Reaching the plateau 11,000 feet above sea level, which overlooks the Vischongo River, Milner came at last to the stone entryway and climbed the thirty-three steps to the truncated apex of the pyramid-style temple. Dropping to his knees, he prostrated himself in the direction of the setting sun. There were no eager crowds looking on. Only a few photographers, willing to brave the heat for the sake of the story, had been dropped on the plateau by helicopters and now climbed the stone steps to capture Milner’s words and actions for the anxious audience.
Lying flat on his face, Milner remained motionless until the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Rising then to his feet, he thrust out his open hands and called out to the sun.
“Oh great Sol, giver of light and life to this planet, I stand before you in your ancient temple and call upon you to break free and resist the will of the villain, Yahweh, who torments us with the glory of your rays.” Closing his eyes, Milner seemed to wait for a response. Apparently he received the answer he wanted, for a smile slowly creased his face. Spinning around to the east, he clenched his open hands into defiant fists and again shouted as loudly as he could, proclaiming his purpose and his commission. “In the name of the Light Bearer, and of his son, Christopher, and in the name of myself and all of Humankind, I declare my independence and my defiance of Yahweh, the god of sickness and disease and death and oppression! We will not yield to you! We will not submit to you! We will not bow to you! We declare our freedom from you! We spit upon you and upon your name!”
Immediately a cool breeze radiated outward from where Milner stood.
Chapter 16
Darkness
Saturday, July 3, 4 N.A.
Derwood, Maryland
By Saturday morning, the heat was gone. Decker took a long needed shower and moved back into his bedroom. He had a few things to do to prepare for the next plague — the darkness — but for the most part, he planned to just take it easy and recuperate from the heat. He’d worry later about the disorder in the laundry room and put everything back in its proper place.
He couldn’t understand why no one from the UN had contacted him. He assumed that even though he couldn’t make a long distance call out, they could probably still call him as long as he had local service. And certainly, they could email him. For the first time he began to wonder if a call would ever come. As for the police, he had decided that they must not know he was there. But just in case his attempt to call out a few days earlier had been logged and passed on to the police, he would continue to wear his bandages at all times.
Sunday, July 4, 4 N.A.
Decker opened his eyes halfway and saw the day. It seemed like any other summer morning. The air was clear and the first rays of dawn began to illuminate his room. Perhaps the darkness wouldn’t begin today. He rolled over to look at the night table beside the bed. There were the flashlights and extra batteries where he’d left them. He needed longer to recover and so closed his eyes again. For right now he just wanted to sleep.
Hours passed and Decker slept soundly, peacefully, dreaming of nothing in particular. Then suddenly he understood something was wrong.
Something was very wrong, and it wasn’t just in his dream.
Even in his sleep he could feel it.
He opened his eyes and looked around his room. A cold sweat began to form all over him. Everything appeared normal, but the dread that filled him didn’t pass. Outside his window the sun shone brightly, casting warm beams of light into his room. Still the feeling that something was terribly amiss held him.
Drawn to the light, Decker rose from his bed to open the window. But as he looked out from his second-floor bedroom, the faceless terror that had awakened him took on a loathsome and ghastly form. Seeping from the ground below his window and everywhere he could see, a hideous malice oozed like black puss, obscuring everything it touched. In only seconds it grew from simple puddling in the low-lying areas to a depth that entirely hid the ground. Decker’s curiosity, normally one of his strongest drives, was utterly silenced by the stark panic that consumed him. He didn’t want to know what the darkness was; he didn’t need to know. He knew already. It was evil — the sum total of all the evil that had been done upon the Earth — every murder, every lie, every rape, every torture, every act of cannibalism, every beating of an innocent, every human sacrifice, every brutal mutilation of a child, every gulag, every pogrom, every death camp of every war, every slaughter of the blameless, every cruelty to a helpless animal, every destructive act upon the Earth itself. All of it had been absorbed by the earth until it could be held no longer, and now it gushed forth like nefarious vomit.[147]
Neither did Decker wonder how high it would rise. There was no question: It would cover and consume everything. Already it had risen above the gravestones of Elizabeth, Hope, and Louisa. Only at this did another emotion — rage at the indignity to his family’s grave — briefly exceed his trepidation.
Decker pulled the window shut. It didn’t matter. He knew it didn’t matter.
He ran out of the room to the landing at the top of the stairs. The darkness was in his house. It had filled most of the bottom floor of the split-level and was two or three feet deep in the second level, rising quickly up the stairs toward him.
Hurrying back to his bedroom, he slammed the door and tore the sheets from his bed and shoved them into the gap at the base of the door. With strength born of fright, he effortlessly pulled the dresser away from the opposite wall and thrust it against the door.
It was hopeless.
Somehow he knew it, even as he did all that he could to prevent the malevolent shadow from entering the room. Nothing on Earth could stop it.
Soon the bedroom floor was covered, and Decker screamed like a frightened child as he pranced atop his bed, trying hopelessly to climb the wall.
All reason had left him. There was only fear.
