Rapture Read Free Page A

nerve in his body urged him to run, run as fast as he could and keep on running. Instead, he forced his body to turn calmly, ignoring its screaming protests.
    He wished he hadn’t.
    Striding across the burning wreckage of his family home was a creature from the very darkest pits of Hell. Judging from the relative size of the Lemure who were dancing around its feet like excited puppies, it was at least ten feet tall. It was roughly human-shaped but had four arms instead of two, each hand equipped with foot long talons. Five foot-long black blades were clutched in each claw. Massive wings arched above its back like sails. It was clad in some sort of metallic black armour, glinting ruby red against the backdrop of the burning house, and the head, fully enclosed by a black winged helm, turned this way and that before rotating in his direction. It stopped dead. Sam knew with absolute certainty that it was looking directly at him.
    Over the years, Sam had committed to memory every demon in Hikari’s well thumbed copy of Demonology. Hikari regarded the book as essential research for Sam’s coming battle, and had made him study the book endlessly so that Sam would know instantly who or what he was fighting and how to combat it. The book was from the 17 th century and all of the illustrations were heavily stylized and detailed but simplistic by today’s standards. However, there was one picture in the book that matched what was before him. There was no way he could fail to recognise the similarities.
    It was an Astaroth. A blood demon. A lesser prince of hell.
    Sam did then what he had started doing and should’ve kept on doing. He ran.
    Heart beating wildly, he darted through his neighbour’s garden, following the path that in spring had bordered a multitude of flowering plants. Now, it meandered through a graveyard of skeletal plants submerged in a white blanket of ash. His neighbours, devout members of the local church, had disappeared along with many of the other 800 odd residents of Jacob’s Ladder during the Rapture. He was sure they wouldn’t mind him using their house in this manner. In fact, where they’d gone, he doubted whether they’d care about that at all, or the fact that he’d helped himself to all the food in their cupboards.
    It was an escape route that he had plotted and practised on numerous occasions. The path led up to the back porch of his neighbour’s earthquake-damaged house. Without pausing, he charged straight through the back door, confident that his senses would alert him to the presence of any more demons. He leapt over a fallen internal wall, sidestepped the divider into the lounge and did a neat forwards somersault through the broken front window. He landed on his feet, already running, sprinting off the front porch and onto the road.
    Sam risked a glimpse behind him and smiled weakly to himself at what he saw. Nothing. They weren’t following him yet. More importantly, the Astaroth had not yet made an appearance. He could do this. He was going to do it – he was going to get away.
    As soon as this thought entered his mind, it was interrupted by a demonic presence to his left. A cluster of Lemure surged out of what had once been the local coffee house, screaming as they advanced. Sam sprinted around a wrecked SUV to give himself some breathing room, drawing both swords.
    He swung around to his left, still at full stretch. Whether by good luck or by displaying a higher than usual level of intelligence, three of the Lemure hadn’t fallen for the ploy. They met him on the other side of the SUV, running as hard as he was. Sam didn’t even pause. He struck high then low and spun around to deliver a double blow to the third Lemure. All three turned to ash in his wake.
    He kept sprinting, skirting around the wrecks in the middle of Main Street, heading east. It was opposite to the direction he wanted to head in but he would double back later in order to confuse his pursuers.
    Sensing that the