“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
It was the year of our Lord God, Yahweh, 2069, and the early morning was peaceful and serene, with the sun rising and gently drifting in and out of the small fluffy clouds that dotted the turquoise sky. It was a glorious day to be alive, and Rebecca Strong thought of Genesis 1:3-1:5. She marveled at how true the scripture of the Old Testament was for this day, for it was good. She stood at the edge of the roof and looked down over the lush forested beltways below. The birds chirped as they flitted from tree to tree, now and then trying to get to the rooftop gardens, frustrated by the greenhouses which rose up like giant tents, covering the gardens and keeping the birds at bay. Rebecca wondered to herself, but just for a moment, if the Tree of Knowledge as described in Genesis 2:9 might be down there. Better not to think such thoughts, for too much knowledge was a thing that had caused mankind much grief and pain, and besides, as a young woman she had no need of much of its fruit. She should be content to look after her own little flock, here in this heaven on earth.
Rebecca was one of the more beautiful of the young women of Brian’s denomination; she was already over five feet eight inches tall, slim but full-figured, blond hair, blue eyes, and the face of an angel. But such talk of her beauty made her blush, for “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and she felt her real beauty lay in the strength of her faith in the Lord Yahweh, the Holy Bible, the clarity of her mind, the purity of her body, the quality of her character–and most importantly, her devotion to God’s true prophet, Brian Theist, and his writings.
She had just that day downloaded into her E-book reader a copy of the book detailing the life of her prophet, “The Life of Brian,” written by the well-known biblical scholar, Monty Python. It was a fascinating story of the heroic deeds and virtuous life of her denomination’s Prophet, BT. She also had the true King James Bible as well as the Book of Sayings and Prophesies of the Prophet Brian Theist in the reader, a book which all of his flock were required to study faithfully. The E-book reader was also a wireless voice-activated PDA, which she used to store her thoughts and which was protected by a password that she alone knew.
Rebecca was often told that her only weakness was her curiosity, curiosity which got her into trouble from time to time. She knew it was true, but she couldn’t help having an inquisitive mind. She whispered into her reader, “Why is it that I can’t go out at night and wander through the forests of the beltway, what could be the harm in that?” The reader dutifully translated her words into text and stored them in her protected file.
Rebecca recited Psalms 18:2 to herself as she stood upon the rooftop of her dominion, feeling safe in its towering strength. As she shifted her gaze to the rooftops of the city, she could see the gardens and fields that made up the roof of each dominion, over 100 of which now belonged to her denomination. Brian said that one of the true tests of the righteousness of any religious denomination lay in the number of members it had, and his was the largest and fastest growing denomination in the city. The Lord Yahweh had admonished his people to “waste not, want not” according to the teachings of the prophet Brian Theist, the father-leader of her denomination, and the perpetual mayor and supreme lawgiver of the city. The people of the city were prolific in their observance of this commandment, as no space that could be used to produce food was wasted. The city needed all the food it could produce to feed its ever-teeming population. Though the infidels and heretics had scoffed at religion as a backwards-looking practice, Rebecca knew better. “Look at the use we put technology to in recycling all waste products into useful fertilizers and methane gas to supply the new generation generators that power the city,” she said to herself. New Eden was as forward-looking as any Christian civilization had ever been in the history of mankind. Poverty had been banished, godly technology was in abundance, and food was available to the faithful so that no one went unfed–as long as they worked for their keep. The man who personified the true, kind, caring, compassionate and righteous godliness of the Christian religion, Brian Theist, led New Eden into the future. He spoke of the glorious path that mankind was on, following the teachings of the Lord Yahweh as written in the Holy Bible and as was handed down to his people through the words of the Lord’s prophets, of which he was the latest.
As a child Rebecca, had gotten to know him. He was the most wonderful person she had ever met. You felt his power and grace when you were in his presence. He inspired his flock to willingly and without hesitation do his bidding. You knew that his will was but the will of the Lord Yahweh himself.
Looking down from the roof, Rebecca could see the men engaged in the business of peaceful commerce with the men of the various other Christian denominations, sects and cults that made up her city, a city located outside of what remained of Omaha, Nebraska. The streets were full of men and the few women that tended the fruit trees. Everywhere were the sentinels, the warriors of Yahweh, numerous and well-armed, for they were the force that kept order among the denominations and cults, and kept the heretics, infidels, mud people and other riffraff out of the city. She thought of the sad history that had led the faithful to this place of wonder and perfection, this heaven on earth called New Eden.
Ever since the Mensa flu had started to devastate humanity, the white Christian fundamentalists in America had formed their own walled cities to keep out the Muslims, Jews, atheist infidels, homosexual perverts, the mud people, and other riffraff that had brought this plague from Yahweh down upon themselves. The Christian religions were the only ones large enough, as well as organized and cohesive enough, to stay together and flourish after the great plague of 2010. The filthy infidel riffraff were forbidden to enter the city, lest they come into contact with the Christians of New Eden and contaminate the faithful. Of course, some said that the plague had already infected the faithful here and would strike again, but that was heresy, and the heretics were dealt with swiftly and justly when they were exposed.
