The Nephilim Imperatives: Dark Sentences (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 2)

by Terry James

  “Well, I don’t care to lose the small amount of breakfast I’ve had, if you don’t mind,” Kristi said, choosing to look away from the carnage when they neared the fire-blackened skeletal frames of twisted metal.

  The wreckages smelled mostly of burning petroleum. But, the stench of burned flesh occasionally assaulted the nostrils of the passers-by.

  “Looks like somebody’s head is still in that helmet, Clark said, moving from Kristi to have a closer look. He snapped several photographs with the digital camera he had asked Kristi to remove from his backpack.

  “David, one of you bring the flashlight,” Clark instructed. “There’s something Here I want to get a closer look at…”

  Clark took the light handed him by David and aimed its light into the darker recesses of the twisted chopper wreckage.

  “Guess I didn’t see anything,” he said, handing the light back to David, then snapping more pictures.

  He checked the camera’s screen to see what he had.

  “What’s this?”

  He looked at several of the other digital photos, seeing the same thing from different angles. Clark scanned the area of the wreckage with a quick glance, then looked again at the digital shots. For some reason, his eye hadn’t picked up on the small opening in the ground, just at the edge of the mass of burned machinery and corpses.

  “What?” Nigel came to look at Clark’s discovery, as did the others.

  “Behind the wreckage. Look,” Clark said, pointing on the camera’s viewing screen to the clearest snapshot of the disturbance in the rocky ground.

  “It’s a hole of some sort,” Cassie said.

  She walked around the edge of the blackened earth to where the spot should be.

  “Yes. There’s a hole back here,” she half-shouted to the others, who were already nearing the site.

  When Cassie took a step nearer the deficit in the earth, the ground gave way, and she started to slowly sink toward its depths.

  David grabbed her arm in time and drew her out of the still-developing hole.

  “Indeed, we have a hole,” Nigel said, moving close to the edge. Feeling the ground begin to give way, he backed away.

  “What have we here?” the Brit asked, shining Ezekiel’s flashlight into the still-collapsing void.

  The beam illuminated something that glinted, surrounding a blackened spot at its center.

  Saxton couldn’t make out how far the drop to the object might be, so he continued to examine the hole carefully, staying on ground he felt was solid.

  “That looks like something man-made. Think it’s man-made?” David Prouse said, peering into the hole while standing a couple of feet from the Brit.

  “Looks like. But, no way to tell, other than by going in,” Saxton said. He dropped his back pack, unsnapped a flap of the carrier, and pulled from the pocket a nylon rope. He began tying the rope around his waist.

  “David, you and Clark will have to lower me slowly into the hole. It’s the only way we can find out what it’s about.”

  Within seconds, the Brit dangled into the hole while the men held the rope taut from well beyond the hole’s edge. The earth continued to collapse, falling in around Nigel, whose feet finally touched the shiny thing that he now knew had been struck by a large piece of the helicopter wreckage that morning.

  David and Mark could hear the Brit yelling, but his voice was muffled. They couldn’t move close enough to hear because of fear of the ground collapsing around the cavity.

  “Let’s get him out of there,” Clark said.

  Within 30 seconds, they dragged Saxton from the divot. When he was on firm ground, he got to his feet and began brushing the dirt from his clothing.

  “It’s some sort of huge pipe, or something,” he said. “Part of the copters landed directly on top of the underground pipe, or whatever it is. “

  “What do you think it is?” Kristi asked. “Is it an oil line, or something?”

  “No, no. Much, much larger than that,” Nigel said. “It’s like some sort of underground tunnel that’s man-made. I really couldn’t see much beyond the wreckage that lay below. But from what I could see, it looks very much like some sort of monorail, or something like that.”

  Susie Banyon walked back and forth in the small room. Lori and Morgan Lansing lay comatose, unmoving. Their unchanged conditions failed to dampen her faith.

  “Dear Lord, you are our only hope in all of this. It is all in your hands. All I can do is to wait upon you, my Father. Your will be done.”

  She had learned long ago that when she could do no more, it was time to stop fretting –to turn it over to the One who could be depended upon to get things done. She sat in the lone chair in the semi-darkened room, seeing her friends, unmoving, atop the gurneys. She let her mind run through what she knew about their circumstance.

  She had been brought to the facility –kidnapped from the hotel parking lot—to…to what? To serve as leverage in getting their way with carrying out their demonic experiments? No. they had the subjects of their projects.

  To keep her husband and Randy from interfering? No. what could two aging men do?

  To keep the youngsters from proceeding toward this place of hell-spawned activities? No. They would not be stopped because the evil ones held one Susie Banyon captive. They wanted only to free Morgan…and, now, Morgan’s mother and dad. Those were the hostages the young ones wanted to rescue.

  What, then? Why take her hostage?

  The epiphany struck. It wasn’t that the evil ones had decided to take her captive. It was that the Lord had chosen to put in their thoughts to take her captive. Yes. That was it.

