by Glenn Rolfe
He rushed up the stairs and stumbled at the top. His palms slapped the hardwood floor. His teeth jarred in his mouth as his chin hit hard, too. Kevin moaned and pulled his knees up under him and sat on his feet. “Ow, fuck.” He rubbed his chin, and his fingers came away with blood. The phone stopped ringing, but he could see it at the end of the hall sitting on the bathroom sink.
Kevin listened to the phone ring on. “Come on, Jamey Boy, pick up, pick up.”
“Hello?”
“Jamey Boy, shoo, man, thank God it’s you.”
“What is it? Did you find something?”
Kevin strode into his bedroom. He sat down at his computer and brought up the page he’d found on German folklore. The artistic rendering of the bad motherfuckers they may or may not be dealing with stared back at him. The painting was a vision of two demons in tattered flesh, one male and one female, depicted as reflections of another couple in old-timey clothes standing before a window. The eye sockets of the demons, painted like sets of burning coals, issued a chill up Kevin’s spine.
“Did you find Alison?”
“Yeah, sort of. We went to the bed and breakfast, but the lady who runs it told us she went to my dad’s with her grandson.”
“What? What is she doing, cheating on your old man? Who is this dude she’s with?”
“I don’t think so. He works with her at the pharmacy. He’s the overnight security guy.”
“Sounds fishy, man.”
“What did you find?”
Kevin could hear the irritation in his friend’s voice and decided not to press him. “Well, where are you right now?”
“We’re on Freemont Street.”
“Are you going to your dad’s? Because if you are that might be a very bad idea.”
“Spit it out, Kevin.”
“Okay, so these two demons, or three if you count the kid they have in some of the stories, prey on weak people, people who are at the end of their rope, right?”
“Okay.”
“Well, in some of the stories I found, after they catch their target’s attention they gain access to the person…they possess them.”
“Yeah, I know. We read all of that this morning.”
“Hold on. Once they possess a person, whether it’s the she-bitch or the evil bastard with burning eyes, they will attempt to find someone for the other to latch onto.”
“So, you’re saying what exactly?”
“I’m saying that if it has your dad, it may try to get Alison next. For them to be free, they have to find hosts at the same time.”
“With how far this goes back, wouldn’t they be free already? I can imagine they would have been able to possess husbands and wives simultaneously before,”
“I don’t know. You’d think so, but if that’s what’s going on with your dad, I’d say they either never have or they did and ended up back where they started.”
“Well, did you find anything on how to stop them?”
“Yeah, I think so. In this story, a young boy and his brother noticed their mother acting different. She was sick and depressed for months, then one day she started singing and dancing around the house, but she would say horrible things and sing these horrible songs. One of the brothers knew it wasn’t right and went to a witch. The witch told him it was someone named, Domineus, or Daemonitch as how this one refers to him. She told the boy he had to catch the demon in its reflection.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Kevin continued, “you have to see the demon’s reflection, like what you saw in your kitchen window, and then you have to shatter the reflective surface.”
“And that’s it?”
“No, according to this you have to collect the shards of glass and bury them.”
“And then what? Will my dad go back to normal?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, how did it end for the kid that talked to the witch?”
Kevin didn’t want to tell him this part, but knew he had to. “It says their mother attacked them, killing the younger son before they could shatter the mirror with the demon. The older son, Gehrig, managed to finish the job. His mother slipped back into her depression and two days later hung herself.”
“So, it didn’t work, or it did?”
“The rumor is that the son missed a piece of the broken mirror somewhere, so it didn’t fully work.” Kevin waited. James had fallen silent on the other end. “You still with me?”
“Yeah,” James finally managed. “I think I need to make sure Alison’s okay.”
“Fuck that, man. Don’t you even think about heading over there with my sister.”
“I don’t think she’ll let me go alone.”
Kevin jumped up. “Fuck that, James. You’re not letting my sister go anywhere near there.”
“What if it’s like you said and Alison’s next?”
Kevin grasped his hair and paced back and forth between his door and his desk. “Can you guys wait for me?”
“We’re almost there.”
“I know. Just promise me you’ll wait until I get over there before you do anything stupid.”
“Okay, but you better hurry.”
“Look, if that pharmacy guy is with her, she should be okay, right?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, stay put. I’ll meet you guys by Ms. Hilton’s.”
“Okay. Make it fast.”
Kevin hung up. He rushed to the stairs and found Ian lacing his boots.
“Hey,” Kevin said.
“What?”
“I know you said that I had to fix the heat guard first, but do you think I could borrow the dirt bike right now?”
“What?” Ian stood.
“I need to meet James and Carrie. And I need to be there like five minutes ago. They might be in trouble.”
“Where are they?”
“At James’s house.”
“No.”
Kevin thundered down the stairs and followed his brother to the door. “Why not? You said I could use it.”
“Yeah, after you fucking fix what you broke.”
“I didn’t break it.”
“You did. Plus, you can’t ride it through the neighborhoods. The cops will fine you, which means they will fine me. Uh-uh.”
