A Friend of the Devil

by David Beers

She was doing it now, just as she had then, rolling off the bed with tears in her eyes, unable to stop.

  “There, Abel,” the voice said. “There. That’s what you want. That’s what I can give you. Just take it. Just take me. Please, Abel. Let’s be happy. Let’s be friends. Let’s build together. Let’s build Altars. Let’s glorify the Master. Let’s be us … ”

  Us.

  Us.

  Us.

  The word froze in Abel’s mind. The voice continued talking but Abel no longer heard it.

  Us. Us. Us.

  Abel turned around, his teenager body looking at Emi on the floor.

  She wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t moving at all. She lay on her back staring up at the ceiling. Her hands were at her sides and she wasn’t breathing.

  Abel moved the pillow and stood up, the insane whisper running across the room just as it had before, but he heard none of it.

  Us. Us. Us.

  Looking down at Emi, that was the only word filling his ears.

  Only, it wasn’t Emi. Not even a teenage version of her.

  He was staring at a mannequin; it wore a wig and Emi’s clothes, but its eyes were dead—empty things that saw nothing. There was no laughter, because there were no vocal chords to make sound. There was nothing in front of him at all, just old clothes on a plastic doll.

  Us. Us. Us.

  There’d only been one us ever in Abel’s life.

  The two of them.

  And that had died a long time ago. He wouldn’t find it again in this place, because those two people no longer existed. Memories, that was all, and the whispers attacking him right now were using that, nothing else. His memories of a girl he once loved, but a woman he didn’t know.

  You came here for something, he thought, still staring at the mannequin. It wasn’t to look at this or listen to that voice. There is no us, not with it, and most likely not with Emi. There will never be an ‘us’ again, not for you, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one before. An us because she didn’t run. Remember what you came here for.

  Abel heard the sound of wallpaper ripping from the wall.

  Abel looked to it and saw red light glowing from beneath.

  Another wallpaper strip ripped off to this right, Abel turning to it as well. The red light again. The red room. He remembered it. The light began spreading, bleeding through the wallpaper and moving toward the floor. He looked at his feet and saw the light beneath him, streaming through the brown carpet like molten lava.

  The bedroom faded, the red light replacing it and Abel’s body changing—morphing from the teenage boy to the man he now was.

  He was staring straight up, his eyes looking at an endless sky of neon red. He didn’t move, the black ephemeral entity flowing endlessly into his body, but he could hear its voice again.

  “No, no. Go back. Let’s go back. Let’s go to Emi. Let’s talk to Emi. She’s what you want. Peace. Peace with her with me with us.”

  The previous calm was gone. The voice screeched across the red room, panic gripping it.

  Abel felt the black filling him, a pollution that possessed every single cell. Dirty, filthy, worse than the greasiest oil imaginable.

  Death, he thought. This is what death feels like.

  His arms still hung ramrod straight from his shoulders, his back arched.

  Come then, he told the entity. Come on in.

  And he started to pull. The entity felt it too, a loud shriek filling the air. Abel felt it wrench backward, trying to halt its own movement into him. There was pain, for both Abel and it, but he didn’t release. For a moment, the entity was able to stop, though, and Abel stood with his mouth wide open, the two struggling for control.

  Come, he thought. You wanted me, so come on in. Let’s be together.

  The words were calm, the message simple.

  The black, solid smoke started flowing forward again, though slower as it strained fruitlessly to pull itself back. To get away from the man now commanding it, tugging it inside his body. Across the red room, the black orb had stopped growing and no more tendrils streaked out from it. Instead, it was trying to flee. The black tube that had climbed high into the air before twirling down to Abel was now a straight line, looking like a chain connected to a prisoner’s ball.

  Abel’s face strained as the poison flowed into him, refusing to quit. His eyes bulged in their sockets and black veins pulsed against his neck and forehead. Black veins that should have been blue and filled with blood, but instead held the black shit he was pulling into him.

  The orb lurched forward, and the black tube stretching from it thinned out as it struggled to get away.

  “NO NO NO! JOIN ME! JOIN ME! WE CAN BE TOGETHER WE CAN BE AT PEACE WE CAN BE WITH EMI WE WE WE—”

  The voice shrieked out nonsensical phrases but Abel heard none of them. His concentration was complete. Black lines ran up and down his arms and legs, his veins no longer carrying anything even resembling blood. His eyes turned to black globes inside his skull, looking like they might actually bleed oil onto his cheek.

  And still he pulled.

  He looked directly at the black object now, the chain connected to it having pulled his head down as it stretched across the room. The entity was 10 feet away, a massive thing the size of a building.

  Come, he thought again. We’re almost finished.

  The pain inside him was unthinkable, as if his very atoms were drowning in this black sludge.

  The orb lurched forward again, a massive object dwarfing him, the chain disappeared inside him.

  It was only Abel and the orb, staring at each other, the wild shrieks of a mad creature echoing off red walls. The two stared for a moment, and then Abel pulled it into him.

  There was no fading of the room, no gradual turn to black. The orb disappeared into Abel’s body, and he held it all for a second, straining against it, squelching the screams still echoing inside him. He stared forward, black veins circling his black eyes.

