by Mark Romang
Truly a visual spectacle, Babylon’s towering skyline made Dubai’s glittering skyscrapers look miniature in comparison, and the very building Lucifer stood in soared much higher than Dubai’s most famous structure, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. Although the architects, engineers and builders didn’t purposefully set out to do it, they successfully constructed a modern day version of the Tower of Babel.
Thousands of shoddy homes, ramshackle structures and even Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace were bulldozed to accommodate the lightning-quick reconstruction. The impoverished people living in old Babylon—roughly a quarter-million residents—were forced out and forbidden to come back. Lucifer wanted only wealthy and elite people residing in Babylon, and people who worshipped Henrik Skymolt and his image faithfully.
Lucifer turned from the window and strode into the room’s center. Since he spent the majority of his time on this floor, he’d demanded the ceiling in the penthouse suite to be fourteen-feet in height, more than high enough to accommodate his angelic stature whenever he left Henrik Skymolt’s host body.
Two other individuals were in the room with him and sat on leather sofas facing each other: Vito Abbadelli, Henrik Skymolt’s right-hand holy man and a person the underground Christians routinely call the False Prophet, and Henrik Skymolt, the most powerful man on the planet and a man the underground Christians routinely call the Antichrist.
Skymolt wasn’t saying much today. But then cadavers rarely speak. Lucifer noted that the Reverend Abbadelli wasn’t saying much either, only whimpers and an occasional snivel escaped his trembling lips.
“Are you afraid of me, Vito?”
Abbadelli looked up at Lucifer. “Surely you would be taken aback if I wasn’t afraid of you?”
Lucifer patted Abbadelli on the shoulder. “You make a valid point, Vito. But as long as you do exactly what Henrik and I tell you to do you have no reason to feel concern.”
“You needn’t worry about my allegiance, Lucifer. My loyalty is for you only.”
Lucifer ran a hand through his hair. He was especially fond of his flowing mane and preened it constantly. The golden ringlets bracketed his creamy face and tumbled down his back like a waterfall, dividing his snowy wings. “Allegiance is a capricious thing, Vito. Take it from me, I know how difficult it is to remain faithful. God demanded my allegiance, and I wouldn’t give it.”
“I have taken the loyalty mark, and I worship Henrik with great zeal. I know who my master is, and I know who my benefactor is. It’s you, Lucifer.”
“And you have benefitted much from me. I have given you amazing power, Vito. I have bestowed upon you supernatural abilities to perform incredible miracles.” Lucifer paced the room with elegant agility. He moved nimbly with a grace more suited for a ballet dancer than a giant angelic being. His long strides gobbled up the marble floor.
“But were they really miracles or merely amazing illusions?”
“Illusions, of course. I’m sorry to tell you this, Vito, but you can’t really bring fire down from heaven. And for that matter, I can’t resurrect anything.” Lucifer stopped pacing and stood by Henrik Skymolt, who rapidly decayed on the sofa opposite of Vito Abbadelli. “Henrik’s astounding resurrection from the dead after being shot and killed and buried in the ground for all to see wasn’t really all that astounding.”
“How did you do it, Master?” Vito asked timidly. “Like everyone else in the world, I saw Henrik get shot in the head, and I saw him die in the hospital and lowered into the ground a few days later.”
“As you know, Vito, I indwell Henrik. As long as I am inside Henrik he appears to live. And as soon as I leave his body he begins to decompose.”
Abbadelli covered his nose with a hairy hand. “Henrik smells awful, Master. I wish you would indwell him again. The smell makes me want to wretch.”
Lucifer dragged a hand through Skymolt’s wooly blonde hair. “Henrik died in the year 817 AD. So it stands to reason he emits a foul odor. You would stink too if you died some 1200 years ago and were never allowed to fully decompose.”
Lucifer watched Abbadelli’s thin-lipped mouth drop open and quiver. “Henrik has been walking around as a dead man for over 1200 years, with you inside him?”
Lucifer grinned wickedly. “Henrik has lived a full life with the devil inside.”
