The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 1)

by Terry James

  Below, all aboard suffered through the cabin cruiser’s rough ride. Gessel Kirban reached into a green duffel bag and pulled out a covered object. He removed the blanket, exposing the PND helmet.

  “My dear Lori,” the scientist said in a tone that indicated he was about to make a request of her. “There is an important thing I ask that you do. You are a scientist, like myself, are you not?”

  Lori didn’t answer, at a loss to imagine what the Israeli could want of her. “I hope someday I’ll have some of the knowledge you have,” she said after a moment of hesitation, not knowing what else to say.

  “Together, we might gain some of that knowledge at this very moment, if you’ll agree to wear the PND for the next 20 or 30 minutes,” Kirban said.

  Laura Morgan stiffened from her seat beside Clark Lansing. “No, Dr. Kirban, I don’t think so,” she said.

  “I assure that there is nothing that will harm her,” Kirban said, pleading to Lori with his eyes, silently asking that she intervene on his behalf.

  “Why? What do you hope to learn?”

  Randall Prouse’s question surprised Kirban. He turned from Lori to look at the archaeologist, who had moments before stepped outside the cabin, but now stood, his large form covering the entire doorway.

  “It is my belief, my theory, because of the things we have learned from the dialogues with those creatures, that Mark’s and Lori’s genetic makeup--that is, that each of them has certain genetic predispositions--which will make it possible for them to make contact…Mark up there,” Kirban pointed an index finger toward the cabin’s ceiling, “…and Lori down here.”

  Christopher Banyon’s expression told Kirban there were more questions on the way.

  “What kind of contact?” Christopher asked.

  “The…you call them bene elohim. Dr. Frobe called them Dimensionals. These beings chose these two youngsters, according to the creatures inhabiting Dr. Lansing. Let us find out why Cooper and these creatures wanted to use the precognition neuro-diviner device in the combinations they chose. Lori, Mark, and their fathers all were chosen. Mark and Lori, especially, were chosen for the future. Let us do a small experiment. I’ve asked Mark to wear the device while flying to their destination.”

  “Yes. I’ll do it,” Lori said, reaching to take the helmet from the scientist.

  He pulled it from her grip. “I will place it, if you don’t mind, Lori. Everything must be exactly right.”

  “Are you sure?” Lori’s mother asked. “You sure there’s no danger?”

  “I absolutely promise, mother,” he said with compassion in his voice. Kirban adjusted the helmet on her head, and then pushed the appropriate buttons inset within the instrument’s chrome-like shell.

  “Power should last an hour or longer. These experimental batteries have proven themselves to be quite resilient when used with the PND technology,” the Israeli said. He sat on the long bench seat built into the cabin wall across from Lori.

  “Do you feel any sensations…hear anything?” he asked, looking into her eyes. Her pupils had already dilated so that they covered much of the blue irises.

  “Yes. It’s as if I’m in Mark’s helmet. I see…I see sunlight that hurts Mark’s eyes. Now, he’s pulled a visor…a dark visor over his eyes.”

  “Yes…Yes! This is the essence of the remote viewing experiments!” The scientist was jubilant. “It is the helmet prepared for him from the first. It is configured like the pilot’s helmet, with the sun visor that slides downward when needed,” Kirban said with excitement.

  “Our minds…they…they are like joined. He knows I…my thoughts are mingling with his,” Lori said with astonishment.

  The small cabin exploded in a violent flash of light and noise. All eyes of the startled occupants went to Clark Lansing, who stood, his mouth opened wide, his eyes bulging in their sockets, the blackness of their pupils seeming to cover even the corneas. His face was a twisted mask of hate beneath the PND he wore. Garbled voices raged from the possessed man’s frothing mouth and gnashing teeth.

  Lansing lurched toward Lori, whose concentration was broken. Randall Prouse lunged to preempt the attack. They struggled, and Prouse slammed against the cabin’s shut door, his body tossed as if a rag doll by the supernatural strength Lansing now possessed.

