“It’s a long story,” he said. “The…the demon. It is real. It destroyed the SWAT team. I don’t know how I got away.”
“Erik, what are you talking about?”
“Vickie, this thing is much worse that just a cult. I should have told you sooner….”
“There will be time to explain all of that later,” Pastor Mark said. “Right now we need to look to our own safety.”
Erik struggled to find the right words. “It…came to life. Took form. It was…fire and brimstone. I think they’re all dead. All of the police.”
“Did it follow you?”
“No. I don’t think so. But I don’t know what it will do next.”
“Ok,” Mark said. “I’m going to call the State Police and put them on alert. Vickie, you go and get Todd ready.”
“Where are we going?”
“For right now at least, I think we’d be safer at the church.”
Vickie nodded. “Erik, go clean up as best you could and put something on those burns. Just do it quickly.”
“Ok. But Mark are the State Police actually going to believe us?”
“They will when they can’t raise their SWAT team on the radio. And when they don’t come back out of the woods.”
“Right. Let’s go, then. I’m afraid we’re too close to the action here.”
2
Dovecrest was awakened early the next morning by a guard clanging on the bars of his cell with a nightstick.
“Come on, get up! We’re taking you out of here.”
Dovecrest rubbed his eyes and sat up on the cot.
“Hurry up!” the guard said. “We’ve got to go.”
“Don’t I have time to clean up?”
“No time for that. I have orders to get you out of here now.”
“I’d like to clean up a bit for court.”
“You’re not going to court.”
“Then where the hell am I going?”
“Protective custody. The call just came in. Now move.”
“I think I need to call my attorney,” Dovecrest said, as the guard opened the cell and led him out. He noticed on the office clock that it was only six a.m.
“Look, you can call whoever you want when we’re where we’re supposed to be. But right now we’ve got to get out of here.”
Dovecrest noticed that the guard didn’t even put handcuffs on him, but just led him directly through the building towards the back door.
“Can you give me any idea of what’s going on?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I knew, but that’s irrelevant ‘cause I don’t know. All I do know is that there’s been an incident in the woods and a lot of cops were killed. Whoever did it may be after you next. That’s more than I should have told you but it’s all I know.”
Things had escalated to the next level, then. Just as he had thought. Now everyone was in grave danger.
The guard led him outside, where a car was waiting with two armed officers inside. They opened the door and he climbed into the back.
Dovecrest sensed the commotion before anyone was aware of it. He felt the hairs on his neck tingle, and could sense a flow of energy, as if a lightening bold had struck nearby.
“Hurry up,” he said to the officers.
The driver put the car in gear and rushed backward, then turned around. Dovecrest felt the energy come closer. Then, as the car turned out of the back parking lot, he saw it, in the driveway right in front of them. The driver screeched on the brakes and screamed.
The thing had already transformed. Dovecrest saw it for only a moment before the fireball hit the car, but the vision was engraved upon his brain like an epitaph on a tombstone. It wasn’t that large as monsters go-maybe six feet or so, though he expected it would grow if it wanted to. But what it lacked in size, it made up for in ferocity. The thing still had a human shape, of sorts. But its flesh was molten and dripping, like red-hot lava. It’s eyes were black coals, and the thing literally dripped fire. Its open mouth was a black, yawning pit that seemed to open into hell itself.
Most horrible of all, though, was the human head growing from the side of its molten neck. It was the cult leader-Dovecrest had only seen his face for a moment, but he recognized him just the same. The leader had been absorbed, transformed by the demon. The human face writhed and screamed in unabashed agony. Dovecrest almost felt pity for the leader who had once been human.
Then he saw a fireball fly from the demon and, within an instant, engulf the patrol car. Dovecrest ducked behind the seat as the flames blazed around him. He felt the car turning over. The engine blew, smashing into the front seat. The doors blew off, and Dovecrest felt himself thrown out and across the parking lot.
The demon was seeking him-he knew that-but its fury was out of control. State Troopers were swarming from the barracks like bees defending their nest, but their weapons had no more impact on the thing than if they were bees stinging a campfire. Bullets were either absorbed into the lava or just passed through. The thing was walking fire and brimstone, straight from the depths of hell.
Dovecrest found himself watching the debacle from behind a tree where the explosion had thrown him into the woods next to the driveway. He was sore and had twisted his arm badly, and he had a few minor burns, but he’d been fortunate enough to have been in the back seat, protected by the heavy barrier that separated prisoners from the police. He tried to get up and run away, but his breath had completely left him.
The demon caught one fleeing officer by the neck and pulled him back into its embrace. The man seemed to stand still in time for a single moment, and then erupted into a raging inferno, as if he had been dipped in lighter fluid and held to a hot flame. His screams pierced the early morning stillness of the tiny community. Others took cover inside the barracks, but the monster followed them inside.
The thing literally walked
Dovecrest felt his breath returning to him slowly and he knew the time had come to get away. It was now or never. If the thing found him, his suffering would be especially prized, since he was the one that had imprisoned the monster for so long. Slowly, he backed away from the road and into the woods, keeping his eye on the burning barracks.
With one final Fourth of July explosion, the entire thing seemed to boil and then blow, sending the roof of the building high into the air and collapsing everything inside in hot, red flames and acrid smoke. The thing went up like a fireball. Dovecrest knew nothing human could survive the explosion. Moments, later, the demon emerged, larger than ever, molten and dripping with coal black eyes and a mouth of black pitch. The thing walked easily from the fire and shook itself off, like a dog that had fallen in a lake.
Dovecrest didn’t wait around for the sequel. He fled into the ancient woods that he knew so well.
