Devil's Den

by Jeff Altabef

  “Almost there,” Tina says, and her fingers go to work. “I’m not usually this forward, but you have sweet eyes. How about we do book club first in your apartment and dinner later? I’ll bring a bottle of wine.”

  Brad responds immediately. I imagine him pounding the keyboard with fat sausage-like fingers, a sick smile stretching across his flabby face. “Nine o’clock at my apartment then. I look forward to it. 325 Spruce Street, Apartment 12B. It’s in District 10. Do you have access?”

  Kate nods. “The hospital is in District 9, so I can travel through 10 at night.”

  Tina types the final response, “Access won’t be a problem. I teach some of my dancing classes in the poshest places. I’m so looking forward to meeting and reading with you.”

  She hands the tablet to me.

  “Poshest places? Meeting and reading.”

  Tina smirks. “I thought this pile of festering turds would appreciate the turn of a good phrase. Now that we have Brad on the hook, what’s the rest of the plan, Stevo?”

  “It’s not going to be easy,” I say, and I’m not kidding.

  Every inch of Megan’s body hurts. It isn’t a bad hurt, but one born from a long day of clearing rocks from the dirt, a relentless assault that only dented a short stretch of the field. According to the other Angels, rock clearing is only one of a number of tasks they perform on a regular basis, each one physically grueling, yet they don’t seem to mind. The chores are necessary. It’s how they gain favor with Mother and speak with God.

  Megan shakes her head and tries to clear the cobwebs. The day feels foggy. She remembers working in the field, but only has a vague memory of lunch and Mother’s sermon. Afterward, they went back to the rocks only to be collected by Buck for dinner. Unlike lunch, dinner was held in a large mess hall.

  New jumpsuit colors appeared: blue, orange, and black. She couldn’t get an accurate read, but she had counted more than 150 people. And the black jumpsuits carried M18 assault rifles with them. Megan wanted to ask why they needed so many guns, but she had no one to confide in. She’ll have to learn on her own. That’s okay with her. Most learning is hands-on anyway.

  Four musicians played folksongs before dinner. A rather heavyset woman dressed in orange sang with a sweet, clear voice. They played songs she hadn’t heard before—songs praising Mother and the Angel’s role as champions for God. Mother offered a simple prayer before they served dinner. Nothing as elaborate as lunch. The community responded to a few verbal clues with chants of their own. Not knowing what to say, Megan kept her mouth shut. After dinner, different people offered testimonials. They spoke about their conversations with God and His plans for them. Everyone clapped after each testimonial.

  Megan can’t remember anyone’s specific speech. Her mind still buzzes, and she feels a general sense of contentment. After dinner, Buck led Megan’s group of Angels to a plain cabin where they share a room—six beds and six Angels—the same cabin where she started the day. They all changed out of their jumpsuits to simple yellow robes, each robe with a green or purple armband to match the ones on their jumpsuits.

  Megan tries to remember the name of the girl who was taken in the van with her, but all she can recall is Autumn, her new name. It’s almost as if the other girl, the pre-Angel version, has already been wiped away.

  May sits on the edge of her bed and smiles at her. “I know that look. Everyone feels the same way when they first arrive. Mother overwhelms us with her goodness, and God fills this place with serenity and peace. Don’t try to fight it. Let it fill your body and soul. Soon you’ll adjust and won’t be so overwhelmed.”

  Megan reaches into her mind, through the fog, and pulls out some random thoughts. “My head feels funny. I can’t seem to focus on anything.”

  A different Angel named Violet sits on the bed next to her bed. “It will pass and then you’ll see. You’ll be happy you’re here. We all are.”

  “Not all of us,” says Petal who’s standing by the door, her voice singing a cautionary note. “Some Angels never accept it here. They’re touched by the Devil, and he turns them.”

  “What happens to them?” asks Megan.

  Petal says, “Depends upon what God tells Mother. Either they’re burned or buried alive. Mother won’t let demons live among us.” Petal’s voice sounds unhappy; obviously she’s not as content at the others.

