Chapter two of Fallen Angel, Risen Demon

-2-

The streets were dark, eerie, and thick with a mid November chill. The stars were obscured by a heavy covering of clouds, every once in a while the sinister glimpse of a fat and frightening orange tinted full moon would peak out and wink at those below.

“Night is the devil’s play ground Johnny, you best be rememberin’ that” John heard his grandmother calling to him from so long ago.

John Stanton walked slowly down Apple Street, looking about nervously as though something were after him. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his eyes grew wider with every twig that jittered in the wind. The rustling of some leaves made his gut tumble around like it was on spin cycle and once when a cat darted out behind three trash cans, John felt his bladder nearly burst. He was, in other words, a very fearful young man.

The night had given way to the morning some time ago, his glowing digital watch read 2:30 AM. The heat of the witching hour his grandmother used to say, just about three when all the little goblins and ghouls loved to play. John glanced over at a few houses but quit after he realized how each one looked like one he had seen in a horror movie or on the cover of some book about haunted places.

How had he wound up in such a cruel predicament as this? To be walking alone down a side street in the middle of nowhere America. What was worse was the cruel fact he was, with every step, heading further and further from town.

Irish luck did not exist with English mixings, he thought.

His car had given up the ghost several blocks back and his cell phone was long since turned off due to non payment. A night like this simply couldn’t get any worse, he thought as he looked around nervously.

John kept walking, his eyes darting around with each new sound, making sure he wasn’t about to be attacked by some horrid monster, or more realistically a mugger. Neither of which he expected in the little shithole town of New Arbor, Texas, but then again, one never knew what to expect with times being as hard as they were.

That was when his eyes came upon a large ball of fire falling from the sky not too horribly far away from him—maybe ten, fifteen miles he thought absently. It was furious in a red-orange glow, crackling the wind for attention and whistling its steady speed all the way down.

Sounds like a missile, his mind whimpered.

“What the hell….” He began but didn’t quite finish as his mouth dropped open unhinged and hung there while the roar of the burning mass caught up with him.

Lights flashed on all around him as the once ghostly looking homes were being aroused by the overwhelming sound from beyond their walls.

The sound was deafening and all encompassing, how could anyone sleep through such anyways?

 Little pebbles were dancing and vibrating to a wicked new life all down the sides of the road, shaking themselves away from that falling flame tossed like trash from Heaven. Car alarms could be heard in the distance as the earth began to shake with a madman’s nightmarish strength.

The fiery ball hung in the sky like a blazing torch in the netherworld of Sheol for what felt to John like an eternity. It hung there so long, John actually thought it might burn a hole in the darkness of the night sky and suck them all out into space. The blazing glow matched the moon—surpassed it even—in its brilliance. It was disgustingly beautiful in its mystifying red orange fire, crackles of heavy static rippled through the sky as long tendrils of green lightning chased the thing down on its defiant descent.

John had never seen green lightning and was wondering what it might mean when the rumbling under his feet grew worse. The thing was so close to the ground now he had already thought it had smashed down, but there was no boom. Instead there was the terrifying moment of utter desolate silence like the kind just before a bad storm.

Then it hit.

It did so with a devastating and awesome boom so loud John swore his ears had busted from the sudden pressure shift. The earth moved with damning violence shifting more than a few homes from their foundations, cars scooted down the street despite their parked position or emergency brakes—a few lost their windows, the vibrations were so severe—a fire hydrant even busted from its foundation and shot a jettison of cold white foamy water into the sky near John. He never noticed, he was so hypnotized by the deadly thing that had crashed from the sky.

Then suddenly the thing took on a new life as a wave of dust flew up in a distant haze of yellow and rushed straight for him—and straight for a crowd John had up until that moment not even noticed—like a swarm of angry bees ready to sting.

The dust flew in like a nightmare, stinging the flesh, and choking the air from the lungs of the onlookers. People began to run around in tight little circles, blinded in the yellow dust storm, their eyes stinging and flesh burning. Layers of soggy Crimson bumps began to rise in a single breath, taking over the flesh of those burned bad enough by the yellow dust storm.

Then there was absolute insane deadness, not a muscle flinched, not a noise was heard, not a thing moved for an eternity of seconds.

Silence was more frightening than the roar. Now, not even the crickets dared to breathe. The dust flew by and cleared off quickly, leaving the choking mass drowning in the perverse stillness. They had another thing choking their lungs now, terror.

The only sound to contend with the deafening silence—a thing that most hadn’t even noticed—were the coughing gagging fits of the people rolling on the ground with their hands on their throats coughing and wheezing for air. Their lungs burned inside them with their own vicious glow of heat and pain. John heard the sounds before he realized his own contribution, slowly understanding it as he felt the pain blaze to life in his own lungs.

In the distance, where the object had hit, a bright glow could be seen, a fire had erupted. Large, thick, demonic looking clouds of smoke billowed into the air. It had a perverse and unholy smell to it, a smell which came with the dust and smelled like ten million freshly burned kittens.

It burned the lungs, forcing most of the onlookers to run for their homes, throwing up as they ran. John turned, wild eyed, not knowing where to go. His own lungs threatened to rip from his chest and head for the nearest home themselves. His stomach began to heave, ghastly amounts of a vile black tar like liquid formed in his mouth as he doubled over and threw up freely.

What was happening? He didn’t have an idea, but in a fleeting wisp of seconds, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Darkness crept across his vision, his balance was lost, and a sick thud roared through his head. He felt himself topple over in horrible slow motion. Death crept at the corners of his reality, taking him first into a deep and murky unconsciousness.

Why? His mind asked just before all loss of reality had taken place.

Why?

Copyright (c) 2008 by Gregory D. Welch

(Excerpt from the upcoming New Novel, “Fallen Angel, Risen Demon” be sure to get your copy soon!)

~ by shadesoftruth on November 11, 2008.