Day 29 - Winner!

 It turns out my final word count was 55735.  And thus ends my month of insanity.  It was a crazy, caffeine infused, literary blitz.  And its not done.

I've learned a lot of things over the past month.  Chief among the lessons is WRITING IS A HABIT.  Once you are in the groove, you have to stay there and keep slugging away. 

Next up: I have a number of professional projects I've put on the back burner.  Of course, the Christmas season means a lot of writing if you are a pastor, so there's that, too.  Come to think of it, I guess I'm kind of used to the kind of insanity it takes to crank out a NaNo project.  So, I just have to think of extending the insanity by a few more months of my life if I want to keep up this new habit. 

So, its not pretty.  I'm not sure I will find the time to polish it off (I hope so, I kind of got attached to the characters).  But, its one idea that is not keeping me up at night, any more.  Here is a final excerpt from the end of the novel, and the end of Daniel's quest for answers.  Thank you, everyone, for your support!

The metal hinges gave an audible squeak in protest as they were opened. Bertha went in first, with her flashlight darting around, trying to find the dimensions of the room. She gasped, realizing how close the two walls on either side of her were, and then she nearly pitched forward before realizing that there were a few steps down. She walked in a few steps. What was ahead of her was a narrow corridor with just enough room for one person to get by. On either side of the corridor, there were small shelves of votive candles.

Daniel found some matches at the first station, and he decided to light some of the candles as they went. “Why not?,” the thought, “they can be for our family, the FBI agents and the others who had to die for whatever it is that we are about to find.”

At the fourth shelf, they were about twenty feet back. A shadowy figure at the end of the corridor made Bertha gasp, and fall back a step. Daniel dropped the match he was holding, and swung his flashlight to the end of the corridor. It was a horse’s head in front of them. It seemed to be coming out of the stone wall ahead of them. On top of the horse statue was a rider, with his arm extended to the side. At the end of the arm, a sword. As the flashlight shone on the statue, it glimmered. There were milky white gemstones randomly inserted all over the rider and his horse.

That statue of a rider was at the end of the corridor. When they got to it, they found the corridor bent to the left, in the direction the sword was pointing. It only went a short way until another rider was in front of them, this time a side profile was coming out from the wall, and this sword was pointed forward. The light of their torches glistened on red gemstones this time.

“Ah,” Daniel grunted.

“What is it?”

“I think I know… this is from the Bible.”

“Which part?”

“Revelation. The end. Well… and a section of Zachariah too…”

“Daniel…”, Bertha knew she had to cut the professor off before he launched into a Bible Study.

“Sorry. Habit,” he said. “It’s the four horsemen. Revelation six. First, the white rider that conquers. Second, is the red rider, for war.”

Bertha got to the red horse, and shone her light down the next corridor that bent to her right.

“I’m guessing that next came the black rider?”

Her light shone ahead on a figure coming out of the wall to her left, and pointing his sword to the right, down the next corridor. He had black gemstones that looked like opals dotting his statue.

The next bend was to the left, again. And here, the statue that was carved into the wall was a full side profile of a rider with no gemstones dotting it. It looked as if it were whitewashed. The rider’s head bend down. The sword was sheathed.

“Its the pale rider. Death.” Daniel said, solemnly.

The bend of the pale rider’s head indicated the direction they were to go. They made their way to the end of the last corridor.