The Sealing Read online

  Chelsea would give anything to be able to un-slit her wrists and return to Planet Earth in human form, so she could proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior like Brian and her mother had both done, and never have to spend another second in the soul-damning place called hell. But it was too late...

  The one thing she still had in common with her biological brother and mother was that all three would call Jesus Lord and Savior for all eternity; only Brian and Sarah would declare it in Heaven, while Chelsea proclaimed it in hell.

  Jacquelyn sat quietly on the couch and stroked her husband’s hair. Having already gone through the mourning process with her late husband—Tom Swindell—she still remembered the indescribable pain and grief she felt after his death.

  But this was Brian’s second suicide death in just a matter of months. Though Chelsea was one of her bridesmaids, Jacquelyn didn’t know her sister-in-law all that well. All she knew was what Brian had told her about his kid sister, as he’d often referred to Chelsea.

  The only thing Jacquelyn knew was that after the wedding, Chelsea made it clear she wanted nothing to do with either of them.

  Jacquelyn shivered. Your wish has just become an eternal one! She kept this dreadful thought to herself.

  “Did you tell your parents we moved to Pennsylvania?”

  Jacquelyn shot her husband a sideways look, “Why do you ask?”

  “My father knows we’re here. Not our exact location, only that we’re in Pennsylvania. He said on the video your parents told him.”

  Jacquelyn let out a loud gasp, “I told them the day we were engaged. It was foolish of me. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

  Brian buried his face in his hands and muffled an unintelligible shout. Angry as he was, he was just as guilty himself for telling his mother the same thing when they met for breakfast in Manhattan—before she became a Christian. He also told Tamika Moseley and Tom Dunleavey that he was moving to Pennsylvania to manage a safehouse before they knew anything about the ETSM.

  Brian wondered how many other residents, if any, had foolishly shared potentially deadly information with unsaved friends and loved ones like they had. It was a frightening thought…

  Jacquelyn lowered her head and started weeping. Her hormones were already out of whack. This was the last thing she needed.

  After feeling nauseous the past two weeks—to the point of vomiting—once hazmat suits and gas masks were removed, Dr. Singh examined Jacquelyn to make sure she hadn’t ingested anything toxic.

  With the aboveground makeshift clinic still unfinished, Dr. Singh examined Jacquelyn in her bedroom. It didn’t take long to diagnose what was ailing her patient.

  Once her sobs had been reduced to mere sniffles, Jacquelyn took a deep breath, wiped her nose with a tissue, then reached for Brian’s hand.

  Once eye contact was made, she said, “By the way, I’m pregnant...”

  2

  THE DAY BEGAN AT safe house number one at the crack of dawn—5 a.m. to be exact—when hundreds gathered at the church pavilion to pray for Clayton Holmes, Travis Hartings, Braxton Rice, Charles Calloway and Dr. Lee Kim, before the five men left for the ETSM cabin in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

  After prayer time was over, one of the fifteen-passenger vans was filled with gasoline from the fuel tanker Jefferson Danforth had delivered to safe house number one, shortly before America fell under attack.

  Five hazmat suits were placed inside the vehicle, just to be safe. At that, they said their goodbyes and left for Kennett Square, Pennsylvania; the first of two safehouses they would visit along the way.

  In America, fifty ETSM locations were presently in possession of tunnel boring and laser guided robotic bricklaying machines. Danforth also had dump trucks, cement trucks, backhoes, cranes, excavators and other large construction equipment sent to those properties.

  At the outset, the equipment was only slated to remain there for one month, before being sent to other safehouse locations that only those at the top of the organization knew about.

  The attack on America changed everything…

  Unable to use the large equipment in the three weeks in which they were all hunkered down, each location was given an extension but were ordered to double-up on their efforts.

  To help expedite things more quickly, even before the air above America was deemed “breathable”, tens of thousands of hazmat-wearing ETSM members—many of whom were construction workers or able-bodied individuals willing to learn the trade—were secretly smuggled to the 50 safe houses in America.

  Nearly 200 male and female construction workers were sent to Chadds Ford alone, along with 500 other new members, to include structural and electrical engineers, all of whom were licensed in multiple disciplines, doctors, nurses, dentists, and a few IT and cyber security experts.

  Even more interesting was that half were teenagers or younger. The youngest was 6, a boy named Joey. ETSM leaders had long wondered why no teens or adolescents had joined the organization before now.

  It was as if God had wanted a mature foundation of elders in place before causing youngsters to have dreams, which ultimately led them to the Christian organization.

  But of all the challenges Clayton Holmes and Travis Hartings now faced, the greatest was preparing for the arrival of children. At last count, more than 100,000 new full-time ETSM members worldwide—ranging from ages 9 to 57—were expecting.

  More than 5,000 were from America alone. Half were sent to the 50 safehouses currently in possession of the large equipment. The rest were sent elsewhere. Seventy-five were quickly vetted and invited to reside at safehouse number one. Sixty were in their third trimesters. Only five were married. Most had already been examined by GC medical staff and were registered in the Global Community database.

