Apocalypse Rising, Episode 3: End Times Chronicles, #11

By J. A. Bouma

Resistance Is the Only Way

 

The third story in an epic four-episode, binge-worthy story season told through full-length, complete novels with cliff-hangers that make you hunger for more!

 

The Antichrist has risen. Prepare for the beginning of the end.

 

Antichrist Rising is the climactic end to the explosively inventive time-travel series that recasts the Christian struggle in a future world rife with social and religious challenges combined with technological and political change that feels close to home—inviting readers to experience the sacrifices and struggles to persevere unto victory in the face of hostile forces, both in the future and the past.

 

Friends will die under torturous persecution. Lovers will be separated and find the unexpected. Survival will hinge on the Resistance, which is the only way during these last days.

 

The only way to remain faithful, to find victory in the face of overwhelming odds. To survive until Jesus returns to fight the final fight. The ultimate, climactic battle between good and evil.

 

Between Christ and Antichrist.

 

And you will have a front seat for it all — diving into the depths of what it means to live not by lies, to take up your cross and follow Christ in these last days, to Resist in the face of overwhelming odds.

 

End Times Chronicles is an explosively inventive time-travel series that recasts the Christian struggle in a future world rife with social and religious challenges combined with technological and political change that feels close to home—inviting readers to experience the sacrifices and struggles to persevere unto victory in the face of hostile forces, both in the future and the past.

 

Not since the blockbuster Left Behind series has a story captured the heart of the Church's mission in these last days—offering a unique, page-turning adventure that not only entertains through thrilling action and mysterious suspense, but captures the urgency of our own day and inspires for the journey of faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: EmmausWay Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223226376

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

CARTHAGE. AD 203.

Here we go…For, what, the eighth time? Ninth?

Alexander Zarruq had lost count after zooming back and forth across the space-time continuum the past three years. Or the time-space continuum as his best mate would have corrected him. He was a stickler for not only scientific precision, but also for being the smartest person in the room.

Although…he could relate!

His mind was a jumbled mess of anxious thoughts as his body began all at once vibrating in long, undulating waves, the familiar sensation of jumping phases through time that was warm and fluid. Like being dunked into a simmering jacuzzi just as a live wire was thrust inside, but in a good way!

The sensation was exactly as he remembered it from his last jump to the past after taking a year off. It was positively delightful and all at once maddening.

But, again, those thoughts got in the way of him experiencing the whole euphoric sense of it all. Probably for the best anyway, as every one of his molecules tingled, set on edge by the electromagnetic force field as he zoomed through time. He felt every fiber of his being set on edge, as if walking across the carpet in wool socks and kicking up a static charge that reverberated all across his body. Was both blissful and maddening. To have his head distracted from the full-on sensory overload was a blessing.

The reasons…They were far from a blessing.

Of course, there was Rebekah Kony, his partner in time-travel crime still stuck in the past after that Roman brute snatched for them both—only succeeding at stopping her jump through time where Alexander had evaded his sausage fingers. Showed up on that blasted ultramodern Caesarea beach, while Rebekah was missing. Could be anywhere now. Some dark, dank cell in a Roman prison. Hiding from the Antichrist’s Enforcer henchmen after running from one danger and jumping into another, but that was unlikely. More like fleeing for her life down a darkened midnight Roman road from Caesar’s henchmen before hunkering down.

Or perhaps she was dead…

He shook away the macabre thought, knowing Sasha said her vitals were still showing through from the time-travel belt, and considered the other one of his teammates who also added to his anxiety: Luciana Jane. She had taken a Neutralizer blast for him as they both fled across the beach to safe harbor in their SEPIO teammates hydrocraft. Except where he had gotten off scot-free, she had not. Her arm had been badly burned. Through muscle and tendons down to the bone. To the point it may no longer be functional, and may need to be amputated. Joshua Kaminski, the Resistance leader who had become an ally the past year, said he’d continue working on her and report back.

