Drifter- Aimless Wanderer

by George Fry

  Pushing the lid off, Amanda felt a sickening mixture of relief and dread upon viewing its contents.

  “Abby…? What the heck are you doing in here?“

  Her stomach was throbbing, something was amiss. Why did Anderson feel the need to store her sister in a casket, locked away from the rest of the world? And what was the strange vial sitting inside, next to her slumbering body?

  Suddenly, her sister awoke, staring into the distance in a daze.

  “Abby? You okay?”

  “Ammy? Is it done? Am I a demon?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “I’m cold… so cold…”

  “Abby? Hey, Abby! Look at me!”

  “...cold and pain… why…?”

  Despite her cries, Amanda’s sister didn’t react. Her mind was completely absent. She continued mumbling to herself until she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Where am I…?” She whimpered. “I can’t feel… I’m so empty… it’s numb…”

  Amanda backed away, as her sister struggled to breathe. She grabbed at her chest, as her body began to convulse violently.

  She wanted nothing more than to help her sister, but it was far too late. Her skin was peeling, her muscles expanded and contracted unnaturally, her body was transforming against her will, as she began leaking substances from every orifice. She wasn’t even conscious anymore, not even acknowledging her Amanda’s presence.

  As her body continued to contort, she became unrecognisable, a distorted mockery of the human form, rotting like a zombie.

  Amanda was left in tears, helpless to stop her sister’s grotesque metamorphosis.

  “What in God’s name did he do to you…?”

  “Holy hell, that was easy.” Dale cheered, having successfully followed Anderson to his home undetected.

  The cult leader's house was situated just outside the main city, in a forest near the motorway. Dale quickly hid in the shadow of the trees as Anderson looked around, confused by the sudden yelling he heard.

  Unable to ascertain its origin, he left his car and headed towards his front door. Dale waited for Anderson to enter his home before leaping over his metal fence and sneaking through his garden.

  The house wasn’t particularly interesting, it was large, but certainly not mansion sized, but it’s location gave it an air of exclusivity.

  Waiting for the noise in the house to die down, Dale bided his time until an opportunity to search the place finally arrived. After ten or so minutes, he finally found his chance.

  “Fuck me, he’s finally settling down. Next time I’ll just rush the guy and steal what I can while he’s knocked out, I can’t stand waiting around like this.”

  After waiting so patiently, Dale couldn’t afford to just break in so crudely, he needed to be more sly. He quickly noticed the tree leaning over the house behind him. Its branches looked strong enough to support a person and were close enough to the house that perhaps, they could serve as a route inside.

  Dale jumped onto the branch and examined the upper window, expecting it to be locked, but was pleased to find that it had been left open.

  “Is this a trap, or is he stupid? Let’s find out.”

  Diving through the window, Dale landed inside the darkened room with no problems. However, he felt an eerie presence inside. He treaded carefully, making little to no noise, as two silhouettes emerged from the darkness, from either side of the window, maces in hand.

  The shadows swung their steel clubs, only for Dale to draw his blade and with a quick turn, slash straight through them, leaving their spiked balls castrated.

  “You two must be confident to just leave the window open like that.”

  With their weapons cut short the shadows were hesitant to make another move.

  “Look, if you just leave, I won’t hurt you, alright?”

  The shadows threw away their desecrated rods and resorted to using their fists.

  He may not have had Drifter’s destructive force, but Dale’s speed was more than enough to overwhelm his two assailants.

  Ducking underneath their swinging fists, Dale uppercutted the first shadow in their jaw. One punch was enough to slam the creature against the wall, knocking them out. As he thought, they were mere guard dogs, peons he could handle easily.

  Dale quickly dealt with the second demon, who was too awestruck by his partner’s defeat to guard himself. With blinding speed, Dale dug his fist into the demon’s gut, rendering it unable to fight.

  Though proud of handily defeating two opponents at once, without resorting to killing, his victory was far from perfect.

  “Dammit… that made a lot of noise. Better look around as much as I can before the old man shows up.”

  Dale rummaged through the room, looking through drawers, closets and even under the bed, but found nothing of worth. There was a laptop, but his hacking skills were severely lacking.

  “ ‘You have inputted the wrong password too many times. Please restart the computer to try again.’

  What… oh fuck off!”

  Having no luck with the computer, Dale frantically searched the room again. Looking under the bed.

  “There’s got to be something in here? Anything? Besides… ew.”

  He pulled out something soft, slithery and rotten.

  “...dirty old man socks…”

  He sighed in exasperation, staring into the abyss underneath the bed.

  “Am I dumb… or have I not thought this through?”

  “Both.”

  “Uh oh.”

  Dale banged his head under the bed in fright, before jumping to his feet. Anderson, still in his robes, was leering at him through the doorway.

  Although he panicked for a moment, Dale quickly regained his composure.

  “Well, damn. Guess I’ve been caught.” He sarcastically admitted, throwing his arms up in surrender.

  “What are you doing in my house?” Anderson calmly, but firmly asked.

