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What is the “13th demon”?
I had this question dozens of times this weekend at my book signing. Some of you may not have heard of my book “The 13th Demon: Altar of the Spiral Eye” and I invite you to consider reading this book in the genre of Speculative Christian Fiction. Here are some reader reviews from five different readers:
“This book is not for the faint of heart! A rare thing it is for me to pick up a book that I do not put down till it is read from cover to cover, but this is one of them. I read The 13th Demon Alter of the Spiral Eye in three hours. I would have gone to bed, since I started it so late at night, but this book has enough of the Spirit Realm in it that I knew better than to sleep with out having read the ending.”
“The 13th Demon was very well written and gets you hooked the moment you begin reading this book. — While this is a good book and am looking forward to the next book in this series, I would recommend this book for young adults over 14. There are some images that are extremely graphic and probably would scare a younger child.”
“It might seem odd to say that a Christian book is creepy, but this one was creepy – but I thoroughly enjoyed it. — This book was kind of like Frank Peretti’s early books on steroids. Not something you want to read before bedtime if you are prone to nightmares, but a great read. I liked his characters and the setting, and the book definitely held my interest and I read it through in one evening.”
“The overlay of the supernatural on the natural, a strong lead character, Jonathan Steel, with lots of ambiguity and scope to further develop in future books; good pace that makes it easily readable; some great bad guys (& gals) that are very evil.”
“Horror protagonists tend to be pitiable, average Joes put in unfortunate circumstances, but Steel is the Jason Bourne of paranormal Christian fiction.”
What is Christian Speculative Fiction? Simply put, it is science fiction, fantasy, or horror from a Christian perspective. In fact, if you want to hear my presentation on “Christian Speculative Fiction and Apologetics” this coming Saturday, check out an excellent online conference on the blending of the defense of the Christian faith with literature at this link http://onlineapologeticsconference.com/ . On Thursday, you can listen and watch online for FREE, yes for FREE to my presentation “CSI Golgotha: A Forensic Analysis of the Death of Jesus of Nazareth” and to Mark Riser’s “Why I am an Old Earth Creationist”. The keynote speaker this year is Dale Ahlquist on C. K. Chesterton.
Get online and participate in this conference and support Christian Speculative Fiction and Apologetics, the defense of the Christian Faith.
Here are some pictures from my book signing with Althea Thompson, Publicity Coordinator with my publisher Charisma Media who was so kind to drop by yesterday just to support my book signing. And, there is a picture with my co-author and friend Mark Sutton with whom I wrote “Conquering Depression”.
“Enemies of the Cross” will take your breath away!
It was almost a year ago that I had a visitor to my hotel room in the middle of the night; a visitor that was most unwelcome; a visitor from the depths of hell; a visitor from the imagination of Greg Mitchell.
I had flown to Orlando, Florida to visit Charisma Media while my wife was spending a week with her bridge girlfriends on the beach. I arrived late at night and settled into my dark and foreboding hotel room with only a few more pages left of Greg Mitchell’s “The Strange Man”. I finished the book and had that odd mixture of anticipation for the next book and a sense of fulfillment at the satisfying conclusion of a great story. Around two in the morning I awoke in the empty bed, suddenly aware my wife was not with me but somebody was definitely in the room! I glanced at the corner of the room and something moved in the shadows. Instantly, my mind flashed back to the strange man and his “gremlins”. I jumped out of bed, turned on all the lights and made certain the room was truly empty. Then, I said a series of prayers and finally managed to drift off to sleep.
The time has come to pick up the story of “The Strange Man” in book two of the “Coming Evil” trilogy, “Enemies of the Cross”. The latest book by Greg Mitchell picks up right where book one ended. I had scheduled a week off for writing on my fourth book and planned a trip to Austin, Texas to see our son and his wife. My wife and I stayed at Lakeway Resort and Spa on Lake Travis so my wife could have a relaxing “spa” week. I must confess, I did not get much writing done. In fact, I got very little done and it’s all Greg Mitchell’s fault! I started “Enemies of the Cross” and could not put the book down.
Each night, as I relaxed at the end of the day, instead of sitting down in front of my laptop, I picked up “Enemies of the Cross” and read until midnight. Fortunately, my wife was in the room with me and that helped keep the “gremlins” at bay. Now, I don’t want to provide any spoilers. To talk about the book is to give so much away. There are many surprises around each dark, shadowy corner and Greg Mitchell has set the reader up for the final book in the series. So, here are my five conclusions about “Enemies of the Cross”.
