“What did Zedekiah say?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “Exactly what I expected him to say.”
“So, it’s a no.”
“An emphatic no.”
“Did he give an explanation?”
“He said he has faith in the walls.”
Ben looked around the bunker. It was one of the few times in all the years Jeremiah had known him that he had seen him worry so much.
“He’s going to get us all killed.”
“God is with you. There’s nothing to fear.”
“I don’t mean me. Or the people in here.”
In his mind, Jeremiah saw the street where he used to live. The woman on the corner stared back at him with hollow, empty eyes. Her body leaned against a torn fence. Teeth and jaw lay exposed in a devilish grin, the handiwork of a pack of wild dogs happy to find a meal. Her skirt, the one she wore as she leaned into the windows of stopped cars, rose above her waist, revealing a pair of stumps extending a few inches from the treasure she used to give away so freely. One foot remained not too far from the fence. The rest of her lower body was long removed, her bones a dog’s plaything or ground into a vile broth in a desperate attempt to sustain life.
“They made their choice a long time ago.”
Ben turned towards Jeremiah. “It doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Yeah.”
Dull thuds echoed inside the bunker, a distant destruction yet just outside their door. Every so often, the overheads lights would flicker as the bombs landed close to the generator.
“How long has it been?” Jeremiah asked.
“Eighteen months, give or take.”
“Seems like longer.”
Ben stood with his arms across his chest, unable or unwilling to sit down for even a moment. Around him, computer monitors flashed images from different vantage points in and around the city. The hull of a tank with flames shooting out of the turret. A hundred or so more with their barrels fixed on the walls. Planes screaming through the skies in a last-ditch attempt to turn the enemy back. A deep breath crawled back out.
“I’m surprised we lasted this long,” Ben said. “I guess this speaks to God’s mercy.”
He paused as though he had something more to say. Jeremiah waited until he was ready.
“He could have finished this long ago,” Ben said. “It’s not like any of us deserve a second chance. Or a third or a fourth for that matter.” His eyes shifted to Jeremiah. “That’s what I figure anyway. He keeps waiting for us to repent, to turn back to him. Even after all we’ve done. He still wants us. This.” He waved his hand at the displays. “This is what we’ve asked for. Demanded. Yet we blame him. He told us what would happen and we didn’t listen. It’s not punishment when you think about it. It’s simply the way things are when you turn your back on him.” The words stuck in his throat. “Do you … do you think there’s still a chance he would forgive us?”
“As long as we’re breathing,” Jeremiah said, “we have a chance.”
“And our nation?”
Jeremiah raised his eyes. “You know the answer to that.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
“Come on and have a seat.” Jeremiah tapped the ground next to him.
“I’ve got to do something.”
“What?”
Ben searched for hope along the side of the room as though it had faded into the gray paint of the bunker walls. “Maybe if I try one more time.”
“He won’t listen. Not even to you.”
“What do I do, then?”
Jeremiah tapped beside him again. “Come on, old friend.”
The large man lowered himself to the ground. His knees groaned their disapproval.
“I guess age is finally catching up to me,” Ben said.
“You still look great.”
“Looks can be deceiving. My last checkup … when was that … March last year, if I remember correctly … the doctor told me I had arthritis.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I thought I had overexerted myself at one of those press conferences,” Ben said.
Jeremiah let out a laugh.
“I’m not kidding. I was standing in the background and twisted too quickly. My knee went one way, and my thigh went the other. Two months later, I’m at the doctor’s. That’s how long it took for Victoria to convince me to go. Surreal, isn’t it? All this chaos going on and I take the time to visit the doctor.”
The electrical blast, that jolt of jealousy which for some many years had traveled down the length of his chest every time he heard Ben mention Victoria, no longer made an appearance. The choice had been made for him long ago.
“How’s Ged holding up?”
“Well enough, all things considered.”
“You raised a good man,” Jeremiah said.
“Thanks. I appreciate that. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, though.”
“You can see how he turned out. You did the right thing.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Ben said. “I mean, should we have brought him into the world in the first place? You know how hard Victoria and I tried, how many years. All the prayers and tears. Maybe, we should’ve given up. Maybe, it was God telling us no, but we were too stubborn to listen. And this is our payment, our judgment.”
“Don’t look at it like that. His life is a blessing. It always has been.”
“Then, why?”