  The sudden spike in numbers of pregnant women seeking refuge with the ETSM started when they had dreams about their children, which began as nightmares. Each saw themselves being supernaturally separated from their children; while their kids were eternally comforted, they ended up in a dreadful inescapable place with Salvador Romanero.

  When it continued for three straight nights, they became so frightened that they stopped showing up for doctors’ appointments. Some were only weeks away from giving birth. Like everyone else involved in the End Times Salvation Movement, upon seeking answers and finding them in Christ Jesus, God ultimately connected them using the www.LSARglobal.org website as a starting point.

  Of course, the quick vetting process didn’t sit well with Braxton Rice. The ETSM head of security didn’t like inviting so many people on to their properties all at once. His biggest concern was that unsaved family members of runaway teens and adolescents would always be out looking for them, especially pregnant youths.

  It was a frightening thought, to be sure, which only added more steam to the ETSM pressure cooker. But after Clayton and Travis both shared identical dreams with him—this latest round clearly meant to help redefine their new role as a Christian organization—they forced Rice’s hand, so to speak. They knew the day would come when children would live among them, they just never expected it would be this soon!

  This meant, instead of aggressively spreading the Gospel online as they’d done all along, it was time to pick up the pace and prepare their properties for the onslaught of children that would soon be in their care, even before the 144,000 were revealed.

  With so many people staying at safe house number one, and with a renewed sense of urgency, residents were busy day and night, working in shifts—7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.—to get the property in order. Breakfast was served in the cafeteria just as one shift was ending, and the other was about to begin. Dinner was served at 7 p.m. for the same reason.

  As part of an ongoing food rationing program, these were the only two hot meals served in the cafeteria each day. But if they had any chance of completing the tedious task at hand, everyone helping fortify the 50 locations in possession of the large construction equipment needed to be well nourished.

/>   Not only were food portions larger, lunch was also served in the cafeteria, at noon for the first shift and at midnight for the second shift.

  After filling plates with food, once all seats were taken in the cafeteria—which wasn’t yet rodent free—everyone else had to carry their trays to the church pavilion to eat.

  After a hearty breakfast, everyone working the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift at safe house number one joined the resident architect and his two structural engineers near the front entryway of the property and were given their daily assignments.

  Forty were assigned to non-construction wall duty. They would follow closely behind the three engineers clearing debris, uprooting plants and other shrubbery, and chopping down small trees that stood in, or close to, the pathway of the soon-to-be-built wall.

  Tamika Moseley and Tom Dunleavey were part of this group.

  Everyone else working the first shift—roughly 300 men and women—were assigned to various tasks elsewhere, from cottage reconstruction, to preparing the ground for the massive subterranean holes to be dug, turning the church pavilion into a two-floor structure, cleaning the pool area with mops and squeegees, setting traps and exterminating all buildings on site, to rid the place of mice, rats and cockroaches.

  Leaders were assigned to oversee all areas and report back to Brian, who would then report to Clayton Homes and Travis Hartings at the end of each day.

  The resident architect and his two engineers began at once marking a perimeter around the entire property, on the outside of the old wooden maroon fence. The 40 selected for non-construction wall duty followed closely behind the three engineers, wearing garden gloves and carrying small hacksaws and hatchets in their hands.

  Meanwhile, construction workers spread massive stacks of bricks, cinderblocks and cement bags all throughout the outside perimeter for new wall construction. Soon, all they’d have to do was feed bricks and cement into the machine and watch it go.

  Thankfully, the materials needed for wall construction were delivered the day before the attack on America, to include massive amounts of cement, steel and lumber. All were delivered on flatbed trucks.

  Had that not happened, there’s no telling if a new wall would have ever been built. They knew it was God’s providence at work.

  Regardless of assignment, everyone at safe house number one wore surgical masks to help filter out the haze of thick smoke hovering above, due to the many fires burning a few miles away in Chester, Pennsylvania and in Wilmington, Delaware.

  Smoke hung thick in the air like a soupy fog that had long since worn out its welcome, yet it refused to leave. Until the winds picked up and swept it all away, it would remain in the atmosphere, choking the life out of animals, insects, plants and vegetation, and some unprotected humans.

  Three hours later, the resident architect and his two engineers came full circle.

  The architect frowned, “I know the plan is to finish the new wall before the wooden fence is torn down. But according to GPS calculations, there’s no way around it; sections of the old wall will need to come down. Otherwise, it will be in the way of the robotic bricklaying machine.”

  When no one protested, he went on, “Once a section has been bulldozed, the wood can be stacked in piles, then bundled, and taken to the back of the property to be used for firewood come wintertime.”

  Another engineer asked, “Would it be wise to burn wood that was painted and treated with chemicals?”

  Without batting an eye, the architect replied, “That’s the least of our concerns. We’re going to be out of these bodies soon anyway!”

  The woman nodded, “Valid point you make...”

  It was agreed then.

