by Billy Wong
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"So now do you believe me?" Hunter asked him the next morning after a sleepless night, over tater tots that seemed rather tasteless at the moment.
"I don't know," Josh said stubbornly. "He didn't look right. His face still seemed slimmer than it should have."
"That's probably because his look changed from being a ghost. So what are we going to do? Find me an exorcist?"
"Trying to figure that out now. Let me do some research first."
"You do that. I'll go to the church and see if they can do a rite of protection or something."
After she left, Josh searched online for information about local paranormal activity. One story caught his eye. A woman in a neighboring town had supposedly been visited by her husband a year after he died. They made love. Then she became pregnant. In terror, she aborted the baby. Shortly after, claiming continued visitations and rape by his ghost, she committed suicide. It was unthinkable, chilling Josh to the bone, but eerily similar to Hunter's case.
He recalled the incident she brought up on the drive to town. Father Joe, respected pastor and family man, robbing a bank at gunpoint before being killed resisting arrest at home. Like their father, he had allegedly done something no one could ever have expected him to. Normal people didn't just suddenly snap with absolutely zero reason or forewarning at all. He decided to research inexplicable criminal acts in the area, but even before the results appeared memories from his childhood already flickered through his head.
There had been quite a few accounts of shocking misdeeds by innocuous people in Nelson and surrounding towns over the years. People had tried to avoid discussing such things in front of Josh and Hunter as kids, but they'd heard inklings of it. The search results online matched what Josh expected. Many of the alleged crimes were sexual in nature. Police officer demanding entry into a single woman's house, would then rape the woman. Repairman making a return visit to tie up a previously unmentioned loose end, would then rape a woman. Always the accused would claim ignorance of the crimes, and often even have an airtight alibi. Yet victims and witnesses swore to recognizing their faces, with no doubt whatsoever.
Most bafflingly, in a recent case, semen from a victim's body had been tested against the accused's DNA. It had not matched. Moreover, according to a rumor on one internet forum, the DNA of the sperm had not been human at all.
Had it been ghost sperm? That made no sense. But a hypothesis began to form in Josh's mind. There was a being, or beings, in or near Nelson that could impersonate others and commit evil acts freely while shifting the blame to them. A creature that destroyed lives and tore families apart to please its desires. If it returned for Hunter again, they would have a chance to stop it. But what if it was a spirit of some sort, despite it leaving a physical trace? They weren't equipped to deal with that. Yet if this was a spirit, it must be evil... a demon?
He called Hunter. "Hey, you still at church?"
"Just leaving now, why?"
"If you don't mind, go back and get us some crosses and holy water."
She sounded confused. "What? First you don't believe Dad even raped me, and now you think he's unholy?"
"No, I don't think it's Dad. I'll explain later. Just get them, alright?"
"Fine. " In a doubtful tone, "Looking forward to your theory."
When she got back, he showed her the articles he had found. "I think there's some thing around that can change its appearance and uses people's identities to get away with serious dickery. Dad didn't rape you. It did."
It took a long time before she responded. Her voice was small when she spoke. "So if you're right about this, I've hated him for all these years for no reason. And that man I killed... fuck! I'm a horrible person."
Josh hugged her. "Hey, you didn't mean to kill him. Everybody knows you didn't consider the fact you were wearing a high heel. Besides, you couldn't have known about this creature. No one did."
"Some people might've had theories like you. But apparently nobody's caught it in the act or at least managed to stop it." Her eyes narrowed. "So how do we kill it."
He'd been hoping she'd say something like that. He had never killed an intelligent being before, but this thing—if there was only one of them—had caused numerous deaths and shattered lives over the years. Besides, it almost certainly wasn't human. If anything deserved killing, this monster fit the bill. He just hoped he could bring himself to do it, but if not, he felt confident Hunter would. She looked about ready to rape it with a chainsaw if she could.
Getting rid of the corpse might be a problem, but if anything he figured the discovery of a nonhuman body would less likely result in an investigation than a coverup.
"When it was trying to rape you—you could feel it, right? Like when you struggled, did you touch its body?"
"Yes, of course. Why?"
"If you did touch it, that probably means it has a physical body."
"So you're thinking it's not a spirit." She looked at the crosses and vials of holy water she had brought back. "Guess we don't need those."
"We'll keep them around just in case."
"So what's the plan?"
"Hmm... how strong did it feel, when it was trying to rape you? Did it feel much stronger than a person, or do you think you could hold your own?"
Hunter looked down. "I don't know. Being terrified makes you weaker. Since I thought it was Dad, it seemed like the strongest thing in the world. But I guess... I guess maybe it wasn't that much stronger than me, since I didn't really get hurt wrestling with it."
Josh allowed himself to feel a little hopeful. "Okay, here's the plan. I'll stay awake, and just pretend to sleep. When it comes, you try to grab onto it and hold it while you yell. I'll come and we can kick its ass."
