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Kryso

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THE SOUL REAPERS - The Human Harvest Has Begun

Patrick Knight’s life turns chaotic when he starts receiving an unexpected series of reanimated visitors, each departing a fragment of a message. A tale unfolds, as old as time itself, relating humanities darkest untold secrets – the biblical story from the Devils point of view. Knight’s mind becomes unhinged, he repeatedly finds himself covered in blood. Suddenly he becomes a fugitive from the authorities, wanted in connection to multiple killings. But he doesn’t travel alone, death and destruction precedes him. Whole villages are eerily silent, corpses’ littering the streets, as a new plague from an unimaginable source starts to sweep the country. At an old farmhouse Knight comes face to face with mankind’s worst nightmare. Buried in a field is the answer to all the riddles that climaxes in a terrifying twist.

Does this book synopsis wet your appetite? Would you consider reading the book after this brief description? dontgetit.gif

Here's the books front cover... so look out for it in your closest bookstore!

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Here the first chapter for Celticwitch. You should be able to understand the setting, lol, because it’s close to where you live.

DEATH CAME IN FROM THE COLD

It was a cold January evening. The wind was howling outside, making the snow laden trees give up there burdens, depositing even more snow on the already heavily covered ground. Roads were blocked. Telephone lines down, having snapped from the weight of the snow upon them. So far it has been the worst winter in living memory, and apparently - so the weather reporters say - the worst was yet to come.

It's at times like these that I wonder- and not for the first time - why I lived in a god forsaken place like this. Dartmoor - the Moors - as some of the locals refer to it as.

England has ten National Parks, only two, Dartmoor and Exmoor, are situated in the southern part of the country, in a county called Devon. I live on the largest on the two, Dartmoor. A large national park area, covering several hundred square miles. Wild ponies wonder aimlessly, and sheep continually try to run you off the road by appearing at almost every bend in the narrow hedge crowded lanes, where most of the time two cars can't even pass each other. You seem to spend most of the time reversing to let others pass. They never give way to you.

There are only two notable cities nearby. Dartmoor sits wholly between Exeter to the east and Plymouth to the west. Few noteworthy towns or villages. Mainly though the area was just a large collection of identical little towns skirted by even smaller villages, around the Moors fringes and dotted around the Moors itself. But apart from that it is a sleepy section of an already sleepy countryside.

But then, as I reflect, that's why I choose this section to be my home. Away from the cruel streets of America. Away from Washington D.C, my home city. Away from the mad hustle ‘n’ bustle. The crime, the shootings. Most writers like me prefer to be in the middle of everything. "Be where the pulse is," as some of my writer friends refer to it as. But I'm not like most of them.

That soon became very clear.

But sometimes I do miss my former home. I use to live close to the waterfront. Maine Avenue Fish Wharf was only a stroll away. The countless times I had walked over the Francis Case Memorial Bridge to get to Pruitt’s Seafood Restaurant. Looking down to see the faded red painted sign of Jessie’s Cooked Seafood, sprawled across the dirty white wall. I had tried many of the large restaurants along the half-mile strip. But no one steamed crabs like Pruitt’s. Once, I was even considering buying a boat and living in the marina. But that’s before I had travelled to England to do some research for one of my books, and ended up falling in love with Devon.

All said and done though the area of Devon has some outstanding beauty. Dartmoor mainly consists of smooth contoured hill after rolling hill, as far as the naked eye can see, often supporting large rocky outcrops. Wide expanses of bogs, which are continually filled by the mist and clouds that frequently shroud the hills. It's a painted canvas of blue hues and greens. More trees than a sane person would try and count, splattered here and there, or making up huge tracks of woodland. Alder, rowan, blackthorn, hawthorn, birch and large oak trees, just to name a few. What's not covered in trees is plastered with bracken or spidery ferns, making large green-carpeted areas. And so many rivers and small streams that cascade down numerous waterfalls, and filling rocky gorges, that it seems like you're forever driving over one kind of bridge or another.

It also has its fair share of ghost stories. Supposedly haunted houses and manors. Mysterious graveyards and famous graves. The Headless Horseman, that still rides around on full moon. The Hounds of the Baskaviles, with its devil dogs, still supposedly roaming the misty marshes. Jay's Grave, where fresh flowers appear nightly by some mysterious unknown benefactor. The Hairy Hand, that pulls at the wheel of your car as you drive along the deserted back roads. The famous out-of-the-way village of Princetown, with its ghostly happenings. And that’s just a few, there’s even more ghost stories that you could shake your hat at.

These are some of the reasons why I have chosen to make this area my home. I have a celebrated twelve horror novels under my belt, and a few awards adorning my walls and shelves. Some of these books have stories similar to myths and legends that prevail in this area. Funny, when I think about it, this is my thirteenth book. Does that have some bearing on what took place?

As I said I now have thirteen novels under my belt, and a few other manuscripts I'm working on at the moment. But no more horrors, what happened changed that part of me forever.

"Why do I write?" Some people ask me even now. For me the answer is because I love to read, and also I like to see one of my finished books in the hands of a passer-by. Or while riding the subway, when I make one of my calls in London to see my agent. To see the look of concentration upon their face as they read the words that I have placed on paper.

And the most asked question: "Where do I get my ideas from?" As my many wives said, as well as friends and family, I have a very over active imagination. Even more so now, after I was released from his hold on me.

But all in its proper place.

Of course it goes without saying that I have made plenty of money from my written creations, that's how I can afford to live in such an out of the way location, in a big converted farm house.

Some ask: "Why I stick it out? Why I put up with the critics sharp tongues, when I could retire from writing and simply live of the royalties?" But as any writer worth his salt knows, it's not that simple. Writing is like cancer it burns away inside you. Once you have one book in circulation it's not long before another joins it. A natural high some say. It's something needing to be done, needing to be written.

One great writer - I forget his name - once said: "It's like being a prostitute. First you do it because of the love for it, but when the money starts rolling in you do it because you need to, have to."

Has not one of the greatest writers of our time, Stephen King, not written more than fifty novels? Each one a master piece in its own right. What if he had given up after his fifth novel or tenth novel? This generation would be different would it not, without the works of his great mind?

Likewise, after only a mere thirteen novels - compared to his fifty - I still can't steal the typewriter away - not just yet. Over the last few years it’s been my only companion. A good faithful friend.

Maybe because of my passion for writing, or merely because of the location I chose to live, is the very reason he decided to choose me. I don't think I will ever know why he picked me, he never gave a reason. Then again I don't think he needed to, or would have given me an explanation even if I had the courage to ask. And to be quite frank, I don't think I ever thought to ask. That was my reasoning to start with; it all became apparent towards the twisted end.

It would have been many days, if not weeks, before I would have seen another human being, let alone whatever he claimed to be. That's one of those small details I told you about.

When I opened my door to the intensive knocking on that cold January evening, when most sensible people would be huddled up at home in the heat. Not that anyone could even move about in the snow outside. And it was impossible to get to my out of the way house with all the blizzards blowing outside. Snow piling up.

That's when I saw him stood upon my snow-incrusted doormat. Noticing not one snowflake clinging to his clothing or hair. His black highly polished shoes still glistening by the warm light issuing from my open fire in the room behind me, as clean as if only just having been polished, no snow or mush on them. And the fact that besides the freezing cold and drizzling snow, he was wearing no coat of any kind, just a simple black suit jacket that matched his expensive looking black trousers and waistcoat.

"Good evening," he had said, as if having met him on the sidewalk in town. A perfect gentlemanly voice, not one you would expect coming from someone like him. His eyes locked intently upon mine.

I stood transfixed looking upon this figure stood under the lintel of my front door. The wind and snow blowing relentlessly behind him. His face lit up by the reflection of my roaring fire. A vile smile on an otherwise ordinary face. Hair still perfectly groomed, not one single hair out of place from the fierce winds. A dry black umbrella held in one of his hands, still folded up with the little popper clipped into place. And alarmingly not one single footprint leading its way to my door. Surely the snow wouldn't have covered them that quickly?

"May I seek shelter from this stormy weather?" He'd asked, his voice still flat and emotionless. His dark eyes still locked on to mine, unflinching. Something about those dark eyes.

Then I simply stood aside, knowing there was nothing else I could do. I could no more of stopped him from entering as I could of waved a hand and abated the storm blowing outside. And that simple act changed my life. Then again, if I had refused him entry I might not be alive today to tell the tale. His tale. But of course now I know different, things having already run there course, and I am now relating them for the first time.

I stood next to the still open door, the wind howling, snow clinging to my back and trousers, making my slippers wet and cold. All the heat I had accumulated rushing out the wide-open doorway. Doors banging loudly from inside as the wind whipped around the confines of my once sane home.

I watched as he gracefully moved across the room. The way in which he moved was more like a predator than a mere man. He took a high backed seat besides the open crackling fire and gently lowered himself down into it, crossing his long thin legs, showing of his black socks with a small red emblem on it that I couldn't identify from my position by the open door.

"Please take a seat," he simply said. A wave of his hand at the empty chair opposite himself.

I was still in a state of shock. I hadn't worked out what he was yet, but I knew something was not right. My primeval instincts’ telling me something was very wrong. It took all my will power from simply stopping myself from running out the door, plunging into the cold stormy night, taking my chances out there, rather than be anywhere near him, and that smile of his.

"Please," he asked once again. As he did so this time the door was wrenched from my grasp and banged shut. I let myself believe for those few seconds that it was my imagination taking hold, nothing more than the wind pulling it from my hand. That was until the latch clicked into place and the bolt slid home.

My eyes prised away from the now locked and bolted door, to see him sat motionless, only the wide smile being any movement from his direction. Then his tongue raked over his chapped lips.

Like a dead body having just been raised by necromancy, I slowly moved across the room, bumping into a knee high table in the process, up turning it along with the useless dead telephone.

"Please sit Mr. Knight," he said, in his relaxed modulated voice.

I hadn't told him my name. Had I? But then again everyone in the area knew I lived here, but they kept at a respectable distance. Until now.

My body answered by taking another high backed seat opposite, with its studded buttons in red hard leather. My favourite seat, one I sat in while thinking or simply reading. I never knew why I had another positioned opposite, never having visitors. I think it was for comfort reason. An illusion that I wasn't alone.

"May I smoke?" He asked, already reaching into the confines of his jacket to remove a packet of unfiltered Marlboros. I knew them well, my chosen brand before I had given them up after losing a brother to lung cancer.

He looked around, his eye skipping all around the room.

"I have..." I coughed, trying to clear my contracting throat. "I have no ashtrays," I managed to squeeze out eventually. The first time I had spoken, and for such a mundane reason.

"That's right," he stated matter-of-factly. "After the incident with your older brother." He lifted the cigarette to his thinly pressed lips and lit it with a single match he had struck by scraping with his fingernail, like you see in the movies.

