Chapter Sixteen

The ride through Montana was, in comparison to the previous several days, uneventful. Scroat relented and allowed Brother Aloysius to ride on the back of his bike. They arrived at the Order of Patmos around two o’clock in the morning. As they rode to the well-lit front entrance, Hep looked at the buildings that made up the compound in amazement. The main building was a log cabin, only huge. Scattered around it were smaller log cabins.

Brother Aloysius got off the back of Scroat’s motorcycle and groaned in pain.

“Are you OK there?” Hep asked him.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never been this sore in my life,” Brother Aloysius said.

“Aw, don’t be a wussy,” Scroat said. “I bet your ass could hurt a whole lot worse.”

“You’ll feel fine in the morning, don’t worry, “ Hep said.

Another man in a brown robe came out of the main building to greet them. He was tall and broad, with no hair and green eyes.

“Welcome, Hep and Scroat, to our humble retreat. I am Brother Larry. Hello Brother Aloysius. Did the trip go smoothly?”

“Well, Brother Larry, except for his fucking car getting squashed, and this not looking anything like Vegas, sure, the trip was fine,” Scroat said.

“What happened to your car?” Brother Larry asked Aloysius.

“As he said, it was squashed. By a cement truck. Thankfully, none of us were in it at the time.”

“Well, I’m glad you are all OK. Cars can be repaired and replaced. People can not,” Brother Larry said. “Now, please, come in, and I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight.”

He opened the door for them, and followed them in to the building. There were only a few lights on inside, but Hep could see it was sparsely decorated. Plain, functional furniture, and religious paintings were precisely placed along the walls. He suspected few people ever used the furniture, or looked at the paintings, in here.

Brother Larry led them down a dark hallway, past closed door after closed door.

“Excuse me, Larry, but could you tell us what’s going on, and why your order would be concerned with us?” Hep asked.

“We can discuss that in the morning. For now, let me just say that we have a mutual friend who was concerned for your well-being.”

“Who is that?”

“We’ll discuss it, in the morning,” Brother Larry said. He stopped, fished a set of keys out of his robe, and unlocked the door to his right. He opened the door, reached in to the room and turned on the light.

“You two will be staying here tonight. Sleep well,” Brother Larry said to Hep and Scroat. “Brother Aloysius, you’ll be staying with the rest of the brothers this evening. Come with me.”

“Good night,” Brother Aloysius said to Hep and Scroat. He followed Brother Larry further down the hall.

Hep and Scroat went into the room. There were two beds with what looked like army surplus wool blankets, a small nightstand next to each bed, and a cross hanging on the wall. That was it.

“You know what would have been better than this? A fucking hotel in Vegas,” Scroat said.

“Hey, do you think there are Gideon’s bibles in the nightstands?” Hep asked.

“Good night, Hep,” Scroat said. He laid down on one of the beds, facing away from Hep.

“Night,” Hep said.



Hep woke up the next morning when there was a polite knock at the door. He ran a hand over his face and sat up on the bed. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

Hep got up from the bed and made his way to the door. Outside was a monk he hadn’t met yet.

“Good morning. Breakfast will be ready in five minutes.”

“Oh, hey, thanks but I think I need to sleep some more,” Hep said. He looked at his watch, wondered why he’d gone to sleep with it on, and then noticed the time. It was six o’clock. They’d been sleeping for three and a half hours, tops.

“You are both expected at breakfast this morning. Please get ready, and I’ll lead you to the dining hall.”

“But it’s only six in the morning. We didn’t get here until two in the morning. That’s hardly any sleep at all.”

The monk smiled gently, and said, “Everyone here rises at five o’clock. We thought we’d let you sleep in a bit.”

Hep sighed. “OK, OK, hang on.”

He shut the door and turned on the light. “Hey, time to wake up Scroat.”

Scroat groaned and covered his eyes.

“What the fuck is up with all the light. Can’t a guy get some sleep?”

“Apparently not. Time to get up, according to our hosts.”

Scroat gave Hep a very dirty look. “If we were in Vegas, we wouldn’t have to wake up until it was dark outside again, if we were so inclined.”

“Yeah, bummer about that. Come on, up and at them, already.”

Scroat got out of bed, and the two of them went out into the hall, where the monk was waiting for them.

“Who the fuck is this guy now?” Scroat asked.

“I am Brother Steve,” the monk said. “Breakfast begins in just a moment, I suggest we hurry.”

Hep and Scroat followed him through a maze of hallways, until they emerged in the dining hall. There were four very long tables, with bench seats. There were easily two hundred monks in the dining hall.

“We have a couple seats reserved for you, right over here,” Brother Steve said. He led them to the far end of the room, where they found Brothers Larry and Aloysius waiting for them. There were two bowls and two spoons placed neatly at an opening between monks. Hep and Scroat sat down. Brother Steve excused himself, and went to his own seat in another part of the room.

Scroat took a look at the bowl, and muttered, “Fuck. More oatmeal.”

“Be gracious,” Hep said.

“Get bent,” Scroat said.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Brother Larry said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Hard to say, it was only for five fucking minutes,” Scroat said.

“We’re a little tired, but grateful for the hospitality,” Hep said.

“Well, never fear, we go to bed early here, so you’ll get caught up on your sleep tonight,” Brother Larry said.

“Gee, great,” Scroat mumbled.

Hep took his spoon, and tried some of the oatmeal. It was, so far as he could tell, entirely plain. No sugar, no cinnamon, probably not even any milk. He had no idea what the day might have in store for them, however, so he ate.

