Heaven and Hell (69 page)

Jesus paused before continuing. He turned to Serena. “As for you, child, you have forged your own path. Everything we do in life carries with it a set of consequences. You created your own destiny. The time has come for you to step back onto that path, to continue the journey you have already started.”

A pair of portals opened up before Chris and Serena, one light and one dark. It was time to go.

Chris realized that there would be no arguments, no further appeals, God’s decision was final. For a moment they embraced, exchanging one final kiss.

“Please, don’t try to remember me again,” said Serena, tears in her eyes. “I’m not worth an eternity of sorrow. Be happy, Chris. Love God with all of your heart; become the best son you can be. I’ll carry enough of our love in my heart for the both of us.”

“It’s time,” Jesus said, placing a hand upon both of them and leading them toward the portals.

Their hands slipped from one another, and Serena entered into the dark portal even as Chris entered the light. Their journeys had begun.

For Serena, the tunnel was mercifully dark and calm. There was no sense of cold or heat, peace or fear, it was a realm of nothingness. A faint point of light appeared ahead, only to slip quickly past. Then there was another one, and another. Within a few seconds Serena was surrounded by a shower of falling stars coming out of the darkness before her. Stars? No, not stars, snowflakes, thousands of them. Her mind was bombarded by a dozen conflicting sensations, then it cleared. She was wearing her favorite medieval dress, the one she often wore to renaissance events.

She looked to her right to see telephone poles passing by. Ahead she saw parallel lines of yellow that stretched out to meet the snowflakes. She was in the car, the car she had died in on that fateful night. To her left she saw Chris at the wheel. What was going on? Then she realized—the turn, the black ice, the huge truck.

“Chris, pull over!” she gasped. He was braking even before she had spoken.

Still, the deadly turn loomed ahead, and within seconds it would be too late. She couldn’t bear to go through this all over again.

“I’ve got it,” said Chris, applying as much brake as the slick road would allow.

They hit the turn with its deadly black ice. The small car began to slide. Chris wrestled for control, turned into the skid. They began to cross the double yellow line, only to swerve back into their lane once more. All the time they decelerated. They swung out of the curve and onto the snow-covered shoulder. There was a slight bump as the car nudged into a large drift.

Then they saw two bright lights—an 18-wheeler thundered by in the far lane. Within seconds all they could see through the driving snow were the truck’s tail lights. For a moment they sat in total silence. Chris put the car into park and turned off the engine. They fell into each other’s arms.

“What happened?” gasped Chris, holding onto Serena tightly. “I just had the weirdest dream…but I was awake, I had to have been.”

“Chris, I want to pray the prayer of faith,” Serena said. “I want to do it here and now, before I do anything else. I want to place my faith, my life, in the hands of Jesus. I can’t go to Hell again, I can’t!”

The realization swept over Chris like a gigantic wave. “Then it was all true, it really happened.”

“We have to pray now,” insisted Serena.

And they did, several times. It was over half an hour before Serena was satisfied and they pulled out onto that country road once more.

“Was it some sort of vision, or were we actually there?” asked Chris, as they stepped from the car and made their way toward the old rock house. “I mean, will anyone ever believe us?”

“It doesn’t matter, we’ve got a job to do,” Serena said, as they walked through the snow to the front door. “We’ve got to warn everyone about what we’ve seen. I don’t want anyone to go through that. I promise that I will spend the rest of my life carrying my warning to all who will listen. It is, after all, a small price to pay for the sake of eternity.

C
HRIS and Serena looked out across the congregation of the large church in San Diego as they completed the story of their harrowing journey beyond the world of the living. Several had been moved to tears. There would be many at the altar call tonight, there always were. Satan would again be cheated of that which he most desired, new souls to desecrate.

Chris and Serena had told the story hundreds of times, yet they never grew tired of it. It was always rendered with the same enthusiasm, the same intensity, as it had been on that first morning to the congregation of their own church.

Two and a half years, three crusades, and a book later, they were still on the evangelism trail, talking to anyone who would listen. Along the way, they had generated plenty of controversy. Some said that they had made up the entire story for their 15 minutes of fame. Others said that their journey had been a divine vision, but that it had never really happened.

Yet, Chris and Serena knew better. They did not let their detractors dissuade them. They would continue on; they could ill afford to do anything else.

