The Last Customer

by Daniel Coughlin

  Donna wanted to cry. An overwhelming wave of guilt pierced through her gentle soul. But her sorrow didn’t stop her, it couldn’t. She stood and ran down the alley, as planned.

  The alley forked into another passageway twenty feet forward, splitting off to the right.

  Donna stumbled to the right then rounded the corner. The cruiser crashed into the wall beside her. The red brick building shook as though it were in the midst of a California earthquake.

  Donna saw Main Street. She hustled forward. She could hear the tenants in the apartments above as they were waking, wondering what all the fuss was.

  Behind Donna—and above—she heard Sammael’s evil laughter. The guttural screeching rumbled in unison with the cruiser’s broken fan belt.

  Sammael forced the cruiser forward.

  Chapter 16

  1

  The early morning hours had grown cold. Gardner, Winny and Cherri stood, shivering, in the backyard. Silently, they stared at the dead woman, lying on the lawn. Her face wore a mask of horror. Her body was used. It looked haggard, abused and torn. The woman had been in her twenties, but the abuse over the last few hours had made her look ancient. Tiny blades of grass sparkled around her bloodied corpse where the moonlight struck the dark green tips that swayed in the cool night breeze.

  “We can’t just leave her.” Winny broke the silence.

  “I think we’re going to have to. When this is all over, there will be an investigation. We shouldn’t move anything. If we move her, they will ask why,” Gardner said, not looking too concerned.

  “How will the police investigate this? Isn’t this going to look pretty bad if it gets investigated? Won’t the police think that we killed her? And I’m assuming we aren’t going to tell them that demons from hell did this either,” Cherri asked, looking over the dead girl. Her lips trembled and her teeth chattered. She rubbed her hands up and down her shoulders.

  Winny watched Cherri rub the goose flesh on her arms and wished that he could be warming her—it was a subtle thought, touching her. There wasn’t anything dirty about it. When thinking of Cherri, Winny found that the horror of this night ceased for a moment. So he continued to think of her.

  Winny wished Garth hadn’t run off. He was alone.

  And who knew what kind of danger he might be in.

  Collectively, they didn’t know where Sammael was. For all they knew, he was on his way back.

  Maybe he was among them, hidden?

  He may have already taken or possessed or killed Garth, for that matter. Winny found it best not to let his paranoia get the best of him.

  Winny couldn’t continue to think awful thoughts about Garth. He had to believe that Garth was okay, that he would remain unharmed.

  “What do we do, Father Gardner? I mean, we can’t just stand here and do nothing.” Winny asked.

  Gardner closed his eyes. He suddenly shook while he stumbled backward. At first, it looked like he might fall over. His balance tilted. Grabbing his elbow, Winny felt warmth beneath Gardner’s skin. It felt good, comforting, like he was touching sunlight on a nice summer day. He didn’t want to remove his hand. But Cherri gently slid her fingers over Winny’s hand and pulled him away.

  “He’s having one of his visions,” she said.

  Winny and Cherri stood, watching-on, as Gardner experienced his vision. Despite the dead girl lying on the ground in front of them and Gardner standing near, Winny and Cherri engaged in a glance. It was barely a glance, but time seemed to stop and there was depth to the manner in which their eyes connected. In that moment, they found comfort. Winny brought her toward him and they held each other, for a moment. Winny relished in her warmth.

  “Do you think we’re going to be all right?” she asked him.

  Winny didn’t know how to respond. He was thrown off. Cherri’s face was close to his. If he were to move, just a few inches toward her, their lips would touch.

  He shouldn’t be thinking like this.

  Her breath was warm and sweet. His cheeks felt hot as blood rushed to his head. Taking in a deep breath, he felt the butterflies in his stomach.

  “I’ll try my best to protect you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he finally said while looking deep into her eyes.

  She responded, “Me too.”

  The moment ended. Gardner stepped forward, opened his eyes, and said, “We’ll stay here. They’ll be here soon. The fight will commence here.”

