“The people sat waiting out on their blankets in the garden
But God said nothing more, so someone asked him, ‘Beg your pardon?
‘I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke.
‘Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke…?'”
Crash Test Dummies, ‘God Shuffled His Feet’

HELLRAISER

By Meriades Rai

October 31st – The Last Day

The Brits, when they visit the States, they always remark on how spacious our country is. It wasn’t until I took a vacation to England a couple of years back that I understood why. Man, their pad is cramped. I mean, here you can hop in your SUV and drive five miles and still not reach your nearest neighbour, let alone a gas station or – God forbid – a town; in England, five miles can see you pass through three villages, ten fields of cows and an airport, and still have time to head on into the next damn county. There are still some areas of natural splendour in that green and pleasant land, but not many, nothing like our National Parks. They’re victims of some serious urban sprawl; everywhere you look there are clusters of houses and roads that would resemble a four-year-old’s crayon scribbles from a satellite photograph.

Nothing is hidden. Nothing secret. Me? I loved it.

See, I reckon a vast expanse of unspoiled beauty is over-rated. A state like Virginia, it’s full of hidden and, let me tell you, it’s frightening. Do you have any idea how many unsolved cases – how many names and faces of ordinary, innocent citizens – we get passing through our east coast Missing Persons division of the FBI every damn day? Trust me, whatever your estimate, it’s way low. Many are runaways, not just skinny kids of all denominations trying to escape from whatever tangled mess their life has become. But the rest are dead. Murdered in most cases. And for me to tell you just how many killers get away with it would keep you awake at night.

You’ve heard of Ed Gein, right? The guy from Plainfield, Wisconsin upon whom the character Norman Bates from Psycho and the events of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were loosely based? Well, Gein was small pumpkins compared to the likes of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, especially as he was only ever conclusively linked to two murders, but the fact of the matter is he’s the prototype for the kind of killer the FBI dread. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this country is riddled with Ed Geins, sequestered away in their farmsteads and log cabins in the woods, systematically kidnapping, torturing, mutilating, skinning, raping and/or eating their victims without a care in the world. Jeffrey Dahmer leisurely indulged in cannibalism, necrophilia and mass slaughter for years in his well-to-do Milwaukee apartment. In the middle of a city, for Chrissakes. So, yeah, you can imagine how easy it would be for one of these psychopaths to operate their own little abattoir out in the middle of Nowheresville, away from hayseed cops and prying neighbours who want to know what in b’Jaysus all that blood-curdling screaming in the middle of the night is about.

In my profession, I rarely stray from the orbit of death. I’ve been present at four crime scenes in as many years where the mouldering remains of multiple victims have been uncovered, buried in shallow graves or dumped in cellars. It’s so much worse when it’s kids, but it’s certainly not uncommon. Kids are easy prey, one step up from stray cats. For every three people my unit eventually track down there are ten who remain missing, and eight of those ten are under twenty-one years of age. How many of those end up being fancy-diced and cooked in a pot by nutfreaks like Gein? How many end up at a bone pit like the House of Roses, ritualistically butchered in the name of some demonic entity who isn’t even paying attention?

I have time to ponder all this as I thunder along wooded back roads and then a series of even more isolated dirt tracks and switchbacks some time after midnight. The roar of my bike’s engine is, uncannily, just like Leatherface’s chainsaw; my wheels burn bright, carving out my passage in the black like the trail of a comet. In typical Becky Lockwood fashion I’m making light of misery, for which I can only apologise. It’s a defence mechanism. Unfortunately, this time it just isn’t working; this one’s snagged my heart like a rusty old nail and I’m bleeding out. I’m terrified that I’m going to be too late, that the machinations of the fiend Mephisto have delayed me to the extent that I’ll be unable to rescue Eve – and, in doing so, perhaps salvage something of my own soul. I follow her residual essence into the deep forest, out into Gein country, a world left forgotten by law authorities who mistakenly believe that if they close their eyes and incline their heads in another direction that the nightmares won’t exist. Surely her spoor wouldn’t be so easy to track if she were already dead? And, besides, for all my cynicism, I’m a romantic at heart. I believe in heroes. I believe in glimmers of hopeful light amidst the shadows, like jangling will o’ the wisps, else what would be the point?

