The Hand of God (22 page)

“I know I’m not fully human.  What does that have to do with anything?  It’s not like I can help it.”

“It has everything to do with it.  There was a reason I had your kind eradicated thousands of years ago.  At least I tried too anyway.  A few of you squeaked by, though, and here you are.  I’ve thought of wiping you out several times, but you were doing such a good job of doing my work for me, I just let you go.  Well, until recently, when you’ve been all up in my business. Now you’re just a nuisance.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. For one, here was Jesus himself being a much bigger smart ass than I could have imagined.  I guess being the Son of God he can do that.  This whole experience seemed like a weird dream. 

“I can’t help who my ancestors were,” I said.

“No my friend, you can’t.”  The Bishop sat back down behind his desk.  “But look at you. You’re a mess. You slice people to pieces, and pour them down the drain.  Granted, most of them were rotten to the core, and they’d never turn to me for anything.  Now, you do that thing with turning people to zombies.  Very creepy stuff, but I know you can’t help yourself.  It’s in your DNA, literally.”

Hearing him talk about me as if I were some kind of concept or experiment made me want to throw up.  Stanton looked like he was trying to decide whether to shoot just me, or both of us.

“What is he talking about?  Cutting people to pieces?”

“I’ll explain later,” I turned to the Bishop.  “So that’s it then?  You’re just going to destroy the world?”

“You make it sound so harsh.  You all knew this day was coming.  It’s just that most of you Christian folks thought you’d be raptured into big, pretty mansions in the sky while the rest of the world suffered horrible atrocities.  Then you all come back from the sky with me and some army of flaming horses to destroy the sinners.”  He waved his hand and laughed.  “I went through everything I did on the cross years ago, yet all of you thought you’d be exempt from the slightest bit of discomfort?  Please.  It’s pathetic.  You folks act like you’re being persecuted if someone looks at you wrong.  All of you have missed the point completely.”

“That’s not true!  My church is full of good people who are full of love. They love you, they love each other.”

“Oh, stop it.  They love their cable TV and foamy lattes.  Anything that disrupts that is a waste of their time.  At least you have some ambition.  That’s why I tried to get you to help me.  I could never let you into God’s kingdom, no way.  But, I suppose I could have made things a little better for you.  Either way, I’m going to keep you around a little longer.  Let you watch the show.”

“So everything I’ve believed in the Bible is a lie?”

“Oh no, it’s true.  Just remember, there is a lot in the Bible that has been translated or interpreted.  Things prophesied in the Bible will happen, just not the way any of you thought they would.  Especially that Tim LaHaye fellow, he’s truly off his rocker.”

Stanton stood up and tapped my shoulder.

“Well, that’s all good to know.” Stanton said.  “I think we should go.”

“Oh, Detective Stanton, I never said you were going anywhere,” the Bishop said.  With a wave of his hand, Stanton fell lifeless to the ground.

“Stanton!” I shouted, kneeling beside him feeling for his pulse.  Nothing.  “He’s dead.”

“Well, of course he is.”

“How can you just kill like that?  You’re supposed to be the Christ!”

“Yes, what does the Book say?  The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

“You’re sick!”

“No, I’m God.  You can bring him back if you want.  You know how.”

“Right. I’ll spare him that.”

“I think you missed something here.  You and our pals spend your whole lives reading and studying that book, analyzing it, dissecting it.  It’s got lots of good information, but it barely touches the truth of what I really am.  That is simply what I chose to reveal at that time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s just say people back in those days weren’t very hard to convince of my deity.  Though you folks today aren’t much harder.”

“What?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“I’m not ready to…” before I could finish speaking, I was back in my apartment standing in my living room.

The whole thing was too much to believe.  Stanton was dead, the Bishop was Jesus Christ, but Christ isn’t who or what any of us thought he was.  He was here to end the world, and there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.  What was the point?  He wanted to keep me alive to watch the show as he called it.  I figured he’d kill me after everything was over with, but who knew? Part of me wished he just killed me and got it over with.  Whatever was about to happen, I suddenly felt exhausted.  I hadn’t slept much in the last few days, if the world was going to end soon, the least I could do was to take a nap.   Maybe it would all be over with when I woke up.

I walked into my bedroom, undressed and climbed into bed.  I thought of the whole conversation with the Bishop, Dave and Lucifer.  It was all too much.  The days when I knew who was right and who was wrong seemed so long ago.  Now I wasn’t even sure who was good or evil or who or what God even was.  It didn’t even matter since we were all about to die.  I closed my eyes before thinking too much made me crazy.  Luckily sleep took me before the Bishop or death could.

Chapter 40

I woke up slowly wiping the fog of sleep from my eyes.  I must have slept for at least twelve hours.  As my vision cleared, I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw the man sitting in my room.  It was Lucifer, sitting in a chair with his legs crossed and reading one of my theology books.  I think this one was a study on Isaiah and the fall of Lucifer himself.