"What about the ashtray in the cupboard under the stairs?" He asked politely, as if inquiring about my health.

I dislodged an old memory, realizing that yes there was an old ashtray under the stairs in an old cardboard box. I had put it there years before, stowing it away with some of my brother’s belongings. Not wanting to throw it way because it had been his, even though - in a way - it had been the cause of his death.

Infact it was an ashtray I myself had bought him, on one of my numerous escapades around the world. Thinking back it was a small hand carved chunk of stone, ground down by the hands of a Mewalky Indian. Traditional, they said, even though I had never heard of ancient Indians using ashtrays, they simply used long decorative pipes and knocked the ash out onto the ground. Then again everyone adapts when it come to making money.

But before I had chance to climb to my unsteady feet and retrieve it he waved the thought aside.

"No problem," he had announced. As he tossed the match into the fire, and pushed his hand back into the hidden pocket, removing a thick black leather wallet. He then flicked it with his wrist to open it up; he then proceeded to use it as an ashtray.

"This will suffice," he simple said. Pulling long and hard upon his cancer stick, pulling it deep into his lungs, before blowing the blue plume into the fire that then disappeared up the chimney.

He starred fixated upon my face, as if studying every inch, every flaw. Until what seemed like an eternity later he once again spoke.

"Interesting furniture," he simply stated, even though after his initial viewing of the room his eyes hadn't left mine. Smoke curled out his nostrils, running up his pale elongated face.

It was true, my furniture was unusual. I had collected them from many various countries I had visited. Not caring if a particular object went with what I already had. But buying it because I simply liked it, regardless. The over all effect of my front room was that of a museum. Vases from Egypt, tapestries from all over Europe, carpets from Turkey, pottery from Italy, swords from Scotland, big chunky furniture from Germany and Holland, tables and sideboards from Mexico, and a collection of pictures from all over the world, with numerous trinkets and objects covering almost every surface. I hated starkness it made me itchy.

My x-wives use to call it a junkyard. Funny thing was though, in the settlements they all tried to get their sticky hands on it, without success.

I cleared my throat once again and tried to speak, only creating a croak like noise that seemed to make him smile all the more. He looked like a Cheshire cat sat inside human clothing. And I felt like a mouse that he had just caught out in the open.

"Now aren't I the rude one, coming here and not explaining myself." He took another cigarette from the red and white packet resting upon his lap, and lit it from the stub of the last. Then simply tossing the stub into the flames. His eyes never left mine. As if he was waiting for me to make a move and was ready to pounce.

I still hadn't said much in the way of conversation, my throat seemed to be constricted, as if some unseen force had is hands wrapped tightly around it, trying to squeeze the life from me. It felt like I had an elephant sat on my chest.

I had sat there so long without speaking that he had finished yet another cigarette. This time he tossed it directly into the flames, while once again reaching for another. A compulsive chain-smoker if I ever did see one. It almost seemed like he needed the smoke to be able to breathe.

This time he didn't have the stub to relight the new one. Or this was the simplest way he could demonstrate my worse fears. He now leant forward slightly and pushed his hand into the flames. Removing it with the cigarette lit upon the end, smouldering slightly. But the worse of it was what it had done to his hand. The fingers that was holding the now smouldering cigarette were steaming themselves, flesh having been burnt, the skin curling and blackened, puss running from his discoloured, now twisted fingernails.

He sat back into his seat, repositioning himself more comfortably. Seemingly not noticing his blackened burnt fingers. He gave one of his predatory smiles, as he lifted the cigarette to his cracked lips, his twisted black fingers up before his face, the smoke rising off of them, adding to the greyish-blue smoke from the cancer stick.

"You know who I am? Do you not?" He asked casually, as if simply asking if I think the weather will last for very long.

I couldn't answer I simply nodded. My Adam's apple bobbing up and down as if it was in white-water-rapids.

He studied my eyes again. That awfull grin still locked upon his face.

Now I noticed something else about him. Something alarming. His skin had, during the time he had been sitting there, started to take on a greyish colour. His face around his upturned smile looked like it was cracking. Flakes of skin dropping down onto his once spotless black jacket, now covered in grey skin and some of his loose greying hairs. Nice brush over by the way. His hair was so thinning you could see the comb lines running through his oily sculp.

He lit another cigarette from the butt of his last. Eyes still locked with me.

"I have a message for you," he simply stated, once again in his matter-of-fact voice.

So this was it. Time for me to pass on from here. Beelzebub had come for me. Possibly this is how it went for everyone. Who knows? I tried to think what I had done to have him come for me personally. Was I going to eternal torment? Was he my chauffeur? A black horse or possibly a long black hearse waiting for me outside, ready to take me off into the dark unknown?

"I am not here for you in that sense," he stated, as if reading my mind. "I never come for anyone, regardless of what you have heard or read." He blew a long plume of blue smoke towards the ceiling. "I have a message I need for you to write. A book," he stated plainly.

I looked on in confusion. Not being able to grasp what he was asking from me.

"For way to long His Book," he said looking at the ceiling while he said His. I had the feeling he was referring to God, but he couldn't get the word across his lips, as if it had a bitter taste. Now I know that was simply one of his little tricks. A subtle trick to keep me from the truth.

"His Book," he repeated - of course he meant the bible, I presumed - "has been in circulation for thousands of years. Lives have changed because of it. And many people have died for it." He fidgeted, as if this was making him uncomfortible. A good actor.

"The time has come for me to tell my side of the story. For the world of man to decide, to weight the options." He seemed to relax once again, now that was off his chest.

I looked on in disbelief. Me, Patrick Graham Knight was to write his story. The greatest autobiography there will ever be placed on paper. Something stirred inside me. Call it madness; call it what you like, but this proposition appealed to me, made me feel alive.

My wits started to return. I was becoming a writer once again. Needing information. Needing answers. Adrenalin washing away any fear I now had remaining.

I went to stand, to retrieve my trusty Sony minicorder that had been my only companion for so very long. Blood coursing through my veins. But with a wave of his hand he stopped me. I fell backwards into my seat, as if a great force had pushed upon me. I had to catch my breath, squeeze air back into my lungs.

"Don't be too hasty," he said. "It will not begin this night." His eyes locked onto mine.

A bitter crushing blow fell upon my chest. Was a spell placed upon me from him? Or was it my own ambitions? The original horror story waiting for me to place on paper. Stephen King would be so jealous.

"I will return this time tomorrow," he simply stated. "Be ready for my return." He took one more long drag upon his half smoked cigarette, sucking it right down to the end in one mighty drag. Then the figure in front of me smiled one last vile smile, and then simply went limp in the chair. Hands dangling down his sides. The cigarette was dropped to the carpet. His chest now lying still, no smoke circling it now.

I slowly creped to my slippered feet. Carefully moving across to his side. He - or whatever was left - was now dead. A smell now wafted from the still corpse. I could now see the skin had changed to a putrid grey, eyes now glassy. And I then knew I had a dead body on my hands.

I picked up the smouldering cigarette stub, tossing it into the flames. I noticed what he was using as an ashtray, a wallet. I picked it off the cold lap, tipping the ash onto the fire grate. The plastic sleeves had all been melted. American Express burned on the edges. I riffled through it. Mr. Peter Wallace Blackburn. Lived - or did live - at number thirty-eight, Dew Drive, Kingsteignton. A small village not more than thirty minutes away by car. Should I call the number? How would I explain his body slumped in my chair? Or how he had gotten here? Besides, how would I let anyone know? The phone lines were down and my mobile didn't work in the valley I lived in.

But none of that mattered to me at the moment. He would be back tomorrow. I had to get ready.

It took twenty minutes to lift the heavy corpse outside, dragging the body around the side of the house. The wind and snow battering me from all sides. The body felt stiff, as if rigamortis had set in hours ago. For a split second I wondered what had killed this man I now held? Did he kill him simply to use the body so he could give me a message?

I ignored the question and carried on with my task. I lay the body by the shed; within seconds the snow was resting upon it, covering it from view, cleansing it with its whiteness. Like Mother Nature spreading her white blanket over the now deceased.

I struggled back inside, freezing cold, with a glass of whiskey already laid out before I started my grim task. Only liquid food tonight, my body was too excited at the prospect of what he had said. What I was to write. I couldn't even being to imagine, even with my over active imagination.

Then I thought would he use the same body again tomorrow night? Should I have left it where it was? But the smell, my god the smell was awfull. No it would lie there tonight, and if he needed it I'm sure he could take it just as easily. But how was I to know that over the next week or so I would have a small graveyard appearing besides my falling-down shed. A graveyard that would stir the country into an uproar.

This is copyrighted to G Johnson 2003/under American copyright laws. Copyright/ Lightning Books.

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2

PROMISE OF FROST BITE

Sleep eventually came in fits and starts. My brain was too wired with trying to put everything in prospective. The first thing I did, when I eventually rose after midday, was look out my parlor window. Was the body still there, or was it simply a nightmare? My mind being overly tired creating strange happenings the evening before.

But as I peered out the small snow incrusted window I could make out the oval form resting below the frozen packed snow. Even with what laid beneath, the image was a beautiful one. A beauty only snow can bring, making everything so clean, so white and pure.

It had snowed throughout the night. The sky now being clear, ice cold and even more clouds gathering on the distant horizon, angry boiling pewter coloured clouds that promised even more blizzards, just as the weatherman had promised.

My eyes were now transfixed on the oval lump protruding from the white incrusted blanket. Nothing of the black clothes could be seen, but the mound was testament to the activity from the night before.

The haze from dreaming was shook from me. Reality hit me harder than any pot of strong coffee ever could. So much to do before the evening arrives and the story begins.

I had to eat something. A headache was banging inside the confines of my skull, like a small imp sat on my brain kicking the back of my eyeballs in a frenzied attack.

Food wasn't a problem, the fridge and deep chest freezer was stocked full, as well as the parlor I was standing inside moments before. You always had to be prepared out in the middle of nowhere.

I pealed open a packet of smoked bacon, dropping five juicy slices into the popping oil. A frenzy of spitting and smoke boiled from the hot pan. I switched on the extractor fan to clear the kitchen. I started to cut some tomatoes up to add to the frying collection, and pushed a tin of backed beans into the grip of the electric tin opener.

But when I looked back into the frying pan all I could see was the burnt fingers of the dead body that was slumped in my living room chair. I recoiled, wiping the sleepiness from my tired bloodshot eyes. As I peered back the bacon once again stared back at me. But my appetite was now spoiled. I tipped the contents into the sink and turned on the tap. Steam billowed upwards momentarily blinding me. A vision of blinding snow caught me, black material between my frozen fingers; I reached out to grasp the work surface, to feel its hard wooden top under my shaking grip. Tired I thought. Just tiredness.

