by JKMelby74
“Thanks. About how much longer am I going to be stuck here?”
“Not much longer, sir,” She then turned to Ivar. “Are you a family member?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to leave now.”
“It’s okay, nurse. He’s not bugging me. Besides, I’m getting out soon, right?”
“Yes, but it is hospital procedure in all cases. No non-family members after ten. Your friend can wait for you in the lobby.”
“Very well. I’ll go. Think about what I told you, Jake.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Ivar gave me one last disapproving look and then lumbered out. The nurse closed the curtain around me again and stood at the foot of my bed staring at me oddly. “Was there something else? Papers to sign?”
“No. I just haven’t seen injuries like yours in some time. What happened?”
“Uh, maybe later. When’s your shift over?” She smiled wide for me.
“In a little while, but it may be too late by then.”
“Too late for what?” She then walked closer to me, leaned over and pushed her lips against mine. She pulled away slightly and looked down upon me. “I’ll make time for that.” Suddenly, the nurse’s mouth opened up and two rows of razor sharp teeth popped out. Her jaw grew about a foot and she was about ready to stuff my head into her mouth. I pushed her back, but she flipped over and leapt onto the bed. Her eyes began to glow and her fingers were turning into long claws. I reached for the call button, but her arm shot out like a whip and stabbed me. Her hair started to fall off in clumps on the floor. Whatever was human about her had disappeared and I could only see a monster staring at me with hungry eyes. “It’s you.” My old panic returned.
“You were my prison for too long! I will have my power back!” Her voice had changed. It had turned raspy and terrible. She leapt forward, but as she did, I rolled off the mattress and scrambled away, pushing through the curtain. I felt ice-cold hands on my leg. I turned and I saw the twisted creature below me clawing at me. I jumped forward and landed head first into a supply cart. Syringes and other hospital sundries spilled all over the floor. The demon was pulling at me. I flailed blindly and found a fist full of scalpels. Just as the monster had me, I shoved them all into its face. It shrieked in agony and let me loose. I bolted forward, but I could hear it coming up behind me fast. Screams and shouts were coming from all around as the beast began to show its true form. I saw a bottle of some fluid and, in panic; I grabbed it and threw it at the monster. It turned out to be a good choice, as whatever was in the bottle caused the creature to fall back in pain, clutching its face. I hurried to the hall and found the stairs.
I ran all the way down I could hear the monster close behind. I slammed through the last door at the bottom of the stairs and I saw Ivar standing in the middle of the lobby. I ran for him and as I approached he turned. His expression became odd. Suddenly his arms came up and I could see two large guns in his hands. I stopped in my tracks and then two explosions ripped through my ears. I heard a loud, unnatural scream. I turned and saw the now deformed nurse lying on the floor in a pool of blood and slime. I looked down upon it as it twitched and bubbled before my eyes.
“We need to get out of here.” Ivar placed his hand on my shoulder.
“You killed it.”
“No, I didn’t. It’s going to reconstitute itself very quickly. We need to go now.” I wasn’t sure what to do exactly, but I decided whatever I was going to do, it would be better if I did it far from a creature that wanted to kill me.
Chapter 6
Safe House
Ivar was driving me to someplace safe. I could feel the nagging headache behind my eyes begin to grow more intense.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You believe me now?” Ivar’s tone of self-righteousness was not lost on me, but I did not feel compelled to respond. I wasn’t sure if I was in a state of shock because I was nearly sliced to ribbons by a demon, or just pissed that Ivar was right.
“I believe you, happy? That thing was my demon. But it didn’t look like that at the warehouse.”
“Most demons have no definite form. Many of them can make themselves appear any way they wish. A helpful tool when luring mortals; or killing them.”
“Then it still is draining me.”
“Slowly but surely. The stronger it gets, the weaker you become.”
“How weak are we talking? I mean, when I was possessed, I had a little extra power. I’m just going to go back to normal, right?”
“If the demon gets too much stronger, you could die.”
“How long will that take?”
“Naturally, it would take years. Decades.”
“You’re warning me about something I don’t even have to worry about yet? If ever?”
“However, if the demon wants its full power restored at once, it would only have to kill you.”
“How do I fix this? It was bad having that bastard inside of me, but I can’t live my life running like this.” I stared at Ivar waiting for him to open his mouth and give me an answer. He sat stiff and distant for almost a minute.
“You must rejoin with the demon in order preserve your life.”
“I just cut the thing loose! I have to suck it back in just to live?” I felt a rush of frustration come over me. I felt Ivar’s eyes on me.
“Maybe not.” I jerked up from my seat.
“What?”
“I happen to know of someone who may be able to help you. It’s a long shot, at best.”
“That’s fine! I’ll try anything! I just can’t go back to that thing. You have no idea what it’s been like. The voices. The visions.”
“Trust me, Jake. I appreciate how difficult it has been for you. I will help you.” Ivar said. I took some comfort in his words. I wasn’t sure if he was even telling the truth, but something inside me urged me to trust. After a few more miles, I fell asleep.
