The Little Demons Inside

by Micah Thomas

  "Well, yes. There was a very dramatic explosion at a gas station."

  "I know that! Are you alright, honey?"

  "Why wouldn't I be?" Viola's maternal attitude towards Cassie, something a bit short on hand with her own mother, always brought out a funny species of patter.

  Viola uncovered her highly coveted iPad tablet and pressed play on a video.

  "I'm afraid you've gone viral, dear."

  Now, for a second time, Cassie saw the same video, some of it recorded on her coworker's phone, but this time also edited together by the internet and augmented by the gas station surveillance cameras. The video started with Henry lying on the ground. It was weird to see herself on video. She immediately looked at her belly where she carried extra weight, her messy hair, before she stopped her internal, body critic monologue and focused. She saw herself go to him, reliving the instinctual pull towards someone in distress. Cassie saw her hair blown wild by the sudden wind and in seconds, flames were everywhere. Oh god, it was horrifying. Triggering. But she was ok, wasn't she? The screams and frantic shouts were overcome by the roaring explosion, then another echoing boom. The video ended abruptly as Viola stopped playback.

  "I'm asking again, are you ok?" Viola asked, this time with a steely determination in her brown eyes.

  "I... I think so. It was very sudden, Viola."

  "I bet!" she said and cackled again, "You did a good thing helping that young man."

  "I didn't really do anything. Anyone would do the same," Cassie said.

  "But they didn't. I imagine someone had to be holding these camera phones, not doing anything useful to anyone," Viola said smartly.

  "Well, maybe it's an occupational hazard," Cassie said.

  "Compassion is never a hazard, dear."

  Cassie took a moment to think about it as she tidied up the room. It's true that she had reacted, but it was her training, nothing more. No special heroism that called her into action. She supposed there might have been something though, out of the ordinary. It was a feeling, one she hadn't had time to process. But the more she thought about it, she was starting to either conjure up something from her imagination or something, because she had felt something. An emotional appeal straight to the heart of her. It'd been somewhere in the midst of her reaction, so close in time it was hard to separate thought and motion, but it was there. She'd heard, or felt, or something, the man call to her, 'help me.' The plaintive cry carried so much hurt with it. That was the trigger, wasn't it really?

  "Weren't you scared?" Viola asked.

  "I just reacted. There was a wind, something that kept the heat off us."

  Viola nodded, "That's God's hand right there. Keeping you safe."

  Jensen, the orderly, poked his head in the room.

  "Cassie, there's someone to see you in the lobby."

  "Could there be a gentleman with roses?" Viola piped up, chipper and showing that maternal concern for Cassie's romantic life that endeared her so.

  "Could be," Cassie replied to Viola, honestly hoping it wasn't flowers, that the attention would end.

  Two men stood at the admissions desk. White men, cheap suits, nondescript in their middle-age blankness. Cassie reasoned that this had to be about the fire. Insurance adjusters or arson experts. She hated the attention, the hassle and headache, but figured it needed to be done.

  "Cassandra Lima?"

  "Yes. How can I help you?"

  "I'm Don, and this is Peter. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

  "Actually, I'm pretty busy. What is this about and who are you with? I already gave my statement to the police," she said, and heard her own voice, defensive, and wondered why she was feeling adversarial already.

  "No. No," Peter or Don said. Cassie had already forgotten which was which. "We're employed by a private research trust. We'd like to talk to you about Henry. We understand that you..."

  Henry. It's not about the fire. It's about Henry and also about the fire. A private research trust? That sounded suspiciously like cover for Black Star, whatever that was. A bunch of assholes, Henry had said.

  "Everything I know is in my statement. The one I made with the police."

  "We saw the video of you online."

  "You and everyone else, apparently. I'm not trying to be difficult, but if you saw the video, you know what happened."

  "Cassandra, Henry needs our help. He's a danger to himself and others."

  "Right. I don't know where he is. I don't know him."

  "If we could talk more privately... If now is not a good time, then perhaps later?"

