The Revelation

by Bentley Little

  The priest shook his head. "I don't know yet. What should I make of it?"

  "Talk to him," Jim said. "See if you can make any sense out of what he says."

  The priest turned to Brother Elias. "Why are these predictions coming true?" he asked. "The adversary is among us," the preacher said.

  "The evil one is here."

  Father Andrews leaned forward. "What do you mean the adversary is among us? Do you mean that Satan is here? Actually, physically, here?"

  "Satan is here," Brother Elias said. "And he is recruiting disciples to help him accomplish his work."

  "But where is here? Do you mean here on earth? Or do you mean Randall specifically?"

  Brother Elias' black eyes bored into those of the priest. "He is here," he said, hitting the table with his forefinger to punctuate his words. "Here in this town. He is recruiting disciples in preparation for the coming battle with the forces of the Lord. This is to be the battleground."

  Jim stood up, running a tired hand through his hair. "What makes you think he's here?" he asked. "Churches in Phoenix have been desecrated, too. How do you know he's not down there?"

  "He is here."

  "Why?"

  "Who knows why Satan does what he does, why he goes where he goes? It is enough to know that he is here among us, that he is gathering together his army in preparation for the final battle, the battle that was foretold--"

  "Look," Jim said loudly. "I've had just about enough of this crap." He glanced toward Father Andrews. "I'm not sure I believe all this end-of-the-world shit he's spouting, but it seems pretty obvious to me that he's involved in all this. I don't know how. Maybe he's crazy, and maybe I'm crazy too, but I think he knows what's going on here.

  What do you think?"

  The priest nodded.

  "All right, then. Now what I want is specifics. What, where, and when. Don't give me this vague crap about visions and prophecies."

  Brother Elias smiled. "You are just like Ezra," he said. "Just like your great-grandfather."

  Jim looked exasperatedly at Father Andrews for help. "You try to talk to him, Father." He began pacing around the room. "Jesus fuck." He glanced quickly and shamefacedly at the priest. "Sorry,"

  Andrews smiled, shaking his head, signifying that no apology was necessary. He turned his attention back to the preacher, seated across the table from him. There is something wrong with this man, he thought, something basically and fundamentally wrong.

  Something inhuman. He stared into the preacher's calm face and felt the fear rise within him. He could sense, beneath the surface calm, an inner twistedness Outwardly, Brother Elias' suit was neatly pressed, his hair combed to perfection, his.. .. Andrews bent forward, squinting, not believing what he was seeing.

  On Brother Elias' earlobe was a small cross. It had been tattooed on.

  He looked closer. No, not tattooed. Carved. The cross had been carved into his flesh. Andrews looked at the preacher's other ear. The skin here, too, had been savagely marked with the carving of a crucifix.

  The door to the conference room opened, and Rita let Gordon in. He stood by the doorway for a moment, taking everything in, unsure of what to do.

  "Sit down," the sheriff told him. "We're just getting started."

  Gordon nodded politely to Father Andrews, but his attention was focused on Brother Elias. The preacher, likewise, was staring at Gordon. "I was wondering when you would arrive," he said.

  "Let's get back to the questions," the sheriff said. "What exactly is Satan doing here in Randall?"

  Gordon looked up at the sheriff, but he knew enough not to interrupt or ask any questions. He would just follow along with the conversation and ask questions afterward, if he had to.

  Brother Elias continued to stare at Gordon. "He is recruiting disciples for the coming battle--"

  "How is he recruiting them?" the sheriff demanded. "Who is he recruiting? And where is he getting them? From the prisons? From the bars? From the people who don't go to church or don't believe in God?"

  Brother Elias stared at him as though he had just said something profoundly stupid. "Where is he getting them? He is getting them from the womb. He is gathering to him the babies."

  The babies.

  Gordon looked at the suddenly pale faces of the sheriff and Father Andrews, knowing that his face must appear even more shocked and scared. He tried to lick his dry lips, but the saliva had fled his mouth.

