by Wood, Rick
“My son… you are my son…”
Eddie was paralysed. His son? Not only was he claiming, as every other demon claimed, to know him, he was claiming him as his son?
“I am not your son.”
“My son… my heir…”
“I am not your heir!”
“Eddie,” Derek snapped. “Focus!”
Eddie trembled, bowing his head solemnly, closing his eyes and drawing in breath.
“In the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour,” he resisted, “tell me your name.”
“You ask me my name,” it spoke, multiple low-pitch voices produced all at once. “You ask me in your name and I will tell you.”
“Fine. In my name, tell me, demon, what is yours?”
The room shook. Beakers and empty needles vibrated off the far tables and smashed upon the ground. The lights uncontrollably sputtered, the bed Kelly’s body lay upon battered against the floor.
Jason stood back, his mouth agape.
“My name is Lucifer.”
The restraints snapped off its wrists and the bed shot out from beneath it, smashing into the wall, Kelly’s body lingering in the air, rising above Eddie, its fists clenched, the whole room revolving into pandemonium as objects soared furiously and lights seized on and off.
Derek and Jason were swept off their feet in the commotion, clinging to the walls, trying not to get swept away in the hurricane.
“No, it can’t be!” Eddie fell to his knees. “You lie!”
“Eddie, focus!” Derek’s voice rang out in the noise, but it was lost and Eddie ignored it.
“You cannot be Lucifer.”
“I am.” Its voice filled the room, making their ear drums ache. “I am Lucifer, Satan, the devil himself.”
The doors rattled with the sound of people trying to get in, reacting to the noise, banging the door down without success.
The camera Jason clung to exploded and he flung his arms in front of himself to shield his eyes. The hurricane of the room took his feet out from beneath him, lashing him across the room.
“And you, Jason Aslan,” the demon boomed. “You think Linda is safe from me?”
“What?” Jason got to his knees and clambered himself to his feet, resisting the tornado of the room. “What did you say?”
“You think Harper is safe from me?”
“Jason!” Eddie screamed. “Remember what I said, don’t listen to it! It will say things to get to you, stand back!”
Jason didn’t listen. He persisted forward toward the beast, his face filling with rage.
“You think Ava is safe from me? Mia?”
“You leave them out of this!”
“I will rip them limb from limb.”
Jason sprinted toward it. It just lifted its arm and Jason rose into the air. The demon straightened itself so it was floating vertically, looking in Jason’s eyes, who squirmed in mid-air helplessly, unable to move.
“You dare oppose me?”
“We drive you from us, unclean spirit!” Eddie screamed against the wind, endeavouring to save Jason by continuing the ritual. “All satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects, we command you, leave this woman be!”
The demon didn’t even react. No flinching, no quivering, nothing. It remained as powerful as it ever was, watching Jason cower before it.
“Eddie, we need to end this, it’s no good!” Derek put his hand on his shoulder. “We need to go!”
“What about Jason?” Eddie cried out at him and stepped forward once more.
The demon withdrew its hands, holding its fingers out in a claw, looking upon Jason like a king would a rat. Jason returned the gaze with eyes full of fear.
“God’s word made flesh commands you! He who saved our race, outdone through your envy commands you. I command you! Release them!”
“Shut up,” said the demon without even turning its head, and Eddie was sent flying onto his backside.
With one sadistic smile and a swipe of the arm, a line of blood drew across Jason’s neck. He clambered for air, clinging his hands to his throat, choking.
“No!” bellowed Eddie, but it was no good.
Jason suffocated in the air before the devil.
No matter how much Eddie tried, he couldn’t get any closer.
The demon sliced its claw through Jason’s throat, splattering blood over the walls as it sliced clean through. His head tore off and dangled from his neck by a piece of skin for a few moments.
The demon screamed and the head flew clean off, bashing against the wall and falling to the floor next to its body.
It turned to Eddie, who was cowering, shaking, terrified.
“Leave this one,” the demon commanded, nodding to Derek. “Then come find me. We have much to do.”
It rapidly ascended to the window at the top of the room and smashed through it, becoming a blurred streak in the distance.
The objects dropped, the wind ceased, and the room was calm.
Eddie and Derek were alone.
Derek did his best to drag Eddie away, but it was no good. He was inconsolable, his desolate eyes not faltering from the sight of Jason’s head severed from its body.
“For false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”
(Matthew 24:24)
24
8 December 2001
The cold hit Kelly like a bucket of ice. The morning sun was only slightly visible, poking through the clouds in the winter sky, and she could feel a strong chill in the air. She felt herself shiver as her senses regained themselves.
Huddling her arms around her chest, she felt nothing but skin. Her clothes were gone.
Her skin hair stood on end, frozen cold. Her naked body shivered as she lifted her head up to figure out where she was. Her vision was taking time to refocus. She reacted quickly to the feeling of itching over her skin and swiftly brushed a whole colony of ants off her body.
