Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Revelations 21:8

* * *

The night. The night after seeing baby Joseph's picture. The night after watching Alicia Sullivan walk out the door. The night after almost going into an attack in his office. That night is when it all came back to Les Murphy. More clear and vivid than ever.

  * * *

Les had been floating in clouds for a good half hour before the subconscious of his mind took over. He had been wearing white linens and listening to the sounds of harps for what felt like forever. Bright sun shone from above and felt like he might have been with angels. Les felt like he was one. But then the thought of Alicia Sullivan came into his mind. The shine of her hair, the glimmer of her teeth, the lush green of her eyes, the shape of her breasts. He thought of what she must have smelt like and quivered. And after that, anywhere his mind took him was completely out of his control. He was--

* * * 

  suddenly he felt hands seize him and pull him down. He kept descending until he crashed through the earth into what he knew was Hell.

* * *

He screamed as loud as he could. Les could feel the fire burn his skin. It felt like something had crawled inside of him and was eating him. He looked around and only saw eyes full of black and fire staring at him. The sound of burning and screams surrounded him from every angle. He could hear chanting of some kind. It sounded as if they were calling to something. To someone.

During his descent, he heard the sound of a child crying.

Les had been closing his eyes through his fall to try to spare himself from the horrors he would see. He could still hear the chants and the sound of a child. It was screaming now. It was in pain.

Les' eyes were forced open by an unseen force.  He looked down to see he was on a table. His arms and legs were strapped down with barbed wire and his hands and feet were pinned down by nails. Blood was running down his arms and legs. All he could do was scream.

He felt hands seize him as his hair was being cut off by razors. They cut it all off, cutting his forehead as well with each stroke. His white linens had been torn apart and were now burnt and ruined.

He was sitting in the middle of a canyon. From above him, children were throwing rocks down.

The children's faces were ripped apart. They looked as if knives had been run across their cheeks and foreheads and then beaten with chains. Their eyes were gouged out. Somehow, they were able to throw the rocks at him with perfect accuracy. Blood ran down and stained the rags they had for clothes. They laughed and jeered at him. All of their teeth had been pulled out and their mouths were filled with blood. Every single child shouted the same two words at him, or as much as they could. There was so much blood.

"Pervert!"

"Murderer!"

"Pervert!"

"Murderer!"

Les then turned his screams into pleading.

"I didn't do anything! Please! PLEASE!"

Just then, it felt as if a towel was being stuffed down his mouth. Les could no longer say anything. He could only feel the immense pain of rocks being pelted at him. In the pit of fire and brimstone, their screams grew louder. They were no longer laughing. They had hate in their eyes. Their lips snarled and showed their toothless mouths. Blood spilled out in long streams.

"PERVERT!

"MURDERER!"

"PERVERT!"

"MURDERER!"

Rocks kept being thrown down. They landed down with such a force that Les could hear bones breaking. Ribs. Collarbones. Kneecaps. Jawbone. He screamed until he felt like he would pass out. During his shrieking, there was a pain in his forearm. He looked over and saw a shard of glass piercing through his wrist. It had dug it's way deep into him. He started having trouble breathing. Les then started puking up blood. It projected its way to end of the table, covering himself in the warm red liquid.

Les Murphy felt his skin turning on fire in that moment. It started from the inside. Then his skin started to break apart and the fire arose out of it. Soon he was engulfed in flame. Les' body was melting and all he could was deliver a blood curdling scream.

Even as his body turned to oil and nothing but pain was being felt, he could not die. He wasn't being aloud to die. Les needed to suffer.

Out of the blackness from underneath him, more hands reached and pulled him further down. He was still on fire. The shard of glass was still in his wrist. His skin was still melting as he plunged deeper and deeper into the void.

Les then heard a voice. He recognized the voice. It was the voice that he heard every day of his life for two years. The only voice that seemed to comfort him. The only one that he could count on.

It was screaming. Begging for mercy. Screaming to be let go. It was screaming so loud it pierced Les' ears. His ears then began to bleed.

