Foolish Phantoms: A Post-Apocalyptic Epic (The Book of Tribulation: Volume 1) Read online

  Foolish Phantoms

  The Book of Tribulation:

  Volume I

  A Post-Apocalyptic Epic

  Sam Clark

  Copyright © 2018 Sam Clark. All rights reserved.

  Publisher: Leviathan Publishing

  Editor: Elayne Morgan

  Cover: Rebecacovers/MIBL ART

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  What answer should you expect him to make, if someone were to tell him that in those days he was watching foolish phantoms, but that now he is somewhat nearer to reality, and is turned toward things more real, and sees more correctly?

  ‌—‌An excerpt from Plato’s Republic

  PROLOGUE

  I struggled for a long time as to when and where to begin my account. Ultimately, I decided to divide the account geographically. I wish I could say there was some profound reason for this choice, some theoretical or methodological imperative. However, the truth is simpler: I was overwhelmed by the task at hand, so I broke it up into more manageable pieces.

  The events I relate in this volume took place exclusively in the Free Counties of South Dakota, between April and September in the 44th year of the Great Tribulation (2061 Before Times).

  I chose to begin with the Free Counties because the earliest events there are easier to grasp, in isolation, than those in the Holy Lands of North Dakota. It must be stressed that the events related in the following pages do not occur in a vacuum. Far from it. They are inextricably linked to concomitant events in the Holy Lands, sometimes driving them, sometimes driven by them.

  A thorough retelling of events in the Holy Lands during this same period will have to wait until the second volume. Of course, in later volumes this geographical divide will fade away, as it will become impossible to provide discrete accounts of events in the two Dakotas. But for now, it has its uses.

  ‌—‌An excerpt from Brother Helix’s A Contemporary History of the Dakotas During the Great Tribulation.

  ONE

  Location: Edward Falls

  Date: 4-16-61

  As the second decade of the twenty-first century drew to a close, we, humanity, thought progress was inevitable. But God had other ideas. As the heavens opened and cleansing fire fell upon the earth, it was as if a portal to the past had been opened. In an instant, the internet vanished. Telephone and television gone. In some remote spots, electricity remained for a time, but eventually it, too, disappeared to the realm of forgotten knowledge, only occasionally reappearing as a carnival trick or some similarly cheap frivolity.

  Now, as we sit in the fifth decade of the Great Tribulation, few reminders of humanity’s greatest technological achievements remain. A few cars, heavily plated in makeshift armor and powered by poorly refined crude oil, traverse the crumbling highways of the bygone era. Some skyscrapers still stand, such as the Tower of God, which, unbeknownst to many of my colleagues in the cloth, once served as the capitol building for the state of North Dakota. Only the façade bears any resemblance, of course, as the inside has been looted, gutted, and put back together again. Other Before Times technologies, such as firearms and printing, are still to be found; however, they have reverted to more primitive forms. The rest is gone and largely forgotten. This is especially true in Church lands, where a cult that worshiped an old iPhone once had to be suppressed, after which many remaining artifacts of the Before Times were gathered up and burned.

  I realize I am likely one of the few remaining people who know what things like the internet and iPhones are‌—‌or, should I say, were. Unfortunately, I lack the expertise to explain them with any adequacy. Suffice it to say that in a span of only a few weeks, technologies centuries in the making‌—‌upon which humankind depended far too heavily‌—‌were simply gone, and we were wholly unprepared.

  This unpreparedness was, according to the Scripture, one of humanity’s greatest sins, and those who were left behind suffered for it immensely. We still suffer for it today. The primary point of the Prophetess’s ministry was that we must not repeat the same mistake again. That we must prepare adequately for the Arrival of the Harbinger. Our reward for doing so: salvation. A golden age for humanity. Heaven on earth. Our punishment if we once again fail to learn our lesson: oblivion. The end of humanity. Eternal damnation in the fiery pits of Hell.

  ‌—‌An excerpt from Brother Helix’s A Contemporary History of the Dakotas During the Great Tribulation.

  Preston stood by himself off to the side of the courtyard, watching two men circling in its center. The men were both well-muscled and tall, two things Preston was not. Both were shirtless, despite the chill in the early morning air, and both held wooden practice swords. And one of them had stolen Preston’s life from him.

  The one who hadn’t stolen anything from him was called Bear for the simple reason that he looked like one, only hairier. He stood over six and half feet tall, with tremendous bulk. He had shoulder-length black hair, a big bushy beard, and so much hair on his torso and arms that, at first glance, one might have thought he was wearing a sweater. Bear was sweating profusely, which had the unfortunate effect of matting his hair and giving it an oily sheen. It made Preston want to retch.

  The thief was Edison, Preston’s ‘older’ twin brother. He, too, was a remarkable physical specimen, but from a very different mold than Bear. Edison had wavy golden hair, bright blue eyes, and though not as tall as Bear, he stood over six feet. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body, despite weighing nearly two hundred pounds. Each individual muscle could be seen working under his skin, which had already taken on a healthy tan even though spring was not quite a month old‌—‌the result of spending all his time outdoors and shirtless. Edison was the spitting image of their father, which made Preston want to retch for a whole other set of reasons.

