Ryan's Suffering

by Lloyd Paulson

  There were clearly some issues with the Lesser Key of Solomon. First, all the demons had Medieval titles. Dukes. Lords. That crap didn’t exist in the actual King Solomon’s time. Those were medieval titles, not biblical titles. Ergo, they’re bullshit copies. The spells didn’t work, not because the reader performed them wrong, but because the spells were complete bullshit themselves. The entire work was a fantasy. However, that didn’t mean the legend was complete bullshit, though. Like any good lie, it probably robbed elements of the truth.

  That posited an interesting hypothesis: Is there a real Key of Solomon? Since absence of proof does not provide proof of absence, the best proof would be to try to locate it. Paul decided to attempt to do just that.

  The doorknob reached the far stop in the other direction. Paul was tense this time. He was still adamant the door was not locked. The stars were aligned.

  It had taken ten years, but he had found an actual scroll that qualified as a Key of Solomon. The owner didn’t know exactly what he had, but he didn’t want to let anyone study them in any detail. He knew it was a valuable collection of scrolls, and they had not been legitimately obtained. Pesky national treasures. Jack off academics wanted to whisk everything away, lock them up, and study them. Which is exactly what this jackass did, but no one would ever hear about it, except in the underground circles.

  It had proved difficult to get a look at the scrolls, just to determine if they were what Paul was looking for. In the end, Paul had bound him to his office chair and tied him down with phone wire and ethernet cord. Paul had used his ingenuity, strength, and multipurpose pliers and knife combination to rip four of his fingernails out of their nail beds. He also cracked, shattered and removed four of his teeth, and had bent and broken three of his toes before the gentleman in question gave up the combination to a large safe in the closet of his home office. Paul was rather amazed at the gentleman’s ability to keep his motherfucking mouth shut, given the amount of pain, motivation, and blood loss involved in the vigorous and messy interrogation.

  Surprisingly, the safe contained the largest collection of child pornography Paul had ever heard of or saw. Given the prodigious size of the collection and bizarre and sickening tastes displayed, this gentleman wasn’t a predator; he was a Predator with a capital fucking P. This perhaps explained the extreme reticence and unbelievable endurance the man had exhibited in giving up the combination to the safe.

  There were endless stacks of DVDs, but the Polaroids shocked him. Many photos were of him…and children. Naked. Doing things that only adults should know about, and even then, things most adults had never seriously contemplated as possible.

  Paul threw the photos down in disgust, and checked the scrolls. They were worth taking, so Paul gathered them up, and put them in his bag. It was only much later that he realized he had hit the jackpot in his search. Rage was clouding Paul’s mind.

  There was also a large amount of cash in the safe. Paul took that too, though that was never the point of the raid. It was not as if the owner was going to mind. He glanced back at the whimpering and quivering shit heap, and Paul shook his head in disgust. The pedophile would be dead in about twenty minutes or so, if he’s lucky, and the cops, who would arrive about 5 minutes after that would be much more interested in the other contents of the safe. They wouldn’t look for this gentleman’s killer too hard.

  Paul pulled out his multipurpose pliers and pocketknife combination again. They were getting quite a workout today. They’d need cleaning in an ultrasonic cleaner tonight.

  "I’ve seen the other contents of your safe, as I’m sure you are aware. I don’t approve."

  Even amongst hard and vicious men, there are unbreachable standards, and this man had crossed it. The cruelty would be justified. Paul originally thought the murder was an unfortunate necessity. Instead, he would be performing a justifiable public service.

  Returning his thoughts to the Mason’s bathroom door in front of him, with Sarah Mason tantalizingly just beyond, there was just no fucking way was this fucking door locked.

  Paul pushed on the door. The goddamned door did not open.

  Nonplussed, Paul pushed on the door again. The stupid fucking door still did not open for him.

  He turned the handle slightly harder, and felt a slight click, as though the latch had hung up slightly on the striker plate. He felt himself relax.

  Coming up flaming triple sevens across the reels. Jackpot baby. He had to admit it, though. He was sweating bullets for a minute there. However, when you’re on, you’re on. That’s how you fuck the house. Knowing when to bet the farm, and this had been that time. Nevertheless, he had been wondering there for a minute.

  Sarah could be out of the shower. She could be facing the door. Maybe there was a clear plastic shower curtain, or clear sliding doors on the bathtub. She might see him enter. On the other hand, perhaps the door could squeak and squawk loudly in protest as he entered, giving him away as he entered. However, none of this would happen.

  Not today.

  He pushed the door open, and it didn’t make any sound that was loud enough for her to hear.

  A gentle mist of steam clouded the room beyond, and he could see Sarah silhouetted against a white linen shower curtain. He held the door open, and the creature accompanying him looked blindly up at him, chittered quietly, and slipped through the doorway on all four. Paul stepped inside after it, and gently closed the door behind them.

  The Rough Beasts

  "What rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?" —William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming", 1919

  Ryan slammed their parent’s bedroom door behind them, and locked the door. Carla was taking large panicked breaths, on the urge of hyperventilating. "But it’s just dad downstairs. He’s going to kill us for not doing what he said."

  Ryan ran to his dad’s nightstand, and opened the drawer. There was a small semi-automatic .25 in the drawer. He checked, it was loaded, with one in the chamber. He checked the clip, which was full too. In the country, guns were a religious belief, built into the fabric of life. City-dwellers failed to understand the fanatical dedication that gun-owners had to their weapons.

  When you were born and raised in farm country, guns were tools. It wasn’t just about personal protection. You protected your crops by hunting deer every year. It was both a time of bonding between friends and neighbors, and a rite of passage between father and son, and even daughters. Women were expected to know how to handle weapons too. Equal opportunity on the farm. Everyone pitches in.

  You protected the newborn calves from wild dogs. You protected hens from coyotes and fox. Guns provided stress relief, camaraderie, and relaxation. Firearms were so woven into the fabric of life that it was nuts to think about not having them around. Guns in closets. Handguns in nightstands. Rifles propped up by the back door. This was perfectly normal; it was expected.

  The idea of locking guns up, and limiting purchases was insane. Limiting access was foolish. That was akin to banning knives because someone committed suicide with one. A tragedy, yes, but banning something because of a lunatics rampage was just a version of locking the barn door after the horses escaped. Gun control was no different, and just a foolish reaction. It would prevent nothing.

  Just as Ryan expected, he found the semi-automatic in the nightstand. He tucked it into his waistband, closed the drawer out of habit, and crept to the door. He listened carefully for any sound from the hallway beyond as he tiptoed across the bedroom, carefully, wincing as the highly polished hardwood floor creaked slightly under the shifting of his weight.

  He heard nothing, and that both reassured and worried him at the same time.

  Carla backed up against the wall, eyes wide as saucers, her hands knotted between her breasts and clenched tightly.

  Ryan put his ear up against the door, and listened carefully. He placed the muzzle against the door, and thumbed the safety off. His finger was on the trigger, resting lightly.

>   He heard a purring sound, but it came from across the room. He felt his finger start to flex on the trigger instinctively, and he caught himself just in time. The gun had a very light trigger pull. He put his thumb on the hammer, and eased off the trigger. He eased the hammer down—it was right at the break point, and the gun had nearly fired. He still heard the purring sound. Baffled, he looked over at Carla, who was staring at him, then over to the window. The cat hopped off the windowsill, stretched, and walked over to the edge of the bed and mewled.

  Carla was looking at him like a bug. "What are you looking at?"

  "The damned cat. What’s it doing in here?"

  "What cat?"

  Warning bells went off in Ryan’s head. Been there, done that, got the fucking t-shirt. He looked down at the cat, and the cat looked back. Ryan decided to ignore the cat for the moment, and put his ear up against the door, memories stirring, as he re-cocked the gun.

