The Altar

by James Arthur Anderson

  “So what’s this got to do with me and you? You’re not a mind and I’m not a hand.”

  “Ah, not yet. But we will be. We will become very close. Inseparable. You’ll be like the hand and will be able to have all the fun. And I’ll be the mind and will tell the hand what to do. It’ll be easy and it’ll be fun. You won’t have to worry about that right and wrong nonsense they fill you up with. You can let me decide that for you.

  The boy stopped and looked at him for a long moment. “You’ve really got this demon thing all figured our, haven’t you?”

  “Well, I’ve had a lot of years to practice.”

  “You forgot just one thing, though. Why would I want to help somebody who killed my Dad?”

  The demon laughed. “No, son, you’ve got it all wrong. You won’t have any choice but to serve me. You’ll be part of me, like the hand and I’ll be the brain. If the brain tells the hand to make a fist, it really doesn’t have any options not to, don’t you see? You’ll become my little puppet, and I’ll make you do whatever I want you to do. Play your cards right and you might even enjoy it. Many of them do.”

  “What if I hate it?”

  “You’ll get over it. And if you don’t, too bad. But you’ll obey because I’ll control the nerves.”

  “I think I just want to go home,” Todd said. “I just want things to be back the way they used to be.”

  “Well, you will be going back home soon enough, though I don’t think things will ever be the way they used to be. But you’ll get used to it in time. You’ll enjoy being the most powerful kid on the block. You’ll be able to do things you couldn’t do before.”

  Todd just shook his head. All of that might be ok. He wasn’t sure and there was something about it that made him want to wet his pants. But even if it did turn out cool, he’d still rather have his father back.

  3

  Johnny Dovecrest was overwhelmed by the weight of the doomed souls that smothered him from all directions. There were hundreds of them already, with thousands and thousands more on the way. They stank of death, decay, sin, and evil. Their wants pressed horribly upon his soul. They demanded the love and intimacy they had been denied for so long, and they thought that he was their loved one. It was more than he could bear. Especially for a man who had grieved for his own family for almost 300 years.

  But at least they were not here. They were with the Creator. And now he would be trapped here forever, never to be with them again.

  He knelt on the ground and wept bitterly, for himself and for all of these miserable, wretched souls. But mostly he wept for himself.

  His entire life had been dedicated to watching for the demon and protecting his tribe from it. He had not chosen this task. It had been thrust upon him. He hadn’t wanted it. He hadn’t wanted the long life that went along with it. He would have been content to die with his family and move on to a better world. He’d done his job, led a good life, believed in the Creator, and still, after all that, he found himself in hell, overwhelmed by countless damned souls who all wanted a part of him.

  “Go away!” he screamed. “Leave me alone!”

  He struggled and flailed and tried to escape, but they held him down, not by the weight of their shapeless bodies, but by the weight of their needs. Their desperation was crushing. Dovecrest just wanted to die, but not even that option was possible.

  “This isn’t right!” he screamed. “I’m not supposed to be here. Dear God, help me! I’m not supposed to be here!”

  4

  Erik closed his eyes and curled into a fetal position on the black sand. He put his arms over his head and drew his knees to his chest. But he couldn’t blank out the awful sounds of the pitiful, wretched souls who crushed down against him. They were suffocating and smothering him so badly that he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, couldn’t breathe. Hundreds of millions of plaintive wailings mixed together as one awful cry, with only bits and pieces even recognizable.

  “Mary! At last! I’ve found you!”

  “Billy! It’s me….”

  “Mommy, where are you?”

  And so it went. It was the weight of a hundred million souls upon him.

  He was just about to give himself over to the desperate despair when it happened. They all stopped and froze where they were, as if time itself had been suspended. The voices stopped, and there was only silence.

  Erik became aware of a gradual lighting; the brick red glow slowly turned orange, and then yellow. The shades dissolved around him, backing away from him as if he had become some fearful, frightening creature.

  Erik noticed that the light wasn’t coming from around him, but from inside him, as if he himself had been illuminated from within. He could feel the radiance warming and refreshing him. He felt rejuvenated, as if he had taken a cool, refreshing shower on a hot summer’s day, and had been given a magical potion of energy and life.

  To the damned souls around him, though, it was as if he had become poisoned. They retreated from him now, holding their hands and arms over their eyes in distaste and terror. He could no longer hear them-their voices had become mute to him-but he could see their lips moving as they cried out in fear and loathing. Whatever he had become was hateful to them.

  He slowly crawled to his knees and looked over at his friend, Johnny Dovecrest. The Indian had also become transformed. His whole body was lit up, as if he had a strong fire burning inside him. The effect reminded Erik of paintings he had seen of angels, where the artist had somehow embodied them with a magical, mystical glow.

  The doomed souls were moving away from Dovecrest as well, slowly backing away and holding out their hands as if to ward him off. The swarm had stopped completely and was now moving away from them both. It backed up against itself like a traffic jam as the shades melded into one another, and then slowly, almost with a delayed reaction, turned back the way they had come.

