The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension

  The Second Coming Chronicles

  Terry James

  The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension

  The Second Coming Chronicles

  Terry James

  CKN Christian Publishing

  An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  Copyright © 2018 by Terry James (as revised)

  Characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  A Look At: The Second Coming Chronicles—Book 2

  Your FREE eBook

  About Terry James

  Prologue

  February 1947- Qumran, near the Dead Sea

  Mustafa Kihbolah sensed someone or something watching him, an eerie chill running down his spine. He glanced around and satisfied himself that he was alone. The Arab 12-year-old squinted through the mid-morning brightness, thinking the dark split that gaped in the rocky surface above was a mirage playing a trick on his vision. He bent to pick up a stone from the ground. Shading his eyes with his left hand, he threw the rock upward toward the gap in the jagged boulder, but it slammed against the surface just above the opening.

  The Bedouin boy grabbed another stone from the hard-packed, sandy ground and flung it with all his might. This time his aim was good, and the cave’s black mouth swallowed the rock.He threw another, his aim again good. His effort was rewarded with sounds he hadn’t anticipated, like something breaking. Like the times he and the other boys threw big stones into the pit just outside their town where all the old and broken bowls and other vessels made of clay were thrown away.

  Mustafa cocked his head, and again shaded his eyes with his sun-browned fingers together in a salute, trying to see into the dark void of the cave. Looking at the opening from that distance provided no answers.

  He struggled up the sand and rock-strewn embankment. He dropped to his knees just in front of the hole, feeling the sand eat into the callused skin covering his kneecaps. The boy dug his fingertips into the earth, scooping as much as he could manage away from the cave’s mouth. A few minutes of hard digging exposed enough of the opening that he could crawl forward into its now somewhat sunlit interior.

  Discolored jars made of clay lined the wall at the back of the small cave. He counted seven of them. One was broken. The one his stone had struck. His eyes widened, and a smile replaced the frown of puzzlement that had been there a moment before.

  He had never seen vessels like these. They were very old. Probably left by someone who had long ago moved by caravan through the area of Khirbet Qumran.

  Mustafa brushed aside the shards to see what lay within the broken jar. An old, brittle piece of parchment rolled up, with faint writing of some sort. Part of the material crumbled when he tried to stretch it, and he thought better of further examination, not wanting to do any more damage.

  He tried to pull the tops from the other jars but succeeded only in cracking two of the vessels. These might bring something of value in trade in the marketplace. Better not to touch the jars again, he thought. This was a job for one of the heads of the tribe.

  He scrambled on hands and knees from the cave, jumped to his sandaled feet and half-hopped, half-tumbled down the steep incline, landing on his back at the bottom of the embankment. Before he moved again, he caught a glimpse of something bright in the azure winter sky. He lingered for a moment, resting on his elbows with his legs sprawled, searching the sky above the jutting cliff and the small cave from which he had just come.

  Far above, an object glinted while it hovered.

  The boy blinked several times to clear his eyes, so he could better take in the strange sight. His pupils dilated and grew almost as large as the dark brown circle surrounding them. He stared, unblinking, transfixed. He muttered words in a language he didn’t speak--in a deep, guttural voice that was not his own.

  The thin, shimmering disk remained hanging in place for a moment, and then was gone.

  Taos, New Mexico -the same hour

  His mom would be mad. The thought caused the seven-year old boy to pump harder on the pedals of his bicycle.

  A bag with the wing of a balsa model glider plane sticking out of it dangled by its straps on the handlebars while the bike swayed left, then right with each furious pump on the pedals.

  He never had been out this late after dark, and he knew he was in for it.

  “Hey, Mark!” the other boy, pumping his pedals just as hard shouted from fifty feet behind. “Wait up!”

  The two boys slowed a bit once they had joined again, both puffing hard from having just worked their way up the grade of blacktopped road toward their homes a half-mile away.

  The boy in the lead stopped and slid his right leg down the bicycle until he stood on his right foot, holding the handlebars. He looked to the black sky.

  “What’s the matter?” Billy Masterson asked, stopping beside his friend, then looking up to see what Mark Lansing was seeing.

  “What’s that?” Billy asked, his eyes widening when he saw the shining object that hovered far above in the night sky. “That’s no star!” he said. “Let’s get outta here!”

  Billy worked his pedals as never before, leaving the other boy frozen in position, holding his bike’s handlebars while standing on his right foot with his left knee crooked over the bicycle. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated, covering almost entirely the bright blue irises. His face brightened when a light stream emerged from the glowing object.

