“Of course,” she said, with genuine concern radiating in her eyes, as she left him alone in the chapel and pulled the doors quietly shut behind her.
William dropped into the nearest pew, kneeling down with his head bowed and his hands folded together. He let out a sigh that echoed across the chapel.
Rebecca was pure, of that he had no doubt. But suddenly, after walking the hospital with her, he saw just how many people she had helped. How many people she would continue to help. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, yes, but just how many patients would suffer if Rebecca was gone? Was it still worth less than keeping a few extra families employed at a low-paying assembly job?
William closed his eyes, sighed under his breath, and fumbled his way through the Lord’s Prayer. It brought him no comfort.
When he stepped out of the chapel, he stopped inside the nearest restroom. He stood before the mirror, glancing intently over his reflection’s shoulder, and began to speak to the empty restroom.
“I’m trying,” William said. “Really, I am. But this is hard. This is…” William bit down on his lip. “This is really fucking hard. But I’m trying, okay?”
A figure stepped forward, in such a manner as if he’d been there the entire time. Though the fluorescent light above was obnoxiously bright, the demon’s cloudy face was draped in impossible shadows.
“Your pathetic prayers will not guide you any closer to an answer, you know.”
“I wasn’t praying,” William said defensively.
“It matters not what you were doing in that chapel, and I assume I need not recite the crude colloquialism of wishing in one hand and defecating in the other.”
“No. But I’m just telling you that I’m trying. I’ll find you your soul, even if it’s not her.” William smirked as he eyed his reflection—between his bloodshot eyes and the bags that crept beneath them, he looked as if he’d aged five years in the last two days. “It's not like she's the only pure person on this planet. In this state. This city. I’ll find someone.”
The demon uttered a laugh. “When four days has passed, William, and the matter becomes you versus her, will you still be able to defend her actions? Or will your selflessness leave you? Tell me, if you keep her alive, will she provide for your family? Put a roof over their heads? Will she take care of your children?”
“I told you, I’m trying,” William said, as he threw open the door and stormed off to find Rebecca.
*
That night William spent with his family. He took them out to a movie—a comedy, which he and the rest of the family enjoyed—and then to the arcade to play a few games. The thought that this might be some of the last quality time he ever spent with them was looming in the back of his mind, and he wanted to make the most of it. The look on little Lynette’s face as she waddled away from the arcade center with a teddy bear as big as she was made it all worth it. If he could remember that smile, engrave it into his brain, maybe somehow he could endure an eternity of suffering.
Lynette fell asleep on the ride home. Dana had nothing smartass to say, and was actually talking to William and Grace about which classes she was enjoying at school. And that night, after the kids were in bed, William and Grace made love for the first time in a month. As William fell back onto his pillow, Grace nestled her face against his stubbled cheek and sighed.
“We haven’t done it like that in years,” she cooed, as she admired his chest in the faint lamp light. “Such vigor. Such passion. Like it’s your last day on earth.” She giggled at the thought. William did not.
“Sometimes it feels like it,” he admitted.
Grace laced her hand into his and admired its smoothness. As she glanced at it, she didn’t notice the deep sigil burnt into the palm of his hand—a permanent emblem of his dark dealings. Perhaps only he could see it. At first he thought that might bring him comfort, but it did not.
Three hours of staring at the ceiling later, William finally slept.
*
After spending the first few hours of his workday teaching Rebecca the basics, William went to Steve’s office and told him he needed to run some errands, and to call him if he or Rebecca needed anything. Steve was happy to hold down the fort, and William hardly said a word as he dashed out of the building.
Soon after, he was blazing around town in his Volvo, head hung low, eyes slipping between the road, the side mirror, and the rearview mirror endlessly, like a drug dealer on his way to a big (but dangerous) trade.
He stopped by the soup kitchen that the first potential candidate for his old job had listed on his resume, though Steven Silas wasn’t there that day. Masquerading as a man named James who was interested in helping out (why he felt the need to use a fake name he didn’t know, but it somehow seemed to be appropriate), William asked some of the volunteers about helping out. If they liked it. Two of them were unfriendly and unhelpful. Another said he did it because he liked to eat the leftovers. Sometime later William overheard the last volunteer selling a homeless man some cocaine for his last ten dollars.
Next he stopped at the nursing home, under the guise of a man looking for his elderly uncle Stephen. He talked to a few old men and women, and those who were aware enough to understand where they were seemed none too pleased at being dumped off by their children. They were bitter, and mean, and full of regret. Meanwhile, the men and women who took care of the elderly were grumpy, impatient, and even more difficult to talk with.
After that William drove to the nearest preschool, but as he sat in his car, watching the toddlers outside bound across the playground equipment, laughing and screaming, he couldn’t bring himself to even get out.
Instead, he drove off to the nearest church.
It was a Catholic church, and though William wasn’t Catholic, he stepped inside and slumped into a pew in the back row. The church was otherwise empty, save for him and the figure nailed to the cross above the altar that wept tears of blood.