  Violet touches Megan’s arm. “Don’t be one of those Angels. You have to resist the Devil.”

  A cold knife carves its way up Megan’s spine. They kill Angels who make trouble, and then she remembers her mom, and her groggy thoughts start to focus. To escape she’ll have to be careful. Her fingers touch the chain around her neck. First, she’ll need to get rid of the pendant.

  “It’s only her first night,” says May. “It’s a little early to talk about the Devil. We don’t want to scare her.”

  “It’s never to early to warn her about what happens if she disobeys Mother.” Petal’s voice is darker and even more sober than before.

  “What happens now?” asks Autumn who sits on the bed to Megan’s left.

  Violet claps her hands. “This is the best part. At least for some of us. They’ll take us to talk to God in the sanctuary. Only those who’ve been good and are worthy get to go.”

  “Do you really talk to God?” Megan asks, her voice breathless.

  “Oh, most certainly we do,” Violet answers.

  “Sometimes we minister to His chosen people,” May adds. “We’re Angels and must do his bidding. But we always talk to Him first.”

  A soft knock raps against the door, and when it opens, Buck stands in the doorway. “How are the new Angels making out?” He asks about both of them, yet he only looks at Megan, his deep, blue eyes solemn.

  “Oh, they’re making out just fine.” May adds a lilt to her voice that’s clearly meant to flirt.

  Buck continues to stare at Megan until she nods to confirm that she hasn’t been mistreated.

  He then points to May, Violet, and one other Angel to come with him. Violet claps with excitement and the girls leave a step behind him.

  “He’ll be back later and then maybe I’ll be forced to go.” Petal doesn’t sound particularly happy with the idea. “You probably won’t be called tonight. Usually an Angel has to be here a week or so before her first trip to the sanctuary.”

  The lights go out and Megan stretches onto her bed. The day has been long and exhaustion tugs at her. Sleep comes quickly.

  At some point, she wakes to the sound of knocking against the window. May, Violet, and the other Angel haven’t returned yet. Megan stretches and walks to the window to investigate.

  The knocking continues and Megan peers outside. Her heart skips a beat.

  Frankie is standing outside, peeking into the room.

  She wants to run, but her feet won’t obey her brain.

  Frankie blows her a kiss and then she notices that his jumpsuit is unzipped down the center.

  She pulls away from the window and jumps back to bed, her heart beating faster than ever.

  Petal quietly sneaks over, slides in bed with her, and whispers, “Frankie’s going to be trouble. I’ve noticed the way he looks at you. You’ll need to be tough with him.”

  “Should I tell anyone?”

  “No, whatever you do, don’t tell anyone. They might suspect the Devil is involved, and you don’t want that.”

  “Okay.”

  “And that groggy feeling has nothing to do with God. I know it’s a cliché, but they drug the punch. Drink as much water before lunch and dinner as you can, but you’ll have to try to dump out some of the punch or they’ll get suspicious.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh, and God has nothing to do with what they do here.”

  Footsteps come from outside, probably Buck and the girls returning to the cabin.

  Petal brushes one of her fingertips down the side of Megan’s face, and goose bumps form in its wake. She kisses Megan on the cheek and slips out of t
he bed.

  I flee Kate’s apartment, a cowardly act, no doubt. But I can only take Tina in small doses, and she made it clear she’s hunkering down for the duration. She left me no choice, which is exactly what she wanted. Besides, Tina’s been with Kate since the beginning. She didn’t go AWOL to join a special operations group.

  It was best that I leave, so I did. I said I needed air and started wandering the streets. Without planning it, I’ve returned to my old neighborhood, my original destination yesterday, and stare at an abandoned apartment building across the street – a building I used to call home. Acid churns in my stomach, my heart jumps, and sweat slicks my palms. I feel foolish. I’m too old to be afraid of ghosts.

