Something had woken Elijah. As he slowly rose from his kitchen table, he couldn't help but notice the clock on the wall. It was three in the morning. The music as still playing from when he passed out.  He tried to shake the fog from his head, a combination of the bottle he had thought he finished and too many sleepless nights all seemed to be catching up to him. 

He picked up one of stray smokes that was lying on the table and lit it. A deep drag seemed to helped clear his head a little. He looked around what passed for his home. It was bleak to the say the least, and Elijah knew it.  If he was honest he didn't much care.  A tiny table with two chairs, a nearly empty kitchen was that occupied the room. This was by far the most populated area in the house, even that would seem sad to most people. As he took another pull from the bottle he finally realized what had woken him up. Somebody was outside his house. Eli slowly got his feet and collected one of his handguns. Standing off to a corner he waited for whoever was outside to come barging inside.  

He sat in the corner with his handgun ready as he watched someone with a goat mask. Eli tried to wait as long as he could before pulling the trigger but the moment he saw the goat mask he couldn't help himself. Eli pulled the trigger twice, a board look on his face. 
He walked slowly to now slumped over body. He was still alive but he wasn't long for this world. Eli gave the kid credit he had some fight in him. It showed as the kid in the goat mask tried to crawl away from him. He made all the way out to the porch before Eli grabbed the goat mask and pulled it off of the kid. He couldn't help gaze at it for a few moments. 

"You know, I used to wear a mask. Weren't nothing like this. My mask was to keep people from figuring out who I was. I was living in families garage outside of Fort Benning. I know it doesn't sound like much but it was home. Mask was to make sure that one could track me back to them. I'd hated for something to happen to them." Eli said slowly walking behind the crawling goat boy. 

The kid was in a bad way, he left a thick trail of blood in wake. Gasping for each bloody breath.  The smell of blood was so thick in the air it was all Eli could smell or taste. If he was honest, he was enjoying it right now. This was also the first time Eli had gotten a good look at the kid. His back was covered in something, it looked like some kind of messed up triangle. It was a symbol of some sort but they're much more important things to figure out. Eli pushed everything from his mind and finally started to work on the kid in front of him.  "Hey shitheel, who sent you? Huh?" Eli asked sternly as he kicked the over to his front. His gun aimed at his face.

With a bloody laugh kid, who couldn't have been any older than twenty, spoke definitely. "Kill me, it won't matter. The Lion will roar, and the Morning Star will rise. I am but a single Messenger in an army fo-" A loud bloody shout came from the kid as Eli stepped on one of the bullet wounds. 

"You just a stiff necked little some bitch ain'tcha?" Eli said as he watched the kid curle into a ball and pointed out past the porch into the darkness.  The yellow glow of the porch light only served to make the scene more horrific.  For all the blood, death and combat Eli had seen, this was damn sure in the top three. As he looked out to in the darkness he could a  lifeless figure tied to a tree. There wasn't much he could make but what he could make his stomach turn in knots. A bloody, eyeless, skinless face that was twisted in horrific pain. Eli couldn't tell but he was pretty sure that he was attached to the by barbed wire.

As the anger in Elijah rose, it was the laughter that sent him over the edge. Eli's face twisted in anger as he looked to see the kid pulling out a dirty set of eyeballs. That was all he could take as Eli started to raise his gun with the intent of inflicting more pain on the sick bastard. He never got the chance to as arm started to glow, fire erupted from  the brand on his arm that appeared a two weeks prior. There was no pain as his shirt caught fire, and the body of the kid.  Eli quickly shed the shirt and watched somewhat happily as he watched the kid burn to death.

The smell burning flesh and his screams lingered in the air, it was never a pleasant thing but Eli could make an exception this one time. As the kid burned Eli looked at symbols on his arm. There was no pain but there was smoke. As he gathered himself Eli went to the body of the faceless man. He wanted to cut but he knew better, he knew the cops weren't gonna be far behind. Eli quickly ran back inside and grabbed a few things. A Go bag and his rifle were both tossed in the truck. When he put on a new long shirt he called the county sheriff. Eli spoke in a calm and clear voice but he was anything but. When the sheriff answered Eli didn't give him time to say anything. "Linehouse, its Eli. I need you at my place right now."

"Eli its-" Sherif Linehouse 
"Linehouse if what happened up here gets out there is gonna be the biggest shit storm since Bloody Harlan. Call your deputies and round up everyone that at the Ole man Johnson's a couple of weeks back." Elijah said with the slightest hint of panic.
"Elijah where do you get-" Elijah cut him off again. "I got a man with no one face on my tree Ed, strung up with barbed wire. I don't know what the hell is going here but this is insane."

The was a long pause before Edward Linehouse giving an acknowledgement.  When the sheriff arrived and saw what happened. He couldn't but puke, was it the horrific sight or the stench of burnt human? Did it matter? Eli patted Edward Linehouse on the back. "You'll get used to the smell.  Him though, that's never get any easier to see." Eli said pointing to the faceless man. Though it didn't seem like it, Eli was scared. Horrified to an extent he hadn't know since he left the Air Force.  The signs were there if you looked close enough. A slight tremble to the hand, eyes that wanted to stay fixed anywhere but the bodies. Even his normally smokey voice held a the slightest hint of panic and fear. 

After another heave or two, the sheriff finally spoke. "The hell is wrong with you son? How are you so calm!? What the hell is going on here!?"

"Helps when you've seen a whole village like this... Round up those everyone from that party like I said Ed. Bad shit is coming for someone." Eli said looked to the burnt body. The yellow glow from the light bulb really made him even more unnerved. What he called a house was little more than a three room shack. It was so worn out most were surprised it had running water. It had everything he needed but almost nothing else. He knew without a doubt this was going to be one of the last nights he'd spend in these mountains. He heard the sheriff call for backup. What would come next he couldn't fathom, but he knew he wasn't gonna stick much longer to find out.