23.

June 6 1986

Allan Bowen and his son Richard (better known by everyone who knew the six-year old as Ritchie) Bowen had spent the early hours of the evening erecting their camping tent. Allan was teaching his son how living out in the wild would not only allow him to appreciate how lucky he was to have a roof over his head but to also make him appreciate the wildlife a lot of people never bothered to take any notice.

‘I think it looks pretty good, Dad,’ Ritchie said.

Allan was busy embedding the pegs into the ground until he believed the tent was firm enough to withstand any winds. He’d camped with his father often when he was a boy. They used to go hiking up in the mountains, seeing marvellous sights. And he couldn’t help even at the tender age of six being taken aback by the amazing sights of the same places and how different they appeared in contrasting weather. They’d spend the cold nights eating canned food sizzling in a hot pot above the crackling fire. Allan would play the harmonica beautifully and his father would sing along or hum the tune as darkness descended.

‘Almost, Ritchie.’ He knocked the last peg in, placed the lump hammer into his satchel and rose. ‘There we go. Sleeping bags are in there. I’ll cook us some food.’

‘Whadda we got, Dad?’

‘Hotdogs, beans and I remembered to bring some bread rolls and tomato ketchup. You got your bottle of juice in the cooler and I’ve got two cans of beer.’

‘I’m not hungry yet, Dad. I’m still full from the pasty.’

‘Okay. How ‘bout we have a sit down and I can show you how to play the harmonica. It’s kinda fun once you know how.’

‘Okay.’

Ritchie listened to Allan play the instrument, adoring the dulcet sounds, gazing upon his dad with awe at his unknown talent. Then he tried. He was a little disappointed when he could barely put two notes together, although his dad told him that it took a lot of practice and patience. After half an hour Ritchie had improved, and could hit a few notes perfectly in a row.

Allan consulted his wristwatch and saw that it was almost half past eight. The amethyst hue of the sky caught both father and son’s breath. It was so beautiful it couldn’t possibly be real. The essence of beauty made both father and son wonder where the earth stopped and heaven began.

Ritchie smelled the hotdogs cooking but never took his gaze from the sky, watching intently as the light of the colours ebbed, relenting to night. The shiny silver stars that formed shapes in the galactic sky overhead if you looked hard enough twinkled with vibrancy. Directly overhead a comet ripped the sky. Then came the sounds of distant chanting...

Beyond the forest a couple hundred acres of an open pasture was the venue of something not many people witness, for it was not only bone-chilling but unprecedented. Black-robed figures moved as one wave towards the makeshift altar where four robed figures stood motionless around the plinth that a girl’s body which had once belonged to a young Swedish woman who came to the United Kingdom to study Law, writhed.

The chanting grew louder and distinct. However, the language was foreign and hard to decipher. The robed figure armed with a machete that glinted in the moonlight pulled back their hood and drew closer to the girl and revealed their true identity.

The long mane of brown hair and face that stared, void of emotion, at Sofie seemed all too familiar all of a sudden. The face belonged to her saviour. The saviour that had drove her out to this Victorian, gothic residence owned by a family of devil worshippers. The saviour who’d then taken it upon herself to come to her rescue when she needed it most, and would have done had the demon witch not slit her throat and induced a hellish collision into a rock-faced wall.

If there had been any last remnants of a girl named Sofie Lackberg still alive somewhere deep inside her own decomposing shell, then it died in that harrowing moment.

The incantation coming from the demon witch, Reverend Ward, Michael and Janice Stevens was echoed by the mass followers, standing side-by-side in a large circle, watching the fire-lit torches illuminate the plinth so they could see the rebirth with their very own eyes. The golden rod with the shiny goat’s head exhaled dense, coiling steam over the girl’s body that no longer writhed. The demon inside was ready to be released. By the condition of the emaciated form, even if the girl did somehow manage to gain control again she’d die shortly after.

Behind the plinth a bonfire crackled and spat glowing embers like fireflies into the night. The four robed figures standing atop the makeshift altar were backlit and that added to the eeriness tenfold - not that it needed it.

When the girl began screaming and her hips bucked with every contraction the incantation ceased and silence descended. The demon witch looked on while Janice held Sofie down along with Reverend Ward. Michael parted Sofie’s legs and used his torch to see how much longer they’d have to wait, grinning from ear-to-ear, malevolently.

The screaming that followed froze the marrow in the bones of everyone in attendance. They were not the normal agonising screams of a woman in labour but of someone who was being sliced open from the inside. Some of the robed figures’ heads sunk into their chests, unable to look any more. Others clamped hands over their ears, doing everything they possibly could to block out the guttural cries of someone in the wraths of an unspeakable death.

An audible gasp from everyone who was witnessing this eyesore escaped the robed figures, causing some to look away in revulsion as Michael extracted the tiny creature, sheathed in blood and body fluid and held him up in both hands for everyone to see.

What had come into the world was the most hideous creature ever seen. Its head was nothing even distantly resembling a human’s, for it had long snout, burning red eyes that looked like traffic lights and four horns dripping crimson blood.

Behind the spectacle that Michael was declaring to the cult and soon to the whole world, Janice and Reverend Rodney Ward took hold of the lifeless, bloodied body of a girl who’d been as close to an angel on earth as anyone ever could and hurled it into the raging bonfire.

Crouching down on the fringe of the forest, Allan and Ritchie stared in absolute horror at what they’d seen. Allan had been transfixed by pure, uncontrollable terror. His eyes, reflecting the roaring flames, burned with brimming tears that streamed down his face and dropped off his quivering jaw. His heart felt like a mechanic fist relentlessly punching through the bars of his ribcage, his breath wheezing out of him like a kettle.

That trepidation evolved into something that he couldn’t describe in words when the crowd of black robed figures all pivoted simultaneously and stared fixedly at the father and son paralysed with fear.

‘Run!’ Allan whimpered, as he heard the sound of hundreds of footfalls racing across the pasture towards them, gaining...