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 my home,” the thing said.
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?”
“It’s not that simple,” Mark said. “You have to say the right things….”
The captain just shook his head again. He paced back and forth in front of the altar, stopping once to pound on it with his fist.
“That thing’s solid as a rock,” he said. “Pardon the expression. There’s no way anyone’s going to go through it.”
Mark sighed. “So you’re willing to believe that a demon has run amok in western Rhode Island, destroying a town and killing over forty of your men and maiming a couple dozen more, but you’re not willing to believe that it escaped through a portal to another world? That, Captain, doesn’t make sense.”
“I never said I believed this was a demon.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know. An alien force, maybe. It could be anything. But I don’t believe that this rock is a gateway to…. Where’d you say it led?”
“To hell,” Mark said. “It leads to hell.”
“There’s no such thing as hell. That’s a fairy tale you preachers make up to keep people from misbehaving.”
Mark shook his head in frustration. “Well if that’s what it is, it doesn’t seem to be working very well, does it?”
The soldier stopped for a moment and laughed. “Yeah, you got me there,” he said. “No, I guess the threat of hell hasn’t stopped many people from misbehaving. Not lately, anyhow.”
“I’m glad you find that amusing,” Mark said. “But I’m telling you that my friends have gone through that portal and are in hell-or wherever it is that demon has gone. I can’t allow you to destroy that altar stone until they come back.”
“I’m afraid, Pastor, that you don’t have the authority to tell me what I can and cannot destroy. Whatever that thing is, it poses a threat to national security and it disappeared into that rock. I don’t know how, but it did. It might have gone back to its own world, or maybe it’s become part of the rock. I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. All I’m concerned with is keeping it from coming back here. And I think a thousand pounds of explosives should do just that. No problem.”
Mark stopped and looked at the ground. Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. He didn’t want to get into an ego contest with this soldier. He was just a humble pastor and sure to lose.
“Ok, Captain,” he said. “I understand that you want to close that thing up forever. So do I. They left me here to stop that thing in case it tries to come back out.”
“You’re going to stop it.”
Mark sighed again and tried to remain patient. The soldier di
dn’t know or understand what had happened here. And he didn’t have the time or the energy to teach theology right now.
“Yes. I know the right words to drive it back in. That’s how we drove it away the first time.”
The soldier rolled his eyes, as if to say “yeah, right.”
“The point is,” Mark continued, “That there are some very good people in there and they’re going to need a way out. If you destroy that stone they’ll be trapped forever.”
“I have to destroy it. I have my orders.”
“Ok. But do you have to destroy it now? Can’t you give us some time?”
He thought for a moment and looked at his watch. “It’s midnight now,” he said. “It would be better to set up the charges in daylight. I can justify that. You have until seven a.m. Then we start setting charges. When they’re done, we detonate.”
“Thank you, Captain. I suspect that if they’re not back by morning, they won’t be coming back.”
4
Erik knew he was in trouble now. Dovecrest was down and probably unconscious; his son had been knocked out and pitched into the sand. And now the demon was coming for him. It turned and faced him and glared at him with hatred in its eyes.
The thing didn’t look so menacing in human form. But it had one distinct advantage: it couldn’t be killed. Then again, they were in hell. Were they already dead? He looked past the demon at Dovecrest. Most of his face had been smashed in, yet the Indian was still alive, slowly sitting up and holding his injuries. Maybe he couldn’t be killed here either, Erik thought. Or maybe if he were, his body would just return to earth. There was no way to know.
The demon took a step forward and Erik backed up a step to keep the distance between them. Even as a human, this thing was powerful. It hadn’t taken on the shape of just any human. This wasn’t your typical computer programmer or historian. This man would have made a formidable human, a bodybuilder or a linebacker or, judging from the way it fought, a boxer or a soldier.
And here he was, an English teacher who had taken a year of Martial Arts while in College so very long ago. He didn’t even no where to begin the fight. If the sharp rock didn’t hurt the thing, what could he be expected to do without any weapon?
The monster rushed at him with fists flying. Somehow Erik managed to duck under the assault and slip behind him.
“Just come and get it and I’ll make it easy on you,” the demon said. “There’s nowhere to run.”
Erik had to admit that the landscape held no possibilities for escape, but something about him just refused to give up. He turned and kicked the demon in the side. It was like kicking a cement wall and only made his foot hurt.
The demon laughed. “No, I don’t think that will do,” it said. “And your Bible and your God can’t help you here. This is my domain. And you came here of your own free will. You belong to me now.”
“I don’t obey you,” Erik said. “None of us obey you.”
“Oh, you will! Make no mistake about that.”
Then it stepped forward and leveled its fist at him. Erik tried to dodge the blow, but the demon was quicker. It felt like a hammer had crashed into the side of his skull as he staggered backwards. Then he felt his head go light as the blood drained away and his feet collapsed under him. He felt himself land on the loose sand and then darkness came down like the curtain on the final act.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1
Erik woke up to a blinding headache. He sat up and tried to get his bearings, but everything seemed to be moving, as if he were on one of those thrill rides that toss you upside down and around in circles until everything becomes a blur. His stomach felt like he was on a thrill ride, too, as it jumped up and down as if on a trampoline.