I finally sat down at my old farmhouse table, a cold bowl of All-Bran, what I call rabbit-food, in front of me. ****ting food I also called it. I sat silently, spooning mouthful after mouthful of the dry tasteless stuff, looking the same going in as it would eventually be coming out. I always joked that it would be easier just to pour it straight down the toilet.

It did make me feel better, or it could have been the strong pot of percolated coffee resting to one side, half empty from my thirsty drinking. Sugar now surging through my veins.

The doctor had warned me about too much sugar, but what did he know? They always told you something, every time it was something different. At my age - I was told - sugar should be kept to a minimum. Diabetes having always run in my family.

I was thirty-eight going on nervous wreck. All my doctor had accomplished was making me feel like a druggy. I now only visited him once a year, regardless of my physical health. There's nothing quite like a visit to the doctor to remind you of your own mortality. And he loved to pass out tablets; at the rate he shovelled them out you would believe he owned a share in some pharmaceutical company.

But I considered myself something of an old youngster. No matter what age I reach I would always feel nineteen inside. My hair was still light brown, no grey emerging around the temples just yet. Still a good stock of hair to, no thinning. But I already decided if it did start to thin I would shave it close to my head, never would I be caught with a oily brush over, like the man that now lay on my frozen back lawn.

Apart from today and yesterday I normally eat well. A good flat stomach to show for it, no flabby folds appearing just yet. I was even still able to put a new photo inside each of my books, not sticking to some old one, the same appearing year after year, trying to convince the public I was a strapping teenager still. My picture spoke for itself.

The coffee had gone cold in my hand, not realising I had been daydreaming. Thinking over the words spoken and unspoken from the night before. Each time I ran it through my head it came out different. Once I even found myself going back to the parlor to peer at the mound by my abandoned shed. It was still there, and would be until I done something about it. But that was to be eventually taken out of my hands.

The day passed slowly, it always does when you're waiting for something, someone. Time seems to stretch. But evening came; there was no stopping it.

I had everything ready. My trusty Sony minicorder resting on the table that I had placed next to my chair. A new spiral notepad and a simple black Bic ballpoint pen.

I found as I watched the clock hands slowly make there journey around the clock face that my hands had started to shake. In anticipation, or fear? I had no idea. Possibly too much caffeine.

I hadn't eating anything since my brunch, or rabbit food, whatever you want to call it. And I had so much coffee inside me that if I made any sudden movements I could hear it slurping about. But no more alcohol tonight, I needed to keep my wits about me. But I would break that promise all too soon.

It was dark outside now. Of course it had been getting dark since around three o'clock. Short days and long night this time of year. It was also blowing a gale outside again. Once today already I had to step outside the front door and shovelled the snow away that was building up, making a small clearing so he could reach my doorstep. Not that I think he needed my help.

Several times while waiting I had stood inside the parlor, the light around the back being on, my eyes fixed on the oval long mound poking up though the white snow. But it was still there. The bright halogen light reflecting of its sides, which was growing by the hour, more snow piling up upon it, rounded of its edges making it look like just another bulge in the ground.

I found myself pacing backwards and forwards around the large sitting room, then into the kitchen. Once or twice having to go to the bathroom and empty my sloshing bladder. It was at that time I noticed I was still in the clothes I was wearing from the night before. Having eventually falling asleep in them and not changing since arising this morning. I hadn't even brushed my hair or shaved. I looked a complete mess.

I ran the water, running the toothbrush over my teeth, and then splashing some water over my face and hair. With a shaking hand I brushed my light brown hair into some semblance of order. I still looked a mess. But some how I didn't think my visitor would mind that much.

I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, reaching my bedroom. Pulling off my crumpled jumper and shirt, I pulled on a clean one from the drawer ignoring the rancid smell of unwashed armpits in the process. A quick swipe of Old Spice under arm deodorant will take care of that.

It was while I was debating whether to change my trousers when the banging on the front door started. Slightly softer than the night before, but still the same horrid tune. It sounded like the death march.

One more quick glance in an old full length mirror and I proceeded down the stairs, across the old worn Turkish carpet and to the thick oak front door.

I fumbled with the catches and swung the door open with more force than I intended to. I still received a shock. Stood at the door was a woman, about forty or so years old. Dressed like a cheap hooker, with no coat against the numbing cold. And what she was wearing promised considerable frostbite.

Copyright Glen Johnson 2003/under American Copyright laws.

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My publishers will probably do a nut, when they realize I’ve pasted some chapters of the book here, lol. But so long as I don’t transfer the complete book, they will – hopefully – be fine, lol. The book will be available (edited by them, because I’m a writer, not an editor, lol, there’s a difference) within 2 months, across America and Canada, and England.

3

THAT SMILE

I once again stood aside as she walked past. Her cheap high heels tapping against the wooden floor, until she reached the carpet that I had brought on the spur of the moment while on holiday in Istanbul, once she reached it the tapping was dulled out.

This time I closed the door myself, but not before I noticed that once again no footprints made there way to my doorstep. In fact while I had been wandering around my home, changing and doing last minute jobs, the heavy snow outside had built up again, until the point where there was only a small section outside my door free, because of the overhang, a couple foot away the snow piled right up, and there was no sign that someone had climbed over it.

When I turned she was sat in the same seat. Already reaching into the confines of her top, feeling around inside her large sagging bra, looking for her pack of tall unfiltered Benson & Hedges.

I suddenly felt untidy. Even though he had chosen - for some reason - to appear in the guise of a woman tonight. I felt underdressed, as if he was trying to make some point.

She sat there quietly. Her legs crossed. The skin-tight black leather dress riding even further up her thighs, if that was possible. Cigarette held loosely in her long fake nailed grasp.

Was there a particular reason why he had picked the form of a female to appear tonight? I could only guess at his dark twisted reasoning. Now I know he probably had no choice, she was probably all that was available.

But I knew it was the same entity that was sat before me from the night before, because of that smile. The old Cheshire cat had returned. Smile twisting her old tired features right to there limit. Her dull-yellowed teeth glowing from the light of the roaring fire that once again burned in the grate.

I studied her body. She had seen to much pleasure in her life, now it had turned her once taught young body into an old used sack. Skin hanging in places it shouldn't. Her self respect gone long ago. Now she had to choose dark alleys, old men. Still making the money. Until whatever it was had taken her, and she now sat before me as a host for something far more sinister and powerful.

I slowly made my way across the room. Some how she seemed far more terrifying than the man in the black suit from the night before. You always heard stories about him turning up in a black suit; folk-law and tales were full of such happenings. But using the dead body of a washed out hooker?

Then it dawned on me that I would be dragging her body outside in the cold blistering wind. Placing her beside that of the black suited man. Then awaking tomorrow to check that yes, there was two mounds besides my falling down shed.

Her voice brought me back to the moment at hand.

"Shall we commence?" She lit another cigarette from the butt of the last. "I see you are prepared," she stated, not taking her eyes off me, but rather pointing the smoldering red end of her cigarette at the small table that nestled itself beside me. The same one I had kicked over from the night before, but now the useless telephone sat on another nearby table.

I didn't answer. I simply lifted the minicorder and motioned it towards her.

"By all means, please do," her husky used voice said. The kind of voice transvestites would give their left leg for. A voice of far too many cigarettes and heavy-handed customers.

I snapped on the record button, reassured by the blinking little red light. I placed it softly on to the table top, facing it in her direction.

She cleared her throat, making a throaty noise before spitting a big glob of flem into the fire. She then stirred in her seat, making her flabby thighs that little bit more comfy. Then she began:

"My story is a long one. Traversing time unlike anything you have ever known. My age you cannot even begin to guess. You simply judge time by the rotation of your small planet, twenty-four hours, a day. But I was created long before time meant anything. Long before this ball of spinning dirt was even conceived.

"I will lay my story out before you, for you to write down in your own fashion. I will tell of the beginning of universes, creation of mankind itself, and where I play in all these rolls. How I changed the course of history and life itself. How I condemned mankind to suffering and torment by simply raising small insignificant questions -" When she said insignificant, she twitched, and I got the impression the word insignificant would be the last word she should of used. She continued undaunted:

"- And how I played the part in getting not only myself but thousands of other angels thrown out of the heavens. Unable to ever return to stand before His presents, the four corners of earth now being our playground, our prison.

"Also not forgetting our adulterous habits that created giants among men. One of the many reasons why He sent the flood to sweep away an unruly world.

"All about His nation of Israel, and how I continually turned them away from Him, up until the point where He sent His only-begotten son - His first of all creation - Jesus, to earth to undo everything that I had been working towards for thousands of years." A twisted smile played across her lips. "How I had mankind kill his most precious. Destroying their very own salvation.

"So much to depart. So much to say, and so little time in which to say it all." She gave a long rugged sigh, spittle flicking from her red painted lips.

"But alas everything in its proper place." She seemed to shake herself down and rise a little in the seat.

"Time for the story to being and were it rightfully should, at the beginning." A long deep suck on her cigarette, as if drawing strength from it. She then began:

"In the beginning," she gave a mocking laugh. "I always did like that part.

"He created the Heavens and the Earth," she spat out the word He, as always looking up towards the ceiling when she said that word.

"He created us all. All-powerful. All beautiful. Myself along with all the other beautiful angels that stands around His glorious personage." She lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply and gave a long sigh.

"See I'm not what people think. Tall biped, red skin, broad wings like a bat and a wicked forked tail. No, see the Book –“ she always refers to it as the Book, of course she meant the bible – “says He created all things and it's true. Do you think He would create something as vile as that? No of course not, its just one of my many transfigurations. In this story you will hear of many.

"I was as beautiful as all the others. And still am, I might add. No, those images I created to make myself seem fiercer. It's hard to get respect looking like a playgirl model. Would anyone take me seriously looking like Brat Pitt? I think not. I needed a commanding form, so I simply created myself one." She scratched an itch on top of her left breast. Her long artificial red nails leaving long raked channels in her graying flaking skin. No blood ran from the deep wounds that had congealed hours ago.

"I influenced the mind of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in his famous works 'Inferno'. Who got his inspiration from another of my creations, like the mythological Greek God Pan. Which in turn influenced the minds of the medieval artists of the time.

"The Father of the Original Sin they call me. The Original Liar." She made an attempt at a laugh, it sounded like a pack of kittens being drowned in a cloth sack.

"So many names, so many." Her head shook from side to side.

"I had a great position. Not envied, because of course they don't envoy anything," she said looking upwards once again, as if there was a group sat upon the roof listening. For all I knew there could’ve been. Nothing could surprise me now. Many spirit people could be crammed into the very room we sat, listening to her discourse and I would be none the wiser.

"I watched as the worlds became reality. Great cheers arising from tens of millions of angelic throats, at His accomplishments. Of course I joined in, what else could I do? But even then something didn't seem right. Something off kilter. Something not meant to happen. Jealousy!" She stirred, as if the words were affecting her in a way I couldn't begin to understand. Then again how could I possibly conceive everything this entity has been through.

