From the second I got up, it seemed like everywhere I looked I could see him. Peeking out from the foot of the bed, from behind furniture and even through the windows. Sometimes it was his face if I closed my eyes, or even a fleeting glimpse of black wings or a tail going around a corner. The constant barrage of sightings had me questioning my sanity.
For the second time in as many days I fought to convince myself that I was indeed not crazy nor was my house suddenly haunted.
Frozen in terror, I couldn’t move when he lowered his massive head next to mine and rolled back his lips, exposing a mouth full of long, sharp teeth. The long, forked tongue flicked out and ran along the underside of my jaw, then snapped back inside.
“You’re kind of an ugly bastard, you know that.” Thankfully, it didn’t respond. If it did I think I’d have needed paramedics to restart my heart and not my girlfriend to take me to urgent care. The statue was disturbing, yet hypnotic, reminiscent of driving by a car wreck. You don’t want to look, but the scene almost demands your attention.
I recoiled slightly at the black rock inches from my face. Black dead eyes, a pig like nose and an open mouth with a long-forked tongue hanging down to its stomach. Two large sets of teeth, almost large enough to be tusks, protruded from the open mouth that was frozen in an eternal sneer. Normally creepy things don’t bother me. I love horror movies and books, but this was different, giving off and almost evil vibe. “Get it away.”
“No!” Kris yelled and stamped her foot, then tossed the bottle on the ground. “There is no way I’m going anywhere with you hung over like this. I’ll just tell everyone you weren’t feeling well. Which is technically the truth. I need to get going so we’ll continue this conversation about how much of an idiot you are later.” She stomped out the door while adding “Maybe,” under her breath.
But what if there was another option? What if you didn’t have to read unrealistic Christian characters being written by non-believers or the same rehash of the same themes billed as Christian fiction?
On the way to school today I saw flags lined up and remarked that I needed to put the flag out when I got home. I had taken it down a few days before when some large storms were rolling in and forgot to put it back up. You asked me why I was worried about it, and I said that today was September 11th. When you asked why that meant the flag needed to be out, I told you that today was the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Suddenly you remembered what your principal said about it, and that was why you were going to be singing American songs this week. For the first time in my life, I stopped talking and stayed generally silent about an American history topic.
Some people have asked me why I started writing. What possessed a stay at home dad, who hadn’t written a piece of fiction since his eighth-grade creative writing class to just write a novel one day? Looking back, it was a long time coming. I had ideas for what would become my book series for years. Ideas that, while drastically different from the finished product, had at least something in common.
The second the soccer moms saw the signs I could tell it was going to be interesting. This was not the plan. This was not what they signed up for and they were not happy. Worried murmurs permeated the humid morning air, mixing with the moisture and creating a cloud of anxiety that settled over the pool. The lifeguards’ nervous smiles were telling, they anticipated trouble.
