The Unholy Book Part 4

Part 2 chapter 7

There are questions in life that will never be answered and the reason is simple, man doesn’t want to learn. We want to live in our comfortable lives and not change them. Humans have the ability to change the entire universe or even something as simple as someone’s life. But do we do it. No. the poor still remain. The wars still rage. Discrimination still exists. If we do not change, the human species will be no more.

We walked through the city until we came upon where we needed to be. The capital building. Bits of it were burnt but the building still remained in tact. The rest was held together my scrap metal. Waving above the capital was a flag.
It flew green and yellow with a black star in the middle. Green on top, yellow on bottom, five pronged star glaring in between. The breeze moved the flag slowly but steady as though it was inviting us towards it.
My feet crunched the twigs under my shoes. The trees had lost almost all their leaves. The wind was blowing. It was fall.
“Hello” ivy called out
“Ivy, shh…” Marcus said before walking a few steps of head of us and then looking around the building tops. His eyes narrowed. A gunshot was heard, and then he fell. Blood was gushing out of the side of his head. The bullet went in one side and came out the other. Ivy screamed.
“Get inside” I shouted. We did. Another gunshot narrowly missing me. Ivy’s eyes were wide and stressed. Scoot was about forty feet ahead of us almost inside. Kota was running while wildly firing returning rounds back at them. His weird gun was working. Shots were fired back onto the roof where the bullets came from. Another gunshot this time from a building across the green. Kota dropped the gun as his hand exploded in a bloody mess. He looked down at his hand and was screaming so loud that it could have been heard miles around.
“Father of the cleaning!” he said out loud as his hand still intact was gripping the bleeding stump on the end of his wrist. He turned around and followed us into the building. I slammed into the door knocking it over. A cool breeze hit us and the door swung back into a misshaped mess. Blood was soaking through his fingers. Scoot ripped of part of his shirt and handed it to Koda.
“A little help” he said strained while rocking back and forth?
“Sorry” scoot said
“Don’t apologize, just help. Jesus Christ!” he said while looking at the mess of a hand. A marching came from one of the doors. It was swung open and before we knew it tear gas was everywhere. Ten men wearing gas masks walked in with m16’s in their hands pointing then towards our head. Their bodies were hidden by bulletproof vests and ghullie suits. One of the men stepped forwards.
“What should we do with them sir” one of the men behind him asked
“Question them; I want to find out what they know”
We were dragged into a black room before I passed out.

“Wake up…”
“Wake up!” I was then kicked hard in the ribs and that got me up. Everything was blurry but I could make out the shapes of my friends lying on the ground next to me. Koda's hand had stopped bleeding but the “bandage” was soaked in blood and the ground beneath is was a deep shade of red. Ivy was lying there on the ground acting innocent but awake. She was shaking, rocking back and forth, mumbling to herself like she did when we first met. She looked over at me and began to breathe harder and get away as though she was afraid of me.
The room was trashed. The walls were lined with blue paint that was slowly chipping off. The desk was knocked over on its side. Papers were everywhere on the floor. A small window in the corner was closed shut and next to it was a picture of a family standing together. A mom in a blue dress; a girl in a smaller blue dress; a father in a black suit. A family.
I tried to get up. My arm was sore and it collapsed under my weight the first time, but I tried a second time and managed to pull myself up until I was able to walk. All the blood rushed to my feet causing me to almost faint. I closed my eyes a couple of times and then kept them open.
“Follow me” the man said. He was dressed in all black, no doubt with a bullet proof vest underneath a gun in his pocket. I did…

“How could you miss them” a voice shouted through the radio
“I don’t know the short fat one walked in front of the target” said a man sitting on top of a roof.
“ and I missed because one of them spotted us and let hell loose at me, so I had to take him out first…” said another man on the same building
“…and by then they were in the building” said the voice over the radio
“Basically” said grass
“I need you to get them, he must be killed”. The radio turned off.
“Why does he need us to kill him so bad, squirrel” grass said.
“I don’t know, and don’t call me squirrel”
“Sorry Ricky” grass said before taking out a bag of chips.
They sat there on the roof tops with guns on their legs and chips going into their stomachs as the sun went down.

“I need to kill him. I can’t lose where I’m at, not just yet. He can’t just come in here and take the place of his grandfather. No matter how much his father and I were friends I can’t let him take it. I worked for it. I deserve it” the pope said into empty space. No one could have heard him. No one should have heard him. Only the wind.

