by Adam Bennett
He scooped the pieces up and placed them back into the bag before going back to cleaning and reassembling his gun. The gun wouldn’t kill the demon, but it would definitely slow it down some, especially with his silver rune-inscribed rounds. He liked to be fully prepared when going to face his foe, and tonight that preparation was even more important.
Tonight he was finally taking out the demon he had been hunting for months, following its murderous footsteps through numerous towns to this point. Now tonight, under the cover given by the frivolous Halloween celebrations around him, he was going in.
The demon that had murdered his entire family. The demon that had ruined his life, and taken from him all the joy that had once filled his days. He hadn’t been anyone special; they had been an ordinary family living in a world of credit cards and taxes until the nightmare had sought them out. To the police, it had looked like a breakin gone horribly wrong, or maybe the random attack of a sick psychopath.
No one had believed him when he had told them a demon had entered his home and plucked them from their beds, slowly torturing them through the early hours of the morning. Each scream had ripped at his sanity as he had been helpless to save them. The demon had slit his wife’s throat with a smile on its twisted face. His son… it had taken much longer for him to die.
Richard stood angrily. He couldn’t. Not yet. After tonight he could grieve.
He waited until all the lights in the street went out, the children long gone, probably now all tucked up in bed with belly aches and sugar withdrawals.
He snuck out of the house, his bag slung over his shoulder. His heart thumped in his chest as adrenalin coursed through his veins. He kept his head down as he walked; a group of teenagers passed him by, dressed as skeletons and ghouls, and a shiver ran down his spine.
He stopped. The street looked like any other, the houses picture perfect suburbia, but inside one lived a soulless monster. He had done his homework. He knew this was the right address, knew that the monster was going by the innocuous name of Martin Schultz.
This is it. I’m finally here, he mused. He felt the prickle of fear running down his back as he remembered the talons that had torn at his skin; the face that had broken through the human mask still haunted his nightmares. The he pictured his wife’s beautiful, smiling face, the blonde hair that had always smelt of apricots. William’s face, so proud at his school play, his small hand always so trusting in his own. They deserved justice.
He walked on.
My body is full, almost bloated from the blood and flesh from the children led at my feet. I feel weariness tug at me as the lullaby of their screams fill my ears. Tonight I will dream of flames and rivers of blood.
The house was in darkness as he approached.
He knew that the layout to these houses was identical to his own, another reason he had rented a property so close by. He also knew that the back door locks were easily broken, and he was counting on them not knowing that.
His fingers trembled as he battled with the lock, his heart hammering a drum beat in his skull, but he sighed with relief as he heard the click as it slid open. He slowly opened the door, leaning into the empty kitchen. The house was in silence.
He crawled inside, closing the door behind him, wincing at the soft click as it locked behind him. He felt as if he had just pulled his own tomb door closed with its finality.
He slipped through the darkness, the silence heavy like a roar in his ears. The stillness of the house was eerie. He edged out of the kitchen and into the living room. He kept himself low, his back to the wall. He looked apprehensively at the staircase. He took each step with bated breath, his heart lurching with every creak as he climbed the stairs up onto the landing. He half expected something to leap out at him from the shadows, but nothing came, only the sound of his hitched breathing.
He looked into the door to his left; a bathroom. Empty. He carried on to the next, to his right. It stood ajar, but he couldn’t see inside. He gave it a small nudge with his foot, bracing himself for the noise, but none came. He took a deep breath and crawled closer.
A bedroom. In the soft light cast from the moon he saw a hand hanging over the edge.
He felt the fury rise inside of him and he raised his gun.
This was for Ellen; this was for William.
He fired.
A body jumped up from the bed with a cry, but the hand lay still. Richard frowned at the bed and moved closer. The human face of the demon was lit by the moonlight as he looked down in horror at the body lying in the bed.
“You killed my wife!” A very human voice cried.
Richard looked down and saw a woman lying on the sheets, her face peaceful, cradled on the pillows. She could still be sleeping if it wasn’t for the bloody hole in the top of her head. For a moment he was horrified, doubting everything, but then he looked back at the face he knew hid pure evil.
“You killed mine.” Richard growled back.
The man smiled and Richard saw a shimmer of the demon within. He fired again and the man staggered back. The demon roared in outrage, its features changing, becoming the thing that stalked his sleep. It leapt for him but he fired again, giving him enough time to pull the holy water from his pocket.
“You killed my son.”
He threw the contents on the demon, now down on the floor and watched as it screeched in agony, its skin sizzling.
He reached into his bag and pulled out his stole. He slipped it round his shoulders as the knife fell into his palm. He plunged it forward into the chest of the demon, twisting it to hear the unearthly roars. Razorlike talons reached to claw his flesh.
He took out his Bible and began the exorcism he knew by heart. He splashed holy water as he recited his prayer. The demon was squealing in equal parts fury and agony, trying to get up, but the knife held it in place.
“You will never stop us,” the demon laughed, as it felt its grasp slipping from the world. “We’re everywhere.”
