Envisioned by Dan.

Jason and Kristina both heard the door slam shut behind them, to Jason it sounded like finality, he knew the trap had sprung and he cursed himself for knowingly walking into it. All lights and sounds had extinguished the moment they had crossed the threshold but despite that Jason could sense that there were a fair amount of people in front of them. None of them made a sound, none of them moved a muscle.

Without thinking, without even knowing what he was doing, Jason cupped both of his hands together and blew into them, as he did he felt a kind of burning force leave his mouth and enter his hands. Whatever the force was became too much for him to handle so he opened his hands and pushed the force out and away, as he did, two separate balls of light flew from his outstretched hands, one landed on a bulb in a string of lights, the other landed on a lantern hanging from a tree, bringing both to life. From there a chain reaction ensued, from each source tiny balls of light sprang up and jumped to light another bulb or flame, hundreds of tiny lights flew through the air and before long the whole carnival was alive with brightness once again.

The crowd of undead standing before them scattered making weird, screeching, pig-like sounds, it seemed that they were just as surprised as Jason was at his trick he had just pulled. As they scattered, attempting to hide behind rides and food stands, only one stood his ground.

The body that had once belonged to a very sensitive young man named Larry Vannay was now almost unrecognizable. While Larry had been a respectable 6 foot 2 inches, he was now a little closer to 7 feet tall, his bones and muscles had also grown considerably leaving the former tenants skin ripped and mutilated. Ceraphin grinned at Jason with what had once been Larry’s mouth.

“Well, well, well, I wasn’t expecting any of those dip shit towns people to show up for at least another hour, but it seems our trap has netted us an even bigger prize! A wizard! Your soul will look wonderful in hell!!”

“Who are you? And where is Drussellia?” Jason asked. “I heard her laughing when I entered.”

For a second Jason saw a look of curious uncertainty cross Ceraphins face before it quickly reverted back to the grin. “Ah, but it must have been a trick of the mind, this little carnival of mine is designed to trick and confuse, I see it has worked quite well.”

Jason could tell Ceraphin was sizing him up and despite the grin, Jason could still detect a question in his unnatural eyes.

“Your not a demon, and your sure as hell not a god, so tell me human, how do you know of the queen? I have my doubts that you have met her, that always ends in a very horrible death. Are you by any chance one of her followers?”

“Yeah, something like that.” Jason responded “I heard her army’s were building and wanted to join.”

He had no idea what he was talking about but he also knew that whatever this thing was, it had no idea who he was. Also, he seemed not to have noticed Kristina standing in the shadows behind him, if only she could get that door back open they could get the fuck out of there. He could hear her quietly rattling the handle.

Ceraphins smile faltered and Jason saw the look of confusion come forward again. It was clear he couldn’t decide what to do with his visitor.

“You heard? But how did you hear? Nevermind! Her army will be made up completely of my hordes, I didn’t approve anything about humans fighting with us!”

Jason decided that as formidable as this being seemed, it wasn’t very smart, pretty soon it would revert to what it clearly knew best, destruction. And despite doing that light trick, he had no faith in any kind of defensive powers manifesting themselves anytime soon. All he could do was wait and hope Kristina got the door open in time.
“Come on,” he heard Kristina whisper “I’ve got it open.”

“Well then,” Jason said with as much of a smile as he could muster, “I guess I’ll be running along now, I must have heard the good news wrong.”

Ceraphins smile returned with more than just a small bit of malice and by this time all of his “soldiers” had regained their courage. With shovels, baseball bats and various other crude weapons raised they all crept out of their hiding places and shadows.

“Follower or not, you will in some shape or form join my army, what I don’t use now will be used again later when I return to hell.” Ceraphin screamed at Jason. And to his soldiers he yelled. “Don’t worry about his powers you cowardly motherfuckers, destroy him!!”

“I hear music” Kristina said, “do you hear it? It sounds like carnival music.”

They were nearing the town that the demon people (for lack of a better word Jason thought) were marching toward, the two lane road they now walked on was littered with shoes and clothes that apparently weren’t needed anymore.

Jason, matter of fact, had heard the music. To him it also sounded like the mishmash of clanging, slightly discordant music that would normally be heard at a fair or carnival. He also noted that there was a decidedly somber tone to it, a tone that was completely at odds with the cheery music. Puppies with bad tempers and really big teeth came to mind.

“Yeah, I hear it, strange weather for a carnival, it cant be more than 30 degrees out.”

On the side of the road in front of them, surrounded by various dead flowers and road litter was a blue sign that read “Welcome to Spring Haven Virginia, Population 3,200″. About a hundred yards past that and over a hill Jason and Kristina could see bright lights and the top of a Ferris wheel. The wind blowing their way brought with it smells of popcorn and hotdogs and other carnival fare.

As they walked over the hill the town came into view, or at least it would have if there hadn’t been a carnival blocking the way, a carnival in it’s full glory. Glaring lights, spinning rides and row after row games of chance. Also, it seemed to Jason that all 3,200 of Spring Haven’s citizens had shown up for the fun, the place was packed with adults, children and teenagers all smiling and ignorant, as Jason assumed, to their imminent deaths.

“Should we go in?” Asked Kristina “This seems like a trap but there’s no way those dead fuckers could have set this up, they weren’t even an hour ahead of us.”

“On the other hand” replied Jason “what exactly in the last few hours has been anywhere near normal? I don’t think we have a choice, that small army came this way and we should at least try to warn these people that they’re in trouble.”

“Don’t you think, before we go charging into a possibly hostile situation, that we should at least figure out what these so called powers are that we have? I mean, come on Jason, just an hour ago you were nothing but a teenager and I was nothing but a nurse, what makes you think were ready for this? What makes you think were SUPPOSED to do this? All I heard was that were supposed to find some Talisman.”

“True,” Jason replied “Minerva never said anything about saving people, but the thing is we have no idea where or even what this talisman is supposed to be, we need answers and this is as good a place to start.”

“Ok,” Kristina agreed hesitantly “let’s go.”