  The demoniac faced Prouse, hatred growling within his throat. He picked a hard-plastic suitcase from near Susie Banyon and flung it toward Prouse. The archaeologist dove for the floor and the case exploded open when it hit the closed door.

  Gessel Kirban grabbed Lansing from behind but was thrown aside. Christopher wrapped his arm around Lansing’s throat after vaulting onto the maniac’s back. Prouse attacked him from a crouched position, slamming him in the midsection with his shoulder.

  Finally, Prouse, Christopher and Kirban were able to control Lansing, who relaxed and allowed himself to be seated in one corner, with all three men still holding tightly to him.

  The entities that controlled Lansing began to laugh. He threw his head back, his eyes turned back in his head. The laughter was deafening in the small cabin, the demons within their host roaring.

  “Oh, no!”

  Lori’s words caused all to look at her. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open, as if amazed. She said nothing, but stared blankly, her mouth open, as if in shock.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Laura Morgan said, rushing to her daughter.

  “Lori!” Ruth Prouse shouted at Lori, who blinked, and turned her eyes, first to Ruth, then to her mother.

  “They’re coming for us,” Lori whispered.

  The demoniacal laughter from within Clark Lansing’s throat echoed throughout the cabin.

  “Who? Who’s coming for us?” Randall Prouse asked, still gripping Lansing with all his strength.

  “It’s them. They are in helicopters,” Laura said in a quiet voice. “They want to kill us.”

  “They have found us,” Gessel Kirban said, glancing at Prouse.

  Clark Lansing’s body relaxed. He stared straight ahead, his eyes almost entirely black. “We must destroy all of you,” demonic voices sneered through his mouth. “You will not be allowed to tell of these things. They are of eternal importance.”

  “Hold him,” Prouse said, bolting out of the door and onto the boat’s deck. He scanned the horizon. Nothing but gulls and gray-blue skies.

  “What’s wrong?!” Greer Swenson shouted to be heard above the boat’s loud engine and streaming wind.

  “Someone’s trying to find us!” Prouse shouted back.

  Swenson locked the wheel and began sweeping the sky behind them with binoculars.

  “There!”

  He pointed to the southeast.

  Prouse could not yet see them.

  “Looks like a couple of them! Maybe three!” Swenson shouted above the noise.

  Prouse saw them, then, three black specks, growing larger by the second, just above the horizon.

  He hurried to the cabin door and stuck his head in the doorway.

  “They’re after us. Closing fast. Better pray,” he said, hearing Lansing’s witch-like cackle before ducking out again.

  “You have a weapon?!” he yelled to Swenson.

  “A shotgun and a pistol!” Swenson shouted. He left the boat on automatic pilot, jumped from the helm station, and dashed into the cabin to retrieve the guns. He returned to the deck and handed Randall the pistol.

  “Got nine shots, that’s it,” Swenson said of the pistol, pulling the bolt of the Browning Sweet 16 back and letting it snap shut, thus feeding a shell into the chamber.

  “Dear God,” Randall said quietly. “Please stick with us.”

  The helicopters loomed larger now, looking like giant, black, flying insects descending upon them. Prouse and Swenson could see the racks of rockets beneath the birds. They were loaded for the hunt.

  “There’s nothing we can do, my friend,” Swenson said. “Maybe a white flag…”

  “They’re bent on doing us in. Let’s use w
hat we’ve got,” Prouse said, pulling the receiver back on the pistol and releasing it.

  A blast exploded 10 feet off the stern as the choppers closed in. The second rocket whizzed over the heads of the men, who fired in the direction of the black, unmarked birds of prey while they moved ever closer. The chopper pilots were measuring for the volley of rocket and machine gun fire that would end a successful hunt.

  Inside the cabin, Susie prayed, while Ruth and Laura knelt with heads bowed. Christopher prayed silently, while he and the scientist held onto the demoniac.

  Lori sat transfixed, viewing through Mark’s eyes, a stunning plunge toward the blue waters below.