  Brother Elias picked up a black-bound Bible from the floor next to his chair and opened it to a marked page. "Revelation 20:14," he said, and his voice was filled with calm authority. '"Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."" He looked up and repeated the last portion of the verse in a softer voice. ""And if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.""

  There was silence after the preacher had finished speaking.

  Brother Elias closed the Bible and put it back on the floor next to his chair. "The lake of fire is hell," he said. "And those who are not written into the book of life, those who are not born, those who are aborted or miscarried or stillborn, are cast into the lake of fire to become the disciples of Satan. These unborn infants are blank slates, neither good nor bad, but Satan captures them in his web, forcing them to do his evil work, converting them to his evil purpose."

  Father Andrews shook his head. "You're wrong," he said. "You don't know what you're talking about. The lake of fire is not hell, and the book of life is not life. Any seminary student could tell you--"

  "Go not by the interpretations of the past," Brother Elias said. "For they are incorrect."

  "You have no idea what--"

  "The Lord," Brother Elias said calmly, "has spoken to me in a divine vision. He has shown me what must be done." He looked from Gordon to Andrews to the sheriff. "And you are to help me."

  "Why do you need us at all?" Andrews asked. "You obviously know what needs to be done and how to do it, why don't you just do it on your own?"

  "The adversary is crafty. He is a liar and the father of lies, and he can call forth his minions to aid him. He will do everything in his power to stop me from doing my duty."

  Jim sat down heavily in the chair next to Brother Elias. He thought for a moment, then sighed. "I don't know what to believe," he admitted. He looked at the preacher. "I believe you know what's going on here, but I'm not sure you're telling us the truth. Or all of the truth. I need more proof. I need proof before I can act on any of this. I can't just take your word for it all."

  Brother Elias fingered the gold cross of his tie clip. His black eyes were bright and alive. "By tomorrow, you will have your proof," he said. "If you wait any longer than that, it will be too late."

  Tim McDowell, armed only with a flashlight and a kid'swalkie talkie, walked for the thirteenth time that day across the water-cut path that dissected the ravine at the north end of Aspen Lake. A low drizzle had started several hours ago, burgeoning into a full fledged storm, and most of the searchers had since gone home for the day. A few others were waiting out the monsoon in their cars, parked along the dirt road next to the lake, staring out their windshields at the flashes of alternately red and blue lightning, perplexed. Only he and Mac Buxton and Ralph Daniels were still trudging around and actively looking. He knew that the odds were against finding anything, particularly in this ravine, which had been covered more than any area save the campground itself, but he was determined not to give up the search until he found out about Matt. One way or the other.

  Several of the other searchers had tried to hint gently that it was possible the boys were dead, and he knew, intellectually, that they were probably right, but emotionally he felt otherwise. He had a feeling, a gut feeling, that Matt was alive, only lost or hurt.

  "Matt!" he called. "Matt!"

  No answer.

  His voice was getti
ng hoarse, and his arms and legs were aching, but he didn't care. He pulled a wad of chaw from hisSkoal can and put it between his cheek and gum. The tobacco tasted good. He spit, wiping the excess off his beard. He took off his CAT hat and squeezed some of the water out of it before putting it back on.

  The walkie-talkie crackled, and he held it up immediately next to his ear, but it was only another false alarm. He put thewalkie talkie down and looked back toward the lake. Through the natural green of the ponderosas he could see the red and blue metal of pickup cabs. Ron Harrison and Joe Fisk were in one of those trucks. Drunk, probably. He spit in disgust. How could they sit there when their kids were still missing? What kind of fathers were they?

  "Shitty," he answered himself. He looked around, walking forward, trying to spot a shirt, a shoe, something. "Matt!" he called.

  The walkie-talkie crackled. He held it up to his ear.

  "Tim. I've found something."

  His heart stopped. His lips were dry in spite of the rain. He held down the "talk" button with his finger and took a big gulp of air. "Is it ... Matt?"

  "You .. . have to come here." Ralph's voice sounded strange.

