Demons Beware

by mike Evans

  The boy threw the ball to what seemed like the heavens. Pete started down the rest of the steps. He watched the truck, waiting for it to slow down—for it to stop really—and for some man that was twice his size to get out and belittle and scream at the boy for being in the street in the first place. When the truck did not stop, he began to run, finding his body reacting to it and allowing his legs to do so. He ran blindly into the street, ignoring his own advice of looking both ways. He made it to Tony just in time but when he reached the boy, he spun around dropping the ball and smiling.

  The look that the little one was giving him was of pure evil, and his eyes were burning with fire. Pete asked, “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

  The boy took Pete by his wrist. The sound of the engine began to rumble louder as it got closer. Pete was looking back and forth between the truck and the boy. “Come on kid let’s get out of here.”

  Pete put his free hand around Tony’s waist, and when he tried to lift him, the boy did not budge; he was like stone. Pete looked frantically at the approaching truck, and when he tried to let go, the hand tightened around his wrist. Pete tried pushing back with his feet, but they no longer worked. He blinked, trying to get his eyes to stop playing tricks on him, because his feet were a foot deep in the cement.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  The boy put a hand on his face, bringing him to look into his eyes. “Your interference was unappreciated; the time for taking is now.”

  “The time for taking what? What are you talking about?”

  “It doesn't concern you anymore, peasant.”

  Pete was in a daze, one that felt like when he’d been given morphine for a gallstone. He remembered when the nurse had squeezed that sweet nectar into his vein, that he felt a euphoria rush through him. “I don’t understand…”

  “In another minute, it won’t matter, stupid human.”

  Pete opened his mouth to speak, ready to scream this time for anyone to help him. The truck driver drove like a bat of hell down the street, ignoring what was in front of him. His mind seemed to be a thousand miles away, not something he was used to. When he did look at the street, there was no Pete in it.

  Pete tried to do the sign of the cross, and just before the demon’s visual self-disappeared, he leaned in. “The sign of the cross is going to do nothing for you, mortal. God is absent today.”

  Pete looked down at him and all of a sudden, in a poof, the boy was gone. The truck driver honked just seconds before he slammed on his brakes. It was the first time that he had seen Pete. The truck’s tires locked up, and it began to skid. The narrow street left no room for navigation, and the sound of the thud through his open window was devastating.

  He dropped the cigar out of his mouth as he climbed down out of the truck. He practically fell down to the pavement, knowing what horrific thing he was going to see. Pete’s mangled body lay beneath. He had a look of fear permanently stuck on his face.

  The man’s stomach turned, and he held it, trying unsuccessfully to keep his lunch in. He ran to the side of two cars losing the meatloaf and mashed potatoes he’d feasted on at his lunch hour. Doors slowly started to open. When Mrs. Henderson—who was neighbor to the Andersons—saw the quite literal wet mess on the pavement, she screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs. The truck driver, Howie, held up his hands ready to defend himself.

  “It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t do nothing! I was driving down the street, minding my own, and this sonofabitch came out of nowhere into the middle of the street. I honked and slammed on my brakes but the truck just slid. I turned the wheel but the damn thing just went like a beeline for him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  A few of the men came out, looking at what had happened, and one yelled, “I’m going to go call the ambulance and police.”

  Howie looked up to his cement truck, thinking he was going to lose his damn job if the cement settled. He reached down, picking up his cigar that had rolled under the truck. He watched, not knowing what he was seeing wasn’t really there, as Pete turned his head to an impossible angle.

  “Thank you, Howie. Just what I was hoping for, was you to fucking smash my skull in with your damn truck’s bumper!” Pete started laughing hysterically until Howie thought that Pete was going to make his ears bleed if he did not quit.

  Howie, who was the only one unfortunate enough to hear this screamed, “Shut up you son of a bitch! You stop right now, I didn’t do nothing on purpose, hear!”

  The man who said he was calling the cops—and wasn’t one to be disrespected—screamed at the top of his lungs at the man, “You don’t curse me; you watch your tongue when you’re talking to a Smith. I can make you hurt if you don’t watch yourself.”

  The driver could hear none of this and gripped his ears, feeling like they were going to implode if the screaming and taunting did not stop. He stumbled around, looking at the inside of his truck and the toolbox mounted next to the driver’s door. He opened it letting the tools spill out to the ground. “I need the voices to stop; I need the voices to stop, now!”

  The man took a few steps back; he wasn't stupid, and he knew a crazy man when he saw one. “Look, buddy, I just need you to take a few deep breaths. We are going to get everything worked out, okay? Nobody said that it was your fault.”

  Howie started crying and pounding on his ears. The visions before his eyes were of Pete being hit repeatedly. He looked at the pavement, seeing what appeared to be a blue hand stretching out and pulling itself towards him. Howie pointed to it, losing his mind. “Look! Look, would you?! There’s something coming out from under the truck.”

  The man yelled, “Yeah, it’s his brain and blood. The shit that you caused.”

  Howie picked up a flat tip screwdriver, stabbing the ground, only making sparking against the pavement. The man tried to grip his shoulder, but Howie knocked it off. The screams were more than he could handle. He held even tighter to the screwdriver, holding it up and smiling, looking like a wild-eyed, crazy man.

