by Ian Taylor
"How could we do otherwise?" Morwenna gestured to the women who surrounded Jan. "They’re giving her charge-of-life energy, so she has strength to get through what follows."
"She was exposed to a massive dose of radioactivity. Will a healing really be possible?" His face revealed both hope and doubt.
"I won't be healing her," Morwenna replied matter-of-factly. "Her cure, if there is one, will be performed by others, for whom I cannot speak." She embraced him in a gesture of sympathy, then went to the divan and placed a slender hand on Jan's forehead. "She's very cold. We'll take her now." She addressed the young women. "Get her ready." She turned to Gerry. "Do you love her, young Gawen?"
"She knows me as Gerry.” He smiled sadly and glanced across the room. “If you'd asked me that a week ago, I'd have said I wasn't sure," he replied solemnly. "But now I have no doubt that I do."
"She has youth and your love on her side. Are you prepared to help?"
He bowed his head. "I am."
The young women gently pulled Jan into a seated position so Morwenna could fasten a warm shawl about her shoulders.
"We must go," Morwenna announced. She took Jan's hands in hers. "It's only a ten-minute walk and a whole otherworld away."
"Are you going across the water?"
"We've no choice. There can’t be a healing for her anywhere else."
14
The path led down a gentle slope through mixed deciduous woodland. The two men had been joined by two others, equally muscular and young; all four were now dressed in loose coven robes. Jan lay on the stretcher. Gerry, , Morwenna and the women, the latter also in coven robes, followed.
Ahead was a small picturesque lake surrounded by tall trees. The lake rippled as a light breath of wind danced across it. Treetops swayed and branches creaked like primal voices.
The foursome placed the stretcher on a prepared wooden rest. Jan appeared still to be unconscious. Gerry watched her with deep concern as Morwenna and the young women cast off their clothes. Naked, they began to sing a very simple sound, a rising and falling cadence.
Ripples on the lake grew still and the water's surface became as smooth as a mirror. Daylight slowly faded. The trees stood motionless, like intricate carvings in the windless air.
Morwenna and the women stopped singing as a patch of mist, like a little cloud, rose from the water. The mist grew denser, a pale amber light glowing at its centre.
Morwenna glanced at Gerry . Also naked, he lifted Jan from the stretcher and slowly walked into the lake thigh-deep towards the light. The mist enveloped them and gradually they faded from sight.
The women watched from the bank and began singing again. The four men, now bare, joined them; their voices swelled into a deep drone. As the drone reverberated through the woodland, Geery and Jan appeared to be one with the light in the mist.
"We must leave them," Morwenna instructed. "Her fate is now in the hands of the earth spirits."
As Jan slept, fragments of dreams, or possibly memories, came and went. Weak, she was unable to do more than observe the dream moments coming and going, like the flickering images of an old film. Then the fragments ceased and a longer sequence began.
She was flying over the earth in what seemed like an OOBE. Dead bodies lay everywhere, in city streets and open spaces, in fields and hills, floating in lakes and seas. With a rising sense of horror, she realised that she–or a power-hungry alter ego–was responsible for this. The announcement of a Great Awakening had come from her. Or, rather, from the toga-clad Ashtar through her. She had been his willing mouthpiece, believing that together they’d create a beautiful new world. She’d been intoxicated by the adulation her followers lavished on her.
Then the killing started, with entire cultures wiped out. Genocide after genocide. The survivors, led by a pseudo-religious group called The Reborn, were pleased with the success of The Rebirth as it was labelled. The Reborn were everywhere, in the walled and heavily-weaponised communities they set up in the former temperate, more habitable latitudes. The dead were an irrelevance. The only people who’d mourn them were already dead themselves.
At first she thought The Reborn were humans. But she came to realise they were minor-order demons who’d infiltrated the human world during the chaos brought about by global warming and the belated, and ineffective, measures governments introduced to combat climate change.
The Rebirth had been preceded by a virus spread by UFOs. Military response to the so-called alien attacks had been uncoordinated and futile, as alien spacecraft dematerialised when attacked. The clean-up was supposed to last a few months, but the process of decontamination stalled. No one (except Ashtar, she realised) had foreseen that rats would become immune to the virus. As the rats devoured the corpses, their fleas spread a horrific plague, like a modern-day Black Death. Sixty per cent of the world's population died from it and various territorial wars against The Reborn.
Ashtar and his group of higher-order demonic accomplices departed the plague-ridden earth in a stupendous display of revolving lights. She remained behind, abandoned and powerless, to be denounced by The Reborn, tied to a stake in a field of rotting corpses, waiting for the fleas to infect her, or the rats to eat her alive.
Before the carnage began, an attempt was made to turn The Rebirth into a full-blown religious crusade. The Risen Christ appeared in sub-Saharan Africa and formed a parallel, more mystical movement than the austere and repressive Reborn. The crusade's mission was to annihilate all other religions by example or, if necessary, by force. As the death toll rose from the plague, the Christ figure abruptly disappeared. “Second Thoughts on a Second Coming?” was the headline question around the world.
