Grim Reaper: End of Days

by Steve Alten

  A murmur rose from the thousands watching the big screen.

  Her moment of transformation stolen, Mary Klipot struggled to free herself, growling at Shep like a rabid dog—

  — while on the balcony below, Manisha Patel strained to remain on her toes, the rope’s friction peeling away the skin along her throat.

  A few catcalls rose from the crowd. “Give us the murderer!”

  “Give us the vaccine!”

  Shep reached beneath his overcoat, pulling out the wooden case. “You want the vaccine? Here it is!” He flung the case into the crowd, then turned to face Pastor Wright and his followers. “There’s more in her pocket — you deal with it.” He shoved the redhead toward the security detail—

  — as Tim Burkland and his followers reached the second-floor gallows directly below his balcony, the radical talk-show host intent on hanging the roped victims himself.

  “No!” Patrick Shepherd jumped down from the third-story ledge, landing feet first on the wooden gallows. He swung his steel appendage wildly toward Burkland and his mob, backing them away—

  — while on the ground, thousands of plague-infected men and women tore into one another in an attempt to grab the wooden box.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  The heavens bellowed, the frozen ground reverberating beneath the sonic rumble generated by five turbine jet engine Air Tractors. The industrial crop dusters rolled overhead in a standard inverted-V formation a mere two thousand feet above the park. The crowd never saw the planes or their dispersing payload — a partially frozen mist laden with carbon dioxide, glycerine, diethylene glycol, bromine, and an array of chemical and atmospheric stabilizers.

  The fighting ceased, all eyes gazing at the heavens as the gas elixir mixed with the moist air, causing a chain reaction. Frozen CO2 and bromine molecules expanded rapidly, creating a dense, swirling reddish brown cloud that coagulated as it sank, reaching neutral buoyancy a mere 675 feet above Manhattan.

  To the amped up crowd, the Rapture had arrived. Thousands already swooning with fever collapsed and fainted. Those still conscious dropped to their knees in fear.

  The noose around Manisha’s throat loosened, the sliced rope falling across her shoulders. She bent over, wheezing, as Shep cut through her duct-tape bonds, freeing her arms.

  Daughter and husband rushed to her side, the family weeping and hugging one another in an emotionally spent embrace, the kind that comes only from death’s reprieve.

  Shep grabbed Tim Burkland by his coat collar, dragging the radical TV host to his feet. The blade of his mangled steel pincer pressed alongside the man’s Adam’s apple, drawing blood.

  “Please don’t! I was wrong. I’m asking for absolution.”

  “I’m not God, asshole.”

  “You’re the Angel of Death… the Grim Reaper. You have the power to spare me.”

  “You want to live? Free these people — every one of them.”

  “Right away! Thank you… bless you!” Burkland crawled off—

  — as an explosion of white-hot pain stole Patrick Shepherd’s thoughts in a frothing wave of delirium — the blade of the axe buried deep inside his left deltoid, tearing muscle and nerve endings before being blunted by the coupling of his steel appendage. Crying out, he collapsed to his knees in agony, his body wracked in spasms, the wound gushing blood.

  The encapsulated night sky ignited to the east and north, turning what was left of the heavens into a rose-colored aurora. The military flares illuminated the face of Patrick’s attacker, who stood over him, the axe poised above her forehead, the blade dripping his blood.

  “And the first angel blew his trumpet, and hail and fire, mixed with blood were thrown down upon the earth!”

  Shep’s eyes widened—

  — as Mary Klipot’s red hair thickens into coiling serpents, her eyes pooling with blood until the overflow pours down her stonelike face, the Medusa screeching at him.

  Paralyzed in shock, Shep remained frozen in place as the axe plunged toward his skull—

  — its wooden shaft intercepted by Pankaj Patel, who tore the weapon loose from Mary Klipot’s hands. “Begone, witch, before I chop off your ugly head and feed it to the ducks!”

  As if tossed from a trance, Mary stumbled backward, then dashed from the gallows, disappearing down the stone stairwell.

  Manisha Patel knelt by Shep. “Pankaj, he’s in shock. Look at his arm. She cut clear down to the bone.”