It seemed, at least for the moment, that Rebecca was the only clean soul in the entire city. And even if she wasn’t, how could he possibly hope to find another in just two days? Finding a needle in a haystack was a miracle in itself. Asking to find two was nothing short of greedy.
William knew not what to do or where to go from here. But if anything, he found solace in the fact that the demon could not follow him here, into this church. He contemplated staying here, camping out in this church for the next few days as a sort of sanctuary, but he knew that wasn’t the answer to his problems, and he also knew deep down in his heart that the contract would be upheld no matter where he hid.
With the demon unable to look over his shoulder, William pulled out his smartphone and began to Google demonology. He looked up the contract between man and demon—something he instantly felt silly for searching, as the results he found were cluttered in guesswork and bad assumptions from ghost hunters that probably spent a good deal of their time simply spooking themselves. But looking it up somehow brought him comfort, if only to know that he wasn’t the only one with demons on the brain.
And then, feeling bold, he began to search terms like “how to break a contract with a demon” and “how to kill a demon.” Unfortunately for him, the answer to both of those was a resounding ‘not possible,’ even if half of the answers were filled with crackpot science.
It is a law of physics that energy cannot be destroyed. It can only be contained, wrote demonhunter43 in a random paranormal forum that William stumbled across. Therefore a demon cannot be killed, merely contained.
So how do I contain a demon? William pondered, as he Googled the very term.
Again, the answers were broad and cluttered in guesses. William assumed that a demon was not something that could be boxed up in cardboard and sealed away in a dark basement like an unwanted sweater. It seemed the only way a demon could be contained was within another human being through demonic possession. A living container. And yet, the knife already seemed to be a method to that possession,
and if he put it into someone’s belly, it meant the demon was going to take over their body anyway. That provided no way out.
An hour later, William found himself no closer to an answer, and the idea that he was going to find a clever solution to get out of this contract was starting to feel more and more like a pipedream. He sighed, put down his phone, and was about to rise when it started to vibrate. The name ‘Steve’ popped up on the LCD display.
“Yeah, Steve?” William asked softly, even though he was still the only person in the church.
“Oh, hey, Gingerbread Man. Just calling about Rebecca,” the voice on the other end chirped. “She’s stuck on something and needed your help. I’m no good with that software so I can’t help her. Just seeing if you were on your way back yet.”
“Actually, I’m on my way right now,” William replied, as he rose from his pew with both shoulders significantly more slumped than they had been on his way in.
Just before he left he spied a table full of rosaries, and though he knew not why he did it, he grabbed one. Rather than fill him with hope, however, it burned the sigil in his flesh like a red hot poker, and he dropped the beaded jewelry into his pocket.
Once again, as was the case with the Lord’s Prayer, he felt no comfort. He felt no relief. He felt no clear solution to his problem.
*
“And that’s what you do if the columns get knocked out of whack,” William said, hovering over Rebecca’s right shoulder. She was sitting in his old cubicle, using an even older laptop, and though she was nodding in agreement, it seemed as if she was a million miles away.
“Got it?” he said.
“What happened there?” she asked, as she eyed the hand that had been cradling her mouse. It was now palm up on the desk, and the quarter-sized sigil that was burnt into his flesh shone prominently, though he had thought it shone only to him.
“You can see that?” he asked; his voice was full of discomfort.
“Of course. Does it hurt?”
William pulled his hand away and cradled it to his stomach. “Oh, yes, it’s fine. It’s just a… a cigarette lighter burn. Got it when I was young. Young and stupid.”
“Oh. Sorry if it’s a touchy subject.”
“It is,” William said gruffly, and pulled away.
He went back to his office, locked the door, and took out a large life insurance policy on himself. No sooner had he named his wife the benefactor than he went to Google and searched painless ways to end his life. In the reflection of the screen, as he read about pills and guns and running cars, he saw an empty face float into vision.
“Don’t think that killing yourself rids you of this contract,” the demon said, from just over his shoulder. Though he knew nothing was standing behind him, he could feel the heat of the breath whispering against his cheek. It was unsettling.
“I’m not,” William said, voice cracking, as he closed his eyes. “This is for my family.”
“And yet it means nothing,” said the demon. “A piece of paper will not stop me from destroying you, and your family, and every single person you have ever loved. Just ask Chris Rodriguez. My contract binds you in blood and in flesh. You have three days.”
When William opened his eyes, the demon was gone.
*
That night, when William went home, he couldn’t bring himself to spend time with his family. While they watched TV, William retired to his office under the guise that he had work to do. Grace joked not to let this become a habit, and William barely choked out that it never would.
He spent the night staring at Rebecca Anders’ resume, turning the stone knife over in his hand, reliving every moment of his time with her. Reliving the joy she gave off, like a beacon, illuminating the dark hospital hallways with a warmth he could hardly describe. It was a beacon that William would have to extinguish if he wanted to keep his happiness, his family, and most of all, his eternal soul.
At the end of the night, just before he went to bed, William slunk to the bathroom in the darkness and planted his hands on the sink. The spot where the demon’s sigil was burnt into his flesh radiated fresh heat.
