Demon 4- God Squad 0

by David Dwan

  There was a long pause as the creature’s words hung in the air.

  “I’m so sorry this has happened to you,” Ross finally said without thinking.

  The creature smiled. “Not what you expected, am I?”

  “No,” Ross answered truthfully. “But,” he continued equally as truthful. “I can’t help you kill Davis.”

  Minx shrugged. “Perhaps you can,” it said turning back to the charm on the floor.

  Ross saw this. “I don’t think that was designed to kill you.”

  “Kill me? No. But it has such power.”

  Minx edged a little closer to the charm on the floor, like a child towards a hand grenade.

  “I can do things,” it said never taking its eyes of the silver disk. “Even in this pathetic state, the human mind is such a fragile, malleable thing to me.”

  “Shit,” Ross looked across the room where the table leg he had used to smash the cameras was still laid.

  The demon cocked its head at this and after a moment of deliberation, a smile cracked its face. “No, not you priest.” Minx edged yet closer to the charm, it began shaking in fear or pain, Ross couldn’t tell.

  “When you entered this place, when you said his name,” Minx said. “I dared to hope you would be the instrument of my salvation. Yet, that hope was dashed when I looked down upon your face. But now...?

  “Minx?” Ross said calculating how long it would take him to get to the table leg and then bash the little shit’s brains in.

  The demon stopped within grabbing distance of the charm and Ross wondered if it had lost its nerve. But then it turned to look directly at him and despite his terror Ross somehow found the strength to hold its nightmarish gaze.

  Minx smiled and tapped its temple with its left talon. “I have an army,” it said. “They call themselves fans, but deep down it’s more than that. Ordinary people who over time have come to find themselves obsessed with this fucking show, but more so with me. Despite never having any interest in the occult before they cannot help themselves. They have to know everything about me, fact or fiction, they don’t care.”

  There was a hint of pride in the creature’s voice now. “It starts off as a mild interest, sparked off by simply hearing the merest syllable spoken by me. It starts with something that simple, don’t ask me how, but I have the ability to hide deliciously subversive, subliminal messages, thoughts really within the words I speak. Nothing more than suggestion at this stage, but with the latent potential for so much more. And so it builds, as they come to every show, read every article. I can feel them, even when I’m in slumber. They don’t meet in groups, they don’t defend my authenticity over the world wide web. They just know. They just know I am real, and you know why? Do you know why they feel so special, so connected to me? Because they are.”

  Minx tapped its temple again. “Down through these hideous months I have been planting seeds. In my weakened state and with those fucking charms that is all I have been able to do, but still they are real enough. Little seeds of growing obsession with me. Did you know a man killed four people in this very house? That was because of me. Because of the residue I was able to leave here when I was out of my coffin. Little things left to twist a man’s mind. There have been more still throughout all this. Small things, here and there. But I was still lacking one real thing.”

  Minx pointed to the charm on the floor. “Real power.”

  “Hey, Davis,” Ross shouted. “You might want to get someone down here. I don’t know what he’s planning but he’s planning something.”

  “I don’t know if this will work,” Minx said to Ross and then it grinned showing rotten jagged teeth that were made for nothing but mischief. “But I do know one thing... This is gonna hurt.”

  Both Minx and Ross lunged simultaneously towards their weapon of choice. The priest flung himself across the floor and grabbed a hold of the chair leg. He turned towards the demon ready to strike just in time to see it grab a hold of the charm.

  Minx screamed at the contact then much to Ross’ horror the creature slammed the charm against its forehead where it stuck.

  The demon let out a horrific howl of pain. It was the worst thing anyone within earshot, regardless of geography had ever heard. It was a sound that would haunt thousands for years to come, so raw and powerful if felt like a physical blow.

  High up in the production office, the sound engineer screamed in pain and tore off his headphones. He fell back out of his chair and began writhing on the floor in pain. Hands clutched to his bleeding ears.

