"Come on now, we must go." The giant lowered his brows. "Now," he said. Rex felt himself pulled up like he was made of paper mache.
In less than a moment the door was ripped away and they were running. No, Rex thought, we're flying. And then it hit him. Oh dear God, he thought, we're flying. I hate heights! I hate them! I hate heights! and so he held on for dear life. He was too scared to hear the angel laughing at him.
In what seemed like hours upon hours to Rex, though it was only a few minutes, they landed and he found himself running down stone steps and into an old, stone basement.
"We’ll be safe here for the moment," the giant said. "Sit, calm down and try to relax. I'm sorry for laughing at you, Rex."
"You laughed? Well, hell, really, who can blame you?" Then Rex felt his face go red. "Can I...?"
"Hell is only a word," the giant said. "The reality is much, much worse."
Somehow, that did not make Rex feel any better.
"So," Rex said, "you fly."
"I do at that, yes."
"Where are your wings? Are you an angel?" Rex couldn't believe he was saying the word but it also hardly seemed worth fretting over; the world was, quite literally, coming to an end. Mars passed by, sped up the planet, plummeting debris, fire and ash onto the earth, like something out of ancient lore. So an angel didn't really seem all that peculiar, when he weighed it all.
"I am what you would call an angel. One of many races, though. There aren't as many of us as look so human."
"Ok," Rex said. "So, where are the wings?"
"They only appear when I require them."
Rex couldn't wrap his head around that one. There were no visible wings nor signs of where wings might be (or be hidden) on the giant, the angel, whatever he was.
"Look again, the next time we must flee."
Rex could have done without hearing that. The thought of being unceremoniously yanked up and away by a giant man, angel notwithstanding, did his pride nor blood pressure any good.
"Ok, I have two more questions," Rex said.
"Ask them."
"All right: who are you and why are you helping me?"
A smile beamed from the angel's face. "You want my name, do you?"
"I do," Rex said.
"Why should I give it?"
For a moment, Rex said nothing. He merely looked at the angel, looked into his eyes for the first time. He tried to hide the fact that it was a terrifying experience.
"Because," he said, "you want to."
Again the angel laughed and again Rex felt himself calm. He couldn't say he really liked the fact that the creature, the angel or whatever it was, could do that with merely a laugh. It made him suspicious.
"I do, but not yet, young man. In the meantime, I am here to protect you."
"On whose behest?"
"'Behest', yes? This is a good word. I did not know any American spoke this word."
"You're too big for me to say what I want to say," Rex said. He couldn't help the fact that he liked whatever this man, this thing, might be and again, that made him reticent to trust.
"I cannot read the human mind, if you wonder. But I am ancient. Therefore, I understand your kind enough to know that you are right and smart to distrust me. But I am here because He assigned me to your protection."
"He," Rex said. "You mean, 'He', He? Like, well, like God, 'He'?"
"That's the He I am referring to, yes."
Now it was Rex who laughed. He did not intend for his laughter to linger as it did but his emotions were peaked and his mind used the moment to let go, until he found tears running down his face.
"You wonder why, yes?" the angel said.
Through his somewhat weeping laughter, Rex managed to say, "Yes."
The angel sat back against the old stones. Rex watched this and noticed how much the angel's form seemed meant to rest against such old stone. Then, finally, the huge creature spoke.
"I will tell you this," the angel said, "I stopped asking why He does as He does at the moment your kind were created." He looked at Rex and paused a moment before continuing. Rex felt his mind reeling again from the creature's gaze. The angel spoke again, "But what I do know is this, Rex: when it comes to whom He will show mercy and protection toward, He only does that which is precisely what He wishes to do, and nothing else. Is that enough?"
Rex leaned against the wall and looked away. He was amused by something: it was enough.
He looked at the angel and said, "Yeah, I guess it is, but I couldn't tell you why."
The angel leaned forward. "You're getting it faster than most."
"So what next?"
"We wait here, for the moment."
****
For quite some time, Rex nor the angel said nothing. They both listened to the destruction outside. The earth shook over and over again as meteors fell and cracked the ground, setting more of the land ablaze in the light of fire. At times, Rex felt a kind of fear that threatened to swallow him whole; at other times, none of it seemed any longer surreal to him. Ancient cultures the world over had predicted the end of the Age of Man in just such fashion. The Hebrew Semitics, to Rex, had landed on the absolute Truth of the matter, yet it didn't change the fact that the myths were all myths and yet all were one Truth, playing out now, no more than fifteen feet above them.
