The Symphony of Death

by Matthew Newson

  Death’s breathing was labored as he stumbled out of the chamber. Lucifer ran up to steady him while he caught his breath.

  As Death’s strength returned, he stood up straight. “It was my pleasure to assist you, Lucifer. Without your genius and foresight, none of this would have been possible. Because of you, I have been able to fulfill the purpose I was created for, and I am eternally grateful to you.”

  “Well, because of you, I have complete victory over The One. We have successfully brought Hell to Earth. Since The End times didn’t happen the way he foretold, I can now be restored back to my rightful place in the heavens since I have proven him to be the true father of all lies.”

  I was sickened by what I heard. I never thought it was possible for any of Lucifer’s plans to work, but this one had. At least it was going to if he wasn’t stopped, and since I was seeing all of this, I had to be the one to stop him.

  As the two continued to praise each other, I decided to take a closer look at the machine Death stepped out of. I knew I had seen it before, but for the moment I couldn’t place where. The four massive turbines appeared to have the strength to forcefully push whatever that smoke was directly up into in the atmosphere with ease. But what was the substance Death had released in the chamber. I saw another victim of whatever he had released not too far from me, so I decided to take a closer look. They, too, were covered in their own blood. I knelt down for a closer inspection of the body. They had bled out from every pore of their body, and it appeared they had been drained of all their blood.

  “Your improved version of the Black Death was a thing of beauty. How it infected and killed everything quickly and painfully. I couldn’t have done it better myself,” Lucifer said.

  The Black Death.

  So, that’s how they killed everything and everyone on Earth. The machine must have helped them disperse this poison. I walked away from the body and up to the chamber Death had used. As I closely looked up and down the device, I saw the plate at the top of the door. It read, The Life Giver, proudly developed and produced by Williams Industries. Dedicated to sustaining all life on Planet Earth.

  Chapter Five

  Alec Williams

  Williams Industries Headquarters

  Williams Point, New York

  I LOVINGLY GLANCED at Tiffany from across my desk as we ate lunch. We often did that since she worked for me now. I had given her Rachel’s old job as manager over the budgeting group after she passed, and Tiffany just so happened to have a degree in accounting and finance. She also had experience in the field, so the move just made sense.

  I loved just looking at her. The light caught her beautiful brown hair and blue eyes just right and caused them to shine a little more than usual. Every time I looked at her, I fell in love with her more and more. I thanked The Lord every day that he brought her back into my life. I knew I wanted nothing more than to be with her forever.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked coyly.

  “Nothing. I just, um...just work stuff.”

  She flashed a smile, “Come on now, Alec. I know you, and I can tell when you have something on your mind, you’re just dying to tell me.”

  I did have something on my mind, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I had thought over and over again about what would be the best way to pop the question to her. A way she would find unique and special. A story we could share with our kids after they had grown up. A story about how their father had planned the perfect scenario for asking their mother to marry him. But in the moment, none of that seemed to matter. Our story was unique because it solely centered around our love for each other, and at the end of the day, what more was needed than that?

  “You know, there is something I want to talk to you about. It’s about the report you turned in last week.”

  “Oh really, what was wrong with it? Are you upset that I didn’t slip a love letter in there for you?”

  I gave her a little chuckle as I thought about the engagement ring I had in my pocket. I couldn’t wait any longer to give it to her. I had carried it around in my pocket all day just in case the perfect moment happened upon us, and it had come. Now was the time to give it to her, seeing how I already called her father earlier and got his approval.

  I picked up a file and walked around the desk to her.

  Tiffany’s look of playfulness turned to one of concern as I rounded the desk. “Wait, are you serious? What’s wrong with the report? My team and I thoroughly checked every number since you and Paul restructured several of the departments. If somethings wrong, I’m sure we can get it taken care of quickly.”

  “Don’t worry, I just have one question I need to ask you,” and then I dropped to one knee and pulled the ring from my pocket. Her eyes went wide when she turned and saw what I held.

  “Tiffany, I can’t wait any longer. I knew I wanted to marry you from the first time I saw you. You are the kindest, sweetest, most beautiful woman I have ever met, and I am a better man because of you. Will you marry me?”

  Tears filled her eyes as she got choked up and tried desperately to get the words out. “Yes. Yes, of course, I’ll marry you.”

  I slid the ring on her finger and stood up and kissed her repeatedly as she cried, and I found myself tearing up as well. I was the happiest I had ever been in my life at that point while I held her in my arms. I never wanted the moment to end.

  Then Paul burst into the room.

  “Alec, I need to talk to you right now, it’s important. I have just seen a vision of the end of...what’s going on?”

  I was too excited to be mad. “I just asked Tiffany to marry me. She said yes.”

  Tiffany held up her hand to show Paul her new, and very expensive ring.

  “Oh wow. I didn’t know you were...I thought you were going to propose in the...What I mean to say is congratulations. I’m really happy for you two.”