“Who is Henrik, and what was he before you took over him?”
“Henrik was a Viking, a great man of war who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. I chose him as my instrument because he was both powerful and charismatic. His people rallied around him. And when he died raiding the Isle of Man I entered him.”
“If I may be so bold as to ask, how did Henrik die?”
“One of his men, a berserker, became so caught up in his battle frenzy that he betrayed Henrik and plunged a spear into his back.”
Abbadelli grimaced. “What a horrible way to die,” he said.
Lucifer sat down next to Abbadelli on the sofa. There was barely enough room for both of them. One of Lucifer’s grand wings brushed against Abbadelli. “I wouldn’t know much about dying, Vito. I cannot die.” Lucifer placed a large hand on the reverend’s knee. “Should anything we’ve just spoken about leak out, you will be severely punished. I am trying to convince the world that Henrik Skymolt is God. And you must continue your part in the charade, Vito.”
Abbadelli trembled. His pudgy face blanched. “I will not tell a soul, Master. And even if I did, no one would believe me.”
Lucifer stood up from the sofa. He looked down at the middle-aged Italian. “I need you to find me a private morgue or a meat locker, somewhere I can store Henrik’s body, somewhere safe where no one will find him. I need to go away for a while.”
“I will do it, Master. But where are you going? And how long will you be gone?”
“I am going to a place in the spirit realm called Teredel. I will be gone for a few days, and I cannot go to Teredel in Henrik’s body. I will need to store the cadaver.”
“I will get right on it, Master. As soon as this morning’s staff meeting is over I will find a discreet place to store the body.”
“Do it now, Vito. I will facilitate the meeting in your stead.”
Abbadelli jumped up. “I’m on it now, Master. I will find a place before midday,” he said and left the spacious room.
After the door clicked shut behind Abbadelli, Lucifer walked over to Henrik Skymolt. He tilted the dead man’s head backward. And then Lucifer sat down on the Swede’s lap. A small burst of wind swirled around the two like a miniature tornado, or a dust storm as often besieges the Middle East. A keening sound issued forth from the twirling wind as Lucifer’s spirit body disappeared into the cadaver. Henrik Skymolt snorted and sneezed. His eyelids popped open. Blue eyes the color of an ice crevasse bulged in fright for a few seconds. And then Skymolt began to breathe. He panted like a dog for several moments, his breath racing.
Skymolt all at once bolted up from the sofa and staggered over to a sink. He splashed cold water onto his face and washed it thoroughly, scrubbing his skin in a violent manner. Refreshed, Skymolt rose to his full height—six-feet-eight inches—and looked into the mirror over the vanity. He finger-combed his golden hair and watched the color return to his face. In a few seconds the Viking’s cheeks turned ruddy. It was then Skymolt noticed a demon’s face reflecting in the mirror. He turned and faced Zarkien, his top general. “I need you to go ahead of me into Teredel and arrange a council meeting for me with all the tribes. And I need you to go at once, Zarkien. There is no time to waste,” Skymolt said.
Zarkien’s dark eyes, blacker than an ocean under a moonless night, glimmered with anticipation. The sable mane atop his head shook as he nodded his understanding. “The time has come, hasn’t it, Master?”
Skymolt’s glacier-blue eyes narrowed. His voice grew somber and menacing like the growl of a wolf before latching onto a jugular vein. “Yes, Zarkien. It’s time to fight for our future. It’s time to go to war.”
Chapter 3
Mt. Currie, British Columbia
Tanner Mason and his twin brother C.J. crouched behind a granite boulder and strained their eyes for glimpses of a mule deer weaving its way through a thick pine forest. Having not eaten in days, the twins struggled to hold their heads up. They leaned against each other for support, the combined weight of their emaciated bodies barely reaching two-hundred and forty pounds.
Tanner held a Remington Model Seven rifle up to his shoulder and rested it against the boulder. He peered through a riflescope and waited for the deer to come back into view. “Maybe you should take the shot, C.J. We’re down to our last bullet, and you’re a better shot than me,” Tanner mumbled, his weak voice as dry as a pile of ancient bones.