  With a trembling voice, Cherri asked, “How do you know?”

  “I saw them. My wife is in great danger and we need to stay here. This is where the fight will take place. Sammael is bringing her here,” Gardner said. He looked, blankly, into the cornfield.

  Two things scared Winny in that moment. One, he didn’t know where Garth was, and that was bad. If anything were to happen to Garth, he didn’t think he could handle the grief and guilt that would follow. And two, how were they going to fight an evil so strong? Sammael was too much for them to handle. Apparently, he was too much for Gardner too. Winny became angered. Gardner didn’t seem too concerned—for Garth, or the welfare of his own wife, Donna, and this frustrated Winny.

  Winny knew Mrs. Gardner fairly well. She was a wonderful woman. She was always a pleasure to be around. She had a pleasing smile and when she talked with you, she was genuinely interested, no matter what the topic. Winny thought, if she were his wife, he would have been out looking for her a long time ago.

  “Shouldn’t we try to find them?” Winny asked.

  Gardner’s eyes fixed on Winny.

  Winny saw an intensity that he didn’t want to challenge. He reminded himself that Gardner was experienced with this, not he.

  “They’re coming here.”

  Chapter 17

  1

  Garth’s anger had begun to shed. He was still frustrated. He didn’t like being alone. He felt vulnerable and he started to feel guilty, for having left his brother and Gardner. They needed him and he was being stubborn, he knew it. His stubbornness had gotten him in trouble before. But now, as he thought about the severity of what had gone down tonight, he came to the conclusion that he needed to return because his brother needed him, and he needed them.

  Walking down the dark path in the corn, he began to feel paranoid. It was too quiet. He didn’t know what was lurking in the night. The wind rustled the corn stalks and he could hear them sway. Each time that a stalk flailed, he thought Sammael would step out from behind a row of corn. Garth jumped every time a tassel whistled in the wind.

  For a moment, he stopped walking, looked back, scratched the back of his head and asked himself, “Shit. What do I do?”

  A gust of wind blew an opening in the cornfield to left of him. For a brief second, he could see Gardner’s farmhouse. It looked tiny from this distance, but he could see it resting on the hill.

  More than anything, Garth wanted to turn around and walk back. But he didn’t want that thief, Cherri, to be with them. That stupid bitch had robbed their store and now, Winny was drooling over her. Garth could see the crush that his brother had developed in the way he looked at her.

  Garth’s stubbornness had gotten the best of him. He continued to walk toward the store. His car was parked around back. He would go to the office, grab his car keys from the desk, and drive to the police station. He wished he could just call 911, but his cell phone had been crushed during the robbery and the land line, at the store, had been ripped in half. His frustration grew just thinking about it. He was angry with himself, partly because he couldn’t shake his stubborn nature. It was a part of him. All he had to do was turn around and go back to the farmhouse. No one would say a word to him about changing his mind. They’d be glad to have him back. There would be no judgment set upon him. But for personal reasons, Garth had it in his head that they would see his weakness. They would silently belittle him.

  He wouldn’t let them see his weakness.

  In the back of his mind, he remembered that being stubborn was his weakness
.

  Well, nobody’s perfect.

  The parking lot came into sight. He pushed the remaining cornstalks to the side and walked beyond the edge of the cornfield. He stepped onto the cracked blacktop that he and Winny planned to repave next summer. They held an account for small maintenance savings. The funds had matured along with the long cracks in the parking lot.

  Broken glass crunched underneath Garth’s Sketchers. He kicked the sparkling pieces as he walked through the broken door frame. He really didn’t want to go in the store.

