Demons Beware

by mike Evans

  The demon could just barely be seen by the time they’d said it twice. Joseph smiled picking up his bible in one hand and the cross from its chest in the other. He dabbed his finger in holy water on the floor and did the sign of the cross saying, “I banish you back to hell, demon. Go back to hell! In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, I send you to hell. Go, now. Go!”

  The demon screamed again, unable to make words at this point. Its body began smoking until the point that nothing could be seen within the house. “I will be back! I will be back, and you puppets will be mine. You will be mine!”

  Both men began coughing, unable to see anything. Michaels stumbled, blinded by the smoke to where he thought the front door was. He opened it letting the smoke pour out of the house.

  Billy and James ran through the hall to their room. James ripped the blinds from their place and pushed the window open. Billy placed the large gold cross on the ledge and the two ran back out of the room to the downstairs as instructed. Father Joseph and Michaels looked up to see one of the most beautiful things either of them ever had. The boys sprinting down the stairs; and again, the brightest blue light imaginable poured out of the upstairs. Both priests were confident that God was putting an end to hell’s gateway. The light all but engulfed the two boys; it spread around them, looking like two angels of God sprinting down the stairs, the light appearing as wings that stretched as far as the eye could see from the all but blinding light.

  They jumped the last few steps as the light became everything. They landed hard on the floor, not knowing which way was up or down until the light went away. Everything in the room remained quiet. The boys reached around, gripping each other by the shirt to make sure that they were still there. Billy whispered, “Are we in heaven? Did he take us to heaven? Are we dead?”

  James pinched Billy’s arm, and he yelped. James laughed and said, “Well, if we are and he did, then there’s some misconceptions about heaven.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You aren’t supposed to feel pain when you go to heaven; he takes all your pain away. Don’t you study your bible? This is pretty basic stuff here, Billy.”

  “Well, that could have been less painful.”

  A whimpering came, light at first, until it was near a full on fit. Tony had woken up, normal and back to what everyone wanted. Billy scrambled around, trying to find him, but Father Joseph had already swooped the child up in his arms. He was hushing him and holding him tight. Tony—who was clueless as to who he was—just kept saying, “I want my momma. I want my momma! Who are you? Where’s my mom?”

  Billy found what he was confident was his brother and whispered, “Here, let me take him.”

  When Tony could smell his brother’s soap, he knew it was him and pushed away from Father Joseph, and took hold of his brother, screaming, “It hurts, Billy, my whole body hurts! What happened? Why can’t I remember nothing after leaving the Anderson’s house? I don’t understand what is happening.”

  “You could say that you’ve been up against the Devil’s wishes lately. But we took care of you, and now you're safe. Don’t worry about it, we aren’t going to let anything else happen to you. Do you understand me?” Billy tried to explain.

  “Where’s Mom? Where’s Dad? Where are we?”

  “We are at home. I don’t know where Dad is, we haven’t seen him since we left for the hospital. Mom is on the other side of the room.”

  The blue light slowly began to dissipate, and then they could see everything. His mother’s tears were gone; the blood was replaced with her clothes looking nice and neat, like they did before this horrid day had begun. She reached up slowly, unsure why she couldn’t feel the pain throbbing in her arm. When she reached for the makeshift spear, she realized that it was gone. She pulled down her shirt, exposing the skin, not caring right now who would see it. “It… there’s nothing there, it is gone! What happened? Where did it go? I don’t understand.”

  Ralph was still breathing heavy and held his chest tightly. He grunted as he said, “I… I think the man upstairs cured us when he was shutting hell’s gates from becoming a highway to the living world. I mean, I can only guess, but I'm pretty sure the Devil didn’t help us out.”

  “No, I would not think that. Not at all.” She could feel tears running down her face as she got her first good look at her two favorite things in the world. “Boys! Boys, are you okay; are you both okay? Tony? I assume you are Tony?”

  Tony pushed out from his brother’s hug and walked to his mother slowly, ending up sprinting towards her and tackling her back to the ground. “It’s me, Momma, it’s me. Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

  “Because I thought I’d lost you. The priests and ghost saved you. They did everything they could to make sure that you weren’t taken by those evil things. Oh, God—I was so worried for you. I didn’t think that I’d ever see those sweet eyes again. I'm so content with life right now. It feels like it has been years since I’ve seen you.”

