by Mark Harritt
The Demon Deception
Copyright 2015 Mark Harritt
Published by Mark Harritt at SmashWords
SmashWords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to SmashWords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Contents
Title Page
Prolog – Afghanistan
Chapter One – Vampires, Witches
Chapter Two – A Greasy Spoon in Brooklyn
Chapter Three – A Cat named Mooch
Chapter Four – Myra Rothstein
Chapter Five – A Game of tag in the Poconos
Chapter Six – Father, Bless this Van
Chapter Seven – Mr. Mephistopheles
Chapter Eight – Kansas City Fry Cook
Chapter Nine – Daddy’s at the Steak House
Chapter Ten – Coffee at the 7/11
Chapter Eleven – The Mystery Mobile
Chapter Twelve – The Double/Triple Cross
Epilog – A New Player in Town
About the Author
Other books by Mark Harritt
Connect with Mark Harritt
Prolog – Afghanistan
Hartman heard a whisper. It was hardly noticeable at first. It was at the edge of her hearing. It sounded almost silly, like a child making a pretend whisper, or someone calling a cat. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. As she looked, she heard another whisper in a different direction. She whipped her head around to see. It was too dark, though.
Whatever was out there, was beyond her vision. Another whisper sounded, in a different direction. The whispers came from at least three different directions, maybe four. She was surrounded. Whatever it was seemed to be toying with her. She wanted to yell, maybe throw something. In this area though, that didn’t seem like a very good idea, not with the Taliban out there somewhere.
The feeling hit her with an intensity she couldn’t have imagined. She gasped as it made its presence known. She couldn’t see it, or what it was, but she knew it was there. She knew now that she was being hunted. She felt a chill. The hair on her body stood up. It was more than physical cold. This wasn’t her body reacting to a drop in temperature. It was something else completely. She felt a dread engulf her. She began to shake. In the back of her mind, she felt a horror growing. She was being stalked. Whatever it was, though, was different. It wasn’t human.
She felt a malevolence, and that malevolence made her gasp from the force of the hatred directed at her. That entity didn’t just want to kill her, it wanted to destroy her. It wanted to rend her body, and shred her mind. It was something completely outside her experience. It wasn’t just a hunger for her death, it wanted to revel in her utter and complete destruction.
Not even an hour had gone past since her world had shattered. The day had started well for Specialist Susan Hartman. An IED had changed all of that. It had exploded, flipping the Humvee she was riding in, and in the confusion of the moment, she had been left behind at the scene of the complex ambush.
Her convoy had delivered much needed supplies to a remote forward operating base. They had been headed back to Highway 1, or as the soldiers called it, Ring Road. At the Ring Road, they would turn north, and head back to Bagram Air Force Base. Her logistics unit was supported by four infantry Humvees, two in front of the logistics convoy, and two behind. She had been excited to take her first trip outside the wire. That was then. Now she just prayed that she would live to see the morning sun, and her unit again.
Some of her memories of that night were jumbled, or completely gone. Concussions did that to you. What she saw, though, was a picture that would always stay with her. It was a line in the dirt. It was not unexpected to see lines in the dirt in Afghanistan. What made this line unusual was that it was straight. Straight lines don’t occur naturally. She twisted to tell SSG Alciannas, her supervisor and the leader of her logistic convoy. Before she could tell him, her world became one of confusion, noise and pain.
The Humvee was on a curve on the road when the IED exploded. The force of the IED, plus the velocity around the curve caused the Humvee to flip. Hartman’s first instinct was to complete her turn and grip Peltier, the gunner, around the waist, pulling him down, an action instilled in her during immediate action drill training. He was gripping the edge of the gunners hatch, and with her help, he was able to get back inside the Humvee. His head cleared the roof, and the Humvee completed its flip.
The Humvee landed hard, and slid to a stop. The force of the impact mangled the machinegun mounted on top. Peltier wasn’t strapped in, but Hartman was, so she held on for dear life. The force of the impact as the Humvee flipped onto its roof tore him from her grasp. Her head smacked against the roof of the Humvee, hard. She was already concussed by the explosion, and the additional head trauma, even though she had on her helmet, didn’t help.
Green tracers lit the night, a holdover of Soviet Block ammunition. US forces used red tracers, and even in SPC Hartman’s condition, she realized that the enemy was shooting at them. The door frame was warped, her door torn open by the stress of the explosion, and the impact as the Humvee hit the ground. Something hit the door in front of her and pinged. Another one hit. She was confused, then realized that bullets were hitting, and she was exposed. She felt something behind her, and she couldn’t get back into the wrecked vehicle. She didn’t realize it was Peltier. She was afraid she was going to get hit. She had to move, and couldn’t go backward. Her only option was forward. She saw a depression in front of her, and crawled away from the cover of the Humvee.
She was scared by the muzzle flashes. Her hearing began to come back, and she could hear the sound of bullets pinging on rock and metal. The dirt of the road sloped down as she crawled. A ditch opened up in front of her, running alongside the road. She crawled forward and fell into it. A heavy stream of cold water flowed in the bottom, soaking her uniform. The impact of bullets on the Humvee armor screamed away into the night as ricochets.
