by mike Evans
The demon screamed, motioning for the coat rack. When it came to him, he could barely wrap his hands around it. He stopped it half way there, motioning with his hands for it to split in half.
Ralph tried to get back up, but Tony rose his hands in the air, and Ralph with it. He slammed him up against the back wall. Ralph—who was unsure how many more hits his old body could endure—let out a whoosh of air, all that he possessed. Tony pushed towards Ralph and the two pieces of the coat rack shot in the air, embedding themselves into his shoulders. Blood trickled down his shirt.
Joan’s lip quivered as she stared at him, shaking her head no. She reached out to touch him, to try to reassure him somehow, but Tony waived his hand towards his mother, sending her flying into the kitchen.
“He is my toy, he is not for you, stupid woman. Only when he is in massive pain and begging for death, will I finally grant him his wish,” Tony laughed, but again it sounded like a man older than time. “Once we have taken him, I shall have a demon come back in his body, and he will be the one that slits your throat. You will be mother to our demon children; you will be the one, you will be our shepherd. God is going to be very angry with us. I cannot wait for your pain and suffering. It will be a symphony of death like no one has ever heard before.”
Joan looked around the kitchen, seeing only items that would kill her son, not the demon. She wondered if it would die if she stabbed the boy; if it would take care of things. He seemed to know what she was thinking and flicked his fingers, making all the knives shoot to the ceiling and burying them into the drywall, far out of her reach. Tony motioned to a chair, sending it towards his mother who dodged it, jumping to the side of its path.
“Anthony Parker, you are in so much trouble!”
She got up off the ground slowly, and when the demon went back to looking at Ralph with evil in its eyes, she grabbed a meat hammer and threw it as hard as she could. The throw went wild and didn’t have a chance of actually hitting him. Regardless, it was not happy about the gesture. It waved a hand towards her, lifting its hand and Joan in the same movement. He smiled and said, “That wasn’t very respectful of you.”
He motioned up with his hands, smashing her into the ceiling. She grunted when she hit, and then she went down to the ground with a motion his hand. Joan hit hard, and she tried to push up off of the ground. A small stream of blood was now coming from her mouth, along with a wiggly tooth. The demon said, “You shouldn’t throw things at your baby. It isn’t nice.”
Joan said, “I would much rather him die by my hand, than let the Devil have anything to do with him. You are horrible! You don’t deserve him, none of you do. I hope God burns your soul, or whatever you have, when you try to fake your way into heaven. You must be desperate if this is your only idea.”
“We’ve tried many things over the centuries, woman. Do not mock me. Do not think that we are not something that you should fear, for we are. I could split your head in half right now, but we don’t know if we will need you just yet. I could very easily kill you now and have you taken over, but we will wait. We’ve been waiting for more years than you and your lineage have been on this Earth for; we can wait a few minutes longer. I know that you’ve called the priests and you have hope… I can feel it, and I hate it. I believe that you are being overly confident though, for I think you are going to die. But I like it, because when your heart will break, I will rejoice in the feeling that much more. You keep your hope; it’s a beautiful thing to watch break.”
“Go to hell!”
He smiled just a little, and as she got up to run at him, he lifted his hand, smashing her into the ceiling again, then the cupboards, destroying all the plates, and finally back across to the living room where she hit the wall and finally came to a stop. She let out a deep breath tasting the blood in her mouth. She swallowed it, not wanting to give the demon the satisfaction of the pain he was causing her.
He looked to Ralph who was trying with everything he could to reach for the stakes that were in his shoulders. He worried desperately that—if he lived through this and was able to get the spikes out of his shoulders—whether he would be able to use them again. His arms were bending at the elbows, which gave him faith.
Tony raised his arm, motioning towards one of them, and it slowly began to remove itself from his shoulder. He screamed in agony as it did, unsure what he was seeing and confused why it was coming back out. Tony moved his hand slowly until it was pointing at Joan. Joan held up her hand shaking it and her head both no, not to do it, but the demon only got off on the fact that she was finally scared and showing it. He smiled and pushed it towards her. Screams echoed from the house, but being it was their house, it fell on deaf ears.
Chapter 19
New York, 1945
Father Joseph looked around the small home. The crosses on the wall had been turned upside down and he knew that was not something to be considered a good sign. “Father… Father Andrew, what do we do now? How do you want to handle this one? I don’t know, as I’ve not seen any as aggressive in our time in New York as this. I'm well aware that they are not kind things, but they typically try to hide better than this.”
“It could be desperate, it is hard to say. Maybe they are making a play that we do not know about. With the wars going on overseas, there is quite a bit of hate floating in the air. Hate for races, for people, for those having to be gone, for economic situations. I can only assume that he feeds on it. God is doing all that he can, I'm sure, to keep these monsters at bay, but only has so much power. There are others whom I'm sure he is helping. I only pray that there are other priests like us, working as diligently to keep the world safe.”
“So, you didn’t answer my question Father. What are we going to do?”
Father Andrew pulled a bottle of holy water from his pocket, looking at it, and took off the cap, carrying it in his free hand open and ready. “We’re going to go and knock on the son of a bitch’s door.” He looked at Mrs. Ricci and said, “Ti prego perdonami.”
