“Or something inside of you doesn’t fit.”
“Like you were born with a missing piece.”
“Like you’re different.”
Everyone had a different way to say it, but the more that Dell heard, the more he realized that burdens were universal.
“There isn’t a human that has walked this earth that hasn’t felt the weight of their own doubt,” Allister said. “But what those people forget is what we no longer have.”
Dell turned to Allister like a man lost in the desert and searching for water. “What?”
“The promise of tomorrow,” Augustus answered.
Dell nodded, walking toward the valley’s edge, pushing his toes over the edge, gazing down into the hellfire below. Those bastards had a tomorrow, and if they were granted that tomorrow, then it would come at the price of everyone else’s.
Dell turned back toward the other souls that were trapped. “Why don’t we fight?” The question poured out of him like a geyser, the surprise on his face mirroring everyone else. “We can help the people on the other side.”
“There is no fighting those things on this side,” Allister said.
“Have you tried?” Dell asked, addressing the group that had amassed near the cliff’s edge. While no one spoke, when faces looked away or down, Dell had his answer. “We might be able to buy ourselves some time.”
Allister stepped from the crowd. “Dell, it’s a noble thought, but you haven’t been here for as long as we have.”
Dell stepped closer, maintaining eye contact with Allister. “I know it hurts, but it’s better to stand than to lie down.”
While Allister’s shoulders deflated, a hint of a smile curved up his left cheek. He turned, joining Dell at his side. “He’s right! Whatever pain we’ve endured, the sins we’ve committed, all of us have yearned for the simple opportunity to fight back, and this is our chance!”
The crowd stepped forward, pulled in by Allister’s speech.
“We have loved ones, friends, and family that are still alive, and if those monsters make it to their world, then they will be burned at the stake!” Allister pointed toward the demons, and when Dell pulled his gaze toward the creatures, he saw that they had quieted, heads slowly turning toward Allister, whose voice challenged the fires that surrounded them. “But we are here, and they are not, and if we are to be the line in the sand, then let them come through us!”
A low horn blew in the distance, far across the horizon, that pulled everyone’s attention from Allister. It rattled Dell’s bones, and though he knew the sound was meant to bring him to his knees, he refused to bend.
When the blare ended, the horn was replaced by a unified thunder; it was the demons. They stomped, each quake louder than the first, growing so powerful that it fractured the rocks beneath Dell’s feet.
He curled his hands into fists and stepped all the way toward the ledge, followed by the other six hundred and sixty-five souls, looking down on the demons below. And while he exuded confidence and bravery, he whispered a silent prayer in his own thoughts.
Sarah, if you can hear me, then please, hurry.
While it went against every fiber in Brent’s body, he stuck to the woods on his trek back toward the GTO, and every step reinforced his hatred of nature. He batted away the branches that scraped at his cheeks and kicked the shrubs that ruined and stained his nice shoes.
Blisters had already formed on the sides of his feet, and his cheeks were flushed from the exertion of the hike. And the longer he was forced to walk, hidden among the trees like an animal, the more rage that bubbled to the surface of his consciousness.
He imagined every possible way to kill Sarah. Guns, knives, fire, baseball bat, tree branch, rock, pencil, his bare hands, just a handful of thousands of murder weapons that could do the job, though it was the method of his attack that he wanted to iron out.
Variables such as pain and suffering were high on the list, and he wanted to ensure that he was able to prolong them before her death as much as possible. He would bring her right to the edge and have her look over the side to the skeletons that riddled the valley and then pull her back, wait until she regained some strength, and then start it all over again until she couldn’t take it anymore.
Though, he had to remember that all of this would have to wait until after her trial for murder, but he smiled, knowing that it would only give him more time to figure out just exactly how he was going to enact his revenge.
The woman’s voice echoed in his mind, and he couldn’t rid himself of the image of her face. Though he couldn’t quite remember the details of the woman who set him free. They shifted and morphed like sand after a windstorm in the desert.
But the one consistent quality was her beauty. The kind of looks a man like himself would kill to have in his bed, and one of the rare few that actually had the resolve to do it.
Lost in his own thoughts, Brent nearly passed the mangled remains of his GTO in the ditch. He approached wearily, on the lookout for any troopers or cops that might be camping out. From the looks of the wreck, it hadn’t been touched by the cops yet. They were probably too busy searching for Sarah. And him.
Brent emerged from the trees, the rage that was simmering just below the surface now at a full-blown boil, looking at the sight of his car. It had taken him years to refurbish the GTO, and it all came undone in the blink of an eye.
The chassis had been twisted, the front and back were crumpled, and all of the windows were either broken or completely shattered. Three of the tires were flat, two of the rims