  “Look, buddy, I said it’s going to be okay. You need to relax, you’re freaking everyone out,” the man said.

  “I can’t handle the sights anymore. I can’t do it, I can’t!”

  He brought the screwdriver into each eyeball, instantly blinding himself. The men tried to grip his arm, but when he’d gone through both pupils, he brought it one more time and sent it through his ear with all the force he could muster. He killed himself instantly, letting go of the screwdriver and fell to the side. His head hit with a crack on the cool cement, and all the bystanders who had been standoffish took a few extra steps back. The hysterical woman on her front steps found all new reasons to begin screaming about what was happening.

  The Smith man did the sign of the cross, knowing well that an act such as that was enough to give the man a first-class ticket to hell. He pulled Howie’s coat from the truck and spread it across his head and back. A slow pool of blood streamed from his ear and eye sockets, down into the gutter.

  Chapter 15

  Inside the Parker’s Home

  Tony continued walking slowly up the stairs. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the fact that the voice sounded like his mother’s, but seemed to lack all the love and compassion he was used to from it. He knew quite well not to expect it from his father; not ever to expect it from him. Tony had learned long ago that he was never going to see that man happy unless he was drinking. He didn’t usually go after Tony, but he’d seen Billy take a beating on more than one occasion and couldn’t hold the tears in even once when it happened.

  He thought about Billy now, wishing his big brother had been home or came over to the house. He was pretty sure he should have been out of school by now. He had tried his best to wait outside of the bay window for his brother to come home, but all of his patience had ended up with no results.

  A light from his door was shining, and as he passed his parents room, he saw the lights blinking on the digital alarm clock. The numbers had chan
ged themselves to 6:66 PM and were blinking on and off. The radio was turning on and off on its own. Tony stared for a moment longer before the door slammed shut to his parent’s room.

  The voice came again from his and Billy’s room. “Come here now, child. Do it now, or it shall hurt!”

  “I don’t want to come to you now; I don’t want that to happen again.”

  “Do it now, or I will kill your entire family... move!”

  When Tony did not do as told, he elevated off and up from the ground, and was flung into his room. Tony landed hard on his hands and knees. Tears from fear and pain began to roll down his plump cheeks. The door slammed shut behind him, and the cross on the wall was still upside down, but was smoldering now.

  The voice yelled, “Be silent, little one. Those tears are only meant for getting compassion and you will find none here, I can promise you that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We want you, we need you.”

  “I’m just little, what are you going to do with me?”

  “You are going to be the first and the last. You are the maker.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “We do not care, young one. We can do this without you knowing. You will be no longer, once we are in charge. Our father will be pleased when we destroy heaven.”

  “Who is your father?”

  The demon actually laughed, screaming, “Diaboli, or the Devil, in your simple language.”

  A red figure appeared from nowhere in a smoke-like form, going round and round the boy. Tony could feel the pressure tightening around his small frame. He watched in horror as he was lifted from the ground, off his hands and knees. The tears began to sizzle on his cheeks leaving bruising red lines. The demon opened Tony’s mouth and slowly went into his body.

  Tony could feel something warm, something familiar to the previous night, before the blurriness had taken over. He couldn’t compare the feeling spreading through his body with anything other than when they had been at the local pool the last year and he had slipped out of his life ring that was keeping him afloat. All he could remember before his brother came for him to save his life, was when his lungs felt like they were on fire and wet at the same time. Everything that was him was engulfed in water, and much like then, he hated it now too. His baby blue eyes grew darker as the demon took control of his small body.

  The demon held out his arms, looking at the small, pudgy fingers. Tony’s body lifted slowly up off of the floor, floating down the stairs before heading towards the doorway. A minute later he was standing back at the doorway porch. There was a trail of children who had been frozen in place with the rest of the bystanders at the mail carrier, Pete’s, demise. Tony walked to each of the children, touching them, sending a message into their brain; a suggestion to go into the house and to the boy’s room.

  One by one, the children began making their path and ascending the stairs, looking like ants in a line, until they were cramped into the room to the point that almost no one could fit in there any longer. Tony’s body came up the stairs quickly, stopping in front, and yelled, “Choose as you will my brothers, there are going to be more... so many more, where this came from. We will flood the gates of heaven with so many dead, that they won’t know who is and is not coming into the place of rest. Father will be pleased, and our reign will be for thousands upon thousands of years.”

  The spirits formed, making their way out of the closet; the room was glowing red with all the demons making their way out. The cross was no longer smoldering. At this point it was but ashes on the ground. The silver Jesus was on the floor, sticking out of the pile of ash, glowing red. One by one, the demons entered the body of the child of their choice. They turned, leaving the room, heading out the rear door of the home and to the street.

  Chapter 16

  Ralph took the streets fast trying not to stare at Joan as he drove. The silence could not have been more full than if they’d put an elephant in the car. She finally said, “Okay, ask it, Ralph. You still want me to call you Ralph, right?”

