The Last Customer

by Daniel Coughlin

  He was being tested.

  Prying his eyes away from his wife, he looked to Garth and asked, “What’s happened?”

  Garth tilted his head, still looking for the slime trailing across the floor. “That thing…it came out of me and then it crawled over your way.” He replied, still not looking at Gardner. His eyes floated eagerly across the floor, looking for the snake. “Is that…snake…is that the demon?”

  It was then that he saw Donna’s chest rise and he knew, right away, that it was the snake tearing Donna apart from the inside. It had gotten into her and was feasting on her insides. That is what the demon did—it devoured the flesh and destroyed life. Its nourishment was the taste of rotting flesh and tormented souls.

  Gardner wanted to cry while he watched his wife’s body being desecrated, vandalized. Cherri ran to Gardner and pulled on his hand. He resisted at first, but soon allowed himself to go with her.

  As the three of them watched-on as the snake tore at Donna’s insides, the vision came to Gardner, bright and full of life.

  11

  Donna was present in Gardner’s vision. She was well, radiant and more than beautiful. She was full of life and vibrant. She appeared young, no older than eighteen. She wore a white dress that waved in the light breeze. A haze of white light surrounded her flawless appearance. There was no smile on her intense expression. Her youth was intimidating. She was the most beautiful creature that had ever past Gardner’s eyes.

  In the vision, they were in some kind of paradise. The grass was long and silky. The water was blue mixed with shades of turquoise and the sky was the clearest Gardner had ever seen it. Massive white clouds floated by slowly.

  Donna came to him and touched his face. Her fingers were warm. They felt soothing while they ran down his cheek. It felt like she was tracing his face with sunlight. Her smell was fresh as lilac and an easy sensation enveloped him. Finally, she smiled at him and nodded. There were no words, only an understanding. There didn’t need to be any words. She was telling him to help the kids. To go back and display his goodness with the gift that he’d been given from the highest power. In that moment, he knew that he would be with her again.

  That was the message: Good men must strive for better.

  It was simple.

  When Gardner returned from his vision, he looked past the realm in which his hallway was made of a floor, two walls and a ceiling. His sight brought on the true nature of their setting. There was a parasite within the company of goodness. It needed to be cast away before it caused any more harm. Gardner looked to the vile thing as it lay on the floor devouring what was left of the human body belonging to Donna’s beautiful soul. He reached down, grabbed the vile parasite, held it firmly in his hand and brought it to the backyard.

  Gardner stood at the edge of the cornfield where the world of fire opened up and the sky peeled back. He threw the demon like it was a bloodsucking slug, into the fire. It spun and convulsed as it was vacuumed into the incinerator. While it fumbled and charred, Gardner felt the rage of defeat prying at the demon. Sammael had been defeated, yet again, by Gardner. Gardner felt his wife’s presence. She was his partner in life and he would see her in the afterlife. He enjoyed her presence as the porthole between Hell and Earth closed-up.

  There was only the corn again. The sky had begun to turn a magnificent orange. There were accents of purple in the clouds. It was a sight to savor.

  Gardner walked back to the porch steps where he and Donna had spent many hours sitting. He wished that he could feel her next to him. He couldn’t, she was gone. There was emptiness, but what he could feel was the warmness of his new friends.

  Garth, Winny and Cherri approached carefully. Their footsteps were soft, almost silent. They looked to each other and then slowly to him.

  “Is it over?” Cherri asked

  12

  “It’s never over. The demon is gone, but not dead. Evil never dies. It is only suppressed. It’s locked away for now and we can go on with our lives. We can leave these demons behind us and move on the best way that we know how. Our struggle as human beings is to promote the good within us. Being a good person is hard enough…for anyone.”

  The cool morning silence resonated. The birds began to chirp and the first glimmers of sunlight danced across the cornfields. Standing side by side, they took in the first light of the new day. The moment didn’t last. For now, they had an aftermath to contend with A millions details needed to be sorted out. The resting town would soon be plagued with the previous night’s slaughter, the demonic crime.

  Winny listened closely, to what Gardner said, but he didn’t know if the answer had been stated. It seemed odd that this nightmare had concluded. That in the end, all it took was goodwill and heart. The raging battle that he thought would ensue wasn’t as it played out in his mind. To Winny, it seemed as though, in the end, it would have taken a platoon of heavily armed Marines to destroy the evil that had torn into their lives on this hellish night in August.

  “I see,” Winny spoke up. “Those things. The demons. They’re gone for now. They sure took a lot from us and we’ll have to go through the rest of our lives tormented by what happened. But we’ll manage. Life will go on.” Winny continued saying while attempting to smile. He was trying to set everyone at ease, even if it was for only a moment.

