showing rows of serrated, blade-like teeth and a large finger-like tongue. And its face—I confess I do not know if there are words to describe the nightmare that hung before me. There is no beast in Heaven or Earth with a visage like the one I saw. All I could see, all that my mind could truly comprehend, was the glowing red eyes of Satan that stared through to the heart of me.
I do not know how long we sat there staring at one another, but I knew without question that this was the devil that had killed Franklin, that had been stalking me in the months past. It cocked its nightmarish head at me, a gesture that seemed almost curious. It was a cat toying with its food, a predator waiting to strike. My time was growing short. I let out a slow, shaking breath, and slowly moved my hand to the crate beside me.
The right and left mandibles of jaw rubbed against one another, eliciting the chittering sound to which I had become so accustomed, and I froze in place. I felt a small bead of sweat trickle down behind my left ear, sending a shiver across my body. An irrational thought formed in my mind. Was the demon trying to communicate? But I remembered Franklin’s corpse, the claw marks that had stained his right cheek, the cavity that had been torn into his neck. Whether this devil had the intelligence of man did not matter. I am—was flesh ready for consumption, a meal to be devoured.
I tore my eyes away from the beast and grabbed the crate. I heard it moving toward me with a greater speed than I thought possible, and it was only instinct and fear that made me throw the crate at the creature’s head. I know, in that instance, it saved my life. The corner of the crate struck the creature in the side of its long head, eliciting a pained crackling from its mouth. My feet were moving before my mind decided to, but they were clumsy, knocking into each other, and tossing me against the staircase. My hands caught against the steps, driving splinters into my palms. But my body kept moving me forward, climbing the steps on all fours. I bounded through the doorway, through the back of the store, my shoeless foot slipping against the floor. I knocked my shoulder against the wall but kept hurtling forward, willing myself to not look back, fearful that even the briefest glimpse at my attacker would ensure my demise. I raced by the Carringtons’ office, ignoring the younger Carrington’s concerned calls, and into the main shop where I stumbled over the counter, knocking over the register, and pulled foot straight out the front door. I ran down the town’s main street, down onto the side roads, and didn’t stop running until I reached my family’s farm.
I am not proud of my actions. There was no bravery in them, no strength. I acted like a child afraid of the dark. But I do not ask you for your forgiveness, nor do I feel I require it. I doubt anyone who had seen the demon beneath Carrington’s General Store would have made any other choice. I survived that night.
For two days I remained locked in my room, my rifle in hand, watching the door, watching the windows. Not my father’s or my mother’s pleas could rise me from my vigil. It wasn’t until the third day, after the sun had reached its apex, that I was pried from my room.
My father knocked on the door, a light rapt of knuckles; a noticeable change from the violent pounding that had filled my days since. He called my name through the door, his voice patient and saddened. He didn’t ask me to come out, didn’t ask me to explain, he simply informed me the Carringtons had been found dead in their store the night before. I wept instantly. My father hadn’t given any details, but I knew without question what had been discovered. In my haste—in my fear—I had run out of Carrington’s Store without considering the fates of my employers at the hands of that demon. I had left them to die.
A sequence of events played out before my mind’s eye. The younger Carrington, ever concerned for my well being, would have followed after me, perhaps even attempted to make chase before turning back to deal with his father. Inside, he would have more than likely found the creature devouring the elder Carrington. I would like to believe the younger Carrington would have been braver than I, that he would have attacked the demon and attempted to save his father. He would have not run, like I had. He would have died fighting.
That is what I like to think happened. I have no way of knowing. My father never gave me details of how the Carringtons were found, the positions of their remains—what was left of them. Nor did I venture to the store, or even, I am ashamed to confess, their funeral. No one in town could say what had killed the two men, though the consensus was the murderer must be the same man who had killed Franklin several months prior. While some wildly speculated that they had been attacked by a bear or a wildcat down from the mountains, many believed the killer to be a madman roaming the countryside, much like the murderer in London.
