SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Had such a succession of Earthquakes as have happened within a few weeks been experienced in this country five years ago, they would have excited universal terror. The extent of territory which has been shaken, nearly at the same time, is astonishing— reaching on the Atlantic coast from Connecticut to Georgia and from the shores of the ocean inland to the State of Ohio. What power short of Omnipotence, could raise and shake such a vast portion of this globe? The period is portentous and alarming. We have within a few years seen the most wonderful eclipses, the year past has produced a magnificent comet, the earthquakes within the past two months have been almost without number— and in addition to the whole, we constantly ‘hear of wars and summons of wars.’ May not the same enquiry be made of us that was made by the hypocrites of old— "Can ye not discern the signs of the times."
Connecticut Mirror
“Is this the day?” Frankland demanded. “Is this the day? Is this the Day of the Lord?” The station was vibrating to pieces around him as he shouted into the microphone. Things tumbled off shelves: a stack of tapes slid off their metal trolley and spilled on the floor with a clang. Frankland’s chair was moving in wild circles across the tile floor, anchored only by his hand on the mike. He ducked into his collar as a fluorescent light exploded overhead.
“And I looked when He broke the sixth seal,” Frankland shouted, “and there was a great earthquake— are you ready for judgment?— and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair— are you ready for Jesus?— and the whole moon became like blood— are you ready for God’s Tribulation?”
Frankland, trying to hold on, was wringing the microphone as though it were the neck of the Devil himself. “Are you ready?” he howled as something in the outer office crashed to the floor.
And then the lights went out. Frankland waited, in the rumbling darkness, for the emergency generator to kick on, but nothing happened.
Darn that diesel anyway. Frankland tried to stand, but he put a foot on something that had tumbled from a shelf and fell clumsily to his knees. Crawling, he made his way to the door, tugged it open, and then crawled through the office— all the shelves had fallen, all the furniture had shifted— to the exterior door.
Suddenly the shaking ceased, and the rumbling receded, like a train passing on to somewhere else. Frankland hauled himself upright by the doorknob. Vertigo swam through him. He needed to use his shoulder to drive the metal door from its bent frame.
As he burst open the door, sunlight and the smell of sulfur hit him in the face. Brimstone! he thought in sudden delight. The dirt parking space in front of the studio was torn clean across by a rent four feet across. He made his way around the building, one hand on the wall to keep him steady. The church, he saw, was still standing, though its windows were gone. He felt a grim satisfaction: he had built his station, and his church, to survive this and more.
His hands were trembling, and it took him a while to get the padlock on the generator room open. Once there, it only took a moment to start the piggyback electric motor on the diesel.
The diesel coughed into life. The light in the shed winked on. Frankland staggered out of the shed and waved his arms at the heavens. “The voice of the Lord is back on the air!” he shouted.
And the heavens answered. Frankland’s hair sizzled as it stood on end. There was a flash, a boom, the smell of ozone. Frankland tottered and fell to his knees, his mind swimming.
A lightning bolt, he thought, from a clear blue sky. What more sign did a man of God need?
He stayed on his knees, clasped his hands, began to pray.
“Thank you, Lord, for letting me see this day,” he said. “Thank you for this destruction out of which Your kingdom will be born. Thank you for giving me my mission.”
Heaven’s lightning rained down around him. He raised his hands in praise.
It was a new world, he thought, and he knew exactly what to do.
The Reverend Noble Frankland had come into his own.
TEN
We entered the Mississippi on the morning of the 14th, and on the night of the 15th came to anchor on a sand bar, about ten miles above the Little Prairie— half past 2 o’clock in the morning of the 16th, we were aroused from our slumber by a violent shaking of the boat— there were three barges and two keels in company, all affected the same way. The alarm was considerable and various opinions as to the cause were suggested, all found to be erroneous; but after the second shock, which occurred in 15 minutes after the first, it was unanimously admitted to be an earthquake. With most awful feelings we watched till morning in trembling anxiety, supposing all was over with us. We weighed anchor early in the morning, and in a few minutes after we started there came on in quick successions, two other shocks, more violent than the former. It was then daylight, and we could plainly perceive the effect it had on shore. The bank of the river gave way in all directions, and came tumbling into the water; the trees were more agitated than I ever before saw them in the severest storms, and many of them from the shock they received broke off near the ground, as well as many more torn up by the roots. We considered ourselves more secure on the water, than we should be on land, of course we proceeded down the river. As we progressed the effects of the shock as before described, were observed in every part of the banks of the Mississippi. In some places five, ten and fifteen acres have sunk down in a body, even the Chickasaw Bluffs, which we have passed, did not escape; one or two of them have fallen in considerably.