  The boy’s mouth moved while he stared without blinking. His voice was not that of a 7-year old child. The strange voice growled from somewhere deep within him, words from another place, another time.

  Boothbay, Maine - the same hour

  Chopping and delivering firewood was not the teenager’s favorite thing. Outdoor activity of any sort did nothing to stimulate his spirit of adventure, like his father wished for his son. He liked books, and writing, and talking about things of loftier pursuit.

  It was about to snow. Everyone could sense it in the small community of loggers and fishermen. Something in the cold air singed the nostrils in that special way. You just knew it was going to snow.

  Christopher Banyon grabbed the thick severed tree section and set it on the end that didn’t slant, so it would stand upright. He stroked hard with the axe, and the length of wood split into two parts.

  Yes. There they were, just like everyone had been saying. The first large flakes of snow. It promised to be a big one, the seasoned loggers and fishermen of Boothbay predicted.

  The kerosene lamp lit the wood well enough. But he wished he had finish
ed the firewood splitting chore while it was still daylight, like his father had ordered that morning before heading out for the sawmill. Now, here he stood, at 9:30 at night, swinging an axe and stacking wood, wishing he were somewhere warm.

  He would move somewhere warm when he grew old enough, he promised himself for the thousandth time. Even the heavy mackinaw failed to keep the chill from invading his young bones. He would move to Texas, when he got the chance. He heard good things about Texas…Texas was flat, and you could see forever. There were not so many trees to chop, and split, and carry. Texas was, if nothing else, warmer than Boothbay, Maine in February.

  A sound seemed to whisk by his ear, carried by the wind that began whipping. Had his dad called from their log home 50 yards in the distant blackness?

  Another noise – a series of sounds, very much like someone talking to him. Not yelling but talking. Soft, gentle, whispered words.

  He leaned on the axe handle and searched the surrounding darkness just beyond the lantern light’s glow. He heard it again. The voice spoke louder –with more clarity.

  “Christopher,” the voice said.

  “Who is it?” the teenager asked, trying to determine from which direction the voice came.

  “Feed my sheep,” the voice said above the wind’s whine. “You must feed my sheep,” the voice said again.

  Chapter 1

  July 3, 1947 (11:28 MST, somewhere over New Mexico)

  James Morgan pulled the stick slightly toward him. The yellow Piper J-3 responded with its usual momentary hesitation. It wasn’t at all like the P-51BS he had flown over Europe. He could almost feel it now, a phantom sensation four years after the fact.

  The P-51BS’s British Rolls-Royce Merlin engine would have thrust his body backward into the cramped seat, the g-force pushing his butt hard into the uncomfortable fanny-pack parachute he wore. The Piper was gentle and strained to follow its command when its elevators flipped upward. He missed his P-51.

  He missed the blood gushing hard through the carotids in his neck. He missed the powerful dynamics acting against his whole body while he made the turns and twists, the inverted dives in the effort to position the shuddering fighter behind the Messerschmitts he engaged in air combat.

  “What’s that?!”

  Clark Lansing’s words from the seat behind his own snapped the pilot from his remembrances.

  “That a balloon?” Lansing questioned again, straining to see the shimmering object at 2 o’clock.

  Morgan leveled the Piper’s nose with the horizon and tilted the right wing downward so they both could get a better look.

  “That’s no balloon,” James Morgan said, like his passenger sitting behind him, trying to get a better view of the gleaming object. “It’s going as fast as we are. We’re not all that fast, but we’re a lot faster than any balloon I’ve ever heard of.”

  Neither man spoke, but each watched the thin, cylindrical object that seemed to be cruising at the same speed and in the same direction a mile or so from them.

  The object grew, filling the right window’s vista. It had tilted and swooped to within a hundred yards of the Piper.

  The disk-shaped object glistened so brightly it hurt the eyes, despite their military issue sunglasses. The metallic-looking craft swept above the small plane, and Morgan twisted the stick to the right and pushed forward, trying to avoid collision.

  11:30 MST, White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico

  “Look at this, Ernie!”

  The radar operator called for the man copying statistics onto a clipboard.

  “What do we have here?” the operator said, seeing the reflection of an airborne object at the top right of his radar screen. He swore beneath his breath, then said louder, “It’s one of those unidentifieds again, Ern. It just turned at a right angle that’s impossible for any aircraft.”

  The thin, older man leaned over the radar operator’s right shoulder to see for himself.

  “Yep!” Ernest Dowling said, watching the blip reflecting something inexplicable. “It’s just like the one I saw back in ‘42. But, then the image wasn’t so good.”