At the entrance to the carnival there stood a very old man wearing an equally ancient suit accompanied by a huge stove pipe hat. He certainly didn’t look like one of the undead, the smile behind the long white beard matched the sounds of glee emanating from behind the canvas wall separating the inside of the carnival from the outside.

“How much is admission?” Jason asked the old man, his unease lessening a bit at the mans seemingly innocent appearance.

“Tonight, admission is free to everyone! Be sure to try all of our rides and especially our “World of Horrors House!” Replied the man with a sweep of his hand toward the doorway.

Despite the old geezers apparent glee, Jason felt a chill creep up his spine. However, he had no thoughts of turning back. Through the doorway both him and Kristina could see little kids running around and young couples browsing from booth to booth. They could see and hear carnival workers shouting for attention to be drawn to their various games. They could almost taste the popcorn and cotton candy.

Jason happened to look up just as he was putting a leg over the threshold and there, previously hidden by balloons, was a sign that read “QUEEN DRUSSELIA WELCOMES YOU TO THE CARNIVAL OF ROTTING SOULS!! ALL HAIL THE QUEEN!!”

Jason saw this and tried to hesitate, he tried to pull Kristina back with him, he tried to take back the step he had already taken. It was far too late, Jason’s foot made contact with the ground inside and the outside world went immediately away. Instantly the smells of the carnival were replaced by the reek of rotting flesh, the sounds of the carnival music was replaced by human screams and the laughing of the customers turned into an evil, familiar titter. Jason knew without looking up, Drusselia was in their presence.

In the distance, about a mile north of the field that they were standing in, Jason and Kristina saw the lights of a small city illuminating the skyline. It added to the eerie effect of everything around being cast in the shade of red that the moon was currently putting off.

“Let’s head in that direction, even if we don’t exactly know where we are we can sit somewhere and try and figure out what were going to do before the end of the world.” Jason said only half seriously as he began walking.

Kristina matched her stride with his. “I think you should start taking this a little more serious.” She said, sounding a little annoyed.” I know that I am, I don’t like the thought of everything and everyone I know being gone. From how Minerva made it sound, Drusellia’s going to burn every soul on the planet before she’s satisfied.”

“That’s just it though,” replied Jason “Minerva didn’t really tell us shit! He did a lot of talking about how evil Drusellia is and how it’s our job to save everyone. First off, how the fuck are we supposed to do that exactly? I supposedly have powers that will fight off whatever those zombie like things were and then were supposed to find some fucking talisman of goodwill that will reverse everything. Are one of us supposed to just shit this thing out at the appropriate moment?”

Kristina rolled her eyes, she didn’t know Jason at all but she could tell a good rant when she saw one.

“Second of all,” Jason continued “how the hell are we supposed to know that my supposed father, Minerva is the good one and Drusellia is the bad? For all I know, it could be my dear old dad sending me those fucked up dreams and making it seem like Drusellias doing all the bad shit. And third and most important, as far as I can tell is, aside from the moon looking like it’s on the rag, how do we know anything is even wrong with the world right now? That city looks perfectly fine to me!”

Jason had been too busy yelling and looking at the city lights in the distance to notice that Kristina was no longer walking beside him. However when she didn’t respond to anything he said he turned to see that she was standing with her eyes closed and her body was shaking all over.

In her head all she could hear was a rising babble of demented tongues. She could also see them, hundreds of dead, demon possessed bodies marching toward the city in front of them, marching in a way that would lead them directly to where her and Jason stood.

“We need to hide, right now Jason, they are almost here!”

“Who’s almost here? Why do we need to hide?”

She said nothing but she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward a big pile of rocks that looked like they could provide the right amount of cover. He finally sensed her urgency and they began running just as they started hearing shouts and curses and the sound of pounding feet coming from the field they had just left.

When they reached the rocks and hid in the shadows of one of the larger one’s the first line of demon soldiers was pressing through the trees. They marched in formation and carried a wide assortment of weapons, some had guns, others had garden tools, Jason even noticed that one was carrying a severed arm over it’s shoulder as if it were it’s prized rifle. They were men, they were woman, they were children and they were all as dead as dead could be. Yet despite being dead, they moved and marched with determined looks on their bloated and gory faces.

“What are they doing? How did you know they were coming?” Jason whispered.

“I can hear them, I can hear their thought’s, mostly it’s just gibberish, I don’t think they have what we would consider minds or speech but I can understand them somehow. They are all happy that they’re going to have more blood, they’re also happy that when they reach that town they will be adding to their ranks. Apparently, when they kill, a ritual can be done that brings more of their demon brothers from hell to inhabit the dead. That’s all I can understand, the rest is just, well, it’s just gibberish.”

Jason could tell somehow that she wasn’t telling him everything but he decided to ignore it for now. As the last of the demon soldiers disappeared through more trees Jason made up his mind.

“If were quick, we can beat them to that town. It’s time to see what I can do with these so called powers.”

“Jason, wake up.”

He was dreaming that he had wandered in his sleep and ended up in an open, deserted field under a deathly black, starless sky.

“Jason, you have to wake up, we’re back.” A voice was saying in the dark.
Back? Back from where? Back to where? In his dream, Jason looked in the direction of where the voice was coming from. Beside the field, about 50 feet from where he was stood a small forest of trees and thick, dark bushes. It was hard to see anything in the pitch black but he could make out a spot where the shadows seemed to be slightly darker.

Above him in the previously pitch black sky a sliver of moon appeared from behind a cloud and as it shone it’s light down it served to illuminate the shape in the woods. Drusellia, dressed in nothing but moonlight, stepped from the shadows with a disarming smile on her face. “Why do you look so defensive my love? I’m here for you to use me as you will, there’s no need for the violence in your eye’s.”

Jason, despite being helplessly aroused by her naked beauty, took an involuntary step backward. The last time he had seen this woman she had been holding two severed heads in her hands in a hand drawn poster. Although she didn’t have DEMISE tattooed on her forehead, she still had the same utter evil look about her. And no matter how inviting her body seemed to be, her eye’s were filled with passionless hatred.

