The Savior Rises

by Christopher C. Payne

  What had Matt done that had allowed Greg to sway him to betray her? Greg’s deceitful maneuverings were too intricate to understand or follow on any level. How could Matt have allowed himself to be tricked by this serpent from Hell?

  Greg truly was the closest thing to a devil she’d ever encountered.

  Stefani made a vow to herself. She made a promise as she lay on the stone floor, fighting to keep her eyes open. No matter what happened in her life, no matter how bad things ever became, no matter what odds were stacked against her, she would never make a deal with this thing.

  She would never allow him the privilege of getting the best of her. He would die. She would turn 21 and embrace the power she kept hearing she would inherit. With that power, she would crush Greg like an ant under her foot.

  She no longer had the energy to keep her eyes open, as she succumbed to the inevitable. Her eyelids finally closed, but instead of feeling sadness, she smiled. Her only joy in life would be watching Greg die. This man who had taken everything from her time and time again would find his end at her hands; of that she felt confident.

  It isn’t Possible

  Stefani stretched her arms and yawned as she clutched her pillow. She was so sore. Her entire body felt like it had been through a meat grinder. What happened to her? Even her legs felt achy, like softening Jell-O, and she had not been running in….

  “What the hell?” she said out loud as she sat up in bed. “What the hell is going on?” she asked to nobody specific.

  Stefani sat in her bedroom. The sun shone through her window, and it was morning. She was in her bed, in her bedroom. It was like having déjà vu, again. Hadn’t she just gone through this a couple of days ago, or yesterday? Jesus, what day was it?

  She looked at her arms and could see scratches stretching all the way across her hands. She had bruises on her elbows, and her legs were actually turning purple in a couple of spots. Why was she in her bed? Didn’t she fall? Wasn’t she chained in some kind of dungeon? Hadn’t she just been to Europe?

  She heard voices outside. They sounded like her roommates. She jumped out of bed and threw open her door. Staci and Lori sat at the breakfast table eating bowls of cereal.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” Lori said.

  Stefani ignored her.

  “How the heck did I get here?” she screamed at Staci. “Answer me or I swear to God, I’ll break your neck.”

  Staci looked at her, scooting her chair back as she sat and stared. “I don’t know what you mean,” she stammered. “I don’t know what you mean, I don’t know. You were out yesterday, and you came home after I went to sleep. Stefani, are you ok?”

  Stefani picked up one side of the table with both hands and launched it into the air. It hit the countertop, spraying cereal and broken glass across the sink and on to the floor below. Lori sat in her seat, staring with her mouth wide open. She didn’t understand what had just occurred.

  “Really, I don’t know. I swear to God I don’t know. Stefani, what’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”

  Staci kept letting meaningless dribble fall from her mouth as if she had no control of her speech.

  Stefani didn’t know what to do. She ran back into her room and slammed the door, locking it from the inside. She jumped on her bed and wrapped her arms around her completely intact Raggedy Ann doll. It looked the same as it had for the last several years. Dirty and worn, but its head was snuggly attached to its body. It just stared at her as though she were insane.

  Stefani flipped on the TV. There were four days left until her birthday. The days continued to tick away, but how were they ticking away. Where was she? How was she sitting in her bed? What happened to Matt? Was he dead? Wasn’t Staci part of this charade?

  Stefani curled up in a ball and cried. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have anyone. She was on her own, caught in this twisted world where nothing seemed to work anymore.

  “JESUS!” she screamed at the top of her lungs when she heard the tapping on her door.

  “Stefani, are you ok? Should we call somebody?” Staci whispered from the other side.

  “I’m fine. Please just leave me alone. Please just leave me alone. Please,” she whispered back, clutching her legs against her body. She’d never been so scared in her entire life.

  After lying there for a couple of hours, she finally heard the noise die down. She quietly got out of bed and cracked her door, softly calling to her roommates. No one answered. After waiting a few minutes more, Stefani walked down the hall and crawled into the shower. She felt she should have some type of game plan. After all, she was the Chosen One, wasn’t she? Were people still going to be coming after her?

  She allowed the steaming hot water to rush over her skin until the heat had run its course and only cold water remained. She hadn’t washed her hair or her face or used any soap. She’d just stood there, vacantly staring at the shower head, watching the water spraying out in tiny little streams.

  There was a small drip on the backside where some of the water was somehow not making it through the main part of the nozzle. It rebelled against the system and held its rhythmic beat as it dripped, one drop after another throughout the entire shower.

  Rebellious little drips. Fighting conformity never really gets you anywhere, does it? You find yourself all alone, sitting on the backside of the showerhead, wondering how your life became so screwed up.

  Stefani wrapped a soft white cotton towel around her body and walked down the hall to her room. She shut the door and locked it. She didn’t want anyone or anything surprising her. She couldn’t take it anymore.

  As she raised her head she saw them, but it didn’t make any sense.

  Two posters hung on her wall. One was a scenic view of Bath, a little town outside of London. On the upper back corner sat a little cottage with a stone driveway circling up to its front door. Right next the poster of Bath hung a poster of Ladispoli, a city in Italy not that far from Rome, on the coast side. The ocean was visible in the poster, as well.

