“Why?” Dovecrest asked.
“He’ll be fine-once I take over his body. Until then he’ll be in agony. But he will be silent and won’t cause any more trouble. Besides, once I take over he’ll be so glad to be rid of the pain that he’ll welcome me. I know what pain is like, believe me. He’ll do anything to make it stop.”
“How long does he have?” Erik said.
“He has until eternity,” the demon said matter-of-factly. “He won’t die unless I let him.”
Dovecrest looked at his friends and saw the agony on their faces. Erik was torn apart with grief. He walked over to his wife and took their baby in his arms. He whispered something to the baby and then to his wife. She began to sob violently and grabbed onto him, pulling him close.
“Oh, Erik, please, please, do something. I can’t do this anymore.”
Erik hugged her hard, and whispered some comforting words. Then he stepped toward the demon.
“I’m ready. Take me and let’s get this over with,” he said.
— 3-
The sun had come up and Mark paced up and down beside the huge altar stone. Soldiers were already setting the charges, stringing the wire and preparing the detonator. They’d be finished in a half an hour-maybe less. Then the captain would give the order to blow the altar stone to pieces and his friends would be trapped in whatever world they had been taken into.
He had spent the night in prayer, begging, pleading with God to intercede on his behalf.
“Please, God,” he said again softly. “I ask not for myself but for your people who have served you so well.”
But for some reason, God was strangely silent on this morning and he suspected it was already too late.
The captain came and stood next to him. Captain MacKensie, his nametag read, and Mark knew he was a good man. But he had a job to do.
“It’s not looking good, Pastor.”
“No, Captain, it’s not looking good.”
“I wish there was something I could do. I’d even send people in there if I knew how.”
“Do you have any idea what’s happened here?” Mark said.
The soldier looked down at the ground for a long moment. He was middle-aged and grim-looking, with hard eyes.
“Pastor, I’ve seen a lot of things in my years. A lot of suffering. I’ve served in some bad places and have seen some bad things. Terrible things. But I’ve never seen anything like what happened here.
“I’m a God-fearing man myself. I suppose you have to be in my line of work. You never know when you’d going to meet your maker. I don’t claim to understand any of this. But I did some praying of my own last night. I never believed in spooks and demons and such nonsense. But now, in the light of day, I’m thinking maybe I don’t know much about anything anymore.”
“What about your theory about aliens?”
“Aliens, demons…one is as far-fetched as another. All I know is that rock is truly a bad thing, and I’m going to make sure no more bad comes from it.”
Mark nodded. “I understand, Captain.”
4
Erik held his hands out to his sides and stepped slowly towards the demon. He had to sacrifice himself. There was no other way. There was nothing else he could do. He’d seen this monster in action, and there was simply no way to fight against it. His options had run out.
He turned and looked at Vickie one last time and smiled. Somehow, he managed to keep his composure, though he was dying inside. Everything he had worked for, everything he had believed in was coming to an end. He was about to exile himself forever to hell.
Hell wasn’t a fairy tale from a book of Bible stories anymore. He’d been there-was still there-and had experienced all of its agony and despair. He had felt the anguish of the swarms of doomed, damned souls, and he was about to become a permanent part of their number. He was about to forsake everything-his life, his family, even his eternal salvation. And he was about to do it by his own choice. Willingly.
Vickie tried to smile back at him but she couldn’t and he had to turn away. He couldn’t bear to see her cry anymore.
“Ok, what’s the deal here?” he asked. “I submit to the sacrifice and then what?”
“You give up your soul to the Dark One and I take your son.”
“And my wife? And my friend?” He pointed towards Dovecrest. “You take them back and let them live their lives in peace?”
“They won’t remember that any of this happened,” it said. “They’ll be brought back and as far as they know, you were killed destroying me, and Todd is a normal boy.”
“All right, then. I agree. Let’s get it on. What do you want me to do?”
The demon grinned. “You must stand here,” it said, pointing to a spot in the sand with its right pincer. “Just stand there for a moment. I’ll do the rest.”
The monster extended its claws to either side to make room for Erik to move forward. He stepped in between the thing’s deadly pincers, knowing full well that the monster could tear him in half at any moment if it wanted to. Then again, he’d seen what it did to Todd from twenty feet away, so what did it matter how close he was.
“Just look at my face,” the thing said. “It’ll be more pleasant that way.”
Erik swallowed hard and looked into the creature’s blue eyes. The face that looked back at him was stunningly beautiful, and he tried to forget about the body that housed it. The eyes were bright and feminine, and they looked at him with sensual delight.
“Just look at me and pretend I’m real,” the face said in a sexy, seductive voice. “I can be your dream woman.”
Erik looked into her eyes and saw only her face. He tried to relax and lose himself in her sensuous gaze as she slowly and methodically began to recite the words of the spell that would keep him here in this world forever. The woman was beautiful-the demon certainly recognized what would appeal to a man. But as much as he tried to concentrate on those cool, blue eyes, his mind kept seeing them as green. The blond hair kept turning red, and he just couldn’t get Vickie’s beautiful features out of his mind.
He longed to turn back and look at her again, but dared not. He did not know how he would bear existence without her.
He could tell from the tone and speed of the demon’s chants that the time was coming to an end. Then the demon was silent, looking at him intently.
“Swear that you willingly give up your immortal soul to the Dark One,” it said. “Do it now.”
Erik swallowed hard. His mouth was so dry he didn’t know if he would even be able to speak. He opened his lips to mouth the words.
Then, just before he could speak, he suddenly heard an animal-like shout from behind him and felt arms grabbing at his shoulders, pulling him down. He fell backward and on his side. A pincer reached for him but missed its mark and snapped on dead air.
He hit the ground and rolled onto his side just in time to see Johnny Dovecrest charge into the demon’s embrace, carrying a sharp obsidian stone. He plunged the stone into the demon’s eye and shouted at the top of his lings.
“I sacrifice my soul for these good people in the name of Christ who died for our sins!”
The demon’s eye disintegrated into a mass of blood and pulp and it staggered backward in shock. It looked at them with its remaining eye full of hate and rage as Dovecrest merely stood there in the place between its claws and waited. The monster drooled and raged, but nothing happened. Erik rolled clear of the demon and rushed to Vickie, Todd, and the baby, who were watching in horror.
“I gave him my stone,” Todd said. “He told me he needed it.”
Erik nodded. “That was a good thing,” he said. “A very good thing.”