“Lay with me Jason, fuck me till neither of us can move.” With those words she glided toward him on thin air, crossing the distance between them in a matter of seconds. Pressing her lips to his ears she continued in a whisper. “You can have me in any way you want, forget about the task that’s been wrongfully laid on your shoulders, your too young and far too human to ever defeat me. Just drop everything now, lay me on the ground and do whatever you please.”

He could stand no more, his lust for her far outweighed his revulsion and fear at the moment, in fact, nothing in the world mattered more than the warm, naked body pressed against him. With nothing else in his mind than satisfying his growing lust, he allowed Drusellia to lower him to the ground and on top of her, his lips locked on hers the whole way down. Her back on the ground and his hand cupped on a breast Jason entered her and felt…….something moving.

Curiously he opened his eyes and stared directly into the milky dead eyes of a corpse. The breast he was still clutching was now nothing but a mound of rotten and sticky skin. “Fuck!!” he screamed as he pulled out and saw maggots come writhing out of her vagina. As he scrambled to get up the Drusellia corpse wrapped her desiccated arms around him and held him to her.

With a waft of putrid breath the corpse snarled at him. “Why did you stop Jason, don’t you want to keep fucking me, you got my pussy all wet and writhing and now your going to tease me?” A smile, literally, split its way onto her face and Jason could see where worms had dug passages in her gums and tongue. “Wake up now Jason, you better wake the fuck up!”

“Jason, WAKE UP!” And with a scream caught in his throat he did just that. For a moment he thought he was still in the dream. He was laying on his back in the same empty field and under the same starless sky. But when he looked around he saw that Kristina was kneeling down beside him with a very alarmed look on her face.

“Fucking aye, that must have been one hell of a dream!” she stated, noticing the look of fear and revulsion in his eyes. “What was that about?”

“Shit, you don’t want to know.” he replied, too embarrassed to tell her. “Where are we and how long have I been out?”

“I’m not too sure, it’s too damn dark to see anything, and you haven’t been out long, I woke up only a minute or two ago and you were mumbling beside me.”

All was quiet around them, not even any night creatures could be heard stirring, even the wind seemed like it had decided to take the night off. Jason commented on this with a shiver.

“That’s nothing, look at the moon.” Kristina said.

Jason looked toward the night sky and found the formally bright orb. Instead of seeing the normal, shining luminescence he was used to he saw a blood red ball. It was as if the man in the moon had grown angry and was peering down on an earth where he cared to see nothing but death.

All around them the cabin was shaking furiously as if a giants hand were shaking it. Minerva, Jason, Kristina and the now fully awake and aware cat were holding on to the furniture as all around them pictures and lamps and various other fixtures fell off walls and tables and counter tops.

“She isn’t here yet, otherwise she would be trying to blow in the door.” Minerva shouted over the noise of falling objects. “Listen to me carefully, when she does come in you must escape, the future of the human race counts on that!”

“I thought there was nothing we could do about it?!” Jason shouted back

“There isn’t, for now the world is fucked, as we speak there are plans and actions set in motion that will kill millions upon millions of people, the gates of hell have been opened and armies of demons are soon to be swarming earth! As I said earlier, this can all be reversed, but in order to do that you must find the talisman of good will! Although mankind has free will, although this massive swarming of death has been allowed to happen because of evil in everyone’s hearts, you have also been left a gift, the will to reverse time itself and allow goodwill to once again reign! Your band Jason, DEMISE, that is the key to finding the talisman! But you must escape Drusellia and her hordes and you must obtain the talisman with goodwill in your hearts, otherwise your kind is damned forever to the pits of hell!”

“But where exactly………….” Jason wanted to get more details as to where he could find this talisman of goodwill, however before he could finish there was a loud crash at the door and the cabin ceased shaking.

“She has arrived, get behind me and stand close, I’m going to send you back to earth. She cannot kill me, but she will outnumber me. I will however take very much pleasure in sending her minions back to their fiery chains.”

“But what..” Jason began again.

“No but’s, just listen to me. You have very strong powers Jason, learn to use them, but use them wisely, as I said, you must retain your good will!”

With that both Kristina and Jason vanished from the cabin. A split second later the door splintered into a million pieces and demons and other beings from hell poured in.

“Noname, attack!!” Minerva shouted at the cat who was now considerably larger and much meaner looking than she looked in her domesticated form. She was now the size of a baby elephant and her claws roughly 3 feet long and very, very sharp.

Teeth bared and ears laid back, Noname hissed and sprang at the first group of onrushing hell spawn. She sliced through three with a swipe of her right claw spewing black as night entrails all over the cabin wall, a fourth one she bit in half then spit it’s gory torso at another attacker knocking it off it’s feet.

Meanwhile Minerva began wreaking his own form of havoc, out of thin air it seemed a sword made of pure bright light appeared and he began cutting through his enemies as soon as they came through the door. When demons took over the bodies of humans they looked like other humans were just wearing the skins of their fellow man. The skin hangs loosely and as soon as the body is taken over the living organs die and begin to rot at an alarming rate. By the time an hour or so has passed the inhabited body looks an smells like a rotting corpse.

Within seconds of the door crashing in the floor, ceiling, and walls of the cabin were littered with pieces of corpse. With each swing of Minerva’s sword or swipe of Noname’s claws or teeth limbs and heads and rotten stinking entrails flew through the air and demons screamed as they were sent packing back to their fiery home, since they had no other live bodies around to posses they had no where else to go.

Many saw what was happening and struggled to get out the door, however Minerva wasn’t about to give them the chance. Slash after slash of his sword and enemies fell, even as Noname caught and killed any stragglers who ran toward her.

Demons don’t have a snowballs chance in hell against a god and its pet Evitan. They are only good for fighting humans and angels, and even then they are hard for a demon god to control. That’s why when Minerva saw bodies dissolving from outside the door he knew that Drusellia had fully arrived.

“Fucking with my plans again are we Minerva?” She said with a sardonic smirk on her face. “We could fight it out here and now but we both know that neither of us would ever win. Why don’t you just tell me where your precious son and his slut friend have gone and I’ll be on my way.”

