“You’ll hate me. You’ll hate everyone around you. You’ll even hate yourself. But most of all, you’ll hate God. After all,” he explained, “he’s the one who put you here in the first place.
“Think about it, Decker. You never asked to be here. You’d be better off if you’d never been born! So who deserves your hatred more than God? He stacked the deck against you right from the start! And then he turned you over to me.”
Christopher smiled and turned to walk away.
“And if I tell anyone?” Decker asked.
Christopher laughed a pathetic laugh. “Who would you tell? The lines are pretty much drawn. Of course, if you insist on being a nuisance, I’ll just have to make an exception and kill you myself.” Shaking his head, he added, “Don’t be stupid, Decker. Unless, of course, you’re in a hurry to see hell.”
He looked at Decker and laughed once more before walking back across his large office to his desk. Finishing his drink, he pressed a button that slid back a wall panel, revealing a huge screen. It was already on, muted and tuned to the executions. He had apparently been watching them before Decker came in. Turning the sound back on, he sat down.
At first Decker took no notice of the scene portrayed on the screen but slowly the repetitious sound of the blade awakened his attention, and he couldn’t help but look upon the melee of blood and death. To his surprise, Christopher appeared to take little pleasure in the deaths. Instead his focus was fixed on the executioners as they led the condemned to the guillotine, positioned them to die, and then released the blade.
As Christopher watched the proceedings, Decker thought back to what Scott Rosen had said about the plagues and the beheadings and about the coming battle at Petra. As the blades continually dropped and were raised again for the next victim, Decker began to comprehend the true significance of what had happened. To this point it had been quite enough to consider his own misery. His hopes and plans of helping to build a better world and a New Age had all turned out to be a lie. The promise that he would someday be reunited with Elizabeth and his daughters had been nothing but a ruse to lure him forever away from them. His whole life had been worse than wasted. He had been played for a fool and had proven himself more than worthy of that designation. And now he was only weeks away from eternity in hell.
And yet, there was an even worse toll for his life: He had actually played a key role in bringing on the world’s destruction.
“How many?” he asked.
Christopher didn’t need to ask for clarification; he understood the question. “If you look in the bottom right of the screen,” he said, pointing, “you can see I’ve got a special feed that gives a running total. Right now it’s just a few shy of 3,058,000,” he answered.[166] “The second number is the estimate of how many are left. I’m afraid we got off to a slow start,” he said almost apologetically. “You’d be amazed at the logistics that go into something like this. And, of course, we were at a complete standstill during the darkness, but my people are working around the clock at 114 locations with 22 more coming on line by Wednesday, each with at least twenty guillotines. They assure me the job will be completed by early September.”
Decker looked at the second number on the screen. “You intend to murder 14 million people?”
“Oh, I’m sure there will be a few stragglers,” Christopher acknowledged, “but the police and security forces are doing a great job of rounding them up. Of course, it would have been more, but several million of them died during the plagues.”
Nearly 3 billion people had been killed in the wars and other disasters over the past seven years. Christopher had given the numbers in his speech. Fourteen million more would die under the blade. Another 2 billion would die in and following the battle at Petra. For those, however, death was only the beginning of their miseries, for beyond the veil of death waited damnation. Their fate had already been sealed with their rejection of Yahweh and their acceptance of the seal of Christopher’s communion on their hand or forehead, a seal that Decker had first proposed.
Christopher had said he could have picked any of a thousand other people and it was probably true: It didn’t have to be Decker. If someone else had been chosen, then perhaps they would have come up with the idea for the mark, or else Christopher or Milner would have proposed it. It was a part of the prophecy, so one way or another it would have happened with or without Decker. But that was not much comfort, for it had not been someone else. He had been involved from the very beginning.
He looked back and could now see clearly all the times he had been seduced by the vision of Christopher’s New Age into justifying whatever Christopher said and did.
And though Decker didn’t yet bear the seal of the communion himself, he was no less marked, for the blood of billions was on his hands and head. Time after time he had accepted whatever Christopher said, no matter how bizarre, without questioning. Day after day he had helped Christopher build a foundation of deceit. Lie after damnable lie, Decker had been a part of it all, and he had justified it as being for the good of Humankind.
His words of just a few minutes earlier came back to haunt him. “There’s not a man or woman on the planet,” he had said, “who hasn’t been thoroughly familiarized with the message of the coming advance in the evolution of Humankind: movies, internet, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, songs, plays, billboards, bumper stickers — your vision of the future is everywhere,” he had told Christopher. “There’s not a child in school from age three and up who hasn’t been trained in the ethics and tenets of the New Age. Even the younger ones learn the message through songs, cartoons, toys, and games.”
My God, he thought, what have I done? Though, of course, he knew the answer.
As a child in school, Decker had read with disbelief about the atrocities of history: the Nazis in World War II, Goebbels, Guering, Hitler; the mass slaughter of seventeen million Russians by Stalin; the genocides of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and the like. Now as he looked at his life, he realized he was no better than any of them. True, he had not administered the torture and death himself, but he had facilitated it. All of it.
