by Bill Myers
The anger and disapproval of the Temple Mount grew louder.
More angles of Brandon screaming onstage, “You have played the harlot with many lovers!”
Back to Brandon at the orgy where he was seen abusing the child by throwing her across the room into the table, sending glass and booze crashing all around her.
By now the Mount’s anger had turned to audible boos and hissing. And still the video continued …
“But I don’t wan’ things diff’ren’!”
“Eric, sweetheart —”
“Heylel promised … and nothin’s gonna stop us! Nothin’!”
For the briefest moment Eric’s anger had pushed through the effects of the drug. Katherine hesitated, wondering if she should inject more or wait and see if he settled back under its influence. They’d found a seat on a boulder atop one of the cliffs. Forty feet below was rocky rubble, dead grass, and parched olive trees that stretched across the ravine and up the other side toward the Old City. Occasionally they could hear the cheers and roar of the crowd from the Temple Mount that was about a mile and a half away.
She glanced at her son. His eyes were already growing heavy and starting to close. “Eric?”
They opened.
“If you continue with Heylel, you’ll be responsible for more people dying, maybe even more than Scorpion.”
“Tha’s their problem,” he mumbled.
“Eric?”
He woke more. “If they get in the way, tha’s their problem.”
The coldness of the statement hit Katherine hard. Even in his half-asleep stupor, he knew what he wanted … and the consequences. And at that moment Katherine knew he would not change, he would never change. He would hold to the decision he’d made so many months before. He would follow Heylel, he would always follow him, and there was nothing she could say or do to change his mind. Regardless of the millions that had died in the recent past or that may soon die in the future, her son had made his decision.
Numbly, Katherine Lyon reached into her purse.
Memories of Eric flooded in — his sweetness, his kindness, his tearstained face when he’d caught his first fish and saw it struggling for breath on the riverbank. But other images came as well … the bloody carnage of the birds atop that rock in Nepal. The death of his friend, Deepak. Momma, I made his heart stop! The murder of the officer on the airport tarmac.
An unbearable ache spread through her chest, making it impossible to breathe as she pulled the first vial from her purse, followed by the syringe. She looked at her son. He was dozing peacefully. How was it possible? How could this child, this flesh of her flesh, this soul of her soul, be the murderer of millions?
She took a ragged breath, then pulled out the syringe. She removed the protective tip she had placed back over the needle. With trembling hands she inserted it into the first vial and drew out the remaining eight cc’s of the clear liquid. She hesitated a moment, unsure, then reached back into her purse to pull out the new vial. She inserted the needle, and though it was difficult to see through the tears, she drew out the full ten cc’s.
Another wave of cheers wafted across the valley.
Eric stirred and she watched him. So tender, so innocent … and yet a murderer, a mass murderer. Her heart screamed in agony, and she bit her lip so the words would not escape. Dear God, dear God, please don’t make me do this!
But of course there was no God. At least for her. And, even if there was, he would not answer.
She reached back into her purse and pulled out a narrow cloth belt, the one that went with her green floral dress. Everything was blurring. She could see only the syringe, the belt, her shaking hands.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son …
The phrase surprised her. It was a Bible verse, the one printed over the door of her father’s church. She hadn’t thought of it in years. Once again it echoed in her head.
For God so loved the world …
“God’s love,” the same words her father had preached, that Michael had preached, that Sarah had preached. Words. That’s all they had to offer. That’s all anyone had to offer except … except, perhaps … God.
… that he gave his only begotten Son …
Giving up his only Son … Well, at least maybe he knew a little of what she was going through.
She reached down to Eric’s arm. It was tan and the hair was just starting to thicken from manhood. She looked down at his hand, the one that had clutched hers at the state fair during his first ride on the Octopus.
Momma, I’m scared!
Just hang on to me, baby. It’ll be okay, just hang on …
She reached down and lifted the hand to her lips, then tenderly kissed its open palm.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son …
Was this what God had felt? This impossible grief, when he’d given up his Son?
She pushed up Eric’s sleeve, then wrapped the belt around his arm, pulling it tight until the veins began to bulge.
He stirred, opening his eyes. “Whar you doin’?”
“It’s okay, baby …” It was all she could do to force out the words. “This will make you better … This will make everything better.”
She searched her lap for the syringe. It was difficult to see it through the tears.
For God so loved the world …
If this was the type of pain he’d gone through … for the world … then maybe she’d been wrong, maybe he did have some love in him …
She found the syringe and lifted it up. Sarah had explained the need to tap up the bubbles and squirt them out, but her vision wasn’t clear enough to see them. Not that it mattered, not with eighteen cc’s. She lay his arm in her lap. For the briefest moment she lowered her head and rested it against his shoulder, unable to continue. She turned and kissed his neck. A sob escaped. This was her child, her cooing, gurgling, laughing baby.
He would also be the murderer of millions.
She raised her head from his shoulder. She tightened her legs around his arm to hold it in place, wiped the tears from her eyes, and searched for the largest vein.
