Rise of the Beast (16 page)

“Oh great,” said Sam, focusing on the gray acid rain that descended from the base of the clouds of the storm in great sheets. “This isn’t good.”

Again the thunder rolled, mixed with a sound that might best be described as electrical static. The sound of the static was growing louder, even as the stench of sulfur increased. Then he heard the distant sound of singing:
Don’t you know I’ve always loved you, even before there was time. Though you turn away, I tell you still, don’t you know I’ve always loved you, and I always will
.

“Third Day?” said Sam. “I know that song.”

The scene around him dissolved. He opened his eyes to find himself safe and sound in his Tempe, Arizona, apartment. He reached over and turned off the radio alarm clock. It was 8:00
A.M
. He glanced over at the duffle bag setting by the closet. His mind came into sharp focus. Tonight was the first night of his two-night observing run at the Discovery Channel Telescope. He had a 150-mile drive ahead of him, followed by a long night at the telescope.

In the shower he went over the contents of his dream again and again. Usually he’d have forgotten most of a dream by now, but this one was coming into ever-sharper focus. Serena Davis probably had a Web site. Her book was still pretty popular. He knew a little bit about the story. Supposedly, she and her husband had some sort of vision on their way home from a Christmas party about ten years ago. In a fraction of a second, they had lived the better part of a year in Heaven and Hell. Serena had gotten the short end of the stick and spent that time in Hell.

He’d seen Serena and her husband Chris on TBN a few years back. It was a
pretty wild story. It was an interesting story, all right. Actually it was one of the best life-after-death stories he had heard. Still, he had dismissed it as some sort of phantasm, an illusion. That sort of thing didn’t really happen to people, did it?

Then again, one didn’t pray over complex electronic instruments only to find them miraculously restored, either. That very thing had happened to him last year at the telescope. That act had allowed him to be the one to nail down an orbit for Comet Florence, had made him the discoverer of what some people were now calling the Doomsday Comet. It had given him something more than his share of fame. This rather dubious discovery had at least netted him a full-time teaching and research job in his field of study right here at Arizona State University. At least something good had come out of it. That was, unless Comet Florence really did hit Earth. That would sure put the kibosh on his new career.

As Sam prepared to head out to the car for the trip to Flagstaff, he stopped at his computer to see what he could find out about Serena’s book signing schedule, if she had one. Yep, there was her Web site,
thetearsofheaven.com
. Yeah, that was the name of her book,
The Tears of Heaven
. A chill shot up his spine when he discovered that she and her husband would be in Flagstaff tomorrow, speaking at a local bookstore and autographing their book.

“Too weird,” gasped Sam. “What’s going on here?”

Before leaving, Sam shot off an email to them, speaking of his desire to talk to them regarding unusual goings on that might be of interest. He knew of no other way to describe it. He hoped that they wouldn’t think he was some kind of nut. He was certain that they got loads of that sort of email. He did have some name recognition, his 15 minutes of fame. Perhaps that would contribute to his credibility.

On his way out of town, he picked up a copy of their book at a local bookstore. He wanted to have it read before going to their book-signing tomorrow afternoon. He’d check into the lodge at Happy Jack and sit down with the book. He’d try to finish it during the observing run.

The mostly cloudy night at the telescope gave Sam a lot of time with the book. As it turned out, Ken, the telescope operator, had read the book several years back. He was astonished as Sam related to him the contents of the previous
night’s dream. He urged Sam to read on, though he declined to give an explanation for why he did. Sam soon came to understand the reason. The acid storm and the Great Sea of Fire he had seen in his dream were described in perfect detail in Serena’s book. Even the name of the angel, Abaddon, was there.

Ken largely took over the observing program to give Sam more reading time. There really wasn’t that much to do. The weather made this night pretty much a wash out. Still, he seemed to realize just how important this all was.

Sam was about halfway through the book when he finally put the book down to rest his eyes. “Serena was really there,” he announced. “I can hardly imagine just how much she suffered in that awful black sea.”

“Your vision was a gift from God,” observed Ken. “You know that, of course.”

“Yeah,” replied Sam, “I sort of figured that. He didn’t quite know how to describe what he was feeling right now. Was it elation or fear? He felt like he’d actually been to Hell in his dream.”

“I cannot say what sort of ministry the Lord has for you,” continued Ken, “but I’m sure you’ll know soon enough.”

It was just past midnight when a light rain began to fall, forcing the closing of the dome and the ending of their observing night. It was just before dawn, back at the lodge in Happy Jack, that Sam finally finished the book. Now he knew the score. The next move would be his.

In the months that followed, Serena’s life settled back into the more familiar routine of evangelism, seminars, and book signings. Fall turned to winter, and winter to spring, yet no more attempts on her life were made. As always, she and Chris were on the road a lot, doing their best to bring the good news to the world. They resisted the temptation to bring the world the bad news, the news that Satan walked among them. They kept their eyes and ears open in search of telltale signs of his hand in human affairs. Those signs were everywhere, but at the present, they could see no clear pattern emerging.