  A not-so-recent fire has destroyed the roof and charred much of the outside of the seven-story, brick building. All the windows are gone, and the herringbone design in the brick that borders the roof is barely visible beneath the blackened soot left by the fire. It’s a shame. That design was the only sign anyone cared about the building or the people who once lived inside. I used to think whoever added that detail thought of us as people rather than useless ghetto scum. I guess it’s true. You can’t ever return home.

  The light-stepping old-timer from last night moves behind me. I don’t need to turn to identify him. The smell is enough.

  “Sneaking up on me again, old-timer?” I ask, still looking at the apartment building. “Didn’t we discuss this last night?”

  “You’d be the last person I’d sneak up on after I seen what you did to those Red Dragons. That sure was something. Have you found that woman you were looking for?”

  “Not yet. What do you know about this apartment building?”

  “That’s the Devil’s Armpit. That’s what we call it, all right. It’s haunted and smells bad, like rotten eggs. You can feel the ghosts and evil spirits coming from it, right? I can. It’s creepy even to me, and I’ve seen my share of creepy in this world.”

  “Why do you say it’s haunted?”

  The man shrugs. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood a long time and I know all the stories. A while back,” the man pauses for effect, and then continues in a quieter voice, as if he’s sharing a secret, “maybe twenty years or so, the killings started. Each victim stabbed to death in the most gruesome manner. I seen one myself. He was stabbed a dozen times at least. His skin shredded to a messy pulp. No one could figure out who done it. We called the killer the Seventh Street Stabber, which I always thought was weird being this here Devil’s Armpit is on Eighth Street. I reckon you could hear the screams from Seventh Street, and it sounded catchy so… Whatever you want to call him, he sure killed lots of folks.”

  “He?”

  “We always figured the Seventh Street Stabber for a guy. No one caught him or even seen him or nothing like that. But no woman could’ve done it. That’s for sure. The Stabber could’ve been a ghost, a monster, or the devil himself, for all we knew. We sure didn’t want to find out. No one wanted to be alone with the Stabber.

  “The killings always happened in spurts. Three or four at a time and then nothing — just long enough for people to think the haunting had stopped, and then it all started again. Same thing all over again, more stabbings, and then a pause, as if the devil had his fill of the living and went back to hell for a bit of rest.”

  “When was the last killing?”

  He shrugs again, which barely shifts his trench coat. “Could be five years or more. Hard to say.”

  “And then they stopped? No one ever caught the killer?”

  The man frowns. “Nope, but the fire happened three years ago. I remember that clearly. Burned like a son of a bitch in the dead of the night. Quite a blaze, that one. They said it was arson. A dozen people died. Someone locked them in the top apartments. I remember their screams. You could hear them all over the ghetto that night. Seventh Street and beyond. A thing like that, a man don’t forget.”

  “Let me guess. No one caught the arsonist.”

  “Nope. I’d say it was the same devil as before. Must have been the Stabber. The insurance company sent some guys to investigate, but the owner burned in the building. I guess they had to pay something either way, so they didn’t give a damn. It’s a haunted building, that one is. The Devil’s Armpit. I don’t think it’s done yet. I think it’s just waiting for another chance to kill again.”

  Somehow the Fates are working their magic again, and that story sounds too familiar to be a coincidence. I hand a fifty to the old-timer. “You should move along now.”

  The old-timer takes the bill and moves away. After two steps, he pauses and looks over his shoulder and back at me. “You’d best leave that building alone. It’s trouble, I tell you. Some nights I hear ghosts from inside, and I feel a chill every time I walk past it.”

  The old man offers good advice. Sucks that I can’t take it. “It’s out of my hands, old-timer. The Fates want what they want.”

  The front door has been replaced by plywood. I splinter it with a simple front kick and rip broken pieces of wood away with my hands until the newly created hole is large enough to fit through. I could have found a quieter way into the abandoned building. Perhaps pried off one of the boards that blocked the windows or go around to the alley and sneak in some way. But this used to be my home, and I want to go through the front door.

