Deliver Us From Darkness Read online

  With Deliver Us from Darkness, W. Franklin Lattimore propels himself into the ranks of powerful storytellers like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker. Not only does he weave a tale of intrigue, intelligence and deep characters, he does it with the bold courage to rip the curtains away from dark truths, which is too often lacking in authors today. The result is a fascinating story that will leave you excited and shaking and flipping pages faster than you can say, “Holy cow!”

  —Robert Liparulo, Best-Selling Author of

  Comes a Horseman, Germ, and Deadfall

  Sometimes you have to break the rules, and that’s what Lattimore does in When Darkness Comes, his second offering of the Otherealm Saga. He’s written a book about spiritual warfare in the everyday. Upstanding citizen and officer of the law, Brent Lawton, has to choose between what is right and what is legal, mirroring the author’s own choice to write Christian fiction capable of engrossing and entertaining a mainstream audience. This book—this series—is for anyone who enjoys a good mystery, and is chock full of twists and turns that make a reader go “hmmm…!” Excellent work! This writer has written a tale worthy of its own Hollywood movie.

  —S.R. Karfelt, Author of the Covenant Keeper Series

  As a former professional editor, I’m pretty picky about what I read. As a busy mom, I want an exciting story I can escape into for a little while, but also something that’s got some depth to it. W. Franklin Lattimore’s Behind the Darkness hits the spot! This book had me spellbound from the first chapter, with its perfect mix of heart-stirring dialogues, beautiful and powerful emotions, and surreal spiritual battles. I can hardly wait for his next book!

  —Shirley Avery, Editor

  Move over Frank Peretti, there is another Frank in town!

  —Andi Newberry-Tubbs, Award-Winning

  Book Reviewer & Blogger

  DELIVER US FROM EVIL

  Copyright © 2013, 2014, 2017 W. Franklin Lattimore

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Open Window

  an imprint of BHC Press

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  2017934690

  Print edition ISBN numbers:

  ISBN-13: 978-1-946006-79-0

  ISBN-10: 1-946006-79-3

  also available in trade softcover

  Visit the author at:

  www.wfranklinlattimore.com &

  www.bhcpress.com

  Book design by

  Blue Harvest Creative

  www.blueharvestcreative.com

  The Three-in-One – I am both humbled and amazed by the ability that You have given to me to write this story—and especially the ones to come. I would say that I appreciate You more than You know, but since You know everything…

  Allison (Caylor) Chamberlain – A wonderful gal who contributed a lot of her editing talents at the beginning stages of this book.

  Lindy Stein – A friend who lent a lot of fun emotion to my writing. I’d write and you’d respond with excitement.

  Mark Russell – My brother-in-law and all-around great guy. You were also someone willing to give much-needed structural criticism.

  Robert Liparulo – A friend and incredible author. I appreciate the amount of time that I got to spend with you at The Ragged Edge in 2011. Your insights prompted the writing of two novels, rather than a single very long one. Your wise counsel over the past few years has been priceless.

  Ted Dekker – Someone I’ve admired from afar for a very long time. Several phone conversations with you inspired a writer. Your ‘Ragged Edge’ event solidified one.

  Tosca Lee – Thank you for being someone who is open about who she really is, flawed and perfect at the same time. Those qualities, adjoining your ability to shape words into elegant prose, have helped me to become a better writer. I appreciate the time I’ve had in your presence.

  Tammy (Trick) Brant – My biggest critic and a wonderful friend. You were methodic in the picking apart of my novel. It wasn’t easy having my creation poked and prodded, but it was your honesty that caused a more worthwhile end product.

  Lori Taggart – My friend and editor of one of my early drafts. Thank you for volunteering your talentedness.

  Michele Atwell – Someone dear to me who emerged from my past. You became my greatest cheerleader.

  The Ragged Blue Monkeys – Yes, they exist! You are the single-most encouraging group of animals I’ve ever met. Blue Monkeys in a Brown-Monkey world.

  To my loving “Mamaw”

  Myrtle Tennessee Hamilton

  (1915-2012)

  I can hardly wait to see you again.

  It was dark.

  It was black.

  There was absolutely no light where he was, and yet he had no trouble seeing his hands when he lifted them before his face. Looking down, he could see his stomach, his legs, his feet.

  He could see that he stood on an old railroad tie. It was mostly black due to what looked like tar or oil that had long ago become part of the wood. It lay close to another. In fact, he realized now that he was surrounded by them; an unending field of the blackened lumber.

  It appeared that there was no specific order or pattern to their placement, though they seemed to be mostly end to end and side by side, creating an almost flat surface. He could see space between most of them, but he couldn’t see what lay beneath due to the lack of light.

  He got the impression that the place in which he stood was massive. He thought to call out to listen for an echo, but didn’t. Using his mouth and vocal cords seemed like a distant memory.

