• The River Of Sangria
    I awoke on the banks of a river, typical sandy banks leading into a red river, the likes of which I had never seen before. A small Keel sat on the opposite bank about 30 feet upriver. A rather shadowy character sat at the pole with a hood draped over his head. He reminded of me the grim reaper from classic pictures, dark hood, and a dark robe. But instead of a scythe he wielded a boater’s pole. The scene behind the beach was as picturesque as the moon. Desolate dunes of sand rolled endlessly, with the occasional dead tree, twisted and black I didn’t believe they were even there.
    As I took it all in I saw the Keel begin to drift downstream, the boat didn’t appear to create any wake through the water as it moved. The whole thing reminded me of stereotypical explanations of the river Styx. I pondered my situation more and I couldn’t figure out how I had got in this situation. Maybe I really was dead, no no that’s stupid I wasn’t dead.
    Before I realized it the figure and his boat had reached the bank where I still sat. He began to motion his fingers real slow for me to get into the boat. Knowing what I knew of classic horror movies the only thought was “Do not get in that boat or you will die” But a force unseen to me made me get up and get in it anyways. I stepped over the wooden side and my foot slipped into the river. I pulled it up because it burned, I had never noticed before but the whole river seemed to have a mist coming off of it. My sock had turned blood red and we had already started moving down the river. In my mind I knew it was blood, it seemed the information had just been put their by something unknown to me but I blurted out anyways, “were traveling through blood aren’t we?”
    My guides face never changed, just stared straight ahead. It was fleshy and old, with a large scar over both his eyes, in fact he had no pupils, and his eyes were just solid white. We traipsed through the desolate scenery in our boat for about a half an hour before reaching a church. The church seemed sickly, but gothic in architecture. There was a red hue around it, like the sun was constantly setting around it turning the sky behind it deep red, eternally. There was a dock, made completely out of stone; in fact it was more like a ledge then a dock. My guide pulled along side it and bid me farewell with no words. But I knew that he told me to get lost, the words echoed through my mind in what I knew was his voice although I had never heard it.
    So there I stood, in a place I don’t believe any mortal man has ever stood before. The architecture of the church was like none I had ever seen before, it was made completely out of gray stone blocks, but they were perfectly rectangular with no hint that they were actually a rock of any kind. The whole place was made like that, with no mortar between the stones at all; they were just in perfect standing. There were 4 walls with no roof over them at all, two that I believe served as the exterior walls, 1 that the exterior walls connected to, to form a crude box with the river acting as the other wall. Then oddly enough there was a wall built up to the level with the others as if still in renovation, but it did not reach all the way to the back wall. The walls sloped up built pyramid style, except for the back wall, until they reached their connecting point with the back wall, and there were no doors at all just two side doors that I assumed led to other rooms. There were also weird things I assumed were windows and in fact I didn’t see anywhere those doors could lead to there were no signs of another structure. The windows were perfectly cut out cross-windows, like if you made crosses out of tiles, just larger.
    I walked forward, away from the bloody river and to the left side of the middle wall. Just then a nun approached me in pure black robes and a bleeding cross, etched into her forehead. I stared for a second before she spoke to me “do not worry kind sir, it does not hurt at all, we suffer these wounds at birth, showing our devote love to our one and only lord, Jesus Christ.” Something in my mind flagged me as a wicked thing but I suppressed it as she spoke again “ I assume you’re here to see your grandmother, correct?” My mind began to spin, how in the world was my grandma here? I uttered a “yes” but I hadn’t even spoken the words, something had commended my tongue to say it.
    Then we walked through the door on the side we were on. It was a big wooden door; it looked about 200 years old. A gigantic door with that same perfectly symmetrical cross in it and a knocker that looked as heavy as the door. The nun pushed it aside with effort that mimicked the normal persons breathing. The hall that gained my eyes in front of us was nothing that I could see. There were stairs leading down into the pitch-blackness with a candle about every 30 feet. We began to descend into the hallway and my feet betrayed my minds confusion as if they knew where we were going, like they had been here before. We walked for about 15 minutes before we reached a better-lit hallway that had candles about every 5 feet. There was a door to the left, you could go straight ahead or go right, kind of like a 4 way intersection, but instead of the left having a hallway it was just a door surrounded by wall. The same kind of walls we had seen upstairs, same material, same design it looked like.
    We got to the intersection where everything converged together and she spoke, “Go in there and put on the suit, I’ll be waiting.” A lot of abstract thoughts run through my head and my mind seemed to circle along with my eyes in a fraction of a second and then everything came back together. I walked into the room and observed what the whole place looked like. There was a small part of the room, square with a wooden coat hanger on the wall. Next to that, on the left was a small shower, red curtain. On the right of it, 3 dressing rooms, red curtains. On the clothes pegs were white chemical suits; the type the military wears when there are chemical spills.
