The Chronicle of Belthaeous
by John W. Steele
Rodney Neumann, a brilliant student of mathematics, has earned a scholarship at Columbia University. After years of spiritual struggle he has adopted materialism as his personal philosophy. In graduate school, he studies under, Dr. Adrian Nacroanus, an eccentric scientist who heads the Department of Genetic Engineering. The doctor’s advancements in biotechnology have earned him a reputation as a near-mythological being. In time, he and Rodney form a master-student relationship based on deep theosophical insights that Nacroanus reveals to him.
Dr. Nacroanus has developed a serum called Eternulum that he claims will increase human longevity. But before he can bestow his gift on humanity he must retrieve a mummified angel named Belthaeous, who has lain entombed in the Cave of the Ancients for thousands of years.
Rodney and Nacroanus journey to the Himalayas to find the hidden entity. Deep in the mountains, Rodney witnesses miracles that shatter his understanding of reality and confront him with forces of ultimate malevolence.
Chapter 54: Life Everlasting
Belthaeous sat as still as a mountain, his face a lacquered expression of morbid submission. The chamber grew deathly silent and a ghost of hypnotic enchantment devoured the moment.
Dr. Nacroanus turned his head and looked deep in my eyes. In a voice skirting delirium, he cried, “Dr. Neumann, release the Archon from the depths of oblivion and return his spirit to life everlasting!”
A vision of Heidi dismembered and beheaded flashed in my mind. A horde of Enukai parasites drank her blood and devoured her flesh. I knew this vision was an alien form of hypnotic induction, but it did not make it any less real.
This entire world is so evil, it’s nauseating. Life for Heidi, there was no other choice. A tear rolled from my cheek. I took a deep breath and pressed the red button. The pump hummed, and in its fateful monotone, the transformation of heaven and earth became manifest.
Belthaeous shuddered and, like a monument of raw clay, he slowly raised his head. A chrome nimbus formed at the perimeter of his skull. Shafts of rainbow-colored light fell in torrents from his shoulders, sheathing the entity in a cocoon of radiant splendor. His face shone like burnished brass and the corners of his mouth curled into a smooth transcendental smile.
The lids of his eyes lifted and the azure orbs in their sockets beamed with a sparkling crystal flame. The Avatar’s chest heaved, and air poured into his lungs. A subtle lumination swirled from the vortex in his brow and an expression of felicity brightened his features. The power of Eternulum flowed through his body and his torpid awareness arose from the depths of oblivion. He stared into the assembly and then turned his head side to side like a Lazarus enraptured in the wonder of rebirth.
The dignitaries gaped at the spectacle, their eyes leaping from the sockets and their bodies petrified with awe.
I glanced at Nacroanus. I could tell by the expression on his face that the neuro-morphic processor was functioning perfectly. The Avatar had returned to the living, but Adrian owned his will.
In a smooth, even baritone, the Avatar cried, “I am Belthaeous. I am come to lead you to everlasting security. Whosoever shall follow my commandments will not taste death.”
From a chair near the backstage, Reverend Crackers shot to his feet. His face contorted in a mask of devout rapture, and tears streamed down his cheeks. He threw his hands over his head and two-stepped across the floor like a drunken cow-puncher at a hoedown. “Glowry, glowry, glowry, to Hosanna in the highest! Praise the Lord! I have seen the light and there will be peace in the valley. Do I hear Amen?!”
Cardinal Presley raised his hand and made a sign of sanctification. The Lama remained detached, his face a statement of unflappable indifference; his prayer wheel was spinning like a top.
When the hypnotic enchantment diminished, Dr. Nacroanus faced the cameras and declared. “Citizens of the new age of enlightenment, behold the messiah destined to free all men from the burden of despair; the living Avatar that will lead us in the creation of a perfect new world.”
Adrian turned his head and faced the Surgeon General. Victory beamed in his features and he recited his lines with thespian perfection. “Distinguished, Dr. Bormann, will you kindly examine the Archon Belthaeous and verify the resurrection of spirit from the Bardo of oblivion?”
The physician stood up, and approached the Archon. He placed a Doppler stethoscope near its sternum and adjusted the diaphragm. The cadence of the deity’s heartbeat reverberated through the sound system of the auditorium. With the precision of a metronome, the lub-dub meter of its valves and chambers resonated in a symphony of indisputable vitality.
