Demon Jack

by Patrick Donovan

  Father Davidson turned, meeting Lucy’s eyes. His face instantly relaxed, jaw growing slack. Alice watched the whole thing, shaking her head slowly.

  “Humans can be so stupid sometimes,” she said sitting on one of the cots. Her demeanor was reflecting in no uncertain terms that she was obviously tired of us lower life forms for the moment.

  “Are you sure there’s not a log or something of the people that stay here? I saw a sign in sheet by the door, over there on the bulletin board,” she said and pointed towards the corkboard mounted just inside the entrance. I could see her hand shaking. Davidson just kept staring, eyes locked with Lucy’s. She seemed to almost shrink, confusion and fear slipping over her features, but she held his attention with an unwavering stare.

  “In my office,” he said quietly, his voice a drugged monotone, “I keep the old sign-in sheets in my office.”

  “Which office?” Lucy asked.

  “First door on the left, past the kitchen.”

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” I whispered to Lucy. She nodded slowly, trying to keep the apparent mounting panic to a minimum. I could see it in her face, warring with the hunger. I didn't have a lot of time to look around. The last thing I needed was for her to freak out and decide to make a snack out of the priest.

  I made my way to the back, past the kitchen and into the small back office. It was sparse, a cheap metal desk and a few chairs serving as the only furnishing. Papers littered the desktop. I started rummaging through them, and after a minute found the logs for the last three months. I rolled them up, shoving them in my back pocket. I threw open desk drawers, one after the other, searching through pens, more papers, office supplies, and unopened envelopes. After a minute I had what equated to not shit, except for a pint of whiskey I found in the bottom drawer and a long list of names.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, flipping over a few sheets of paper here and there, thinking.

  I almost missed the small stationary pad beside the phone. I picked it up, staring at it under the light. The top sheet was bare, but I could see the faint traces of indention leftover from whatever had been written on the sheet before it. I grabbed a pencil off the desk and lightly shaded over them.

  Red / Blue, 5’7” British Room 102 Mass Gen

  That description sounded a lot like Maggie. A whole lot like Maggie.

  I tore the sheet of paper off, crammed it in my pocket and turned heading back to the main room. Lucy still held the Priest captive when I walked up. He was sweating now, his face a stark, deep crimson. Standing there trembling, small ripples of motion resonated over his jowls.

  “Let’s go,” I said, walking right past her towards the door.

  She looked to me and nodded. As soon as she broke eye contact with the priest, he shuddered. He looked like he had just woken up from a long sleep. He blinked a few times, bleary eyed and unfocused before turning his attention fully on me again.

  “So do you need a place to stay then?”

  “No. I think we’re set,” I said, still walking towards the door.

  “Jack-” Lucy began.

  “Outside.” I cut her off.

  Once we were outside, Lucy’s hand fell on my arm and spun me around. Hard. Harder than she intended. Her strength foreign to her and unchecked, it made my head whip around violently and nearly threw me off my feet. She stared at her hand with wide eyed surprise.

  “I’m, um, sorry?” she said

  “Yeah. No worries,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Jack, what did I do to him?”

  I sighed. I couldn’t put it off. We were going to have to have a talk it seemed.

  “We’ll talk on the way alright?” I said.

  She nodded blankly, falling into step behind me.

  “Okay. Where are we going?”

  “Another hospital.”

  “Oh. That sucks.”

  I took the pint out of my back pocket and took a long pull as we walked.

  “Yeah, yeah it does.”

  Chapter 18

  We walked in silence for maybe half a block. Lucy kept her head down, pulling the scarf off her face so it pooled around her neck. She kept her hands in her pockets. I took another long drink of the booze, preparing myself for a conversation that I really wasn’t qualified to have. I checked off what I knew about vampires in my head. Sunlight bad. Hard to kill. Move fast. Hit hard. Yep, that about covered it.

  “You-” I paused searching for the word. “You, um, hypnotized him. I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I mean, I’m assuming that’s what it was.”

  “How?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. Not a vampire, just seen it once or twice.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, just kept walking.

  “When I walked in, they all acted like I smelled like garbage, or had something disgusting on my face or… I don’t know.”

  “They’re smart.”

  “Well that’s rude,” she said, scowling.

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean they were being smart.”

  “Who?”

  “The guys back there. People, well... People are stupid. Um, well, kind of smart and stupid I guess.”

  “That makes no sense,” she said.

  “What I mean is people are smart when it comes to their own survival.”

  “No they aren’t. Not at all,” she said, snickering. “Haven’t you ever read the Darwin Awards?”

  “Um no.”

  “It’s this really popular joke book where they recount all the stupid things people do to get themselves killed.”

  “Right. Look. Point is people have an instinctual drive to get the hell out of the way of something that will eat them, especially when that something is a bona-fide monster. How’s that? You were sniffing the air like an animal that'd just caught the sense of prey and you didn't even realize it. They did.”

  Lucy stared at me with mouth open and eyes wide.

  “I… I...”