“My God, you scared the hell out of me.”  I said.  “You creatures seriously need to knock that off.”

“Sorry.  I guess subtlety isn’t in our nature.”  He said.  I suppose I should have been more shocked at waking up to find the devil himself sitting in my bedroom, but recent events had jaded my threshold of fear. 

“What do you want?” I asked.  He closed the book and glanced at the cover.

“Interesting book,” he said.  “I have to disagree with the author’s interpretation of Isaiah.  But in fairness to him and Isaiah, neither of them has ever been to what you know as heaven.  Oh well.  I should thank him.  Generations have feared me because of it.  I was the first one to stand up to your God.  I think now you might have an idea why.  I mean, really.  He says he gives you free will, or a choice.  If you’re an angel, that means he will cast you into the abyss if you don’t follow him.  If you’re a human he will send you to hell, which is basically another name for the abyss—if you don’t follow him.  Some choice, huh?  That’s like an abusive husband telling his wife.  ‘Oh no, it’s your choice to make me dinner, totally up to you.  I’ll just beat you to a bloody pulp if you don’t.  Your choice though.’”

“Very deep,” I said.  “You should write a review and post it on Amazon.”

He laughed and tossed the book aside.

“Nice!  I like you Charlie.  You don’t rattle easily.  We’re more alike than you may realize.”

I just rolled my eyes.

“Anyway,” he continued.  “You go and see your savior after we talked?”

“I did.”

“And how’d that go?”

“Well, you were right.  He said he’s here for his second coming.  I was skeptical at first, but then he put his hand on me.  The power I felt then, I had no doubt he is the Christ.  He said he plans to wipe out mankind, except his true believers, who are far fewer in number than any of us could have ever guessed.  Then he killed my friend with a wave of his hand.”

“Yeah.  He can be a douche like that,” Lucifer said.

“I even tried to submit to him once I realized he was God.  I bowed my head, acknowledged him.  He said it wasn’t that easy for me; that I’m an abomination and he’s going to keep me alive so I can have a front row seat to the end of the world.  I want to stop him, but I don’t know how.  My whole life and belief system has been a lie.”

“I think you do know how to stop him, Charlie.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t kill you because he can’t.  He’s not sparing your life.  He’s unable to.  You’re not human, so he can’t just wave his hand and drop you to the floor.  Why do you think he hasn’t killed me?  We were made differently.  He’s convinced you that you’re powerless.  Hell, he does that to humans.  The whole Bible tells humans they are powerless.  He’s got everyone convinced they are useless without him.”

I had to admit, he had a point.  So what did this mean for me and anyone else of faith?  What if God isn’t really God after all? Perhaps he’s not what we thought he was.  Evidence was starting to point in that direction, as much as I didn’t want to believe it.  It’s hard to accept that the God you worshiped and modeled your life after is really a power hungry being who views you as little more than a biology experiment.

“So, what do I do?”

“What you do best, Charlie.  You kill him.”

“Kill Christ?  Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

“I’m serious.  Only you can do it.  With that necromancy thing you can do.  Right now he’s in a human body.  Same as the first time he was here.  He eats, he sleeps, he shits and he can bleed and die.”

“You’d think he’d have done something more fool proof if he planned to come back and destroy humanity.  Even Revelation said he’ll come from heaven with an army of angels or something.”

“That was all allegory.  Most of Revelation was about Rome and Nero.  It was never about the end of the world.”

“Wow, really?”  I had heard some of this before.

“Oh, yeah.  Nero was the beast of the Revelation.  The last half of Revelation is about the end of the world, but once again, a lot was allegory.  As you see, he has returned, with an army of sorts.  Just not like was depicted in the prophecy.  It’s all in interpretation.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah.  Okay, Bible lesson is over.  I can help you.  I’m not the monster you’ve been led to believe your whole life.”

“Well that’s reassuring,” I said.

“Well, how many people have you seen me kill so far?”

“Good point.”

“That thing you saw the Bishop do on TV, the mass healing?  When the time is right, he’s gonna wave his hand again so to speak, and turn all of creation on itself.  People will tear each other apart without a second thought to what they are doing.  It will be at his command, and will be a bloody mess the world over.”

I sat there, saying nothing.

“Okay,” he continued.  “You know what he can do.  You have to get close enough to him to stop him for good.”

“I doubt he’ll let me in his mansion again.”

“You’re right, he won’t.”

“Can’t he just come back again if I kill him?”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.  We need to take care of one incarnation at a time.”

“How do I get close enough?”

“I’ll help you.  I am Lucifer, after all.”

“Can’t you just zap me back in front of him like how you seem to pop in and out?”

“No, he’s got some kind of halo around him.  Not a true halo, but like an energy around him that keeps me at a distance.  We don’t need to do that anyway. I have my own tricks up my sleeve.”