The Left Behind Complete Set, Series 1-12

by Tim LaHaye

Rayford saw Mac bite his lip. “That’s a relief,” he whispered, his voice shaky. He monitored the controls, stashed his clipboard, and turned to Rayford. “Back to your story.”

Editing note: it takes until the end of the second sentence to figure out which "he" is doing this.

Had Rayford had a friend like that before he was a believer? Had he ever cared about another man enough to become emotional over his well-being?

Rayford, maybe; Buck, most definitely

Rayford remembered as if it were yesterday. He didn’t mind telling the story because it came to a good end, but he hated this part. Not just the horror, not just the loneliness, but the blame.

The boredom that was the second act of the first book...

But if Mac was phony, if Mac worked for Carpathia, he would have already been brainwashed. He could fake this emotion, this interest. He could even insist he wanted to make a dangerous scuba dive with Rayford, just to stay on his good side.

Again he prayed silently that God might give him a sign whether Mac was sincere. If he wasn’t, he was one of the better actors Rayford had seen.

Not as good as your wife! Ayyyyyyyyyyyyy!

They scrambled out of the chopper as a tiny, dark-faced, long-nosed, turbaned man in bare feet gingerly made his way down from a tower that looked more like a guard station at a prison.

There's a lot going on in this sentence, and none of it is great.

“What happened to you?” Mac asked. “I was in the mess hall,” Albie said. “When the rumbles began, I knew immediately what it was.

"I knew I shouldn't have picked the extra spicy tacos."

I almost reached the other side but twisted my ankle on the tire and scraped my shin on the lug nuts. But that is not the worst of it. I have broken bones in my foot. But there are no supplies to set it, and I am low on the priority list. It will grow strong. Allah will bless me.”

Surprised Rayford didn't wince at either the leg injuries or invocation of Allah.

Rayford was sickened by the smell. He still found it hard to accept that this was part of God’s ultimate plan. Did this many people have to suffer to make some eternal point? He took comfort in that this was not God’s desired result. Rayford believed God was true to his word, that he had given people enough chances that he could now justify allowing this to get their attention.

Rayford had little faith in the sanitation of this food, but still he was grateful for it. After two bites of a rolled-up pastry stuffed with ground lamb and seasonings, he whispered to Mac, “I can see and I can smell and yet somehow, even here, hunger is the best seasoning.”

Wtf, Rayford!? What do you have againt middle eastern cuisine?

On the way back, Mac pulled to the side of a dusty field and turned off the engine.

Wow, that diversion to get dinner was crucial. /s

Albie and Mac looked at Rayford and burst into laughter. “No rental on the black market,” Albie said. Rayford had to grin at his own naiveté, but laughing seemed a distant pleasure.

Still not sure why we need the black market for scuba gear

“You need sustenance. You are going back to Loretta’s. I will stay here and see if I can get on the Internet. If I cannot, I have much studying to do and messages to write so they will be ready to go to the faithful when I can get hooked up. Before you leave, however, you will help me get into Donny’s briefcase, no?”

Buck knew he was in denial. Whenever he felt his realistic, practical, journalist side take over, he fought it. He wanted to think Chloe had somehow escaped death, but her car was still at the house. On the other hand, he hadn’t found her body.

“What!?” Buck said. “Threaten the integrity of the structure? You mean not hurt this cheap briefcase? How ’bout I just save you the time and effort?” Buck turned the five-inch-deep plastic briefcase vertically and held it between his knees as he sat in a kitchen chair. He angled both knees left and drove the heel of his hand into the case, forcing it to fall between his ankles and land on one corner. That caused the latches to separate and the case to spring out of shape and fly open. His legs kept it from opening wide and spilling. With a feeling of accomplishment, he plopped it on the table and spun it around so Tsion could open it.

Buck leaned over to peek in. There, in neatly stacked rows, were dozens of small spiral notebooks, each not quite as large as a stenographer’s notebook. They were labeled on the front with dates in block hand printing. Tsion grabbed a few and Buck took more. He fanned them in his hands and noticed that each contained approximately two months’ worth of entries. “This may be his personal diary,” Buck said.

“What’s this?” Buck said, leafing to the back. “Look at these. He hand drew these schematics.” “That is my shelter!” Tsion exalted. “That is where I have been staying. So, he designed it.” “But it looks like Bruce never told him where he was building it.” Tsion pointed to a passage on the next page: “Putting a duplicate shelter in my backyard has proven more labor intensive than I expected.

“What are they gonna do?” Mac said. “Fire us?” “As long as he’s got you around, Mac, he could follow through on his threat to put me in jail.”