  Stefani didn’t have any posters on her wall. She didn’t have any decorations in her room, and she never had. Except for the one piece of artwork she bought at an Art and Jazz festival, she owned nothing. Even the framed print sat on the floor. She hadn’t hung anything in her room since the day she moved in.

  Her roommates used to tease her about the lack of decorations. They used to ask her if she were living there on a temporary basis. She didn’t own any artwork. Why were these posters here?

  “What is happening to me?” She screamed as she fell on her bed again, wrapping herself into the smallest ball possible.

  She didn’t lie there for long this time. She blindly put on some clothes, brushed her hair out of habit, and threw on some tennis shoes. She headed out the front door, walked to the sidewalk below, and kept moving. She didn’t have any idea where she was going. She’d even forgotten her wallet, but she kept walking anyway.

  When she finally raised her head, she saw she was again in Golden Gate Park. It had only been a few days since she was there with Dennis. At least she thought she’d been there with Dennis. She walked down the perimeter and ended up at the townhouse complex where they’d spent the night.

  She sat down on a bench and stared at the very same door Dennis knocked off its hinges. She sat there, staring, as the carpenter worked on his repairs. The owner must’ve come home, saw the house had been broken into, and was now getting his door fixed.

  If his door had actually been broken, didn’t that mean Stefani had been here? The door didn’t just break all by itself, and how would she have known the door was broken anyway? She couldn’t be crazy if there was somebody fixing the door, right?

  “Please, dear God, please tell me I’m not losing my mind.”

  “You’re not losing your mind,” a familiar voice said from behind her.

  Dennis slowly walked up and sat down next to her, wrapping his arms around her. She sank into his chest and tried to bury her head as far in
to his body as humanly possible. Humanly? Did that word even make sense anymore? What was human? Was she human or some kind of ant-eating reptile with God forsaken wings?

  “Are you real?” Stefani asked. “Are you really here sitting next to me? I really need to understand because nothing makes sense. Nothing is real. Nothing that’s happening makes any sense.”

  “Ssssshhhh. Just don’t say anything. Just sit here for a while and relax. It will all come back to you in a few moments. Just relax for now. You don’t have to worry about anything. I’m here now. We just have to stick together. Only four more days until your birthday, and then all of this will go away, I promise.”

  “Hey, lady, are you ok?” A finger prodded her, and she tried to open her eyes. “Lady, you probably shouldn’t sleep here. I don’t think it’s safe to sleep here at night.”

  Stefani pried her eyes open. An old man who wore far too many articles of clothing stared back at her.

  “Lady, you might want to wake up. It isn’t safe to sleep here,” he said again.

  “Yeah, thanks. No problem,” Stefani responded.

  She was on a park bench and must have fallen asleep. It took her a few minutes to gather her senses, but she soon realized she was in front of the house where she and Dennis spent the night. Dennis? Wasn’t Dennis just here?

  “Dennis!” She yelled out loud, but nobody seemed to be paying her any attention. Why should they, really? She was a crazy lady sleeping on a park bench in the middle of the…well it wasn’t day anymore. It was night. Crap, how long had she been sleeping?

  The door to the townhouse was repaired. It was broken when she arrived there earlier, and somebody was fixing it. Right? Was it really broken or was that part of her dream? Jesus, she had no idea anymore. She really could no longer figure out what was happening. At least she didn’t start crying again. She really had to get herself together before she got herself killed.

  It was so dark though, she had no idea what time it was. But she knew she was in the middle of Golden Gate Park. This wasn’t the kind of place a woman in her early 20’s slept -- on a bench. She didn’t have a death wish. Thank God the old man had awakened her. She felt obligated to thank him as he bent over a trash can a few feet away, rummaging for cans, or food, or something.

  She walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Thanks for waking me up. I had no idea I was that sleepy. I would give you some cash but…”

  “They’ll kill you!” he screamed. “They’re coming for you. You know that right? You’ll die in four days. Hahahahaha!”

  He kept laughing. His teeth were solid black like coal, and he had bugs running in circles between his nostrils. His skin looked as though it had melted to his body. It was waxy and dripping. He seemed to be dissolving right before her eyes.

  Stefani screamed and ran. She ran and didn’t care where she went. Everything was too much now. She no longer cared about anything. She just wanted out. Let them kill her. Let Greg have whatever he wanted. She just wanted it all to stop. That was when she smelled them.

  It was distinctive at this point. She knew there were dogs. Satan’s dogs were close, within a short distance. She ran straight into the main section of the park. She wasn’t that far from The Science and Technology Museum. She just couldn’t remember the right direction to the front door, but she knew the dogs were here. She could feel them.

  She stood there, frozen. She didn’t know what to do next. She had no weapons, nothing with which to fight them. She felt vulnerable. She slowly backed up, heading to the bushes behind her. Suddenly, she felt arms grab her from behind.

  A hand reached around her face, clasping firmly down on her mouth. Another arm stretched across her body and held her in place. She tried to scream, but the hand was too strong. She couldn’t move her arms; she was immobilized in a tight hold.

