Demon Jack

by Patrick Donovan

  “Sorry. I don’t buy that.”

  The Essie-thing growled, crouching lower to the ground, muscles taut and ready to pounce. The motion triggered a burst of adrenaline that set my muscles and nerves to the point of combustion. Everything around me seemed to slow down, and I could see with perfect clarity, despite the gloom.

  “Essie, if you’re still in there. It’s Jack. Think you can try and get a word in?” I said, keeping my voice as even and neutral as possible. I didn’t know what had Essie, but anything that can take a body over has to beat the host’s will to do it. It has to be able to shove the original personality aside and then maintain that control. Regardless, it was a fight, and this thing had won said fight real fast, taking her over in a matter of minutes.

  There was a slim chance Essie was in there, somewhere. If I could get through to her, reach past the thing that had her with the right words, I could get her to at least try to force it out.

  If it didn’t work, I’d have to kill her. It wasn’t a notion I was keen on, but it wasn’t something that would keep me awake at night either. I liked Essie, but I wasn’t expecting this thing to just let me walk out the door. In a situation of me or x, there is no “or”.

  “Host.” It growled again, its voice echoing off the walls. The building had emptied out, leaving just me and what had once been the closest thing I had to a friend staring at each other across an expanse of refuse littered concrete.

  “Essie, listen to me. That thing, whatever it is, can only stay in there as long as you let it.”

  Essie’s face contorted with pain, the green light radiating from its eyes dimming. She shook her head violently, a thick, wet snarl echoing out of her throat. Her eyes fell on me again, the light brighter, almost radioactive.

  She had tried to fight it, and she had lost.

  That settled it.

  “Essie, if you can hear me, I’ll try and make it quick,” I said.

  She burst into motion at the same time I did. She was fast, I mean really fast. Her muscles far exceeded what a woman Essie’s age would or should be capable of in a sane world. She became a literal blur as she moved, circling me to come at me from my flank. I tracked her, moving my sprint out wide in counterpoint, fighting to keep distance between us.

  I had been in more than my share of fights. Most often, a fight, a real fight, devolved into a chaotic mass of flailing limbs and wasted motion within seconds. It was the guy that could keep his head in a fight that won out every time over the guy that could hit hard. Strength and speed definitely helped, but they weren't the key to an assured victory. More than anything, it was about patience. It was about waiting it out, defending for a chance at offense and picking your shots.

  She leapt at me. I took two running stops and dropped into a slide, baseball style, slipping under her and rising back to my feet only to duck down and avoid a clubbing blow that probably would’ve taken my head off if it had connected. She swung at me again, and I stepped in taking the blow on the shoulder instead of the side of my head.

  It was like being clubbed with a wrecking ball.

  Whatever had Essie fought with the instincts of a half crazed animal. It swung for the fences every time, nothing was controlled or measured. I ducked or sidestepped every shot as it came towards me, compensating for my disadvantage in the speed department by constantly moving, making her work to adjust to my position and keeping her guessing as to where I’d be next.

  I stepped to the side, a punch aimed at my gut only missed by inches. I realized that the wild animal act had been a total ruse the split second before her right hand connected with my jaw. She caught me just beneath my ear and a cloud of red-hot pain blossomed through my already aching head, sending torrents of agony running down my neck and into my shoulder. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I hit the ground about ten feet away, my breath knocked out of me in one massive rush of air.

  I lay on my back on the cold concrete, blinking stupidly at the ceiling, too dazed to think. Sounds came to me from far off, the sound of footsteps, labored breathing, a slow undulating growl thick with phlegm and sickness. A shadow fell over me, and with it the knowledge that whatever came next was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a lot.

  I fought to pull scraps of coherence together into something tangible. I tried to remember all the kindness Essie had shown me after my release from prison. I thought about the times we had camped under overpasses, in the Commons, anywhere we could find warmth. I thought about sharing food and stealing cigarettes, passing a cheap bottle of hooch back and forth while we panhandled before she'd quit drinking. I thought about staying up with her while she detoxed, helping her get through the worst of her addiction with sheer perseverance. I grabbed those memories and pulled them together, ramming them into a ball of resolve and choking it down in one large bitter pill.

  This thing was going to kill me. It was going to do it while wearing the skin of one of the few people in recent memory that had shown me real kindness. I had literally sold my soul to keep from dying. I’d kill a friend to avoid that fate.

  I sure as hell wasn’t going to die here.

  I rolled onto my stomach and out of the way a split second before its fist crashed into the concrete where my head had been. Chips of splintered stone cut into my still aching cheek, tiny bee stings playing harmony to the much larger pain that had been inflicted upon my poor skull.

  I pushed up to my hands and knees, and rather than stand, I launched with both legs driving my shoulder into her hips. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I let my momentum propel us both back to the floor. The thing holding Essie flailed, slamming her fists into my back and sides. This close they were damn near ineffectual without the leverage to put a good swing behind them. They still hurt, but it was a pain I could ignore.