    My mind took control of my body and went into a trance that I couldn’t stop. I got undressed, got into the shower, got out, then walked over to the dressing rooms, pulled the curtain shut and changed into the chem. suit. I walked out of the awkward little dressing room and the nun was standing right there. She pointed down the hall so we started walking together. We walked for a few minutes and she turned to a door, the first door that had come up and told me to go in. I took the directions in a blunt way not expecting for her to say what she did; I hesitated for a second then opened the door.
    The room was dark when I opened the door and the contrast didn’t change much to my surprise. There was one candle in the room, on a desk, that silhouetted the outline of a woman in a wheelchair. Tears came to my eyes for a woman that I couldn’t even recognize. I fell to my knees as my whole body was racked with violent cries, as the woman I didn’t even know rolled up to me in her wheelchair and I saw her face. I drew a blank, I didn’t know her, yet my body began to convulse in my sobbing and misery.
    I collected myself and got off the floor and pushed her out of the room. We walked through the church as if it was second nature to me and I walked through the hallways, knowing my path although I had never been there. We walked without a word through the candle lit corridors. Silence, our guide through this prison of ever winding cells of door less corridors that led to know where. She pointed to a door and I rolled her in, it was the same room that I had gotten dressed in. She spoke in a very hushed voice so I had to lean in to hear her “go to the end of the hallway, save the children” Then she didn’t speak anymore even though all my coaxing, I tried to ask her what she meant but to no avail.
    I walked her back to the room, I had no idea why but I knew our time was over. The nun was standing in the same place as before, watching us with her eyes that seemed to stare into you and condemn you. I wheeled this person of whom I had no recognition of into her room and left her. But before I left I bent down and whispered “I’ll save you from this place” and she replied although her lips never moved, “I know.”
    I left the room where my grandmother was condemned; my mind knew she was my grandmother. The nun told me to get changed and hang the chem. suit back up and leave, not that I knew where to go. I obeyed gladly, over-zealous to get out of the damned uncomfortable suit. So I went through the same routine, then emerged about ten minutes later from the door. There was no one standing in the dim hallways but the flickering flames and me. I began a slow walk down the hallway to where there was a big dark hole it seemed, I checked over my shoulder for the nun but saw nothing. I reached what seemed like the end, but it led into steps down into a just as equally dark hole with a big black wooden door at the bottom. I walked down the unlit stairway to the door and opened it slowly. Sunlight flooded my vision but none seemed to leave the door as I opened it, but for the moment I was temporarily blind. My eyes had to adjust for a few minutes then I walked in to a sight I wasn’t sure how my mind should perceive. There were pregnant women lying in bloodstained beds. They were skinny, sickly skinny to where you could see their ribs. My eyes scanned the room and my mind could bring up no recollections of this, and I thought “save the children,” I thought to myself, what children could she be talking about.
    Footsteps were coming down the hall, so I stepped into the room, closed the door and stepped into a dark corner. The nun walked into the door and the whole room seemed to go into uprising. The women were strapped to the beds and they were wearing nuns clothing, but where in the world would these women have gotten pregnant from? I watched from my corner as the nun walked up to one of the pregnant women and slapped her. “All of you filthy whores have given your lives to sin, having the spawn of satan in your wombs, but my sisters today is the day of the purging. We shall cleanse this church, in the name of all that is holy and sacred. You have come upon the 8th month of your birth, some of you will be do very soon. This must be stopped, before the demons of your body are released into this world.” The nun slid a dagger out of her robes arm and stood over one of the women. She dripped holy water on the woman’s stomach, blessed herself through the screeches of the woman and then plunged the dagger into her stomach.
    “If any of you are strong enough to live through this, then maybe it will teach you, to thing twice before giving yourself to earthly pleasures!” She repeated the ritual to a woman on the same side of the room and blood splattered onto her face. I began to weep softly in the corner, having to watch all this was going to make me insane, but I had to bear it or risk being killed myself, then whom could I try and save? One of the women on the same side, the right side, began to go into labor seeing as her water broke as she lay in her bed. The nun came to her next and repeated the ritual and stabbed her repeatedly tell she no longer breathed. After she has massacred the whole right side she left.
    I got up and out of my corner thinking, mind racing and I ran over to the girls on the left side. These girls were no older then 18! All of them! I stood there and I wouldn’t doubt that my jaw dropped to the floor. I watched their eyes get wide at the sight of me and a feeling of hate rose through my body, not for them but for me. One woman’s water broke and she screamed “get out of here demon!!! You did this to us! It is your fault we must die for your sins!” I looked at her and turned around expecting something to lop of my head. But nothing was there “yes you! You have condemned us to death, to hell, for all eternity to burn in its flames!” I began to weep and condemn myself and apologize profusely to all the women.