First, from page one, the story hits the ground running and never stops. There are pauses here and there for character development and to allow the reader to catch their breath. Once the darkness of the lake takes on a more human persona, the story moves with breathtaking speed. Greg Mitchell has set up one suspenseful scene after another and slowly builds the tension and suspense until I ached with anxiety. In a good way! I can tell that Greg loves a good monster story and the pacing of the action scenes keep the reader in “boo!” mode most of the time.
Second, this book focuses on Jeff Weldon, the brother to Dras, the main character in book one. Jeff is the pastor of the local church and Greg does a masterful job of taking Jeff down the slow and grinding pathway to self destruction. Jeff’s obsession with his brother’s fate endangers his church, his marriage, and ultimately, his life. Just as Stephen King took his main character in “The Shining” down the long, dark hallway to the nether regions of madness and violence, so does Greg take Jeff down, down, down into the basement of sin and fury and anger and self revulsion. But, along the way, Jeff has moments of redemption and moments of enlightenment and even manages to share the Gospel with a wayward soul Jeff has drafted into his cause. Does Jeff ultimately meet his doom? Or, does he find redemption? You’ll have to read the book to see what happens in the final conflict between Jeff and “the strange man”.
Third, Greg does so such a masterful job of creating monstrous creatures that pop off the page. He has a fine and delicate balance between describing the creature and leaving enough to the reader’s imagination. I had recently watched John Carpenter’s “The Thing” from 1982 and then the new “The Thing” that came out last fall. Greg Mitchell’s monstrous creations were every bit as terrifying as the images in those movies mostly because of my imagination. Yes, the presence of evil in “Enemies of the Cross” is well depicted and frightening and horrifying. But, the reader shouldn’t let that deter them from reading the book. Just read it with the lights on!
Fourth, “Enemies of the Cross” fills in some of the gaps in the story from the first book. Greg Mitchell left many of the details behind the history of Greensboro out of the first book, I am sure on purpose. He hinted that there was a power behind the sudden appearance of “the strange man” in the first book. In “Enemies of the Cross” Greg brings into the light, the secretive, power hungry entity behind the events that are taking place in Greensboro. He fills in bits and pieces of the history of the town and takes the reader down into the dark places beneath the town where the real evil dwells in service of “the strange man”. The “mythos” is deepened and fleshed out in a very satisfying way.
Fifth, “Enemies of the Cross” shows the corruptive power of sin and evil not only in the life of Jeff Weldon, but in the life of Rosalyn. Rosalyn was left at the end of the first book with the mystery of why Dras tried to save her. In “Enemies of the Cross”, she is still the focus of the strange man’s obsession and throughout the book, he continues to try to possess her. Does she give in? Does she fall to his seductive ways? You’ll have to read the book and find out.
Finally, I just want to say that the power of love shines through “Enemies of the Cross”. Jeff and his wife, Isabella, become increasingly estranged but their love is a triumphant power over the evil in town. And, ultimately, it is the realization that God is in control, even when things are darkest, that strengthens that love.
I recommend reading “The Strange Man” first, if you haven’t read it and then picking up “Enemies of the Cross” the minute you put the first book down. You will not be disappointed. Greg Mitchell has done a masterful job with his story, his “monsters”, and his devotion to the power of God in all of our lives. Now, I’m waiting anxiously for the “Dark Hour” to fall and to see what happens in the final book in the trilogy.
Editing the Book — The Mystery Box!
There was the mystery of the man in the rocker. My mother often told the story of how, at the age of 14 (which would be in 1932) she was forbidden by her mother and father to go to a dance party. In the small town of Saline, Louisiana there just wasn’t a whole to do for entertainment and my mother really wanted to go to the “Jump Josey” party. So, after she was sent to her room, she slid out the window and ran across the yard in the dark toward the neighbor’s house.
She would talk about how much fun she had at the party and suddenly realizing how late it was. So, she ran back to her house. It was now close to midnight and the little hamlet of Saline was quite and dead as a door knob.
She eased up on the front porch with her shoes in her hand and into the house. As soon as she shut the front door behind her, she head someone rocking in the rocking chair. In the dim interior of the living room only lit by reflected moonlight, she saw someone sitting in the rocker. Her heart was beating and she was so afraid it was her mother and father. She quietly slipped by the chair but when she passed her parents’ bedrooms, they were both in the bed fast asleep. All of her sisters and her brother were in their beds. Then, who was in the rocker?
