trying to decide what to say to keep him talking. Some way to engage him but not set him off, when he solved the problem for me.
“It’s getting close to sunset. I need to prepare the alter.”
“The alter?” I asked.
“Yes, Malcolm. I need to be sure my sacrifice to the lord is proper. I had this all planned out at home, but then when I found out you were here, I knew my plan had found favor, and the lord was providing a way. He presented you to me at a place that had a pit already there for me to use. It’s perfect.” He gestured at the fire pit on the patio. It was just a circle made of bricks. It wasn’t large, but I guess it was large enough.
He went through the patio doors and started stacking wood in the fire pit. I glanced back towards the river, and sure enough, the boat was easing up to the dock. I could hear the low rumble of the engine and prayed Corey would ignore it as regular river noise. I glanced back at him, and he didn’t seem concerned. He was focused on building his altar. I glanced back at the boat and saw four men moving up the dock. I looked back at Corey, and he was studying something on his phone. Then he looked back at the fire pit and made some adjustments to the way everything was stacked. When I looked back towards the water, the men were gone.
I carefully examined the trees that lined the property to see if I could find them. Watching for movement of any kind, I was almost sure I saw something in the tree line on the left but wasn’t sure. “What is it?” Gavin whispered.
“Rescue, I hope. Just stay down. You can’t be much help with your hands and feet zip-tied, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“He’s off his rocker.”
“It sure seems like it.”
“I had no idea, man.”
“None of us did, Gavin. You didn’t do anything wrong. Shoot, if I had gone to the door, I would’ve let him in. He was supposed to be marrying my sister.”
“Can you rock the chair at all? I would feel better if you were down on the floor with me, out of the line of fire.”
“No, the chair is too heavy, I tried.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Corey asked, stepping into the room.
“Nothing,” I insisted.
He glared at Gavin for a minute like he was trying to decide what to do with him. “You have to watch yourself around him,” he said to Gavin while motioning towards me with his head. “He’s possessed by a demon spirit, and you can’t trust him. He will say things that make you want unnatural things. Don’t let him sway you, brother.”
Corey looked around the room, searching for something, and muttering to himself. Finally, he went around the corner into the kitchen. I’d been making sure not to look out the window. The last thing I wanted to do was alert him that there were people out there, but with him out of the room, I chanced a peek. I was fairly sure the dark figure I saw almost even with the house was a person, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Seek and you shall find,” he said, almost cheerfully, coming back into the room and heading back towards the patio. “I didn’t find a lighter, but I did find some matches and some lighter fluid. They will do perfectly.” I watched as he sprayed his little bonfire with fluid, struck a match, and tossed it on. Flames jumped up high, sending showers of sparks on to the brick patio. It died down quickly as the fluid burned off, and the wood lit. Even from here, I could hear it crackling as the flames danced in the wind.
Please let that be Roman. The last thing I wanted was to be a burnt offering on the altar of Corey’s insanity. I wondered what his plan was. The chair wouldn’t fit in the pit, so he couldn’t leave me tied to it. He couldn’t make me sit there and burn as long as I was conscious. I would do everything I could to get away from the fire. He could always shoot me first, I suppose. Knock me out?
Movement in the trees to my left caught my eye as one of the guys knelt into a shooting stance. I waited for the sound of the shot, but