Which was a whole other thing: SEPIO, a reconstituted outfit from the Order of Thaddeus that had gone dark several decades ago and now revived to serve the Ichthus Resistance against the Republic. Joshua, who happened to be Junia Kaminski’s son, had assembled a ragtag group of special-ops commandos who had given the Republic a run for their money. Mostly protecting Christians who had gone deep underground from the Republic’s slaughterhouse. But also ordering raids against Legion outposts and reprogramming camps. One of which he and Nia and a whole group were heading to as they jumped through time. Something about freeing recent Ichthus captives and gathering intel on a new Purifier program aimed at ratcheting up the persecuting Purge campaign against Ichthus.

Wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it, this Resistance business and the reconstituted SEPIO special-ops arm of the Order—and it was his job as Order Master overseeing the blasted thing! He had mostly sided with Father Jim in his assessment, persuaded that an Ichthus Remnant, the remaining faithful believers who bore witness to Jesus’ crazy love and radical good news of forgiveness of sins and salvation from death, was what was warranted during the apocalyptic end times for the sake of the unbelieving polis. Not some special-ops arm sticking it to the Patron—as much as he was the Antichrist.

Except, the side of him that fought for justice, and certainly fought for the lives of his fellow Christians, couldn’t shake the fact the Church needed protection. Needed a band of soldiers, or defenders, or protectors, or whatever—somebody to keep them from the torturous horror show he and the others had witnessed in that damned reprogramming camp in Canadia. The one that had torn Kareema Salam’s body apart.

The same tactics that had lopped off Father Jim’s head…

The past year, he’d settled on the opinion that both were needed. A Resistance to protect and preserve the Remnant, so the Church could remain vigilant, remain faithful and persevere until the end, while testifying to the salvation of the polis’s souls—until Christ’s glorious return.

Come, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. Come quickly…

Thinking about it now was too exhausting. He had a job to do. Retrieving the Church’s memory of resistance from the past in order to offer Christians of the future a model for martyrdom under the persecuting hand of the Patron. He needed to keep his head in the game.

So he let himself be overtaken by that full-on sensory experience jumping phases. All five senses were on cloud nine now, a high greater than the narcowafers he had relied on to get through life.

There was the smell, as inviting and electrifying as the first time. It reminded him of the moment right after a midsummer Tripolitanian storm, when the Mediterranean air was charged by spiderwebbey streaks of lightning, sweet yet a peculiar mixture of salt and spice in his mouth. Oddly tasting like one of the wines he pressed from the berries he harvested along the bluff of his parish, with a heavy tannic acidity that set his taste buds on edge.

It was also bright, like a nuclear explosion had detonated around him. As before, the words of Oppenheimer popped into his head: ‘If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.’ Except there wasn’t any heat to it all. Just a steady temperature that seemed perfectly tuned to his body’s 98.6 degrees. He squeezed his eyes as he vibrated and tingled from the present to the past, fearing again that he would go blind from time’s movement.

Then there was the sound of it all. Which was zero. Zip. Zilch. None whatsoever. It was like he was encased in a vacuum sealed off from reality, without any indication that a world, full of the bassy and trebley ranges of modern life, still existed on the outside. No hum, no tuning-fork ting. And there was a pressure within his head. He chanced swallowing and moving his jaw, trying to get his ears to pop, but it was no use.

He tried sensing John Mark Ford as he rode the waves of time alongside him, but it was as if he were all alone in a capsule of soundless, blinding, tingly, sweet-and-salty nirvana that smelled of electrified rain, stepping higher and higher to greater heights of sensory euphoria.

Then all at once, it stopped, as suddenly as it started. No more tingling, no more warm fluidity, no more static scent of thunderstorms, no more blinding luminescence and soundless pressure.

For a moment, he again thought he was dead, his atoms ending up in a rearranged pile of goop this time.

Then he heard all he needed to hear to let him know he had once again made it to the other side of the jump, both him and his partner still intact.

Pee-yew! Ford exclaimed. What the crap is that smell—literally?

Alexander heaved a stabilizing breath. And instantly regretted it.

He slung an arm across his nose and mouth, moaning with a shudder.

They’d landed. He’d done it again. Same crappy story on the eleventh go around.

The town garbage dump!