  Dawn Patel gathered strips of torn duct tape, the ten-year-old attempting to seal the gushing eight-inch-long wound. “Mom, hold that in place while I wrap his shoulder with my scarf.”

  An old man with long, silvery white hair tied in a loose ponytail bounded out of the open stairwell. “Patrick, we have to go, the military’s coming.”

  “He can’t hear you,” Manisha said, her hands covered in blood. “He’s in shock.”

  Virgil looked at the Patels, his blue eyes kind behind the tinted teardrop glasses. “We have a car waiting for us on the other side of this castle. Can you get him on his feet?”

  “This man saved our lives, I’d carry him through Hell if I had to.” Pankaj slid his left shoulder beneath Shep’s good arm, hoisting him off the ground. Manisha wrapped the scarf tightly around the duct-tape bandage, then assisted her husband in carrying the unconscious one-armed man down the Victorian temple’s steps.

  They exited Belvedere Castle to the south by Vista Rock, where Francesca was waiting. “Virgil, what happened to Patrick?”

  “He’ll survive. Where’s Paolo?”

  They turned as gunfire erupted to the north.

  “Francesca?”

  “He’s down below, on the 79th Street Transverse. This way.”

  * * *

  The two black military Hummers bounded across the Great Lawn, their four-wheel-drive vehicle with its bulletproof tires tearing up the snow-covered softball diamonds. Turret-mounted guns spit lead-laced tracer fire above the crowd, scattering the multitudes like bleach sprayed upon a fire ant’s nest.

  Major Steve Downey was up front in the lead vehicle, relaying instructions from the Reaper drone’s crew to the second Hummer. “He’s leaving the castle, heading south. Head southeast past the Obelisk and Turtle Pond. We’ll head west around the castle, trapping him at the 79th Street bridge.”

  * * *

  In order to create an uninterrupted natural flow of lakes, streams, glades, woodlands, and lawns, Central Park’s engineers had had to sink the roads that crossed the venue so that they actually ran below the landscape. Their biggest challenge had been the 79th Street Transverse, a section of road that connected the Upper West Side with the Upper East Side at East 79th Street. To submerge the street meant carving a tunnel out of Vista Rock, the remains of an ancient mountain that became the foundation of Belvedere Castle.

  Completed in January 1861, the rock tunnel was 141 feet long, 18 feet high, and 40 feet wide. To access the transverse from inside the park, pedestrians descended a hidden stairway by the 79th Street bridge, which overlooked the subterranean roadway.

  A swarm of humanity pushed, prodded, and shoved past Francesca in the darkness as she led Virgil and the Hindu family carrying Shep away from Belvedere Castle and through the Shakespeare rock garden. Disoriented, swallowed by the fleeing masses, she quickly lost her way.

  Flares exploded in the distance. The pink glare illuminated the surreal brown ceiling of clouds, the surreal light revealing the 79th Street bridge. Feeling her way along the stone wall, Francesca located the 150-year-old niche and stairwell. Reaching for the iron gate, she was shocked to find it padlocked. “No… no!” Francesca yanked hard on the shiny new combination lock, unable to free it from its rusted hardware.

  The roar of the military vehicles grew louder, drawing Patrick Shepherd from his stupor. He was leaning against a stone wall covered in ivy. Through a haze of pain, he gazed at the ten-year-old brown-skinned girl perched three steps above him. He blinked away tears, unsure if what he wa
s seeing was real.

  Hovering over Dawn Patel was a spirit. The luminescent blue apparition appeared to be playing with the girl’s braids as it whispered into her ear.

  Pankaj Patel ushered the pregnant woman aside, his right hand wielding a rock.

  “Dad, wait, you’ll only jam it. Let me, I can do it.” The girl grabbed her father’s wrist, attempting to stop him from smashing the lock.

  “Dawn, we don’t have time—”

  “Let the girl try.”

  All heads turned to Patrick, who was now standing on wobbly legs.

  “Go ahead, kid. Open the gate.”

  Dawn slipped past her father. She spun the tumbler several times, her ear to the lock as she slowly turned the numbered dial, the spirit clearly guiding her.