“I don’t care,” Richard sighed. “I just wanted to watch you burn.”
He saw the shock flicker in its soulless eyes as he finished his rite. He watched with grim satisfaction as the demon burned from within, the flames taking him home. The empty human shell lay broken on the floor.
Richard pulled out his knife and fled from the room, only looking back once at the woman. She was a casualty, a sacrifice. It didn’t make it any easier. Just another human pawn used in their wicked games, but she had died by his hand.
He ran home, only resting when he had closed his front door and slumped against the hard wood. The tears came like cool spring waters, releasing him from his prison. The demon was dead; his family could rest now. He could finally rest. He cried for all the days he had missed them, all the moments his heart and arms had ached for them.
He walked to the kitchen, taking a long drink of whiskey as he threw his bag under the table. It was finally over.
He headed to bed, hoping tonight he could finally sleep without nightmares, but the thought was too good to be true. His dreams now held a sleeping woman, waking to exact her vengeance. A clown laughed in the distance.
As he woke with a start, he thought he was still dreaming. A clown stood by his bedside, the painted face laughing loudly. He went to sit up, but felt the cold slice of steel through his skin. He looked down and saw his knife, sticking from his chest. He looked back to the clown as his lungs fought for air. The world began to fade as the clown’s face twisted in demonic joy, as his heart beat its last.
I look down at the pathetic remains of the hunter. His death had been far too quick. I should have drunk from his heart, but I was still full from my fellow trick-or-treaters earlier. They’d sure had a good trick, as I had tugged the flesh from their bones.
I head back to my home, preparing myself to play the injured orphan once the cops arrive. My sloppy father and my pathetic mother had deserved their deaths, yet the inconvenience had sparked my anger. The hunter had to pay.
I begin t
o whistle as I walk. Halloween is always my favourite night.
Born in the 60's in Mobile, Alabama at Brookley Air Force Base, Paula M. Wilson loves to hunt, take photographs, create art, and read, and loves being Mimi to some wonderful grandboys. Married to a wonderful man for ten years, she credits her husband Lee for helping her come out of her shell. To her beautiful daughter Ashton she says, “sorry about the shared dreams,” and passes on thanks to her mother for always protecting her from her nightmares.
LIFE GOES ON
Paula M. Wilson
I was a dreamer as a child, like most children; not the head-in-the-clouds kind of dreamer, but the nightmare, sweat, and screams in the night kind of dreamer. I cannot remember a time that I did not have dreams as a child, or that’s what my mother called them, ‘Just dreams, nothing to be afraid of.’ She would explain how my mind would make up all kinds of stuff while I slept, but that’s where the dreams would stay — in my sleep, because the dreams were not real. I always felt terrified and didn’t quite believe her. I was always afraid she would not come fast enough, or say ‘She will go back to sleep on her own,’ but she always arrived just in time to save me. She would rush through the door and turn on the light as if it was the first bad dream that I had ever had. She would sit on my bed and talk about my dreams, comforting me until I could go back to sleep. She was my lifesaver.
The lady in my dreams was the most frightening thing anyone could ever imagine. Her face looked lightless, obscured, and she had long, thin fingers with long, curled fingernails. She was dressed in a tattered black dress. I would see her on a nightly basis. It seemed as if she was on a quest to take me away from my home and my mother to a place where I would never feel safe, where I could scream all I liked but no one would ever hear me; no one would come. When I would fall asleep, I could feel the dreams start, but I couldn’t wake up. The sweating would start, and I could feel her drift into the room. Mother would say it was only in my dream, not my actual room. Sweat would prickle over my body; the screams would get caught in my throat but always found their way out eventually, bloodcurdling screams.
I grew older, but the dreams continued night after night, my fears growing stronger. In my dreams, the lady in the black tattered dress would come close enough that I could feel her breath and nails on my skin, but never close enough to take me away before mother would rush through the door. Over the years of tormenting dreams, lack of sleep for me and my mother, the dreams finally seemed to stop, as if the lady had simply given up. This lasted for about a month. It was so nice not to have her invading my nights. It was so quiet and peaceful, but on my 18th birthday she returned, and she didn’t come alone. This time, a man was by her side. He was just as frightening as she was. He was tall, thin and had a pale, grayish color to his skin. He wore a long, dark gray coat, and had cold, steel blue eyes that felt like they could see all my fears. He wielded a large knife; the blade was shiny and reflected screams from the past; whose past, I didn’t know. The two came together for a while, as if she was helping him learn all my weaknesses. Then, one night, she was not there; it was only him and that long, shiny knife.
I was grown and living out on my own, so I didn’t have my mother’s protection, or her calming words to help me back to sleep after one of these horrifying dreams. I was tired during the day and hated to go to sleep at night, because just as with the dreams of the Finger Lady (the name I had given her as a child), I could feel the dreams start as sweat would break out all over my body. I would let out a scream and sit up in the bed, still seeing him standing there twirling that knife between his fingers. I would turn on the light as quickly as I could, half expecting him to still be there, but thank goodness, he would always vanish with the light.