  Jensen, always around when needed, straightened to his formidable height and butted into the conversation, finally free to stop pretending to work when he was really eavesdropping. Cassie could feel the eyes of the staff and patients nearby as this would clearly be subject of future gossip.

  "Cassie, are these men bothering you?"

  "Thanks, Jensen. They're just leaving."

  The men took the cue. Don. Peter. Whichever was which, shrugged and gave a used car salesmen smile, agreeable, but condescending.

  "Ok ok. We'll be seeing you."

  "Don't you have work to do?" Cassie said to the gawking admin before going back to her rounds. Cassie thought about that backpack, the lab reports, human guinea pigs, and secretly wished Henry the best, wherever he was, and hoped to never see him again.

  ***

  Morning came and Henry had questions, but dear god, the last 24 hours were so totally fucked. He'd slept in a cot in an empty room, the night ending with a "here's a room, we'll talk later," and that was it. There was a fresh change of clothes laying on the floor by the door. Flip flops, drawstring linen pants, both too wide and too short for Henry, but serviceable, and a loose-fitting Grateful Dead t-shirt. Slipping out of his jeans, Henry noticed that they could practically stand on their own. He hated his own scent and these clothes were practically rotting from repeated sweats, seizures, sun, and days on the bus.

  In his new, chillaxury garb, Henry toted his backpack into the main room, again struck by how silly the place looked. Henry had long assumed that those lucky enough to afford a real house didn't decorate them like a head shop, like his series of shitty pothead-filled squat houses and apartments. It didn't make much sense to him, but Henry found he actually might have a sense of decorating sense after all. This place looked dumb. He found the hippie, Denzel, reading a book while laying stretched out in a hammock outside.

  The back yard continued the psychedelic theme with a Zen garden, yoga mats, and a large incense burner filling the air with a pungent patchouli that rivaled the natural citrus smells.

  "Hey man, you're up! Let me get you some tea."

  "Uh, ok."

  "It's my own blend. I call it the third eye opener. Get it?"

  "Not really. Do you have any coffee?"

  "That's poison, man. We'll look back on this society's addiction to caffeine the same way we look at cocaine in good ole Coca Cola. It's not just chemicals either, everyone is so damned addicted to technology, Christ, man alive, how things have changed."

  "Is that so?"

  "Damn straight."

  Denzel moved with the lanky janky stroll of an animated Crumb figure. Henry really took him in, small details coming out in the light of day. His long hair, limited to growth from the sides of his head, frizzy and sandy brown mixed with grey. Sun spots on his bald patch. Beard giving that classic Gandalf look. Dude just needs a staff, Henry thought.

  They sat. Henry sipping his tea, and stifling back a grimace at the bitter barnyard taste. Henry pulled up his backpack and started in on his rehearsed speech.

  "I need answers. It's fuzzy. I can't help that. My memory is kinda fried. I'm having trouble remembering lots of things about the last year and, fuck, mostly the last few weeks, but I was doing my own thing in Seattle. Then I got in the Institute. It was all fun and personality games, trippy drugs and a place to crash. I never met anyone else like me, subjects, I guess they called us. No one told
me what it was all about. Like an idiot, I jumped through all the hoops, the hypnotism and guided meditation. You know what I'm talking about?"

  Henry paused, practically out of breath after getting it all off his chest.

  Denzel nodded slightly, not taking his wrinkled gaze off Henry.

  "Shit got real. We... I... The fucking techs never talked to me, not real talk. Anyways, you know what they did to me? What comes out of me now? Wiseman got a message to me and..."

  Denzel interrupted him now, "Hush, hush. Let's not talk about that just now."

  "Dude, this is why I'm here."

  "I know that's what you think, but you're rushing. Rushing about and not even feeling what a fine day it is. Let's go somewhere, then we'll talk later."

  Henry felt deflated, but also surprisingly mellow. His rehearsed speech felt a bit tangled on his tongue, but he didn't really mind. He took another gulp of the tea, which tasted now more of honey, and the complexity of sweet straw or dandelion didn't seem so bad.

