What the Hand: A Novel About the End of the World and Beyond

by Stockwell, Todd

  His shoulders slumped, and he seemed, for a moment, to be taking it all in. Lifting his head, he fixed his eyes at me. They were just as vacant as before but somehow meaner, and he began a string of vile cursing so twisted and overblown, it would have been comical had it not been so tragic. I knew then it was futile. He was lost. I gave him a pitiful look, and he came toward to me, fists flying and feet kicking. I stood my ground, while the new body easily absorbed the blows.

  “This is what you’ll be facing up there, my friend. Please, Justin, think for a moment….” But he kept punching and kicking, until he fell to the ground from exhaustion.

  “You think you’re some kind of superman! You don’t know his power. Wait till you meet my king….” He couldn’t finish his rant. He was hissing and spitting and out of breath.

  I turned from him, demoralized and full of heartache. Still, I had to try. Crying, I turned back and rushed him, grabbing him in a bear hug. “Stop, Justin…please, Justin, think about it!”

  He struggled. “Get away from me!”

  I held tight for a while longer, but it was no use. The curses continued long after I let him go.

  ***

  I walked slowly back to the mouth of the cavern. I had seen more than enough of this place. “Jesus, take me back,” I prayed. Immediately, I felt a rush of cold air. My eyes were open, but it was too bright to see anything. After a long minute, the hotel room came into view, and I fell to the bed to forget.

  ***

  It was still snowing when I left the hotel the next day. There were children everywhere, laughing and playing in the fine white powder. I thought about Justin and all he would miss. I was still quite shaken and sad about it, but I knew something now—it was his choice; it had always been his choice. He had been making bad choices ever since I knew him. I always told him he had a big heart; I used to think it was true. I would tell my wife that, every time she asked me to stay away from him. Now I knew it wasn’t true. It had never been true. There were moments, sure, but it was always about him in the end, and so he would always make the easiest choice, the one that was the most self-gratifying in the moment, no matter who got hurt.

  Faced as he was with 900 plus years down there, he would please his new master to make things easier for himself. And so he was doomed. Still, I vowed to give it one more shot when they came up for the last battle. Maybe the fresh air up here would knock some sense into him. I was still full of stupid ideas, even in paradise.

  I thought, too, about what self-serving and wishful thinking it had been to have asked to take someone’s place down there. Even if it were possible, I didn’t have the courage to go through with any of it. Everywhere I turned, someone had been telling me to stop dwelling on the past, to move forward, to accept my redemption, to forgive myself. I still wasn’t sure how, but I was determined to make it happen.

  I’d always run from my problems on the Old Earth. I’d wander frantically like the rat I was, pacing in my giant cage of self-denial, searching for a way out…anything to make me feel better without acknowledging the real and confining issue.

  Even this trip to New Jerusalem had been just another attempted escape. Had anything really changed in me? After all I’d been through, after all I had witnessed? What was I running from now? The future? The coming judgment? God?

  And why wouldn’t I face Danny? Face the horrible thing I had done? We both knew I was a coward. So what was I afraid of? Danny would forgive me. She always did. So what was it? Was I kidding myself that she didn’t already know what had happened after she left me on the mountain? She could have looked it up. Heck, she could have watched it over and over again at the Theater of History. And so what? Danny was Danny—she would forgive no matter what. Still, I couldn’t go to her. I needed to, but I couldn’t. Why?

  ***

  I found a bench where I could watch the kids playing in the snow. Normally, I would have joined them. Sophie and I would play with the children in her neighborhood for hours and hours when I visited, chasing them through the orange grass, playing hide and seek in the bright green woods. I never felt like an adult playing with children in the New Kingdom. I was one of them, completely, while we played.

  Where was the child in me now, innocent and free? That child came and went like Old Earth memories playing hide and seek in my head. I didn’t want to face Danny because I would have to come to her as a child, real and shamelessly exposed, ready for her open arms. And she would provide them. But I was too ashamed. My pride wouldn’t let me go to her.

