I Can’t Believe It’s Not Kingdom Come (8)
Chapter 8 of the crime comedy from Chris Well. When the world fails to end on schedule, the mob is in no mood to discuss End-Times theology...
You can listen to the author commentary for this chapter here. (Don’t worry, no spoilers!)
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME will be serialized every Thursday and Saturday on Substack. Links emailed out once a week in our weekly Monster Complex™ newsletter!
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME
It’s not the end of the world—which could be a problem…
- 8 -
At our next Saturday planning session at church, I was still fuming over the family’s unsupportive reaction. Kingdom Come was a big deal to me, and as the head of the household, that should have made it a big deal to them.
I was able to put it out of my mind, however, as I got to the meeting. Soon I was engrossed in the practical facets of the event.
Before the meeting, I was given a tour of the control room, which had recently been upgraded to “state of the art.” Normally, the church budget would not allow for that, but given the coming Rapture, we no longer had to worry about what would happen when the bill came. (If you know what I mean.)
My tour guide was cute little Sandra Robertson, who I have known since she was a little girl. She showed me to the room, back behind the sanctuary. As I gazed at the enormous soundboard, with all those switches and dials and the bank of video screens, I could not contain my excitement. “This is incredible! Like something on a spaceship!” Not that I believe in spaceships, mind you, I was making a point.
Sandra grinned and sat down in the center chair. “We have cameras set up all throughout the church.” She flipped some switches, pointing to a series of screens along the console. “We’ll have these operational for Kingdom Come, but the Reverend also wants us to set them up for security.”
I leaned on the console, my eyes flicking from one monitor to the next. “This is amazing.” On one screen, Fred Garber was in the sanctuary, setting out hymnbooks for the next service; he was picking his nose. On another screen, a couple of kids were in the gym, playing handball with the old brown basketball. Yet another screen showed Reverend Daniel Glory in his study, preparing a sermon. “So, someone sitting in that chair can watch everything as it happens all throughout the facility?”
She tapped a black box to her left. “More than that, we’re recording everything.” She grinned, showing her braces. Bless her heart. “When we do Kingdom Come, we’ll have all sorts of footage.” Her grin fell as she looked again at the screens. “If only we would be here long enough to make some kind of documentary. You know, if not for the Rapture.”
Maybe we didn’t have time to make any documentaries. But we didn’t have to worry about paying off this new high-tech control room, either.
I patted her on the back. “So we can run the whole Kingdom Come event from here?”
“Right! Sound, special effects—everything is fixed to come through here.”
I made a mental note to call Marvin Dobbs and rub it in. There was no way his Armageddon House would have this sort of setup.
Over the course of our planning meetings, we determined how the various events of the Great Tribulation would be demonstrated throughout the full-sensory immersive evangelistic event.
Now, the Great Tribulation is broken up into three categories of judgments: seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls. The trick for Kingdom Come was to show the sinful state of life on Earth—video games, R-rated movies, Christian rock—and then demonstrate in spectacular and dramatic fashion each judgment: each seal, each trumpet, each bowl.
The first four seals are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Since we could not have four real horses indoors—our zoning did not exactly permit that—we needed to demonstrate what each horseman wreaks upon the earth. You know, dramatize how it will be like to live through these events.
The first Horseman brings persecution. We thought the best way to stage this would be a mock witch trial—except, instead of witches, they are burning true Christians at the stake.
The second Horseman brings war. We wanted to create a mock battle scene, each army fighting to prove they love the Antichrist more. We thought the best way to show that was to have them yelling. You know, “I love the Antichrist more!” and “No, I love the Antichrist more!” Stuff like that.
The third Horseman brings famine. We set up these store shelves with a lot of really awful canned stuff, and then all these desperate people rioting over what’s left. You know, canned possum and pigs’ feet and thin mints.
The fourth Horseman is pestilence. We had all these actors in makeup, you know, to look like they’re dying of all these plagues, flesh rotting, really scary stuff—and as we walk the customers through, these plague people are, you know, reaching out, begging for help, begging for medicine, grabbing at the customers.
Now, the fifth seal—
Pay attention. I’m giving you context. We went to a lot of trouble to put this thing together.
—the fifth seal is martyrdom. We had a room where these Christians were being killed for their faith. A little like the other room with the witch trial, except these are the executions. There’s a guy getting his head chopped off on a guillotine; we actually figured out how to make it look like a man’s head is really chopped off. Pretty scary stuff. We have people hanging from nooses…
Most of these martyrs are dummies, but one or more are real people, who can scare the attendees. You know, as the kids are walking through, some of the supposedly “dead” people start shouting, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”
It’s in the Bible. Don’t you think you should write this down? It’s important.
The sixth seal is the earth moving and stuff falling out of the sky. This is good—to simulate an earthquake, we have these bass notes that rumble and shake the floor while the kids walk across.
And the lights are all flashing, like the sun blackening and the moon turning red and stars falling from the sky. And we have these actors dressed like kings hiding in caves. The caves are off to the side. We could never get the lights just right so you could see them, so we have them shouting stuff too. I don’t remember what they were shouting, it was something we had to make up. I’m sure it was scripted.
Now, when the seventh seal is opened, it reveals the seven trumpets and seven bowls. So, the first trumpet—
Look, I’m just trying to give you context. We had souls to save.
[NEXT CHAPTER BUTTON COMING]
AUTHOR COMMENTARY:
“Don’t you think you should write this down?” When the novel opened, we saw quickly that Mark Hogan isn’t merely narrating his whole sad, bizarre, crazy story—he is making a confession. (But to whom?)
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that it’s a reversal of a classic trick from Agatha Christie. Back when I published these Kansas City Blues crime novels, they only had touches of mystery to them. Which actually confused one of my editors at the original publisher, because he didn’t understand that “suspense” is not the same as “mystery.”
But if you look closely at these “mystery” elements that I did put in these books, you should be able to see a straight line between the quirky cop-and-mobsters shoot-em-up that was I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME and the quirky whodunit that was my fourth published novel, NURSING A GRUDGE.
There are 70 chapters for I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME. My plan is to post a chapter every Thursday and Saturday on Substack.
If you can’t wait to see how this book turns out, you can currently read the whole eBook (as TRIBULATION HOUSE: RELOADED) on Wattpad.
Find Chris Well online: