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A NOTE ABOUT THE SAMPLE SCENES I have endeavored to select scenes which give a flavor of the book but
which DO NOT reveal too much about the plot. For that reason, you may find
yourself wondering what certain scenes have to do with the story . . . If so,
I've done my job. |
Book Three:
Acts of God
The following is taken from Chapter 15 of Acts of God -- Book Three of The Christ Clone Trilogy
Decker slept soundly, peacefully, dreaming of nothing in particular. Then suddenly he realized something was wrong. Something was very wrong, and it wasn’t just in his dream. Even in his sleep he could sense it.
He opened his eyes and looked around his bedroom. A cold sweat began to form on his brow. Everything seemed all right, but the dread that filled him did not go away.
Outside his window the sun shone brightly, casting warm beams of light into his room. Still he could not shake the feeling that something was terribly amiss.
Drawn by the light, Decker rose from his bed to open the window. But as he looked out from his second-floor bedroom, the faceless terror that had awakened him took on a loathsome and ghastly form. Seeping upward out of the ground below his window and everywhere he could see, a hideous evil oozed like black puss, obscuring everything it covered. In only seconds it grew from simple puddling in the low-lying areas to a depth that obscured the ground completely. Decker’s curiosity, normally one of his strongest drives, was utterly silenced by the stark panic that consumed him. He did not want to know what the darkness was; he did not need to know. He knew already. It was evil—the sum total of all the evil that had been done upon the earth—every murder, every lie, every rape, every torture, every act of cannibalism, every beating of an innocent, every human sacrifice, every brutal mutilation of a child, every gulag, every pogrom, every death camp of every war, every slaughter of the blameless, every cruelty to a helpless animal, every destructive act upon the earth itself. All of it had been absorbed and held in by the earth until it could be held no longer, and now it gushed forth like nefarious vomit.
Neither did Decker wonder how high it would rise. There was no question: It would cover and consume everything. Already it had covered the gravestones of Elizabeth, Hope, and Louisa. Only at this did another emotion—rage at the indignity to his family’s grave—briefly exceed his trepidation.
Decker pulled the window shut.
It didn’t matter. He knew it didn’t matter.
He ran out of the room to the landing at the top of the stairs. The darkness was in his house. It had filled most of the bottom floor of the split-level and was two or three feet deep in the second level, rising quickly up the stairs toward him.
Hurrying back to his bedroom, he slammed the door shut and tore the sheets from his bed and shoved them into the gap at the base of the door. With strength born of fright, he effortlessly pulled the dresser away from the opposite wall and thrust it against the door.
It was hopeless.
Somehow he knew it, even as he did all that he could to prevent the malevolent shadow from entering the room. Nothing on earth could stop it. Still, he had to try.
Soon the bedroom floor was covered, and Decker screamed like a frightened child as he pranced atop his bed, trying hopelessly to climb the wall.
All reason had left him. There was only fear.
In scant seconds the ooze rose to the level of the bed and rolled over onto the mattress, running quickly into the depression at his feet. From the second it touched his bare skin, he was paralyzed with more terror than he had ever before imagined.
* * *
Throughout the world, everywhere, everyone, the entire planet, was covered with the evil darkness—everywhere except Petra . . . and a single office in the United Nations’ Secretariat Building in Babylon.
There would be no news coverage of this plague.
No speeches.
Only terror.
* * *
Decker stood, unable to help himself, as the blackness crawled up his legs, his undefined fear so great he dared not even blink. The darkness was not just around him, it was on him—all over him, like a cold, dark, wet blanket of gaseous slime that no light could penetrate. He feared for his life, and yet he wanted nothing so much as to yield and die, to be done with it.
The darkness was filled with razors and acid and sharp venomous teeth; Decker was sure of it. And yet there was no pain, not yet anyway, only the certainty that those injurious things and even worse were poised only inches away, ready to cut and burn and rip his flesh from his bones at his slightest move.
The blackness now reached his genitals and despite his fear of movement, involuntarily his eyes closed and his jaw locked tight in clenched anguish. With every centimeter more that it swallowed him, the terror grew. Finally, it reached his chin and the last bit of light was about to be eclipsed.
