by Bryan Smith
Mike’s expression remained mostly emotionless, but there was a small hint of smug satisfaction at the corners of his mouth. “You’re probably wondering how this is happening. And you’re probably wondering why you’re best friend since childhood is compelling you to do this.”
John could not nod. He just whimpered some more. His bladder loosened and a flood of piss stained the crotch of his briefs.
Mike’s nose crinkled slightly in distaste. “The answer is simple. I’m not your best friend. In fact, before I walked through your front door a few minutes ago, you’d never met me before. Everything you know about our history together is a fiction. It is an elaborate tale woven into the code of the implant in your neck, which was not put there by little green men. Since you’re about to die and take the secret to your grave, there’s no harm in telling you that it’s an experimental mind control device developed by rogue elements of your own government, for whom I work, albeit in a necessarily secret capacity.” Now he smiled again, more broadly than before. “Your tax dollars at work.”
John couldn’t believe any of this. It was crazy. He’d shared so much of his life with this guy, countless things that were an integral part of the fabric of his existence. No way could those things all be products of computer code.
Mike sighed. “You don’t believe me.”
John managed to mutter the word “no”, though it was muffled by the barrel of the gun.
“Device,” Mike said, his tone turning more precise as he pitched his voice louder. “Cycle red, directive one, wipe.”
The moment the word “wipe” was spoken, John knew he was staring at a stranger. Everything the man had said was true. The truth about his life came back in an instant. He was a lonely, broken-down alcoholic. He had no friends. None that were still alive, anyway.
Tears spilled down his face.
His heart thudded painfully in his chest.
Mike cleared his throat, straightened his tie, and said, “I’ll take the device with me when I leave. The angle of the shot about to split your head wide open should erase any evidence of its insertion. The gun is registered in your name. Yes, I know you’ve never owned a gun before. We’ve arranged everything, all the paperwork and the suicide note you were compelled to write before device insertion last night.”
“Please,” John managed, the tears spilling faster and hotter down his face. “Don’t.”
Mike ignored this plea and said, “Your country thanks you for your service and your contribution to our ongoing mind control studies.”
John screamed. He glared at his hand, tried again to regain control over his body and pull out the gun.
To no avail.
“Device,” Mike said, again speaking in that loud, clear tone. “End program.”
John’s forefinger began to squeeze the trigger.
He managed one last muffled scream.
The last thing he saw before the bullet blew out the back of his head were the unforgiving, soulless eyes of the stranger, which were faultlessly observant and appraising to the end.
HIGHWAY STOP
The family trip to Myrtle Beach felt like it was cursed from the beginning. It was a journey marred by setback after setback, a relentless series of unfortunate incidents and countless moments of sheer bad luck. The first thing that happened was a flat tire. The Gruber clan had been on the road maybe five minutes, the rented minivan they were traveling in having just merged into highway traffic.
At that point, John Gruber unleashed an impressive storm of profanities, slamming the heels of his hands against the steering wheel again and again as his puffy face turned red. Mary Gruber, John’s wife of thirteen years, became instantly alarmed. John had heart problems. He also had severe anger issues. He took pills for his heart and years of counseling had helped him learn how to better channel his frustrations. A lot of time had passed since either of these things had last truly concerned Mary, so the outburst came as quite a shock. He looked like an overheated human pressure cooker, on the verge of explosion.
To his credit, John seemed embarrassed by his overreaction. He apologized profusely as he pulled the minivan over, smiling and cracking jokes as he took a few moments to reassure his family. Mary and the two Gruber children—Beth and Hunter—all breathed audible sighs of relief.
Then John got out to change the tire.
And got stung by a wasp just above his right eyebrow as he was kneeling next to the car on the highway. The darkness that always lurked within John returned after that and never fully went away again. His foul mood only got worse as the setbacks mounted.
There were more car issues. Personal items belonging to the kids got lost or misplaced and there was considerable related drama, all of which wore on John’s nerves. Mary worried each time she saw his face turn scarlet. The first couple times she urged him to calm down, but the sneering looks he gave her soon made her stop. The second day of the journey east occurred mostly in sullen silence. They arrived at their hotel in Myrtle Beach late that day. There was a mix-up at the hotel where they were supposed to be staying. The hotel had no record of their reservation and was booked solid for weeks.
The ensuing scramble for alternate lodging went on for hours. Shortly after they finally found a place and got checked in, John received a call from his brother. Their estranged father had passed away earlier that afternoon. John hated his father and would not be attending the funeral, but news of the man’s death turned his dark mood intractable and cast a pall on the rest of the trip.
On top of all that, the relentless march of bad luck continued. Multiple unrelated things went wrong for everyone. It was like the Vacation movies from the 80’s, only without the laughs. Mary did her best to grin and bear it and tried to hold everything together for the sake of the kids, but after four days of nonstop tribulations, she begged John to take them all home early for the sake of their sanity. To her relief, John agreed and they decided to make the return journey in one day instead of two. They would be beyond exhausted by the time they got home, but Mary figured it would be worth it just so the ordeal would finally be over.
