by Wood, Rick
Adjusting himself to the pain, he made his way through the middle of the pews and to the front of the church.
He propped himself up against the font, peering into the holy water before him. He saw his reflection waving in the water. The sound of a priest approaching distracted him for a moment. He waved his hand over the water and nothing happened. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but nothing happened.
“Can I help you?” asked a priest to the side of him. Eddie ignored him, not even glancing to see what he looked like.
He dropped his hand lower and lower, gently placing it upon the surface of water. He quickly withdrew it with sudden pain and fell to his knees, clutching his wrist.
The palm of his hand was completely red, a sizzling cloud of smoke exuding from it. He clutched his wrist, not daring to touch his hand in fear of the pain it may cause.
The priest knelt beside him and looked upon his hand, the smell of burning flesh filling the air between them.
“Son,” he addressed Eddie slowly and calmly. “I think you need to leave.”
Eddie looked to him with eyes of terror, the priest’s words going straight over his head. He had just burnt his hand on holy water. How? Why?
After realizing he had been prompted to go, he stood and hustled out without argument, still clutching his wrist in his hand, not taking his eyes off it.
As he left the church, the pain in his chest and stomach ceased and his palm began to heal.
12
9 February 2000
Forty days after millennium
Derek paced back and forth in his office. His hands furiously fidgeted and he was sweating profusely. He had never felt this agitated before. Of all the things he had faced, this was the biggest one.
He decided to check it again. It must be wrong. There must be something about it that was wrong.
Then again, it was just a book. Just a book written by some idiot somewhere who didn’t know what they were on about. Just because something was written in a book doesn’t make it real. What, because someone wants to substantiate their claims by making money out of them, does it give it integrity? No!
He sat at the edge of his seat and took the book back out of his drawer and slammed it on his desk. He ran his hand over the top, wiping away some of the dust that covered the title, Prophecies of the 21st and 22nd Century, by Bandile Thato.
Such a rare book itself, he was privileged to have it; bestowed on him in the early ‘90s by Bandile Thato himself, one of only three copies he’d produced. A gift for freeing his wife from demons. It was all luck that he was in South Africa at the time and met him. At least that’s what Derek thought; but Bandile insisted there was no such thing as luck, and that his being there was no coincidence. He had treasured this book away from prying eyes for so long, locked in a safe where it could do no harm.
Bandile called it a gift. Derek saw it as a curse. He did not want such knowledge as to what would happen in the world. Knowing such things only caused him pain when he had to witness them.
But it was still just a book. Written by a man. A wise man, yes, but a man with eyes that could see the future… preposterous, right?
Still, the book did have many prophecies that had proven to have some value.
Some value? Who was he kidding? Every prophecy in that book had come to pass. Everything. Not just related to his life, not just the prophecy that read that there would be one who could cross over to the other side and he would be one whom demons feared.
Political changes that Derek could have had no impact on whatsoever had come true. Russia was to have an unexpected new president, 113 dying in Concorde crash in Europe… it was all there. Written clearly and precisely for him to read.
He had even glanced at a few of the upcoming prophecies from time to time, the most prolific predicting the death of 2,996 people on 11 September 2001. Then he would do all he could to erase it from his mind, knowing if he was to toy with the timeline of the future, even to avoid catastrophic events, it would be to meddle with powers far beyond his reckoning.
He rushed through the pages, returning to the prophecy that had caused him such alarm.
And there it was, on the 666th page. He read it again, slower, making sure to have comprehended it thoroughly. He had read it so many times already, but reading it once more made him hopeful that somehow the words could be interpreted in a different way.
They couldn’t. Its words and the implication were undeniably consistent with his interpretation of the last time he had read it; and the time before that, and the time before that…
There will be a man with powers to command demons in hell. There will be a man with powers to exorcise a demon from its prey with ease that others do not have.
Come the new millennium, the world will hail the arrival of the first coming of hell. The son of the devil. He will embrace the world and his powers will control all demons that stand in his way.
This will be the man with such power, and the son of the devil’s coming will begin through him on 1st January 2000.
In this time, the son of the devil will carry through its ascension. Fate will align the son of the devil with its God, and the man it has chosen will give way to his true fate.
Come the new millennium, the son of the devil will rise and his powers will take him.
He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. Every word was the same as the time before and he couldn’t interpret it any other way.
But what of Eddie? So he had some powers, what did that matter? His powers may have become stronger since the new millennium, but it was two months in and there was no meeting of the devil in human form. Sure, this prophecy may be true, but why be so certain it was about Eddie?
He bowed his head, allowing it to slam into the table. He wished he had never encountered this book. He wished it had fallen into someone else’s hands. He wished this predicament did not lie before him.