Christopher had said the only possible response was hate, but Decker felt something far worse: the crushing weight of his guilt.
While Christopher watched the executions, Decker now winced as each drop of the blade gave bloody demonstration of the result of his sin.
Finally, but unexpectedly, his guilt found its voice in anger. There was hatred in his heart — Decker couldn’t deny it — but it didn’t feel quite the way Christopher had described it. It filled his lungs with the frigid air of defiance. There was, he thought, something yet to be said.
“Christopher,” he said softly, almost whispering.
“Yes,” Christopher answered calmly, as though nothing the least bit unpleasant had occurred.
“What’s hell like?” he asked.
Christopher muted the executions and turned in his chair to face him. He thought for a moment. “I’m afraid it’s every bit as bad as you’ve heard,” he said in a consoling tone. There was no real sympathy in his voice. It was just that he knew, for the moment, that there was no way left to hurt the old man.
“Of course, I’ve never actually been there,” he continued, very seriously, now staring off into space as if he could actually see it before him, “I believe it’s a good deal like the darkness of the last plague . . .” he paused, revealing significant discomfort with the thought, then finally concluded, “. . . only a lot hotter.”
He had ended his description with a bit of dark humor, but there was something else in his voice. For just that brief moment, Decker could sense Christopher’s terror.
“And you’ll be there, too?” Decker asked.
Christopher was roused from his vision of hell by Decker’s voice and now smiled enthusiastically. Rising from his chair, he walked back to where Decker still stood. “That’s the spirit!” he said, goading him on. “You want to see me in hell right alongside you!
“Vengeance!” he said.
“Anger!” he prodded.
“Hatred!” he urged.
“You’re catching on faster than I expected! You’ll fit right in!
“Oh . . .” Christopher paused, “but don’t get your hopes up too high. I’ll be there, but, well, in Lucifer’s kingdom there are a number of different levels — ranks, I guess you might call them. And with rank comes power; in this case, the power to be feared and hated. And I’m afraid you’re nowhere near high enough in the pecking order to do anything to me.”
Decker didn’t respond.
“Does that make you hate me even more?” Christopher asked in a condescending voice.
“Yes,” Decker answered truthfully. But it wasn’t his hatred that he was thinking about.
“Good!” Christopher responded, delighted.
“When we get there,” Decker continued slowly toward his point, “and when you’re looking out over the flames of hell at all of those you’ve brought with you . . .”
“Yes?” Christopher pressed.
“You won’t have any trouble finding me in the crowd.”
Christopher laughed a hearty, cruel laugh and shook his head at Decker’s attempt to distinguish himself even in hell. “Why?” he asked. “Will you be shaking your fist at me? Will you be shouting your curses at me?”
Decker didn’t answer.
“Well, you’ll have to be yelling pretty loud to be heard over the billions of others!” he said with a sulfurous chuckle.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he said. “That’s one of the few things I can actually look forward to. Every time someone curses me for their pain, it will be confirmation that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. I’ll love it. I’ll thrive on it. And, you know, it’s really ironic,” he said, truly amazed and cheered at this fact, “funny really, but even though it will be obvious that I enjoy their curses, it won’t stop the damned from cursing me. They’ll be so enraged, they’ll just do it all the more.” He shook his head at Decker’s feeble attempt and started back toward his desk.
But Decker wasn’t finished. “No,” he said, pausing to reflect. “I won’t be cursing you.” He dropped his eyes to the floor for a moment as his guilt briefly overpowered his anger. Biting his lower lip, he raised his eyes again and stared defiantly at Christopher, who had come back and now stood directly in front of him. Christopher waited, unsure what Decker had in mind, but eager for whatever amusement he was about to offer.
“You’re not the one who’s responsible for me going to hell,” Decker said. “I am.” Christopher was unimpressed by Decker’s realization and rolled his eyes in disgust.
“So, when we get there,” Decker continued, “if you ever decide you want to look me up, I won’t be hard to find.”
He paused to take a final rebellious, recalcitrant breath. His moment was here. It wasn’t much to make up for a lifetime that had been reduced to a bad joke, but it was all he had, probably all he’d ever have that could be put on the other side of the scales. He would hold on to it for as long as he could. Every second he stalled put Christopher another second closer to hell, and that in itself seemed worthwhile.
Christopher waited.
Decker’s stare grew surprisingly cold and steady. Finally, when he knew Christopher would wait no longer, he spoke. “I’ll be the one down on my knees, thanking God for giving me exactly what I deserve!”
Decker’s words were slow and crisp and firm, but they had not been shouted. Still, in the sudden silence that followed, they seemed to echo through the languid air and shake the entire room.
Christopher’s teeth clenched and his nostrils flared, and Decker saw the muscles in his neck tighten like bands of steel. Christopher’s burning gaze felt as though he was looking right into Decker’s soul. He was.
In a moment, Christopher seemed to find what he was looking for, and he didn’t like what he saw: Decker had not just said this to enrage him. He actually meant it.