Rebecca remembered the story of the fate of Old Jerusalem, from “The Book” of the prophet Brian Theist, called by some of the faithful “The Book of BT.”
It also became apparent that all the Christian faithful must band together after the destruction of the holy city of old Jerusalem by the forces of darkness. The holy city had been turned into the wailing pool, by the war between the Muslim and the Jew, though each side denied it; and tried to lay blame for its destruction on a Christian named Williams, and somebody who went by the name of Baal. (BT 66:6)
But the destruction of the Holy City was a sign, and the time of the second coming and the rapture was near, as foretold by the prophet Brian Theist. (BT 9:69).
The city walls of New Eden were six miles on a side in a triangle, thirty-six feet tall and thirty six feet thick, a covered roadway on top and round guard towers on each end, much like the castles of old Europe. From the battlements on the roadway or the slotted windows of the towers, the entire wall was well-defended from those infidels that would attack from the outside. There were only three entrances to the city, each in the center of the wall on one side. The entrances to the city were guarded by massive gate complexes that had the ability to drop two gates within a matter of seconds, each one made of reinforced armor plate three feet thick and weighing more than one hundred tons.
As the plague destroyed the Godless federal government, the righteous Christians had taken over the military bases and supplies, unchallenged by the heretic and infidel riffraff that survived in the wasteland outside the cities of the Lord Yahweh. Their small arms were no match for the firepower that the sentinels could bring to bear on them, yet they tried from time to time to break in and plunder the city. The sentinels had to be numerous and ever-vigilant to guard against such attacks. All of the young men went to Warriors School, to learn the art of the sentinels and the way of Yahweh’s warriors. Most women were charged with raising the children, feeding the people and tending the crops, as was the will of the Lord.
The city proper consisted of over 200 six-story buildings, called dominions, each one 36 acres square. Within each dominion the tribal or cult business was produced. Brian’s denomination had over half of all the dominions in the city. His denomination produced the E-book readers and other electronic tools, and TV’s and video equipment that were used by the people of the city. This monopoly made them very wealthy and powerful, as these were the goods that were most in demand. They even produced computers, but they were very expensive and were strictly controlled lest they be put to ungodly use.
The factories were on the first and second floor, where the men worked. On the third floor were family housing and the boys’ dorms. The fourth floor was the Mall, where the women who were not engaged in raising children or crops worked and shopped. On the fifth floor were the girls’ dorms and more family housing. On the sixth floor were the penthouses of Brian Theist, and the deacons and other wealthy members of the denomination. It was said that Brian Theist’s penthouse occupied over two acres alone. There was also a basement several floors deep, but it was dark, dangerous and off limits to most of the denomination. Besides, it was rumored to be as hot as Hades and foul smelling.
The machinery that produced the power and ran the equipment in the dominion was there, in the basement, as were the recycling plants that turned the organic waste into methane for the electrical generators and liquid fertilizer for the gardens. For the faithful, it was the least desirable of the places to work, and those who had no other skills were assigned there. Still, it was a sign of the worthiness of New Eden that nothing was wasted, as the Lord had commanded.
Rebecca returned her attention to the fields of corn on her roof, and to the small charges she was responsible for. All of the children of the Prophet Brian’s denomination worked when they reached the age of five, for “The Lord doth not suffer the lazy, the devilishly willful and wickedly idle” (BT 99:9).
At the age of twelve, most teenage girls were given responsibility to tend a few younger children during the mornings while the boys went to the Holy Warrior School to learn to defend us from the evil outside the gates. The children that Rebecca watched over were the children of the adults who worked in the factory on the first two floors, or the orphans of those that had died or had been delivered by the Lord Yahweh into the denomination’s care. These days, it seemed there were more and more orphans to look after. It was a job Rebecca cherished, for she was an orphan herself, and she knew firsthand the value of the service she provided to her charges.
Well, they must hurry and finish weeding the field, as it would soon be time for the feeding and watering of the corn to begin. All the young women in charge were admonishing their young charges to hurry, lest they become fouled with the stench of the fertilizer that would soon begin spraying from the overhead pipes that crisscrossed the field. Young Bobby had not yet come out of the field and Rebecca had to find him. Bobby was several rows in, watching a spider weave a large intricate secular web to trap the unwary fundie flies that stumbled into it. Though the web was a thing of beauty, Rebecca could hear the pipes start to chatter as the fertilizer began to flow through them. “Run Bobby run, or we’ll get soaked by the malodorous fertilizer,” she warned. They ran to the safety of the elevators, but they did get a little spray on themselves anyway. There was no time to clean up; Rebecca needed to get her flock back to the children’s center and then get herself to school. Her teacher, Ruth, would not be pleased with Rebecca’s smell this day.
Rebecca slipped into class and went to the back of the room hoping that Ruth wouldn’t notice that she had not taken her usual seat in the front. One of her boyfriends, Don Walker, sat down next to her.
“Hi Rebecca. How’re you today?”
“I’m good Don, how are you?”
“OK. I can’t wait for school to be over with though,” he replied.