"STOP!" Les screamed through the fire and blood in his mouth and throat, "YOU'RE KILLING HIM!"

The screaming stopped. The thing then lunged at him. It grabbed the sides of his table with it's skinless hands. Les looked up its body and pieces of it were missing. It had no right shoulder. Its arm was only hanging on by a string. The left side of its chest was missing. Half its neck had been removed. Les continued to look up till he saw its face. Les threw up more blood all over his now melted body. The smell and sight was so awful that Les thought he would puke up all of what was left of him until he was nothing but an ooze.

The thing grabbed him in its bloodied hands and made Les look into his eyes. Being pulled up made the barbed wire dig in deeper to his arms and the nails increase their resistance and pull. The pain was so great that Les couldn’t scream. He thought his body would be lifted from the table but his arms would stay behind. That was when he looked into its eyes.

Its eyes had been gouged out. Just like the kids. Its face had been torn apart by razors and smashed by hammers. Bone stuck out on each side of its face and meat hung from the sides of the creature's neck. Both ears had been cut off along with its nose. Its lips were had been sewn shut. That's why the screaming stopped.

It was as if the thing knew this and wouldn't have been able to go any longer without doing so. Whatever it was grabbed its lips and then pulled. There was an awful ripping sound. The sound was then accompanied by a shriek that made Les Murphy's ears bleed again. When he looked again, the thing no longer had lips. The creature grabbed Les by the ears and began to scream at him. It was only through its shrieks that Les knew who it was.

"HOW COULD YOU?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?! YOU'RE A MURDERER! YOU'RE A PERVERT! PERVERT PERVERT PERVERT MURDERER MURDERERMURDERERMURDERERPERVERTPERVERTMURDERER!!!"

It began bleeding from its face. The thing turned away into the fire, holding his face and screaming to make it stop.

Les had been wailing the entire time. His voice was gone and could no longer make a sound. He looked down at his hands and they were covered in blood. He looked at his wrist where the shard of glass was, but it was gone. The wrist had been opened to the bone. There was no more blood in it, because it was all over his hands.

Just then, a wooden wall appeared beside him. Drawn on it was a bull. It had long horns which seemed to go almost all the way up the wall. A crown lay on it's head. It had been made out of his blood. The drawing then burned away and a word started to form out of it.

M

O

L

O

C

H.

Then his voice came back. Les screamed for mercy, begged to be let go. It was all for nothing. The screams of children grew louder as something approached.

He heard a low growling noise come up behind him. Les turned his head back and looked in horror. It was here. The thing on the wall. The creature had the head of a bull, with long, black horns reaching towards the sky. Its head was pitch black. But it had the body of a man. It wore nothing but a cloth around its waste. 

Now all the children were chanting its name.

"MO-LOCH"

"MO-LOCH"

"MO-LOCH"

Moloch looked into Les' eyes. Les then began to scream as his eyes were now burning out of their sockets and melting onto his already decayed body. It wrapped its hands around the shoulders of Les Murphy and squeezed until it broke them. Les let out one yelp. Then he died.

 * * *

Les had torn apart his bed again. The new sheets he had purchased were in pieces. His bed would be forever stained by the sweat that lay there. There was a headache that pounded throughout Les' skull. He didn't notice. He could only think about what he had dreamt. It was almost completely the same. Until the end. He had never seen the drawing on the wall. He had never seen that word before. He remembered everything distinctly about the nightmare. The name. Moloch. Moloch. Moloch.

The clock read 3:51 AM. Just like last time.

   * * *

Les sat on his bathroom floor for the next four hours. His mind circled about he knew and what he didn't know. He didn't know who the children were or what the shard of glass in his wrist meant. But he knew why they called him a pervert and a murderer. He figured out who the drawing was of and who was behind him. And he knew who the eyeless, earless, noseless, lipless creature was. Les let out a long sigh.

"John Bryant." he whispered.

Les then fell asleep on the floor. He dreamt of nothing.