Persecution: God's Other Children. Book 2 Read online

  GOD’S OTHER CHILDREN.

  Book 2

  PERSECUTION

  Rob McLean

  Copyright © 2018 by Rob McLean. All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced, stored in a retrievable system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher

  Contents

  Chapter 1 AkilPost Nuclear Daze

  Chapter 2 Admiral SchwartzRescue Mission

  Chapter 3 JohnWindows 95

  Chapter 4 JohnWeird Dreams

  Chapter 5 JohnBlack Dragon

  Chapter 6 AkilExsanguation

  Chapter 7 AngelaSingstar

  Chapter 8 AkilFamous

  Chapter 9 Captain LauNew Best Friend

  Chapter 10 Angela‘About Today’

  Chapter 11 LingNew Home

  Chapter 12 Admiral SchwartzSummoned

  Chapter 13 JohnTerraforming

  Chapter 14 JohnSheep and Goats

  Chapter 15 JohnSkyshow

  Chapter 16 JohnWired-up Lab Rat

  Chapter 17 Angela‘Oh my sweet Lord’

  Chapter 18 John‘Is she dead?’

  Chapter 19 Admiral Schwartz Politically Correct

  Chapter 20 Captain LauEnglish Lessons

  Chapter 21 JohnMacArthur Park

  Chapter 22 AngelaOpposite of Love

  Chapter 23 AngelaPolling Day

  Chapter 24 LingNight Duty

  Chapter 25 Admiral Schwartz Peace with Jesus

  Chapter 26 AngelaGirl’s Night Out

  Chapter 27 AngelaConsolation Prize

  Chapter 28 AkilSilverback Gorilla

  Chapter 29 Pastor GregYour Brother

  Chapter 30 John Try before you buy…

  Chapter 31 JohnFather Jackson

  Chapter 32 Admiral SchwartzAshtiname

  Chapter 33 JohnGlobal Currency

  Chapter 34 JohnUgly but Loveable

  Chapter 35 AngelaDon’t Call

  Chapter 36 LingPeter did it

  Chapter 37 AngelaBut He Does

  Chapter 38 JohnHave Faith

  Chapter 39 JohnHigan

  Chapter 40 AngelaDaytime Moonlight

  Chapter 41 Admiral Schwartz Nasty Little Rash

  Chapter 42 JohnYou’re Better off

  Chapter 43 AngelaSatan’s Whispers

  Chapter 44 AngelaOne of Us

  Chapter 45 JohnTwo Masters

  Chapter 46 Admiral SchwartzSymbiosis

  Chapter 47 JohnTiger Bear

  Chapter 48 LingDangerous Dreams

  Chapter 49 JohnRegistration

  Chapter 50 AngelaTaqiyya

  Chapter 51 AkilYareshni

  Chapter 52 JohnDeputised

  Chapter 53 LingSolitude

  Chapter 54 JohnRaid

  Chapter 55 Admiral Schwartz Decisions

  Chapter 56 AngelaGimme Shelter

  Chapter 57 JohnTouched

  Chapter 58 John Game Day

  Chapter 59 John After Party

  Chapter 1

  Akil woke to an eerie silence.

  Acrid smoke stung his sinuses, forcing him to take small, halting breaths. Consciousness came to him briefly at first, then in lengthening waves of awareness until he could keep his eyes open. All he could see was an indirect glow of flickering orange light in front of him.

  He cast his mind back, but the last thing he could remember was that his guards had started yelling; someone was attacking the alien spaceship. He had gone to the Perspex wall of his cell to find out more. He had called out to them, but then the whole world around him had exploded in a deafening roar. Darkness had crushed consciousness from him.

  Now as he lay on the floor of his cell, he could see by the thin sliver of wavering firelight that the wall had collapsed on top of him. All that had stopped him from being flattened was the metal frame of his bed.

  Akil called out, but his voice was weak. His throat felt gritty and raw, filled with dust from the broken masonry and from the invasive smoke. He waited a moment, but no-one answered.

  As he crawled forwards, towards the light, the smell of noxious smoke stung his nostrils and watered his eyes. He hoped that whatever was burning nearby did not spread to engulf him.

  He put his head out from under the slab of concrete that had nearly crushed him and he could see that the rest of the floor had not been so fortunate. By the light of an oily fire and through a jumble of rubble and crumpled furniture, he could see that he was in a basement of what once had been a newish government building. As he made his way out of his cell, he realised how lucky he had been. The building had collapsed and had filled the basement with tonnes of debris. It was only by the grace of Allah that he had been spared.

  He scrambled up a stairwell of broken masonry to an open space and could see that the entire roof of the building was gone, revealing a night sky almost entirely obscured by a roiling cover of tortured angry clouds, lit from beneath by the lights of thousands of fires. He staggered to his feet, buffered by thin, vicious winds that tore at him in spasmodic gusts and surveyed the panorama of devastation around him.

  The walls of the whole complex were almost totally gone, toppled over and pulverised into loose piles of bricks, interspersed with broken wooden beams and twisted office furniture. There was no one to be seen, not even any bodies. He knew that destruction like this would mean lots of casualties, but thankfully he couldn’t see any – yet. He fully expected to find some grisly discoveries soon.

  He climbed to the top of the nearest pile of rubble, but could only see that the destruction was endless. Thousands of fires stretched as far as he could see in every direction, their glow reflected in many shades of red and orange smoke that added to the oppressive, swirling, angry clouds. His visibility was hampered by a continuous dusting of ash that swirled and settled upon everything around him.

  To Akil, it looked almost exactly like he had imagined the wastelands of the Underworld to be, except in that nightmare, it was populated by demons and the multitudes of condemned souls.

  ‘But where was everyone?’ Atop the pile of rubble, overwhelmed at the scale of the destruction he could see, Akil fell to his knees. “Oh Lord, what have we done?” he wailed. The loss of his home and his city were compounded by fears that his family might not have escaped. They were supposed to be leaving for Asyut. What if they came back for him? His tears fell freely, but disappeared amongst the dusty rubble.

  Akil clasped his hands together in prayer and bowed his head. A wave of dizziness threatened to upset his balance. He put out a steadying hand before continuing his prayer. “Merciful Lord Allah, what am I to do? I am your servant, in your care. Please help me. Please show me.”

  After a few moments spent in silent prayer and to gather his strength, he stood. Having resigned his fate to the Lord, he then forced his mind to focus on the task of surviving.

  As he scanned the scene of destruction again, looking for some direction, some signs of life, he felt the darkness of despair creep up on him. He tried to keep the light of the Lord in his heart, but questions kept haunting his troubled, foggy mind. ‘What had caused all this destruction? Who had attacked the alien spacecraft? Had it laid waste to his city in retaliation?’ He prided himself as a judge of character, it was essential when doing business, but his groggy mind couldn’t assign all this destruction to the serene alien envoy he had met.

  Having lived his whole life amid the teeming, vibrant crush of humanity that was his home city, the lack of even another single person now felt all wrong. The desolation was both creepy and puzzling.

  “Where is everyone?” Akil asked himself out aloud, despite the dryness in his
mouth. He sought the reassurance of the sound of his own voice, but it was muffled in his head. It sounded far away, almost as though it was someone else’s, lending the whole situation a dream-like feel to it.

  ‘Surely I’m not the only survivor?’ He looked about with increasing dread, hoping to see someone alive, but could see nobody. He remembered something in the Bible about how God would save a city if there was just one believer in it. Did that mean that there had been no faithful people left in Cairo? ‘Including yourself,’ a nagging voice of doubt added. He tried to push it aside, but he felt he might drown in hopelessness.

  “Maybe the survivors have gone already, picked up by the rescue teams long ago while I was unconscious, or fled by themselves.” He reasoned out aloud to himself. It helped his muddled mind to think straight.

  A stab of white light broke into his thoughts. On the near horizon he saw a searchlight sweep back and forth. The twinkling aviation lights told him it was a helicopter - a rescue helicopter. His spirits rallied at the sign of hope.

  “Thank-you Lord.” His voice was the barest dry whisper, but his feet moved automatically towards the moving lights and the rest of his body followed. Like a helium balloon on a long string, his ethereal mind floated along behind, a detached observer of the surreal.

  Part of his mind wondered why he couldn’t hear the helicopter. He was close enough to see the down draft of the blades curl the ash clouds as the insect-shaped machine hovered predator-like for signs of life. With no other noise around, he should be able to hear it easily. Dimly he wondered if it was some special military stealth helicopter, but when he clicked his fingers near his ears, he finally realised that whatever had destroyed his city must have damaged his hearing as well.

  A pile of crumpled and burnt out car frames in what was once a car-park now blocked his way. They had been thrown about like leaves and had clumped together against the remnants of a concrete wall. Against his better judgement, he felt his eyes drawn to the carnage, hoping not to find any occupants. Flickering flames still burned inside some wrecks, but he could see that, although the vehicles were strewn about, many had one side of their paint-work seared away, blackened down to the bare metal. Others had burnt totally throughout with nothing left of any occupants they might have once had.

  He worked his way through the carnage towards the beacon of hope, praying all the while that the helicopter would linger long enough to find him. Stumbling over another wind-swept pile of broken buildings, he was struck by the stench of putrid faeces. Somewhere nearby, amid the rubble something was dead. Or dying.

  He took another look at the helicopter. The search-light sweep showed him that it was facing away from him. He didn’t want to risk losing the helicopter by wasting time finding someone who was most likely already dead, but he had been led to this spot by the Lord and he felt it was his duty to try to help.

  The helicopter was near enough for him to feel the thudding of the rotor blades reverberate in his chest. He tore his eyes away from the tantalisingly close source of salvation. The sudden movement of his head unleashed more waves of dizziness. Nausea made him grip his stomach and stagger. He leaned forward with one hand on his knee until the nausea passed, then with grim resolution, cast about the debris for the source of the smell.

  The wind eddied about him in gusts, partly fanned by the down-draft from the helicopter. It didn’t help him to trace the smell. He wandered aimlessly for a few moments, all the while conscious that the rescue helicopter was gradually moving away as it swept another area.

  He knew he was too weak to wait for another helicopter to chance his way, but he had to find this person in need. It then occurred to him that it might be an animal. It was then that frustration and hopelessness overcame him.

  “Help me Lord,” he croaked through dry lips. He swung his head left and right as he walked zombie-like, but was too weary to take anything in. Lurching from side to side, he staggered on, moving doggedly away from the sweeping search-light.

  His sandals did little to protect his feet from the broken bricks and fractured concrete in the rubble. His toes and heels bled from many cuts and abrasions, but when the wreckage of masonry underfoot suddenly gave way, his large toenail was ripped from his right foot. The pain registered dimly as the latest and largest of the insistent intrusions on his battered consciousness. It drew his attention to the ragged remains of his toenail and away from his balance. From a dizzy height, his detached mind watched himself tumble forward down the slope of sharp rubble. He saw his arms flail about ineffectually trying to protect him.

  Darkness gathered about him as he lay on his back at the bottom of the fall, offering the blissful numbness of surrender, but nearby, the harsh stench of death stung his nostrils and drilled into his brain. Like foul smelling-salts, it forced him to remain conscious and reminded him of his duty.

  With grim mental strength, he rallied his remaining energies and rolled over onto his side. A thousand cuts and bruises shrieked in a panorama of pain that, as he moved, coalesced to form a continuous white noise of agony.

  His fingers felt a spongy, cold, wetness as he tried to sit up. He knew that he had found the source of the smell before he could stop his head from turning to look.