Ian was out the door.
“Can you give me a ride?” Kevin asked.
“Not going that way,” Ian said, ducking into his car. The beastly machine roared to life. Kevin watched it back out the driveway and take off.
“Well, asshole,” Kevin muttered. “I’m taking your dirt bike anyway.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What did he say?” Carrie said. She placed a hair-tie between her teeth and scooped her hair up into a ponytail.
“He said to wait for him, “James said. “He doesn’t want us going without him.”
“So, what, we have to stand here while he walks over?”
“He says he’ll be here as fast as he can.”
“James, you know Kevin’s only got two speeds, right? Slow and stop.”
“I don’t know,” James said. “He was insistent that we wait, right? Besides, if I’m not losing my mind, and this crazy shit is happening, the more people we have the better. You know, strength in numbers.”
James took a seat at the edge of Ms. Hilton’s property. He glanced back at the little blue house with the black shutters and wondered if she would come out and talk to them. He’d seen the white curtains pull back and fall when he was talking to Kevin. James had promised to mow the old woman’s yard this weekend. She always paid him seven bucks. Not much, but enough to go the movies.
Carrie squatted down next to him and took his hand in hers. “Do you think we’ll stay together when school starts back up?”
He knew this was coming, that evil voice in his head wouldn’t shut up about it. He lived in Evergreen now, almost an hour away. They would only be able to see each other on weekends, and that was if he could convince his mom to bri
ng him. Then of course, there was this fucked up situation with his dad. He prayed he was wrong. Maybe all those monster magazines and horror books he’d been reading had triggered something in his head that cranked his imagination up to ten.
“We don’t need to think about that yet,” he said. “Like Edna said, let’s just focus on right here, right now. We have the rest of the month. I don’t want to waste it looking ahead.”
She leaned in. He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her like it was one of their last–long and sweet, and full of some sort of premonition. A premonition that each kiss was numbered. That each touch, each minute together, was counting down until they had none left. Summer was like that, especially in August. Edna was right. They should enjoy it and hold onto this as close and as tight as they could while they had it.
“All right, all right, I see you over there, Mr. Curry, and you too, Miss Hurly.” Ms. Hilton stood in her doorway, her harem of cats leaking in and out of the house at her feet. “I don’t need people driving by thinking I condone such lascivious activities on my property. Now go on and git.”
James laughed. He couldn’t help it. All his emotions were in a tangled mess. Carrie covered her mouth and tried to hold it in, as well.
“Okay, okay,” Ms. Hilton said. “You’ve had your fun. Now go on.”
James got to his feet and helped Carrie up. “Sorry, Ms. Hilton, we’ll behave. We’re just waiting for a friend.”
“The mower is out back if you want to do something more productive with your time, Mr. Curry.”
“I know. I’ll get to it tomorrow, for sure.”
“Tomorrow. You kids put everything off for tomorrow. Video games and television. Humph, when I was your age I was splitting time working in the strawberry fields or raking in all day out in the blueberry fields. Earning my keep and keeping my hands busy with hard work.”
“Okay, well, I’ll keep my word. Be over first thing in the morning to mow this for you. You have a good afternoon.” He could hear her mumbling on about idle hands before she started talking to her cats. “Shall we?”
“I thought we were going to wait for my brother?”
“Well, he’s got until we get to the bottom of the hill. Besides, if we stay here I think you’ll get me into all kinds of trouble.”
Carrie grinned and bit her bottom lip. He loved it when she looked at him like this. Hold on tight. Enjoy the moment. And that’s exactly what he did. He put his arm around her and kissed her. He wondered if, like the days, the kisses would get shorter. Summer was meant for young lovers, but like a line in a book he read last year, nothing gold could stay.
The sound of the dirt bike, Kevin’s brother’s dirt bike, rang out through the neighborhood.
They stood and met him at the edge of the lawn.
The bike sputtered and stalled, and Kevin got off the seat and dropped it to the ground.
“I made it,” he said. “Now, we can go.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Domineus let Alison get acquainted with Sanikus. He sensed his demon bride’s worry that they wouldn’t have enough time to ruin her, but he was never surprised at just how fragile people were. Nothing broke them with such haste as when they were forced to bear witness to the murder of someone they cared about. He had grown quite fond of watching them wilt and crumble beneath his sins.
This woman was no different. In a sense, she had seen two men she cared about die within minutes of one another. It was beautiful.
He stood; watching Sanikus working on the woman now. Her hands moved to her breasts. Despite every urge in his body telling him to join her, he closed the bathroom door. The possession of a soul was an intimate endeavor, and besides, there was a body to dispose of in the other room.
Jason’s blood was soaked into the carpet. Domineus covered the top half of the man in a hefty bag from under the kitchen sink and carried the body down to the back bedroom at the other end of the trailer. He paused on his way back down the hall. On the other side of the bathroom door, Alison’s moans made him hard. Grinning, he continued.
