The Left Behind Complete Set, Series 1-12

by Tim LaHaye

Buck had been hoping there would have been some breakthrough. Maybe Hattie would have promised not to have an abortion or broken down and become a believer. He tried to push from his mind that Chloe might get the idea of taking and raising as their own the unwanted baby Hattie was carrying. He and Chloe were close to a decision about whether to bring a baby into this stage of history, but he hardly wanted to consider raising the child of the Antichrist.

If you’d reject the baby just for being the spawn of the Antichrist, how do you justify getting high and mighty about abortion = bad?

His eyes were red, and his face showed the lines of the recently bereaved.

“What was that you said about the truth?” “You can write the truth, that’s all.” Buck sat and began noodling on paper. He drew the cover of a magazine and called it simply “Truth.” He was excited.

I believe Ms. Durham always overestimated the seriousness of our personal relationship.” Rayford thought back to when Nicolae had seemed to proudly announce that Hattie was pregnant and that she was wearing his ring. But Rayford knew better than to try to catch the liar of liars in a lie.

What assignment was going to fall to him? He didn’t have long to wait.

“I have needs like any other man, Captain Steele. You understand. I would never commit myself to just one woman, and I certainly made no such commitment to Ms. Durham. The fact is that I already have someone else with whom I am enjoying a relationship. Therefore, you can see my dilemma.”

It finally hit Rayford why Hattie might have delayed her return. Perhaps she knew of Amanda’s plans. It would be just like Amanda to arrange to meet her somewhere and accompany her back. Amanda would have had an ulterior motive, of course: to keep Hattie from visiting a reproductive clinic.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound controlling whatsoever

Rayford stared at him. He willed himself not to say the obligatory, “You’re welcome.” He nodded and stood.

How bold

Buck was at the Chicago office of Global Community Weekly when he took a call from Amanda. “I got the strangest call from Rayford,” she said. “He asked if I had hooked up with Hattie on her flight out of Boston to Baghdad.

The Freudian slips show up in female-to-female relationships too, I see

The question was, would this word from Rayford be bad news for Hattie? It might make her future easier to accept. She knew it was over. She feared Carpathia might not let her go. She would be offended, of course, insulted. She wouldn’t want his ring or his money or his condo. But at least she would know. To Rayford’s male mind, this seemed a practical solution. He had learned enough from Irene and Amanda over the years, however, to know that regardless of how unattractive Nicolae Carpathia had become to Hattie, still she would be hurt and would feel rejected.

He had been aware of dogs in the area. Many employees owned expensive breeds they enjoyed walking and tethering outside their places. They were showpieces of prosperity.

But now they were all barking. They were noisy enough that he turned to see if he could detect what was agitating them so. He saw a couple of dogs jerk away from their owners and race down the street howling.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Buck was halfway to Mt. Prospect when he noticed something strange. Roadkill. Lots of it. And more potential roadkill skittering across the streets. Squirrels, rabbits, snakes. Snakes? He had seen few snakes in the Midwest, particularly this far north. The occasional garter snake was all. That’s what these were, but why so many of them? Coons, possum, ducks, geese, dogs, cats, animals everywhere. He lowered the window of the Range Rover and listened. Huge clouds of birds swept from tree to tree. But the sky was bright. Cloudless. There seemed to be no wind. No leaf even shivered on a tree. Buck waited at a stoplight and noticed that, despite the lack of wind, the streetlights swayed. Signs bent back and forth. Buck blew the light and raced toward Mt. Prospect.

Tick

“Sir!” the secretary said. “An emergency call for you or Mr. Fortunato from the International Seismograph Institute.”

tock.

The building shifted under Rayford like the surf. The chopper, resting on its skis, dipped first to the left and then to the right. Rayford reached for the opening, seeing Mac’s wide eyes. As Rayford tried to climb in, he was pushed from behind and flew up behind Mac. Nicolae Carpathia was scrambling in. “Lift off!” he shouted. “Lift off!”

As two young women and several middle-aged men grabbed the struts, Mac pulled away from the building. As he banked left, his lights illuminated the roof, where others came shrieking and crying out the door. As Rayford watched in horror, the entire eighteen-story building, filled with hundreds of employees, crashed to the ground in a mighty roar and a cloud of dust. One by one the screaming people hanging from the chopper fell away. Rayford stared at Carpathia. In the dim light from the control panel he saw no expression. Carpathia simply appeared busy about strapping himself in. Rayford was ill. He had seen people die. Carpathia had ordered Mac away from people who might have been saved. Rayford could have killed the man with his bare hands.

He reached for his phone, but he had not stored speed-dial numbers yet, and there was no way he could drive this quickly and punch in an entire number at the same time.

Day went to night in an instant, and power went out all over the area. People quickly turned on their headlights, but Buck saw the crevasse too late. He was heading for a fissure in the road that had opened before him. It looked at least ten feet wide and that deep. He figured if he dropped into it he would be killed, but he was going too fast to avoid it. He wrenched the wheel to the left and the Range Rover rolled over completely before plunging down into the hole. The passenger-side air bag deployed and quietly deflated. It was time to find out what this car was made of.

Well, finally this Range Rover sees some on-page action, after an entire book building it up

Horror was not a good enough word for it. Rayford could not bring himself to speak to Carpathia or even to Mac. They were headed toward Baghdad Airport, and Rayford could not keep from staring at the devastation below. Fires had broken out all over the place. They illuminated car crashes, flattened buildings, the earth roiling and rolling like an angry sea. What appeared a huge ball of a gasoline fire caught his eye. There, hanging in the sky so close it seemed he could touch it, was the moon. The bloodred moon.

Mac had caught a glimpse of the moon. Rayford could see he was awestruck. He maneuvered the chopper so Nicolae could see it too. Carpathia seemed to stare at it in wonder. It illuminated his face in its awful red glow, and the man had never looked more like the devil. Great sobs rose in Rayford’s chest and throat. As he looked at the destruction and mayhem below, he knew the odds were against his finding Amanda. Lord, receive her unto yourself without suffering, please! And Hattie! Was it possible she might have received Christ before this? Could there have been somebody in Boston or on the plane who would have helped her make the transaction?

Buck had both hands on the wheel, and he was reclining, staring at the sky. Suddenly the heavens opened. Monstrous black and purple clouds rolled upon each other and seemed to peel back the very blackness of the night. Meteors came hurtling down, smashing everything that had somehow avoided being swallowed. One landed next to Buck’s door, so hot that it melted the windshield and made Buck unlatch his seat belt and try to scramble out the right side. But as he did, another molten rock exploded behind the Range Rover and punched it out of the ditch. Buck was thrown into the backseat and hit his head on the ceiling. He was dazed, but he knew if he stayed in one place he was dead. He climbed over the seat and got behind the wheel again. He strapped himself in, thinking how flimsy that precaution seemed against the greatest earthquake in the history of mankind.

going. He carefully drove around and through destruction and mayhem. The earth continued to shift and roll, but he just kept going. Through his blown-out window he saw people running, heard them screaming, saw their gaping wounds and their blood.

A middle-aged man, shirtless and shoeless and bleeding, looked heavenward through broken glasses and opened his arms wide. He screamed to the sky, “God, kill me! Kill me!” And as Buck slowly bounced past in the Range Rover, the man was swallowed into the earth.

I can’t tell if this is supposed to be funny or horrifying.

Rayford had lost hope. Part of him was praying that the helicopter would drop from the sky and crash. The irony was, he knew Nicolae Carpathia was not to die for yet another twenty-one months. And then he would be resurrected and live another three-and-a-half years. No meteor would smash that helicopter. And wherever they landed, they would somehow be safe. All because Rayford had been running an errand for the Antichrist.

In case you were feeling any tension in Rayford’s plotline

Things were still crashing.

When you’re running out of ways to say that an earthquake was happening

And suddenly the earthquake stopped. The sun reappeared. It was a bright, sunshiny Monday morning in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Buck felt every bone in his body.

When he was close enough, he saw that the crushed body was missing a shoe. The one that remained, however, confirmed his fear. Loretta had been crushed by her own car.

Not Loretta! She did sooooo much this book! She told her story. Then she told it again. And again. And she let all the female characters sleepover at her house. What will we ever do without her???

Buck stumbled and fell facedown in the dirt, something gashing his cheek. He ignored it and crawled to the car.

Maybe we have different definitions of “gash.” I don’t know if I’d be able to ignore something that gashed my face.

“How is Loretta?” “Gone!” “Was it the great earthquake?” “It was!”

People staggered in ragged clothes, bleeding. Some dropped and seemed to die in front of his eyes.

Rayford signaled Mac to set the chopper down. But as he surveyed the area, Rayford knew. The only prayer for Amanda or for Hattie was that their planes were still in the air when this occurred.

Then he reached in, loosened Carpathia’s belt, grabbed him by the lapels, and yanked him out of the chopper. Carpathia landed on his seat on the uneven ground. He jumped up quickly, as if ready to fight. Rayford pushed him back up against the helicopter. “Captain Steele, I understand you are upset, but—” “Nicolae,” Rayford said, his words rushing through clenched teeth, “you can explain this away any way you want, but let me be the first to tell you: You have just seen the wrath of the Lamb!” Carpathia shrugged. Rayford gave him a last shove against the helicopter and stumbled away. He set his face toward the airport terminal, a quarter mile away. He prayed this would be the last time he had to search for the body of a loved one in the rubble.