  "What's wrong?" He was scared. "What is it?"

  "You have to come here. You too, Mac."

  "Where are you?" Mac's voice sounded faint, far away.

  "I'm behind the hill on the west side, probably straight across from the campsite."

  Tim was already running. His feet sank in the mud and he tripped over an occasional rock or branch, but he was moving too fast for it to slow down his momentum. He found a deer trail leading up the side of the ravine, and he sprinted up the path. Branches whipped against his face. He was breathing heavily, both because of the exertion and the panic, but he forced himself to keep moving, despite the pain in his chest.

  He topped the hill and saw, down below, the red flash of Ralph's jacket through the trees. From somewhere off to the side of him, Mac was yelling loudly for the rest of the search party to follow him. Tim listened, as he ran, for the telltale sound of slamming truck doors, but he heard nothing. The other searchers, sitting in their vehicles, probably with the windows up, could not hear Mac over the rain. The walkie-talkie crackled, and Mac's harried voice came through clearly. "I'm going to get everyone else. Hold on, we'll be right there."

  Tim slipped in the mud and slid down the last twenty or thirty feet of the hill. He scrambled to his feet and ran over to where Ralph stood looking into the darkly clouded sky and breathing deeply. "What is it?" he demanded, grabbing Ralph's shoulder. "What did you find?"

  Ralph looked at him, the rain dripping down his face looking almost like tears. He said nothing but pointed off to the right. Tim's gaze followed his finger, but he could see nothing at first. There was only a dead half-rotted log, a copse of small saplings, some ferns, and ...

  Tim walked slowly forward, his heart thuddingpropulsively in his chest, feeling as though it would pound a hole through both his ribcage and his skin. On some of the light green ferns he could see trails of watery pink. He moved closer. Now there was a definite form lying in the midst of the ferns. A form wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

  Matt? "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod..." He realized he was babbling, but he did nothing to stop himself. He didn't care. This close, he could see that the pink trails on the ferns had been formed by splattered blood watered down with rain. Darker blood had seeped into the mulch like ground cover and other, lower, sheltered plants were speckled with various hues of red. He bent next to the body, falling to one knee, praying, pleading wildly in his mind, Don't let it be Matt, please don't let it be Matt, as he tentatively touched the form.

  The T-shirt gave under the pressure of his prodding finger and collapsed inwardly. There was nothing there. There was no back to the figure. He pushed his finger forward again and felt squishiness.

  Squishiness and bone. The dirty whiteness of the T shirt began to disappear under a creeping soaking red.

  The hair was blond, he noticed suddenly. Matt had black hair.

  He dared not turn the body over, so he shifted his position, moving in front of it.

  He closed his eyes immediately.

  The figure's face had been eaten away. Ragged clumps of bitten, gnawed flesh hung in tattered patterns from an almost visible skull. An eye lolled limply on a torn optic nerve. Red-stained teeth grinned in a dead idiot's smile.

  He stood up, opening his eyes only when he was once again on his feet.

  He stared into the sky, trying to blot the horrible image from his mind, trying to cleanse his senses of the sight. Even in the rain, he could smell the thick, heavy, disgusting odor of blood. Taking a deep breath, he looked down again, checking out the rest of the body. Hands and feet were all gone. Although the backs of the jeans and T-shirt had been untouched, the fronts were ripped to shreds. All that was left of the body was a bare outline, a hollow shell.

  He stepped back over the body and stopped before Ralph. He swallowed audibly. "Where are the rest of them?" he asked.

  Ralph looked at him, his face pale. "I don't know. I didn't want to look."

  There was the sound of voices and cracking twigs and branches as Mac led the rest of the searchers over the hill. Tim looked up, watching the others make their descent. Half of him wanted to search immediately for Matt's body, but the other half wanted to wait until other men could help him search, afraid of what he might find. He was sure Matt was dead after seeing that other body, but he dreaded the confirmation and wanted to put it off as long as possible.