  Headlights appeared behind them, the military vehicles within a hundred yards.

  With a metallic click, the lock’s shackle miraculously popped open.

  “You did it!” Pankaj hugged his daughter.

  “No time for that.” Francesca pushed the iron gate open, its rusted hinges squealing in protest. Carefully, the pregnant woman made her way down a winding set of stone steps to 79th Street and a white Dodge Caravan, parked on the street below.

  Paolo saw his wife and hurried to assist her. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “We’re being chased. Get in the car and drive — wait for the others!”

  Manisha and her husband helped Patrick down the steps, followed by Dawn and Virgil. They climbed inside the van, Paolo accelerating east into the darkness, using only the parking lights to guide him through the 79th Street tunnel.

  * * *

  The two military Hummers skidded to a halt by the 79th Street bridge. Receiving instructions through the communicator in his mask, Major Downey quickly located the concealed stairwell leading down to the 79th Street Transverse. “Damn it all!”

  The iron gate was sealed shut… as if it had been welded in place.

  Lost Diary: Guy de Chauliac

  The following entry has been excerpted from a recently discovered unpublished memoir, written by surgeon Guy de Chauliac during the Great Plague: 1346–1348.

  (translated from its original French)

  Diary Entry: May 18, 1348

  (recorded in Avignon, France)

  I am infected with sickness.

  Perhaps I thought God had other plans for me, that He would keep me safe so I might tend to his flock. Perhaps he has stricken me with plague so that I might better understand the malady? Regardless, I remain bedridden and weak, the fever a constant companion. The carbuncles (Author’s Note: buboes) have sprouted red below my left armpit and, more alarming, within the crease of my genitalia. I have not yet begun spitting up blood, but I can detect the beginning of a strong stench in my sweat.

  Diary Entry: May 21, 1348

  An observation to whoever discovers this diary after my death: It seems there may be two variations of the mortality. The more severe was clearly prevalent in winter, the victims usually dying within two to three days. The second type, a warm-weather variation (?) appears to allow its victims time to linger. It appears I am blessed with the latter… or condemned.

  Diary Entry: May 25, 1348

  Awoke to church bells and singing in the streets. Was it a wedding? My own funeral? Delirious, I summoned my servant, who delivered the bad news — the Flagellants have arrived in Avignon.

  Dressed in soiled white cloaks and bearing large wooden crosses, these troupes of religious zealots move from village to village seeking to cure the Great Mortality through self-inflicted penance. Armed with thorn-covered whips and iron spikes, they publicly flog themselves in order to earn salvation from a wrathful God, transforming Christianity into an almost erotic spectacle of blood.

  And how the people do follow! In an era dominated by plague, pestilence, and corruption, fear has replaced sanity, allowing the self-righteous to impose their idiocracy upon Avignon’s surviving populace. The zealots expel the priest from his church and drag the Jews from their homes… burning them alive.

  I was wrong. It is evil that rots humanity, plague merely our salvation.

  Dying hard, I grow ever envious of those who perished in winter.

  Diary Entry: May 27, 1348.

  Fever. Abdominal pain worsening. Bouts of chills. Cannot eat. Bowels… diarrhea, traces of blood. Death close now. Clement absolved my soul before he abandoned Avignon.

  Let the Reaper come…

  (end entry)

  Seventh Circle

  The Violent

  “I thought the universe was thrill'd with love, whereby, there are who deem, the world hath oft been into chaos turn'd and in that point, here, and elsewhere, that old rock toppled down. But fix thine eyes beneath: the river of blood approaches, in the which all those are steep'd, who have by violence injured. ‘Oh, blind lust! Oh, foolish wrath! Who so dost goad us on in the brief life, and in the eternal then thus miserably o'erwhelm us.”

  — Dante’s Inferno

  December 21

  Governor’s Island

  5:17 A.M.

  (2 hours, 45 minutes before the prophesied End of Days)

  The cloak over her head paralyzed. It constricted each breath. It turned her blood into lead. Her body became a corpse, supported beneath each arm and carried away into oblivion.

  Down the basement steps. Dragged by the two MPs.

