Chương 11: CHURCH OF THE REDEEMED

The church was quick to accept Monan as their messenger from god. The Redeemer, they called him. He made sure to throw that word out there, almost like he knew it would catch on. But it had its effect. The cries and terror in the building seemed to simmer down as the crowd resigned itself to waiting out the storm. The growing population of survivors were filed into groups and placed in various parts of the four-story church. T'balt roamed around in the basement.

This seemed to be what they were using as a makeshift medical ward. The agony in the air was deafening. He was suddenly put into perspective about what the apocalypse was doing to people. The suffering. The grief. The loss of everything that once was, but is now replaced with the horror of uncertainty. The wounded were many. A man was carried by a churchgoer to a table with half of a leg burned black. Others with scars and bloodied faces had to wait in a long line of worse-off people.

A child stood in the corner crying for his mother until a man grabbed them to explain that she wasn't coming back. An old woman was scrambling on a cell phone she didn't know how to use, desperate to call her children to see if they were okay. These were the visceral horrors of Zero Day. While he was walking around, he kept noticing a slim figure ping ponging around the room, person to person.

She had autumn-brown hair and dressed like a fashionable nun—A cross on her shirt and a long skirt that teased the form of her slender legs. T'balt stood within earshot as she tended to a man lying on one of the makeshift mats on the floor. His head was bloodied and bandaged, a stretch of covering over his right eye. His adolescent daughter stood by waiting for him to open his other eye. The woman wiped the blood from his face with a rag and felt the top of his head. She measured his breathing.

"Is he going to be okay?" the daughter asked, holding in her tears. The church woman smiled at her, "We'll let him rest for now. Just hold his hand, like this." She squeezed the man's hand.

"That way, he knows you're there. It'll remind him to wake up soon, okay?" The girl did as she was told, squeezing her father's hand with all her might.

"Is there… anything I can do to help?" T'balt asked, interrupting the two.

"Oh." The woman was surprised, whether at the gesture or at T'balt's sudden appearance to her.

"Sure. That would be great. The aides need help setting up the cots for people to sleep. Could you give a hand with that?"

"Sure." T'balt bowed overly politely and headed in the direction she gestured. He was really glad to be able to help. Sitting still, waiting around was making him itch on the inside. He was waiting for Monan to come back from wherever he had disappeared to, but he couldn't just keep listening to all this agony and do nothing. The beds weren't luxuries by any means. They could hardly be called beds at all, but rather thick floor mats. They were spread all over the basement floors in military-like lines.

There were nearly a hundred set out already, each one fit for a single person. T'balt was handed folded sheets and pillows to distribute to each of the beds and did so like a maid on their first day on the job, throwing the sheets like they were newspaper rolls. The sheer number he was given annexed any thoughts of being neat and tidy. But there were so many that the mats were touching edge to edge. Many survivors had made their way here.

It was surprising that the church had this much supply of emergency resources. It was almost as if they had been secretly planning for doomsday for years. He was starting to see why Monan chose this place as their first base.

"This is where we're going to be sleeping? Chosa said, dejection in her voice.

"It's just a pretty way to sleep on the floor."

"It's not that bad," T'balt answered.

"With so many people, I doubt they could afford to have a bed for all of us. I think we're lucky compared to some people."

"Monan has a bed."

"What?"

"Upstairs. They gave him a special room, and it's got a king-sized bed in it."

"Well… I guess this was his plan all along. He got them to treat him like some sort of saint." Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Do you doubt that he is after what you saw him do?" T'balt scratched his head.

"He didn't do anything. Anybody could've done that. I mean, you've… You shouldn't buy into everything he says."

"I don't see you holding any flaming swords from heaven." T'balt sighed.

"That's because he took the loot. If I had, I could do that trick too." Chosa was unconvinced, and that frustrated him. The Chosa that understood that was in a different iteration. It was so obvious to him, and he hated that Chosa had been fooled by Monan's game.

"God didn't choose you, T'balt," she said with all the built-in condescension she could muster.

"He chose him."

