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Henry set down the knife, understanding at the final moment exactly what he had done. The blood dripped from the table and soaked his shoes, making them stick to the tiles. The demon was right, he had returned to his world after the sacrifice, but he wished that he hadn’t. It was all too real now, why had it seemed real when he was there? And what had he done? Grief surged through Henry’s body as the magnificence of his action dawned upon him. His knees landed in the blood on the floor, he didn’t care. Tears streamed down his face, falling to the floor where they combined in a wet, sticky red glob. Looking at his hands, Henry saw that they too were stained with this flowing life he had just taken. He lifted his hands to his cheeks where they rested as he let out a scream that spoke to more than just the horrors of the action he had just committed, they spoke to the sins of an entire world.

His eyes refused to focus on the limp form in front of him, but it wasn’t important, he already knew what it was. The instantaneous recognition after the vision faded was more than enough for him. Copper smell covered the room as the pool of blood expanded, making a macabre work of art out of the tiles in the kitchen. That was when Sarah walked into the room and saw what he had done.

Henry was on his knees by the kitchen table, like he was bowing at some profane altar with a body on top of it, Isaac’s body. Isaac’s eyes were still open in shock and moist with the tears of betrayal. Other than smile of a gash just below his chin, he looked just like he was lying there afraid of the dark and that there is something out there that wants to get him again. She let out a scream that rivaled Henry’s from earlier and caught his attention. A wave of fear flooded through her as he turned and saw her, blood on his hands as well as covering the knife on the table next to Isaac’s lifeless head. The red sea was still flowing from his throat as Sarah turned to run, knowing in her heart what had happened. Henry stood up to follow her, wanting to 

explain, but not knowing the explanation himself. All that was verifiable was that he had come out of the hallucination with the knife in his hands and Isaac’s corpse and blood all over himself, the knife, and the kitchen. Hatred for himself flowed through his veins as he gripped his son’s body, pulling it in close as if he could transfer his own life to his son and take back the done deed.

Now the blood was all over him, staining his skin. He knew that no matter how hard he scrubbed at it, he would always see the red pigment looking back at him from his flesh. Nothing could be the same now. His son was gone, his wife most surely gone as well. He could not be a teacher when he was the murderer of his own child. Sarah would most likely have gone to the neighbor’s to call the police, but let them come. Jail was where he deserved to be. Jail was the place for murderers, but had he really murdered his son? Sure there was a body right in front of him, but did he do the deed? There was no way it could have been him. It was the demon’s fault, the demon had tricked him. It had been the horse.

“It wasn’t my son you bastard, it was the horse. It was the horse. It was the…” he trailed off, repeating the same phrase over and over until he heard sirens. They wouldn’t take him to jail when it was the demon that did it, how could they? They should take the demon. He should take the demon. Anger surged through him as he realized what he had to do.

He was standing there in his study, closed briefcase on his desk. It took several minutes to build up the strength to do what he knew was necessary. The sirens were closer now, pretty soon they would be busting down the door, and they would deny him the right to do what he knew deep in his heart should have been done long ago.

When the police arrived, the house had already been burning for a good five minutes. Before the fire crew could arrive the roof had already collapsed and there was nothing they could 

do but contain the raging inferno before it could spread to the other houses in the neighborhood. There was nothing left of either of the bodies but ash and charred bone, although they could say with absolute certainty that the larger of the two was Henry and the smaller was Isaac. Isaac’s remains had laid on the table which had engulfed but stood strong while his body deteriorated in the flames. Aside from being dead, Isaac’s body looked to be at peace from the position they found him in, shifted onto his back with his arms crossed over his chest. It was apparent that Henry had moved him after the murder and before the arson. Henry’s body however looked to have died in extreme agony, the rescue men told Sarah as she sat on the ledge of the truck crying into her palms with a blanket wrapped around her and her mother’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, glistened cheeks as well.

The house seemed to smolder forever, until at last every wall had fallen and the only real standing piece of furniture was the table that served as Isaac’s altar. Sarah got into the passenger seat of her car, her mother was going to drive them to her house until the insurance could be worked out to build Sarah a new home, but she wouldn’t want one. She would go on living with her mother until one night when she took half a bottle of Tylenol with a glass of scotch to ease away the pain of her memories. But now, it was her and her mother in the car, and a sheet of paper underneath the windshield wiper. It was written in Henry’s neat tiny scrawl, the handwriting was recognizable instantaneously.

“Sarah, love of my life. Nothing hurts me more than what has happened not only in the last week, but ultimately the irreversible action of tonight. I have not been in control of myself, and I am settling that as soon as I am done with this letter. I am going to go into my study, where I will have a final showdown with the one that has been in control of me lately, the one that killed Isaac. More than likely I will die in the struggle if my actions aren’t interceded with 

and myself carted away where I will stand no chance of avenging our son. Know that despite my behavior this last week, that I love you with every ounce of my being, that I did not intend for any of this to take place. I didn’t know that he was slowly creeping in and tacking more power minute by minute until it was too late. Most likely if I survive this final battle, I’ll be driven to a point where I won’t be able to tell any of this to your face, but in this brief moment of lucidity, I wanted to let you know just how much you and Isaac have meant to my life. The sirens are growing louder now, and if I don’t do this soon then I never will and he will destroy another family, and I can’t let that happen. I love you so much. Henry.”

Tears were no longer streaming down her face, she was out of them. But deep down resided the pain, as they drove away, leaving the remains of Henry’s obsession and their destroyed home behind forever.