The Reverend Thomas Lamb turned the key to his hotel room. He looked around at the shabby excuse for living quarters and laid his suitcase on the bed. He had been in New York before, and he hated it. He could always feel the evilness and the seedy side of the city, like a layer of festering scum on milk.
Although he was almost thirty, he looked much older. His hair had begun to fade years earlier and was now thinning. He didn't take care of his body; his waistline was pudgy from too many sweets and too many junk-food meals. He was indifferent to his body's needs.
Reverend Lamb knew something was soon going to happen. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but he had been guided by voices to come here.
The first revelation had come to him only a month ago. At first he hadn't believed what he had seen; his own senses had rejected the thought. He had awakened from a dream in a cold sweat. He had been dreaming of hell and the coming of the Anti-Christ. He had never been a “hell fire and damnation” preacher, but had tried to practice the more gentler side of Christianity. He had always loved nature, and the beauty and love people should share with one another. But this dream had come. The first time, he had rejected it. Then it happen twice more.
The second time he had been outside at night, looking up at the beauty of the night sky where he lived in Blacksburg, Virginia. As he had stared up at the sky, he saw a face looking down at him. A voice came down to him, telling him the Anti-Christ was coming, and had insisted it was his mission to stop him.
The last time had been the most convincing. He had been in church, practicing his Sunday sermon, when the walls of the church disappeared and he was standing on the shore of a lake. The water had parted, and a voice told him he was to go to New York, for that was where the Anti-Christ was to appear. He tried to protest, but the voice said he had been chosen. He tried to argue that he wouldn't know what to do, but the voice wouldn't listen. It told him he would know what to do when the time came.
Thomas dropped onto the well-worn bed, placing his head in his hands. He wondered where he should start.