  One of the men on the hill stumbled and went down, slipping in the wet mud. Tim heard a disgusted "Jesus Christ!" and then, seconds later, a panicked "No! Please, God, no!"

  "Ja-a-a-ack!" Ron Harrison's cry of animal torment cut through the whispered hissing of the rain and the mumbles of the other men like a knife throughJello . Jack. They had found the body of Jack Harrison.

  Tim glanced instinctively back at the body couched in the ferns. That must be Wayne, then. Wayne Fisk.

  But where was Matt?

  He looked at Ralph and their eyes met. They did not have to climb up the hill to know what the other searchers had found. Neither of them said anything, but both moved in opposite directions, their eyes on the ground, searching for the last body. Matt's body.

  Tim's muscles hurt, not from exhaustion but from tension. The muscles in his arms and legs were knotted with fear and anxiety, and he could feel his neck cords straining. His teeth were clenched against whatever he might find. He stared at the ground, moving slowly, looking behind every fern, every shrub, every fallen tree for any sign of blood or clothing. His shoe hit against a rock, almost tripping him, and he stopped to catch his balance, looking up Ahead, lying against a tree trunk, almost hidden by underbrush, he could see the bloody, pulpy remains of what had once been a body.

  The body of his son.

  He ran forward, screaming as he did so, hearing his cries echoed by Ralph and taken up by the men on the hill. He reached the tree and stopped, looking down, his arms dangling uselessly at his sides. He didn't know what to do. Some part of him, some primal fathering part of him, felt the need to cry and grieve and hug his son's dead body.

  But there was no body to hug. What remained of Matt was a broken and twisted lump of bloody, almost gelatinous, flesh. There was no sign of head or hands or feet or anything recognizable. It looked as though his body had been torn apart, then turned inside out, then completely restructured. Only a tiny scrap of cloth remained of his clothing, and it was glued by blood to the tree trunk.

  Tim looked away, staring down at his feet instead. He wanted to cry, but he could not. He was too horrified. For some reason, he could not conjure up Matt's image in his brain. When he tried to picture his son, only the bloody lump of flesh came to mind. He tried to force his brain to concentrate on Matt's good points, to remember the times they had had together, to somehow recover those moments that had been lost and would open the floodgates to his grief, but his senses were too sho
cked, his mind too numb.

  From far off, behind him, he heard someone gagging, then retching.

  His eye caught on a small footprint next to his foot. He stared at it. What the hell could it be? It looked almost like a baby's footprint. He looked closer, and saw that there were many such footprints in the open mud around the tree. Quite a few of the footprints had been either obscured or obliterated by the constant rainfall, but the deeper ones had remained and stood out sharply.

  Ralph walked up behind him and clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Sorry," he said. His voice was filled with genuine hurt, genuine understanding. He glanced toward Matt's body and looked instantly away.

  Tim touched his arm and pointed at the footprints. "Look at that," he said.

  There was a rustling movement in the ferns off to the right. Both men watched as something small scurried away from them, pushing ferns and grasses aside as it moved. Around them, other rustling noises sounded.

  Tim felt an instinctual fear supersede his pain and disgust. The rain became suddenly heavier, its loudness drowning out the rustling noises in the underbrush. He turned to Ralph. "What do you think it is?" he asked.

  Something grabbed his legs from behind and jerked, sending him sprawling. In the split second before his eyes were clawed out, he saw Ralph fall as well. Small creatures, creatures brown with mud, were hanging onto Ralph's legs and pulling him down. Others were darting out from under the ferns, babbling and cackling in some high-pitched alien tongue.

  Then his eyes were gone and he was fighting blindly against his unseen attackers. His hands found flesh, soft flesh, and punched, grabbed, squeezed. Others were upon him now, small claws ripping and tearing, small mouths biting. He screamed in agony as he felt his legs being torn apart, the pain shooting up through his spinal cord and bolting through his brain in one shock-inducing instant.

  Where were the other searchers? Couldn't they see what was happening?

  The last thing he heard, before he lost consciousness for the last time, was the sound of other men screaming.