The sun was suspended high in a clear sky, bright and full of hope. The deep azure stratosphere was punctuated by floating vultures and turkey buzzards, offering an unrelenting heat that boiled the dump into a steaming, humid, suffocating miasma of putrid rottenness. Supposed he should be thankful jumping back in time had wound back the sun’s clock from before that fourth trumpet sounded, the yellow orb blazing bright and strong, but still. The G dwarf star was certainly adding to the misery.

Ford pinched his nose. You sure’ve got a way with pickin’ our jump points—landing us just outside the main city of Carthage with both feet planted in the city’s crap!

Alexander laughed. Suppose you were worried we’d jump into an outhouse.

Oh, this is far worse!

Alexander balanced on one leg and threw a forearm against his face, trying to filter his breath. It was no use. Small mounds of trash—food and broken pottery and other miscellany from third-century Roman life—littered the area along with what was surely human or animal excrement.

Let’s get out of here, Alexander finally said. I prefer that my garbage be promptly whisked away underground through Solterra-issued pneumatic tubes and recycled than an open-air, steaming pile of—

Alright, homefry, Ford interrupted. Got it. And I agree, but where?

Alexander scanned the area, releasing the electromagnetic time belt from around his waist and slinging it over his shoulder. Not sure. But first item of business is hiding these things. Can’t very well carry them through town.

Ford followed his lead, unhooking his own time travel belt and slinging it around his neck like a python.

He gestured with his hand for Alexander to hand over his own belt.

Follow me. I found the perfect spot the last time me and Kareema…

Ford trailed off, his face falling and Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with a pained swallow. No doubt brought on by the pained memory of Kareema’s passing.

Alexander said nothing. Neither did Ford, the man making for a small hill of rocks just up the way from their jump point. A small, dark cave that seemed to stretch back a ways. Looked like the perfect place to hide their belts until they could retrieve them. Probably used it when he and Kareema jumped to Carthage a year ago retrieving the Great Plague memory and the Church’s response.

Here, give me that time travel doohickey, Ford said.

Alexander did. You think it’s safe in there?

Yuppers. At least, it was the last go around. Besides, you see anywhere else we can hide these things?

Without waiting for an answer, Ford ducked down and crawled on all fours toward the back. And offered a startled scream halfway through. Probably something jumping on his back and skittering along his spine. But he held it together and finished the job, laying the devices just so near the back.

Alexander just prayed to the Lord Almighty they made the right decision and no one went snooping around.

Scooting back out, Ford stood and took a breath. His face showed clear regret as the stench of rancid, rotting garbage gusted their way.

Recovering, he pointed toward the city. Alright. Now let’s get the heck out of here.

They made quick work darting through the garbage dump, making for a modest outer wall of cut stone protecting the city’s western flank. They slowed and composed themselves, scraping the refuse and other remains off their sandals against the rocky ground.

Shall we? Alexander said, gesturing down the road.

Locked and loaded, partner.

He startled. What are you thinking, bringing your Neutralizer back in time?

Ford frowned. That’s what Kareema thought…No, of course I didn’t bring a Neutralizer back in time, dingleberry! It was a figure of speech.

Oh, right.

Come on. It’s go time.

He nodded. To retrieve history, not make it.

That’s the plan, homefry.

They followed what Alexander guessed was Main Street cutting straight into the heart of the city. Wasn’t much to look at, the narrow road lined by short, squat beige buildings of cut stone and plaster, roofed by logs and straw, some crowned by tiles. Same story as all the other Roman towns he had visited jumping phases. Boring buildings made all the worse by the late afternoon sun beating down from above.

Supposed the Romans couldn’t complain too much, seen as how they had roofs over their heads. Alexander certainly understood the simple living arrangements as his own parish parsonage had been a modest two-bedroom abode. Even if it was outfitted with that blasted AI assistant! He had made it his own, however, his former family’s parsonage actually, when Father had pastored the same parish church. He’d promptly painted every room a different shade of gray—from fog to shark to slate. Father had preferred bright colors. But after he had passed—or faked his passing—Alexander couldn’t stomach the color scheme.

