Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

had no foundation. And as surely as Rome crumbled into the rubble of its own sin, your house would crumble, too.
    Man had vanquished God from the world in the past few decades; had banished him as surely as God had banished Adam and Eve from Eden. But at least God banished Adam and Eden for their own good. Man did it with an arrogant sneer, and it would’ve surely been the death of them, if the Good Lord hadn’t seen fit to save The Prophet and his flock.  
    “Foolish men thought this garden was theirs to banish Him from?!”
    The congregation laughed.
    The Prophet smiled.  
    2:12 a.m.
    Almost time.
    “Men are so certain of themselves. So arrogant.”
    “Amen,” the congregation said. Little Ellie Mae said, “A-may.”
    “You can’t throw God out of His Kingdom! Can you?!”
    “No!” the congregation shouted.
    “Hell no!” The Prophet said. “For He alone holds the keys! He alone determines the fate of all. He alone, Amen!”
    “Amen!”
    “Man tried to hide God from us. Tried to hide Heaven. Said they didn’t exist and that they’d just go away like a bad dream. But you can’t hide Heaven, can you? You can’t deny the Lord and render him undone, can you?”
    “No,” they said.
    “Because as long as there is love - as long as there are men who aren’t blind to His love and able to hear his call - there is always a way. Amen!”
    “Amen!”
    “When God called me so many years ago, I was just an ordinary man. Blind to His Love. Deaf to his Truth. Arrogant! I was lost like a white hair in a lion’s mane. But then . . . then I heard His voice call to me. Delivered a message to me. Showed me how foolish I was to turn my back on my father’s church. That without family,” he paused to look down the rows of his family, “Without You, I was as far from Eden as man had ever been. He told me what I had to do. That I had to come home and make things right. To build this church back up to bring His word home and swing the doors to His kingdom open wide for us all, Amen!”
    “Amen!”
    “It is time, my family. It is time to open the door and welcome Him back into our world. Time to shake the arrogance and hubris of humanity to its core and remind them that not only is God alive, but that He has returned, Amen! And NO MAN can or shall close the doors to Him, ever again. Amen!”
    “Amen!” the family cried, standing in a wave. Pam held Ellie Mae in her arms and gave her a kiss on the head. Pam’s eyes were wet. Dwayne’s wife was crying, too. Tears of joy. Tears of the joyous love they’d know for eternity, no doubt.
    The Prophet looked at his congregation: family, friends, and even a couple of strangers who he’d never seen before tonight. His church had never been so full. All here to witness His return! The Prophet’s heart swelled with joy.
    “Are you ready to welcome Him back?”
    “Yes!” they all echoed.
    The Prophet retrieved the vial of black liquid. The vial they’d tried to keep from him. He lifted it above his head for all to see. The liquid glimmered in the light of the church. In the light of His love.
    A hush blanketed the room. You could hear their breaths caught in their throats, each and every one. They were viewing a gift from Him. The key to the kingdom. Many erupted into tears of joy.
    Outside, thunder shattered the silence. One, two, several strikes, so loud they may have been tearing the sky apart above them. God had a way with dramatic entrances, The Prophet figured.
    “Then let us open the doors to Heaven and welcome Him back into our world, Amen!”
    “Amen!”
    The Prophet opened the vial.
    The door of the church flew open as the man burst in. The one who had tried to stop The Prophet from realizing God’s Dream. The man screamed, “No!”
    But he was too late.
    The liquid boiled over, spilling out and onto The Prophet’s hand, burning his flesh. He screamed, but his voice was drowned by the crash of thunder and flashes of light, brighter than anything he’d ever seen.
    Then blackness.

    **

    The Prophet woke up coughing, vomiting smog from his lungs. Darkness and flames licked the world around him, and for a moment, The Prophet was certain he’d woken in Hell rather than the Heaven he was promised. He cried out, “Why?”
    But then he saw he wasn’t in Hell, unless the Lake of Fire looked exactly like the ground outside his church. Rain started to fall, slowly at first, then hard and fast, smothering most of the fire as The Prophet lay there,