“Class! Stop the chit chat! Your days here are drawing to a close. You have learned reading, writing, and mathematics. You have also learned all you needed to know about worldly things; most importantly, you have learned the Bible and the Book of Our Prophet Brian Theist, from whom all truth flows. Now we will do some review for your finals later this week. get out your readers and go to Revelation and starting with 1:1, I’ll have you read them to us. Don W., you first please.”
Ruth always called the students by their first name and last initial, and she insisted we call her “Ruth.” Still, that was better than getting called by your last name as Mr. Beede did in my last class, last year. Mr. Beede was a harsh man who punished anyone who didn’t know his or her scriptures from heart–which was everyone, as the bible was too big for anyone to memorize, except Mr. Beede of course.
The year before that, I had Mr. Laymen, who saw sexual innuendo in every conversation between boys and girls. I had stopped talking to my boyfriends, fraternal twins Don and David Walker, because I got tired of having to stay after school for detention. Besides, Mr. Laymen gave me the creeps, the way he would hover over me and watch me write his favorite bible quotes as punishment on the chalk board, always dealing with the same subjects, fornication and whoring, like Chronicles 21:11, Isaiah 23:17, Matthew 5:32, and Leviticus 19:29.
He knew them all by heart, though his grasp of the rest of the Bible was tenuous at best. He said his method was designed to drive out the desire in me to practice such evil, though in my heart no such desire existed, for I wouldn’t lie with a man until he was my husband. I’d had some romantic experiences, of course, like most of the girls, but we all drew the line at anything more than kissing. I thought Mr. Laymen had fornication and whoring too much on his mind.
“Rebecca S, are you with us? Stop daydreaming and read Revelation 1:11 for us from your reader please.”
I came out of my thoughts and scrolled down to the passage, Revelation 1:11, “Saying, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in America; unto New Eden, and unto San Diego, and unto Pittsburgh, and unto Toledo, and unto St Louis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Lubbock.'”
“Uh, Ruth, that doesn’t seem to be right, I remember the passage differently, though I can’t remember it exactly right now.” I replied.
“Class, does anyone else have a different quote on their reader for Revelation 1:11? If you do please hold up your hand and read the quote for us.”
There were no hands forthcoming and my face turned bright red. Though I was sure I was right, there was no use pursuing this, it had happened before and the teachers were always right.
“Sorry Ruth my mistake.”
Don leaned over and whispered, “You were right, I’ll show you later after school in the dining room.”
We studied other passages from the bible and then the class was over for the day. As I was leaving, Ruth pulled me aside.
“Rebecca you must stop drawing attention to yourself with your questioning of the Bible and the works of our Prophet Brian Theist. You know where all truth comes from, don’t you?”
“Yes Ruth, all truth comes from our Lord Yahweh, the Holy Bible, and the writings and sayings of our prophet BT.”
“Right, and what do they call those that question these proven truths?”
“Heretics and infidels.”
“And what happens to them?”
“I don’t know, though I have heard it is in line with Job 8:4 and Job 36:17, as well as other quotes on the Lord’s wrath and justice from the scriptures and the writings of BT.”
“Pray you don’t find out, child, for the lord works in mysterious ways. Do you remember your best friend Rachel who also had raised such questions and how she was sent away to another place to be retrained in the teachings of our Lord Yahweh, the Holy Bible and the teachings of the Prophet BT?”
“Yes Ruth, and I miss her, when’s she coming back?” I asked.
“She is not coming back, child. I was told today that she sickened and went to be with the Lord last month. I’m sorry to have to tell you this now, but the places of reeducation are harsh and I don’t want to see you end up there. Now get thee to your room and get out of that smelly dress. You’re a mess!” And she shooed me off to change my clothes.
I ran into David In the hallway. He opined that I had on “a most unusual perfume” that day. Later that day, Don told me the same thing.
I had known David and his brother since we were kids. David told me when we were little that we would some day be married. But David had changed the last couple of years, and I wasn’t so sure anymore he was the boy for me. Still, he was fun to be around and he still stirred my soul. He told me he wanted to meet me in the mall later that afternoon. He had something to ask me.
He could be such an impulsive and intemperate young man, yet there was something about him that made him very exciting to be with at times. He danced on the edge of trouble these days, but he always got out of any scrape he got into. He had to have a guardian angel watching over him. I was torn between him and Don. Which one would I marry and be fruitful with? Would it be David, dark, dangerous and exciting, the one who could make my blood race at times, or would it be Don, smart, charming and wholesome, the one who could leave me feeling warm all over some days?
Well I didn’t have to worry. As was the custom of our denomination, I had been allowed to pick two boys for my potential husband. At the time of my eighteenth birthday, after graduation from high school, it would be time for me to marry one of them, and Brian Theist was the one who made the final choice for each couple. All the girls turned into women at that age, were married to “the right man,” and admonished to “go forth, be fruitful and multiply,” (BT 3:69) as was the custom in our denomination.
I ran to my room, took a shower, and put on my best dress. I might let David kiss and hold me, as long as he didn’t try to talk me into doing something more than a little kissing. I was chaste, and I would stay that way until my wedding night, as it was written in Isaiah 62:5, “For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.” Clearly Yahweh wanted his flock to be virtuous and chaste.
