by mike Evans
“Who’s there? Alecia, are you there? Babe, what are you doing?”
Tony leaned his head up trying to still make shapes out of nothing. A small set of lights finally made their appearance. Tony had to squint as they seemed like they were miles away, something that his brain couldn’t comprehend at the moment. As the two lights got closer he realized they most likely weren’t lights but instead were a set of eyes, a red pair of eyes and even in the dark, he could tell these were eyes filled with anger, the type that had been there for longer than he had been on Earth. “What do you want, what do you want, leave me alone! Get out of here, leave, leave me alone!”
“We can’t leave you alone, we need something from you.”
Tony tried to speak, but the licking sensation on his fingers had turned into light nibbling, and the nibbling very soon became biting. As the light began to come back to him Tony realized he was on a large stone slab, the walls were red. He looked down at his hands and saw creatures like he could only describe as a lizard-like object, but covered with symbols that he'd never seen before. The monsters began ripping his fingers off one at a time. Tony screamed buckling under the pain, but his restraints gave him nothing to move and the pain was intense enough to keep him from passing out. He could feel warm pools beneath both hands of his blood as they chewed.
“Oh God, would you stop, please, stop!”
The figure with the red eyes put a finger to his lips, it was warm at first, but very quickly began to burn his lips when he rested his finger or whatever the appendage was. It almost scolded him when it spoke. “Do not say his name, he is not here, nor will he ever come to hell.”
Tony tried to scream again, but choked on his scream when a red glowing knife came out of nowhere. He realized as smoke danced up into the air that it was not red, at least that probably was not its normal color. It was frozen in its current state by the degree of heat that it was smoldering at. "What do you want! What is it, you can't have anything of mine!"
It dug the blade deep into his gut. Tony could only explain it as his innards boiling from the inside. Just when he thought that it could not be worse the being started running the blade up to his heart. Tony tried to say something, but watched in awe as the being which he was now sure was a demon disappeared quickly before his eyes, taking refuge in his stomach. Tony could feel cold sweat which he didn’t think would be possible in hell. The light hairs singed on his stomach running from his navel to his neck. He watched the wound close before his very eyes, he could feel bile in the back of his throat. “Get out of me, leave me, you damned creation!”
A voice that came from his own mouth said, “We will go nowhere, you are ours, again.”
“You were removed, they sent you back to hell!”
“They tried, didn’t they. You are ours I am going to eat your soul while I wait for my master.”
Tony screamed at the top of his lungs. The lights came back and he jumped a foot swinging and falling out of the small bed. He hit hard on the wood floor, squeezing his eyes shut, unable to see anything. The light seemed like it was the brightest thing he had ever seen. He couldn’t make sense of the soft voice, he was still trapped in hell. When he finally focused his eyes, he saw a figure looking like it was hovering over him, something gold catching a reflection and bouncing the bright light even further into his eyes.
Tony got up from the floor, his long black hair hit the back of his neck and it was soaking wet. Every feeling and sound was driving him insane it felt like nails were being pounded into his ear and claws were pulling at his flesh. He gasped for breath before the words finally made sense.
“Tony, Tony, honey, are you alright? What’s wrong with you, what happened, what was it, Tony?”
Tony squinted, looking up seeing the reflecting object was a gold cross, one that he’d seen almost every day for the last two years. “Alecia is that you, is that you?”
He ran his hands across his stomach feeling no incision, no pain, nothing bad at all. Two hands soft and delicate took his cheeks. She hushed him dropping to her knees when she felt it was safe. “It was just a bad dream, it was just a bad dream, I'm sorry I woke you abruptly from that, but I was sure that you were going to have a heart attack if you kept going at the rate you were going, honey.”
“I…I don’t know what to say. It wasn’t a bad dream, it was…it was more, it was hell, I was in hell. I felt everything, every gouge, they tore my fingers off and a demon cut me and took home in my stomach.”
“That’s absolutely horrible. I knew that they were working you too hard at the shop, you need to tell them that a guy can only fix so many cars in a day.”
Tony rolled to his side debating if he was going to puke for a second. He pushed up and climbed back onto the now dampened bed. “Sorry about your sheets, sometimes when hell finds me, I sweat.”
"Forget about the sheets, good lord in heaven, that is the last thing that I am worried about. I'm worried about you!"
“I'm okay, they aren’t as bad as they used to be.”
“That makes me feel a lot better that this is considered good. Have you seen a doctor about this, I mean they might be able to-”
"I've been dealing with this since I was five years old, Alecia, I assure you, I have tried everything. Doctors, shrinks, I've tried sleeping pills, and being stuck, unable to wake is not the way to take on these dreams. Thank you for caring though and bringing me back from that. I don't want you to freak out every time I stay over, maybe we shouldn't-"
“Anthony Parker if you finish that sentence, I’ll be forced to tell your mother of all the sins we’ve committed unmarried on top of it. What do you think she would do to you?”