  “Jesus!” Tiff shouted and a couple of the others ran over to him, trying in vain to calm the man as he started fitting.

  “Nico...” Davis uttered numbly but the Russian was already out the door speaking remarkably calmly in Russian into his radio.

  Down below, three of his security team sprinted out from under the main stand, guns drawn aiming at the house. They stopped when they got to the stage. It was impressively efficient but did little to allay Davis’ growing fear.

  “Keep filming, keep filming!” Miller shouted and a Steadicam operator came jogging out and over to film the security guards as if it was just another cop show she was working on.

  “What’s going on in there?” Davis said, the fear clear in his trembling voice. He looked at the monitor showing the shot of the living room door in the house. And was thankful it was still closed.

  All the whilst Minx’s scream continued through the massive PA system assaulting the senses of the audience and crew alike.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  It took Ross a good few seconds to realise he was now flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. He had no recollection of being thrown back but there he was. He sat up gingerly half expecting his entire skeleton to be shattered but apart from the ringing in his ears he seemed unharmed.

  He gasped, Minx was still on its knees where it had been, still howling in pain, but Ross himself had been flung back across the room perhaps ten feet or so. He scooped up the chair leg which was close by and dragged himself to his feet.

  He staggered across the room to the creature and swung the makeshift bludgeon as hard as he could into Minx’s contorted face. It was as much to silence the thing as to incapacitate it.

  Minx’s head snapped back so far from the impact that the back of its head actually hit between its shoulder blades and the demon fell silent. The charm was dislodged and spun away through the air and clattered to the floor boards in the corner of the room where it laid smoking.

  Ross hit Minx in the face again, even harder this time and the demon flew back. It hit the ground hard and was about to try to rise when Ross put his foot on its sunken chest and pinned it to the floor. He swung the leg again hitting Minx between the eyes and its face crumpled in on itself. He hit it again and again until there was little left of its features but a bloody mess.

  Then he staggered back, panting at the sheer effort of the assault, he felt suddenly repulsed not only at the gory sight but at his own ability to inflict such carnage on another ‘living’ creature.

  “Oh, Christ,” he uttered and dropped the leg as if it were white hot. He looked down in horror as Minx began to quiver. Despite its ruined face Ross could hear a nauseating hacking sound as the creature tried to breathe whilst choking on its own viscous blood.

  Its body began to convulse now as bloody bile bubbled up through its lips and seeped down its smashed chin.

  Then the breath caught in Ross’ throat as a sickening realization hit him. Minx wasn’t choking. It was laughing.

  “Jesus, Christ.” Ross said and covered his ears in a vain attempt to block out the sound which was somehow worse than the screaming.

  “Bring... Him... To... Me...” Minx gargled.

  “What did he just say?” Michael Davis whispered. His throat was so dry it came out in rasping paper thin syllables.

  Then there was the longest pause, everyone in the production office was frozen to the spot with fear and indecision. It was
Jeff Miller the director who was so intent on getting the next shot who spoke next as he glanced frantically from one monitor to the next.

  “Shit, where the fuck did everybody go?”

  Davis looked over at the director. “Huh?”

  Miller hit a button on his keyboard and a shot of the main stand came up on the monitor. Moments before it had been packed with hundreds of rabid fans. Now it was over half empty.

  The crowd were leaving the stands in droves, but this was no ordinary exodus for the exits, quite the opposite. Well over a hundred of them were flooding onto the field, heading for the stage.

  “Can I get some fucking crowd control down there for fuck’s sake?” Miller barked into his headset.

  Davis felt a sudden jolt of utter terror. ‘I have an army,’ Minx had said.

  A dozen stewards in yellow high-viz jackets tried in vain to stop the flow of people but they were swept aside in an instant.

  A moment later Nico Gorodetsky came bursting back into the production office. He shut the door behind him and locked it.

  “Nico?” Davis said.