This was the great mystery. I remember sitting on the edge of my seat as my mother told this story. She told it over and over throughout my childhood. And, I jumped every time the big Reveal was, well, revealed. In fact, my mother and father were incredible story tellers. It seemed as if their entire lives were one unending story after another. I grew up believing in fairy tales and ghost stories and that good would always triumph over evil. I grew up believing that life, like stories, has a beginning, a middle, and an end and the best stories always have the strongest endings! I grew up believing that everything in life was a story; coherent; understandable; forward moving toward a satisfying end.
In our postmodern culture where relativism rules supreme, it is difficult to see where life in the 21st century matches the classic story. I guess that is why I absolutely LOVE anything written, directed, or produced by J. J. Abrams. Yes, I watched every episode of LOST with breathless anticipation. And, yes, I loved the finale. It fit. It was inevitable. It was a strong ending. I watched every episode of Alias. I went back and watched Mission Impossible III again and loved it. And, Fringe is one of my favorite shows right now. Just last week, I got hooked again by Alcatraz. And, as a life long Trekker, I was shocked and stunned by the brilliance of his reboot of Star Trek.
This past week I began the long process of re-editing my final version of my next book, “The 12th Demon”. Today’s post is about plot. My editor, Andy, had this to say about character development in light of the plot devices regarding one scene where Jonathan Steel has “lost” the teenager Josh again and is reeling with emotional conflict over this failure to keep his promise to Josh’s mother:
You’ve written a novel that centers around action, which is excellent. However here it would be good to dwell on Steel’s emotions. He’s just lost Josh. He would be feeling ashamed, angry, and even afraid. Help the readers connect with him on an emotional level by giving Steel a moment of vulnerability here. See this talk by JJ Abrams about the most important scene in Jaws (start at 10:00).
Here is the link to this most excellent discussion. Watch it over and over and bathe in the pure brilliance of the Mystery Box.
My mother gave me a “mystery box” each and every time she told me that story. It set the stage for my entire life. It has made me an investigator of all around me: people, places, things, situations, life in general. For in everyone of us, in every situation there is a mystery to be solved. And, it is in the journey to discovery that life finds its most satisfaction for me. In fact, the greatest discovery of my life was in finding a relationship with Jesus Christ. Opening that “mystery box” was the most profound experience of all.
Oh, yeah. The rocker.
My mother slowly crept back into the living room, still carrying her shoes. The rocker was still but as she got closer, it began to rock again and she could now hear a deep, throaty breathing from the person in the chair. Who was it? Had someone come into the house to rob them? She should have run back to her parents’ bedroom and cried for help, but if she did, she would be in big trouble over the dance. So, she drew nearer to the chair and asked, “Who’s there?” More deep breath and now, a thumping sound like a heart beating hard and slow. She reached out in the darkness and felt hard, scratchy whiskers and she screamed, throwing her shoes up in the air. The man in the chair bolted up and landed right on top of her as they toppled to the floor. The man’s face grew close to hers and he . . . licked her. He licked her? The lights came on as the family tumbled into the living room and there perched on top of my mother was the family hound. You can figure out the rest!
Entertaining Angels Unaware
Stuffing belongs in cushy chairs, not in turkeys. I grew up eating cornbread dressing and the only thing stuffed in a turkey was those weird turkey parts my mother chopped up and put in her giblet gravy. To this day, I crave cornbread dressing at Thanksgiving. My wife is in the other room right now cooking up her spicy sausage based cornbread dressing and I plan on “stuffing” my face with it Thursday!
My love of cornbread dressing goes way back to my mother’s cooking. Each Thanksgiving, my family would travel to central Louisiana to a small town called Saline. There, my grandparents lived in a huge, hulking house that belonged on Universal’s backlot tour right beside the house from Psycho. It ached with age; sagging steps; pebbled paint so layered it looked like the gray skin of a huge dragon. The floors were so caked with sand and dirt, you could sweep for days and never get all of the grit out of the house.
But, no matter how forbidding the house seemed any other day of the year, for Thanksgiving it burst with life and laughter and food. My mother’s family was huge and my mother and her sister had married two brothers so the Hennigans and Caskeys celebrated their family reunion together each year. Three tables worth of food would fill the dining room beneath a swaying bare bulb on a long black wire like a vine growing through the far ceiling. And, we would gather around my grandparents and pray and thank God for another year and eat all afternoon.