She knelt up, covering herself shyly, humiliated at the thought of someone seeing her like this, until she realised she needn’t worry; there wasn’t another soul for as far as she could see. She was in some kind of woodland area, next to an open field, a fence in the distance.
She gagged. Her whole body convulsed and her nose blocked out all smells. A hot, lucid feeling ran up her throat and she spewed out a large amount of sick. Once she had gotten the first lot out, she felt the similar feeling rising up inside her again, and she brought up more sick; most of it red, bloody, and full of raw, undigested pieces of meat.
She stumbled over to a tree and leant against it, coughing up the last of what was left in her gut. She whimpered helplessly, a wave of emotions filling her; partly distressed that she couldn’t understand where she was or why she was there, distraught that she was unclothed, and perturbed she couldn’t help the feeling there was more vomit to come and it was uncontrollable.
She went to take a few steps forward and stumbled over, her legs in agony, shooting pains going up and down her calf. She crawled a few steps forward and forced herself up, mentally urging herself to surge forward through the pain.
She made it to an open field and her bones gave way, her muscles becoming void, her hands and knees landing in a squelch of mud.
“Hello?” she shouted out, vaguely optimistic that someone might hear her. “Hello?”
Her voice resonated around the area without response. Looking back and forth at the frostbitten grass and crisp, icy leaves, she forced herself across the field toward the fence in the distance, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest in an attempt to both warm herself and cover herself up.
Tears fell. Her gut felt terrible. She was freezing and mortified. In the middle of nowhere. Naked. Disgraced.
How was she going to get out of this?
The only thing she could do was cry. She felt pathetic in doing it, but she didn’t know what else to do. She just wished this wasn’t happening, th
at she was home, tucked up warmly in bed. In pyjamas.
How did I even get here?
She reached the fence. A foul stench hit her, forcing her to retch once more. It was a potent smell of rotting flesh and decaying meat filling the air like smoke from a fire. The further she willed herself forward, the stronger the repulsive odour became.
The sun was rising higher in the sky, indicating to her that morning had fully arrived. Her shivering grew more vigorous and she could focus on nothing but how cold she was and how obscene the smell in the air was.
She reached another fence and knelt on it, peering around at the adjoining field. That’s when the cause of the smell revealed itself, sending her to her knees, vomiting the contents of her stomach once more.
An endless row of dead cows were laid out as far as she could see, next to a row of dead sheep. These animals weren’t just dead; they were battered, slaughtered, mercilessly murdered. Their stomachs were exposed, gutted, disembowelled, sliced, and on many of them their heads were severed from their body.
Entrails were strewn and scattered across the fields until almost all the green was covered in red. Intestines, bowels, livers, hearts, all spread across, opened, broken into, torn apart into vile fragments, as if someone had ripped them open.
After being sick she fell to her knees and sobbed.
Did I do this?
Of course not, she wasn’t capable.
How would she know? She hadn’t any idea how she ended up where she was. The last thing she remembered was… hell, she didn’t even know what the last thing she remembered was. Everything was hazy.
She was startled by the sound of a gasp and she turned around instantly. A man in a trench coat with a big moustache and flat cap stood behind her, clearly a farmer.
“Please help me…” she begged.
Without hesitation, the man took off his coat, placed it over her and guided her toward his tractor.
*
“There you are, dear,” said the farmer’s wife, who had introduced herself as Mildred, handing Kelly a hot chocolate. She was elderly and oozed charm, someone who could make an adult feel like they were a six-year-old visiting Grandma’s house once again.
Kelly was still shivering, but the roaring fire next to her was helping her get warm. She was wearing some of the farmer’s old clothes that were hanging off her, but the thick, woolly jumper she had wrapped around her was helping her feel warm.
Mildred and her husband, who had introduced himself as Bill, sat opposite her, staring awkwardly.
“Would you like us to call the police for you?” enquired Mildred, a helpless expression on her face, at a loss for what to do.
Kelly got a flash, a recent memory announcing itself at the forefront of her mind. She was in a cell. She was being restrained. Dozens of police grabbing hold of her, dragging her kicking and screaming.
No, the police were the last people she wanted.
“No thank you,” she spoke, barely audibly, and took a sip of her drink.
“But dear, I…” she hesitated, not sure exactly how to approach such an issue. “You’ve clearly been hurt, or assaulted by someone. Do you remember his name?”
A name? She didn’t remember anybody’s name… She remembered… she remembered that man from the university – not Derek. His friend, Eddie. He was standing over her. Telling her she needed to fight. That was the last image she had in her mind.
She didn’t even know how long ago that was. She didn’t even know how long she had blacked out for.
“What date is it?”
“Why, it’s the eighth of December.” Mildred glanced at her husband, who sat back in his chair with his arms folded, churning over ideas of what he should do in his mind.
“The eighth?” Kelly tried to remember the last date she remembered… when Eddie spoke to her. She recalled the day before being moved to a psychiatric unit, that was the fifth, meaning that day was the sixth. She had been out for almost forty-eight hours? What the hell had happened to her? How did she not know what had happened in two day’s space of time?