“No, you do it. I missed my last shot, remember?”
“Are you sure you don’t want a chance to redeem yourself?”
“My confidence is shot, Tanner. So you take the shot. Just don’t miss like I did,” C.J. answered.
“You just need some protein, brother. Then you’ll get your mojo back.” While Tanner waited for the deer to provide a shot, he thought back upon the epic journey he and his brother had traveled over the past three and a half years. The great adventurer Marco Polo, who trekked across Asia in the 13th century, might not even believe their tale if he could come back to earth and listen to its telling. Their amazing journey on foot started in the Chugach Mountains just north of Anchorage, some 2,000 miles from their current spot behind the boulder. They’d been eighteen years old at the beginning, and more like boys than men.
Three and a half years ago before the Rapture took place and changed the world in an instant, they were in Anchorage to compete in a qualifier for the X Games. He and C.J. both competed in the snowboard cross and snowboard slopestyle events. They were standing atop Mt. Alyeska waiting for their second heat in the slopestyle event when the mountain began trembling. The first tremors were slight and barely noticeable.
But not long after the first tremors, no more than thirty seconds at the most, people vanished from the summit. Race officials and athletes disappeared right in front of them, leaving behind their snowboards and race outerwear. He and C.J. hardly had time to comprehend the sudden vanishings when the monster quake tore at the earth underneath their feet. Mt. Alyeska felt like it was splitting apart.
In 1964 on Good Friday, an earthquake hit this same region of Alaska. That earthquake had registered 9.2 on the Richter scale and resulted in 115 deaths in Alaska. The quake caused enormous damage from landslides. The soil in the region liquefied and a 27-foot tall tsunami destroyed the village of Chenega. Tanner never heard how big the earthquake measured the day the Rapture occurred, but the visual evidence told him it was massive.
What followed the earthquake and vanishings those first few hours, days and months could only be described as chaos. And the word chaos didn’t adequately describe the ensuing bedlam. The world seemed to go mad. Order fled and anarchy reigned. Worldwide rioting and looting became the norm in every city, town and village. Overwhelmed policemen and sheriff’s deputies looked the other way as the riffraff took over. It was as if kindness and goodness and law and order had suddenly become concepts humans no longer understood.
They spent a few days in Anchorage after the Rapture, looking desperately for their parents and older brother. The three had stood at the bottom of the mountain near the finish line and watched them compete. But despite their tireless search efforts, they never found them. He and C.J. then went to the police and talked to a detective about their missing loved ones. But when the sober-faced detective told them there were nearly 700 million other people that had also gone missing around the world at the same time as their parents and brother, they instantly knew what had happened. Their parents and brother were Jesus freaks and had often talked about the Rapture and the importance of being a Jesus follower. Unfortunately he and C.J. never listened to their pleadings and were left behind.
They wanted to fly back home to Seattle as soon as possible, where things were a little more familiar, and where they could try to pick up the pieces of their lives and regroup, but the airlines had all been decimated by plane crashes and disappearances. Air travel ground to a halt, especially in Alaska. The Anchorage airport lay in ruins from the earthquake. So they were stuck in Alaska, and quickly ran low on money. And that was the moment they decided to begin a long hike back to the lower forty-eight. Using the last of their money, they bought a tent, sub-zero sleeping bags, water purification tablets and filters, a compass, topographical maps of Alaska and British Columbia, a flint and steel kit to start fires, a hatchet, a survival fishing kit, as much freeze-dried food as they could carry, and two pair of used snowshoes. And then, whether it was a good idea or not, they set off, their snowboards tied to their packs.
The trek nearly took their lives several times. Alaska is not a friendly or forgiving place to city boys poorly equipped to survive in the bush. From brutal cold to rock slides to ice-crevasses, their lives were in constant jeopardy.
