Christ Clone (38 page)

The reporter took a quick drink and turned the camera on
Probandi in anticipation of a speech. But as Probandi took a sip of his champagne, his hand flew up his throat. He seemed to be fighting for breath. His other hand joined the fight and his glass dropped, smashing on the cement floor of the barn. The initial smashing noise was followed quickly by another; then another. Gargled screams were heard, followed by choking sounds, and panic ensued. The champagne appeared to have had a different effect on Douglas Wainright. Having taken a very large gulp of the wine, his face pulled and contorted. He looked like a man in dire need of bowel relief. Then he simply stiffened and fell heavily to the ground, his big smouldering cigar falling from his mouth and rolling a short distance before coming to rest against a bale of hay. Within a matter of minutes, the barn was ablaze.

On the platform, having only taken a tiny sip of the champagne,
Travis turned to run but tripped over the fallen Probandi. He landed badly, his left leg taking the brunt of the fall; it snapped like a twig, leaving him immobilized on the stage beside Probandi's body. Travis grabbed at the tarpaulin in an effort to pull himself up but his weight tore the curtain from its mounting. As it dropped to the stage it unveiled the shocking tableau behind. Travis managed to prop himself up so he could take in the whole picture. To his right, bedlam — fire was already beginning to engulf the side of the barn and a beam had dropped from the roof to land on the bodies below. To his left, the scene was utterly different. The clones were calm; bound to their crosses, they seemed to have their heads bowed in prayer. He could hear the soft sound of a voice, a gentle murmur that could only be described as captivating. He wondered where it was coming from. He thought he saw the clone on the left moving his mouth. But with the flames casting their rapidly shifting shadows, he couldn't be sure.

Desperate to hear their prayers, Travis dragged himself to the base of the nearest cross. Tilting his head upward, he closed his eyes to focus his attention. Like a radio aerial scanning to find a signal, he managed to catch a few words here and there before clearly hearing one of the voices declare to the other two: 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.'

At that moment the ground beneath Travis began to shake; his world was filled with a near-deafening roar that far outgunned the greedy crackling of the fire. Travis' eyes sprang open and his hands went to his ears. The air turned stale as though the oxygen was being sucked out of it, and the flames and smoke were now leaping as high as the roof.

With an almighty crash, the barn's roof was ripped off and Travis watched it spiral in slow motion up a long, black tunnel. He tried to grab at the base of a cross, intending to hold firm as things around him were sucked upwards, but the vacuum was all-consuming and the three men ascending on their crosses were the last things he saw as the barn and all it contained were lifted skyward and blown into oblivion.

Malone knelt beside his wife's headstone to tell her about Travis and the cloning experiment. He then went on to tell her how very strangely it had all ended.

'In the chopper, as we approached the little town of Jerusalem,
Arkansas, the weather turned strange. The sky had gone dark, almost green in colour, and a wall of cloud appeared; we spotted smoke from a barn that was on fire and were about to head towards it when suddenly the pilot yelled at us to hold on, we needed to make an immediate emergency landing. We had no idea what was happening.
We landed heavily, but safely. We were shaken, and we all started to talk at once, all except the pilot. He just stared at the burning barn — then we were all staring. A tornado was heading straight for the barn.
We saw it hit, and in seconds it wiped out the barn. Obliteration! It was just, quite simply, gone. Then the tornado itself disappeared.

'I've heard tornadoes called the finger of God, and that's what it looked like; a big finger coming from the sky and picking up the barn.
Luckily for us, we had an experienced local pilot who'd listened to earlier weather reports, and he recognized the signs. He also told us he'd heard the tornado begin to roar, but none of us had noticed it over the noise of the chopper.

'The farm owner confirmed who'd been there at the barn that day, but no bodies were found.' Malone paused for a moment, recalling the awesome sight and marvelling again at the power that had been displayed.

He also told her about the meeting he'd had with Robert Richins, and how Richins had confessed to the murder of their daughter.
Finally, he told her of his newfound interest in Taylor, and he asked for her blessing, hoping she would understand. He told her about how courageous Daniel had been, trying to rescue Taylor, and how he now considered him to be an adopted son.

Malone knew it was time at last he said goodbye to Barbara; it was time to move on with his life. He bowed his head. As he prayed, a gentle breeze caressed his hair.

I
TALY

In a locked cabinet in a vault in the Vatican lies a rusty nail wrapped in a sweat-stained cloth. The cloth once mopped the brow of a man carrying a cross up a hill outside Jerusalem; the nail was used to crucify him. They are the only remaining relics of an event that took place over two thousand years ago.