Christopher breathed deep and hard and fast and exhaled audibly like a bull set to charge. His eyes were flames. His face was red, and his body stiffened and actually shook with rage.
Decker stood motionless, unable to take much pleasure in Christopher’s reaction because of the awful weight of his own guilt. Christopher’s brow was tightened in anger, the likes of which Decker had never seen in any man. His face was flush with fury. And then he did something that seemed very strange. He started to turn as if he were going to simply leave.
Was he just turning back to watch the executions?
As Christopher’s upper body turned, Decker assumed his feet would follow, but Christopher’s feet were planted firmly on the floor. Swiftly, he raised his right arm up and to the left, his hand forming a fist. Decker held his ground in anticipation of a backhanded blow delivered against his face with Christopher’s full weight. He determined not to move or flinch. He wouldn’t give Christopher the pleasure of seeing him cower. Then suddenly and totally out of place, his eye caught a strange glint of light.
It was just above Christopher’s head at a point about a foot and a half beyond his hand, which was now hidden from Decker’s view by his leftward turned body.
Christopher raised his heel and pivoted on the ball of his right foot, and then, turning with his full force and speed toward Decker, he straightened his arm at the elbow. Decker instinctively tightened his jaw in anticipation of Christopher’s blow.
But, strangely, there was that glint of light again, and it was moving in perfect synchronization with Christopher’s clenched fist.
As his fist came closer, Decker was suddenly dumbfounded by what he saw. It appeared that Christopher would actually miss him, his fist passing a good eighteen inches short of Decker’s face. Christopher even seemed to be leaning back, as if to increase the certainty of a miss.
Then he realized Christopher had something in his hand. And again there was that strange light.
Suddenly, Decker realized what it was.
From thin air . . . from nowhere, Christopher had drawn a brightly polished sword and he was swinging it with incredible speed and all his might toward Decker’s neck.
The entire incident took only a fraction of a second. There was nothing he could do. There was no time to duck or even blink. The blade was only inches from his neck. Swiftly it sliced through the air toward its mark. In an instant it was there, its cold edge pressing against his skin just before it penetrated.
Helplessly, Decker watched as Christopher’s hand, clutched tightly around the sword’s grip, passed almost effortlessly before him, propelling the blade through his neck. The muffled crack of metal against bone as it separated his spinal column between the fourth and fifth vertebrae barely slowed the blade in its bloody path through skin and vein and muscle and sinew and nerve fiber.
Then it was through.
Decker’s head had been completely severed from his body, and Christopher followed through with his stroke. Surprisingly, it had all been relatively painless.
Decker felt himself toppling as his head rolled to his left and off his shoulders. The room appeared to spin as his head tumbled freely to the floor. His forehead hit first, causing Decker to wince in pain as his head bounced and rolled, landing finally on his left ear. At that moment, Decker’s body collapsed to the floor beside him.
From start to finish it had all taken little more than two seconds. In his last moments of consciousness, as the blood drained from his brain, Decker could see Christopher standing there, his rage satisfied as he smiled down at him, the sword raised above his head as Decker’s blood spilled over its hilt and dripped down upon his hand.
Beside Decker’s head, but out of his line of sight, the blood pouring from his headless torso spurted erratically as his heart convulsed and stopped. Because Decker’s head had been severed from the heart, the only force draining the blood was gravity. The result, as Decker realized firsthand, was that a few seconds of life and consciousness remained after
decapitation.[167] Even in death, Decker’s curiosity had found some distraction.
“That was more fun than I realized!” Christopher said as he walked away. “I’ll see you in hell!”
Decker could feel the blood draining from his brain and watched the room grow dark as he began to lose consciousness. At least it was quick, he thought.
Then Decker heard something . . . a voice. With the loss of blood to his brain, he had no idea where it came from, but he was certain it was talking to him. Then he remembered something and the realization hit him like a freight train. Despite his condition, despite his disorientation, no other thought in his life had ever been clearer. He knew what he had to do, and he couldn’t help but muse (if his body were still a part of him, he would have laughed out loud) that it should come to this: Seconds from death, his head severed from his body, and yet he realized that it was for this very day and hour and moment that he had been born.
At once Christopher stopped dead in his tracks.
“Nooooooo!” he screamed, his voice exploding in a sound so terrifying that its source could only have been deep beneath the gates of hell. If Decker had still been able to hear, he would have recognized the voice from years before when he had been at a point near insanity. If he had still been able to see, as Christopher turned back and raised his sword again, he would have seen for the first time the true face of the man he had brought up as his own son. All the evil works and imaginings of mortal man and demons could not have shown more darkly than did the hatred upon this true face of death.
Charging to where he had left Decker’s truncated head and body, Christopher grasped the sword, dropped to one knee, and with all his strength brought down the edge of the blade squarely, just in front of Decker’s right ear, splitting his skull from side to side with a sharp crack and spilling his brains out upon the floor.
The Christ Clone Trilogy - Book Three: ACTS OF GOD (Revised & Expanded) Page 29