The Stranger

         There was an eerie silence in the air.  The clouds in the sky enveloped the sun, turning the heavens shades of purple and green.  Someone had made the gods mad.

         A breeze blew a tumbleweed down the dirt road.  It rolled past his feet, and he watched it until it disappeared over the hill.  The mountains, he noticed, were shrouded in a pink haze.  It was coming, he didn’t have long.

         It was always after him, searching constantly.  He had yet to find a place he could hide.  He turned around and walked toward the dilapidated building.  He let out a sigh.  It was time; soon he would not have to worry.  Soon, the power would be his to command.

         He opened the door and entered the bar.  It was mostly devoid of people.  There were two men at a booth in the back and another stood behind the bar.  It smelled like stale beer and rotting wood.  The room was dim with only a few neon lights giving a red glow to the place.  A juke box was playing what could only be described as ear pollution. 

         The floor was warped, and he noticed that as he walked toward the bar he walked downhill.  The bartender, ever vigilant in wiping his bar with a rag, studied the stranger.  They never saw his type.  He was a tall, slender man, his head full of black curly hair that a woman would die for.  His face was gaunt with sunken cheeks and skin so ashen it looked purple in the right light.  His eyes were small and close together; it made him appear menacing.  Even with his slim and lean build, he looked as though he could lift a car with one hand.  He wore a navy pinstripe suit.

         “Whadda yah wawnt?” the bartender asked him.

         “I’m looking for a man,” the stranger replied.  He had a calm, icy voice.  “His name is Salvadore.”

         “Yeh, an’ who are you?”

         The man’s eyes glowed.  “Who I am is not important.”

         The bartender returned his fixed gaze.  “I don know any Salvadore.”  He nodded his head to the two men sitting at the booth.  “Does anybody know any Salvadore?”

         Heads shook slowly.  No one knew.  The wind outside picked up and howled through the cracks of the bar.  What shingles were left on the roof began to tear away.  The bartender shuddered as the walls began to quiver.  The power was near, the stranger could feel it.  He reached across the bar and grabbed the bartender by the collar.  The bartender squealed when he realized his feet hovered above the pulsing floor.  The stranger lifted him higher. 

         “Listen,” he said, “I know he is here.  I can feel him.  He has something I need, and, if you don’t help me, I will tear out your heart and feed it to your customers.”

         Another man walked through the door.  “Let him be.”  His voice seemed to quiet the menace outside.  “He has nothing to do with this.”

         The stranger smiled and pulled the bartender over the bar and made him kneel.  Icy hands gripped the bartender's head and the demon stranger twisted it until he heard tendon releasing from bone.  The bartender fell to the floor.

         Salvadore shook his head.  He was a man in his sixties with graying hair and a pudgy belly.  His face was full and kind, a negative reflection of the stranger.

         “You will return to where you came from," Salvadore boomed.

         “No,” the stranger replied.  “You will die tonight, and I will wield the power.”  He removed his jacket.  “People will bow to me.  I will desecrate the land, destroy empires.  Buildings will crumble when I pass!”

         He waved his hand across the room and the rest of the onlookers fell silent.  Their breath escaped their bodies and joined the wind outside.  Salvadore stepped toward the stranger and smiled.

         “You cannot beat me,” Salvadore said, “the gods will not allow it.”

         “I have completed all the tasks, and tonight the light is mine.”  He ran toward Salvadore and tried to knock him to the ground.  Instead, he passed through the old man.

         Salvadore laughed as the stranger picked himself up.  “You cannot take the light.  It cannot be won!  I am the light and you are weak.  You will never be the possessor.  You are not worthy in he eyes of the One.  Evil will never triumph!”

         Salvadore floated across the room.  He hovered inches from the stranger.  An orange glow encircled his body.  He never stopped smiling.

         The stranger opened his mouth to speak, but Salvadore entered his body.  The stranger felt the orange heat spread through his veins.  He heard Salvadore’s voice in his head.  His heartbeat became faster and faster; it was on the brink of explosion.

         “You will not have the power.  You cannot have the light.” The stranger’s head rang with pain.  He choked on his own breath.

         He wondered how he could lose.  He followed the rules, watched the signs.  Although it went against all he knew, he had played fair.  As he drew one final breath, he had a moment of realization.  The light was in him.  He had it.

         Slowly, his heartbeat returned to normal.  Breathing became easier.  The stranger stood slowly and smiled.

         “No!” he heard in his head.  “No!”

         His body acclimated to the heat and he pulsed with the orange glow.  Outside the sky became dark.  Storm clouds carrying Hell rolled in and shrouded the Earth from the gods.  The stranger stepped outside.

         “I win.”