The Demon Stone

by Christopher Datta

  Liz looked into the trees, straining her eyes to catch any movement. It was getting harder to see and there were plenty of dark shapes among the branches and undergrowth. Any one of them could be another bear or Morgan or whoever the mysterious he was. She had almost never been afraid of the dark, even as a child, but she was now.

  Next to her, Hampton snarled just as she thought she heard something in the woods. It sounded large yet had to be very agile, as well, because its movement was rapid and not stumbling or crashing. With increasing dread, Liz was sure they were being watched.

  “What is that?” whispered Liz. “Is it Morgan?” She knew it was not. What she had heard, even she knew, was bigger than Morgan.

  Kevin backed into the camp, the hatchet held at his side. “No,” he said, “it’s not. It’s him. She sent him for us.”

  The rain had ceased and again Liz heard a distinct shaking of branches in the forest as something, or someone, ran through the trees. Beth pressed herself against Liz tightly.

  Previous campers had left a small stack of wood next to the circle of rocks that enclosed their fire pit. Kevin knelt by it, chipping off the outer layer of damp wood from a log with his hatchet and then gathering dry chips into a pile.

  “Liz,” he said without looking up, “get our clothes back into the tent along with the food and other things we want to keep dry.”

  By the time she and Beth finished, Kevin had a small fire started that he carefully fed with larger sticks. Slowly, the flames grew until a yellow circle of light filled the camp. Somehow, the light made Liz feel a little safer, although she doubted she was. She remembered that animals were supposed to fear fire, if it was an animal they had heard.

  The heat of the fire drove the moisture out of the firewood causing it to hiss and pop, throwing sparks into the air.

  “Watch out you don’t get burned,” said Kevin.

  Cold, scared and hungry, Liz sat on a stone near the flames. She imagined that life had been exactly like this for generations of prehistoric families gathered together in the dark, cold and hungry and clinging to the light of a fire to keep both real and imaginary night creatures at bay, just as they were doing now.

  Liz looked up and was surprised to discover the sky had partially cleared directly above them. Great curtains of green, red and yellow light illuminated the heavens.

  “Look,” she said, awestruck. “It’s the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, isn’t it? I’ve never seen them before.”

  “I don’t know,” said Kevin. “I’ve seen the auroras, but never like this.”

  “What else could it be?” said Liz.

  “It’s the light,” he answered. “Remember how strange the light was earlier? I think it’s something to do with that.”

  “I’m hungry,” said Beth, whimpering.

  Kevin dug into one of their packs and fished out a bag of trail mix, passing it around. Although Liz suspected Hampton must be hungry, as well, he paid no attention to the meal as he kept a distrustful watch on the trees, occasionally uttering a low, throaty growl.

  “He’s letting us be,” said Kevin, staring into the dark.

  “Who is?” said Liz. “You know who’s out there, don’t you?” She shivered.

  “Don’t start again, Dad,” said Beth. “Don’t you start. Why do you keep trying to scare us?”

  Liz watched him closely. He was straining to stay calm. “I’m not trying to scare you, Beth. But things are going to get very bad. If we’re to have a chance at all, I need to explain. I just…” He trailed off.

  “Just?” said Liz.

  Kevin shook his head. “I had hoped to forget it.” He snorted. “Not that I have. It goes all night and every night. The more I push it down, push it out, kill it, burn it and forget it, the more it pushes back and the stronger it grows.” He looked at them. “Don’t let anyone tell you the truth sets you free. There are things it is better not to know, places it is better not to go.”

  His face was flushed, despite the chill.

  “I couldn’t tell you before,” he said, “because I didn’t want to think about it and I didn’t think you’d believe me anyway. Half the time I don’t believe myself. I’d prefer to think that I’ve simply gone mad. That would be easier to live with.

  “But now, telling you is the only thing that might keep us alive.”

  Part IV

  Heart of Darkness

  Chapter 1

  Kevin finished telling them the story of Bill, Muctar, Mosquito, his unlikely escape and the stone he’d been given by the shaman.

  Liz looked back up into the sky. The ribbons of colored light still shimmered across the night. It was beautiful yet also unsettling. The reds and yellows and greens seemed too bright to be natural, and it was all too concentrated directly overhead, not strung out across the sky as she’d expected the auroras to be.

  Kevin’s story could not be what had happened, Liz thought. There were no demons, or even angels for that matter. The lights above them were the aurora borealis. It was only her own fright, brought on by the instinctive fear of being alone and isolated in the forest, that made her feel otherwise. The lights were a rare event of nature to be appreciated, not cowered under as an omen of evil or a door ripped open to a place people called hell, having no other word by which to understand it. The sounds they heard in the forest were just forest sounds. They were always there, only magnified now by fear and uncertainty.

  Liz remembered once being alone in her parents’ home when she was quite young. She’d been certain someone was in the house. She heard creaks, odd popping sounds and footsteps. In a panic she called the police. They arrived at the same time that her folks returned and she had felt like a fool when the amused officers escorted her through the house, even offering to look under her bed. She knew they were making fun of her. There had been no one there and she had only heard the sounds an old house makes all the time. She listened again later that night after everyone went to bed and the noises were still there, she had just never heard them because she had never before listened.

