9

Time passed and the pain Casey was experiencing was only getting worse. He was finding it hard to breathe. If he tried to stand on his heels to expand his lungs, his crucified ankles would revolt in jolts of agonizing pain. But when he released the pressure on his ankles, his wrists would create an equal amount of pain. That’s when he realized what a cruel and vicious thing crucifixion was and how the science behind it had been perfected over the many years of its inhumane use.

Every chance he got, he peered at Jesus. Looking at the holy man seemed to be the only relief Casey experienced under the circumstances. Jesus was his security blanket. As the messiah neared death, his family who had gathered around him began to cry and moan. His blood was dripping down the cross and his mother soaked her fingers with it and painted her face as if this gesture somehow gave relief to her son.

The weather was also getting worse. The winds had picked up and the lightning and thunder bursts were getting more frequent and ever closer. Casey glanced at Short Soldier and Tall Soldier, both of whom were holding lances now. The expressions on their faces were not happy ones. Instead, they were filled with fear and even confusion. They both kept looking over their shoulders like they didn’t trust what was happening to the earth that existed all around them.

Night had covered the land almost as if a total eclipse of the sun occurred. It was so dark now in the middle of the afternoon, that torches were lit, their flames blowing in the now howling wind. A wind that didn’t come from the earth, but that seemed to come from God himself.

Casey heard another agonized voice then. It came from the man who was being crucified on Jesus’s left-hand side.

“If you are who you say you are, Jesus,” he moaned, “then why don’t you come down from your cross? Why don’t you save us all and kill the Romans? Call in your legions of angels.”

While the suffering man had a point, Casey felt a cold shot of rage fill his emptying veins.

“Hey, you,” Casey said, his hoarse voice feeling like the skin was peeling from the back of his parched throat, “why don’t you shut up?”

“Why should I?” he said. “We’re suffering on these crosses. We’re naked and shitting ourselves. Pretty soon the dogs will come and begin eating us. Or the Romans will break our legs and the whites of our shattered bones will poke through our filthy skin. Then we will suffocate and die.”

“It’s what you and I deserve,” Casey said. “You and I did bad things. I know I did. I killed a man, and I ended up killing myself in the process. In my mind, that’s two murders. But this man...this holy man who only speaks about peace and love...he doesn’t deserve any of this torture. He’s been betrayed by his own people. Why? Because he became a threat to their power. He deserves to be honored, not crucified in front of his own mother.”

Casey guessed his harsh words were enough to shut the other crucified man up because, from that point on, the criminal said nothing more. But something happened then that changed everything. Jesus, who by now was fading quickly into the terrible night, worked up one last bit of energy despite his pain and suffering. He looked over his shoulder into the writer’s exhausted eyes.

“I promise you,” he said, “that on this day, you will join me in paradise.”

Jesus’s words didn’t just register inside Casey’s brain. They registered inside his ravaged body as if he’d been injected with a mega-dose of morphine. Just like that, all of Casey Smith’s pain disappeared. He felt nothing from the spikes that pierced his wrists and ankles. He felt nothing from having received twenty lashes earlier that day. He was no longer hungry or thirsty. His insides were no longer hurting, and his bowels no longer turning to hot liquid. He felt as though he were floating on air.

What’s more, Casey felt himself growing even more tired than he already was. Very tired, as though quite soon he would fall into a deep sleep. But it wasn’t sleep that was coming on. It was death. And a merciful death at that. He had Jesus to thank for it.

When the holy man raised his head and looked up not at the thick black sky, but at heaven beyond it, he announced in a loud, booming voice, “It is finished!” His head dropped, chin against chest and he released a final breath. Casey knew that Jesus of Nazareth’s human body had perished. The entirety of Jerusalem knew it too because it was at that precise moment in time the skies opened up with a heavy downpour, and a fierce wind picked up that practically knocked the Roman soldiers off their feet.

The earth shook so badly Casey thought the crosses would snap and their bodies come crashing to the hard ground. In the distance, the earthquake caused the Temple of Solomon to crumble and much of the wall surrounding the city already lay in ruins.

The two soldiers assigned to him, Short Soldier and Tall Soldier, screamed like little frightened girls and ran away from their posts, abandoning them altogether. Casey Smith had to wonder if Pilot would see to it that they were scourged for shirking their duties due to cowardice. Or, even worse, if the no-nonsense governor would crucify them for it.

But when a brave Roman soldier pierced Jesus’s side with a lance, and water and blood came forth from the wound, he announced, “Surely this man was the son of God.”

It was then, Casey Smith gazed upwards not at the raining, black-clouded sky. He did not see darkness and he did not experience fear of any kind. Instead, he saw a bright white light that soothed his entire damaged body. The light called for his soul to leave his body and to go to it.

Casey Smith did as God instructed him to do. He went to the light. This time, he would personally ask Jesus if he could remain in paradise forever and ever. Amen.

THE END

Go to www.vinzandri.com to grab all the Meta Man Short Thrillers and also to get your free novel, MOONLIGHT FALLS.

Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel for MOONLIGHT WEEPS, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than 150 novels and novellas, including THE REMAINS, THE SINS OF THE SONS, THE SHROUD KEY and THE FLOWER MAN.

Said to be one of the most prolific writers of his generation, Zandri's list of domestic publishers include Delacorte, Dell, Down & Out Books, Thomas & Mercer, Polis Books, Blackstone Audio, and Suspense Publishing. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, Japanese, and Polish.

Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times and he has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the "Best Books of 2014." Recently, Suspense Magazine selected WHEN SHADOWS COME as one of the "Best Books of 2016". A freelance photo-journalist he is the author of the host of The Writer’s Life YouTube Channel. Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Writers Digest, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, Strategy Magazine, and many more. He lives in Albany, New York and Florence, Italy.

For more go to WWW.VINZANDRI.COM.

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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published in the United States of America

The author is represented by Chip MacGregor of the MacGregor Literary Agency