  "Fine. It's not like I have anywhere else to go."

  Denzel chuckled. "Well, that's not entirely true. You're gonna go with me to the flea market. We're hunting for some real treasures today."

  Henry thought this was funny too, and was still laughing inside as the garage door opened to reveal Denzel's massive, all bells and whistles Cadillac SUV.

  "You were expecting a VW, a bus of some sort?"

  "Well, yeah."

  "No way man, my baby is sweet!"

  The drove to the tune of some jam band, the music cavorting in Henry's mind in what must have been a twenty-minute aimless melody. The AC in the car felt like heaven on his face. They went through some small downtown area, faded signs and a single traffic light.

  "Where are we?"

  "This is Surprise, my friend. Where retirees drop off their good stuff, before and after they drop off!"

  The pulled into a gravel parking lot and Denzel turned down the radio with a serious expression, and took out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket.

  "Ok, Henry. Here's the list."

  He handed it solemnly to Henry, who unfolded it and gazed at it with a dumbfounded expression.

  "What is this?"

  "On the left is what they want you to believe, but on the right, that's what we're looking for today."

  Scrawled in an unseemly handwriting was a list of brand names, and what seems to be slightly different spellings on the right.

  KitKat -- Kit-Kat

  Froot Loops -- Fruit Loops

  Cap'n Crunch -- Captain Crunch

  GooGone -- Goo B Gone

  Interview with the Vampire -- Interview with a Vampire

  Sex and the City -- Sex in the City

  Fruit of the Loom -- Fruit of the Loom (w/ cornucopia)

  Berenstain Bears -- Berenstein Bears

  JCPenney -- JCPenny

  JIF peanut butter -- JIFFY

  The list went on and on.

  "What is this? Are misprints more valuable?"

  "These are not god damned misprints! You see a piece of merchandise or memorabilia with stuff from the left-hand side, you let me know. That's residue."

  "Residue?"

  "Answer me this. When did Nelson Mandela die?" Denzel asked.

  Henry was perplexed. Denzel was pissed and he wasn't sure why.

  "I have no idea. Is he dead?" Henry replied.

  "Fucking never mind," Denzel said, exasperated, "Just do it man. You see the alternate spellings, you let me know."

  They ambled through long aisle in a real market warehouse. Large fans blew stale, warm air and flies swarmed as if this was their unquestioned domain. Long card tables per vendor filled with flotsam of buttons, gears, broken alarm clocks, hammers hammered into knives, cutlery hammered into bracelets and rings, inscrutable naked dolls some with heads, some with hair, fireworks, fire crackers, cigarette lighters, piles of used clothing, vinyl rope, twine, spools of copper, spools of yarn, buttons from failed political campaigns. Something for everyone.

  Henry felt a low-level euphoria as Denzel handed him a lemon chipped ice. "What a stupid day trip," he thought, half delighted. Denzel was haggling with a merchant on a lot of Beanie Babies.

  "Give me a fucking break. It's worth $20 at most. What do you have in there, a Princess Diana, or even a Peanut Royal Blue?"

  "Sir, you don't have to use foul language. I'm asking $50 and that's what it's going for."

  "Language? Well, you don't have to jew me on this either. Forget it."

  For a hippie, Denzel had some anger issues that escalated a little too quickly, Henry observed.

  Leaving the Beanie Babies behind, they walked over to a larger table, one dedicated to books and VHS tapes. Henry saw most of the covers alleging various conspiracies, Bush and 9/11, Obama and the Antichrist, the pope and darkly sinister Jesuits, and of course, rampant anti-Semitism and ancient aliens.

  "Hey Denzel. Hunting for treasure today? Who's your friend?"

  "Greetings Mike. This is my helper today, my nephew, Gerald."

  Henry thought this dude would be right at home on the History Channel documentaries, with his weirdly spiked hair, over enunciation of words, and a head full of wrongly wrong ideas about the world. Henry wasn't an A student in school, but he knew enough to recognize bullshit.

