by Dan Wells
‘So you really just want to talk about demons,’ he said, nodding. ‘Okay. Demons. Well, the Bible teaches that demons are fallen angels who were cast out of heaven with Satan. So presumably a demon would look exactly like us. They’re just regular people who made really, really, really bad choices.’
‘So no horns or pitchforks or stuff like that?’
He chuckled. ‘Not as far as I know.’
‘I wanted to . . .’ I paused. Now that the ice was broken I wanted to ask about Pastor Olsen, to see if there was anything Father Erikson knew that could help me find the demon. But there was something wrong with the things he was saying – something that bugged me. I had to ask him.
‘How can you believe in something like demons and not worry about them?’ I asked. ‘It’s like knowing there’s a wolf outside that wants to kill you, and you don’t care. That doesn’t make any sense at all.’
‘It’s because I also believe in God, and I believe that God is stronger.’
‘God didn’t protect Pastor Olsen,’ I said.
He paused, watching me closely.
‘Bad things happen every day,’ he said slowly. ‘Every hour; every minute. I had two hundred people in my congregation today, and I know that bad things are going to happen to each and every one of them. Statistics say that one of those two hundred will get into a car accident this month. Five of them will be unemployed by the end of the year, maybe more if the mill keeps losing business. Half of them will have cancer sometime in their lives. But even knowing all of that, I still gave them a sermon of hope this morning, and I still let them walk out that door to face the world.’
‘But how could that possibly help?’ I asked. ‘You want to talk statistics, we’ve had three serial killers in town over the last year. At the rate they’re killing, someone in your congregation is almost guaranteed to be killed by one – almost guaranteed. What’s his family going to say? “The priest could have saved him, but instead he yakked about hope for a while. Thank goodness”.’
‘I’m a pastor, not a policeman,’ he said. ‘We all have different jobs, and we all help where we can. Now, I don’t know the first thing about serial killers, or tracking down criminals, or anything like that; I don’t even know first aid, if I were to find a victim on the street. But I’m a very good teacher, and a very good leader, and I can serve this community best by staying in that role.’ He shifted, leaning forward. ‘Do you have any idea how much our church attendance has increased over the last year? How many more people are donating to the poor, or volunteering for service projects? Trials bring people together. The killers come and go but the community will always be here, and people will always need to eat, and they’ll always need homes and jobs and someone to rely on. There is a wolf out there, like you said, but some of us are hunters and some of us are shepherds. Working together is the only way to keep the sheep safe.’
He leaned back and folded his hands in his lap. ‘I’m going to guess that you’re a hunter.’
I stared back, suddenly nervous.
‘That’s fine,’ he continue. ‘We need hunters. We need protectors. But we need everyone else, too. No one can do it all on their own.’
We sat in silence a minute. I had no idea what to say next. I was thrown off, completely lost. I struggled for words.
‘I’m hunting him right now,’ I said, ‘for an article in the paper, like I told you before, and I need your help. You were a friend of Pastor Olsen’s. Can you tell me anything that might help catch his killer? Anything at all?’
He mumbled, tripping over his words. ‘I-I’m not sure . . .’
‘Anything you know will help,’ I said quickly. ‘What was he doing that day? Why was he in his church that night? Had he ever had any threatening phone calls or visits? The Handyman comes from Georgia – did Pastor Olsen have any ties there? There’s got to be something we can use to find the one who did this.’
‘I didn’t mean for you to become a hunter literally,’ said Erikson. ‘I meant that you’re obviously concerned and eager to help, and that’s great, honestly – but you’re just a kid. Don’t do anything dangerous.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said, feeling a lie spring easily to life. ‘This is just a journalism thing – I get school credit. Anything you tell me will go straight back to the paper, and they’re the ones who’ll follow up on it.’
He watched me, saying nothing.
‘I swear,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to do anything dangerous.’
‘Give me your number,’ he said at last. ‘If I think of anything, I’ll call you.’
Marci Jensen lived in an old yellow house in downtown Clayton, just a block off of Main Street. This was the oldest neighbourhood in town, and everything was tall – the houses bore high, gabled roofs, and the ancient trees stretched their branches even higher above that. The sidewalks were dark and cracked, and buckled in erratic peaks where the tree roots crept under and shoved them up. A police car sat along the kerb. I leaned my bike against the low wrought-iron fence and walked to her door, passing narrow strips of overgrown garden and rugged yellow grass that probably never saw much sun. It felt like a cottage in the woods, a place where life crept in and on and around until it was a part of everything else.
The porch was old and weathered, and the front door was open behind a loosely-latched screen. I knocked.
Footsteps pounded inside and a scruffy-looking kid, maybe twelve years old, emerged into the hall from a side room. The noise of a TV wafted out from the back of the house. I opened my mouth to say something, but instead he turned and shouted, ‘Marci! Someone’s here for you!’ Before he’d even finished yelling he was gone, back into the recesses of the house.