  The black helicopters, positioned for the kill, readied to fire. Prouse and Swenson could see the black helmeted people within the choppers, their eyes covered with the sun visors. It was as if they were toying with their prey, like a cat plays with its mouse-victim before the coup de gras.

  “You got ‘em?” James Morgan asked, looking into his radarscope.

  “Roger,” Mark responded

  Mark reached downward with his left hand, manipulated several switches on the selector switches panel known as the dog bone because of its peculiar shape of two larger rotary switches separated by a row of toggles.

  He visually checked the field of fire while the F4 screamed toward the enemy, then moved his thumb to push the pickle switch on the stick. He pulled the trigger with his index finger, and the AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared homing air-to-air missiles streaked toward its target.

  The rocket hit the middle chopper, resulting in a massive explosion. The fiery carnage from the fuel and ordnance of the holocaust destroyed a second chopper. The third helicopter turned sharply, breaking off its attack on the cabin cruiser. Mark brought the Phantom around in a long, looping maneuver. The jet quickly closed the distance gap.

  “Locked on,” James said from the back seat.

  “Party’s over,” Mark said, pulling the trigger on the grip stick.

  The Sidewinder’s trail was short from the F4 launch to the black chopper, which turned instantaneously red, orange and yellow when it exploded in a fireball that plummeted into the Gulf.

  Taos – the underground complex

  Robert Cooper shook uncontrollably while he watched the several lab-coated people approach. He knew they were human in form only.

  The innermost chamber of the complex was darkened almost to the point that the eye couldn’t discern facial features. Yet, the many tiny lights of the vast chamber’s technologies blinked in every conceivable color, giving the faces eerie appearance.

  When they came near him, Cooper saw the pupils of the eyes. Huge, black orbs that appeared because of the pinpoints of reflected light to glow from some inner source. Now, he saw black, smoke-like wisps emanating from each--infinitesimal flickers of electricity-like sparks that the host-bodies emitted.

  The creatures spoke as one through the mouths of the two men and the woman. “Your failure has delayed the magnificent one’s implementation of RAPTURE,” the deep, growling voices said in unison. “But, it is merely the end of our beginning. We shall prevail.”

  The bodies hosting the evil moved closer to Cooper, who smiled a sheepish, fleeting grin while mopping his sweat beaded forehead and mouth with a handkerchief.

  “Yes, yes. It’s just the beginning,” he said in a meek tone of fawning agreement.

  “But it shall be a new beginning without need of your failure-laden services,” the seething voices said as one.

  Next day - Pensacola

  The colonel on the other end of the phone line was business-like. He wanted to keep his strong affection for his young friend and former pilot separated from the serious matter before them.

  “The ordnance is something I will have trouble reconciling,” Col. Kenyon said from his office at the center of Holloman Air Force base. “There’s no report of any helicopters down in that area that I can determine.”

  “Sir, that’s because this is an unauthorized covert operation,” Mark said, feeling he should stand rather than sit, even if he wasn’t physically in Kenyon’s presence. “I’m sure of it. They won’t report this…”

  “You expended two Sidewinders, is that correct?”

  “Yes sir,” Mark said, looking to James Morgan, then Morgan’s daughter.

  “Two Sidewinders… three helicopters. Guess you won’t need to spend any extra time on the range this week, son,” Kenyon said sternly.

  Mark smiled. The colonel was telling him--without saying it--that the matter was as good as closed.

  “Everyone okay?” Kenyon asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And this Lt. Col. John Finch--What about the things you said you wanted me to know about him?” the Marine colonel asked.

  “Sir, if you will please trust me on this one, I’ll be forever grateful. I’m sorry I put you through the trouble of arranging things for him…for us,” Mark said, hoping this by-the-book officer would let him trade--just this once--on their deep friendship.

  “This young woman you’re so gaga over,” Kenyon said, changing the subject, much to Mark’s relief. “When will the plunge take place, and will Sarah and I be invited?” Kenyon asked, still in a business-like voice.

  “You know it, Colonel…You know it.”

  Mark turned to Lori and her father, when he hung up a minute later.

