The Sunset Prophecy (Love & Armageddon #1) (38 page)

Keelen no longer heard her own screams. Instead
, all she felt was the oxygen escaping from her lungs, hot, searing air, and the tearing of capillaries at the back of her throat. The basin in front of her collapsed. The granite, mud, snow, dirt, bushes and trees cratered, and when the dust settled, a caldera spawned, one that almost covered the entire mountain top. The Seraphs that circled the skies above, dive-bombed like a flight of swallows straight into the mountain’s cavity.

All Keelen mustered was a blank stare as the sky above her opened up revealing a white glow at the center of the gray cloud froth. She then stared down into the abyss and out of the earth, like a rocket, a wide beam of light streamed straight up into the center of the swirling sky.
The light boomed hurricane-like winds as it escaped from the mouth of the mountain. Keelen clutched Logan’s body, as one small move could mean falling into the infinite crevice. Behind her, Jrue’s fire raged. It crawled through the forest, morphing into a man-like form. His head peeked above the tree line, a skull of flame, without solidity, all combustion. Keelen felt its heat scald her from behind. Jrue’s rage was at her back, and a blinding, radiating light shooting out from a bottomless pit at her front.

She felt a hand grip the back of her shirt. It was Adam, crawling from out of the forest bottom. His face was melted, eyes burnt completely off, his teeth visible on the side of his face. With a gentle hand, he laid Cindy
’s unconscious body next to Keelen and Logan.

Keelen checked her pulse
. “Cindy?” she yelled, slapping her cheek. “It’s me...can you hear me?”

Adam slowly stood up and faced Jrue
’s flame. “You’ve found us, Father,” he yelled, his voice choking with fluids produced by his drizzled lungs. “All of L.A. is burnt to a crisp. Countless souls for the taking. Take me, Father. Scorch your failure to ash. I am the one who wills to stop the Prophecy. I am the one. I am the traitor.” He then looked toward Keelen and motioned her to duck. Quickly understanding Adam’s intent, she draped herself flat on top of Logan and Cindy.

Adam took one step back and fell into the precipice. Jrue
’s fire roared and thinned into a serpent-like form—reedy, svelte, and streaming. He followed his son into the chasm, into the path of the white, flowing beam. Small bursts of combustion burst out from within the caldera, sputtering the white beam. Keelen, who felt the sparks of Jrue’s tail as she ducked, peeked over the ledge. Adam, while suspended in air, was snaked and coiled by Jrue’s flame. Their flames scorched the inner lining of the caldera, which was made of a charcoal-like substance, and created plumes of gas that rose out from the crater, and once exposed to the air outside, turned to glass.

Incredibly, the hole at the center of Mount San
Antonio slowly became covered with a thick glass-like substance. The heat subsided. The snowfall continued without interruption. Keelen bent down and spoke into Cindy’s ear, as she reclined almost motionless, but still breathing. “Cindy, wake up. I’m at the top. What do I do?”

The clouds above still spun, a white
-hot center still peeking bright light toward the Earth below. She noticed pieces of paper sticking out of Logan’s pockets. She pulled them out. They were the remaining last pages of the Apocryphon.

“
Why would you do this?” she yelled, angrily, but quickly composed herself realizing there was no point.

She examined the pages in a panic. One of them had a picture of a man suspended in air over a mountain, the sun directly over his head. She then put the pages in her own pocket and
, acting on a hunch brought about by adrenaline and panic, she dragged Logan’s body across the glass floor toward the center of the caldera. She stared down into the darkness, through the clear covering, and could see Adam descending into the darkness, with Jrue still wrapped around his body. Seraphs would fly toward the glass from below, smashing their faces against it, flashing their tiny teeth in anger, confusion. Hundreds of blobs of light would hit the glass and dissipate, and then hit the glass again—there was something eerie about the lights.

Keelen got on her knees and inspected the lights as they tapped the glass with their heads and then with their tails. Shocked and mortified, Keelen noticed human faces on the
m as they propelled themselves, trying their hardest to break through.