  Beth shivered next to her. Liz put her arms around her and Beth buried her head against Liz’s shoulder, silent.

  Kevin gazed into the fire, his face sunken and lined. Whatever had really happened, Liz could see it had been hard for him. But she could not believe his story about Agbado. If what he had said was true, then the world was a completely alien place to her, and truth, as she knew it, was a simple fiction created to make living less terrifying. If demons existed then did God exist too? She could not believe that.

  “You don’t believe me,” said Kevin, gazing into the fire.

  “I know that something terrible happened, Kevin,” she said. “I know Bill was killed. I believe that you were taken by the rebels. That was terrible. I can’t imagine what it was like for you. But about Agbado, how can that be?”

  “You think I’m making it up?”

  “No, but you said yourself the rebels were half out of their minds on drugs. They probably slipped you some hallucinogen without your even knowing it, in the food or in the water. It might have been LSD. You remember what that was like back in college. People saw and heard plenty of weird stuff. Given where you were, it’s natural you experienced a nightmare.”

  “I wish that was true,” said Kevin. He looked at her across the fire, his eyes reflecting the flames. “You don’t know how much. But Agbado was real. How could I have escaped the rebel camp without his help?”

  “I’m sure the rebels did attack each other. It sounds as though they were complete lunatics.”

  “That’s what Agbado does. He drives people mad. You felt him today, I know you did. We all did. You even gave Beth a smack. Is that like you? When was the last time you felt like hitting someone? When did you feel compelled to do it, like a physical craving? Like a piece of something not you, but in you, demanding to get out.”

  “But Kevin, how could Agbado be here? How’s that possible? Besides, people get angry at each other, it
happens all the time. God knows we hardly need demons for that.”

  Kevin closed his eyes and his mouth twitched. “He’s here,” he finally said, “because I brought him back. More than that, he’s been out again.”

  He stood up as though about to walk away and then stopped short. He looked into the trees. Liz could see he wanted to be alone but he could not bring himself to leave the circle of light cast by the campfire. He sat down again, reluctantly.

  “You’ve experienced him again?” said Liz. “You brought the amulet back from Africa?”

  Kevin simply nodded. “So you see,” he finally said, “I know I wasn’t drugged and that I didn’t imagine it because the keystone was used again.”

  “Used again how?”

  Kevin didn’t answer for a long time, staring blankly into the fire.

  “Used again how?” said Beth, emerging from against Liz’s shoulder.

  “More people died,” said Kevin.

  “You murdered someone, Kevin?” said Liz. She could not believe Kevin was a murderer, but was she really sure? She realized she was not. But what had he done? From the expression on his face, it was something horrible. The thought made her skin crawl.

  Kevin opened his mouth, then closed it. He seemed unsure of himself. Finally, softly, he said, “I should have known better.”

  “What did you do?” said Liz.

  “At first, I didn’t know what to think of what happened in Africa. Like you, I couldn’t believe the old shaman. I thought what I saw and felt must have been caused by mental exhaustion or drugs or sickness.

  “Yet I kept the stone with me, and the longer I had it, the more often I took it out. I told myself I just needed to see it again to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind, that it all really happened.

  “But it was more than that. When I held the stone I felt a rush of power, just as I did that night in Mosquito’s camp. It made me feel strong, and even more, it made me feel safe. I had nothing to fear from men like Mosquito because they couldn’t touch me so long as I held the stone. Over time it was like a drug that I kept going back to because I needed it. I needed to feel Agbado and his strength.

  “I thought I was losing my mind, yet the only times I felt sane were when I held the stone. My need grew so intense I finally heard Agbado whisper to me when I seized it, a strange voice coming from a great distance in strange echoing waves. He wanted me to call him out so he could appear to me. But I was terrified that if I called him he actually would appear, and something in me knew I didn’t want him to. If he did, I might lose my last hold on myself, on my sanity.

  “Still, my growing obsession brought him back strong enough that I heard him more clearly over time. This need became a terrible, guilty desire, almost like a pornographic fantasy you’re ashamed to admit to but that gains more of a hold on you the longer you keep it hidden. I could hardly think about anything else but the power that I held and what it could mean for me.”

  Kevin looked up at the brilliant rainbow sweeping the patch of open night sky above them. “Agbado whispered to me that he had been in the hands of corrupt men who did great harm and hurt countless people. But what if a good man commanded him?”

  Kevin pulled a flask from his pocket, unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth and recapped it. “He said I would make a difference. And…” He stopped, shifting uneasily. “He wanted me to use him.

  “It began to occur to me that I could do something good. I could make people pay for their wrongs. All the unpunished could now, finally, be called to account for their crimes and the harm they caused. I could do that. No matter how rich or how powerful, I could reach them. It was crazy, I knew, but I felt the urge to try, just to see. The more I touched the stone, the stronger the feeling grew. He was reaching out, but I had to want him to act before he could. To come into our world he needed me, he needed my desire to use his power, to open the door for him.

