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frame of a closed door set into the far wall, casting blazing slivers across the room that illuminated the basement. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the light vanished. Kane’s spittle-slick grin snapped back into focus.
    “ The bible got it wrong,” the killer said in an oily whisper. “The meek won’t inherit the Earth, Frank. They’ll take it BACK .”
    And with that, the smiling devil pulled the trigger of his weapon.
    Each round punched into Frank’s chest with the ruthless power of a sledgehammer, their lethal progress stopped short of entering his flesh by his vest’s protective plating. Pain sunk its teeth into his nerves. Somehow he held the MP-5 steady, gripping it in both hands. He fired back even as he fell, his shots opening a dozen dark holes in the killer’s gaunt torso. Red geysers sprayed from exit wounds in the madman’s back. Unbelievably, Kane continued to grin, firing his gun empty as Frank’s 9mm rounds sliced through him.
    The remaining officers poured down the steps and flooded into the basement, filling the room with the explosive roar of additional gunfire. Muzzle flashes lit up the room, creating a crowd of black shadows that danced on the walls like a cheering crowd of demonic spectators.
    Frank collapsed to the floor, jaw clenched in a rigor of pain.
    The final shot rang in his ears, followed by the shouts of the officers entering the room.
    “ Cease fire!”
    “ Officers down!”
    “ Get the medics in here!”
    Frank caught a momentary glimpse of Kale Kane’s blood-splattered face staring back at him from the ground, eyes open. Then fellow officers crowded into the area, blocking the view.
    Two of the men helped Frank to his feet. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’ll live.”
    He pushed away and edged through the crowd until he stood over Kane’s corpse. The killer lay in an ocean of blood, one cheek peeled aside by a bullet to reveal those shiny white teeth, as if he was still smiling.
    Frank sagged, catching his breath.
    Across the room wood shrieked against a strike plate. When Frank looked, he saw one of the tactical officers trying to yank open a chipped and faded green door on the far wall, the same door that had contained the unexplainable lightshow moments earlier.
    “ Wait!” Frank shouted.
    The door pulled free even as the words left Frank’s mouth, and the officers that closed in to clear the room beyond immediately choked and recoiled. The stench of rot that had enveloped them since first setting foot in the stairwell magnified to a near-suffocating degree.
    “ Holy shit,” one of them cried.
    Another doubled over and puked.
    Despite the overpowering odor, Frank hurried forward. He pushed through the crowd, wincing in pain, but came to a halt when he beheld the unimaginable sight that waited in the dirt-walled room ahead. He stared in dreamlike detachment, his mind straining to make sense of the madness displayed before him.
    “ My God,” he whispered.
    And just when he thought his overstressed nerves had been pushed to their limit, one of the medics who’d bent over Kane’s body ended the shock-induced stillness with a scream.
    “ He’s still alive!”
     
     
    CHAPTER 1
    Five Years Later …
     
    Jerry Anderson’s eyes snapped opened to see the last flicker of pale blue lightning depart from his bedroom walls, pursued into the night by darkness.
    He bolted upright and surveyed the shadowy bedroom with widened eyes, searching his surroundings for the source of what had roused him. By the weakness of the lightning’s pursuing thunderclap, he knew it hadn’t been the storm.
    Something moved in the darkness, and Jerry wheeled around to face it.
    Outside, the wind gusted against the house and through the nearby treetops, its morose tone overlaid by the sound of rainwater dripping from the gutter. Inside, black shadows swayed on the walls and floor, but he saw nothing to justify his fear.
    Nothing yet.
    “ Get up,” he hissed, shaking his wife.
    Margaret