Behind the Darkness

by W. Franklin Lattimore

  “Okay,” said Paul. “Everything. Tell it as quickly as the two of you can so we can start praying fervently for her.”

  The demon snarled at Brent like a wild beast, staring him dead in the eyes. Then it spread its wings and rocketed up through the ceiling. It was gone.

  There will be no more confusion in this house tonight!

  Brent returned to Elizabeth’s house to find that madness had been loosed.

  At first he was confused by the fact that Elizabeth and the spirit of suicide were the lone occupants of the master bedroom. But after a few seconds, he heard something. It came from within the house, but it was downstairs.

  He looked through the floor, directly into the kitchen and dining room areas. What he saw unnerved him.

  Garian was pinned down against the floor, the spirits of death and confusion forcing down his arms. The angel was struggling.

  Brent was down in an instant.

  “Garian!”

  For the first time in the three days that he had been interacting with demonic spirits, he tried to physically engage them. He kicked at the ribs of the spirit of confusion, but the thing caught his foot with its left hand. With almost no effort, the spirit tossed him head over heels into the living room.

  Something that Brent had been curious about was thus confirmed. He could definitely feel pain in this spirit-like state. That probably meant that Garian could, as well.

  Brent struggled to his feet and limped back into the dining room. He watched as the demon of death grabbed for the angel’s sword, drawing it from the scabbard. Using it like a cane, the dark lord raised itself up and placed its right foot on Garian’s left arm.

  With a hellish smile, revealing a full mouth of jagged teeth, it looked at Brent. As it lifted the sword up like a spike with both hands, it prepared to thrust it down into the chest of Elizabeth’s guardian angel. “Say bye-bye to your friend, human!”

  The demon plunged the sword downward to its mark as Brent cried out, “NOOOO!”

  Seemingly from out of nowhere, Garian’s sword was diverted from its downward trajectory by another blade that materialized from within the kitchen cabinetry. First a sword, then an arm, followed by the head wings and body of…another angel!

  The warrior parried the demon’s blow before its own inertia sent it somersaulting into the living room, where it halted beside Brent. Then there was a third angel! It flew through the side wall of the house and on through the dining room’s oak china cabinet. Landing on its feet, sword already in hand, the angel swung at the demon of confusion.

  The demon may have been caught off guard, but it didn’t take long for it to respond to the new threat. It spun around to face the angel and raised Garian’s sword in a defensive block as the angel’s weapon came down at its torso.

  The angel next to Brent rushed into the kitchen like a linebacker and struck the demon of death, still wrestling with Garian. The demon was propelled out into the back yard. But it didn’t stay there. It was back on its feet as quick as lightning.

  Garian stood up and looked into the living room at Brent. “Go! Protect Elizabeth!”

  Fear upon fear struck at Brent’s heart and mind. In the span of a millisecond, Brent was again in the Morrisons’ master bedroom. He was about to rush to Elizabeth’s side when he noticed something.

  She was completely still, standing at her father’s side of the bed. She was staring at a small metal object gripped between the forefinger and thumb of her right hand.

  The key.

  No! No, no no!

  Brent’s mind raced. He ran over to her and faced her. He reached out to take hold of her shoulders, but his hands passed right through. “Elizabeth! Listen to me!”

  Brent could hardly breathe, let alone form sentences. He felt himself starting to tremble.

  “Please! Please, listen to me! You don’t have to do this! You can still be happy!”

  The demon on her left shoulder continued to feed her a litany of depressing words. “It’s time. I can give my parents what they want—freedom. Tina and Colleen won’t have to stress out over me anymore.”

  “SHUT UP!” Brent demanded. “LEAVE HER ALONE!” With all that was in him, he screamed at the spirit of suicide.

  The impish demon didn’t even bother to look his way.

  Brent closed his eyes. What was Elizabeth thinking?

  “Just walk over there. Just unlock the safe. I don’t have to do it right away. I can just look.”

  “Elizabeth, put the key back!”