Alexander figured it was a while before paint innovations hit the space-time continuum. And he shouldn’t complain either since the Romans at least knew how to build a decent road. Recalled the same mismatched cobblestones throwing up their echoey slaps running under his sandals from the other times jumping phases.

A soft crunch sounded behind Alexander. He glanced back and startled with irritation.

Where the heck did you get that? he hissed, pulling Ford aside and pointing at a bright red apple he was removing from his mouth after his bite.

Mid-chew, the man suspended his mouth open with confusion. From the hydrocraft galley.

You’ve been carrying around an apple all this time and didn’t let me know?

Uh, yeah, he said, continuing to chew his bite.

And you brought it on our trip through time—for the second time?

Uh, yeah...Why, you want a bite?

No, I don’t want a bite! I thought we had this conversation the last time we’d jumped together.

His chew was loud and annoying, and Ford twisted up his face like Alexander had lost his marbles.

What convo?

He huffed a sigh. The one about not knowing if they had apples back in the day—as in the AD 203 Carthage day!

Ford swallowed and held his apple up to his face, eyeing it. Well, Mama Eve ate one back in the day in Mesopotamia, which isn’t so far from here. Figured it’d be alright.

Good Lord… he scoffed, then mumbled something about the state of Christian education. It wasn’t an apple, moron. Anyway, I thought we went over this last—

He waved his hands with a sigh. Doesn’t matter. Sasha said we can’t change history with our little movements, like introducing a non-indigenous piece of fruit several centuries before its time. Finish the blasted thing, core and all, and let’s get going.

Alexander turned to leave, but snatched the apple from Ford and took a bite, handing it back to him and chewing before swallowing. There. Now we can get going. And I would appreciate you not holding out on me next time—for the second time!

Ford saluted Alexander and followed after him. Relax, homefry. My bad, alright? Next time I’ll bring seconds.

Alexander rolled his eyes and went to say something when they rounded another corner and the street opened up. It was lined with wooden carts sporting brightly colored canopies selling pottery and slabs of beef, sickly looking vegetables and dried herbs. It looked like some sort of town marketplace.

A wind gusted past them bearing the heavenly scents of saffron and roasted meat, followed by the scent of the sea—salt and fish and rotting seaweed. The street was loud, with vendors shouting for potential patrons to sample their wares and customers haggling for better prices. Someone else banged on a tambourine and another tooted away on some instrument, while another offered a mercilessly off-key rendition of some Tunisian ballad.

Good Lord, do you smell, Alexander complained as they walked through the gauntlet of vendors.

Ford slugged him in the arm. Speak for yourself, partner. And I don’t think it’s me or you. Well, only me or you. The past reeks to high heaven, remember?

He agreed. The sun was edging toward the horizon now, but the heat of the day was still merciless, and they needed to find Perpetua. But how?

He hustled past a heap of rotting garbage in the road. Nearly tripped over the legs of a dirty man taking advantage of the cool shade between structures of pale cut stone. He and Ford made quick work following the street through to a residential district of what he assumed were highbrow city aristocrats.

From Alexander’s research in the Order Archives, he knew Perpetua was part of the Roman upper class. Something about her father working with the provincial governor or something. The neighborhood gave the residents easy access to the governmental and commercial buildings in which they worked, and he figured it was the place to start.

The houses in this particular neighborhood loomed large. Alexander felt self-conscious as he shuffled past several two-story houses, the mark of wealth he’d never known and a degree of aristocracy that made him feel and look out of place. He wondered if the feeling would pass once he reached their destination, the inferiority of class dissipating in the company of believers.

Alexander slowed, as did Ford, the pair stopping in the shadows as the sun continued its descent, fingering flames of fiery orange and red clouds beginning to set the horizon on fire.

Now what, chief? Ford asked, folding his arms in a noticeable huff.

The earthy scent of burning wood mingled with roasted lamb and freshly baked bread drew Alexander’s attention to a three-level villa at the end of the street. His stomach lurched with hunger even as he eyed the other houses lining the street in fear, hoping no one had taken them notice.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, guide and direct your servants this evening…

Not a moment after he breathed an ‘Amen’ he noticed something.

Something important. Something out of place.

Something that gave him hope!

And an answer to his prayer.