“I presume that your tests are going well” Dr.Worth said to Kramer
“Very” he said
“Soon the cleansing will begin and you and I will be able to usher in a new area of peace”
“No hate, no guns, no war” he said hunched over the desk
“And it’s only weeks away…”

I was dragged through corridors and rooms until I came upon the hall way we came in. it was just as gloomy as I remembered. White walls deteriorating, the floor tiles cracked and the majority of things in the hallway were destroyed. As my feet grinding along the floor, I looked around only to find a tall man with glasses and a goatee staring down at me. His face showed that he was in no mood to goof around.

His sturdy posture was covered in a cameo shirt and pants. His brown hair barley stuck out from underneath his red sox cap. He walked up to me in his black boots and said
“Why are you here?”
It took me a few minutes before I could regain myself to answer.
“We came here looking for help before you beat us to the ground”
“What if you were church” he said
“Then I would have understood” I grumbled. “We are going to attack the church and we need your help”
“What do mean attack them?”
“I mean that were finishing this war” after I said this, he started to laugh
“This war is over, we lost” he said with a tired look in his eye. We stood there in the musty hall thinking for minutes
“Were going to steal the book”
“You are going to need to more than that” he responded “and we know what it is”
“What is it?”
“An orbital strike, used to finish the Iraq war. I oversaw the project years ago. It’s still up in space just waiting to be activated. It was equipped with two nukes incase of the first one failing.”
“How did you get away with something like that?”
“Simple, we blamed the explosion on a nuclear meltdown from one of the nearby plants.”
“How would we arm it” I said
“That’s the difficult part; you can only activate it from the station which it’s on”
“So you’re saying that we’d have to get on a space ship to get to it”
“Not a space ship, a space shuttle. The cleansings shuttle”
“How are we going to get to it?”
“The cleansing makes routine stops at the old N.A.S.A. buildings for supplies and then they head to the station which the nukes are hidden on, they don’t even know it but their headquarters is one of the greatest weapons ever made.”
“The church has anti-artillery guns which will tear it to nothing”
“And that’s where I can help” the man said again “well launch an attack on every one of the churches leaders and assassinate them, during this time the nuke will be launched, because the church will turn off all systems temporarily for respect of their leaders.”
“I will split my team up” I said to the man
“Half of us will go on the ship; the other half will assassinate the pope”

Part 3 chapter 1
A Blackhawk helicopter flew through the air above the city of Italy. Its blades rotating steadily keeping it above the crooked landscape below as the sun set on the jagged horizon. The orange glow blurred out the Red Cross of the church painted on the side. The windless afternoon proved to be perfect flying conditions for the helicopter.
I stood there in the back looking down at the body of my fallen “father”. His dead body allowed this ship to be taken directly to the pope. The rotting body inside of it was barley masked by the embalmment spray of the churches to keep bodies preserved. Sitting up in the back with me was ivy dressed in a black robe of the embalmer just like me. Everything on the robe was black except for the hood which had three small blood red crosses in my hands I held a silenced mp5.
“You alright back there Nathan?” the man with glasses from the D.O.L shouted through the roar of the blades.
“Perfectly fine Karl!”
“That’s good, ‘because you’re going to need it.” Karl said “we’re coming into the landing zone.”
The black body of the copter slowed down to a hover and began descending. The Vatican was no more. Built upon the ruins was a fortress of immense size. Its stone body was surrounded by concrete walls reaching eight stories tall. Inside of it were black buildings that reminded me of my child hood; in the center was a massive castle of concrete fitted with AA guns on the top.  The only way in is by air. Once we were in, there was no escape.

Meanwhile at Washington D.C…

Scoot slowly walked along the buildings trying not to make a noise. Following him was Kota who was looking around for the drop pods. The air around the place was filled with the smoky odor it gave off when it landed. The nation air and space museum was just up ahead. In front of them and behind them were two other assisting teams both in urban cameo.
They walked along the cracked concrete roads towards the museum. They were going to set up a sniper team along the 2nd floor of the building to cover Koda and scoot in case things went wrong.
They’re boots reached the doors of the building as the door was knocked open with the force of a hurricane. They rushed into the large glass building holding they’re weapons high in case of cleansing scouts. The place was littered in wreckage from aircrafts that had fallen down from the ceiling over time.
“Team alpha goes to the east wing” scoot commanded.
“Team beta goes to the west wing” Koda said. He looked over at scoot and nodded.
The two of them marched back out of the building and began to scan the horizon for the pod. The afternoon was covered in a low mist that covered the sky like a blanket. The trees were moving slowly back and forth in the wind.
The mist began to turn black over the mall. Blue flames could be seen coming out of the sky before its black body emerged with a monolithic thud into the ground. This wasn’t the normal type of pod. On one side a metal door shown only by the blue eye painted onto it opened into the mist.
Out stepped three figures covered in black suits. On each of the three men’s backs were black square shields and in their hands they carried a small pistol like weapon.
Behind them came two people also in black suits. Both of these men were carrying one end of a stretcher and on that stretcher laid a man dressed completely in chain mail; the only visible feature of him was his red beard.
The group of men left the pod unguarded and began to walk away.
“Was that Dr.Worth?” scoot said as he squinted his over at the stretcher.
“It doesn’t matter” Koda whispered before quietly jogging up towards the pod.

