Occasional Demons

by Rick Hautala

  Is that her still laughing?

  Or is she crying now?

  He wanted to say or do something to help her, but he was paralyzed with fear. The mental image of the iron frog was growing steadily sharper in his mind, and after a heart-stopping moment, it started to blend gradually into a human face. Stunned, Mark saw—and recognized—his father staring back at him with a cold, dead light in his wide, frog-like eyes.

  You son of a bitch! Mark thought, sobbing so hard it hurt his chest. You lousy, rotten bastard! You hurt me, and you hurt her, and you never even gave a shit, but it happened—God damn you! You finally got what you deserved!

  The image of his father’s face twitched into a grimace of pain as it vibrated with bright, shimmering colors. Then it began to fade, dissolving gradually into the pulsating darkness inside Mark’s mind. Mark realized that his mother was speaking to him, but her voice was muffled and distant. At first he couldn’t make out what she was saying, but finally, something she said drifted into his awareness like the soft, sad hiss of the sea breeze blowing over the beach.

  “I’ve been wanting to confess this for a long time,“ she said. “And I’m glad it was you I finally told. But do you want to know something else, Mark?“

  It took effort, but Mark opened his eyes and stared blankly at her. His throat was bone dry, and when he opened his mouth to say something, all he could manage was a strangled groan.

  “That iron frog,“ his mother said, leaning toward him and smiling at him with love and deep satisfaction. “I’d have to say that was the best Mother’s Day present you ever gave me.“

  Setup

  I don’t ’spoze there’s anyone who thought Ed Marlboro didn’t have to die.

  Wait a second. That sounds kinda confusing, don’t it?

  Must be a double negative in there or something, right? People are always telling me I use them ’double negatives,’ but I ain’t too sure what they mean by that.

  What I mean is, just about everyone I know pretty much wanted Ed Marlboro to die.

  Well, maybe not die, actually, but I figured, sooner or later, something was gonna have to happen to such a ripe, royal pain in the ass.

  It’s just one of them inevitable things in life, you know?...like taxes and the Mets sucking.

  I guess I’m a little upset that I had to do it, but—as far as I could see—no one else was quite up to the task.

  So once I decided to do it, the only other question, really, was how to do it.

  One thing I sure as hell didn’t want was for me to get caught at it. It didn’t make no sense for me to rot away in jail for the rest of my life when I’d only gone and done what everyone else at the newspaper wanted done, anyway.

  A’course, at the time, I didn’t talk this over with anyone.

  Tell no secrets, and leave no witnesses, my mama always used to say.

  I had to figure out the best way to do it with the least chance of me getting caught...but still, I wanted to make sure Ed got what he deserved, okay?

  Where’s the crime in that?

  And I didn’t want to do no half-assed attempt that was gonna backfire on me, neither.

  Lemme back pedal here just a touch.

  My name’s Tom Martin, and I work at The Sentinel, the local newspapers here in town.

  No, I ain’t no reporter.

  What, you thought I was?... The way I talk? Don’t make me laugh.

  No, I been working at the newspaper for a lot of years, doing general clean up...janitorial-type stuff.

  I never could write no good. Probably never will be able to, neither. I never got beyond third grade, and I didn’t even do all that hot there.

  But take Ed, now.

  He’s a real reporter. Real smart guy. He can read ’n write real good. ’Least, that’s what people ’round the office are always saying. I think he even got some national awards for some of what he wrote.

  The thing of it is, though, if you ask me, Ed thinks he’s some kinda big shot. Hell, even if you don’t ask me, I’ll tell you that’s the case.

  Working ’round the office, a’course, I heard plenty of stuff. All sorts of rumors and gossip and such. I probably know more about some people’s lives than they know about themselves.

  Anyways, this guy Ed’s been a real pain in the ass to just everyone there, but ’specially to Nancy Garvey.

  She’s one of the secretaries there. Real pretty lady.

  Yeah, I do kinda like her.

  How’d you guess?

  I guess you have to be pretty smart to be a detective, too, huh?

  Oh, yeah...sure—Ed was mean to me. More often than not, though, he pretty much ignored me. Every now and again he’d get it into his head to get on my case about something or other. ’Specially once he figured out I was kinda sweet on Nancy.

  Lots of times, whenever there was something missing from his desk or something, he’d accuse me of swiping it or—you know, of throwing it away when I was emptying wastebaskets or some such. He called me a “dumb oaf“ a lot of times, but I learned to ignore that from just about everybody.

  A’course, I wouldn’t never do nothing like steal from him. My mama taught me that stealing ain’t right.

  Oh, yeah, sure—she taught me ’bout how it ain’t no good to kill no one, neither, but—well, with Ed, I figured even the God my mama was always praying to would see that there’s always gotta be exemptions.

  Is that the right word?

  Exceptions. Yeah, I guess that’s it. Man, you are smart, ain’t yah?

  But I didn’t do this to impress Nancy, like you suggested earlier.

  Hell, no!

  I don’t think she even knows I like her.

  But anyways, like I said, I was casting about, trying to think of some way I could get rid of Ed.