"We were all made unique - different. Just like mankind, no two of you the same. Likewise even with hundreds of millions of us up there, no two of us were alike. But one thing we all had in common was free will." She flicked one of her high heel shoe downwards, catching it on her toes, swinging the gaudy bright red plastic coated shoe backwards and forwards, revealing holes in the soles of her fish-net stockings, and a dirty sole to her blistered foot. To much street walking, looking for customers.

"All of us had that precious gift. Also like mankind. You yourself," she said waving her glowing cigarette in my direction. "You could have been anything you wanted to be. A serial killer, a rapist, a pedophile, a pianist, an artist, but you chose to be a writer. The beauty of free will." She continued:

"I saw many wonderful things. Many amazing new things all brought into being by His power and might. Whole worlds being brought together out of the cosmic dust. Universes cluttering around each other like a string of precious jewels." She wiped dribble coming from her nose, giving a loud un-lady like snort, before coughing at the back of her throat, then swallowing loudly.

The story reminded me of all those long Sunday afternoons, sat at the back of the Sunday school classroom. I thought I was daydreaming. Staring at the back of Sarah Gilmore’s back, admiring her growing body. But some of it must of stuck home, because some of what she was talking about registered somewhere deep inside me.

I could also see the hookers body was slowly changing to a greyish putrid green. Skin beginning to peel, lank unnaturally blond hair, with over an inch of jet-black hair at the roots, starting to fall over her uncovered bruised shoulders. She didn't bother to hide the large unsightly love bites anymore. An advertisement to her profession, the oldest profession there was. Or it could have been marks of her death. I couldn't tell and didn't want to stare too closely. After my first inspection of her I tried to keep my eyes averted slightly to one side, never staring straight in to those glassy eyes. Eyes that seemed to be constantly shifting, one minute clear registering eyes drinking in their surroundings, then they would suddenly glass over, unseeing, the eyes of a dead person.

"That's when it happened," she continued; bring me back to the moment at hand. "Man. Man came in to being. He wanted a perfect world, a perfect subject to have and control. To rear in His perfect ways. He had His spirit creatures, but now He wanted something different, something to fill the worlds He had created. They wouldn't have the same abilities as us, who watched from above, but they would still have qualities like us. One was immortality," she coughed. "I soon put a stop to that, for now," she said. "But as I already said, everything in its place.

"He said, 'let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.' Who do you think He was talking to? Us, His angelic children." She gave a small laugh, which turned in to a coughing fit.

"At first all the animals were brought to man, Adam he was called. Adam gave all the beasts of the field names, the flying creatures of the heavens, all the crawling creatures. Everything that moved upon the earth. But nothing was found for him to be his partner. A complement for him. For His perfect little Adam." She said Adam’s name in a mocking tone, as if everything that had happen was in some way Adam’s fault.

"Until He had a deep sleep fall upon His little pet. Taking Adam’s rib bone to make a perfect companion." She took on a flat monotone voice. "See, it was a rib bone for certain reasons. Couldn't possibly be from the foot or leg, because that would mean being beneath his feet. Couldn't possibly be from his head, because that would mean she was lording it over him. No, it was taken from his chest, next to his heart, so they could be equal." Once again the mocking laugh, that put my teeth on edge, and for some reason made the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end.

"And what did little Adam say when this perfect woman was placed before him? ’This is at last bone of my bones. And flesh of my flesh. This one will be called woman, because from man this one was taken.' Fool," she said this in a mocking tone.

I picked up the new spiral notebook. And I noticed mud under my nails. I tried to think where it could have come from, but dismissed it, thinking it was when I dragged the black suited body outside the night before. But then thinking, hadn't I washed since?

She lit yet another cancer stick, sucking on it deeply as if it was one of her paying customers.

"We saw a whole new universe open up before us then," she stated. This brought me back to what she was saying.

"Women had been created. That would ultimately lead many of us to our downfall." She was looking directly at me once again. Her cheeks drawn right back in her grimace of a predatory smile.

I knew all to well what a woman could do. Having been married three times before, each one taking more money with her than the last. But at the time I suppose it was love. Infatuation. Who knows? But like all things they didn't last. Love is a bright candle and it soon burns dry. Love replaced with spiteful words, vindictiveness and eventually the inevitable hatred.

She coughed, as if reading my mind and was trying to get me back to the moment at hand.

"As I was saying, women came along. Their bodies so different from mans. So supple, so needy." As she said this her hands squeezed her large saggy breasts together, then releasing them. She was completely oblivious to what she herself was doing. The sight was unsettling. And in the process she had unclipped the buttons to her tight leather blouse, the black leather pealing back like some decomposing black orange peal, revealing more of her sagging cleavage and more unsightly purple bite marks.

I pulled my eyes away a moment to late; she had seen I was watching her performance. She gave another one of her Cheshire cat smiles. But this time she ran a blistered blue tongue over her lips, in the process smudging her gaudy bright red lipstick, that seemed to have already been smeared over the lower half of her face, as if a strong hand had been held over her mouth, also gripping her nose, suffocating away her last ounce of life, the reason this figure was now sat before me, his mouth piece.

"Eve she was called," she said, after she seemed to regain her composure. "Together they grunted and heaved in the bushes or simply out in the open for all to see. Studying each other’s bodies. Testing, trying, and fulfilling." She gave a grunting noise, gross and animalistic. She then seemed to regain her composure once again to carry on with her story.

"I used the mouth of a serpent, a ground crawling reptile. Obviously the woman knew animals couldn't talk, couldn’t utter coherent words. But none-the-less she listened. Lapping up the words I gave her. Relishing them, tasting them in her sublime mouth that she had used on him.

"In the middle of Eden sat the Tree. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. What was its purpose? Who knows? He obviously did. Why put such a powerful object in mere mans grasp if it didn't have a reason, a mighty purpose?" She lit yet another smoking cigarette. Blowing the smoke towards the ceilings high rafters.

"I remember the words as if it were only yesterday: 'Is it so that God has said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?' I said to her. She in her stupidity replied: 'You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that you do not die.' I spoke quickly as to confuse the wretched woman. 'You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of you eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.'" It was only when she had finished the sentence that I realized she had, for the first time, mentioned the word God. So she was capable of uttering that word, just deciding not to when referring to Him.

"See they were walking around naked. Their bodies glistening in each other’s arms. Tempting. Teasing. It would only take so much time before someone clicked. And I did." She tapped the cigarette on her palm that she was using as an ashtray. The burning flesh was irritating my nose. What no purse she could have used to dump her ashes? I thought to myself. Or like her kind she just pushes the cash down her top, snuggling it up against her wears. Pushed up against her reddened skin and bite marks, reminding her why she did what she had to.

"They were like robots," she continued, "Mindless. Happy? Who knows? But you could say I freed them. Straight away you could notice the difference. They realized they were naked. They hid behind the bushes, now knowing what they were and what it all meant." She suddenly looked up from her story. Her eyes darting around the room. She stood in one liquid movement that tipped her collected ash onto my old worn Turkish rug.

"Time to go," she announced while brushing down her tight leather dress and skimpy top.

"Time to go?" I simply parroted. But when I looked at the clock on the wide mantelpiece I noticed she had been here for four hours. Surely not that long. The tape in the minicorder was only forty-five minutes each side, and the same side was still running.

"I will return tomorrow as I did tonight." She said no more. But she looked around one more time as if being able to see something I couldn't. Then she fell backwards into the chair, lifeless. Her body slumped against the high back leather seat. One foot was twisted around one of the chair legs, the other straight out, with the other red shoe having fallen off. Arms hanging down either side, hanging just above the floor. Her head was hanging forward; her matted dyed blonde hair cascading down over her saggy features. Cigarette - like last night - still smoldering upon my carpet. But tonight it had her fire engine red lipstick around its butt.

I stared for a few moments collecting my thoughts. I stopped the Sony recorder and placed it back on my little side table. I took a long swig from the thick glass tumbler, which until now sat untouched next to my notepad. The strong whisky ran down my throat. I enjoyed the burning sensation, the fumes rising out my nostrils making my eyes water. I didn't even remembering getting up to get it.

I couldn't put it off any longer. I had to manhandle the hooker’s body outside.

I stood over the slumped corpse. Repulsion rising in me. Her flabby grayish skin showing in far too many places. Red swollen wells around her collarbones. I was deciding on what part to grab. As I suspected, when I gripped under her hairy armpits they were stone cold and rigid.

With a lot of effort I managed to get my hands under her arms and pull her along. Her feet scraping along the wooden floor. Now two red shoes lay next to each other. I will sort them out in a minute I decided.

When I got to the front door I dropped her as I was fumbling with the handle. She went down with a thud. Her head made a sickening noise as it came into contact with my concrete doorstep. It sounded like someone dropping an overripe melon.

It wasn't long before I was back beside the roaring fire, trying to put some heat back into my frozen hands. In one swig I drained the remainder of my drink. I sat motionless deciding whether I should have another shot. But walking over to the drinks cabinet seemed like too much effort.

Then as I went to stand I noticed my hands, they were covered in blood! I stood perplexed, wondering where it could have come from. Yes she had hit her head, but I didn't remember there being any blood, that had congealed long ago.

I was suddenly washed over with tiredness. I decided against going through the minicorder, deciding to start first thing in the morning when I was refreshed.

I ran a steaming hot bath. Unusual for me, normally I preferred a quick hot shower; I'm not one who likes wallowing in my own dirt. But tonight was different. I felt like I needed one. Didn't prostitutes bathe after to wash the night’s work from their skin? Wasn't I doing the same?

That’s when I got my second shock. My clothes were splattered in blood, smothered completely. I now stood naked. The bathroom filling with steam, looking down at my saturated red trousers and jumper. Was it the same jumper from yesterday? I thought I had changed it. I swear I had put on my dark blue one with the triangle pattern across the front. Obviously not.

A bloody handprint marked a spot on the chest. I must be more tired than I realized. I kicked the clothes into the corner behind the toilet. Out of sight out of mind. Slowly I sunk down into the hot bubbly water, running the conversation over in my head. Each time it came out different. I decided tomorrow I would review the tape and make some notes. But for now, I would relax in the hot steaming bath and close my eyes and feel my pores release their accumulated dirt. The mysteries would come to light in the morning, after a good night sleep.

If only I looked closer at things then, it might have turned out different.

I knew of nothing else until the morning, when I awoke, finding myself lying in a bath of freezing red tinted water.

Copyright Glen Johnson 2003/Under American Copyright Laws.

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Here's another chapter for you all... hope you enjoy. The book is 44 chapters , and over 103,500 words long. I'm sorry but I will not be able to paste to much, because my publisher will kill me! I will let you know when its out!

4 OH BOY

I could hardly move. My joints felt frozen together. I had never fallen asleep in the tub before. But what was most puzzling was the colour of the water. Blood red.

