The Mayan Apocalypse Read Free Page B

chairs were end tables, each with a glass and a pitcher of water.
    The audience applauded as the lights grew low. Their wait was just about over.
    The stage lights grew brighter, and a man in a three-piece suit stepped on the platform. Morgan had seen pictures of Robert Quetzal, and this man wasn’t him. The man on the stage was painfully thin, his cheeks drawn. His suit hung on him as it would on a closet hanger.
    â€œGood evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Charles Balfour, executive assistant to Robert Quetzal, prophet and priest.” He paused to allow applause. “It is my daily pleasure to travel with Mr. Quetzal and help him share the ancient and contemporary message. It is a message at which many scoff, but we know the truth. The world as we know it is coming to an end.”
    Morgan glanced at Lisa in time to see her shake her head in disgust. He concluded she wasn’t a believer.
    Balfour continued. “ You know the world will end in 2012, and I know it. Because of that we know, we’ll survive while others… don’t. But enough of me. You came to hear wisdom from the one who carries the knowledge of ancient times.” Again he paused, thistime raising his left hand and pointing to the right side of the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Quetzal, final and exalted Mayan priest.”
    The crowd shot to its feet. The applause was nearly deafening. Music poured from the wall-mounted speakers. It reminded Morgan of Native American songs. The drumbeat vibrated his bones.
    Standing, Morgan looked over the heads of the others and watched as a man in a charcoal gray suit walked onstage. His hair was long, raven-black, and hung down his back in a ponytail. He had shoulders as wide as a linebacker’s and stood six-foot-six. His skin was the color of pale leather. The references to Quetzal being the last Mayan priest made Morgan expect a serpent headdress. Instead, he was looking at a man who could have sat in one of the seats of his boardroom.
    A video camera zoomed in on the man, and his image was projected on the screen behind him. Morgan saw a pin on the man’s lapel: the snake god Quetzalcoatl and two feathers.
    Quetzal placed an open hand over his chest and bowed deeply, an action he repeated several times. He did nothing to stop the applause. Morgan imagined the man enjoyed the adulation, and why not? If he was right, he deserved it.
    â€œWelcome, my friends. Welcome.” Quetzal’s rich baritone thundered from the speakers. “Welcome to the end of the world…Welcome to the beginning of the world.”
    â€œOh, brother,” Lisa said. Morgan looked at her. Lisa didn’t look back.

DECEMBER 28, 2010
    Morgan had insisted. It went against every desire, severed every fiber of logic and reason. Still, he went.
    The southern part of Utah was barren, desolate, devoid of important life. Just like Morgan. The Jeep pulled to a stop fifty yards fromthe charred remains of what had once been a 2009 Falcon 200EX corporate jet. The once sleek-white aircraft rested in a crater of its own making. Jet fuel had fed the fire that turned the aircraft from a flying object of art to a scorched hulk of twisted, blackened metal. It had also reduced the bodies of his wife, son, and the plane’s crew to burned bone. Authorities had removed the bodies the day before and sent them to the nearest coroner to determine the official cause of death. Not much work involved there.
    Morgan had already made arrangements to have the remains moved to the cemetery where his mother and father were buried. Marybeth and Hunter would be entombed in the family mausoleum. When news of the death reached Morgan’s town news service, friends and acquaintances began to call. Pastor Johansson of Berkley Street Baptist Church had been one of the callers. Berkley Baptist was the church Hunter had taken an interest in. For the last six months, he had been attending services and activities for