  “It goes like this. You’re a vampire. You don’t have a human aura anymore. People can feel that, it freaks them out.”

  “So I’m a freak then?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” I said.

  “Ouch,” she said quietly, and I instantly felt a small rush of guilt. Way to go, Jack. Way to be supportive, or nurturing, or whatever it is you're supposed to be in situations like this.

  Lucy didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I didn’t try to console her, it was a matter of reality. She needed to hear it. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t have the best delivery.

  “So why don’t they run from you?”

  I shrugged. “Still human, I guess. I never really thought about it.”

  “The scars?”

  “I guess people chalk them up to some weird body modification or gang thing. I don’t know, I don't ask.”

  “Why didn’t the priest try to avoid me then?” she asked.

  I stopped.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “When you were talking to the priest, and I walked up to him before I did -whatever it was I did- he didn’t seem in the least bit bothered.”

  I thought about that for a moment. She was right. Father Davidson hadn’t been perturbed in the least by Lucy’s presence. Come to think about it, the whole time we were there, he didn’t even look in her direction. He should’ve been nervous or uncomfortable at the very least.

  “Wait here a minute,” I said, turning back the way we had come.

  A sort of apprehension seemed to settle over me with each step, pushing me until I was in a full bore run the entire block and a half back to the shelter. I skidded to a stop just in front of the door, and trying it, found it locked.

  “Alice,” I whispered.

  Nothing answered me but the wind, twisting and winding its way through the Boston streets.

  “Alice,” I said again, a little louder.

  “What, Jack?”

  I jumped, and
almost tripped over the discarded bottle from earlier.

  “The priest?” I asked, getting my nerves back under control. “Was there anything off about him?”

  “He was disgustingly fat,” she said.

  “Lot of help you are. Was he human?”

  Alice scrunched her face up in thought. “Kind of?”

  This time I didn’t knock, I hammered my fist down on the door. Each impact sounded like a gunshot, my fist leaving massive sized dents in the metal door. It finally opened. I had to step back to avoid taking it full on in the face.

  Father Davidson stared at me, eyes wide with shock.

  “What in the name of God?”

  I didn’t bother to answer. My hand shot out, grabbing his shirt and pulling him outside. I shoved him to the sidewalk. He landed in a rolling sprawl, finally coming to rest on his ass on the pavement. I stalked towards him. He crab walked away from me.

  “We need to talk, Padre,” I growled.

  “Wha-what?” the priest spluttered, fat jowls rippling.

  I reached down, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. I practically dragged him into an alley before throwing him to the pavement again. He skidded over the trash and muck.

  “You weren’t straight with us and that bothers me.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t understand!” he said, on the verge of tears. Alice paced beside me, not walking, sort of gliding over the asphalt. He was blubbering, snot and spit running down his face.

  “Pl-please,” he said, crawling up to his knees, facing me. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, offering it to me. “Take it, take it! It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”

  For a second, for a brief second, I was tempted to turn and walk away. I thought about just chalking this up to a mistake on my end. He was terrified, hardly what I’d expect from some sort of supernatural bad guy villain type.

  Then, his eyes darted to Alice. It was quick, almost imperceptibly quick, but I knew he had seen her. There was a brief flash of something that looked like fear, or perhaps shock, and the question at least in part was resolved.

  I took the wallet and opened it. He was right, there wasn’t much. I found a ten, a few ones, and a twenty behind his drivers license. I pocketed it and tossed the wallet over his head and deeper into the alley.

  “Padre. I’m going to ask a very simple question to start with. Give me very simple answers and you’ll never see me again. Alright?”

  He nodded slowly, fat shaking and twitching with the motion.

  “A British girl named Maggie. Have you seen her?”

  “No. No. I haven’t.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No! I’m not!”

  I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket, the one I'd shaded with the pencil to bring up her description, and showed it to him.

  “Who is this then?”

  “I have no idea,” he whined.

  I nodded slowly, reaching down to grab an empty liquor bottle off the alley floor. I tossed it into the air, let it flip over once, and caught it by the neck.

  “Padre, it’s not like the movies. I hit you with this it doesn’t shatter. It’s blunt force trauma, right to the skull. It hurts like hell. Trust me, I speak from experience. So, one more time. Who is the girl on the paper?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Final answer?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” he whined again.

  I nodded, and then let him have it. I didn’t swing hard but given the fact that I was about five times stronger than most Olympic weight lifters, barely was hard enough. The bottle smacked against his head with a thud, knocking him to his side. Almost instantly his hand went up, covering the spot where I’d hit him. His other arm went up to shield his head and face should I decide to start raining blows down on him.

  “Oh God, oh God, don’t kill me,” he muttered, balling up into a fetal position.

  I shook my head, grabbing his arm again and jerking up to his knees. I stopped, staring at the wound on his head, or rather the lack there of. There was no blood, no bruising, no cut, just a dent about two inches deep that perfectly fit the bottle’s corner.

  “What the fuck?” I said, more surprised now than anything.

