The drugs dulled the mind to all fearful sense of imminent danger. Coibby had died without pain, or so they all wanted to believe.
He recalled the exact moment of Coibby's passing. Coibby had simply expired, and not with his last painful breath as everyone would wish to believe. Coibby couldn't capture a last breath to have a last breath. When die man's last breath could not be taken, at the moment when one's breath became God's own breath, that was when he died.
Everyone agreed that Coibby's was a near perfect crucifixion.
Certainly, he flailed some at the end, but he never fully regained consciousness. And the inner peace brought on by the drug-and the knowledge he must go on to a better place-helped ease him over so that his spirit might imbue the dead corpse with a renewed source of power and strength, the strength that comes from knowing Jesus and the resurrection of the soul.
But again, Jesus failed to put in an appearance, and Lawrence's body had remained still and lifeless, as inert as the cross upon which he'd been sacrificed. So there was no corporeal proof of Coibby's resurrection, as there should have been, but then God tested men in mysterious ways.
Once again the all-night vigil grew long and unproductive, and the collective-they-became further disillusioned.
As director and choreographer of the Second Coming, he had much to answer for. His constituents and followers would soon abandon him if they learned the truth about him, that he hardly knew if what he searched for could ever be found in this or another millennium.
He'd been so sure with the schoolteacher.
He'd been equally sure with the car salesman, Coibby. And for a moment, he was absolutely sure it must be Coibby. But all hope failed when Coibby's corpse could not be enticed to show signs of resurrection after death, despite all prayer and all the power and life force coming from the collective.
They had simply miscalculated. All of them, including their leader. 'Too many voices in your head?” asked one follower.
“How is it possible that the Chosen One is not to be the Chosen One?” queried another.
“We must absolutely not become disillusioned,” he cautioned the others. “We must! Absolutely must continue to look elsewhere…”
“Look elsewhere?”
“Indeed.”
“For what, exactly, pray tell?” rallied the voices.
“For answers… enlightenment, of course. Holy enlightenment, indeed… exactly… pray tell…”
The Crucifier thought of that night when Coibby had gone over. He reviewed it in his head again and again, trying to get it right. Then he thought of the third Chosen One, Burton, and he again felt the doubts crowding into his mind, as he reexamined every step, every ritualistic moment of Burton's agonizing time on the cross. He heaved with the heavy burden on his shoulders and collapsed against a natural stone chair in this dark place where they must hide away their deeds until the world should come to enlightenment. His comforting friend placed an arm around his shoulders, gave him a warm hug, and said, “You must, like all the rest, be patient. The accurate millennium marks the Second Coming. We will see Christ resurrected through our combined will.”
Jessica awakened just as the plane came in sight of what appeared to be a mammoth island lying just off the coast of mainland Europe: Great Britain-England, Scotland, and Wales. From her window seat, Jessica could make out the Isle of Wight. The coastline, jagged and steep, gave the appearance of a great plateau rising from the ocean like some bloated giant's clenched fist. Small English villages rose out of the landscape as the plane descended, each looking like the small Christmas villages found in novelty shops, Jessica thought, delighting in the beauty of this place as the plane floated over moors and marshes toward the spirals of London, making her feel like a modem-day Peter Pan.
The plane descended further, now over an area known as the Whitleyern Highlands where fertile valleys alternated with chalk and limestone hills. Jessica knew that by any standard, Great Britain's overcrowded population had begun to bulge at the seams, and that ninety percent or more of its people lived in cities and towns. She'd read somewhere that in all of Europe, only tiny Belgium had a higher percentage of people in urban areas. The lowlands, especially in southeastern, central, and northern England, by comparison remained among the most thickly populated places on the globe, and nothing bred crime and murder like overpopulation. Yet, at the same time, the cemeteries of England were filled to capacity even stacked tier upon tier and there was no more room for the dead.
Jessica's insomnia awakened her while the cabin remained dark and everyone else asleep. Her insomnia had her reading facts from guidebooks she'd shoved in her overnight bag. Now Jessica, fully “up” on the country, knew that Great Britain had 232 persons per square kilometer as opposed to France's 100 per square kilometer, the USA's 26 per square kilometer, and Australia's 2 per square kilometer.
She had found Copperwaite dozing while Sharpe, like her, sat upright, having come awake some time before her. Both of them fully awake, she engaged Sharpe in conversation, telling him bits of her recently acquired knowledge of his homeland.
He instantly wanted to hear what she'd learned, and so she plied him with the facts most tourists received every day on incoming flights. She finished with a dark twist, however, saying, “I hate to be the pessimist, but there's no doubt that England, and London in particular, will see growing crime of the heinous kind most people think reserved only for America in the coming years and through the coming decades, millennium wishes to the contrary or not…”
He nodded appreciatively. “I have no doubt of it.”
“I believe it inevitable and unavoidable, that perhaps the overwhelming crime rate of America is, after all, linked to the growing numbers who feel alienated in an increasingly technological age.”
“Hramm, interesting theory. I've heard it before, in fact.”
“Do you doubt it?” she pressed. “Not in the least, as one of many contributing factors, of course.” He then ruminated about England's growth and progress, slurring the two words as if they were dirty, saying, “Greater London has-the last I looked at figures-a population of 6,775,000.”
“As I said, crowded, most in ghettos.”
He ignored her, going on, “Birmingham has 1,004,000, Leeds 711,000, Sheffield 534,000, Glasgow 725,000, and Scotland's capital, Edinburgh 438,000; while the capital and largest city in Wales, Cardiff, has a population of 280,000.”
“You must have a photographic memory,” she replied.“I'm good with numbers. Photographic, I'm not so sure. At any rate,” he continued, “in between these larger urban areas, a host of small towns and villages-all having one main street and one main shopping area-now flourish and grow.”
Again the emphasis on “grow,” the way it rolled bitterly from his throat, seemed a sure sign of how Sharpe felt about urban sprawl. Jessica said, “I take it, you don't care for progress as it is typically defined?”
“Look at it this way. Since the late forties, say about 1946, some twenty-one new towns were established in England, five in Scotland, and two in Wales. Some two million live in these small communities. In Great Britain alone, some six million dogs and almost as many cats also live as household pets, all with little or no room to scratch much less grow. So you can well imagine how the people feel about one another.”
Jessica was about to reiterate her fear that violent crime in England would only increase when she found herself becoming lost in his powerful, potent, green-eyed stare, so instead she turned and studied the rolling green landscape below. The airplane began passing over great expanses of wheat fields, the number one crop in all of England. She marveled at the beauty unfolding beneath them.