Chapter 119

THE GATES OF HELL

“Back, get back,” PC Alison Care told the crowd, “Get away from here now.” She was standing on the corner of what had once been Fournier Street. Now it was a heap of asphalt, buckled and swollen as if some enormous pressure valve had exploded from below.

Commercial Street had been ripped open. It had been peeled back to reveal a huge, deep cavern that fell away for miles into a fiery pit. Care could smell the sulphur and feel the heat. She knew exactly what was down there. Her father was a pastor in North London, and now she regretted turning her back on God—maybe now was the time she needed him.

Dad had always begged her to return. He’d warned that something like this would happen. Dad had said that before Jesus came back, there would be wars and rumors of war, just like it said in the Bible. There would be famines, plagues, and earthquakes.

Earthquakes just like this one.

“You have to repent,” said Dad. “You have to come to Christ, Alison, or you are doomed.”

Alison thought that she’d go to heaven by being good.

“No,” said Dad. “Ephesians tells us that it is through grace that we are saved, not through our works. The day is coming, Alison. Accept Christ or suffer in hell forever.”

Now she wanted to repent. Now she wanted Christ. But maybe it was too late.

Someone screamed. One of many screams. But this particular voice caught Care’s attention.

It was a boy, aged about six.

He was standing near the edge of the crevice where the Ten Bells pub had stood, up until a few minutes ago. Now the pub and many of the buildings next to it had gone. They had crumpled and dropped into the earth. The bricks and the mortar, the wood, the glass, the steel, and the people who had been inside them, had fallen into the fire.

The boy screamed again. He was crying. Covered in dust, he shivered, and Care thought he would topple over and fall.

She’d seen hundreds, maybe thousands, die in the past few minutes—at least she could save one.

But then she thought about repentance again.

Faith, not good works, is the way to heaven, she heard her father say.

She looked at the boy. He was shrieking in terror.

Good works were better, she thought. Heaven can wait.

She ran to the boy and plucked him up into her arms and turned away from the abyss. But the ground was shaky. It kept rumbling, and it would suddenly rise up like a wave. Just like now. The bulge in the ground lifted Care off her feet, and the boy fell from her arms. She rolled, trying to grab for him, but he slipped down near the edge of the chasm.

Care struggled to her feet.

Cars tipped over, into the gorge that had opened up on Commercial Street. People ran in every direction. Falling buildings crushed some of them. Others fought among themselves to escape, and the weaker ones were pushed into the canyon, where they fell screaming into the fiery depths.

It was carnage.

Her dad had been right.

She started to pray.

But then the child cried again.

He knelt near the precipice.

Care stopped praying and started to crawl towards him.

“Come to me, Daniel, come to Mummy,” said a voice.

Care looked. A woman in a white dress stained with blood held out her arms to the child.

The woman stood near the edge of the pit.

She called to the boy again. “Come on, Daniel. Jesus is coming. We have to go and meet him. Jesus is coming.”

The boy ran to the woman. She scooped him up in her arms. Care felt terror seep through her. She started to yell, “No, don’t,” but it was too late—woman and child leapt into the chasm.

Care screamed.

London was being destroyed. Her dreams were shattered. She stayed on all fours, crying. The ground shook beneath her. Commercial Street and the surrounding areas were slowly being flattened. People were dying in the thousands.

And here she was on her hands and knees, doing nothing.

She was getting up when she saw them—a woman with blonde hair, a girl aged about eleven, and a youth in his late teens.

They all stared ahead and strode confidently through the chaos. Around them, Whitechapel collapsed. Death was everywhere. But they just bounded into the road and kept moving.

Care felt she should be close to them. She felt they knew where they were going. She also thought they might know what was happening.

“Wait,” she said to them. “Police, wait.”

The youth turned. His eyes showed fear. They were glazed over, like he was on drugs.

“Keep moving . . . we have to get away,” the blonde woman told him.

“I order you to stop,” said Care uselessly.

The woman told her, “You have to get out of here. Away from the gates.”

“What gates?” said Care. “What’s . . . what’s happening? You know. Tell me. What gates?”

The woman looked up before staring directly at Care. “When it ends, he’ll take everything around here with him. Just get away.” The woman then grabbed the young girl at her side by the arm and said, “Come on, Jasmine.”

Before Care could stop them, they had gone. She watched them, and the youth looked back and up into the sky, where the woman had previously looked.

Care followed his gaze.

She furrowed her brow, staring hard, trying to focus.

Her mouth dropped open and while she squinted, something kept repeating itself in her head:

The gates . . . the gates . . . the gates . . .

High above Whitechapel, a ball of black fury whizzed and whirled. Watching it, Care could occasionally see feathers or horns or talons or hooves in the spinning mass. The night sky filled with lightning now. It cracked the heavens, and Care was sure that when those cracks appeared, she could see eyes looking through. It made her gasp with fear.

Something terrible was happening.

An old score was being settled.

The end of something approached.

A shape flew out of the spiraling ball of feathers and horns. The rest of the shape followed it, and then Care saw more clearly what had been wheeling about up there.

A man with huge black wings.

A devil, she thought. Or an angel.

Others spotted it now, and they all looked up, their attempts to escape forgotten.

Care craned her neck to see the battle.

The winged man grabbed the other shape and pounded it until sparks flew from its body.

The earth gave one last mighty shake, throwing Care and all the other spectators off their feet.

And then the winged man hurled the other figure down, and it plunged, screaming, a tail of fire following it. The shape fell into the chasm. The earth groaned. A tower of fire shot up from the deep to light up the sky like it was day. In the light, Care saw the winged man clearly. He was powerful and beautiful, and his wings held him up easily.

The flaming lance was sucked back into the ground. Darkness and silence fell across London. Care held her breath. Those around her whimpered and prayed.

And then the ground lurched and lifted. Care scrabbled at the asphalt. Her fingers were torn. She cried out for God, repenting of her sins and begging to be saved.

The others who had stayed to watch did the same.

But no one listened.

The groaning earth swallowed them all, sucking them down, along with buildings and cars and streets.

Above her, the gorge sealed, closing Care off from any hope of life. She flailed and fell, thousands falling with her. She looked down, and the lake of fire waited miles below. And as she and the others plunged towards it they all screamed at God for salvation. But God didn’t listen.