farmhouse until we build our own church and school and homes for each of our families. Meanwhile, through our honest toil, we can be close to God’s earth while we get even closer to God.”
“Amen, Rev. Harve!” his wife had shouted. Suddenly trancelike, “Oh, praise the Lord! I’m getting me another vision, I am. Halleluia! Speak, Lord, your servant heareth!”
A few seconds later she declared matter-of-factly, while picking her teeth, “Okay, God says He knows we’re all students and don’t have much. But if we sell our cars and everything else we have, borrow money from our folks, max out our credit cards, and then pool all our cash together the way the early Christians did, we should be able to come up with a down payment. That is, if we have faith. And not having faith is a sin!”
Calling back to California that afternoon, Josh had rhapsodized, “Oh, Melinda, darling, it’s the most beautiful farm you’ve ever seen! Perfect for us all to live, work, and study God’s Word together like a real family of love.”
She almost choked. “A farm? Are you crazy? You guys said you were looking for a small town to move to that would be safe, one with plenty of jobs. I mean, none of us have farmed before. Why, you don’t know a rake from a raccoon! “
“Of course, darling, don’t you see?” he countered in awe. “Harve says this proves that this is indeed God’s leading, not man’s. By overcoming our own obvious shortcomings, God’s power will be magnified, and He will receive all the glory. So we can’t help but prosper!”
When Melinda did finally move there, with much reluctance, she fell in love with the place, just as her husband had. With little money or farming know-how to see them through, life was soon even harder than she feared—especially that first bitterly cold winter, with constant ice and snow storms, for which none of these “sunny Southern California” natives were prepared. Yet because the Disciples believed in what they were doing, and trusted Harve’s leadership, and—most of all—loved God, they gave their all for that old farm.
Even when they no longer believed.
Even when Harve no longer led, but controlled.
Even when the green, welcoming farm became their gray prison-fortress.
The tall, friendly trees had long since been chopped down for wood. The flower gardens converted to dusty parking lots. The wide porch littered with greasy power tools. The front yard piled with sawdust, lumber scraps, rusted metal, old tires, and leftover cement. The creek turned into a cesspool of sewage. The farmhouse itself, now more tumbledown than ever, used only for storage, while two unheated barracks housed the Unanointed Disciples, segregated by sex. Those never-built “homes for each of the families,” just another one of Harve’s empty promises.
Now, nursing a quickly-swelling lip, Melinda said a quick prayer for her husband, “Brother Shimron,” and her son, “Brother Meshach.” And worried anew at Josh’s cryptic words whispered when he passed her this morning: “It’s time. Now.”
No, her heart had cried out. Too dangerous!
For only she knew he meant that after all those years of wanting to believe in his old friend Harve despite increasingly ominous changes, of trying desperately to hold onto his dream of a “real family” of believers, Josh was finally ready to take his own little family and leave. Maybe he even had finally developed a plan to attempt it—however impossible.
B-r-r-r-K! B-r-r-r-K!
That same anguished mockingbird she heard earlier now landed on the fence right beside her, pleading for help. No, no, bird! There’s nothing but death here! Fly away quickly before—
But Gabriel had noticed it also. Still smarting from missing it earlier—nothing dared interfere with his will, man or beast!—he whipped out his gun.
And, with a mean smile, fired again.
Chapter Three
But in a blur of wings, the mockingbird soared high overhead. He’d missed once more.
Turning the air blue with curses, “Move, woman. You’re wasting the Prophet’s time. And mine.” He grabbed her arm so tightly she almost collapsed.
Instead, praying for strength, she followed him on to the most massive of the commune buildings: the bleak concrete Tower of Sanctuary. At all times, two well-armed, well-paid men wearing, like the Messenger, the uniform of the Prophet’s elite Right Hands of Power, lounged on stained plastic lawn chairs under a canvas overhang outside its thick steel doors. Chain-smoking, tobacco-chewing, gulping beer, and trading yarns, they acted more like “good old boys” than formidable guards. But Melinda knew their trigger responses were lightning-fast. As were their pair of snarling pit bulls.
This graceless building—resembling a misbegotten grain elevator—housed the Disciples’ Teaching Tabernacle; the Altar; the dread Catacombs, including the Places of Inquiry, Repentance, and Judgment; and the Ark of Holiness—the Prophet’s super-secret living quarters.
Satellite dishes and various antennae and cameras sprouted from the Tower roof, along with a tattered American flag. Just below them, a small room on the top floor held an increasingly-sophisticated arsenal of computers, GPS, closed-circuit TV systems, and other hi-tech surveillance equipment. Plus piles of guns and ammo. Even though Josh was systems manager, in charge of keeping everything electronic running or else, he was never permitted to work there (even on his own computer) without a guard right beside him. And a gun pointed straight at his head.
“Yo, Gabe!” the guards shouted as the Messenger approached. Tossing him a cold beer, “Whassup, bud?”
They had gifts for Melinda, as well: two well-aimed spurts of tobacco juice. And shrill laughs.
As she tried to wipe her face with her scarf, Gabriel ordered, “Inside, woman. And keep your silence. This is holy ground.” Then he pushed her into a dark, narrow hallway with slime-covered walls. Oh, dear God, what will become of me? Will I never see my loved ones again?
Up to now, Melinda had only been allowed in the Teaching area of this fortress—though often enough to know every dreary inch of it by heart. For each and every night, following their cold, spare Evening Prayer Feast in the spartan Providence Pavilion, all the Disciples—men, women, and children—had to assemble in the Tabernacle for the Prophet’s messages.
Long ago, those nightly meetings had been delightful hour-long “Family Devotional Times,” with the adults poring over their own Bibles and discussing Scripture together, while special activities were provided for the children. Sometimes with a delicious dessert afterward. But as both the number of commune members and Harve’s own personal power increased, the Disciples’ Bibles were taken away, and only the Prophet permitted to speak. Forced to sit cross-legged on the concrete floor before him for four or five hours at a time, after long days of labor, his listeners—even little ones—were forbidden to doze or make any sound except “Amen,” or “As God wills.”
Or clap at the Prophet’s tuneless songs and laugh at his jokes.
Pictures of the Anointed Prophet and Exalted Prophetess and crudely-printed posters of their stern admonitions