“Ha ha ha! ” Minerva roared “I’ve dragged your bitchy ass to hell before, I’ll gladly do it again!”

With that, Minerva raised his sword and rushed toward an impossible fight.

“So how the hell are we supposed to stop all this from happening?” Jason asked “What I mean is, I’m a musician and Kristina is a nurse, how the hell are we supposed to stop an all powerful goddess, couldn’t she just swat us out of her way?”

“Well,” said Minerva as he absently pet the cat, who was now sleeping on the couch next to him. “There isn’t anyway you can stop this from happening, there is however a way to reverse it. I’ll get to that part in a moment. First, I’d like to tell you why the two of you have been chosen to carry out such a daunting task.”

“Many hundreds of years ago, us god’s and goddesses, on both sides of the fence, were allowed to breed with humans. There were many reasons for this, and I won’t go into it, but the outcome of it was nearly disastrous for the human race. The children that this produced retained some of the powers of us, yet they were still human, and it didn’t matter which side the god or goddess came from that sired them, they nearly always used them for evil. So, long story short, we were no longer able to breed, we can fuck all we want, that still happens quite often, but beyond that, no.”

“There are only two humans left in the world who have divine blood in their veins, and those two people, are you.” Minerva dropped this bomb without batting an eyelash, in fact, while his words set in, he set to repacking his pipe.

To Kristina, it made perfect sense, her whole family, as far back as it could be traced, had been strange in one way or another, her near daily conversations with her long dead grandmother was just icing on the cake. She remembered hearing stories of her great grandfather’s telekinetic powers, and how during World War 2 he had been able to place bombs inside impenetrable German strongholds. Many strange stories like that existed in and around her family, so the idea of having the blood of a god or goddess running through her did not surprise or scare her in the least bit.

Jason however, was shocked by the news. “That’s got to be bullshit! No one in my family has ever had any kind of special powers, at least, not as far as I know. In fact, I don’t think anyone in my family has ever done anything remotely special!”

“Have you ever wondered Jason why you look nothing like anyone in your family?” Minerva asked “Have you ever wondered why no one else in your family is in the least bit musically inclined yet you can write songs in your sleep?”

Jason just shook his head no; he honestly had no clue as to what he was talking about although it should have slapped him in the face long ago.

“He was adopted, wasn’t he?” Kristina asked

“Right on the money, in fact Jason, you are an extremely special case. Foreseeing what would be going down with the human race in a few years, the big guy upstairs made an exception to the no breeding rule and allowed you to be born.”

Kristina, sharp as ever, had noticed something earlier that Jason had not and it clicked into place. She looked at Minerva, looked at Jason, and then looked at Minerva again.

“You’re his father, aren’t you?” She asked Minerva. “Just look at him closely Jason, that’s all the proof you need, you’re his spitting image!”

Jason was nearly in shock. “But how? It doesn’t add up, you said that humans that were bred from gods acquired some of their powers, I’ve never had any powers, I’m just me!”

Minerva laughed and shook his head “Oh, you have them now, as of two hours ago when Drusellia grabbed you and was trying to twist the both of you to her will. You’ll see, your going to be using them quite a lot in the near future.”

Jason was still not quite buying it, but for now he was willing to let it go and sink in a bit, after all some really strange things had happened in the last few hours of his life an being the son of some super angel wouldn’t really surprise him all that much. There was however, one thing from his encounter with Drusellia that still bothered him.

“In my dream, or vision, or whatever the hell it was that I had, Drusellia was chanting something to me.” He said to Minerva. “Through the eye’s of innocence my darkness will prevail, through sickness strife and moral decay they will see the demon unveil, with my thirst for blood and hunger for flesh their fate I will decide..”

“..one by one infect them all and consume them in my stride.” Kristina finished. “She said the same thing to me! What does it mean?

With a worried look, Minerva said, “That my friend’s is a locater spell, and since you both just said it Drusellia knows exactly where we are now.”

With that, the whole cabin began to shake.

Larry Vannay was 21 years old, not a day younger, not a day older. As of midnight he was now legally allowed to do what he had been doing the past few previous years with a fake I.D and damnit, he was proud of that fact! He had proudly presented his I.D to the clerk at the liquor store, paid for his purchases and then proudly walked back out and to his car where four of his friends were waiting for him to return.

Now, four hours later, standing in a field deep in the woods of Northern Virginia around a bonfire and accompanied by nearly 400 other people around his age, Larry was happily wasted.

“I’m cold, let’s go stand by the fire.” Allyson Niles said through shivering teeth.

Allyson was Larry’s soon to be ex-girlfriend, she just hadn’t decided when would be a good time to do the deed and break up with the over sensitive, whiney bastard. The more she drank however, the more she started thinking she could put up with the crying and pleading he was bound to produce when he received the news, never once did it occur to her that doing it beside a raging fire would be a bad idea.

Winter had set in nicely and as they neared the fire they both stretched out their hands to warm them. Neither one of them noticed that the flames seemed just a little too alive, but then again both were wasted along with everyone else at the party.

“Larry,” Allison said after a moment. “I really need to tell you something.”

The flames danced a little higher, a little closer.

“Our relationship used to be great but the last few months you’ve changed and I just can’t stand your sensitivity, I’m sorry to do this now but I really need to be out of this relationship.”

Two flames joined and became a hand, a reaching hand.

Larry, being every bit the sensitive bastard that Allyson made him out to her friends to be didn’t say a word, he merely looked at her and began crying.

“See, this is what I mean, your just too fucking sensitive! I need a man, not boy who’s going to quiver his lip every time something doesn’t go his way!”

Allyson realized she was probably taking it too far but she was too drunk to even remotely give a damn.

“In fact, I’ve already found a man and while your standing here crying like a bitch he’s waiting in his car for me so he can take me home and fuck my brains out.”

Two more flames joined to become another hand, now both fire hands were standing by to embrace and if anyone had been listening close enough they would have heard that the crackling sounds coming from the fire sounded a little like harsh laughter.

Larry grabbed Allyson by both shoulders so hard that she was startled and when she looked up she finally noticed the rage in his eyes and it scared the living shit out of her.

