I Can't Die, I Won't Die!

I hope you have the time or will take the time to read this to the very end because it has a surprise ending.  I do not know the name of the main character in this true story, so for simplicity sake will call her Melissa. Melissa was like many of us in that she went to church and enjoyed the social and spiritual aspects of it, but she didn't think the Bible needed to be taken literally when it spoke of being separate from the world in word and action.  1John 2: 15-17,  Romans 12:2. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/She would occassionally make fun of more conservative Christians and went on her merry way. Although she endured a slow and lingering death, cancer perhaps, she rejoiced in the assurance in being swept up to Heaven immediately after departing this life.

Now I will quote directly from this ancient book Dying Testimonies of Saved and Unsaved: https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Testimonies-Saved-Unsaved-Shaw/dp/1933304324
"respiration grew shorter and shorter and at last ceased and they deemed the spirit already in the embrace of blissful messengers who were winging it to paradise. A fearful shriek! and in a moment they beheld her that they had looked upon as the departed sitting upright before them with every feature distorted.
"Horror and disappointment had transformed that placid countenance so that it exhibited an expression indescribable fiendish. "I can't die," she shrieked, "I won't die!"

Her pastor walked in just then and she screamed, "Out of the door, thou deceiver of men!"
Then died.
Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven. Matthew 7:21https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/

The Strange and Dreadful Enemy

(Continued) That was last week. Every day since men had poured in, too distraught to enjoy her fine cooking or anything else. Every night, after they had fallen into a fitful sleep, she would creep up to the roof of her house, which was crouched on top of the city wall, Rehab would rest her elbows on the solid stone structure to peer out of her casement at the orderly multitude far below.

Oh, that I could be numbered with them, she sighed. I know that they will overtake Jericho and destroy it, and many other cities besides. It is not death I fear. Life hath little meaning for such as I.But if I had a choice, I would rather live if I could live as they. That would be blessed indeed.
   The customers dwindled to almost nothing in the coming weeks. No man was going around doing futile things with such a strange and dreadful enemy camping on their doorsteps, or so it seemed...

to be continued...For more writing by this author go to www.marilynshistoricalnovels.com