  As those on non-construction wall duty cleared debris, they circled the property once again, this time in a counter-clockwise manner, laser mapping and programming the GPS coordinates into the robotic bricklaying machine and marking sections of the wall that needed to be bulldozed before new wall construction could begin.

  With that task completed, as cement mixed in the truck for the first section of the wall, they broke for lunch.

  MEANWHILE, CLAYTON HOLMES, TRAVIS Hartings, Braxton Rice, Charles Calloway and Dr. Lee Kim were driving on U.S. 340 West in the state of Virginia, after spending an hour at the safe house a few miles outside of Frederick, Maryland.

  It was one of the fifty ETSM locations presently in possession of the large equipment. The five leaders wanted to check on their progress, give the safe house manager $1M in cash for unanticipated expenditures, like they’d planned to do at most locations, and pray with everyone before shoving off to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

  Stop number one along the way was a brief visit at a new farm/safe house in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, situated ten miles south of Chadds Ford. The owners had first contacted the End Times Salvation Movement before safe house number one was ever established, but they never heard back from them.

  Everything changed when they started having dreams, shortly before America fell under attack. After being quickly vetted, it led to several “hazmat suit” meetings with Holmes and Hartings in the 21 days they were hunkered down in Chadds Ford.

  The numerous earthquakes Romanero had sent to combatant countries, countered by the subsequent explosions all throughout the Western Hemisphere, had caused a blockage of the sun in most places. This, in turn, led to extreme climate changes and widespread drought conditions, which wiped out crops and devastated the much-needed fall harvest in most countries.

  Revelation 6:5-6 was coming to life before their eyes: When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!’

  With prices steadily rising all across the board, and with fruits, grains and vegetables in short supply, most people were forced to grow crops in their homes, using hydroponic technology.

  What little grain, wheat and corn farmers had stored in silos from past harvests was extremely rationed. It was used mostly for baking bread and feeding farm animals.

  As it turned out, the Kennett Square farm was part of a vast network of Christian farmers. A deal was struck between them and the ETSM that would hopefully bless the organization for years to come.

  Due to Jefferson Danforth’s generosity in supplying the organization with things that surely would have drained all their resources, they had plenty of cash on hand to pay for farm deliveries. At least for now.

  As part of the agreement, the ETSM gave $10M up front to the severely cash strapped farm owners, so they could stay in business.

  In return, safehouses nationwide started receiving beef, chicken, milk, eggs, and what little grain, wheat and corn they could spare on a weekly basis. It was proportioned to how many residents occupied each property. This would be ongoing until supplies ran out, or the enemy discovered what was happening.

  The first delivery was received the day before big construction began at the 50 safe houses. It was like paying in advance for future deliveries.

  Ultimately, the ETSM agreed to send $100M to the Christian farmers, in $10M increments. The second payment was delivered early this morning.

  Lord willing, everything would go as planned…

  3

  BEFORE JOINING EVERYONE ELSE in the cafeteria chow line, Tom Dunleavey and Tamika Moseley went to check on Brian and Jacquelyn. Brian was one of the 40 assigned to non-construction wall duty with Tom and Tamika. Only he never reported for duty.

  Brian told his friends during morning prayer time that he would join them after Dr. Singh gave him his daily nebulizer breathing treatment.

  Tom and Tamika both knew Brian’s asthmatic condition had steadily worsened from ingesting too much dust, mold and mildew all throughout the property. It had gotten so
bad that he had difficulty breathing most days. He was never seen without his inhaler or surgical mask.

  Even so, he was still expected to join them. Only he never made it.

  Tamika was the first to walk through the front door leading to the main residence.

  A bleary-eyed Tom Dunleavey followed a few steps behind her.

  After five hours of rigorous work in the blazing heat, both were soaked with sweat. Even with the blockage of the sun, the feel-like temperature outside hit triple digits all week, with no end in sight.

  For October, it was 40 degrees above normal for this part of the country. The fact that temperatures had soared so high without sunshine the past few weeks, bordered on the bizarre. Even more bizarre was that bitterly cold temperatures were forecast for Chadds Ford next week, with lows that would average 60 degrees below normal for this time of year, representing an astounding 100-degree swing.

  Who knew what to expect the following week?

  But even without the oppressive temperatures, Tom Dunleavey never worked so hard in his life. Now 63, it made him realize just how pampered his life as a Catholic priest was before the Rapture, at least from a physical standpoint. He was tired, hungry, thirsty—to the point of dehydration—and in need of a bathroom break.

  And like Tamika, he needed a new surgical mask. Much like cigarette filters did with nicotine, the white masks dangling from their necks were stained a brownish gray color all the way through.

  Tom took one look at Brian and stopped dead in his tracks. He was seated on the living room couch with Jacquelyn looking completely devastated. It was evident both had been weeping.

  Whatever had kept him from reporting for duty, the former Catholic priest wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He removed a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped perspiration from his forehead. He was huffing and puffing considerably.

  In between breaths, he managed to ask, “What’s wrong, Brian?”