When I woke up, the car was parked in front of a crappy looking little house. Ivar was missing but I saw a light on in the dump in front of me. I slipped out of the car and walked up the porch to the front door, which was hanging open. I leaned in slightly but I heard nothing.
“Hello?” Still quiet. I then heard the faint sound of someone writing. I walked in.
The living room was sparse. There was a couch and a television but that was about it. I followed the scribbling sound to the kitchen in back. I saw Ivar leaning over the kitchen counter.
“Hey.” He did nothing to indicate to me that he was aware of my presence. I took a step forward and a loud creak shot out from below. Ivar’s head tilted slightly toward me.
“You’re up.” He went back to his project.
“What are you doing? Where are we?”
“We’re all right here. A friend of mine allows me to use this as a sort of safe house. I haven’t been here in a long time, but everything seems intact.”
“Okay, doesn’t really answer any of my questions.”
“It answers enough of them. I need to concentrate.”
“What are you doing?” I looked down and saw an old, worn out map on the counter with a lot of wild marks all over it. “What is this?”
“I’m trying to find The One.”
“What?”
“The person I said could help you is known only as The One. He is very wise and if there is any way to free you of this demon, he will know.”
“Okay, so why don’t we just go there?”
“I don’t know where he is right now.”
“Call information! Check the phone book!”
“It’s not that easy. The One is an ancient, holy being. He never appears in the same place. That map is designed to help me track him when I am in need of his counsel. What I am doing now is a form of divining. I’m using my mind to track his psychic aura. Or I was.”
“Just when I thought you weren’t insane.”
“Do you want my help or not?”
“Fine. I�
�m sorry. Divine away. Just hurry.” II adjourned back to the living room.
I sat down on the couch and was intent on turning the television on, when I noticed the set wasn’t set up for a remote and only had a rotary dial. I slumped back in the sofa and waited.
The silence was broken by a sudden noise outside the house. I looked over and saw Ivar still intent on his magic map. I got up and peeked outside. It was so dark; I could barely see the front lawn. I heard the noise again. It was like a dull, wet slap coming from everywhere. I walked out onto the porch. I couldn’t sense any movement. I stepped off the porch and I could feel the wet grass with every step. It was deep. I walked out to the middle of the lawn and looked around but saw nothing.
The night was calm and quiet. Not even a slight breeze. As soon as I was satisfied, I turned back to the house, but I quickly noticed my foot felt stuck in the grass. I pulled harder thinking I had just stepped in a mud puddle or something. I yanked, but whatever was holding me got tighter. I looked down and I could barely notice the thousands of blades of grass moving. They were growing and swarming around like little tendrils. I gave my leg another good yank, and I broke free. I hurried for the house but just then a thousand or more tiny blades of grass shot up out of the ground and twisted together into a long whip. It lashed around and wrapped tightly around my leg. Another grass whip launched up and grappled my other leg. Then two more caught my arms and soon I felt an immense pull reaching around my body. I struggled against the force but the harder I pushed, the harder they pulled. I managed to free my arms and started clawing against the ground to get closer to safety. The other grass blades became stiff and sharp like jagged spikes poking at me. I let out a scream that could have easily woken up the neighbors, had there been any. I felt something wrap tightly around my neck and squeeze. My head began to grow light and my vision was beginning to blur. I then saw a large black blob coming toward me and flail around wildly just before I passed out.
I woke up again on the sofa inside and I saw Ivar standing over me, sweaty and stained with dirt and grass clippings. He was holding a large sword in his hand.
“Thanks.”
“We really have to get going. The demon is getting closer.” Ivar forced me up and ushered me back to the car. He got in and brought the car to life. As he peeled out onto the street, I looked back at the house and then back to Ivar.
“Where did you get the sword?”
“I keep a stash of weapons handy at all times.”
We drove for another couple hours in silence. After having nearly being murdered by a lawn, I didn’t feel much like talking. The scenery blurred by me but I didn’t care. I didn’t pay much mind to the oncoming traffic signs either.
“You know where you’re going?”
“Yes.”
“How do you do it?”
“What?”
“You cut me out of a blood thirsty grass field and it’s like it was nothing to you.”
“You were possessed by a demon and now it’s hunting you down and you act like it’s nothing.”
“I am definitely acting like it’s something. I admit I’ve had my share of weirdness over the years, but nothing close to all this. Do you deal with this shit on a daily basis?”
“Not daily, but it does have its regularity. You get used to it.”
“I don’t think I could. I’ve just wanted a normal life for so long. That demon cost me so much. It took my parents. It got me bounced from more foster homes than I could count.”
“Not every path is an easy one. It is unfair, but your family’s destiny is...”
“Stop! Don’t talk to me about destiny! There is no destiny. You just get a bunch of shit dumped on you from day one and you deal with it. I’m done dealing with this weird shit. I just want some regular shit to deal with.”
“It’s a shame. Many of the Corbas, over the years, have done incredible things.”
“That was them. Not me.”
The vacuum of silence was profound and I felt an awkward moment approaching. I just opened my mouth and let the first thought that came to mind out.
