I no longer looked human. My skin was as red as a ripe tomato. The whites of my eyes were crimson, the pupils a glowing gold. I watched in horror as the hair from my head burned off, black ash peppering my shoulders.
The scimitar was on the seat next to me, shining as if it had been recently polished. The back seat was crammed with cases and crates. All of them, I suspected, contained weapons, the tools to ignite mass murder.
Sitting in the Mustang, looking like the devil incarnate, I could no longer rationalize AO and what had been happening to me away. The less I struggled internally, the more the burning desire to carry out his word took control, easing my mind.
“I…I want to say goodbye to my family,” I said, putting the car in drive.
I am your family.
“Candy and Katie are the family I made here, on Earth!” I shouted, pounding the wheel, feeling insane, raw power surge through me. If an army had been sent to stop me from going to my house, I was pretty sure I could lay waste to them, even without the scimitar. “You teach love. I love my wife and my child. It can’t be wrong to love them so much that I want to see them one last time.”
I pinned the accelerator. Route 302 was empty. It looked like there were several fires in the town. Smoke corkscrewed up from the tree line in every direction. There were no bleating fire engines rushing to the rescue.
The horns. They signaled the end. What little horror that had been held back must have exploded at the first blast. Everything had gone to total shit in an instant.
AO…no, God…didn’t say another word as I sped to my house. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw my neighbor, Benny, lying dead on his front lawn. Blood pooled around his head. I didn’t have time to find out what had happened to him.
Stepping out of the car, my point of view shifted. I was seeing the world from a different perspective. When I got to my front door, I realized I was taller than before. I would have to duck to get into the house. My frame nearly filled the doorway.
What was I doing? If Candy and Katie saw me like this, I might scare the life out of them.
Is this what God wanted, why he didn’t stop me?
It was too late for second thoughts. The door swung open, the knob melting from my brief contact.
“Candy? Katie?”
Even my voice was deeper.
There was no answer. Had something happened? Had they run from the house? Maybe Benny had been trying to protect them from someone, or something. Or had they fled out the back door when they spotted me walking up the drive? I wouldn’t blame them if they had.
Maybe it was for the best.
I turned for the front door, consigned to leaving my life and loves behind. Who was I to think I even deserved to see them again? Something wicked had to have lived in me all my life for God to choose me to be his messenger of war and hate. How could Candy have not seen it in me all these years?
The dying part of my soul wept.
My gaze caught something on the couch.
It was them. Both sound asleep in an unnatural slumber. They looked so peaceful, contented. I stood over them, Katie sleeping in the crook of Candy’s arm. I exhaled with a big sigh when I saw their chests move. For a moment, I’d thought they were gone.
A heavy explosion rumbled through the house. Outside, a chorus of pained cries split the humid air.
Madness had taken complete control.
“Peter.”
“Yes.”
“You must leave them.”
I reached out to touch them, saw the pulsating crimson in my hands, and pulled away.
“But first you must take their lives.”
I recoiled, staggering away from the couch.
“You can’t ask me to do that!”
Another blast made framed pictures fall from the walls. It felt as if something underground had erupted.
“If they live, they will suffer. The world will no longer be a place for them.”
“Couldn’t you just take them up? They’re innocent. Please don’t ask me to do this. I can’t murder my wife and child.”
“You must trust in me.”
“Why would you make me do this? Haven’t you done enough to torture me? I won’t! Why me? Answer me that. Why me?”
To my surprise, I wasn’t struck by pain, made to drop to my knees in agony until I acquiesced. Candy and Katie slept, oblivious to the chaos outside and the beast that was their protector inside.
“They will feel nothing. Better that than the pain that is to come. Better from the hands of the one who loves them than a stranger.”
My tears hissed like droplets of water steaming on a hot plate.
“This was always your burden to bear, Peter. I made you for this, an ordinary man in my image.”
My stomach lurched when I looked down and saw the scimitar in my right hand. I knew I had left it in the car.
“Please, spare them. Spare me. I’ll do anything else you ask of me. Just don’t ask me to do this.”
Katie mumbled in her sleep, shifting so her face was nuzzled in Candy’s breast. Candy pressed her cheek atop her head, a smile creeping onto her face.
“You have much to do, but not until you place your absolute faith in me.”
“I do. I do have faith in you!”
“Then believe in me when I say this has to be done.”
There was a series of gunshots just outside the house. A woman screamed and there were more shots. That could have been Candy. My chest ached.
If I left, whoever was out there could come into my home and do the same to my beautiful girls.
My beautiful, perfect girls.
“Please, forgive me,” I said, sniffing back tears as I lifted the scimitar.
“You need not ask me for forgiveness.”
“I’m not asking it of you!”
The scimitar sliced through the air as I screamed, a peal of lament that shattered windows, rending a path in the heavens for their souls to ascend.