Confusion was the order of the day. Something I seemed to be getting use to.

All I could remember from the night before was the interview. If it could be called that. As I sat there listening to his words, his story. Or should I say she, as he had appeared last night.

I struggled out of the cold red water. Slipping once or twice because my cold hands couldn't gain purchase on the wet surface of the bath sides. No more bubbles this morning, just a cold oily residue on the red tinted waters surface.

I emptied the bath, leaving a red ring around the top. I stepped back in, letting the hot water from the shower slowly bring life back to my cold limbs. I used my feet and cleaned the red ring off. Still confused as to where the blood - if it was blood - had come from? I searched over my body. No cuts. Nothing.

I had no idea how long the shower had been running for, but when I reached for my watch from the side of the sink, it was showing almost five o'clock in the afternoon.

I must have needed the sleep. It had been a stressful few days. What I could remember other than the interview. This seemed to dominate my every thought.

I looked around the bathroom floor. No clothes. I'm sure I had kicked them behind the toilet. But no, nothing.

Twenty minutes later I sat at my old kitchen table, chewing on over-cooked eggs, the yoke all hard. I preferred them runny, ‘sunny side up,’ as the saying goes. A few slices of honey roast ham and cold pineapple cottage cheese. A mish-mash of what needed eating before it expired. I washed it down with whisky. So unlike me to drink so early, but after everything that had happened and was still happening, I decided I needed it.

I was walking back through the front room when I noticed the pair of cheap red high heel shoes. Images of the old used woman flashed before my eyes. "Sick," I muttered as I picked them up. Then I noticed they had blood running down there sides. Now all congealed and red brick in colour.

I hadn't noticed the blood from the night before. But then again the shoes were red and I tried not to concentrate too hard on anything she was wearing - or more to the point - what she hadn't been wearing.

Then it dawned on me that the fire was still burning away in the hearth. Not the few scattered ashes that should have been there, but a blazing fire. And come to think of it, I couldn't even remember lighting it the day before.

I needed sleep still I realized. Everything coming to much for me. Too little sleep. Unusual happenings, accompanied by not eating properly. Possibly coming down with the flu or some kind of virus.

Looking across the room I realized the whisky bottle was half empty. Normally a bottle that size would last me over a year. It had gone right down in a couple days.

I tossed the pair of shoes into the fire. Turned and headed upstairs. Yes, sleep would be great. Lying down on my large four-poster bed, which came with the farmhouse, I pulled the thick blankets up over my head and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

I was awoken by the sound of the front door being banged on. How long had the banging been ringing through my house? I had no idea.

I jumped up, catching a look in the mirror as I passed. Shock! I was wearing the same jumper from the night before. A large bloody handprint slapped on my chest. I stared not believing as the banging continued. I pulled it off, throwing in into the bedrooms corner. And ran down the stairs two at a time.

I stood before the banging door, taking beep breathes to make me come to my senses. I ran my fingers through my hair and down my face, realizing I hadn't shaved in days. Later I whispered.

I slowly turned the handle.

"What the ***** took you so long? What were you doing, ******* or something? Jackass!" Came the annoyed high-pitched nasal voice.

I looked down in to the glassy bulging bloodshot eyes of an angry nine-year-old boy.

Copyright Glen Johnson 2003/Copyrighted under American Copyright laws.

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Sorry about the language, but it is an adult horror book! And luckily the forum automatically blanks out the swear words, but please enjoy… Kryso....

5 CHILDS PLAY

I stood agape as the youngster walked past me heading for the chair.

He looked like any child I had ever seen. He was wearing blue and white-striped pajamas, with over sized Homer Simpson slippers on. Of course I didn't have to look outside, I knew there would be no footprints.

His limbs were slightly to thin for a child that age, but then again he was slightly small for his age. His hair was all unruly, as if just having been awoken from a deep troubled sleep. But what was the most unsettling thing were the marks around his thin, once fragile, neck.

First I thought it looked like a rope had been wrapped around, possibly from when he tried to jump to his death from the banisters. I heard even young children tried to end their lives these days. That's the twenty-first century for you. Some would call it progress, a people so well educated that they can decide their life is not worth living even from an early age. Or it could have been pressure from bullies at school. Children can be so simple and yet so cruel at the same time.

But as I closed the door and moved closer I noticed it didn't look like a rope ligature - not that I'm an expert - rather it looked like he had been choked to death, so violently it had split the skin asunder.

He sat in the chair, legs tucked up, but then I don't think they would reach the floor even if he hung them over the chairs edge. His head not quite reaching the top of the high leather seat.

Like the other two, he was also smoking. I noticed for the first time the red and white packet of Marlboros just visible though the thin material of his pajamas top pocket. I always wondered why pajamas had pockets on the chest. Now I knew.

His small eyebrows were drawn together, scolding me.

"What the ***** took you so long? I was stood out there for ten minutes."

First I was shocked at hearing such a small child using profanity twice in a matter of a few minutes. I don't know why it upset me so, knowing that it wasn't really a small child sat before me, just an empty shell occupied by something else. But I now realized that he used certain characteristics of the person he took. Like some sort of residue left over from them. Their draining life force? I had no idea.

"Don't swear." I had found myself saying.

I knew children were terrible for swearing. My own nieces and nephews, who were only between four and twelve, swore like state-troopers. Supposedly picking it up from school - my older sister said. Even though she herself swore at them constantly, never once thinking it was because of her they spoke that way.

Instantly I was rewarded by his evil Cheshire cat grin. "Sure," he said. "Whatever chokes your chicken."

He was already on his second cigarette. But he didn't use anything as an ashtray; he simply flicked the ash onto the rug.

What the hell I thought.

"You look like sh**," he said matter-of-factly.

I didn't bother to answer. It was a statement not a question. I sat opposite clicking on the small minicorder. It then dawned on me that I hadn't heard the tape from the night before.

When I looked up he had one finger right up his small nose, oblivious to the fact I was watching him. He rolled it and flicked it into the fire.

"Nice shoes," he commented.

Not comprehending what he was talking about - knowing the shoes had been thrown in hours ago - I looked into the dancing flames. The pair of red shoes were just sat there, flames licking all around them, untouched. The red plastic coating was all still unaffected.

I wiped sweat from my forehead. Hungry I thought. A drop of whisky wouldn't go amiss.

"So let get on with it shall we?" He asked, sucking deeply on the cigarette with his small blue lips.

I looked up. Noticing for the first time that smoke was trailing out from the deep wounds around his ripped throat.

He noticed what I was staring at.

"I know," he said lifting the cigarette up between small fragile fingers, which seemed to have colourful felt-tip pen marks all over them. “These things will kill me." He laughed, giving off a childish giggle. His feet kicking the chair at his own small joke.

I ignored him. I leant forward and checked on the tape recorder. Still the same side of the first tape.

This seemed to bring him around. His small features composed themselves, bringing a concentrated look to his face, brows creasing together making him look much older. A worried look that his years shouldn’t have known. He looked up at the ceiling, while drawing hard on the cigarette that seemed out of proportion to his small now graying face.

"Where was I?" He seemed to ask himself. Crossing one small arm over the other. "Ah, yes. Eve." He soon had his hand back towards his mouth. "As I was saying it was because of her many of us fell. If you want to use that word." Another cigarette from the packet in his small breast pocket.

"Of course they had gone against His wishes. Every tree in the garden they could eat from until their fill. But from the Tree of Good and Bad they were not to eat." He started his childish giggling again. "Of course He knew what they had done. Knows all things. Omnipresent you know."

I simply nodded. Engrossed at such a simply story, that I had heard hundreds of times before. But this small figure seemed to give it a new air. I was captivated.

"He went down and went walking among the trees. Seeing how they would both react. They hid from Him. Thinking that mere leaves and twigs would hide their presence. He asked why they were hiding. They simply stated that they were embarrassed because of being naked." Once again he giggled at using the word naked, his spasmodic laugh shaking his small body.

"He wanted to know how they knew they were naked. ’Because of the Tree,' they had simply stated." The smile returned. "Then the sh** really hit the fan - as the saying goes." Another cigarette.

"They were thrown out of the Paradise. He made them furs to cover their private parts. From the sweat of their brows they were now to work. Turn the unfruitful ground into wheat for bread. Up until then everything was provided for them. Now they had to work to eat. No state benefits back then," he giggled.

I needed the toilet but didn't move. I was, as I said before, engrossed.

"Now they were imperfect. Before they disobeyed they would have lived forever. Perfect, not growing old and suffering. But they disobeyed the only rule that had been set up for them. They began to grow old. He had drawn His power away from them." He turned around trying to make himself more comfy, kicking off his two over sized Homer slippers to the Turkish carpet.

"See if they had done as they were asked things would’ve been different. For them and everyone one else." He waved his hands around. I knew he meant mankind in general.

"But they had sinned. Lost perfection. No children had come along yet. If they had things might have turned out differently. But they were imperfect, so their children would be also. Like a jelly mould, once it’s been hit," he jerked his small hand in a violent gesture sprinkling ash everywhere, "then all others after it would have the dent. All imperfect.

"Their rutting and grunting eventually produced more little naked creatures. Cain and Able soon came along. Like themselves, imperfect, dieing from the instant they emerged. The one thing all mankind have in common - death. My gift.

"They had now drawn away from Him. They could see themselves getting old. Like an electric fan they had been unplugged from His power source. For a while it kept spinning, but inevitably it runs out. Old age took them, as it takes you all." That terrible grin.

"I was cursed to crawl on my belly. But I had yet to be thrown from heaven. I still appeared now and then to cause more trouble. Raise more questions many others were thinking but didn't voice. I simply used the gift He had endowed us with - free will.

"That's when my name was changed. Now being called Satan, meaning resister, and Devil, which means slanderer." He didn't say what his old name use to be.

"People don't seem to grasp that I was a perfect angel like all the others. Made the same, all the same feelings. Tens of millions of us standing around watching His creation. Some of us wanted more, needed more. I simply made that obvious. The fact that many more joined me proved this fact.

"That also brings up many other questions. Where did Fire and Brimstone come from? Hell? And it's a long story, everything in its proper place." He started coughing. The small lungs to fragile to be taking in so much unfiltered smoke. He soon recovered himself. Cigarette straight back in his small blue lipped mouth, that was now starting to peel around his upturned grin.

I never did find out the answers to those questions.

"I could now come and go. Before only being able to leave if being sent on an errand. But I passed between one realm and another like there had been a revolving door setup just for me. It was like child’s play. So easy. He couldn't stop me. Not yet. Because I had raised questions, answers needed to be given. If He destroyed me there and then all the others would have asked themselves, ‘maybe he was right.’ Only time could settle things. So I made good use of my time.

"He tolerated this. How could He not? We had free will. Its just I was the only one at that time gaining benefits from it." He gave a long yawn that showed all his small teeth, with far to many missing gaps and metal fillings. He regained his composure before continuing.