Extract of a letter from a gentleman on his way to New Orleans,
dated 20th December, 1811
Father Guillaume Robitaille rolled over the Arkansas blacktop at 85 miles per hour, his radar detector alert to the presence of the state police. Traveling throughout his parish, if such it could be called, put at least 800 miles on his old Lincoln every week, and his policy was to spend as little time in the car as possible, which meant getting from one place to another as fast as the machinery permitted.
The words to the old song “Hot Rod Lincoln” tracked through his mind as he squinted through the windshield. Commander Cody, he remembered, and His Lost Planet Airmen. It had been a hit when he was young.
Tonight he would say mass for his tiny congregation in Rails Bluff, all six of them—maybe seven, if Studs Morris had succeeded in raising his bond money.
He raised his 64-ounce Big Gulp and sucked on the plastic straw. The motivation with which he had spiked his Sprite warmed his insides.
Though whisky was his preferred drink, he used vodka when he was on the road. It wouldn’t fill the confessional with telltale fumes.
It’s got a Lincoln motor and it’s really souped up.
That Model A Vitimix makes it look like a pup.
It’s got eight cylinders; uses them all.
It’s got overdrive, just won’t stall.
A cotton wagon blocked the lane ahead, drawn by a rusty old tractor and moving at ten miles an hour. The Lincoln swooped around it as if it were standing still. Father Robitaille drove one-handed, his Big Gulp in the other. He overcorrected, had to straighten out, felt the Lincoln fishtail.
Only one way to fix that. Hit the accelerator.
The big car responded. Robitaille smiled.
Now the fellas was ribbin’ me for bein’ behind,
So I thought I’d make the Lincoln unwind.
Took my foot off the gas and man alive,
I shoved it on down into overdrive.
At first Robitaille thought he’d blown a tire— maybe more than one. The car leaped as if each wheel was trying to go in a different direction, some of them no longer horizontal.
Robitaille lifted his foot from the accelerator, put his Big Gulp between his thighs, grabbed the wheel with both hands. Now he could see it wasn’t just the car— power poles and fence posts were dancing, and branches waved in the air. The cotton fields on either side of the road heaved up in waves.
Robitaille fought to keep the car on the road. At times it seemed it was jumping out sideways from beneath him.
He looked in the rearview mirror, and his heart leaped into his throat as he saw it coming at him from behind.
Behind him, the ground was collapsing. A line was crossing the land, and behind the line it looked as if the ground was dropping ten or fifteen feet, like a stage set with the props knocked out.
The line reached the cotton wagon and its tractor. They both fell— Robitaille saw the arms of the driver rise, an expression of dismay on his face, as the tractor dropped out beneath him, its nose kicking up as it threatened to roll over on him. Behind the moving line, where the land had fallen, was nothing but wreckage. The line was rolling up on the Lincoln’s rear bumper.
A cocktail of adrenaline and vodka surged through Robitaille’s veins. There was only one response. Accelerate!
Robitaille punched the accelerator and felt the big car leap in answer. Duct-taped upholstery absorbed his weight as he was pressed back into the seat. He clutched the wheel with white-knuckled hands, tried to keep the car on the pavement as his speed increased.
He wasn’t getting the smooth acceleration he was used to— the car was jumping so much that the drive wheels weren’t in contact with the pavement half the time, they were just spinning in air. But the speed built nonetheless. Robitaille’s glances at the mirror assured him that though the line was still overtaking him, it was doing so more slowly.
Faster. He mashed the accelerator to the floor. Sooner or later, he hoped, the geology might change, the land wouldn’t be so susceptible to quake.
The Lincoln vibrated like a mad thing under his touch. The engine roared. Robitaille felt it trying to leave the road, become airborne.
He rocketed around a parked pickup, saw the open-mouthed woman behind the wheel staring at oncoming ruin. Faster. The car landed heavily— or perhaps the ground had leaped up to meet it— and the suspension crashed. He felt the oil pan scrape on asphalt. The drive wheels screeched as they dug in and flung the car forward. He saw his muffler and tail pipe assembly bounce free in the road behind him before being swallowed by the encroaching abyss.
Faster. He saw the road arching up ahead of him, the bridge over the Rails River. Exultation sang through his mind. Surely the wave that was collapsing the country behind him wouldn’t cross the river?
Behind he saw the line of ruin recede. He was gaining on it.
The bridge was just ahead. The unmuffled engine thundered like an artillery barrage. Robitaille began to laugh. The Lincoln bottomed again at the bridge approach, then flung itself up the arching roadbed. The laugh froze in Robitaille’s throat.
The far half of the Rails River Bridge was gone, just a fallen rubble of steel and asphalt.
The Lincoln’s wheels spun in air as it launched itself into space. The engine roared.
Robitaille felt the car’s nose tip downward, saw the water below.
Wished he had time for another drink.
My pappy said, “Son, you’re gonna’ drive me to drinkin’
If you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot ... Rod ... Lincoln.”