From the table, Matt watched Trish as her expression brightened. She was certainly pretty, with her golden-
brown hair and svelte body. And he felt bad for earlier. What if she had been telling the truth? What if that
winged monster really had killed her brother, and he had just gotten in her way?
She hung the phone up and walked right past him.
"Where are you going?" He asked, standing up and following her as she went outside.
"Louisiana."
"Louisiana?" Matt repeated.
Trish said nothing more as she got into her old car.
Matt tapped on the window, and she rolled it down, obviously annoyed.
"What?"
He answered without really thinking.
"Are you going after it?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"I want to come with you."
Trish did a double take.
"Why the hell do you want to come with me?"
He sighed.
"This may sound strange," he said slowly, "but I want to make up for earlier."
She wanted to laugh out loud, but found that she couldn't. Trish craned her head to look up at him in
disbelief.
"Are you insane?"
He bent down closer, until she could see the blue of his eyes in the light.
"No. If what you say is true, about that monster killing your brother and others, then it has to be stopped.
I've sworn to protect people, right?"
"I guess."
"Then I have to stop it before it kills anyone else."
She smiled slyly.
"They didn't believe you, did they?"
He was taken aback.
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," he weakly protested.
"Sure you do. No one at the police station believed you, did they? They just laughed and laughed, right?
And now you want to prove them wrong."
Matt flushed a dark red, his ears becoming a bright scarlet. Grinning, she opened the passenger door and
motioned for him to get in.
"I can see right through you," she said, smirking as she started the car.

By the time the sun rose, the sky had returned to being a blood-red color. Jezebelle had said that the
crimson sky was a bad omen, and Trish firmly believed her.
"You were involved with the Poho Massacre, weren't you?"Matt broke the silence as he gingerly fingered
his black eye.
Trish said nothing for awhile, then reluctantly nodded.
"Christ, it was that thing, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
Matt was silent, thinking. The only sound was the hum of the car underneath them.
"What happened?" He finally inquired.
"What?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
Trish tried to remain focused. At first, he thought that she would not answer, but was surprised when she
did, her voice heavy with melancholy.
"We were coming home from college, my brother and I. For some stupid reason, we decided to use a
backroad. There was no one else on the road, really, so I was surprised when a huge rusted truck showed
up."
Matt felt a chill prick his neck.
"T-the truck tried to run us off the road, but couldn't. We decided to get the hell out of there and fast, but
then-," her voice dropped, her knuckles turning white from clutching the steering wheel so hard, " but then
w-we saw it dumping bodies down a drain...."
Matt could see her eyes well up with tears as she struggled to speak. "My brother Darry tried to be a
hero and went back to rescue any survivors."She wiped her face. "But everyone was already dead. And the
thing somehow knew that it was us that had been i-in the church. It started hunting us down."
The young officer said nothing, although his face paled somewhat.
"We met up with a psychic named Jezelle, who told us..." Trish stopped and made a choking sound. "S-she
told us that either Darry or I would die. It should have been me; I know that the creature wanted me, but
took Darry instead. I still don't know why..."
"My God..."
"I've been searching for the monster since then. I don't know if I can kill it, but I am sure gonna try." She
paused for a moment, then said, "The person on the phone, back at the diner--that was Jezelle. She had
another dream, and she's pretty sure where the thing's headed this time."
"Louisiana, right?"
"Yeah."
"Why is it going there?"
"Jezebelle told me that it was after something, some kind of book. The Liber Antithei or something like
that--,"
"The Liber Antithei? I heard of that."
Trish gazed over at him, surprised.
"How?"
"I used to be a really big H.P. Lovecraft fan, and I read about that book in one of his lesser famous essays."
"Well, what the hell is it?"
"Supposedly, a book that can summon demons and open portals to other realms. I never really believed any
of it. Then again, I never would have believed I'd see a creature like the one I saw at the plant."
Matt chewed on his lip, thinking. "So how do we stop it?"
It was slightly unnerving when she did not answer.