  Leigh Nelson’s heart jumped as punk rock music suddenly blared from speakers, the Ramones’ “Blitzkreig Bop” assaulting her inside the black hood. She twisted against unseen foes forcibly pressing her body down upon a hard surface, her head angled lower than her feet.

  “Oh God oh God, please don’t do this! I swear I had nothing to do with that woman!”

  She kicked blindly at powerful hands that restricted her legs, her assailants duct-taping her ankles to the backboard. When they taped down her chest, the terrified physician and mother of two expelled a bloodcurdling scream into the black hood.

  Hey ho, let's go… shoot ’em in the back now—

  A hand pinned her skull to the board while raising the hood above her mouth and nose.

  What they want… I don't know. They're all revved up and ready to go—

  In the frightening darkness in the dank basement in her worst nightmare a thousand light years from home, the suddenness of cold water poured into her upturned nostrils sent the bound woman into a full-body convulsion. Liquid suffocation. No breath to hold or release. The terror a hundred times worse than drowning in an ocean or pool.

  The board was raised. The music lowered.

  She vomited up water, her purged lungs struggling to gasp a life-sustaining breath. Finally, her esophagus cleared as she wheezed air and tears.

  Captain Jay Zwawa spoke slowly and clearly into her right ear. “You helped the Klipot woman escape, didn’t you?”

  Leigh sobbed and choked, unable to find her voice.

  “Lower her again—”

  She shook her head emphatically, buying precious seconds, the confession rasped. “I helped… I planned everything!”

  “Did you inject her with vaccine?”

  “Yes! Ten cc’s into her IV.”

  “What was in the vial?”

  “Tetracycline… other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t think–

  The board was lowered.

  “Wait! Get me inside your lab, I’ll figure it out!”

  Zwawa signaled his men to cut her loose, ending a performance necessitated by Lieutenant Colonel Nichols and the Pentagon Nazis who still insisted torture yielded valuable field intelligence. The fact that Leigh Nelson had been cooperating up until then was a moot point, as was the reality that the terrified physician would have confessed to the Kennedy assassination and the Lindbergh baby kidnapping had it meant avoiding another waterboarding session.

  “Get her warm clothes and clean sheets for her mattress.”

  “Sir
, shouldn’t we take her to the lab?”

  Heading up the basement stairs, the captain ignored the MP.

  Central Park/Upper East Side

  5:24 A.M.

  The white van raced east through a tunnel of rock nature had made impervious to the all-seeing eyes of the Reaper drones. The pitch-darkness forced Paolo to use his headlights. He powered them off the moment the vehicle cleared the tunnel, and the billowy brown sky reappeared overhead, the light from the luminous pink flares dimming as he distanced them from Belvedere Castle.

  Ahead was Fifth Avenue. Central Park’s eastern border was blocked by a wall of cars and buses.

  Paolo swerved onto the sidewalk, bulldozing his way south in the darkness.

  Thump… thump! Thump… thump! Each collision rocked the van like a speed bump. Francesca was seated up front between her husband and Shep. With outstretched arms, the pregnant woman braced herself, using the dashboard. “Paolo, those are people you’re running over!”

  “Dead people.”

  “Get off the sidewalk.”

  “And drive where? The streets are blocked.”

  Manisha was in the second seat, holding Dawn’s head in her lap. Her daughter was coughing violently, expelling specks of blood. The necromancer turned to her husband, desperation and anger in her eyes. “We should have never left the cab.”

  “Easy to say now,” Pankaj retorted. “How much longer could we have remained there?” The van lurched again, the jarring blow forcing everyone into seat belts.

  “Paolo, enough!”

  “They’re dead, Francesca. We’re still alive.”

  “Excuse me,” Manisha interrupted, “but how are you still alive? None of you even looks sick.”

  Francesca motioned to Shep. “Patrick has plague vaccine. At least he had it. He threw what was left into the crowd.”

  Shep struggled to turn around, the pain coming from his severed left deltoid pushing him in and out of consciousness. “I still have vaccine left.” He half grinned at Virgil, seated behind him. “I emptied the box into my pocket before I stormed the castle.”