  An enemy on the inside –a la Troy and the Trojan horse. But, why her? She was no Trojan horse full of powerful soldiers. Susie Banyon could do nothing beyond scold them and shake a finger at them.

  “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”

  The passage of Scripture burst into her thoughts. The memorized verses from Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians then played in thunderous decibel through her mind:

  “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

  Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication…”

  They moved with haste through the tram tunnel. The monorail ran as far as they could see in the distance, down the center of the tunnel at eye-level with David Prouse, the tallest of the five.

  Jeddy had been the most difficult to get through the hole and onto the walkway alongside the stainless-steel monorail platform. He had not been lowered into the hole without protest, but he happily moved well ahead of the group now, stopping to sniff and sneeze at several points while he proceeded.

  “This comes from the top-secret complex, you think?” Kristi Flannigan asked, while walking beside Clark, holding to his right forearm.

  “Has to be,” he said, liking Kristi’s touch very much.

  “Won’t they be coming to repair that hole in the tunnel?” Cassie questioned.

  “Yes. I suppose they will,” Nigel replied while in the lead position. “Might’ve chosen poorly in following the tunnel,” he said further, thinking out loud after answering the girl’s question.

  “This is the way we are supposed to go. No doubt of that,” David put in.

  “Oh? Got a message from above, have you?” The Brit’s question wasn’t caustic, rather was optimi
stically curious in tone.

  “I believe that if we were meant to continue above, going toward those trees, this all would have never happened. The helicopters crashing, breaking through into the tunnel…”

  Cassie interrupted David. “You got to admit, Nigel,” she said, defensive of David. “We’ve seen too much…weird… stuff happening to just write off what he’s saying.”

  “Yes, suppose so,” Saxton said, seeing the rottweiler move from side to side in the space between the monorail and the tunnel wall. The dog sniffed the concrete and earth while moving between points of interest.

  “What you found there, chap?”

  The human party members stopped to watch the canine sniff. Jeddy whimpered, digging at an area just beneath the platform that carried the monorail.

  “Whatcha have there, Peanut?” Kristi asked, kneeling to look beneath the rail housing.

  “Cassie! She pulled out a burgundy piece of cloth, stood, and smoothed the cloth. It was a watch cap. On its front was an insignia that featured a picture of a rottweiler.

  “It’s Morgan’s toboggan hat!”

  The dog moved about Kristi while she held the watch cap at arm’s length. He rose to put his front paws on her shoulders.

  “Here, Peenie,” Kristi said. “You know who this belongs to, don’t you?”

  The dog sniffed the stretchy head covering made of wool. He barked and grew agitated.

  “It’s hers!”

  Cassie Lincoln took the watch cap and examined it, all the while the dog trying to sniff it.

  Cassie knelt beside the rottweiler, letting him have his fill of smelling his mistress’ scent.

  “See, David was right,” she said, looking up at Nigel Saxton, then at David. “We have chosen the right way.”

  She noticed Clark, who stood looking at the watch cap. She offered it to him. He held it to his face, looking past his sister’s hat into the tunnel’s distance.

  “Where are they?!” George Jenkins’ words exploded into the communicator, the veins in his neck standing out with blood-pressure driven anger.

  He cursed violently, spasmodically twisting his body one way, then the other while he paced the periphery of the vast chamber.

  “You’ve lost them?! Well, find them! Do you hear me? Find them and destroy them!”

  He walked from the big room, followed by April Warmath, his face a furious mask of crimson. He stormed through the wall’s opening when it split apart with a vacuum hiss.

  He punched buttons on the control board, then spoke into a microphone that suspended from a thin tube into the wall of instruments.

  “Yes, sir?”

  The voice emanated from the mountain complex black ops command center miles in the distance.

  “What’s the message?” Jenkins growled into the mike.

  “Sir, there’s been a breach in the tram tunnel. Looks like the helicopters that went down broke through the surface. We are monitoring movement. Looks like our intruders are moving toward the laboratory.”

  Jenkins grimaced a grin of satisfaction.

  “Good. That’s excellent!” He turned to the girl.

  “Got ‘em!” he said, his eyes ablaze with his pending victory over forces he previously thought unbeatable.

  Chapter 25

  Blake Robbins seemed to be in a state of agitation. Mark watched him from his semi-reclining position on the gurney within the small laboratory chamber.

  Robbins glared at the readings on several small monitor screens. He snatched the goggles from his eyes and flung them aside. A growl came from his throat when he turned to face Mark.

  The entity within the man gurgled with hatred, causing the human flesh to contort, while yellowish, foamy drool dripped from the side of the mouth. The eyes were black, the man fully possessed.

  “Our instruments will yet find the material we seek to complete the nephals, Mark Lansing. Do not think you shall escape your…grandfatherly duties,” the thing in Blake Robbins seethed, a sinister giggle issuing forth with its words.

  The thing Robbins had become came to Mark and stood glaring into the human’s eyes. Mark knew that he was looking into times and places far distant. The orbs black evil drew the human senses toward their depths –seemed to have a gravity of their own.

