“The devil.  It’s the devil.”  Sarah wailed, hiding her face behind her hands.  Stuart turned around slowly.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see David doing the same.  The deputy had pulled his gun.  This made Stuart want to giggle hysterically.  What was he going to do?  Shoot Lucifer?  Read Satan his rights?

He hadn’t really been expecting anyone to be there when he faced the other way.  Just another hallucination in a day filled with them, but the preacher was there.  His features indistinguishable under the cover of night, but Stuart could feel his oily gaze, as the unholy eyes seemed to linger on him.  Millie moaned and somehow Stuart understood that each of the others were also feeling the preacher’s nauseating presence in the very same way that he was.

            A shuffling noise behind him, Melanie had raised and was stealing her way to where her master waited, his hand outstretched, a wordless command to obey. 

“Mom, No.”  Sarah tried grabbing Melanie but the dead woman pushed her away.  Death had diminished none of her strength.  She passed so close to Stuart that he could see the bullet wound had healed miraculously, only the blood and specks of brain that covered her face earlier still remained, a grotesque Halloween mask.

“What do you want?”  Stuart voice sounded weak to his ears.  He buried a wife and two kids and never once did he feel weak.  Betrayed.  Yes.  Angry.  Oh yeah.  Made a fool of.  You bet.  But never weak.  It would take a wicked preacher in an empty graveyard to make him feel weak. You were glad it wasn’t you that died; a malicious thought entered his mind.  Stuart pushed it down violently.  In the darkness the preacher chuckled. 

“This is wrong!  Wrong!”  Mr. Henderson shouted.  He pointed an angry finger at the preacher and took a step towards him.  No don’t, Stuart wanted to scream at the old man, but no sound left his strained lips.  The preacher didn’t respond, but Stuart had the mental image of those black eyes turning to Mr. Henderson, locking on him.  The depths of them amused, but underneath the amusement dark murder glistened. 

As he watched through horrified eyes, Mr. Henderson began clawing at his own face, his elderly arthritis hands, white claws in the dim moonlight.  At first only the old man’s wheezing breath could be heard, but as he scraped away skin trying to still the itch that was located somewhere behind his bones, Mr. Henderson started to scream.      

            The scratching reminded Stuart of having chicken pocks, of trying not to scratch and then scratching anyway.  Surely Charlotte wouldn’t know if he scratched just a little bit.  Surely she wouldn’t be able to tell.  But Charlotte always knew.  When the captain and pastor of their church showed up and told him the horrible news, just for one mad second, he had been relieved, relieved that his wife wouldn’t be telling him to stop scarring himself, that night.  He pushed this thought away as well.

            “You bastard.”  Millie’s voice shook, but she was made of steadier stuff than he was, Stuart thought embarrassed and relieved that the preacher or whatever he was would not be looking at Stuart Cavanaugh, no rather let him look at Millie, let her be the next to claw out her own eyes, to howl like an animal caught in a trap.

“I don’t believe in you.”  This was David.  Another brave soul.  Mr. Henderson crumpled to the ground, whimpering softly.  The preacher had lost interest in him for the moment.  Stuart tried to keep his eyes away from the old man, tried not to see the dark stains of blood on Mr. Henderson’s face, his claw like arthritis hands, swathed in own blood.  Dr Hughes was by his side in an instant cursing violently under his breath.

“Believe.”  Was the preacher’s voice a little deeper?  Stuart had the mental image of a vampire, depleted after sucking his victim dry.  Did the preacher get such a high from causing Mr. Henderson pain?  Did the old man’s howling feed him somehow?  If so how long would he be fulfilled?  Stuart strained his eyes trying to see in the dark, trying to see if something was different in the preacher. 

“I don’t believe in you.”  Linda Siezmore, this time.  You idiots Stuart wanted to scream, but he still couldn’t move his lips, probably it was delayed shock or maybe the adrenalin just hadn’t reached his mouth yet.  They were facing Satan or something even worse and these **** thought they could clap their hands and say: I don’t believe in fairies and the monster would die.  For the second time Stuart had the intense urge to giggle until his sides hurt. 

“He who is not for Me, is against Me.”  Stuart heard himself quote, his tongue finally loose but moving as if on its own accord.  He shivered when he heard the words, wished he hadn’t taken to religion like wood to fire, learning whole passages by heart.  Now that knowledge would only serve in underlining the hopelessness of their situation.  Whatever this preacher desired they would have to give, they had chosen him after all.

“I don’t understand.”  Sarah’s words were only a whisper, but in the eerie quietness of this night, her voice carried to farthest corner of the graveyard, spilling into vacant caskets, echoing off tombstones, their related message of peace made ludicrous by the absence of their occupants. 

In the background the church bells started chiming, nine o clock.  Hells bells, Stuart thought and as if that was their cue, the dead returned to the cemetery.  Stuart recognized his wife and several of the others as they gathered around the preacher.  He glanced around frantically for his son and then felt absurd relief, the dead boy had apparently escaped the dogs’ jaws unharmed.

Charlotte and her cronies got on their knees, devoted followers about to receive a blessing.  Only in living Charlotte would never have bowed down to anyone but her God.  Melanie was with them also on her knees, her head bowed as she eagerly waited what would follow.  There were quite a number of stiffs, but they were far too few to fill all the open caskets in this cemetery.  Where were the others and why were only these few chosen to bow to the preacher?

            Then comprehension hit him like a ton of bricks and Stuart almost became violently sick.  There was Rose Henderson and David’s grandparents and even his own kids and they were all kneeling to this abomination, all kneeling, all of them, because they were loved by the nine people left alive here in this cemetery.

            The rest of the dead weren’t here, because, let’s face it, they weren’t needed.  No sir, we don’t care about the rest of those suckers, so why would the preacher bother with them.  This isn’t real he wanted to tell the others, but he knew.  Oh God, yes he knew, this was more real anything else he’d ever experienced.  This was, no sleep desiring mind’s hallucination this was the real deal.  Oh yes.

            Frantically he looked around.  Tried to find one of the others who also made the connection.  Dr. Hughes were still with Mr. Henderson, Serge was holding Sarah, holding her back, she’d seen her father no doubt, Linda was gaping at the macabre show in front of her and Beth Anne was clutching Millie’s hand like she wasn’t ever going to let her go.

            Then Stuart met David’s eyes and saw comprehension there.  A kindred soul, but unfortunately not the one he was hoping for.  Stuart was an atheist, but not like David was an atheist.  David didn’t believe at all.  Sure Stuart saw him at church every now and again, but David thought that God and Satan, religion and all that jazz were just the adult equivalent of little red riding hood.

            If it couldn’t be scientifically proven, David wasn’t buying it.  Stuart on the other hand knew, oh yes he knew.  He knew that God existed.  What he didn’t believe in was the church’s little fairytales about how good and gracious God was.  God was cruel and He liked nothing better than to throw the poor living suckers that he created a nice curveball that would shatter their existence.

            And this was the great big curveball that he hadn’t seen coming in a million years, he wasn’t part of the loyal flock anymore, so this wasn’t suppose to be happening to him.  You couldn’t fight Satan without God and if he was right, not one of them, not a single one of the nine left, could offer a prayer that would be answered.  David least of all.