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Just as Father Pritchard was about to advise his friends to return to the pentagon for the remainder of the night, the temperature in the kitchen dropped very sharply. Before Rob or the others could respond to this harbinger of evil, the three friends fell to the floor unconscious.
John Ryman woke to a cold morning in the domain of Lord Asbaritch. He slowly opened his eyes to see a dull red sky covering a land of semi desert and stunted shrubs. It took him a moment to understand just what he was seeing, and then he jumped up in surprise and looked around desperately for his friends, but there was not a sign of them anywhere, only the cold barren desert that stretched to the horizons and beyond.
Ryman thought about the last thing that he could remember, before he woke here in this land, which had such a red sky? They had all been standing in David`s kitchen when he had felt the icy chill of evil reach out and grab him, and then there was this. He looked a full three hundred and sixty degrees about him once again, but he saw much the same wilderness where ever he looked. He decided to climb up a rather high hill some two hundred yards away, to see if this would offer a more promising view, and he started up it; by the time he had reached the top he was breathless. There down below him on the other side of the hill he saw a group of pathetic figures, looking much like ghosts, for they appeared to be more gaseous than solid. One of the creatures happened to look up just at that moment and saw Ryman staring down at the group, and a bestial cry came from its vaporous form. Immediately this terrible cry was repeated by the other creatures as they turned to look up at what had caught the attention of the first creature, and then they all began to climb the hill towards him. Ryman felt his mouth go dry as he noticed that the more solid looking creatures were moving a little faster than their comrades were, and they would soon be upon him. One good thing that Ryman was more than happy to notice was that they were all quite slow movers, for something about the manic expression that he now saw on their faces told him that this group of creatures wanted to feast on him. Ryman turned and ran back down the hill, and when he was back on solid ground, he kept moving at a speed that he thought would slowly take him away from the terrible, but almost pathetic creatures chasing after him. It was later, during one encounter with another group of these dreadful ghostlike beings that a thought occurred to Ryman, he was reacting in much the same way as when he had fled from Bourbon. Wishing to end his life fighting rather than fleeing for his life Ryman stopped running away, instead he picked up some of the stones that littered the barren landscape and threw them at the creatures. The creatures cried out in pain when the stones struck them, and they stopped running after him and just stared hungrily at him. After a few more salvoes of stones, Ryman was then able to chase these creatures away. Feeling much happier following his small victory, and although without food and drink, Ryman trudged ever onwards with a smile on his face towards the ever distant horizon, always searching in hope for his two friends.
Kidnapped and Bound for Hell Page 16