“What does that mean?”
“Apologies for the bad language; sometimes I get a little worked up before dealing with these things. It isn’t my fault there’s something I enjoy about saving people and sending these things back to hell where they belong.”
“What do you think happens to them when they are expelled back to hell? I mean, do you think they are punished for failing?”
“I don’t know, it’s an impossible question. Hell itself is already something to worry about, all in its own. I cannot imagine what they would do to make such a place worse. We think of it as the worst of the worst, and it very well could be true. But I think of demons as those who run things for the Devil. When they achieve a certain rank, they are granted the chance to come to Earth; to come back to take over one of the living. Can you imagine why they fight so hard not to lose? What I mean is, they would literally go through anything, I believe, to not be sent back,” Andrew said. “You must have more faith in the worst place—I would say ‘imaginable’, but how would we know what it is truly like? I, for one, have little interest in finding out, do you Joseph?”
“No... no, I can’t really say that I do.”
Father Andrew removed his bible from his breast pocket and held it up, and then the holy water. He put the bible down for a second, getting a small splash of the water on his palm and let it run down his fingers. He did the sign of the cross on Joseph’s forehead and down his sternum, left, and then right. “May God and his holy ones watch over you.”
He handed the items to Joseph, who repeated the actions. His hands were shaking and Andrew patted his shoulder. “How many times have we been through this together, just this year, Father Joseph?”
“Too many to count. We’re going to be just fine. If you weren’t nervous, I’d have to chalk you up to crazy, or having a death wish,” Joseph said nervously.
“Well, what about faith? Maybe I just have that much faith in the man upstairs to save us? Our father is going to be there
for us when we need him to be.”
Mrs. Ricci was standing at the edge of the stairs. A roar, followed by an echo of chimes from a grandfather clock, came down the stairs. Father Andrew looked up, seeing what he'd never before seen. The boy was at the top of the stairs, holding a grandfather clock. Mrs. Ricci saw him and did the sign of the cross, saying some prayer in Italian that Joseph did not know. Andrew was trying to get across the room, fearing that he knew what was going to happen, but did not react in time. The boy threw the clock with such force that they had but only a second to react to it. Joseph flew past the older priest—not stopping for anything—and knocked him out of the way. He leapt only seconds before the corner of the clock struck Mrs. Ricci in the face. The edge of it hit his ankle, breaking it and sending the bone out the rear of his leg. The two of them hit hard; the air shot from her lungs as the weight of Joseph atop of her squished her. The boy, Marco turned around and headed back away from the top of the stairs.
Joseph screamed, rolling off her and grasping for his ankle. Blood squirted from the wound and he felt sick to his stomach.
Andrew walked over, kneeling next to him, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it up against the wound. “You stay here on this one and I will handle it on my own.”
Joseph had his eyes shut from the pain; tears were escaping, making their way down his cheeks. “You can’t do it on your own. You need me; you need more than just one, and you know that!”
“You think that the demon-possessed child is going to be up for coming downstairs so that we can expel the beast from inside of him?”
“No… no probably not, I guess. We can come back. Fix me up and we’ll do it right.”
“And what would you like for Mrs. Ricci and her son Marco to do in the meantime, Father Joseph?”
Mrs. Ricci knew little English, but could understand enough to know that they were talking about leaving. She screamed, “Please no leave, please no leave.”
Andrew put a hand on her shoulder. “We aren’t going to go anywhere, don’t worry, Mrs. Ricci. I’m going to go and get your son back, and you are going to be happy again; be able to hold your son and live your life again.”
Father Andrew headed up the stairs, holding his bible out in front of him with his rosary beads wrapped around his fingers, swinging from side to side. His hand was steady as he did not fear what others thought was the unknown. He had fought these things for as long as he had worn the cloth and was confident he’d helped enough people, as well as saved the possessed from their demons, that he had a one-way ticket to heaven on his side.
The boy stood at the end of the hall. His eyes glowed in the darkness. His shirt had been torn to pieces and only hung on by ribbing around its neck. The once white t-shirt was stained with blood. It hung in strips over his small frame. Some clung to his skin, others still hung freely.
The boy was breathing heavily, and it was not difficult to tell that Father Andrew was not welcomed. The beads wrapped around his leathery, wrinkled hands began to grow tight. He had not changed his grasp on them. Andrew looked down at his hand, seeing the rosary he’d had since boyhood no longer swing from side to side, but now was pointing back towards the stairs. The boy who he knew would not let them near him, if he had anything to do with it. The boy raised his hands and looked like he was pushing some imaginary object towards him. The frames on the wall began to shake. Andrew slowed a step, not out of fear, but curiosity of what would happen; he had not seen such a thing like this before.
They rattled until the small, cheap nails could no longer hold them and the frames burst from the walls, coming straight to Andrew. He raised his arms to shield his face and the frames hit them; the glass shattered and tiny shards of glass struck his face where his arms could not cover. Andrew did not think about it and lost his holy water when he put his arms up; the last few drops splashed onto his feet.
