Devil's Nightmare: Premonitions (Devil's Nightmare, Book 2)

by Robert Pruneda

  As he moved down the bedroom hallway, something rustled in the bathroom. With his gun at the ready, Aaron pressed his back against the wall next to the halfway open door. He reached inside and felt around for the light switch. As soon as the light came on, he poked his head around the corner and then backed away again. He carefully eased around and stepped inside the bathroom with his gun drawn. Shards of glass from the broken vanity mirror crunched under the weight of his feet on the tile floor. A trail of blood led to the shower, where a fallen shower curtain moved.

  Aaron approached with caution.

  The curtain moved again.

  “Aaron,” a faint voice said from underneath.

  He inhaled a deep breath through his nose and released it through his mouth. He hesitated before pulling the curtain away. He dropped his gun and fell to his knees. Maria had several cuts on her arms, legs and face. A large kitchen knife protruded from her chest. She coughed, and blood ran out of her mouth and over her chin.

  “Oh, God. Maria,” Aaron said holding her hand.

  Her eyes shifted towards him. She tried to speak, but more blood came out of her mouth. Her coughing was weaker.

  “Don’t speak.” Aaron held his hand over cheek.

  “Sa… man… tha…” Maria managed through labored breaths. She coughed up more blood and let out a slow wheeze.

  “Maria?” Aaron’s chin quivered, his eyes watering. He ran his hand through her hair. “Babe?”

  Her eyes stared past him towards the ceiling.

  “Noooooo!” Aaron screamed in agony. “God damn you!”

  He snatched his gun from the floor and rushed to Samantha’s bedroom. He kicked the door open and rushed inside, slipping on the floor. He caught himself with the edge of Samantha’s dresser. He turned the knob on her lamp and stared at the floor, holding the sides of his head with both hands, the handle of his gun pressed against his temple. Aaron wept and knelt next to his stepdaughter’s body. It was covered in blood.

  He stumbled to the floor and rocked her in his arms, crying for several minutes. “You son of a bitch!” he yelled. “She was just a child!”

  Rage built up inside of him as he thought about his butchered wife and stepdaughter. His heart beat rapidly and his breathing became erratic. His head ached while a burning sensation traveled throughout his body.

  Phantom hands gripped his shoulders, and a deep voice whispered into his ear. “In puer mustum mori,” it said. “In puer mustum mori.”

  As Aaron’s breathing regulated, the corners of his mouth turned downward. His eyes narrowed while he rested his hands on the Glock 38 on the floor next to him. He shifted his eyes up as footsteps pounded down the hall towards him. Aaron gripped the gun and pointed it at the doorway, his hand trembling.

  Cody stepped around the corner and froze. He gazed at Samantha’s body and fell sideways against the doorframe, his face showing deep remorse. His chin quivered as he stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at him and closed his eyes. Tears dropped underneath them.

  Aaron kept the gun locked in on Cody while he shifted his other hand underneath Samantha’s head. He rested it gently on the floor as he moved away from her. He rose to his feet and took a deep breath.

  Cody opened his eyes and lowered his head. “I tried to stop it,” he whimpered. “I tried to fight it.”

  Aaron took in another deep breath through his nostrils. His lungs burned while the sensation of clawed hands pressed deep into his shoulders. The blood in his veins rushed to his head, pulsating. He lifted his free hand to his temple and tightened the grip on the gun. His finger eased over the trigger guard. He took two steps forward.

  “I know you did, Cody. We both did.”

  Cody lifted his head at Aaron and swallowed. His eyes were red with tears. They stared straight at the barrel of Aaron’s gun. He wept as Aaron’s finger moved over the trigger.

  “Oh, my God!” Sergeant Henderson’s voice came from the living room. “Dispatch! This is… Crap!” Heavy footsteps rushed down the hallway. Henderson stopped outside the bedroom. “What are you . . . ?” He turned his head to his left, noticing Cody, and took a step inside, glancing at Samantha’s body. He lifted a hand out towards Aaron, keeping his own gun pointed to the ground. “What’s going on here, Aaron? Why are you aiming that pistol at your kid?”

  “They’re all dead. My family. Richard.” He shifted his eyes towards him. “Everyone.”