In scant seconds the ooze rose to the level of the bed and rolled over onto the mattress, running quickly into the depression at his feet. From the instant it touched his bare skin, he was paralyzed with more terror than he had ever before imagined.
Throughout the world, everywhere, everyone, the entire planet, was covered with the evil darkness — everywhere except Petra . . . and a single office in the United Nations’ Secretariat Building in Babylon.
There would be no news coverage of this plague.
No speeches.
Only terror.
Decker stood, unable to help himself, as the blackness climbed up his legs, his undefined fear so great he dared not even blink. It wasn’t just around him, it was on him — all over him, like a cold, dark, wet blanket of gaseous slime that no light could penetrate. He feared for his life, and yet he wanted nothing so much as to yield and die, to be done with it.
The darkness was filled with razors and acid and sharp venomous teeth; Decker was certain of it. There was no pain yet, only the assurance that these and even worse were poised only inches away, ready to cut and burn and rip his flesh from his bones at his slightest move.
The blackness now reached his genitals and despite his fear of movement, involuntarily his eyes closed and his jaw locked tight in clenched anguish. With every centimeter more that it swallowed him, the terror grew. Finally, it reached his chin and the last bit of light was about to be eclipsed.
Years before, after finding his wife and children dead, Decker had teetered on the brink of insanity and chosen to come back; he realized now that had been a mistake. He had many times taken risks, taunted death, and survived; now he wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t death he feared. Had he been offered poison at this moment, he would have drunk it eagerly. Had he a gun, he would not have hesitated to take the barrel into his mouth and quickly fire a bullet into his brain. Had he a knife, he would have joyously thrust it into his chest.
It wasn’t death he feared, but the life that would allow him to feel the torment he knew would begin before his next breath. Finally, he could bear it no more. With his head tilted back and ev
ery vertebrae in his neck stretched to keep his mouth and nose above the darkness as it rose above his chin, he collapsed into unconsciousness in a heap on the bed.
The veil of stupor provided no relief, for even in his unconscious state, his mind filled with the images of what he couldn’t see. It was only moments before his eyes opened, though he quickly shut them again. On either side of his head, two huge crows perched, waiting anxiously for him to open them again so they could pluck his eyes from their sockets. He couldn’t see them in the blackness, but he knew they were there, just as he knew also that the floor beside his bed crawled with snakes. Even closer, on the bed all around him, teemed rats, starving for their next meal. And though his body had fallen in a crumpled contorted mass when he passed out, he dared not move an inch, for any motion at all was sure to rouse the rats and make them aware of his location.
There was something else in the room, too. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. Perhaps there were many of them: bloodthirsty creatures that defied description and would no doubt tear the living flesh from his frail human form as they devoured him. His only hope — though he certainly would not have used so positive a word — was that the darkness was equally impenetrable to the eyes of the beasts.
Decker became aware of his nervous perspiration as it formed and pooled before running off his body. Could they smell his sweat? If so — and he felt certain that they could — their claws were already extended, ready to sink deep into his flesh to hold him still as they drove their fangs into his squirming body.
He wanted to scream. He needed to scream, but dared not. Even as they sank their teeth into him and slurped up his blood and tore the raw meat from his bones, he was determined that he wouldn’t cry out, for by his scream he would only draw others to the feeding frenzy.
He longed to sink into his bed, the one direction from which nothing seemed to threaten, but saw the folly of his desire as he realized that only inches below, a pool of bloodthirsty piranha anxiously awaited.
As all the horrors filled his mind, and spiders and scorpions scurried across his flesh, suddenly it became clear that he had been a fool, for it wasn’t a bed below him at all. All that he had dreaded — the crows, the rats, the snakes, the spiders, the razor sharp knives, the claws, and fangs, the teeth — all were supremely preferable compared to his true fate. For what he had believed to be his own sweat was in fact saliva dripping down upon him, and that which he had thought was his bed was in fact the tongue of some hideous leviathan, which even now savored the salty pre chewed flavor of its meal and would, with Decker’s first twitch, begin to slowly crush and chew, perhaps first sucking the blood from his body, allowing a warm pool to collect in its mouth before swallowing.
Decker listened closely and could hear the grinding of the beast’s teeth. It was half an hour before the pain in his jaw brought him to realize that it was his own teeth, clenched in terror. He tried to stop, fearing that the sound would alert the predators to his location, but no sooner had he resolved himself to this intent than his attention was diverted by some new apprehension and he again began grinding and gnashing.
The terror went on, unceasing. With time it actually grew worse, as Decker weakened and became susceptible to increasing sensory delusions that fed and were fed by his hysteria. With muscles reflexively tightened, his body lay stiff and aching and motionless, barely yielding even to the demands of his lungs and heart for air. He lost all perception of time. Had he been there days or years? Had he ever been anywhere else? He had no memory of anything before this. There was no Christopher. Never had there been a Hope or Louisa. Elizabeth never existed. He wished for himself the same. Indeed, even to call him Decker would serve merely as a convenience, for in his state of mind, a name — even his own name — was a meaningless concept. He was simply the victim, the casualty, the prey — shaking with fear and about to meet his grisly doom.
