White Wasteland, Jeff Kirkham [ebook reader with highlight function TXT] 📗

stop them. Somehow, their first and best line of defense had gone limp in the face of a mob.

He switched channels on his radio and spoke again. “This is Homestead Actual. All barricade guards return to barricade duty immediately.” Confirmation of his orders rolled in from his defensive commanders. While he worked the radio, Nurse James disinfected the cuts and ragged bits of flesh that he’d just added to his collection of scars.

“You’re good to go, Mister Jeff.” Alena popped her stethoscope back around her neck and helped Jeff to his feet. She rewarded him with a wane smile. “Promise me you’ll head to the infirmary tonight after they’re done with surgery. You need that cut on your hand glued shut and I’d like to look at that gash on your dome in better light.”

“What did you call me?”

“Mister Jeff? Isn’t that what the guys from your old command call you? The Afghan guys?”

Jeff nodded. “I’ll come by later. As always, thank you, Nurse James.”

“I assume you’re responsible for a few of these corpses?” Alena looked sideways at him.

He looked down at the last man he had stabbed through the ear, dead in the dirty snow.

“A few.”

Alena shook her head, true grief in her eyes. She turned and walked up the driveway toward the infirmary.

“This world of yours sucks,” she said over her shoulder.

Jeff looked around, wobbled a little, and focused on figuring out where his family might be. As he passed the dead bodies strewn across the stone deck of the pool courtyard, he remembered his dream.

It felt like it mattered—without any of the fogginess usually associated with dreams.

…the brother of my brothers?

Then Jeff saw Tara and the boys through the french glass, running toward him down the main arcade inside the big house. He flung the door open and scooped up two of the boys, one in each arm. He knelt down and gathered the smallest into a four-man hug. Tara put her hand on his shaved head and rubbed it like a faithful pet. He looked up. A tear glinted in the corner of her eye.

All thoughts of battlefields and norsemen vanished in the warm halo of his family.

Residence of President Richard D. Thayer

Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Orchard Heights, Salt Lake City, Utah

The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; prophet, seer and revelator, stood on his back porch and watched the attack on the Ross Homestead from over a mile away, thinking that if the violence came for him, at least it would end his personal guilt.

The pop-pop-pop of gunfire in the distance slowed and then stopped. He looked for signs that the battle had overflowed the compound. The violence would likely roll down into their unprotected neighborhood. Maybe it would reach his home. Maybe an atonement in blood would be the best way for him to set aside the mantle of prophet and clear the way to another man.

He’d dropped the thread between he and the Lord—the connection that guided him since he was a child. He’d always been able to feel God’s holy spirit, dwelling in his heart and guiding him as he made life decisions. He’d considered it a special gift, like the fingerprint of God on his soul.

But a damp silence had come between he and the Lord, accompanied by a a scratching, gnawing infestation of guilt. President Thayer confessed to himself for the thousandth time that he’d brought this upon himself.

The Lord continued to be faithful. Richard Thayer had been the one to break the covenant, not God. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, Richard had been tempted by the apple. In his case, it had been a Chile Con Carne Meal Ready to Eat.

When the old world fell apart, President Thayer had been Elder Thayer, the youngest member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. They were the twelve men, plus the three men of the Presidency of the Mormon Church, who served as the voice of the Lord in leading sixteen million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, formerly known as the Mormons. Fifteen apostles were charged to speak as one man, to proclaim the will of God to his One True Church.

Decision-making and succession within “the fifteen” had been set-in-stone for over a hundred years, since the church-splintering disruption that followed the death of Joseph Smith in 1844. When Prophet Joseph was martyred in the Carthage jail, six men claimed leadership of the Church. They each took followers and went their own way.

The largest part of the membership followed Brigham Young on a long trek west to Salt Lake City. That part became the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The rest dwindled in obscurity. Since that schism, the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency maintained almost perfect solidarity, speaking in public as one, unified voice.

Behind closed doors, it was another matter entirely. While the Lord worked with great power and authority among the fifteen, the natural man in them required a human decision-making process, through debate and even heated disagreement at times.

Over two months ago, with the Black Autumn collapse upon them, the fifteen leaders had considered the toughest decision they’d ever faced. It was a personal decision that vexed them: would they take food and supplies from the church to feed themselves?

At sixty-five years old, Elder Thayer was the youngest of them. Most of the brethren were in their eighties and nineties, with a few “young ones” in their early seventies. The medical supplies alone to keep them alive would be a drain, not to mention the food and water to sustain them and their families.

To make matters more complicated, the bulk of their relief supplies were actually held in trust by the LDS Church—consigned to them by FEMA, the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Over the previous ten years, the Mormon Church had drawn down its own corporate food storage, choosing instead to direct food and supplies