There was an answering yell from upstairs, indistinct and feminine, and a vague clatter of doors and stairs. A pair of younger children, a boy and a girl who looked like twins, peeked out at me from another side door. I guessed they were four or five.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ said the girl. The boy picked his nose.
‘I’m here to see Marci,’ I said, by way of explanation.
‘You’re not the guy that was here Saturday,’ said the boy.
‘Of course not,’ said the girl. ‘Marci has lots of boyfriends. She has more boyfriends than me, and I have five.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Five boyfriends?’
‘Tyson and Logan and Ethan and another boy from the bus who I don’t know.’
‘That’s four,’ I said, smiling.
‘I’m four,’ said the boy quickly, holding up four fingers.
‘And Daddy,’ said the girl. ‘That’s my other boyfriend. And Sheriff Meier. Is that five?’
‘Close enough,’ I said, nodding.
Footsteps crashed down the stairs and Marci came into the hall. She was wearing denim shorts, the really short kind that Mom called Daisy Dukes, and a short-sleeved flannel shirt. Her long black hair was tied up in a ponytail that bounced just slightly as she walked. She smiled, coming towards me with her thumbs hooked into her pockets, and suddenly the house that just seconds ago had been dark and old was now ‘comfortable’ and ‘rustic’. It was something in the way she moved, and the way she carried herself. She made everything around her look better.
‘Wow,’ I said.
‘You like it?’ she asked, spreading her arms and looking down at her outfit. ‘I got these shorts online: guess how much.’
‘I’m the world’s worst judge of clothing value,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘There’s really no point in guessing.’
‘Just give it a shot,’ she said, opening the door and stepping onto the porch.
‘Somewhere between five and five hundred dollars.’
She laughed. ‘Yeah, I think maybe we scratch clothing value off the list of potential conversation topics.’
‘I’m only bad with monetary value, though,’ I said. ‘I can still appreciate the look.’
‘But the price is the whole point,’ she said, walking around to the driveway an
d standing up a bike that leaned against the house. ‘Anyone can buy nice clothes, but I was the one who found them for an unbelievable deal. Well,’ she stopped, sticking out her hip and posing, ‘I also make them look fabulous. You ready to go?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘My bike’s out here. We’re going to the lake?’
‘I hope that’s okay,’ said Marci, walking her bike out to the street. ‘I know we found a body there and everything, but the weather’s great, and I want to get as much bike-riding done as I can before school starts again. And apparently all the dead bodies are at churches these days, so we should be fine.’
Wow, I thought, she’s a lot more casual about the deaths than I expected. Must be the cop in the family.
‘Fine with me.’ I hopped up on my bike and let her lead the way, coasting out into the road. I pedalled a bit to catch up. ‘I didn’t know you were into riding.’
‘I’m not a racer or anything,’ she said, ‘but I love to ride. And hike. Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky we are to live here.’
I almost laughed. ‘You’re kidding. Clayton?’
‘I love Clayton,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a lake, a forest, miles of trails and roads; if we could do something about the life expectancy we’d be in paradise.’
‘I suppose you’ve got a point,’ I said, following as she turned towards the lake road. We rode casually, barely pedalling, and I lifted up my head to look at the sun. It was bright and warm, and the air smelled like cut grass. I usually just used my bike to go places – to school, or to the library, or to the burned-out warehouse outside of town. I never just rode it for fun.
We reached the main lake road, leading out past a mechanic shop towards the wooded lake beyond. Marci pulled ahead, flipping into high gear and standing on the pedals to build up speed. I pushed hard to catch up, and the wind brushed past my face like a cool curtain. Marci was very fast, and watching her legs pump up and down I realised she was probably in much better shape than I was. It also convinced me that being a few bike-lengths behind wasn’t really that bad of a place to be.
I used to have rules about watching girls: I simply never allowed myself to do it. I’ve lived half of my life in constant fear of my own thoughts – of my own darker nature that lurked inside, eager to snap up any lead I gave it and overpower me completely. I had dreams about killing my friends and family; I had fantasies, day and night, about catching and binding and torturing the people I met on the street. I’d even fantasised about embalming Marci. There was something inside of me that longed for blood and pain, not because it liked them but because it couldn’t be satisfied by anything less. I didn’t feel normal emotions in the same way as other people; things like love and kindness were foreign to me, while harsher feelings like hate and fear and envy were all too close to the surface. If I wanted to feel a powerful emotional experience, violence was pretty much the only way I could do it – so allowing myself to become attached to a girl was, rather obviously, a bad idea.
