 PROMISES

On Christmas Day, with Megan’s sons and Malorie as witnesses, Joshua and Megan were married. Joshua made solemn vows to protect and provide for Megan, which under the circumstances had great significance. After the chaplain gave his blessing and invocation, he said: “I’d like to give you a wedding gift, but it comes with a price.”

“What’s that?”

“My gift will be the food, fuel, and cook gear that I have at my camp. In exchange I’d ask that you bury me. You see, back when I still had the strength, I dug my own grave.”

He took a ragged breath, and then continued. “I want you to check on me, once every three days. One of these days, either I won’t be in my usual spot, or you will see me dead here. The doctors tell me that the brain tumor will probably get me before the lung cancer, since the latter is growing more slowly. They said that one day I’ll have a grand mal seizure and then I’ll go to be with the Lord. It will be that simple. Let me show you my camp.”

He led them up a narrow trail into thick brush. The well-beaten trail led 150 yards to a steep, barren rock face, with a rivulet of water coming down a cleft. A rope was hanging down the rock, and they could see muddy scuff marks left by boots, leading up the first few feet of the rock.

Joshua was incredulous. “You climb up that?”

“No, this is where I get my water, and where I’ve left a false trail. I climbed up and rigged that hundred-foot guide rope back in late July—when I had the strength to do so. These days, I couldn’t make it twenty feet up that slope.”

He lifted his foot up and left a fresh mud streak on the rock. Then he turned back to his trail and led them down ten yards before turning sharply to the right, through a narrow gap in the brush. They noticed that he stepped carefully from rock to rock, so they did likewise. The tiny and circuitous trail, barely distinguishable, and with brush often scraping their clothes, led eighty feet back to a small clearing that had been hacked out of the brush, on a level spot. There, they saw two olive-green tents—a pup tent to sleep in and a larger one that was stacked full of food and gear containers. Beyond them was the hole that he had dug for his grave, which was five feet deep. He also showed them a small propane cookstove, and he had Joshua lift up a brown plastic tarp to reveal eleven propane tanks of the size typically used for home barbecues.

The chaplain said, “Six of these tanks are still full. I’ve tried to use the fuel very sparingly. When I jump off this mortal coil, everything here in my camp is for you folks. All you need to do is plant me over there. Let’s pray about this.”

Eighteen days later, Joshua took his regular check through his scope, just as he had done faithfully every day since getting married, regardless of the weather. This time Reverend Wetherspoon was not sitting in his usual spot.

Joshua very cautiously approached the chaplain’s camp. Picking his way first around the meadow and then through the brush quietly took nearly an hour. He wanted to be sure that he wasn’t walking into an ambush set by someone who had done harm to Wetherspoon. When the tents came into view, he found what he had expected: The chaplain was in his sleeping bag, clutching a Bible, at permanent peace.

Megan and Joshua buried him that afternoon, and said prayers for everyone that the chaplain had contacted in all of his years of ministry, praying that any of them who had not yet come to Christ would do so. They did not believe in prayers for the dead since they recognized that people could only be saved by faith in Christ, and that this transformation could take place only while someone was still alive. Of course they had assurance of Wetherspoon’s own salvation.

They decided to leave the tents in place and to leave half of the food and fuel in situ. This would be their backup camp in case their cave was ever discovered by malefactors.

By harvesting three more deer—which were rapidly becoming less populous and more skittish—and by using the supplies left to them by the chaplain, they were providentially carried through the coldest months of winter. Wetherspoon had stocked up heavily on rice, beans, and oatmeal in five-gallon plastic buckets, as well as cans of stew, soup, chili, and various fruits and vegetables.

In the last week of February, they were down to the last two twenty-pound propane tanks, ten pounds of rice, and the last dozen cans of food. It would be the dark of the moon in three days. The nights were cold and clear, as a high-pressure system seemed to be building. The days were getting noticeably longer, and there was no more risk of snow. It was time to go.