They stopped at a gas station, where Trish called her parents' hotel room. She nonchalantly told them that
she was going back to college, that she could not stand the sight of Poho County anymore. Her parents
bought the excuse, too caught up in Darry's disappearance to notice anything else.
She was immensely glad that she had remembered her ATM card. Trish used the cash that she had
withdrawn to buy food, gas, and a detailed map of the United States. Once she had gotten back into the car,
she looked over at Matt, who slept with his head slumped. The bruise around his eye was still dark, and she
felt a stab of guilt at having been the one who had given it to him. There was a naiveté about him that
reminded her so much of her dead brother. She bit her lip hard, until she couldn't stand the pain anymore,
and started the old car.
The drive was quiet, although not as uncomfortable as she would have imagined it to be with two strangers
riding in a car together from Nebraska to Louisiana. As they passed from county to county, she couldn't
help but notice how dark and heavy the red clouds were, yet not a single drop of rain fell to the earth.
"You know," Matt said, breaking the heavy silence that had settled on the inside of the car like dense fog,
"We really don't know anything about each other."
"I guess not."
"Tell me about yourself."
"Me? I'm not that special." She tried to crack a smile but found that she couldn't. "Well, besides being
chased by some god-awful monster, I'm a business student at the University of Nebraska. Both of my
parents are still married, middle-class--I guess you could say that I lived the all-American life until a couple
weeks ago. You?"
He shrugged.
"I'm a policeman, if you haven't figured that out. My whole life, though, I wanted to be a horror writer like
Lovecraft, but I couldn't make a living off of it. So I became a cop."
"Really? Have you written anything?"
"Just a short story about a girl who descends into Hell."
"Sounds like what we may be doing."
The conversation ended at that. Most of the other countless hours were spent driving in eerie silence,
punctuated by brief discussions here and there, with no real point to them. Trish found, however, that she
was liking the man whom she had only recently met. There was an honesty to him that touched her, not to
mention the fact that he was handsome, in a rugged sort of way.
It took several days to reach Louisiana; Matt brought up a good point as they sat in IHOP, picking at their
breakfasts.
"So what part of Louisiana are we going to, anyway?"
Trish swallowed her bite of fried eggs and replied, "Ladoneau. It's near New Orleans."
"Did, uh, Jezelle tell you that?"
"Yeah. She also told me to visit her friend, Christine D'Arbor, just before I hung up."
"For what?"
"She might be able to help us, since Jezelle can't be here herself."
"Uh-huh." Matt poked at his syrup-drenched pancakes.
Using the map that Trish had purchased earlier, they drove to Ladoneau ,a small town where many college
students were spending their spring break. She felt a stab of jealousy as she drove past them, envying their
innocent fun. What she would give to be like them again, to be ignorant of the evil that stalked the world,
even now.
The little house that they eventually found was located in a picturesque setting near a small pond.
Drooping willows grew in the sprawling yard, filtering rays of deep yellow sunlight through their verdant
leaves. A sign hung by the front door that read
Christine D'Arbor
Fortuneteller
in purple letters. They moved toward the house and Trish pressed the buzzer beside the door. When no one
answered, she cautiously opened it and found herself looking down a long hallway with a few benches
lining the dark walls.
"C'mon," she said, pulling Matt along. He reluctantly followed her into the dimly light house, nearly
jumping out of his own skin when two girls their age appeared from one of the doorways. Giggling, they
pushed past Trish and Matt and left. He still had his eyes on them when the woman stepped out from the
same room.
The woman that stood before them was extremely thin, with a face that would have been gorgeous forty
years ago. Her thinning gray hair was swept back into a neat ponytail, her willowy body clothed in a
flowing blue dress that seemed to be made of silk. It was her eyes that were the most fascinating; they were
purple with tiny flecks of sapphire. There was an austere look in those eyes, and her thin, purplish-red lips
forced themselves into a cheerless smile.
"Patricia Jenner and Matthew Hawn, no?"