  And then, Abel Ease exploded.

  The black liquid painted the red room, changing the color of it forever.

  The car’s forward movement started slowing, the speedometer dropping from 60, to 50, to 40, and decreasing from there. As the speed dropped, the man who held the wheel slumped to his side, his foot falling off the pedal.

  The car slowly turned to the right, moving off the road and onto the shoulder. The people inside all jerked around wildly as the car hit first gravel and then grass. None of the passengers noticed; their eyes were closed, appearing to be asleep, some with their heads leaning forward as their chins touched their chests and others resting on the glass windows.

  Their bodies rustled as the car slowed more and more.

  Finally, it hit a tree. All four jerked forward, the driver banging his head on the steering wheel and breaking his nose. Blood spurted forward, coating the dashboard. The driver didn’t open his eyes, only remained with his head on the wheel, the horn blaring into the early morning light.

  Thirty minutes passed before another car pulled off the road.

  The driver’s name was Baron Hingleman, and he jumped out of his vehicle quickly, his own heart racing. He didn’t close his door, but raced across the grass to the wrecked car.

  He stopped for a brief second outside of the wrecked car, looking at the four people inside, and then yanked on the driver’s door. It didn’t open, automatically locked from inside. He stared for a moment longer, his brain freezing up like a car engine without oil. It didn’t last long and he began digging through his pocket, pulling out his cell phone and dialing 9-1-1.

  “Emergency services, how can I help?”

  “There’s been a car wreck. Highway 20.”

  “How many people are in the car?”

  Baron Hingleman answered the questions, standing outside the car and trying to see as much as he could.

  “The one closest to me, he doesn’t appear to be breathing.”

  “The driver?”

  “No,” Baron sa
id. “He’s behind the driver.”

  The man’s position made it hard to see him.

  “There’s something on his face.”

  “Can you describe it to me?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I mean, it can’t be this, but it looks like a black tear. Looks like it’s coming from his eye and dripping down his face. It left a streak.”

  “A black tear, sir?”

  “I know it’s not possible, but that’s the best I can describe it.”

  “Okay, sir. I’ve got officers and medical professionals on the way. They should be there in just a few minutes.”

  Baron Hingleman hung the phone up and then remained standing at the side of the car.

  It took another 10 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and the cops another five.

  Baron watched as they took out the man in the back.

  “Is he alive?” Baron asked.

  The paramedics said nothing, simply loaded him on a stretcher and rushed him up the slight embankment to the ambulance. Baron stared at the man’s face as they did. His eyes were closed, and the drop of liquid that had been on his face was gone. The streak was there, though, looking similar to a tear, except instead of salty remnants, there was a black trail leading down the side of his face.

  Baron watched them carry the man, still unsure if he was breathing.

  He turned back to the vehicle and looked at the other three.

  It didn’t make sense. The damage to the car was relatively minimal. How did they all end up unconscious?

  Epilogue

  The hospital was quiet and outside the sky was dark. Most of the rooms inside were unlit as well, the patients sleeping. The hallways were alight, though the staff was a bit thinner than it would be tomorrow morning.

  Emi Laurens was in bed, a small night-light turned on to her right. The television in front of her remained off, and she kept her eyes closed though she was awake.

  She was trying to get some of her thoughts in order, but all she could really think about was having a drink. She didn’t just want one; she needed one. Yet, she knew she’d find nothing like that in this place.

  Emi had woken earlier in the day, but only briefly enough to have a doctor explain that they’d set her leg.

  Set her leg.

  Because it was broken. That’s why legs were set—certainly doctors didn’t run around doing that for fun.

  And if her leg was broken, that meant the memories plaguing her weren’t completely false. She was drowning in them, barely able to keep her body above the icy water that wanted to tug her beneath.

  She’d gone back to sleep after the doctor came in; she didn’t know if drugs or exhaustion made her so tired, and she didn’t care. She only wanted to rest.

  Now though, the tiredness had worn off, and she lay awake trying not to remember anything—and failing miserably.

  She hadn’t been debriefed yet, but it was coming soon, and if the memories in her head were true, that conversation would be tough. Emi didn’t understand much of anything, yet she remembered.

  The warehouse. The dead people. Floating above and watching them. Demsworth—though it hadn’t been him. Something else had been inside him, wearing him like a uniform.

  The woman had been killed and then ripped apart. The man then suffocated inside her body.

  And then that cold kiss. It filled her with ice that had never seen sunlight …

  Emi shuddered, a chill running down her spine and arms.

  No, she thought. No, none of that is possible.

  Her leg might be broken, but everything else were just dreams. They weren’t true. They couldn’t be.

  Yet, if so, then Emi didn’t know the truth.

  She hadn’t seen Brett or Hartwell, though she knew she would. Probably tomorrow. There would be questions, lots and lots of questions that she couldn’t answer, starting with the Demsworth interview. She remembered the way she’d felt looking at that man, and that had been real—even if everything else was a dream.

  Emi wanted to cry. She wanted to cry and she needed a drink, because she didn’t know where to go from here. She didn’t know what to do.