“
Souls, they must be souls,” Keelen said to herself. Then, a few yards away, one of the blobs pinned itself against the glass. It propelled its tail faster than the other lights, expressing extraordinary will. Keelen dragged Logan toward the thrashing white blob, and to her astonishment and a sudden feeling of sadness and loss, she recognized the face. It was Matt’s.

She pounded on the surface,
but it was harder than anything she’d ever laid her hands on. The texture of the crystal layer was supernatural in strength. She slammed the glass with her fist again and screamed. Matt made eye contact with her one more time before he was surrounded by thousands and thousands of light blobs with human faces, all connecting with Keelen’s eyes, overwhelming her with fear and despair.

She screamed.

Keelen dragged Logan’s body to the basin’s glass-covered middle. There was nowhere to go. She purposely turned her eyes away from the panicked stares of the humanoid faces below. They scared her.

Giving in to exhaustion and dehydration, she curled next to Logan
’s body and closed her eyes. “What am I supposed to do?” she breathed. “I need you back. I need a miracle.”

41

Original Sin

T
he smell of scorched earth and wood assaulted Keelen’s sense of smell while she lay on top of Logan’s cool body.

Half
-awake, with eyes closed, the scent reminded her of an outdoor hardware store, pleasant at first, but once pondered, horrific in origin.

She grimaced and turned her body. Her right shoulder
was still dislocated.

As her back faced the smoldering ruins of a once imperious city, something tapped her back, then ran up and brushed the exposed skin on her neck. Keelen swiped at the touch as if it were a gnat or mosquito.
“Leave me alone,” she said. Another tap followed, this time, much harder. Keelen rolled on her back and opened her eyes, expecting a wayward deer or coyote, but instead, the underside of Cindy’s smirched chin popped into her field of view.

Cindy threw herself onto Keelen
’s chest, squeezing her, reminding herself and her friend what human touch still felt like.

Keelen wiped the tears away from Cindy
’s cheeks and asked, “Are you all right?”

Cindy nodded.
“I think so,” she said, her face twisted in a half-smile, lips quivering. “I just remember Adam’s arms over me, lifting me. The creatures were tearing him up, Keelen. I lost Paolo. I don’t know where he went.” She then lost composure and sobbed uncontrollably on Keelen’s shoulder.

Keelen sat up and held Cindy in her arms and eyed the chasm underneath the glass. It was black as night. No sign of Adam or Jrue or the spheres that floated to the surface.

“I saw him. He looked right at me.”

“
Who?” Cindy asked.

“
Matt.”

“
Where?”

“
He was underneath this floor, trying to escape. I saw his face. He was inside some sphere. He looked scared.”

“
Are you sure it was him?” Cindy asked.

“
The look in his eyes was the same one he always had before entering the ring—a moment of fear, before he would focus his mind. He was right here, and then he was swallowed up by all these faces that stared at me. They were like koi fish as they swam up to me, bright white balls with faces, all pleading with me. It was horrible! I can’t shake their pleading looks. I lost Matt,” she said, tearing up.

Cindy gazed down into the hole.
“What do you think they were?”

“
It was his soul, Cindy. They were souls. That hole up in the sky—that is where they were going. To Caeli.”

“
What do we do?”

“
Stay put,” Keelen said, handing Cindy the torn pages of the Apocryphon. “There’s not much of a choice, is there?”

“
Where’d you find these?”

“
Logan had them.”

“
When and where and why did he tear these out of the book?”

“
I don’t know. I think he tore them out just in case you lost that book or had it taken away. I hope.”

Cindy sat on the glass surface, examined the
pages for a brief moment, and put her head between her knees. “I feel so weak.”

“
Me, too,” said Keelen, her eyes dimming. Groggy. “Maybe someone will find us.”