  It was hard to imagine they had shared a womb. Preston was a mere five and half feet tall with shoes on, and a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. His skin was pallid, and if he ever got any sun, he burned rather than tanned. His hair was a light brown, with eyes to match. Where his brother was the picture of health, Preston had been sickly as a child. Where Edison excelled with the sword, Preston had always preferred to train his mind. Yes, it was hard enough to believe he and Edison were the same species, let alone twins.

  In the blink of an eye, Edison and Bear came together intent on violence, their wooden practice swords a blur. The clatter of wood smashing against wood in rapid succession sounded unnaturally loud in the courtyard of Rhodes Manor. Preston had seen the two men spar enough times to know how it would play out, even if he never quite believed it.

  Bear was surprisingly fast for someone who must have weighed over three hundred pounds, but Edison was far faster, his technique much cleaner. He managed to bring his sword up just in the nick of time to block a telegraphed overhand chop from the giant. Practice swords or not, Preston was sure that if his brother had been a hair later in raising his sword, he might not ever have gotten up. And what a pity that would have been.

  While Preston knew his brother had the speed to block Bear’s attacks, it still amazed him that Edison had the strength to do it. Preston could not imagine the shock one of Bear’s blows must send through a body. Yet his brother absorbed the force with only the slightest grunt of exertion.

  The two men came apart for the span of a f
ew heartbeats to take one another’s measure, then reengaged. This time, Bear’s attack came slightly slower, and Edison’s sword beat Bear’s to the spot more easily. In between the thuds of the blades meeting, Preston’s ears were assaulted by Bear’s increasingly labored breathing, which sounded remarkably like two bears rutting.

  After a few more exchanges, the match ended the only way it could have: with extreme violence. Instead of blocking the overly long swing Bear aimed at his head, Edison ducked it and spun to his left so that he stood behind Bear, who was stumbling after his attack found only air. Rather than simply touch his sword to Bear and end the bout humanely, Edison wound up and took a full swing.

  As Preston watched Bear drop to his hands and knees, he heard wood splitting. When Preston shifted his gaze to his brother, he saw Edison looking at what remained of his practice sword in his hand, grinning like a teenager who’d just had his first woman. How am I the only one who sees what a fool he is?

  Bear coughed several times before reaching up with one hand to push his hair back from his face, then spat a red mass of blood and phlegm onto the dirt. When he pushed himself back up to his feet, he, too, was smiling. The blood had given his teeth a grotesque pinkish tint.

  Bear turned to Edison and clapped his shoulder with a meaty paw. “I’ll be pissing blood for a week.”

  Edison threw his head back and laughed. It had a lyrical quality to it, and it never failed to make the serving girls blush. To Preston, it was the most obnoxious sound in the world. Nobody laughed like that naturally.

  “Well,” Edison said, “I’ll have to send my apologies to Mora‌—‌or maybe she’ll thank me, for not having to put up with you climbing on top of her for a week. I honestly don’t know how she does it.”

  Bear roared with laughter, which sent Preston’s eyes rolling despite his best effort to stop them. Perhaps Edison’s laugh is only the second most annoying sound in the world.

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” Bear said once he regained his composure. “I’ll still be able to perform all my husbandly duties.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Edison said.

  Bear glanced down at the fragments of Edison’s sword and said, “This is your year. I can feel it in my bones. You’re ready. In a few weeks, they won’t be calling him Thoka the Dread‌—‌they’ll be calling him Thoka the Dead.” Bear punctuated his statement by slapping Edison on the back.

  Preston refrained from mentioning that Bear had made similar declarations each of the last four years, yet Thoka was still alive and well. Preston was certain this would not be his brother’s year, and as Preston watched the smile fall from his brother’s lips at the mention of Thoka, he suspected that, at some level, Edison had a similarly grim view of his chances.

  Bear, as always, was oblivious. “I wouldn’t mind giving some comfort to the bereaved queen. Might even wash my bits for her first. If she asked real nice. Never been with a queen before. Don’t even care she’s a Ginger. Never been with a Ginger neither. So, two birds there. I hear they make the best lovers. Makes sense‌—‌Gingers are demons, so they should be demons in the sack too, eh? Suppose she’ll be a former queen at that point, since you’ll be the king. Still counts, though.”

  Edison seemed to regain some of his good humor. “My friend, you wouldn’t mind ‘giving some comfort’ to a sheep. However, in either case, I think Mora would mind.”

  Preston cringed as Bear once again let loose with his earthshaking laugh, which lasted for what felt like a full minute. Bear finally trailed off and Preston thought his eardrums were safe, but then the giant of a man broke into a new round of laughter, even louder and longer than the first. It was interrupted only by the occasional gasp of “sheep” or “Mora.”

  Preston didn’t get it. Edison’s comment had been mildly funny, at best. His brother had so much going for him; why were people always giving Edison credit for positive traits he didn’t possess? Maybe he could understand in Bear’s case. He was a moron and no doubt found the idea of fornicating with sheep the height of wit. But it wasn’t just Bear. Their late mother Gloria had fawned over Edison until her dying day. Growing up, every time Edison managed to correctly tally up a short list of numbers, she would go on and on about her smart little man. All Preston got from her when he had moved on to trigonometry at age eleven was a “That’s nice, dear.”