  Right off the bat, I decided not to use any of them usual ways you see all the time on TV and in movies—you know, guns, knifes...stuff like that. And I didn’t want to run him over with a car, neither. A’course, I don’t even know how to drive, so that wouldn’t’ve been no good, neither.

  When I heard a couple of the secretaries in the office talking about that place just out of town, that haunted house over by Watcher’s Mountain, I figured that might be the way to go.

  I’m sure you’ve heard of this place, ain’t you? It’s that big old house out on Route 25, right by the old cemetery, and it’s spozed to be haunted.

  Hell, no. I don’t believe it’s really haunted.

  Matter of fact, I know it ain’t ’cause I went out there one night not too long ago and talked with the lady who lives there.

  I had to set the whole thing up with her first, you see.

  I introduced myself and told her that I had this friend—a newspaper reporter—who was investigating—

  That’s the right word, ain’t it? Investigating? That’s what you’re doing with me.

  Okay. Anyway, you must remember how, a couple of years ago, there was all them kids who disappeared out that way. Wasn’t it something like ten kids in just a couple of months? The whole state—hell, the whole country was in an uproar about it. It might’ve been them stories what got Ed that national award.

  Anyways, I told this lady I had a friend who was investigating what might’ve happened to them kids, and that I wanted to play a practical joke on him. I figured it all out with her that we could set something up to scare Ed...maybe even scare him to death.

  That’s what I was hoping, anyway.

  At first she didn’t cotton to the idea. She said she lived alone way out there ’cause she didn’t want any other people around botherin’ her. I couldn’t quite figure out why ’cause she was—well, you know, she was kinda pretty.

  Yeah, “sexy“ is a word that might describe her, but you said it first. I don’t usually talk that way about women. My mama taught me better.

  She offered me something to drink, and after that, she finally agreed to help me out. Actually, we got to be pretty good friends that night, ’cause whe
n I was leaving, she even gave me a little kiss.

  No, not on the mouth.

  On the neck.

  I ain’t never been kissed like that by no lady before...’cept my mama, of course, but that don’t rightly count. ’Sides, this kiss was...different.

  I figured I could cook up some wacky-doodle story about that house to get Ed to go out there with me. I could tell him the place was haunted or something, and that he should do a story about it for Halloween. Might even win another award. That’s what I told him.

  Sure, it was gonna take some convincing, but I figured I’d make up something real good that would get him to go out there.

  ’Course, as it turned out, things got a little more serious than I intended.

  Ed and I went out there a couple of nights later, all right. He and I drove together ’cause, like I said, I ain’t got no driver’s license.

  I could tell by the way Ed was treating me that he didn’t really believe none of what I was telling him, but I told him I’d been out there and seen some really weird things. I couldn’t think exactly what to tell him, so I just said I wanted him to see for himself.

  He went along with it ’cause—you know, Halloween’s coming up, and he must’ve figured he’d at least get an interesting article in The Sentinel or something.

  When we got there, I was scared that the lady wasn’t going to go along with what we planned. She was supposed to be hiding upstairs and jump out at us as soon as we went up the stairs, but she answered the door as soon as we knocked.

  I thought maybe we’d come too early, or that I’d gotten the wrong day or that maybe she’d forgot all about it.

  Right away, though, I could tell that something was wrong.

  For one thing, she didn’t look quite right.

  She’d been real pretty the first time I seen her, but now—I don’t know, she didn’t look so good.

  Kinda sickly.

  Her skin was real pale—almost white, and her teeth...her teeth looked kinda funny whenever she looked at me and smiled.

  I didn’t even get to say nothing to her, though, before she attacked Ed.

  Attacked.

  Yeah, that’s exactly what she did. She attacked him. She was just standing there in the doorway, looking at the both of us and smiling, and all of a sudden she just went for Ed’s throat.

  It happened so fast, I didn’t know what was happening. I barely had time to react.

  At first I thought she had come up with something better than what we’d planned, but after a moment or two, I knew something was seriously wrong.

  You’re a cop, right? So you must’ve seen some of them pictures they took of Ed.

  She just grabbed onto him and hugged him real tight with both arms.

  At first I just stood there, thinking I wished she’d a held me like that, but after a minute or so, I saw that either Ed or she was bleeding.

  I couldn’t move, I was so scared.

  I just stood there, watching what she was doing. At first Ed tried to fight back, but it was like she was too strong for him.

  She had her face pressed real hard against his neck and was making all these strange sucking and moaning noises, like she was really enjoying herself.

  After a couple more seconds … I don’t know, it might’ve been longer; but once Ed’s face was—God! It was bone white. Then he just sort of folded up and fell down on the front steps. His feet were hanging out over the edge of the stairs, still twitching like he was being ’lectrocuted.

  When she looked at me, her face was smeared with blood, and she was smiling something wicked. Her teeth looked really funny—glistening like sharp little pieces of bone sticking up out of a bloody wound.

  It scared the bejezus out of me, I don’t mind saying.

  I don’t remember what I said to her...if anything.

  I looked at Ed, thinking she was gonna do the same thing to me; but after a second or two, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and smacked her lips.

  “Satisfied?“ she said.

  It still gives me the willies to remember what her voice sounded like, all gurgley, like her throat was full of water.