Was the only way to stop this to kill the son of the devil? Would death make the evil end, or would it just provoke the beast within? So many questions he couldn’t answer, so many things he wished to know. Most of all, why did this dilemma have to fall before him?
He stood and began pacing again, feeling his legs grow weary from the burden placed upon them. He paused at the window and looked outside. It was growing dark. He observed the students walking past. All of them going about their business, oblivious to the realities this world has faced them with, perhaps going for a drink or having some tea. Oblivious to what stronger people must do to allow them to live out their ignorant, unknowing lives.
The candle on his desk flickered. That happened so often he ignored it. There was no breeze, no open window or ajar door to cause it to flicker, but still it flickered. It had flickered ever since he had started his work ten-odd years ago.
Then it came to him. His only solution. He must hide the book. Keep it locked away where no one would know. Even better, he would burn it.
He wasn’t burying his head in the sand, he was just denying the possibility. If Eddie was not to know of his power and its true origin, he could continue living out his life, using his power for good. Surely it would only be the knowledge of this potential fate that would sway him in such a direction that he would be forced to become the successor to hell.
He picked up the heavy book. It was old and tattered, in weak condition, which would help him well. With only a moment’s hesitation, he ripped all the pages from the inside of the book.
He emptied the contents of the bin over the floor and placed it in the middle of the room. He grabbed all the pieces of ripped paper in his arms and chucked them in. He watched them for a moment, taking the spare candle in his other hand, and considered the implications. The people he could have helped with this book. The fates he could have been aware of. Could he have even prevented any of them?
No. Knowing what was in this book did nothing but burden him. He did not need it.
He dropped the candle into the bin and the papers we
nt up in flames. As he watched them flicker and disintegrate, he ripped apart the leather cover and threw it into the fire piece by piece.
Eventually, the book was gone and all that was left of it was ash. He swept the rubbish back into the bin on top of the residue and placed the bin back in the corner of the room.
He left his office, locking the door behind him, leaving with it his knowledge of what lay in store for Eddie.
13
16 November 2001
One year, eleven months since millennium night
Jason barely made it one step through the door before he was thrown onto his back by two enthusiastic grandchildren. He laughed playfully as he dropped his bag and lay on the floor, with them climbing on top of him.
“Jesus, you’re getting heavy…” he moaned beneath two small girls; Ava, aged five with long, brown, swiggly hair, and Mia, aged three, with bright-blond hair and a smile that would make your knees melt.
“Come on girls, off Grandpa,” came the voice of their mother, Jason’s twenty-four-year old daughter, Harper. “You know his knees can’t handle it.”
“Maybe if you both were to help me up – take one hand each, you can manage it!” He reached his hands out and Ava and Mia took one each and tugged as hard as they could. Jason feigned a struggle and made his way back to his knees.
He gave his wife, Linda, a kiss, then sat down on the stairs to take his shoes off.
“So what have you two been up to today?” Jason addressed his two granddaughters with a proud smile.
“We went down to the park!” shouted Mia. She had only just managed to put coherent sentences together and already she wouldn’t shut up. Just like her mother. “And I went on the swings.”
“The swings?” Jason repeated with amazement. “How lovely.”
“And I went to the sweet-shop,” interrupted Ava, desperate to give her contribution. “And Nanny bought me some liquorish!”
“Some liquorish?” Jason choked back his laughter at the attempt to say liquorice. “I bet your daddy is going to love that,” he commented, with full knowledge that their father was a dentist.
“Yeah, well maybe some things we don’t tell him,” retorted Harper, leaning in the doorway, remembering all the times she used to come home and tell her father the things that she had done while he’d been away.
He regretted how much of an absentee father he had been at times, but his work had been important. He was lucky that he had managed to travel the world, debunking fraudulent mediums, psychics, and exorcisms in whatever corner of earth would have him. There was even a summer where the government became fascinated with the subject, quite a few decades ago now, and sent him to do scientific testing whilst sworn under deadly secrecy.
Those days were long gone. He had published enough books on the matter that his television appearances and lectures, combined with his best-selling non-fiction literature, would keep his family afloat. Now he was able to concentrate on being a wonderful husband and the all-time greatest grandfather.
He hadn’t long settled into his favourite chair with a cup of tea brought to him by his loving wife – two sugars, just a drop of milk, the way only she could make it – when he was pounced upon again by two girls holding out a book, demanding that he read to them.
“You two are old enough yourself to read now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Grandpa, but we want you to read it!” Ava adamantly answered back. He gave in. He couldn’t hold out against these girls, his caring for them was too deep.
He opened the book and began reading. Some story about a rabbit who did something or other. Not before long, there were two sleeping girls on his lap, snoozing away in his arms.
As he looked upon the two gorgeous girls cuddled up to him, peacefully sleeping and gently snoring, two precious gems, he looked to his daughter. She was deep in conversation with her mother across the room. She had been a great mum. He was proud.