I ride fast – the Ghost Rider, out to save a solitary soul in an ocean of the lost. But, when I arrive at my destination, I realise with the clarity of jagged glass being gouged into flesh that speed and self-assurance were never going to be enough.

In a slow trudge of dread I remember that this isn’t a child’s fairy tale but rather that it’s life – vast, bleak, and slick with misery. Eve, a girl methodically tortured over six hundred and sixty six Black Sundays by a cult of psychopaths, is long dead by the time I arrive at the small clearing where her skin and organs and entrails have been arranged in the design of a crude pentagram upon the bloodsoaked grass, a macabre tableau once lit by five strategically placed torches but now illuminated only by my own flames.

Dead.

No last second miracle rescues. No reprieves. Just…

I climb from the bike and stagger towards the scene, unable to believe what I’m witnessing. Things like this can’t happen. They can’t. I tried so hard… I’ve been through so much… but all for nothing. I sink to my knees in blood and moss and raise my fiery countenance to the heavens, screaming at the injustice. The killers, the remaining members of the cult, will attempt to scatter far and wide. I could find them and visit my own version of Hell upon their wretched flesh… but why? What would it achieve? Inside me, Zarathos broils with impotent fury. Did he care for Eve as I did, or is his frustration simply born from the fact that Mephisto has defeated us so effortlessly?

You lost, you demonic moron. We lost.

“There is vengeance to be had,” a deep voice echoes in the dark. “If you’re willing.”

I stand and whirl in one movement, Magnum in one hand, scorched chain in the other. I don’t care who or what I’m facing – human, demon, whatever – so long as I can destroy. When I see who emerges from the shadows to stand before me I snarl in my chest and my flames burn bright. Yeah, you bastard. You’ll do. I draw back the chain…

…but then the angel Edrebus raises a hand, and I pause.

“Listen close, new keeper of damnation’s flame,” he whispers, his beautiful, scarred body and his outstretched wings gleaming in the night. “I said that the time would come for you to be offered a deal. That time is now. You were not ready before – you didn’t understand. But now…”

I wish the Ghost Rider had the capacity to cry. Hollow sockets and Hellfire aren’t great for that. I steel myself and aim the Magnum with intent.

“YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS,” I say, and for once it’s me who speaks with the Ghost Rider’s voice rather than Zarathos. “THEN I’M GOING TO KILL YOU AS MANY TIMES AS I CAN.”

Edrebus smiles. I mean it, and he knows I do. Whether I could kill him – I’ve tried once, and that didn’t turn out to well – is beside the point. But I’m virtually consumed with the need to eviscerate.

“You have made the acquaintance of the First Fallen,” he murmurs.

“MEPHISTO.”

“One name, one aspect. It’s all the same in the end. He was, in conception, an angel cast from God’s sight, and this is what he has become – fractured a thousand times over, each shard dark with blood and fire and hate. He has gathered an army of the damned over the ages, with the intent of one day waging war upon the host of Heaven. Adhere to notions of your Bible or other such translations of mangled threads if that is your wont, but the truth is far more ancient. Which side will emerge triumphant from the battle is redundant. Everything you see about you – this worldly plane – will be obliterated upon the stroke of Armageddon, regardless of the eventual outcome.”

“PERHAPS HUMANS DO NOT DESERVE EXISTENCE.”

“You would condemn the masses for the actions of a percentage?” Edrebus smiles again, his expression wistful. “I would tell myself that those are the words of Zarathos, but I know that would be a lie. I understand how your experiences must have shattered your already brittle outlook, mortal. But, if there is the barest scrap of compassion left within you, then hear me now…”

The wind is high in the trees, a constant howl in the night. My eyes burn.

“SAY YOUR PIECE,” I hiss.

And so, the angel speaks. And, as he does, so I slowly begin to comprehend the implications of this point in life and death at which I’ve arrived…

…and, when he is done, I find myself on the brink of a decision.

How should I describe the landscape of Hell? A clue: Wordsworth’s Daffodils it ain’t.

Seeing the incorporeal shift on the edges of things and feeling the sorrow like dust on my skin – all of it like having three too many vodkas and seeing in the New Year on your lonesome in some poky little apartment in the middle of a town where no one has no one – I’d imagine there’s an element of the place that skews for each and every individual spirit who metaphorically steps foot here. For example, if you’re a poor shmuck with a morbid fear of spiders, chances are your Hell is going to feature little black scuttling bodies and cotton candy webs and the vague sensation of something tickling across your lips as you sleep. However, otherwise there’s a consistency; I instinctively recognise that the backdrop I’m currently viewing would remain constant no matter what details were poured on top like cement whilst you struggled and screamed and begged for mercy that just wasn’t on the menu.