CHAPTER 2

SOMEWHERE IN THE BALTIC SEA. AD 2126.

Junia Kaminski was never being one for water. Perhaps it was because her homeland had been landlocked for nearly a century, access to Black Sea being cut off during previous century war with Russia thanks to that Muscovia maniac and those meddling Westerners who couldn’t leave Ukrainski alone.

Such had been the lot of her people stretching back another century, to Holodomor. Her people’s humiliating suffering.

Also known as the Terror-Famine and Great Famine to her people, the great shameful tragedy had been planned and executed by Joseph Stalin as a way to tamp down a rising nationalism that threatened Soviet occupation. Something like four million of her countrymen were being starved to death.

It was a moryty holodom, the ancient language of her people for to kill by starvation.

Her grandparents told bitter tales of survival passed down from their own grandparents who endured such suffering. Barely surviving on nothing more than boiled bark and worms. The most chilling tales were the moral struggles, not merely physical ones.

Good people were the ones who were dying first, because they refused to steal and prostitute themselves for survival. Same for those who were giving away their food for others to survive. The others who were dying were the ones who refused to eat corpses. As well as those who were refusing to slaughter their fellow Ukrainski and eat them for survival.

Such was the fate of the relatives of Mamochka’s babulya and all those who had stood against tyranny. But nothing that they were enduring compared to what Mamochka and Papochka were enduring that fateful night when Junia was being a teenage girl.

A sudden chill spread gooseflesh across her skin, the memory of their fate a haunting phantom that encouraged her faith in Christ—and her fight in the Resistance.

Nia settled against the hydrocraft wall and stared out into the dark blue abyss at the front, a low-grade hum winding through her arm from the engines. She had tried catching a precious hour of sleep at the back, but it was no use. Two of Dzhoshie’s Resistance teammates, Miguel Morales and Jael Abramoff, were snoring far too loud for her to concentrate. So she wandered to the front to check on her son and their progress.

The maw of darkness spread across the window made her regret her decision.

Yes, not growing up around the seas had conditioned her to fear them, but it was more than that. Nearly drowning as a child while your brother didn’t survive will do that to you. Seven years old, if she recalled right, her twin.

That fateful day happened during a short family outing to a resort along the Black Sea. One minute, she and bratishka were playing along the water’s edge. Splashing, lunging for each other, racing across the beach. Mamochka had warned them, especially Nia, instructing her to keep Dzhoshie safe. He was a slight, frail child who had had complications with cerebral palsy. Could function as most normal children, but he walked with limp and found it hard to recover from falls.

And the sudden undertow and crashing waves after venturing out too far was too much for bratishka.

Mamochka had warned them—had warned her—but she hadn’t listened. And when they both went under, she found escape while Dzhoshie did not. Took the better part of the afternoon to find his body, the currents sweeping it out to sea. Papochka assured her it wasn’t her fault, as did Mamochka, but Nia never forgave herself.

Nia sucked in a breath and sighed, blinking away the memory and its emotion, her eyes settling on the other Dzhoshie’s dark wavy hair falling at his shoulders.

She smiled. A good, steady man, he was. Named after her brother, he was a most unexpected gift after Mamochka and Papochka were being taken to reprogramming camp. The fate of life as a teenager on the streets left to her own devices.

They came for them in the dead of night while Nia was away. She had been at a friend’s house for a sleepover with other mates from school when it happened. Next morning, when she arrived at home, the front door was kicked down and their modest one-story home was being trashed. Couches slashed with knives and stuffing ripped out and strewn about living room. Bedroom mattresses the same, along with dresser drawers smashed and clothes littering the floor. It was later, when neighbors came by to find her screaming hysterically, that she learned why.

Bibliya.

There was rumor high up in Republic Command that her parents were printing and distributing the Christian Scriptures. The religious text wasn’t banned, per se, but printing it was. That was result of draconian practices by Republic to limit free speech by limiting the source of information—limiting their information through those damned slate devices. Climate change was blamed for cause of restrictions, with polis convinced that bans on paper and printing would reduce carbon footprint and prevent any more of the chaos that led to the Great Reckoning.

Most knew better,