Kristin (22 page)

Thirty-seven

The darkness lifted like a fast sunrise,
revealing a sapphire sky dotted with white, billowing clouds: The false night
had passed.

He looked towards the
heavens imploringly and cried out, ‘Father, please help me!’ Then, after a
short time, he closed his eyes in relief, and turned to face the people.

His celestial image lit up
millions of television screens across the world:
But it was vital everybody
,
everywhere
believe in him
,
critical they listen to his words
,
understand their import
,
essential they
heed their warning. And it was imperative that he appear in a form relative to
every creed on Earth.

Over the Christian world,
in New York, London, Paris, Rome, in Madrid, above table mountain in Cape Town,
in Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, he augmented his media image with tens of thousands
of physical manifestations in streets, parks, near places of worship and seats
of government — anywhere they could be seen, anywhere his message would
be heard by many;
and by those who must hear.

In the desert of northern
Afghanistan a sudden, intense sandstorm waned, disclosing a colossal, glowing
representation of the prophet, Muhammad. The same embodiment materialized
directly above the nation’s capital, Kabul. In Iraq, a massive incarnation
 
rose from the depths of the Tigris river
snaking through Baghdad.
 
Another
levitated above the Elburz mountains overlooking Tehran, in Iran. Further
apparitions appeared near the outskirts of Karachi and over Islamabad in
Pakistan, and in India the hysterical, teeming masses of New Delhi and Mumbai
beheld visions of Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu.

In North Korea, an
overweight man of considerable power watched, awestricken, from a window
balcony as a vast, orange-coloured likeness of Buddha formed in the crisp,
clear air and settled in the great square before the central government
building in Pyongyang, whilst smaller embodiments flitted along its deserted,
gleaming corridors like pale ghosts.

Another perfect
representation, equal in size and brightness, all but emptied Beijing’s
Tiananmen Square in China. Although some remained, bathing in its incandescent
beauty.

The world fell silent. It
listened. It listened intently as each deity, each focus of human belief
delivered an identical message:

‘The nascent threat to this
world is no more,’ Christ began. ‘But humankind will remain in peril whilst
hatred and division exist
  
at
its heart. You must listen to one another, learn from one another, respect one
another. You were created equally and should treat one another as equals.

‘You know from your past
that hatred and persecution is a disease of the mind and of the soul — a
disease that spreads like a
  
plague. If you cannot learn from your mistakes then such a disease will
surely lead to your destruction.

‘Should you fail to heed
these words there will be no place in heaven for you, no future incarnation or
higher level of life. There will be no redemption.’

He climbed down from the
ruins of the wall, drained of energy.

A young woman dashed
forwards and scrabbled at the rubble until she’d unearthed familiar, brown
leather shoes.

‘ ... Dear Lord!’ she
pleaded, digging frantically. ‘Please save him, please spare my beloved son,
Josiah, this terrible fate. He is but a boy, his life has only just begun!’ She
gazed up desperately into eyes she seemed to know so well.

‘Where is your son?’ he
asked.

‘ ... Josiah is here, my
Lord, beneath these heavy stones!’

He looked upon her with
sympathy.

‘ ...
But you can ... you can save him
,
my Lord
,
you can give
life back to him ... heal his wounds
?’

Fatigue overwhelmed him;
his life-force was almost spent.

He knelt by her side.
Others joined them, and together they lifted the rock fragments away, exhuming
the broken body of the boy.

‘I cannot recognize him,’
she wept, covering her mouth.

He watched, distraught, as
she rocked her dead child.

‘I will help your son,’ he
said, certain it would be the last thing he would ever do. He reached out and
his hand spanned the boy’s head.

He didn’t feel afraid, here
at the end, at the culmination of his life. Neither did he feel bitter. He was
simply glad that the whole world would see his selfless act and above all else
he hoped and believed that humanity would learn to follow his example.

He closed his eyes and the
essence of life flowed from his body into the dead child.

Thirty-eight

Margaret Sharman cowered beneath a
moth-eaten, tartan car rug in a cramped, unlit corner of the icy attic to her
house. Cobwebs hung from the crumbling underside of the roof tiles, tangling in
her unkempt, grey hair.

When she’d been unable to
bear the destitution of life without her husband and sons any longer, when
she’d been certain the world was about to end, she’d pulled down the wooden
ladder from the hatch on the landing. Then she’d climbed up, hauled up the ladder,
closed the hatch and hidden.

She’d called Thom again and
again, but the line had always been dead and, steeling herself, she’d walked
the three miles to his home, approaching the ominous, silent building with
terror, sure that the door would open and the Gorgon, the unearthly blight upon
mankind who’d chewed up her son and spat him out would step forwards from the
darkness inside — eyeless, drenched in his blood. But there had been
nobody there.

She comforted herself with
the thought that in her dreams she’d seen Thom once more, had slaked his thirst
and brought him solace before it had been time for him to leave her forever.

Jammed upside down between
two dust-laden, decaying cardboard boxes stuffed full with forgotten memories
of her life within the house below she found an old plastic radio and pulled it
free. It had been Thom’s — his very first radio. She remembered buying it
for his thirteenth birthday. He’d nagged for it endlessly.

Hopefully, she turned the
wheel on the side of the case and heard a click as the radio spluttered to
life. Improbably, a little power remained in the twenty-year-old batteries,
although she was forced to hold the speaker tight against her ear to hear
anything at all. She rolled the other wheel with her forefinger until she lost
the eerie whine, the rush of static, and picked up the faint sound of a female
voice.