  She rolled on top of me, straddling my waist. My head snapped forward slamming into her nose. There was a loud crunch, a resounding echo of agony shooting through my skull. Blood splashed into my face, into my eyes. She gave a long, warbling growl of pain. I threw my hips up at the same time I rolled, reversing our positions. I wrenched my fingers into her hair and used her own seizure like thrashing against her. There was a dull thud as I slammed the back of her head into the concrete floor, and the toxic green eyes clouded over. I rammed her head back again, harder this time, and was rewarded with another crunch, her eyes returning to normal, to human.

  “Jack-Jack?” Essie said, her voice thick and drunk sounding.

  I hit her head against the floor one more time.

  That did it.

  I closed my eyes, gently easing her head down. I sat beside her on the floor for a long, silent moment. Her eyes, still open and unblinking, stared back at me.

  I closed them with two fingers.

  “Hands behind your head, asshole!”

  I snapped my head towards the new voice and was instantly rewarded with another wave of dizziness.

  A plain-clothes cop stood maybe twenty feet away. He had his badge hanging around his neck on one of those stainless steel beaded chains.

  His gun was drawn and leveled on my head.

  Chapter 2

  I knew the drill. I closed my eyes and lay face down on the cement. I laced my fingers behind my head, and stayed as absolutely still as possible, mental images of a jumpy cop shooting me over a nervous twitch playing out in my head.

  It was pretty safe to say that the deck was stacked against me. I was next to a dead body. I was covered in blood. Granted, some of it was mine. Most of it wasn’t. I was, at one time, a known associate of one of Boston’s more powerful criminal entrepreneurs. I had a record that ran back to my teenage years and carried more than its fair share of violent offenses. I had done federal time. There were no witnesses to attest to it being self-defense, and even if there was, chances were the word of a few homeless folks saying I had fought and killed a homeless bag lady in self-defense, was -to put it mildly- a stretch.

  I’d go so far as to say I was good and well fucked. />
  I felt the creeping edges of despair welling up in my chest. I had spent the better part of my life bouncing in and out of juvenile halls and county or state lock ups of one stripe or another. I had died for crying out loud. I had literally died and come back, demon in tow, for what? For me to spend the rest of my life locked up in a cage like an animal?

  Then again, maybe that’s exactly what I was. Maybe I was an animal.

  I had just killed a woman who had shown me kindness. It had been self-defense, but I had taken another life and felt absolutely no remorse in doing it. I was more concerned with what was going to happen to me than I was the fact that I had just murdered my friend.

  A part of me couldn’t help but wonder if this was what I deserved.

  I opened my eyes. The cop looked to be in his mid-thirties and was carrying more than a bit of pudge around his waist. He was dressed in an off the rack suit that all but screamed in protest to his bulk. The flashing blue and red lights of his squad car slipped through the now open door and bathed his face in hellish shadows. He had the look of a veteran. It was in the way he carried himself, something in his eyes that was equal parts determination and wariness.

  He kept his service revolver trained on me, each step cautious as he approached. He made sure to maintain enough distance to give him ample time to drop me if I decided to do something rash.

  “I’d stay nice and still if I were you friend,” the cop said.

  I followed his advice. My body thrummed with aches, waves of pain washing over my muscles and nerves with every heartbeat. The spot on my face where Essie had hit me danced to its own particular aching waltz, something fast and up tempo, maybe even jovial.

  I felt the press of the gun barrel against the back of my skull. He smelled toxic, bathed in a near tangible cloud of sweat, cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave. He hefted himself over me, pushing his knee into the small of my back. On the plus side, I wasn’t subjected to his stench anymore since he was heavy enough that breathing was almost more trouble than it was worth. On the down side, it hurt like hell. He cuffed me with the sort of precision that comes with years of practice.

  He holstered his gun and jerked me to my feet, using the cuffs for leverage. He patted me down in the same efficient, precise manner he had used when he cuffed me.

  “You got a name?”

  I didn’t answer him, instead turning my eyes back down towards Essie’s body. Blood had pooled around her, painting the cement black underneath the flashing strobes. She looked almost peaceful, despite the blood and pieces of flesh stuck in her few remaining teeth.

  “I asked you a question,” he said.

  “I heard you,” I said, still staring at Essie.

  “So what’s your name then shithead?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Suit yourself, mister ‘go fuck yourself.’”

  God bless cop humor.

  He gave me a shove, jerking the hood of my sweatshirt away from my head and began perp-walking me towards the waiting squad car. Apparently budget cuts had left the detectives driving black and whites instead of those fancy sedans they always drove in the movies. This close, the pulsing lights were damn near blinding, each color change sending a spike of pain through my aching head. I tried to focus on keeping my head down and putting one foot in front of the other.

  The cop didn’t bother helping me into the car. It took a fair bit of balance and concentration on my part to slide into the backseat without smacking my head against the door frame or falling over. The interior was like every other police cruiser I’d ever had the displeasure of being in. The air inside was heavy with the smell of sweat and cheap tree air fresheners. The back seat was hard, contoured plastic, a thick wall of bullet proof glass serving as a barricade between the front of the car and the passenger area. I leaned forward in the seat resting my head against the partition. Thankfully, he hadn’t bothered with the seat belt. My shoulders began to ache in time with my skull and the cuffs were biting into the tender skin on the inside of my wrists. All in all, it was a pretty damned miserable set of circumstances.

