DESTINY'S DAMNED: A Serial Killer's Nightmare

A serial killer obsessed with the Crucifixion and the salvation it
offers murders to please God. Already damned, terrified the Crucifixion will disappear, he has a nightmare.

3:00 a.m. Sunday
12th day of Lent

Sleep a dark cave in which demons dwell, ans he was always afraid to close
his eyes. But, chest battered, face sore, thigh simmering with
infection, in desperate need of rest, he ignored his fears, and allowed
himself to fall into the hole that took him there, reluctantly
embracing the darkness. Tumbling into the depths of the earth, mind
whirling, his limbs growing limp, his heart slowing, he lost all
consciousness as he reached the cave’s entrance, coming to rest in a
cold, musty hollow. Head back, arms to the side, body exposed, he felt
the wind on which the demons rode and waited. Fists clenched, tears
flowing, he prepared himself.
Dirt an abrasive which was washing his bare skin clean, the wind its master, he choked, unable to breath as it whirled around him. Blind to all that did not deal with him, he sank inside himself and, in the hollow of his soul, began to drown in sin.
Screams not his own, but from those he murdered, rose in his gut and tore
through him. The figure of the demon that drew near was lost in a dark
brown robe that flowed over its head. Sleeves growing out of its
shoulders billowed down its arms and toward the ground, forming a train
that extended three to four feet out to its sides and back, moving with
the wind but never touching the earth. Draped around the demon’s neck
and over its forearms was a white, silk shroud with the image of a
young man. Limp and lifeless, his earth colored skin was a pale,
flaccid replica of what he had been in life.
The demon pulled its hood back. In its face was a myriad of creatures, circling, swirling,always changing, the demon never revealing its own face to him. Yet, he
knew this demon, for throughout his existence, she was the greatest and
worst of all his demons.
“Come with me,” she bade him.
Trembling,unwillingly but impulsively rising to her call, he followed her as he
always did further into the recesses of the cave, as she eased him ever
closer to his destruction. Yet, he did not go rapidly. Like a jumper,
reluctantly but compulsively, seeking the edge of a cliff, knowing what
would happen the instant he stepped off, he moved only inches at a
time. Tentative, fearful, each step closer to the plunge, he cringed.
His arms wrapped around him, his hands clutching at his breast to hold
his heart still, he was suddenly sucked into a vacuum. Rolling and
twisting, turning and whirling, caught in a wind so strong if let go
would tear him apart, his eyes could not see, his mind could not think,
and his feet never touched the ground.
Time did not exist. Space was but a memory.
Then,suddenly the wind was gone. He was falling, and as he hit ground, found
himself in the midst of a thunder storm. Daylight obscured by dark,
billowy clouds with flat, black bottoms, he was atop a hill leaning
against a large, upright stake, two women at his side, wrapped in robes
of coarse wool. Heads down, cheeks tucked against their breasts, they
were crying.
Grateful to be still, to be, for a moment, free from her, he waited for the demon to reveal herself, but she did not come.
Back pressed hard against the stake, his awareness returning, he raised
his eyes to figures standing several feet away. Legs bared, calves and
feet wrapped in leather straps, their leather skirts bearing armor,
they were Roman Centurions.
Suddenly realizing his shoulders were damp, his head and body stained with blood, he looked up, into the
tormented face of a man being crucified.
Startled, powerful forces
of fear and adoration violently colliding inside him, he panicked and
scurried away. Hiding behind the very men who were crucifying his Lord,
he cowered in torment. Crumbling to the ground like rubble, he wept.
Coward
and fool, so close to Christ he could touch Him, he crawled in agony
between the legs of His persecutors and hid from Him. Afraid to look,
yet compelled to do so, he peered into the eyes of the man he
worshipped, and found within them strength enough to come forward.
Adoration the force that lifted him to his knees, he to left the
protection of evil and ventured to move toward God’s light.
Eyes
fixed on His, the light of eternity within them, he wrapped his arms
around the crucifix and held on, absorbing, for his very salvation, all
the hope and forgiveness inside. Mesmerized by his faith, imagining
forces never known to him before surging through his soul, he did not
see the two women beside him fade away or the ground beneath him move.
He did not sense the earth begin to liquefy as the viscosity of the
soil changed, turning fluid. He was not aware of any of this until the
crucifix moved.
Shaken into the reality of his nightmare, he was
suddenly in a tug-a-war with the earth as it began to swallow the
crucifix. His arms wrapped so tightly about the rough, chiseled stake
beneath Christ’s feet, they bled as slivers as big as nails drove into
his flesh. Struggling against the downward pull, he was fighting not
only for Christ but for His promise.
Getting to his feet, bearing
his entire weight against the forces absorbing Christ and His crucifix,
he was, at once, pulled, too. Quickly buried up to his waist, the body
of Christ in passage before him, he begged his Lord in heaven, “Help
us!”
While on the hill overlooking them, was the demon, quietly
watching and remembering, her senses gorged with the fresh scent and
taste of blood.

© Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT
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www.pilchuckpublishing.com
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