I met David in the mall, at Mickey Dees, and he bought us real hamburgers, not veggie burgers, and a coke. They were delicious and we ate quickly. This was a real treat. I hadn’t had any real meat in over a month.
“Where did you get the money for this?” I asked as we were leaving.
“I have friends in high places now and they pay me well for what I do for them.”
“What do you do for these new friends?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret. But someday I will be a powerful man and it would behoove you to curry my favor,” he replied with a sly look.
“You speak in riddles, David. I’m your friend and someday you may even be my husband. What more of me could you ask?”
“Come with me to my mom’s shop. I want to show you something,” he replied.
We went to his mom Doreen’s shop and slipped into the back through a side door. I knew that our elders looked down on kissing and any other forms of affection between unmarried people, but what was the real harm in it, I thought. As he had done in the past, David started to kiss me. After a few minuets my face was flush and I could feel my body displaying the signs of the passion that I had felt before. But this day David got too carried away, and he placed his hand on my breast, which I shoved away, admonishing him to cease his brazen actions. I reminded him that we might become husband and wife and that he would have to wait till then to consummate our love.
“But Rebecca, I love you with all my heart and I would have no less respect for you on our wedding night as I do now, if you submit to my desire today.”
“I must not David, even though my desire for you is great. If you are picked by BT to be my husband, I’ll submit to you gladly and with great passion on our wedding night. Please wait till then.”
“You tease me with your kisses and your lush body, Rebecca, but I’ll wait for now. You are so innocent and naive aren’t you? Perhaps that’ll change, we’ll see. I was wondering by the way,” he asked, “if you would like to walk through the trees at night and see the moon and the stars?”
“Yes, I’d love to walk through the trees at night and see the moon and stars.” I replied. “But it’s forbidden, and you know that. The elevators all have watchers on them who would report us to the sentinels if we tried to use them, and the stairways are locked at night and there are alarms on all the doors, so such talk of going out at night is foolish.”
“I can show you a way to do that, I know how to avoid the alarms and open the doors in the stairways. Meet me at the stairway door by your room at eight tonight, and I’ll show you the beauty of the beltways at night.”
“I don’t think I should, if we got caught, we’d get into a lot of trouble.”
“Rebecca, I go out all the time, I have friends in high places, remember? Besides, there’s a lot more going on at night out there than you can imagine. My crew and I are going out tonight to rumble with the Sabbath Keepers, a cult posse from the other side of the city. They keep tagging our dominion and we’re going to stop them tonight. Want to go?”
“What does “rumble” and “tagging” mean?” I replied.
“They’re old words that mean we have a big party where we get together and settle things, kind of like what the deacons do when they meet. It’s exciting. You’ll like it I promise,” he said with a devious smile on his face.
“Are you sure we won’t get in trouble. I remember that Rachel said she was going out one night, and I never saw her again. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me.”
“Rebecca, I don’t know what happened to Rachel, but she was questioning the truth of our prophet ET, and that’s why she got in trouble, not for sneaking out at night. Don’t worry, you’ll see it’s safe if you go with me. Just try it once and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go again.”
“OK, I’ll be there, but you promise I’ll be safe and we won’t get into trouble?”
“Rebecca I swear on the Holy Bible and the book of BT that we won’t get into any trouble, and you’ll love the trees and the sky at night. Wear dark pants, a dark top and your tennis shoes, and pin your hair up and put a knit cap on, we wouldn’t want to attract too much attention.”
With that we left his Mom’s shop and I went to the dining room to meet Don. I was curious as to what he had meant with his comment about me being right about Revelation 1:11. We ate our dinner, boys on one side of the tables, girls on the other. Don sat across from me and we touched each other’s feet as we often had done in the past. Don was much more shy than David, and not as romantic or exciting. I knew he would be a good husband, though he might prove less stimulating compared to the fire that David sparked in me when we got together. Still, I liked him a lot and it caused me great confusion when I pondered which brother I’d like to spend the rest of my days with.
After dinner Don and I went off to the mall to have a coke and talk. We found a secluded spot in the mall atrium and sat down. I asked Don what he meant by saying I was right about Revelation 1:11.
“If I show you something that would prove you were right, will you swear on your E-reader Bible to keep it a secret between us? We could both get into trouble so you must promise me first.”
I thought to myself, well, Don was a little more risqu’ than I thought.
“OK Don, I promise.”
He looked around and then pulled a real book out of his backpack. It was a Bible! We had been taught in school that printed Bibles had been banned because there were so many that were fakes, and those fakes were used by heretics and infidels to fool us with false sayings and passages that contradicted each other or were nonsense. The heretics would quote passages from these false bibles and make the writings look stupid, outdated and contradictory. The deacons and Brian Theist provided us with certified copies of the real Bible in our E-book readers, so that we would get the true word of our Lord Yahweh.
“Look, read this. Here is the real quotation. Read it yourself.”
I took the Bible and read the passage, Revelation 1:11, “Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”
“Where did you get this, I thought almost all the books were burned by the infidels in the great fire in Alexandria?”