  Henderson stepped in front of Cody. “Now, let’s talk about this, brother. You’ve gotta lower your weapon. Tell me what happened.”

  “I can’t stop it,” Aaron said, and looked away. “I can’t stop it.”

  “Stop what? Aaron…” He wrinkled his forehead. “Did you… Did you do this?”

  Aaron shook his head and eased his gun downward. “He’s right. It’s never going to end.”

  “That’s right, brother.” Henderson stepped forward with his hand held out. He flipped his fingers towards him. “Give me the gun.”

  Aaron tilted his head and stared at Henderson’s hand and took a step back. “Leave, Scott.” He pressed his hand against his temple again. “Leave!”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, and glanced over his shoulder. “Get out of here, Cody.”

  “No!” Aaron yelled and lifted his gun again. “You stay right there.”

  Cody didn’t move.

  “Go, Cody!” Henderson yelled, but he still didn’t move. “Aaron, let’s resolve this peacefully. Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

  “I didn’t do this.” Aaron jerked his gun towards Cody. “It was him. It was always him. It’s that goddamned curse!”

  “The what?”

  “This doesn’t concern you.” He winced and clenched his jaw. “Just go!”

  Henderson raised his gun and gripped it with both hands. “Aaron, please. Stop this. Let me take you in. It’s over.”

  Aaron stared at the barrel of Henderson’s Glock 17. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his pistol.

  “That’s right. Now drop it to the floor and kick it over to me.”

  In puer mustum mori, the deep voice screamed in Aaron’s head.

  Aaron lowered his head and gazed at the gun in his hand. “Remember when I told you the next time you pointed that thing at me, you’d better be prepared to use it?” He tilted his head and shot Henderson a sideways glare.

  Henderson widened his eyes and fired a panicked shot, grazing Aaron’s shoulder. The window shattered behind him while Aaron twisted his body and fired back. The bullet went through Henderson’s left eye and exploded out the back of his head. Blood, brain matter and skull fragments splattered against the door frame behind him and onto Cody. Sergeant Henderson’s body dropped to the floor with blood oozing out from his fatal wound. Cody stood in the doorway with blood splatter on his face and clothes. In a state of shock, he gazed into Aaron’s eyes and stumbled backwards into the hallway.

  “You were right, Cody,” Aaron said as he stepped towards him. “You were right all along.”

  Cody backed up against the wall, his eyes wide and face pale.

  “I should have let you die.”

  Cody had contemplated and even attempted suicide in the past, but at that moment as the deranged man moved towards him with a loaded gun in his hand, survival instincts superseded anything the fourteen-year-old boy had ever said or believed up until then.

  “No!” he yelled and darted towards the living room. “I want to live!”

  Aaron ran into the hallway after him and fired a wild shot. The bullet whizzed over Cody’s head and through a picture frame hanging on the wall. The boy tripped over Deputy Copeland’s body and ripped through the screen door. He stumbled across the porch and tumbled down the steps onto the front yard.

  Aaron removed Deputy Copeland’s handcuffs and slipped them onto his belt. He stepped through the broken screen door. Cody limped across the yard while Aaron fired another shot into the air. The terrified teen stumbled and fell on the driveway. He turned around
and backed up against Aaron’s Corvette. Red and blue emergency lights reflected off the smooth surfaces and windows of the house and vehicles.

  “You killed them, Cody.” Aaron tossed the gun aside. “You killed them all!”

  Cody’s eyes followed the gun as it landed in the grass. “It wasn’t me,” he cried. “You know it wasn’t. You’re not thinking straight. You’re letting the—”

  “Shut up! This curse ends tonight. And there’s only one way. I understand that now. I accept it… and so should you.” Aaron stepped off the porch and walked towards Cody. “We don’t have to see any more people die. We’ve got to return to Saint Hedwig.”

  “No!” Cody scurried into Aaron’s Corvette and shut the door. He started the engine, put his foot on the brake pedal and released the parking brake. He struggled with the gearshift to put it in reverse, but couldn’t find the gear.

  Aaron knocked on the window. “You won’t get five feet before you stall this thing.”

