The World of NightsEnd

The banned cities were an unfortunate necessity enacted to drag the general population into the civilized modern era. Of all the cities that were banned none was more tragic that San Jose. Social psychologists have debated for nearly fifty years what factors led to such an advanced city to resist the diffusion of its population. There are still no clear answers.

GPP Guardian August 2172

Another series of distant lights to her left told Esther she had intersected once again with the main GRAV-LEV tube leading from Eugene South to San Jose. The journey had been long, wet, and lonely for the young woman barely out of her teens. She was hardly prepared for the things she had already experienced in the last three months much less what still lay before her.

After leaving Devil’s Canyon, the last of the Watchers was surprised to find that Enoch had made elaborate preparations for her mission. It was obvious that the old man had known weeks if not months ahead of time there was need to prepare for this journey.

In a nearby cabin, she had been directed to by a fleeing learner, Esther found clothes, maps, food and detailed instructions concerning her journey to San Diego by the Sea. She was to follow the GRAV-LEV lines from Spokane to Eugene to just outside of San Jose. From there she was to cut across country to the coordinates programmed into the GPS that had been left for her at the cabin. When those coordinates were reached she was to wait. She would understand why once arriving there.

GRAV-LEV lines were an amazing invention in themselves. While the tubes that transported people and goods ran hundreds of feet below ground one always knew the path they took. An interesting by-product of the GRAV-LEV was static electricity; more properly direct current. Esther knew from the histories on World Net that Thomas Edison had championed DC power in the early days of public utilities. Problems with distance and production squashed that idea and Westinghouse won out with Alternating Current or AC power. GRAV-LEV at last vindicated Edison and ended long range power transmission.

Now, wherever a GRAV-LEV tube ran underground, there were power stations above that line every ten kilometers or so. As a result all planned communities derived their power from this nearly free source of energy.

It was just after dawn as Esther prepared to leave the safety of the distant lights and head across open country. Rounding a bend in the trail she looked again to her right and pulled her horse up short. Spread out before her was San Jose.

Its appearance startled her because there had been no lights from this city to reveal its location the night before. It also caused her pause because of its size. Cities weren’t this large anymore. Everyone knew that the mega-cities of the past century were a social failure and had been laid to rest long ago.

With no lights and the size it boasted San Jose could be only one thing. It was a banned city. Esther had heard of these but never seen one. Before the Great Purge the GPP began to split large cities into smaller more manageable units of one hundred thousand or less. Cities that refused these changes were dealt with in a most simple and yet effective way. They were simply cut off from the rest of the world. With GRAV-LEV as virtually the only means of transportation and the World Net as the only method of long distance communication the GPP controlled the lifeline of every city.

Apparently San Jose refused to comply and thus was banned. Esther trembled as she imagined what it must have been like for that once beautiful city. Banned cities had no contact with the outside world. Every citizen of that city had their identity erase from World Net. All essential services dried up over night. With no medical care, no fire protection, and no law enforcement, the end result was inevitable. The city rotted on the vine before turning to dust.

Esther said a silent prayer for the few inhabitants that hopefully had somehow survived there and then turned her horse away from the Pacific and toward Nevada. She pulled out the GPS and punched the on button. She didn’t know how Enoch had managed it but the device didn’t ask for the usual World Net thumb print ID. It just sprang to life and she followed it.

Four days later Esther knew she was nearing her destination. She dismounted and walked ahead of the Bay mare cautiously approaching the coordinates with GPS in hand. At last the little machine sounded a steady tone and she stopped. Directly in front of Esther and her horse was an old mining camp. By the looks of things it had been abandoned for many years. The few buildings still standing looked like they were held together by spider webs and old dreams.

Esther was tired and sore. With nothing else to do she bedded down for some much needed sleep. As she slept she dreamed of Enoch and the punch tube. Visions of Judson and the future mingled in her subconscious. Desperate pleas for God to deliver them all and send his Son to take them all away from this madness bounced off the inner walls of her sleeping mind.

And then she awoke with a start. A piercing pain shot through her ribs ramming the air right out of her lungs. Barely awake she grabbed for her side and felt another arm besides her own. She tried to jump but fell back in agony from the shot to her rib cage.

An unshaven man hovered above her grinning like he had just won the UF lottery. “Well, what do we have here?” He smelled as though he hadn’t bathed since before the Great Purge and looked as though had lived in the elements far too long.

Esther rose up to a sitting position and eyed the man knowing she could not allow herself the luxury of fear. “What did you do that for?”

The man roared with laughter and reached to the ground beside Esther. She flinched fearing the worst and the man laughed again. He stood erect holding something dangling from his gloved hand. It was a rattle snake at least five feet long.

“You need a better sleeping partner than that missy. Thought I would put him out of his misery so you could live to thank me for it.”

Esther stood up brushed herself off and tried to straighten her mangled hair with little success. Weeks on horseback by day and the cold hard ground by night had added to her already definite wilderness look. Another look at her benefactor reassured her he wasn’t going to notice.