  “Looking for an autograph?”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Okay, I found God and I’ve come to repent for my sins. How’s that sound?”

  “I’m afraid you've strayed too far to repent now, boy.”

  “Oh geez, am I in trouble?”

  “You must be rather confident in yourself to mock me to my face. I would suggest you take this more seriously.”

  “I bet you feel pretty big when you stand on that stage, preaching to your little army. But, strip all that away and you’re just another weak old man, with horrible fashion sense.”

  “Is there a point to your rambling?”

  Dale suddenly rushed the old preacher, slamming him to the floor, in the hallway.

  “Get some sleep, old man.”

  With the old preacher knocked out, Dale took this opportunity to search him, eventually coming across his wallet.

  “Fuck yeah, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Dale opened the wallet, but found nothing other than a single credit card.

  “Really, that’s it? Not even some spare change?”

  Distracted by the wallet, Dale failed to notice Anderson, pulling himself up, his eyes glowing a monstrous red. Before he knew it, Anderson’s arm burst out of his robe, expanding to the width of a tree trunk, as it stretched forward, completely overwhelming Dale, shoving him back with his massive claw.

  Anderson’s arm forced Dale into the bedroom, his claws clinging to the wall, holding Dale securely within his grip, as the card Dale was holding, the only useful item he could find, flew out the window.

  “Goddammit! No! What the hell is this!?”

  The priest slowly crept into the room.

  “You arrogant child. You dare underestimate the power of the demon’s messenger!?”

  “What the fuck!? You were a demon!?”

  “Not quite. I have been blessed with demonic power, a gift from their King, to gather followers for demonkind.”

  “There's a Demon King!? Who!?”

  “That informat
ion would be wasted on you.”

  Dale unsheathed his blade, stabbing Anderson in his massive arm, but without any room to manoeuvre he could only leave a deep stab wound, incapable of freeing himself.

  “You little vermin!” Anderson cried from the pain. “For breaking into my home, assaulting my guards, insulting my power and for harming my very being. I will make you suffer.”

  “Try me, cunt!”

  Anderson’s free hand morphed as his fingers became sharp like knives. He swiped at Dale’s legs, slicing his flesh. It stung like crazy, but Anderson was far from finished, he continued hacking away, tearing through the muscle and scraping away at the bone, until Dale’s legs snapped clean off.

  Dale had never experienced such intense pain in his life, even with his demonic healing, all he could do in the face of Anderson’s relentless hacking and slashing was scream in agony, until he eventually passed out from the ordeal. Anderson retracted his arms, returning them to normal as he panted in exhaustion.

  “Now look at what you’ve made me do.” Anderson moaned.

  “I’ve used up too much demon power. Now I’ll need to extract more from that girl tomorrow.”

  He picked up the remains of Dale’s legs.

  “I’ll keep these for now, in case you get any ideas of escaping. Perhaps I’ll return them to you at some point. You could be a useful slave, or a nice backup energy resource.”

  Anderson carried the unconscious Dale to his downstairs hall, opening a door to a dark room, chucking the body inside, like dead weight. He took one look at the garbage bin in his kitchen and promptly dumped Dale’s legs in with the rest of the trash.

  “Or, perhaps not.”

  Chapter 10: Confronting daemonism

  ✽✽✽

  “Man, fuck cultists…” Drifter sighed to himself as he left the cathedral. “Why the hell are these guys so active all of a sudden? They couldn’t have been around for longer than a few months…”

  People like Anderson and his group were a massive headache for Drifter. He hated wasting time debating. He was a man of action, not words. Trying to consider all the minute details and nuance of their ideology was soul draining.

  “They can worship demons all they want, but it won’t save them from the real monsters out there.”

  Drifter suddenly spotted a woman, wearing a familiar beanie, exiting the off-licence, smoking a cigarette, looking like she just crawled out of bed.

  “Those things will kill you, you know.” Drifter commented.

  “Fuck off.” The woman replied, before freezing in place at the sight of Drifter.

  “Fuck you, too.”

  Catherine was taken aback, she never expected to run into Drifter again so soon.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Drifter took note of the poor state she was in. Her clothes were dirty, her jacket was practically sagging off her and her eyes were baggy.

  “You crawl out of a meth lab?”

  “Funny.”

  “In a detached sort of way, yeah. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Why do you care? Is this about Locke?”

  “It wasn’t, but sure. Tell me about Locke.”

  “I’ve been hiding out in the Demon World, but I followed Locke back here to stock up on food.”

  “And cigarettes?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not used to living in the Demon World. It’s hard to relax when there are no beds, or shelter, or anything but the cold dirt to sleep on.

  It’s not exactly fun, living in the depressing silence of a dead world, especially when that silence is broken and you’re suddenly thrown into a battle for your life against some monster.

  I was only there for a day and I’m already a wreck! I couldn’t even change my clothes!”

  “Do demons even need clothes?”

  “Not every demon has a freaky exoskeleton, stupid!”

  “Alright! No need to fucking shout!”

  Catherine glared with Drifter glaring back.

  “This is your fault, you know!” She accused.