The scorched remains of trees and blackened rock faces covered the endless landscape. Smoke had blanketed the city from view. A calm wind rustled the carbonized leaves and the toasted remains of nature
’s former splendor, but no other sound could be heard. Just the two girls, huddled close together, repelling the cold and fear of the unknown. They closed their eyes, synchronized their breathing, and rested, hoping to drown out the desolation with much needed sleep.

—
oOo—

A day passed. It was uneventful. Sirens could be heard down the mountain. Keelen and Cindy slept through them as they snored on top of each other for eighteen hours straight. Logan
’s body began to bloat. His dead skin tanned.

Gray and hairless, a
bear, hungry and suffering from sarcoptic mange, sniffed the perimeter, but was apprehensive. It pawed the glass floor that stretched and sprawled throughout the basin’s center. It swayed its head to and fro, indecisive, its primitive brain deciphering the clear glass abyss.

The clouds continued moving in a circular pattern. Too bad there weren
’t tubby and coiffed weathermen around, as they would have had a field day observing and explaining the phenomenon to an eager audience of terrified viewers.

A crow
’s belch woke Cindy from her overlong slumber. With tired eyes, she noticed Logan’s decomposing body right next to them and immediately covered her mouth and nose with her hands, as she smelled the stench emanating from Logan’s body; primitive earth-based microbes now devoured the flesh.

The stress levels were high and both young women were at a breaking point. Cindy did not want to burden her friend with such a traumatic sight so
, as Keelen slept, she dragged Logan’s body away from her.

On the other side of the caldera, near the edge of the forest, Cindy picked up a thick, charcoaled branch, and cut a small sliver from it. She used it as a makeshift pencil and began to decipher the last, torn pages from the Apocryphon. Although hungry and somewhat delirious, Cindy powered through and used all of her mental resources to decode what was in her hands.

She sat on the glass surface, alone, legs crossed, rocking back in forth. Keelen remained asleep, the clouds above still strange, and Cindy muttered to herself in deep study.

—
oOo—

Hours passed.

With pages in hand, each one scrawled with thick black scribbles, Cindy found herself studying next to Keelen, who groaned as she awoke from her sleep. The touch of cool glass made her panic. “Where’s Logan?”

“
Don’t look behind you. I moved him away.”

Curious, Keelen turned her head and Cindy grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Trust me, don’t look.”

“
Why?”

“
Nothing’s happened...he’s still dead.”

Keelen sighed. She
reclined on her back and rested her forearm on top of her forehead. “The clouds are still doing their thing, huh?”

“
Yup,” Cindy said. “I can’t figure out these pages.”

Keelen looked at Cindy and used her hand to prop her head off the ground.
“Anything?”

“
Okay, here’s the thing. Someone or something...it’s definitely a someone, because as you can see, there’s a man who either descends or ascends to or from the sky. Something about man’s original state or sin. I don’t know. Whatever was supposed to happen hasn’t happened or won’t happen.”

“
This is ridiculous, we’re going to die up here, alone...”

“
I still can’t see the city below, there’s too much smoke. I really don’t know how long we should wait around. I think we might have to head down the mountain soon.”

“
We need to eat,” said Keelen. “I’m going to get up and see if I can find something down the slope.”

“
I wouldn’t do that.”

“
How come?”

“
There was a bear, an ugly, wrinkled one, patrolling the perimeter just before you woke up. We should wait a little longer.”

“
Are you kidding me? We’re going to die of starvation, Cindy.”

Keelen wobbled to her feet, determined to find dinner, as the stars in the night sky shone with a magnitude that hadn
’t been seen in over 100 years, before the overwhelming light pollution that came with urban sprawl.

As Keelen walked toward the area where
the burnt forest met the glass, a figure emerged from the darkness. She ran back toward Cindy and yelled, “Bear!”

“
I told you,” yelled Cindy.

Keelen ran while looking over her shoulder. She wasn
’t careful and tripped on a crack in the glass, then fell on her stomach and accidentally bit her lip.

“
Keelen, get over here,” Cindy yelled, as her eyes caught a glimpse of the strange shadow rising out from the forest.

