Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  A gust of wind blew though the trees and rustled the pages of the Bible. When he looked back down, he found that the pages had come to settle in the book of Amos.

  I destroyed the Amorite before them, though he was tall as the cedars and strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below. I brought you up out of Egypt…

  He felt a series of chills travel up his body. The wind blew the pages again, this time resting them in Numbers, to the account of Caleb and the other spies who had been sent into the Promised Land.

  They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalikites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are. The land devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

  Now John was even more confused. Was God trying to tell him that He wanted him to attack the giants? Or were these demons turning the pages, trying to lead him into a trap? How was he supposed to apply the instructions of Jesus, to love your enemies, while also adhering to this apparent green light for war? Was he supposed to be a Caleb, believing by faith that God was going to grant them victory over his enemies, or was he supposed to be a Stephen, lifting his hands to heaven while being martyred? It was too great a struggle for his weary soul, and he bowed his head. He asked that, whatever was to happen, God would be merciful and forgive the actions, or inactions, that would result from his choice.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Early evening. 18th day of June. Bermuda, North coast

  Beneath the shade of a large cedar tree, John lay on his back, his hands folded behind his head. He was preoccupied with thoughts of Kristen and their unborn baby, praying fervently that he would be reunited with them again.

  Three weeks had passed since his little visit with Osiris, since the fallen angel had claimed to be just one puzzle piece short of completing his preparations. Ever since then, and since Jackson had disappeared, the pureblooded casualties of the Triangle had been regularly patrolling the coasts, searching for the arrival of a new vessel. So far, they hadn’t found anything. And now John was beginning to wonder if maybe Osiris had just invented the story in order to keep them focused on the coasts, allowing him to put the finishing touches on his devices unimpeded. The summer solstice was only three days away, and much to their surprise, the giants had not yet attacked. John realized that it would be equally reasonable for Osiris to pull all of his minions back into a protective ring surrounding his network of megalithic sites and just wait for the solstice to come, deciding on a plan of defense rather than instigating a war that could leave gaping holes in his security. One carefully placed explosive might be enough to render the whole scheme inoperable. It was a notion the “natives” had been debating over the last few days.

  Most of the two hundred untainted men met in council to decide what course of action should be taken in regards to the 21st of June. And once the theories started forming, the issue proved to be a rather complicated one. Most of the men born on the island, having never experienced another reality besides the one the island offered, wanted to fight, to avenge all the friends and family they’d lost over the years and to rid the land of its satanic pestilence. Others, however, didn’t want to chance the angel’s escape and thought it best to destroy the sites. But some actually suggested they do nothing at all, to let the angel escape, reasoning that without any leader and with no more offspring coming to the island, the impure armies would just kill each other off. And then there were those who happened to agree with John, that rather than destroying the mechanism, it might actually be worth trying to use themselves. But most of these people were newer arrivals that still maintained a fresh memory of their former lives, and their voices didn’t hold as much authority as those who had been here their whole lives.

  And then grew an entirely different aspect of the debate. What would happen if the gateway was used? If Osiris’ ill-conceived plan at freeing his condemned brethren had created this place, was it then possible that his very presence was actually sustaining its reality? If so, would the island’s existence simply fold up and vanish without him, leaving them all to disappear along with it? And, if they used the gateway, what assurance was there that they would end up back in the real world? What if the portal transported them to the far side of the moon? The angel was planning on escaping this place, but no one knew where he was planning on escaping to. Assuming that he was building the complex to align with a certain destination, no one was quite sure where a spiritual being — though with a physical form — would even want to go. Chadwick said that the pyramid-complex was seen as a gateway to the stars, to a specific place within Orion, or back in time to Zep Tepi. Surely, none of them wanted to end up there, floating through space or walking the desert sands of Egypt twelve thousand years ago (depending on which Phoenix Cycle it was programmed to). One person had even suggested that — if the whole scheme was a forbidden art, whether science could explain it or not — using it might bring God’s judgment on them just as it had for Osiris. “What if,” he asked, “it sends us straight to hell?”