  Still, I had already told everyone else who would listen that I was a coward, that I was a creep and a liar on the Old Earth, that I was a bad parent, a loser. She already knew. So why not face her? Why not get it over with?

  ***

  A little girl packed a snowball and threw it at an older boy. He laughed, packed his own, firing it her way. It missed her and hit me smack between the eyes, exploding harmlessly like feathers in a pillow fight. I laughed.

  “Sorry, sir!” said the boy.

  “No worries,” I said.

  “Do you want to play?” he asked.

  “Oh, thank you, but no—perhaps some other time.”

  He packed and threw another snowball toward a group of his mates. I watched. All the kids joined, snowballs flying in every direction. The game was on. And I thought: Same old George, still playing games, except nobody to play with anymore.

  I laughed again, this time at myself. I laughed hard and hysterically. I laughed so long the kids even stopped their friendly battle to look at me. Then they began to laugh, so I laughed even harder.

  ***

  My dad told me once: “Never trust a man who can’t laugh at himself.” I had forgotten about that. I had forgotten so much. I needed to see him again. The last time had been so formal, as if two strangers were meeting for the first time. I needed to talk to him, to tell him I was sorry, to tell him I appreciated the things he had done for me.

  ***

  Then, watching the children, it came to me. I stopped laughing. The children’s laughter died out as they went back to their game, but they were still smiling. Except their smiles were somehow different—they seemed to know I had learned something, some great truth about myself, perhaps, and this made them happy.

  All this time, I had been paying lip service to my sins, my faults, my cowardice, as if by the very telling of them, by my vacant admonitions, they’d belonged outside my body, to that other George who lived and bore the blame far away from any truth. I could not accept redemption because I could not accept my ugliness. I pretended to, but I could not.

  The reason I couldn’t face Danny was the same reason I couldn’t face Sophie, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sister, or even Renee. I had seen them, but I had never really faced them, come to them as a child. The reason was simple. I had yet to face myself, to look into the mirror other than to check my teeth, my hair, or my skin. These were no acquaintances to be fooled for a time. They were my family, my friends, my loves, my very life. I chose them as my mirror, but I refused to stare into that mirror, to see what they already knew.

  I was ashamed of myself, but I wouldn’t let myself feel that shame, even before I knew what it felt like. I suspected enough to avoid that feeling on the Old Earth at all cost—to lie, run, drown myself in immorality—but I had no idea how horrible that shame was. Not until my last day on the Old Earth—the day He came, after Danny was gone. I was hiding in a hole, nearly dead. And He came and He showed me.

  ***

  In the Valley of Armageddon, the Armies of the New World Order waited. Over the horizon, a black mass of unfathomable proportions moved toward the valley. The mass consisted of horses, tanks, artillery, trucks, jeeps, all manner of military vehicle and heavy weaponry. It carried and dragged with it an arsenal of small arms and ammunition of every size and kind.

  The black mass swept into the valley like an ocean. As it drew closer, the mass began to take shape in the eyes of the soldiers who waited.
It soon became clear to them that the bulk of the mass was made up of men. The men were an army from the east. The rumors were true. The army was the largest ever amassed. The great army numbered two hundred million.

  ***

  The armies of the New World Order, gathered from every corner of the Western world, were just as formidable. What they lacked in manpower, they made up for in weaponry. Besides, backed by Satan and his legions of powerful demons, they had a supernatural advantage. Also, on their side, unbeknownst to the Eastern army commanders, waiting above the thick clouds, thousands of alien spacecraft hovered. Only Satan wasn’t ready to turn them loose. He held them back, biding his time, waiting for the right moment, waiting to give yet another army time to arrive.

  ***

  Still, when the Army of the East got too close, the Antichrist gave the order, and his artillery batteries began to fire at the great mass of men. The barrages, though obviously devastating to the soldiers blown to pieces, barely made a dent in their numbers. The Army of the East continued toward the center of Armageddon relatively unperturbed.