His host had worked as a runner for a hardware store, a profession that often found him delivering equipment, lumber, flooring, and carpet. Having access to Richie’s memories, the demon could see that he’d prided himself at being the quickest at tearing up the old shit, uncovering years of grotesque, forgotten stains and ancient dust, and discovering the most disgusting dirty bugs.
Domineus hauled the furniture from the living room and into the kitchen. The coffee table and the couch went first, followed by the recliner and the television and television stand.
He had the rug half torn up when he heard the crunching of gravel and many hushed voices. He grabbed the quilt from the sofa in the kitchen and threw it over the syrupy blood puddle where Jason’s body had been. He glanced through the blinds and saw the son, James and his friends–the big one and the pretty young thing–approaching.
It was too soon. He needed Sanikus before they went for the child.
Leaving the window, he headed for his room to get dressed when he realized he was still covered in blood. They were closer. He could almost make out what was being said. He turned back and stared at the tarnished chain lock hanging by the front door. It wasn’t much, but it would buy them time. Crouched to the floor, he scurried to the door, turned the lock on the silver door knob, and then snatched the chain and slid it into place.
The front steps creaked.
The boy and his friends were just on the other side.
Slinking away, Domineus secured the back door, as well.
He had no choice but to barge in on Alison’s initiation. He eased the door open ready for anything. Alison lay slumped against the tub, her pink panties around her ankles. The smell of her sex filled the empty spaces. She could be dead, but he knew better. A seeker’s gift took every ounce of energy and left its victim completely drained and satisfied. Dead girls didn’t lie with such smiles caked to their faces.
Stepping over her, he turned on the shower, and climbed in. Red-tinged water ran to the drain. He scrubbed at the hardening crimson splatter maps that clung to him. A quick tousling of his hair beneath the damn near scalding water was enough. He shut it off, snagged a towel from the cabinet above the toilet, and dripped his way out the door and into bedroom.
Tossing on the first shirt and pants he could find, he heard the front door catch against the chain lock.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“What the hell?” James backed away from the door. “The chain lock is never on there.” He placed his face up to the door. “What the…”
“What is it?” Kevin’s meaty paw landed upon his shoulder.
“The furniture is all outta whack and the carpet’s torn up.” Why would his dad lock the door to tear up the place? Who knew what the hell he’d been doing since he went to Kevin’s.
“Shhh.”
Kevin’s excited breathing in his ear was drowning out his mind.
He angled his ear to the six-inch opening and listened. If Alison’s car wasn’t parked out in the driveway he might be able to walk away and come back later, but if there was any truth to this mirror demon, he couldn’t leave without being sure.
“Dad? Are you there? Alison?”
Footfalls approached. James shot up and backed away.
Kevin and Carrie moved with him.
“Oh, hey James, I didn’t expect you home so soon.”
Through the crack in the door he could see his father’s hair was wet. The thought that his father and Alison may have been “making up” burrowed to the front of his mind.
“Yeah, I was just…Alison called me yesterday and told me you guys had a fight.”
His father’s face appeared in the opening, yet he did not remove the chain. “Yeah, we had it out pretty good. She came back this morning to work it out and, well, you could say we’ve been working the demons out of each other all afternoon.”
James wanted to throw up in his mouth. He couldn’t believe h
is dad would say something like that in front of his friends, or hell, even to him. The way his dad’s one eye seemed to be leering over his shoulder, directly at Carrie as he said it, only made it worse.
“Oh, okay, ah, I just wanted to make sure you were both okay and grab…my…”
“Your Universal Monsters DVD collection.” Kevin finished his lie.
“Yeah, do you think I can just slip down to my room–”
“No.” His father cut him off. “That is…Alison’s really worn out and I have a few projects that I started last night to finish up. You should stay at… Kevin’s for one more night. That okay with you, Big Kev?”
Big Kev?
“Sure, Mr. Curry,” Kevin said.
“Um, okay,” James said, “but can I just grab that DVD set real–”
“Jesus Christ, James. You can grab your fake fucking monster movies tomorrow.”
James was startled by the explosion. He took another step back and felt Carrie grab tight to his side.
“Listen,” his father said. “It’s a mess in here, and I’d rather you and your friends stay outside until I get things back together. Okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. That’s, that’s fine.”
Carrie took his hand.
“I guess…I’ll be back in the morning.”
“That’s good. That’s real good. I’ve got some more groveling and grinding to do to make things up to Alison.” His father tilted his face so that James could clearly see both eyes. He winked. “Maybe you should try getting that pretty young thing behind you pissed off.” A crooked grin dressed his face behind the chain lock. “The sooner you learn the incentive of make-up sex the better.”
“Dad!”
“You kids have fun,” he said slamming the door.
James spun to face Carrie and said, “I’m so sorry”.
She pulled his hand. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Dude, what the fuck was that?” Kevin said.
“I don’t know, man. He’s been getting more and more like this. Just being weird and saying and doing shit he shouldn’t be saying and doing in front of me.” He wanted to tell them about that night in Boston, but he held back. Some things were too personal. “Anyways, I don’t like it one bit. This whole thing is screwed up.”