“Rebecca that’s a myth that has been propagated by the ministers, deacons, prophets, cardinals, popes and others with religious power, including Brian Theist. There are those that would spread false words to control us. The infidels didn’t burn the books, it was the Christian fundamentalists that did that in Alexandria, Virginia, and other places including here. My mom told me of an ancient tale that said the Christians burned the books in another Alexandria in the Middle East two thousand years ago, but I can’t be sure of that, as all the records of it are destroyed or in the hands of the Catholic Church. Anyway, the leaders of our city seek to restrict our knowledge so they may keep us in their control. They give us the E-book readers, so that they could carefully manage the content. My mother gave this Bible to me to safeguard and pass down to my children, which I hope are with you,” he replied.
I was shocked that Don could be involved in such heresy and I told him so. “How can you think I would believe that the our leaders including our prophet BT would do such a thing? That bible is probably a fake. What you speak is heresy and I will hear no more of it from you.”
“I’m not the heretic, but if this upsets you I will speak no more of it.” With that he put the Bible back in his backpack.
We sat there in an uneasy silence for a few minuets, and then he asked me what I was doing for the rest of the night. I decided to tell him about what David wanted to do tonight. Don became visibly upset.
“Don’t you know how dangerous it is in the beltways at night? I, too, snuck out once with some people I thought were my friends, and who knew how to open the stairway and basement doors. There are bad people out there that could do you great harm. Please don’t go, you know I love you with all my heart, it would be horrible if something bad happened to you.”
“David promised me there would be no danger for us, and he isn’t a heretic like you, Don. Besides I’ve always wanted to walk in the trees at night, you know that.”
“I can’t let you go Rebecca. I’ll tell a watcher, if I have to.”
“If you tell on me, I’ll tell them you have an illegal Bible, and you’ll get into big trouble. I must go now, I’ll keep your secret and you must keep mine.”
With that I got up and went back to my room to get ready for the night. I was excited. Finally, I would get to wander through the trees with David at my side to protect me. I showered and dressed and at eight PM I went to the stairway door dressed in my darkest clothing, ready for the great adventure. David opened the door and let me in the stairwell.
“Keep to the side he whispered to me and don’t make any noise, the walls have microphones in them and noise will alert the watchers and sentinels.”
We went down to the first floor and came to the door to the basement. David took out a small device and pointed it at the alarm on the door, and a small red light came on. He took out some small metal tools and inserted them into the door lock, wiggled them around, and the door clicked open. He took a small dominion of wood and put it into the door jam hole so the door would close but wouldn’t lock.
We went down the stairs and into a hot, dark, damp, rank-smelling hallway. We followed it for until we came to a door that led to a room the size of a couple of football fields, full of big machines that and looked like big pots sitting on their sides and made a loud humming sound.
“What are these machines?” I asked.
“They’re the generators. They run on methane gas and provide electricity to the dominion,” David replied. “We need to go through them to get to a door that’ll take us outside.”
We went around the generators and came to a door that was sunk into the wall. David opened it. We went up the stairwell to the outside and into the misty night. It was beautiful.
“Quick Rebecca, follow me.” And David led me to a small stand of trees on the corner of our dominion. “Look up. You can see the stars between the clouds,” he said.
I looked up to see a most wonderful sight, the stars framed between the leaves of the trees, dancing in and out between the clouds overhead. I stood there in amazement, a light misty breeze blowing in my face, drinking in the wonder of it all, when David grabbed me and pulled me to the ground. He put his hand over my mouth and told me to be quiet, the sentinels were near. As he whispered the warning in my ear, a spotlight swept over the spot where we were, just missing us by a few inches. I turned to see a large armored personnel carrier go by us and down the street. After a few minutes, David said it was safe, they wouldn’t make the rounds for another couple of hours at least.
It was wonderful out in the forest, the stars twinkling above.
David took me in his arms and held me tight, kissing me until my face became flush. We lay back down and he started “French kissing” me as, he called it. He put his hand on my tummy and began to rub it gently in a most pleasant manner. Before I knew it, he had slipped his hand under my blouse and was caressing my bare skin. The passion in my soul was coming to a boil, but then he went too far and slipped his hand under my bra and roughly caressed my breast.
“Don’t! Stop, David! I can’t do this! You know that! I want to, but I must be chaste until my wedding night.” I took his hand out of my bra and pulled away from him.
“Well ‘David’ looks like you struck out with the lady, mind if we give her a go?”
I looked up and saw a few dark outlines of some boys standing around us, their long fighting knives glistening in the moonlight.
“Looks like we have one of the BT Heresy Hunters here guys, and he brought us a pretty prize to share.”
David pulled a fighting knife out of his boot and waived it at them. “So, you Sabbath Keepers have enough courage to show their faces to me instead of sneaking into our territory and spray-painting your little tags on our dominion. Are you going to give me a fair fight, or will you all attack me at once?”
“A fair fight, like the one you BT thugs gave our friend the other night? No, we’re just going to kill you and make sport with your girlfriend. She looks like she’ll be a fine breeder back at our dominion. We’ll let you apologize to her and say goodbye before we send you to hell. You BT cult members are all infidels anyway.”
