"I strongly suggest you come in here today. We can't let this go on much longer. You can't avoid your obligations," said an angry voice.

Frank dropped the telephone receiver and stared blankly across the room. For weeks now he had been avoiding the call, letting his wife or children answer the phone. He was never in, even when he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.

It was a good table, he thought. One his grandmother had bought half a century earlier. Of course that was like everything on this farm. He had become a curator of the family's roots. It all embodied the history of his family since they had had the foolhardy foresight to board a ship in England in the 1890s.

They had been lured by the spectre of free land, unaware that plate-sized poplars held domain over their 160 acres of future. Only sweat, blisters and hope finally created the farm they had long dreamed of.

It had been Frank's dream as well. From the time he was old enough to follow his father to the cattle pasture, or to ride his knee while they tilled the soil, Frank had wanted to farm.

But, something had gone insufferably wrong.

When he had taken over the reins of the family heritage, things had looked good. Prices were high. The farm was growing.

Sure he had second-guessed some of the decisions he had made, like the hundred twenty thousand for the Johnson place. But his neighbours were making similar deals, so it had to be all right.

A lot of those neighbours now worked at the fertilizer plant in the city.

Frank was driving by many of their farms now. The Smiths, Kernelligans and Popowichs. All that remained were for sale signs shifting in the wind. The chains the signs hung from creating a maniacal laughter that was strangely audible even over the half-ton's engine.

Empty homes glaring forbiddingly at the road. Their souls stolen by the moving vans. Now mere wooden shells, home to rats, flies and other vermin of the dead. Frank shuddered at the thought of who might be next.

But it wouldn't be him. Sure things were tough right now, but he would work it out. Just one good crop of canola - if the prices held.

The half-ton came to a halt in front of the old brick building on the corner of Darlington and Main . The building had once been a bastion of hope for the people.

That was no longer the case.

Too many people had entered, warm, vibrant people, alive with hopes and dreams, only to emerge walking hulls devoid of their dreams. Dreams sucked away by what loomed inside.

Frank's steps faltered slightly. Not enough for passers-by to notice, but enough for Frank to redouble his reserve. Nor would they notice his hand clasp his jacket for the merest moment, before opening the door to…

Slowly, but with a confidence rooted deep in family pride, Frank walked forward.

"I'm here to see Mr. Smythe," he told the woman at the desk.

Truly brilliant, thought Frank. Who among the townspeople would suspect the evil that lurked in the office beyond.

"Go right in. He's been expecting you," came back the voice, apparently detached from the horrors that had occurred in the next room.

Frank faced the door. A chill of doubt seized him. There was tangible terror hanging in the air. He could smell it - almost taste it.

A random thought of his son seemed to chase it away, much the way the child chased butterflies on a warm spring day. A slight smile crossed Frank's tired face. The first smile in days.

He grasped the doorknob, turned it slowly, and swung it open to face his destiny.

Mr. Smythe, wearing a custom made suit and a forced smile, sat behind his large desk. It was strange how normal he appeared, thought Frank - how the name changed through time; Prince of Darkness, Seirizzin, Lucifer, Satan, and now a name as nondescript as Mr. Smythe.

"Have a seat. There are a few things we must go over," said Smythe in a voice that seemed little more than a growl.

Smythe was flanked by two lesser demons, pouring over reams of papers, calculators in one hand, pencils in the other. Grinning when the numbers flowed into the red.

Hardly the fire and brimstone place Pastor Mitchell spoke endlessly of in his sermons each Sunday morning.

Frank sat down in the offered chair. It seemed noticeably warmer in the room now. Beads of sweat began to form on his brow, although he noticed the other men, if that is what they truly were, were not sweating.

"Our records show you have become seriously delinquent with your payments Frank. As much as twelve months on some accounts. Considering you owe half a million, we find the situation disturbing to say the least. Mr. Ashcroft will go over the details," said Smythe pointing to the man on his left. "To begin with, on account 296302…”

The voice trailed off as Frank retreated into the safety of his own thoughts. It was obvious he had been chosen as the next victim of this hideous incubus.

From the recesses of his mind, Frank began to see Smythe for what he truly was. The face of humanity ripped away by the mind's eye.

Across the desk now sat a vile creature that reeked evil. A devil spawn that was slowly leeching the life out of the community, one family at a time.

The hideous creature who created drought, grasshoppers, and declining prices. Stymieing every attempt to satisfy his debt. Preferring to slowly suck the families dry, like an arachnid sucks the body fluids from the fly, thought Frank. Or the vulture rips the carrion, piece by piece, until the remains are unrecognizable. Like this community devoid of features.

"So you see Frank, we have no choice but to proceed with foreclosure," said the sadistic monstrosity. A wicked smile was etched on the vicious maw, while a serpent's tongue flicked hungrily behind green-hued fangs.

The underlings left. Frank realized he was now alone with the monster. A monster intent on ending his life, as surely as if he was holding a gun, for without his farm - Frank was dead.

How many first-born have already been sacrificed at the end of a rope in deserted barns once filled with livestock, since stolen away in the belly of hulking trucks to feed this monster, he thought.

"No," he shouted, reaching inside his jacket.

The hunting knife had been a gift from his grandfather on his 14th birthday. Many a whitetail had been bled and gutted by its blade. This time he was after bigger game.

The demon was taken by surprise. He offered little resistance. The blade bit deep. Time and time again it plunged into the vulgar creature. Blood flowed over the knife, the chair, the floor. It splattered over Frank.

So much blood. Like he had been the storehouse of all the blood of those he had destroyed with the stroke of the pen.

Frank stopped.

He looked at the knife in his hand. Blood was dripping in slow deliberate plops into a growing puddle at his feet.

Smythe, his face returned to human form, perched macabrely in his chair.

"You can't fool me with that face," laughed Frank with a whisper. He turned and walked away.

Out the door - into the real world.

"You're all free," shouted Frank. "I have killed the demon that would feed on your souls."

Seeing the blood, the woman behind the desk screamed.

Frank ignored her. Poor wretched creature doesn't realize she mourns the devil himself.

He walked to the street. To his truck.

Frank was tired now. Meeting evil on its own turf, and winning, had taken much out of him, but he would be renewed once he returned to his land, now safe from the clutches of evil.

The motor turned over with a roar of triumph. The tires laughed insanely on the gravel road as he sped out of town. Past the Popowichs, the Kernelligans, and Smiths. The empty houses, now a little less foreboding.

Frank ignored the sirens, closing in from behind. All that mattered was returning to the land.

The truck rumbled into the yard, followed by a cloud of dust and a police cruiser.

Prying fingers, now glued to the steering wheel with dried demon's blood, Frank climbed from the truck.

"Stop right there, or I'll shoot," came a voice.

Frank smiled and turned toward the house. What can he do. I'm free, he thought. Safe on my land.

Satan spit fire.

Frank lay on the grass. His blood now seeping into the soil. His Grandfather's soil. His son's soil.

END