“You’re not getting away that easily,” the creature said, coming for him. “Me and you, we’ve got some excavating to do.”
Delroy pushed himself up from the ground. He’d fought the thing before in Washington. He knew from experience that it was more powerful and quicker than he was. But he couldn’t find it in himself to just lie down and die.
He threw himself forward, staying low. He roped his arms out, catching the creature’s legs and powering through. Unable to stand against Delroy’s assault, it went down. Moving quickly, his breath coming harsh as a blacksmith’s bellows, Delroy scrambled up and straddled it. He beat the thing with his fists, driving punches home to its head, working into the same kind of rhythm he’d used in boxing. A human opponent would never have survived the brutal attack.
The creature appeared dazed, but its head was impossibly hard.
Delroy felt certain he was going to break both his hands and not have anything to show for his efforts. Despite his best punches, the creature didn’t show any bruising or split flesh.
Then it twisted beneath him, throwing Delroy up and forward, shrugging out from under his greater weight. Gasping for air, Delroy struggled to get to his feet and made it on his second attempt. The evil thing was already up. It kicked him full in the face.
Caught off guard, Delroy felt an explosion of pain fill his head. He whipped backward. Salty blood from his split lips coated his teeth. He went down. Immediately, he rolled to his side and tried to push himself up. Before he got to his feet, the creature kicked him in the back and sent him forward.
The yawning grave lay before him.
“You’re not finished yet, Preacher,” the thing roared. “You’ve got a job you’ve left undone here tonight.”
Delroy pushed against the earth as he tried to rise. The muddy earth caused his hands to slip. Before he could fall against the ground, the thing caught him by the neck of his slicker and yanked him upward. For a moment, Delroy believed the thing had crushed his windpipe and he was going to suffocate. Then he drew in a long breath.
The thing turned him in its impossibly strong grip. Face-to-face, Delroy felt its hot, fetid breath against his battered face. A sour stench filled the chaplain’s nostrils. In that moment, he recognized the stench. When he’d visited a congregation member who had worked in a meatpacking factory, the same smell had filled the killing-room floor. Lightning flared and stripped away some of the creature’s human appearance.
“I came a long way to find you,” the creature said. “There are other things I could have been doing.”
Delroy found the strength to throw a punch that caught the creature in the jaw. Even hanging loose by his opponent’s grip and not properly braced, the punch had enough force to turn its head.
The creature cursed, then turned back to look at Delroy with blazing amber eyes. “You’re a stupid man.”
“I beat you,” Delroy wheezed. “Back in Washington, I beat you.” The thing grinned. “You think so?”
Delroy’s sense of victory melted.
“Do you think we really wanted the people left behind to launch a full-scale nuclear attack?” The thing shook its head slowly. “The people left behind are ours to torture and play with. We’re going to break them, and we’re going to turn them away from that precious God of yours. We’re going to teach them that God never cared for any of them. Just as I’m teaching you tonight.”
Delroy swept his left arm up, then turned abruptly to the right and brought it down. The martial arts move broke the creature’s grip on him. He staggered back and lifted his hands as he slipped into a boxer’s stance.
The thing slapped Delroy’s defenses away as though he were a child. It grabbed the front of his slicker and flung him toward the yawning mouth of the grave thirty yards away.
Propelled by inhuman force, Delroy flew twenty yards through the air, then bounced across the muddy ground like a stone skipping water. His breath left his lungs in a rush. Still, he tried to get up. The creature met him with a kick that drove him back to the grave’s edge. Hammered backwards, Delroy fell. He tried in vain to get up. There was no strength left in him.
“C’mon, Preacher,” the thing snarled. “Time to open the box.”
“No.” Delroy said defiantly.
The evil creature leaned down at him, tilting its head from side to side. “I’ll kill you.” It unfurled its hands. The lightning stripped away the look of human fingers, revealing the lizard’s claws that lurked beneath. “Then kill me,” Delroy whispered.
It pressed its face next to his. The nose slits flared. “You’re afraid. I smell it on you.”
Delroy didn’t bother to deny the accusation.
“I won’t kill you,” the thing said. “I want you to know the truth. Once you know the truth, you can set the record straight about your God.” It reached for him.
Delroy tried to fight, but he was too weak, too hurt, and too afraid. It seized the front of his slicker and lifted him bodily from the ground. Almost casually, it threw him into the grave.
He fell into the pool of water, now three inches deep. The brackish taste of mud mixed with the salty flavor of blood in his mouth. His nose swelled and one eye nearly closed. He flung himself to one side, watching in terror as the thing followed him into the grave.
“Dig,” the creature commanded. “Use your hands.”
“No.” Delroy glared at it but didn’t try to say anything more because he knew his voice would break.
“I’ll bury you in here,” the thing warned. “Do you want to die?”
Delroy truly didn’t know the answer to that question. Everything had come home to him these past three days. In the Bible, Jesus had been reborn in three days, walking from the tomb after His death on the
