[Macey Wuesthoff]

Prologue Continued:

Calm once more, it replied, “I am known by various names. The
Prince of Darkness, the Antichrist, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan—”


Aw, horse shit!” John sputtered. He reached for the lamp a second
time.


The voice became deeper, louder, and more forceful. “I said, don’t turn on that light!”


John searched the darkness. His heart began to pound. Just beyond
the foot of his bed, in the corner between the bureau and the bedroom
door, two red eyes flashed on like lights. They glowed bright as fire.
Down the middle of each eye, where a pupil should have been, there
was instead a black, snake-like slit.


Now more afraid than he’d ever been in his life, John squeezed his
eyes shut so he could no longer see the bestial ones blazing back at
him. He began murmuring, “Oh please, don’t hurt me, please don’t let
him hurt me, Jesus—”


“Jesus?” The voice broke into loud, hysterical cackling. “What has
He done for you lately?”


“Huh?” Awestruck, John opened his lids.


“Brought you this endless recession? Given you this drought that
has killed your crops and those of your friends and neighbors? Stolen
your wife and the mother of your children? Left you and your family to
starve to death? Fat lot of good He’s been to you.”


It paused, and then, seeing that John was listening, repeated, “I can
make it all better, John. I can give you back your home, your land, your job. I can make your crops grow once more, and ensure that you and your children never go hungry again. I can make it so that you, your friends—-the entire town of Grimshaw—-prosper.”


It paused once more. John timidly whispered, “How?”


“Simple. I do something for you, you do something for me. I give
you your lives back, and you give life back to me.”


“I don’t understand.”


“You will repay me through sacrifice.”


“Sacrifice? What sort of sacrifice?”


“Life sacrifice. Sacrifices of pure minds and hearts, of pure bodies
and souls. Sacrifices of blood.”


“You mean, like animals or somethin’?”


“Yes, sometimes goats and rams and such,” the voice replied.
“Other times, I will require the sacrifice of a child.”


“What?!” John cried. “We’d have to kill children?”


“Heed my words, John. The whole town is perishing. What
difference will a few children here and there make if it will save so
many others from oblivion?”


John was reaching for the bedside light yet a third time when he realized that, sadly, this sounded like a logical proposition. He hesitated. “Children from where?”


“Children from Grimshaw only, of course. It would be foolish to do
otherwise. If you venture outside town for your sacrifices, you will
attract more attention and likely get caught.”


John could scarcely believe the grotesque proposition. Nor that he
was considering it. As his stomach began to rumble, though, he heard
himself ask, “Which ones? Just any of them?”


“Oh no, not just any. Those with what some mortals have called
‘angelic features.’” Seeing that John didn’t understand, it added,
“Features like those of your daughter Sarah.”


“No.” John began to shake his head. “You can’t mean you expect
me to…”


“It would set a good example, a convincing example for the rest, if
your own daughter were the first to be given to me.”


John clenched his hands, ready to leap off the bed and pound the
demon with his fists. “You ain’t layin’ a finger on my daughter!”


“No, I won’t,” it confirmed. “You will. You will sacrifice her to
me.”


“No!” John cried, appalled. “I can’t—I won’t—kill my own
daughter!”


“What’s the difference?” the voice asked coolly. “You have more
mouths than you can feed now, anyway. Besides, you’ve got two girls,
and I’m asking for only one. She won’t be able to offer you nearly as much help as your boys in tending your fields, which will grow in
abundance if you bow to me.”


John had heard enough. He couldn’t believe he had listened to as
much as he had. “You’re an abomination!”


The voice began to race. “She’s only going to die anyway of malnutrition or disease! They all will! Or you can give her to me and save…”


John cut off the voice, yelling, “An abomination against humanity,
Christ, and everything that I believe in, and I want you out of here,
now!” With that, he switched on the lamp.


When the light fell upon the monstrous apparition behind the red
glowing eyes, John began to scream. Like an amalgamated animal, it
had a gigantic dragon’s head, complete with pointed ears, an alligator-like snout, and long, sharp fangs. Its body and neck were the shape of a serpent’s, the body piled on the floor in lengthy, thick coils, the neck arched upward, like that of a snake about to strike. The entire head and body were covered in scales, and the scales were black with soot, as if the creature had just come out of fire.


Sarah heard John screaming and came running through the hall,
crying, “Daddy! Daddy!”


Before Sarah could enter the room and see the thing in the corner,
the bulb in John’s lamp burst. His bedroom door slammed shut. The
knob spun as Sarah struggled with the door, which had somehow
locked from the inside.


John absorbed all of this in the split second before the thing’s
colossal mouth opened and roared, “I TOLD YOU—-”


With John still screaming, the creature thrust forward its snake-like
neck, over the foot of the bed and toward his face.


“—-DON’T TURN ON THAT LIGHT!”


As the creature spoke, huge flames shot from its mouth and hit
John directly in the eyes. He snapped his lids shut, but their thin flesh was inadequate protection. His screaming never ceased, but only grew louder, his cries of terror becoming cries of pain. The fire ate away at his lids and corneas, melting them into a fleshy mass of goo and sealing his eyes shut forever.


The fire stopped. In two audible snaps, the creature clamped shut its jaws and retracted its head. John clapped his hands over his eyes, fell backward, and rolled in a ball about the bed, howling and writhing.


"Fool!” the voice cried. “Where was your God then?” When John
continued to squirm and cry, the voice went on, “If you want your life back, then go forth within the next three days and tell others what you have witnessed. Approach only a few people whom you are certain you can trust, people without flapping jaws and loose tongues. And remember, keep it within Grimshaw only. Form an alliance of people in my name. Together, you shall journey forth into the Grimshaw woods and seek an obscure place in which to convene in secret, out of range of prying eyes and ears. A place where even the bravest, savviest, most adventurous soul is unlikely to venture.”


With great pain, John whined, “Then what?”


“That is all for now. Soon, I will designate a man to show you the
way. He will lead you in my name. In the meantime, simply go about
your daily routines. Make sure you keep doing so even after your leader is revealed. The more ordinary and unchanged that things appear, the more inconspicuous your activities will be.”

Prologue continued in next post...
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