It was Rex that broke the silence.
"What are we running from? It's more than the meteors and storms."
"It is," the angel said. "but are you certain that you wish to know? With respect for your fallen state, I know that you are terrified already."
Rex didn't feel he appreciated the condescension but he said nothing. The man was nine feet tall and he could fly, not telling what else. What sort of man, angel or otherwise, would not see humanity for what it was all too often: cowardly and frail. So he merely said, "I am that but I am also curious and fascinated. The things I've seen. You, right there, an angel talking to me; how could I not want to know?"
The angel raised his left eyebrow and turned his head, looking away for a moment.
"Do you think that you will be able to handle flight again, Rex?"
"I'm not too fond of being carried around like a tiny child, but yes, I suppose I could."
"Then I will take you where you can see what it is from which we flee."
They walked up the stairs and the wind nearly knocked Rex down. He gasped as he saw the land before him burn. The angel looked down at him and nodded. Rex forgot the fires burning as he watched wings appear on the giant and unfold, stretching out so far that he couldn't really guess their span. He sucked in air, held his breath and tightened all his muscles.
When he opened his eyes, the Earth was in flames below him. There were craters and meteors everywhere. Even out there in the Western US, where ranches and property lines often stretched on for miles, not one single home had been spared. No barns, no silos, not a single building stood. There were meteors and craters where some stood and smoking flames where any others had been. It boggled Rex's mind. So much destruction, so much death. He looked up and saw the black descending on them.
"Hold your breath for a moment," the angel said. Rex complied and shut his eyes. He could feel the heat as they passed through a dense covering of volcanic ash, fire, hail, rain that burnt his skin and lightning. Then it was gone and he opened his eyes, almost wishing that he hadn't.
Above the cloud of darkness the sun burned hotter than ever. There was no more blue sky but a burnt orange tone. He nearly cried out when he saw the top of Mars looming on the horizon. And then finally he felt solid ground beneath his feet.
"Are you all right," the angel asked.
"No," Rex said. "Should I be?"
There was no reply.
"Where are we," Rex asked.
"High atop a mountain several hundred miles from where your home stood. You asked to see what we flee. Look east, there." The angel pointed and Rex looked.
His legs folded involuntarily and he simply let himse
lf land hard on his rear end and then balanced himself, mouth hanging open, mind reeling from the sight before him.
To the left was a burning sun, looking and feeling as though it had moved too close to earth. To the right was the smallest portion still visible of Mars descending below the horizon. In the middle of the orange sky was a blood red moon, looking several sizes too large.
It was the silhouette in front of the blood moon that put Rex on the ground.
Some kind of four legged beast walked the earth in the distance. The biggest thing Rex had ever seen. The colors of the sky and moon were confusing to his eyes and the black clouds of smoke and ash made it impossible for Rex to focus clearly on the beast. But what he could see, the head was within the fiery black clouds, occasionally cresting above them with a roar too low for Rex's ears to hear. But not the earth. Each time the beast roared, the earth rumbled. He couldn't fathom how tall the beast must be. Hundreds and hundreds of feet. The meteors flying past the beast from the distance looked tiny.
Rex sat and watched each leg lift, so massive that it seemed to be in slow motion. As it moved forward the fire and ash followed the beast, like the storms were flaking the horrible monstrosity.
Rex looked up at the angel and furrowed his brow.
"That is what we flee," the angel said. "That Titan was once a great ancestor of mine and not the towering leviathan you see there. But he fell and angered the One who sent me here to you. Rex, I have still to never see such anger as that of Hope so grossly betrayed. And so my ancient brother was cast down into a place your Greeks called Tartarus. And there Time grew fiery judgment from revenge and He set him loose again to do what He never wanted to do, not ever again."
Rex had no words. He stared into the distance and marveled at the Titan shaking the earth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carey L. Henderson has been writing for over a
decade. He kept his day job, however. Because the
desire to be a starving artist never really appealed
to him. He lives in the Deep South, USA, and
spends most of his time when not at his day job
either writing or reading. Obviously, he’s rather
boring and you should read this book instead of
this ‘about’ nonsense.
Are you still reading this?
Aeon of Wonder Page 11