The Ark of Apocalypse

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Burying the Dead

Thirty hours of pitch black darkness ended with a slight red light coming over the Eastern Mountains. Then rays of white, yellow and red rays streaked across the sky until you could see the start of a red Sun coming over the eastern mountains. Everything became red and then back to normal light.

Slowly everyone began to stand up and look around. No one talked and everything was very quiet. Eventually one bird sang out and people began to at first smile and then to shout and laugh.

Philip got to his feet and left his army and road on horseback to the front line where the first opening in the earth took place in Meggito. All the Moslem army was dead. He got off his horse to look at the bodies. They seemed to have died of fear. Most had their eyes open and some kind of great fear on their faces. Others seemed to have been shot full of holes from their own people. He could see that fear made them shoot at any sound that they heard.

Philip did not know it but the same thing happened all over the world during the darkness. People had died of fear. What fear, no one knew. But they saw something that scared them to death.

Jerusalem was safe now but largely destroyed. Even the Dome of the Rock was destroyed right to the ground by the first and second earthquakes. Nothing was left but rubble. The entire city would have to be re-built.

All Radical Islam was dead. Only the more moderate Moslems, who refused to come to fight, remained in the world. Mahdi was dead but his eyes were still open. He was shot by his own men in the darkness.

The Jews thanked Philip and made plans to bury the millions of bodies around Jerusalem. Philip returned to Europe in a Jewish jet. The European army stayed to help bury the dead.

Philip called President Thomas to inform and thank him for the war in Jerusalem. Through satellite-live-filming the President was watching to the war until the earthquakes and darkness. Philip now knew the darkness was world wide, and that world wide fear caused many more millions to die. Thomas did not know what frightened people since he was in the bunkered war room, but something frightened them so much that their hearts stopped. He believed it was just imagination in the darkness, but Philip was not so sure.

The President:

“I am enlisting all the army, police and coast guard to bury the dead. I have estimated that over the past 4 to 5 years 75% of the world has died. We probably have less than 1-1/2 billion people on earth today. Because of the chance of contamination, I have asked the people not to bury the dead but only mark them because of the chance of contamination. The army will go around flagging bodies and others with protective suits will follow to burn or bury them. You should do the same in Europe.”

Philip: “To find and bury 2 to 3 billion people will not be easy. Has anyone come up with a logistical plan?”

Presiden: “The best our experts can come up with is five to seven years. In order to prevent the worse of epidemics, every inch of the world must be searched and cleared. Even the dead animals and birds must be found and burned. There is nothing more important than this right now, or a plague will take the rest of the world.”

Philip: “I will take care of this part of the world. Let me know what areas are not being worked and what countries are not contacted. We can work together to cover the entire world. We may need a lot more fuel than we have to move troops into every area of the search.”

President: “I can get you ethanol by ship loads. Give me drop off points and we will start delivering.”

Philip: “In the mean time we will use coal and wood. I will put one out of every two people burning or burying bodies. We will burn the weapons also.”

Philip and the President organized the burning and burying of over two billion bodies. Philip went back to Austria as his Knights took charge of searching every foot of the earth for bodies.

All over the world people worked in pairs looking and burning bodies. Where they did not go, plagues wiped out entire populations. Another half billion died in the plagues.

It was seven years after the three dark days. Philip sat in silence hardly even talking with his wife and children. It was a heavy weight on him to see and remember all the dead, many of whom he had killed with his own hands or ordered killed. This was not how he hoped his life and faith would be. He now hoped that it was all over.