He looked up, seeing the boy coming flying towards him. Literally, the boy’s feet and legs did not move, and he screamed as he approached. This one was not like the others; half the time the body fought the demons but in this case, to him… he thought that it had fully taken the boy.
As he got closer, Andrew screamed at the top of his lungs. Andrew brought up a fist wrapped with the cross into the young boy’s face stopping him mid-flight. He yelled, “Demon, be gone!”
The boy fell to the ground but not for long. Everything he expected to happen next was not the case. The boy did not leap to his feet; no, he rose from the flat of his back to his feet. Andrew was ready for a second blow, but the boy put up his arms and Andrew felt like the Devil had gripped him, lifting and tossing the elderly priest backwards. Andrew tried to right himself but it was pointless; the evil in this young child was immeasurable. The boy waved his arms to the right, then the left, and to the right, slamming the elderly man into the walls before the hallway was gone.
Andrew bounced hard off the walls with each motion of his arms. The pain he felt was instantaneous, until it went numb. The last thing he felt on his arms and side of his jaw before they broke was the trickle of warm blood making its way down his cheeks and arms. Bones protruded from beneath his suit coat sleeves. He bit on the side of his cheek, refusing to give the monster the satisfaction of what he wanted to hear.
The boy floated quickly through the hall, picking up Andrew from the ground, this time with his bare hands. Joseph and Mrs. Ricci stared up in shock. The old priest floated just at the top of the stairs. His arms were useless and he could feel his face beginning to swell from the jaw breaking. He tried to recite a prayer, one that would protect him and give him the power to take care of the evil force that was in charge of this boy, but his words were mumbled, and there was nothing able to be understood by his speaking. The demon began to laugh. The tones of it sent chills down Andrew’s spine.
The demon leaned in, whispering delicately as if he wanted to make sure that Andrew heard every word he was saying. “You will not see another sunrise. You deserve this for being one of God’s ants. You follow his path, you think that he is so holy, so great—who would send one to a place of damnation just for making choices they do not agree with? What kind of God do you believe in?”
Andrew forced the words out; he did not care that it felt like his jaw was being pried open with a hunting knife. “A just and wonderful God; one I will meet very soon.” Andrew actually began to laugh after this.
The boy got closer until his bloodied eyelashes were tickling his forehead with each blink. “What are you laughing about? Tell me, or I will rip you from limb to limb. I promise you this.”
“My friend is going to send you to hell.”
The demon screamed, “You will not send me back to hell! I will never go back to that place. Even in your worst nightmares, you do not, and will not, ever understand what a horrid place that is. You will die and ascend to heaven; I will plummet back to hell’s gates.”
Andrew could not help himself and had to ask, “Why are you taking the children?”
“Because we will make our way into heaven with them. Your God will fight, and he will lose. He may deploy his angelic warriors, but will still lose.”
Andrew’s eyes grew wide, terrified with the thought of demons running wildly through heaven, no respect or way to be stopped. He tried to say something that Joseph would hear, but Joseph’s screams cut into his thought process. He looked over his shoulder, seeing Joseph grunting in agony with each step that he took up the long flight. Tears and sweat covered his head and face. He did his best to grip the balcony, dragging his almost ruined ankle behind him, shaking his head no, that he would not stop, as he made his way up the steps.
Joseph nodded to Andrew, who could see that his friend would rather die than let anything else happen to him. Andrew began to scream as the bones in his arms started to feel as if they were stretching beneath his skin, bending in the wrong direction. Andrew couldn’t help himself as the blood seeped from his mouth; he could feel teeth floating in his mouth at this
point.
When Joseph had made it halfway up the steps, the boy—who had never thought the man could make it—held Andrew with one hand and lifted the woman, flinging her across the room and into the large picture window in the family room. Mrs. Ricci screamed as she flew and hit with a bone-breaking crash into it. The window shattered behind her, sending shards of glass down all around her. She tried to brush them off, but one came up, swiping across her neck. She tried to clasp around the blood pouring from her neck, making it all but impossible to put the applied pressure she needed on her throat. Blood poured freely from between her fingers. She tried to say sorry to the priests, but could make no words.
Joseph could tell there was little he could do for the woman. Guilt and anger raced through him. He was unsure which was going to win now. He looked at the window, seeing that the boy had not just wanted to kill the woman; no, he wanted a weapon—one that he could use to kill at least one of the two priests.
Eyes, curious and worried what was happening, were peering into the house. The demon did a wave of his hand, sending more shards from the window. The bystanders, who had only wanted a peek, had gotten more than what they were wanting to see. The glass turned into tiny pieces of shards and embedded themselves inside of their eyes. Screams filled the house; it was a symphony of horror with no relief set to come soon. Their cries would fall on deaf ears. The chance of any medics making it to this part of New York in rush hour was not a high one.
Joseph saw their eyes and the blood streaming down their faces. He thought of the stigmata for only a moment and the pain that Jesus Christ had been forced to endure. He screamed up the stairs. “I am going to send you back to hell where you belong, you son of a bitch! I hope that the Devil has his way with you when you fall back into the pit.”
