The Fall and Rise of Peter -- Another Story About the End Times (Part III)

Part III

The next few months in Peter’s life were both horrific and spectacular. As he, with the rest of the world, watched the Earth turn on itself, chaos reining through the streets – rape, murder, and theft prevalent, nobody safe, everybody afraid – and great natural disasters killing millions of people, Peter also discovered that he was a natural leader of men. And he liked it. He liked leading raids on the criminals and sinners. It gave him pleasure to watch the Godless squirm with fear at the mere sight of the Strike Force’s approach, at the inevitable wrath of God coming to bring justice and goodness to this small part of the world. The sins of his past still hung over him like the blade of a guillotine, but rather than live his life in shame, he was driven by resolve to do right by the Lord God.

One night Peter and the Strike Force happened upon an innocent women being raped by two hooligans. Sneaking up behind the attackers, Peter drew his knife and sliced the knee tendons of one, while the Strike Force captured the other, binding the man’s legs and arms with duct tape. As the injured sinner lay writhing on the ground, clutching his leg and moaning, Peter turned to the other. “Repent! Accept the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart, and be forgiven of your crimes.” But the man just laughed. Peter, though, didn’t mind for he knew with a few minutes of pain he could make the man see the light. Pain had a way of opening peoples’ minds to the message of the Lord. It was as though the suffering drained all the evil out of sinners and made their minds a souls a blank, innocent slate, like a newborn’s. So he ripped open the man’s shirt and began carving a cross into his chest. Of the over fifty men he’d performed this procedure on before, only one refused to accept Jesus. The rest now wore their scar proudly, a permanent reminder of the power of God.

The man, though, didn’t even scream. He only continued his laughter. Finally he allowed, “You can’t hurt me. I am one with the true ruler of the Universe, Dimitriadas, also known as the Antichrist, also known as Satan! And I’ve tasted your wife, Peter. Jez begged me to never stop.” With that he smiled.

Peter’s calm vanished. “Liar!” he screamed. He then pulled a pair of pliers from his belt. Ripping teeth from the man’s mouth, he pushed two of them into the man’s eye sockets. And the man still did not scream, but only began talking in what sounded like gibberish but what the Strike Force knew was a prayer to Satan. Never had they battled such pure evil.

And Peter’s mind seemed to be collapsing from the weight of it all. “No, not Jez,” he mumbled. “Not Jez. Please God, do not let it be true. My whole heart is yours, my whole heart is yours, my whole heart is yours,” and he collapsed into a pile on the ground and just rocked and rocked himself.

One of his men finally tried to comfort Peter. “The man is a liar, Peter. A liar. Jez would never do such a thing.” But something deep within Peter knew it was true. Women could not be trusted. It was their nature to betray man, to betray God. Just as Eve tempted Adam to disobey the command of God, Jez had led Peter astray and broken his heart. Nothing could fix it, nothing. Peter could feel Jesus calling to him, “I love you Peter, I love you. Do not worry; you are one of my children. Heaven awaits. Heaven,” but not even the soothing words of the Lord made him feel better. All he could think about were the things he could have done to prevent Jez from becoming such a whore. If only he forbade her reading, her watching television. When she argued, he should have silenced her. If only, if only…

Suddenly, the man whose knee tendons Peter had severed stood up, apparently healed of his affliction. The Strike Force noticed that there was a mark, a cross on the man’s forehead that had not been there before. He walked over to Peter and, kneeling down, touched him on the shoulder. “Peter,” he said, “you made me see the light. You. You are truly a child of God, Peter. Do not despair. Yours is a blessed life, meant to be spent in the arms of the Lord, basking in His glory. The pain you feel is only temporary, only a worldly pain. In Heaven you will be in an eternity of rapture. Jez will not even have existed.”

And Peter started to come back to himself. His convert had away about him. Just his touch made Peter feel better, and the man’s words were like God Himself standing before the distraught Peter, consoling him. And Peter rose to his feet. “It’s time to roll out,” he commanded his men…
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Peter stormed into the house he shared with Jez. She was in the kitchen, hovering over the microwave trying to make dinner. Hearing the door slam behind him, Jez turned and smiled, unaware that he knew of her crimes. And Peter strode up to her clinching his fists; and seeing his face, Jez knew something was wrong, she even knew that it was her secret, her passion for a man she only knew as Perez, that seemed to have Peter possessed by the Devil. What she did not expect was the kick Peter delivered to her face, for he had always been such a gentle man. In fact, it was what she loved most about their marriage, that he was so loving and soft, for it allowed her to manipulate him and have her way.

Peter picked Jez up off the floor by the throat and slammed her on top of the stove. His eyes were wild and crazy, like a dog’s with rabies, and he stared at her with the look of a killer. Jez couldn’t breathe and she struggled and struggled, only finally able to bring some sense of calm to herself by remembering her few passionate rendezvous with Perez and the way he touched her. It was rough – not as rough as the way Peter now strangled her – but rough nonetheless… and dirty and sinful; and she loved every minute, every second of it; and she could barely contain her incredible need to moan and scream with pleasure at a mere caress from Perez’s hands.

