by Ted Dekker
The earth began to rumble. A long line of dust rose from the valley floor in front of the boulders nearly three miles out.
“What . . . ?”
The line of boulders was moving. Hundreds of ten-, twenty-, and thirty-foot rocks rolled across the ground toward them. Englishman had turned the barrier into an army of rock!
Johnny watched in horror as a flight of smaller rocks broke off from the boulders and streaked forward. Toward the ranch house.
Johnny quickly envisioned the rocks flying back, but they came on, faster now. He couldn’t affect the flight of objects in Englishman’s control?
The rocks were going to crash into the ranch house. Johnny’s blood turned cold. Could he move the house? No, that would as easily kill them!
His vision fogged over.
The rocks gathered into six groupings, turned sharply in differing directions, and blasted toward the hills. The rocks were going for the outposts, including the one twenty feet from where Johnny now stood.
Before he fully knew what was happening, one of the groupings streaked out of the sky like a comet and slammed into the hill on his left, driving the outpost and everything inside it below the ground. The earth shook.
Dust rose.
Johnny’s legs were rooted to the ground. Englishman had seen the gates flying back over his head, concluded they had come from Johnny, and fired the first salvo. Men lay crushed and broken under tons of rock where only a moment ago the four-sided post had topped the hill. Not only here, but at the other five outposts as well.
He jerked his head back to the valley. The line of boulders was picking up speed as it rumbled across the flat ground, barreling down on the ranch house where Kelly had taken shelter with the president.
Kelly . . . He was here to save the president, but his mind was now on Kelly, whom he loved for her own sake. He didn’t know how to stop the boulders! He tried in vain to stop them by focusing on them, but they were impervious to his power.
Fear and uncertainty overcame him. Johnny ripped his legs free and sprinted down the hill toward the house. He didn’t know why he was running; he was only running.
“WE HAVE to get you out now, sir!” Bruce Wyatt was the president’s most trusted Secret Service agent. He grabbed Robert’s arm. “The chopper’s ready.”
“What’s that noise?” Robert demanded.
David Abraham ran from the window, motioning to the first family, Samuel, and Kelly. “No, you can’t leave. He’ll destroy the helicopter as soon as it takes off. You have a shelter?”
“The basement.”
“In the basement! Now!” David spun to the other three Secret Servicemen who stood with sidearms drawn. “Everyone! The house is going to be hit. Let’s go!”
“Hit? By what?” Robert asked.
He still couldn’t wrap his mind around what David’s son, Samuel, had suggested to him moments earlier. The notion that two men with supernatural powers were duking it out in his front yard wasn’t making it through his reality grid.
Elijah had fought the prophets of Baal—an event recorded by an ancient writer. Samson had pushed over some pillars, another story written down by another ancient writer. Johnny had saved his life by affecting the flight of a bullet, an event that was recorded by an X-ray. But here in the backyard of the president’s ranch, stories of soaring gates and flying tanks were in an entirely different category.
They were real. Happening now.
This stuff wasn’t supposed to be real. Not unless you were David Abraham and had broken into the supernatural plane with Project Showdown.
Robert repeated his question. “Hit by what?”
“Boulders,” Samuel said.
ENGLISHMAN DIDN’T know how many soldiers had been hidden in the broad line of boulders, but they were all dead now, crushed under the great stones before the sharpshooters got off a single shot. Englishman owed this fortuitous turn of events to Johnny. It could even be said that Johnny had saved him, although he knew that this was an overstatement. Still, it could be said, would be said, had been said, and it excited Englishman.
He’d sent the gates flying into the valley, roared past the crumpled tank, and piloted the dust-spewing Honda Accord a third of the way down the straight road toward the huge line of boulders when the gates had suddenly come flying back, over the rocks, across the dull blue sky, over his head like a giant twisted metal bird.
Johnny! Johnny was here! Englishman nearly drove off the road in his exuberance.
He had intended to use his power to accelerate the Honda Accord to a speed far beyond its limits. He would have blasted through the narrow gap in the defenses like an unstoppable roadrunner from hell. Beep-beep.
Then the gates had come flying back and Englishman changed his mind. He sent the boulders rolling. He couldn’t see the ranch house yet, but he could just make out the outposts on the distant hills, exactly where the documents had put them. He decided to take them out now, ahead of schedule.
Englishman did not laugh. Laughing at a time like this would be far too cliché. If it was just the president up there waiting to die, he might have allowed himself a cliché or two. But now that Johnny had inserted himself into the mix and demonstrated that he knew a thing or two about gate-flinging, Englishman would avoid cliché.
He parted the boulders like a Red Sea in motion and increased the Honda’s speed. The car shook with hammering vibrations, the sky boiled with dust, the air thundered with the sound of a million tons of rock rolling, rolling, crushing, crushing, pounding, pounding.
The small Honda Accord followed directly behind, splitting the dust with an unseen shield. He pushed the car even faster, drew abreast the boulders that were less than twenty yards away on each side. Tumbling, tumbling, crashing, crashing, roaring, roaring. He couldn’t see any body parts in there. Englishman might have allowed himself a laugh then. He couldn’t be sure, because the sound was so deafening he couldn’t hear himself.