  The monstrous countenance grew more grotesque while its rage increased.

  “The…holy one… cannot protect you here, puny human.” The thing opened its mouth wider than any human mouth could open. The blood-red orifice dripped with coagulant saliva while it laughed near his face. The purulent stench assaulted, singed his nostrils, causing nausea to rise within Mark’s stomach.

  “We will get what we need. And, when we are finished with you, it will be my very great pleasure to send you to your…holy one,” the beast within Robbins’ cavernous laugh echoed in volume that made Mark’s feel as if his eardrums would burst.

  “Your grandkids…await their grandpa’s assistance, Mark Lansing. Shall we try again?”

  The room grew darker, as if the very air about them was the gathering evil that Susie knew saturated this strange place, this otherworldly place.

  She stood between her friends, barely able to see their faces when she looked first to Morgan, then to Lori. She held a hand on each, her prayer starting to well within her quickening spirit.

  “Dear Heavenly Father,” she began. “bring us safely out of this place –as you did when you delivered your chosen from the Philistines, from the Egyptian Pharaoh. Part this demonic sea for your children as in the days of antiquity…”

  She hesitated when she felt Lori’s left arm move.

  Jeddy picked up the pace, his nose sniffing the air, his brow wrinkling when he seemed to catch an occasional scent of something that drove him onward.

  “Let’s see where Peanut takes us. I think he somehow can follow Morgan’s scent,” Clark said, now taking the lead, trotting to keep up with the canine.

  Within five minutes, the dog swerved to the side of the tunnel and stood staring at the wall. He held the position until his human companions arrived. He looked nervously up at Clark and whimpered, letting out, then, a short bark of certainty. His mistress had gone, somehow, through this wall.

  “Now what?” Nigel said. “The wall is solid. Is the chap telling us your sister went through this wall?”

  “Seems like,” Clark said, running his hands over the smooth, metallic surface to look for a seam. He found none.

  “Time for the flashlight?” the Brit asked in an almost comical tone.

  “You’re learning,” David answered.

  “Shine it on the wall,” Clark said.

  Saxton did so, the light beam seeming more radiant than ever when it struck and illuminated the metallic wall.

  A split developed and the wall divided, sliding to left and right. Jeddy galloped into the breech, followed by his human companions. He slowed to a walk, leading the way down the only corridor, which appeared to branch right and left at its end in the distance. The broad walkway was lit by ceiling panels much like those that illuminated the tram tunnel.

  “I don’t like this,” Nigel said, pulling back and releasing the receiver on the semi-automatic pistol, the action chambering a round. He held the weapon at attention in his right hand. “There should be warning signals going off. Something to indicate unauthorized access.”

  “It’s the cloaking,” David said.

  “Cloaking? What cloaking?” Nigel said with incredulity in his question.

  “The cloaking we’ve been given. Don’t you sense that?”

  “No, David. Can’t say that I do,” Saxton said, watching the rottweiler approach the corridor’s end, the pistol cocked and ready for any surprise that might await them. The one confidence he had was that the dog would alert them to that surprise, if it was in the offing.

  Lori Lansing seemed to be coming to for the first time since they locked Susie in the room with her comatose friends. At least she moved her arm, and Susie saw some fluttering of Lori
’s eyelids, even though the room grew increasingly dark. She looked to Morgan’s face. Still no sign of awakening, there.

  “Father, you loosed Peter, then Paul, and the others. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Please do it again, if it is in your will. Unleash your mighty power, release your children…”

  The arm moved again, causing the gurney to move. No! The gurney was trembling. It was the gurney that moved Lori’s arm!

  George Jenkins felt the trembling just as he turned to April Warmath to instruct her.

  “Get them to intercept the intruders in corridor six…”

  Both the black ops chieftain and the girl felt the shaking, their faces flush with uncertainty of its cause. The trembling grew stronger, and a hard shock sent both against the control board.

  Finally able to regain his balance, Jenkins pushed a button on the board.

  “What’s going on?!”

  There was no answer.

  The intruders felt the shock at the same time, each trying to regain equilibrium.

  “Earthquake!” Nigel Saxton said. “Everybody okay?”

  The lights dimmed, flickered, then came to full illumination.

  “We have to hurry,” Clark said, following Jeddy, who had never stopped moving in the direction his instinct pointed him.

  The entity within Blake Robbins’ body screeched a howl of displeasure. The shaking increased, and the thing’s eyes grew larger, its mouth gnashing with profanities. “The holy one! He interferes again!” the echoing voice within shrieked, cursing the name of God, and all that was of God.

  Mark reeled side to side as the tremor turned to hard shocks. The shaking caused the bands around his wrists and ankles to twist painfully at his skin. In the next instant, the bands popped and fell from the inclined table, freeing him.

  The thing inhabiting Robbins’ flesh was turned, looking downward to the small monitors. The experiments that must not be compromised.