That’s when she heard Heylel’s voice. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Her words came out choking but determined. “I’m stopping you. You’ll not use my son to kill anymore.”
Suddenly Eric’s body came alive. He tried to twist, to pull away his arm. “Stop it!” Heylel bellowed. “Stop it!”
But he didn’t have a chance. Despite the movement, Katherine held his arm firmly between her legs. She brought the needle toward a puffy blue vein. It pressed into the skin, starting to pierce the flesh, when she heard —
“Momma …” It was the voice of her baby boy, of little Eric. “Momma, I’m scared.”
And it burst her heart. She was overcome. She could not do it. She could not kill her only son.
That’s when Heylel made his move. He jerked Eric’s arm out of her lap. The movement startled her and before she could react, he grabbed the hand with the syringe and tore it from her grip. Then, with one swift move, he raised it into the air and plunged it deep into her chest.
“Eric …”
She caught a glimpse of his eyes but Eric wasn’t there. Only Heylel.
She raised her hands to her chest, trying to pull out the syringe, which gave Heylel opportunity to scoot away from her, letting her tumble off the rock. As she fell, he slid down to join her, using her momentum to kick her the rest of the way … until she rolled over the edge of the cliff.
“Eric … !”
She hit one rock and sailed through the air. Then she hit another and another — falling, flying, flailing. Time slowed. She could hear Heylel’s laughter high above, but she felt no betrayal or anger. Instead, her mind focused, growing amazingly sharp. She couldn’t do it. She loved her son too much to kill him. And yet God’s love was greater than that — because he had gone through with it. He had killed his Son … for the world … for h
er! Was such a thing possible? As much as she loved Eric, was it possible that God loved her even more?
The answer was vividly clear … not in words, but in action. He had killed his Son for her, he had gone through the agony that she could not endure … for her, to save her, because he loved her!
… that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Suddenly it made sense. Suddenly she understood. Katherine had no idea how long she fell. The concept of time was gone. All she knew was that now, at last, she finally understood the fullness of God’s love. And for the first time since her childhood, she asked that he would once again hold her in his arms.
Katherine Lyon’s prayer was answered before she hit the ground.
As Sarah watched the video, she noticed the theme had begun to change. Instead of dealing with Brandon’s “anger” and “hypocrisy” it began drawing connections between his statements and the world catastrophes. Using portions of Tanya’s old broadcast, it discussed the worldwide drought, the consequent famine, the earthquakes, the volcanoes, even the outbreak of Scorpion, while cutting back and forth to Brandon on the L.A. stage, shouting the passages from Jeremiah.
“My anger and my fury will be poured out on this
place … ” The scene was followed by various shots of eruptions, blasting plumes of smoke and ash. “On man … ” Next came portraits of suffering humanity, dying men and women, living skeletons, a starving child trying to nurse from his dead mother. “And beast …” Malnourished cattle, a thousand chickens dead from heat prostration. “On the trees of the field …”
Pacific Northwest forests igniting in flames from fiery lava. “And on the fruit of the ground …” Shriveled crops, desert farmlands. “And it will burn and not be quenched!”
The narrator resumed: “Perhaps this is all just coincidence …”
Back to the video of Brandon onstage, shouting: “Be astonished oh heavens at this and be horribly afraid.” Next a shot of him and Sarah pelted by rotten eggs. Back to Brandon. “Be very desolate, says the Lord …”
The narrator continued. “Then again, perhaps it is not.”
Sarah watched the screen in amazement. Heylel’s fear and hatred was even greater than she had imagined. He was working the crowd into a frenzy. Many were shouting, swearing, shaking their fists as if they had finally found the source of their torment.
And still the images continued, recapping the most horrific moments as the narrator concluded: “Could one man really be responsible for all of this turmoil? It is doubtful. And yet we must ask ourselves, could these natural disasters be a death knell? Could they be, as he insists, the final act of a jealous God — a divine temper tantrum thrown by a desperate deity who knows he has lost control, who knows that we as a people will no longer endure his tyranny? Interesting questions and ones that may never be answered. And yet as we join together to face this new era, these are questions that we must all begin to ask.”
Sarah couldn’t believe her ears. In less than two minutes, he had started making the transition from blaming Brandon to blaming God. She suspected it would only be the beginning. Over the next few months, perhaps years, it would continue. The pride and hatred she had experienced last night up in Heylel’s room would grow and spread until he persuaded the whole earth to attempt what a third of heaven had failed to do … to rebel and overthrow God.
Now she understood more than ever why Brandon had to speak today, why it was important the people be warned and the facts presented. Each and every individual would have to make a choice. If not now, then soon — very, very soon.
The music swelled to an ominous ending as the video freeze-framed on Brandon shouting. The image remained on screen several seconds before it slowly faded. But the crowd’s anger did not. It continued to grow, feeding upon itself. And, the louder it grew, the more solid the serpent’s head above the stage became. To Sarah it no longer appeared as a thick mist. It had become a tangible flesh-and-blood entity.