He thought back to his mum, remembered how she was. Cold, unloving, foolish. He was put in foster care before he was even a teenager, solely because of the kind of con artists he had since dedicated his life to opposing.
He remembered watching her leave the house for the last time, painfully hoping she would return soon, but knowing in the pit of his stomach he would never see her again. His tearful eyes peering out the window at an old man with a beard, shoving her into his car. He didn’t understand who he was, what he was doing, until he was much older, and his solemn grandparents told him.
When he was an adult, he would come to learn that this man was the leader of a religious cult. An expert in brainwashing. A man who physically and emotionally abused those he supposedly led.
His arrest occurred when Jason was seventeen, for inciting many of his followers to commit suicide as proof of their love for God. Jason had always dreamt of seeing his mum again, but by then it was too late. She had already been conned. She had already died for this man.
He swore he would never let anyone face the same fate as her again.
The evening grew dark and it was time for his two angels to go, so he carried them out to Harper’s car and placed them carefully in their car seats. With a kiss on their foreheads and a whisper of “Love yuh kid,” he waved good-bye to his daughter as she took the two sparks of his life home to bed.
That left him and his wife alone to enjoy each other’s company beside the fire. They had a television, but they rarely had it on. He preferred to spend his time caught up in a book, or learn how to check his emails; something that still took him over half an hour to figure out each time.
Linda had made his favourite for tea – shepherd’s pie. He quickly ate it down and it made her smile. Something as simple as how quickly he gobbled down her cooking, even after all this time, still made her happy.
They sat together on the sofa, holding hands, as she read her magazine and he read his book. Eventually, the night grew late and she announced that she was off to bed. He told her that he’d join her later, gave her a kiss, and reminded her that he loved her, just as he had done every other day of their life, and was left alone.
Being sat alone with your thoughts is a dangerous thing. They would often dwell on the worst. Not with Jason. He knew that anything that worried him could be put down to a rational trail of thought and for that reason, he was never disappointed to be stuck in his own company.
He made his way over to the pad by the telephone. After all this time, his devoted wife still wrote down each message for him with such precision that every bit of detail about the call was recorded. She had noted one message, written as so, beneath a meticulously written phone number:
Time: 1.05 p.m.
Derek, from the university, head of Paranormal Science
Phone back
He racked his brain to think of who this was, then it hit him. The man from a few weeks ago, the guest lecture. Ringing up to give him a piece of his mind, perhaps. Wouldn’t be the first time. People who place their beliefs on such weak foundations against evidence always react in a volatile way when those foundations were shaken. He discarded the message and went on about his day.
Then, as if by bizarre coincidence, the phone rang, and Jason picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, I do apologise to call so late. Is that Mr Aslan?”
Jason frowned. Who the hell could this be? He glanced at the clock. It was gone eleven. It was late.
“This is, and who am I talking to?”
“You may well remember me, my name is Derek, Derek Lansdele – I gave the lecture that you protested against a few weeks ago.”
“Ah, yes. I got your message. I’m not interested in hearing any abuse you have for me, and I request you do not call me at home, so –”
“Oh, on the contrary, Mr Aslan, I am calling to do no such thing. I always respect someone who is willing to stand up for what they believe in. I imagine you would too?”
Jason was taken aback. He didn’t know what to say. It took him a
few seconds of stuttering over his words until he could coherently reply.
“Well, yes, but I think it depends what those beliefs are based upon.”
“Ah, well, what if I was to tell you that I have evidence for those beliefs that you contradict.”
“I’ve seen evidence and it hasn’t matched up, I’m afraid.”
“Well yes, I’m sure, but I am not talking about evidence such as you have seen before. This is not some bad cold reader doing readings, nor is it some man with an ear piece predicting people’s past as it is fed to them. This is hard evidence you cannot argue with.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m not talking someone just speaking in tongues in a way that could be otherwise explained, Mr Aslan. I am talking about a child floating ten feet in the air. I am talking about objects flying around the room. I am talking about being in the presence of things that are unlike anything you will have ever seen in your entire career. Mr Aslan, this is the real deal.”
Jason couldn’t deny that he was intrigued. He had heard all this diatribe before from numerous hacks who had set up tricks to make someone shake a bed whilst having a seizure, who had planted things around the room that made things jump in the air. But this sounded like a man desperate to prove something.
“You have my attention.”
“In a few weeks’ time, me and my partner, Edward King, are performing an exorcism of an eleven-year-old boy. I would like to invite you to come along. To observe.”
Jason opened the curtains and surveyed the field outside his home. He enjoyed the stillness and the quiet of the night.
“I have no intention of watching some trickery, I assure you. I have seen objects flying across a room, and I have explained how the frauds did it afterwards.”