At that moment David yelled “Hunters” and a bunch of his crew dropped out of the trees and attacked the Sabbath Keepers from behind. It was chaos, and I found myself cowering behind a tree, watching in horror as the fighting went on. David’s crew was twice as numerous as the attackers, and they were slaughtering them–kind of like a cat plays with a mouse. David was directing it all, like some mad conductor directing his orchestra of murderous thugs. He looked over at me with an insane look in his eye as his crew was mopping up the last of them and said, “Rebecca I told you this would be fun, but not as much fun as you and I are going to have shortly, you little tease. I knew you’d be good bait.” Then he turned his attention to cleaning up the last of the Sabbath Keepers. There was much yelling and cursing as they fought.
Someone grabbed me from behind, put their hand over my mouth and pulled me backwards towards the dominion. I bit his hand and screamed, and Don said, “Shut up, or you’ll get us both killed! I have to get you back into the dominion before the sentinels or more of David’s Crew arrive. This is worse than you think it is. Trust me Rebecca, my brother’s changed into some kind of passive aggressive fanatical control freak. He’s very dangerous.”
With that, he grabbed my hand and we ran back to the door into the dominion. We started to go back down the hallway that went to first floor stairway, but we could hear some more of David’s crew coming down the hall. We went the other way until we came to a door that wasn’t locked and we slipped into the murky room. I knew immediately where we were, the smell was almost unbearable. We’d entered a recycling room and the stench of death and decay was intense. Don took me up a flight of stairs and into a small office that was there. There was a door in the back of the office, but it was locked. At that moment we could hear the door into the recycling room open and David and his crew came in with the bodies of the Sabbath Keepers slung over their shoulders. They also had a couple of girls they’d captured that had been with Sabbath Keepers. The girls were handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded. David took the blindfolds off the girls and made them watch what he did next. They stripped the boys’ bodies of their clothing and put them on a big conveyer belt that took them up to a large shredder that ground them into small bits, and fed the remains to one of the recycling vats that converted waste to fertilizer. I thought of the cornfield on the roof and started to gag. As this was happening David quoted Psalms 58:10; “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” “This is the will of Yahweh, for this posse followed a false prophet. Then he said to his crew, “We are,” and they replied in unison “The Sword of the lord.”
“Yes we are, aren’t we boys!” he replied, laughing as though it was all a big joke.
Then he told the girls, “You do what I tell you to or you’ll join your friends in the vats, understand?” The girls were terrified and both nodded their heads in agreement. I was horrified to see just what kind of beast David had become. How did he fool me all this time? What’d happened to the guy I had grown to love and desire? My head was spinning in disbelief at what I was seeing!
We could hear them talking and David said, “The hunt went well. We have provided much fuel for the generators and fertilizer for the fields tonight. Tom, Bobby, take the girls to the holy vessel room and prepare them to take our life-giving seed. It’s time to take our reward, boys. I want the rest of you to fan out and look for Rebecca and whoever took her away from our party outside. They can’t get away, we have all the stairwells covered and the sentinels have been alerted and have the area around the dominion saturated with troops. The boss wants this girl in one piece, so no one hurt her, got it? I want to deal with the guy myself, so take him alive.”
They took the girls through a door that was under the office we were hiding in, and David and the rest of his crew went out into the hallway to continuing to look for us.
“What’re we going to do now, Don? There’s no way out of this place. I’ll pray to Yahweh for our deliverance.” I knelt down in prayer, but Don said, “Get up, I’ve got the door open, maybe there’s a way out of this mess yet.”
We went into the next room and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The room was as large as a football field, and it was a prison of some sort. We were overlooking all these steel cages that had girls chained up in them. Some of them were pregnant. Now I knew where all the orphans were coming from. I caught the eye of one of the women there and felt I had met here somewhere before. Her eyes got big when she saw me, and she motioned for us to hide. The two girls that David’s crew had captured were in the same cell block, and the boys had put some kind of metal dog collars around their necks, which they locked into place with a small key. All the girls we could see in this prison had these collars on their necks, and a chain attached to the cot on one end and an ankle cuff around one of their ankles. They were all clad in their undergarments.
My face was burning with shame and humiliation, how was it that I could have loved someone who could be involved in this barbarous activity? At that moment David and the rest of his crew came into the cell with the two girls in it. He asked them if they were virgins and they said “Yes.” He asked them if they were willing to sacrifice their innocence for the good of the denomination. They said “No.”
It became clear what the collars were for. David pressed a small remote control device and the dog collars shocked them like some kind of stun gun, only much worse, leaving the girls writhing on the floor in agony. David spoke to them again. “This is how it works ladies. ‘Yes’ answers lead to pleasure, if not yours, then at least ours. ‘No’ answers lead to pain and agony, as you’ve just experienced, and they won’t change the outcome anyway. If you try and take the collars off, you get another, fatal, shock. The collars are permanent, to ensure your faithful obedience to your new masters, us. Now, are you ready to submit to my will?”
They nodded in agreement, clearly broken by the power of the pain the collars had imparted.
“Good, now take off your clothes and prepare to receive our holy seed in your new role of mothers of the future.”
