A Friend of the Devil

by David Beers

  HANDCUFFS, it thought.

  The four made their way slowly to the vehicle.

  Further away from the city, the entity thought, and then, ditch the car by noon. They will be looking for it.

  Good. All of that was good.

  Altars could start by this evening.

  Another town, it thought. In another town, they won’t notice as quickly. Skipping towns. That is the way.

  The thinking was so clear, the connection between the two of them strong.

  The four people got in the car, Lichen climbing into the front seat.

  His FBI badge will be useful, the entity thought.

  The car started and the four drove off into the night. Lichen put on the turn signal as he pulled from the industrial park and onto the main road.

  It’s over, Abel thought. It’s all over.

  And it was. For the first time in his life, Abel was at peace.

  An odd thing to feel, given what had just occurred. He no longer possessed any part of himself, not his mind, nor any part of his body. Those things had passed from him to this new entity—a demon, as the dead man had said. Something that served the Master.

  And Abel felt okay with it. Here, shoved away to some dark recess in his mind, nothing could touch him. Abel was safe. The dead could not reach him. The rest of the world could not touch him. He had finally found what he’d searched so hard for, spending years and years locked away in Sunny Acres. Wanting to keep himself from everything, wanting to block it all out.

  Here it was.

  Abel could feel the entity’s thoughts, understanding the darkness to come for him, as well as the other people this entity met. There would be death, a lot of it, and eventually, Abel would be pushed down so deep as to have never existed at all. Only his body would remain, but eventually, it would be killed. The entity couldn’t survive forever on this Earth. A few weeks? A month? Maybe two at the longest? Yes, it wouldn’t be able to go much longer than that, because it didn’t possess the necessary patience to last here. Its need to kill consumed it.

  Yet, in those two months, Abel would be at peace. He wouldn’t need to worry about anything; he wouldn’t have to see the murders if he didn’t want. He could hide deep, and the longer he remained, the less he would actually have to hide. The entity would do that for him, smothering every part of him.

  No more dead.

  No more terror.

  Peace.

  It’s over, he thought.

  Time was different inside this coming universe of nonexistence. Abel didn’t try to breach the surface, to see what his body was doing, nor did he really try to understand what the entity was up to. He liked it fine where he was, letting the creature take what it needed from his mind while leaving him alone.

  It was a memory that took this new found peace away.

  A memory of Emi.

  Why did it come then? Years passed without him thinking of her, years in which he’d forgotten all about her. Yet now, when he’d finally achieved what he’d searched so long for, the memory came.

  They’d been at that little creek in between their two neighborhoods. His stomach had been in knots, because Abel had been about to tell her what his father said he couldn’t. She’d been bitching about something, but Abel hadn’t known what then, and he certainly didn’t remember now. He hadn’t been able to keep his own mind silent long enough to hear a word she said.

  I need you to stop talking.

  That’s what he’d told her, just like that.

  And he’d thought she would run. Take off and never look back. Maybe tell her parents, or teachers. Hey, we’ve got this crazy guy sitting in class and something probably needs to be done about it. Because there was no way she would stay. No one would, not with what he had to say.

  And what about the others that found out about what Abel believed? Because after Abel’s father decided he could take no more, the world quickly discovered it all—or at least everyone Abel knew. Abel hadn’t stopped telling people after that point. He’d went on the rest of his life, being honest, explaining to people that he saw dead people—and what exactly had they done?

  No one believed him.

  But it was more than that, wasn’t it? It’s not that they didn’t believe him; Emi hadn’t said one way or another whether she believed him. It was that she hadn’t ran. If anything, she’d leaned further in.

  No one else, the rest of Abel’s life, had heard what he told them and looked at him as normal, let alone stuck. If they remained in his life, it’s because he remained at Sunny Acres. No one, not a single person, had heard his story and just kept looking at him as … as a person.

  No one except for Emi.

  She’s in here, he thought. You might not be able to feel her, but you know she’s here just like you are. In this universe of nonexistence. She’s here. That’s why you came, wasn’t it? Why you got out of the fucking car and went to the warehouse? To save her?

  It wasn’t to find peace.

  That thought remained fixated in his mind.

  He hadn’t gone in there to find peace. He hadn’t gone in there to run away from everything.

  He’d gone in there for Emi. He’d come down here for Emi. All of this, from the first fucking phone call to driving to Atlanta, it’d all been for Emi.

  Because she hadn’t run from him.

  Is it like the dead man said? Are you really a coward? Are you going to run when she didn’t?

  … You know what, fuck what the dead man said. Fuck whether or not you are a coward. Maybe you are. Probably you are. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about Emi and whether you’re going to run away. Whether you’re going to take this false security and give her life away.

  That’s what this is about.

  She didn’t run.

  Are you going to?

  Abel didn’t move to the surface, didn’t do anything but remain silent and still. He didn’t even attempt answering the questions thrown at him.

  He knew what he could do, had known it as soon as the creature pressed its lips on his and filled him with that cold air. Abel understood innately that he could do more than just wait here, ready to die. And that was just another gift from his great-grandfather, Abel supposed. Another gift that no one in his family had opened yet; he would be the first to get such a joy.

  She.

  Didn’t.

  Run.

  A long, long time ago, Abel had walked down a dark hallway, knowing that he was about to see hell. A long, long time ago, he’d murdered his father to save his mother, to save himself. He’d been locked up for it, the courage that it took unseen by everyone. But, a long, long time ago, Abel had willingly gone into hell and stared at the flames as they encircled him, wanting to burn him the same as they did everything else.

  A long, long time ago, Abel stared hell down, not blinking.

  He decided to do it again.

  The four faces looked forward, all appearing to be heavily drugged. Their faces showed no emotion, their eyes nearly dead. The man in the front of the car kept one hand on the wheel, his foot not moving an inch up or down on the gas pedal.

  The vehicle was heading west, doing five over the speed limit.

  The entity felt Laurens and Lichen fading away. It was happening to them more quickly than it had to Demsworth, and the entity thought that was because of how it’d entered them. The crossover had been direct and harsh, filling the Vessels at once.

  Soon they would fade away completely. Probably within the next hour, and the entity was okay with that. He felt the newest—Abel Ease—remaining in place. Not fading. Not trying to fight it either. Simply remaining and the entity truly loved the term the Vessel had used.

  Twins.

  It felt correct.

  And if Abel Ease remained?

  Altars. The entity could continue building its Altars without interruption, because this Vessel could help it plan. Could keep it following the RULES. Could keep it from getting in TROUBLE.

  T
his was good. This was right.

  The entity’s mind continued its almost frantic train of thought, overtaken with near ecstasy at the possibility of remaining here in this world. It lost track of everything else, the car rolling silently over the road, nearly on autopilot while heading west.

  It wasn’t until the itch grew that the entity finally understood something was wrong.

  An itch.

  But not something on its flesh, and not within any of the other three Vessels. The itch resided only with Abel Ease, but … inside.

  The faces of all four Vessels grew concerned, their eyes squinting, their lips tightening. They looked almost like mirror images of each other.

  The entity quickly turned inside, going to find this itch and understand what the HELL was happening to its Vessel. Things were going too well—far too well—for something to break this up.

  The entity turned inside just as the itch grew painful, and there it finally met Abel Ease. Its twin.

  Abel stared at the entity, seeing it for the first time.

  The two stood inside Abel’s mind, perhaps both of them actually real or perhaps only projections.

  The entity was black, though lacked any true shape. It wasn’t quite smoke, but that was the closest Abel’s mind could compare it too. Abel had come here first, waiting for it. He’d known that the entity could take him, could possess him, but only if Abel wanted it to be so. Emi might not be able to fight it off, but that wasn’t the case for Abel.

  He’d known the dead too long.

  Perhaps, in many ways, he was like the dead. No longer purely of this realm, of Earth. Abel might not be able to travel as the dead or this creature did, crossing back and forth, but that didn’t mean he was unprepared.

  His great-grandfather had given him a lot, all of it horrible—but maybe this once, the gift could work to help Emi.

  Maybe.

  Being able to fight back wasn’t the same as winning, but Abel had risen up all the same, and in doing so, called the creature inward. He hadn’t needed to do anything else, simply awakening had been enough, staking claim to his mind.

  The entity appeared in front of him, a black, gaseous orb. Abel didn’t know his mind well, had never wanted to, so the place he stood was foreign to him. It was endless red, and glowed as if backlit. Abel didn’t know if the room was made of four walls, or only light. He didn’t know how far he could walk in it, nor where he would end up if he tried.

  Maybe it existed as an actual place, but maybe it didn’t. Maybe Abel had only created it in order to see this creature now growing in front of him—needing a place to actually view it.

  None of that mattered, because this was real. Imagined or physical, the danger in front of Abel was as real as a knife across his throat. This wasn’t his imagination, but that wasn’t anything new for him. His entire life, he’d seen things others couldn’t. This was only another example of that.

  He looked at a black gaseous orb, though tiny tendrils appeared and disappeared across its exterior. It was growing too, slowly but visibly possessing more and more of the red space. Some tendrils snaked out far, not retreating back, while others only flared up before dying.

  It grew larger and larger, while Abel remained the same size, unable to change.

  Abel took a step back, fear striking inside him. The entity wasn’t stopping, continuing to grow at that same pace, now at least twice the size of Abel. It’d originally been 100 feet from him, but now it was only 50.

  It blacked out the red light behind it, and a tendril started snaking forward, coming toward Abel. It twirled lazily, like a piece of seaweed floating harmlessly in the ocean.

  Abel took another step back, swallowing.

  The tendril didn’t stop, stretching further and further as the black orb spread.

  “Abel, Abel, Abel, Abel,” a voice said. It had no origin, not the black gas nor the room itself. The voice was god in here, needing no beginning nor end.

  “Abel, Abel, Abel, what are you doing? We’re twins. We don’t need to fight. We don’t need to do this, Abel. You and me, we can be together. Yes, you felt that didn’t you? You felt the … the peace. Yes, that’s right. That’s the word for it. You felt it and it felt gooooood, didn’t it?”