‘ ... so hard to believe
... what we’ve seen here ... today in Jerusalem. It’s so difficult to accept,
to comprehend what’s been happening in our world ... over the last few weeks
... to just ... appreciate, I don’t know ... the gravity of it all, the
consequences for all of humanity.

‘I’m standing on a rooftop
... a small, flat rooftop, overlooking the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall ... I
mean the remains of the Wailing Wall, and I’m with the television crew ... the
television crew who recorded every ...’ Her voice faltered.

‘ ... Anyone ... anybody
who doubted the existence of God, myself included, must believe in him now ...
they must believe
in him
,
in
his power
. So many can bear testament to the second coming of Jesus Christ.
This day we saw him reborn within the body of an ordinary man ... Thomas
Sharman.’

Margaret Sharman gasped and
her eyes filled with tears.

‘ … Millions across the
globe witnessed the presence of absolute evil ... occupying the body of the
woman we knew only as Kristin. And they saw that evil ... uncreated ... at the
cost of her life.

‘This is the day history
will remember above all others ... the day the human race was shown the path it
must take in order to survive ... the day it was issued with a warning. It is
the day we were delivered from evil, when Jesus Christ was resurrected ... and
laid down his life ... to become our saviour once again.’

The radio tumbled from
Margaret Sharman’s hands and she cried as she had never cried before.

Thirty-nine

United Nations Security Council President
James Bathurst sat alone at the head of the circular table formation in the
Chamber staring at Per Krough’s wall mural depicting a phoenix rising from the
ashes of its previous incarnation, and considered how perilously close the
human race had come to having to do the same.

The world had been a matter
of seconds away from a holocaust when the blip representing the missile
launched from the Middle East vanished from radar monitors across the globe.
Moments later, the flashing dot denoting the rapid progress of the Trident II
missile, fired in retaliation from the nuclear submarine HMS Vengeance in the
Baltic Sea, also disappeared.

Intelligence indicated that
the terrorists’ missile hadn’t conformed to normal launch pattern — if
its target was London its vertical trajectory had been twenty degrees too low,
putting it on course to annihilate northern Poland. It seemed that the launch
had been entirely uncontrolled, its victim random — the willful act of a
psychotic, supernatural phenomenon.

Now he could believe in her
.

Now he could accept that
Christ had risen for a second time, reborn within Thomas Sharman, and had died
protecting humankind from its own aggression and greed.

Less than forty-eight hours after his death
Sharman, the ordinary man, the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, was buried in a
beautiful marble tomb on the Mount of Olives. Bathurst had watched the entire,
sunbathed service on television, alone in his office. Three quarters of the
world’s population had watched with him.

Afterwards, when the people
of Jerusalem returned to the remains of the Western Wall to remove the black deity’s
corpse for burning it had gone, fuelling rumours of imminent rebirth and
vengeance. But it was not reborn, and vengeance was not forthcoming.

Bathurst had received
frequent updates as a seven-day search covering more than three million square
miles of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean failed to discover any physical evidence
of either missile: Exhaustive tests indicated the total absence of radioactivity.
There had been
no detonation. It was as if the missiles and the nuclear warheads they carried
had simply never existed.

The glossy, black telephone
to his right rang. He caught his breath, hesitated for a few moments and picked
up the receiver.

‘Mr President?’ said the
soft, woman’s voice.

He couldn’t answer.

‘
Mr President
?’

‘ ... Yes?’

‘I’m patching through a
call from overseas. The caller won’t identify himself. He will only speak to
you.’

‘I see. Put him through.’

‘And Mr President?’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s another call on
hold, for you, personally.’

The line went temporarily
dead. Then it crackled back to life, rushing loud in his ear. ‘President?’
scratched the distant voice.

‘ ...
Yes
?’

‘President ... UN?’

‘I am James Bathurst,
President of the United Nations Security Council, yes. Who is this, how did you
get ... ?’

‘I am Kim Hae Kyong, leader,
Democratic People Republic North Korea.’

‘Yes?’

‘I will not bring death and
destruction upon my country, my people. Nor will I wage war upon my fellow man.
North Korea’s Taepodong -2 missiles have been disarmed. Permission is given for
UN teams to enter North Korea to inspect the decommissioned weapons, effective
immediately.’

‘The nations of the West
reciprocate,’ he replied. Our weapons of mass destruction have also been
deactivated. North Korea is invited to examine them at its earliest
convenience.’

The line fell silent.

‘Sir?’ said the woman.
‘Will you take the second call?’

His eyes reddened. ‘Yes ...
put it through will you? ... James Bathurst,’ he said, taking the initiative.

This time the line was
crisp and clear. ‘You are speaking to Badr Udeen Sistani, President of the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,’ the caller responded in near perfect English.
‘This administration has taken the decision to agree to United Nations requests
to allow inspection teams into Afghanistan. They will not be hindered in their
journey north to the remaining missiles’ location, which we now disclose to you
personally by email. Our understanding is that their owners have disarmed and
abandoned the weapons.’

Bathurst replaced the
receiver, picked it up again and called the Secretary-General, William
Devereux, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bob Hayes. Then he
leaned back in the light blue chair and blew out his cheeks, his face awash
with tears.