69 INCHES OF STEEL by Rebecca Steinbeck Page A

his father was gone now anyway so it didn’t matter.  She ran to him and they embraced each other. She held him close and looked over his shoulder at all the headstones that marked the graves of dead men, women, and children, many of whom had gone to Heaven, some of whom were sure to have burnt in Hell. All of a sudden there was a great whooshing sound and a mighty, blood-thirsty roar. Serena screamed and Jonathon turned around. He saw a demon so putrid and dark it made him sick to his stomach and it approached him at a great speed with its jaws open wide and its razor-sharp teeth ready to bite into his flesh and tear his body to pieces. Here was a great writer who had spent much of his time writing stories of horror in the hope it might help him get over the real horror, that his father had killed the girl he loved, and now, a decade later, he found himself facing it all over again. And now, in his heart, he knew this was the moment he had been waiting for all his life and it was a moment that would decide his fate forever. It was time to be a man. It was time to face his father.
    Jonathon let go of Serena and stepped toward the demon which was spitting flames of fire now and whose razor-sharp teeth bore the bloody flesh of the men, women, and children it had feasted upon. “I’m not afraid of you, Dad,” he said to the demon that came to a screeching halt in front of him and it roared and writhed in pain before vanishing in a cloud of putrid smoke and into the nether regions of Hell. Sweat dripped from Jonathon’s brow and adrenalin poured through his veins. He looked out of the corners of each eye for any sign of it but the cemetery was quiet now apart from the rain and he found none. When he was sure the demon was gone, he took in a deep breath of fresh air then let it out and with it came ten years of pain and hurt and anger that had welled inside him and he burst into tears as the load was lifted off his shoulders once and for all. He fell to his knees and cupped his face in his hands. Tears streamed down his face and he sobbed uncontrollably. For many years he had been free financially to do whatever he wanted and to go wherever he felt the want to go. It wasn’t until now that his soul was just as free as the man whose body it inhabited. All of a sudden he thought about Serena. He wiped away the tears and looked back at her. She was shivering as the cold air licked her wet skin and cowering from the bullets of rain that were still being pelted from the clouds above. He knew in that one moment he was in love with her and might also probably love her, but deep down he wondered if he could truly love anyone because the man he looked up to and the one who had taken his girlfriend with him one fateful night a decade ago loved no one but himself. The tears came back again as everything about what had just happened became crystal clear to him and the only dream he ever really had and one that had been lost over the last ten years between the dollars and cars and holidays to exotic places, not to mention the horror of losing a loved one let alone losing her in such a violent way, was the dream come true the angel had spoken of, the one in which he would love again, truly and from the heart. But it was more than that even. He knew this was his chance to be more than just a writer of horror. It was his chance to write a love story. One that would touch the hearts of those who read it and one that would be inspired by his own life as much as everything else he had written. He thought of his mother and father and the love they shared, the happiness and laughter too. He thought of his grandparents who in spite of everything they were told was right and wrong by an ignorant and at times arrogant institution still found it in their hearts to smile at each other and in their smiles they each saw the love the other had for them.
    Serena watched him watch her. She wanted him and she knew she loved him because of how bad she felt