Hell is physical. It has dimensions, a sense of gravity, an up and a down, an in and an out. It exists. There’s a distant horizon, separating a plateau of scorched rock and iron from a sky of fire that occasionally rains hot blood; the air is thick and suffocating, and stinks of rancid meat; the shrieks of agony are pitched and filtered so that one can never become accustomed to them. I really, really don’t want to be here.

The first thing I see when I arrive is the naked body of a man flayed clean of flesh being repeatedly penetrated by a bloodied spear, wood gnarled with twists of metal, that enters through the top of his skull and slowly travels down the entire length of his body before emerging from the remains of his scrotum, rotating all the while to shred his innards. Once the spear had completed its journey it simply heads back in the other direction, a metro train shuttling endlessly between destinations. The sound of tearing flesh suggests the man’s internal wounds heal over to an extent with each incursion. There’s no creature to operate the spear, nor any mechanism. It just does what it does. I wonder how long this man has endured such torment, and what he did to deserve it. And, in that instant, I realise that I feel no empathy for him.

In the real world we have the justice system – courts and lawyers and juries – and, inevitably, mistakes can be made. Innocent men and women can be sent to jail. They can even be put to death. I’ve heard more rumours in the halls of various FBI outposts than I’m comfortable admitting. But that doesn’t apply to Hell. Those souls who end up here are unquestionably guilty. This man before me, he’s a murderer, or a rapist, or a child molester. This is his punishment. That’s something Zarathos and I agree on. Perhaps us coming together was fate. I gun the bike’s engine and leave this tortured spirit to its misery, riding on into the plains of damnation.

Of course, if I’m to condemn these souls then what business do I have being here? After all, my mission – presented to me by Edrebus – is to direct a number of them onto a different path. My actions will void their sentence. Is that just? Too many convolutions, too much to consider. Life and death is never straightforward. All I can do is block out the noise, ignore the conflictions, and concentrate on my purpose – to gain revenge upon Mephisto. If me making such a moral decision so easily leaves you uncomfortable, then… well, I’m sorry. But time’s not standing still here, and I’ve havoc to wreak.

Time, like space, does exist in Hell. I ride at full speed for hours, into the red desert, heading for a distinctive rock formation upon a horizon that glimmers with fire. This is where Edrebus told me I would find my quarry, and he’s right. When I arrive at the edge of what the angel described to me as a charnel pit I discover a bubbling soup of blood and flesh, deluged with submerged souls. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Soulberg. Whatever. Apparently this is a plug – and I’ve been charged with yanking the chain. Unfortunately, before I can undertake this task, I hear a sudden outbreak of hissing laughter behind me, causing me to turn slowly and face what I already know to be there.

Mephisto sprawls upon a carriage of bones, borne upon the shoulders of fleshless women, his black eyes bright, his red skin shimmering. He is flanked by an entourage of demons, of twist and tentacle and claw, similar to the Seekers I encountered at Johnny Blaze’s mountain cabin where all this began. These fiends all seem eager to launch themselves into battle, snarling and cackling. I raise the Magnum. Mephisto cocks his head.

“There is such… synchronicity in all things,” the archfiend murmurs. “Round and round and round we go. You aren’t the first Ghost Rider I’ve entertained here, you know. Zarathos does so like to scamper out into the mortal world and drag back whatever he finds to drop at my feet. Like a cat gifting its kills.”

“THINGS ARE CHANGING,” I say. “THE BALANCE IS TIPPING.”

“So I’ve heard. You’ve established an allegiance, I take it?”

The demons are restless. It won’t be long now.

“YOU’VE BOTH HAD IT YOUR OWN WAY FOR FAR TOO LONG. YOU AND GOD, WITH YOUR KINGDOMS AND LEGIONS, WITH EARTH IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR WAR.”

Mephisto shakes his head, a little sadly. “Ah, the angel Edrebus and his rhetoric. He works for someone new, now, winged mercenary that he is. But I’d wager you’re aware of his employer’s identity, am I right? Because that snippet of information would put the shark among the pigeons indeed.”