The Risen Christ was claimed to be the illegitimate offspring of an ousted African dictator, a revelation quickly denounced as fake news by his more dedicated followers. Astonished eye witnesses said he boarded his 'strangely-shaped' private plane and vanished before matters got entirely out of hand, and he became a scapegoat for the escalating horror and was crucified, according to precedent. No one saw The Risen Christ again.
She was now the sole target for the wrath of The Reborn. She’d tried to blame the entire debacle on someone called Ashtar, or Ashok, but no persons with those names were found to exist. She’d muttered incoherently about being misled by demons, that the tragedy had been a diabolical trick, and these demons were feasting off horror and fear; this, however, was put down to the ravings of an unhinged mind.
Her name could no longer be spoken. Guardians of the Community had powers to arrest anyone who mentioned her. The years of plague were gradually forgotten. Climate change was irreversible, but the heavily-armed communities of survivors adapted to the extreme environment, using slaves to carry out the more dangerous tasks that required excursions beyond the enclaves' walls.
The Reborn employed scholars to create an account of history, in which it was claimed that the world had been saved by the Power of Love. The few misguided enough to question this version were denounced as subversives and disappeared.
The Reborn set up a School of Love where students were systematically indoctrinated with 'the truth'. After graduation, they lived passive lives of contented docility working for The Reborn–the assembly deranged sociopath Jan Barnes accused of being demons.
Jan had the impression that this OOBE, or vision, belonged to a potential parallel life, which had been prevented from becoming reality due to the hectic events of the protest and its aftermath. It was a warning vision of the direction events might have taken. This, she realised, was Ashtaroth's real agenda, but she was free from him now and from the distractions of RFOs, viruses and crusades. She was free simply to live or to die.
After the OOBE, she slept more deeply. At first, she was aware of nothing at all. Then, slowly, new images began to appear, initially more like shadows than definite forms. Gradually the shadows faded, or merged, into the walls of a room, or perhaps a cave.
All sense of time disappeared. How long she lay
in the cave-like place was impossible to tell. It could have been days, or even years. Time was of a completely different nature and so difficult to comprehend, it was as though it didn't exist at all.
But the waiting seemed inevitable and natural, as if it was a stage she had to go through before she could move on to the next phase of her life–or death. Just when it seemed she’d be there forever, Jan felt herself lifted as if by an updraft of air. She rose on it for what seemed only a few moments. Then she stopped and became motionless once more.
There was no tunnel, no emergence into a world of light. She wasn't having a conventional post-mortem experience. There was a definite environment, a context, but was it physical? The idea of being in a cave became stronger and more plausible. At first, the cave was almost entirely dark and empty. But then she felt hands pulling her violently in many directions. She wanted to protest, but the faculty of speech abandoned her.
The pulling continued, and she accepted that this might be the only remaining reality. It was painful; she had no choice but to surrender to the experience of being yanked
into tiny pieces and gradually being made whole again.
With an overwhelming sense of relief, she realised it had stopped and she was moving again. Hands were lifting her, carrying her, a pleasant sensation compared to the experience of being pulled every which way.
An odd sound frightened her because of its strangeness. She wanted to blot out the sound, but had no means to do this. Then she realised it was familiar— a human voice.
The voice was saying something she couldn’t make out. Then it became clear. "You can open your eyes."
The words had no meaning. She had no idea who she had become or where she was. In spite of feeling displaced, she found she could open her eyes and peered at flickering shadows. They seemed benign and she felt safe. Overwhelmed by colossal fatigue, she shut her eyes and slept.
Gawen and Jan sat in a cosy parlour by a glowing stove. He noticed that she seemed to have made a complete recovery; her eyes were clear, her demeanour composed.
"So you're Gawen?" She looked at him with good-humoured disbelief. "Is that your birth name, or another alias?"
"It's my birth name. I'm a Cornishman. I prefer to keep that name secret and borrow other people's when I'm on the wrong side of the River Tamar. We can stick with Gerry if you like." He laughed. " It's the name that embodies the history of the events that have led us to where we are now."
"Are you a member of Morwenna's coven?"
"I'm not the sort of person to join anything, no matter how worthy or enlightened it may be. I prefer to be a free agent, as I once said, responsible for my own actions. That
way, if I fall foul of the authorities, I'll leave no trail that could implicate others."
They hadn't talked about her healing. She had no idea to what extent he’d been involved and preferred not to ask. That the healing appeared successful satisfied her for the time being. She’d left this world and entered one of the many otherworlds that she now found easier to accept: a benign otherworld of peace and transformation.
When she’d regained consciousness she found she had been 'away' for a month. A lot had happened during that time and she was keen to catch up.
Gerry was happy to oblige. "The authorities are calling the incident at the inn a 'toxic spill'. Like it was some kind of agro-chemical accident. No mention of a UFO. Seems they can only manage one area of denial at a time. Of course, the conspiracy guys aren't buying it."
"What about the blog?"
"I can see your memory's returned to full health.” He winked and grinned. “The blog's thriving. It's now a website called s-p-i.com, or Strange Phenomena Investigations. I'm partly responsible for managing it. It's globally active, with witnesses to weird events reporting almost daily. There's even a secret network of supporters prepared to hide vulnerable witnesses from the authorities. Absolutely no one's having anything to do with the establishment's lies."