Keelen touched her
mouth, blood was all over her fingers. She stood up and ran back toward Cindy’s arms. As Cindy caught her, Keelen saw Logan’s swollen body a few meters away, as if it were ready to burst. She let out a deep breath and placed her forehead on Cindy’s shoulder.

“
Dammit, I told you not to look,” Cindy said, still keeping her eyes focused on the darkness.

Faint whistling overtook the silence and came out from the direction where Keelen thought she saw the bear. As it neared,
it became more distinctive. A mysterious pair of lips whistled Louis Armstrong’s
What a Wonderful World
.

Staring into the
slight haze between where she stood and the slope of the hill, Cindy narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked loudly.

“
You’re standing in my shot,” the man’s voice carried far, unmistakably Southern.

A man appeared, slightly overweight and wearing a finely tailored, white suit with a black tie and a matching fedora. He carried a tripod with him,
which he began to set up in front of the girls, and clamped what appeared to be, a highly expensive camera on its top.

Keelen turned around, scrunched her eyes and asked,
“Mr. Click? Is that you?”

“
Hello there, Ms. Grant. We meet again, auspiciously, this time, I may say.”

“
What do you want? How’d you get up here?” Keelen blared.

“
I should be asking both of you that question,” he said, peering into the camera. “You...the Asian girl...what’s your name?”

Cindy asked Keelen,
“Is that your former boss? The gallery guy?”

Keelen nodded, befuddlement riddling her face.

“What do you want?” Cindy yelled back at Thomas.

“
Can you please move away from the area? Say around twenty-five paces to the right? I know, a big number, but I wish to take a picture of Ms. Grant by herself. Oh my...” he blurted. “...he’s in real bad shape, ain’t he?” said Thomas, as Logan’s body appeared in his viewfinder.

Keelen looked straight into Cindy
’s eyes and said, “Just do as he says. He’s just a harmless drunk. All he wants to do is take a picture. He’s probably just obsessed with his craft or something.”

Cindy walked away from Thomas
’s desired shot.

“
Look nice now, Ms. Grant. Your hair is rather matted, can you untangle it for me, please?”

Keelen rolled her eyes and straightened out her long, thick hair with two fingers, as if they were some clumsy, two-pronged brush.

“Smile, please. Pretend Prince Charming is standing right next to you.”

Keelen huffed, putting her hands on her hips.
“Thomas, this is stupid. Why are you up here, harassing us? Is this some sort of sick revenge? Can’t you see there are more important things to worry about?” she tearfully whined, pointing toward the sky.

“
Smile!” Click’s voice boomed, taking on a beastly inflection.

Keelen put her hands in her pocket, feigned a casual stance, and forced a smile.

“There...” Click said. “One more...stand still...good…good, got it.”

“
Now, can I stand next to my friend?” Cindy asked, concerned at the panic and distress that quickly overtook Keelen’s forced grin.

“
Sure,” Thomas said turning his back on his tripod. He connected the camera to a portable printer he had on top of a box he used to carry all of his equipment. “Let me just print some test samples and see how they look.”

Cindy stood next to Keelen and asked,
“What the hell is this psycho doing?”

“
I don’t know, but you heard that voice, right? Didn’t sound human, did it?” Keelen said, her moist eyes slightly fearful.

Thomas cleared his throat. He walked toward the girls, holding two prints in his hand, while staring at the glass and the chasm at his feet.
“What happened here?” he said, with a slight chuckle.

“
What do you want?” Keelen asked, somewhat guarded, pressing closer to Cindy.

Thomas examined both prints.
“
A Night on the Mount
has been improved, I think,” he said, nodding his head.

“
Can I see them?” asked Keelen.

Thomas proudly handed them over.

Keelen snatched them from his hand and looked at both pictures. Her eyes bulged and she fell to the ground in shock, slamming her knees on the glass. Cindy looked up at Thomas, mouth open, clearly jarred.