"Over time with my traveling backwards and forwards I saw a lot. Of course I could - like them all - see everything from up there if I wished. But I preferred to be walking among mankind. Sometimes in different bodies. Mingling, causing problems. Nothing as serious as my first rebellion by causing the First Pair to loose their lives. I simply sowed the seed of rebellion in to others I met." His head turned upwards as if the memory was a tangible thing for him.

"Cain, now he was a good subject. An open canvass to work on. The first killer. The first new sinner since his mother and father caused all their problems by listening to me." He gave me a long hard look, as if willing me to challenge his claim.

"Both brothers had arranged a sacrifice for Him," eyes swiveling upward, "Cain had all the fruits of the field. Abel -" he spat the name - "had a perfect young tender lamb, all ready to send up as well.

"I had been nudging and preparing Cain for so long," pride seemed to be thick in his voice. "Cain was jealous. I had sown jealousy among them. He liked Abel’s gift more. Cain drew Abel away and struck him down dead." The perverse giggling once again.

"Of course Cain was sent away for his punishment. But I had succeeded in making man sink to a whole new level. And I loved it. They were like puppets to be manipulated at will.

"Soon they spread like a virus upon the earth. Their rutting and grunting producing more and more little sacks of flesh and bones, which would inevitably die - given time.

"I found myself spending more time down among them. Hiding and wandering around in the shadows, fermenting chaos.

"Of course I had two brothers down upon the earth I could have a wee chat with, when the time became available, what with all my trouble stirring. The two angels ordered to stand at the gate of Eden, protecting the garden to stop Adam and Eve's descendents from gaining entry." He then said matter-of-factly. “That was until the flood came and Eden was destroyed." He continued with his story.

"They stood either side of the turning sword. It's called a sword but of course it wasn't, just a turning stick really. But of course as everything it was simply symbolic. See if it was a sword that would mean He created the first weapon of war. Swords weren't invented then. He called it a sword in His Book so the simpletons of the time would be able to associate with the object.

"Of course my two brothers were more than happy to chat with me, tell me everything they knew. That was until the flood came and swept almost everything away. They both returned to their heavenly positions when the flood started.

"See I was staying away for longer periods of time. Spending more time among man." His twisted little smirk returned.

"But now something far different was about to take place. At this time I could materialize, become flesh and blood. That was until He forbid it. That's why I use these bodies to appear before you." He gestured a small hand towards the body he was occupying at that moment. "Of course we can materialize as many other things. But everything in its place.

"I used my fleshly body for a sin of my own. I lay with mortal women. I found a whole new world of pleasure I didn't know existed." He thrust his small pelvis in a widely exaggerated manner.

"That's when it happened. Up until then all the others just watched. Even though their hearts were turning black. Thousands then joined me in wandering the world of mortal man. Thousands of once perfect angels, like I myself once was, were now giving up their privileged positions to lay with females." His little body snapped to attention as if hearing words I couldn't even being to comprehend.

He started to talk as if reading from something; I knew he was about to quote from the bible because this was how he went yesterday while occupying the hooker’s body.

"Then the sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they choose." A wide smile spread across his small dimpled face.

"Times up," he stated as if I was at the psychotherapist and my time had just run out. He took one more long hard drag upon his dwindling cigarette, before tossing it into the flames. He turned his gaze upon me.

"Tomorrow night I will tell of how my children were born. Giants they were. How my most beloved of children - Lucifer - was brought in to being, and how he used mere man as his slaves. How our giant offspring - the Nephilim - in turn created even more powerful children. How great wars were fought, one against the other. And ultimately the cause of why He brought about the Great Flood that had swept them all away." He gave me one of his predatory smiles before his small head simply rolled to the side, eyes wide and seeing nothing. He was now dead.

I was annoyed at myself when I realized the minicorders tape had run to completion and I hadn't even heard its soft click to remind me to turn it over. So I sat quietly for an hour, trying to remember everything he had said, writing it down in my spiral notepad.

I was also shocked to note that once again hours had passed while I listen to this extraordinary story unfold, and while I caught up with my note taking.

At least the small body would be easy to carry outside I thought. I felt a little saddened that I was becoming hardened to doing such things. A means to an end. And the fact that I had sat there for so long, while a dead child sat in the seat opposite me, also made me sad.

As I suspected the body was almost weightless. I first slipped the over sized Homer slippers back on the child’s cold feet before lifting him easily outside.

Three bodies now all in a neat row. How many more I thought to myself? Then it grasped me; I hadn't actually read the bible in more years than I cared to remember. I wanted a small insight into what he would talk about the next night. So I could prepare questions, make it more like an interview rather than a one sided conversation.

Rummaging through an old chest of draws in one of my four spare bedrooms I found what I was looking for. A Gideon bible, one I had found in one of the many hotel rooms I'd occupied. But unlike all the other times - all the other Gideon bibles - this one I took. I can't explain why. Thinking back I think it was just after my second divorce. And so much had been taken from me; just for once I also wanted to take something that didn't belong to me. Like my wife had done, with a lot of my possessions.

I went back to my seat with a tall glass of whisky and a sandwich of salted crisp and tomato sauce, and settled down to do some reading. That's the problem with being a writer, I get to the stage where all I seem to be reading was my own work, checking it was up to the normal standards before sending it to my agent.

I flicked through the first few pages. In the beginning and all the stuff, which I've already heard. But for some reason I wanted to read it anew. With my feet on the footstall I started to read from the beginning - Genesis chapter one verse one.

The next thing I knew my back was killing me. Looking up at the clock I realized a few hours hadn't passed, but rather, it was a whole new day. I had fallen asleep cradling the red bound stolen bible on my lap.

Copyright Glen Johnson/ Copyrighted 2003 Under American law.

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  • 2 weeks later...

hmmm, was going to post more, but no one seems that intrested, lol.... no worries... crying.gif

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aswwwwww yes please been waiting for you to do so thumbsup.gif

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Excellent! Kryso I'd definetly like a signed copy please grin2.gif I'v actually printed the chapters off to show to a friend who is a big horror fan. I'm sure they'll love it too.

I'll let you know what they thought tomorrow. I'm dying to know what he does with the bodies as it's getting quite a pile now!

More please! Definetly!! thumbsup.gif

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6

SNAP

I was tired of feeling like I was losing my mind. But at the same time as saying that, so much needed to be accomplished before he returned tonight. I realized I was becoming obsessed with the story. Like a potent drug I needed more.

I had absorbed loads of information from my old stolen bible. Last night before my eyelids became too heavy I had jotted down many questions that I wanted him to answer, and would ask when he returned tonight.

I found that the bible did indeed talk about the angels who'd left their assigned positions in heaven and had come down to earth and slept with women. How the bible, in Genesis chapter six and verses one through to four stated, that these unearthly liaisons resulted in giant men being born to the women. Even saying they were mighty ones of old, the men of fame. Saying these giant offspring of angelic rebels ruled and roamed about the earth for over one hundred and twenty years, before God brought the flood and washed them away.

The bible says that God found only one man and his family worthy upon the whole earth to be saved - Noah. God had said: "The end of all flesh has come before me, because the earth is full of violence as a result of them, and here I am bringing them to ruin together with the earth." I presumed it meant the nephilim - the giants.

I was to ask a few questions tonight when he returned. Asking more about these angelic offspring. And what had the world been like in those times; filled with such violence that God stepped in to put a stop to it. Also one hundred and twenty years the giants ruled, what condition was the world in? I even remembered him saying that even these giant nephilim had even more powerful children. That I couldn't find written in the bible, so I was curious as to what he meant.

I even found myself wondering what form he was going to be taking, man or woman or even another child.

I got to my aching feet. The fire still burning with a vengeance in the hearth. All the same wood pilled up that had been there for days. Weird! Maybe he had done something to it. But it was alight and that's all that mattered to me. If only I had put more thought into it. Wondered why the shoes still rested untouched on the grate inside. But no, my mind was to full of other things. If I had given it more though I could have saved millions. That's the beautiful thing about hindsight.

I needed a shower. But my stomach felt like my neck had been cut. That though reminded me of the small boys body from the night before. So sad. So young.

I rummaged thought my huge fridge, looking for more things that might go out of date before the snow resided and I could get to a shop of some kind.

Nothing roused my interest. I lifted the lid on the large deep chest freezer that sat in one corner of the old kitchen. My second shock. I must be tired, there was much more meat in there than I realized. Whole chunks of prime cuts. Bigger chucks than normal. All stacked on one side. I didn't think to hard about it. I must have put it there.

I selected a bright red cut. Thick and promising lots of juice. I put it in the microwave on a plate and made some coffee while it defrosted away. The cooker was already hot when the meat was ready to slide in. I placed it on a large cooking tray sprinkling it with my secret herbs. Simply herbs de la France and onion salt as well as chicken seasoning, plus a few other select herbs and spices I had come to love.

I sat looking out my large ornate front room window while the cooker done its magic. I noticed the clouds had completely gone. And none sat on the horizon. Even the snow, which normally sat heavily upon the windowsill, had gone. Was the thaw coming?

I now stood inside the parlor looking out the small, now clear window. Only a few icicles dripped from above down the pane. The three bodies were still lined up. None were yet visible; it would probably take a few days for the snow to melt enough to see the corpses lying there. What about the smell I thought? The snow - for now - was stopping the stink from wafting around. But if the sun came out it would become unbearable. I would bury them I decided.

I left the roast joint sizzling away while I went for a shower.

The bathroom was freezing, so I left the hot water running for a few minutes to take the chill out of the air. I undressed. Mud, all dark and dry covered my trousers. Where had it come from? The day before it was under my nails. Was I losing my mind?

My stomach rumbled. I also needed a drink.

I showered, shaved, for the first time in three days, and put on a long thick ox-blood coloured dressing gown that had big baggy pockets, and some leather moccasin slippers that were covered with fur inside.

I went to the sideboard and was about to pour myself a tumbler full of Old Grouse finest Scotch whisky, but I was surprised to notice it was empty. sh**! Now what? Vodka I suppose. I use to love the white spirit but then I became hooked on whisky instead. Oh well, a ride down memory lane.

The next thing I remembered I was sat at the kitchen table. Empty plate before me. The residue of blood smeared around the dish. Confusion. Another needed nap? But I couldn't remember eating. I obviously had because I felt full and my plate was soiled. The once tall glass of vodka besides me now empty. Too much drink, I whispered. Memory loss. Was I becoming a drunk?

"AA here I come," I whispered to the empty kitchen. "The Twelve Point Program."

I pushed the thought aside; wanting to go through my notebook, review my questions. I was becoming interested in the bible research I was undertaking.

But as I stood I realized the oven was still on. And more importantly something was still in it. I opened the door to my large farmhouse kitchen Rayburn. Black smoke curled out. The heat almost taking my eyebrows clean off. There sat on the shelf was my roast, all shriveled up and blackened.

