Glenn Kleier - The Last Day

Jeza pulled back and angled her head away slightly, biting her lower lip and glowering off to her side in building rage. Then she turned once more to her audience, unleashing her pent-up fury. “And now do you dare mock God's Word and debase His messenger by abusing and destroying each other in my name!”

Through his binoculars, Feldman could readily perceive tears filling her eyes. This was the same tortured face, the same unbridled passion Feldman recalled so indelibly from the Millennium Eve video of Jeza atop the ancient temple steps.

“Why do you not listen?” she cried, looked down, shook her head in dejection. “In this I give you no new Commandment. For one who came before me has already given it to you. It is the Perfect Law: I say unto you, ‘Love your neighbor as you do yourself; and unto others do as you would have them do unto you.’ In this law, therefore, are contained all the other Commandments governing man's conduct toward man. In this law is the Word to guide you back to the unity you have lost.”

She paused again to stare deeply, intently into the crowd. And even at this distance, Feldman thought he could detect a glimmer of hope restoring some of the resplendency to her anguished face.

“I look into your individual souls,” she spoke in a virtual whisper, “and I see the remnants of the sweet innocence bequeathed each of you by God at your birth; a most perfect and precious treasure that now lies lost and forgotten, concealed beneath the sediments of injury and suspicion. Where once you looked with wonder and excitement upon the world about you and filled your hearts with hopefulness and elation, now you withdraw to build walls about you and gird your defenses, distancing yourselves from your neighbors, removing yourselves from contact and understanding and commitment.

“But I say to you, you must reclaim the vision of your youth. You must each see again through the eyes of a child so that you may recognize in the face of your enemy the child that also lies beneath. You must learn again to see all men as God sees them. Even your enemy must you love and safeguard as if he were your cherished flesh and blood, for surely he is that to the Father.

“Do this in your own way, of your own free will. Do this with utter faith and trust, and with absolute love. Do this without resentment or regard for sacrifice or cost. Abandon your concerns to the Father and know that the Father, in turn, will nurture your souls and release unto you the bounties of heaven that He has long promised to bestow. This you can and must do, for even as you evolve in body, so also must you evolve in mind and soul to attain the balance that is unity.

“I say again, the great separation of man from God is the greater separation of man from himself. Therefore, you shall not be worthy of unity with God until you achieve the unity of your own spirit. Thus is the way by which you may lift yourselves up. Through God, you can yourselves become as God-the ultimate expression of your evolution. And only in this way shall you come to know God and achieve His final perfection: the Apotheosis!”

She paused again and the raging, roiling sky hesitated with her, holding its gusty winds in abeyance momentarily as she raised a warning finger.

“Heed my words, O Children of Israel!” she cried, her face assuming a more solemn countenance. “For God's displeasure with you is great and His anger just. Even now the Great Trial is upon you, and none can halt what is to be: the Tribulation comes, and the dark hour of your Dissolution is at hand!”

“Dammit!” Feldman heard Hunter curse through his headset.

Feldman, who'd taken a seat atop an air vent out of Hunter's camera range, lowered his field glasses and glanced back over his shoulder at his partner.

Hunter was pointing out in the direction of the stage, irate. “There's some late-arriving ass setting up his video equipment right in my line of sight! Look!”

Sure enough, about four buildings up, directly in their visual path, a cameraman was belatedly, hurriedly piecing together a tripod and video camera. Feldman trained his field glasses on him.

“Hell!” he called up to Hunter. “He's one of ours! Look at his jacket!”

On the back of the interloper's coat was a bold WNN emblem.

“Can't you shoot over him?” Feldman suggested, hopefully.

“Barely. I can get a shot, but he's definitely in the foreground. I'm calling Bollinger to see if they can shut him down. Sullivan must've gotten additional clearance, but a hell of a lot of good it does us now.”

While Hunter attempted unsuccessfully to reach the field crew, Feldman retrained his binoculars on the fiery orator. She looked as if she were drawing to a close now. And the audience was getting increasingly edgy and uncomfortable with this awareness.

The unrest was greatly exacerbated by a steady ingathering of low-hanging, green-black storm clouds undulating tempestuously overhead. Feldman was surprised there'd been only limited lightning so far, but an outburst would appear imminent. This ugly, celestial display was more than ample evidence to all gathered that the fulfillment of the Apocalypse was at hand.

Jeza raised a palm to silence the crowd, and then sweeping her arm across the entire gathering in a giant benediction, she cried out in a loud voice, “It is finished!”

The Messiah stepped down and away from the podium and held there, her head bowed solemnly, her arms held straight at her sides, her fists clenched as if she were summoning her resolve. After a lengthy pause, she then raised her forlorn eyes and moved out from behind the shield, walking very slowly and deliberately in a direct line toward the front of the platform. As she cleared the shield, the wind, coming at her back, caught her hair and garments, billowing them out around her in a wild display.

As Jeza moved steadily toward the right front side of the stage, Hunter smoothly panned his camera after her. But her path carried her directly behind the newly arrived WNN cameraman, completely obscuring Hunter's view.

His shot ruined, Hunter swore under his breath and focused his camera tightly on the meddler in an attempt to identify him. Instantaneously, Hunter screamed into his microphone. “Holy shit! Feldman! He's got a gun!”

Feldman, his ears throbbing in pain, frowned up at the crazy, flailing figure of his partner silhouetted against the backdrop of angry sky. Hunter was waving frantically at him from atop the roof, jabbering incoherently into Feldman's ringing head. Finally, the sounds coalesced into recognizable words.

“Goddamn, Feldman, he's got a gun. The cameraman- look! ” Hunter pointed with both arms.

Feldman spun and squinted toward the suspect.

“Feldman!” Hunter was fumbling to divest himself of his equipment. “For God's sake, get him.!”

At last, the message was conveyed. Feldman was off and sprinting across the rooftop in a mad frenzy, hurdling air ventilators and leaping frantically from level to level. Any concerns about decayed roofing were forgotten.

He could still hear Hunter in his headphones, urging him onward, “Hurry Feldman! Hurry!”

In a matter of only seconds, Feldman had ascended what he thought was the last rooftop, and accelerated instantly to top speed. In his jarring, panicked sight, he spied the sniper looming before him. And suddenly realized, when it was too late, that the gunman was on an entirely different building, separated from Feldman by a yawning chasm of alleyway.

Suicidal though it appeared, Feldman had absolutely no hesitation. Reaching the end of his roof, with an irate surge of power, he launched himself, his hands clawing the air, his legs bicycling. He soared high over the abyss, landing forcefully on top of the gunman with terrific impact. Everything went sprawling and Feldman spun to a dazed stop. Both men briefly lay motionless. Then, dizzily, Feldman raised himself on one elbow, shaking his head, working desperately to clear his vision.