  Ralph got up off of the ground; his legs were working, and he was not weak or tired. His chest pains went away quickly, and he felt better than he had felt in years. He felt like he had gotten a new lease on life, having thought they wouldn’t get to see how the day would end up. He rubbed Tony’s hair, smiling and said, “We did it! Well, they did it, but this is a miracle; this is absolutely a miracle!”

  Joan kissed Tony’s head, holding him tight. The only thing she wondered was if she would ever see David again. She couldn’t imagine having to deal with him after a day like this. She opened her eyes looking to see her son and James both looking around, unsure what they should do. She motioned for both of them and they ran to her, getting engulfed in her hug—the kind that made every child happy they had a parent in their lives.

  Father Joseph stood and dropped right back down on the steps. His chest was heaving, and he was sure that not only Father Andrew would be making a trip to heaven. He undid his collar and unbuttoned his shirt down past his neck, letting some extra stress off of it. “I think that I'm having a heart attack.”

  Father Andrew looked at him, seeming to be getting an answer. He said, “Father says that today is not your day. You have many more days left here on this earth, with much left to do.”

  “What is it? What does he want me to do? I’ll do anything, anything at all,” Father Joseph said.

  Father Andrew leaned in, whispering in his ear, and he looked to Father Michaels, who was standing looking at the family now reunited and smiling. The faith that he had now was of no question, and he looked like a man that was ready to do it all over again to get this type of satisfaction. Father Andrew smiled and waved goodbye. “I will see you when your time comes my friend. Do all that you can, and keep the faith, please. I will see you before you know it. It is amazing how fast time passes in heaven. It is so magnificent that there isn’t a proper word that can be said to describe it.”

  “I look forward to better circumstances next time, my old friend.”

  Father Andrew nodded and disappeared before their eyes. Billy and James walked back to their room, seeing the gold cross glistening in the sunlight, but other than that nothing else was going on in their room. All appeared to be safe again. Billy said, “That was crazy… I mean, I don’t want anything like that to happen again. We need to get Tony one of these necklaces with a cross, maybe it’ll keep them away.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. Did you forget that we sent them back to hell?” James asked.

  “Uh, James, I think you might be a bit confused; we didn’t do anything but run the cross upstairs. You aren’t really going to try to take any credit for doing this? Forget Santa ever coming again—are you trying to get on his bad side?”

  James scrunched up his face, not wanting to think of the implications of making God mad. “Sorry, God; like, really sorry!”

  Chapter 24

  Chicago, 1984

  James and Billy raced down the street on their ten-speed bikes.
Billy was yelling at James. “You’d think after six years of Seminary College that you could learn how to be on time. Do you not understand how important God’s time is?”

  James never took his eyes off the road, he just pedaled harder. “You realize that I know perfectly well you aren’t scared of God’s time. You are worried that you’ll be late when Father Michaels is going to come to our graduation.”

  “I just don’t want to let him down, James.”

  “You came from nothing, fought demons, and have been serving God almost as long as you could walk. You are graduating with honors. You are kind of a big deal, maybe you forgot that.”

  Billy skidded to a stop in front of the church. “Well, maybe you need to remember that you want to be on time. You wouldn’t want to get on my bad side, would you? I mean, I could put in a good word for you with the diocese if you want?”

  James set his bike down, shaking his head. “You realize right that I graduated second behind you?”

  “Yeah, but you forget: that’s second, not first.”

  “Billy, you never should let your good sense get away from you.”

  When the two walked the steps to take on their next role in life, Father Michaels was standing at the heavy door, holding it open and smiling as they approached. “Good morning, boys. Looks like you didn’t have time to buy a watch while you were in college the last six years.”

  They both said, “Good morning, Father Michaels.”

  “You two ready to graduate today? You have any wishes on where you’d like to be placed?”

  Billy said, “I’d like to be near Mom and Tony, or be near him when he ends his tour in the army.”

  “What if I said that you were going to be staying right here?”

  James said, “Did you pull some strings, sir?”

  Father Michaels smiled and said, “Let's just say that I told them that I have a history with you. I told them that we might need some demon hunters one day, and it’d be best to have someone training if it came to that point and I am no longer around to take care of it.”

  The two boys smiled and entered the church, greeting Billy’s mother and James’s parents, already seated in their pews. Billy whispered it as they walked to their spots having heard it more than once over the years of assisting: “Cavete, daemones!”

  The end?

  Written by Mike Evans

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