I staggered backwards gripping the chair back with my shaking hands. Blood! Blood also covered my hand. What the ***** was happening? What had I just eaten?

The door was banging like a roll of thunder.

Nighttime already. Hours had once again disappeared.

"I need to get a grip," I said out loud to the empty kitchen.

I turned off the oven and slammed the door shut. Then I washed my hands in the big white sink, then went to the front door in my dressing gown and pulled it open. Who would it be tonight, I asked myself?

"Hello sunny," said a happy old voice. There stood on my doorstep was a bent almost double very old lady. A little white hand-knitted shawl wrapped tightly around her plump shoulders. Long dirty yellow dressing gown, with long thick woolen red and white-stripped socks that disappeared in to a thick pair of animal fur slippers.

"Snap," she muttered as she walked past me, obviously referring to my dressing gown.

She was a normal looking little round shaped old lady. That is, apart from the large shards of broken glass that was sticking out of her white wispy hair and old wrinkled face, splattering her once clean shawl with blood.

Copyrighted 2003 Glen Johnson/ Under American Copyright Law

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7

ALL WIPED AWAY

She took her normal seat after having waddled over, giving a loud sighing noise as she lowered herself down comfortably into its red studded grasp. Her wide hips just managing to squeeze in.

It was an unsettling sight. A little old lady, who had obviously been through so much in her long existence, now not even given rest after her apparently painful death, but rather succumb to being his mouth piece.

As she passed a scent was wafting in the air, I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Her hair was pure white and held in a tight bun at the back, with only a few white wisps of hair hanging loosely. Her face was all saggy from all her worries that I couldn't even being to imagine. But the glass was unsettling, sticking out from every conceivable place on her head, shoulders and face. As if she had gone through a big plate glass window or possibly a car window. Small trickles of blood accompanied every wound. Her once perfect white shawl now a tangled mess of glass and red smears. And where had the knitting needle come from that was lodged into her left temple? But I would get that answer soon enough.

For the first time I didn't sit right down, rather, I went to refill my empty glass. I burped while in the process of filling it to the brim. My stomach ached and was causing me a little uneasiness.

"Been eating to much, that's your problem my lad," she said in her old relaxed voice. She gave a small almost silence crackling laugh that sounded like old parchment paper being screwed up.

I looked across and was rewarded with her Cheshire cat smile, reminding me of who exactly was sat before me. Of course she already had a cigarette dangling from her wrinkled mouth. Just the end perched inside, as if it was going to drop out any second, the same way all old people seemed to smoke, wanting the feeling of the smoke circulating their old lungs but not willing to hold the cigarette too far inside their mouth.

For the first time I also noticed an old bag resting down besides her swollen fat legs, her ankles were of normal size. Water tension I believed it was called, a normal symptom for old ladies. The bag was a large woven thing with some sort of farmyard mosaic stitched on it. I paid it scant attention; it was similar to all the bags old people carry, always shipping something around, always needing to have something of theirs besides them.

She leant forward cigarette bobbing dangerously, spilling ash everywhere as she proceeded to pull out a big untidy bundle. One long knitting needle was attached to a yellow jumper she had obviously been working on. A child’s jumper, possibly one of her many grandchildren, or even great grandchildren.

Like the bags, knitting equipment was just another thing they all seemed to have with them. Wherever they are, park benches, subway trains or chatting outside the Post Office, they all had that one thing in common - knitting. Old men were different; they always seemed to have an old well worn bag with them, always the same type, flat bottom with an oval top and two long handles so they can carry it at arms length. It always contains tools. Why? Who knows, it's a universal mystery? But they always give you the same answer. "Just fixing the so-and-so for old widow Thingy down the road."

My mind came back to the moment at hand, when in a sickening sight she reached up and pulled the long knitting needle out from her head, sliding it from the place it was lodged in her temple. I looked away. I swear I could hear it sliding out like someone sucking on a lollypop, or it could have simply been my imagination.

When I looked back she was simply rocking backwards and forwards, cigarette bobbling around, knitting like it was the most natural thing she could be doing. The two needles now working away, knit-one, pearl-one. Knit-one, pearl-one. But now she also had brick red blood mingling along with the yellow wool, sliding down from her sticky needle.

I carried my drink sipping it as I walked, taking my seat opposite. I dropped down heavily.

She had the smile on her wrinkled face. One needle pointing at my crotch.

I realized my gown had flopped open. A quick flick of the material soon changed that.

She was simply chuckling away, sprinkling ash over herself. No wonder so many old people set themselves alight while smoking. Several times her eyes closed for longer than a simple blink, only to come popping open fast.

I soon realized that the only time she would remove the coffin nail from her mouth, was when she lit one from the butt of another, popping one straight back in, after the other was tossed in to the fire.

Coffin nail. It was a long time since I thought of that expression. My older brother used to use it all the time, when referring to his cigarettes. But in his case it was right they did indeed kill him. His coffin nails.

I pushed the button on the small Sony minicorder and was rewarded by the little flashing red eye.

I now identified the strange smell. It was obviously her. It was a smell you seemed to associate with old people – cat p***. She either had many cats herself or she fed a stray. Either way it was a male that was for sure, the smell was pouring off her, it was almost tangible.

Or possibly it was her urine. The smell you remember from your childhood when you use the toilet after you grandfather. He always forgot to flush and when you lifted the lid the smell hit you. It always smelt the same - Sugerpuffs cereal - you expected the Honey-Monster to jump at you from down the toilet. Up close the smell made me want to gag, but I kept myself in check.

She seemed to close her eyes, still rocking backwards and forwards in a hypnotic routine that you see all old people doing when you have the unfortunate opportunity of visiting one at an old people’s home. To them all it seems like a sport, all-trying to out-rock each other. Possibly a dynamo is attached to they’re chairs then attached to a generator, and they were powering the lights throughout the retirement home.

Then she spoke her eyes still closed tight. Knit-one, pearl-one. "Where was I?" Eyes squeezed closed tighter. "Ah yes." She went straight in to the story were the young boy had left of yesterday. Same spirit, different body.

"Females now abounded. Thin ones that were beautiful in the extreme." She turned to me eyes now open again. "You see they were much closer to perfection back then. Not long after the Pair turned away from Him," she giggled. "With my help of course.

"Beautiful graceful bodies. So perfect. So ready to be used.

“I showed the females many things. Things mankind were not meant to know. I revealed the secret of precious stones to them. They wore them around their slim necks. You could say I invented jewellery.” The little old lady gave a chuckle.

“Of course I had many names. Azazel was my favourite. It means Goat-Demon, or Hairy-Goat, a little joke you see. I also had many other names: Yegon, Asbel, Gaderel, Pineme, Kasadya, Aristaqis, and Semyaz, just to name a few.”

"We knew we could transform into flesh and blood, like I already said, so we used that gift. As I said many now joined me, they knew what they were capable of. Thousands left their positions before Him. All now rutting and grunting along with the rest of humanity." A needle was lifted up, poking it at the air, as one would wobble a finger in front of someone. I was grateful of the fact that it wasn't the one covered in blood.

"How were we to know what the outcome would be? Nepilium they were called. Giants. We didn't believe we were compatible, but obviously we were. Our offspring were a hybrid mix, humans and angels. They grew quickly. Their strength immeasurable. They soon realized they were different and they used that, subjecting mere man as their slaves," she was shaking her head now. An ash storm rained down.

"That was the reason He caused the flood. Partly because of our hybrid children that now abounded on the earth. Giants among men." Eyes closed once again.

"I personally had seventeen children, all boys, they always were. No females were born to us." A tear actually rolled down her cheek, catching on a shard of glass, it ran along until falling off the end, now tinted red.

"They all died in the flood, every one of them. See we could transform back into our angelic bodies, but they could not, they were mortal beings like any other. They were swept away with the rest of sinful humanity.” Her eyes glassed over, and she began to recite a song of old:

“They lie with the warriors, the Nepilium of old, who descend to Sheol with their weapons of war.” She regained her composure. “Actually that’s taken from the book of Ezekiel,” she muttered absentmindedly. She continued:

"I will tell you more about them, the way they were and how they come about, and what the world was like with them enslaving mankind. And of course the untold story of the giant’s magi children," she gave a long sigh before she continued:

"Like I already said we didn't believe that our sexual liaisons with mortal females would lead to anything. Didn't realize we were compatible. Angels and the offspring of Adam and Eve!

"That was until they started showing the signs of pregnancy. Us, angelic beings of ages past now going to become fathers! It was almost inconceivable we were completely unprepared.

"Females we had laid with - that survived our uncontrollable lust - and those that survived the birthing period, also realized things were not right. See we knew they couldn't possibly be ordinary children because we weren't ordinary fathers. At first everything seemed normal, until their stomachs started to stretch beyond what was natural while trying to accommodate the massive child that was growing within.

"Many females and their unborn child died in midterm. Their weak bodies not being able to support a child that was drawing so much strength from its host. But the women decided it was worth the risk to give birth to a son of a god. Because even though we knew our original positions, they didn't, they saw us as gods that had taken on human form. Funny… much of human mythology stems from those beliefs.

"Even though they were willing to risk death to bring forth our children, they still couldn't give birth normally. The child was just too large to pass out in to the world by normal means. They had to be cut open." She lifted her eyes from the small jumper and then lowered them almost straight away.

"And some didn't even have the chance to have that done. Some of our powerful children couldn't wait to be cut free; they simply ripped their way out of the womb with their bare hands and kicking feet, standing up upon their own two large feet, while biting at the umbilical cord that still attached them to the bloodied and mangled body they had just crawled from.

"They grew abnormally fast; towering far above all mere mans children. At the age of ten they stood fourteen foot tall and with more intelligence than a grown human adult.

"These powerful beings became a law unto themselves, even defying us their very fathers. Of course we couldn't destroy them, how could we, our beautiful children.

"Realizing they were different they took control using their strength and size to laud it over mankind. They soon gathered together making mere mankind as their slaves and playthings.

"They also took whomever they chose for sexual relations, male, female even animals. Many died at their strong hands and over sized bodies. Any that refused them died slowly and painfully. You had more chance of survival if you gave into them; at least you had more of a chance surviving their sexual abuse that you did their murderous rage." She replaced the cigarette and continued. Her eyes turned back to dead eyes, glassy and unresponsive, then within a heartbeat they came alive with his unnatural power.

"They made mankind build them vast structures like nothing that had ever been before. Immense eating halls to fulfil their appetites, and even larger gathering areas where they fulfilled their sexual fantasies and twisted games.

"My first son - and most powerful, and even large for their kind - was called Lucifer, which actually means Light Bearer. I called him this because he would bring a new light into the world of man. He was stronger than any other nepilium and he controlled everything that happened in the world of mankind." The little ladies eyes closed tight as if the memory was choking her and she was finding it hard to convey it across.