  Drifter was flabbergasted, unsure of what she meant.

  “If you hadn’t shown up, I’d still be living a normal human life! I’d still have a home… and food… and family…”

  “I don’t… remember hurting your family...”

  “Of course not. That’s what’s so annoying! You’re not even aware of the damage you cause! You just run away from it!”

  “Hold the fuck up! You’re the one who ran away!”

  “Because you’d kill me! Is that why you’re here!? To finish the job!?”

  “Not really…”

  “Were my grandparents not enough!?”

  “I didn’t touch your damn grandparents! I’m still not sure if they even existed!”

  “Locke told me everything! None of this would have happened if you hadn’t shown up!”

  “I didn’t kill your grandparents, retard!”

  “You’re the fucking retard! You’re responsible for their deaths and you don't even know it!”

  Drifter wasn’t sure what to think. Catherine’s anger seemed genuine, but there was still a chance she was faking it, but what reason would she have to at this point?

  He needed to test her. Reaching into his wallet he pulling out the photo from the house.

  “Here.”

  He tossed the folded picture to Catherine, landing at her feet.

  She examined the photo, puzzled.

  “Why do you have this?”

  “I can see a bandage poking out of your hat in that photo. Why? If it was taken after the crash, then your grandparents shouldn't be in it, right?”

  “Why are you asking? This is getting creepy.”

  “I’ve never seen a demon go to such lengths to pretend to be human before. Not unless they had some ulterior motive.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Catherine refused to elaborate any further.

  “Fine.” Drifter conceded, changing subjects. “So, about Locke. Is he in town?”

  “Obviously, but he got distracted by that stupid cult. Honestly, how is he supposed to free Alexander if he’s wasting time here?”

  “Wait, who?”

  “Who cares? As long as you’re around, we won’t make any progress anyway...

  Just get lost...”

  She turned her back and left, taking her photo with her.

  "And for the record." She corrected. "The bandages were for covering my horns."

  The photo seemed to calm Catherine down, clutching it tightly as she left. At this point, Drifter was starting to believe she was telling the truth, but that begged the question: How did Catherine end up here in the first place? Who was she? At the very least, there was one thing Drifter was certain of.

  “She's such a punk.”

  Drifter popped into the off-licence.

  “Why’s this place even open, anyway?”

  He took a quick look around, only to be met with the clicking of a gun’s trigger as the barrel poked into his side.

  “Hold it right there.”

  “Great, I walked into another fucking robbery…”

  “I’m no criminal, you idiot.”

  “The ginger twat? Why are you here?”

  “Caught sight of a break-in and took action. I would have arrested her, until you showed up.”

  “Neat. Can I go now?”

  “Oh no. I’ve got some questions for you. Know anything about the collapsed car park in Templar Square?”

  Officer Richard raised his gun to Drifter’s face hoping to intimidate him, but Drifter simply pushed his finger into the barrel of the gun, crunching it up like an accordion.

  “Wha-? How did-?”

  “Not much to say.” Drifter answered. “Demon showed up. I killed it. Then I left.”

  “What about all those corpses?”

  “I told those cultists to piss off, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “Cultists? Crap, so it was them...
”

  “What? Sad you can’t arrest them in case you offend their religion or something?”

  Officer Richard picked up a newspaper from the rack. The frontpage featured Anderson meeting with a Mr. Basil, with the headline: ‘Daemonism: Our Last Hope?’

  “They’ve been gaining traction recently. Nobody on the force wants to investigate them due to their demonic connections, not that we could...”

  “Well, aren’t you guys fucking useless.”

  Richard looked away in embarrassment.

  “Still, I didn’t think they were this big.”

  “Do you not keep up with the news at all?”

  “No.”

  “What do you do all day?”

  “Sleep… eat… um…….”

  “Oh, Christ…”

  Richard was starting to suspect Drifter wasn’t the terrifying engine of destruction he initially thought he was.

  “Hey, where’s the kid?”

  “The what now?”

  “The little blonde runt that follows you around.”

  Drifter shrugged.

  “What? I thought you were his guardian or something.”

  “Wow, you guys can’t even gather intel properly. I’m not the kid’s guardian, he’s just a little shit I can’t scrape off my shoe.”

  “Well, where is he?”

  “Investigating that gay cult. I didn’t care, so we went our separate ways.”

  Richard was getting suspicious. Why would the kid be interested in a demonic cult and not Drifter? Was he playing dumb or was he just dumb? Regardless, he seized this opportunity to finally investigate this forbidden organisation.

  “Drifter, are you really not planning on taking down Anderson’s cult?” The officer asked. “I thought a demon hunter like you would be the most interested in Daemonism.”

  “I’m not a demon hunter… I just fight whatever gets in my way. Taking down a famous cult would draw too much attention. The last thing I want is to have the media on my arse.”

  “What if the police took the credit instead? Would you help then?”

  "A cop offering me a bribe? How ironic.”

  “I’m trying to investigate Daemonism’s shady activities. This’ll be your reward.”

  “Sure… why not.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

  “Work sucks...”