  “I’m not going to lie sweetheart, I’m a little more than creeped out. I mean when you were explaining things to the priests, you weren’t embellishing on what it was that you were saying, were you? I mean, I know you guys could use a little extra scratch, but are you really needing to tell a story like that?”

  “It isn’t a story, it is the truth. I might not have money, Mr. Anderson, but it does not in any way mean that I am a liar. I follow the good book’s word, and I do not stray from it. We aren’t all as lucky as one another when it comes to who we ended up with. I need the money; God knows, after the hospital, I’m sure that I’ll need even more. But again, I do my best to make sure that I follow the Lord’s way, and my boys do as well. I can’t do anything about David, he has a way of his own. He served his country, and I am pretty sure that a piece of him stayed over there that was one of the good parts. Unfortunately, I think it was the only good part. He really was such a good man when he left for war.”

  “Now, let’s not start over with all that Mr. Anderson shit, Joan. I’m Ralph, you’re Joan, and I am an asshole once in a while. You can ask my wife, she’ll happily confess to you what she thinks about me from time to time.”

  She snorted patting his arm. “I’m sorry, but it’s about the only thing I can truly say that I have, besides the love of my boys.”

  “So, he flew out of the room, broke his arm, and then he just left?”

  “That is pretty much it,” Joan said.

  “How unlucky do you have to be, to end up with hell’s portal as your house?”

  “My God, let’s pray that isn’t the case. I wouldn’t want to have to consider that. Not that I’d miss the place, but it is all that we got.”

  “I’d say that you could stay with us, but I wouldn’t begin to know if those things can follow you or not. I can’t imagine the misses would be too happy with me, if I invited you all over and brought a bunch of the Devil’s demons into our house.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to do that, but if it really is that unholy, I’ll happily toss the match into the place myself if it’ll put those... those... Whatever they are, if it keeps them from getting out then... Oh my god!”

  Ralph slowed down, looking at her, and followed her outstretched arm to the street in front of them. It looked like the entire neighborhood of housewives was standing out in the street. Ralph pulled over and the two began walking, and then Joan started to run. Her head ached, but she did not care; it was too close to her home to let her have any sense of peace. Ralph was screaming behind her, “Joan! Joan, slow down, would you? It’s going to be okay.”

  He quit thinking about it when he realized that if one of the boys—God forbid—had been struck by a vehicle, that there was nothing about it that would be okay. In fact, everything in her life would most likely be even worse than it already was. The low point she was in would have no possibility to achieve a turnaround in the near future.

  Joan was panting by the time she got to the scene. “Excuse me. Excuse me, I'm sorry, but I need to get through. I have to know who it was.”

  A man who was more interested in the woman in front of him, or more so the dress she was wearing on a windy day, said, “What, you got business here, lady? You a doctor?”

  Ralph caught up, and even in his older age wasn’t about to begin letting someone disrespect a woman—especially one that he respected, himself. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “You going to be civil to the lady, or am I going to have to embarrass you in front of all these people?”

  The man instantly puffed up his chest out in front of him. He was confident he was the alpha. He ignored Ralph’s biceps and the years of physical labor, of not being able to say no, that they had endured, and only took in his graying, five o'clock shadow, and the salt and pepper crew cut that he kept. Ralph put a hand on the back of the man’s neck. The man tried to turn around, but Ralph put a pressure that he’d not been
expecting on the rear of his neck. He had a flashback, the same that any man can about his father applying just the slightest bit of pressure when misbehaving in church to the rear of their necks.

  The man tried to shrug Ralph off, walking forward, and he squeezed as hard as his hands would allow and pulled the man backwards, putting a foot behind his legs. The man’s arms flailed to the side trying, his best to keep his balance, but was unsuccessful. Ralph let go, moving his hand to his chest and sending him the rest of the way to the ground where he hit hard, landing in a murky shade of water. “Stay there, son. Do yourself a favor; the next time I can assure you that you’ll have to wake up before you worry about getting up off the ground.”

  Joan smiled, stepping over the man and pulled on Ralph’s arm to keep him from staying. “Come on, Muhammad, we don’t need any more trouble.”

  “Don’t compare me to that damn draft dodger.”

  Joan made her way through the rest without issue. When she got to the front of the crowd, her heart felt like it was going to come out of her chest. She felt instant relief that it was not one of her kids, but at the same time felt guilty that it was the mailman, Mr. Lawson, and that she was relieved about the fact. She instantly regretted how she felt and began looking at the people in the crowd, and at the face in particular. Mrs. Anderson was not one of them, and neither was Tony. She looked up into the home of Ralph and his wife, seeing no one. When she stared at the window to her son’s room, there was no one there, but the shades seemed to be moving on their own.

  Ralph had not caught the shades moving on their own. He wiped at his brow, thinking the mailman was not the worst thing he’d ever seen, but most definitely one of the worst things stateside. He leaned over near Joan and said, “Is it unholy of me to say that it makes me feel relieved that it wasn’t little Tony or Billy lying in the gutter? What I mean is, at least Pete there had gotten the chance to live his life a little. Your boys are just getting started with theirs. I'm rambling, I'm sorry, forget that I said anything.”