Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (40 page)

And across the world, in Sydney, Nara, Beijing, Angkor, Luzon, New Delhi, Mumbai, Baghdad, Tunis, Mecca, Johannesburg, Jerusalem, Bosnia, Quito, Paris, London, and Rome, it is the same.  Every surface capable of reflecting an image is filled with the same face. 

For a moment a fascinated world stops, gathers together, and watches.

As she begins to speak, the billions of watchers, even the deaf, even the comatose hear her words and understand.

‡

“I bring you word from our Creator.  The words I say are His, not mine, and He wishes all of you to listen.  I shall call Him ‘He’ simply because that is how we traditionally think of the Creator, but He is neither ‘He’ nor ‘She.’  What can those words mean when there is only one?  And He is
the
One.  Whether you call him Yahweh or Allah or Vishnu, He cares not, for He has no name.  Whether you visualize him as a man, or a woman, or a feathered serpent, He cares not, for he is pure Being, without shape.

“I was one of you, and for a short time, He was part of me.  We have touched, and for that reason I am allowed to be His voice.  Listen well:

“More than two thousand years ago the Creator allowed an infinitesimal fragment of Himself to gestate in my womb and become human.  He dwelt among a subjugated people who believed in a single God and He planted there his message of kinship between all humans.

“He said He would return and now He has, but He is not pleased with the way His message has been distorted and manipulated and prostituted and profiteered during the intervening millennia.  You all have the same Parent, therefore you are all kin.  He did not create you so that you would divide into warring factions.  Yet you have done just that.

“You, His children, have warred incessantly, with one part or another of your world engaging in slaughter, blind to the glorious future that is yours if you can but learn to see past the walls that divide you.  There is no peace between nations, but a nation is a fabrication.  There must be peace between people.  One to one.  You must learn to recognize the walls that divide you and break them down.  One by one.

“Tear down your walls, children, and find Harmony.

“You have become masters of your world.  You have struggled to the apex of your corner of Creation.  You rule it now.  But with mastery comes obligation.  The rulers of Creation are also responsible for it.

“Remember this: Every living thing, animal, reptile, vegetable, contains a spark of the Creator.  You hold within yourselves the brightest spark, but not the only spark.  It is arrogant of you to think that all other living things were put here merely to be disposed of at your whim.  They were not.  A balance must be struck.  It is a law of Creation that one thing must die that another may live, a law that holds true for all things, for the plants as well as the animals.  But you fail in your responsibility when you wantonly lay waste to the land.  You dim the spark within when you kill for sport and not for sustenance, when you kill for mere vanity to steal another creature’s beauty to wear as your own, or cause a creature pain to test the paints and scents you daub on your bodies.  All life has value.  Yes, there is a hierarchy in that value, but nothing that lives is without it. 

“And if you must respect the place of the lower life forms in the world around you, certainly you must cherish the life-right of your fellow humans a thousand-fold more.  You must not diminish, must not damage, must not shorten the lives around you, for in doing so you also smother His spark within yourself.  And nothing dims that spark, nothing hardens the human heart to the value of human life more than the ghastly slaughter of war.  You must halt all war, children, including the unseen war: Never shall there be true peace around you while you wage war on the unborn lives within you.

“Respect
all
life, children, and find Harmony.

“Abolish your ceremonies, your communions, your sacrifices, real and symbolic; discard your dietary laws, cast off your clerical vestments, disband your sects, cease calling yourselves Catholic or Christian or Jew or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist, for these customs, these identifications, these sects, these labels serve only to set you apart from your kin. 

“Stop your worship. Cease your kneeling, your bowing, your prostrating, your fasts, self-denials, and self-inflicted injuries.  You demean not only yourselves but your Creator when you believe that such obeisance pleases Him.  He did not create you for that.  You insult Him by thinking that He requires worship.  What worship could the Creator of all that is possibly need or take pleasure in? 

“Put down your weapons, you murderous, wild-eyed defenders of faith and God.  What sort of God would need defenders, especially such puny and misguided warriors as you?  He is quite capable of defending Himself.

“Silence your prayers.  He will not answer because He will not listen while you call out from within walls that separate you from your kin. Harmony is the only prayer He heeds.

“Abandon your rituals, children, and find Harmony.

“Do not look to Him for guidance or relief; look instead to each other.

“Your churches, your temples, your mosques have been removed, for these are the most tangible and obvious walls between you.  Gather now instead in the streets and parks and squares where there are no walls.  Try to reach Him by reaching each other.

“Discard your Bible, your Koran, your Torah, for each is only partly true, and al lead you into the belief that you have found the One True Path to God, or the One True Voice that will catch His ear.  You have not.  And that delusion raises another wall, a wall of exclusivity.  He did not create you to be divided.

“Forsake your dogma children, and find Harmony.

“I say again, use your own lives well, and respect each life around you.  You are all kin.  Touch one another.  You are all living this life together.  And so you must all work together toward creating Heaven.  It is possible.  You have the power.  You need only use it.

“If you do not, if you continue along the same path you have trod these thousands of years, you will create a Hell for yourselves and your children.

“Look not for a Third Coming.  And act not in fear of eternal reward or punishment.  Your reward or punishment is here.  This is your world, these are your lives.  He has given them to you.  Use them well, make the most of them, make them
mean
something, make them
count
.  For
this
is your Heaven or Hell.  You have the power to make it either.  The choice is yours.

“Do not wait for the Rapture of the faithful, or for the Tribulation of the unbeliever.  They will not come from on high.  Your rapture arises from each other, as do all your tribulations.  Heaven or Hell will be of your own making.  You have but to choose.