  And when the armies were close, both sides began to fire their weaponry at will. Explosions ripped through the valley, while the screams of the torn and battered soldiers filled the air with one horrible hymn of pain and death. Before even one vehicle or soldier reached the other army, hundreds of thousands of men were dead. And when the armies finally did clash, a bloodbath ensued that would make Antietam Creek, the Somme, and Stalingrad seem like cage matches.

  ***

  The carnage continued throughout the day in the Valley of Armageddon. Millions were dead and dying on the battlefield. The bodies began to stack up, the blood soaked the ground until it could take no more, pooling at the feet of the fighters and the bodies of the fallen.

  The fighting grew close. Heavy weapons became useless at these fragmentary ranges. Unable to stabilize because of atmospheric and gravitational conditions caused by the asteroid strike, all manmade aircraft had long been grounded. Without air support or heavy ground weapons, the battle raged soldier-to-soldier, old school, violent, brutal, unforgiving.

  One million, two million, five million, twenty million, fifty million—the body count mounted. The blood became a river, and as John had foreseen, it filled the valley until it flowed neck deep amid the bodies, while the men continued to thrash one another like sharks in a crimson sea.

  ***

  God had seen enough. It was time. The gift of light and love, millions of years of creation, life, history, purpose, truth, coming to a head. So much time gone by, so many lives lived, yet a moment in the scheme of things—so important, but still a moment. And without interference, without His army of angels, without one final battle, the armies of the Earth would massacre each other until not a one—not one soldier, not one soul was spared.

  ***

  The clouds began to part. Satan, sitting comfortably behind the battle lines in the body of the Antichrist, smiled to himself. He called for twelve of his favorite demons to possess the generals of the Army of the East. He ordered every soldier and every weapon in the valley redirected toward the sky. He called down the alien ships to hover above the valley floor and to point their powerful weapons toward the parting clouds. He called up his demon cohort, ordering them to strategic positions.

  Impressed by the armies he’d amassed, he felt confident. He had waited so long for this moment. This was his time, he thought. Finally, he would take his rightful place as supreme ruler of the universe.

  ***

  It was over in less than five minutes. And Satan knew he was finished as soon as the clouds parted and Jesus appeared, surrounded by the Archangels and legions more of the great winged creatures following. It was an overwhelming spectacle of force, even for the battle hardened Prince of Darkness. And for the first time since his creation, he was afraid.

  ***

  The aliens and their ships, the mass of ground weapons, many more soldiers, the throngs of demons, Satan himself—all went down before any of them could fire a single round, like so many cans on a fence. And only those soldiers who threw down their arms were spared. The Battle of Armageddon was finished.

  ***

  The Second Coming was upon us. I was nearly dead by then and wishing I were. Curled up in a hole I’d dug under a rock, I hid from the heat and the Minions, and from my guilt.

  It was silly to be afraid of the Minions. Most were away preparing for the Battle of Armageddon. Supply chains had been cutoff and rerouted to the front lines. The few left behind to keep order had to fend for themselves, and searching for strays was no longer a priority. But the sun was real, hot and penetrating, exacerbating an already dreadful thirst. I hadn’t eaten, either, in so many days I’d lost count. When I could have hunted or trapped something to eat, I was too depressed to be hungry. By the time I came around, it was too late. I had sealed my fate. I couldn’t have gone down as a martyr then even if I’d wanted to. I was too weak. No, I would starve to death or die of thirst in the grave I’d dug for myself.

  The heat of the day was brutal, the cold at night unbearable. Except when passing out from exhaustion for an hour here or there, I didn’t sleep. I prayed for death for the second time in so many months, only this time I wouldn’t be treated with a visit from any demon. They were busy.