They had been on the road nearly ten hours when John hit the minivan’s blinker and began to slow down for an exit. Mary eyes fluttered open as she yawned and sat up straighter in the front passenger seat. She’d fallen asleep with her Kindle open in her lap and now it slid to the floor.
“Getting gas?” she asked, glancing at John as she leaned forward to scoop the Kindle off the minivan’s floor.
John shrugged. “Might top off, I guess. We’ve still got three quarters of a tank, but I’ve gotta piss like a motherfucker thanks to the coffee I got at the last stop.”
Mary gave him an admonishing look as she sat up straight again. “John, the kids.”
“What about them?”
“You shouldn’t curse in front of them.”
John grunted. “They’re asleep.”
Mary glanced over her shoulder. He was right. Both her babies were conked out, slumped down in the back seat, with their heads tilted toward each other, nearly touching. A fleeting smile flickered on her lips, but then she remembered the circumstances and it faded.
She looked at John. “Okay, they’re asleep. You still shouldn’t talk like that around them.”
“Whatever.”
Nothing else was said as they pulled up outside a gas station. John parked at the curb in a spot directly facing the entrance to the brightly-lit store. It was almost two in the morning and there was only one other car in the lot, a beat-up old Subaru. The Subaru likely belonged to the sole night clerk on duty, who watched them with a blank expression from the other side of the counter.
John unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “Be right back.”
Mary nodded and didn’t say anything. She was still unhappy about his rude demeanor. She could also still sort of feel the imprint of his hand on her jaw from where he’d slapped her last night after one too many drinks from the minibar.
; John grunted again. “How about you work on your attitude while I’m away, eh? Nobody likes a sourpuss.”
He got out of the car and slammed the door shut.
Mary frowned as she watched him go. She was upset and worried about too many things. The slap was the first time John had laid a hand on her in anger in almost five years. She’d thought that unpleasantness at least had been permanently relegated to the past, but apparently she’d been wrong. Her emotions were in wild conflict. She couldn’t put up with that kind of behavior, but the thought of doing something about it was too overwhelming in the wake of all that had happened over the last few days. What she needed was some time to think about it all and get some fresh perspective.
But before that she needed rest and a lot of it.
She’d just started dozing again when she heard the deep voice speaking to her left. “Guy’s an asshole. I think we can all agree on that.”
Though she was on the verge of sleep, Mary understood that this was no voice from a dream. Some stranger was in the car, ensconced behind the steering wheel. Her eyes opened wide in alarm as her head swiveled toward the voice.
She screamed.
The stranger seated behind the steering wheel had skin that looked freshly scalded, pink and blistered all over. His head was twice the size of a normal human head and had an elongated, pointed chin. Horn-like stubs protruded from the sides of his forehead. Large flaps of leathery flesh rested against the creature’s broad, muscular shoulder. Their fine, membranous tissue made them look sort of like wings.
The creature chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. They are wings. I’m a demon, you see. From Hell. For real.”
Mary stared at him in open-mouthed disbelief for a moment.
Then she screamed again. Surprisingly, the sleeping children did not stir.
The creature’s deep sigh was accompanied by an odor like sulfur. “Please don’t do that. It’s pointless. I’m not here to harm you or your children.”
Mary shrank back against the door. Her whole body was shaking. “You’re not real. This is a dream.”
The creature shook its head. “Except it isn’t. And you know it.”
Mary stared at the creature for another long, silent moment. She glanced at the store and saw no sign of John in the brightly-lit interior. He was probably still in the bathroom, either pissing away all the coffee he’d thrown back tonight or asleep on the toilet. Her gaze shifted back to the creature. She’d half-expected it to vanish the moment her gaze was averted, revealed after all as a lingering wisp of something carried over from a nightmare.
But the thing was still there.
“You’re real.”
The demon scratched a long black talon along the edge of its pointed chin and looked thoughtful. “I am, yes.”
“So why are you here? How are you here?”
She was amazed by how calm her voice sounded. By all rights, she should still be screaming and squealing with terror. Whether the thing next to her was real should still be an open question. Demons didn’t exist. She’d always believed this. They were mythological things, bits of lore leftover from a less enlightened age. A more logical explanation for what she was seeing would be that she’d suffered some kind of psychotic break and was hallucinating.
The creature’s thin, blackened lips stretched in a manner suggestive of a smile, revealing black, diseased-looking gums and rows of long, crooked teeth. “I’m able to appear to you here because the area surrounding the interstate exit your husband took tonight happens to be adjacent to an actual, physical portal to Hell, one of only a handful on earth.”
“You’re kidding.”
The creature’s sickly smile stretched wider. “I’m not. And you’re not hallucinating.”