For three days and nights Decker endured this condition, barely moving, imagining ever worsening scenarios of his situation and environment, fearing even the sound and movement of his own breathing lest it should betray him. Parts of his body — dead numb from the endless hours of cramping — he believed to have been somehow cut away like Shylock’s pound of flesh,[148] leaving what remained still alive only to endure further savagery. Sleep, real sleep, was impossible, and though there were periods of unconsciousness, they were filled with apparitions no less horrible than when he was fully awake. The only way he knew he had slept at all was that from time to time he became aware that he had changed position, and he was certain he hadn’t consciously moved. He only wondered why the predators hadn’t seized the opportunity to strike. He was certain of just one thing: Death would come soon. Delay would only extend his suffering.
Wednesday, July 7, 4 N.A.
When the darkness subsided after three days, its black murkiness seeping back into the earth just as it had arrived, Decker found himself lying on his bed unmolested. The room stank of feces, urine, and sweat, but having been in the room with it for so long, he didn’t smell it. Dried feces lay smeared on the bed around him and caked on his skin and in his hair.
There was no thought of getting up to wash. Now that he no longer feared to move, he didn’t have the strength to do so. His jaws and teeth and head and every muscle in his body ached so badly that he wasn’t certain he would survive the pain. With his gnawed, swollen tongue he felt loose flaps of flesh inside of his cheeks and deep ulcers revealing the pieces he had unknowingly bitten off in his torment. He could only assume the missing bits of flesh lay scattered around him on the bed or had been swallowed, washed down by the warm blood that still seeped from the wounds.
Thursday, July 8, 4 N.A.
Decker opened his eyes and saw black. His heart raced in panic that the darkness had returned, until a point of light, a star outside his window, caught his eye. It was night. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but his thirst was unbearable and the simple disgust he had felt earlier at his condition had now turned to burning discomfort: For four and a half days he had lain in his own excrement and its saline and acidic qualities had eaten away at his flesh, leaving raw sores on his buttocks, thighs, and back. His head and jaws still hurting and with little control of his muscles, he managed nonetheless to get to the bathroom for the arduous task of cleaning up.
In the medicine cabinet he found gauze and long-expired antibiotic cream to tend his wounds, and it occurred to him that ironically, he would no longer need to wear phony bandages.
Returning to his room, he immediately determined his bed to be a total loss. He’d have to do something with the mattress later. For now he decided to sleep the rest of the night in the guest room.
Friday, July 9, 4 N.A.
When Decker awoke the next morning, having slept most of the forty-eight hours since the darkness ceased, he got up and slowly made his way to the kitchen. He was desperately weak, not only from surviving the darkness, but from hunger and thirst as well. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d eaten, but he wasn’t surprised to find mold growing on the bread and most of the perishable items turning bad.
He settled at last on scraping the mold from the bread and opening a years old can of cream of chicken soup. He had eaten worse, far worse. Besides, his jaws and teeth ached, and his tongue and the inside of his cheeks felt like raw hamburger. For the next few days, soup and soft bread were as close to solid food as he wanted to get. Still, he would need to call Tolinson soon to restock . . . if indeed, Tolinson had survived.
With no power to his house, Decker turned on his tablet for news of what effect the darkness had on the rest of the world. He got an immediate sense of the impact when he went to the live news sites, and found site after site shut down. Two days after the darkness, there were few that had resumed even partial operations. Only now did he learn that, unlike the previous plagues, the darkness had lasted just three days, half as long as the others. Living through it, it had felt to Decker like an eternity. He w
as certain that if it had lasted six days, no one on Earth would have survived.[149]
Even so, many had not fared so well as he. No one was certain of the count, but the most conservative estimates of the dead were in the tens of millions. The toll was especially hard on the elderly. Most of the deaths were assumed to have resulted from heart failure. No one was sure; there would be no autopsies. Many others had been killed in motor vehicle accidents. Forty eight hours after the darkness had lifted, the streets and highways were littered with bodies. Some had died instantly, others bled to death over the three days of darkness. Babies died in their cribs. Hospitals had become morgues. Planes, trains, subways, and buses — all means of mass transit — had become mass sepulchers. No aircraft in the air at the onset of the darkness had landed safely.
For more than three full days every human activity on the planet had come to a complete halt. Even now, most who survived were just beginning to recover enough to move about. Decker wondered if this plague, like the others, had somehow been ended by Milner, but from what little news there was so far, no one really seemed to care. For just an instant he wondered if Milner had really ended any of the plagues. Or had he merely been the rooster claiming credit for the rising sun?
Saturday, July 10, 4 N.A.
By the next morning, a few more news sites were operating. With all that had happened, the political impact couldn’t be ignored. It was no surprise that the insta polls found a significant drop in Christopher’s approval rating. What was surprising was just how big the drop was.
“The lead story this half hour,” the anchor said, “is Secretary General Christopher Goodman’s meteoric fall in the polls. With a special report on the impact that this will have on the secretary general,” the anchor continued, “here’s Ree Anthony.”
The Christ Clone Trilogy - Book Three: ACTS OF GOD (Revised & Expanded) Page 24