This could turn into a real Gale Boetticher situation

By the way, you ever wonder why he calls that thing the 216? The number on his office was 216 too, even though it was on the top floor of an eighteen-story building.” “Never thought about it,” Rayford said. “I can’t see a reason to care. Maybe he’s got a fetish for that number.”

Tim LaHaye: "Ask me what means! Ask me! Ask me!"

“The Global Community might not appreciate hearing you honor Allah,” Rayford said. “You are a loyalist, and yet you have not joined Enigma Babylon Faith?” “On my mother’s grave, I should never mock Allah with such blasphemy.” So, Rayford thought, Christians and Jews are not the only holdouts against the new Pope Peter.

Thank you for actually following up on this point

Buck stopped at the ruins of New Hope Village Church on his way to Loretta’s and strolled past the crater where the old woman’s car rested twenty feet below. Her body was there too, but he could not bring himself to look. If animals had gotten to her, he didn’t want to know. He also avoided the spot where he had found Donny Moore. More movement of the earth had further entombed him.

These corpses keep getting dangled in front of the reader. It's really macabre from a writing perspective just how much they are fetishized.

He turned so Buck could see the ID tag clipped to his collar. It read, “Sunny Kuntz, Senior Field Supervisor, Global Community Relief.”

Okay, that's a pornstar name if I ever heard one.

“Mrs. Cavenaugh said she had to move to the back because of that window, and when that house started to give way, she thought she saw the woman come out the side door of the garage and run through the backyard.” Buck lost all objectivity. “Sir, that was my wife. Any more details?” “None I can remember.” “Where is this Mrs. Cavenaugh?”

The sun dipped below the horizon, and from the helicopter Rayford and Mac saw the yellow ball flatten and melt in the distance.

Calling out another good description.

Once situated, Rayford continued. “Ironically, everything that convinced me of the truth I should have known in time to go with Irene when Christ came back. I had gone to church for years, and I had even heard the terms Virgin Birth and atonement and all that. But I never stopped to figure what they meant. I understood that one of the legends said Jesus was born to a woman who had never been with a man. I couldn’t have told you whether I believed that or even thought it was important. It seemed like just a religious story and, I thought, explained why a lot of people thought sex was dirty.”

I think you've got the causation backwards there, Ray

The roar of the engine, the thwock-thwock-thwock of the blades, and the static in his headset made a cacophony of chaos.

Buck knew the furniture store. It was on the way to the Edens Expressway. The drive normally took no more than ten minutes, but the terrain had changed. He had to drive miles out of the way to go around mountains of destruction. His landmarks were gone or flat. His favorite restaurant was identifiable only by its massive neon sign on the ground. About forty feet away, the roof peeked from a hole that swallowed the rest of the place. Rescue crews filed in and out of the hole, but they weren’t hurrying. Apparently anyone they brought out of there was in a bag.

The unnamed favorite restaurant mention is just like something Stephanie Meyer would do

He called headquarters in New York City. What had been a lavish area covering three floors of a skyscraper had been rebuilt in an abandoned warehouse following the bombing of New York. That attack had cost Buck the life of every friend he had ever made at the magazine.

Can't be that many, since he only ever referred to them as rivals and competitors in books 1 and 2

“You’ve not been in touch with anyone in the Chicago office?” “Our phones just came back up. I got no answer.” “You won’t. The building is gone. Almost every staff member is confirmed dead.”

Not Verna!!! Now who will Buck and Chloe blackmail??

A secretary and an intern survived and checked on the staff.

Oh good, so there's still a chance for (checks book 2 notes…) Alice to reappear

Buck let his head fall back and breathed a quivering sigh.

Buck had never gotten to know Amanda as well as he’d wanted to,

Same

He entered Hattie Durham’s name. The name was not recognized. Hattie can’t be her real name. What is Hattie short for? Hilda? Hildegard? What else starts with an H? Harriet? That sounds as old as Hattie. It worked.

“You also have to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. That provided the victory over sin and death, and it also proved Jesus was divine.” “I believe all that, Ray, so is that it? Am I in?” Rayford’s blood ran cold. What was troubling him? Whatever made him sure Amanda was alive was also making him wonder whether Mac was sincere. This was too easy. Mac had seen the turmoil of almost two years of the Tribulation already. But was that enough to persuade him? He seemed sincere. But Rayford didn’t really know him, didn’t know his background. Mac could be a loyalist, a Carpathia plant. Rayford had already exposed himself to mortal danger if Mac was merely entrapping him.

Mac continued. “I want to be careful not to pretend or rush into it in an emotional moment.” “I understand,” Rayford said, desperately wishing he knew Mac’s heart.

