A Friend of the Devil

by David Beers

  Emi turned then, moving on her back so that they both stared at the ceiling.

  She knew she loved him then. Not like a boyfriend. Not like she wanted to kiss him. It was deeper than that, somehow.

  Emi didn’t ask any questions about what she’d seen the previous night. Lying on the bed next to him, she decided that it didn’t matter—just like she had years ago. Nothing was different today than it was yesterday, besides seeing what he’d always believed. Emi could believe it, too, or she could force it from her mind. She was good at the second part, had to be with parents like hers. And what did it matter if she ignored last night? If she went on the same as before?

  It wouldn’t matter to Abel. She knew that.

  Would it matter to her?

  Did it matter that his neck was blue and something had happened last night, or that he might not go to school tomorrow? Or the next day? Most importantly, would it matter if she saw the same thing happen again?

  No, she thought. No, it doesn’t matter what Abel does. I’m his friend and I’m always going to be his friend.

  “I guess I’m missing school,” she said.

  “You’re a goddamn delinquent,” Abel said, then laughed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Present Day

  Vince Demsworth stood in front of Emi Laurens, though to call him Vince Demsworth at this point was only for expediency. The truth was, sometime in the past 12 to 15 hours, Vince had faded so far back into the recesses of his own mind, that he really didn’t exist at all.

  He did not scream nor even really fight as it happened. He went easily, finally descending fully into hell. Lovers’ whispers had brought him to this place of nearly nonexistence, and whether he’d been a willing participant was tough to say.

  It didn’t matter.

  The body standing in front of Emi Laurens was no more Vince Demsworth’s than it was Emi’s. Another entity had hold of it now, something not of this Earth.

  The entity stared at Emi, trying to come to terms with what was happening. She lay on the bare ground, not moving. Her eyes were closed, though the entity had bent down and opened them a few minutes ago. She stared upward, unmoving, her eyes not dilating at all.

  The entity didn’t understand.

  It could feel her, the same as it had been able to feel this Vessel. It had touched her back in the interview room, both of them knowing it happened. Yet, now she was …

  BLOCKED.

  That was the word this mind came up with. She was BLOCKED from the entity, and it didn’t know how that was possible. Standing above her, it cocked its head sideways, mimicking what Vince Demsworth might have done—looking confused.

  The entity wanted this woman because it knew that it could enter her. It didn’t know how or why, such things were silly and unimportant. The whys were always second to the whats, the questions mattering not. Only action.

  Yet, it did want her, and it couldn’t have her. The entity hadn’t planned on ending up on this plane, but it was here, and now it wanted … everything.

  It had tried to first go to her like it did with Vince Demsworth, trying to enter through her dreams. It’d been BLOCKED there, too. It wasn’t allowed in her subconscious, and now that it was trying to get in physically, the Vessel was still somehow blocking it.

  Vince Demsworth’s head looked up at the surrounding area. The entity had used Demsworth’s mind to find this place, though it’d been a struggle. Vince only knew that there were a lot of dilapidated buildings on the westside of Atlanta, outside of what Vince’s mind referred to as the PERIMETER—whatever that meant.

  The structure he stood inside had old, broken machines scattered throughout. The entity had no idea what they’d been used for, and didn’t care either. The building’s material—METAL—was falling apart, and the windows had almost all been broken.

  The entity reached down and took hold of Emi’s arm. It dragged her easily across the dirty concrete, heading to a large pole that stuck out of the ground. The entity dropped her by it, not caring about the scrapes that it’d inflicted on her bare arms and legs. Emi still wore the hospital gown, a filthy thing now, more brown than the pale green it had been originally.

  The entity knew what it wanted, though not how to get it. It hadn’t thought through this part, considering only that it would be able to possess this woman as it had the current Vessel. It had whispered all kinds of things to this Vessel, telling him that the entity would take care of everything, that there was nothing to worry about, but only because the Vessel needed to hear it. The Vessel had wanted plans and assurances. Had wanted to feel secure. It wanted things that the entity couldn’t possibly give—not only because they didn’t exist, but because the entity had no interest in them.

  Plans.

  Security.

  Words that held almost no meaning for it.

  The entity truly didn’t understand exactly how it had come across Vince Demsworth, only knowing that when it saw the opportunity, it latched on.

  Yet, now it was in a predicament it didn’t understand. It could not possess this new Vessel, nor could it leave her. If the Vessel woke up, the entity understood she would run off.

  The entity did not want that at all.

  It didn’t understand how many Vessels it could possess in this world, but it wanted as many as possible. The more Vessels, the more …

  The more Altars it could build.

  And that’s what it wanted to do now, despite its inability to hold this Vessel captive.

  Staring down at it again, the entity felt anger rising in its new body. Its face was growing warm and its hands had balled up.

  “Let me in,” it grunted from between clenched teeth. “ … Let me in ….”

  The Vessel below didn’t move at all.

  Without realizing what was happening, the entity slammed its fist into the large pole on its left. Pain ricocheted up its arm, yet it hit the pole again, the outer pad of its hand slamming into the metal. Loud bangs echoed into the empty building.

  “LET ME IN!”

  Breath heaved out of the entity’s mouth and red hot pain radiated from its hand and wrist.

  BROKEN.

  That’s the word that moved through Demsworth’s head, giving the entity a vague notion of what might have just happened. It looked to the left, at the large pole. The METAL was dented from where it had slammed the Vessel’s fist.

  Thick metal that wouldn’t have bent under any other arm.

  The entity looked back to the woman.

  More Altars, it thought. More Altars, and then the Vessel will relent.

  Something had to be done, though. Something that would ensure the Vessel didn’t run off.

  HAH!

  Real joy sparked in the entity at the realization of these bodies. Frail things. Its arm still screamed in pain, though the entity had no problem ignoring it. It would use the arm just as it had before. The entity understood vaguely that the RULES said it couldn’t hurt the bodies too badly, but a little here and a little there wouldn’t ruin things.

  The entity knelt down at the woman’s lower half. It stared at her leg, searching through Demsworth’s mind to try and understand what to do. DOCTOR. That’s what Demsworth wasn’t, but what the entity needed. Both for its own body and to understand what to do here.

  There was no DOCTOR, though, and that angered the entity even more.

  It stared at the woman’s leg for a second, focusing on the ANKLE. It wanted to hobble the creature, but not harm it irrevocably.

  It would be possible to walk on a broken ankle, that’s what Demsworth’s mind told it—though very, very painful. The entity didn’t care about that. It could deal with pain, as the hand situation currently attested to.

  Bringing both hands down on the leg, it grabbed Emi’s foot and her calf. The entity looked at its left hand, seeing that it was now a deep purple and had swollen up to the size of a CANTALOUPE.

  A picture of the fruit flashed through its mind, and it chuckled. The soun
d was abnormal and harsh, the mixture of a normal laugh and nails being dragged across a long chalkboard.

  The laughter died away and the entity turned its head back to the leg. Its hands tightened, the left arm screaming at it to stop such madness. The entity flexed, and a startled crack sprung out from the woman’s leg. The entity remained still, holding a slightly bent ankle between two hands. It checked with Demsworth’s mind. He, or what was left of him, thought the ankle was broken.

  The entity looked to the woman’s face. Her eyes were closed and her body still motionless.

  In that moment, it hated her. Hated.

  Its hands tightened again on her legs, breath raggedly fleeing its lips, but it didn’t flex again. It held its anger in, knowing that it needed the Vessel.

  To build Altars.

  Altars.

  Yes, that was what it needed now. That was what it had been planning on doing.

  And now the woman was hobbled.

  The entity stood, stared at Emi Laurens for another moment, and then left the building, intent on finding something that it could use to create another Altar.

  Emi saw dead people. She saw them everywhere, all around her. Emi didn’t know if she was conscious or not, but she knew she now saw something that shouldn’t exist. Only, she didn’t see them from her body’s point-of-view, but rather it was as if she was projecting herself up onto the ceiling. Astral projection, that was the term the yoga gurus used.

  She was looking down at herself … and the dead.

  Abel had described these people to her before. That’s how she knew they were dead.

  You’ve seen the pictures, Abel told her. They’re in all the history books. Rail thin people with eyes that looked like they’re about to fall right back into their head. Marbles just sitting in their skulls. That’s what they are. That’s how I know they’re dead when they come, because no one that looks like that can still be living.

  Hadn’t they lived back then, though? Emi had asked, being a smart ass. Clearly they were, if they’re standing for pictures to be taken.

  Abel had turned away at that point. You’re thinking about the wrong pictures. Find the ones where it’s those same people, but they’re laying in mass graves.

  That’s what Emi saw now. The people from the graves.

  And they surrounded her. She saw herself, lying on dirty concrete with some type of gown she barely recognized. It looked like it might have been something from a hospital, but she didn’t own anything like that nor remember going to a hospital. Something looked to be wrong with her leg, right above her foot. It was swollen and somehow off, as if bent. She couldn’t be completely sure from this height though.

  None of the dead faced her body. Some were naked. Some wore burlap sacks, some only things that looked like loincloths.

  She didn’t know what they were doing, nor what was happening to her. Emi tried to go back to her body, but the moment she attempted, the room around her shook. Not the building, but the entire reality—it vibrated, as if saying, no, that’s not yours anymore.

  Emi scanned the building, looking for anything that might give her a clue as to what was happening.

  Nothing, just the dead and her body, and an understanding started coming to her then.

  It was a few things, separate ideas but a singular understanding—the first idea being, she had no control here. She didn’t know what the dead were about, how they were here, or if they were even real; she did know, though, that she couldn’t affect them or herself. They had more control here than she did.

  And the second part—which was intimately related with the first—was why she’d heard Abel so much. The dead, those people that he and his whole family believed existed when no one else did—they were here with her now. They had been horrors to him, and she now understood why, simply by looking at their wasted bodies. She’d heard him because they were involved, somehow, and she’d ignored it …

  What else was I supposed to do? she wondered. Think that the crazy things he used to tell me mattered? Think that somehow the things he told me about were now happening to me?