  A slab of concrete had squashed someone. He hoped their death had been swift, but he doubted it. Their abdomen had burst, spilling a mess of blackened intestines. Their clothes had been burnt away and the exposed skin had been charred. It had cracked and peeled away in places to reveal raw red flesh underneath. The face was gone. Yellowed bone showed through in places. The jaw hung wide open in a permanent silent scream. Akil’s eyes were drawn to a pulpy cooked mass that had once been their innards, forced out like toothpaste, by the weight of the slab. He supposed it was the same at the other end as well.

  He withdrew his hand from the decaying corpse. He held it mid-air not knowing what to do next. He gave a silent prayer of thanks as he realised that by the will of God, he had escaped a similar fate. At the thought, he felt an overwhelming wave of nausea. Ignoring the pain, he rolled away from the body, onto his side and in a series of uncontrollable convulsions, vomited until the taste of bile mixed with his own blood.

  Afterwards, he lacked the energy to move. He saw the blinking lights of the rescue helicopter had moved far away. He then closed his eyes and let the darkness devour him. As he lay amid the death and ruin, a dusting of radioactive ash continued to fall about him.

  Chapter 2

  From the bridge of the U.S.S John F Kennedy, Vice-Admiral Schwarz supervised his fleet’s humanitarian response to the Iranian nuclear attack.

  It had been a frantic thirty-six hours. In concert with the Sixth fleet stationed in the Mediterranean, the Russian Black Sea fleet and the navies of the various NATO nations, rescue operations had been underway as soon as it was safe to venture into the hot zone.

  Six nuclear fireballs had been deployed in an almost perfect hexagonal pattern with a seventh central strike, a credit to their North Korean designers. They had almost totally obliterated the ancient mega-city of Cairo. ‘But failed to damage the alien spaceship,’ he rued silently.

  Due to the overlapping, compounding effects of the multiple warheads, which had been orders of magnitude larger than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined with the way the city had been clustered along the Nile delta, the devastation had been so complete that in most areas there were few bodies to be found and even fewer survivors.

  A provisional government had been set up in Alexandria, but that city was struggling to cope with the radioactive fallout, both from the air and the polluted river. The mass exodus of people fleeing the radiation had swamped all efforts to help. Issues of national sovereignty were being largely ignored by the refugees and the humanitarian efforts. The Admiral would have lauded it as a winning example of international co-operation, had he been placed in charge. But that hadn’t happened, despite his seniority, the overall leadership role had been given to some French Admiral, most likely
in a politically correct show of egalitarianism.

  As it was, after ordering the cruise missile attacks on the alien mothership, he was waiting to hear from his higher command. The Rear-Admiral expected to be charged and court-marshalled in due course and was mildly surprised that he hadn’t received a summons already. He didn’t know what he would do when it arrived, but in the meantime, to avoid dwelling on that depressing prospect, he buried himself in the logistics of the rescue operation.

  From the conning tower, the Rear-Admiral watched over his crew. They all had worked long hours and now as the evening darkness grew, they showed no signs of relenting. They were good people and he knew that they were very motivated to do all they could in this rescue operation. Fitted in haz-mat suits and breathing apparatus, the naval personnel of his fleet had been trained for this sort of scenario and due to their proximity, had been the first to respond.

  A regular shuttle of helicopters ferried rescue workers to and from the ruined city. Shortly after touching down, the helicopters were hosed down to remove the radioactive ash, before maintenance checks and refuelling. They were then manned with fresh rescue workers before returning to continue their grim tasks. The returning workers were showered off and debriefed. They were now tired and in contrast to their initial buoyant mood, their initial enthusiasm had waned as the day progressed and their retrieval rates remained abysmally low. Despite these disappointments, they still toiled tirelessly and it made him proud, in an almost paternal way, to serve with this crew. Again he wondered for how much longer that would be. The thought made his stomach churn and he pushed that worry aside and forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand.