Only the Devil Is Here

by Stephen Michell

  Nothing.

  His peripheral vision darkened. He felt dizzy and his stomach turned over. He crawled forward a few feet, and then lowered his head and vomited. He wiped his mouth and then brushed the wetness from his eyes and cheeks.

  The crunch of feet in the snow came from close by.

  “Evan?”

  Hearing his name, Evan jumped again. He looked up and saw a tall silver-haired man standing ten feet away beside a thin pine tree. It took a moment, but then he recognized his silver hair. It was the man from the hotel room where Rook had first taken him.

  Evan scrambled away on the ground.

  “It’s okay, Evan. My name is Gabriel. I’m a friend. You’re Evan, yes?”

  Evan stopped but said nothing.

  When Gabriel took a step forward, Evan flinched like a feral creature poised to run off, and Gabriel halted. He put up his hands and showed his palms. They looked soft and plump and delicate.

  “You’re Evan, aren’t you?” Gabriel asked, his voice smooth and calm. Then, “I’m a friend of Rook’s. He asked me to come out here to meet you. To help you. I helped you and Rook before, back in the city. Remember that?”

  A look of stubborn, angry recollection flashed across Evan’s face.

  Gabriel said, “I visited you and Rook at the hotel, when Rook needed help getting out of the city. He needs help now to get you to a church.”

  “We aren’t going to the church anymore,” Evan said.

  Gabriel raised his hands higher in the air as he took another foot forward. Evan shuffled back, but he was calm. He was watching the man’s mouth. It opened wide when he spoke and each time revealed a host of white teeth. The sight was unnerving. But the sound of the man’s voice was familiar. Evan remembered him talking to Rook in the hotel. He had come to help them, then, to warn them of the bad people. Hadn’t he?

  “You don’t have to be scared,” Gabriel said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help. Rook asked me to help. He said something bad was going to happen to him. He said he knew he was going to—”

  Evan cut him off. “Don’t talk about Rook,” he said.

  “Evan, I’m just here to help. Rook asked me to come and look after you once he was gone. He told me everything. I know about the church. And I know about those people who want to hurt you. They’re still coming, Evan. We have to get you safe.”

  “Rook said the church isn’t safe. He said it was a lie.”

  Gabriel lowered his hands and nodded. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “It’s awful that you had to see Rook that way. He was very scared. And he was confused. He knew what was going to happen to him and he panicked.”

  Evan shook his head. “He wasn’t scared.”

  “Yes he was. He knew he was going to die.”

  “Don’t say that,” Evan said and then began to cry.

  “Rook is dead, Evan. I’m sorry, but you have to face that.”

  Evan yelled, “Don’t talk about Rook!” He sprang to his feet and started running back the way he had come.

  At the edge of the woods, he slipped down the slope into the ditch, picked himself up, and climbed back up to the road. He ran to the front of the truck and stopped.

  Rook sat against the grill of the truck with his arms slack at his sides, his legs splayed out and his chin hung to his chest. His beard was clumped with blood. Evan stared.

  Then he shouted, “Get up!”

  Rook said nothing.

  Evan stepped towards him and spoke clearly. “Get up, Rook. Let’s go. We have to keep going. Come on.” He kicked Rook’s left boot and yelled. “Get up!”

  A black bird flew up from the river and whirled in the air and swooped down across the road and rose back over the woods. Evan failed to see it. He was glaring hard at Rook and his eyes welled.

  Evan crouched in front of Rook and pushed him with both hands, then hit Rook in the chest with his fists.

  He yelled, “You promised! You promised I’d get to go with you. Why’d you promise if you were going to leave me?”

  He grabbed the collar of Rook’s jacket and tried to pull him up and Rook’s head rolled and Evan saw his flat, glossy eyes and he jumped back.

  Gabriel stood behind Evan in the sun. He said, “He’s not coming back, Evan. You’re all alone now.”

  “What happened to him?” Evan asked.

  “The mean people killed him.”