"Yes," Trish agreed, surprised. Matt said nothing, his eyes as round as saucers. Christine's face looked as
though it would crack if she kept up the grin, but somehow she managed it. With one spidery hand, she
motioned back toward the room she had came from.
"Jezelle has already called me," the old woman informed Trish, who winced at the overpowering smell of
cinnamon and herbs that filled the room. There was even less furniture in this room, she noticed, struggling
not to hold her nose. An old-fashioned couch, its wooden arms worn smooth by time, sat across from an
overstuffed chair with cushions the color of wine. The only decoration was a faded poster of a summer
night, an orange moon shining over a silent forest.
Christine told them to sit down on the couch and lit a cigarette. The only light came from the burning tip
of the cigarette as the elderly woman spoke slowly.
"Jezelle has never lied to me before, so I know that the monster is real." She puffed at the cigarette , violet
eyes glittering from behind the veil of smoke. "Besides, I saw it in a dream for myself." A brief spark of
terror lit her eyes, then quickly vanished.
"So what is it?" Trish asked, too eagerly.
Christine did not answer right away, instead choosing to take a deep breath first.
"It's a Heradus," she replied, watching their expression of bewilderment. "A creature that is the product of a
burning desire for revenge. At least, I think that's what it is."
"A Heradus? How come I've never heard of that?" Trish asked, sitting on the edge of the ratty couch.
Christine chuckled. "Most people haven't, dear. They chose to ignore the darker things in life."
Trish was silent.
The woman left, then reappeared with a heavy book whose brown cover was falling off. She flipped
through the brittle pages, and then handed the book over to the girl. The picture on the yellowed page made
Trish shudder. Printed in red and black ink, the monsters on the page were a myriad amount of shapes,
ranging from skeletal imps with crimson eyes to gangly beasts with scythe claws. The word Heradus, she
saw, was on the top of the wrinkled page, and below it, its definition: the damned ones.
"Heradus are trapped between life and death," the old woman said, watching Trish's expression as she shut
the book. "From what I know, they were once mortal souls, but were transformed by a demon to serve
some need." She chewed her lower lip. "Jezelle told me that it takes the parts of others for itself--a trait
typical for that type of creature."
"Did she also tell you about the Liber Antithei?"
Christine shut her strange eyes, sighing. "I am afraid so. That book is probably what created it."
"Is that how we stop it?"
Christine nodded, opening her eyes quickly.
"Where do we find it?" Matt inquired, speaking for the first time. The lavender eyes shifted to his face.
"I don't know."
"Jezelle says that it's here," Trish said, almost desperately.
"Yes," the woman agreed. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling as she mused about something. She blinked
several times, then glanced over at the two visitors. She stood and left the room, beckoning them to follow.
Obdiently they did so, where they saw Christine had snatched up a pendant, which flashed in the limited
light.
"Here," she simply replied, handing the jewelry to Trish, who studied it. The pendant was gaudy, with a
brownish-yellow jewel in its center. An eye was crudely etched onto the striped stone, the heavy metal
chain tarnished. To the girl, it looked like something from a cheap pawnshop.
"Wha-what is it?"
"Whatever it is, it's ugly," Matt commented. Christine pulled the cigarette from her mouth, cast a
venomous look in his direction.
"It's the Eye," she told them; then, noticing their confusion, she said, "Wear it when you sleep. It will show
you the past, and all that you need to know." Trish nodded, wondering if she believed what the woman said
and found that she did. Carefully, she slipped the find into her pocket, thanking Jezelle's friend. Christine
escorted them outside, where she watched them drive off, lighting another cigarette as she did so.
Please, she thought, praying to whatever god was listening, please, let them find the Heradus, before it's
too late…She sensed that something was behind her as she closed the door, had time to turn her head when
she heard the floorboard creak.
Christine did not feel the pain as razor claws ripped through her belly, sending her glistening bowels to
the floor in a waterfall of blood; all she did was look into the angry eyes of the winged beast, the cigarette
falling from her slack mouth.