He smiled, holding up his hand, looking at it, the shakes had subsided and he reached down to his jeans pulling out a pack of smokes. He took one out collapsing back on the bed and lighting it. “She’d make the devil look like a lightweight if you told her that.”
“Do you want me to take you to a doctor?”
“Yeah with what insurance, we could go to the free clinic and then I’ll make someone confused when I explain my entire history to them. No, there’s nothing that can be done. I’m sorry, but I got baggage to deal with, Alecia. I just don’t know how to help it or what to do about it. It’s better than when I was younger, and I like to think that by the time that I have kids that maybe, just maybe I’ll be normal,” Tony said.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever truly be normal, sweetheart. Who are you planning on having all these babies with sweetie? I don’t know that I’m ready to start popping them out of the oven just yet. We need money, and a house, and-”
“Whoa, Alecia, slow down would you, I wasn’t thinking today, we could practice when I’m feeling a little bit better though as much as you want. You know we could really make sure that we’ve got it down for when the time counts.”
“You realize that we’ll need your work boots soon to walk around in here if you talk very much more crap. You really are shut down because of that dream. You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“I don’t want you to have to deal with what I’m dealing with, trust me.”
“If we are going to be together forever, then it is something that I need to deal with.”
"What if I told you that there was a time when I was younger where Satan or one of his was inside me. I did some horrible things. I was only stopped because of my brother, his best friend, priests, my own mom and neighbor. It was a big effort."
“Satan was inside of you? I don’t understand is that why you have all those tattoos everywhere on you?”
“They thought that the reason I got possessed, the reason that they took me over was because of my age and maybe the lack of a cross on me. My brother, his buddy, and everyone else but my dad all had one. As soon as I was old enough I started getting them.”
"You've never spoken about your dad before."
"Drunk, abusive, mean, likes to hit, likes to punch, likes to throw, gamble. When the devi
l snuck into my house the only good thing it seemed to do was push him out. When my mother came out from the hospital that he put her in, we never saw him again. She didn't ask around, we didn't try and find him and he never came back. We thought that the devil might have taken him where he belonged. No one really missed him, about the only people that ever came to ask about him were those that he owed money to. He loved to gamble. I'm sure he'd like to say he was always happy when he was up, but he was never up, all he ever did was lose, and he'd lose everything too not just something small, he went all the way."
"I guess it is a good thing, then that he's gone from your life?"
“Blessing in disguise. What time do you work tonight, you aren’t going to be late because I slept over are you?”
"I don't work till seven, I get out at midnight. You know I heard if you walk a damsel in distress to work through the hood that you can get a free piece of cherry pie a la mode. Would you know anyone interested in that?"
"I'd love it, you give me a minute to shower, I already stink from sitting in a hot garage all day, the last thing I want to do is go there when I smell like this. Do me a favor while I jump in really quick, would you?"
“You want me to get you some of your spare clothes?”
“No, but see if you can find one of those damsels in distress for me. I love pie and ice cream,” Tony laughed as he ducked into the shower slamming the door, keeping a work boot from nailing him in his rear.
“You better be good to me Alecia. You never know when the call is going to come from the church.”
"Okay, Father Tony you just get washed off and hurry up so I'm not late to work."
“I got my bike, we’ll be fine.”
“A gentleman walks a lady.”
He poked his head out of the door with a smile. "But isn't it so much more fun riding on my bike?"
“Hurry up trouble maker!”
Tony showered feeling a million times better. Soon the two of them were strolling hand on hand through the streets of Chicago. He'd begged her to ride the bike but she did not want her hair messed up from the helmet. Tony and she held hands as they walked, neither of them looked like they had a dollar between the two of them to steal and they were not bothered by any of the vagrants roaming the streets. Tony opened the door to the restaurant smiling, finally letting go of her hand. She leaned in whispering, "What kind of pie did you want, were you set on the cherry and ice cream, Tony?"
"You just get me a slice of whatever they aren't going to miss. The last thing I want you to do is to get in trouble over giving me something sweet."
“They can’t afford to fire me, Tony, I don’t steal, I come in on time, and I don’t do drugs in the backroom. They need to make me a manager at some point.”
Tony took her hand pulling her back, making her squeal and gave her a smooch on the cheek. Her cheeks grew red as they always did when he embarrassed her and she headed to the back, the sound of a time clock being punched a second later echoed loudly. Tony dropped into a seat looking around at the patrons of the establishment. Tired was all that he saw, men and women who'd worked more than a person should be asked to sat in the seats. They shoveled the food into their mouths, some not taking a break from smoking to enjoy their meal. Cold beer for those who were done for the day and steaming coffee for those not lucky enough to be done for the day or who were headed to start their night shift. Even though he was as poor as the next person he knew that being appreciative at such a young age of having things like love and God in his life were as valuable as all the money in existence.