“I KNOW THAT THERE IS A THIRD ALTERNATIVE. A NEW EDEN, POPULATED BY SOULS SEEKING ASYLUM FROM HELL AND HEAVEN. BECAUSE, ULTIMATELY, THERE IS SCANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO. BOTH REALMS SIMPLY PROCESS THEIR DENIZENS FOR THEIR ARMIES.”

“And this Eden offers… what? Sanctuary?” Mephisto scowls. “There’s no such thing. When we reach the occasion of Armageddon, they’ll be forced to take sides or they’ll perish.”

“UNLESS, BY THAT TIME, THEIR NUMBERS HAVE SWELLED, ALLOWING THEM TO STAND FIRM AGAINST BOTH REALMS.”

“Something which you plan to help Edrebus – and his oh-so-mysterious master – achieve?”

“YES.”

“In revenge for our recent altercation regarding the girl named Eve…”

“YES.”

Mephisto smiles once more. “You realise,” he breathes, “That you are nothing more than a puppet on a string? You understand that it was Edrebus, at the behest of his new Lord, who brought the dealings of the House of Roses to both our attentions, engineering our adversarial encounter for his own benefit?”

The skies are the colour of congealed blood, pocked with black scorches drifting like encroaching storm clouds. I meet The Devil’s gaze with conviction.

“EDREBUS HAS LOADED AND AIMED ME,” I say, “JUST LIKE THIS GUN IN MY FIST. OF COURSE I UNDERSTAND THAT. I’M JUST A PAWN. BUT, THE THING IS, I DON’T PARTICULARLY CARE. I THOUGHT THAT IF I COULD SAVE EVE THEN, SOMEHOW, I COULD SAVE MYSELF. THE FACT THAT SHE DIED IN AS MUCH PAIN AS SHE LIVED SUGGESTS TO ME THAT THIS IS THE WAY IT HAS TO END. MY TIME IS DONE. THERE’S NOTHING MORE FOR BECKY LOCKWOOD, IN ANY WORLD. NOW THERE’S ONLY THE GHOST RIDER. AND THIS IS MY LEGACY.”

I tighten my finger upon the trigger of the Magnum then…

…at the very instant that I whirl and aim away from Mephisto and his fiends and down into the bubbling pit beside me instead. But it isn’t Hellfire that disgorges from the barrel of my gun; rather, it’s something older, something even more powerful. Holyfire. An angelic upgrade, courtesy of Edrebus. I’ve just gone nuclear Heaven on Hell’s roasted ass. And, as the white flames sear away the very essence of damnation in which these tortured souls before me are drowning, so Mephisto screams in fury… and orders his demons forward, to rend me limb from supernatural limb like a pack of hungry dogs.

Which is fine by me. It’s about time I saw some action.

I slam the bike into overdrive, then rear back, whirling my chain about my head with one hand and aiming the Desert Eagle with the other. I blast one demon through the chest with a bolt of Holyfire, and the bitch explodes in a ball of flame and blood; I despatch another in similar fashion, then arch my back and decapitate a third with a particularly violent sweep of the chain. Guess I’ve got some not-so-dormant aggression to work out. Good job there’s a Hell-load of mayhem at hand.

Riding wild, I slaughter a dozen fiends before I feel claws rake along my back, shredding my leathers, but this isn’t as bad as it sounds; it causes an eruption of white lava to spill out, engulfing my attacker in liquid agony. Whereas once my inhuman body was built from Hellfire so this has also now been transformed into its Holy equivalent by Edrebus – all demons that come into contact with my coruscating effluence are instantly ravaged and tumble in my wake, a trail of shrieking, writhing deathspawn. Go me. Of course, Mephisto is apoplectic. I can’t imagine it’s often that anyone has the audacity to stride – or, in my case, ride – into the heart of his realm and start expelling Heavenly essence. Pretty soon this place is going to stink like a trapper’s hut with a scared skunk trapped beneath the floorboards.

Regrettably, for all my tough talk, there are far too many demons for me to take down on my own – for every one I pick off with the gun or chain there are two to take its place. Fortunately, I have help. The tortured souls I’ve just released from the pit whirl about us all like a flail of banshees, exacting revenge upon those who have delighted in their torment over the ages. These souls have bare hands – and sometimes not even that – against claws and wings, but their sheer rage elevates their threat. Whilst the demons struggle beneath this howling onslaught I ride among them, proud and fierce, aiming and firing with clinical precision and a never-ending supply of Holyfire.