  He felt more alert and more observant than he’d ever before experienced. There was no hint of murkiness or confusion in his mind. It was sharp, keenly aware.

  And he was aware that he was alone.

  Completely and utterly alone.

  He instinctively knew that in this vast expanse of lonely pitch darkness no one else existed.

  He stood.

  He stood longer.

  He breathed, and he stood.

  Never had he been so aware of absence.

  I’m alone. There is no one else. I exist completely alone.

  He bowed his head. He looked at his hands and feet. This is all that I can see of … me. I will never again see another person, and I cannot see, now, my own face. What do I look like?

  I look … sad.

  He began to weep. He wanted to call out for help, but instinctively knew that there was no ear to hear his cry.

  This is my existence. I am here. I am alone.

  I am afraid.

  He turned, but in no way did his perspective change. It was utter blackness for as long as the place stretched. And he knew in the core of his being that it stretched forth without end.

  He looked upward. Complete darkness. He’d never seen complete darkness before. Even in a dark room with one’s eyes shut, a person sees imaginary pin-pricks of light. Here, though, where his eyes were perfect, there was nothing imagined.

  He listened. As complete as the blackness was, the silence was equal in its power. He could hear nothing. Not the air entering or escaping his lungs; not the beating of his own heart. Again, he didn’t bother opening his mouth to make a sound. He knew it would be of no use. Yet, he knew that his ears were working as perfectly as h
is eyes.

  There would be no comfort here. No one would ever console him. No one would ever take his hand or stroke his brow. He would never feel the touch of another person again.

  He stood for endless ages. Eons. Time had no meaning.

  He stood looking into the eternal darkness of his futile existence.

  He did not matter any longer. Had he ever? He couldn’t remember. He was not important. His life held absolutely no significance; no value at all. He was forgotten.

  His heart broke. I want to matter.

  Silent tears fell from his eyes. He knew there was no hope to be found, or to be given, in this place. He had never experienced a place of such profound truth.

  He deserved this.

  This is where I belong.

  He stood.

  Please, don’t let them start. Don’t let the voices come tonight.

  The glow of the alarm clock on his nightstand was the only illumination in the bedroom. It wasn’t enough light. Any more light, though, and he’d never get to sleep, even if his nightly “visitors” remained at bay for once.

  “Is it even worth trying to ask you for help?” he whispered into the darkness. “You never answer.”

  They’re coming, all right. It’s only a matter of time.

  Brent Lawton lay in bed, staring at the dark ceiling. The darkness pressed in against him from every direction.

  How did I end up like this? This wasn’t the plan. All I wanted was a little control.

  Five bottle caps and a penny. It all seemed so … so safe.

  He took in and released a long breath. The tension didn’t dissipate even a little bit.

  Brent had just turned sixteen-years old. A starter on his high school basketball team, he lacked neither athletic prowess nor intelligence. Not that either seemed to matter anymore.

  No, not anymore.

  Not one thing in which he excelled—at least so far—was helping him out of the trap in which he now found himself.

  He felt isolated. Alone. Especially amongst his family.

  Except for Lydia, of course.

  His thirteen-year-old sister still looked up to him, though even her admiration was usually tainted by gray.

  His thoughts drew him back in time to where and when it all started.

  Three years earlier—could it have been longer?—the day-to-day stresses of living in the Lawton household had become nearly intolerable. Brent had come to realize that he was tensing up every time he’d head home from school, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before another ‘discussion’ erupted between his mom and dad. If just two days passed without heated words, yelling, and impassioned threats, it was hailed as a miracle.

  Most times, just after the shouting would start, Brent would hear a light knock on his bedroom door. Lydia would wait for him to open it and then, with eyes filled with fear and cheeks dripping with tears, ask if she could “come in for a little while.”

  Brent always said yes.

  She’s the only one in my life who makes me feel important anymore.

  Sometimes he would just hold her, rocking her gently, while assuring her that things would soon settle down. A thirteen year old consoling a ten year old. It shouldn’t have been made to happen. And yet, three years later it continued.

  The fights between his parents were a carousel of emotional diatribes. In fact, Brent could usually forecast with some measure of accuracy what day the next flare-up would occur, and sometimes even the subject matter.

  Just two days prior, his mom demanded to know why his dad had been fifteen minutes late from work…

  “Don’t start with me, Sharon.”

  “I suppose it was traffic again? Or are you going to tell me you stopped off at the store with nothing—once again—to show for it?”

  At the top of the stairs, in his bedroom, Brent heard the whole thing play out. His mom seemed to be insinuating unfaithfulness. But, it could also have been that she was a control freak, having to be so in charge of life events that Keith Lawton was allowed no freedoms of his own.