He leaned back, looked directly ahead, and blasted through, easily pulling ahead of his massive rear guard. They would be able to see the lone, small Honda Accord leading the charge now, assuming they had the presence of mind to take their eyes off the big show to realize that he was the big show.
The air was crystal clear this morning. With the dust behind him, he could see all the way to the large grouping of trees and scattered boulders that presumably surrounded the ranch house.
If Johnny had a rifle, he might be able to take out Englishman now.
The thought sent a chill down his back.
Am I ready to die?
No.
Was Johnny ready to die?
Yes.
Do I want to kill Johnny?
Yes.
Have I destroyed Johnny?
Yes.
Then why was Johnny throwing gates back at him?
Because Johnny didn’t know about Englishman’s trump card.
He blinked. Still, it was a good question that hadn’t presented itself until now. Johnny had some power, more power than yesterday, enough power to throw gates around.
Wasn’t it understood from the beginning that Johnny might find the power before he was utterly destroyed?
“Yes.”
And he has found the power. So now you have to kill him. Crush him, defeat him, pulverize him, decimate him, ruin him, shred him, chew him up and spit him out. Minus the cliché.
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, hallelujah, amen, you are permanently dismissed.”
Englishman hated Johnny. He despised him in the worst way, so much that in that moment, he realized not having Johnny to hate might be his end.
If Johnny dies, I might die.
The thought made him sweat again. Heavily.
JOHNNY GOT halfway down the hill toward the ranch house and pulled up panting. He wasn’t going to make it! On top of that, he didn’t have a plan.
What could he do down there that he couldn’t do from up here?
The boulders were bouncing h
igh as they tumbled forward, traveling at a speed of at least fifty or sixty miles an hour. They would reach the ranch house in less than thirty seconds.
Could he block the line? He glanced up the valley and quickly determined that there wasn’t enough material to block the massive amounts of energy in these thundering behemoths.
Then he saw the car blazing a dusty trail just in front of the boulders, which had parted to let it through.
Englishman.
His mind flipped through options as if they were playing cards fanned by a thumb.
Stop the boulders. No.
Stop the car. He tried. It was being controlled by Englishman. No. Divert the boulders. Again, under Englishman’s control. No.
Stand in the way of the boulders. No, that couldn’t possibly be a good idea.
Lift the boulders off the ground so they would fly over . . .
No, no, no. Nothing could be done to the boulders.
But to the car . . .
Johnny scanned the valley floor for a large rock, found one, lifted it a hundred feet into the air, and then sent it flying toward the car.
Fast. Faster than he could see. A streak of granite packing enough striking power to bury the car a hundred feet under the ground.
Englishman was still too far away for Johnny to make out any detail, but he did see a few things.
He saw the car skidding to a stop. He saw a boulder rise from the line behind the car, streak toward the rock he’d sent, and slam into it in midair. He saw a hundred fragments rain down around the car.
He saw that the line of boulders was still thundering for the ranch house, in front of the car now.
Johnny began to panic. The valley filled with the sound of other-worldly bowling balls crashing down the lane for the target.
His heart skipped a beat. Down?
He swung his eyes to the ground two hundred yards in front of the granite army and told it to move. Dust immediately swirled in a long straight line across the high-desert floor. The sand lifted into the air, like a long row of fountains blasting skyward.
He dug the trench deep, the entire width of the valley floor, sending excavated sand and stone up to the clouds, where they hung in suspension.
Englishman’s line of boulders reached the wide trench, bounded into the air, and dropped out of sight.
As long as the boulders were beyond Englishman’s senses, he couldn’t control them.
Johnny dropped the excavated sand and stone back into the trench. The boulders were now gone under an uneven line of dirt that formed a mound across the valley. No sign of Englishman.
Silence seemed to echo.
He’d done it? Johnny’s heart pounded, a heavy, thick bass drum in a hollow chest. He’d really done it?
“Johnnyyyyyyyyy!”
His named drifted over the valley floor, barely reaching him. Englishman was where? On the mound of dirt? He couldn’t see too clearly.
With alarm Johnny realized that the sky was darker now, definitely darker than it had been just minutes earlier.
He really was going blind.
Show them the truth, Samuel had said. The truth will set us all free. The truth had turned Samson blind.
Englishman cried his name again. “Johnnyyyyyyyyy!”
The cliffs at the entrance began to crumble. He saw the car then, emerging from behind several tall boulders, like a bat out of hell.
Johnny ran. Down the hill. Like Elijah racing the rains, down, down, stretching each leg in front of the other, afraid to look up. Knowing that Samuel had been right. He couldn’t win this battle with a few boulders or a ton of boulders. A single large chunk of granite from the sky would destroy the ranch house—there was no way Johnny could protect them forever.
He had to get to Englishman before Englishman got to them.
The ground over the now-filled trench flattened before the car. Johnny cut to his right, hoping that he could intercept the car, but even as he ran, he knew Englishman would beat him to the ranch house.
