heading into town.
Todd looked out the back window and saw the demon still grinning. The thing opened up a set of leathery wings and hunched low for a take off.
“It’s gonna follow us!” he screamed.
Vickie gunned the engine of the SUV while Todd watched the thing take to the air. Its flight was easy and light. He thought it looked weird to see a rock floating on wings. But his idea of what was normal and weird had changed a lot in the past few days. The things he read about in his books looked pretty tame compared to what he’d seen lately.
Once the demon took to the air, it began gaining ground. Todd suspected that the thing could catch them easily if it wanted to. It was kind of like when he played hide and seek with other kids-sometimes you knew where they were but you wouldn’t find them right away, just to make it more fun.
The trees were whizzing by him on either side. Todd had never seen his mother drive so fast. It would have been fun if they weren’t being chased by something out of a bad horror movie.
Todd knew it wasn’t too far into town, but he didn’t know if they’d make it. The demon was almost over them now, and its shadow was falling over the car.
“Mom, he’s gonna get us!” he screamed as the thing’s face appeared just above the back window.
His mother hit the brakes and the demon flew past, then as the monster tried to stop she gunned the engine and roared by it. The thing was fast, but wasn’t so good at stopping and turning. The thing took a few seconds to get back up to speed and by then they were entering the edge of town.
“He’s still coming,” Todd said, looking back. He gripped his geologist’s hammer so tight that his knuckled turned white.
They entered the town and drove by the library, which was now nothing more than a smoking ruin. The place looked like buildings Todd had seen on the Discovery Channel that had been bombed in World War Two. The brick walls had collapsed into rubble, and what was left was black and still smoking. They passed the ruins and turned onto Main Street.
The place was deserted. The gas station was empty and shut down. The bank was closed. The tiny post office looked empty. Everyone had run away, Todd guessed. They all knew the demon was coming.
The thing had caught up with them again and was hovering over the car like a helicopter. His Mom swerved and lost it for a moment, but then it was back. A claw scraped on the roof, almost knocking the SUV off the road. Vickie swerved again. This time the thing’s leg crashed through the back window.
Todd and his mother saw the soldiers at the same time, standing in front of the town hall. The SUV turned hard right and towards the parking lot.
“We’re going to make a run for it here,” his Mom said. “This is the safest building in town. As soon as I stop the car, run for the front door.”
“Ok,” Todd said. His mouth was tight and dry and his heart raced so fast he thought it would pop out of his chest. He’d never been so scared in his life-not even the night the rock had tried to get him.
His Mom pulled the car into the parking lot and up on the grass, stopping just in front of the door. The two soldiers were firing their guns at the demon, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the thing. The bullets just bounced off like they were hitting a brick wall.
“Now!” his mother screamed, reached over to undo his seat belt, and flung open her door. Todd opened his door and jumped out.
Once outside he was overcome by the awful stench of the demon. It was an awful collection of odors, a combination of something that had been burned far too long, something that had died and rotted for days, and old cabbage. The stench was like a thick cloud, and Todd thought he was going to throw up. He gagged once, and then put his head down and ran towards the front doors of the town hall.
The soldiers had moved forward and were trying to hold the demon back with their machine guns. Todd saw his mother out of the corner of his eye; she had circled around the car and was running for the door too.
Todd ran past the soldiers and could feel the air from the demon’s wings beating down against his head. The smell was making him sick and the fear made his head ache. But his legs had taken on a life of their own and he was running faster than he had ever run in his life. If only he could do this in gym class he thought, and he suddenly realized how weird it was to be thinking about school while running away from a demon that smelled like a garbage dump. He almost laughed at the idea-in fact, he might have laughed if he hadn’t seen the demon grab the soldier in its claws and lift into the air with him.
Todd couldn’t help but look up at the mess. He didn’t want to, but for some reason his eyes were drawn up, and he looked into the soldier’s terrified face as the demon pulled him up. The man had blue eyes and they were wide with fear. He dropped his rifle and it narrowly missed Todd as it felt to the ground and bounced on the concrete stairs on the town hall just in front of him. It made a loud clatter and the hair-trigger went off, firing a bullet randomly into the air. The demon rose high with the soldier and Todd found himself stopping to look up. His mother was right behind him; he felt her arms wrap around him as she picked him up and ran to the cement stairs of the town hall. She stumbled on the first step; Todd was still trying to look up. Then he saw the soldier heading back down. The demon had dropped him.
“Look out, Mom,” he yelled, pulling her to the side.
They half ran and half fell out of the way of the falling man. The demon had taken him quite a way up, so it took some time for him to fall. But the demon’s aim was true-he would have hit them if they hadn’t scrambled out of the way.
The soldier crashed to the steps with an audible plop, like an over-large water balloon. Blood squirted from the man, splashing Erik’s legs and staining his new sneakers. The blood was all over his Mom, too. This time he couldn’t stop his stomach from churning and he threw up hard on the steps of the town hall.
“Come on! We’ve got to hurry!” his mother screamed, and yanked him by the arm. He stumbled to his feet and saw the door there just ahead of them. The second soldier was beside them now, helping them along and then through the doorway. Todd was surprised to find that he was still clutching his geologist’s hammer and hadn’t dropped it in the commotion. He and his mother hid behind the soldier as he took another shot at the demon and then slammed the door shut behind them. Todd took a huge, deep breath, and smiled sheepishly at his mother. Then he felt his head go light and his knees buckle beneath him as he dropped to the floor in exhaustion.
4
The sun set and it was beginning to grow dark as Erik and Dovecrest settled in near the altar to wait for the demon’s return.
“If Mark finds the thing and banishes it, it should be back here pretty soon.”
“I think it’ll be pretty easy to find, don’t you?”
“Finding it will be the easy part. Standing up to it will take faith and courage.”
“And if Mark fails?”
Dovecrest was silent for a moment. “It will come back here, eventually. To recharge its batteries. I don’t know when, though. And it probably won’t need to actually travel back to the other side.”
“How will we know if Mark drove it back or if it came back on its own, then?” Erik asked.
“Oh, we’ll know. If it’s driven out it will definitely be on the run. It’ll be afraid. Just imaging the fear you’d feel meeting God face to face on your worst day. I suspect it’ll also be angry. It won’t like being sent back, even if it’s only temporary.”
“Temporary?”
“Mark can drive it back. But it’ll gather strength again and come back. That’s why we have to follow it and destroy it once and for all.”
“That’s the part I’m really worried about.”
“Me too,” Dovecrest admitted.
Darkness was quickly covering the area. Though they each had flashlights, they didn’t need them. Erik was surprised by how acute his night vision had become, and the stars did illuminate the open field in front of them. Knowing that they’d need to stay quiet and out of sight, they settled down with their thoughts.
