2013: Beyond Armageddon (50 page)

Zeke felt an acute awareness that this was the moment he’d been born for.

“The Good Guy wins.”

Dig Headquarters. December 21, 2012.

The next morning Zeke and Leah watched the live television report in their room. The newscaster was model-handsome, impeccably dressed in suit and tie. He gave a quick synopsis of the story, including the thorough process the network had used to “as much as humanly possible, at this point it time, verify the authenticity of the video you are about to see.”.

He finished his intro and the video began. The reporter made occasional voice-over comments for clarification.

It was all there: Hell, Satan, the Creator. As the video unfolded, Zeke began to realize the enormity of his challenge to convince the world it was real. He couldn’t wait to get started.

The video ended and the reporter came back on.

“That concludes our report on this historic event. From the moment we became aware of this phenomenal story, we have been working feverishly with networks around the world to get this groundbreaking news to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. For this initial broadcast, we estimate that a billion of you are watching. We will be having updates throughout the day, so please spread the word and stay tuned. This is Drake Winston, live from Jerusalem.”

Zeke clicked off the television.

“A billion people,” Leah said. “The way the word spreads in this day and age, with the Internet and all the social media, virtually everyone in the world will know by tonight.”

“Ironic,” Zeke said. “I’ve been calling television the Satan Box for years. Maybe this story can help reverse the bad karma the news has been spreading for years. That is if they don’t poison it with their usual cynicism, tearing it apart before it has a chance.”

“The digital serpent in the Garden of Eden,” Leah said.

“You got it.” Zeke glanced at the clock. “Come on. We’ve got to pull it together and get downstairs.”

The Hell Squad had agreed to meet privately in the War Room at nine to say their final goodbyes. When Zeke and Leah walked in a few minutes early, Mordecai, Reese, and Joe Dayagi were already there, having coffee.

“Hassan will be here any minute,” Mordecai said.

Zeke nodded. “Did you all see the news report?”

“We were just talking about it,” Reese said. “If your video doesn’t get people to behave, I don’t know what will.”

“We’ll see. They’re still debating the Zapruder film.”

Reese shook his head. “This isn’t the same. Your video is clear, and there’s a lot more of it. And no matter how much they check it out, they’ll see it was impossible to fake. Plus the Creator said He’d be coming to testify.”

“He did, didn’t He?” Zeke said.

Hassan walked up to the table with a frail older man they didn’t recognize.

“This is my father, ” Hassan said. “Tarik. Since he is the one who started all this, I wanted him to be here for the finish.”

“Started it?” Zeke said. “How?”

They sat and Hassan said, “Father, you tell it.”

Tarik looked at Zeke and Leah, sadness in his eyes.

“The scrolls you used to guide you on this journey. I am the Bedouin who discovered them and sold them to your priest.”

Everyone stared in stunned silence.

“I know,” Tarik said. “It seems impossible. But from the moment I found them, I knew they had a power. I felt its hand on my shoulder. When Hassan told me how you came to have them…and the sorrow they caused you and the priest…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Zeke said.

“If I had done the right thing, brought the scrolls to my tribe instead of selling them to the priest, you never would have been involved. Instead you both had to pay for my sin.”

Zeke shook his head. “Tarik, what happened to us wasn’t your fault. The hand you felt was of a much greater power. You just put the wheel of destiny in motion. What happened after that was beyond your control. This had to be. And the final outcome is one for rejoicing, not regret.”

A glimmer of hope brightened the old man’s eyes.

“Forgive yourself, Tarik,” Leah said. She took Zeke’s hand and Tarik’s. “We do.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I will try. Perhaps now I can find peace.”

“Perhaps the world can find peace,” Zeke said. His words hung in the air until Mordecai finally spoke.

“I hate to rush us, but I need to start getting people to the airport. And since we are talking of peace…Zeke, I have something for you. It’s over by the door, so I can give it to you on the way out. Come, everyone.”

The group followed Mordecai into the hall. Just outside the door to the War Room a package wrapped in plain tissue paper rested on a small table. Mordecai picked it up and handed it to Zeke. He removed the wrapping to reveal an exquisitely handcrafted plaque. It took a moment for the significance of the inscription to sink in.

He smiled and gave Mordecai an appreciative nod.

“I had this made after Zeke decided to go down that final tunnel,” Mordecai said. “I think it will be especially appropriate now, because I just got off the phone with the Prime Minister. As soon as he saw the news report, he was on the phone trying to revive the peace talks. He and the Palestinians are going to—to use Zeke’s words—‘dust off’ the Oslo Accords and use them as the road map. Israel is going to buy this property, as a headquarters for those negotiations. This room will be where those talks take place.”

Zeke held the plaque up for all to see while Mordecai explained.

“This was made from an olive branch taken from a tree in Gethsemane. A very particular tree, the one where Hassan and I believe Judas hanged himself.”

After a moment of profound silence, Mordecai went on.

“Zeke, there are hooks on the door for you to hang the sign.”

With a slight flourish, Zeke eased the sign into place. Its beautifully engraved gold lettering now proclaimed the room’s new name to the world:

THE PEACE ROOM

They all admired it for a moment, then Zeke closed the door on the former War Room.

He left it unlocked.

The West Bank of the Dead Sea

The Peace Room

2013

The Beginning.

ROBERT RYAN

I was born and raised in the D.C. where tourists don’t go—a land of soul food and Scrapple.

We lived directly behind the neighborhood movie theater, and my mother took me to everything from the time I was barely out of diapers. When I reached the ripe old age of about six, I couldn’t wait for the Saturday creature features. Atomic mutants running amok, the monsters of Ray Harryhausen, Roger Corman’s Poe films, and the unabashed frightfests of William Castle were among the early influences that warped my writer’s muse into a breeding ground for—to borrow a line from the sci-fi classic
Forbidden Planet
—my “Monsters from the Id.” In Castle’s
The Tingler
, when Vincent Price told us all to scream because the Tingler was loose in the theater, you better believe I screamed. On the literary front I soon discovered Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Bloch, among others, and followed the trail they blazed into the “ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.” It seems I have always been drawn to scary stories.

Here are a few highlights from the Cliff’s Notes version of my life:

In the late seventies I did standup comedy at fondly remembered El Brookman’s on Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the first comedy showcases in the country. In between thinking up jokes, I studied film and acting at the University of Maryland and wrote film criticism for the award-winning
Diamondback.

Getting married was THE highlight of the ensuing years. Our careers took my wife and I to Florida, where I wrote book reviews for a literary magazine, recorded for an audiobook company, and acted in community theater. A definite highlight of the latter was playing Van Helsing in
Dracula.
For a horror aficionado like myself, particularly of old Universal classics, it was a thrill to say lines like: “This creature…is the terrible Vlad Dracul himself!” and Van Helsing’s delicious speech, when he steps through the curtain to warn the audience:

“When you get home tonight, and the lights have been turned out, and you are afraid to look behind the curtains, and you dread to see a face appear at the window—why, just pull yourself together, and remember that…after all…
there are such things
.”

2013: Beyond Armageddon
is my fictional answer to the question that plagues us all when we consider the atrocities human beings inflict on one another: Why is there evil? Where does it come from?

This is my first novel. I hope you will find its journey interesting, and that you will return for more Tales from the Shadowland.