Even in his possessed state, Peter’s love for Jez could be reached by her touch. And Jez, in a sudden fit of corrupt genius recognized this, reaching out and slipping her hands down his pants. She stroked him until he let go of her neck; and bringing her face up to his, she whispered, “Peter, I’m pregnant” and kissed him violently, hoping it would pass for passion. And it did, and Peter kissed her back, not forgiving her, not even really recognizing her, as his mind, already fragile from a broken heart, succumbed to pure desire, to pure evil that only women know to manipulate.

But Jez, despite her deep connection to the ways of Satan, did not contemplate the love Jesus had for Peter. Peter continued to kiss her, to touch and grope her, but all the while Jesus was whispering in his ear. “Don’t do this, Peter. Don’t. She will lead you down a path from which you can never come back.” And finally the message began to get though, until, finally, Peter quickly turned on one of the stove burners and put Jez’s hand on it. He held it there as she screamed, gathering his thoughts. After a few seconds, he said only “The Elders will know what to do with you” and dragged her out the door by her hair.
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A month passed, and it was time for Jez’s punishment to be carried out. The Elders, after several emotional hours questioning Peter, finding out what he wanted and what would be best for both the town and him, decided the townspeople would shoot Jez with rubber bullets and send her off to the shantytown that had recently been built to house the sinners. Once the baby was born, it was to be taken from her and given to Peter to bring up in Christ, away from the scheming and manipulative Jez.

So Jez was led out to the town square in chains and tied to a poll; and seeing her sad figure, people began to boo and hiss, slowly forming a circle around the poll. As Peter walked through the crowd toward his wife, some began to pat him on the back, deeply sorry for the shame and sin that had visited his life. Everyone loved Peter, and nobody really blamed him; but most by now had heard his story about the sinful origins of the relationship, about how it was because of Jez that Peter was denied the Rapture, that he embraced desire and pleasure over love of God and the truth of the Bible; and knowing this, all knew his love for Jez was cursed.

Peter was the first to shoot Jez. Stoically, he raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into her nose, crushing it, and Jez twisted on the poll, moaning. And the rest of the townspeople followed Peter’s lead, reigning down rubber bullets upon the woman until the moaning stopped. Peter stood and watched it all, still showing no emotion; and when he turned and again walked through the crowd, intending to go back home, the crowd slowly followed.
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When Jez awoke, she found herself in a shack – her new home. The walls had no paint, no wallpaper, and the floor was dirt. Only a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. In one corner there was a stove and in another a dresser. It was the saddest site she had ever seen, and it was now her life; but she was not repentant or regretful; she did not curse herself or wish she could go back in time and make things right, truly embracing the light of Jesus Christ and accepting her life with Peter and his dominion over her. No; instead she let herself be taken by rage and desire – desire for revenge; and she stood up out of bed and began pounding on her stomach, intent on forcing the fetus insider of her out so it could suffocate without the nourishment from her womb. That would teach Peter.

And after a few minutes, the contractions began, and Jez could feel her body rejecting her premature baby. She began to bleed and feel faint; she felt a stabbing pain; she needed to lie down. And she did. And she lay there, pushing and pushing, pushing the baby out of her. At only two or three months it would surely be born dead, and she would be happy to be rid of it. God was not worthy of any duty. She would not have children that would grow up to worship Him. All children should be suffocated, she thought to herself.

As soon as the baby was delivered and she felt strong enough to move, Jez sat up and stared at the tiny bloody baby laying in her bed. It was covered in blood and placenta and did not move. She gathered up her child and began rocking it, suddenly hoping that she might feel something, some love for the fetus, for her baby; but she felt nothing, not even a twinge of sadness or regret. No, after a few seconds, she only wanted it out of her site, to forget about it, to forget that she was ever pregnant or married or was ever loved by a man, by anyone at all. So she took her child outside and tossed it in the garbage.

When the door closed behind Jez, the baby’s eyes opened. It yawned and stretched itself. The placenta and blood hanging off its tiny figure made it uncomfortable, as though it were being suffocated, and it began tearing at it with its miniature fingers. After a few moments, it turned itself over onto its stomach and tried crawling. At first it was tough going, but within a minute or two it got the hang of it and began crawling around in small circles, trying to take in the surrounding scenery. Finally noticing the entrance to a sewer, the baby began crawling towards it, not even recognizing where it might lead to, but somehow drawn to it.

On its way, the fetus was suddenly overcome by both an immense sadness and a profound sense of good, all at the same time. It was as though the weight of the world, all the sin and filth and suffering, were put on its shoulders while the strength and glory of God propped it up like Atlas and the Earth. And reaching the mouth of the sewer, the fetus continued crawling until the force of gravity pulled it down to the depths.

Laying on the ground, the baby was greeted by the sniffing of a rat. Suddenly, the tiny little eyes of another fetus were peering down at him. Then another. And another. And another, until the fetus was surrounded by other fetuses. And then one of the aborted spoke. “Welcome. We are the Tribulation Saints, and you are our leader.”