  The place reeks of smoke and filth. I click on my phone’s flashlight and sweep the beam across the lobby in a slow, long loop. Chunks of wood, plaster, and glass shards litter the floor. The light also reveals signs of life: a dozen empty tequila bottles stacked in a corner, fast-food bags scattered across the floor, and someone has painted dragon symbols with names sprawled underneath them on the walls.

  The staircase looks sound, so I climb up. At the sixth floor, I trudge onto the hall. Despite the charred walls, the plaster scattered about, and the mold that infests everything, it still feels familiar. It feels the same as when I was fifteen.

  Three apartments down, Number 66, I stand frozen in the doorway. The fear that shook me outside intensifies and sounds like a waterfall crashing in my head. The flood of memories throws me back in time where I don’t want to go.

  My mother wasn’t always afflicted by demons. Well, it’s hard for me to be certain of that. I didn’t notice any signs of demons at first, but I was young back then. The demons seemed to come upon her slowly. At first, she started going to church daily, spending hours in the pews praying. Grace became long, complicated rituals at every meal. And then came the demons.

  She saw them everywhere and worried they’d drag her to hell. My father did his best, but he traveled a lot for work. He loved her, but his best wasn’t good enough. Not even close.

  One night, when I was eleven, I cowered in my room while my mother raged at my father. “You’re a demon. You won’t take me!” she screamed over and over again. He tried to calm her, but she wouldn’t have it. Furniture flew around the small apartment, wood splintered, metal pans crashed against walls.

  I curled myself into a ball and shook. A tornado touched down inside my apartment. My mother’s rage penetrated through the walls, explosive. I made myself smaller, hoping it would pass like the other times. I even prayed.

  And then came a long silence that bit into my bone like a winter frost. I sat with my ear pressed to the door, hoping to hear sounds of life, hoping to hear my father’s voice. It could have been ten minutes or two hours. Finally, I summoned enough courage to open my door. My mother squatted over my father’s body, muttering, bloody scissors clutched in her hands. She had stabbed him so many times in his chest and throat that it looked as if he’d been run through a grinder.

  I stared at her, but words never came. What could I say?

  She didn’t move for a long time, but finally, around dawn, she snapped from her trance and looked at me. “I had no choice, Stevie. He was a demon. He wanted to take me and then he’d come for you. I had to protect you.”

  She sounded lucid, normal even, as if she was explaining a simp
le concept, something I should have already known. She cleaned up most of the blood and called the police.

  Back then the police made believe they had an interest in investigating crimes in the ghetto. But they really didn’t care what happened in the North Philly Badlands. My father was just one less ghetto scum for them to deal with, and my mother could be convincing when she wanted. She painted a picture of the poor wife, defending herself against a drug-crazed, abusive husband. They fell for her story because she looked the part and they wanted to believe it. Less work for them, so they simply collected the body and wrote it off as self-defense.

  I was such a coward. If I’d left my bedroom earlier, if I’d helped my father, if, if, if...

  The incident seemed to purge the demons from my mother. For years, she reverted back to her old self. We never discussed that night. I almost forgot about it, but who could really forget such a thing? And then, the demons returned without warning. They came back in force and my mother turned her focus on me.

  I was bad. Demons lived inside of me. I needed to be cleansed.

  I always assumed my mother was wrong, that she murdered my father in a fit of insanity. I couldn’t see demons myself back then. I had no way of knowing they were real.

  I’ve only recently started seeing them myself, my first encounter three years ago. Now I can’t help but wonder if my mother had been right. Was my father a demon?

  I suck in a deep breath and enter the two-bedroom apartment. Nothing remains. No furniture, even the kitchen fixtures have been stripped away. Still, my mother’s presence hangs in the air.

  I stare at the corner of what had been the kitchen and see my father’s mutilated body lying there, my mother screaming about demons. Light glints off the scissors in her hand, and a dangerous fire burns in her gaze. She looks up and smiles at me. “Hello, Stevie.”

  “Mother, what happened to you?” I ask. “Did you become the Seventh Street Stabber? Did you conquer the demons inside you? Are you still alive?”