~ Harbingers of the Apocalypse ~

by

Jason Leary

John sat at a table near the back of the clean room in stunned disbelief. His digesting food churned in his stomach.

The end of the world, John thought. It can’t be.

At first he was sure Zewail must have been exaggerating to emphasize the importance of this operation, but when he pressed him on it, Zewail verified that he was talking about the literal end of the world. Despite his best efforts, John’s mind just couldn’t accept it; the whole idea was preposterous.

It’s the thing of fairy tales, like something you’d see at the movies. It’s the kind of thing those cheap dime store horror novels make a killing off of. It’s not the kind of thing the government of the United States of America spends millions of dollars on trying to investigate and prevent. It’s just not.

Zewail saw the look of resignation in John’s eyes and sat next to him. As he spoke he used soft, even tones, trying to put the American as much at ease as was possible given the subject matter. “I know it’s a shocking bit of information. I felt the same as you when I realized the truth. You now know something that just thirty or forty people in the world know, but I want you to understand. You were assigned here to try and stop the apocalypse. The United States still thinks there’s hope.” Zewail took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee before continuing, “As do I.”

“What happened? What did you find?” Zewail heard the manufactured steadiness in John’s voice. He had a lot of respect for the man. He knew John had seen many things in his life. He had enjoyed a distinguished career, and now he was being entrusted with what was, without a doubt, the most important mission in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Also it helped that so far he had taken the news much better than anyone had before.

Zewail chose his words with great care, trying not to add to the overwhelming burden already on John’s shoulders. “A little over three months ago, we made a discovery within this very cave. It wasn’t much, just twenty or so Egyptian burial jars each filled with rolled up pieces of delicate parchment containing ancient writing. Each of the jars was decorated exquisitely. Each a beautiful piece in its own right, but that’s not what caught our attention. What caught our attention was the writing. It was a language that had died out long ago.”

“Ancient Egyptian, right? Hieroglyphics?” John hazarded a guess.

Zewail shook his head slowly from side to side. “No. Ancient Hebrew.”

“Hebrew?” John asked. Zewail could tell he was very confused. “I didn’t think the ancient Egyptians spoke Hebrew.”

“They didn’t,” Zewail answered. “The Jewish slaves did, but the Egyptians did not. But what concerned us most was when we did the carbon dating on the parchment we discovered it’s not even from the right time period. We’re not talking about Modern Hebrew here. We’re talking about the original form of the language that was derived from a Phoenician script, rather than the modern version, which evolved from writing known as Proto-Hebrew or Early Aramaic. It is a language that’s been effectively dead for more than five centuries, but according to our carbon dating, the parchment is just one hundred to a hundred and fifty years old. To have hundred-year-old parchment, containing writing of a language that hasn’t been used for more than five hundred years, and buried in a room that has been undisturbed for five thousand years, is not just surprising, it’s impossible.”

Zewail paused a moment allowing this new information to sink in. “Nobody speaks this language anymore. Our computer translators are even having problems with it. They’re averaging just three words a second--that’s about a quarter as fast as it should be going. This language is obsolete.”

John was beginning to lose his patience with the man. “I get the point. What was written on the scrolls?”

“At first it appeared to be nothing important,” Zewail continued. “Burial rites, ancient incantations, but those were just the first few pieces of parchment we translated. After that, as we got deeper into the documents, we made some chilling discoveries. Some of the parchments contained texts from literature. There was some Shakespeare, some Plato, Socrates, there was even some Mark Twain, but nothing could have compared to what we found next.”

“What?” The hairs on John’s arms rose.

“A book titled, roughly translated, ‘The End of All Things.’ At first we didn’t think much of it. We thought maybe it was just another obscure work that none of us had ever heard of, but as we translated further we discovered that this was something very different. It was just a smaller portion of another larger book.”

“What book?” John asked, although he already knew the answer.

“The Bible. Written in the same perfect Hebrew the original pages of the Old Testament were written in.”

“So, basically this is just another Book of Revelations.”

“No.” Zewail was obviously frustrated that John wasn’t getting it. “No, it’s not. Revelations is full of symbolism. It is a parable. Contrary to what many believe, it’s not meant to be taken literally. Everything in it is symbolic of something else. It is possibly the most cryptic work of literature ever created, but this new book isn’t like that. It’s very straightforward, and it’s very detailed. It names the people, places, and dates that will figure into the world’s destruction. No more symbolism. No more guessing as to what it means.” Zewail paused, taking a moment to calm himself. “As soon as we realized what it was, we asked the United States for help, and they sent you.”

“Who are the people named in the text?” John asked.

“Well, it speaks of many historical figures.” Zewail spoke slowly, allowing John’s reeling mind an opportunity to catch up. “The Pharaoh Ahmose I and Moses, Julius Caesar, Adolph Hitler, but then there are others... People who are living in this age and have no idea the part they will play in the destruction of the world.”

“Well, I can contact my people in Washington. If nothing else at least we can keep an eye the ones living in our time period,” John reasoned.

Zewail nodded. He was amazed at how John seemed to take the information in stride and was already prepared to work.

“I just don’t understand what it is you’re hoping I’ll be able to do,” John stated, frustrated and disappointed by his own uncertainty.

“Actually, we were hoping you could tell us.” Zewail spoke cautiously. “You see, you are one of the people named in the text.”