“Here, now, today marks the end of the age of faith and belief, and the beginning of a new age: the Age of Knowledge.  For everything I say here is being recorded a million times, and thus you will have no further need for faith.  You will know there is a God and that He is watching.  Act accordingly, children. 

“Let this then be the whole of the law:

“Find Harmony, children, and you will find Heaven.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Paraiso

Dan had listened raptly.  She’d been speaking to the world, he knew, to all of humankind, but he’d felt as if she were speaking only to him.  For what she’d said reflected exactly his innermost thoughts and feelings.  Because of his vows, his membership in the priesthood, he’d been afraid to vocalize them, even to himself.  But now that
she
had said them, he could acknowledge what he’d sensed,
known
all along.

He wondered if that was why he was here, in this house, in her presence—in
His
presence—why he’d been with her all along.

As the Virgin finished speaking she touched Carrie’s bowed head and said, “Come, my devoted one.”

Carrie rose to her feet.  The Virgin held out her hand and Carrie took it.

The Virgin said,  “Our time here is done.”

Our time is done
.  What did she mean by that?

Dan swallowed and addressed her again.

“Wait...please.  Can’t you...bring her back?  Make her live again?  You can do that, can’t you?”

The Virgin shook her head.  “Her time here is through.  She is coming with me.”

“With you?  You’re taking her away?  Where?”  Dan felt a sob building in his chest.  He still hadn’t come to terms with Carrie’s death.  “Oh, please.  I’ve only just begun to know her.  You can’t take her away from me now.”

“I haven’t taken her away.  One of your brothers did that.”

And then Carrie and the Virgin began to rise.

When they were floating half a dozen feet above the floor, they began to drift toward the ruined windows, toward the sea, toward the towering column of water that waited for them.

“
Wait
!” cried another voice—the man who called himself Kesev, whom the Mother called Iscariot.  “Mother, please wait!”

Their seaward drift slowed. 

“Yes, Judas?”

“What of me?”

“What of you, Judas?”

“Am I to be left here alone?  Haven’t I suffered enough?  Two thousand years, Mother!  Haven’t I earned forgiveness?”

“Forgiveness does not come from me, Judas.  You know that.”

“Then intercede for me, Mother.  Don’t leave me here alone.  Everyone I’ve ever known has left me.  Please...I do not deserve this anymore.”

The Virgin paused, as if listening, then extended her free hand toward Judas.

“Come.”

Judas rushed forward, leaped to catch her hand, and when their fingers touched, he floated up to join her, clutching her hand in both of his.

Dan saw tears in Judas’s eyes, and felt them well up in his own.  Carrie...Carrie was leaving.

He fought the urge to call her back, knowing she wouldn’t, couldn’t respond.  He’d lost her—not now, not today, but yesterday, when Emilio had put a 9mm hole in her heart.

The three of them drifted through the ruined window frames, out into the storm, toward the gargantuan swirling, roaring column of water that loomed outside. 

Dan ran to the frames, clung to one, leaning over the precipice that fell away to the pounding surf below.  He sobbed unashamedly and let the tears flow down his cheeks.  He watched longingly as their progress accelerated and their retreating forms shrank. 

Soon they were lost in the mist.

Moments later, the cyclopean waterspout began to retreat, shrinking as it moved off into the Pacific.  Gradually it thinned from a thousand yards across to a slender tornado-like funnel, and then it was gone.

The storm, too, was gone.  Magically, the encircling winds died, the fog melted away, the clouds dispersed.  Midday sunlight burst free and flooded the sky, warming Dan’s face and spirit.

He clung there a few moments longer, wiping his eyes, gathering his wits, girding himself to face a world without Carrie.  Finally, when he turned away, he saw Senator Crenshaw leaning over the hospital bed, whispering to his unconscious son.

“Did you hear that, Charlie?  You’re going to be well again.  All I’ve got to do is give away everything I own.  But that’s no problem, Charlie.  I’ll set up trusts for everything, even for Paraiso.  That way all my assets will be out of my control, but we can still live here.  And I’ll put my nomination bid on hold.  I won’t do anything until you’re better, Charlie.  After that, you’ll see the god
damndest
campaign you ever saw in your life.  You just wait and see, Charlie.”

As Dan walked past he couldn’t resist saying, “You just don’t get it, do you.”

“What?” Crenshaw said, straightening.  “What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“Of course, I—”

“Then think about what you heard, fool.”

Dan could not spare any more time here.  A new world waited outside.  He could feel it. 

He hurried up the stairs and burst out into the new fresh air.  He had no idea what he’d find when he got back to civilization, but he knew the events of the past few moments would change it forever. 

For better or for worse?  And for how long?  He would see.

He dearly wished Carrie were here to explore it with him.  And maybe she was.  She’d touched his life so deeply, he knew he’d always carry a part of her with him.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and realized that Carrie was still with him in a more tangible way.  He pulled out her baggies of powder and clippings and stared at them.  Whatever he found out there in the new world, he was sure now that the new age of miracles was not over yet.

Perhaps it had just begun.

Find Harmony, children

And you will find Heaven

~~~

THE END

F. PAUL WILSON is an award-winning,
NY Times
bestselling novelist whose work spans horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, young adult, and virtually everything between.  His novels have been translated into twenty-four languages. Currently he is best known as creator of the urban mercenary Repairman Jack. (http://www.repairmanjack.com)

Also by F. Paul Wilson

The Adversary Cycle

The Keep

The Tomb

The Touch

Reborn

Reprisal

Nightworld

Repairman Jack

The Tomb

Legacies

Conspiracies

All the Rage

Hosts

The Haunted Air

Gateways

Crisscross

Infernal

Harbingers

Bloodline

By the Sword

Ground Zero

Fatal Error

The Dark at the End