Part of me wonders how Blaze felt at moments like this. I mean, Zarathos, he loves it – no bones about it, he’s one nihilistic sonofabitch, existing for the sake of carnage. Even the sense of vengeance, which he sups like nectar, that’s secondary to the sheer bliss of the bloodbath. But Johnny was the human half of his version of the Ghost Rider just as I am of mine… did he stand firm against Mephisto in the same way? Is that why this archfiend seems to despise me so – and fear me? I can see it in his eyes, the faintest of glimmers beyond the clouds of hate. He is afraid. Not of Zarathos, for ultimately a fellow demon is no more than that. It’s me, Rebecca Lockwood, who’s causing him doubt. Or, at least, the amalgam of woman and hellheart. Ain’t that a kick in the head? First chance I get I’m going to creep up behind him then jump out and yell “Boo-ya!” Or, maybe not. Concentrate, Becky.

A demon launches itself at me, screaming, claws scrabbling for my flaming eye sockets. I furl my chain about the wretch’s throat and yank it aside like an animal on a leash, then shove the barrel of the Magnum in its gaping craw. I spin the demon around, then fire, and the resulting blast removes not only this head but also that of my next adversary, attempting to wrestle me from the bike. Two for one. More to follow. I flick the gun out once more, to my right, then again, to the other side, discharging more bolts of white fire and scattering the remains of two more enemies to the corners of Hell’s landscape. It’s at this moment that Mephisto finally rouses himself to act, and I realise the truth of the affair.

It doesn’t matter how uneasy my presence here makes him. It doesn’t matter how many demons I put to death in whorls of Holyfire. This beast remains more powerful than I could possibly imagine, especially here, in his own domain. Maybe he wanted to make this a game. Maybe I’m selling myself short, and he really didn’t want to test himself against me. Whatever. He’s got my number, sure enough. When he lunges for me, a burning effigy of evil, and slashes my left arm from my shoulder in one blow, he is scalded by the concentrate of Heavenly energy that spills forth… but he barely falters. His next strike disembowels me and knocks me from the bike, which loses traction and skids away in a funnel of flames and smoke. The air is filled with my blood, and suddenly there’s a hush.

Suddenly I can’t help but think of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and a slow-freeze final frame. It’s a shame. I would’ve liked to have seen that movie one last time before I died.

The arm I lost ended in the hand that held my chain. The hand that remains clutches the Magnum. As I lie upon the scorched earth of Hell, writhing in agony, I raise my weapon for what I know will be one final time.

Mephisto looms close, his dark face split with a malevolent leer. “Take your shot, girl,” the fiend hisses, enjoying my demise. “Give me the faintest of wounds to remember you by.”

I think of Edrebus, and of Johnny Blaze. I think of my father. Is his soul here, in Hell? Perhaps one of those released from the pit, which continues to eject spirits by the hundred like a volcanic crater spewing ash? I stare up at Mephisto and I smile.

“I guess that makes you some kind of sin-crust haemophiliac, then, Big Red.” I breathe. “Because this tiny little scratch is one that’ll see you eventually bleed to death.”

I pull the trigger…

…and direct a flash of blinding Holyfire not into Mephisto’s dog’s-ass-ugly face as I so desperately want to but rather straight up into what passes for Hell’s sky. Here, the light explodes like a solar flare – but doesn’t then dissipate. Instead it burns bright, like a beacon. A guiding star. Mephisto looks up, and his eyes darken. Then, he turns his rage slowly back towards me, his flames rising.

“What have you done, girl?” he whispers.

I raise an eyebrow. I would have thought that was blindingly obvious, actually – considering that the thousands upon thousands of souls I released from the bubbling pit are now ignoring their demonic enemies and are instead rushing towards the light, and the freedom that lies beyond. According to Edrebus, when he set about aiding Seekers escape from Hell he could only work with a few at a time, through the tiniest crack in the peripheral of this infernal realm. In contrast, I’ve just shattered the fishbowl. Not even Mephisto will be able to plug that hole in the fabric of his netherworld, I’m thinking, not one made by Holyfire. All those souls, flooding out of Hell, depleting The Devil’s legion and swelling the ranks not of Heaven but a Third Host. The haemophiliac’s bleed.