I met a wonderful man and started dating; we grew very close. One evening he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. It was the best day of my life. I thought after I married, the dreams would stop, but it seemed to make the Knife Man even more determined.
My husband asked me one morning who was coming. I acted like I didn’t know what he was talking about; I didn’t want him to think he had married a childish woman who still had bad dreams. I finally had to tell him about the dreams because he would not let it go. He told me I had been talking in my sleep, whispering, “Shhhhh he is coming… be quiet or he will hear you.” He wanted to know who was coming, and why. I tried to explain the dreams that had haunted me for as long as I could remember, and explained to him that I didn’t know why, but they were always the same. My husband tried to comfort me the same way my mother had, trying to comfort me and telling me it was just a dream, and was nothing to worry about.
Our lives went on, and I continued to have the bonechilling dreams every night. After a few years, they began to put a strain on our marriage. I guess the lack of sleep would do that to most people.
One morning I woke up and I was bleeding. I had been cut on the arm with a knife. Blood was all over the sheets. My husband had left for work earlier, before the sun came up. He made it a habit to get up quietly and go to the other room so as not to wake me up so early. I looked at the cut, knowing it needed to be stitched, but since I didn’t want anyone else to see the wound, I bandaged it myself. I was happy my husband was gone so that he wouldn’t see the mess. I hurried to clean the bed and myself before anyone else could see. I felt like I was going crazy.
A few weeks went by and I wasn’t feeling very good. I went to the doctor and he told me that I was pregnant. I was excited about telling my husband and my mother. I made a special dinner and told him the news; he was very happy, and we called our families to tell them as well.
The months flew by, and I had no dreams the entire time I was pregnant. My husband and I were happy about that. It was short-lived, though; as soon as we brought our beautiful daughter home, the dreams started again, as if they had never stopped. I struggled to get enough sleep so I could be a good mother, like my mother was for me, trying to stay upbeat and happy. My husband was also struggling with sleepless nights both because of me and the new baby. Our marriage suffered under the strains of everything we had to deal with. My mother came for a visit, and she could sense the tension in the house and asked if everything was all right; I told her everything was fine so that she wouldn’t worry. I think she saw through my story, but she didn’t press for more.
Our daughter grew to be a beautiful little girl. When she was just old enough to have dreams and remember them, she woke up one night with a terrified scream. We both jumped up and ran to her. I sat on her bed as my mother had done for me so many times, talking to her and holding her. She told me about her dream, and an awful lady in a black tattered dress with a lightless, obscured face and long fingers with curled nails. Why was this happening to us, what had we ever done to deserve to dream about such awful things?
The next morning my husband packed his bags. He said he’d had all he could stand with my bad dreams, and now our little girl was having them too. “I need a break,” is what he said as he walked out the door. He didn’t call after he left; I didn’t know where he had gone, or when or even if he would be back. I cried; I missed him so very much. A month went by, and the police came to the house. They told me how very sorry they were to have to tell me that my husband was dead. He had been stabbed in his sleep with a large knife; there had been no struggle. They said it was as if he didn’t know there was an intruder in the hotel room with him. They said the door was still locked; the maid found him in the morning when she came to clean the room. They were trying to figure out how the intruder got into the room. There were no leads yet.
I called my mother. She rushed to our home to comfort us. The three of us stood holding each other, crying. I noticed a scar on my mother’s arm; the same scar, in the same place, that I have on my arm, from the morning that I had been cut. I had never noticed it before. She saw me looking and pulled away, trying to cover her arm. I had a hundred questions running through my head. She had to know why we had the dreams and the scars, and
the answer to the big question — why my husband was dead.
After the house was quiet and my daughter was in bed, we sat outside on the porch swing. I started asking questions. She stopped me and told me what she knew, which wasn’t much, other than the fact that she’d had the same dreams, and didn’t know why. Then she told me that she had lied about my father’s death; she had told me he had left for a trip and had a car wreck, but the truth was that he had died in almost the same way as my husband. I sat in shock, unable to move. A scream came from inside the house, and my mother said she would go and comfort the sweet love in the house who was having another of the horrifying dreams that I didn’t know how to stop. I felt helpless.
Life went on. My mother moved in with us to help. The dreams stopped coming; my mother said they had left her the same way and had never returned. I prayed that this would be true for me, but my daughter was still being haunted nightly.
I decided to find out as much as I could about our ancestors, so I began researching our family tree, and I found out we knew very little. Trying to make sense of the dreams and the deaths of the men in our family, I found out about more deaths than I wanted to know about. Generations of men had all died the same way as our husbands and fathers, stabbed to death, with never any leads on who had killed them. I had started my search early one morning and I came across information on a man in our family who had been living in Salem, Massachusetts during the infamous witch trials. He had sat in judgment of a man and wife who had been accused of being a warlock and witch. They were found guilty and sentenced to burn to death. I read there had been a person who took notes, similar to a court reporter, that were kept with the trial information. These contained the answers to all the questions that my mother and I had ever wondered, as to why all this was happening to us.