Years before, after finding his wife and children dead, Decker had teetered on the brink of insanity and chosen to come back; he realized now that had been a mistake. He had many times taken risks that taunted death and had survived; now he wished he hadn’t. It was not death that he feared. Had he been offered poison at this moment, he would have drunk it eagerly. Had he a gun, he would not have hesitated to take the barrel into his mouth and quickly fire a bullet into his brain. Had he a knife, he would have joyously thrust it into his chest.
It was not death he feared, but the life that would allow him to feel the torment he knew would begin before his next breath. Finally, he could bear it no more. With his head tilted back and every vertebrae in his neck stretched to keep his mouth and nose above the darkness as it rose above his chin, he collapsed into unconsciousness in a heap on the bed.
The veil of stupor provided no relief, for even in his unconscious state his mind filled with the images of what he could not see. It was only moments before his eyes opened, though he quickly shut them again. On either side of his head, two huge crows perched, waiting anxiously for him to open them again so they could pluck his eyes from their sockets. He could not see them in the blackness but he knew they were there, just as he knew also that the floor beside his bed crawled with snakes. Even closer, on the bed all around him, teemed rats, starving for their next meal. And though his body had fallen in a crumpled contorted mass when he passed out, he dared not move an inch, for any motion at all was sure to rouse the rats and make them aware of his location.
There was something else in the room, too. He could not see it but he knew it was there. Perhaps there were many of them: bloodthirsty creatures that defied description and would no doubt tear the living flesh from his frail human form as they devoured him. His only hope—though he certainly would not have used so positive a word as hope—was that the darkness was equally as impenetrable to the eyes of the beasts as it was to him.
Decker became aware of his nervous perspiration as it formed and pooled before running off his body. Could they smell his sweat? If so—and he felt certain that they could—their claws were already extended, ready to sink deep into his flesh to hold him still as they drove their fangs into his squirming body.
He wanted to scream. He needed to scream, but he dared not. Even as they sank their teeth into him and slurped up his blood and tore the raw meat from his bones, he was determined that he would not cry out, for by his scream he would only draw others to the feeding frenzy.
He longed to sink into his bed, the one direction from which nothing seemed to threaten, but then saw the folly of his desire, as he realized that only inches below a pool of bloodthirsty piranha waited anxiously.
As all the horrors filled his mind, and spiders and scorpions scurried across his flesh, suddenly it became clear that he had been a fool, for it was not a bed below him at all. All that he had dreaded—the crows, the rats, the snakes, the spiders, the razor sharp knives, the claws, and fangs, the teeth—all were supremely preferable compared to his true fate. For what he had believed to be his own sweat was in fact saliva dripping down upon him, and that which he had thought was his bed was in fact the tongue of some hideous leviathan, which even now savored the salty pre‑chewed flavor of its meal and would, with Decker’s first twitch, begin to slowly crush and chew, perhaps sucking the blood from his body, allowing a warm pool to collect in its mouth before swallowing.
Decker listened closely and thought he could hear the grinding of the beast’s teeth. It was half an hour before the pain in his jaw brought him to realize that it was his own teeth, clenched in terror, that he had heard grinding. He tried to stop, fearing that the sound would alert the predators to his location, but no sooner had he resolved himself to this intent than his attention was diverted by some new apprehension and he again began grinding and gnashing his teeth.
* * *
The terror went on, unceasing. With time it actually grew worse, as Decker weakened and became susceptible to sensory delusions that fed and were fed by his hysteria. With muscles reflexively tightened, his body lay stiff and motionless, barely yielding even to the demands of his lungs and heart for air. He lost all perception of time. Had he been there days or years? Had he ever been anywhere else? He had no memory of anything before this. Indeed, even to call himself Decker served merely as a convenience, for in his state of mind, a name—even his own name—was a meaningless concept. He was simply the prey, shaking with fear, and about to meet his grisly doom.
* * *
For three days and nights Decker endured this condition, barely moving, imagining ever‑worsening scenarios of his situation and environment, fearing even the sound and movement of his own breathing lest it should betray him. Parts of his body, dead numb from the endless hours of cramping—he believed these to have been somehow cut away like Shylock’s pound of flesh, leaving what remained still alive only to endure further savagery. Sleep, real sleep, was impossible, and though there were periods of unconsciousness, they were filled with apparitions no less horrible than when he was fully awake. The only way he knew he had slept at all was that from time to time he became aware that he had changed position, and he was certain he had not moved intentionally. He wondered why the predators had not seized the opportunity to strike. He was certain of only one thing: Death would come, and any delay would only extend his suffering.