  Garth’s nerves were shooting out of control. It didn’t matter that the store was dark. He knew his way around in the dark just as well as he did with the lights on. He’d grown up in this liquor store. Sure, he was sick of it. But he knew the layout, inside and out. The building came as second nature to him. The small liquor outlet was like a dead marriage to him. Still, he held many fond memories of this place. It had served as a means for their family to live comfortably. He and Winny had spent countless hours playing cops-and-robbers, hide-and-go-seek, kick-the-can, and many other childhood games in or around this place. But that was then. His heart wasn’t into it anymore. He wanted to move on. After what had happened tonight, he was almost relieved. He now had an excuse—a sign—to shut down shop. He could work something out with Winny. He could collect a small share of the profits in return for his share of the store. It probably wouldn’t amount to much, but it would get him out of Dodge Junction, out of Wisconsin.

  Looking at the bloody corpses of Timmy and Terrance was enough to make his stomach roar. The bodies smelled like raw sewage. Their bowels and intestines were ripped apart and strewn across the floor. The tile was glazed with their dark wetness. Their innards looked like a disgusting splash-art mural and smelled like an outhouse.

  Garth slipped in Terrance’s blood as he crossed the store room floor. He caught his balance and quickened his pace. He wanted his key and he wanted to get out of here.

  Taking a deep breath, he wrapped his hand around the doorknob and pushed the office door open. His heart was beating fast. He thought he was going to hyperventilate. And it occurred to him that—given the oddity of this night—there might be someone or something on the other side of this door—waiting to rip him apart. Again, he wished he was back at Gardner’s place. Maybe not safe, but he could take comfort in the company of others.

  Except for that twit Cherri.

  Without turning the light on, he shuffled to the metal desk.

  The gray clunker hadn’t been moved in more than three decades. He pulled the first drawer open. It screeched at first, as it always did. The hinges had been jimmy-rigged, the screws forced in. He dug his hand inside, retrieved his keys, threw them up in the air, caught them, and then jogged out the back door.

  His blue Ford Tempo sat adjacent to the store. It sat in his parking spot. If the power hadn’t been killed, his car would have been sitting beneath a halo of light that the large lamppost normally provided.

  Opening the door, he hopped inside, cranked the engine, and drove toward the front of the store. When he got to the mouth of the parking lot, he looked left—up the hill, to the Gardner place. With each passing second, his desire to go back and get Winny grew stronger.

  That was the right thing to do.

  He wondered why they hadn’t left yet, either. He would have gone nuts, just sitting up there, waiting.

  I hope they’re all right. He thought to himself.

  He didn’t know which way to turn. If he went left, he’d be doing the right thing and if he went right, he’d be doing the right thing. Logic set in.

  They needed the police.

  Garth turned left.

  Chapter 18

  1

  Donna’s raw, bleeding feet slapped against the sidewalk. She nearly toppled over. The pain was incredible, but she dug deep, bit down, and continued forward. After a few strides, she finally caught her breath. She ran down Main Street. The sharp sting in her feet was growing intolerable, but she continued-on, pure adrenaline. She was still two miles from the farmhouse.

  Gardner told her not to come home, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Things had changed, and for the first time, she considered that she might not make it. Maybe not even past the edge of town. She might die out here like a wounded animal. She had to try to go home, and she would fight to get there.

  The crash of bricks exploding rang-out behind her. She watched as the nose of the squad car—smashed and scraped—poked out from the alleyway. The grill stopped moving forward and steam rose in the form of chalky mist. Rock particles danced in front of the headlights. The squad car was stuck. The front quarter-panels were wedged-in tight at the slim mouth of the alleyway. The door panels peeled back when the car moved forward.

  The brick wall imprisoned Sammael. He was stuck.

  Although it was dark, Donna could see Sammael laughing. He cackled like a drunkard that had innocently fallen in the street.

  Donna jumped back startled. The driver’s side window shattered and the glass blew outward. It allowed her to see him more clearly. His skin was pale and flaking off. His lips were dark red, like they’d been done-up with black lipstick. The torn edges of his mouth were purple. Laughing his sinister head off, he looked like a decomposing corpse. He trained his eyes on Donna.

  “Excuse me young lady, could you help-out an officer of the law?” Sammael shouted. He was laughing and it sounded like he was gargling. His neck was bent at an awkward angle and his head dangled out the window. He tried to squeeze out of the small space. His eyes winced as the jagged glass tore his skin, above his temples.