“You think he’s helping?” Ivar looked back up at me with interest.
“Who?”
“Sam. You think he’s helping the demon?”
“It’s possible. He could be offering the demon more power in order to find you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Sam is a twisted, evil man. His only goal is to attain power. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume he’s made some kind of deal with the demon. Perhaps if he helps destroy you, he will be given some demonic favor.”
I then slipped back into silent mode for another couple hours.
Chapter 7
Road Trip
I looked out the window of the car and saw the sun beginning to peak over the horizon. We were zooming along some old back road it looked like. There were very few buildings around and the ones that we could see were wrecks. Old businesses that had failed years ago and were left to rot like corpses along the lonely highways.
We turned into a large bank of tall trees and something familiar came over me. We started around a long curve and I felt my stomach begin to rise in anticipation. As we cleared the bend, I saw the ruins of something that once was a large structure to the left.
“Stop!” I shouted. Ivar pulled over and I leapt out of the car as it came to a stop. I blindly ran across the highway and headed to the burnt remains that sat in the middle of a large, dead field. I stopped and looked at the mess. It looked like piles of burnt wood and broken concrete strewn about randomly. Pipes jutted out from the ground like dead veins. I entered the ruins and explored like a holy man visiting a sacred temple.
“What’s this?” Ivar asked.
“This was the church.” The words didn’t even feel as though they were coming from my lips. Every part of me felt numb as I walked along what once was the main aisle of the church leading to the altar. Even though I was a baby, so much of that night stuck in my head. I could feel the warmth of the congregation. The crisp air from outside. I could hear the organ music playing softly behind us. I stopped as I came to an old pew that had been spared destruction. The front one. It was where I sat with my parents.
I could see my mother. She was so beautiful. She had raven dark hair, like mine. She smiled down at me and it lit something inside of me. Love exuded from her eyes like air and it filled me everytime I saw her. Her grip around my body was firm but gentle. Secure. I began to remember my father and how proud he looked. He had a square jaw, again, like mine. He was a big man but that betrayed his easy nature. When my mother handed me off to him, his touch was as full of love as hers. I could somehow sense how hard he was trying to hold me carefully, afraid he’d break me in his grip.
He held me up to the priest and he began to speak. With every word, I felt safer. I could feel something good enter my body and I let it, but the world turned so quickly when the first scream erupted from the people. My father turned to see one of the parishioners leaping from her seat, her head ablaze. This caused the whole congregation to break into panic.
There were small fires exploding everywhere and soon a wall of flame was swallowing the whole church. My father rushed me to my mother but as we came together, the ceiling came crashing down. I landed on the carpeted floor, but I lost sight of my father. I turned and saw my mother pinned under a beam that had caught fire. I crawled to her, unaware of the danger around me. I came as close as I could before she urged me to stay away. She was crying. I had never seen her cry before. That was when I realized something was wrong. I tried to go to her, but she pushed me away. She then looked back at me. She reached out and opened her hand to me. I took it in my small baby hand. I felt the life drain from her flesh and soon after that, I fell asleep.
“Jake!” I suddenly came out of my memory. I looked around and saw myself standing in the middle of the ruins of my life.
“Sorry. How did you know where this place was?”
“I didn’t. It was just on the route I found on the map.”
“I swore I’d never come back here. I can still feel everything. I can see it all.”
“I’m sorry.” I walked over to some old stone pillars that had survived the fire. They were singed and cracked, but as solid as ever.
“It’s fine. I guess I had to come back eventually. It’s hard to believe it all happened here. I was just a baby,” My voice catching in my throat. “What was so important about my soul that this demon had to kill all those innocent people to take it? Why did it kill my parents? Why did any of this have to happen to me?” I felt my normal composure melting away and tears began to pour from my eyes. It was like a train of some bottled up emotions was shooting through the walls I had spent so many years of my life building up. My legs became numb and I fell to my knees in the ash and dirt and the rage in my heart was growing so quickly all I could do to vent it was to beat the ground with my fists. I pounded down on the hard Earth with all the strength I could generate. I felt the rocks and sticks buried under the dirt cut into my hands and I saw the blood trickling down my arms, but even then I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I kept clawing at the ground in some vain attempt to exact revenge on something. I just wanted to force my pain on something else, but as I did I began to realize my pain wasn’t going away. I let out a howl of frustration just as Ivar came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I suddenly felt the same security I remembered from my mother. I felt his strength pour into me and the storm within me faded.
“We need to go.”
“Yeah.”
Ivar helped me up, but as we headed back to the car, the ground began to shake. I stopped, frozen and an explosion blasted a mountain of dirt and rocks into the air. When the dust settled, I saw a giant rotted worm with a huge gaping mouth complete with razor sharp teeth towering over us. It thrust forward suddenly and smashed against the stone pillars, breaking them and sending dust and debris all around. Ivar and I bolted away as quickly as we could, but the worm dug into the ground and burrowed across the field and popped back up before we could get clear of the church. The worm seemed to ignore Ivar and lurched toward me.