  “I dreamed of stopping wars. I could hold the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden accountable. I could match them hate for hate. I could uncover the identities of serial killers and end them before they struck again. There would be no escaping me, no manipulating the courts with clever lawyers to get away with murder, no shielding themselves with power, money or petty rules that stood in the way of true justice. I could do all that if only I would use the tool fate had given to me.

  “Agbado fed the desire. He said he could help me. In the end, even when I wasn’t holding the stone I felt him whispering in my mind, urging me to find the courage to act, until I began to see that it was wrong of me not to do it. How could I idly stand by and not stop them as the violent and corrupt of the world spread their hate and lies, when I could if only I chose to? Every crime that went unpunished and every monster who led the innocent to their deaths all happened because I let it happen. I did nothing when it I had the power to destroy the wicked and protect the helpless.

  “And then Senator Sara Helms from North Dakota announced her presidential candidacy for the Reform Party on an anti-immigrant platform. She wanted to turn back the clock on social reform, what she called special rights for the incompetent, the useless, the unpatriotic and the lazy. She wanted to make it a crime for a woman to do anything to injure a fetus. AIDS was a curse by God on homosexuals and the immoral. She wanted to recognize Taiwan and confront the Chinese head on. Her foreign policy for every problem was to kick ass, America first, and everyone else be damned. God ordained for America to be a great power, the only power, and the exceptional nation that all must follow or face the just consequences. There wasn’t an extremist position she didn’t embrace. Her popularity was growing by leaps and bounds because she was attractive, outrageous, funny and clever while the Republicans and Democrats were mealy-mouthed fools, clowns better suited to running a circus sideshow than a government. She was killing them in the press and in the debates. The tell-it-like-it-is populist mama lioness versus the same old tired party hacks we’d seen for decades.

  “Agbado whispered in my mind that Helms would win. He showed me a vision of the future, a future of catastrophic nuclear conflict, famine and civil and economic collapse. Then he reminded me how it was Helms who’d turned off the money to Bill’s clinic. If I loved Bill and honored his memory, the election of Helms was something I had to stop. The lives of millions of innocent people depended on it. Bill had sacrificed himself for me so that I could do this. The Mosquitoes and the Helmses and the bin Ladens of the world were about to proliferate in the climate of hate and chaos Helms would create.

  “Agbado said it would be simple to change. I decided to act. I told him that Helms couldn’t die. I didn’t want to kill her, I only wanted to stop her. I wanted to cause something to happen that would stop her.

  “Agbado whispered in my mind that I only had to go near to her, so I went to a rally in Minneapolis. I stood in the crowd and watched Helms speak, clutching the stone in my hand.”

  “That’s where Sara Helms was shot,” said Liz.

  Kevin nodded. “One of the hecklers got near the stage and managed to grab a policeman’s gun. She used it to fire point-blank into Helms, and as she was wrestled to the ground the gun went off again, killing an eighteen-year-old girl in the crowd.”

  “Helms was hospitalized for months and forced to drop out of the race,” said Liz. “Her spine was shattered and she can’t even breathe without a respirator.”

  Kevin nodded. “And the woman who shot her, Mary Shannon, killed herself in prison. She left four children behind.”

  “And you’re saying this all happened,” said Beth, “because you stood in the crowd holding this stone? That’s what the voices you hear said?”

  Kevin looked at Beth. “That woman had no previous history of violent behavior. She didn’t like Helms, and in some part of her she must have hated her, but she’d never been known to raise a hand against anyone in her life and she didn’t own a gun. When they asked her why she’d done it, she said she couldn’t remember except that a
blind fury overwhelmed her when Helms said loose women were murdering unborn babies so they could go back sooner to having promiscuous sex. Two people died and one woman lives in a condition so horrible she wishes she’d been killed. She’s said she wants to die and prays for it.

  “And that eighteen-year-old girl who was shot through the head was a student at the University of Minnesota, a reporter for the school newspaper.”

  “Get a grip, Dad. I read about how the same thing happened to someone named George Wallace and I don’t think you were there. Ronald Reagan was shot. That kind of shit happens all the time in this country. Are you saying, like, every time some kid goes to school and murders a bunch of students and teachers, that’s you?”

  “No,” said Kevin, “that’s not me. But this one time it was me. Mary Shannon had no history of violence. I’m telling you, Agbado opened her up to it. I set him loose and he set her hate loose. That’s what he does.”

  No, thought Liz, he’s mad. He’s simply mad. Voices in his head, assuming responsibility for events beyond his control; it almost made her weep with dread and hopelessness listening to him. It could not be believed, yet he almost had her convinced that Agbado was out there in the dark, watching and waiting for the right moment to drive them mad with hate.

  Yet she also half expected him to suddenly turn to them, grinning, and say, “A great campfire ghost story, isn’t it? Really had you two going. You both look so damn scared I bet you peed your pants.”

  But he wasn’t going to do that. Beyond a doubt, he believed it; she knew him well enough to know that. And if his story wasn’t true, then here she sat with a man who had an excuse for killing them. In fact, the classic excuse, and it almost made her laugh despite herself. “The devil made me do it.” Voices in the dark.