  Evan started crying.

  “But I’m here to help you,” Gabriel said. “Rook’s last hope was that I would get you to the church, so you would be safe. The mean people are still coming for you.”

  Evan wiped his face clear with both hands. His eyes were puffy and red. He stared at Rook. Then he stood.

  Gabriel came closer. “Do you really want to let Rook down? After all of this? Do you want to let him die for nothing?”

  Evan shook his head. He breathed deep and slow and even. It was then that he saw the second body lying at the side of the road. He crossed to it and saw that it was August. She looked like she was sleeping, but Evan sensed that she was not.

  “The mean people got her too?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “Even she was not safe. Please, Evan, there isn’t much time. We must get you to the church. Do it for Rook.”

  Evan said, “Was it really what Rook wanted?”

  “Yes. Truly.”

  Evan looked once more down at August. “Okay,” he said, his voice small. “Where do we go?”

  “Follow me.”

  They walked a ways through the woods and then came to a low clearing. Gabriel was ahead of Evan. Unable to explain it, Evan found himself wanting to imitate the man. He followed after him, walking where Gabriel walked, turning where Gabriel turned, wanting strangely to be like the man. Rook’s friend.

  The clearing ahead of them was flat with a slow depression leading to a frozen pond; on the other side more trees stood and a hill rose to a high ridge. Evan followed Gabriel around the pond. The pine trees were tall and thin, bare to an ash grey, but for the needles in the canopy. Across the forest floor there were many fallen, dead poplars and broken branches lying in half shadow. Yet for all of this they walked swiftly, almost gliding.

  They went up the hill to the ridge. On the other side, another hill went back down to the forest floor, but there was an old worn walking trail between the slopes. They walked along it. A pale daylight reached them through the trees. Below the forest was hushed in gloom.

  Gabriel paused. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  Evan looked up at him. “I’m okay.”

  “Do you like this place, Evan?”

  Evan surveyed the woods. “No. It’s cold and it’s dark.”

  Gabriel nodded. “That’s very astute.”

  “A what?”

  “I know that you feel you are different, Evan. You feel that you don’t belong here.”

  Evan nodded, nudging a loose snow-dusted rock from the ground with his toe. It revealed a damp pocket of earth, and Evan imagined a grave. He moved his foot away.

  “Can we keep going?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  They continued along the ridge in single file. The path sloped through a rock-strewn gully. Evan walked with his head down. They climbed once more to a new height facing due west and through the trees the sun was already beginning to set, a spreading murky red. To Evan it was the whole earth bleeding.

  The hill opened up to a broad flattop. On every side there were wide views of the pine forest and a footpath leading below to the base of the ridge and far to the northeast the sound of the river over a patch of rapids carried up through the trees.

  Gabriel stopped and stood straight. Beside him were the low stone ruins of a single four-walled structure. The area was grown over and choked with wild, leafless creeper vine and thickets along the edges.

  Evan walked up from behind him. He remembered what Rook had told him: the church was just a bunch of old stone ruins.

  “I don’t get it,” he
said.

  “You’ll be safe once you go inside.”

  “But there’s no walls.”

  “There are walls of another kind,” Gabriel said. “Step inside, Evan. Inside you will be safe.”

  Evan walked up to the edge of the ruins and studied them, dubious. There appeared to be little concept of an inside at all. Even the remnant of the stone perimeter was incomplete, worn and weathered, leaving small gaps in its border.

  He felt a sudden toxic aversion to it. To the smell of the soil and mossy stones. To the clinging static quality of the air. He felt the hairs on his neck standing on end, and it made him think if he put his hand over the boundary, lightning would strike him.

  The failing sunlight was murky and reddish through the trees and Evan saw a glow appear in the ruins, enriched by the close shadow of the thicket. The stones seemed to hum in the light, as if the earth below was rumbling. Evan backed away.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabriel said.

  “I don’t like this place,” Evan said.