  Instead, Elizabeth turned and walked around her parents’ bed to the gun safe in the closet. She hesitated only a moment before inserting the key into the handle and turning it. A soft click let her know that she could now twist the narrow handle.

  Doing so, and pulling back on the heavy door, she finally came face to face with its contents.

  Inside the locker were two rifles, a shot gun, and three handguns. Several boxes of ammunition were stacked on the floor and bottom shelf.

  Brent stood next to Elizabeth, a tear trailing down his face. As if responding to his sorrow, another tear fell, this one traveling down Elizabeth’s right cheek.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. “Okay. Okay… See? Nothing to it. Just guns. You’ve seen them before. You’ve even shot one of them. No biggie.”

  Elizabeth crouched down, hands on her thighs, and looked at the handguns. She remembered right away which of the three she had fired before. She lifted a shaky right hand and reached for the 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol. Taking it by the grip, she lifted it and brought it to her left hand.

  Brent saw and heard a hard swallow.

  “Elizabeth, please…” he said, softly pleading.

  Placing her left hand over top of the gun and gripping it, she pushed the slide back. A round of nine-millimeter ammunition ejected from the gun, hitting the carpet then bouncing into the metal safe with a clack and a roll.

  The gun’s magazine was loaded. And now that she had pushed back the slide, it was also cocked and ready to fire.

  Brent looked up. “Joshua! Help me! Come on! You can’t just let this happen!”

  He thought of something. Maybe he could transport himself to Joshua’s ‘board room,’ that beautiful, endless field where the two of them had first met. He closed his eyes and willed himself there. With everything that was in him, he tried to reach that place of peace, a place that might put a pause on all that was transpiring around him.

  He tried.

  He tried and failed.

  Brent opened his eyes as another idea struck him. What if he could do what Joshua had done during Brent’s first visit to the Franklin household?

  He concentrated. He willed. He pleaded.

  “Please, pause. Pause!” Brent’s face became a snarl as he screamed at the top of his lungs, “PAAAAUSE!”

  It didn’t work. He hadn’t been given that power.

  He fell to his knees next to Elizabeth. And on his knees, he began to weep and pray.

  “Father, I am sorry. I am so very sorry for ever suggesting that I could do things better than you. I know I was wrong. Okay? I know it. I’m begging you…” Sobs began to wrack his chest and abdomen. “Please, save her. Please, please save her. Only you can be her hero…her Savior. Isn’t that what all of this is about? Isn’t all of this just to prove to me that I can’t do everything on my own? That I can’t do things better than you? I admit it, God! I admit it! Please, let that be enough to end this!”

  Elizabeth got up and walked through him, taking a seat on the end of her parents’ bed. She held the weapon with utmost care, not fingering the trigger.

  “Guess it’s just a matter of a simple trigger pull,” Elizabeth whispered. “I shouldn’t even feel it if I do it right.”

  Elizabeth’s words caused Brent’s surroundings to blur. He blinked the tears out of his eyes. He looked at the demon. No remorse. No pity. No concern whatsoever.

  How can there be beings that exist that
have absolutely no empathy, that try to kill compassion and rape emotions? How can anything be that evil?

  Brent got off his knees and sat next to Elizabeth, at her right side. He whispered into her ear, “I love you, Elizabeth. I love you more than you know. I’m sorry that I failed you.”

  BRENT STOOD OUTSIDE the master bedroom, his back to Elizabeth, who was still sitting on the bed. His left hand rested on the landing’s banister. He looked down the hallway to where everything had its beginning. Just two days prior—in this realm’s time—he had watched a young girl that he didn’t know take a pregnancy test.

  Now he was looking at the negative impact of his own test. Any minute, this lovely girl could pull the trigger. And while there was still a battle raging below between angels and demons, Brent was feeling his own will to continue fighting melt away.

  In another house, some ten miles away, Brent was hearing a family pray. But it was all apparently for nothing.

  He stood silently, listening to the sounds of angelic battle and human depression. A curious mix.