  Donna made it, almost, to the edge of Main Street. Her legs were fatigued and she thought that her body might simply stop working. Her vision was blurred. Her lungs felt heavy, swollen. She wanted her husband. He could help her.

  Before she hit Amber Lane, which bisected Main Street, she looked back and saw Sammael forcing himself out of the police car. From this distance, it looked like every bone in his body was crushed and snapping. He crammed his body through the broken window and the brick wall. Every hinge and joint of Sammael’s body was contorted at obtuse angles.

  The last image Donna witnessed, before turning around and focusing on her escape, was when Sammael fell to the ground. His face planted itself into the cracked sidewalk. She heard it thump. His neck cranked upward and to the left. It lolled one hundred and eighty degrees. His right eye slowly opened and adjusted on her.

  She wiped her shaky hand across her face. A heavy layer of sweat and blood ran down her cheeks and neck. She was tired. Her lungs needed to recuperate. Her legs stiffened, hard as boards. She couldn’t bend her knees. Wanting to cry, she tripped and fell to the ground, looked behind her, she saw that Sammael was free. He’d gotten out of the car. He skittered along the street. The snake-like arms ripped through the skin of his back and wrapped around his torso, like they were holding his body together. The wavy ends folded and planted on the road. The serpents carried him across the blacktop. He looked like a giant tarantula. His head displaced another ninety degrees, the wrong way. Blood dribbled, in thick streams, from his torn mouth. There were jagged holes where the snakes ripped through his skin. His bottom lip hung by threads of shredded skin. The drooping skin looked like melted white cheddar.

  He was moving fast, skittering across the pavement.

  Donna took a deep breath. She tried to swallow, but she couldn’t. Her throat was too dry. The lining of her esophagus was arid, cracked, and felt like it was about to bleed. There was nothing wet to lubricate her mouth. No saliva. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She nearly gagged. It wouldn’t move. It was unable to retract. It frightened her when, after a few seconds, she couldn’t cluck her tongue. For a quick second, she thought this night would end with her suffocating.

  Sammael reached her. His snakes slithered around her body. They squeezed hard—not tight—uncomfortable. She wanted to scream, but all that escaped her mouth was a dry woofing sound. H
er mouth was so hot that her gums ached and her teeth throbbed. She began to cry.

  2

  Sammael treasured Donna’s increasing amount of pain. He wanted her to let go. He wanted her to die. But she had spirit. She wouldn’t let this vile thing beat her, and that was fine. Her tears encouraged Sammael. He squeezed harder and howled into the warm night air. His eyes rolled over white as he prepared for the pleasure of taking her soul.

  He’d taken many souls during the many centuries he’d existed, but he would savor Donna’s soul the most. The suffering he would make this woman endure excited him. Tiny claws sprung from the ends of his tentacles. They shot at the tender skin of Donna’s neck. He hoped they would cut her, peel the skin from her jaw to her collar bone. The thought of blood drenching her sweet skin was tantalizing. Sammael was a fiend for death.

  His excitement halted. The sharp hooks stopped. So did his tentacles, less than centimeters, before they struck her skin. They’d hit an invisible wall. Donna held some kind of a protective shield. Despair struck Sammael. He looked to the yellow moon and screamed, “Give her to me!”

  Why had the Unholy One stopped him? He’d been the most loyal of dark servants—the barer of pain, to those the Master deemed supreme torment upon. All he wanted was to take this soul. He’d, nearly, done the job years ago. To Sammael, it meant everything to destroy Donna. He wanted to eat her heart and torture her forever. He was promised these pleasures and now, he was on the brink of experiencing them. Again, he’d been stopped before he received her.

  The Devine stepped in. The Holy One had stopped the demon. He could. He commanded all, including the Dark Master. There had been very few times that Sammael had been halted—stalled—from his sinful deeds. But it had happened, and this is what it felt like. He was protecting her. It was the only explanation.