He never said a word, he just simply shoved her as hard as he could toward the fire. Arms flailing she flew backward and nearly into the flames.

“You fucking sick bast..” She began to scream. She was cut off as two fiery arms shot out of the fire and grabbed her around the waist. Her words turned to screams of agony as she was pulled backward into the mouth of the demon waiting in the fire. Larry heard a sickening crunching sound and was then horrified to see Allyson’s flaming skull fly toward him as the demon spit it back out.

With a growl of triumph the demon stepped out of the fire and walked up to a very scared Larry.

“Thanks for the grub asshole, your girlfriend was a real bitch but damn she tasted good! By order of the laws of free will, I now claim you in the name of Drusselia, Goddess of destruction and death. As I serve her you will now serve me.”

With that the demon grabbed Larry and embraced him, as it touched his skin it sank into him, the two joining into one. Larry’s eyes rolled in his head and then closed, when they opened again they were the eyes of the demon.

“I am Ceraphin, god of deception and strife, in the name of Drusselia rise my minions and claim your hosts!”
The demon roared.

With that, the fire sprang to life once more as hundreds of demons jumped from hell and descended on the rest of the partygoers. Screams turned to demonic laughter as every last person turned in to the demon that inhabited them.

“Our time has come, this army is small now but millions of your kind are waiting for us to recruit more host’s! Scatter around and wherever you can, wherever you find evil in the heart of humans, open a door just as I have just done and inhabit the wicked and their friends, the innocent will soon be our feast!!”

Kristina Thomas was 12 years old when she first talked to her grandmother, they spent an entire afternoon listening to old records and just talking. They talked about school and music and all of her friends. Nothing normal, nothing scary, except for the fact that Hannah Thomas had died in a car accident when Kristina was 3 years old.

This didn’t scare Kristina or freak her out in anyway. In fact, she felt proud that her much talked about grandmother would cross the boundary that separates the living from the dead just to spend time with her.

When she spoke about it to her grandfather the next day he didn’t seem in the least bit surprised and he most definitely didn’t act like he disbelieved her.

“Strange shit just seems to happen to our family Kristina, your grandmother knew that quite well, probably better than any of the rest of us, she probably just wanted to prepare you for that herself.”

So when in one moment of consciousness she was being slammed to the ground in a hospital morgue and then in the next she was walking into a log cabin that was inhabited by a cat, a guy covered in tattoo’s and piercing’s and an old man that looked to her like a cross between her grandfather and Rob Zombie all that ran through her head was “Strange shit happens”.

If she seemed a little dazed when the old man introduced himself as Minerva and introduced Jason as her partner in tragedy it was only because she was reveling in the fact that strange shit was indeed happening.

As per the training she had received in the form of her grandmother’s very often visits, she took a deep breath, composed herself, looked Minerva in the eye and asked. “What is my purpose here?”

“Ahhhhh, now see, I’m glad your not doing this alone Jason, this one has brains!” Minerva said
“I will answer that question in a moment, but first, please, have a seat.”

Kristina crossed the room with a confident stride and sat on the couch next to Jason. She glanced at him as she did so and thought she recognized his face. Very familiar but she couldn’t quite think of where she had seen him before. No matter, she thought, I’ll ask later.

Minerva took his seat, relit his pipe and spent the next hour telling Kristina everything he had already told Jason. They both listened intently and that made him happy, they would need all the info they could take in order to survive the coming mayhem.

Kristina, who no longer seemed in the least bit dazed asked him.

“Why is she allowed to do this? I know you say it’s her instinct and her purpose to destroy and cause chaos but if there are “good” gods like you and an all powerful one even higher, why isn’t she stopped? How is it she’s able to maim and destroy at will?”

“Will, will is the key to her power, just as it is the driving force behind everything in this and all other universes. At the very beginning humans were given a powerful gift, free will. Unfortunately most of humanity have an evil will. Jealousy, hatred, spite, murder and pain are flying rampant around this world and it has all been because humans have willed it.”

“Since evil has become the majority will of humanity’s heart then us “gods” that thrive on love and compassion and all of the better things that you humans are capable of, have to make way to the “gods” like Drusellia who can reap the benefits. We have no free will, therefore we have no choice in the matter, the choice has been entirely up to you humans.”

“I’ll put it in terms that you can understand, percentages tell the story best, during World War II nearly 50 million were killed, at that time the percentage of evil will was around 20 percent, even at the worst. Now as the world stands it’s around 80 percent. In other words, humanity is long overdue.”

Jason, with a shocked look on his face finally spoke up. “What do you mean overdue, do you mean there’s going to be another war soon?”

Minerva looked Jason in the eye through a mist of pipe smoke and in a very low tone said “War’s Jason, many, many war’s. In fact there is a word for such total chaos, it’s called Armageddon.”

What passed as Drusellias mind was burning with fury trying to figure out which other deity was interfering with her plans. Both of the mortals that she had been trying to draw into her plans had suddenly disappeared literally out from underneath her. The only explanation there could be is that one of her “good” siblings had decided to step in and try to foil her latest attempt at world mutilation.

“Fuck, fuck and double flying fuck!” She raged in a language that had been dead to human ears even before Latin was alive.

She raged and raged but all in vain, all of the other god’s and goddess’s were just as secretive and powerful as she, if they wanted to hide a couple of shitting little mortals they could. Still, this fact did nothing to calm her, in fact it only pissed her off even more. She needed to blow off a little steam.

Drusellia, in human form, was very beautiful, many men and woman have sworn that her body was worth dying for and had done just that. Normally all she had to do was fuck them to drive them crazy and have her will with their minds, but the fucking was just a fun game, she could walk into a room and instantly cause everyone in it to start killing one another. Tonight she just wanted to see blood, and lots of it.

As she walked into the Black Moon Lounge, one of Miami’s more swanky clubs, every head in the room turned to see her, and then every eye turned jealous as she poisoned the patron’s mind by making them all think everyone else in the room was going to get her before the other.