  “You awake?”

  Emi jumped some, her leg barking protests at her. She looked toward the sound of the voice and saw Brett standing in the doorway. Calming some, she grimaced as her leg’s dull throb tugged at her attention.

  “Sorry,” he said, walking into the room.

  He was wearing a hospital gown. His eyes were badly bruised and nose swollen.

  “You okay?” Emi asked.

  “Yeah. Broken nose is all. They’re just keeping me overnight. They told me you were sleeping all day, but ….” He trailed off and walked the rest of the way across the room. Emi saw he was a bit stiff, probably sore. Emi felt the same thing in her body, though she’d simply put the responsibility on her leg.

  Brett sat down and stared at her. She could see his face, shadows cast across it in the room’s gloom.

  “Hartwell came today. He’s coming tomorrow, too.”

  Emi sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back on the pillow.

  “He’s going to want to know what happened, Emi.”

  She said nothing.

  “What do you remember?” Brett asked.

  “Nothing I can tell him. Nothing that makes any sense.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say,” Brett answered.

  The room was quiet for a few minutes, neither of them speaking and Emi not opening her eyes.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Brett finally said, “and I’m telling the truth on that. I don’t understand it and about all I do know is that if I tell Hartwell the shit I saw over the past few weeks, I’ll lose my job. We both will, and Jessie is asleep in my hospital room right now. She hasn’t left, and my daughter is with Jessie’s parents.”

  Brett went quiet for a few moments, though Emi knew he wasn’t done. He was only thinking about his next words.

  “I’m not losing my job, Emi, because I have a wife and a daughter that are my responsibility. And that means I’m going to lie when Hartwell comes back. It also means you’re going to lie. That’s why I’m in here, because I know what we’re going to say and you have to learn it before tomorrow morning.”

  Emi remained still, eyes closed.

  “Do you hear me?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “And you’re okay with it?”

  “Yeah,” Emi whispered. “I don’t care. I’ll say whatever you tell me to.”

  Brett was quiet for a few more seconds and Emi knew why. She’d lie. She would have lied just to avoid telling everyone the things she saw in her head, but for Brett? Yeah, she’d lie … But what about Brett, though? He held a different moral code than Emi. Lying for him … Well, his parents hadn’t beat on each other every month, so it hadn’t become a way of life when he was younger.

  That’s not fair, she thought.

  Brett didn’t lie and it wasn’t important why; His silence now was simply because he was planning to do it, and instructing her to do the same. Brett had never crossed this line before.

  “We need to start going over it all,” he finally said. “It’s 2:00 AM right now. We need to have our story straight by 6:00 this morning. That gives us four hours, and there’s a lot to discuss, Emi. A hell of a lot.”

  “I’m ready,” she said, still only seeing black beneath her closed eyes.

  “We’re going to start at the interview, okay?”

  “Okay,” Emi said.

  The two talked for hours and hours, nailing down every possible discrepancy. It wasn’t until an hour had passed, though, that Emi heard the name Abel Ease.

  Emi’s wheelchair rolled silently down the hallway.

  It was nearing 5:00 in the evening and the word exhaustion didn’t begin describing her current state. Emi had been awake since midnight and spent the entire day with FBI agents. They’d debriefed her alone, then again with Brett. Hartwell was with them some of the time, and
she understood from his questions that this wouldn’t be a whitewash. He’d seen what happened to the previous FBI Director, and he wasn’t going to ruin his own career by going outside of the lines.

  She and Brett had been flawless, though—at least that’s what she thought now. There were … well, discrepancies wasn’t the right word. Brett and her stories lined up perfectly, but there were things they couldn’t explain, and they’d agreed to simply say that.

  Why did they think Demsworth came after her?

  They didn’t know.

  Why did Abel Ease begin calling Emi, and then show up?

  They didn’t know.

  The most difficult question was dealing with the freak-out from the interview, but Emi had handled it as well as she could.

  “I have to put it down to intuition, sir. There’s nothing else I can tell you. Something about the man sincerely worried me, and looking back on it, I was right. I only wish that I had handled the intuition a bit better so that two more people weren’t now dead.”

  Hartwell accepted it, though Emi thought begrudgingly.

  They had to deal with the four of them all being in the same car, but Brett handled it pretty easily. Agent Laurens was injured and when he and Abel Ease arrived, the perpetrator had the jump on them. He forced them all into the car and Agent Lichen drove.

  It wasn’t ironclad, their excuse, but it was enough to get by the agents debriefing them. There was the added benefit that Demsworth wasn’t talking. About the only thing he was doing anymore was breathing, his body functioning on its own but his brain not working at all. From what Emi had gathered over the past few hours, he was a vegetable, lying somewhere in the hospital while the doctors ran tests on him.

  She didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to know what room he was in. Didn’t want to know anything about him at all. Vince Demsworth could stay away from Emi forever. Truthfully, she didn’t like being in the same building as him, but they weren’t letting her leave yet. Tomorrow.

  Brett was getting out tonight.

  And Abel?

  The debriefers gave very little information to Emi and Brett, but both knew everything they said would be cross referenced with Abel’s testimony.