He passed a small wooden outbuilding at the base of the hill—perhaps a tool shack. He could hardly see the distant tumbling cliffs, but he could tell that they were floating in large broken chunks. Englishman was gathering an armada. This time it would float. Their end was clearly in sight.
Or not so clearly.
Johnny ran faster, on level ground now, terrified as much by his failing sight as by the coming catastrophe. He could make out forms, but they seemed shrouded in dusk. A faint glimmer followed the edges of most things. The rocks, the trees on his right, the speeding car angling in from his left.
The faint glimmer of light that surrounded the objects seemed to have intensified. But the world that held the objects was most definitely darker.
Maybe every time he used his power, he lost some of his eyesight. Was it the sunglasses? He lifted them with his mind and was rewarded with a blast of air that stung his eyes. The light on the edges of this dark world was bright enough to hurt his eyes.
He let the glasses drop back onto his nose.
Englishman raced on, his jagged armada flying above him. Johnny was halfway to the ranch house when he acted more out of panic than with any real plan.
He emptied the trench again, straight up into the air, but not as high as the last time. The sand, the dirt, the huge boulders rose, and Johnny flung it all back in the direction it had first come.
Light glimmered and crackled on the surface of the flying debris. His wall of rock collided with the massive chunks of stone that Englishman had gathered for his assault.
The valley filled with the sound of a thousand detonations. It was nothing more than a distraction; he was only providing Englishman with more rocks to fling.
His enemy had already filled the trench again, making the path smooth for his car. They were locked in an impossible duel. He had to slow the car!
“Englishmannnnnnn!”
As if on cue, the car slowed to a crawl, a hundred yards from the house.
Johnny headed for Englishman. Why didn’t he just take out the house? Because, Johnny, you, not the president, are his target. He knows you are all that stands between him and the rest.
The sky to his right blossomed with an exploding ball of light. He ducked. Samuel had mentioned drones. Englishman had just taken one out. As if in answer, a second explosion rocked the dusty sky.
Englishman was out of the car, around the car, standing with hands on hips, waiting for him in brimming light, like a gunslinger with one last cowpoke to kill before he called it good.
Johnny slowed to a walk, then stopped, thirty yards from the man. Englishman grinned. “Hello, Johnny.”
42
Englishman strode to within ten paces of Johnny, ready to preempt his slightest move. But Johnny neither moved nor made anything around them move.
The kid was wearing dark reflective glasses. Odd. No, not odd. Cliché. Still, the sight of those black, shiny glasses unnerved Englishman.
He put both hands on his hips, planted his feet in the sand, and faced the boy he’d waited so patiently to crush.
A rock came screaming out of the north toward him. Did Johnny think he could accomplish anything with a stray stone? He lifted a large boulder near the hills and flung it at the incoming projectile. The two collided with a loud pop a hundred yards out. Dust hung in the air as a hundred shattered fragments fell harmlessly to the ground.
“It will take more than a few boulders,” Englishman said.
He saw his reflection in Johnny’s silver glasses, and the sight amused him. Two of me, one of you. A fitting symbol. Did the boy actually think he had a chance against Englishman? Surely Johnny didn’t think he could get the upper hand with some stone-throwing.
Another boulder came hurtling in, from the south this time.
Englishman destroyed it with another while it was still small in the sky. He grunted with disappointment.
The pain came out of nowhere. A sharp jab that sliced through his right shoulder. He
knew immediately that Johnny had tricked him by drawing his attention to the boulder in the sky while bringing a much smaller stone in from behind.
Englishman did the same to Johnny even as he dropped his body flat.
Johnny gasped and staggered forward.
But one was not enough. Englishman lifted a hundred small stones into the air behind Johnny and poised them to strike.
“Behind you, Johnny.”
Johnny glanced behind. Saw the stones. Swung back around.
“Behind you, Englishman.”
He didn’t have to look to know that Johnny had already placed as many stones in the air behind him, but he did anyway. He was right. More than a thousand, maybe ten thousand. Englishman rose to his feet.
“There is no way to deflect a thousand stones,” Johnny said. “You can kill me, but know that before I die, I’ll do the same and you’ll die as well.”
“And you should know that I’ve taken similar precautions. You will deeply regret any real attempt to kill me.”
“How so?” Johnny asked.
“Because although you think you returned to Paradise and hugged your mother and learned the truth about who you are in the canyon above, nothing could be further from the truth.” Englishman was happy to finally offer up these nuggets of information. He could hardly stand the pleasure of it all. “Aren’t we clever? Two hounds of hell trading tricks.”
“I’m no hound of hell,” Johnny said. “I did hug my mother. I do know who I am. The truth is with me.”
“Is that why you’re trembling?”
“I’m trembling because I finally figured out who you are.”
“Is that so? And who am I?”
“Who am I?” Johnny asked.
“You’re the boy who caused so much trouble in Paradise,” Englishman said without missing a beat. “An innocent fool.”
“And you are the monk who came to destroy Paradise. Guilty as sin.”
“Ah, but there you are mistaken. So much for the truth being with you.”
“You’re wrong. You may not have his face or his hands, but you are him in all the right places, born of hell and determined to drag the rest down with you.”
