Morning Star Full Novel

Chapter 24

"Do we have contact from the recon team?" Ramsey asked his radioman.
"Not yet sir," he replied.
"Keep me posted," he barked back and rejoined Tony who was sitting next to the three prisoners tied to a tree. By now all three were alive and their wounds were healed. Tony was dumbfounded.
"So you say this is Hell?" Tony asked Seth looking around at the surroundings. "Looks like Kansas to me," he added with a chuckle.
"Of course my son," Seth replied.
"Don’t call me son!" Tony snapped at him. "There is no Hell!" he barked at Seth and stood up. "Hell is a product of Christian rhetoric. That is all. A means to keep the masses in line, the ultimate punitive punishment. Not a real place."
"Then how do you explain what you have seen before your very eyes?" Seth asked.
"I am sure there is a reasonable scientific explanation," Tony replied.
"Then how do you explain me?"
Tony looked down at Seth bound to the tree with nylon rope. He licked his lips and scratched his chin thinking. "I don’t claim to have the answers,"
"You said yourself that I had died before you were born," Seth said.
"That is what my grandmother told me. I never saw your body. I have no proof."
"Of course not. Your father would never have let you see it."
"Leave my father out of this!" Tony said angrily.
"He is my brother as well as your father. I can speak of him if I wish."
Tony got down on one knee and faced Seth staring into his eyes with anger only he knew. "My father was everything to me. I would do anything to see him again."
"Maybe you will," Seth said under his breath. "Why are you so angry at me?"
Tony leaned back and took a deep breath. "I am not. I am just tired and confused. That’s all." Tony stood again and paced back and forth before Seth thinking. "If this is Hell, how did you come to be here? My grandmother never spoke ill of you."
"Your grandmother hid the truth from you. Your father was a man of God. I was a man of Satan. The family did not know until it was too late."
Tony stepped forward. "You were a Satan worshiper?" Tony asked.
"Let me explain my dear nephew. There are two ways to enter the kingdom of the Morning Star. One is to live a life of unrepentant sin, the other is to be stolen from God by Satan himself." Seth paused and looked into Tony’s eyes. "All souls he steals, he claims for his own."
"What about judgement day? I thought no one went anywhere until God judged the living and the dead?"
"Some have been prejudged. Some have been stolen. Not all wait until the Day of Judgment."
"That doesn’t sound very biblical," Tony said.
"What do you know of the bible?" Seth asked. "I can feel in your heart you are a non believer."
"I may not be a believer, but I have made it a point to study…"
"Study? You have turned the scriptures into a school project," Seth said mocking Tony.
"All I have to have is proof. I admit these events have turned my point of view."
"I see," Seth said and paused to read Tony’s face. "Some have crossed over. Some, the Morning Star has judged for himself. He is jealous of his creator. He does not want the Messiah to come and judge the living and the dead. He is selfish, wanting to keep what he has stolen."
"What has he stolen? What are you talking about?"
"You for one thing," Seth replied.
Tony could not believe his ears.
"He has tricked you and these men into traveling here. The Prince of Lies planted the airliner you discovered. You followed it here and now you are trapped. You shall be baptized into Hell."
"Satan planted the airliner? I knew time travel was impossible. I was correct."
"Not that being correct has done anything for you now. You will soon be baptized into his kingdom."
"How is that done?" Tony asked.
"You have come as a living spirit. Once you have been released you will be trapped here forever."
"Released wouldn’t be the same as killed would it?"
"Yes it would," Seth replied.
From the side Ramsey stepped in and interrupted saying, "What happened to my men. The one’s who didn’t make it to base camp?"
Seth looked to him and said, "They have been baptized, as you will be soon."
"Why us?" Tony asked.
"One among you is the son of man."
"The son of man?" Ramsey asked. "That is the second time I have heard that one."
"I see now," Tony said. "If you manage to trap the Messiah in Hell, he would be unable to judge the living and the dead. Satan would in effect stop the Second Coming of Christ."
"You are correct," Seth replied.
"Which one of us is the Christ?" Tony asked.
"It is you," Seth replied.
Tony became flush and he swallowed hard. "Me?" Tony asked remembering what Brinkman had said about his DNA and the blood on the crown of thorns. It started to come together in his mind.
"What are those flying monsters that keep attacking us?" Ramsey asked.
"If you are familiar with your bible commander, you will remember that one third of the angels were swept from heaven when the Morning Star was banished."
"They are fallen angels? Why don’t you look like them?" Ramsey asked.
" I am not an angel. I have given myself willingly to my Lord. I was once human like yourself commander."