Mary thought about that a moment.
She glanced again at the store. Still no sign of John.
She looked at the creature. Still there.
“What do you want with me?”
The creature scratched his chin with a long talon again. “I’m here to tell you something. A revelation. Information you can use, as they say. And to offer a solution to your problem.”
Mary frowned. “What problem?”
The creature indicated the convenience store with a tilt of his chin. “The one squatting on a toilet in there. Your husband. Who, by the way, is taking a while because he’s busy jerking off while thinking about your sister.”
Mary shook her head. “You can’t know that.”
The creature chuckled. “Except that I do. He thinks about Karen every time he has sex with you.”
Mary flinched at the mention of her sister’s name.
The creature sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you. You just seemed to need extra convincing.”
Mary glared at the demon, getting angry now. “Is that the information you were talking about?” She laughed harshly, the sound devoid of actual mirth. “Because I don’t care what John thinks about when we have sex, which we hardly ever do anymore, by the way. I don’t think I even love him anymore.”
The creature chuckled. “Be honest, Mary. You know you don’t love him anymore.”
Mary said nothing to that.
The creature nodded. “As I thought. And to answer your question, no, that’s not the information you need.”
Mary sighed. “So how about you just spill it? I’m tired and I’ve got no interest in guessing games.”
The creature tilted its head, the twist of its strange mouth now looking more like a smirk than a smile. “Making demands of a creature from Hell, are you? Gosh, you are far ballsier than your husband believes.”
Mary groaned in frustration.
The demon chuckled again, but when it next spoke, its tone was unexpectedly somber. “Your husband has fantasies of killing you and your children. Very vivid, very bloody fantasies.”
Mary frowned, trying to gauge from the set of the creature’s strange, distorted features whether he was telling her something that might be true or was just fucking with her. The latter felt like a distinct possibility. After all, this thing was a demon and thus a servant of the devil, the so-called father of lies.
John was an imperfect man. She wasn’t naïve. He’d abused her in the past and now, after a long period of more or less behaving himself, he’d demonstrated a capacity for doing it again. He’d let her have one across the face while he was in his cups and frustrated. There was no denying the wrongness of that, regardless of excuse. But thinking he could go from that to butchering his entire family was quite a leap. Despite his flaws, she thought John loved his children too much to harm them. And she had no good reason to trust this…thing.
“Are you wondering why you should trust me?”
Mary arched an eyebrow, mistrust evident in every line of her face. “There’s no way I can trust you. You’re a demon. By definition, you’re evil. And evil things lie.”
The creature laughed softly. “You’re smart. Far smarter than John knows or deserves. And despite your agnosticism, those old Sunday school lessons have stuck with you. You require proof that I’m telling the truth.”
Mary nodded. “Yes. And I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“When you were a child, you went into your sleeping brother’s room and held a pillow over his face until he gagged. He mumbled your name in his sleep. You got spooked and ran out of the room. You were five-years-old and you’ve barely thought of it since then because the memory understandably troubles you, but if your little brother hadn’t uttered your name, you might have suffocated him that night.”
Mary’s heart pounded in her chest.
She gaped at the demon, unable to breathe for a moment.
The creature nodded. “See? I know things.”
Mary sucked in a big breath and blew it right back out. “But…how can you know that? Nobody knows that. I’ve never told a soul.”
The creature’s smirk deepened. “Hello? Fucking demon over here. I can possess humans who c
ome within range of the portal. This allows me to know things. I briefly possessed you and your husband after you left the interstate. For mere moments, mind you, but it was long enough for me to know all your deepest, darkest secrets. The one about your brush with childhood murder is a doozy, granted, but it’s an anomaly in your life. You never did anything like that again. And you were just a small child. You were jealous of the attention your baby brother was getting and you didn’t know how to deal with it. John, on the other hand…”
The creature shrugged.
A silent beat passed.
Mary huffed an impatient breath. “What about him?”
The creature’s smirk faded, giving way to a more serious expression. “He’s done things, Mary. Bad things. We don’t have time to detail them because John won’t be sitting on that toilet much longer, but trust me, I’m talking about some of the worst things you can imagine. They usually happen on his so-called business trips. And he thinks about doing the same things to you and your kids all the time. One day, perhaps not too far in the future, he’ll actually do those things. But there’s something you can do right now to prevent it. A choice you can make. This is where I come in.”
Mary glanced at the store.
Still no sign of John. The bored clerk at the counter was paging slowly through a porn magazine.
She looked at the demon. “What kind of choice?”
And now the creature smiled again. “You can choose to do nothing. I’ll vanish before John returns and you and your family can return to your home and await your sadly inevitable fate. Or…” And here the demon paused to snap its fingers, a sound that made Mary cringe. It was a skeletal, graveyard rattle. “I can induce a heart attack in your husband right now. He’ll be gone and all your problems will be over. John does have a sizeable life insurance policy, you know.”
