Not much longer now. The fight comes when the sun is setting, of this I’m certain. I’ve longed for this fight and if I die trying, well, that’s good enough for me.

I know people think I’m mad. I was actually afraid that I’d see myself committed to the county home before I faced him. Face him.

I consider him a scourge, a self-deceived creature of man’s manipulation, of his own manipulation. If that sounds almost charitable, I hope so; he is my father.  I’ve learned there is no stronger force for evil than self-will. No stronger force for good than… self-will. God help me, please God help me.

I’m leaving this journal where someone may find it. My only prayer is that if I fail tonight, I die. What does a condemn man do but reflect on his life? The word insidious comes to mind. Don’t think me a mad scientist or a bum who stumbled upon a nest of vipers. Thank God I never married, but Charlotte comes to mind during times of fear. Thank God she thinks me crazy and well shed of me.

I have no resentments toward my father. He was a man of reason, a reader who shunned fiction as man’s weakness; plays, poetry, novels, all folly. To raise the crucifix against evil was laughable to him, superstition. I can still hear my mother weeping during his funeral. It was his funeral that gave me a clue to his scheme.

“Michael, I’ve seen him. Your father. He was right, dear, he has returned. I’ve seen him, and I know tomorrow he will come and speak to me.” She was right. He came, and I was waiting. My father was always a hard man, pushing me toward greater things, pushing me to leave my mark on the world.

“Son, you’ve a great mind. Evolution has culminated in you. You have a great capacity for understanding, use it, damn you!”

It’s laughable that he could curse me as a second thought. I doubt he thought of the hypocrisy of it. The night my mother invited him into our home, he walked in dead.  I could see it in his eyes. Triumph, power, superiority and death all reflected in the green-red glow of his eyes. She saw it right away and fainted dead away. He came for me, but unlike him, I read fiction. Trembling, I raised my rosary toward him.

He became a whirlwind of destruction, raising my mother’s lifeless body before me and snapping her neck.

I’ve dogged his every step. Yes, my life has been an insidious chess match. The sun has almost set, I’m sure he will be here. Twenty-three years is a long time to hunt a man that should have meant the world to me.

The latch on the door to the sarcophagus is moving outward toward the night. Surprise is on my side. God help me.