  The Russian turned and they locked eyes and Davis saw something in them that was far worse even than that creature’s amplified cackle. Fear.

  “They’ve gone fucking crazy,” Gorodetsky said. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pistol.

  “This is fucking madness,” Davis told him.

  “Exactly,” Gorodetsky replied.

  Madness on an industrial scale.

  “Keep filming, damn you, keep filming!” Miller screamed into his headset as one my one the cameras down below cut to static as its operator was overwhelmed by the human tide.

  Davis laughed despite himself. Laughed at the sheer lunacy of it all.

  Suddenly a cry went up as the whole production office shuddered violently on its scaffold foundations. Everyone grabbed a hold of something to stop themselves being flung to the floor and for a moment the whole production office seemed to teeter on the brink of pitching forwards towards the ground.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Tiff sobbed. She was clinging desperately to a desk which itself was threatening to slide off through the main observation window.

  “They’re trying to bring the whole thing down,” Nico said. “There’s dozens of them down there. It’s the most fucked up thing I ever saw. Christ, I had to fight my way through six of them on the stairs just to get up here. They’ve all gone fucking crazy!”

  “It’s Minx!” Tiff shouted. “He’s done this! That twisted fucking thing!” She turned to Davis who was trying desperately to keep his balance. “Kill that monster!!” She screamed all thought of protocol long since gone.

  “I can’t,” Davis said softly to himself. Those two words hit him like a freight train. ‘I can’t.’

  “That thing,” Tiff said, bracing herself against the desk as the office lurched forwards again, it was like being in the middle of an earthquake. “That thing in your pocket! Put the bastard to sleep.”

  Of course, in all the panic Davis had forgotten about the sleep spell. Too little too late?

  He was about to take out the box when an unholy shriek came up from the crowd below. Davis froze, had Minx gotten out? He spun around to look out of the now cracked observation window as the whole structure shuddered violently again.

  Down below Dex Dexter was being borne aloft the now two hundred strong crowd who were still flooding down onto the field, like a reluctant crowd surfer.

  “Help me!” He screamed. His face contorted in terror as the crowd began to tear at his gaudy over-priced clothes.

  “Minx, Minx, Minx!” The crowd chanted over and over but whereas before that had been music to Davis’ ears, now it filled him with nothing but dread.

  This was as stranger mob of zealots as you could ever hope to find, young and old alike. Young mothers shoulder to shoulder with accountants and bakers. Teenagers and pensioners their faces were all a mask of utter bliss. It was just like Minx had said, none of them knew why, and certainly afterwards none could articulate what had motivated such actions. But in that moment it made perfect sense. All of those months of growing obsession with the strange creature in the house. Of that odd feeling of affinity they had with it, now they knew why.

  It just made perfect sense, triggered by an almost physical flicking of a switch in their brains the moment Minx had screamed, fuelled as he was by the charm that was intended to keep him down. Not as it turned out, rise him up and set him free.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Father Ross could hear Dex Dexter screaming in protested even from inside the house and that ominous chant of the creature’s name.

  Minx rolled onto its side and propped itself up on its bony elbow and looked at the priest through a mask of dripping gore. Even now its face was beginning to reform before Ross’ sickened gaze. Shattered bone and muscle shifting back into place accompanied by the sound of nauseating pops and cracks.

  The creature smiled and it looked for a moment like the whole bottom half of its face would fall away the maw was so wide. Again it chuckled wetly clearly enjoying this new turn of events.

  “Minx...” Ross was cut off by three rapid shots from outside.

  He backed away towards the living room door as Minx slowly pushed itself up until it was on its hands and knees. Another two muffled shots rang out.

  “Do you know the last rites, Father?” Minx gurgled.

  Ross’ back hit the door, he reached behind him and fumbled blindly for the door handle, never daring to take his eyes off Minx, who was now slowly crawling towards him.

  “Minx, stop this,” Ross pleaded.