  The tendril turned up slightly, no longer aiming straight for Abel’s head, but floating higher into the air, the only part of the orb not expanding in size. It remained the same diameter, though growing longer. It twirled higher and higher into the air, so much so that Abel couldn’t truly tell how far up it went.

  “See, I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice said, it’s endless whisper assaulting his ears. Loud, but yet not abrasive, a scream but in the smallest way possible. “I would never hurt you or … Ohhhhhh, I see ….”

  The room went silent as the tendril jutted forward again, an endless black snake. Abel stared at it, forgetting completely about the orb.

  “I’m not going to hurt her, Abel. I promise. I promise, I promise, I promise. Emi is safe, just like you are. She’s at peace, too. She’ll have so much peace she won’t possibly want to leave, I promise. I promise, Abel. Why would I lie? I’m not a liar, not me. Other people lie to you. Those doctors. That FBI agent. They want to lock you up, want to say you’re crazy, but not me, Abel. I just want you and her, both of you, to be at peace, and if you come, you can be at peace here. There’s no need to fight, not you and me. No, no, no.”

  The black snake turned down, directly above Abel. He couldn’t see how fast it was moving due to the angle, but only stood with his head facing upward, watching it. He’d forgotten everything, why he’d come here and what he was supposed to do. The words reached inside him, soothing him, telling him—

  “The truth, Abel. That’s what I’m telling you. That’s what I bring. My Master and me, we bring truth and peace. That’s what you’ve always wanted, and we’re not going to leave. We’re going to stick, yes, dear. We will stick. We will stick just like Emi did and she can be here with us. All of us.”

  Babbling that didn’t end, but beautiful in its constancy.

  The snake reached Abel’s face, not slowing as it did. He breathed it in, not realizing it was happening, but simply opening his mouth. The black, ephemeral substance flowed easily into him. It kept coming, neither it nor Abel seeming to have end.

  “Yes, yes. There. See. Do you see?” the voice asked. “You do. You see the peace. For both of you.”

  The red room vanished and Abel was with Emi. The two of them were back in his bedroom, sometime in their mid-teens. She lay in his bed and he sat on the floor, his back against it. He had a book in his hand, though he wasn’t concentrating on the page. Emi was talking, explaining something or other as she always did.

  She was smiling.

  He was smiling.

  “See. This is what you’ll have, and you’ll have it all the time. I promise. I sooo promise, Abel. She’ll have it, too. She’ll be here with you. Forever. Take it. Take me. Take us all and let’s just be together.”

  In the FBI cruiser, the four faces relaxed. The concern that had crossed them ceased. The sun was coming up on the horizon, shooting beautiful oranges and yellows across the sky.

  It was all okay, and the entity knew it now. Soon, in only a few minutes, the two FBI agents would no longer exist and Abel Ease was coming around now. Seeing the truth.

  It was all okay. Altars. Altars and worship. That was all it needed to concern itself with.

  The car rolled on, Emi Laurens and Brett Lichen nearing extinction.

  “See? See, Abel? This is what you want. It’s what you’ve always wanted, before your father died and the dead turned all of their attention to you. You can have it. Just listen.”

  And Abel did.

  “I swear to God, Abel, if that motherfucker Brian pops my bra again, I’m going to hit him. Right there in class.”

  Abel remembered it. He remembered the conversation and glee now filled him. In that moment, he had three physical bodies—one in a car, one stan
ding in a red room—arms stiff at his sides, his body rigid and staring at the ceiling, a black tunnel flowing endlessly into his mouth—and finally, Abel was the physical person in this room as well. A teenager. Someone from the past.

  He stared at his book, remembering the conversation, and feeling completely fulfilled.

  “Where are you going to hit him?” he asked now, the same question he’d asked all those years ago.

  “In his nose,” Emi said.

  “What if you miss?”

  “I won’t miss.”

  “What if you miss and fall? Like right on your face, and then you break your nose, and then you’re disfigured? Like really disfigured, Emi, and then everyone laughs, but that’s not the worst part. The worst part is you’ll never, ever get a date. That will really affect you psychologically, and so you’ll never go to college, because you’re too embarrassed because you’ve never had a date. Then, you’re forced to get a job at the chicken joint down the street—Chickey D’s—but truthfully, you’re too disfigured to work the front, because they don’t want you dealing with customers, and they throw you in the back with cooks. But, you don’t know how to cook, because you were always going to go to college, so it’s new, and you fall behind, and then you get fired, and then you’re on the street, Emi. From there, it just gets worse. You start drugs. I definitely quit talking to you, because I don’t associate with such people, and then you have no friends. So, basically, you end up living under a bridge with a dude named Earl … All I’m saying is, you should really consider what happens if you miss.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Fuck you,” she said, and another pause came … then she burst out laughing.

  A pillow flew off the bed and landed on him, knocking the book out of his hand.

  Abel remembered it all, the entire damned monologue he’d thought up out of nowhere, and it’d been glorious—not because of its absurdity, but because Emi just kept laughing.