  His father had him seated at a table. The cat was sitting in a windowsill, plain as fucking day to him. His father’s temper was seething. "Look, there is no cat."

  Paul pointed at the windowsill, where clearly there was a cat, staring outside, its tail flicking every fifteen seconds or so.

  "Every time you say there’s a cat there, when there’s not, that’s not true. That’s just like lying. You know how I feel about lying, don’t you?"

  Ryan could picture the inside of his closet, the stale smell of urine burning his nostrils. "Yes sir."

  "So, do you see a cat, then?"

  Therein was the fundamental struggle. The easy way out was to say no. However, the problem was, that was a lie, and lying was the worst transgression. Ryan was so afraid to lie; he couldn’t bring himself to do it, even though the fear loomed large that if he didn’t lie, it’d still lead to the same result. However, he’d already accepted that fate. It’s a choice no child should have to make, yet every day, millions do. One way or another, there was only one inevitable conclusion to this discussion. Ryan wouldn’t be able to explain that all he had was his dignity, and therefore he was going to cling desperately to it. He chose to accept the violence that was coming.

  "Yes, I still see it."

  "Alright then. If that’s how it’s going to be, get up."

  His mom put a hand on Paul’s arm. "Paul…"

  He shrugged her hand off violently, standing up.

  "There’s only one language this boy understands. If he’s going to insist on lying about the fucking cat, he’s going to pay the consequence. It’s out of my hands; he chose this route. Blame him." He pointed at Ryan, disgusted.

  His mom withdrew her hand and looked at Ryan. Ryan’s lips quivered, but her eyes were dry.

  His mom’s voice was quiet. "Go to your room, Ryan."

  Thy will be done, motherfucker.

  Ryan marched towards his fate.

  No, he could not control his bladder, or his screams. There would still be years of experience necessary to build up that kind of endurance.

  Ryan shook his head to clear the cobwebs of the nostalgia of the beatings. He glanced at the cat, and back up at Carla. "There is no cat, fuckstick," he thought. Well, the cat wasn’t an immediate threat.

  There was still no sound from out in the hallway. The house was quiet, and Carla still leaned against the bedroom wall, staring at Ryan, scared shitless. "Well, what if he just wanted to talk to us?"

  Ryan pointed at the window outside.

  "Does this look fucking normal to you? Fog in November at night? Besides, does dad normally kick in the back door when he just wants to talk to us? And where the fuck is he right now?"

  Carla was starting to shrink back from him. Ryan blinked stupidly, thinking, "She’s afraid of me." The thought that followed on the heels of that one was that he had just been losing his temper, just like his father. Just like his father. Is that who he wanted to emulate? Ryan felt the heat of dull shame rise up and burn his cheeks.

  "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell."

  Carla nodded, but it was clear that the apology was only accepted on a provisional basis. Ryan was acutely aware he had lost some ground with himself, as well. Was he going to allow himself to be ruled by anger? Become another domineering asshole just like his father? "Way to go, shit heap," he thought.

  He could hear claws clicking on the hardwood stairs. The cat’s purring switched to an intermittent growl, interspersed with a hiss. Ryan placed the gun back up against the door again.

  Paul bellowed from the base of the stairs. "Kids, come downstairs right now! Don’t make this any harder on yourselves!"

  The alligator-like guttural growl came from the top of the stairs, and Ryan could hear the claw-clicks scratching deep grooves into the hardwood floor as something steadily and heavily worked its way towards the bedroom door. Ryan angled the muzzle downward, painfully aware of just how pitifully small a .25 was compared to what was coming towards them. A quarter inch bullet might be fine for target practice, or a varmint gun, but now he would have preferred something that had "Magnum" in its name.

  "Children! Ryan! Carla! Last warning! Come down here now, or I’m sending it in after you, and I can’t promise that it won’t hurt you!"