She knew she wasn’t safe. She saw heavy rocks in the ditch in front of her. She crawled behind them. She pulled in her legs to get as much of her body behind the cover of the rocks as she could. She suddenly remembered that she had left her rifle in the Humvee. She panicked. You never let your rifle out of arm’s length. That was something that had been drilled into her ever since basic training. She couldn’t crawl back and get it, though, not with the bullets hitting around the wreckage.
On the road, her crew and the wrecked Humvee were taking heavy fire. Gunners from the other convoy vehicles were shooting at the muzzle flashes. One of the Infantry Humvees roared up to the side, shielding the wreckage from the Taliban gunners. The infantry gunner on top engaged the Taliban shooters, brass tinkling as it ejected from the machinegun and hit the top of the Humvee.
The vehicle commander and the soldier in back jumped out, and pulled wounded soldiers out of the wreckage. They piled wounded bodies into their Humvee, and when they had everybody out, the vehicle commander yelled, “Go, Go.” The Humvee raced out of the danger zone. They didn’t notice that they had missed Hartman. They would race another five miles to a rally point before they counted soldiers, and noticed that she was missing.
The night grew still after the convoy speed away. The Taliban used the time to run away before the helicopters with their infrared cameras could arrive to kill them. She stayed in the ditch
until she felt confident that there was nobody out there. A few minutes of silence seemed to stretch forever before she felt comfortable to climb out of the ditch. She went back to the Humvee to find her rifle. She felt the heat of the engine from the wreckage, and used it to warm her hands. She looked for her rifle, and found one, but it was bent from the accident. She found another that seemed to be okay. It felt like it was undamaged. She just hoped it would fire without exploding if she tried to shoot it. She didn’t have many options at that point, though.
She didn’t know if she should leave the wreckage. If she stayed with the Humvee, she was afraid that the Taliban would come back, search it, and find her. If she left the Humvee, she was afraid that the convoy would come back and not be able to find her. Everything was confusing. There was a loud ringing in her ears. She knew she wasn’t thinking straight. It was very hard for her to concentrate.
She feared getting lost, but she feared the Taliban even more. She knew what would happen if they caught her. Her head jerked as she heard gravel slide in the distance. She thought the Taliban might still be out there. That gave her incentive, and she made up her mind to leave the wreckage. She would try to stay on the road in the dark, and pray she wouldn’t meet anybody. She stood, swayed momentarily, and then leaned against the wreckage until her lightheadedness went away. She started walking, hoping that she was walking in the right direction, towards Highway 1.
It was cold. She was shivering again. She held her rifle at low ready. It was hard to walk, and hard to concentrate. She knew that if she stopped, she might never get back up, not with a concussion and as cold as she was. She concentrated on the next step. One step wasn’t so hard. She could concentrate on one step. One step became two, then two became three. She didn’t think about that though. It was just one step, one step at a time.
Soon, she had some distance between her and the wreckage. It was cold, but her body heat was starting to dry her uniform. She was still shivering, but not as badly as before. She could see the road stretching out in front of her. It was a lighter strip of land than the ground on either side. Afghanistan could be beautiful at night. The stars were bright in the sky, making the lighter road visible.
There was no light pollution in Afghanistan at night until you got closer to the larger cities and military bases. In the country there were no lights at all. Here, she could see the infinite stars of the Milky Way. The stars were brighter, and much more beautiful than they were at home. Illuminated by starlight, the road stretched out before her.
What she didn’t know, and what she hadn’t seen, was that the road where her Humvee had flipped, was a y intersection. The arm of the y that the convoy had raced down, and the arm that she wanted, was to the right. Hiding in the ditch, behind the rocks, she didn’t see this. When she began walking, she was on the left side of the wreckage, and never saw the other arm of the road that went in the other direction. She didn’t know that the road branched at that point. She walked down the left side of the y. She was walking in the wrong direction, away from Highway 1.
She was okay at first, even though she was cold. She had her rifle, and she thought she was on the road to Highway 1. She felt edgy, though. At first she thought, maybe it was the concussion. Soon, though, her nervousness increased. She thought that something was watching her. She didn’t think it was Taliban. Whatever it was, it moved too quietly. Her agitation faded in and out. She thought it was her imagination. She heard a rock rattle, and the anxiety came back. She walked further. She didn’t hear anything else. The sounds were gone, but the impression was still there. Again, she thought it might be her imagination. She heard gravel crunch. She gasped and looked in the direction of the sound.
Then she heard the whistling. She felt the alien presence that was hunting her. She felt the alien, malevolent entity. She prayed to God that she would live through the night. She walked on, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. It was still out there. Another presence unmasked itself. The intensity of the hatred increased tenfold. She stumbled. A third presence unmasked, and the pain she felt increased a hundred fold. She heard a hideous moan. She was surprised to find the sound was coming from her.