  But I knew it wasn’t water.

  I know I didn’t say anything to her after that.

  God, I couldn’t hardly breathe.

  I just stood there, looking down at Ed’s body, lying there in the doorway.

  I knew he was dead, and I remember thinking that maybe Nancy would be real happy about it when she found out. At least he wouldn’t be bothering her at work no more.

  I started backing up away from her real slow, but she just stood there in the doorway, watching me. I didn’t like the way her eyes looked all silvery and shiny.

  Just before she closed the door, she said something else to me, something about how she was angry that she was going to have to leave. But the last thing I heard her say was that she was sure we’d see each other again.

  Real soon.

  I didn’t know how to drive a car, so I had to walk all the way back to my place.

  Right after I got home, I called you guys to go out there and find Ed.

  I didn’t mean for it to happen quite the way it did, so I don’t see why you’re keeping me here in jail.

  It’s gonna be daylight soon, and I’m feeling kinda...I don’t know, kinda tired and...and really thirsty.

  Oh, yeah—I know I shouldn’t have set Ed up like that, but you have to believe me when I say I didn’t mean for him to die. I just wanted to scare him. I didn’t have no idea she was gonna do something like that.

  Besides, I didn’t kill him.

  She did.

  Is it my fault you can’t find her? You have to believe me when I say how much I regret it. Hell, there’s lots of things I shouldn’t have done.

  I probably shouldn’t have let her kiss me the way she did that first night when I met her.

  And I know damned well that I shouldn’t’ve had that drink with her!

  Hey. Could you step a little closer to the bars here? I’m really thirsty!

  The Gates of Dawn

  “’Don’t worry about it,’ is what he said to me. Arlan, I mean.“

  I looked intently at Phyllis Kelly, the hospital therapist who had come to talk to me, and felt instinctively that I could trust her.

  “He...Arlan, that is, said he certainly hadn’t meant for me to get hurt, and he was sure—at least he hoped that Devin hadn’t meant to hurt me, either.’“

  “Hurt you?“ Phyllis said, her eyebrows arching. “Or do you mean try to kill you?“

  No matter how much she tried to mask it from me, the expression on her face gave away her confusion and concern. I shrugged because I honestly had no idea what Devin had been trying to do.

  “When you were first admitted to the ER this morning,“ Phyllis continued, “you were hysterical. You kept shouting that he had done something to you—something that was going to kill you. Are you saying it was Devin who tried to hurt you?“

  Unable to speak for a moment, I grimaced. Then I sighed and nodded.

  “Maybe,“ I said.

  “What did he do?“

  “I...I’m not sure, really.“ I was trembling terribly inside. “It—it’s all...everything’s just a big blur. All I remember now is Arlan telling me not to worry. That was just before he...disappeared.“

  “Disappeared?“ Phyllis echoed, frowning deeply, obviously confused. “Disappeared as in—he just left you there?“

  “No,“ I said, clenching my teeth together even though it hurt my jaw. “Just before the forest rangers came and carried me out, Arlan disappeared. I was looking right at him. I remember how the sunlight was shimmering behind him, and then he just...faded away to nothing.“

  “I see,“ Phyllis said, but I knew she didn’t really see at all.

  How could she?

  I figured she thought I was still freaking out, even though one of the nurses had given me an injection of something that was definitely taking the edge off thin
gs. I sighed and rolled my head back and forth on the pillow, listening to the faint crinkling sounds the crisp fabric made. It sounded far away, like Fourth of July fireworks popping far off in the distance. I knew that everyone in the hospital emergency room was trying to make me comfortable but, because of the “condition“ I was in, everything that touched me—the bed sheets, the thin, cotton “johnny“ they had made me put on—everything felt rough and abrasive, like sandpaper against my raw skin.

  I glanced down at my hands, not at all surprised to see that they were as white as the bed sheets. Once, just as I blinked my eyes, I thought for a second that they faded, and I could see the bed right through my hand.

  Phyllis cleared her throat and shifted forward, looking at me earnestly.

  “Look, Lisa, if you’re too tired to talk right now, why don’t we wait until later this afternoon, once you’re settled in a room. Or we can wait and talk tomorrow, if you’d like. Dr. Newberry wants to conduct a few more tests, so he’s keeping you here overnight for observation.“

  I bit down hard on my lower lip and, in spite of the pain, shook my head firmly.

  “No, I think I—I really have to talk about this right now...before it’s too late.“

  “Too late for what, Lisa?“ Phyllis leaned even closer, her brow lowering like a storm cloud.

  I wanted to say “too late for me,“ but a sudden rush of emotion made me want to cry. I forced myself to blink back the gathering tears, knowing that I couldn’t stop the inevitable.

  Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen, no matter what I did or who I told about it, so I took a breath, closed my eyes, and pressed my head deep into the well of the pillow. It was scary how I felt like I was going to keep going and fall right through the mattress and onto the floor.

  It wasn’t long, though, before the silence of the room got to me, and I opened my eyes again. Everything in the room, including Phyllis, looked watery...fuzzy...almost transparent. I tried to speak but couldn’t, and I ended up merely clearing my throat.