  Garth looked to his brother, cupped his shoulder and said, “I thought that I was in the worst kind of trouble. That place I was in, it was dark. I thought—I knew—that I would die there. But you never gave up hope. You saved me from my stubborn self, Winny. I don’t know what comes next, but thanks.” He looked to the liquor store down the hill. “We have a lot to answer for.”

  Gardner stood, looking at the liquor store along with the Gasper brothers.

  “The answers will come, and we’ll let those who need to deal with this, deal with this.”

  “I don’t understand.” Garth said.

  “In the decades of dealing with this brand of…evil, I’ve found that a rational answer is always made available for those who need rationale.”

  “I think he’s saying that everything is going to be fine,” Winny chimed in.

  Cherri dropped her small hand from Winny’s grasp and brought it up to Gardner’s face. Her fingers ran down his weathered cheeks. Her eyes were red with exhaustion. She managed a smile and said, “You’ll see her again?”

  The corners of Gardner’s eyes crinkled and his eyelashes moistened. He nodded and said, “I need to be with my wife now.” Then he walked across his lawn and entered his house through the back door.

  Winny, Cherri and Garth stood silent while the pink tone of the early morning sun rose in east. The bright rays of the sun reminded them that they’d been awake all night. Not wanting to think about what would happen next, they couldn’t help but think about the next few days, weeks, and possibly a lot longer. They would meet many trials.

  Garth’s lips stretched upward and his teeth jutted forward. A hearty chuckle fell from his lips. He turned to Winny. “The last customer…The last customer is always the worst.”

  Despite all that had happened, Cherri, Garth and Winny couldn’t hold back their laughter.

  Chapter 28

  1

  The laughing stopped. Garth’s sentiment fell and he brought up the reality that they would need to explain what had happened at the liquor store, not to mention that there were two dead bodies at Gardner’s farmhouse. Garth had faith that they would be able to answer the questions correctly.

  The reality was that there were dead bodies, a liquor store had been destroyed and there was no logical explanation. Remembering what Gardner had told them about rational answers, they made their way down to the liquor store.

  Chapter 29

  1

  A few hours had past and the sun was bright in the morning sky and it was fixing to be another scorcher. It was Sunday. The first police car arrived while Winny and Cherri stood near the cash register debating whether or not they would talk
of the robbery. The Gasper boys had decided that they could leave Cherri out of it.

  But Cherri felt that, given what had happened, she could no longer lie. She didn’t want to. Winny couldn’t bear the thought of what would happen to her if she were to leave him. Neither of them wanted her behind bars, not even Garth. The thought of her going to jail for a long stretch was even worse. Besides, nothing had been stolen during the robbery. There was significant damage to the store, but they were willing to let that go. It wasn’t Cherri’s fault.

  “We don’t even know each other. What if we neglect to tell the police exactly what happened and then a few months from now you find that you don’t want me around?” Cherri asked...her head lowered.

  “We don’t know our childhood history. We don’t know each other’s parents. We don’t know a lot of things…but we made it through last night and I’d say that has to count for something. I trust you and you can trust me.” He smiled. “Our souls are fond of each other and I want to be with you. I want to know you.”

  Cherri’s eyes leaked tears and Winny knew that she’d felt his sincerity. He couldn’t explain it. It was one of those things—indescribable. He was destined to be with this girl and they both knew it.

  2

  Officer Rick Laymon was the first officer to respond to the liquor store. He walked through the parking lot, skeptical. His glasses kept slipping down the bridge of his nose. It annoyed him, and right now, it was even worse. He had many things to deal with. At the start of his shift, he’d learned of what had happened in town. The townsfolk had found the dead police officer’s over an hour ago. There were detectives investigating an elderly couple that had been murdered and they’d found another woman dead in the back alley behind the ice cream shop on Main Street. There was a mess to be cleaned up. There were many answers that needed to be found. The town wouldn’t stand for this, not without answers. This was the worst crime wave to ever hit Dodge Junction, and Laymon wouldn’t take it lightly. He would do whatever it took to do his job competently.

  Walking through the parking lot, the glass crunched beneath his combat boots and his heart pounded beneath his ribs. His breath was quick. He was nervous. The violence that had gone nearly undetected throughout Dodge Junction was enough to have every law official in a state of paranoia, and Officer Laymon was no different. When he entered the liquor store and heard Garth Gasper call out from the back office, “In here officer!” he pulled his gun and held it shakily in front of his chest.

  “Is everyone all right?” he asked, not knowing where he’d found the words.

  “We’re okay,” Winny called out from behind the register.

  Laymon lowered his standard issue nine millimeter berretta. “Do we know what happened here?”