  Gabriel came close and reached out to place his hand on Evan’s shoulder, but his hand stopped before it touched him. Evan flinched anyway.

  Gabriel said, “Come with me.”

  He led Evan to the edge of the ridge where a rocky outcrop jutted over the slope, braced with wintered poplars.

  “Sit,” Gabriel said.

  Evan sat. Gabriel joined him. They dangled their legs over the crag. Evan glanced back at the ruins and already he felt better being away from them. Then he looked at Gabriel. What early sense of menace he had felt was absent now. Instead, he was reminded of sitting with schoolteachers or with the counsellors at the orphanage. A small office with an open window and a summer breeze of cut grass and sunlight and him seated quietly. Waiting to answer questions.

  For a while, Gabriel said nothing. The stone was cold under Evan’s legs, but he sat still. He was happy to be still. He felt he had been running for as long as he could remember.

  Finally, Gabriel said, “I don’t like this place, either. It’s a lonely place. It’s a sad place. Don’t you think?”

  Evan nodded.

  Gabriel asked, “Do you believe in Heaven?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes.”

  “I believe in Heaven,” Gabriel said. “In fact, I know it exists. It’s a nice place. You don’t have to be afraid or sad in Heaven. There are no questions. You just get to be. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

  Evan nodded. He was thinking about Rook.

  “You miss Rook, don’t you?” Gabriel said. “I miss him, too. And now you’re all alone. He was all you had in this world, and now you have nothing. No friends. No family. No one even knows who you are. No one even knows if you’re alive or dead. In a way, you might as well be dead. I mean, what more do you have to look forward to, here, except more sadness and darkness and pain?”

  Gabriel paused and looked at Evan to judge his condition. Then he asked, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just leave this place? Leave everything behind? Just like you have always wanted? Wouldn’t that be better?”

  Evan was quiet to his core. He sniffled against the cold.

  “I can help you leave this place, Evan. I can take you someplace better. Away from all the pain and sadness and fear.”

  Evan looked up. “Where would we go?”

  “Away from here. To a good place.”

  “Is that where Rook went?”

  “Yes. Rook is there. And you can be with him again if you want.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “Just step within those stones,” Gabriel said, raising his arm. “Think of it as a doorway. All you have to do is open it.”

  Evan looked back at the ruins. Once more, he shuddered with an instinct for danger.

  Gabriel sensed that the Adversary was close. Now was the time, he thought. He wished he could pick the child up and throw him into the boundary of the ruins, but that was impossible. The child had to enter of his own free will. Only then would the link to the Adversary be true.

  Gabriel pursed his lips impatiently. He asked, “Haven’t you wanted to know why you feel different, Evan? Why you feel separate from everyone else? Why you can sense people like they are animals below you? Haven’t you wanted to know why you can feel people’s pain and sadness in your head? Don’t you want to know who you are?”

  Evan said, “I want to go wherever Rook is.”

  “Then all you have to do is step within the stones, Evan, and you can be with him forever. All of this will go away. It will just be you and Rook.”

  Evan wiped his cheeks. “I didn’t want him to leave,” he said.

  “And you can have him back. He’s waiting for you.”

  Once more, Evan looked back at the ruins.

  “I just go in there?” he asked.

  “That’s all. Just step over the stones.”

  “And I’ll get to be with Rook?”

  “Yes.”

  Evan nodded. “Okay,” he said, and he stood.

  Gabriel stood as well. He looked down at Evan. “It will be better, Evan. Everything will be better. I swear. Go on.”

  Evan walked to the edge of the ruins. He still had that sense of danger, but decided to ignore it. Fear and pain didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing. He just wanted to be with Rook.

  He stepped over the stone boundary.

  As soon as he was standing on the ground within the ruins, the cold air of the forest lifted away. Evan’s head filled with lightness like he had stood up too fast. He drifted forward. Then he stepped back. He looked down and the earth was rising up to meet him and he put his hands out to stop it.