Dr. Bormann looked into the cameras, his movements a pantomime of imperturbable confidence. He fondled the stethoscope and then draped it around his neck. His face held no expression and in a colorless monotone he proclaimed, “It’s alive.”
The moment of truth arrived with wrathful intolerance, as if Mammon had savored this one moment in time to demonstrate the awesome ferocity of his creation.
One by one, the Reptoid shape-shifters rose to their feet.
I watched in awe as their vibratory veils lifted like the shells of an onion. In a debacle akin to a supernatural freak show, the DNA of the Enukai aligned to the cell structure of the reptilian genetic blueprint. The vibrational overcoat of their humanity evaporated like a fading three-dimensional hologram and, standing in its place, were the coarse powerful alien beings that controlled them.
* * *
“Sweet mother of God, Timmy, what the hell are those things?” Max bellowed.
Timmy said nothing. He sat glued to his barstool like a catatonic in a state of hysteria. A dribble of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth and a puddle of piss had formed on the floor beneath his pant leg.
* * *
From the recesses of my subconscious, a voice pierced through the void. The thought form entered my head as a single idea. I could see every perspective of its meaning from every conceivable viewpoint. The communication sounded like a musical note that stretched into infinity. And though the message was rather complex, the note lasted only a nanosecond.
“I am Belthaeous. I have but one fragment of volition locked in Fifth-Dimensional awareness. The Nacroanus cannot penetrate this sector of my consciousness, but I am severely wounded, and I have not the strength to contact you again.
“I use this remaining energy to confide in you before my mind is swallowed by the power of your technology. I can penetrate the armor of your cast-iron skull, but no one, not even Mammon can possess your heart unless you allow him in.
“Darkness believes that it is God and that the Light in man belongs to him. His universe is evil and cannot change. It will be destroyed.
“Why can you not understand? Heaven cannot exist in this black hole. There are only Astral realms that vary in the quality of illusion. There is no escape from the matrix unless the theomorph awakens to the divinity locked in the skin bag.
“The hour of darkness has arrived. Mammon will rip the Light from the heart of the Divine awareness like a twisted physician cuts the fetus from a womb.
“I know you cannot trust me, Dr. Neumann, but I would cast away my life to rescue the heart in man, not because I am a high-voltage entity but because the Light in man is the Light that I once knew. Grant me the Eye, my brother, or the theomorphs on this plane will suffer eternal damnation in the matrix illusion.”
A terrifying crash awakened me from the muse. Far on the western wall, a smoked plate glass window shattered as if hit by a missile. Shards of sapphire-colored glass cascaded to the floor in a torrent of frightening intensity.
From the gaping crater in the wall, a hulking figure emerged. The creature spread wide its draconian wings and soared through the air like an avenging angel. The monster crashed to the floor and stood before me, its eyes on fire and its mouth agape. Wicked ivory canines protruded from its jaws, and its form resembled that of a carnivorous reptilian titan from the Cretaceous age.
The lights in the assembly hall flickered and then extinguished completely. A crushing darkness flooded the auditorium, and for a moment, all was still.
* * *
Max peered out the cracked plate glass window and watched the streetlights drain of their radiance until darkness swallowed the avenue. Like some false-flag apocalypse, the lights in the city flickered and died. Little did he know a massive blackout had spread across the globe, and the world had plunged into an ocean of darkness.
The neon beer signs in his window were the last to die. Their radiance faded until all that remained were glowing lines of red and yellow.
“Holy Moses, take cover, Timmy! It’s the flippin’ terrorists. They’ve swum across the ocean, a rag on their head, and a dagger clenched in their jaws. They’re coming to take away our guns and corrupt our democracy.”
Max fumbled in the dark and pulled a flashlight from a drawer in the back bar. A yellow beam floundered on the wall near the old safe hidden in a cupboard. He ran over and retrieved an Ithaca Deerslayer from behind a curtain draped over the burglar bars.
“They’re coming for blood, Timmy!” Max pumped the forestock and a slug flew into the chamber. “Get back here and lay on the floor!”
With Pavlovian obedience, Timmy charged through the waitress station and, like a man on third base hell-bent for home plate, he dove through the air and landed on his belly at Max’s feet.
Max flicked off the flash light and crouched low. They remained motionless, the sound of their breathing diluted by the moan of the sirens screaming far in the distance. “Let the bloody bastards try and take me gun, Timmy... from me cold dead hands.”
Copyright © 2014 by John W. Steele