DUN DUN DUN! So, this final image of Rayford is evocative of a western. Rayford is a man who’s finally broken, and now he’s alone in a world without rules. And while, yes, there was some foreshadowing that Rayford’s restraint might give out, he still hasn’t done anything interesting that might warrant this kind of framing. If Rayford had truly snapped, he would have tried to straight-up kill Carpathia. He had the opportunity, and the means, but he just throws a lame insult at Carpathia and walks away. Imagine if he *had* tried to kill Carpathia. It would be an interesting dilemma for the character to struggle with, as it was a breach of his Christian morals and a moment where he refused to trust God’s plan. But nope, that’d be too interesting. Guess we’ll just have to tune in next time and see if Hattie and Amanda have both been fridged.

CHAPTER 1

START OF BOOK FOUR

Rayford Steele wore the uniform of the enemy of his soul, and he hated himself for it.

Not as exciting of a first line as book 3, but still catchy.

But there was no quick here. Only sand.

Nothing like puns while you’re contemplating your maybe dead wife

As he knelt to retrieve his coat, Rayford’s maddening logic returned—the practicality that made him who he was.

“Maddening logic”

he couldn’t treat as dispensable what might constitute his only remaining set of clothes.

wind, that rare, mysterious draft,

Rayford switched the phone to his right hand, ready to smash it on the ground, but he restrained himself. When avenues of communication reopened, he wanted to be able to check on his loved ones.

“I’m here,” Rayford said, allowing his disgust to come through.

How much disgust can you put into those two words?

You will need the following password: ‘Operation Wrath.’”

Not to be confused with Operation On-The-Nose

To get through the trash that had been the only church home he ever knew, Buck had to again crawl past the remains of the beloved Loretta. What a friend she had been, first to the late Bruce Barnes and then to the rest of the Tribulation Force. The Force had begun with four: Rayford, Chloe, Bruce, and Buck. Amanda was added. Bruce was lost. Tsion was added.

Oh, good, so long as the narrator lets us know she was beloved, this gruesome death doesn’t come off as a fridging at all.

The mangled car rested atop a water main twenty feet beneath the earth. The blown tires pointed up like the feet of bloated roadkill. Curled in a frail ball atop the wreckage was the Raggedy Ann–like body of Loretta, a tribulation saint.

Is the book determined to desecrate Loretta’s body like she’s Hector of Troy or something?

Buck made sure the Range Rover was in four-wheel drive. He could barely travel twenty feet before having to punch the car over some rise. He kept his eyes peeled to avoid anything that might further damage the Rover—it might have to last him through the end of the Tribulation. The best he could figure, that was still more than five years away.

This Range Rover is a more important character than like half of our main cast. I hope it lives.

He threw the Rover into reverse and carefully backed up. On the floor in front of one of those pews were the bottoms of a pair of tennis shoes, toes pointing up. Buck wanted, above all, to get to Loretta’s and search for Chloe, but he could not leave someone lying in the debris. Was it possible someone had survived?

Book 4, and Buck is finally getting his save the cat moment. (Never mind, he dead)

He pulled himself up and knelt next to the tennis shoes, which were attached to a body. Thin legs in dark blue jeans led to narrow hips. From the waist up, the small body was hidden under the pew. The right hand was tucked underneath, the left lay open and limp. Buck found no pulse, but he noticed the hand was broad and bony, the third finger bearing a man’s wedding band. Buck slipped it off, assuming a surviving wife might want it. Buck grabbed the belt buckle and dragged the body from under the bench. When the head slid into view, Buck turned away. He had recognized Donny Moore’s blond coloring only from his eyebrows. The rest of his hair, even his sideburns, was encrusted with blood.

DONNY NO! DONNNNNYYYYYYY!

He reached underneath and found Donny’s beat-up, hard-sided briefcase.

Ladies and gents, all is not lost, even if Donny is.

Rayford watched, fascinated, as the image materialized into a stocky, middle-aged Asian in a business suit.

This line didn’t age well. Why does “an Asian” feel so much worse than “an Asian man”?

“Are you all right?” Rayford asked. The man ignored him. “Can I help you?” The man limped past, mumbling in his own tongue. Rayford turned to call him back, and the man became a silhouette in the orange sun. There was nothing in that direction but the Tigris River. “Wait!” Rayford called after him. “Come back! Let me help you!”

“Change your mind, Captain Steele?” Carpathia said. “Hardly. Listen, do you know Asian languages?”

Literally almost did a spit take on reading that line