  To be fair, though, the yelling didn’t always start with his mom. The need for another altercation would sometimes begin even before his dad entered the house. Envelopes with the name Keith E. Lawton behind transparent-plastic address windows would show up in the mail box, the senders of which had all-too-familiar names: Sears. J.C. Penney. L.L. Bean; names not coincidentally tied to his wife’s limitless stacks of catalogs.

  Heated words, yelling, and impassioned threats.

  Brent was sick of it!

  However, about a year and a half earlier—July of 1979, to be exact, the summer prior to his first year in high school—life took what, at the time, seemed like a fortuitous turn.

  While outside playing ball with some friends, Brent’s attention was drawn to someone walking toward them from down the street. He recognized the individual instantly. It was Kim Cox.

  Kim. What kind of parent names a boy Kim? He was the guy on the street that everyone pretty much avoided. Older by some five or six years, Kim wore black a lot, had long blonde hair, and kept company with others who looked pretty much the same. All the kids at this end of the street knew to walk on the opposite sidewalk if they ever had to pass his house.

  “John. Tim. Look.”

  The three of them stood in the yard with muted stares as Kim continued his advance. Five houses away, then four, then three, until he got to the property line of Brent’s home.

  “Hey, you guys. You wanna see some magic?” he asked.

  John, Tim, and Brent looked at each other momentarily; all eyes saying the same thing: Who’s going to say no? But, out of nowhere, with a slight shrug, Brent said, “Okay.”

  Strained whispers gushed from his friends. “Are you crazy?”

  Ultimately, they did approach Kim Cox, but John and Tim made sure that Brent had taken the lead.

  Kim took something out of the right pocket of his jeans. He squatted down on the sidewalk and waved the boys closer.

  “Let’s see if you can outsmart me. See these?” He held out his right hand, and in it were five bottle caps from Coca-Cola bottles. “These are yours to control.” He laid them on the ground before them. Now, more curious, the boys also took squatting positions on the sidewalk.

  “What do you want us to do with them?” asked John.

  “You are going to take this penny and cover it with one of the bottle caps. I’ll turn my back while you line them up any way that you want. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll turn back and tell you which one of the caps the penny is under.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Brent asked, “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Pretty simple,” Kim Cox replied.

  The three boys looked at each other, smiled, and accepted the challenge, no longer as nervous.

  Kim turned his back.

  Each of the boys had done his part to make it impossible to know which cap the penny was under. Two of the caps were twisted to get the Coca-Cola name to face other directions; the placements of two others were shifted a bit, while yet another was made to remain exactly in the same spot and position that Kim laid it down. It was under this cap that they had decided to put the penny. “Okay. We’re ready,” said Tim.

  Wanting to be skeptical, but overcome with a hopeful curiosity, the boys watched as Kim turned around, closed his eyes, and began to pass his right hand over each of the caps, palm down.

  What the heck is he doing? Brent was transfixed as he looked up from Kim’s almost ghostly-white hand to look at his closed eyes. This guy needs some sun, he thought to himself, both amused and struck by Kim’s pale appearance.

  After a couple passes with his hand, Kim opened his eyes. He simply reached down and picked up the second cap from his right, revealing the penny.

  “That was pretty cool,” said John. Brent and Tim agreed. “Let’s see if you can do it again.”

  Kim smiled with confidence, with a knowing that caught Brent’s attention. “You g
ot it. But nothing you can do will cause me to make a mistake.”

  Time after time they played his game. Each time Kim’s hand came down to the hidden penny. For a short while, John and Tim thought it was fun, but they were getting restless to do some things that, in their minds, really took some talent; things like throwing supposed “sliders” across home plate on their makeshift front-yard ball field. Tim taking the lead, all three of the boys stood up.

  Tim asked, “So, what’s the trick? How’d you do it?”

  After he picked up his caps and the penny, Kim Cox stood, silent. With his black clothes and additional inches of height, the guy was daunting.

  He looked Brent dead in his eyes—that’s how Brent remembered his eyes, too. Dead. After several painfully-long seconds, Kim said, “Powers.” That’s all he said. And with that one word, he turned around and began walking back down the street.

  The boys stood there for a moment, unsure whether they should maybe try again for a real answer or just accept what they’d been given. In the end, though, John turned to Tim and said, “Your turn to catch.”

  That had pretty much been it. Fifteen minutes of tricks which shouldn’t have affected anything in his life. Except, in that brief period of time, Brent was sure he had seen something which had gone much deeper than a mere trick.

  THAT EVENING AT home, as it turned out, was one of the “miracle” nights. It was peaceful; a welcome respite from his normally tight gut and on-edge nerves.

  As his mom and dad lounged in the family room watching Family Feud, Brent sat down at the dinner table nearby with a deck of playing cards.