C.L.Stearns

One of my favorite characters appeared at the door of the Palmer House Hotel in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, in the middle of a blizzard. No one has met him yet, except for me.

Here’s a taste of Jack Chandler. Let me know what you think!

—

The claws dig into Jack’s shoulders as the demon behind him forces his body to buckle and sends him careening to the ground in a mock-gesture of reverie. The two minions each take an arm and wrench it upward, palms of his hands facing out. A trickle of blood drips from each palm, rivulets tickle his face. The left side of his black coat is thick with blood.

Jack hears the clatter of voices outside his door and prays: Dear God in Heaven, please do not forsake me. A searing pain bursts in his mind like a lightning-struck apple tree and he lets go a bellow from his gut. A smashing sound flutters past him, a sprinkle of splintered door frame. The crowd outside pours in and halts, frozen in place by the spectacle.

The demons have gone, vanished and flown like the splintered wooden spray. Jack Chandler hangs in the ochre kneel of a faith long gone. His hands and arms are bloody, his face contorted with anguish. The sallow eyes bulging in his head are far away from here, gone to a dark place filled with pain.

Mayor Emory Rusk stands before him, stammered and horrified. The bodies of Jack’s wife and daughter lay desecrated on the earthen floor. Sheriff Ron Emerson looks to him, and the mayor finds his voice for a moment.

“Take him, Ron,” he says. His mouth is dry.

Before the sheriff could move, Jack bellowed again and the single-room house began to bake. The flames began to flicker on the bare ground beneath Jack and ran to the walls as if along a trail of gunpowder. The house began to burn.

Jack Chandler began to scream, then to speak.

“Jesus Sarcalogos of Nazareth, Rex rgis of Jews. Contemno mihi, vestri forgotten filius. Diabolus accipiere meus manus, quod Capio suus.”

[ed., English: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Hate me, your forgotten son. The Devil takes my hand, and I take his.]

A rush of flames took Jack Chandler from this world as the onlookers clamored out of the doorway. In the exodus, before clearing the threshold, Emory Rusk turned to see Jack reaching outward with his right hand. In half a moment’s time, Jack’s hand was pulled downward and his body sank into the flaming dirt.

Within minutes, the Chandler homestead was ash.

—

fin