Jeremiah tapped Ben’s knee and looked off towards an explosion on the screen. “Hey. You remember graduation?”
“One of the happiest days of my life.”
“I never thought I was going to make it.”
“You took it on the chin that last semester. Literally, if I remember correctly.”
“If it wasn’t for you watching my back, I probably wouldn’t be around.”
“You did have a way of getting under people’s skin,” Ben said. “Still do. In a good way in my book.”
“I thought Immerson was going to kick me out at the end of fall semester.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Honestly, I have no idea.”
“I thought God told you things.”
“Only what he wants me to know.”
“I’ve always wondered how that works,” Ben said. “Do you hear his voice? Is there a burning bush type thing?”
“Funny. Your wife asked me something similar a long time ago.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Same thing I’ve told you the other hundred times you’ve asked.”
Ben smiled. “I guess I have asked before. Doesn’t mean your answer was satisfying.”
“You want to hear the answer again?”
“No need,” he said.
Another bomb shook the bunker. The patter of scattered dirt hitting the nearly exposed shelter gave the impression that a brief but violent rainstorm passed overhead. Jeremiah flinched without realizing it. Ben sat as still as if he were in a stream casting for a brown trout, the percussive wave nothing more than a ripple splashing his waders. The odor of charred wood and charred flesh wafted through the ventilation system. Jeremiah pulled the collar over his nose.
“How do you get used to that?” he asked.
“The smell?”
“The smell. The sounds. Everything.”
“I don’t know. It’s been a long time since they bothered me.”
Jeremiah brushed some dust off his pants. “That’s one of your many qualities I’ve always admired. Your calm under pressure. How nothing ever rattles you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Not by a long shot.”
“Then, there’s that irritating modesty of yours.”
Ben couldn’t hold the laughter, the lion’s roar, from spilling out. “You have a strange notion of who I am.”
“Really? Name one time you’ve been flustered or scared or the least bit worried by anything.”
“I could name ten off the top of my head.”
“Go ahead,” Jeremiah said.
“My first combat mission,” Ben said.
Jeremiah poked out his lips. “I’ll assume you’re telling the truth. I wasn’t around to see it, of course. Although as I imagine it, you were the first over the hill running towards a machine gun nest while your platoon followed its beloved leader to glory and victory.”
“Close,” Ben said, “yet so far off.”
“You got any other examples?”
“The day I asked Victoria to marry me. I went through five t-shirts before I got to her place. Big sweat rings under the arms. Back and waist soaked like I had stepped out of the shower and forgot to dry off. Stopped at least five times at gas stations to pee, too. Probably more. I lost count. And she lived less than a hundred miles away at the time. Thought I was going to die.”
“That day turned out well, though.”
“Not as well as you might think. She said no.”
Jeremiah furrowed his brows. “You never told me that.”
“It’s not something I like to bring up.”
“Why’d she do that?”
“She never mentioned why, nor did I ask. I was under the impression she was waiting for someone else. When she finally got tired of waiting, she told me yes. That was six months later.”
“Did you figure out who she was waiting for?” Jeremiah asked.
“As if you didn’t know.” He paused. “Thanks, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For making the worst decision of your life.”
A shout rang out from a side room. Ben turned in time to see a tank explode into an orange fireball. A dark figure ringed in flames poured out of the tank and flopped over the side. Hands rose to cover a waxy face as it melted onto the ground. The first time he saw a man burn alive, the sight carved a hole in his stomach. By the tenth, it had become routine.
Jeremiah blinked twice and looked away. “One of ours or one of theirs?” he asked.
Ben squinted. “Theirs.”
“That’ll encourage Zed to keep fighting. Unfortunately.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have told him his outcome.”
“It wasn’t a certainty,” Jeremiah said. “Just the result of choosing option B.”
“Is it really going to happen like that?”
The blade came out. President Zedekiah’s face froze in horror. Jeremiah shut his eyes and tried to remove the vision.
“Why don’t we get back to you?” Jeremiah said, anxious to change the subject. “You’ve only listed two things. You’ve got eight more to go.”
Ben held out a finger. “There’s the day I retired from the military. I had no idea what I was going to do, where I was going to go. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a direction. Three months of wandering around the house in my skivvies before Victoria gave me an ultimatum. Find a job. Or at least put on some pants.”
Jeremiah smiled. “Kind of like graduation, huh?”
“Yeah. Kind of like that.”