  A sudden thought.

  Had he been making everything more complicated than it need be?

  He had an idea.

  ONCE AGAIN HE stood in the bedroom of Tina Morrison. Where once there was confusion, there was now unity and prayer. It dawned on him that the appearance of the other two angels must have resulted from this team of prayer warriors.

  Could this group now do something to physically interrupt Elizabeth’s thoughts and actions?

  Brent walked through the bed, into the center of their prayer circle. He began to shout, turning while he did so, so that the intensity of his voice would be lost on no one.

  “Call Elizabeth! Call Elizabeth! Call Elizabeth! Call her! Call her now!”

  Within thirty seconds the group quieted. They began to look to one another for the reason. But it was thirteen-year-old Mandy who spoke the words that needed to be said.

  “Call Elizabeth.”

  ELIZABETH HEARD THE phone begin to ring throughout the house. She looked back at her parents’ bedroom phone and realized that they must have turned the ringer off.

  Almost out of habit, Elizabeth got up and walked to the phone.

  Brent watched as the demon began to scream! “Don’t answer it! Don’t answer! It’s not for you!”

  Her hand came down on the receiver and she hesitated. “If it’s not for me, so what? It’s not like it’s going to stop anything.”

  “Hello?”

  “Elizabeth!”

  It was Tina.

  “Oh no,” she thought, letting escape a deep sigh.

  “Hi, Tina. What is it?” She knew immediately that her words were ungracious. “Sorry. What’s up?”

  “Umm… How are you?”

  Elizabeth made a face that, if anyone had seen it, would have spoken a very annoyed What? on her behalf. “I’m good. Why?”

  It struck Brent, then, that the chance of this phone conversation yielding results different than all of the others was highly unlikely. Concern began to creep into the red zone again.

  But another phone call from a different caller…?

  A surge of hope flooded Brent’s psyche. In an instant he was no longer in the Morrison home.

  Tony and Laura Franklin, along with Craig and Meredith Pulliam, sat at a beautifully prepared table at one of the big city’s most exclusive restaurants. Elegant flatware framed delightful-looking meals that had just been set before them.

  If Brent were not here on such an urgent quest, he might have been overwhelmed by the atmosphere—the money—that made the place what it was.

  Wasting no time, he walked up to the member of Elizabeth’s family who might—might—have some concern for her well-being. Her dad.

  Into his ear he yelled, “Call home! Something is wrong at home! Emergency at home! Elizabeth is hurt! Call home!”

  The conversation around the table, combined with all the distractions that the restaurant had to offer—apparently including Meredith Pulliam—was keeping the man deaf. He tried again.

  Nothing.

  Then from out of nowhere, Laura Franklin spoke up. “Honey?”

  Tony looked at his wife. “Hmm?”

  “I’m thinking I should call home. Check on Elizabeth.”

  Yes! Brent could hardly believe it.

  Tony considered it for a moment, then said, “You left the restaurant’s phone number on the kitchen counter. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s fine, Laura. She’s a big girl. Self-sufficient like her old man. You’ll just end up annoying her.”

  “No!” Brent shouted. “CALL! CALL HER!”

  Laura’s right hand went for her wine glass. Drawing it toward her lips, she said, “You’re right, of course.”

  DEPRESSION WAS STARTING to weigh heavily in Brent’s mind again. He stood in Tina Morrison’s bedroom listening to a phone conversation that seemed to be growing more futile by the moment.

  Brent pressed his thought to Garian once again. “Garian, are you okay?”

  “The battle is not about me, son of Adam. But yes, I am okay. The battle has come to a standstill waiting for what will happen next either by prayer or by events in the physical realm. What has happened to the prayer cover that we had?”

  “Tina Morrison is on the phone with Elizabeth, trying to assure her that everything will be okay if she has the baby.”

  No reply from the angel. Brent didn’t know how to translate that, except that it might mean that he wasn’t going to get any help on what to do next.

  Brent broke the connection with the angel. What could he do next?