    Footsteps began to walk down the hall and I cried harder and hid back in my corner. I saw a flutter of motion behind me out of the corner of my eye then the nurse walked in. She slammed the door into the wall and it came back to her and hit her palm. “Now for the rest of you Satan loving heathens” she made quick work of all the women on the left side and blood spatter covered the walls then she left, seemingly content with her work, as dying women moaned and cried at the open gashes in their bellies. I sat there in the corner, lost and nauseas trying to figure everything out. I was breathing hard and fast and my vision was swirling, so I got up to try and walk it off. I walked around the room, but the smell of the fresh blood made me even woozier, so I opened the door to leave when I heard a voice. “Please don’t” the voice was weak, very frail “please don’t go” I stepped back in and searched.
    It was a woman from the right side, not bleeding that I could see and so I walked over to her. “What did you say?” she was all skin and bones except for the lump in her stomach, small perky breasts, brown hair that lay all about tangled and split and in a mess. Her face turned red and she looked as if she was in pain but she didn’t make a peep “what’s wrong?” I grabbed her shoulder but it didn’t stop. “Hey what’s wrong?” she let out a small moan that’s when I realized that there was no wound in her stomach. I stood up and backed away from her and she began to motion me over. “ Oh no I can’t do that! I’m not a doctor!” she looked at me through pain-closed eyes, and she stared through me. I walked over and knelt beside her and lifted her gown to her hips. She grabbed her legs and it dug claw marks into them as she pushed. I looked away and almost fainted but she slapped me in the face and I looked back at her. A thought entered my head “ you have got to help me do this damnit! I can not do this on my own!” It was a woman’s voice in my head that I had never heard before. I looked at her face and all I could see was pain, “god damnit you know what you have to do, get the baby out!” I looked at her “ I can’t I can’t!” Another thought went through my mind, the woman’s voice “Just do it or me and my baby will die!!! Do it!” She began to push harder, her face got redder then before and I reached my hands in to try and grab the baby. Nothing.
    “Push harder, Come on!” I didn’t know why, but a sudden flood of confidence filled me, “Easy for you to say, you don’t have a baby coming out of you!” in my mind again. I thought “sorry” and her thoughts came back “It’s ok” My eyes widened and I sat back. I didn’t say a word and she responded to what I said. Does that mean everything I had thought to this point had been heard? Her thoughts jumped into my mind like I had been hit by a baseball bat “congratulations you know your psychic, now if you don’t mind I’m still having a baby here!” I tested it again “right, sorry again” I brought my mind back and she looked at me and began to push. Screams shot through my head and made me feel like my head was cracking, but I reached in and felt something. My excitement crowded my mind “something’s their some things their!!! Keep going we’ve almost got it!” but nothing came back. I looked at her and felt her neck, no pulse. I began to freak out and I slapped her “wake up, wake up!” she didn’t breath and I didn’t know what do to. “Please breath” I put my mouth to hers, plugged her nose and breathed in to her mouth and I felt a lot of activity jump into my head “wow making out with a dead girl huh” her mind was teasing me. “Ha ha very funny, now lets do this and get it done with!” she pushed again and I reached in and I could feel more of the baby. She pushed again and I pulled it out and it lay there all bloody and it’s eyes opened and looked at me.
    It had black hair, red eyes, sharp teeth and fingernails like claws. I looked at it and noticed it also had lumps on its forehead, they were sharp pointed almost, and little burnt looking stubs on it’s back. It grabbed my hand with a death grip stronger then a weight lifter and it looked into my eyes. “I’ll suck her body dry, then I will kill you along with this whore.” It wasn’t a normal sounding voice it was demonic and very deep for… I noticed, very deep for a child. This was not a normal kid; in fact this was not a kid at all. It stood up and looked me in the eyes, “it’s about time you figured it out, I am Damien, Lucifer, Satan himself reincarnate, and I have come to abolish your world and make all what was once mine, return to my grasp.” I noticed that the girl who had given birth to the thing was turning paler and I noticed the placenta.
    Just then the girl sat up really quick and punched the baby devil in the head and it flew across the room and blood spatter hit the wall and us. I looked at her with wide eyes and grabbed her hand, pulled her up and threw her over my shoulder and ran out of the room and then up the stairs. I ran to grandmothers door slammed it open, ran in and wheeled her out with me. We ran down the hallway and I dragged grandmother up the stairs in her wheelchair. We reached the top after about forty-five minutes and I was exhausted. I could hear the little demonic baby walking up the steps though, he treaded like an elephant, so I kept moving. I ran towards the river, even if I had to jump in I was going to get away. But something was different; there was a roof over the area this time. It was completely closed in and it seemed to go on forever. A female voice entered my head “ you did your best, thank you. I will never forget this act of love, I love you to” it was younger then grandma’s and I ran down the hallway still wheeling grandma.
    A sound reverberated through the hallway, the sound of screams, the sound of dying.