  “Thank you, Paul,” Tiffany said gleefully as she pulled me in tight, completely oblivious to Paul’s agitated state.

  Paul walked over, shook my hand, and gave me and Tiffany a hug. But I knew something was horribly wrong, and I just wanted to stay in that moment a little longer before Paul hit me with whatever news he had.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll give you some time, but we need to talk as soon as possible,” Paul said.

  “Okay, let’s talk tonight.” Then Tiffany’s phone chimed.

  “Oh no, I have to go and get on a conference call, and I can’t miss it,” Tiffany said excitedly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I can’t reschedule this one, it’s with all the department heads about their questions for next year’s budgets. How about we celebrate over dinner tonight, and this way we can call my parents and tell them the good news. You did call and ask my dad, right? You know he’s very old-fashioned.”

  “Yes, I called and asked him this morning.”

  “Oh, great. I just love you so much. Okay, I hope you two get whatever issue Paul has taken care of.”

  “Okay babe, I love you,” I said as I kissed her one more time.

  “I love you too. You two boys have fun,” she said as she hurried to the door.

  “Congratulations again, Tiffany.”

  “Thank you, Paul”

  As Tiffany walked out of my office, Paul shut and locked the door behind her. He came up to my desk with a grave look on his face. Ever since he battled his brother, it seemed like something had broken inside of him or maybe he lost a piece of himself. At times I wondered if he’d ever be the same again.

  “I had a vision of the end of the world.”

  “What are you talking about the end of the world? Like Jesus coming back in the book of Revelation or something?”

  “I wish it was that, I really do, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Last night while I was keeping a lookout for any demons trying to attack you, I was swept away by an intense wind. When it finally stopped, I found myself in a vision from the Lord. Everything and ev
eryone around me was dead. People, animals, plants, even the life-giving components of the air were all dead."

  I must have been too wrapped up in the excitement of my engagement to fully comprehend what Paul just said.

  “Okay. Well, what caused it?”

  “Lucifer and Death himself.”

  “Wait. Lucifer, I get because I met him here in this office. But Death, like a person or spirit?”

  “Yes, Death is a spirit and a vicious one at that. He entered into the world when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. He views ending life like some kind of musical performance an orchestra would play, it’s like a work of art to him. In the vision, Lucifer and Death had found a way to end the world outside of God’s timing, but they did so by killing everything. This was made possible by using a machine your company has made.”

  I was nauseated upon hearing his words, and I thought my lunch was about to come up. Of course, something like this had to happen when things were finally going well for me. My God, just how evil was my family.

  “Okay, wait,” I said. “One thing at a time. How could Lucifer cause the end of the world? He’s not more powerful than God.”

  “He’s not, but Lucifer has been looking for a way to escape his fate of burning for all eternity in the Lake of Fire since the day he was cast out of Heaven. He thinks if he can cause the end of the world and kill all of God’s children, he will have then disproven God’s word. He believes if he can do that, God will have no choice but to recognize Lucifer as his equal and lift the judgement against him.”

  “That’s crazy, Lucifer is not a strong as God. Are you sure this wasn’t a bad dream or something?” I sat at my desk.

  “It wasn’t a bad dream, and all of Heaven knows that Lucifer is nowhere near as powerful as God. I’m sure even a part of Lucifer himself knows that, but it hasn’t stopped him from challenging God every chance he gets. He has been doing things like this throughout history. The only time he came close to something like this was when the Nephilim walked the earth, and God flooded it to stop what he had done.”

  “Okay, I can see why Lucifer would want to try and change his fate, but how is a machine my company made going to help him and Death do that?”

  “In the vision, a massive greenish column of smoke was being forcefully pumped into the various levels of the atmosphere by four massive turbine engines that had large hoses that connected them to a chamber that sat in the middle of the four engines. When Lucifer had sensed all life had been extinguished, he called Death to come out of the chamber, and Lucifer congratulated him on the new version of the Bubonic Plague.”

  “Wait, they used an old disease from the thirteen-hundreds to kill everyone? Why would they use that? Why wouldn’t they just get all the nations to nuke one another? I mean, aren’t there enough nuclear bombs to destroy the world several times over?”

  “Apparently, they like that form of killing for some reason, but it ended everything very quickly. Then the ground opened, and countless demons came up, and started destroying everything around them and began to make Hell on Earth.”

  “When and where is this supposed to happen?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t recognize any of the landmarks around me, but the city seemed familiar to me. I don’t know, I might have been there once before when I was alive or maybe on one of the assignments the Lord had sent me on.”

  “Okay. Well, can you ask Jesus to tell you where this is going to happen?”

  “I’ve tried, but he’s been silent on the matter.”

  “Okay. Maybe we can figure this out. Tell me about the machine. How do you know my company made it?”

  “After Death exited the chamber, I took a closer look at the machine. There was a nameplate over the door that read The Life Giver, proudly developed and produced by Williams Industries for sustaining all life on Planet Earth. Alec, we have to find this machine and destroy it right now. Do you know where it is located?”