  He slid into the driver’s seat a moment later, shutting off the reds and blues and bringing the car’s engine to life. In the glow of the dash lights, he looked older and more tired than he had moments before. He left the car idling and began typing into a cell phone he had resting on the dashboard.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I looked up at the same time the flash on his camera phone went off.

  “The hell?”

  “Easy son, just checking on something,” he said.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

  The phone chimed. He looked down at the screen. The tired look on his face vanished beneath a wide, toothy smile.

  “God damn I’m good,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he paused, checking the screen on his phone again. “Jack.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. He broke eye contact, turning his attention to his phone again. I couldn’t see what he was typing from the back seat. The laptop beside him was closed, nestled safe and secure on its pedestal over the passenger seat. He hadn’t touched it. Call me crazy, but it was starting to seem like this was a man who wasn’t placing a whole lot of stock in procedure.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked.

  The cop cut his eyes to the rear-view and then back to the road as he pulled the car away from the curb.

  “Hey. I asked you a question.”

  “Yeah? I heard you,” he said.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “You gonna answer me?”

  “Need to know basis, Jack,” he said, punctuating the words with a sly smile.

  We rode for the next few minutes in silence, the cop steering the car through Boston’s side streets with a casual ease. He glanced into the rear-view every few minutes, eyeballing me for a long moment before turning his attention back to the street.

  I let my thoughts drift back over what had just happened. More importantly, I focused on what was going to happen to me and just how decidedly screwed I was. There really weren’t a whole lot of options. I could get out of the cuffs and escape. That wasn’t much of a problem. Granted, I’d have to kill the cop to do it. Again, not much of a problem. It was what came after that bothered me. The thought of Boston’s finest hunting me down for killing one of their own was something that just didn’t appeal to me at the moment.

  “Jack. You’re not paying attention,” a girl’s voice said. It was musical, innocent, and never failed to creep me out, no matter how often I heard it.

  I damn near jumped out of my skin. The little girl had appeared from out of nowhere. She looked maybe ten, twelve at the most. She was seated casually next to me on the back seat, her hands folded in her lap. Every single aspect of her was a stark, pure white; her lips, her hair, the dress she wore that always reminded me of something a kid would wear to mass on Easter Sunday. Even her eyes were like two pools of perfect, liquid ivory.

  “Hello Alice,” I said.

  She was flawless and doll-like, her face set with wide, expressive eyes, a little upturned nose, and Cupid’s bow lips. I cut my eyes toward the rear view, to see if the cop was watching. He wasn’t, his attention was focused on the road.

  “I hate it when you do that,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “And?”

  I gave off an exasperated sigh.

  “You’re not paying attention,” she said again. “Where. Who. What. Why. Though, I guess how would be via car. No, not paying attention at all.”

  She let the last statement hang in the air, held up by her own sigh, though hers was a bit more disappointed sounding.

  “Alice, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  I cut my eyes back up, checking the rear view to see if the cop was paying attention yet. He was staring, a brow quirked as he w
atched me talk to, as far as he could tell, myself. He couldn’t see Alice. As far as I knew, I was the only one that actually could see the little demon. I had always just chalked it up as part of the deal, that the only evidence of Alice existing here on this mortal coil was the contract engraved in my skin. To the cop, I figured I probably looked like any random homeless crazy, one of several hundred he’d picked up in his long, illustrious career. Except he knew my name, and that was really bothering me. I had a reputation, true, but I didn’t think it extended that far.

  “Hey. Pipe down back there.” The cop growled.

  I ignored him.

  “Well?” I asked her.

  Alice’s presence had me on edge almost as much as her hints that I had missed something that was probably glaringly obvious. I suppose it was entirely plausible. I’d had a hell of a go at it the past hour or so, what with possessed friends trying to eat me and being arrested and all. I tried to take stock of my situation. I was still in Boston, still under arrest, still in a cop car on my way to a cage with nothing more to look forward to than three hots and a cot and a rather burly cellmate with a soft spot for yours truly.

  She just stared at me.

  “I got nothing,” I said finally.

  “Jack. The police station is in the opposite direction. You haven’t been read your rights. You were arrested by a plainclothes officer. He didn’t call this in, nor has he touched his computer.”

  I blinked. She was right. We were heading away from Police Headquarters. We were still downtown, but we were heading south. The cop who had arrested me hadn’t even identified himself as a police officer, let alone read me my rights or touched his radio to call it in. I had been too concerned with how fucked I could be as opposed to how fucked I actually was.

  The line of thinking led to even more questions. Why had a plainclothes officer been patrolling a place that was a known haunt for the homeless? It was plausible that he was off duty, or maybe he was investigating something, but not this late at night. Plainclothes usually meant detective, or at least someone with some rank. They were at home in their suburban cookie cutter houses with their two point three kids and dog well before dinnertime, not out rounding up assholes like me. Better yet, who had he been texting? Further, why was this asshole taking my picture?