  Cody cried as he searched for the reverse gear. It finally locked into place, but as soon as he released the brake, the engine sputtered and shut off. He fumbled with the key to restart the engine, but Aaron opened the door and pulled him out of the car. As he struggled to get away, Aaron grabbed him by the shirt collar and dragged him back. Cody gagged as the shirt pressed against his neck.

  “I never wanted this to happen, Cody. God knows, I tried to stop this.” Aaron lifted him and slammed him against the car. “But now Maria is dead! Samantha is dead! And it’s never going to stop until you are dead!”

  “Please,” Cody pleaded, “don’t do this. Father Sotoro can help us. He said he could help—”

  “He’s dead, Cody!” Aaron pointed a stern finger at him. “You killed him!”

  Cody kicked Aaron in the crotch, causing him to double over, and pushed passed him, but then he slipped on the loose gravel. Aaron dragged Cody by his arms, lifted him up back on his feet.

  “I’m sorry!” Cody screamed. “Please don—”

  Aaron slammed him against the side of Sheriff Donovan’s Tahoe and punched him three times across the temple, knocking him unconscious. He caught Cody as he slumped over and dragged him over to Deputy Copeland’s patrol car. He opened the back door and shoved Cody face down into the back seat. Pulling the boy’s hands behind his back, he secured them with the handcuffs he had taken from Deputy Copeland’s body.

  After slamming the back door shut, Aaron leaned against the car and slid his back down the side. He sat next to the car for several minutes and wept until he saw Cody’s demonic apparition stepping onto the porch from inside the house.

  The demon youth grinned and slowly clapped his hands. “Well done, Aaron. Well done.”

  Aaron got up and headed back towards the house. He shoved the Cody thing out of the way and stepped inside. Aaron returned with his shotgun and aimed the barrel at the boy’s back. He fired without hesitation. The chest exploded outward as the lead balls ripped through the body.

  Cody’s demonic twin turned around and laughed. It snatched the shotgun out of Aaron’s hand and tossed it away. “Nice try, dickhead. It’s going to take more than a shotgun to get rid of me. So, you may as well get used to me being around.”

  Aaron glared at the evil apparition and retrieved his gun.

  “By the way, I really enjoyed playing with your wife and stepdaughter.” It formed a mischievous smile.

  Aaron narrowed his eyes and stepped back on the porch a few feet from the demon clone.

  “That’s right, Aaron.” It laughed. “They screamed for mercy while I spilled their blood. And you should have seen the look on that pretty girl’s face when I—”

  Aaron pointed the shotgun at the demon boy’s face and pulled the trigger. The top half of its head exploded. The body fell limp to the ground and exploded into a thousand beetles that scurried into the house.

  Aaron returned to Deputy Copeland’s car and secured the shotgun inside of it. He glanced back to check on Cody, and went back inside to remove his wife and stepdaughter’s bodies. He carried them into the detached garage, covering them both with a sheet. He then grabbed a can of gasoline and carried it inside the house. He poured the flammable liquid over the remaining bodies and throughout the entire house. The only room he didn’t pour gasoline in was Cody’s.

  On the way out of the house, he grabbed Cody’s backpack and a roll of duct tape. He then lit a cigarette, sucked in one long pull, and breathed the smoke out through his nose. With a flick of his finger, he sent the cigarette flying through the air, end over end. It landed in the doorway and immediately ignited the gasoline.

  Aaron watched the house burn for a few minutes before driving away, with Cody restrained and unconscious in the back seat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Final Breath

  Aaron carried Cody’s unconscious body and rested it on a wooden desk in the middle of a dark room lit only by candles. A backpack was set underneath it in the middle of a bloodstained pentacle carved into the floor. Cody’s arms were pinned underneath him with steel bracelets securing his wrists. He also had duct tape wrapped around his ankles. Aaron pulled more tape across his chest, waist, and legs, wrapping each separate strand underneath the tabletop and back over his body several times. The smell of rotting flesh filled Aaron’s nostrils as he restrained Cody, while several rats chewed on the remains of two decaying bodies that lay a few feet away.

  As Cody regained consciousness, his eyelids flickering and his head bobbing from one side to the next, Aaron ripped the final piece of duct tape with his teeth and pressed it underneath the table. He tossed the exhausted roll aside and walked across the room to an antique wooden chair with a curved serpentine style dagger that lay on the seat. He picked up the dagger and dragged the chair across the floor. He sat in it next to Cody and stared into the darkness with the dagger on his lap.