A woman of about 30 sitting at a table in a corner suddenly smashed her wine glass on the table and jammed the jagged edge of it into her husband’s neck.

“Keep your eyes off of her you fuck, she’s mine!” She screamed at him.

Even though blood was shooting out of puncture in his neck and gushing down his chest. He had just enough strength left to jump on top of his wife, grab a steak knife from the table and jam it into her left eye. The woman twitched and convulsed as the blade punctured her brain. Without a second glance at his wife, the man stood on shaky legs and tried to run toward the perfect and smiling woman standing in the middle of the room.

Before he could so much as take a step however, the top of his head evaporated in a cloud of blood and brain matter. The man that had been sitting behind him was an off duty bodyguard and always had his gun with him and had pulled it as soon as Drusillia entered.

Drusillia began laughing with uncontrollable joy as all over the room destruction, mayhem and murder erupted. Anything that could possibly be used as a weapon was, some were even using bare hands and teeth. They were all running a race that could not be won.

A woman close by, grabbed a man’s balls, twisted and then bit down as hard as she could on his neck, as her teeth punctured his jugular he screamed and blood spewed out all over Drusillias face. This made her laugh even more, it also turned her on. Maybe she would fuck after all.

She grabbed the woman and drew her to her. “You have won me for tonight child, come with me.”

Blood dripping from the woman’s mouth she looked at Drusillia with dazed eyes and smiled . “Anything for you my goddess, I live only to serve.”

“And that’s all you will live for dear, come now, your poor mortal friends are soon to be the property of my husband.”

The demi-god gathered the woman up in her arms and walked out the front door. The few remaining survivors inside instantly snapped out of their spell and looked around in horror at the mass murder that had been committed. Their horror didn’t last long however, with a glance over her shoulder Drusillia made the building erupt in hellfire, inside not a soul remained, they were all being dragged to the underworld where the torture of their sins would never end.

Jason remained dumbfounded and he had a million questions he would like to ask Minerva but instead he remained silent, he really wanted to hear what the demi-god , or whatever the hell he was, had to say. The past few hours of his life had been surreal to say the least, he figured he might as well just go with it and see where it leads.

“As I’ve mentioned, there have been mortals such as yourself who have seen the world as I live in it and there have been stories written of such accounts. They have all been fictionalized, mostly due to the fact that what they have seen cant really be comprehended by the human mind so their imagination tries to conjure up a rational explanation.”

“Every story that has been written about us portrays us as THE gods, all powerful beings who can do what they please. In truth we are divine but we still have to answer to higher powers.”

Jason tried to speculate in his mind as to where this story was going but found it impossible to guess. Considering he had never believed in A God, it was impossible for him to grasp the idea of any kind of realm other then the one he lived in.

Minerva took another long drag off his pipe, exhaled the smoke and continued.

“I wont go into the story of how we all got separated into different side’s, but I will tell you one side is good and one side is pure evil. The one you have been so unlucky as to draw the attention of is named Drusellia, she remained well hidden every time a human who could possibly write about what they had seen entered our realm but if she had she would have probably been seen as the goddess of hunger and sacrifice and torment.”

“How come she stayed hidden?” Jason asked, speaking for the first time since Minerva shut him up. “I don’t remember much from mythology but it seems like all the gods and goddesses were pretty intent on drawing attention to themselves.”

“She didn’t hide herself, hell no! The only humans who have seen our realm have for one reason or another been allowed to see it. If Drusellia had been able to roam free she would have destroyed them, it’s all her nature can dictate her to do. The one you know as Hades is her direct master and even he knew the importance of our visitors so she was caged up for the duration of their visits.”

Jason suddenly had a flashback to his nightmare and shuddered slightly as he felt goose bumps rise on his skin. The torture, screams and dismemberment still seemed very real.

“So if she likes to torment people and she’s a minion of hell, why doesn’t she stay in hell and torment all she want’s there?” Jason queried.

“Hell is full of souls, not people. She craves the flesh and blood of the living and she makes good and sure that her victims are hell bound before she destroys them completely, those are her masters orders. She works behind the scenes creating hate and disorder until finally there is a massacre or, in some cases throughout the ages, a war. Every time there is horror and torture involved, her hand has been somewhere in the mix, most of the time quite literally, she enjoys taking part as much as she can.”

Jason opened his mouth to ask another question but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Ah, it seems your soon to be friend has arrived.” Minerva said, then he shouted toward the door, “Please, come in!”

The door opened and in walked a woman in her early 20′s, her black hair was a mess and her clothes were covered in blood but other than that she looked fine.

Jason Milsner meet Kristina Thomas.” Minerva said in introduction.

“You are now both partners in tragedy.”

A blank, bright, white wall that’s all Jason could see no matter which way he turned. He wasn’t exactly in a room,rooms had borders,corners where four walls a ceiling and a floor intersected. No matter which way he looked, up, down, right or left, all he saw was a single stretching into infinity. He saw that and nothing else.

There was no sense of time, no smell, no noise, he even had no sense of where he was. One moment he had been in his bedroom getting thrown around by an invisible attacker and the next he was here.

Strangely, he didn’t feel any sense of alarm at the sudden relocation, in fact,he felt at peace, especially after such a nerve wracking experience he had been through just seconds before.

“The couch is over there,have a seat.”

A voice boomed as all of a sudden the white walls were replaced by a fully furnished room. To Jason there was no perceived transition, out of nowhere a room was around him, four walls, a ceiling and a floor all made of logs. A wood stove the size of a mini van was burning hot in a corner and the light emanating from it illuminated a couch and two rocking chairs, all made from the same kind of wood as the room itself, in fact they appeared to have grown from the wood. A maroon colored rug covered part of the floor and the walls were decorated with old movie posters, a bit out of place for such a rustic room but hell, this whole location was out of place.

Jason glanced around looking for the person that the voice belonged to,the only being he saw was a gray and black striped cat sitting on one of the chairs, the cat wasn’t paying him a bit of attention.

“I said, have a seat on the couch, I’ll be there in a moment.” The voice said again.And Jason noticed a door near the wood stove. He walked to the couch and sat down right as he heard a toilet flush from behind the door. The door opened and an old man walked out waving his hand back and forth in front of his nose.