The man pulled off his glove and stuck out a strong hand. “The names’ Elijah mam. I’ve been waiting here a long time for you to show up. Was starting to worry something had happened to you.”

“You mean you’re the one Enoch sent me to?”

“One in thesame Esther. Yes, I know who you are and where you are headed. It’s my job to make sure you get there.”

Esther rubbed her side and managed a civil smile. “Did you and Enoch know each other?”

The hardness of the man’s face softened a bit. He took of his hat and sat down on a stump beside Esther. “You speak in the past tense. I take it from your wording that Enoch is with the Lord now.”

Esther nodded, a bit ashamed of the way she had judged the man by his appearance and smell. But, even as she pondered that thought her nose crinkled as the wind shifted from Elijah’s way.

One look her way evaporated the man’s momentary sorrow. He laughed again and stood back up heading toward the one building that looked like it might be safe to enter. “Missy Esther,” he roared without even looking back, “you may not realize it but you don’t look or smell so good yourself. Why you’re ranker than a skunk ten days dead.” He pointed to a shed across the way and told her she could find a much needed bath and fresh clothes inside.

An hour later the two sat down to eat a meal made of some kind of unidentifiable meat cooked in a stew with root vegetables. It was the best meal Esther had eaten in a very long time. She didn’t ruin it by asking what Elijah had done with the snake.

As they talked into the afternoon and early evening Elijah brought Esther up to speed on what was going on in the outside world. To her surprise she learned that Elijah and Enoch had served in the same TruePath assembly together near old Dallas.

“Yes mam, I was a Keeper believe it or not. I was as satisfied a man as there could be. And then I met Enoch. I knew he was a Watcher and that was OK by me. I just knew I liked him.”

Elijah grew quiet examining a piece of potato floating in his stew. He moved it around with his spoon and breathed deeply. “Esther, I was a good Keeper and I firmly believed True Path held the one true faith. But then Enoch began to pass along to me fragments of the old Scripture. The words were powerful … alive. They weren’t watered down like the new stuff. I began to realize that what we called Scripture was Keeper tradition and what we called faith was just the status quo. So I protested. I begged the other Keepers to read the words of the old Scripture but they refused. They wanted nothing that would upset their position with the people or endanger them with the GPP.”

Elijah talked on for an hour. Esther could see that he must have spent a lot of time alone in the last few years and needed someone to tell his story to. So she listened and she learned. When he finished the young woman rubbed her forehead as though so much information had made her head hurt. “Elijah?”

“Yea?”

“How did it happen? I mean how did we get so far away from the Old Scriptures?”

Elijah stood and stretched. He let out a big yawn, covering it with his massive hand. “I don’t know that I can answer that completely. All I know for sure is that we gave in to the world. We quit doing it God’s way and did it their way. By the time the United Federation was cementing its control over the world what called itself the church didn’t have a leg left to sand on. There was no fight. It was over before it started.”

Esther joined her new friend’s yawn. He smiled walked toward the door. Let’s get some sleep. We have a long haul to San Diego by the Sea.”

The following morning the two new friends mounted their horses with two pack mules in tow. The days that followed proved why Enoch had chosen Elijah. He knew the land and he knew the truth. There was no terrain and no situation that the man was not prepared for. Along the way Esther realized she would have never fulfilled her mission without him.

Almost four months after Esther last saw Enoch at Devil’s Canyon she and Elijah came within sight of old Los Angeles. Their trip was nearly over. Like San Jose, Old Los Angeles was also a banned city. The once sprawling mega city of twenty million people had been reduced to a loose alliance of less that two hundred thousand souls spread over one hundred miles.

Elijah had them skirt the city as much as possible. But there was one point where coming near to the south end of the city was necessary. They rode only at night, avoiding any contact with other people and hopefully trouble. But, trouble has a way of hunting one down at times. The couple was not to be exempt.

Early on their third morning, as they neared the southern end of the city, trouble came calling. At first sun they broke camp and prepared to mount their horses. Elijah’s stallion threw its head up and refused the bit. Before either he or Esther could react, three men and a woman came bursting out of the brush. They looked more like wild animals than people with their filth covered clothes and sunken faces.

One of the men brandished an ancient fire arm held together by rust and good luck. Without saying a word he raised the barrel toward Esther and started to squeeze the trigger. Elijah leaned to his left and dove to push Esther out of the way. He managed to push her out of the projectile’s path. He did not, however, manage to miss being hit himself. Elijah fell to the dust clutching his shoulder as the Esther rushed to cover him.

The woman screamed at the man with the gun. “What did you do that for? We could have asked them some things first.”

Dropping his gun, the man just shrugged and shuffled over to where Elijah lay bleeding. Esther knelt over him. For the second time she might lose someone dedicated to protecting her.