"But alas something even more unsettling happened. Our giant violent offspring in turn became fathers. If you remember they slept with man, women and beast!

"Yes, animals! Bestiality. Lying with creatures, depending on their preference. But that caused more trouble, unnatural trouble," she whispered making it difficult to hear her.

"See the animals became pregnant, vile things came from them, half human-form and half beast. Our angelic blood had once again produced a new kind of breed. The nepilium killed most of them, but some they let grow, their curiosity wanting to see what they would become. Blood drinkers. Looking like us in our human form but thin with white skin, long arms tipped with claws and a wide mouth full of serrated pointed teeth. Thin lanky bipeds with unnatural strength and appetites." She made herself more comfy.

"Vampires you would call them. See every story you have, every legend, has its roots somewhere, and here lay the tale of the blood drinkers. They grew fast, their strength almost as powerful as their giant fathers. They were kept in huge deep pits, un-climbable even for them. The nepilium tossed down victims and watched as they were ripped apart by clawed hands and serrated teeth. All they took from their victims was their blood, needing it to survive.

"Even, on a few occasions, a nepilium would try and prove himself mighty or simply be drunk. He would jump into the pit and start fighting the savage creatures with his bare hands. Most died, bleed dry by twisted sucking mouths. Only one could climb back out of the pit, all the blood drinkers’ dead, crushed and ripped apart by strong hands, and that was my first-born son - Lucifer.

"Other animals gave forth different kinds of monsters, but none you would have heard of. Kept as pets and mere amusement and eventually as weapons.

"When the women we had laid with become pregnant we didn't know what to expect, for we have amazing powers I couldn't even begin to explain to you here. And we believed they might have transferred over to our children. But no. Yes, they were stronger than humanly possible, being able to pull large towering trees out by their very roots. Even attack and kill bull elephants with their bare hands, ripping their long tusks from their bloodied face and using them to stab them to death, and all this purely as sport for them.

"But all our magical powers were not found it them. And their liaisons with beasts had created freaks and monsters, but the women they lay with also brought forth children. As I said, our powers didn't transfer to our nepilium children, but to these, our grandchildren. They looked like normal humans, not abnormal giants. But in adolescence they started to manifest some of our abilities. Starting fires with nothing but their minds, being able to lift objects with their thoughts, and even controlling the very elements around them.

"The nepilium reacted in the only way they knew how - with violence - killing all their children. Not wanting them to grow older and possibly take their positions from them. The freaky blood drinkers were no threat, easily locked away at birth to grow up inside prisons they had built. Not so for their children from women. Women whom knew what could happen to them if found to be pregnant.

"Some offspring’s escaped, helped by their mothers who had survived being raped by the giant tyrants. These went into hiding, growing and maturing, becoming powerful sorcerers," a long sigh came from her old cracked lips.

"Then came the War of Gods Children, as it was referred to by those that survived. Giants against magi. Fathers against powerful hating sons. Whom the mothers had rightfully told them about the way they had been treated.

"Both nepilium and magi used mere man as their main weapons, sending out vast armies of them together into open fields of violent battles. Millions died, killing each other for reasons they couldn't even begin to comprehend. They even unleashed the blood drinkers using them as vile weapons.

"We stood back not interfering with what we had started with our unnatural intercourse.

"The magi used their phenomenal powers to bring the elements to their aid, using nature to pull down the towering structures the giants had had the humans build for them. In turn the giants stormed the vast buildings the magi had erected with the aid of magic, using the trunks of vast ancient trees to batter the structures to rubble.

"The bloody war went on for decades. One side never gaining the upper hand over the other. Millions - as I said - died."

Suddenly my minds eye saw pictures, not simply the images I was creating while hearing the story unfolds, but for the first time since he had started telling his story I could physically see what he was describing, possibly through his power I was seeing what actually took place thousands of years ago. Either that or some residue from his powerful emotions was seeping into my mind.

The images flashed backwards and forwards.

One moment I was standing on a high battlement, looking down as huge muscle bound giants used large trees, which they had physically pulled from the ground, to smack against the massive structure. Walls toppled like children’s play bricks. Bodies of mere mankind - who were defending their magi masters - fell from the crumbling walls. Others human slaves were tossing spears and firing arrows. Those that could penetrate the giant’s tough skin were nothing but insect bites to them.

Standing on the tall towers were the giants children, now imposing men with phenomenal magical abilities. They used the elements to try and drive back the nepilium. Huge chunks of wall was thrown by their power, lightning bolts struck continually from the churning black clouds far above, that they had summoned with they’re minds. But whenever one giant was killed another picked up its weapon and continued were the last had left off. Dead bodies littered the ground like fallen leaves.

Suddenly the image changed.

A vast battlefield with millions of humans rallied against each other. Two sides both made up by mere men. The magi and giants standing at a distance to witness the outcome. Here and there magi would be destroying large gatherings by forces they had manipulated. A giant would raise a vast club, made from the whole trunk of a towering tree, that had hammered strips of metal wrapped around it, and bring it down upon forty men at once. Slaves held creatures on long metal leashes, prodding them forward with sharp spears. The white thin twisted naked bodies of the blood drinkers would rush forward on all fours killing any enemy within reach, and sometimes their handlers, if they got the chance.

I stood between rushing armies with the wind blowing my hair, seeing the carnage unfold around me. An arrow whizzed past nicking my forearm, a sudden flash of pain and I was once again sitting besides my fire. The old ladies face all twisted in her Cheshire cat grin.

I grasped my arm blood trickled between my fingers. Nothing serious, just a nick.

She continued talking.

"Great tracks of land were now uninhabitable because of the magic the magi had unleashed. That was until He decided enough was enough." She stopped her knitting, the clicking of needles momentarily stopping. She looked me in the eye, which was unnerving.

"So much death and anger boiling around in what was meant to be a perfect world. Violence was so prolific that upon the whole world He could only find one man and his family who were worth saving." She lowered her glassy gaze and continued knitting.

"Only Noah, his wife and his children and their wives, survived the flood. Inside a huge vessel they had built. It took them one hundred and twenty years to build it. As I said mankind was closer to perfection and lived much longer lives back then.

"We knew it was going to happen, but deep down didn't want to believe it. Would He wipe away almost everything He had created? The answer was sadly yes. But then again, little of what He purposed was actually taking place, only wars and death coupled with hatred and violence now filled His once peaceful world.

"We all looked on as the skies opened and it started to rain," she coughed, "rain!

"See there was no such thing as rain back then. The whole sky was covered in a blanket of water. The whole world covered. The mist in the morning watered all that needed it. No water fell from the heavens, it was unheard of. Mad they called it when Noah told them it would happen.

"The canopy of water emptied upon the world. Wiping everything that wasn't inside the Ark clean away. Of course the world was mostly flat then. He had to shift continents, raise mountains and create vast oceans and lakes to accommodate all the water He had unleashed.

"Everything I had - those I loved - everything was now gone. Just one insignificant Ark floating in the vastness of the new ocean, containing a mere handful of humans and an array of animals." She lifted the babies’ jumper up and inspected it carefully. Then continued:

"It was at that time I - along with those who passed over to my side - when we were forbidden to take on human form again. So the world wouldn’t once again become filled with violence and our giant b****** offspring."

She continued to rock away. Cigarette bobbing. Ash falling. Story unfolding.

"There wasn't much fun to be had for a while, being that there was only Noah and his oh-so-godly family around. So God fearing and completely ignoring our presences. But like a virus they soon spread. The world soon starting to fill once again. Spreading out from a place called Babylon. Now days it's called Iraq.

"All people - up until that time - spoke the same language. One tongue. But as everything does that soon changed. All because of one great man called Nimrod, the great grandson of Noah himself. With a little of my help I might add. A Great Warrior in opposition to God, Nimrod was aptly named.

"The Tower of Babel." She rocked forward, but this time didn't rock back, instead she reached down for her knitting bag and stuffed her belonging into it.

"Time to be off," she said, the almost silence crackling laugh followed. She held the bag tight to her lap and staring hard at me.

"Yes Babel, they were great days," long sigh. "But it can wait till tomorrow sunny." She then gave one last vile smile and her head simply lulled to one side. Like the others she was now dead.

I’m sorry but I can’t post any more than this. When I have a release date I will post it here…

Copyrighted Glen Johnson 2003/Under American Copyright Law

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Awwwww just when its getting really intresting sad.gif

Ahhh well You'v definetly got me sold on the book, can't wait till its release. thumbsup.gif

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  • 1 month later...

My main computer is down for the moment, and so I have to make do with my laptop. disgust.gif But as soon as is working again, I will post more of the book!

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  • 1 month later...
My main computer is down for the moment, and so I have to make do with my laptop. disgust.gif But as soon as is working again, I will post more of the book!

Still waiting................. whistling2.gif

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Sorry mog, having a few problems, as soon as I sort out my computer at home, and my life (lol) I will be back full-time. I'm really missing the place...crying.gif

Hopely will get more up soon...

Kryso sad.gif

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  • 5 months later...

Just to let you know, the book (in its edited form) will be going to print on monday 05/07/04.

It will be in all good book shops, and you will also be able to order it from:

www.publishamerica.com

www.barnsandnoble.com

www.amazon.com

Just type in THE SOUL REAPERS - The Human Harvest Has Begun by Glen Johnson.

Hope you enjoy it?

Glen Johnson thumbsup.gif

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that was great. when i go to the store at the end of this month, ill look for it (the book). to buy.

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Thats good talent Kryso ! Its nice to see your still checking in here every now and then .

I like your writing style , most books dont really get suspense in them untill the 2nd or 3rd chapter but you have it down on the first few paragraphs .

thumbsup.gif

I will look into my wallet and see if I can afford thy book .

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Thanks chaps. I will let you know when its out. My publishers said within the next three weeks!

And I am always around here somewhere - hidden, lol.

Speak to you soon.

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Congratulations Kryso clap.gifclap.gifclap.gifclap.gifclap.gifclap.gif

The cover looks fantastic thumbsup.gif It looks very dark & creapy.

Well done mate!!!

Mog.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Is this book non-fiction or fiction? It's really a well written story plot. This gives me an idea. I had written a short story a year ago, maybe i'll post it in a thread.

Is this book sold in Canada as well? Hell, I'd buy a copy for myself. I have a year to waste untill I go to College and University.

I especially enjoy the surrounding details that you gave, in the first Chapter. I'm not even done that Chapter yet. I'll buy it, instead. That way it'll be more worthy of my reading. grin2.gif

Edited by Blue-Scorpion
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Thanks Blue-Scorpion

Click onto www.fetchbook.info and put in books ISBN # 1413719260 and it will give you 29 websites where it can be ordered. Or simple go into any book store and give the ISBN number and they can order it!

Hope you enjoy it Blue...

Kryso... Glen Johnson thumbsup.gif

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