  "Welcome to paradise, Gerry. Your uncle has got you searching for his residue, doesn't he?"

  Henry looked to Denzel, knowing this was a serious subject, he just wasn't sure how to proceed.

  "Mike, your eyes will be open once you experience a flip flop. I've already explained this."

  "Gerry, you buy into this too?"

  "I don't know. Do I, Uncle Denzel?"

  Denzel obviously relished in the opportunity to expound, taking a professorial tone.

  "It's actually quite insidious, what's happened and still happening. From that list, and Mike you've seen it, our memories are almost the only evidence, outside of the precious residue. You see, many, many people remember things one way, then suddenly, they're another way. Some small, some large, and one day you look up and you're in an entirely different world. You want to think that's benign? I expect more of you, Mike."

  "I don't question that forces that be are fucking with us on the daily, but these things are just branding changes and misprints and misremembered shit. You're reading way too much into it. Especially the theory that we've been transported to another planet where things are close but not exactly the same."

  Mike was pushing Denzel's button; Henry could see it but didn't follow it.

  "Another Earth?"

  Denzel cleared his throat, "Yes, well, you can laugh now, but which of us holds higher degrees in science? When I was in graduate school, our precious blue orb was situated in the Sagittarius Arm, and yet, now here we are in the Orion Spur."

  "This shows the fatal weakness in your argument, man. Blue orb? The planet is flat, there was no previous Earth as we've never even left this one. Check mate, dude. Check fucking mate."

  Henry drifted to the edge of the discussion. Flat Earth, grand planet changing conspiracies, obvious bullshit, except, wasn't he living proof that something isn't quite right with accepted cosmological and theological premises?

  "I guess I can agree that there's powers and weird, crazy shit out there," Henry said.

  Denzel elbowed Henry indiscreetly. Mike looked at the two of them with a raised eyebrow.

  "You two got something cooking?"

  "Nothing of the sort, Mike."

  "A little psychonaught exploration again, Denzel?"

  "I believe we will take our leave. It was nice talking with you Mike."

  As they turned to walk away, Mike shouted out, "Ger, Gerry! If he offers you some Kool-Aid, you might want to check the ingredients first!"

  "Disregard him, Henry. Such is the meager minds one has for company in Surprise. Flat Earth my ass. Let's make one more pass at the Beanie Babies. Perhaps that crone has changed her tune by now."

  ***


  For Officer Sanders, another day was just another parade of human struggles. The fire investigation was handed off to relevant arson teams. Sure, he'd probably testify as a first response if anything went to court, but all and all, it was not particularly unique, outside of his taxi drive service. Such things would likely be off-limits once body cameras were made mandatory. Sanders didn't exactly resent the cameras and understood they made a certain sense, but somewhere inside he held reservations. Maybe it was something about the big brother always watching, or maybe it was the fact that cameras didn't capture all of the nuance that made police work an art and not a mechanical science.

  He turned up the AC in his car; it was another scorcher out there. Higher temps almost always translated into more irritation in his wards, the people in the town that he cared about in his own way. Not that the feeling was ever mutual. Black cops take heat from black citizens for failing to signal allegiance, take sides. Black cops take heat from white citizens for being black and the perception of signaling allegiance and taking sides. If there was already a baseline toxicity of the relationships Sanders strove to combat, using the tools of steady tone, fair and clear discernment, and process by the book, well, the political climate of 2017 made it all the more difficult to sense that his efforts made a damn bit of difference.

  Sanders took the turn slowly. The Circle K was banded by police tape and while cleaned up considerably, would bear the scars and char marks for a long time. He was a reasonably educated man, in his own opinion anyway, but he had no opinion as to what had caused the fires. It was weird, but out of his hands now. This compartmentalized thinking usually kept him out of trouble. He clucked to himself when the radio dispatch squawked out that there was a minor collision on the highway onramp. He flipped on his lights and pulled back around in the right direction. First call of the day, and Sanders' mind was clear and on task.