On Helen Cavenaugh’s other side was a thin young man who appeared in his early twenties. His eyes darted and he ran his hands through his hair. “I need a smoke,” he said. “You got any cigarettes?” Buck shook his head. The man rolled onto his side, pulled his knees up to his chest, and lay rocking. Buck would not have been surprised to find the man’s thumb in his mouth.

That's mean

Mac said, “This is all complicated too, Captain, because you are my boss.” That had not seemed to affect anything else that day. They had flown more as buddies than as boss and subordinate. Rayford would have no trouble maintaining decorum, but it sounded as if Mac might.

Once again, a passage that, out of context, sounds like they're having an affair

“Oh, I’m all right! I just have nowhere to stay. I got the dickens scared out of me, and I don’t care to see the remains of my house, but I’m all right.”

Mrs. Cavanaugh is voiced by the stereotypical old woman impression I use in D&D

“Want to take a walk?” “There’s nothing I’d like more, but I’m not going anywhere with a man unless I know his name.”

Corky?” “Chloe.” “Of course! I should remember because I liked that name so much.

“It’s the only normal one in this durned series!”

But he didn’t want a scene. He just stood at the end of her cot and reached for her. As she stepped off the end of the flimsy thing, the other end went straight up. Buck saw it coming at him over her head. He blocked it with his hand and it slammed back down with such a thunderous resound that Homeless cried out and Thumbsucker jumped two feet. He split the canvas cot when he came back down. It slowly separated, and he dropped out of sight. Homeless lowered his face into his sack, and Buck couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying. Thumbsucker reappeared looking as if he thought Buck might have done that on purpose. Mrs. Cavenaugh, who missed it all, slipped her hand through Buck’s elbow, and they walked to where they could talk with more privacy.

Once again, a bizarre time for slapstick comedy — something that was *not* a feature of previous books

fool. I ran to the basement. Of course, ran is relative. It just means I didn’t go a step at a time, as usual. I went down those stairs like a little girl. The only pain now is in my knees.

Mrs. Cavanaugh, not you too! The real villain of Left Behind isn’t the Antichrist; it’s arthritis!

“Then why do you need my input?” “We want to know where Tsion Ben-Judah is. It is important to Dr. Rosenzweig that His Excellency come to Dr. Ben-Judah’s aid.”

So now Rayford is being question about a Jewish man he’s been hiding, because a blond, blue-eyed, European dictator wants to find that Jewish man. HMMMMMMMMMMM...

Buck walked Mrs. Cavenaugh back to her bunk,

That’s a tongue twister

Buck pulled a photo of Chloe from his wallet. “Start here,” he said. He finally had Ernie’s attention. He studied the picture, turning it toward the battery-powered lights. “Wow,” he said. “Your daughter?” “She’s twenty-two. To be her dad I’d have to be at least forty.” “So?” “I’m thirty-two,” he said,

And that’s still weird Buck. Take a hint.

“It’s called Cellular-Solar, and the whole world will be linked again before you know it. GC headquarters calls it Cell-Sol for short.”

Yeah, I get it, thanks. Cause you have to “sell your soul” to the antichrist. Real clever. How long were the two of you boys holding that card up your conjoined sleeve?

“Missing Person: Chloe Irene Steele Williams. Age 22. 5'7", 125. Blonde hair. Green eyes. No distinguishing marks or characteristics.”

Buck: “My wife has very few distinguishing characteristics. I’m worried sick about her, wondering when I’ll see her face again and what her face looks like and if she even has a face.”

“You say they call the potentate’s communications network Cell-Sol?” “Yeah. Short for—” “Cellular-Solar, yeah.” Buck left, shaking his head.

DO YOU GUYS GET IT YET? Buck does. Don’t worry, he’s in on the joke. Buck gets it. No, like, he gets it. He understands. Buck is aware of the pun. Guys, don’t worry. He knows about the funny. Buck gets it, don’t worry. He gets it.

“No, no. I am sorry, Cameron. It is not that. I am still praying for the best there. It is just that for all the treasures in Donny’s briefcase, the journals also led me where I wish I had not gone.” Tsion sat too, and he looked as bad as he had when his family had been massacred.

Buck was struck by the weirdness of where he was and what he was looking at. How had it come to this? He had been Ivy League educated, New York headquartered, at the top of his profession. Now here he sat in a tiny duplex in a Chicago suburb, having moved into the home of a dead couple he barely knew. In less than two years he had seen millions disappear from all over the globe, become a believer in Christ, met and worked for the Antichrist, fallen in love and married, befriended a great biblical scholar, and survived an earthquake.

That’s rough, buddy