Don and I sat there transfixed, as the girls disrobed and David had his way with each of them. When he was done, he invited the rest of his crew to follow his lead, and “Spill your seed into these holy vessels, and may the seed of the best man win the race.” He roared, laughing. I heard his cell phone ring, he answered it, listened for a few seconds and said “Yes sir, I’ll take care of it right away.” He left, and his crew picked up where he left off.
I couldn’t watch anymore. It was a sickening, degrading thing to do to these girls that had probably been promised the same night of adventure and excitement by their boyfriends as I had been by David.
Don told me to keep an eye on the crew, he was going to see if he could find a way out of this hellhole for us. He went back into the recycling room and I kept an eye on the rest of David’s crew. After a few minuets, I heard the door behind me open, and Don staggered through it, his eyes wide open, a frantic look on his face. He opened his mouth and blood dribbled out. He mumbled, “I’m sorry, Rebecca, I love you,” and then David popped up behind him, gave me a wink, pulled his knife out of Don’s back and pushed him over the catwalk railing to the cement floor below.
“Hi Rebecca. I’ve been looking for you. You shouldn’t have run off with Don, look what you made me do. Pity about my brother, but we were like Cain and Abel anyway. Genesis 4:9, I guess I’m no longer my brothers keeper, huh Rebecca?”
I recoiled in terror and tried to run down the catwalk, David tackled me and stuck a stun gun into the back of my head. The world became lightening bolts and pain. I passed out.
When I came to, I was in one of the cells laying on a cot, one of those dog collars on my neck. David and his crew were standing around me, leering.
“What are you going to do, rape me too David?”
“Don’t be silly Rebecca, I have a much higher purpose in mind for you my dear, even though you liked Don better than me. Boys, our job is done for the night, time to get back upstairs. You my dear have another fate that has been preordained for you, come with me.”
“I’m not going to do anything you say… you, you barbarian! You killed your own brother! If I live through this, I’m going to tell Brian Theist what you are doing here. He will surely put a stop to this little bit of hell you are involved in.”
“Really, so you think BT is in control of everything that happens here? How amusing. He’d have to be omnipotent to know everything that happens in a place this big. No matter, it’s time you came face to face with your fate. Let’s go.”
“David, how can you do this to me? You said you loved me. What happen to you?”
“Well, Rebecca there’re some things that are stronger than love, and power is one of them. I had to give up something of great value to get this position of power and wealth, and that something was you. I feel bad about you getting caught up in this, but hey ‘the Lord works in mysterious ways.’ Besides I get lots of ‘love’ these days, as much as I want. Now, lets go!”
With that, he pressed the remote and a wave of pain worse than anything I could imagine swept over me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. David handcuffed me and pushed me into a small elevator at the end of a long hallway outside of the holy vessel room. In the elevator he took out a key and used it to access the sixth floor. As the elevator doors opened, I felt I was stepping into another world. I had never been on the sixth floor and the difference between the rest of the floors on the dominion and this floor was immediately noticeable. There was plush gold carpeting in the hallway, the walls were finished in rich hues of purple with gold trim. There were hanging tapestries depicting religious scenes or the official portraits of Brian Theist every few feet.
We came to a long hallway that had large doors in it every ten meters or so and dead-ended at a big pair of doors. As we went down this hallway, a side door opened and Brian Theist and a couple of sentinels came out of it, directly in our path.
“What’s this David, why is this child here in handcuffs with a restraint collar on her neck?”
“Excuse me father, but she’s been a bad girl and willfully disobedient, and I was taking her to her punishment.”
“David, you’ve exceeded your authority. Turn her over to me. I will deal with you later young man!”
With that, one of the sentinels grabbed David by the arm and took him away while the other took my handcuffs off.
“Come with me, child. We’ll get to the bottom of this mystery in my quarters here.”
I followed him through the double doors and into a huge living room, relieved to be free from this terrifying night.
“Thank you Prophet Brian, I knew you’d put a stop to this evil as soon as you found out about it.”
“Call me Brian child, and don’t worry, you’re where you belong and you’re safe now. So, how did you end up in handcuffs with a restraint collar around your neck?”
I told him how the night started, of all the horror I had witnessed both outside and in the lower levels of the dominion, how David had killed his brother Don, the terror and humiliation of the girls in the prison, and the horror I felt in his control.
“It must have been awful for you. Well you’re out of harm’s way now and under my direct protection. Come, I want to show you some things that will help you understand how things work around here.”
He took me into the living room, a room that had all the material things one could ask for. Huge windows overlooked the city. A large-screen TV that covered one wall. Ornate couches and chairs scattered about, facing the TV. On another wall were pictures of beautiful women, one of which looked a lot like me.
“I see you have noticed the picture of my favorite wife, Amanda. I sure miss her, but she became willful and disobedient and had to be severely punished. She is in the basement now, serving the needs of the denomination. My, you are a spitting image of her aren’t you?” He said with a wry smile. “She is your mother, you know, and I am your father.” As those words started to sink in, I could feel my skin getting goose bumps. She was the woman who had looked up at me in the prison.
“Father Brian, can you please get this collar off me and get me back to my room? I’m exhausted and I need to get some sleep,” I said, as the fear started rushing through my mind.