“Damn sweet potatoes, give me the shits every time, don’t know why I keep eating the,” the old man muttered as he made his way across the room and to the other chair, the one not occupied by the cat.

“Where am I?” Jason asked

“Where am I? Where am I? You just had a run in with the meanest most vengeful bitch in the universe and all you can ask is where am I?!” replied the man.

Jason opened his mouth to retort but the old man stopped him.

“Never mind, don’t talk, anything you say right now is bound to be another dumb ass question and those only tend to distract from the point at hand. For now I’ll just tell you what you need to know to keep that bloodthirsty bitch from becoming more powerful.”

The cat yawned and peeked out of one half opened eye at the old man and then as lazily as possible laid it’s head back down and went to sleep. Jason only half noticed this,his attention was focused wholly on the man in front of him, a man that he almost but not quite recognized.

“This planet, this universe has so many things in and around it that cant be seen on the human level, things that when seen by those unlucky enough to be cursed with the ability to see them drive those unlucky souls absolutely bat-shit.”

“Every now and then one of those unlucky bastards will come out only half crazy and they write about what they’ve seen, pretty much that’s where every story you’ve ever heard from greek mythology and such came from,right down to the beings that a human would perceive as gods and godesses. That part was the only part that was misunderstood, what I mean is, there are only two masters, one for the dark and one for the light the demi-gods and goddesses are only what you would call upper and lower management.”

The old man pulled out a pipe and lit it. As he put the match book back on the table he clenched the pipe between his teeth and said. “My name is Minerva and if you listen to me you may just be able to save the lives of a few million mortals just like you.”

Kristina Thomas’ sneakers made just a hint of echo as she walked down corridor B of the Sound Haven nursing home. “Black and white tiles” she thought to herself. “Who came up with the idea that black and white checkered tiles were supposed to be fucking soothing?”

She kept her thought’s in her head however,in these narrow hallways this late at night talking always reminded her of whistling in a tomb. She was striding with a purpose, her watch said 11:55 P.M and that meant her 12 hour shift was 5 minutes from ending. All she had to do was make it to the nurses station and clock out before any of the hundreds of things that could go wrong in such a place did go wrong.

As she approached the station at the end of the corridor she heard a buzzing noise and knew that her escape wouldn’t be happening now. She looked down at the light panel to see which room needed attention and was perplexed when she saw that the red light was flashing next to the words “morgue.” Just then Jeremy, one of the orderlies on duty, came walking up.

“Whoa, I’ve never seen that happen before.” he said.

“Yeah, the only alert button that’s down there is on the basement door as an alarm…You don’t think someone broke in do you?” Kristina asked.

“Hell no, there’s a security guard posted at all time’s, the alarms just a precaution that the insurance company wanted put in. I’ll go check it out just in case.” He started to walk away then stopped. “You better come with me, only nursing staff can get into the morgue.”

“Sure,” Kristina said as an unexplained chill ran up her spine.

As they neared the elevator leading down to the basement Kristina started feeling more and more apprehensive. “What the fuck is the matter with me?” she thought. “I go to the morgue all the time, shake it off!”

Sound Haven was part of Richmond Hills Hospital and they shared a morgue, it was nothing for one of Kristina’s patients to die. She witnessed it all the time. Still, she had a very real sense of apprehension.

Jeremy and Kristina entered the elevator and Jeremy pressed the button marked “B”. Neither one of them said a word as the car traveled down into the depths of the building. After working together for so long small talk seemed pointless. The only noises to be heard were the soft whine of the elevator cables and the apprehensive voice screaming in Kristina’s head, “Stop the elevator. Now!!!”

Once again, she ignored the voice.

The elevator doors opened to complete darkness except for what looked like a flashlight laying on the floor at the end of the hallway. Its beam was shining off the white tiles and Kristina could see a slight reflection off the glass door that lead into the morgue.

“What the hell?” Jeremy muttered under his breath.

“HELLO, ANYONE DOWN HERE?” he yelled. The only answer from the dark was a whispering sound of slight movement.

“This is weird, none of the lights down here are on switches so the only way to turn them off or on is at the breaker and even then the emergency lights should come on. Maybe we should go back up and get security, ” said Kristina.

“No, there’s a security room at the end of this hallway,there should be someone there,he’s probably trying to get the light’s back on,” Jeremy said.

Something passed in front of the light and the flashlight moved a little.

“Hello!” Kristina asked the darkness as her uneasiness growing larger by the second.

“I still think we should…”Kristina started to say when all of a sudden whoever was at the other end of the hallway picked up the flashlight and shined it in Jeremy and Kristina’s eyes.

“Come on, quit fucking around, whats going on down here?!”Jeremy said while shielding his eyes.

“Hahahahahahaha…” a female voice laughed behind the light. “No one’s fucking with you Jeremy, in fact no one gives a fuck for you at all down here, you’re not needed.” With that the flashlight flew through the air and smacked Jeremy between the eyes knocking him out.

A hand grabbed Kristina out of the darkness and something clubbed her in the head. As she slipped into a blackout she heard the womans voice say, “Through the eyes of innocence my darkness will prevail…”

-to be continued

Jason Milsner awoke to a trembling, mind numbing,sweaty world. He tasted blood in his mouth and for a moment was sure that he was still in his dream but then he realized his arm and mouth were aching. He looked down and saw that he had bitten so hard into his arm to wake himself up that he had nearly torn the skin off. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he growled to himself, the horror of his dream was so real in his head!

“Remember the words,” he heard in his mind. He scrambled to the side of his bed where on a nightstand was a notebook, one of hundreds he had used over most of the 19 years of his life to write down first poetry and then, once he started to discover his musical side, lyrics. “Through the eyes of innocence, my darkness will prevail, through sickness, strife, and moral decay they will see the demon unveil, with my thirst for blood and hunger for flesh, their fate I will decide,one by one infect them all and consume them in my stride.”