  And round and round it went. And in the end, they had agreed to do nothing; because whether the angel sent himself to hell or he entered the real world, it would mean that he wouldn’t be here, and that his offspring would quickly lose control of the island. But to appease some of the others who had supported a different decision, they promised not to damage the gateway so that those who wanted to use it could still do so at a later date. It was a decision that John didn’t like, but one that he admitted had the highest chance of success — rather than engaging in a war they couldn’t possibly win. However, that didn’t mean he was satisfied with the idea of waiting until another solstice or equinox to get out of here.

  “You want some, Johnny?” Paul asked from the fire beside him.

  “No thanks,” he replied, steeling a glance at the charred piece of sea turtle he was holding up. Since this Bermuda had never been settled by the British, the ecosystem had evolved differently, sea turtles not having been eaten into nonexistence being one of the differences. Most of Bermuda’s wildlife had been introduced by settlers and shipwrecks, no mammals or reptiles other than one small lizard being native to the island. And the same was true within this sphere, too, though the giants’ all-encompassing appetite made it hard for any species to actually thrive here. But their appetite seemed to extend even beyond the “natural” realm and enter far into the profane. It was something Henry believed was hinted at in the words of Enoch: And they sinned against birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes. Chadwick told of a Canaanite tablet that recorded Baal mating with a heifer and the heifer conceiving and bearing a child in his image. Chadwick then suggested that a truth may actually stand behind the hybrid creatures of the Greek Pan, Centaurs, Minotaur, the Egyptian Horus, Anubis, Sobek, Seth, and the countless other engravings found in Egypt, Assyria, and Italy. He said that the Egyptian historian Manethos wrote extensively of such genetic anomalies that were concocted by the gods. And perhaps this was the real reason why Leviticus 19 forbade the crossbreeding of animals and plants.

  Of course, John wanted to believe the idea was ludicrous, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe there was a connection between the mythology
stories and God’s commandment in Leviticus to kill the person and the beast caught in such degenerate behavior. And why had God made it a point to destroy all the animals along with man and Nephilim in the Flood? He thought of Osiris’ armies, their height, fingers and toes, teeth, the genetic defects evident in the men he’d seen, and the scorpion-like creatures that seemed to bear a close resemblance to the locusts that Apollyon was to lead out of the abyss after the sounding of the fifth trumpet in Revelation 9. He remembered the enormous fruit trees and plants that he’d seen, all sure to rival the clusters of grapes that the Hebrew spies brought back from the Nephilim-infested Canaan. Surely, some kind of genetic change took place with the fall of man, i.e. the growth of thorns, the talking serpent being condemned to crawl on its stomach, etc. And since God had originally intended man and animal to eat only fruits and vegetables, forbidding the slaying of animals, John wondered if the physiology of the dinosaurs and other predators had also been altered somehow, perhaps offering a clue as to why Satan is so often associated with serpents, the leviathan, and dragons. Since the Flood was a judgment against the works of the fallen angels, was it a coincidence that only the fossilized bones of such creatures remained? The Bible spoke of a day when the lion would again lay beside the lamb, implying a reversal of the natural order that was now familiar to earth.

  And then Henry’s boat, The Gegenes, came rocking back and forth on his sea of thoughts. Gegenes… the Greek word for Titan, where the English word “genetics” comes from.

  John combed his fingers through his growing beard as he set his eyes out over the beach and to the crystal blue waters that stretched out into nothing. The pureblooded castaways’ insistence that every attempt of escape had just brought them back to the island only further cemented his resolve to use the angel’s mechanism.

  John, Paul, and Hunter made up the patrol, their designated area of the coast being the northern district above the henge site. This time, John actually brought a weapon with him, though the feel of it in his hands had been awkward, bringing with it the memories that scarred his soul just as much as they had scarred his body. He hoped to escape this world without having to dip his hands in more blood, but the verses the wind had selected for him seemed to suggest otherwise.

  Hunter sat back against a tree and buried his feet in the sand. “It’s kind of weird that we haven’t seen any of them in the last few days.” He was referring to the genetically damned.

  Paul said, “They’re guarding the sites.”

  “Which ones?” John wondered, because if that were true then it meant some sites were relevant to the escape scheme while others weren’t. “The henges here aren’t guarded.”

  “Yeah, sure they aren’t,” Paul sneered. “Why don’t you go walk up to one and see what happens.”

