Bentley Little - The Revelation

The Revelation

Synopsis:

A NAIL-BITING, THROAT-SQUEEZING, NONSTOP PLUNGE INTO DARKNESS AND

EVIL"-RickHautola DIVINE PROPHECY. HOLY TERROR

Strange things are happening in the quiet town of Randall, Arizona.

The local minister vanishes, his church defiled by blasphemous obscenities scrawled in blood....A crazed old woman in her eighties becomes pregnant. Herds of animals are discovered butchered in a field. And one by one, the good folks in town are falling victim to the same unspeakable fate. Now an itinerant preacher has arrived spreading a gospel of cataclysmic fury.

Darkness is falling on Randall, Arizona. The smell of fear lingers in the air. And stranger things are yet to come....

BENTLEY LITTLE

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS

New York

ISBN 0-312-03922-0

PROLOGUE

The shaman stared at the newcomer with thinly veiled scorn. Attired in ceremonial skins that were a slightly altered version of his own, the newcomer was loudly addressing a group of villagers gathered on the far side of the creek. His voice carried clearly on the slight wind that blew from the north. He raised his hands high into the air, his upturned face toward the hot summer sun. Red and blue fire would fall from the skies, he predicted, and soon after, the earth would shake with the footsteps of the dark gods. The assembled villagers gasped and muttered amongst themselves.

The shaman shook his head in disgust and glanced toward the hogan , where his apprentice was supposed to be studying the patterns of color on two hawk feathers. The young boy was outside the open doorway, staring wide-eyed across the creek. When he saw that his master was looking at him, he quickly bent down to examine again the two feathers on the ground.

"Go," the shaman said, not bothering to hide his anger. "Come back when you are ready to learn."

"I am ready--" the boy began.

"Go," the shaman repeated. He watched unmoving as his apprentice grabbed his belongings and scrambled off. The boy headed away from the villagers, in the opposite direction from the creek, but the shaman knew that as soon as he went inside the hogan, the boy would sneak over to hear what the newcomer had to say.

The shaman bent down to pick up the hawk feathers and took them into the hogan. When he emerged again into the sunlight, he saw that Nan-Timocha, the village chief, was standing nearby, staring thoughtfully toward the newcomer. He walked slowly toward the chief, who turned to look at him and nodded. The two men were silent for a moment. "What do you think of this new shaman?" the chief asked finally.

"He is no shaman."

The chief nodded, saying nothing, as though he had expected the answer.

"Why do you allow him to continue his stay in our village?" the shaman asked. "He is frightening the people. They are beginning to believe his wild stories."

"Have you seen his eyes?" the chief asked, staring across the creek.

His voice was low, troubled. "They are black. The deepest black I have ever seen."

"You have talked to him?"

The chief nodded. "He has come to me twice, telling me ..." He shook his head. "I cannot even believe it now."

"Are you going to make him leave?" the shaman asked.

Nan-Timochamet the shaman's gaze. His eyes were vague, unfocused, and there was an unfamiliar emotion etched on his features. "I cannot," he said. "I am afraid of him."

The next night, the fire rained from the skies, blue and red, just as the newcomer had said it would. The shaman remained alone in the ceremonial circle, chanting songs of appeasement to the gods, performing the sacred rituals of protection. He had begun the evening with three assistants, including his apprentice, but all three had run away in fear as the fires fell closer and it was clear that the songs were doing no good.

The shaman fasted the next day, remaining alone in hishogan , offering the appropriate sacrifices, and that evening all was as it should be.

But the following night, the earth shook violently, causing jars and pots to rain down on him from their shelved perches as he trembled on the floor in fear of the rampaging feet of the dark gods.

Quiet and subdued, the shaman brought up the rear of the small party that marched down the narrow path to the base of the Mogollon.

Overhead, huge black thunderclouds rolled in from the north, casting their shadows on the forest of pines below. To the right, off in the brush, a family of swallows, startled by the presence of the marchers, flew screeching into the air.

The shaman read the signs as they walked. Next to the path, there were three leafless trees in a row and, farther on, a dead squirrel with its legs pointed toward the Mogollon. The omens did not look good.

But the shaman said nothing. After hearing what the newcomer had to say, after seeing the accuracy of the newcomer's prophecies, he now doubted his own techniques and abilities. He walked in silence, cowed in the presence of a man with powers far superior to his own.

Several hours later, the path opened onto a clearing. The sky overhead was dark, and a shifting wind played against them, spraying them with a light mist. The newcomer stopped and motioned for them to remain in place. He took from the small bag he had been carrying a handful of bones and teeth, which he threw down on the dirt. He bent down to examine the positions in which they had fallen and nodded, satisfied.

Nan-Timocha stepped forward, holding the ceremonial headdress he had been carrying since the start of their journey. The newcomer accepted the headdress and placed it on top of his head. He walked into the clearing, the wind whipping his long black hair and tangling it in the feathers. He began chanting the songs of power, petitioning the gods for courage and strength. Suddenly, his voice changed. The cadences became jerkier, less rhythmic. Harsh words poured out in an unknown alien tongue.

Nan-Timochaturned to the shaman. "What is he saying?"

The shaman shook his head. "I do not know the language. I have never heard it before."

From the surrounding bushes came fluid gurgling noises and strange dry rustling sounds. The chief and the two warriors flanking him, Lan-Notlimand Al-Ankura, grasped their weapons tightly, prepared to use them. The shaman stepped backward, holding the sacred beads around his neck.

In the center of the clearing, the newcomer had stopped chanting and was now holding tightly to his own weapon, crouched in a defensive stance.

Though the newcomer had told him what to expect, the shaman had not in his heart believed him. Now he believed. He looked toward the manzanitas, where the noises were now the loudest. The bushes were shaking as though they were alive. He felt the cold sweat of fear break upon his body, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

The bushes parted.

And as the rain started to fall he began to scream.

The Coconino Sawmill, Randall's lone industry, loomed over the other buildings in town like an angry parent, its chuted conveyor belts and single-stacked smelter silhouetted blackly against the early morning sun. The mill had been the first structure built in the area, the first encroachment of civilization into this part of the wilderness, and the town had grown up around it, spreading outward. In front of the mill's small cluster of office buildings, next to Main Street, rows of stacked lumber were piled fifteen feet high, ready to be trucked out. In back of the buildings, on the other side of the smelter, next to the river, an equal number of freshly cut logs were piled in pyramidal order, waiting to be converted into boards.

Gordon breathed deeply as he drove past the sawmill on his way to work.

He loved the smell of the mill; he never tired of it. Even though it worked at only half-capacity during the summer months, its smell, that deliciously rich odor of pine bark and resin, permeated the air along Main Street from the junction of Old Mesa Road all the way to the post office, supplying somehow a hint of winter to the otherwise overbearing heat of August. In both the fall and winter, of course, the mill warmed the entire town, heat spreading outward from its core as though from a gigantic central heating system, the fresh natural smell of newborn sawdust and burning wood chips drifting as far north as the Rim and as far south as Squaw Creek.