Lucas Ponte began to speak. “Please …” he shouted, “please …” He motioned for the crowd to quiet. “Please … I told you the video could be provocative, and I must apologize for its bias. Surely, not all of these facts could be true. Some must be exaggerated.”
The crowd disagreed.
“Please … regardless of what we think of him, or his religion, he is allowed his opinion. Please.” Again Lucas held out his hands. “Please, we must show restraint. Allow him to explain. We must allow him to justify his actions and his God. Please …”
Gradually the crowd began to quiet.
“Good … good.” Then, scanning the Mount, he called out, “Brandon … Brandon Martus, are you out there? Mr. Martus, please come forward and share with us your views. Mr.
Martus …”
Sarah turned to her husband. He was as white as a sheet … and trembling.
“Mr. Martus, I know you are out there.”
She wrapped an arm around him. Now was the time. All that they’d been through, all that they’d learned, it was for this one single moment. He took a shaky breath and looked at her. For the briefest second she thought he was too frightened to continue. “Be strong and courageous,” she shouted over the crowd.
He swallowed hard and nodded. Then he shouted back, “What can they do to a dead man?” He tried giving his killer grin, but it would not come. She smiled anyway, hoping he didn’t see the concern on her own face.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, he took her hand and they started forward. The crowd in front of them began to part … not without grumbling, shouting occasional oaths, and spitting on the ground before them.
But they continued.
Sarah looked up ahead to the stage. The serpent’s head began opening its mouth, as if preparing to devour them. Maybe it would. She knew Brandon saw it, probably more clearly than she. But she also knew he had faced its gaping mouth before and had survived.
She prayed he could do it again.
CHAPTER 21
“I HAVE WAITED A LONG TIME FOR THIS.”
Brandon recognized the voice instantly. He looked up at the serpent’s head, which hovered twenty yards before them over the stage. Its jaw had opened wide enough for Brandon to see into the throat. But it was not the throat of a snake. Instead it was the swirling vortex of screaming, fiery faces, the anguished specters whose mouths twisted and shrieked in unearthly wails.
He glanced at Sarah. She saw them, too.
“YOU ARE MINE.”
Although the voice came from the head, the mouth did not move. Just below the apparition
stood Ponte, looking kindly down upon them as they approached the stage. They were fifteen yards away when a young man lunged toward them, screaming a curse in French. He was intercepted by security and immediately swept away.
For Brandon everything was turning ethereal, as in a dream, as in the dozen nightmares he’d had since his encounter in the church. They were ten yards from the stage now. He was so frightened he barely had feeling in his legs. In fact he was surprised he could even walk. But he continued forward, one foot after another.
The jaw unhinged, opening even wider. It was no longer possible to see the eyes or snout — only the fangs, the flicking tongue, and the twisting, screaming faces of fire. More memories rushed in. How he’d been sucked into that very throat — how he’d felt the fire searing his waist, his chest, his neck, and finally his face until … until …
“Don’t look,” Sarah shouted. “Think about the Lord.”
Yes. That’s what he’d done before. At the church. He’d kept his attention fixed on the Lord. Back then it had been on the vision of a nail-pierced hand. But this was not the church; there was no hand. And he could not look away. As he stared, the swirling faces began taking on forms of those he knew — first his little sister, then his father, then others who had passed away. Each cried out to him, beckoning for him to join them. He knew it was a trick, another deception.
Bu
t they looked so real.
“The Lord!” Sarah shouted. “Think of the Lord!”
Brandon barely heard. This was the mouth that had devoured him, that had nearly destroyed him. And now he was walking directly into it. Of his own free will! He wanted to bolt, to run away. But where do you run when you’re surrounded by a quarter million people? You don’t. The machine had been set in motion, and there was nothing he could do to escape it.
They arrived at the stairs leading up to the stage. He hesitated, unable to continue.
“Please …” He looked up to see Ponte spreading open his arms. “There is nothing to fear. We are all friends.”
He glanced at Sarah. She was pale and almost as frightened as he. Still, somehow, she managed to give him the slightest of nods. And that was all he needed. He gripped her hand tighter, and the two of them started up the steps. As they did, the crowd’s displeasure grew even louder.
“Please …” Ponte addressed the audience again. “Please … this will only take a few moments. Please …” But the crowd was far less gracious. “Please, if you do not give him an opportunity to speak, then that makes us no better than he. Please, now …”
The crowd settled slightly as Brandon and Sarah arrived at the top of the steps and started the long trek toward Ponte … and the open throat of fiery faces just above him. But as they forced themselves to continue walking in obedience and in faith, a most unusual thing happened … the apparition began to retreat.
“Brandon …” Sarah whispered.
“I see it.”
It continued pulling back, maintaining the exact same distance from them until it was hovering over the dignitaries at the rear of the stage.
“It’s afraid of us,” Brandon said.
“Not just us.” Sarah nodded toward the audience.
Brandon turned and caught his breath. Interspersed throughout the crowd, every twenty yards or so, were what appeared to be giant towering men. They were a good three to four feet taller than any men around them, and they were wrapped in robes of dazzling brightness.