  Father Davidson put his hand over his head again, where I’d hit him. His fingers groped at the divot in his head, and his eyes grew even wider.

  “Oh Jesus, oh God, oh Christ,” he muttered, tears freely streaming down his face. “What... What? I... oh God.”

  I looked over at Alice who simply stared back at me with her typical blank stare and shrugged.

  I tossed the bottle aside and crouched down putting myself at eye level with him.

  “Padre. What the hell are you?” I asked.

  “I... I’m a priest. What do you mean what am I? Why are you doing this?” he looked at Alice, eyes pleading. “Please, help me?”

  She smirked.

  “Look at me, Padre.”

  He turned his eyes back towards me.

  “Your head should be cracked all to shit. It’s not. You can see her.” I pointed towards Alice. “What are you?”

  He felt at his head again, gingerly touching around the massive dent the bottle had left.

  “Look. I’d love to sit here and discuss the semantics of your head trauma and or origins, but I got more important shit to do. So, the girl who’s name was on the paper in your office. Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. I told you. I received a call, and was told to pick her up and take her to a private hospital that’s all.”

  “Who called you?”

  He stared at me blankly. His mouth moved, trying to form words, but all he managed was a choked stutter.

  “Padre?”

  “I...I...”

  “He can’t tell you, Jack.”

  I cut my eyes to Alice. She was staring intently at the priest now.

  “Padre, talk to me,” I said.

  His mouth moved, but all that came out was a wheeze.

  “Alice, the fuck you do to him?”

  “Not me, Jack.”

  “Well, what the fuck is happening.”

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  “He's dying,” she said. “Obviously.”

  He let out a loud gagging sound, hands moving to his throat. He was struggling to breath, eyes widening until they were the size of dinner plates. He reached out to me, hand clenching, pleading without speaking. I took a step back. Alice took a step closer, bending over so she was almost eye to eye with the priest. His hand passed through her, her body leaving mist trails that seemed to cling to his sleeve as his arm moved then slipped back in and she resolidified into her form.

  The priest fell face down, his legs twitching. One hand grabbed weakly at the ground, fingernails snapping off as they raked across the asphalt. For a long moment he convulsed, looking like he was in the throes of a seizure. Finally, he went still.

  “Well, fuck.”

  “Interesting,” Alice said, “A construct. Like Prague.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Oh. He’s a construct, like the one in Prague,” she said and stared at me. “Don’t know that one either do you? You’re hopeless, Jack.”

  “So I’m told. Care to enlighten me?”

  “Care to get back to the hungry vampire before she eats some poor woman walking her dog?”

  “Crap!” I groaned.

  “Good boy, Jack, run along.”

  I turned and bolted from the alley, heading back to where I had left Lucy. The priest, whatever he was, hadn’t been a human. He was supposed to pick up Maggie, and I could only assume that the reason wasn’t a friendly or fatherly one. I barely slowed down as I approached Lucy, seated in the door of a storefront. Thankfully, she was corpse free, no dead women, dogs or otherwise to be seen.

  “Took you long enough,” she muttered.

  “We need to get to the hospital, like now,” I said.

&nbs
p; “Why, what’s going on? Everything okay?” she asked.

  “C’mon,” I said, “I have a feeling something’s going to try to kill Maggie.”

  Chapter 19

  We sprinted for maybe three blocks before I was able to hail a cab, not that it mattered. The cabbie pulled over, got one look at Lucy, and drove off with squealing tires. Staying public was going to be rough with her in tow.

  She watched the cab drive away, the cabbie having not said a word, and a weight seemed to settle over her shoulders. It was something heavy and intangible that threatened to pull her to the ground. Sorrow, grief -whatever you wanted to call it- the reality of her situation was really starting to hit home. A cab was something anyone could do, any time of the day, anywhere. She didn’t have that luxury anymore.

  “Sorry,” I said, not putting much stock in the gesture, but not knowing what else to say. The lack of conviction was evident in my voice.

  “Don’t patronize me,” she said quietly.

  “We have to keep moving,” I said.

  She nodded.

  We took off at a quick run, using alleys and side streets to circumvent the main roads and, more importantly, any people. It took longer, a lot longer than I wanted, but we managed to wind our way towards the hospital without Lucy taking a chomp outta someone's jugular. It being a public hospital, ambulances and pedestrians made up the majority of the foot traffic outside the doors.

  “Scarf,” I said to Lucy.

  She looked confused for a moment, and then realization dawning on her, she wrapped the scarf once more over her mouth. We watched the hospital for a few minutes, using the shadows of a nearby building to mask our presence. It wasn’t needed, but given the way my luck had been going, I figured it better not to take chances.

  “You okay?” I asked, breaking the few moments of silence.

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “I wasn’t either,” I said after a pause and slid the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head.

  She watched me for a long second.

  “You gonna be able to handle this, keep yourself in check?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  I shoved my hands in the front pocket of my sweatshirt and keeping my head down, started towards the hospital doors with Lucy a step behind me.