  “Stop what?” The demon slurred with all the innocence of a child killer. “It’s my fans,” it added. “Not me.”

  As if hearing this, the crowd outside began chanting its name louder still. Another shot followed by raised voices in Russian.

  “Take a look,” Minx said crawling closer still.

  Ross found the door handle and flung open the door. He staggered down the hallway and over to the front door. He was about to reach for the handle but suddenly thought better of it. He glanced behind him as Minx appeared in the living room doorway and using the door, it pulled itself unsteadily to its feet. Where it waited leaning against the door for support.

  Ross knelt down and pulled open the letter box so that he could peer outside.

  “Christ,” he uttered. The crowd were massed just in front of the stage. Dozens upon dozens of them blended into one writhing mass. Three men whom the priest assumed were security men stood on the low stage with their guns thankfully pointed into the air.

  Again each of them fired once into the night sky but the crowd didn’t so much as flinch. They could have quite easily rushed the three men and trampled them to death, but they waited, not out of fear, but as if they had been instructed to do so.

  Dex Dexter was being held helplessly above them, they tossed and flung the beleaguered host about like a rag doll. He was naked now and his pasty body was battered and bloody. “Help me, help me!” He screamed in vain as he tumbled from hand to hand.

  Finally the crowd rushed forwards like a tidal wave and the three security men were swallowed up in their midst. A moment later they too were raised up but unlike the unfortunately host they were handed almost gently towards the back of the crowd where they disappeared out of sight.

  Then the mass of people moved back to the front of the stage once more like a single entity made up of hundreds of mismatched unrelated moving parts. And then an eerie silence fell over them.

  “Minx,” Ross pleaded. “Let Dexter go,” he tore his eyes away from the surreal gathering and peered off through the letterbox to the side of the arena, where he could just see the main production office some way off, high up on a grid of scaffolding.

  Perhaps a hundred more people were gathered around the bottom of it, pushing and pulling at the base of the structure which was swaying alarmingly.

  “What?” Minx said f
rom the room behind him. “And deny him his farewell performance?”

  A scream of utter terror dragged Ross’ horrified gaze back to the host who was still aloft the crowd. Dexter was tumbling over and over, faster and faster as he was roughly past from one person to the next. Some would merely pass him on as if he were painful to the touch. Others were clawing and punching at him as he passed.

  “Please...” Was all Ross could muster at the pitiful sight. Then Dexter suddenly disappeared as he fell into the throng.

  Ross heard Minx draw in a long painful rasping breath. The priest closed his eyes for a moment in anticipation of what was to come.

  “Tear him apart,” Minx hissed.

  Despite his revulsion, Ross couldn’t help but look back out of the letterbox once more as Dexter’s high pitched shriek cut through him like a knife. All he could see now was the crowd fighting rabidly amongst themselves to get at the naked man. Each as eager as the next to obey their demonic obsession’s request. And he was damn glad that was all he could see.

  High up in the production office Michael Davis and the others, all clinging onto anything solid as the whole structure threatened to topple over, weren’t so lucky.

  They had literally a bird’s eye view of the slaughter of Dex Dexter.

  Dozens of willing hands tore and gouged at the host as he fell amongst them. His pale skin burst and ripped open under the assault showering those attackers closest to him in thick dark blood, and they revelled in it with an almost orgasmic glee, rubbing it all over their writhing bodies. Some were so intent on rendering Dexter apart that they used their teeth to rip into his flesh.

  It was a feeding frenzy that would have put a pack of wild dogs to shame with its ferocity. Made all the more horrific by the banality of the attackers appearances. Normal everyday looking people driven to an act of unspeakable violence.

  “They are going to kill us all!!” Someone screamed from somewhere just behind Davis who had wedged himself between a computer hard drive stack and the director’s control desk to avoid being flung around like a rag doll. But it may just as well have been from a million miles away for all his terror addled brain could register it.