He thought back to her joke about the church not needing Father Tony and felt a tinge of pain. He opened his jean jacket, pulling out three sheets of paper. He unfolded them seeing words scribbled and scratched across the top of it for essay ideas. He smiled as he read it for the millionth time. He loved his girlfriend as much as life itself, but he had loved the church longer, not just because of what they had done for him, but for what it did for all the families across the world. He thought of James and Billy and knew that his brother would be turning wrenches just like himself if he had not been accepted by the church. Billy had been more book smart and with his time as an altar boy and assisting Father Michaels in every manner available had been basically groomed since ten years old or before for the church.
He set the papers aside when Alecia came back with the pie. She set it and a large bowl of ice cream down kissing him on the head and said, "I might be able to get you a to-go burger if you are here at midnight when I get off. You feel free to bring the bike though I don't want to walk these streets that time of night, like at all."
“No worries, I’ll swing by and check on my mom before she goes to bed and then I’ll be over to get you. Don’t you go keeping me up all night, though, I have to be at the shop at six in the morning or I’ll never hear the end of it. I think they assume because I can show up on time and I don’t drink that it’s okay to have me open it up every morning.”
“It isn’t because everyone else is too hungover?”
“It is what it is, they were nice enough to train me how to do it, most kids would have to pay for an apprenticeship to be able to do that. It probably doesn’t hurt that I had a stack of references all from my favorite neighborhood priests.”
“Lucky you, try to be good. See you tonight.”
Tony nodded and she rustled his hair, which he hated because it was long and still wet and made him look somewhat insane when it was not properly combed. She laughed as he tried to blow the wet strands from his face, all he could do was shake his head. He cut into his reward pulling a bite away from his pie and dug into the ice cream trying his best to keep them balanced on the fork at the same time.
“Hey, hey asshole, there’s maggots in that pie,” a man he’d never seen nor spoken to before said.
Tony looked at him, an elderly man smiling at him. The man smiled, his teeth were gone, nothing but gums left that looked diseased. "Excuse me, did you say something?"
“Yeah you, moron, that pie, you’re eating maggots, they’re everywhere, the ice cream too.”
Tony shook his head, ignoring the man. He looked down at his spoon seeing exactly that though. He dropped it making it clatter on the table, spilling the bite everywhere. Two men looked at him curiously. Tony tried to ignore them, pulling napkins to wipe up the pie, he moved it around ensuring that he was not seeing maggots and that his eyes were playing tricks on him. "Real funny old man, why don't you mind your own business."
Tony turned around ignoring the man, but unsure if he could try and eat the ice cream. The old man leaned forward, elbows on the table, he removed his sunglasses his eyes were glowing red. “That wouldn’t be any fun would it, Tony?”
Tony snapped his head around seeing the eyes and didn’t say anything, he didn’t want to ask questions that might be answered. The two men that had been watching him earlier whispered, “Hey, kid, you alright?”
Tony gave a thumb up trying not to look over his shoulder back at the elderly man who had begun laughing now. Tony looked around, but no one seemed to hear the man, his laughter grew until it was all that he could hear. He turned around in his seat when he could take no more and yelled, “Would you shut up, damn it!”
The man’s eyes were back to a soft green and he jumped visibly shaken in his seat choking on his tea. He pointed to himself and Tony shook his head hating that he couldn’t trust his eyes. “Sorry, I...I think that maybe I’m hearing things.”
He looked to the pickup window for the waitresses and saw Alecia motioning with her hands for him to keep it down. He smiled uneasily giving a less than confident, okay sign. One of the two men next to him shifted toward Tony. "You doin all right over there pal? You ain't gonna cause any trouble, are you?"
"Just want to eat my pie and keep to myself if that is all right with you."
“Sure, as rain, but you need to quit yelling at folks or you’re going to start making people nervous, you aren’t on any of those drugs are y
ou, making you all crazy in the head, now are you?”
Tony held up two fingers mocking a boy scout. "Sane as can be expected, sir."
The other man shook uncontrollably. He smiled to Tony now, his brown eyes turned black and then red in a matter of seconds. He brought up a giant bite of pie chewing with his mouth open, maggots that only Tony and the stranger could see were falling out of his mouth. The man’s voice grew raspy and said, “We’re going to murder your girlfriend in the alley, cut her guts out in the alley, the cute one, right? This is some good pie.”
Tony looked at Alecia thinking the two of them could run, they could outrun the two goliaths if they left right now. The other man looked to his friend Eric, “What the hell are you saying? I’m not doing anyth-”