  Maybe Tina was the wrong person for this phone conversation.

  Brent walked up to Paul Morrison and said, “Request the phone! Be a dad! She needs a real father figure! Talk to Elizabeth yourself!” It dawned on Brent that one of the tools that he had in his box of options was once again being neglected. First-person thoughts.

  He tried again.

  “I should ask Tina for the phone. Elizabeth needs a father figure to talk with her. I need to talk with Elizabeth. I can do what my daughter cannot. I need to man-up and…”

  “Tina, can I have the phone?”

  Brent was ecstatic. Mr. Morrison you are officially my latest hero!

  Without a word of warning to Elizabeth, Tina relinquished control.

  “Hello, Elizabeth? It’s Mr. Morrison.”

  Brent needed to be at the Franklin house for this call.

  “MR. MORRISON?” “DEAR God, what now?” “Umm… Hi.”

  “Elizabeth, it’s okay. You can relax. I’m your friend. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Unlikely,” she thought. She didn’t respond, except to say, “Mm-hmm.”

  “I know that you are going through a very difficult time right now. You don’t have to go through this alone…”

  “I can’t do this,” thought Elizabeth shaking her head. “I can’t DO this!”

  Without allowing her common sense to drive her reason she pulled the phone away from her ear and disconnected the call.

  Brent closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  “She told her parents?!” Elizabeth was livid. The intensity of her anger drove her from the bedroom, gun in hand. “What the hell is wrong with people?!”

  She stormed down the stairs, into the foyer, then into the living room.

  “So, what…she’s going to start blabbing my business to everyone? What the hell?!”

  Brent stood, now, in the dining room. Three angels stood their ground while two demons appeared to be looking for an opportunity to either escape or find a way to take advantage of Elizabeth’s rage. Either way, the dark spirits were pensive. The spirit of confusion began tapping its left foot, the large nail of its center toe clicking on the granite-tile floor.

  Garian called out to Brent with his thoughts. “Whatever you are going to do, you must do it now. No delay. Now.”

  But Brent was out of ideas.
No new means to intervene. No distractions. No hope to turn things around.

  He only knew that his heart was breaking.

  He watched Elizabeth as she paced and paced. She wasn’t talking anymore. Her thoughts were a mass of demon-induced despair.

  Anger started to flare in Brent again. He, too, walked into the living room. He wasn’t keeping quiet, though. He shouted upward into the air for all he was worth.

  “This is IT?! This is how this ends? You’re not going to step in and rescue her? Why are you doing this? She needs you, and I’m calling out to you for help! Just DO something!”

  Brent turned around and saw the three angels forming a line where the tile of the dining room met the carpet of the living room. Their backs were turned toward him.

  Why?

  Then he realized. A hedge of protection!

  Brent’s mind began to whir. A hedge of protection is prayed into place. Right? He didn’t know for sure, but he was counting on it being true. People had to be praying again!

  Brent closed his eyes and willed his mind to open up, tagging anyone who was speaking Elizabeth Franklin’s name.

  Thirteen people!

  He could hear some of them making phone calls to others. In just a couple of minutes there were twenty-three praying.

  The Morrison’s have kicked off a prayer chain for Elizabeth!

  Brent’s heart was about to explode with gratitude!

  He willed himself to calm down.

  Brent listened into the prayers that were being spoken by—now twenty-seven people! But not all of them were praying for help. Some of them were engaging in Spiritual Warfare! Where Brent had failed in his calls for prayer alone, they were realizing the need for something additional. They decided that they needed to challenge the Enemy!

  Brent looked around the living room. Creatures of terrifying beauty and magnificence were beginning to walk through the walls to surround the living room, warriors of light that were here for the sole purpose of protecting this beautiful girl who was still pacing before him.

  Garian walked into the living room, confident that his brothers would seal the hole that he had created in the line. He walked over to Elizabeth, and with his great right hand, grabbed the throat of the spirit of suicide, and ripped it off of her.