  Carla whimpered and scrambled into a corner. Ryan crouched down low, the gun muzzle shaking.

  Ryan wiped sweat from his brow. "Fuck me," he muttered."

  The cat crouched by the edge of the bed, ears laid back, hissing, and growling lowly.

  The clicking stopped, but the growling was coming from right beyond the door.

  Seconds ticked by. Ryan aimed the muzzle towards where he thought the sound was coming from. He counted down from three. Two. One.

  He squeezed the trigger three times rapidly. The small pops were flat, almost insignificant, and unimportant. The bedroom door was cheap and hollow, the bullets punched through easily, almost like shoving a pencil through tissue paper.

  The guttural growl changed to a roar, and charged towards the door. It broke halfway through the hollow core door on the first try, its black and red snout poking right through, jaws snapping and tearing right towards Ryan.

  The splintering door had knocked Ryan backwards. Ryan’s eyes and nose burned from the sulfurous and rotten smell. The flesh was nearly rotten, the muscles exposed in places. He fired, and the bullet tore into it, but didn’t seem to faze it.

  Carla shrieked and cowered deep in the corner.

  The front legs scratched and scrambled at the door, the claws tore through the veneer facing, and it managed to come farther into the room. It snapped viciously towards Carla, and her shrieks rose in intensity, piercing and pulsing screams that could nearly shatter glass, a banshee’s wails that could raise the dead.

  The cat’s yowling scree intervened into the melee, and the cat leaped forward, clawing viciously and laid open a deep furrow across the rotten alligator-like beast snout. The beast recoiled with a beastly yowl, and snapped viciously back at the cat. The cat leapt backward nimbly away from the bony and snapping teeth.

  Ryan tried to leap up onto the bed, but as he scrambled to his feet, the beast head whipped sideways, and the jaws clamped shut onto his leg, the pain searing violently and instantly hot up his whole body. He dropped the gun, and all thought fled him.

  Without thinking, he drove himself through the hollow core door, onto the back of the hot and repulsive beast, and he felt a violent twist within his mind as the searing pain became nearly unbearable. All he could think was, "Take it into the light, and show that fucker real pain."

  Ryan focused on the pain in his leg, and shrieking in agony and fury, he took the beast and himself out of the room and into the Shadow Lands.

  Carla looked on into wonder, into the blank space where Ryan and the beast had been, just moments before. They were gone, and she was alone in the bedroom. She could not see the cat, which was still there with her, tail twitching as it paced nervously back and forth, growling.

  Carla didn’t notice the sound of footsteps coming lightly and q
uickly, practically bounding up the stairs.

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  Paul stood within the swirling steam of the white tiled bathroom, breathing the heat and listening to Sarah humming on the other side of the shower curtain. The four-foot long creature with the blasted face, blind and burnt, eye sockets oozing, looked up towards him, its forked tongue flicking forward, tasting the air as it waited expectantly. Paul smiled as he crept forward.

  Sarah’s clothes were piled neatly on the closed toilet lid. Paul picked up the bra that was lying on top, and inspected it for a moment.

  The shower curtain slid back, and Paul and the creature stopped and turned to watch as Sarah’s hand reached out for a bottle of shampoo that was perched on the side of the tub. Paul didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the shower curtain slid back into place, and he exhaled quietly as he set the bra back onto the pile of clothes. Paul crept quietly to the edge of the shower until he was standing on the left side of the tub.

  The soft click of the razor sharp claws on the tiles seemed unnaturally loud within the confines of the long and narrow bathroom, the scaly tail hissing slightly as the creature crept across the pristine white grout lines of the highly polished black and white tiled floor to the right side of the tub.

  The twisted beast put its fore limbs on the edge of the tub, lifted its body up, and gently nudged the shower curtain aside with its blind snout, peering in blindly on Sarah. Paul waited several seconds, expectantly, for a scream. When there was no shrieking, Paul gently eased the shower curtain back and peered into the shower for himself.