During their journey they ate lots of salmon. But in every stream and river where there are salmon, bears are sure to be close by. In one memorable instance he and C.J. had been wading in a stream, attempting to spear salmon with a sharpened tree branch when a grizzly bear snuck up from behind and nearly caught and mauled them. Fortunately the grizzly quickly lost interest in them for all the spawning salmon.
And then if it wasn’t bears it was wolves. They spent many sleepless nights sitting up around a campfire and stoking it as a pack of hungry wolves stalked them. Tanner would never forget the mournful sound of the wolves howling and the spine-chilling sight of their eyes glowing just beyond the campfire flames.
Besides the natural predators, the elements were just as dangerous. On many occasions they were snowed in for days at a time and confined to their tent, which kept collapsing under the snow’s weight. And if it wasn’t the powdery snow, the bush gave them just as many fits.
The rainforests growing in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains were so thick they were nearly impenetrable. The temperatures in the Coast Mountains were mild, which they liked, but they quickly grew exhausted of bushwhacking through the thick underbrush and trees. So they moved into the province’s flatter and less forested interior. They found the going easier, and they didn’t get lost as much, but the colder temperatures and the brutal winds quickly drove them back toward the trees. All in all, their hellish trek became painstakingly slow.
At times when they neared a town or village they were able to sleep in barns and unlocked churches, but usually they slept in their tent, shivering and beset by nightmares.
Their biggest break came when they found a trapper’s cabin in the foothills bordering the Itcha Range. They knocked on the cabin’s door, and when no one responded they entered the cabin. Inside they found a corpse sitting in a rocking chair. Judging by the decomposition, the trapper had passed away long ago. After their initial shock wore off, they took the corpse outside and buried it. C.J. even gave a short eulogy for the nameless deceased, thanking him for his hospitality, for allowing them to stay in his house and eat his canned foodstuffs.
In a small shed next to the cabin they found a bunch of hides and furs. They scrounged together a needle and thread, and over the next few days fashioned some crude clothing from the hides and furs to supplement and replace their worn clothing. They also made mittens and hats from the furs.
The cabin became their second home, and they stayed in the drafty structure for much of the first winter and spring in their journey. But late in the spring, after eating all the meager food supplies stored in the cabin, they reluctantly left their refuge, taking the late trapper’s rifle and fourteen bullets. It was all the ammo they could find in the cabin.
Neither he nor C.J. had ever hunted before. And neither was a very good shot. But they adapted and killed several deer over the past two years. They even learned how to make jerky by cutting the deer flesh into thin strips and allowing the
meat to air dry over a smoking fire. This newfound ability was a godsend. The jerky pretty much kept them alive all this time.
But their jerky was gone now. The nearest fishing stream was miles off, and they only had one bullet left. Hunger chewed at their insides. Their bellies demanded food. All Tanner could think about were cheeseburgers and fries, pizzas loaded with cheese and sausage, and mounds of spaghetti and meatballs.
How much longer they could go on without nourishment, Tanner wasn’t sure. Adding irony to their current plight was the fact they were only seventy miles or so from their father’s bunker in the Olympic National Forest. David Mason had been fascinated by preppers, so much so that he bought some land and built a bunker. Tanner and C.J. had helped him build it. The bunker was stocked with enough imperishable food to last over three years. If they could only get to it.
Tanner felt a nudge to his ribs, and then C.J. whispered, “What are you waiting for? Shoot it.”
Tanner snapped out of his flashback and settled in behind the riflescope. The deer had emerged from a thicket and had stopped to nibble at something on the ground a little over a forty yards away. The doe seemed oblivious to their presence and revealed her broadside to Tanner, giving him an easy shot. Lord, you’ve kept us alive during this whole journey. But we need fresh meat or we’re not going to make it much longer. Forgive me for killing this beautiful animal.
Tanner lifted the rifle just a hair. The scope’s reticles centered over a spot just behind the mule deer’s foreleg. He squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked, its thunderous report shattered the stillness covering the forest. A sickening feeling all at once washed over Tanner as he watched the doe bound off and disappear behind the trees. “I can’t believe I missed it,” he muttered.