“Demon,” William said, in the blackness. “I know you’re here. I need to ask you something.”
At first there was silence, and then after a brief moment, William heard a raspy sigh.
“I am not here to do your bidding,” the demon spat. “You are here to do mine.”
“Fine. I’m here to make you a promise. By the end of tomorrow I swear to have upheld my end of the bargain.”
“Good.”
“But before I do, I have one question.”
The demon snarled, and from behind him, William smelled the faint pungency of the creature’s breath. “This is the last question you will ever ask of me, manling.”
“That’s fine. This is all I need to know.” William let out a deep breath. “The pure soul. What happens when I stab them? When I kiss them?”
The demon snorted beneath his breath. “I take their soul.”
“No, I want to know the process,” William said. “You said it was a ritual. The knife doesn’t kill them, so what happens?”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” the demon reminded him.
“And I feel like I’m a dead man anyway, so just humor me.”
There was another moment of silence, and then finally the demon spoke. “So be it, human. The knife entering the body makes for an opening, and the kiss of betrayal allows for an invitation into the human body. Into the human mind. From there I access every thought, every memory, every dark recollection, and I use it to create a personal Hell in which to consume and destroy their soul. This is how you crush a man, William T. Bellows. Through his mind. Hell is not a lake of fire and a constant stab of hot pokers. Hell is every terrible memory you’ve ever had, every feeling of remorse and regret you’ve ever experienced, amplified and emblazoned into your being for eternity.”
William swallowed the lump in his throat. “Even for a pure soul?”
“Especially for a pure soul. The mind is a wasteland of imagination, both good and bad. To exploit that horror in the brain of someone good, someone pure, someone that was never meant to be mine… there is nothing finer.” The demon exhaled. “Does this answer your question?”
“Yes,” William breathed.
“Then do not ask for me again, not until you’ve carried out your task. And if you do not carry out your task by the end of tomorrow, as you’ve just promised me…” William felt an icy tingle chill his core, as a single finger traced the outline of his spine. “What I just described will happen to you.”
*
The next morning, when William dropped Lynette off at school, he hugged her so hard she complained that he was crushing her. He retracted, fought back a tear, and watched her prance off. Soon after he did the same to his wife, outside of her office, and gave her a long, passionate kiss that drew out an, “Ewww, gross,” from Dana.
“I love you,” William told Grace, as she turned around toward her office.
“Yep, you too, honey!” Grace said nonchalantly. William’s heart sunk, knowing this may be the last time he ever heard it, and not even the way he had hoped. But then again, his wife knew nothing about his situation. He wondered if he should have told her. He wondered if she even would have believed him, or if she would have just chalked this up to an overstressed CEO trying to get his company back on track.
“Dad?” Dana asked quietly, some five minutes later. “Is it true that Leah Ishmael and you… uh, hooked up?” She looked down at her lap and mashed her hands together nervously. “There’s, uh, a rumor going around.”
“No,” William replied. “Jesus, no. I’d never do anything so terrible.”
“Oh. Well, that’s what I thought,” Dana said, sighing in relief, “but you know how stupid people can be. I’m sorry I asked.”
William smirked. “Don’t be.”
“So… can you take me to soccer practice tonight?”
“No,
sorry, not tonight,” William said, eyes locked firmly on the rearview mirror. “I have to stop by the hospital and see someone from the office.”
The demon in the backseat caught his glance in the rearview mirror. William felt its empty face smiling at him, if only for a moment, and then it retracted back into the shadows.
*
The tiled floor passed by in a shiny white blur as William walked briskly to the north wing of St. John’s Medical Center. He passed a middle aged nurse that asked him kindly if she could help him, but he grunted and kept walking with his head down. William, as far as he was concerned, was beyond help.
He crept through the hallway, as much as one can creep without looking suspicious, and grimaced when he saw no sign of Rebecca. She had mentioned that Friday night was the other day she volunteered—made a joke about how she helped give shots while everyone else her age was out taking shots—but maybe he had heard her wrong. Or maybe she had taken this particular night off. It would have been just his luck.
And so, after a fruitless ten minute search (and countless nurses asking if he was looking for someone), William headed back toward his car. On his way there he passed the chapel doors, almost kept walking, and then stopped. His clearest thinking had taken place in one church or another over the past few days—maybe because he felt a sense of protection, or maybe because he knew the demon couldn’t follow after him. Whatever the reason, he pulled open the door and stepped inside.
But this time he wasn’t alone. Rebecca was kneeling at the foot of the altar, and she smiled when she saw him. William walked up the aisle, head bowed, and knelt beside her.
“Hi, Bill. What are you doing here?” she whispered, voice tinged with surprise.
“Doing some praying. And some thinking,” William replied. “I know it probably sounds stupid, but the last time I was here I had an epiphany of sorts. I… I guess was hoping for a repeat performance.” He slid his hand into his pocket, clasped the rosary that was still tucked within, and felt it burn his scarred sigil. He kept his fingers on it anyway.
The Graveyard Shift Page 19