The Little Demons Inside

by Micah Thomas

  "Going somewhere nice?"

  "Dahlia Lounge."

  "Fancy. Too good for you. Figured you for a street hot dog and done."

  "I think not."

  "Come on! They serve them with cream cheese and BBQ sauce. I bet they don't do that in Phoenix!"

  "No they don't, and for good reason. That's gross."

  "Don't knock it, brother."

  David shuffled papers and took some photos from his satchel.

  "Just so you don't think I'm wasting your time. There is something."

  The page was a Google Maps printout of the city block, with a highlighted path between buildings, circles drawn alternately on either side of the street.

  "What am I looking at? Another arson location?"

  "Nope. Let's go. I'd rather show you."

  They rode in Dave's squad car, a bit nicer than the Phoenix unit had. Flipping on lights, Dave accelerated through intersections, narrowly avoiding throngs of pedestrians, protesters, shoppers, and tourists.

  "Easy," Sanders said, instinctively reaching for the oh shit handles.

  "Hey, you're the one that said you're in a hurry."

  "See this ominous black spire building? That's Black Star HQ. As is every building on this block." David swung a wide left taking them down an alley to park.

  "I don't see anything," Sanders replied.

  "Let's take a promenade. Sorry I don't carry umbrellas; those are for tourists."

  The grey sky had started sprinkling heavy rain drops, fat and salty.

  "Here's the starting point on your little map."

  "Ok. I still don't see anything."

  "Look up there." He pointed some twenty floors up, the glass was newer, the steel a slightly different paint job.

  "See it?"

  "I see a renovated floor."

  "Now, to the left, on that building over there. And there, to the right, over on that one."

  Matching the circles on the map, there were massive charred spots, blacked paint, shattered windows sealed by tarps. The path continued through the entire block. Sanders saw it now.

  "Figure a meteor came down like a pinball?"

  "Meteorite," Sanders corrected.

  "Well, whatever. No one reported anything meteorological. The path continues into a building off Black Star's campus, but no one filed any claims for the damage."

  "Where does it end?"

  "Follow me to the end of what must have been quite a rainbow, but no pot of gold."

  They walked several blocks along the path. Burnt sections of a tree, more charred markings, but fewer and fewer as they went. Dave led them to a narrow alley. The smell of burnt plastic and something organic and putrid in the nostrils, made worse by the dampening rain.

  "There used to be a homeless camp here. Small. Just two or three tents."

  "Used to be?"

  "Yeah. But the city didn't relocate this one. In fact, we can't locate them at all."

  Sanders' shoes stuck to the muck on the ground.

  "Whatever burned here, it was hot."

  "Yeah. It'd have to be pretty hot. Is this melted pavement?"

  "In anticipation of your visit, I had our techies do a work up of that shoe goo and ash."

  "You knew this would be the one I wanted to know about?" Sanders asked.

  "You bet. It meets the definition of unusual alright. Mostly pure carbon. Trace materials of plastic like you'd find in a tent, some metals, maybe tent poles, liquefied concrete and trace organic compounds."

  "Shit."

  "Yeah, shit. No claims filed. No police reports, at least that make any sense. No witnesses directly, just something weird. This the type of thing you're looking for, right? Is this a crime scene out of X Files or what?"

  "Might be."

  "Ah! So coy still. I smell mystery here and love it! Just let me know what's cooking when you can. I'm going to leave you to your dinner date. Call me if this starts meaning something to you."

  "You bet. What do you mean, police reports that don't make sense?"

  "Oh, just UFO sightings. Some bright lights. Nothing on camera. Nothing to investigate, officially. Want a ride back?"

  "No. I'll walk."

  Sanders walked back to the hotel alone in the rain, observing the diversity of foot traffic. Young professionals wearing those suits that are too tight, young women dressed in what he could only think of as Han Solo costumes, vest over white blouse, leggings and calf high boots. More Asians than he'd seen in his life, representing a wider array of the globe that Sanders had never seen. And the homeless. Complacent faces, sad faces, angry faces, and friendly ones too. Maybe it was a sign of the city's prosperity that it could support handouts for so many. Even they had cellphones, more flip phones than smart, but tech was everywhere in the plugged-in city.

