“Well, when you put it that way…” He hung up the phone.
I called him back. “Bob, I will call my Dad, and we will sue you tomorrow morning. My parents are loaded.” I said when he picked up.
“Lady, you are crazy but fine. I’ll be there in ten.”
Usually, I would have been horrified with myself for talking to him that way, but it was an emergency. My next call was to John. He was understandably peeved that I’d gone home without him, but he said he was on his way.
I sat in the hallway staring at the box while I waited for John and Bob. Tut forgave me, again, and joined me in the box watch. I heard footsteps walking from room to room upstairs, but unless a serial killer appeared at the top of the stairs, I was determined to ignore it until Bob or John got there.
“That’s not a mutant rat.” Bob, the exterminator, said as he bent over and scooped up the animal. “This is a guinea pig. You’re telling me you’ve never seen a guinea pig before?”
“Well, not in real life. Are you sure that’s what it is?”
“Yeah, Sammy. That’s a guinea pig.” John said as he came through the front door.
“Someone must of abandoned it. Or, it might have escaped.” Bob said.
The little guy gave a delighted squeal as Bob petted its fur. When I wasn’t completely terrified, I had to admit that it was kinda cute. At the time, it was becoming clear to me that I was having some sort of psychological breakdown. The scratching was a pet rodent.
I began to wonder if everything else was nightmares or some sort of hallucinations. Perhaps I had sleep apnea and didn’t know it. Maybe everything I’d experienced was symptoms of sleep deprivation psychosis. Then, Bob, the exterminator dropped a bomb on me.
“Sam, could I speak to you in private for a moment?” He asked as he was on his way out the door.
“Sure,” I said as I watched him hand the guinea pig over to John.
The little guy chirped and squealed again happily as John scratched him between the ears. I noticed right before I closed the door that Tut had curled up at his feet. The animals knew what a good man John was, and perhaps I’d needed to join them in their sentiment.
“What’s up, Bob?” I asked when we were out on the front porch.
“I lied to you earlier. I don’t know why, but I feel bad about it now.”
“What did you lie about?” I asked and raised an eyebrow.
“I lied about why I left your house that day. I was afraid to admit what happened to you or to anybody. People would think I’m crazy, and honestly, I didn’t want to think about it anymore.”
“Tell me, Bob.” I felt a cold dread creeping up my spine when I saw the horrified look in his eyes.
“I never made it to the other side of the house.” Bob began. “I saw something when I was poking around in the basement.”
“You were down there for a long time. What did you see? What happened?”
“I know. I got stuck, I guess. I don’t know how else to describe it. My father was down there in the basement, but Samantha, he’s dead.”
“You saw your dead father in my basement.”
“Yeah, and it was so scary. It took me back to being a little kid again. That man was practically the devil. The things he did to his family I won’t go into, but you have to know that if he’s hanging around here, it’s no good.” He started to cry. “I gotta go, Samantha.”
“Yeah, go ahead. Thanks for telling me the truth, and thanks for coming out in the middle of the night to help.” I felt bad for threatening to sue him earlier.
I watched him walk back to his truck and drive away. Was it the ghost of Bob’s father in the basement? Or, was it a demon that took on different forms to deceive people?
I needed to call Cameron.
Chapter Thirteen
As I turned the knob to get back into the apartment, I told myself that I’d call Cameron first thing in the morning. My thoughts distracted me from the fact that the doorknob was so cold that it hurt my hand when I touched it. I yanked back and examined the pink frost bite on my palm.
Not only had the metal injured my skin, but the door also wouldn't open. I knocked on the chilled wood and called out to John to let me in, but my request was met with the muffled sound of him crying out in pain. Then, I heard the sounds of a struggle and Tut hissing at something.
My first instinct was to pound on the door or try forcing it open, but I knew that wouldn’t do any good. Instead, I pulled out my phone and called Cameron.
“Sammy, it’s three a.m.” He said groggily into the phone. “What’s going on?”
“Three a.m.? No. It’s only coming up on one.” I said and took the phone away from my ear so I could look at the clock.
Sure enough, it was three in the morning. How long had I been standing at the door? Two hours had vanished, and the house was completely silent.
“Sammy, are you there?” Cameron asked urgently “What’s wrong?”
I told him everything as fast as I could speak and then begged for his help. He said he’d be over as quickly as he could, and Cameron said if there was any part of me that believed in God, I should start praying now.
He showed up what felt like a few seconds later, but I knew that was impossible. I’d lost time again. Whatever this thing was, it had a greater hold on me than I’d imagined. I wondered how long I’d been walking around thinking that I was an observer when I was actually a participant in it’s game.
I stood up and walked out to meet Cameron as he got out of his car. The sound of a hand slapping the glass in one of the upstairs windows caught our attention. It was John. He had his palm on the glass and a look of abject terror on his face.
Suddenly, something yanked him back from our view, and I heard him scream. I strode across my yard towards John’s truck after I’d found a new source of strength inside of me. I wasn’t going to sit around being frightened or drinking my problems away. I realized it was time to fight.
“Where are you going?” Cameron asked.
“I’m getting a sledge hammer out of John’s truck. I’ll get into that house one way or another.”
“Sam, look,” Cameron said as the front door gently popped open. “We should get some more people here. We need more people to pray over this place.”
“You can stand out here and wait for people to come pray, but I’m going in. I won’t leave John in there.” I said and marched past him towards the front door.
