Evil is alive and well.  Never have I heard such wickedness in a voice.  Knowing what he was capable of made me very afraid of him.  What was I thinking...that I could actually kill such a creature?  How?  How? 

"Three more Derek, he had said, and only thirty eight minutes. Now don't you ever go saying I never gave ya nothin!" 

The horror in that laughter after he had spoken those words gripped me as I tried to hang up the phone.  My hands were trembling so badly I could not even place it back properly.  It just fell on the table.  The buttons on the phone began to dial themselves, the numbers pressing in as if they had a life of their own. 

My eyes drop to Bill.  I cannot believe he is lying dead in my house.  On my living room floor.  Along with the sheriff.  What the hell has taken place here?  How did it come to this, so quickly? 

I look at the door and start walking towards it.     

It felt as if my legs were made completely out of stone as I stand there, putting my hand on the knob. My first reaction is to just close it.   I am scared as hell to let them in.  I just stood there and stared out at this family.  The preacher somehow had my family.  My family somewhere in limbo while I am under his control.  My mind and thoughts continued its descend into a downward spiral.   

"Well, are you gonna invite us in?" the Not-Susan said.  Not-Susan and the two not-so kids took no notice to the corpse of Sheila laying on the pavement.  Her cracked skull. The blood dripping from her eyeless socket at a slow trickle. 

I'm powerless as I feel my hand pulling the door completely open.  I step aside and let them in.  My body walks me out the door to see if anyone else may be standing out there taking notice of this nightmare unfolding.  Behind me I can hear Not-Andrew and Not-Megan jumping on the couch, oblivious to the two dead men lying on the floor. 

I see nobody watching.  Walking down the porch I pick up Sheila and bring her dead corpse into the house.  The blood dripping from her eye is warm on my shirt sleeve.  I let out a slight whimper as I realize what I have done to her. I kick the door shut.

As I lay her down behind the door her head hits the hardwood floor.  I look at her face and her other remaining eye, wide open from pure shock, peers at me.  Accusing me.  Seeming to damn my soul to the innermost regions of hell.

I feel breathing on my neck from behind.  Warm and coming out in erotic spurts.  I feel the tongue of Not-Susan slide across my neck and her right hand reaching for the crotch of my pants.  I quickly turn around and find myself being tackled to the floor.  Hard and forceful. The strength of Not-Susan is phenomenal.  The kids continue to jump on the couch, laughing.

"Come on Derek.  I have been waiting a long time for this to happen again.  A verrrrryyyyyyy long time.  Kiss me.  Show me that you want me." 

I gain all the strength I could muster and push her off of me.

"Your not my wife.  Can't you see that you are under his spell.  Can't you see that when he could not fool me with sticks, twine, and mud that he put you in the place of them?  You and your kids?  He may be able to make you look like them to me, but you are not my family!  Never will be!"

The children suddenly stop jumping on the couch.  Not-Megan begins to cry.   Not-Susan gets up off the floor and goes to comfort her. 

"See what you done, she says.  You made Megan cry.  How can you stand there and do that?"  Not-Susan sits between them and holds Not-Megan close.  Not-Andrew hugs Not-Susan from behind. 

This is insane, I whisper to myself.  I cannot take this anymore. I am going to end it all.   

I see the gun that I got from Bill lying on the floor.  I walk over to it and pick it up.  Tears begin to stream down my face and I slowly open my mouth and place the barrel inside of it.  I push the barrel as deep into my throat as I could possibly take it, gagging, crying and hoping that death consumes me right here and now. 

You have won, my thoughts say.  You have won.    

I pull the trigger.  Nothing happens.  I pull it again.  And again.  And again.  Nothing happens.  I howl and let out a cry of surrender.  I lose focus.  Strength.  I lean against my living room wall, barrel of the gun finding its way out of my mouth.

I lean on it crying inside of my arms, feeling defeated.  

I can't kill myself, I can't kill this preacher, I can't rid myself of this damn family.....

I turn to look at them.  This family who I am beginning to loathe.  Not-Andrew and Not-Megan are jumping on the couch again, as if nothing has happened. 

As my eyes scan the room and my insanity begins to kick into overdrive looking at the three dead corpses somehow I am responsible for I began to wonder where Not-Susan has gotten off to. 

Then I see her.  She has picked up the phone and is holding it to her mouth.  Her head begins to nod up and down.  She glances over at me, says "ok" into the phone, and then puts it back down. 

"Who was that?"  I ask her. 

She ignores me and begins walking towards the kitchen.  She pulls out drawer after drawer until she finds what she is looking for.

A butcher knife.  She turns and begins to walk towards me.

I raise the gun and point it at her.  I ask her again.  "Who was that?"  "Who were you talking too?"

She bares her teeth at me.

"Oh, just the Preacher, that's all.  He just told me to continue helping you do something you cannot seem to do on your own.  He told me that by sacrificing myself he will allow me to reign with him forever.  To reign in the place where the dead never sleep and the wicked never stop screaming.  I accepted."

I continued to back away from her.  She continued to inch closer and closer to me.  Her life no longer hers.

With no bullets, I kept walking back, determined just to make my way out of the door until I couild figure out what to do next.  I felt my foot stepping on Sheila's face as I reach for the doorknob. 

"What about your children--"

That's when she lunged at me.  Without thinking I raised the gun at her and pulled the trigger.....and one single bullet emerged from the gun.

She moved out of the way just in time as I fired.  How in the hell did she become so strong and fast?  I thought. 

As my eyes continued to look in the direction I fired, I saw Not-Andrew fall backwards and lay motionless.  The back of his head was splattered all over the back of the couch.  Heis sister must have thought he was playing a game with her and continued to jump.  When she came down his body would go up. He looked like an overstuffed Ken doll.  With the back of his head blown wide open.   

My mind raced back to one of the stipulations of the agreement with the preacher.

At least one must be a child under the age of ten.    

I start to hear the laughter of the preacher rising out of the phone.  Getting louder, and louder. 

My mind finally broke and I lost all consciousness, all thought.

My body collapses and I fall to the floor.....