Demon possession in those movies is only focusing on one person or family, and then finally at the end when the exorcism is taking place it reveals its true powers. I am getting at demons being an incredibly dangerous species. Yeah, it is horrible for one person to be possessed, but the level of power only extends to that family. Not too many demon movies out there where the possessed goes out and kills a lot of people. Sadistic, that I wanted mass carnage? No. And why not bring more demons into play? This is very common in novels and short stories, but I was influenced by movies. Also, obviously, the Book of Revelation.
The Book of Revelation, whatever you may believe, is horrifying. Lucifer is finally powerful enough to reach the physical world with his legion and cause seven years of mass chaos before all of the rest of the sinners are saved. It is war, an invasion, and I wanted to finally play with the different levels of violence associated with demons. Because of the mass amounts of violence in the story I needed (it is definitely my most violent short, but nowhere near the goriest- Wish List) Isaac and the reader to lose hope in his situation from the very beginning and go from there. This is the End involves everything in the Book of Revelations too, but that is a smaller scope. I wanted it big, bigger, and biggest- a trilogy about the war between mankind and Lucifer. My favorite part to write of the story was the Leviathan in the end. That’s just a purely evil image that stuck in my head:
The Leviathan was so large, Isaac could see the quarter mile long tentacle with bus-sized suckers, all topped with a six fingered hand the size of a two story house reach out of the ground, out of the fire, and scrape away at the heavens above. He realized then, just how little envy he had for the soldiers facing the Leviathans. There were four of them, protecting a twenty mile radius in the valley that held Exodus Lake.
In conclusion, I have a personal goal for myself, called MDSA. Make Demons Scary Again. That is my ultimate goal whenever I write about demons from now on, and while probably not fulfilled entirely in Black Gospel City, it will be in the final story of the series, as of yet untitled.