John Lyman - The Secret Chapel

Without waiting, Alon picked it up and threw it back up over the edge. The others now backed away as he once again pulled on the rope.

“It’s holding!” Alon tightened the straps on his gloves and began climbing hand over hand until he reached the top and heaved himself over the edge. Looking down at the others, he wrapped the rope behind his back and yelled for Ariella to grab on. The flames were now shooting wildly from the entrance of the tunnel. The heat was becoming unbearable as the confines of the pit transformed it into an oven.

Alon pulled with all of his strength while Ariella inched upward using both hands and feet until she reached the top. Grabbing her by the hand, Alon flung her over the edge onto the sand. On the cavern floor below, the others began shouting out in pain. They were roasting alive.

A new noise filled their ears as a bright light flooded the area from above. They all looked up, shielding their eyes from the dust, smoke, heat, and light. Over the rumble of the ground beneath them, they could make out the sound of something familiar. It was a helicopter.

Alon watched with exhausted relief as a webbed canvas rescue net came flinging out of the door of the Blackhawk and landed in the cavern below. The wash from the rotor blades beat the smoke back and stirred up the sand as the three men shielded themselves from the flames and felt for the webbed net. Ariella and Alon could hear the shouts from below and feel the heat radiating from the cavern as they groped for their goggles in the swirling sand and peered over the edge into the inferno.

In the fiery glow, they could plainly see the rescue net with the three men clinging to its webbing. It floated upward behind the helicopter that was now powering away from the flames engulfing the entire cavern. Ariella fell to her knees and began to weep, deep sobs coursing through her body. Alon picked her up and carried her away from the edge of the glowing pit into the cool desert air.

The Blackhawk flew low, swinging in an arc over the moonlit desert to where Alon and Ariella had taken refuge on a small hilltop several hundred yards away from the flaming cavern. The helicopter’s searchlight illuminated the area as Nava lowered the rescue net holding the three men to the ground before tilting away and circling back for a bouncy landing at the base of the hill.

Leo, Lev, and John lay in the sand as the hazy white light from the full moon, combined with the yellow light of the fire in the distance, created a surreal pattern of flickering color around them. They were a little red from the heat, but no burns were visible as Alon and Ariella rushed to their sides and began pouring what little water they had over their bodies in an effort to cool them as much as possible.

They raised themselves up on their elbows and gulped in the cool air of the desert night with the knowledge that the sudden arrival of the helicopter had saved them from being burned alive in the radiant heat inside the cavern.

Ariella laid her water bag down and held her father close, feeling his pounding heart through his shirt. He patted her on the head and stroked her hair. “I’m alright, little one. That water felt good. Thank you, dear.”

“That was quite a ride,” John said. He rose to his feet and shook the water from his hair. “Thank God for the chopper. Another thirty seconds down there and we wouldn’t be standing here now.”

Alon looked down at his wrist and saw that his watch had been ripped off by the insects. “What time is it?”

“It’s after midnight,” John answered. They turned to see Moshe, Daniel, and the paramedic walking up the incline to the top of the hill. The medic began checking everyone for injuries they might not have noticed in their adrenalin-fueled escape from the cavern. He had once been a combat medic in the same army medical unit with Ariella, and they had both seen fellow soldiers fail to detect severe wounds in the heat of battle.

Leo led the group in a short prayer before they scanned their surroundings. The moon was so bright they had no trouble discerning their deserted camp in the distance. The immediate threat had passed, but they all sensed the presence of the entities somewhere out there around them.

Moshe reached down and grabbed Lev by the arm, lifting him to his feet. The two old friends looked at one another as they had many times in the past after a battle. They had been together during the six-day war in 1967, rushing headlong into the old part of Jerusalem when the Israeli army captured that part of the city and took control away from the Arabs. It had remained under their control ever since.

Lev looked down at his watch and eyed his old friend. “If my watch is right, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. You should have been out of the area at midnight.”

“We got lost,” Moshe winked. “We thought we were headed for Jerusalem.”

John reached in his backpack and held the book up for all to see. “I think we need to get this thing out of here as soon as possible.”

“Is that what we came for?” Moshe asked.

“Yes,” Leo said, taking the book from John. He paused for a moment, knowing the effect his next words would have on those who had yet to learn the nature of the object. “It’s the Devil’s Bible.”

Moshe and Daniel stood motionless, unable to speak. The words were incomprehensible to them. Daniel thought he had misunderstood. “The Devil’s Bible?”

Leo looked down at the book. “Yes. We’re taking it back to the villa … John’s right …we need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

Moshe and Daniel remained frozen in shock while Leo shoved the book into the backpack and handed it back to John.

“Let’s go,” Lev said. “Grab your gear, and let’s head down to the helicopter.”

Nava and Gabriella had stayed with the chopper. They were coordinating with other forces in the area by radio when they saw the group descending the hill toward the aircraft. Gabriella began sniffling from her copilot’s seat.

“What’s wrong with you?” Nava asked.

“I didn’t think we would ever see them again.”

Nava looked back out her window and saw the pale, drawn looks of the faces of those who had just escaped from the cavern. “Oh, my God. They’re in shock.”

Without waiting, she began firing up the engines.

Ariella climbed onboard and began strapping herself into her seat. “I’m freezing.”

“Me too,” John said. “Just like the first time when we encountered the demon.”

The members from the support team began to cover the five shaken survivors with warm blankets and shoved cups of hot coffee into their hands. With everyone inside, the engines throttled up to a crescendo and soon the aircraft was flying over the bright desert floor under the moonlit sky.

The helicopter was barely in the air when a dazzling light signaled a massive explosion that rippled across the ground below them. The desert above Satan’s underground cathedral erupted in tall, shooting flame.

The flames they saw were not the same flickering yellow ones they had seen pouring from the tunnel. Instead, a straight tower of blue and white fire was seen rising out of the ground. It resembled a twenty-story blow torch reaching toward the sky.

Nava flipped off her night-vision goggles and circled the dancing cylinder of fire. “Look at that. How is that possible?”

“What’s fueling it?” Gabriella shot back.

Leo pushed his way into the cockpit between the two pilots and stared through the front windows at the ground around the fire. A thick black liquid was now spreading out over the floor of the desert from the base of the tower of flame.

He turned around and shouted to the others. “Oil. That black liquid we saw down in the cavern was oil.”