“So,” Hep said, “I don’t supposed you’d mind telling me now why exactly we’re here. So far I’ve gone just taken a leap of faith and assumed you guys are actually trying to help us, but I have to admit I can only leap so far. And I don’t land on my feet very often, as you can imagine.”

“Yes, your legs,” Brother Larry said. He looked uncomfortable. “Well, I can assure you a soft landing is what you’ll find here. As I said last night, a mutual friend of ours told me you might need some assistance. He was quite concerned about you. And, since you’d saved his life, he felt it was only right to help you as much as possible.”

“Who are we talking about here,” Hep asked.

“Robert Wheeler, of course,” Brother Larry said.

“See? See? I told you that guy was up to some kind of weird shit!” Scroat said to Hep. “Now he’s got us trapped in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of reclusive psychos who wake up to early and force feed us oatmeal. I told you Vegas was the better option.”

“Shut up,” Hep said. “OK, what does Robert Wheeler have to do with a bunch of monks. He said he was a researcher of some kind.”

“Yes, he does research for us. He’s really quite talented. We have our own research staff here, of course, but sometimes we need to dig deeper into a subject and, well, it’s nice to have someone who can easily access all the libraries in the world on short notice without drawing too much attention to himself. He blends in, and he’s very good at finding the information we need. Most of our researchers don’t blend in well. The brothers who do blend in, of course, have other things to do besides research.”

“That all sounds very black ops, to me,” Hep said. “What exactly is your order’s mission?”

“Come with me, I’ll show you,” Brother Larry said. He stood up, and led Hep and Scroat out of the dining hall. Another monk gathered their bowls and whisked them back to the kitchen the moment they’d moved away from the table.

“Is Hep, by any chance, short for Hephaistos?” Brother Larry asked.

“Yeah, why?” Hep said.

“I couldn’t help but notice you bear a striking resemblance to a certain mythological figure.”

“You don’t say?” Hep said. What the hell is going on, he wondered.

“Scroat is a nickname, I assume?”

“What’s it to you?” Scroat said.

“Well, if I’m going to trust you with our secret, I would hope you would trust me with yours. But, frankly, I don’t think you two are mortal.”

“What makes you say that?” Hep said. He had yet to meet anyone that perceptive. At least, anyone that perceptive who would openly admit to it.

Brother Larry stopped before a pair of double doors, and turned around to face them.

“You were kicked off the boat of a man named Poseidon, you somehow managed to scrounge up a pair of customized motorcycles and reach Burns, Oregon, forty eight hours later, and you can ride those motorcycles for sixteen hours or more at a stretch without apparent fatigue. You’re either gods or the most extraordinarily resourceful and resilient men I’ve ever met.”

“See? I told you we should have gone to Vegas,” Scroat said. “They don’t go out of their way to freak you out at a bunny ranch.”

“Shut. Up.” Hep said.

“Now, I can assure you your secret will never leave these walls either way. Before I let you in here, will you confirm or deny my theory.”

Hep stood up as straight as he could, and pulled his shoulders back. Despite his bad legs, he was an imposing sight. “I am, indeed, Hephaistos, God of Fire and the Forge.”

Scroat puffed himself up too. “I am Bamapana, God of Fucking Your Mom.”

Brother Larry looked unimpressed. “I’m sorry, Scroat, what pantheon are you a part of?”

“The pantheon of knocking you the fuck out,” Scroat said.

“OK, I’ll figure it out on my own,” Brother Larry said. “Now then, on with the tour.”

He unlocked the double doors, and opened them wide. The room they were in now was lined with whiteboards with dates and events scribbled on them, with arrows and quickly drawn diagrams, as well as corkboards with news clippings and other paper detritus pinned up. There were at least four laser printers, two photocopiers, and a maze of desks with computers, and work tables spread throughout.

“We are here to predict the end of the world, to ensure the world does not end,” Brother Larry said.

“Oh, fuck. Hep, you got us wrapped up with some looney tunes crazy motherfuckers,” Scroat said. Hep considered this for a minute, and had to concede that they did indeed seem to be looney tunes crazy motherfuckers. In monk’s robes.

“Sorry,” Hep said. “How, exactly, do you keep the world from ending?”

“Are you familiar with Matthew 24:42?” Brother Larry said.

“Not as such,” Hep said.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come,” Brother Larry said. He looked at Hep as though this would clear everything up right away.

“Uh huh. So, you’re watching for him, so you can fight him off? Just so I’m clear, which team are you guys on?”

“Gods team, of course,” Brother Larry said. “Look, Jesus said we won’t know the day the Lord will come. So, our mission is to have a reason to be certain, every day, that the Lord will come today.”

Hep and Scroat stared at him without saying a word.

“Let me get this straight,” Hep said. “You believe the world is going to end today, so it won’t?”
“Exactly. If someone knows the day the world will end, then it can’t end on that day because then Jesus, and by extension, God himself, would be wrong.”

“So you’re going to prevent the end of the world by rule lawyering?”

“It’s worked so far,” Brother Larry said.

“Just so we’re crystal clear, you guys stay here, and research ways the world is going to end in the near future, in order to believe that the world is going to end on a particular day, in the hopes that the world will not, in fact, end.”

“Right.”

“And so those guys you see on the street corner with the signs and the shouting about the nighness of the end?”

“Are a part of our order, whether they are aware of it or not, yes,” Brother Larry said.

Hep shrugged. “OK. I’ve heard crazier things.