We were led out of the bank in a single file to the church next door. I remember my dad once told me that churches were always built on top of a hill, or in the best real estate in town, or right next to a bank.

We began climbing up the stairs to the top of the bell tower. The stairwell was extremely narrow and extremely steep. A feeling of claustrophobia combined with vertigo took hold in my chest. Each step, each flight I kept looking back over my shoulder. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe we should’ve stayed hidden in the bank vault.

About half way up, Ed’s walkie-talkie came to life again with two fearful and panicked voices.

“Hurry up! It’s coming. You gotta get out of there!”

“We’re going as fast as we can!” a voice replied.

Ed unclipped his walkie-talkie. “What do you think radio silence means? Get off the damn airways!”

I looked at Daniel to see if he knew what was going on. But he just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

Ed turned to the bald man. “Stevens is losing it, man. He’s freakin losing it.”

“Can you blame him?” baldy replied. “He’s been through a lot.”

“We’ve all been through a lot.”

We climbed up one more flight of stairs and arrived at the top of the bell tower. It was a large, square room, with the bell hanging in the middle. Open arched windows on each side provided us with panoramic views of the whole town.

We must’ve been locked up in the bank vault for longer than I realized, because at that moment the sun was slowly and lazily falling below the western horizon. This meant that we’d been locked up all day. I had completely lost track of time.

Towards the east, a huge full moon hovered low in the sky. It had taken on this weird reddish orange color. It was a breathtaking view. The town looked so peaceful. Picturesque. Bathed in a soft orange light of the sunset.

I had one last look over my shoulder, still desperately wanting to hide. But the bald man moved us forward with the barrel of his gun. There was no turning back.

The other men and the priest were already there. They were kneeling down, staying hidden below the arched windows of the tower. All of the men had a pale, grim look on their face.

The priest was saying a prayer, asking for forgiveness again, asking for strength and courage. He had his finger up to his lips, telling us to be quiet. “We initially chose to stay here in the town of Hope because it is isolated,” he whispered. “The town was evacuated early on, and as a result, the Oz virus never made it here. In the weeks since the nationwide quarantine, since the television and radio and emergency broadcasts were silenced, we’ve only ever had one or two lone infected persons stumble into our town at any one time. Fortunately, we were able to eliminate them quickly and quietly. But then everything changed. The gates of hell were opened. The earth and the sky turned the color of blood.”

He motioned for us to take a look outside, he pointed towards the edge of town.

And that’s when I saw what he was so afraid of.

“It’s not the virus,” he said as the sun disappeared. “It’s not infected people.”

No, I thought. It was something much, much worse.

“The knights of hell,” the priest said quietly. “The spawn of Satan has been released upon this world.”

The sun completely fell below the western horizon and something moved in the moon light. Something big.

It was something that I’d only ever seen depicted in comic books and b-grade Japanese horror flicks that Kenji had made me watch. Something I’d only ever seen in my nightmares.

The thing was huge.

It was a giant. An ogre.

It was a monster.

It kind of looked like a man in that it had two arms and two legs. But it was taller, bigger than a man, bigger than most of the houses in town. It moved hunched over, walking and crawling on all fours. Its skin was rough and scaly, like a snake, and it seemed to shimmer and change color in the moon light.

I looked back at Daniel and Kenji for some sign of what to do. But they were both in shock.

The thing was crouched down, watching the horizon. Its eyes were scanning back and forth like a hunter, like a predator. It was sniffing the air.

I knew in my right mind we should run or hide. We shouldn’t be out in the open like this. Even if we were high up, in a bell tower, and the men were heavily armed. I did not feel safe. Not one bit. Not after what happened to Daniel’s team in the middle of Sydney. They were the best of the best. But when that thing ambushed them, they never stood a chance. They were torn apart in a matter of minutes.

I wanted to run fast and far. But I couldn’t move. The voice of reason inside my head was telling me to hide, screaming for me to get away. But nothing happened. I was too scared to move. Too scared to breathe. The others were frozen as well. Their attention completely focused on the monster as it continued to sniff the air. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, that things couldn’t possibly get any more messed up than they already were. They did.

The monster snapped its head in the direction of the town square. A split second later, a scream pierced through the night sky. A woman’s cry for help filled the small town and echoed off into the desert.

I suddenly remembered what Ed had told the priest.

They had found another survivor.

She’d lost a lot of blood.

Our prayers have been answered, the priest said.

My mind was racing, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

And then I couldn’t help myself. “What the hell is going on?” I asked. “Who is that? Is someone down there?”

