Prologue
His left arm had been hurting since he had awoken. It began as a dull pain, birthed deep within the shoulder he habitually slept on every night, his right arm always reserved for cradling his wife. But as he pressed his palms against the thick wall of cedar in the bowels of a swaying darkness, his left biceps began to throb.
The surly old man ignored it, but then he ignored most things. It was easier with age. Not so with youth. Pride had railed against the indiscretions of the masses; the more he had spoken out, the more he was beaten. Still, there were worse things than physical pain. Words cut deeper than any wound.
The Voice had beckoned in his misery. It had promised a soul mate. Children. A covenant was struck. The outcast was no longer lonely.
Surrounded by darkness and evil, the righteous man had cleaved to the nourishing Light. When the stain of corruption spread, he moved his family into the wilderness. But the Voice grew weary of the wickedness and sexual immoralities. And when the Voice told him of his task, he committed himself and his sons without question.
He could never ignore the Voice.
But as the years turned to decades and the scorn of the men of renown plotted against his household, the man’s certainty waned, not because he didn’t trust the Voice, but because he grew to despise the defiled ones whose ego-driven sins had so overwhelmingly changed the course of his own life, forecasting the End of Days.
Time and task stole his youth. His sons labored with him, married, and started their own families. He toiled on, forgoing comfort for devotion. Middle age bled into terminal weariness. As old age nestled within his bones, the memory of his covenant waned and his patience with the Voice gradually darkened to tolerance and at times resentment. What he never realized was that he was being tested, that his lack of compassion for the wicked had tainted his own soul, forever sealing his enemies’ fate… and his own.
It began in the grayness of a heavy winter’s morning. Icy rain. Unrelenting. After two days, the rivers overflowed. After a fortnight, the valley submerged.
The deluge made servants of the affluent and anchors of their gold. The suddenly homeless fled to higher ground. They demanded access into his vessel, but the old man said no. As the days passed, they offered to share their ill-gotten wealth. When the sea rose to meet the horizon, they pleaded.
The old man still refused. After a lifetime of humiliation and suffering, it was far too late for any reconciliation.
They threatened his sanctuary with fire, sealing their own fate. The mountainside erupted. The molten earth set the waters to boil. In the dark confines of his sanctuary, he listened to the tortured cries of the condemned… his satisfaction overcome by guilt. Taxed with the burden, he anointed himself the true victim; in doing so, he mentally excused himself from any accountability associated with the chaos, thereby discounting his own inaction and any transformation he might have had to bear.
Time passed. The Earth was baptized. He busied himself with daily worship. Maintained the livestock. His soul remained restless and tainted.
The candle flickered as it approached, its light partially veiled by the particles of barnyard dust churning in the air. His soul mate’s face appeared, her inflection chiding. “And why is my husband hiding in the stables?”
He struggled to ignore the burning sensation radiating down his left forearm into his fingers. “Lower your voice, he might hear you.”
“Who might hear me? The Blessed One?”
“The Angel of Death. Come closer… mind the flame. Press your ear to the cedar, then tell me if he is near.”
Apprehensive but curious, she knelt by the wall and listened.
The middle deck was at water level, the boat rolling gently beneath them, and she could hear the sea beating against the vessel’s creaking hull. For a long moment she waited, the heat within the suffocating enclosure causing her to perspire.
And then she felt it… a cold presence that filtered into her frail bones, obliterating the warmth. The animals sensed it, too. The horses grew agitated. The cattle herded themselves into an adjoining pen.
Then, more terrifying — a faint scratching sound — the supernal being’s metal scythe testing the wood.
Unnerved, the old woman leapt to her feet, dropping the candle in the process. Flame met hay, the conflagration rising from the sparks like a hellish demon.
Stripping off his robe, the old man attempted to smother the beast, his feeble efforts only causing it to multiply.
Regaining her composure, his wife hurried to a trough, dipped a clay pot in the water, then doused the fire into submission. Steam rose from the ash, dispersing through the hold. Woodsmoke weighted the air.
The elderly woman embraced her naked husband in the darkness, their rapid pulses beating in sync. “Why is death stalking us?”
“Blood pressure’s dropping, sixty over forty. Hurry up with that brachial artery, I need to administer Dobutrex before we lose him.”
The old man babbled, confused by the strange voices suddenly sharing his head.
His wife grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him back into the moment. “Why is death stalking us?”
He pushed her hand from his throbbing left shoulder, the pain magnifying in its intensity. “Man’s negativity has summoned the Angel of Darkness… he stalks the earth unbridled. Fear not, for as long as we remain hidden from sight, he cannot harm us.”
“Your arm… is something wrong?”
“You sure this was an IED? Look at the skin hanging below the remains of his elbow; the flesh has melted.”
The old man pulled away from his wife and moaned, his left arm suddenly radiating in scorching heat.
“Artery’s closed, start the Dobutrex. Okay, where’s the damn bone saw?”
“I think Rosen was using it to carve his brisket.”
“What is it?”
He cries out in agony, the blood rushing from his weathered face. “The flesh… it’s dripping off the bone!”
“How’s his BP?”
“Ninety over sixty.”
“Did you burn your arm in the fire?”
“No. It began hurting before the roosters arose to rant at the day.”
“Tell me what to do. How can I help?”
“Fetch me a cutting tool.”
“You’re scaring me. Let me find our son—”
“No time… ahh!”
“Let’s get another unit of blood in him before we take the arm. Nurse, be an angel and hold up that X-ray. I want to amputate right here, just below the insertion on the biceps tendon.”
The surly old man collapsed. His wife knelt beside him in the swaying darkness, the scratching sounds growing louder. “Speak to me! Please, my love… wake up!”
“Doctor, he’s awake.”
The soldier opened his eyes to bright lights and masked strangers wrapped in surgical gowns. The pain was blinding, his left arm ravaged meat, the agony competing with the pounding ache in his damaged skull.
The anesthetic washed cool his nerve endings. The panic smothered, he closed his eyes, drowning in sleep.
From across the Baghdad surgical suite, the Grim Reaper stared at the soiled American soldier like an old friend… waiting.
PART 1
Darkness
July
"Evil does not exist, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of heat. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."