At the Vatican…

Below them stretched the Vatican fort. Its mass of bricks lay together like puzzle barley holding itself together, but it stood before me. Beneath the tower in the center stood thousands if not more “church” soldiers all waiting the arrival of the dead leader. It was not only a ceremony for the father but also for all those lost to the Plains of Abraham.
Our chopper slowly descended like a falling leaf towards the massive tower. On its top lay a helicopter landing pad that was eagerly awaiting my arrival. Karl continued to take us down even slower as we reached the landing zone. Its black body came to rest upon the stones as though it was a child going to rest for the night.
“Today marks the begging of a new war for us…” a voice said through the microphone
“A war to eliminate the last remnants of the past, for the church to rebuild the world and eliminate the survivor’s threats. Their armies grow with each cannibal. They show no signs of wanting peace or surrendering to us…”
The choppers doors were pulled open by two of the churches priests. Their faces were covered in the darkness of their hoods. Ivy and me stood up and reached down for the sides of the coffins. Its hard black body barley lifted of the ground as if it knew who we were. Together we lifted the coffin over to the edge of the choppers floor and handed it of to the priest outside. They picked it up with ease and carried it at their waists over to the door at the side. We hopped out of the copter and followed them to the black door ahead. Painted without flaw on its black exterior was a red cross.
We marched behind the two in silence holding each others hand down at our waists. She flashed a quick smile over at me before returning her attention to the ground. The first one lifted one hand up and pulled open the door. It swung open easily and bumped up against the wall.  The two priests began down the stairs as the coffin swung between them. Its black body hung beneath their waists in sorrow of the ones who were lost.
The two figures walked down the stairs into the darkness of the church. The last thing that appeared into the darkness was the small Red Cross on the end of the coffin. I took another glance at ivy; her beautiful hair was flowing out of the hood. We held each others hands tight and entered the darkness.

At Washington D.C…

Scoot ran into the pods open door through the still settling smoke. The men carrying the red-headed body went around a corner and out of site. Koda's boots rumbled up the metal walkway into the pod.
“Scoot, what would you do for peace?” Koda said as they walked into the white room of the pod.
“What do you mean?”
“For peace, world peace?”
“I don’t know” scoot pondered
“I know what I’d do”
“What?” scoot said?
“Id give up my friends...” he said as he stared at scoot
“Id give up everything I knew…” Koda said as he slowly pulled out a pistol
“I'd give up your life.”
He turned the safety off…
“Koda, don’t do this…
“…we can get the bomb and Finnish this war” scoot stammered
“There is no bomb” Koda growled “and the new order shall be victorious”
A shot was heard and hope was vanished.

At the Vatican…

Light was becoming visible at the end of the hall way. Four people dressed in black robes emerged from the darkness. Two of them holding a coffin, and two of them were standing together hands at their side. They were in a stone room over looking the valley below. In the room sat a throne covered in red fabric.
The room was soon filled with chanting from below. I looked over the railing and saw the thousands of church-citizens staring up at the room. I looked behind me and saw the coffin was being held up for the swarm to see. The cheering grew as an old man with thinning hair entered the room.
He walked up to the edge of the balcony and waited for the audience began to silence.
“People of god, our brothers and sisters have been put to rest by the survivors of the revolution, our blood has been slain by the past once again, and yet they were victorious until other survivors eliminated both new and old. We must push forward on a new campaign to eliminate the remains of the revolution…” The pope said
Ivy began to cry. I lifted her chin up and looked her in the eyes
“Why are you crying?” I whispered
“What are we doing Nathan?”
“We’re finishing the war” I said clearly
“But we don’t have to”
“It has to be done ivy”
I kept my gaze on her and smiled
“It’s okay” I said while holing her hand and looking ahead at the pope.
“Nathan...”
“Yes?”
“We could just runaway and live happily”
“I know, but then no one else would be”
I reached my arms around her and whispered something into her ear.
She looked up at me with a single tear hanging from her right eye and said…
“I love you too”