“Just relax.” It was Dovecrest’s voice. He felt the Indian’s hand on his shoulder. “You’ve taken quite a whack to the head. We both have. Just close your eyes for a minute and let it come back slowly.”
“Where’s Vickie and Todd?”
“I don’t know,” Dovecrest replied. “I guess it took them again.”
Erik felt all of his hope disappear once again. He opened his eyes and waited for the world to stop spinning. Eventually, it did.
He found himself sitting in the middle of a sand pit that was perhaps fifty feet deep and about the size of an average living room. There were no rock outcroppings, no stairs or ladder-no way out short of scaling up the soft sand walls.
“I already tried it,” Dovecrest said, anticipating his question. “There’s nothing to hold on to. The sand just slides out from underneath your feet. We can’t climb out of here.”
“So it’s left us here to die?”
“That’s the real hell of it,” Dovecrest said. “Pardon the pun. We won’t die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it for a minute. When was the last time you ate? Or drank?”
“I don’t remember. It must have been hours.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“No. Not the least. But I should be. I should be, shouldn’t I?”
Dovecrest nodded. “We should be hungry. We should be thirsty. We should be tired. Look at my face. I should be dead.”
Sure enough, the Indian’s skull was cracked and broken. The injury should at least have landed him in intensive care, if not the morgue. But here he was standing there talking like it was nothing more than a scratch.
“You see, we can’t die. We’re already in the world of the dead. That means we’re either already dead, or else we can’t die, not as long as we’re here, anyway.”
“So that’s why the demon didn’t kill us.”
“Exactly. We are as immortal as it is-at least while we’re here.”
“So now all we have to do is get out of this sand trap and find the demon again. Only we still don’t know how to stop him. And why did it keep Vickie and Todd? What’s it got in mind for them?”
“I don’t know. But we’d better figure a way out of here if we expect to find out.”
Erik sat in the middle of the pit and pondered the problem.
“Give me a boost,” he said.
Dovecrest knelt down and he stood on the Indian’s shoulders at the edge of the pit. He was still nowhere near high enough to escape. He reached out to grab what edge there was, but it just collapsed. There was nothing to hold onto. It just crumbled away at his touch.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said. Then he climbed down from the Indian’s shoulders.
“Maybe we could make a rope out of our clothes,” Dovecrest suggested.
“Maybe. But I don’t think we have enough to make a rope that long. And we’d have nothing to hook it on to at the top.”
“You’re right. I’m grasping at straws.”
“Yeah, me too,” Erik said. “I don’t suppose we could dig ourselves out.”
Dovecrest forced a laugh. “I think we’re already as far down as we want to go.”
“I’d hate to think what’s down deeper than hell.”
“Wait a minute,” Dovecrest said. “Suppose we don’t dig down, but dig up.”
“Dig up. What do you mean?”
“When you stood on my shoulders and dug at the side, what happened?”
“I got sand all over you.”
“Exactly. And that sand fell to the bottom of the pit. If we dig at the sides, it’ll fill in the bottom. Eventually, we can fill in the hole enough to be able to climb out.”
Erik thought for a minute. “It might work. But it’ll take forever, won’t it?”
“I don’t know. But do you have anything else to do to pass the time?”
Erik shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t. Let’s get started.”
2
Todd found himself lying on an open stretch of sand next to his mother, who was breathing furiously and fighting back the pains of her labor. He opened his eyes and looked around. The demon sat nearby, as if waiting. Todd couldn’t imagine what it was waiting for,
unless it was for the baby to be born. Maybe he had something in mind for the baby.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“I have taken care of the intruders,” the demon said. “They won’t be bothering us any more.”
He looked at his mother, then back at the demon. “What are you going to do with us?”
“Oh, I have plans for you. I have plans for you all. Don’t you worry. You and I will be going back to where you came from. We will have a great time together.”
“And my Mom?”
“That depends on how well you cooperate,” the demon said. “Right now it could go either way.”
Todd thought for a moment. It looked like the thing had killed his dad. But he didn’t have the energy to think about that now. That would come in time, but right now he had to think of his Mom. His mom and the new baby.
“Ok,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Ah, that is so much better. We can work together, you and I. First, I want you to stay with your mother and don’t try anything foolish. Don’t try to run away or fight me. There’s nowhere to run and, as you can see, you can’t defeat me.”
Todd could see the logic in that. “Ok,” he said.
“Your mother is going to have her baby very soon. I need you to help her.”
“I’ll try,” he said. “But I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s ok, Honey,” his mother said. “I’m ok. Everything’s going to be all right.”
But his mother didn’t look all right. She was pale and gray-looking. His hands were clammy and she was having great trouble breathing.
“Mom, remember how they told you to breathe?”
“Yeah, Todd. I do.”
“Well you’re not breathing that way, Mom. It’s not sounding the same. You’re gasping for air. You’re not breathing it.”
The Altar Page 26