My grandfather had been a deputy sheriff during the Great Depression and had been on the posse that hunted down Bonnie and Clyde. He would tell his stories each year of how each man who was on the actual posse that shot the criminals all ended up dead from alcohol or suicide. Grandmother would sit beside him behind her thick glasses and her easy smile and hair like wild cotton and nod. She was warmth and comfort personified; a short, full woman with a just right hug and a dry kiss.
There is a memory that transcends all of the food and the fragrance of yeast rolls and the pebbly taste of cornbread dressing. It never failed, amidst the babble and clanging silverware and laughter, there would be a knock at the back door. My grandmother would painfully rise up from her chair and go out to the screened in back porch. There, she would find a couple of men, maybe an older child wishing her a Happy Thanksgiving. These individuals were well known to the folks of Saline. Today, we would call them homeless. Back then, we called them helpless. And, it was the duty of any God fearing Christian to help the helpless.
This was a message I carried away from my grandmother. She passed away when I was thirteen and my memories of her were mostly centered on the kitchen and her biscuits and the great, unwieldy old fashioned washing machine with the wringer she used to wash clothes. She was a quiet woman with a deep abiding faith and a slight smile. But, when the helpless would come to the house at Thanksgiving, she did not pity them. She did not send them away empty handed.
During the Great Depression when my grandfather was a deputy sheriff, their family, as destitute as it was, still had much compared to most occupants of the failing farms and drought stricken world around them. My mother would tell me stories of these men, “hobos” and “bums” without work who would pause at my grandmother’s back door and ask for a morsel of food. My grandmother would always have something to give these men. Even with eight mouths to feed, she kept something aside. And, when they came by, she would give them food with a glad heart and helping of blessings. Why?
My mother told me many times how my grandmother would looked at her hungry children and explain that these men, these “helpless” in need might be angels in disguise. God might have sent them to test her hospitality; to plumb the depths of her heart to see if she did indeed love the unlovable as Christ had loved us all. My mother, long after Granmother passed away would nod and smile and quote this Bible verse:
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:2
My mother has passed on now. My father is 97 and lives in a nursing home where he regularly “ministers” to the residents around him who are in “worse shape” than he by singing old hymns in a loud and sonorous voice. He is entertaining “angels unaware”.
I cannot say that I have ever met an angel. At least, not an angel that did not fall from heaven. I have met a demon and I can clearly recall moments in my life when I have been in the presence of great evil. But, I have been around many individuals throughout my life filled with love and laughter and life. They have encouraged me. They have shared my stories, my pain, and my life. I often wonder when I meet someone on a trip or on a foreign soil with whom I seem to have an instant connection if God has sent an “angel unaware” to test me; to plumb the depths of my heart. When I was in medical school a psychiatry professor taught us not to take our frustrations home but to “dump on a stranger” and take out our frustrations on someone we will never meet again. I raised my hand in class that day and told him I could never do that. He wanted to know why and, I am ashamed to admit, I did not tell him.
You see, I can never meet a stranger. I can never meet someone and think poorly of them. For some reason, each person I meet seems to be someone special and unique; a treasure to be discovered; a story to be heard. I owe that to my mother and her mother before her. I am always looking around me for an angelic visit. They taught me well. They taught me the worth of each individual in the eyes of our Creator. “You may be better off than anyone, but you are no better than anyone.” That is something my mother taught me and I will go to my grave with it. I will not become cynical. I will not become bitter as I age.
I will look at each person fresh and openly knowing that one day, I will entertain an angel unaware. And, for that I am most thankful this Thanksgiving Day.
The Church I Drenched in Blood!
I remember standing beneath the concrete stairway leading up to the sanctuary of Blanchard Baptist Church, my hand firmly gripping my mother’s hand as I looked down the stairs into the creepy, shadowy, basement where all children were confined.
The hallway was long and led directly beneath the aisle in the sanctuary above. Bare bulbs hung from electrical wire dangling from the ceiling and you could hear people walking around above us. My mother handed me off to one of the children workers and I was absorbed into the strange, creepy basement of Blanchard Baptist Church. No wonder I still have nightmares about the place. And, no wonder I chose that building as the setting for “The 13th Demon: Altar of the Spiral Eye”.