He wrote quickly, just in case the dream faded, not that it was going to anytime soon. Part of him was repulsed that he remembered them,yet another part admired the words, they were simple yet when he thought of the voice that uttered them to him they grew a life and grotesque beauty. “What the fuck is the matter with me? It was just a dream,” he thought to himself. Another, darker voice in his head begged to differ, “That’s bullshit and you know it Jason, just ask her”.

“Ask who?” he said out loud, but the other voice was gone or at least silent. Dammit! He couldn’t get that dream out of his fucking head!

He forced himself to look around his room and therefore reality,directly in front of him a plain white wall covered with band posters, a lot of them were flyers from shows that him and the band he fronted, Demise, had played in and around the Richmond area. Below them on a desk sat his seldom used TV and his often used computer. Same familiar floor lamp, same brownish carpet on the floor,same everything…except something felt off, something seemed oddly out of place in this domain he called his own but he couldn’t quite tell what it was.

Then he noticed it, one of the posters on the wall, the one that had previously depicted a demon like entity leading a naked woman by a rope and had been an advertisement for one of Demises shows was now something entirely different. The poster that now graced this part of the wall was decidedly ancient, the paper was brown and shriveled, the poster depicted a hand drawing of what looked like a blindfolded woman, she was wearing nothing more than rags and in both hands she held two severed heads by their hair. Underneath this drawing in blocky capitol letters were the words MEETING TONIGHT CROSSTOWN SALOON, WE WILL HAVE OUR REVENGE!

Despite the decay of the paper and the lack of color the drawing of the woman looked almost life-like and combined with the words stenciled below it the poster struck Jason as very ominous and suggestive of a very horrible deed but there was something else that struck him discordant when he looked at it, but that something else apparently couldn’t be seen with the naked eye because he had no clue as to it’s origins.

“Look closer Jason” a voice said in his head and made him jump, rightly so, it was the voice from his dream.”Who are you? Get out of my fucking head!” Said Jason as he looked around the room not really expecting to see anyone.

“LOOK CLOSER YOU SNIVELING LITTLE SHIT!” and with that Jason felt something grab his head and slam his face to the wall.”Open your eye’s” said the voice.

“No!” Jason yelled back. An invisible fist punched him in the balls while an invisible hand held his face to the wall. “OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES OR I WILL TEAR OFF YOUR EYELIDS!”

Jason finally did as he was told, all he could see was a blurred, extreme close up of the womans drawn head. The hand pulled back slowly until his eyes were in better focus. Now he could see the womans head more clearly. Printed on the womans forehead, in words so small that they would normally go unnoticed were the letters D-E-M-I-S-E.

-to be Continued

“I must eat” a sweet, yet TOO sweet sounding voice said as a sickly, grinding crunching and chewing noise permeated the background of Jason’s dream. The voice, like the sound was sickening, unbearable yet with an underlying unstoppable sound to it.” I must feed Jason, I’m famished, hahahahahahahaha!”

The grotesque eating sounds were replaced with the most bloodcurdling, almost inhuman screams that Jason had ever heard,in or out of his dreamscapes. As the screams grew louder and louder they reached a crescendo and as this peak was reached the blackness all around Jason that he had failed to notice until now was replaced by images of mutilated corpses. An obese man with his stomach ripped open and his neck broken from the force of his entrails being used as a noose. His strangulation had been performed so brutally that both eye balls had bulged so far out of his head that one had popped and was hanging bloated and sightless against his cheek. A young woman consumed by fire, not from the outside but from deep inside her own body, her blood and other bodily fluids had boiled to the point that her unburnt skin was covered with millions of tiny cesspools that spewed their fiery tails of slow death torture. These and millions of other equally disturbing images of horror, torture, and excruciating death ran and skittered in and out of Jason’s dream view.

A part of him knew that he had to be dreaming but at the same time he recognized that at least part of these images and the faceless voice laughing in the background were rooted in reality, they just had an entirely too tangible quality to them to be anything his mind could make up. “Hahahahahaha” the voice tittered, getting louder and more insistent as all of a sudden the images disappeared just as suddenly as they had manifested. The screams were once again silent and were replaced by the eating sounds.

“You will know the time and the place Jason, just remember these words and know that when you utter them,you will be spared my insatiable hunger…Through the eyes of innocence, my darkness will prevail, through sickness, strife, and moral decay they will see the demon unveil, with my thirst for blood and hunger for flesh, their fate I will decide, one by one infect them all and consume them in my stride…hahahahahahahahahahaha!”

The screams started again, this time filling his head completely and deafeningly and with the screams came an image that seemed just as real as if he was actually witnessing it,he was standing in a crowd of the dead, all in various stages of agony. The man standing next to him looked as if he was melting, folds of skin hung loosely from the tips of his outstretched hands and as Jason watched the man tried to speak “bones…motherfucker ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” the last of his scream came out as a fountain of gurgling blood and to Jason’s horror he saw the mans skin melt off his bones completely, it was like watching someone take off a Halloween mask only instead of revealing a face this mans unmasking only left a sizzling and acid burned skeleton with a skull caught up in it’s eternal scream.

Similar acts of excruciating demise were happening all around him, hundreds if not thousands of people were dying unthinkable deaths and Jason could do no more than watch. Blood and other fluids flowed in rivers until they all met up to form a grisly saturating lake. The room began to fill with it just as it was also filled with the scent of shit,piss fear and unimaginable horror. Jason looked down and saw that his bare feet were now up to the ankles in blood, he looked around for somewhere he could escape and for the first time noticed that there was a bar, he ran for it and jumped on top of it.

As he did this the previously unnoticed doors and windows burst open and blood poured into the room. He looked down and saw that the level had risen to about half way up the bar, severed limbs and heads floated to the surface each one distorted into final screams of agony. The flood was raging now and the blood level had risen over the bar, Jason was now up to his waist in it. He tried to scream but all he heard was that horrible, demon laughter. Before he could close his mouth it filled with blood and right before his ears were covered he heard the demon whisper in it’s beckoning voice “Remember Jason, remember the words I told you hahahahahahahahahahaha.”

-to be continued…