She placed the mug on the table. She was distraught enough, and this couple were staring at her, and this was only adding to her stress.
“Can I use your bathroom?” she requested.
Mildred nodded with her jaw still dropped, and pointed through the hallway.
Keeping the jumper wrapped around herself, she huddled her way into the bathroom, closed the door behind her and locked it.
She watched herself in the mirror. She was a state. Soil rubbed on her forehead, dried sweat in her hair, scratches on her face and her neck. Whatever it was she had done, it had left her marked, sweaty and naked.
“But we have to phone the police!” she heard Mildred whispering all too loudly from the front room. “She’s clearly been raped or something. What else are we supposed to do with her? And, what’s more, you have a whole field of cattle out there slaughtered!”
“I know dear,” Bill’s voice joined her, sounding far calmer and less frantic.
Kelly opened the door to the bathroom and hobbled back down the hallway. She saw Mildred with the phone by her ear, her hand halfway through dialling; she poised mid-air as soon as she saw Kelly re-emerge.
“Dear, I was just ringing the police.”
“I said not to ring the police,” Kelly spoke expressionlessly.
“I know, dear, but we just think it’s best.”
“Put the phone down.”
Mildred froze. Was she threatening her? Kelly’s voice was so flat it was hard to tell whether she was being aggressive or definitive.
“Are you sure?”
Without any warning, the phone flew out of Mildred’s hand and slammed back down on the receiver.
Mildred looked to Kelly with a face coated in shock, her eyes widening and her mouth dropping even farther.
“How did you –”
The phone rose into the air and the wire between the landline and the receiver stretched out. Mildred watched it in front of her eyes, then, before she knew what had happened, the wire flung itself around her throat, wrapping numerous times and squeezing tightly.
Bill jumped up and thrashed at the wire with his hands, urgently attempting to peel it off, putting all his strength into it, trying with desperation to stop his wife from suffocating.
It was no good.
The wire was wrapped tightly around her throat and there was no way he could stop it.
“Stop it!” he demanded of Kelly. “You’re killing her!”
Kelly looked blankly back, her eyes washed over with vacancy, nothing behind them, not giving a single reaction.
Bill jumped up and charged at Kelly. Before any sound could come out of his mouth, Kelly had lifted her hand and his mouth was shut tightly.
She tilted her head and looked deep into his eyes. Those old, aged, worried eyes.
She squeezed her fist tighter and tighter. He grabbed his chest in response, feeling it tighten, clutching as hard as he could. It was no good. He was helpless to stop.
She opened her fist and he gave a final whimper as his heart exploded. His body fell limply to the floor next to that of his dead wife.
Kelly trod over them as she made her way toward the door, taking the farmer’s car keys from the bowl as she left.
25
Eddie and Derek sat at the table in Derek’s home library in tedious silence, their heads buried in their hands. Since they were not currently welcome at the university, they had to make do with the study room of Derek’s house. Despite being in more cramped conditions, the shelves held a generous library of enough books about demonology and the study of the paranormal to put Eddie in awe.
But Eddie had no time for complimenting Derek on his book collection; not on this day, not at that moment. It had been two days since they had witnessed the first death they had ever seen during an exorcism. They had never known a demon that possessed its victim with such control, allowing them to wield such power so as to ki
ll someone from across the room. It was worrying. No, worrying was too light – Eddie found it petrifying.
It was the first time they were up against something that could more than match him.
What’s more, there was a feeling in Eddie’s gut, plaguing his mind; the feeling that Eddie had something to do with this evil entity. It had looked at him, directly at him, and said “come find me, we have much to do.” It wanted him to find it? And what was it they had to do?
Most of all, the question at the forefront of Eddie’s mind was: Who the hell am I?
Derek seemed to be in denial about the notion, refusing to be drawn into a conversation, denying any possibility as soon as the subject came up. He had never seen him like this. Derek was normally so wise and approachable; he had taught Eddie so much.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Eddie decided.
Derek grunted without lifting his head up, still in the dire state he had been in for the last forty-eight hours.
They had never seen a man’s head get sliced off before. How were they meant to explain that? The police seemed more than sceptical when they told them a nineteen-year-old girl had done it, then escaped through a window nine feet up the wall.
Eddie trudged through the corridor, unknowingly marvelling at the sculptures and art that decorated the walls either side of him. It was a poor distraction for his mind and it didn’t work, but Derek’s décor was impressive nonetheless.
Then he saw a picture on a bookcase beside the kitchen entrance. A picture he had never seen before. It was small, discreet, out the way. He had rarely been to Derek’s house, and when he had, it would be in a hurried rush whilst fighting a demon, leaving him little time to wander its halls.
The photo certainly raised more than a few questions.
In it was Derek, a younger Derek – with his arm around a woman. A beautiful woman; Eddie couldn’t help but notice how striking she was. Her long, black hair glided off her shoulders and her smile was instantly engaging. She was resting her head against Derek’s shoulder, who was smiling too, in a way Eddie had never seen him smile before; and he looked happy. So happy.