“All in good time child. Those collars are tricky, and trying to remove them can get you killed if it isn’t done right. Besides, my records, including the contents of your E-book reader private files, shows you’ve been a bad girl. I think you can be saved from going down the wrong path, that’s why I had David bring you here. I’ll take you under my wing and show you the light, and the correct path for the journey before you.”
His words sent chills up and down my spine as I started to understand the danger I was in.
“I mean no disrespect father, but I’m scared and I want to go home and be in my own room, please.” I begged him.
“You are home child. As for your room, well it’s fine, see.” With that he picked up a remote control and turned on the big TV. It displayed multiple screens showing various places in the dominion. I could see the mall, the factory floor, the recycling room, as well as the prison where the girls were held as sex slaves, and several other places in our dominion. My fear rose to almost overpowering levels.
He said, “Voice Control mode.” Then he said, “Rebecca’s quarters.” My room, as well as my bathroom, came on-screen. I realized he could see everything I did there.
“Replay Rebecca’s room tonight, seven PM.” It showed me in the shower, drying off and dressing and getting ready to go out with David.
I could feel my face burning in shame as I realized he had been watching my every move in my room. The disk played as I went into the stairwell and followed David outside.
“Stop replay.”
I have the whole evening on disk Rebecca, and you broke several rules, didn’t you?”
“Well yes, but David promised me I wouldn’t get into trouble and he lied to me.”
“Rebecca, do you remember Genesis 3:5? ‘For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.'”
“Yes, but it was an innocent thing I did. I meant to cause no harm.”
“You were given a choice and you choose poorly, as did Eve with the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge. Now you must pay the price of your poor choice. You can never return to your past life Rebecca, but you can be saved by submitting to my will and becoming one of my wives. You were predestined to this role anyway, so chose well this time and your life will be one of luxury and plenty, or you may chose to be willful and disobedient and join the girls down in the basement. What say you?”
“You are my father, and you want me to become one of your wives? That’s polygamy and incest isn’t it?”
“Rebecca, do you remember Genesis 3:20? ‘And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.’ We all came from the same mother and father Rebecca, Adam and Eve, and we are all the product of what you call incest. Could the Lord have made a mistake like that? No, this is as it should be. The great prophet Joseph Smith, who founded one of the true branches of Christianity in America, the Mormons, had a revelation from the angel Moroni about the need for a righteous man to have many wives. Am I not a righteous man, a prophet of the Lord? If Yahweh didn’t desire me to make the choices I do, then he must strike me dead right now! You see I live still, therefore he must agree with my decisions to do what I must to keep the denomination healthy and growing. And what I must do now is take the flower of your innocence and give you my seed that you may fulfill the commandment of our Lord, as spelled out in Timothy 2:15; ‘Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, for that is her proper role.’ So you see, I seek to save you from your mistakes and put you on the right path to your salvation through the lesson of Timothy 2:15.”
“But father that isn’t exactly what 2:15 says. Please, I don’t want this, I just want to go back to my room, and I’ll be good, I promise! I won’t tell anyone!”
“You’re being willful and disobedient, Rebecca. I think the devil is within you. Yahweh told me in a vision that I have the power to drive evil out of the flock.”
With that he opened a set of drapes and a large one-way mirror that looked out on another room with several girls in it. I looked into the room and could see them in a nightmare scene from the Arabian nights, with all the girls dressed in silk nightgowns, all wearing restraint collars, and sleeping on large pillows on the floor. Do you remember your best friend Rachel? She is here with me now. See?”
“This is evil father, how can you do this to me or any of these girls?”
“You call my decisions evil? I’m the prophet of the Lord! You must not question my authority! Enough of this willful disobedience girl, you will obey me!”
He held up a small remote like the one David had used and pushed the button on it. I was engulfed in searing pain and slumped to the floor, unable to move for a few minutes. As I lay there, he went into the room and brought out Rachel and another girl.
Prepare her to be my wife. As it was with the great prophets and martyrs David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, and Jim Jones and the People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, so shall it be with me, for the Lord has confirmed my decisions with his blessings. If it were not so, he would strike me dead. Let us remember the lessons of Timothy 2:11 and 12. ‘LET the woman learn in silence with all subjection. And ‘But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’ There can be no doubt that Yahweh meant for man to be the master and for woman to be subservient to our will, his words in the Holy Bible shows us so.
Rebecca, do you agree to be my wife and bear my children?” he asked as he held up the remote.
“Yes, yes, please don’t hurt me anymore,” I heard myself saying.
“By the power vested in me, by our Lord Yahweh, I now pronounce us man and wife.
Rachel, Heidi, bathe and anoint her with fine perfume, and put her in a white silk nightgown, you know the one I like. It’s time for her to perform her wifely duties. Remember Revelation 22:13, for it speaks to me. ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.’ You’ll grow to love me my dear, as have all the rest of my wives, right Rachel, Heidi?”
I looked into their eyes as they nodded in vigorous agreement, I could see the terror and helpless despair in their eyes. Rachel whispered in my ear, “You must submit to him, he’s crazy and there’s no way out of here, the sentinels guard the doors and our collars sound an alarm if we get outside his quarters. I’m so sorry Rebecca, I don’t know if there’s a heaven, but there’s a hell, and we’re in it.”