"The entire year we've been together, you never once mentioned religion to me. Or god."

"What else could explain this? All the evidence is right here. God is angry. The world is doomed. We need to accept the signs." T'balt scoffed.

"I don't care if you're a believer now, but that man is not a prophet." Without a better way to explain it, T'balt just resorted to becoming flippant with her. Chosa scoffed back at him and walked away, annoyed. He still couldn't believe that the ever-defiant Chosa Sonomiya would so easily turn coat on her old beliefs. As far as he was concerned, Chosa had always been an atheist. He was angry at Monan for manipulating her. But maybe he was still caught in their first meeting.

Chosa was dead in T'balt's arms, and Monan didn't show an ounce of remorse for allowing it to happen. T'balt thought out loud.

"I guess an event like this could make a believer out of anybody. But is god really the simplest explanation?" he went back to laying out the pillows. But before he could get into a rhythm, he was interrupted by someone else. The woman from earlier knelt next to him, bringing with her a strong scent of flowery perfume with a hint of dry blood. She started helping T'balt with his remaining pillows.

"Sorry. Was I moving too slow?" he apologized.

"Oh no. I just thought to help. I hope you don't mind." She reddened.

"No, not at all." Her blush made him blush, which led to a brief bit of awkwardness.

"Good," she said.

"I didn't introduce myself earlier. I was so caught up with everyone. I'm Ellie. I'm a disciple of this church."

"Oh... T'balt Ferrier."

"Like the Shakespeare character?"

"Yeah. My mom's an English teacher. Usually people don't make that connection right away," he nervously laughed.

"But my name doesn't have a 'y'. The T' goes straight to the B."

"I guess you could say I'm a huge nerd when it comes to books and such."

"I should've figured. Doctors do read a lot."

"Oh, I'm not a doctor."

"Oh, sorry. I figured with the way you were helping everyone… I mean, you're really good at it."

"No… That's the problem. I can't actually help anyone here." Her eyes dropped.

"I just have some EMT training, but that's only gonna clean up some minor scrapes. Some of the people here have bad injuries and need serious attention. I don't think that girl's father will make it."

"This might be a stupid question. But why didn't they go to a hospital?"

"People here are just seeking shelter. They haven't heard anything from anyone. The hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, if not by monsters… They had nowhere else to go. It really is the rapture," she said, exhausting herself with the word. T'balt didn't know how to respond, so he put his eyes back on distributing sheets.

"I'm sorry if I was eavesdropping, but it sounded like you knew the Redeemer before this," she said.

"Who?... Oh. Yeah."

"What kind of man is he really?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just… not sure about him. Anything you can tell me may reassure me that he speaks the truth," she said in her most earnest voice. She touched his arm.

"I don't mean to imply anything."

"No. I understand. There's no need to worry. He is what he says he is." T'balt smiled at her, unsure if it was reassuring in any way. He didn't know why he told her that. He didn't believe it, but it wasn't in him to stir a panic, even if that meant he had to tell a bald-faced lie.

"Thank you." She flatly smiled.

"Listen. If there's any other way I can help. You just let me know." T'balt stood.

"Well, everyone's fine for now. We'll likely have more wounded filing in soon. Without an actual doctor, I'm going to get overwhelmed fast," said Ellie.

"Maybe if you wouldn't mind helping me keep everyone as comfortable as possible. Especially the ones that… It's tough. I understand if you wouldn't want to."

"No. It's the least I could do." She patted his hand in appreciation, but they were interrupted by a wave of sudden silence followed by shocked whispers.

"It's him."

"It's the Redeemer."

"He's coming." Monan then paraded himself down the stairs, making his way through as the sea of people parted for his passing. Many of them backed away, bowing if they weren't ogling him. His dark eyes shifted around the room until they singled out T'balt.

"You," he said.

"We're going out." Without waiting for a response, the man did a 180 and headed back up the stairs. All the stares and whispers shifted to T'balt, who was dumbfounded by the attention. Most of all from Ellie, who he had just promised to help.

"I'm sorry," he said before following Monan up the stairs.