“Shh. No talking,” the bald guy whispered angrily.

I followed the scream. It had come from the town square.

No, I thought to myself. No way. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.

Two bodies were hanging up by their feet in the town square. Two women. One of them was the dreadlocked woman. Her lifeless corpse was hanging from the street light, swaying gently in the breeze.

But the other woman? She was alive.

Alive and screaming.

She was hanging upside down from the streetlight as well. She was desperately trying to untie the rope around her feet, trying to get free.

After a frantic few seconds she would exhaust herself and fall back down, her hands grazing the road. Half her body was covered in blood.

She screamed again.

It was a scream of anger. Fear. Determination.

She tried again, pulling herself up, grabbing the rope around her feet with one hand, trying to untie it with the other.

Failing.

Falling.

Screaming.

The monster began slowly making its way towards the town square, towards the screaming woman.

Its walk was slow yet purposeful.

Maria then stood up. She couldn’t take it. She had seen enough. “No. No. You can’t.”

“Stay down,” the priest said. “Please!”

Jack pulled Maria down, held her tight in his arms.

The woman screamed again. And again, the monster moved its head as it listened and zeroed in on the noise.

It started moving faster.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The monster.

A demon from hell, according to the priest.

It was stalking its way towards the town square, towards a free goddamn meal.

I was in disbelief. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away.

It was at that moment Ben whispered something under his breath. It sounded like he said a woman’s name.

Laura. Maybe.

But I couldn’t be sure.

The priests eyes widened in horror as he realized that big Ben was about to take matters into his own hands. “Please,” he said. “This has to be done. You don’t understand!”

Ben ignored the priest. He grabbed the leg of the closest guard and pulled him to the ground and stood on his face. He then punched out the next guard, causing his whole head to snap back and forth violently, knocking him unconscious.

Ben moved with amazing speed for someone of his size. And there was nothing the priest or the guards could do to stop him.

He then grabbed one of the rifles that had been dropped, as Ed stepped forward with his shotgun. Before he could use it, Ben cracked him on the bridge of the nose with the butt of the rifle, knocking the shotgun to the ground. He grabbed Ed in a headlock and started choking him.

Just as Ed was about to pass out, the bald guy stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his gun against Ben’s temple.

“No!” the priest said. “Do not fire your weapons. You will kill us all!”

“He’s out of control,” the bald guy said. “He’s dangerous.”

“Lower your gun,” the priest said.

The bald guy reluctantly followed orders.

Ben pushed Ed to the ground. Ed took huge, deep breaths as he slowly regained consciousness.

“Sorry,” Ben said as he checked the rifle he’d picked up and made sure it was armed and loaded. “But I gotta do this.”

Ben turned. Aimed the rifle out one of the arched windows. Aimed it directly at the woman in the town square.

“Wait!” one of the guards said. “Use this.”

The guard produced a rifle with a silencer and handed it to Ben. “It’s not much, but it will muffle the sound, make it harder for it to track us.”

Ben took the rifle and threw the other one on the ground, as the monster continued to stalk and make its way closer to the town square, to the hanging bodies. Ben rested the rifle on the ledge of the arched window and prepared himself to take the shot.

Kenji stepped forward. “Let me. I’m a trained sniper. I can do it.”

“No. She’s my responsibility. Her blood is on my head.”

The woman continued struggling. Every now and then she would give up and just hang there, upside down. A few seconds would pass and she’d try again, grunting and shouting.

But she was getting nowhere. She had no hope of getting free. None.

The dreadlocked woman hung limp, devoid of all life.

Ben took the shot. The noise was muffled, definitely reduced, but it was still pretty loud.

And unfortunately he missed.

Twice.

Kenji offered again. “Please, let me do it.”

“Sit down, kid. I told ya, this is my responsibility.”

Ben took aim again, fired again. And finally, he put the woman out of her misery.

He dismantled the rifle and threw it on the ground. “May she rest in peace. Right, Father?”

A few seconds later the monster entered the town square. It then stood from its crouching position. It was indeed taller than a person. It stood taller than a house. It was taller than most of the buildings in the town.

It circled the bodies, sizing them up. Sniffing the air some more. A split second later it made its move. The monster grabbed both bodies by their legs, its claws wrapping around each lifeless corpse easily. It gave them a yank, snapping the rope like it was nothing more than a loose bit of thread.

The monster dragged the bodies along the ground as it slowly walked back the way it came from, back out into the desert.