  Back at the hotel, a gleaming refuge from the crowds, Sanders could still hear protestors that he had more or less pushed through to get in. The gap between this luxury and the street was not lost on him. He needed to shower up for dinner, but flipped through the binder of profiles David gave him. Faces of homeless youth that had been through the system, housed and then unhoused again. They'd fallen through the gaps in whatever safety net existed, and society had surely failed them. Sanders flipped through, scanning for Henry's face, and there he was in middle of the deck. Dolan, Henry, born in 1992, a series of scant notes regarding attitude and antisocial behavior, but also high intellect. He'd aged out of the programs for the little ones, and there wasn't much they could do for him. The last note was regarding a police inquiry. There'd been a death, a drug overdose, of a girl that apparently had been dating Henry. This was less than a year ago. Oh, Henry, Sanders thought, trouble just follows you everywhere.

  ***

  A fool's errand. Cassie had no way of knowing how very off the mark she was. The Bonhurst Arts Festival was the weirdest place she'd ever been. A smaller, more wild, burning man-like event. She'd never seen so many youthful naked bodies, browned by the sun and coated in a fine layer dust. The sheer number of penises she saw within the first five minutes of arriving did her head in.

  Leaving Surprise was as boring as staying there. This morass of genitalia was something else. She packed water, snack bars, and sunscreen. Now she realized she should have brought a tent, clothes, and everything else, as she didn't look forward to walking back to her car. Hot. Dusty. Sandy.

  Cassie felt outside, so very alone. Life on cruise control, decisions made for her and she followed the path of least resistance. She presumed Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumber were still following her.

  All this driving gave her time think. None of this was about Henry anymore. She'd thought about therapy, the military, about her patterns of not dealing with shit. She still felt like life happened around her, but what did she want? Trauma breaks up the internal story of a life. Books and movies set you up to think there's a beginning, middle, and end. Each phase tidily bound up with the sense that things were supposed to happen. From losing your baby teeth, to going to school, falling in love and having a family. Cassie felt like none of that story could be hers anymore. She was on a track once upon a time, and then shit happened and she just fell and kept falling.

  Dear god, it was hot outside. Actually, it was a Christ almighty inferno. What the fuck was she doing out here without even a hat? She walked a bit more but felt dizzy and headachy. It was a strange realization for that she'd never actually had heatstroke, even though she grew up in Phoenix. He grandmother's words cackled at her in her mind, drink water or else you'll dry up like a lizard. Shit, she felt the heat on her eyeballs, which might've been sweating too for all she knew. How are some of these people wearing leather dusters and furry hats?

  "Hey!" a voice shouted.

  Cassie thought, they couldn't possibly be shouting at me, so she kept walking.

  "Hey, you, lady with the black hair and white shirt!" the voice shouted again.

  Cassie stopped and pointed to herself to ask, who me?

  "Yes, yo
u! You're gonna faint or get sick. Come in the tent with us. It's cool in here," said a woman standing outside a large airy tent.

  Cassie deliberated for only a moment and hustled over to her. "Thank you so much," Cassie said as she was guided into the tent where there was an immediate relief of cold air and the hum of a portable AC unit, accompanied by several fans.

  "Hey girl," the woman hugged Cassie in an honest embrace. She smelled lovely and spoke with an infinitely gentle voice.

  Cassie stood in the cool tent and felt tears in her eyes.

  The woman stepped back giving her room, "Oh, sweetie, it's ok." She fluffed up a large pillow and made room for Cassie to sit.

  "I was just poking my head out to see if my friends were around and there you were. The sun gave you a halo and I thought you might be an angel, but then, I really saw you and I thought, oh, I'm the angel and she needs help."

  "Oh god. It's just hotter than I thought. I'm not really prepared for all this," she said and realized how stupid that sounded.

