| Empty Graves Part Five: The Dead in Christ Will Rise First The dead had converged on the small town by the Hudson Bay what seemed a very long time ago, but in actuality they had not been there for any time whatsoever in comparison to what was to come. "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage each other with these words." Jake was not a Christian himself, and neither was Mary, but both their sets of parents were staunch followers of the word of God. As his mother sat in her chair in the corner of the darkened room, the shards of light that pierced the boards on the windows striking her face in the most inspiring manner, she read the passage from the New Testament, Thessalonians 4:13 - 5. Her voice was calm and collected, soft-spoken were the words of God to Jake's ears, but to him they meant nothing, a sense of emptiness almost. All these good words within the 'good book,' the book of God, and still outside, the mindless shuffles and moans of the dead could be heard from the barricades at the edge of town all the way to the center where Jake was, hiding in the darkness of his own home. His mother continued to speak the words from the New Testament and Jake couldn't stand it any longer, despite the beauty of his mother's voice, he could not stand another moment to listen to the empty words of God. Instead he wished to pursue his father who was busy upstairs, staring blankly out the window of Jake's bedroom onto the town ahead and below. Jake was cautious as he stepped inside the door, careful not to startle his father who gripping his hunting rifle tightly as the smell of death crept through the cracks in the wood around the window. "Dad, you okay?" he asked. Jake's father swung around sharply, the rifle suddenly pointing straight at Jake. As his father realised his sights were set on his own son, his own flesh and blood he was quick to pull the gun away and force it down to his side. "Jake, I didn't hear you come in. Where's your mother?" "She's just downstairs in the living room, she's reading," Jake replied. "I see," finished Jake's father, leaving an uncomfortable gap of silence. "How's it looking out there? Any idea of how many of those things are out there?" asked Jake as he stepped further into the room by a couple more steps. His father turned to face the window again, leaning towards the cold glass, which emanated a slight chill for an area no more than an inch from it. "I don't know son, but there are surely more of those things out there now. The boys on the watchtower have been pretty busy these past few hours it looks like. I haven't heard many gunshots from here, but I'd imagine they're trying to save their rounds for when it really counts." Jake stepped up to the window, standing now beside his father whose sense of warmth had been marred somewhat by recent events. He seemed colder now, not the same man Jake had once known. "I hope they don't start firing soon, I hope I never hear another shot. But I know that won't happen. I'll hear many more shots I'd imagine," replied Jake. "Don't worry son," said Jake's father as he stepped back a couple of inches from the cold glass, "I'm sure we'll all be just fine in here. I don't think those things out there have the strength to get past those barricades." And with those final words, Jake's father stepped out of the room and proceeded down the hallway towards the stairs, which he descended slowly and mournfully. Jake turned to look out of his bedroom door at the shadowy fa�ade of his father disappear from sight before he looked back out the window onto the empty streets of his hometown. What was once a busy little fishing town had now become a place where only death could be seen around every corner, around every twist and turn you took within the streets whenever you ventured out into the cold, piercing stale stench of the world as it stood now. Jake looked around the neighbourhood he had once known, walked in and grown up in. It was not the same now and it would never be the same again. He knew it. His eyes darted about the immediate landscape; up towards the hills he saw the figures of the undead shuffling towards the town, their dark and shadowy silhouettes flowing over the horizon, disappearing down into the sea of blackness, which were the hills. The hills of death as they were now. He slowly darted his eyes down through the landscape, scraping the tallest of the town's buildings and all the way down to the first floor of Mary's house, his focus centered on the window in which Mary suddenly appeared in a vision of hope for the future, but amidst the sudden chaos, it didn't matter much. The pair just stood there and stared at each other's eyes. Mary's eyes were cold and never looked like this before, they were the home of almost no soul at all it seemed, but she wasn't one of the dead yet, she was the walking precursors to her fate, the fate that every single person within this doomed town held onto unknowingly. Jake knew they were all going to die sooner or later, he was hoping for the latter however, and so he had to start thinking of a way to get the hell out of Fort Severn for good when the dead finally broke in. If they all didn't think soon of a way to get out they wouldn't think again, they would merely act on pure motorised instinct. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." Peter 1:3 - 9 |