Morning Star Full Novel

Chapter 15

Sunday, October 24, 1973

"The body of Christ," Pastor Rhine stated, holding the host before the parishioner.
"Amen," the woman said, accepting the sacrament on her tongue. She turned to the right, and walked away, allowing the next person in line to accept communion.
"The body of Christ," he stated again, receiving the same response from the man standing before him. Holding out his hand, the Pastor placed the host on his palm and the man stepped to the side placing the host in his mouth.
"The body of Christ," Pastor Rhine said to the woman before him.
Then a loud commotion from the fifth row disrupted the ceremony.
"Help!" shouted a woman from the left side of the church. More voices raised, and people began to stir uneasy. From the other side of the church a man yelled "Somebody call an ambulance!"
Pastor Rhine stepped off his pulpit, running to the front pew, leaving the line unattended. Holding the plate of host’s in his hand, he scanned the crowd watching people collapse and fall, before his eyes.
By this time, the church was a mass of confusion and fear. The line waiting for the sacrament dispersed running back to his or her perspective seats, looking to see if anything was wrong or anyone was hurt.
Pastor Rhine darted to the other side of the pulpit and looked out onto the other side of the church. He spun his head around and looked to his deacon who was as dumbfounded as he.
"My husband!" someone yelled.
"My daughter!" a voice shouted above the crowd.
The front doors of the church opened as parishioners ran out the building terrified of what was going on inside. A group of men lifted a woman to their shoulders and carried her down the isle, out the front door into the bright sunshine outside.
Pastor Rhine ran back up to the altar and looked down to the host’s in the chalice he was holding in his hand. Fearing he had somehow poisoned his parishioners, in a panic he tossed the host’s onto the tabletop spilling them, knocking some to the floor. He stopped, dazed and confused, looked at what he had done. The deacon ran to him and grabbed his arm.
"Pastor! Are you alright?" he asked the confused clergyman.
"Mike, what’s happening?" he asked the deacon.
"The people are getting sick Jack!" he stated. "I’ll call for help!"
"No! Let me," the Pastor said in a daze, and ran through the side door to the prep room. He picked up the telephone and spun the dial, calling the police department. The phone rang, then again.
"Philips police department," the voice on the phone stated.
"This is Pastor Jack Rhine, the pastor of Trinity Church. I need an ambulance here. Something has happened."
"One moment, hold the line," the voice stated and the phone went silent.
Pastor Rhine stood with the phone to his ear listening as people shouted and screamed from the main hall just outside the prep room. It felt like minutes passing as he held fast to the silence on the line.
Deacon Mike Vostler ran to the doorway and stood panting, trying to catch his breath.
"What is it Mike?" the Pastor asked trembling.
"People are dying Pastor!" he shouted.
Pastor Rhine set the phone down, running past Mike to the altar. He looked out upon the small group still left in the church, seeing bodies lying in the isles. Running down from the altar, he scanned the pews moving towards the back of the church. In his mind, he did a quick count and added up more than two dozen dead, or dying people.
"Pastor!" Mike shouted from the doorway to the prep room. "The police are on the phone. They want to talk to you!"
Pastor Rhine turned, running back up the isle, robes flowing in the wind, jumping onto the raised platform of the altar in one leap. He darted into the prep room and picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" Pastor Rhine asked with the phone to his lips.
"Pastor," the unfamiliar voice addressed him. "This is a little reminder to keep your mouth shut!"
The phone went dead. Then a dial tone. He did not know if the voice on the phone was the police or someone else he did not know. It did not matter now, for he needed to call his wife, who was home with their son Tony.
He dialed his home phone number and let it ring. Four, five, then six times it rang. Nothing. He quickly put the phone back down on the cradle and bowed his head. Placing his hands on the table top, he grit his teeth and squinted his eyes. He was in shock.
"Pastor!" Mike shouted from the altar outside. "Come quickly!"
Pastor Rhine ran out of the prep room to the altar, and looked out to where Mike was pointing.
Standing at the back of the church, holding their son, was Emily covered in blood. The Pastor took off in a sprint running to his wife, adrenaline pumping through his veins like a steam engine. He stopped a few feet short and reached out to take the young boy from her red blood stained arms. The Pastor used his white robe to wipe blood from Tony’s face and he set the boy on the carpet.
He stood up and looked his wife in the eye. She was in a daze. "Emily?" he asked.
"Jack," she said staring off into space.
"What happened? Are you alright?"
"They told me. They told me to tell you."
"What Emily? Tell me what."
"Not to tell the secret," she replied, then fell to the floor limp.
"Emily!" he yelled and dropped down to his knee to help her.
"Jack, please do as they say, for Tony," she whispered, blood bubbles coming from her lips.
"I promise Emily, I will tell no one."
A smile came across her face, then she was gone.