  Cody turned his face towards him and stared at the dagger. “Aaron.” That’s all he said, as a tear dropped from his eye and down his cheek.

  Aaron tightened his jaw. His lips quivered. His breathing steadied and became shallow, before he finally shifted his eyes towards Cody.

  “I don’t want to die,” Cody whimpered. “I didn’t kill them. You know I didn’t. It was the—”

  “Shut the hell up!” Aaron yelled. “Just stop talking.”

  Aaron closed his eyes and took several slow and deep breaths, breathing in through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. His body trembled from anger and fear. Images of Maria and Samantha flashed through his mind. He couldn’t get the violent images out of his head. The blood. The lifeless eyes staring into his.

  The pain in his head was severe. It felt like an intense fever, with deep guttural voices urging him to sacrifice Cody.

  “Shut up!” He said, pressing one hand against his temple. “Shut up!”

  How had it come to this? He had failed Cody. He had failed his entire family… He had failed himself. He had refused to accept sacrificing Cody as the answer to ending the devil’s nightmare curse for so long. He had convinced himself that there had to be another way. He gazed into Cody’s eyes and glanced away.

  He was wrong.

  From the days when he’d first visited Cody at Brackenridge Hospital, and discovered he was orphaned and heading to Saint Hedwig Youth Home, he had felt a strong connection with him. He considered the dreams, the nightmares they both shared. Was it spiritual? Was it coincidence? He didn’t know. There was something about Cody that connected them, however. But what exactly?

  “Why did you adopt me?” Cody said, breaking Aaron from his thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Why did you adopt me? Out of guilt? Or something else?”

  Aaron lowered his head and stared at the dagger. “You were an orphan. You needed a home.”

  “You could’ve just let me go into foster care.”

  “Yeah, I could have done that.” Aaron made eye contact with Cody again. “Maybe that’s what I should have done.�
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  “But then you never would have…” Cody shifted his eyes away.

  “Never would have what?” Aaron stood with the dagger in his hand. He turned Cody’s head to face him. “I never would have what?”

  “I’ve had other dreams. Ones I never told you about.” He swallowed. “Dreams I didn’t believe, but…” He turned his eyes from Aaron’s gaze. “Remember the article you found in my desk?”

  “What about it?”

  “I saw her in my dreams. Your wife. Both of you… together.”

  Aaron set the dagger on the desk next to Cody’s head and hovered over him. “What did you see?”

  “She was in a lot of pain. She held her swollen stomach.” Cody narrowed his eyes at Aaron. “You hurt her.”

  Aaron stepped away with his back towards Cody. “I never laid a hand on her.”

  “Then why was she crying? Why was she in so much pain?”

  “I didn’t want to have kids, and she did.” He held his hips and stared at the ground. “She lied to me… about taking her birth control.” He turned around. “She got pregnant and tried to hide that from me. But you can only hide a pregnancy for so long. I told her to get an abortion, but she refused. She said it would be murdering our baby.” Aaron ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “It was just a fetus. I told her that. The whole life-begins-at-conception thing was bullshit. We couldn’t afford to have a kid. She wasn’t working, and I didn’t make near enough on my lousy cop’s salary. I couldn’t convince her, though.” He shook his head and tightened his jaw. “That fetus ruined our marriage. We ended up getting separated before she gave birth.”

  “Why?”

  Aaron glared at Cody and stepped up to the desk. He grabbed the dagger. “We’re done talking.”

  “So, you’re just going to kill me? And then, what? How do you know that’ll change anything? How do you know you’re not cursed, too?” He lifted his head and widened his eyes. “How do you know?”

  Aaron slammed the blade into the desk next to Cody’s face; he flinched his head back and shifted his eyes to the blade. “Because I’m not the one that summoned that fucking demon in the first place. Like it or not, Cody, that shit falls on you. And now, your mother is dead. Your friends are dead. Samantha is dead. My wife is dead!” Aaron pulled the dagger out of the desk and held the handle against his temple. His head ached and burned. “You think I want to do this? I don’t have a choice anymore. We’re stuck with the hands our shitty lives have dealt us.”