Meanwhile at Washington D.C…

The snipers walked out of the building and over to where four men stood around a pit in the ground. A light rain began to fall out of the mist onto the shallow grave. A short man wearing glasses began to speak.
“Dr. Worth where do I begin to tell how much I hate you”
“you are the one responsible for causing all of the cleansings faults, you forced us to wear chain mail due to your stupid childhood fantasies, you caused the church to know of our existence, you wasted ten years trying to take the book from the church when we already had the capability to destroy them, you weak pathetic fool”
Those were the last words before the mud was thrown onto his rotting skin. Koda walked away from the mound and beckoned for one of his snipers to come over. He came hesitantly.
“Call up Karl and tell him to get back here, our victory is close”

Meanwhile at the Vatican…

“…our new crusade shall be great, and we shall not stop until they are all joined under the banner of god, for this is what he commands of us.” He finished his speech and was soon followed by a roar of applause as he backed away from the ledge and over to the door he came out of. The guards followed him down into the chamber. I turned to look over at ivy.
“Ivy we could fall into hell together and you’d still be an angel. So I’ll see you there…”

Part 3 chapter 2

I ran down the hall way leaving her, and knowing what I had to do. The body guards followed the pope tightly as I tiptoed down the hall following them. The two guards turned off to another hallway leaving him alone. He turned off into another corridor. He barley made it down the hallway in his old age.
I approached his limping body and helped him up. He looked up at me in a puzzled but grateful look.
“Who are you?” he said,
“The angel of death” I said calmly
“What?” he said in fright. I slowly pulled back my hood revealing my face.
“My name is Nathan light, and I have to end this war”
“You’re wrong…” was all he mumbled before fainting.

Meanwhile with Ivy…

“Ivy get on board, were leaving” Karl said through the choppers blades.
“Nathan’s not here yet” ivy yelled back.
“I said get on board” he said as he raised a pistol up to ivy’s face. She slowly walked onto the copper in shock.
“Why are you doing this?” she said
“Power, dr. nil promised it in the new area”
“What?” ivy mumbled as she slowly stepped onto the chopper
“Dr. Nil said that if we helped him with his plans we would be allowed to live through the cleansing”
"Koda wouldn’t have done that”
“Oh he did, scoot is dead, and Dr.Worth is dead. The archaeologist is dead, its all over, and now Nathan will be dead…”
The chopper took off, slowly rising into the distance with ivy upon it.

Back with Nathan…

I looked down at the man, and then down at my pistol. I couldn’t kill him. Reaching down, I picked him up in my arms like a baby, and carried him out into the main hallway in panic.
“Help…” I shouted while wandering through the halls.
“The pope is hurt”
“Someone!”
“Help!”
Luckily one of the guards rushed into the hallway and picked him out of my arms and ran down the hallway while motioning for me to follow. I did…

A day later…

The next day he came back. I stood over his body waiting for the man I had to kill to wake up. He did.
“Where am I” he said before he saw me
“Not heaven or hell if your wondering…”
“Nathan...” he mumbled
“Your not supposed to be here”
“What do you mean? How do you know me,” I said?
“How could I not know my godson, you see Nathan, your father was the original pope, I had him assassinated by the snipers that killed your friend. It was wrong, and I don’t think anything I could every say or do could make up that to you. I’m sorry.”
I stared at him for a moment as a tear fell down my cheek
“Why?”
“Power, I was jealous of your father and so I took it from him, I was the heir of the throne if you were not of your age and as it happened you weren’t, please forgive me”
The tear slid down my cheek until it came at my chin and without hesitation fell to the hard surface below.
I pulled my gun out of the cloak and aimed it at his head.
“Your forgiven…”
The trigger was pulled and the world thrown into chaos.

Four days later…

As I sit here now in the Vatican’s jail I have a lot to think about, as the bombs rage up above, not reaching my sanctuary beneath. I met the son of an old enemy guarding my cell. Dr.Worth’s son was nice, at peace with himself. He took pity on me for dealing with his father and found a guitar and some writing materials and snuck them into my cell. I tried my hand at songwriting and gave that up after the first three days of bombing. So I decided to write a book. It took me awhile to think of what it would be about but I decided fantasy so I could escape the world of mayhem that we were in. and so I wrote down the first line and I was content with it, just to make sure I truly liked it, I held it up to the candle and read it out loud

“Here lies the last hope of mankind. We wasted our lives and others, for a false cause, we ran through life looking, and we never found. I tell you now creatures of the earth the meaning of life. It is to go out and enjoy it, the meaning of life, is to live long and hardy, and make it the best. For if you are reading this, I ask you one simple request, I want you to love life, to not waste it to a cycle, nor to a false god, not even to waste it for others. For this is where the kin of man stood and died. And for this is where man shall live again”

When I was done reading, I looked off into the black and remembered my life’s story, and it was good.

“I love you too ivy…”