Will Reinhart stayed in contact with them, mainly through emails. Yes, well 14 still had more than its share of weird phenomena, voices, power failures, and the like, but not of the magnitude they had experienced that night. To his
knowledge, nothing had escaped from the depths since. He did, however, relate to them one curious incident. The many barrels of that mysterious oil that had been stored on site had been moved. When they hit new pockets of it, the oil was quickly contained and shipped to some buyer in France. Apparently, someone was exploring the chemical and industrial potentials of this terrible substance. The very thought of it made Serena shudder. Hell’s number-one export to Earth—what was it being used for?

Will had sought that answer, but had been unable to find out too much beyond the name, Roan Chemical. Both he and Serena had looked it up on the Web. It was a French company, operating out of Marseilles, involved mainly in the development of new space-age polymers, plastics. They’d had several contracts with ESA, the European Space Agency, over the past 20 years, as well as with other private and government entities. They’d fallen on hard times during the global meltdown, but had managed to ride out the storm. Word on some of the blogs indicated that they had recently been purchased by some third party, though who that third party was wasn’t exactly clear. Will was determined to pursue it further.

To Serena, it seemed a curious turn of events, though she wasn’t prepared to say that she saw Satan’s hand in it. Looking for the hand of Satan in a world of nearly seven billion people made the old adage of looking for a needle in a haystack seem simple by comparison. There were lots of possibilities, lots of candidates, but no one of them stood out at this point.

She had reached out to others to help her in her search, people whom she felt were true children of God with a warrior’s heart. One of them, an investments analyst, spoke of strange goings on in New York City, of people trading in large quantities of raw gold with odd properties. Again, it was curious, but it didn’t hit her outright as evidence of the hand of Satan.

It was early evening in April in Flagstaff, Arizona. Chris had just pulled their motor home into the RV park and hooked up the utilities. They’d have another book signing tomorrow, another opportunity to warn people of what was to come. Chris was relaxing after the six-hour trip from Vegas, surfing the net, when he noted a new email message.

“Hey, Serena, you gotta see this one,” he announced. “We got an email from Doctor Sam Florence, you know, the guy who discovered the Doomsday Comet.”

“Yeah, I know who you mean,” replied Serena, sitting on the bed next to
Chris. “I wonder why he’d be emailing us.”

“He doesn’t say exactly,” replied Chris, “only that it’s important, something of interest. He’ll be there at the bookstore tomorrow and wants to talk to us afterward. Actually, it sounds like he mainly wants to talk to you.”

“Really?” asked Serena, looking over the brief message on the computer. “I wonder what it’s all about.”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” replied Chris. “You’re the family astronomer; maybe he needs advise. After all, you’ve boldly gone where no person on Earth has gone before.”

“Very funny,” said Serena, who didn’t seem to much appreciate the comment. Her mind wandered back to that terrible realm, the planet of Hell. For a time she’d imagined herself as an explorer on a different world, but only for a time. She’d lost the desire to explore it pretty quickly as she witnessed the terrible suffering going on all around her. Knowing that her eternity of suffering was but hours away didn’t help. After her experience in the Great Sea of Fire, all she could think of was to hide in that cave, the sanctuary where she had spent so many months. She had never wanted to set foot outside of it again. Her whole world became that subterranean garden. Strangely, her interest in the sciences had faded quite a bit after that, and it had never really returned.

Apparently, Chris hadn’t noticed that he’d touched on a sensitive area. He went on about the new comet and how bright it was predicted to be, then about tomorrow’s book signing. Yet he had lost Serena’s attention some ways back.

The turnout for the book signing was pretty light. But that was OK; Serena really wasn’t in much of a signing mood this Saturday.

It was two in the afternoon and the book signing was almost over when the young, lanky man in the sport coat approached them. Serena recognized him almost immediately. She’d seen him on a late-night show a few months ago. Since his discovery of the comet, he’d done the talk-show circuit. He was sometimes heralded as the discoverer of the Doomsday Comet, at other times as the man who might well have saved the Earth. He didn’t seem to care for either title. Actually, he looked a little bit like a young Carl Sagan. He even spoke like him.
At least Serena thought so. Seeing him in person only reinforced that opinion. He held a copy of her book in his hand.

He’d made no mystery of his faith on the talk shows. He’d gotten a little bit of flack over it, too. Imagine it, a Christian astronomer. In this day and age, it seemed strange indeed.

After the signing at the bookstore café, Sam spoke of the events surrounding the discovery of the comet, of an unusual equipment failure, and how a prayer had seemed to correct it. Had it not been for that prayer and its answer, it might have taken another year or more before the danger posed by the new comet was realized. By then, it might well have been too late.