  Dovecrest, too, had crawled to his knees and he met Erik’s gaze. A small, smile parted his lips, and Erik smiled in return. The two men sat and watched as the doomed hordes moved away. They could still see the damned souls, but could no longer hear them, or feel their anguish. And they no longer attracted the damned, but repelled them.

  “What happened?” Erik said, finally.

  Dovecrest stood up slowly and shook himself off. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think our prayers were heard.”

  “Heard and answered.”

  “Yes. Heard and answered.”

  Erik got to his feet and looked around. The masses of the damned ignored them completely now, as if they had never existed. Erik took a step towards one of them, an old man who must have died recently, since his rags were not as rotted. The soul of the man backed away in disgust.

  Erik noticed that the glow of light was fading away now, and both he and his friend were returning to normal. But the feeling of refreshment remained. They had experienced just a drop of heaven here in this hellish place, and it was enough to rejuvenate their spirits, at least for the moment. Neither man knew if it would be enough to sustain them for the rest of the battle. But it was obvious that they had not been destined for this place, and, whatever happened, their fate would not mean staying here for all of eternity. Whatever they had to face, it couldn’t be worse than this, Erik thought.

  “Come on,” Dovecrest said. “I have a demon to destroy.”

  “And I have a family to rescue.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  1

  Todd could tell something had happened, but he didn’t know exactly what. He knew the demon knew it, too, because it became angry and agitated and swore under its breath. Todd knew that whatever had happened must be good if the demon didn’t like it. Still, he had no idea what had to be done next.

  His mother was in bad shape now. Her pains were more regular.

  “The baby’s coming soon,” she told him. “Very soon. Just stay and help me, Todd.”

  “It’s ok, Mom,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll be fine.�
�

  “Hey, you’ll be the only kid on the block to have delivered a baby,” she said. “Won’t you have a story to tell your baby sister!”

  Todd forced a laugh. “Yeah, she’ll owe me big time!”

  “She sure will. We’ll both owe you big time. I’ll tell you what, when we get out of here we’re going out for a huge ice cream sundae.”

  “I want chocolate chip ice cream with whipped cream and cherries,” Todd said, playing along with his Mom.

  “And I want strawberry. With whipped cream and nuts.”

  His mother’s face winced in pain and she struggled not to cry out.

  “I think she’s coming, Todd,” she said. “You know what to do?”

  He nodded. She had told him what to expect and what he had to do. He thought it was gross and disgusting, but he couldn’t let that stop him. When the baby’s head came out he was supposed to hold it steady and help guide it out by pulling, but not too hard, as his mother pushed. He knew about cutting the chord, and had found a sharp stone for this purpose. And he knew about getting air into the baby’s lungs if she didn’t cry. The only thing he didn’t know was what the demon was going to do next.

  He looked at the monster from the corner of his eyes. It didn’t actually look like a monster anymore. It appeared as a normal man. But he knew better. He’d seen it transform and he knew what it really was. Even now, he wondered what it was up to as it drew shapes in the sand and chanted foreign-sounding words. He knew nothing good could come of that. He’d never seen anything like that in the normal world.

  He turned back to look at his mother. Her face was scrunched up in pain. He knelt down between her legs and waited. He’d never seen his mother naked before, and it made him very uncomfortable. He just wanted this whole thing to be over. He wasn’t a doctor and he didn’t know how to deliver a baby. What if something went wrong? What if it got stuck.

  Todd blinked hard to hold back the tears. And suppose the baby was born ok, and things went right. What then? The demon wasn’t going to just let them all go, just like that. It had something horrible planned for them. And Todd was afraid he would be the one to come out the worst.

  He’d seen that awful head growing from the thing’s shoulder earlier. Would he end up like that? He knew he’d rather die than become a monster like that. He thought if it came to that choice he’d figure out a way to kill himself. He’d keep that sharpened stone just in case he needed it for more than just cutting his sister’s chord when she was born. He might have to use it on himself.

  Then his mother clenched her teeth and reared up, and a pool of liquid flowed from her and onto the sand. She’d told him this would happen, but it grossed him out anyway and he wished he could be sick. But he swallowed hard and didn’t let on that it bothered him. He had to be strong now. They were in enough trouble without him caving in and being a baby.

  “It’s ok, Mom,” he said. “I’m here. We’re going to be ok.”

  She forced a smile and wiped away a tear.

  Todd took another look at the demon. The monster was totally absorbed in whatever it was doing now. Todd wished the baby would hurry up and be born before this thing finished whatever weird plans it had cooked up.

  2

  Erik knew he had to find his wife and son, but he had no idea where to go next. This entire world had been designed with one thing in mind-to be completely and totally monotonous, featureless, and uninteresting. The black sand went on for as far as the eye could see, broken only by obsidian rocky outcroppings that became tedious in and of themselves. The sky-or whatever it was-was completely black and starless. Erik suspected it was more a ceiling than a sky. He had the dreadful image of being trapped underground in an infinite cave on a planet that made Jupiter look like a speck in the universe.