"How can you protect the site from establishment infiltration and," she faltered, "from demons?"
"At first glance, it's a very boring site, with lots of banal chatter. But there are coded links to other sites where the real discussions happen."
"It's not exclusively a conspiracy site?"
"Not on the surface. We've had fascinating reports on lake monster sightings in Russia, so-called alien animals in Scandinavia, and ghostly happenings around the construction of a new bypass in the east of England."
"I might have a piece to post. It's a fable about the downfall of a gullible female who
was tricked by a demon. It's timeless. It could go back into the ages of the first civilisations. I saw it all in a visionary dream."
She shared a little about the sequence of events in the OOBE. He listened without interruption.
"I got to experience something truly chilling: the depth of indulgence of a demon watching destruction, the horrific pleasure of a demon feeding off blood and sickness and terror. It was an appalling revelation."
He was silent for a while, thinking over the account. "Seems the only winners as usual are Mr A and his legions, except perhaps for what you've called The Reborn. Have you any idea who they could be?"
She shook her head. "It wasn't clear. They seemed to be a mysterious sect that emerged at some point in the chaos and took over."
"What's your intuition tell you?"
"It told me, in the OOBE, they were demons. Now … I'm not so sure."
"They weren't human puppets?"
"It's hard to tell now I'm back in ordinary consciousness. Demons in human form look like humans. Unless you invent some kind of hi-tech demon detector, you don't know which is which. A rogue element in the military and Black Ops guys could all be demons or humans, or a mixture of both. You can't tell. In my vision, The Reborn seemed to appear from nowhere. My alter ego had no hesitation in denouncing them as demons. If I could contact my other self at will I may be able to see through a demon's human disguise."
"You should cultivate that connection. It could prove a tremendous asset."
"I can try. But it might involve me in a life I don't feel strong enough yet to survive."
They were silent again, deep in thought.
Eventually, he put more fuel in the stove.
"The world's population was halved in your vision?"
"At least."
"One of the Georgia Guidestones' ideals realised."
She nodded in agreement. "But don't the demons need us?"
"They do. They can't wipe us out. What sport would be left for them apart from fighting each other?"
He paused to think. "Whether it's from RFOs, viruses or whatever, The Reborn seem to have been left in control, like a super elite, am I right?"
"That's what I felt. But it could be misinformation. It's hard to tell fact from fiction in Mr A's world."
"Let's assume it's fact and these are the guys Mr A puts in charge. Humans or demons, they'll be subject to his will, but they may not know who’s controlling them. It's hard to imagine humans being so thoroughly brainwashed, so my money's on The Reborn as demons.” He uttered a brief self-deprecating laugh. “But I have lost bets before."
"You're thinking The Reborn will farm us directly, like battery hens, these graduates of the School of Love?"
"They'll create arenas for blood sports to keep the graduates distracted. Mr A is obviously impressed by Roman urban life. They may give away free bread, if the climate allows them to grow cereals. We've already paved the way with survival-of-the-fittest TV shows. Then they'll probably get bored and instigate a violent revolution against themselves, which they'll suppress with massive loss of life. It will serve two purposes: population control and first-order entertainment for demons. Then more control, more sport, another revolution. Around and around."
"Why not leave the world as is? There's enough war and terror already. There'll be huge fires and floods due to out-of-control climate change. Surely that's enough fun for any number
of demonic legions?"
"That's an interesting thought. But demons are meddlers, always stirring the human stew. As for climate change, you have to ask who's ultimately responsible. Can humans
really be so reckless? If they can, it's beyond terrible."
"We need a new plan." Jan’s manner took on great urgency. "Something on a massive scale to drive that demon away from our reality."
"I've been working on that," he replied with a fleeting smile.
Morwenna entered, dressed in outdoors' gear. "Everyone's in," she stated matter-of-factly. "I've had the last confirmations today. We just need to know when."
"Are you up for more danger?" Gerry asked Jan.
"It might depend on what kind."
"We'll merely be spectators this time. I hope there'll be minimal risk."
"I'm in. It sounds intriguing."
He turned to Morwenna. "Midwinter celebrations are approaching. The psychic energy circuit will become more highly charged. Can we do it this next weekend?"
15
Gerry and Jan headed for an old tin-mining area in the nearby hills, where sightings of Owlman had occurred during the summer.
"You're officially a missing person," he said. "Does that bother you?"
"Not in the least," she replied with a dry smile. "I don't want to be found."
"The world of aliases can be tricky to navigate," he grinned.
She laughed. "I'd be happy to give it a whirl!"
They parked the 4x4 away from the eyes of passing motorists. Light was becoming grainy with the approaching dusk. The apprehension Jan had felt since they’d left Morwenna's sanctuary began to ebb. It was time for action and steady nerves. She was looking forward to it.
He passed her a bottle of herbal mixture and she took a small sip.
"I'm halfway out of this world most of the time now." She passed the bottle back. "I think it's the result of the healing."