Brooke had gotten a glimpse of that side of me, locked away in Forman’s house a few months ago. I didn’t hurt her, but she knew. We hadn’t spoken since.
But the thing was, now that I was a real demon hunter, everything was different. My dark side had a safe outlet, and my dreams at night were heroic tales of John the Conqueror, slaying all the dark things of the world – and if I enjoyed the slaying a little more than necessary, well, that was my right. It didn’t hurt anyone but the demons, and hurting them was the whole point. Along with that change I’d let go of many of my rules, allowing myself for the first time to enjoy my life – to talk to people, to hunt demon, to look at girls. I was free.
Slowly, carefully, I let go of the handlebars and spread my arms wide. Marci glanced back, saw me, and did the same, whooping with exhilaration as we hurtled down the road. I closed my eyes and felt the wind on my face, sharp with danger and excitement. The town disappeared behind us, the wilderness rose up before us, and the road carried us headlong to nowhere.
Chapter 5
‘How’d your date go?’
‘Fine.’
It was the next morning, and I was trying to eat my breakfast in peace. Mom, on the other hand, was being a mom.
‘What’d you guys do?’
‘We just went out,’ I said. ‘It was nothing.’ Which was true – it really was nothing. We’d ridden around on our bikes for a while, which was fun enough, I guess, but it’s hard to carry on much of a conversation while you’re twenty feet apart on a bike trail. That was fine with me, because I’m horrible at talking to people, but Marci had probably been bored out of her mind.
‘Well, it’s not nothing,’ said Mom. She was standing in the hall, holding a curling iron to her hair while I ate a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. ‘You’ve never gone out with her before, so that’s got to be something.’
‘I’ve barely ever gone out with anybody before,’ I said.
‘So it’s even more of a something. You took your bike instead of the car: did you go bike riding somewhere?’
‘I actually didn’t ride it at all. I walked it all the way to her house, and then left it on her porch.’
‘Don’t be a smart aleck.’
‘And then,’ I continued, ‘since I didn’t have a car, I had to carry her everywhere we went.’
Mom smiled. ‘Well, at least it wasn’t a total loss.’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean, “what?” I know a hot babe when I see one.’
‘I really don’t need to hear that kind of comment from my mom.’
She ducked back around the corner to the bathroom, and I sighed in relief and ate some more cereal. A moment later she re-emerged, the curling iron wrapped up in a different lock of hair.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Seriously, Mom, how long is that cord? I thought the kitchen would be a safe place to eat breakfast this morning.’
‘I plugged it in here in the hall,’ she said. ‘It’s just long enough to reach the kitchen and the bathroom if I walk back and forth.’
‘Well, that’s wonderful.’
‘So you went bike riding, then,’ she said. ‘Just around town? Out in the forest trails somewhere?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We went out to Forman’s place.’
Her face twisted: eyes widening, nostrils flaring. It was her ‘shocked’ face, with a dash of ‘confused’. ‘Really?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, ‘but the face you just made almost makes this conversation worth it.’
‘John . . .’
‘It’s still not worth it, but it almost was.’
‘To the lake then,’ she said, plunging onward. She was tenacious this morning. ‘It’s wonderful weather for the lake. Did you go swimming?’
‘We went skinny dipping.’
‘Can you please just answer a simple question without the attitude?’ She stepped back around the corner again. I thought I’d get a moment of respite, but she kept talking, shouting from the bathroom. ‘It may surprise you to know this, but there are children – some of them teenage boys, just like you – who actually carry on open, honest conversations with their mothers.’
‘I find it very hard to believe that there are other teenage boys just like me.’ I finished my cereal and stood up. ‘I also find it a little terrifying.’
She came back around the corner, having readjusted the curler again. Her face was no longer playful. ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to talk about anything uncomfortable.’
I walked past her into the living room. ‘Finally something we agree on. Let’s stop talking right now.’ I turned on the TV. I could probably still catch most of the morning news.
‘Come on, John,’ she said. ‘I’m just asking how things went on your date. I want to be involved in your life.’ I ignored her and flipped through the channels. ‘The cord reaches in here even better than the kitchen,’ she said. ‘We can keep talking.’
‘We can,’ I said, ‘but we can also stop. That’s called “freedom of choice”
.’
‘You know, I was really getting to like the fact that we didn’t watch the news during every single meal any more—’ She stopped abruptly, caught by the news footage. It had caught me at the same moment, and we stared at it. ‘That’s City Hall.’
‘Yeah.’
There was a reporter at Clayton’s City Hall, talking intently to the camera while several policemen milled around behind her, armed and edgy. In the background, parked right in front of the steps, was an ambulance with flashing lights, and near it a swarm of paramedics clustered around something on the ground. I caught a glimpse of Ron, the Coroner, standing with them. Someone was dead.
‘Turn it up,’ Mom said softly.