SPOILER ALERT: I promised my readers I would put together a video of the history of that “white” building that I would one day cover in blood. The video contains some spoilers about the book so if you haven’t read it, you might want to wait until you have. I recently visited my old church and interviewed my good friend, Kevin Sandifer. Kevin reminded me of the Halloween I dressed up as a mad scientist, stretched him out on the pool table in the youth ministry “house” and proceeded to fling blood and guts on the kids who ran through the room. I guess back then I had a promising future in not only medicine but the macabre. Kevin Sandifer is now the Historian, Media and Archival Center’s director at First Baptist Church of Blanchard. So, as promised, a video visit to the location of all that blood and evil spilled out in “The 13th Demon”.
Are Demons Real?
I often get asked if I believe demons are real.
I was an intern just seven months after my graduation from medical school rotating through the emergency room. It was a cold February night and a raging icestorm had transformed Shreveport, Louisiana into a crystalline wonderland. Unless you were driving in the stuff or if you were homeless. Dozens of people were crowded into the emergency room waiting room trying to stay warm. The ER was divided into the surgical side and the medical side. If you were a victim of the “knife and gun club” you came to the surgical side. If you could walk through the door under your own power, you came to the “Walk In Clinic”. This is where I found myself on that cold, frigid morning.
“Groundhog, it’s your turn to see the next psych patient.” One of my team members informed me. I never figured out why my nickname was Groundhog, but it was appropriate given it was Groundhog day, albeit only 2 A.M. I reluctantly got out of my chair and headed to the far hallway where we kept the crazies. My job was simple. Evaluate the patient to make sure the “psychotic” behavior wasn’t induced by a medical condition and if not, then call the psychiatry resident to come and admit the patient to the psych ward.
I should have known something was up the minute I rounded the corner of the coldest hallway in the winter. Two policeman were leaning against the wall and neither one would meet my gaze. In fact, they were nervous, if not downright frightened. I looked down the hallway toward the examining room and noticed a sheen of water on the floor. The fluorescent light fixtures had been broken and shattered tubes hung from exposed wires sometimes sparking as I made my way through the inch deep water toward the examining room.
The door to the room was ajar and when I stepped it, I was met by chaos. The sink had been partially ripped from the wall and water was gushing onto the floor. The mirror had been shattered into a million pieces and mirrored glass covered everything. Something sharp had ripped open the cover to the examining table and its stuffing filled the air with particles. Our “Wood’s” light, a black light used in the diagnosis of skin fungus, hung by a wire and the black light made the gases from the broken fluorescent light bulbs glow with an unearthly purplish hue. And, there wasn’t a patient in sight. However, from behind the examining table in the back corner I head a raspy, deep throated breathing.
It was a rapid breathing, a guttural exhalation and inhalation like some rabid beast was waiting to rip out my throat. Slowly, I stepped around the end of the table. Crouched in the far corner was a tiny African American girl probably in her early twenties buck naked with her back to me. Her rib cage was retracting with each beastly breath.
“Ma’am, I am Dr. Hennigan. How can I help you today?” I said with trembling lips. My heart was racing and my mouth was dry.
She spun around quickly and with a twisted, feral look on her face hissed at me and shoved her clawed hands at my face. I will never forget the sound of her deep voice or the look of absolute madness in her eyes. But, more than anything, I will always remember the unmistakable sense of evil that emanated from this tiny girl.
I stumbled my way out of the room and fell in the cold water. The policemen came and dragged me from the hallway. With shaking hands, I dialed the psychiatry resident and informed him of his new patient. “You might want to pick up a priest on your way down.” Was the last thing I told him.
Later on, I learned the girl had no drugs in her system and once she reached the psychiatry floor, she calmed down but continued to exhibit bizarre behavior. She did not fit any prescribed psychiatric profile and I never found out what happened to her.
Since that time, I have learned to listen to the still, small voice within me that groans and moans in the presence of evil. I believe it to be the Holy Spirit. There have not been that many incidents in my life like the one above. But, they have happened and I am convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that evil is real and I have dwelt for a moment in its presence.
Do I believe demons are real? You bet you, I do. I have met them. I have faced them and run away. I have struggled in the presence of their evil auras and I have fought them away with prayers and scripture. This is why I write about demons and angels. We must understand who are enemy is. We must be aware of the war that is raging around us for our very souls. To deny evil is real; to ignore the existence of the Enemy’s soldiers is to have already surrendered the world to the forces of evil. The question is: Do You Dare Look Evil in the Eye?
The fight goes on. Whose side are you on?
Don’t forget I will be in Austin at LifeWay Christian Book Stores this Saturday, October 22, 2011 from 1 to 3 P.M. and here is a flyer with the information:
Bruce Hennigan 
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