  “Okay. Okay. Yeah, we have to get rid of that machine, but I’ve never heard of it before. My dad must have had a group secretly working on it. Hold on a second, and I’ll run a search in the company database for its location.”

  I tried not to panic as I ran a search for The Life Giver machine, but the reality of the situation had started to sink into my mind. I wondered how long I’d have to pay for my father’s sins, and if I would ever have a normal life. In a matter of seconds, though, I had the locations of the device, at least that was a start.

  “Okay Paul, I have found where the machine is, but it looks like it’s broken up into six components. There are the four turbine engines, the chamber, and the portable nuclear reactor that powers the machine. It appears that all the pieces are in four locations.”

  “Four locations? This is going to be harder than I thought. How are the components broken out, and where are they?”

  “Well, the machine itself is made of six main pieces, but at least they are not in six locations. It looks like three of the turbine engines are located at our plant in Texas.”

  “Are you serious, Alec? They were in the building you worked at in Houston. How did you not know that?”

  “No, that was an office building. We have a large plant and warehouse out in west Texas. There’s a lot of wind farms out there, but the devices you’re talking about are prototypes. They are not for distribution yet, and it appears my father did have a hand in making this. Well, the name he gave it matches his warped sense of humor.”

  “Focus, Alec, we need to find all the pieces.”

  “Right, sorry, the chamber is located in a warehouse in Sicily, and the portable reactor is in a warehouse in Boulder, Colorado, which makes sense because we own a uranium mine there.”

  “You’re forgetting the fourth turbine, Alec. Where is it at?”

  “It’s here.”

  “What do you mean here?”

  “I mean it’s in the basement under the building. Apparently, my father wanted to see one, so he had one of them developed right below our feet.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. How would he get it out of the building?”

  “There’s an underground access for large deliveries down there, but let’s go check it out.”

  “Wait, before we go, print a list of the locations. Then permanently delete all records of the machine and its whereabouts from the company database.”

  ABOUT TEN MINUTES LATER, Paul and I were on my private elevator with the only remaining record of The Life Giver in hand. I had permanently deleted everything on it from the company database thanks to the individual permissions my father had set up. Paul didn’t say a word as we descended deep into the building. I don’t think I had ever been in the basement, but then Paul perked up. He went on full alert as he looked all around the elevator car.

  “What’s wrong, Paul?”

  “Do you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  “They’re here.”

  The elevator slowed and the doors opened. “What? Who’s here? This is a completely closed off sector. I’m the only one who has access to this floor.”

  “Get behind me, Alec.”

  “What, why, what is it?”

  “The devil has come calling.”

  “Hello there, gentleman, and please call me Lucifer. I’ve never been partial to the name devil. It’s too unspecific. So many people call every demon and dark spirit a devil, but the name Lucifer carries so much weight. It lets the people know who they're dealing with. Wouldn’t you agree, Alec?”

  I looked on in horror as Lucifer stood on top of the turbine engine in his black armor, and some guy I’d never seen before dressed like someone out of an old vampire movie stood next to him. They looked like they were ready for a fight. Paul stepped in front of me and immediately changed into The Man Wrapped in Darkness. It still amazed me every time I saw him in his black outfit. His whole countenance and demeanor commanded respect from all who looked upon him.

  “I’ll call you whatever I
want. You lost the right to that name the moment you forgot your place and challenged the Father and lost,” Paul shouted back.

  “What’s the matter Paul, are you still sad that your brother always hated you? Oh, poor baby, it must had been so hard for you to kill him. Tell me, do you still cry yourself to sleep?”

  Paul smirked. “Satan. Devil. Accuser. Serpent. Dragon. Tempter. Little Horn.”

  “Shut your mouth, you little bastard.”

  “Bastard, now that’s funny because you’re the illegitimate one now. I see you’re still mad because you’re only like a roaring lion, and not the actual roaring lion of the Tribe of Judah.”

  That last line seemed to cut Lucifer to the quick as he closed his eyes and looked away for a moment. Then he turned back at me. “Alec, so good to see you again, and I see you’re still hiding behind Paul, the dreaded champion of Heaven. Oh, I’m so scared. Alec, please let me give you some good advice. You really should find some new friends. I’m very disappointed in the company you keep. You really can do better.”

  “You should be scared little horn,” growled Paul.

  “Well Paul, can I call you, Paul? I have to give you credit, you have done a remarkable job at being a perpetual thorn in my side, but all that’s over now. Let me introduce you to a being that no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to beat. Death.”

  Death stepped forward and nodded.

  “That was a tricky thing you did thereby deleting all traces of the machines location from the company database, but I assure you it’s only a temporary setback. You two can’t stop what’s coming this time.”

  “Paul, what are you waiting for, attack them,” I whispered.

  “Oh, he’s not going to do that, Alec. Because it would leave you exposed for me to take my vengeance upon you.”

  “What are you going to do with that engine?” Paul asked.