  3

  Surprisingly, Garth and Winny weren’t as nervous as they’d assumed, and the answers came easy. It seemed as if their mouths were moving, but the answers were coming from somewhere else. Their faces held a blank pause when the officer entered the store.

  Winny knew that Garth would handle the immediate explanation. He was better at explaining most things. Garth’s face insinuated that he would prefer to explain while he slightly frowned at Winny and nudged his head, motioning for them to go outside.

  Cherri stood silent next to Winny. Her eyes were heavy, with bags having settled beneath them.

  Winny looked to the officer and asked, “May we go outside and catch some air?”

  Laymon nodded. Winny and Cherri stepped into the humid morning air.

  Winny heard Garth begin to speak with the officer. Garth was telling the truth, yet leaving out the details which would not be understood by the officer.

  Standing in the warm summer sun, Winny leaned down to Cherri and ran his fingers through her tangled red hair.

  “I want you to stay.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, you won’t get sick of me?”

  Winny frowned. “I might get sick of you.”

  Cherri cringed.

  Winny smiled. “But I want you to stay, anyway.”

  “I want to...stay.”

  Slowly coming together, Winny’s eyes danced across Cherri’s face, their lips met. Despite the adrenaline and the stress emanating from the hellish nightmare of the past night, they received heaven as they kissed for the first time. Her lips were paradise.

  4

  The farmhouse was a grim sight. The dead girl in the yard, baking in sun, added a macabre garnish to the property. Inside, upstairs, down the hallway, Gardner knelt beside his wife. The body lying on the floor hardly resembled his Donna. When he touched her, her skin was cold. Her face was turning purple and her lips were blue. The blank stare in her dead eyes was hardening. They looked like small wax globes.

  Gardner’s grief hit heavier than he could have imagined. His heart ached. His stomach was hollow. He still wanted to die. Earlier, his vision of Donna had been pleasant. He attempted to hold onto that image, the one of her in his vision. She’d been perfect; an angel. But now, the desecration of what had happened to her physical body was disturbing him. He began sobbing. If he were to die, then he would see her again, sooner. But there were things that he needed to do before that could happen.

  Gardner had kept his gift dormant for too long. He needed to work on becoming familiar with his blessing again.

  He stood and walked down the stairs toward the living room. He pushed the large rectangular wooden door open. He squinted when the brightness of the fresh new day struck his gentle eyes. The red and blue lights flashing from the liquor store below danced in the bright morning sunshine.

  Closing the door, Gardner walked toward the lights.

  Epilogue

  Chapter 29

  1

  Gardner, Winny, Garth and Cherri were able to answer the questions that had been asked by the local law enforcement. They’d left out the supernatural details, which hadn’t been difficult. Gardner’s group had been revealed as living victims. Their explanations weren’t received as mad—as they feared they would. In the end, the murder, destruction and blame fell upon Rod Barton and Patty King. It was unveiled that they were a team of serial killers who had left a trail of bodies and mayhem strewn across the entirety of the Northern Midwest, from Iowa to Wisconsin.

  The statements made by Garth, Winny, Gardner and Cherri were enough to bring logic to the night of disaster that had taken place in Dodge Junction, Wisconsin. The town would not recover for years to come and stories, rumors and nonsense took form as the horror story broke throughout the small town.

  2

  Winny and Cherri were married the following summer. Garth was the best man and Father Gardner conducted the ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony and a gorgeous day.

  Garth finally found his calling as a writer. With his words, he was able to travel to the places he so desperately sought to visit. He wrote a non-fiction book which ended up as a best-selling fiction novel based on his experiences of that hellish night in August.

  The End

  About the Author

  Daniel P. Coughlin was born and raised in a small town in southern Wisconsin. At the age of 19 he joined the United States Marine Corps and served four and half years as a Machinegunner in the infantry. After being honorably discharged, Daniel attended and graduated from California State University at Long Beach. While studying screenwriting under the mentorship of acclaimed writer Brian Alan Lane, he also interned and served as a script analyst for his favorite director, Wes Craven.

  Daniel is the author of two commercially successful films Lake Dead, which was selected as one of After Dark Film’s 8 Films to Die For, and Farmhouse, starring A-List film and television star Steven Weber (Wings, Desperation, Single White Female). Also, he is the author of the novel Ted’s Score (Comet Press) and has sold numerous short stories to such publications as Strange Tales of Horror, Macabre Cadaver Magazine, and Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine. Daniel was hailed by Macabre Cadaver Magazine as, “A Promising New Voice in Old School Horror.”
Find out more at http://www.danielpcoughlin.com/

  Look for the print version

  May 2012

  Brought to you by Hellfire Publishing, Inc.

  http://www.hellfirepublishing.com

  http://hellfireherald.blogspot.com/

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