He moves his hand from his eyes and can make out the face of a man unlike any he’s ever seen. His eyes are brighter than the sun and Elliott hunches over again, putting his forehead to the floor.
“Do you know who I am?”
A wind surges through the room when the figure speaks, and Elliott grips his fingers into the carpet, holding on. “I don’t know!” He screams into the wind. “Hashem! Help me!” Elliott feels a touch on his shoulder, and his body fills with heat as peace flows through every cell. He lifts his head.
“I am Yeshua. Your Messiah.” Elliott trembles at the name. “Don’t be afraid, Elliott. You are one of my chosen servants for this time.”
Elliott sees the hands of Jesus among the waves of light and his heart throbs at the sight of puncture wounds in each of his palms. “You are!” Elliott reaches for him. “You are Yeshua!”
“I am.” Wind fills the room again as Jesus touches his hand.
“All those people,” Elliott says into the gusts. “They were yours.”
He senses Jesus’s smile and the wind subsides. “They are all here with me, and now you and your Jewish brothers will be my 144,000 servants on the earth who will lead people to the truth.”
Elliott stumbles for words, shielding his eyes. “How? I don’t know how to do that. Truth is different for everyone.”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am Truth, Elliott.”
The wind blows across Elliott’s face and he feels it…it is Truth. For the first time in his life he believes that Jesus is the Messiah. He is Truth. Elliott is shaking as he speaks. “What do I do?”
“Stay in the city. The Holy Spirit will lead you and teach you as you spread word of my love. He will instruct you on when to leave the city. Don’t be afraid to open your mouth to speak; the Holy Spirit will fill you with the words you need. The end is coming on the whole world, but I will come back again, and every eye will see me. Then I will make all things new. Great multitudes will listen to you as you lead them to me, Elliott. You will be one of my greatest witnesses throughout the earth.”
A hand shimmering with waves of light touches Elliott’s forehead with searing heat. “You are sealed with my protection. Nothing and no one can harm you.” Elliott is jolted by the sound of a deafening explosion. The building quakes, and outside his living room window buildings crumble across the river, but he looks at Jesus. “Rest, Elliott. Lie down and rest.”
As the sound of wailing inside his building grows louder, Elliott closes his eyes.
CHAPTER 10
Queens, NY
Every resident of the apartment building huddles in the basement with Matt and Emma: Rick and Brandon; Piya and Aarav and their two children; Mr. and Mrs. Gruebber, the elderly couple on the first floor—he was once a professor of classic literature; the Kramers with their son, Brody; the single mom on the second floor and her two children; and the Kleins with their two children. Emma rarely saw any of these people with the exception of Rick and Brandon. Some brought twin mattresses or sofa cushions as feeble protection. The hours of darkness in the windowless basement has made it feel like a tomb, each person struggling in the quiet after the bombing.
“What’s going to happen?” Piya’s daughter asks. She looks to be around nine years old, but Emma doesn’t know and she regrets how little time she’s taken to meet the people in her building.
“We’re not sure,” Piya says. “We just want to make sure we’re safe.”
“Will they keeping attacking us?”
Piya feels the others looking at her, but can’t answer her daughter.
“I think they’ve stopped,” Matt says.
“You don’t know that,” Mr. Kramer snaps. He’s a man in his thirties with a receding hairline and sharp, angular features.
“It’s better than the alternative,” Larry Klein says.
An argument follows, and Mrs. Gruebber clings to her husband, crying. The children each hold on to a parent, burying their heads in their mom’s stomach or father’s chest.
“Stop it!” Emma yells over the noise. “Everybody’s afraid, but none of this helps!”
“They attacked when we were weak,” Mr. Gruebber says.
“Who attacked?” the single mom says.
“Iran? Russia? North Korea? Any of them are capable.”
“But we’re fighting back,” the single mom finally says to Mr. Gruebber. “Right?”
Mr. Gruebber looks at her with small, sad eyes. “With what’s left of our military, I assume, yes.”
“We’ll kill them,” Rick says, squeezed into a corner with Brandon.
Mr. Gruebber shakes his head. “That’s impossible. Don’t you see what’s happening? This is our end.”
Nobody argues. The old man’s grim prophecy has squeezed the breath from their lungs.
Israel
Zerah and his entire family have not left his parents’ bomb shelter; each breath is edged with terror and desperation. Fearing attack from hostile nations at this time of global weakness, the Israeli government continues to enforce a nationwide lockdown, citizens huddled into bomb shelters with family and neighbors. Zerah has continued to try calling Dr. Haas but calls still can’t go through inside the bomb shelter. He’s even tried Dr. Sokolof’s number without reaching anyone. Without being at work, there’s no way of knowing who else is missing from his department or how many from the entire building.
Under the guise of fetching more food from the kitchen for all of them, Zerah leaves the bomb shelter and runs upstairs into the home, dialing a friend who works on the fifth floor of the medical center.
“Tavi,” he says into the phone, surprised that he got through. He shuts himself in the bathroom in case someone from the family comes upstairs. “It’s Zerah.”
“Is everything okay, Zerah? Is your family safe?”
“Yes. We are all together at my parents’ home,” he says, whispering. “Is your family safe?”
“We are. Frightened, but safe. It seems it’s only a matter of time before our enemies strike. Everything feels so dark…” He can’t find the words.
“I know.” Zerah says. “I’m curious. Two colleagues that I know disappeared from our floor. Do you know of any others in the building?”
“A data specialist on our floor,” Tavi says. “He was talking with a coworker. That man had to be helped out of the building. Shock, I suppose. I’ve heard there are between fifteen to twenty who are gone, but I don’t know. Could be more.”
“Did you know anything about any of them?”
“Not too much.”
Zerah doesn’t know how to ask the next question and pauses, thinking. “Was the man on your floor Orthodox?”
“What would that have to do with anything?”
Zerah feels a surge of panic. He can’t appear interested in the messianic believer connection to the disappearances. “Just wondering how his family is doing. If they have other friends and family to count on.”
“I’ve been told his family has also disappeared.”