  "Right on. My girlfriends and I come out every year, but only really decked out the tent with AC this year. You can totally stay with us. What's your story, angel of mine?"

  "I'm Cassie, but my brother is named Angel. Oddly enough."

  "That's not funny, it's like fate or kismet. I'm Laura."

  Cassie wiped the tear residue from her eyes and felt her body relax in that luxurious conditioned air. "I don't know what I'm doing here.”

  Laura smiled wide, "I don't think anyone ever does. In the big sense, like, why are we here?"

  "I guess I needed to take a break, and I had this opportunity to travel and I just heard about this place a few days ago."

  "Really? That's so cool. Just a woman and the road. No Thelma to your Louise?"

  "I'm more like PeeWee Herman than either of them," Cassie laughed.

  "It's not liberating at all? The time alone with yourself?" Laura asked.

  "It's been a weird month. I've been fighting myself, you know, not wanting to make any real decisions for, I don't know, maybe for years."

  "Totally. I left the scripted path, too. I remember the fear of letting go. Shit, it's scary, but the idea of the same job and corporate shit-eating every day is scarier than the unknown. Not to get too personal, but do you have a significant other back there in the real world?"

  "No. I was in a crap relationship a while back. I don't even know why anymore," Cassie said, suddenly aware that she said, 'I don't know' more than anything else, and why was she trying to explain herself to this woman anyway, except, oh, that's what friendly people do, they tell stories, and she really could use a friend right now.

  "What happened?" Laura asked in a way that made this suddenly feel to Cassie like a high school sleepover.

  "I'm a nurse, so, I keep crazy hours, and I guess he had a girl during my night shifts. He told me about it, then he left me. All of that after I paid off his car, a bit of his credit card debt and he's still on my cell plan."

  "Fuck that. You deserve better. I don't even know you, but damn. I hate users," Laura said.

  "I forgave him about the cheating. I really thought, yeah, I am always at work and I have issues... A touch of PTSD, so I can be distant, but he didn't want me anymore. I don't miss him exactly, but the emptiness kills. No one to check in with in a text, no one to know where I'm at except my mom."

  Cassie felt tears threaten to return. She couldn't believe she was sharing this shit with someone she just met. This was very unlike her, but she couldn't stop. Some tough soldier lady she was, except she was never that uber-butch mom from Terminator 2 badass like she sometimes pretended to be. She was alone, felt alone and separate somehow.

  "It's dumb, but I think stuff like, if I broke my leg on the apartment stairs, no one would know or help me. God this sounds like self-pity, doesn't it?" Cassie said.

  "No, honey. It's ok. Let's not let men ruin this vacay from reality for you. I say, let's put on some music, get you dressed in desert suitable attire, get real fucking high and go people-watching."

  "I don't know. I feel like maybe I'm imposing."

  "Let Mama Laura be your guide to this magical freak show. Ever try mushroom tea?"

  "No, but I have a joint," Cassie said digging in her purse for the joint some kind stranger had given her. Was it re-gifting to give it away now?

  "Hey, that's a great start!"

  ***

  Erik had taken a day back at Black Star, even back in his old apartment unit, drinking water and letting his body detox from the meds, the ones that kept his ability to see that inner landscape, to sweat out through his pores. His cat hated the new digs. Neither of them liked change, but he was anxious to get started. He had plans after all. He also knew that his level of being monitored had skyrocketed up to total paranoia levels. Didn't matter. He had gotten used to knowing even his shits were observed and measured during his last stay here. He felt so good about this and his plan, that he didn't even give the techs and analysts a hard time as they did initial baseline metabolism tests. The time had come though, for him to put his money where his mouth was, and strap in for adventure time.

  The Black Star technicians guided Erik to the lab room and started prepping monitors and medication for the session.

  "Fuck you. I know how this works," he said, party manners wearing off and his natural charm shining through.

  "Erik, please. The guided meditation is still standard process," Cynthia said remotely via a mic in room. He was surprised she'd deign to show up for this.

