He waited and tried to be patient, as he watched the demon. It was in a trance, with its eyes closed, and it was carrying on some incomprehensible chant. Erik couldn’t understand the words, but even as he knew Dovecrest’s chant had been virtuous, he knew this one was evil and corrupt. The words sounded like rottenness and decay. The atmosphere felt putrid. If it weren’t for the fact that his wife and child were here, he would have run away in disgust.
It seemed like Dovecrest was never going to make a move. Then, when Erik didn’t think he could stand it for another moment, he heard the Indian whistle.
Erik charged around the rock with the stone raised above his head. He found himself yelling at the top of his lungs, without even realizing he was doing it.
In a split second, he was aware of everything around him and saw it all in perspective for the first time. Dovecrest had charged out from the other side of the rock. Somehow, the Indian was in full battle regalia, with war paint, a headdress, and a tomahawk with an obsidian head. Erik had no idea how the man had transformed himself, but then again nothing else made much sense lately, so why should this? Dovecrest was also whooping, and came at the demon with a demonic fury of his own.
From the corner of his eyes Erik saw Todd jump back and then scramble to his feet. Vickie, too, crawled backward, away from the fight. Neither of them seemed to recognize either him or Dovecrest.
The demon jumped up with a curse; it had obviously been taken by surprise. It moved away from Dovecrest and towards Erik, who wound up with his stone and prepared to brain the thing.
It turned and faced him with hate in its black eyes as he leveled the sharp stone at its head. He plunged his arm forward with every ounce of his strength, aiming for a point on the thing’s forehead just above the midpoint of its eyes. Erik had never felt so much hatred, so much passion, so much fury before in his life, and he channeled every bit of his emotions into that one single strike.
The stone hit with a force that would have smashed a ripe coconut in two. He felt it hit, dead center, bulls- eye. The shock of the blow traveled up his arm, into his shoulder and down his back. It felt good. It felt very good. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he had ever felt anything quite so good, quite so satisfying.
The force of the blow drove him back a step, and he lost his grip on the stone. He looked up to see his handiwork.
The demon stood there with the obsidian stone embedded completely in its forehead, and sticking in a good inch and a half. Erik just watched as the monster-turned-man just stood there and grinned at him stupidly, as if having a rock embedded in its head was the most natural thing in the world. Dovecrest then hit it from behind, burying his hatchet deep into the top of its skull. The demon stepped back and looked from one of them to the other, then grinned. It reached back, took the tomahawk from the top of its head and held it in its left hand. Then it took the sharp stone in its right hand and pulled it free. The thing’s skull was dented and cracked like a deflated ball as it looked at its attackers with disdain.
“Welcome to
2
Todd couldn’t believe his eyes when he’d seen two warriors jump out from behind the rock outcropping and brain the demon with their stone weapons. One of the men was dressed like an Indian war chief, complete with war paint, the feathered headdress, and a nasty-looking tomahawk, which he had smashed into the demon’s head. The other guy looked like something out of a pirate movie, with a rag rolled up on top of his head, his face darkened with soot, and with a sharp rock in his hand, which he lodged right in the demon’s forehead. These warriors attacked with the ferocity of barbarians and were completely without fear.
But even though the demon now looked and acted like a man, it was still a monster. Neither of the death blows had the slightest effect on it. It took the tomahawk from its head, then the stone from between its eyes, and it looked at its attackers with a grin and taunted them.
Only then did Todd realize that the warriors weren’t warriors at all. Suddenly the war paint disappeared. The pirate was just a regular man. They weren’t warriors: just his dad and the Indian. They, too, had managed to come through the portal.
All of Todd’s hope vanished when the demon tossed the hatchet down to the ground with utter contempt. Then he threw the stone off into the sand.
“Dad!” Todd said. “It’s the demon.”
His father looked over at him with utter despair and Todd knew he had known, but that they thought they could somehow defeat the thing if it were in human form.
The demon laughed. “I only look human,” it said. Then it grabbed the Indian by the throat and tossed him to the ground like a rag doll.
Todd’s father backed up slowly, shifting his weight back and forth in case he needed to move. The demon looked at him and laughed again, while the Indian rolled backwards, clutching at his throat.
“So now you have the family reunion you wanted so badly,” it said. “Are you happy now? One big happy family.”
The demon pointed to Todd’s mom. “And about to get bigger.”
“Vickie, are you ok?”
“Yeah, Hon. But it’s getting close. Real close.”
“It’s ok. You just hang in there. I’ll figure out a way to get us out of here.”
“Sure you will,” the demon said.
The Indian had returned to his feet and he picked his tomahawk up from where the demon had thrown it. The Indian approached more cautiously now, and the demon turned to face him. Todd’s father took advantage of the fact to move closer to his son, trying to keep between him and the demon.
The Indian didn’t look so impressive now that his war paint and headdress were gone. Now he was dressed in jeans and a T shirt. Even the tomahawk had become a jagged stone now. But, still, the Indian was defiant, brave, and bold as he stood up to the monster.
“I curse thee and kill thee in the name of the God!” he said, and charged the demon with the sharp stone.
The demon opened its arms wide and laughed as the Indian ran into him and plunged the stone full into its chest. The weapon broke in two and fell to the sand where the demon squashed it under its feet, burying it deeply in the loose sand. It pushed the Indian away with one hand, as if brushing off a fly.
“Your God can’t hurt me here,” he said. “We are in my world now. I make the rules here.”
The Indian went sprawling on the ground and the demon followed him down, punching him and kicking him in the head and face. Todd’s father charged forward and pulled the monster off of the Indian. Then it turned on him.
Todd couldn’t watch and stay helpless. He ran to his father’s side and began pummeling the demon with his fists.
The monster picked him up and held him before its face, grinning.
“Have you already forgotten your lesson, boy?” it asked.
The last thing Todd remembered was its fist heading straight for his face.
3
For the third time in a half hour, Pastor Mark tried to explain again that Erik and Dovecrest had gone through a portal in the altar to destroy the demon and rescue Todd and Vickie. And for the third time in a half hour Captain Burns shook his head in disbelief.
“People don’t just go through rocks and into other worlds,” he said.
“Well, they did.”
“Then why can’t any of my men get through?”