In the months immediately following their return, they had often questioned whether their experience had indeed happened or whether it had been nothing more than a vision from God, a warning of things to come. They had looked for any evidence that the people that they had encountered in Heaven and Hell had indeed lived on the green Earth. The results of their search had been chilling. From the records of the 9-11 tragedy, to old copies of the
Wall Street Journal
, the reality of their experiences were confirmed again and again.

This was the last night of their southern California tour. They’d be moving on to Arizona in the morning, then up through Utah and Idaho, and finally back home. As always, the meetings were scheduled back to back. There was a sense of urgency about their mission. Time was running short for the world’s people. The inevitable final battle between the forces of good and evil was approaching. Chris and Serena viewed each night as possibly their last, the last chance to bring souls into the Kingdom of God, the last chance to deny satan another victim.

The crowd was thinning out as a slight, dark-skinned man stepped up to the table where the couple was autographing their book. At first Serena didn’t notice him; she was too busy speaking to a young woman and her son directly ahead of him. When she looked up and saw him, her heart skipped a beat.

“Hello, Serena,” he said, smiling broadly.

“Benny?” she gasped, rising abruptly to her feet. “Is it really you?”

“None other,” he confirmed. “A man renewed and consecrated by the Spirit of God through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus. I’ve read your book, Serena, it’s incredible, but I believe every word.”

Serena reached across the table and hugged him, “I thought I’d never see you again. It’s a miracle, but how?”

“My story is not as incredible as yours,” assured Benny. “I never even reached satan’s audience chamber. As that demon stood there before me, as those burning shackles went shut about my wrists, all I could think of was another chance and what I’d have given for it.

“The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed in intensive care. I’d suffered a tremendous heart attack. I’d been dead for nearly three minutes during my ride in the ambulance. During those three minutes, I’d lived two days in Hell. God had given me a second chance, and I wasn’t about to waste it.

“There was this nurse, right there in intensive care; she listened to my story, and when I had finished, she told me how to pray. She told me how to invite Jesus into my heart, and I did. That was the beginning of the new Benny Patel. Ever since then, I’ve done everything within my power to spread the gospel. I didn’t much care what people thought about it.”

“Fantastic,” gasped Serena.

By now, Chris had taken notice of Benny as well. He had seen him in Serena’s book in the Hall of Records—now he was here.

“But there’s more,” Benny said. “When it came time for me to thank the nurse who had prayed with me, she was nowhere to be found. In fact, no one in the ICU had the slightest idea who she was, but I did, at least I do now. She was an angel; there’s no other explanation.”

Rarely had such a joyous reunion been orchestrated. Chris and Serena met Benny’s wife and children, a family restored by the love of God. They spoke for hours about the precious gift they had received, a gift of knowledge and life.

“In these last days, God has granted us a precious gift,” Benny said, as they prepared to part company. “He has given us the opportunity to change the path of destiny, not just for ourselves but for others. He has allowed us to peer beyond the veil of death, to glimpse the horrors that it might hold for the unwary, and return with a warning for all humanity.

“We must go into the world and warn people of the darkness we have seen; and at the same time, we must bear witness to the Light. It is our mission to see the world through the dark times ahead and into the Light of God beyond.”

Chris and Serena continued on to Arizona with a renewed spirit and clearer vision of their task.

The age of miracles had just begun.

Welcome to America 2052. The Corporate Collective, a mighty alliance of mega-corporations, dominates every aspect of American life. Its elite military force struggles to suppress the growing discontent spreading across a nation in the midst of the darkest economic depression in its history.

In this America of broken dreams, Kendra Olson faces a grim decision. Soon her parents and younger brother will be compelled to leave the homeless shelter, their only source of food and warmth, to face a cold and lingering death on the streets of New York City.

Her only hope pf escape rests in the hands of her older brother, Lieutenant Kenneth Olson, of Army Special Forces, and a small group of unlikely rescuers. Yet there is more at stake than just her life. One of the Collective's most terrible secrets awaits Liuetenant Olson upon a surgical couch at the very gates of the Collective's own private hell. AB negative carries you on a roller coaster ride through the world of the not too distant future. Welcome aboard!

•   Paperback: 266 pages

•   Publisher: Windsor House Publishing Group (September 18, 2003)

•   ISBN: 1881636429

Available through Amazon.com

Kenneth Zeigler was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He earned a Master's degree in chemistry from Shippensburg University, with thesis work in the field of quantum chemistry. He is a research scientist who has taught secondary and college-level science and mathematics for 30 years. He is married and currently lives near Phoenix, Arizona.

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