  At least she had been truly sorry at the end, so he could forgive her. A thousand times worse than their mother, and wholly unrepentant, had been their father Edward. When Edison had received his first real sword, he’d slashed an expensive painting from the Before Times to ribbons, and their father had rewarded him with a horse for showing such dedication to perfecting his craft. That very day Preston had spilled some ink on the carpet while studying. His only reward had been Edward’s belt.

  Then there was Kathy, his brother’s wife, who spoke as if Edison were an ideal father and husband, loving and attentive. In reality, the only things Edison loved were himself and his sword, and the only thing he made time for was his foolhardy pursuit of vengeance against Thoka.

  Edison turned to look at him. “What do you think, brother? You haven’t tried to talk me out of my challenge this year. Does that mean you think this is finally my year?”

  I think this might be the year Thoka tires of toying with you and parts your pretty little head from your muscle-bound shoulders. Then you and Father will have something else in common.

  However, Preston held his tongue. He’d thought long and hard about how to dissuade his brother from his annual challenge to Thoka on the anniversary of their father’s death. In years past, his argument had been simple: You will lose.

  Preston knew this was the worst line of reasoning to use, no matter how true it was. Pointing out the likely outcome would only make his mule-headed brother dig in all the harder to prove him wrong. The thing was, it was hard to restrain himself from telling Edison he’d fail. Nothing made Edison angrier than being told he couldn’t do something, and Preston loved to make his brother mad. This year, however, he had to stop Edison from fighting. Not so much out of brotherly love, but because Thoka separating Edison’s head from his body would destroy all Preston’s hard work. And he couldn’t let that happen. Not when he was so close.

  Not for the first time, Preston was tempted to tell his brother what he was doing, but he didn’t trust him. He couldn’t trust him. Edison cared too much about proving himself stronger than Thoka and avenging their father. Preston had to choose his words very carefully. “I think the king—”

  “Don’t call him that,” Edison said, cold anger replacing any hint of humor in his voice.

  Off to a wonderful start. “But Thoka is the king. He rules by the right of the strong,” Preston said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “He rules by virtue of having killed the previous king in single combat.”

  “That savage isn’t half the man our father was.”

  Thoka the Dread was, despite his moniker and tribal heritage, rather civilized‌—‌far more so than their father had been. Edward Rhodes had liked to surround himself with opulence, but he had been a barely-literate brute who drank too much and ate with his hands, albeit off some very fine china. Thoka was also far more cultured than Edison was. Preston couldn’t remember Thoka jesting even once about lying with a sheep.

  Preston resisted the urge to tell his brother all this. Instead he said, “By definition, Thoka is more of a man than our father was. That is why he’s king and our father’s dead. That is the system our father helped create. His end was inevitable, whether it was at the hands of the Dread or someone else, one year down the line or ten. There was only one way it could have ended. Did you think Father would be fending off challengers into his eighth decade? And just as there was only one way it could have ended for our father, there’s only one way it can end for Thoka. If you ascend to the throne, there’s only one way it can end for you. As Mother wept at Father’s grave, so too will Sunkist weep at Thoka’s, and Kathy at yours.
”

  Preston could see his words were getting through to his brother. Edison was chewing on his lower lip, as he so often had during their lessons as children. Preston had to press his advantage before Bear started off on another tangent about bedding the queen.

  “You know as well as I,” Preston continued, “that there were times when it wasn’t this way. When rule was passed down from father to son. If that were the case, Father might still be alive. He might have lived for another four decades.”

  The words tasted like ash in Preston’s mouth. The last thing in the world he would have wanted was another forty years with his father, but he had to go on. Besides, compared to what he was going to have to say next, saying he wished his dear old dad was still alive was a summer stroll.

  “As Edward’s firstborn, you would have inherited when he passed, and when the time came, Roger would have inherited the throne from you. In such a world, the Rhodes name would have echoed through the ages. Think of all we could have done.”

  There was an inherent contradiction in what he was saying, but he knew Edison wouldn’t notice. If it weren’t for the challenge system, their father would never have become king in the first place. Of the three armies that took the field in the War for Southern Supremacy‌—‌or the War of Three Thugs, as many commoners who had lost loved ones called it‌—‌Edward’s had been the smallest; he had been the worst commander, as well. While Edward’s “Miracle at Sioux Falls” was certainly a great victory, it wouldn’t have mattered if Gunner had decided to reject Edward’s offer to settle things via a battle royale between the three commanders.

  The difficult thing about what Preston had just said, however, had nothing to do with making a faulty argument. What made it so hard was that Preston knew he had been born first. It was by mere minutes, but he had come first. If anyone was to have inherited the crown from their father, it should have been him. If anyone in the family was worthy of the crown, it was him. Yet Preston had come out small and weak, struggling to draw his first breaths, whereas Edison had come out large and hale. Thus Edward had taken away Preston’s birthright in the first hour of his life.