Robert Browne - The Paradise Prophecy

Gabriela slammed headfirst into the mirror, splintering the glass. A shard pierced her forehead and blood poured from the wound, mixing with the gasoline as it rolled down her face and into her mouth.

She hobbled forward, gagging and spitting. “. . . Please . . . ,” she begged, weeping now, adding tears to the mix.

But Sofie grabbed her a third time and flung her toward the toilet. Gabriela stumbled into it, landing in a heap on the floor, still coughing, barely able to breathe. She rolled onto her back, and her gaze once again went to the pipe and lighter, which lay only inches from her now, miraculously dry, untouched by the gasoline.

Tell me you love me, my angel.

And despite herself, she felt that familiar urge well up inside her again, stronger than ever.

“Give us a name,” Sofie said. “That’s all we ask. One simple name and you’ll be free.”

Gabriela tried to resist. Tried with all her might. Sent a desperate prayer up to God, but got only silence in return.

“Please,” she sobbed, “please . . . help me . . .”

But no one heard. No one was listening.

Maybe the voice had been right. God didn’t love her. And maybe He had been wrong to trust her. To think she was any different now than she was back then, all those nights so long ago.

What Sofie had said was true. The dust had made them happy. So very happy.

And what would be the harm in one small hit?

The moment Gabriela thought this, the gasoline stopped flowing, leaving behind soaked walls, puddles on the floor, and a room full of fumes.

Gabriela’s gut was churning. The dust still calling out to her.

Tell me you love me, my darling .

Giving in, she reached out, grabbed for the pipe. But just as her fingers were about to close around it, Sofie’s rotting bare foot pressed against her hand, stopping her.

“A name,” she said. “That’s all we require.”

Defeated, drained, no longer feeling as if she had a will of her own, Gabriela sputtered and coughed again, then finally relented, giving them what they wanted, letting the name flutter through her mind like a passing bird. And the moment it did, Sofie was gone, leaving Gabriela alone with the pipe, the lighter, and her discarded phone.

Pulling herself up on her elbows, still crying, still coughing, but ever cognizant of the need burning inside her, Gabriela picked up the pipe and lighter with wet, trembling hands.

She thought of Alejandro, how devastated he’d be. She thought about how weak she truly was, and how easily she’d given in to them. Her only saving grace was that she hadn’t given them everything. Hadn’t revealed the secret she was sworn to protect.

That was something, wasn’t it?

But she knew that she could no longer be trusted with that secret. That the dust had too strong of a hold on her. And with this knowledge, she leaned forward slightly, whispering softly into her cell phone, hoping someone out there would hear her and understand.

It was time to let the Father take her now. If she couldn’t be useful to Him in this world, maybe she’d do better in His.

Anticipating sweet relief, she put the pipe to her lips, tightened her grip on the lighter and sent up one last prayer for forgiveness as she rolled her thumb against the flint wheel.

The explosion barely registered as Gabriela inhaled deeply, taking into herself that thing which had been missing from her life all these years.

It felt transcendent.

A split second later, however, when she realized that the smoke she was inhaling was no longer the narcotic she craved but the stinking, sweet essence of her own burning flesh, her final conscious thought arrived along with a searing, unbelievable pain.

That was when Gabriela Zuada started screaming.

HARRISON, LOUISIANA

Every story has a hero,” he said. “Someone we invest ourselves in. But not all of those heroes are necessarily pretty. Or perfect. And I think any discussion of Milton’s masterpiece has to consider this.”

Sebastian LaLaurie squinted out at a lecture hall full of Louisiana’s so-called best and brightest, almost daring one of them to contradict him.

Nobody did.

“Look at the stories we’ve talked about these past few weeks: Moses, Miriam, David, Gideon, Elijah, Noah, Ruth . . . The Old Testament is chock-full of heroic men and women.”

A murmur of voices. Nods of agreement.

“Throw in part two of our biblical canon and you’ve got the greatest hero of them all. A simple carpenter’s son who sacrificed his life to save every last one of us.”

A chorus of amens filled the room, but Batty held up a hand, cutting them off. The last thing he wanted was to turn this lecture into some kind of revival meeting. He was here to educate, not run a cheerleading session.

He stumbled slightly and grabbed hold of the lectern to steady himself, getting a tentative ripple of laughter for his trouble.

He ignored it and pushed on. “But what if we adjust the lens a little, just like Milton did, and look at things from a slightly different angle? What if the true hero of Paradise is someone else entirely? Someone we traditionally think of as the villain.”

Another ripple, but it wasn’t laughter this time, and there wasn’t an amen within earshot. Instead, Batty saw enough startled frowns to know he’d hit a nerve. This wasn’t surprising, considering that Trinity Baptist College had been built on strict, orthodox beliefs, and few of the students here were brave enough to take the contrarian point of view.

But Batty had always liked to shake things up a bit. These kids had no earthly idea what was going on out there.

He, on the other hand, did-which was why he was currently about two drinks shy of a mid-afternoon bender.

“Milton based much of his epic poem on the book of Genesis,” he continued. “And in that book, God creates a perfect paradise, populates it with a nice young couple and puts them to work in His garden. They spend their days slaving away, doing whatever God commands-only there’s this Tree of Knowledge nearby, bearing some nice juicy fruit, and it looks pretty damn tempting.”

The fact that Batty could drink so much and still teach Religious Literature and Rhetoric without slurring his speech or falling flat on his face was something of a miracle. But he tried not to give it too much thought. If he did, he’d probably decide he wasn’t quite drunk enough .

Images from his nightmare still lingered-

– a screaming young girl consumed by a wall of fire.

He had awakened to those screams in the middle of the night last night, disoriented and concerned, wondering if what he’d seen was real, and suddenly reminded of his own private horror.

A horror he preferred not to relive.

He said to the class, “But temptation or no temptation, God tells this nice young couple, ‘No, no, no, you keep your hands off that tree. That knowledge stuff, that’s a bad thing. You just listen to me, let me do the thinking, and I’ll take good care of you.’ ”

Batty tried a smile, but figured it probably came off more like a grimace.

“Then along comes our new hero in the form of a serpent. He sees what’s what and doesn’t like it one bit. So he tells Eve, ‘You know what? You go on, take a bite of that fruit if you want to. You deserve to live a little.’ ”

“Is this supposed to be funny?”