  ***

  I’m not sure how long I was in the hole, but I was dying. That much I knew. I was a skeleton, licking rocks for moisture, my breaths few and shallow. I wanted to go; I begged to go, and yet I held on. One more day, then two, then a third—it wasn’t possible. Then one morning I heard a great sound, a huge explosion of sorts, but this was no bomb. I was familiar with that sound. This sound was quite different. This sound was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. No, it wasn’t a weapon, more like a great thunder or blast from a trumpet of unfathomable proportions.

  ***

  I was in fear of it. But not like I’d feared the Minions. This was a strange and unfamiliar feeling, a feeling of nakedness that made me curl up even tighter. My eyes were buried in my hands, my head pressed beneath the rock above my hole, yet I was seeing a white light, and it seemed to be growing brighter.

  Puzzled, I parted my hands to reveal my hole awash in the thick white light. As bright as the light was, it didn’t blind me. My eyes absorbed it—my whole body absorbed it. And the fear increased.

  But the fear was not simply fear, but something else, something worse. It was the shame I’d been afraid of all my life, and I knew then why I had feared it. The shame was all-consuming, a relentless, unbearable feeling of guilt and remorse that pummeled me from within and crushed me from without. And when I could take no more, when I thought I might go mad from the pressure and weight of my shame, the light began to change and it was over—except for the memory of it, which I would take with me into paradise.

  ***

  As my shame subsided, the light became brighter, and it filled me with something joyful, something extraordinarily good, and something I vaguely recognized. I had known slivers of it at times in my old life, microscopic compared to this, but I had known it—known it when I held Sophie for the first time, known it when she begged me not to leave our home. This was love, big and pure. It was everywhere. My scrawny body quivered and shook until it seemed I could no longer breathe.

  ***

  Then I saw a figure coming toward me in the light, and I could breathe again, though I was still afraid and ashamed and crying even more.

  “Who are you?” I said.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said a voice.

  At the words, I wasn’t afraid anymore, but suddenly calm and completely at peace. Now I could make the figure out. He was sort of like He was pictured in the paintings with the long hair and beard and all, except his skin and hair were darker.

  “Forgive me, Lord Jesus,” was all I could say.

  He walked toward me and placed His hand on my shoulder. I saw the nail wound in His hand as he moved to touch me. And when he touc
hed me, I began to shake again until I couldn’t take it and blacked out.

  ***

  Then I was conscious again, standing in a great valley staring at my arms and hands. They were sticking out of a white robe and glowing. I was fixated on them for a moment, until I realized there were people standing next to me, beautiful glowing people in white robes like mine. They were everywhere, thousands of glowing people as far as I could see.

  There were men and women and children. The people next to me looked as surprised as I was, except they were all grinning at each other like a bunch of dorks. Then I realized I had a big dorky grin on my face, too. And I began laughing, and many other people were laughing, too. It was wonderful; I felt wonderful.

  My body was my body, but it was new. I wasn’t beat up anymore. I wasn’t emaciated. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty either. Neither was I afraid. I felt strong, eager. It seemed I was young again, perhaps in my twenties, I thought, and I had this weird light in me that came through my skin and made my body glow. I thought for a moment it must be a dream, but it was too real and it didn’t end.

  ***

  Then there was that sound again, that great thunder that filled the air throughout the valley and into the sky. Everybody looked up, and I looked up, too. There were clouds rolling and parting and reforming in all directions. The sky between the clouds was a color of blue I didn’t recognize. I glanced downward slightly, toward the mountains, and I realized their colors were odd, too. There were browns and greens in weird tones on those mountains, and strange vegetation with oranges, purples, and reds that were beautiful, but not like any nature I had ever known.

  ***

  Another blast of sound like a trumpet startled me from my sightseeing, and I looked back to the sky to a giant patch of clouds rolling apart like a scroll. Two winged men, much brighter than any of the people, appeared on either side as if they had pulled the clouds apart. These could only be angels of God, their great wings flapping behind them. Such beautiful creatures, in human form but larger and more magnificent. They wore short tunics, baring animal-like muscles on every visible appendage. They moved like animals, too, with such ease and grace.