  "I don't need it. I know how to find the path."

  "What you don't realize is there appears to have been changes since you were last here. Also..." Cynthia trailed off.

  "Also what?"

  "Let's just proceed and see what happens?" she asked.

  The psychoactive cocktail came on the same as it always did. A mellowness, a lethargic slowing of heartbeat, with smaller quicker breathing. It hit the body before the mind. Most subjects became docile, but Erik never lost his capacity for shitty attitude, no matter how much dopamine was pumping through his brain.

  It felt good to get high again, Erik thought. This was no simple thing though, to trip out on these drugs. It seemed even more potent than he remembered. He felt his mind expand, his senses amplified beyond normal perception. He felt invincible, filled with an incredible focus, and the feeling of being back in the game after being on the proverbial bench for so long.

  "Fine," the lab tech said, and dimmed the lights once more as an ambient, throbbing beat filled the room.

  The tech began reciting the scripted words, but Erik barely heard them. He was going in on his own, feeling the motion of no motion, the inward leaning forward as his eyes closed. Time slowed and his perceptions sped up. His thoughts non-symbolic, no words just intent and feeling, a mental projection aimed at moving through fields of black and purple swathes of colored gauze, until he felt a breeze on his cheeks and saw, or perceived really, his eyes had nothing to do with it, perceived green grass only in his immediate vicinity, fading to impenetrable darkness beyond a few feet, as if in a spotlight of dim light. The feeling of floating forward was replaced by weight, toes in grass and feeling for those well-worn stones of the path.

  "I'm on the path," he said.

  "Good, Erik. Keep talking," said the tech.

  Erik smirked even in his trance as he started forward on the path, continually attempting to shift his focus around him. They were right, things had changed. Maybe it was night wherever he was and that was the difference, though he didn't think of this as a real place having night and day, only that it was darker, fuzzier and more ominously threatening that it had been. He'd had run-ins with the guardian before, the tech explained that away as part of the human mind reacting to the drugs and creating a sense of disembodied dread. A species of sleep paralysis. The old crone, some called it.

  "Erik, keep walking. Let the fear wash over you and pass with each step forward. This is not your destination. Y
ou want to reach the tree," the tech said in those calming guided meditation tones.

  Erik heard the words but they did not comfort him. A sense of unease was climbing. There was something, a presence behind him, but he couldn't turn his head to see.

  "Guys, I feel something behind me," he said worriedly.

  The presence moved faster than Erik advanced. It was almost upon him. Soundless but there. He felt it and it was horror.

  Erik whispered, cockiness now gone, "I can't move."

  "You can and will. This is only a phantom of your own mind. You know this. Everyone feels it, and you've moved beyond it before," Cynthia directed.

  "Oh god. It's horrible. It's gonna get me," Erik said, sounding like a scared kid.

  "There's nothing there that can hurt you," the tech motioned to catch Cynthia's attention as she observed from another room. The change in the obnoxious personality was disturbing in itself.

  "I'm so afraid."

  Cynthia's voice squawked loudly into the room, "Erik, don't be the piece of shit we already suspect you to be. Keep walking and find the tree."

  Erik let out a gagged, chocked sob. He felt the presence just over his shoulder. The embodiment of bad things, inarticulate awfulness. Harmfulness itself. The fear obliterated any other thought, but escape, and yet, he was paralyzed.

  "Increase his levels," Cynthia said to the tech.

  "If we do that, he might be too high to work."

  "I know that, but he has to get past this, even if it means a little ego death trip."

  Cynthia addressed Erik again, "Stay where you are then, let it get you, then when you are done, we can move again. Trust me."

  "Noooo! Help me," he moaned and lurched in his chair.

  He screamed again and tensed up with a terrible expression of horror, a deathly grimace, then relaxed.

  "Hey guys. I see the path. There's..." he said and laughed.

  "What do you see?"

  "There's blue fish, flying floating fish, lighting up the path."

  Cynthia looked at the tech as if to say, I told you so.

  "Well, follow the fish," she said.