In that moment, something else occurs to me. My voice, when I spoke to Mephisto, wasn’t that of the Ghost Rider. And the Ghost Rider doesn’t have a cheeky eyebrow to raise, or eyes the colour of ice in whisky to watch everything about her gently fade to black. I’m me again. Just me. Just Becky. I guess Zarathos must have remained with the bike when it and I were separated. Probably a good choice, as the bike is now also spinning away through the sky above as if making its escape, drawn towards the flare of light like a moth to the flame.

I sigh, and close my eyes. Best of luck, Zarathos. I wish I could say it was nice knowing you.

It ends then, in a physical sense. I’m not sure what Mephisto does to my flesh and bone remnants, but it’s all rather academic now. He can kill me, but he hasn’t got claim of my soul. To be honest, I think that I was actually dead from the moment I unwittingly allowed the otherworldly into my heart. Perhaps it took poor Eve’s demise to make me realise that.

I hear Mephisto screaming, from very far away. That was the final element of the deal I made with Edrebus; that, when all was done, it was him – or rather his master – who claimed my spirit. Not Hell, and not Heaven. Wherever my father is, we’ll meet again. Someday. But not just yet. There’s a war coming, and I still have a part to play…

November 1st – The First Day

Where do things go from here? Well, that’s someone else’s story.

I can’t help but feel sympathy for Johnny, rolling on out of hospital in his wheelchair, the stumps of his amputated legs preceding him. He looks like… what was the name of that character from Forrest Gump? Played by Gary Sinise. Lieutenant Dan, that’s it. Damn it, I used to love that movie, but my memory’s not so good since my brain went the way of all flesh. I thought I’d try out my sea legs. But you ain’t got no legs, Lt. Dan. Heh. Superb script. Almost as good as: I don’t know if Mama was right or whether it was Lieutenant Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think, maybe it’s both, maybe both are happening at the same time.

Damn right, Forrest. Damn right.

I follow Johnny all the way back to his cabin in the mountains. A cab takes him most of the way, but he insists on navigating the final quarter-mile himself. Uphill, a narrow hiking trail, full of rocks and roots and chickarees. Remember the chickarees? It wasn’t so long ago I walked this path myself.

I don’t know what Blaze is trying to prove. Maybe he’s hoping a wheel will crack and he’ll go pitching over the edge of the ravine, sunshades and wild, blond, rockstar hair and all. Whatever, he doesn’t seem surprised to find the bike parked up alongside the porch, gleaming moonbeam chrome and midnight blue steel, in the dappled shade of a copse of pines. Just like out of Christine. Another good movie. I’ll miss movies. I’ll miss a lot of things. There was an old theatre in Dalton, Massachusetts – The Royale – where I used to go with Betsy Cray and Mindy Anderson. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, there was another one. They don’t make ‘em like they used to, right, Dad?

Johnny doesn’t go near the bike, not at first. He just sits out in front of the porch, weeping, rubbing the palms of his hands on his truncated thighs. Eventually, however, the pull will be too much to resist. That’ll be Zarathos, working his influence. Sweet-talker that he is. When Blaze does wheel himself over, he’ll find that ol’ ice-cold bone key in the ignition, just ready to be turned. And when he reaches out…

WHEN I MANIFEST THROUGH YOU I WILL HEAL YOUR BODY. BUT I CANNOT HEAL YOUR SOUL.

Those were the words of Zarathos as I lay broken and bloodied on the floor of the House of Roses. Will a transformation into the Ghost Rider restore Johnny Blaze to a figure of perfect constitution, legs and all? I have no idea. The chances are I won’t even be around to see it. I’m not strong enough to tread the world in this fashion for too long, and already I can feel my phantasmal form beginning to fade. But, I repeat; that’s someone else’s story now, same as the war between Heaven, Hell and the Third Host that will happen one day, perhaps sooner than everyone thinks. Maybe Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, will even be a part of it. Maybe he’ll learn the identity of Edrebus’s new Lord, the guy behind this whole opera, and he’ll be every bit as surprised as I was.

And me? Well…

…it’s been a blast.

And you know, for a moment there I thought I was in trouble…

THE END