The faithful entered the arched gateway into the Holy City of Jerusalem all crammed together, barely having room to lift their arms from their sides. Behind the flow of humanity entering the city, a man on a donkey approached and waited to enter, His followers flanking Him. Men and women of all ages seemed to notice the man on the small animal at the same time without anyone saying a word to one another. The people inside the bustling stone city made a path as best as they could so that the man could enter. Then, as one, the crowd screamed in heightened joy at the sight of the man—the Holy Man unlike any other before—slowly entering the city of Jerusalem.
Toward the back of the crowd, Rydel watched the man make His way through the city. No matter how hard he tried to get closer, he could not take more than three to four steps at a time. He was the last man in the back of the crowd—too far away. He watched the man he had come back in time to save slipping out of sight through the crowd.
Rydel tried once more to pass the people in front of him and accidentally pushed over a small child standing next to her mother. He gasped at what he’d done and lifted the girl off the ground, brushing the dirt off the back and front of her knee-length tunic. The stunned child moved closer to her mother, looking up at her. The child’s mother, caught up in watching the miracle man enter the city, did not realize that her little girl had fallen to the ground. But she did suddenly notice Rydel standing close and smiled at him.
"They say he's cured a man from death. Do you believe?" the woman asked Rydel in Aramaic.
Rydel took in the language through the translator hidden under his keffiyeh and nodded at the woman. The child pulled on Rydel's cloak. He tilted his head down at the girl, who was now by his side.
"I believe," the little girl said, her words translating to Rydel in English.
Rydel smiled down at the young girl, the sweet child not caring that he had just accidentally pushed her down moments before. Rydel looked back up and took in the last glimpse of the celebrated man moving deeper inside the city against the late afternoon sun.
Rydel felt a pull on his cloak again and looked down at the little girl beside him. The sweet girl now tugged on his cloak with a serpent's tongue—the girl's face reddened in rage—the pupils of her eyes slits of black. The snake-like tongue recoiled and slid back into the little girl's mouth. The face of the child, beautiful and innocent seconds ago in front of Rydel, started to crack by her eyes and cheeks, blood running freely. The little girl grinned at Rydel with her reptilian face.
"He dies," she said to Rydel in a soulless voice, speaking the words in English.
The little girl's tongue slowly rolled out of her mouth, red and elongated, flickering at the tip. She started to lick Rydel's groin area in a sick, seductive way. Pulling away, Rydel fell to the ground, his arms flailing to protect himself as he landed. The demonic child squatted in front of Rydel and slapped him across the face. She then disappeared in a swirling mist of dust.
Rydel stood up and quickly spun around, searching for the thing that was a little girl just minutes before. Coming to a stop, he faced the child's mother staring at him with concern. The woman placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Are you all right?" the woman asked. Rydel waited for the words to translate and noticed the little girl standing by her mother's side—normal, as she was before.
The child's mother took a step closer. Rydel stumbled backward, distancing himself from the woman. He fell to his knees and shot right back up to his feet, turning away from the woman and the child, running toward a side street. Rydel ran down the empty street, faster than he ever thought possible, fear pushing him forward. He ran for as long as he could and finally stopped to catch his breath, bending at the waist. After taking in all the air it took to breathe normally, Rydel raised his body upright.
At the end of the deserted stone-walled side street, the cloaked man, again with his face hidden under his charcoal-black hood, waited for Rydel.
Fear took over Rydel's body again—his body shaking in intermittent spasms, quickly coming and going. All that was in front of him was a man in black. Just a man! Nothing to fear, Rydel reasoned with himself, trying to shake the foreboding grip over his body.
Another man in a brownish tunic trotted quickly toward the man in black, shuffling on his hands and feet—his back awkwardly arched. He sat by the feet of the black-cloaked man like a beaten dog.
"My God—is that a man?" Rydel said in a whimpering voice to no one, the words just coming out of him.
The man in the black cloak pointed a spearhead-like black finger at Rydel and lowered his hooded head, looking down at the thing, the man-dog, waiting by his feet. He then spoke to it in Aramaic.
"Eat him."
The man's legs ripped through the tattered tunic he wore. The thing galloped like a rabid animal toward Rydel. The man-dog ran at a freakish angle, its arms and legs almost running sideways—but still coming straight toward Rydel. Fast.
Rydel fumbled with his Smartround handgun under his cloak as the crazed beast leaped in the air and landed on him. As they scampered for position on the ground, the man-dog bit into Rydel's left arm and pulled away its mouth—a chunk of cloth and a piece of flesh tearing from Rydel's arm.
Rydel let out a scream and swung his right arm at the crazed thing, hitting it on the head with the butt of his Smartround handgun. He quickly fired two rounds into its chest. The man-dog fell to its side and began clawing at its chest in an attempt to extract the rounds. After ripping through its clothing and reaching the smartrounds, the thing stopped moving.
With his throat feeling as if he had swallowed sand, Rydel weakly rose to one knee and heard laughter coming from the other end of the narrow street—the man in the black cloak, laughing an eerie, screeching laugh. Frozen by fear on one knee, staring at the black-cloaked man, Rydel could make out the man's eyes from under the black hood. The ice-blue eyes he saw sent another wave of fearful spasms shuddering through his body, urging him to vomit, which he was finally able to do in two rapid, bursting thrusts. What came out of his mouth and spilled on the ground was a black fluid that began to crawl back toward him, reaching out for Rydel.
Rydel's body broke free from its paralysis at the sight of what was reaching out for him. He bolted toward the other end of the street, away from the regurgitated living black liquid crawling after him.