  Evan crashed hard to the frozen ground. He was down on his hands and knees. He trembled and opened his mouth to breathe but the air was hot and wet and it stuck in his throat.

  Something bad is happening, he thought. Something very bad is happening.

  All at once, he started sweating under his clothes and his stomach turned over like he was about to vomit. His heartbeat pounded in his chest. His skin prickled and burned and his bones ached.

  Gabriel stepped to the edge of the ruins and looked down at Evan. His expression was smooth and contented and serene. He listened to the child begin to scream.

  Evan lay curled in a fetal position, then kicking his legs out only to pull them in again. He could hear a voice calling him, vague and distant. Calling out his name.

  Twisting, he gritted his teeth against another scream and buried his face in the ground, which was now moist and soft under him. Again, from a distance, he heard someone calling his name.

  “Rook!” he cried.

  “Rook cannot protect you anymore,” Gabriel said. “Let it happen, child.”

  Evan flipped over and lay flat on his back. His breath boiled in his throat and steam spurted from his open mouth as he gasped and choked.

  “Do not resist. It will be easier for you.”

  The heat poured out of him, closing over his body like a tomb. Then his vision dimmed and he saw only flashes of white upon black, sharp images of a creature crawling along a stone-strewn shore.

  At that moment, a burst of fire leapt from Evan’s mouth and with the flame arose a voice. A scream. Evan heard it and was surprised because it was not his own. It was the voice of some other being within him and it screamed with a pitch of such clear agony and fury together that it sounded almost beautiful in its purity.

  Gabriel lifted his chin, angling his gaze so he could better look down upon the scene. He knew the final moment was near. The Adversary was found.

  Evan’s eyes were closed. His pulse throbbed massively in his head and at the same time he could feel it outside himself. As if someone drove a heavy hammer against the earth right next to him. All around, it was spreading. The wet ground beat with the same rhythm of his heart, the small stones jumped with it, the pools of melted snow rippled. And then, coming from afar, rising up, he heard the clear calling of his name.

  The voice shared the same
intensity as the scream he had heard, and it was right at his ear, as if someone lay, alive and real, on the ground beside him.

  “Evan! Evan! Hear me!”

  He wished with all his soul that it was Rook, but he knew it wasn’t.

  Evan recognized this voice now. It was the voice that spoke through him when he used his special-thinking. It was the voice that had helped him carry Rook from the cornfield to safety. It was the voice of his heart’s double beat.

  “You are being tricked, Evan. The pain you think you feel is false. You are okay. What lives in these stones can’t hurt a human child. It means to confuse you, to keep you in the light while they search for me. It is my pain you feel, Evan, not your own. But if they catch me we will both perish. Do you understand this? You must see through the pain, Evan. You must stand up and get out of here.”

  Evan cried out and his shoulder blades struck the ground as his back arched in a savage contortion.

  “. . . I can’t! I can’t!”

  “You must, Evan. I know you are afraid. I know you wish someone would come and lift you up and take you away from this. We have always been hunted, chased, hated and feared and driven against a wall, but that is our great burden. And there is no bright light above that can save us. I didn’t want you to learn of our bond like this. I wanted you to learn in time. But we must save ourselves now. And we can, Evan, if we help each other. I need you to stand up and get outside these stones.”

  Slowly, Evan turned on his side tried to stand. Then he went down again.

  “. . . It hurts too much!”

  “You are strong, Evan. That’s why I chose you. You must get us outside the stones. I will do the rest. Trust me.”

  And then the voice that spoke from Evan’s heart said, “Evan, these people that have tricked us, that have hunted us, that are trying to destroy us now, they were the ones that tricked Rook. They were the ones who killed him.”

  At that moment, Evan’s chest kicked and his eyes opened. He saw the surrounding forest in a haze of rust-coloured bursts and flares, and then he saw Gabriel standing at the edge of the stones and his focus sharpened like he was staring down a tunnel.

  He felt the scream rise up his throat as a spurt of fire, only this time it was his own. “You killed Rook!”