  There was no sun or moon to point out time or direction. Only a red glow to the edges of the horizon in all directions. It shed enough light to see by, bathing everything in a hellish red tint, but did not throw enough light to give even the impression of daylight. It was like a perpetual sunset in all directions, but an ugly black-red monotone sunset not broken up by atmosphere or clouds.

  The doomed souls still wandered around the place, but their movement was aimless and pathetic, and Erik tried not to look at them. He was still sickened by their presence, and didn’t think he’d ever forget their horrible touch upon him. They would be no help. He was just thankful that they now shied away from him as if he were poison.

  He looked at Dovecrest and shrugged. “So where do we begin?”

  Dovecrest looked carefully in every direction. He seemed to study the horizon, searching for clues. He knelt down and put his ear to the sand. He seemed so intent, so focused. But after a few moments, he stood up and shook his head.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m not even sure they’re still here.”

  “Where else would they be?”

  “I don’t know. But this place is endless. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  Erik shook his head. “We have to do something. We can’t just give up.”

  “It won’t do any good to just go off wandering without knowing where we’re going,” Dovecrest said.

  Erik nodded. “But what else can we do?”

  “Unless you can make some connection with your wife…or your son….”

  Erik thought for a moment. It seemed impossible, but why not? Everything that had happened to him during the past week was impossible by all scientific standards. If people could raise demons and go through a portal to the waiting room of hell, why couldn’t he establish a psychic connection with his own wife or son?

  “What the hell?” he said. “No pun intended.”

  He had read a little bit about meditation, and, though he was certainly no expert, he had learned how to relax and train his thoughts when he was searching for ideas in his writing. And Dovecrest had taught him how to find the altar stone. He sat down on the sand and squirmed around until he had dug himself a comfortable seat. Then he pulled his feet into his thighs, closed his eyes, and covered them with his hands. He heard Dovecrest sit down across from him, but there were no other distractions to bother him. There was no sounds of traffic, or even nature-no birds, no wind…. Not even a breeze. It was perfectly silent.

  He tried to empty his mind of everything. The stillness helped, but it was difficult not to think. So much had happened. His mind had been ripped raw, his nerves pulled and prodded and tortured beyond what he could bear. He’d gone from earth to hell to heaven and now back to hell in just a few short hours-if he could even measure things by earthly time. It might have been minutes-or days, for all he knew. Time just didn’t make sense anymore. For that matter, nothing made sense.

  He tried to stop the wheels from spinning in his head. But all he could think about was his family, and what he would do if he found them. They had no plan, no idea…. The frontal attack had failed miserably. Even if he could rescue his family he had no way of escaping. He wondered if Vickie was even strong enough to be moved. Had she delivered the baby yet? Was the child all right? What had happened to Todd? They could all have been killed by now, for all he knew, and all of this might be for nothing.

  “Stop worrying and relax.”

  It was Dovecrest’s voice, almost as if the Indian had been reading his thoughts. Erik opened his eyes and looked at him. Dovecrest had been watching him. The two men smiled.

  “Ok. Let me try this again.”

  This time Erik stretched out on the sand as if he were at the beach, putting his arms up over his eyes to block out the eerie, red glow. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. He paced his breathing and concentrated on letting his body go loose, beginning with his feet and working upwards. He listened to the sound of his breathing as he relaxed his legs, then his hips, then his chest. He imagined a purple dot in the sky and concentrated all of his efforts of seeing it and experiencing it.

  His mind went blank. Then he saw an image of his son. It came suddenly, unbidden
, suddenly snapping into focus like a photograph. He saw the boy squatting in the black sand of this awful place, looking very worried and concerned. Erik knew he was seeing things as they really were when he noticed the demon standing beside Todd, its back towards the boy as it drew in the sand and seemed to be chanting. Erik knew that Todd was looking at his mother, and that Vickie was just about to give birth.

  Suddenly Todd’s eyes widened, and Erik could see his gasp.

  “Dad!” he heard him whisper. “Are you dead?”

  Erik channeled his thoughts to comfort the boy. “Shhh. I’m not dead. I’m still here. I’m coming for you. Just don’t let it know you know.”

  Todd forced a smile, and then the picture faded, slowly, as if at the end of a scene in a movie. Erik was suddenly aware of where the boy was. Every muscle in his body was tense and tightened up like a guitar string. He felt sweat pouring down his face.

  “Erik…Erik…. Are you all right?”

  Dovecrest was calling to him. He opened his eyes slowly.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” he said. “They’re still alive. And I know where they are.”

  3

  Todd tried not to show his feelings as the vision of his father passed. It had been so real, as if it had been happening right there in front of him. Dad was alive! He knew it. He had seen him. Had heard him. And he was coming for them. He even knew where they were.

  He tried to keep his feelings quiet, though. He knew the demon could tap into people’s thoughts and feelings, and he didn’t want to give anything away. Surprise might be his Dad’s only advantage and he didn’t want to take that away. It was all they had going for them right now.

  He looked at his mother and wondered if she knew, if she had seen Dad, too. Her face was all twisted in pain, though, and her eyes were closed. She gritted her teeth and seemed to be straining as she tried to push the baby out.