The Ceremonies

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"The tree was dead, But crouched amid its branches something lived: something older far than mankind. Something that breathed, schemed, felt itself dying and, dying, lived on. It was outside nature, and alone. Its time would come..." Jeremy Freirs had decided to spend his summer in quiet seclusion on the Poroth's farm in Gilead. It was the perfect place to catch up on his reading, maybe even prepare for the course he'd be teaching next term. To spend a summer among books: it was an appealing prospect. Sarr and Deborah Poroth were a strange couple, like all the rest of Gilead's strict religious sect. And Sarr's mother was weird. They said she had visions. He'd keep himself to himself. There was always Carol, the red-haired, virginal beauty he'd just met. Manhattan was only ninety minutes away. She could come down for weekends. Yes, it was going to be a fine summer. But in the heat of this summer an ancient, unspeakable evil is stirring. 5,000 years it has waited. Now the signs are right, and the Old One, its embodiment in human form, must make his move, assemble the performers, allow the process to begin. Only he knows the dark design that propels these people toward horror and doom. Only he can perform The Ceremonies - the monstrous rites that will unleash on a despised creation an age-old promise of apocalypse...