INDIANAPOLIS — In her small room in the Mount Zion Geriatric Center, an octogenarian named Hyacinth Thrash sat for years, waiting.

God would soon be coming. At least she hoped so.

She had lived a long life in service to Jesus.

A native of Alabama, she had endured all the humiliations people can inflict on one another.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she would witness later.

Catherine “Hyacinth” Thrash was one of four people to survive the events at Jonestown, Guyana, on Nov. 18, 1978.

And she was the only survivor remaining in the camp, the rest having fled into the jungle.

Thrash eluded the true believers circulating through the compound, either coercing the followers of the Rev. Jim Jones into committing suicide or forcing the poison on them outright.

Upon reflection

Lying in her bed at Mount Zion on an early March day in 1988, Thrash did not seem threatening. A slim, frail, gray-haired black woman, she barely wrinkled the sheets.

The writer quietly plugged in his recording deck and slipped in a tape.

“You’ve had the flu, I hear,” the writer said.

“Yeah,” Thrash whispered. “My voice has been so hoarse, I couldn’t talk right.”

The writer, a callow chap of 31, leaned closer with the microphone.

“If you get to where you don’t want to talk anymore, you just let me know. OK?”