For They Shall Inherit The Earth by Graeme Winton - HTML preview

Chapter Seventy

Matthew composed himself and entered the ornate red sandstone building that was Arbroath Library.

“Long time no see,” said Kelly standing behind the main desk.

“Kelly, I haven't got much time I'm afraid. The last time I was here I left something in the basement. Is it okay if I nip down and get it?”

“Sure, on you go.”

He grabbed the key from behind the desk and headed downstairs.

The basement corridor was empty; the only noise came from the many service pipes which ran along the ceiling. He unlocked the book store and retrieved the box which contained the Key. Then, after tucking the box in his rucksack, he switched off the light and locked the door.

“So, you're back,” a voice said.

Matthew spun round to find Brian his boss blocking his escape along the passageway.

“I'm in a hurry at the moment Brian. Can we discuss the work another time?”

“What do you have in your bag?”

“Just something I left here. Look, I need to go!”

“Let me see it. I need to check things stored down here.”

“Get out of my way Brian!”

“You're not going anywhere,” said Brian, his eyes flickering red.

“Brian, what's happened to you? Let me past, the future of the world depends on this,” said Matthew as he patted his rucksack and moved forward.

“Does it really,” said Thomson.

Matthew stopped and stepped back in shock. “Look you... you need to get out of my way!”

Thomson shook his head. “Who will make me... you boy?”

“No, I will,” said a shadow peeling off the wall behind him.

“de Longford!” Thomson said spinning around and grinning. “Well, well this feels like a family reunion. Just the three of us... why, it's like old times.”

“Yeah, well, don't get too mushy cause you're getting out of his way!”

Shadows peeled off the same wall and grabbed David. “Not if I can help it,” growled Thomson, who turned toward Matthew, but then found he couldn't move.

Matthew looked from David to Thomson as shadows rose from the floor behind him.

“Go Mattie! You can do it,” shouted David as he struggled with the shadow demons.

Matthew shook himself then ran at high speed past Thomson and then David. Instead of climbing the stairs he ran through them and disappeared.

Matthew was in one place; he was in many places. He watched as the President of the United States stared at a screen with a mobile phone clasped to the side of his head. He watched as the President of Russia looked gravely at Teplov the Prime minister. Matthew ran past Joshua Collins, who moved very slowly and shouted in a slow deep voice: “Do it Matthew!”

Matthew stood amid the desolate waste of the Void. He took the box out of his rucksack and looked at it. The wind rushed about him. He gazed up into the blackness of eternity and then he turned. “Jonas!”

“Don't hesitate son. You must do this,” said David's father who no longer looked to Matthew like a lost soul.

“But I don't want to destroy the human race!”

“You won't, the goodness in people will always survive.” He laid a hand on Matthew's shoulder.

“Stop this madness.”

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Matthew took the Key from the box, shrugged his shoulders and read the inscription on the barrel from right to left. In a flash he was in a poppy-filled meadow as an inky darkness flooded over the blue sky and a low groaning filled the air.

Suddenly he looked on as the blackness seeped into the PEOC, and President Cavendish yelled as his mobile phone and the control unit crumbled to dust.

He looked on as the inky black issued into the Russian bunker and turned the controls and phones to atoms. The guns of the guards crumbled and fell through their fingers like sand.

The weapon sites of every atomic nation were reduced to dust as the entire world was engulfed in black. David joined Matthew as they watched the black shapes form and wipe out soldiers and screaming people. Some were taken; some were not. The remaining souls gazed in terror as the black forms moved away.

The black wave moved across the Earth leaving a waste land in its wake. Buildings were left whole, but void of any technology. People howled and hugged one another, some knelt and prayed offering thanks to God for their salvation.

The Dark Army fled from Washington DC as the black engulfed the city, flowing through tanks and around artillery, which crumbled to dust. A growl erupted as the black sucked up the fleeing soldiers, both demon and human.

The President and his staff shuffled through the hollow shell of the PEOC bunker.

“What in hell was that?” Bob Laverty asked.

Cavendish stared at him. “Exactly that Bob: Hell gave us a visit and corrected our stupidity.”

“I don't understand. Why have some been taken and others left?” Matthew asked as he and David looked on from the Void.

“The meek shall inherit the Earth; that's what we're seeing. The Dark Realm thrives on dark energy from black hearts, so they have taken anyone with any darkness in them. This is true throughout the Cosmos on the multitude of other inhabited planets in the many universes.

“What of us, David? Why have we been saved?”

“Truthful answer: I don't know.”

“It's because you saved the world before by tricking the demons into the Dark Realm at Arbroath,” said Jonas.

“Father!” said David with tears in his eyes.

“It's good to see you too, son.”

Jonas looked at Matthew. “As the Bible says: there is some good in all. For the Dark Realm to take someone the balance has to be tipped toward the dark.

“How do we get rid of them once they have cleansed the Earth?” Matthew asked.

“They will move on after they have scoured the lands. They do not wish to be here as much as we do not want them here. As for the portal being locked, there is no need, they will not come back.”

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Chapter Seventy-One The Reptiles disappeared at the first sign of black in the skies-they knew what was coming. The human race had been pushed back several hundred years. There was no transport, and the whole economic structure was non-existent. People had to search for food. Supplies which were not electrically preserved sustained families.

Houses were shells, but provided shelter. Safety was not an issue because they had taken evil-doers from the Earth. The resourceful, good people of the planet rejoiced in the situation.

Slowly, communities came together, and the Earth healed from the trauma of recent and ancient events.

As the sun rose over Washington David and Matthew stood on the west bank of the Potomac with masses of people. A cry erupted as vast walls descended from the sky and surrounded the empty city. An earth vibrating thump reverberated through the surrounding area as the walls embedded themselves.

“New Jerusalem!” shouted a man in the crowd.

“Hallelujah!” shouted others

A dazzling figure upon the nearby bridge pointed to an open gate in the wall close to the end of the bridge.

“I think we're being invited in, Mattie,” said David nodding in the direction of the gate.

“Come on people; God awaits,” said a woman behind Matthew.

David and Matthew led the people over the bridge past the smiling angel and through the open gates of gold. A trickle of people soon became an excited crowd.

Inside the city, golden sunlight reflected off the transformed buildings, and gleaming pathways led to a central square where a figure stood on a raised platform.

“It's Joshua,” said Matthew as the crowd gathered

“My children, I am Michael, known as Jesus to some. The divisions have been washed away.

God has wiped your tears away.”

More people poured into the square. Joshua, dressed in a white robe looked up to the sky and then re-focused on the crowd. “There will be no more death. You are now free. All countries are one; all peoples are one. No more fear and separation just love!”

A murmuring spread around the crowd which erupted into loud cheering as Michael ascended into the sky.

Well, what do you reckon Mattie?” David asked as the two men walked away from the square.

“I reckon it's time to head home. I've had enough of this stuff. I'm going to have a couple of pints and ask Kelly from the library out on a date.”

David stopped walking and burst out laughing. “Not quite in with the spirit of what's just happened, but yeah, it sounds good.”

“That's if she's still there!”

“Oh, she's still there.”

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Epilogue A wind whipped around the desolation below the inky darkness. The barren hills in the background reached for the starry eternity. Footsteps broke the thick silence as a figure walked along the desert-like terrain.

“Just what I was looking for,” said Thomson crouching and picking up the Key.

He laughed before walking back the way he came, but after a few steps he found he couldn't move... in any direction. A huge dark craft descended from above him.

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