  He was right, John realized. With the ability to transport themselves, there was no way to know for sure whether the sites were left unguarded or not.

  “They could be hiding up in the trees,” Hunter said, poking at the sand between his feet with a knife. “Wanting to draw us in.”

  And then, suddenly, the sound of crashing foliage erupted behind them.

  Moving quickly to their feet, they brought their weapons up and ready to fire, not sure of what could be headed toward them. According to their hosts, they’d only seen a small fraction of the island’s abominations.

  But what stumbled out of the undergrowth proved to be even more surprising than any crossbred mutation.

  “Don’t shoot!” Jackson yelled, staggering wildly into the sand and ultimately collapsing at their feet.

  John and Hunter lowered their weapons in surprise, but Paul’s aim remained unwavering.

  “Well, well, well…” he quipped.

  Jackson looked up from his knees and, between gasps of air, held up a hand. “Please,” he choked. His face was horribly bruised, one eye swollen shut, the other bloodshot. His clothes were torn to shreds and soaked with blood, whether his own or someone else’s, they couldn’t tell.

  “Listen to me,” he whispered, getting to all fours and letting blood drip from his open mouth. “You need to stop them.” He collapsed onto his side, revealing in part what had happened to him. The back of his shirt had been cut off and his entire left side appeared to have undergone some type of surgical procedure, only the operation hadn’t been repaired. Flaps of skin were hanging loose from the methodical slices of an incredibly sharp object, and hints of white were glistening beneath the muscle.

  “What happened to you?” Hunter asked, running to his side.

  “Started removing organs…” He pinched his eyes shut and growled in agony, his whole body sweating and shaking.

  Paul was searching the woods, wary of Jackson’s sudden appearance. “How’d you get here?”

  “—portal. Smelled your fire…”

  “How’d you know it was us?”

  “—didn’t know it was you,” he snapped. “Just knew it wasn’t them.” He swore. “I think they took a kidney.”

  “We need to get him back,” John said to Hunter, shouldering an old M-16 and stepping closer to Jackson.

  But Paul stopped him. “I want to know how he escaped.”

  Jackson kept his eyes closed. “Same way as Henry.”

  “Henry doesn’t remember how he escaped,” John answered.

  Jackson’s eyes opened. “Yeah, he does.” And then he started coughing up more blood. “—just stop them.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s not planning on leaving his armies here…” He rolled onto his back, gasping in pain. “He’s taking the entire family with him.”

  ****

  By the time they got Jackson to a palmetto bed back in the caves, an absurd idea had been born in John’s mind. Osiris became trapped here just as the earlier angels that left their first estate (in order to intermingle with women) had become trapped in Tarturus, a premature judgment exclusively reserved for such actions. In the Gospel of Matthew, demon-possessed men begged Jesus to cast them into a herd of swine instead of condemning them to the abyss before “the appointed time.” But John knew from both Pastor Brian’s text message and from his own recent reading of the Bible (which all the SEALs now had an interest in) that Revelation 9 indicated the abyss would be opened, releasing from out of it the angel of the pit, Apollyon. But was it the same “Apollo” of Greek lore that seemed to personify the very perfection of man, the same perfection of man that the Masonic Christ is supposed to embody? John’s crazy thought was that maybe this fallen angel was not Osiris (as the angel had readily admitted), but Apollo himself, and that what was described by the Apostle was his escape from here, initiated by the blast of a trumpet. Again, sound being the activating component. And that, as Revelation 17 may suggest, the people of earth would be astonished by the beast from the abyss because, as the near two thousand-year-old text said of him, he “once was, now is not, and yet will come.” Was this the return of Apollo, of one of the fallen angels who had helped “alter” the earth in Noah’s day and of whom Moses wrote about when penning the phrase “heroes of old”? And then he recalled Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Matthew… As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

  Samuel looked at John through his aged eyes and tiredly shook his head, apparently not impressed with his theory. But John thrust the open Bible at him and told him to read it.

  Momentarily scratching at his white beard, Samuel finally obliged.

  And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men wh
ich have not the seal of God in their foreheads… And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

  Samuel slowly closed the Bible. “You think that Osiris is this Apollyon, that this place is the abyss from which he’ll ascend and lead his army of abominations into the realm of man?”