Elijah looked up into Esther’s blue eyes and smiled weakly. “It’s alright missy. Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for a friend. That’s from the old Scriptures; the true Scriptures.”

Esther nodded as she fought back the tears.

The woman who had reprimanded the gunmen walked up beside Elijah and addressed Esther. “Did he just say something about the old Scriptures?”

Esther nodded, a mixture of fear and defiance in her eyes.

One of the other men slapped the gunmen on the side of his head so hard that he fell over. “You idiot, you done went and shot a Christ Follower.”

The whole group in unison now rushed to Elijah’s side seeing if they could help him in any way. As it turned out the bullet had passed through the small of his arm leaving a fairly clean exit wound. With a little care and a lot of pain he would be alright.

After a strained stand off the wild people and Esther and Elijah sat down to a warm meal made of provisions from the pack mules. Somehow the mention of the Old Scriptures had changed everything.

Mary, the woman of the group, then told their story. They were all children of the banned city of Los Angeles. There wasn’t a time they could remember much about their parents or life before wandering together in the hills around the city. It was unclear how they had even managed to survive. Much of their story, they admitted was pieced together from older one had told them.

Mary told the story with the passion of an actor at center stage. “When the GRAV-LEV was cut off and there was no more World Net to communicate with the outside world the city went crazy. It was like an animal eating its own leg off to get out of a trap. Nobody was safe. Gangs and such roamed the streets taking whatever they wanted and …” She paused a moment, looked down at the ground and added, “whoever they wanted.”

Regaining her composure, the filthy woman returned to her story with a renewed vigor. “Within months the sicknesses took over. The water was no good and city sewage no longer worked. Garbage piled up to small hills along every street. And then it got worse.”

Between Mary’s words and their own knowledge of history, Esther and Elijah pieced together the rest of the story. Avian Flu, long feared but now realized, broke out in full force. What drugs there were found their way into the hands of gangs. Good people died by the hundreds and then the thousands. There was no hope left and everyone that could fled the city. They took whatever they could and made their way into the farm country outside of LA.

Only the old, orphans and the infirm were left behind. They had nothing to take anymore so the gangs left them alone. Within a year the gangs turned in on themselves and most of them tried to get away as well. What was left was a giant cess-pool of disease, hunger and hopelessness.

The woman stopped her narration for a moment. A tear tracking down her dirty face forged a channel of mud across her sunken cheeks. “And then they came.” Her words were in a hushed almost reverential tone.

“Who came?” asked Elijah.

“The Christ Followers. Some were already there but most came back from the hills. They brought food and water in whatever they could find. I don’t understand why they did it but they stayed where they didn’t have to be and died right along beside us. They ate less than we did, caught our sicknesses while taking care of us, and told us about the Old Scriptures.”

One of the men chimed in, “Yeah, if we had known you was Christ Followers we would never have hurt you.”

Esther couldn’t resist a slight reproof. “If you were a Christ Follower you would know to hurt no one, Christ Follower or not.”

The quartet hung their heads like scolded children. Esther realized her mistake. How could she ask these people to live right when the civilized world had acted far worse?

Elijah asked the group if they were be Christ Followers.

“We ain’t good enough for that,” replied the gunmen.

“Neither or we,” smiled Esther, “that’s what makes it so wonderful.”

And so Elijah and Esther told the little band how to become Christ Followers. With each word they shared recognition brightened in the eyes of those listening. Their faces were still dirty but it was obvious their hearts were not.

The following morning Esther asked the group if they would accompany her and Elijah to San Diego by the Sea.

“No,” answered Mary, “I think we should stay here. There’s a lot more people like us who need to hear what you told us last night.” Mary reached in her pocket and pulled out a small piece of jewelry. It was a small wooden cross on a leather strap.”Here, wear this around your neck and anyone who meets you will know you are a Christ Follower. Ain’t a person in these parts that will hurt you if they know that.”

Mary held out the cross looking at it all time. “It’s the only thing of our mother’s we have. I’ve worn it since I could barely walk. Take it with you so I can know my life has meant something.”

Esther took the cross clasping Mary’s hand at the same time. She looked into the woman’s eyes and saw life where there had been death. Faith where there had been despair.

Mary smiled and pulled her empty hand back. “Maranatha. That’s what the Christ Followers always used to say. It means ‘even so Lord come.’”

Esther smiled back. “Yes Mary, Maranatha. Tell everyone you meet that someone is coming to bring the Old Scriptures back to our land; all of them.”

“Will he get rid of that blasted UF for us?” asked one of the men.

“I don’t know about that. But I do know that what he brings will get rid of the hopelessness and fear of all who embrace it in their hearts.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Mary.

Elijah gingerly stood and mounted his horse with help. “That’s good enough for all true Christ Followers. Maranatha.”

Esther and Elijah rode away from the banned city of Los Angeles burdened by what they had seen. But they also rejoiced that behind them stood four new Christ Followers ready to turn their world right side up.

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NightFall: Second Revision July 2008

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