I alone knew the truth and yet I remained silent. How could I explain what I had seen? Who would have believed my tale of a beast from the depths of Hell? They would have thought me crazy as a loon or merely a coot. At least, that is what I told myself. That was what I believed. So I held my tongue, kept it chaste. When the sheriff visited my family’s homestead requesting any knowledge I might have on the Carringtons’ murderer, I feigned ignorance. Knowing there would be no one to refute my gum, I stated the younger Carrington had handed me my lay and asked me to absquatulate from the store while he discussed arrangements with his father, but their argument had grown so violent I had ran from the premises, terrified that their rage would have turned on me.
Satisfied with the tale, the sheriff placed a hand on my shoulder and promised me he would find the man—or men—who had killed the Carringtons. I thanked him, knowing full well that if the sheriff were to ever to find the murderer he would end up like Franklin and the Carringtons before him.
With no other family to tend to the shop, Carrington’s was closed down, its stores sold out by the township. I only once risked walking past the derelict building during a rare trip into town. Its boarded up windows made my heart ache, though fear made my feet move past it without pause, my ears convinced they had heard the demon’s telltale chittering.
Over time, perhaps my fears would have been proven unfounded. The memory of that nightmarish day relegated to that of dreams, but I would not be so blessed. Needless to say I fell into despondency. In the months that separated the Carringtons’ deaths and these pages I barely found the wherewithal to pick up a brush, and even the thought of Florence Wright made me ill. I spent my days helping my father on the farm and my nights locked in my room, watching the darkness outside my window. I found myself skeery of any divot in the ground, any burrow that my foot might catch while I toiled in the field. Even a rabbit den my father asked me to clear out caused me to break into a panic. Any critter I saw pass through the corner of my eye caused me to freeze in place, any rumble I felt in the ground beneath my feet caused me to run, certain the creature was following me, hunting me; eager to complete what remained unfinished.
As the summer cooled into fall, my sister, three years my senior, had married and discovered she was with child. As the child’s birth approached, my family used what little means they had to celebrate the occasion, inviting friends from far and wide to announce the child’s upcoming entrance into the world. And so, early this day folks began to arrive from several towns over, faces I barely recognized came with names I couldn’t remember. I was welcoming, shaking hands when appropriate, smiling when necessary, but my mind, as it always was, was elsewhere.
As the party drifted on in hours, my father, always bawdy after several pints, took out his fiddle and began to lead the party in song. I did my best to clap and dance along but I failed to find the spirit within me. I moved to the corner of the room, wrapped my arms around my body and forced a smile on my face while I watched my family and friends hook arms and dance. Their faces alight with celebration and laughter, I wonder if I would have been moved to joined them, but then… then I would not have heard the chittering beneath my feet. Looking down at the wooden floorboards, I saw, in between the planks of wood that sat over the dug out basement, that familiar pair of red, glowing eyes looking up at me.
I do no
t know if I screamed, but the rawness I feel in my throat indicates that I must have. I broke away from the party in a blind fury, stumbled up to my room, and quickly locked the door behind me. I pulled apart my room searching for my gun realizing all too late that I had left it in the barn to be cleaned. I pinched my eyes shut as tears began to stream down my face.
And below, the sounds of celebration quickly made way for the unending sound of screams.
I knew in that instant all was lost.
With little options left I grabbed a pencil and the pages you now read. But before I scratched my words to paper I realized that cries of agony and death had stopped, replaced with the maddening chittering of the beast. I looked out my window and saw the devil’s red gaze, its inhuman mouth dripping crimson.
And so I began to write furiously the tale that you have now read, my eyes locked on the creature as it patiently watches me through the glass. I do not know how much longer it will wait, how much time I truly have left. I know my death is assured and I have chosen to make my final act to be that of a caution, to let all creation know that devils walk this earth.
From the Pen of Adam Lance Garcia, Book 1: Testament Page 3