  “We’re in the clear, Colonel,” he said, walking to Lori and putting his arms around her.

  “Come here!” Laura stood in the doorway of the town house, beckoning them with a motion of her hand. She turned and hurried back to the large room.

  Everyone stood, or sat, watching the program. The network anchor told the story, while the film rolled.

  “The implosion was a scheduled event, a government spokesman said. The Taos, underground facility, a part of the U.S. Defense Department, was no longer in service. No one at Defense or in the government would give the nature of the operation.”

  Helicopter-mounted news cameras had a couple of hours earlier swept the reddish-brown and sand-colored landscape. A deep depression in the desert earth, taken from a camera shot high above, made the land look as if a giant foot had stepped where the implosion had taken place.

  “It’s gone. They’ve destroyed it,” Gessel Kirban said, sitting forward in a chair to one side of the television screen.

  “There is no way, after that collapse, to prove it ever was anything more than another secret government facility, no longer needed,” Randall Prouse said.

  “Yes. What’s to tell? Who would believe?” Christopher Banyon let the question fade to nothing further to say.

  “The PND? What about the helmets?” Lori asked.

  “They are dead,” Kirban said. “The technologies within the Taos chamber gave them their power. We could show only a broken, useless instrument.”

  “Who did it? Who destroyed the complex?” Laura asked holding onto her husband’s arm.

  “The Dimensionals did it.”

  All eyes turned to Clark Lansing, who sat in a chair against one wall. “The Dimensionals imploded the thing,” he repeated.

  “Dad!” Mark rushed to his father’s side. He knelt in front of him, gripping his father’s forearms.

  “I’ll be okay now, son,” he said, squeezing Mark’s hand. “Maybe we’ll all be okay, now.”

  Epilogue

  LAX, Los Angeles, California, 9:10 a.m. September 8, 2001

  Lori brushed tears from her eyes while she and Mark watched their second child take care of business at the Delta counter. Morgan walk toward them, her lovely form moving with long, graceful strides just like her mother’s, Mark thought, while he held Lori tightly.

  “Okay, Jeddy is all settled in,” she said with an upbeat smile in her voice. “The guy said he once had a Rottweiler. He promised he would see to it that Jeddy will be well taken care of until I pick him up.”

  She frowned with concern, seeing her mother’s distress. “Now, Mom, it’s not like I’m
leaving the planet,” she said, throwing her arms around Lori and kissing her cheek. She next embraced her father, who wanted to cry, but wouldn’t.

  “Remember all I’ve told you, baby,” he said, hugging her tightly and kissing her.

  “Yes, Dad, I will always keep the doors locked, and will call Uncle Mike, if there’s ever a problem. And, I promise I’ll check in with him when I get to New York.”

  Lori looked her daughter over in one last check of her attire. She brushed back a strand of Morgan’s sunlight-colored hair, so that it was again in its proper place.

  “We are so proud of you, sweetheart. You know that?” Lori pulled Morgan to her again, her tears spilling over her cheeks.

  “I love you both so much,” Morgan said, her own tears falling in thin streams from the corners of her eyes.

  “I couldn’t let you go, if I didn’t know that it’s such a great opportunity,” Lori said, mopping the tears from her own eyes, then from her daughter’s.

  “It will be great, getting to work for a major publication. And in New York City, at that,” Morgan said brightly, putting a positive spin on the departure.

  “Remember, Morgan, don’t leave God out of your life. Find a church.”

  “I will, Mom…I promise. But, I need to settle in first. Monday is going to roll around pretty quickly. I’ve got to be ready to hit the ground running, as Daddy always says,” she said, again grabbing her father and kissing him.

  Mark and Lori watched while their daughter waved a final goodbye and disappeared through the door of the tunnel-ramp that led to the Delta 757. They watched while the tug backed the big jet from its berth, and as it began to taxi on its way to take its place among the other planes awaiting takeoff clearance.

  Something caused Lori to look across the concourse, to a crowd also watching departures.

  There! A big man in a dark suit, a large set of binoculars to his eyes, training on their daughter’s plane.