She was going to die on a nameless road, in a nameless place. Nobody would find her. Whatever it was, it was going to destroy her. There was nothing she could do about it. Despair filled her mind, overwhelmed her soul. Her body failed her. She couldn’t walk anymore. She was no longer interested in taking that one more step. Her hands opened, and the rifle fell from her grasp. She stumbled and fell to her knees. She folded her arms around her body, and rocked back and forth. The horror grew. It felt like a buzzing inside of her skull.
There were three of them. They walked forward, but only to the point that she could just make out their figures under the bright stars, taunting her with their presence. They were abnormally tall and thin. Wraith like figures, emaciated, desiccated, they walked around her, circling her. They were naked in the cold. They weren’t human. Their genitalia were shriveled. She couldn’t tell if they were male or female.
She couldn’t see their faces, though she knew that she didn’t want to see that horror. Their hands stretched forth. The fingers were thin, and incredibly long. They reached for her. She knew, as soon as those fingers touched her, she was doomed. Tears rolled down her face in sheets. Heartrending sobs filled the air. Her head dropped to stare at the dirt in front of her.
“I think you’ve got yourself into a bit of trouble here, young lady.”
The voice was clear and masculine. She couldn’t look up, though. She was too tired. Her chest heaved as she cried. She wanted to lay down and sleep. She just wanted everything to be back to normal. She hoped that she was dreaming, and that she would wake up in the Humvee.
The creature in front of her burst into fire and ash as a blade erupted from its chest. It whistled a scream as it died and disappeared. The smell of sulfur engulfed her. The other two drew back into the darkness. She could hear grunts and groans as creatures fought and died in the night. She lifted her head, and looked up at the night sky, waiting for her death. She knelt there, tears running down her face, gazing up at the beautiful stars.
Wisps of ash floated across her face. She blinked and rubbed her eyes as the ash drifted. Another whistling scream sounded, and a head thudded on the road in front of her. Black eyes stared from a reptilian face. The head charred, blazing from the inside, curlicues of flame racing across the features. The head collapsed inward as the flesh was consumed. She gasped for air, not realizing that she had been holding her breath. The infernal creatures were dead, and her dread lifted. She felt human once more. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and another one lightly patting her on the back, as if trying to help her breathe.
“Are you okay? No, no, that’s okay, you can stay kneeling if you need to.”
She didn’t want to, she wanted to stand up. But she was weak. She grabbed one of his hands, and pulled to stand up. He quickly understood what she was trying to do. He put his other hand under her arm, and used both hands to help her stand. Hartman stood up, and almost immediately fell back down. He put his arms around her to help her stay upright. She leaned into his warmth, shivering.
“Okay, okay. You’ve been through quite a lot tonight. You’ve been shot at, you’ve been blown up, left behind by your comrades, and almost devoured by Djinn. I think you’ve had a pretty exciting night so far.”
She gasped, “Dj…, Djn, Djinn?”
“Yes love, that’s what those creatures are, or were. You’re lucky to be alive.”
The tears began again. She tried to stem the tide by pressing her hands to her eyes. She was sobbing, the near death experiences too much for her.
“Don’t worry. You should have seen my reaction the first time I had to deal with something like that.”
She wiped her eyes, fiercely. She was in shock, and knew it, but she didn’t like her emotion betraying her to this stranger.
“Are you okay, Specialist?”
She
took a few deep breathes, then nodded, “Yes, I think so.”
“Are you good to walk?”
She nodded again.
“Okay, we need to leave, but not in the direction you were heading. If we go that way, we might run into Taliban, or worse.”
She didn’t ask what the worse might be. She had a pretty good idea. She knew that she didn’t want to have to meet anything like that ever again in her life.
She looked at her savior. He was unassuming, a little on the short side. She couldn’t tell much about him in the dark. He had a beard, but it wasn’t a Taliban two hand. It was just long enough to paint his features. He was wearing the Afghanistan perahan wa tunban, or shirt and pants, plus a jacket, vest, and sandals. He had a Pashtun turban wrapped around his head. A Kalashnikov rifle was slung across his back. The swords that he had used against the creatures were sheathed on his hips.
She stiffened, and pulled away slightly, realizing that he might be Taliban. He felt her stiffen, “Don’t worry, love, I’m not Taliban, or even Afghani.”
His English was perfect, with just a slight accent that she couldn’t place. She relaxed a little bit.
“Can you stand unaided?”
She felt better, so she nodded.
He slowly let go of her, standing ready to catch her if she fell. She didn’t look like she was going to hit the dirt, so he bent over and picked up her rifle. She braced as she realized he had both weapons, realizing that she didn’t have a weapon to defend herself with. He noticed her reaction, but he didn’t say anything. He checked to make sure the rifle was on safe. He did a press check to make sure there was a round in the chamber. He handed the rifle back to her.
“You’re going to need this.”
She took it, immediately feeling better with the rifle in her hands. Now, she was pretty sure she could trust him as well. If he wished her harm, he would never had given her the rifle. She emulated his motions, checking it to make sure it was on safe, a quick press check to ensure it had a bullet in the chamber, and smacked the bottom of the magazine to make sure it was still firmly seated.