  “Ssshhhh,” the voice whispered in her ear. “They’ll hear you.”

  She relaxed a little, and as she did, the grip on her mouth and body relaxed, as well. She slowly turned and saw Dennis’ face. He smiled at her.

  “Are you real?” she said, poking him in the chest. “I mean it, are you really here? Is this you?”

  “Yes, I’m real. I’m here. Don’t worry. I won’t leave you again, but we do need to figure a way out of here. They’ve been combing the area for hours looking for you. Apparently, you’ve been out of touch most of the day. I randomly came back to the house where we spent the night and just happened to see you run into the woods.

  “Did the old man scare you? Never mind. Just follow me.”

  Dennis held her hand as he led her back through the bushes toward the road. He wanted to get her out of the park back to a more civilized setting. At least if there were other people around their pursuers would be a little more discrete. But nothing was certain right now.

  Times were changing.

  As soon as they found their way back to a road, a bus pulled up, and they both hopped on. They didn’t say anything to each other. They just sat in silence. Stefani was happy to have somebody with her, somebody who might actually believe what was happening. She no longer cared who that person was.

  Dennis was just happy to have her safe.

  They jumped off at a random stop, dropped into the first restaurant they saw, and sat down at a table. An Asian lady approached them and asked if they wanted dinner. The establishment was devoid of any other customers.

  “Yes, I’m starving,” Dennis said. “Stefani, how about you?”

  “Sure,” she said. She didn’t know how hungry she actually was, but it had been a long time since she’d eaten anything.

  “Tell me what happened. Tell me how you ended up in the park,” Dennis said.

  So, Stefani spilled it all. She didn’t leave out a single detail, including the part where she thought she was losing her mind. Everybody she knew seemed to be messing with her head, causing her to doubt reality. How could these things not be real?

  Dennis was very attentive as Stefani rattled on with her accounting of events. The food arrived, they ate what they could, and Stefani kept on filing in details, crying a little when she divulged how Matt had died. She then questioned Dennis on whether he knew if Matt really were her brother.

  Dennis didn’t seem to answer definitively at first, but then admitted he had known. Dennis knew Greg very well, they were brothers. He knew more about Greg than he ever wanted to acknowledge, even to himself. There were very few beings in the world that unnerved Dennis, but Greg was absolutely one of them.

  Finally, when she had nothing left to say, Dennis reached out and cupped her hands in his own.

  “You’re not crazy. They’re trying to make you as unstable as possible so when the time comes you’ll do whatever they ask you to do. You will have an opportunity to receive an amazing gift, but some gifts come with a curse, as well. What you weren’t told is that during the moment of passage, you also have the choice of giving that power to another. Greg will stop at nothing to have you pass it to him.

  “His entire being is driven to this one goal. He wants to have everything, and he sees this as his best opportunity.”

  “Why did you choke me in the hospital?” Stefani asked. “Why did you try to kill me if you’re supposed to be protecting me, helping me, saving me?”

  Dennis smiled, “I didn’t try to kill you. I saw something in your eyes. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I tried to look past your flesh and into your soul. The only way I could do that was by connecting with you, by grabbing you. But I did it too quickly. Matt should’ve known this. Maybe he did and just used it as an excuse.

  “I don’t know, but please know this. I’ll never hurt you. My entire existence on this planet is to protect you. I would die for you if I had to.”

  Stefani felt unsure how to respond. She didn’t trust anyone anymore. She didn’t believe anything, but at the moment Dennis was the only one here, and he was the only one she had seen on separate occasions actually try to keep her out of
harm’s way.

  “How did the dogs not kill you when we were in Bath? How did you survive?” Stefani asked.

  “I was lucky. I wasn’t their intended target. As soon as you escaped and Hector was dead, they left. I laid there for the rest of the day and well into the night. It was all I could do to heal myself. I’m still not sure I can fly. But as soon as I could walk, I stole a car and followed you to Italy.

  “Killing Roberto will hamper Greg. I don’t think he expected that, and Greg is always a few steps ahead of everything. He’s always been able to anticipate what people will do and the choices they will make. It’s one of his gifts.

  “Greg has many abilities, and he uses them all for one purpose. His only goal in life is to gain the power that you will soon possess. If he does, then all our lives will be meaningless.

  “Even though Greg’s abilities are vast, they’ve clouded his mind, and he is losing control of what he once was.”

  “Why, yes, my powers are extraordinary. An odd set of circumstances changed my life, but my abilities are truly exceptional. How is our happy couple, by the way?” Greg said as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to Stefani.

  “Now, you don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

  Please God, No!

  Dennis scooted his seat back, attempting to get up. But before he could even move, a pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down. There were four men by the front door and two others standing in the kitchen. Another man stood behind Dennis, and an eighth hovered behind Stefani. Dennis smelled some of them, and he knew they weren’t all Roguls; some were gargoyles. They didn’t stand a chance of escaping. He rested back in his chair and put his hands back on the table.

  “What is it you would like from us?” Dennis asked.