Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Devil's Towers

The Devil’s TowersLong ago, it was known as The Mission in the Forest, and people were welcomed with open arms. This was before God’s War when the world was a different place, and the truth about God and Satan was still a mystery over which the war had begun.Now, decades later, it is known as The Devil's Towers, and few survivors of God’s War can recall when it was a place of peace and worship. To the masses, The Devil's Towers is a symbol of the lies once told by books such as The Holy Bible and people claiming to serve a just God.Most survivors of God’s War are afraid to go inside the building fearing the Devil, who is said to capture as his playthings the humans who enter his sanctuary. You see, some of what The Bible taught was true: there is a Devil, and there is a Hell, but the Devil never fell from Heaven. He left willingly after destroying everything it had once been, including God and all the hope that remained for living things.Today, the Devil sits in his towers ruling over a world under his control while planning new ways to trouble the remaining living things on Earth.Those who seek out and enter The Devil's Towers do so out of greed, for along with the revelations about God’s weaknesses there are the legends of the Devil's gold.

It is said that those who posses even the smallest quantity of the Devil's gold will become immortal and be immune from his manipulations. The exact location of The Devil's Towers is not known, and though many have set off to find the old mission, none have returned.

Some believe no one returns because those who go find their gold. They might be right, but if they are not (and most believe they are not) then the Devil's playground is growing.

When God’s War ended, eleven clues to the whereabouts of The Devil's Towers were scattered by the winds. The Devil did this to ensure that though the people uncovered the truth about their existence and the lie that was God, their greed would bring them to his playground.

What you hold in your hand is the last clue to the whereabouts of this monument, and as its owner, immortality and untold riches can be yours.

Sharon Ellis turned the note card over in her hand. She was taken by the picture and amused by the words. There was no return address information on the card, but she had a pretty good idea who’d sent it to her. It had Charlie written all over it: it was clever in a dorkish sort of way, and it was just another in a string of useless attempts on his part to get Sharon's attention.

She glanced once more at the note card before tossing it on the counter and heading out the door for what was sure to be a long day at work.

The fifteen minute commute to the office was an exercise in rote activity, and on this morning, as was the case on almost every morning, Sharon wasted no time in multitasking while she drove. This was perhaps the reason she ran the red light and drove her BMW into the path of a fully-loaded semi whose driver had no chance to stop.

Sharon awoke flat on her back looking up at a sky that was hazy with smoke. She felt dazed, but as the events of the morning began to work their way together like parts of a jumbled puzzle, she laughed—she was alive!

Sharon slowly sat up, and as she did, she was surprised to find that while a bit stiff, she seemed totally unharmed. She was even more surprised to find herself staring straight ahead at a building which appeared to be a replica of the image she'd seen on the postcard from Charlie. Sharon stood up, shook the dirt from her clothing, and began walking toward the clearing and the mission. She was certain what she was experiencing was a result of her accident or the after-effects of anesthesia; after all, she could not possibly be in the middle of a forest staring at an old-world mission having only moments before been driving to work. She walked on anyway.

For the second time that day, a giggle escaped Sharon's lips. She wondered to herself when she might find the Devil’s gold. Near the clearing’s edge, a cool breeze washed over her, and as it did, it carried her scent to the Devil.

Sharon Ellis reached the entrance to the mission and walked inside. The moment she crossed the threshold of the building, she realized something was very wrong. Instinctively, she turned to flee, but it was too late: she was surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the sensation of falling.

* * *

The driver of the tanker truck watched in confusion as a melon-shaped object spun up into the air, reached the top of its flight, and fell back toward the ground. As the object tumbled down toward the pavement, the trucker saw with grotesque clarity that it was the head of the woman who’d been driving the car that was now a twisted pile of metal lodged beneath the frame of his rig.

Frozen on the tumbling head was last look the woman’s face would ever wear: it was the look the truck driver would wake to in horror for the rest of his life.

The head struck the ground, rolled a few feet, and came to rest on what was left of its neck. As the trucker realized the head appeared to be looking up at the side of his trailer, he half-fell, half-staggered out of his cab while vomiting onto the roadway.

* * *
The first officer to arrive on the scene did his best to help the trucker cope with what had happened, but there was little he could do. Even he was a bit shaken by the head sitting upright staring at the truck’s trailer, and though leaving it that way was gruesome, he knew better than to disturb the accident scene—especially one involving a fatality.

Several hours later, as the investigation was wrapping up, the coroner’s assistant called the officer over to where he was working. As the assistant placed the woman’s head into a truncated body bag, he peeled a note card from the congealed blood at the base of what remained of the woman’s neck and handed it to the officer.

“Weird, huh?”

The coroner’s assistant nodded from the card to the trailer as he spoke to the officer.

The photograph on the card matched the image on the side of the semi-truck’s trailer: it was a large scale ad for a resort hotel called The Towers, and below the image was a caption that read,
Be as devilish as you want—your secret is safe at The Towers.

The officer placed the sticky card into an evidence bag and turned away for the coroner’s assistant while feeling the burn of bile rise in the back of his throat.

The Devil’s Towers Original Artwork [Peace Mission Pieces] by Woody Hansen.


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