Once I was inside the house, I started up the stairs. We’d seen John in my bedroom window, so that was the first place I intended to look. Tut came scrambling down the stairs and hid under my sofa.
Whatever the spirit was, the cat wanted nothing to do with it. I didn’t have the luxury.
The steps under my feet felt like they were made of clay. It took an enormous amount of effort to pick my legs up and navigate up the staircase. Halfway up, I felt like I needed to sit down and rest. My lungs burned, and sweat ran down my temples to my cheeks.
At that rate, I was never going to make it up the stairs. Every step was exponentially harder than the one before it. I heard a creek behind me, and when I turned, the old woman from the other side of the house was at the bottom of the staircase. Her skeletal smile was even more menacing because her teeth looked like they’d been filed into razor sharp points. She chomped at me and then began to climb up towards me on all fours.
“A little help, please,” I said and looked up towards the ceiling.
I’m not sure when I became a believer, but it was sometime between when I saw John’s hand pressed against the glass of my window and the current moment. The deep hatred in the old woman’s eyes and the mechanical way she crawled up the steps had me convinced that she wasn’t a ghost.
Whatever it was, it was pure evil, and I needed help.
My plea was answered, and a weight lifted off me. It wasn’t gone, though. Something else helped me carry the burden. I looked to my side and next to me was an ethereal creature. I couldn’t see
specific features, but the light emanating from it was warm and comforting. Apparently, there had been an angel at my side the entire time watching over me. When I needed help, all I’d had to do was ask.
We made it to the second floor, and I looked in my room. It was empty, so I went to the spare room. The bed was standing up on its side blocking the closet door.
“Sammy? Is that you?” I heard the muffled voice from inside the closet followed by the squeal of a guinea pig.
Bless John’s heart, he still had a hold of the little guy. I rushed across the room and tried to pull the bed down, but it would budge. There was a thumping and scraping in the hallway as the demon made its way toward me.
The light appeared next to me and easily pulled the bed down. I opened the door and pulled John into my arms.
We turned and watched the light move across the room. I assumed it was going to the hall to dispatch of the evil spirit, but something else caught my attention.
The sound of dozens of voices singing Wings of a Snow White Dove outside of the house rose into the night. Cameron must have reached out to a local church, and they’d gotten out of bed and come to our aid in the middle of the night.
Cameron’s voice boomed outside of the bedroom door.
“You are cast out unclean spirit. You have no dominion here.”
A flash of brilliant white light blinded me, and then the air in the house shifted. The feeling of peace that had emanated from the angel filled the atmosphere around us. I could no longer see him, but I knew that my guardian wasn’t far.
Epilogue
You’d have thought that I’d move out of the Overwatch house after everything that happened, but none of the evil that I’d brought into the house remained. So, there was no reason to leave.
John wouldn’t hear of me living there alone, but by that point, I was more than happy to let him move in. He took the spare bedroom as his own, and both of us quit drinking. The angel’s light had touched us, and there’d been a fundamental shift in our priorities. Marriage, family, and hard work had always been important to John, but after that night, he’d been on a mission. John almost had me convinced as well. So much so that if he’d popped the question, he’d most likely get a yes.
I’d been sober for several months by the time I graduated, and I’d also lost Cameron. After that night, he distanced himself from me, and no amount of pleading would get him to return my calls. I don’t know what happened to make him turn his back on me, but he left with the church people that morning after he’d cast out the demon.
I was alright. I had John who was my best friend in the world, and on track to become so much more. Riley and Tanner would still hang out with us even though we wouldn’t party with them anymore. It was different, but things change.
Oh, and I had Tut and Herbert. Herbert’s the guinea pig. I told John we didn’t have to keep him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Apparently, he’d had a guinea pig as a pet for ten years. He’d gotten it from his mom for his eighth birthday, and the little guy had died a couple of months before John left for college. So, Herbert was part of our little household.
I got a call from Becky a couple of months later, and apparently, the man who rented the other apartment had died. His family had no intention of keeping the place, and the owner had decided to sell.
The chance to buy the entire house was extended to me before the house was put on the market. John and I talked it over, and we decided to bite. Between our jobs, we’d had more than enough to buy the place at the steal of a price the owner had asked.
Once we graduated, we’d knock down the dividing wall and restore the house. Without the demon, the Overwatch house was a dream come true.
The last day of school came around, and I saw Cameron leaving class. He’d transferred out of the humanities class we had together, so I was a little surprised to see him.
“Cameron,” I called out and hurried over to him.
“Oh hello, Samantha.” He said.
“How are you?” I asked. “I never see you anymore.”
“I’m good. Things are good.”
“What are you up to? Do you want to go get a coffee?”
“No, I’ve got to go.” He said. “My last class is over, and I’m leaving for Texas.”
“Texas?”
“Yeah. I’ve got great news. I’ve been hired as an associate pastor at my old church.”
“You’re going to be a preacher? You were against organized religion the last time we talked about it. You said that there was a demon of religion that distorted God.” I couldn’t believe what he was telling me.
“Things change, Samantha.” It was then that I comprehended that his voice was a bit off. “After that night, I could see things differently. Anyway, I’ve got to go.”
He started to walk away before I could say anything. Cameron stopped halfway to the parking lot. I thought for a moment that maybe he’d been joking. Perhaps he was going to come back and tell me what had really been going on.
Cameron turned, and plastered across his face was the creepiest smile I’d ever seen. The look on his face made my stomach turn.
“Hey, Sammy.” He called.
“Yeah?” I shouted back.
“I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
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Devil Hour Page 9
