Apocalypse Dawn by Mel Odom Page A

the point of no return when believers and nonbelievers would be separated by God’s own hand.
    Delroy didn’t believe that, and their arguments had sometimes grown heated because Dwight believed so fiercely. Dwight had accused Delroy of hiding his head in the sand, of denying a truth so obvious that any child should be able to see it. Dwight had been growing in his faith, seeing things and making connections that Delroy was just unable to accept. Delroy thought that by debating the future with Dwight, he was defending the faith. Sometimes, though, after one of their discussions, he wondered in the dark of the night if Dwight was right. Perhaps he was the one hiding the lack of strength of his faith. Maybe he was only giving lip service to the beliefs his father had taught him so long ago.
    “God help me, Dwight,” Delroy said in a choked voice. “I am going to miss you so much.” He placed a hand on the body bag, knowing that a few of the young Marine corpsmen and navy sailors on board Wasp would never have thought of willingly touching a corpse, even through the body bag.
    Being with the dead man didn’t bother Delroy the way he knew it had bothered some of the other men who helped carry the corpse into the room. Back home in Marbury, the farming community he had grown up in, sitting up with the dead before the burial was a long-established practice. Delroy had sat up many nights, with his grandparents and his father and the people of his father’s parish.

    But you didn’t get the chance to sit up with Terrence, did you? Despite the long years that had passed, tears stung Delroy’s eyes. Remembering was so confusing. Images of Terrence as a baby, as a gaptoothed four-year-old holding a chamois and helping Daddy wash the family station wagon, as a young man playing high school basketball, and finally as a Marine corporal in a dress uniform festooned with ribbons and medals. No chance at all.
    Five years ago, his son, Lance Corporal Terrence David Harte, had come home from the Middle East sealed in a box that had never been opened. The military had handled the burial with pomp and splendor and brevity. Delroy, stationed elsewhere, had been flown home in time for the funeral.
    After the funeral and most of the requisite bereavement leave, Delroy had opted to return to his post sooner than required. His wife had never understood that he couldn’t stay there in the home that he and Terrence had remodeled. Terrence had been everywhere in that house-in the pictures hanging on the wall, in the sink stand that was a half-inch longer on the right than it was supposed to be because Terrence hadn’t cut the exact center from the countertop. The mistake had been his and Terrence’s, and they’d waited years for someone to notice. Delroy’s wife never had.
    Tenderly, Delroy folded the old memories and put them away. He enjoyed them because they were all he had left of the son he’d loved so much, but he resented that they could intrude into his thoughts, into his life, without warning and sometimes without provocation.
    Today, though, there had been plenty of provocation. He returned to the tall stool next to the stainless steel table where he had been composing the letter Dwight had charged him to write. It had almost been a joke between them last night as Dwight was prepped for surgery.
    “Write to her, Chaplain Harte,” Dwight had said. “Write to my wife and my kids. Tell them how much I love them. If this thing goes sour, I want them to know that I was thinking of them. And that I’m sorry I couldn’t be there more.”
    Delroy had tried to allay his friend’s fears. Serious military man that Dwight was, he had been torn between family and duty all his life. He had always said God would let him know when he’d had enough of the navy-or when the navy had had enough of him.

    Someone rapped on the door to the small room.
    “Come,” Delroy said. He set his face, automatically reaching for the tie in his pocket in