  A cold thought came then.

  You don’t know what’s happening. All you know is you’re locked out of your body, your ankle appears to be shattered, and 100 or more dead Jewish people surround you.

  You don’t know anything.

  The entity got in Vince Demsworth’s car and fired up the engine. It understood how to drive, having done it time and time again earlier in the process of this becoming.

  The entity actually enjoyed this world, and briefly wondered how long it might stay here. It knew once these Vessels expired, it would be cast out, back to where it came from—though that was a fading, fading memory. It didn’t want to think of such things right now anyway, not while it was here on this plane of existence.

  It was adapting quite well to this body, this life, this place. There were many, many bodies that could be used for Vessels and Altars. It seemed almost perfect.

  It started to pull the car from the gravel lot when a bright red flare shot up from Demsworth’s mind.

  The RULES.

  The entity was forgetting about the RULES.

  Because the woman back there … it’d taken her from a heavily populated place. It had convinced Demsworth to do it, slowly chipping away at his will to do anything else, but that had only been its need. It needed to have that Vessel.

  The RULES were telling it something else though. That building would have had SURVEILLANCE and that meant people would have seen this body—Vince Demsworth’s. When the woman was noticed missing, they would look at the SURVEILLANCE and then see Demsworth walking out with her.

  The stark fact, what the red flare truly meant was: people were looking for both Vessels now, and if they found Demsworth or the woman, all of this would end. No more Vessels. No more Altars.

  The entity sat in the car, engine still running, and realized that it was sort of stuck. At least for right now. It couldn’t pull the vehicle out on the road, because the POLICE would see it somehow. It didn’t understand how the POLICE would locate it, but it trusted this Vessel’s knowledge.

  The entity was stuck.

  Night time, it thought, unable to give up on the consuming need. Tonight, the POLICE will see less. The darkness will hide this Vessel, and then Altars can be found.

  It sat for a time, wanting to search through Demsworth’s mind some more. The preceding month had been spent simply trying to take over, to push the man’s consciousness far, far down. The entity hadn’t had the inclination nor time to actually concern itself with what might happen once it did possess the Vessel.

  There were a lot of things to learn.

  Too many. Far, far too many. The entity raised its hand up and slammed it down on the steering wheel, once, twice, and a third time—crazed grunts coming from its mouth as it did. Spit flew across the windshield and the dulled pain roared back to life in its left arm.

  This wasn’t what it had expected, nor wanted. Vessels. Altars. Not these RULES.

  The entity yanked the keys from the car and stepped out onto the gravel, slamming the door. Its left hand looked like a badly bruised piece of overripe fruit, squishy and ready to split open, releasing its juice to the world. It paid the hand no mind, but only stomped back toward the large building. Demsworth’s mind told him the sun should be down in a few hours, though that didn’t hold a lot of meaning for the entity—only that it shouldn’t have to wait too terribly long.

  It disappeared back into the building, out of the sun’s harsh spotlight.

  Still looking down from the ceiling, Emi watched Vince Demsworth walk back into the building. The dead were numerous now, much too numerous for him to move through without touching. They had to move in order to keep out of his way, stepping quickly away just before he got to them. Emi could tell almost immediately that he didn’t see them at all.

  Fear flooded her consciousness, the odd calm she’d felt when seeing the dead vanishing at the si
ght of Demsworth.

  He moved straight across the floor, heading right to her body, directly below where she now floated.

  She could barely see his hands swinging with his gait—something looked wrong with it, though she couldn’t tell too much from her vantage point.

  The dead kept moving out of his path, whipping away just before his shoulder touched theirs—they looked like professional dancers, emaciated and starving to death, but with foot speed that only years of training could bring about.

  Demsworth finally made it to her. He sat down on the floor, Indian-style. Emi watched as the dead turned, slowly now, and almost as one. Hundreds of bodies, their feet moving in concert until their faces looked upon Vince Demsworth.

  Emi’s body lay unmoving.

  Demsworth stared at it, his own just as still.

  And in that moment, she knew another truth—she was locked out because he wanted in.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Abel Ease was being detained down the hall. Brett had cuffed him and walked him to an unused office, locking him in and then leaving. He dropped in on Hartwell to see if there’d been any updates. Nothing useful. No one had seen or heard from Demsworth all day, and night was coming soon.

  “Not sure about this guy yet,” Brett said. “I’m sweating him a bit.”

  Hartwell nodded, which had been all he’d had to ‘say’ on the subject—and thank God, because Brett wasn’t in any mood to explain things to the man. He didn’t know what to do about Ease but he wasn’t releasing him, nor was he ready to listen.

  Brett went back to his office, shut the door and closed the blinds. He sat down behind his desk. There were things he could be doing, of course, but for the first time that day, Brett simply thought.

  He’d been running around since first realizing that Emi was missing, and it’d gotten him nowhere. Before Ease had showed up, Brett was practically in a state of panic. His mind was now finally focusing again and he needed to think before acting. Emi’s time was running out, and Brett knew that without the new crazy man’s input. She was missing and had been for—Brett checked his watch—eight hours.