  Neither man said anything for a few seconds, watching the blip with fascination while it continued to move at impossible speeds and angles.

  “That’s the third in a week,” the standing man said. “I better call it in.”

  Dowling started to engage the microphone switch when Alan Budwing called to him again, his stare fixed upon the screen. Dowling moved to behind Budwing’s right shoulder again.

  “Another one. Would you look at that!”

  James Morgan and Clark Lansing had a much closer view of the objects, which moved away from them so that the disks became pinpoints of light, then, in the next instant, loomed larger than ever just outside the plane’s window.

  One of the disks tilted and rocked in cradle fashion, while the other moved above the Piper. It slid over the top of the plane, then eased into place just outside the left window and hung there. It rocked like the other disk had done, grew to become a hundred times brighter, then shot up and out of sight.

  “What are these things…?” Morgan said, still dazzled by their brightness, turning his body and head as far as he could to glance at Lansing.

  His passenger was gone! Both Clark Lansing and the disks were gone!

  “No. We don’t know what to make of it, sir,” Dowling said into the microphone to the colonel on the other end of the transmission.

  “Look here, Ernie! Looks like they might’ve collided!” Alan’s frantic words drew Dowling’s eyes to the screen.

  “Sir. Those things, whatever they are, seem to have come together, then dropped off radar,” Dowling said in a calm, professional voice.

  The little yellow piper’s engine strained to reach the dirt runway near Socorro. The rear seat was empty, the harness still fastened. The disks. Clark Lansing …vanished.

  When he landed, James Morgan was desperate to tell someone about what had happened. He had tried to radio, but got nothing but static, as if the Piper’s radio was broken.

  He called the local marshal’s office. The deputy taking his call chuckled when he told the officer about the disks, about his friend Clark Lansing vanishing from the passenger seat.

  The deputy seemed to become a bit more serious when James told him that he and his passenger were former pilots and had flown combat missions out of the same squadron early on over Europe, before Clark, a physicist, had been recalled to the States to work on a secret project at White Sands.

  The officer began talking in quiet, soothing tones, as if he suspected he had a mental case on the line. Maybe this guy had some kind of shellshock. Maybe he went nuts and pushed his passenger out of the plane or something.

  “You come in to the office, Mr. Morgan. We’ll go over this. Have a nice cup of coffee and a donut, and just get all the facts, okay?” the officer said.

  The deputy marshal was cordial enough while James sat explaining the disks, their experience, his friend’s sudden disappearance. But the instinctive law enforcement adversarial posturing was there, just beneath the surface of civility. James Morgan was the lawman’s suspect, not his guest.

  “You and ... what’s the young man’s name--Mr. Lansing--have any problems? You know, you guys get along okay?”

  James responded before he realized the implications of the deputy marshal’s question. “No, we didn’t have any problems. Like I said, we’ve been close since the war.”

  Realizing the officer’s intent, James’ face reddened. “What? Are you trying to say I unbuckled my harness, climbed over the seat, unbuckled his harness, managed to fight him, then throw him out? All of that, and then buckle his harness again, climb back into the seat, and land the airplane?” he said, his voice rising in anger.

  The big deputy said nothing but sipped from the cup of black coffee.

  “We were in the same squadron. We’ve been close friends in these years since…” James pushed away from the table and stood. “I’v
e told you everything. I’ll be at my house,” he said, turning to walk toward the door. “You’ve got the address.”

  “Oh, we’ll find you when we want you, son. Don’t worry about that,” the man said without changing expression.

  The door burst open just as James reached for the knob. Another deputy hurried in, glanced at the young man about to leave the room, then at the bulky officer still sitting at the small desk.

  “Jock. Man, you just won’t believe what happened!” the thin, balding deputy exclaimed.

  “What’s wrong now, Timmy?” James’ interrogator said, looking over the top of the coffee mug while he sipped.

  “Something’s crashed out by the old McKay place.”

  “What kind of plane?”

  “It was no plane, according to the guys who’ve seen it. It’s some kinda flying disk, shaped like a saucer!”

  James Morgan listened, then slipped out of the room.

  May 15, 1948 - an airfield in Israel

  The acrid smoke of exploding ordnance burned in his throat and lungs. He coughed, fumbling with his harness, then cranked the P-51’s canopy forward and locked it into place. That did little to help him breathe better while he pushed the button that started the propeller spinning, its powerful engine creating with each piston stroke puffs of white smoke that added to the stifling air in the cockpit, despite its now closed and locked position.