by M Purcell
on the floor beneath him in a hundred pieces of frozen pieces of flesh. All the man could manage was a loud deep gasping sound, gripped in terror.
"Oh what wonders your eyes have seen here, and certainly you must never speak of to be sure. However, I will remedy that, just as sure as you may believe that both of your souls are now mine." The beast's long black tongue darting out, grabbing the mans chin with the two forks at the end of it, forcing him to look at the beast. "Look at me when I speak to you, you pitiful little maggot." The mans eyes slowly making eye contact with the beast's glowing red eye's, locking in place there. "Your eyes have witnessed the acts of the supreme one, and in doing so, they are now mine. Therefore, you shall see as I see, your eyes shall burn as mine burn." The beast reached out with both arms, his hands clasping the mans head between them. They were larger now. The backside covered in coarse black hair. The fingernails were dark pointed talons. The man let out a small whimper as the beast's eye began to glow more intensely now. The man could not move, his heart pounding in his ears, terror gripping his very soul. His bladder now unable to contain itself, releases a torrent of hot urine, spilling down the mans leg and running out onto the floor in a puddle.
The beast but its thumbs under each eye and slowly began to apply pressure, the man let out a blood-curdling scream as the thing's thumbs pushed into his skull. There was a moist popping sound as his left eye popped out, followed by the right. His eyes dangling from the sockets by the optical nerves, blood vessels and nerve tissue. Blood seeping out of the sockets, slowly running down the mans face. His primordial screams filling the room, choking on little gasps of air as his body now completely out of control, tried to continue breathing. "We must make room for your new eyes." The beast's eyes begin radiating outward, two bright beams of amber red, directly into the empty eye sockets of the gunman. The man let out a shriek, and his body literally had every hair standing straight up in the air. As the beast withdrew the glowing beams from the mans head, it bore its sharp fangs in a grotesque mimic of a smile. "Ahh, much better." The mans eye sockets glowed red, brighter and brighter until they had flames dancing in them, real flames. Bringing a pain such as no ordinary man has ever suffered, not even under torturous conditions. His pain, was a soul burning pain, the pain of hell.
His head twitching violently, as much as his invisible bonds would allow. In a bizarre way, it resembled some sort of obscene bobble head doll, hair standing straight up, eyelids fluttering while flames burned inside, as his real eyes lie dangling and jiggling beneath them. While out of his mouth came his screams of unending and unearthly pain echoing through the store. "Next, we need to silence that tongue of yours. Not that I do not enjoy your screams, I can assure that I do. I will allow you to continue when you arrive at your new home. There you can join my choir, and sing your screams along with many others." The beast waves a hand in front of the mans face, his head tilting back slightly, as one might do to see better when wearing reading glasses low on their nose. "Say ahhhh," the thing whispered to the man. Its eyes studying intensely as the mans mouth opened wide, still screaming the endless scream of a suffering soul. "There is the problem, it is that tongue of yours, that is the culprit. Perhaps you need to eat something, maybe that will help." The mans screams become distorted as his tongue starts growing outward. Now elongated to almost a foot long, the mans tongue turns and begins to force itself down his throat. His screams squelched, muffled by the sound of his gagging. He was choking to death on his own tongue. The beast waved his hand again in front of the man, his body falling to the floor in a bouncing, twitching mass. Convulsing uncontrollably, until it finally had no more life in it, the flames gone out of his eyes, leaving black charred holes behind.
The beast turns toward the door, placing his hat back on his head. Instantly, his eye's no longer glowing red, but a soft blue. As his tongue was no longer a long black serpent. His hair had turned back to the gray it was before, and he was once again a human priest. His face wears a look of harmony, kindness and caring. He has the comforting and consoling look of a priest. As he walks to the door, he stops just before leaving the pharmacy. "I'll be down and personally welcome you both shortly." A thin smile embracing his lips as he steps through the door into the night air. "I feel there is much more calling for my services this evening. Ahh...Halloween and Fall, my busiest time of the year." As he walked the small locks of yellow-orange hair danced playfully along his face in the Fall breeze. As he crossed the street, and turned the corner of the block at the end of town. He raised a hand into the night and snapped his fingers, just as he did before entering the pharmacy. The night became more alive with sounds, as if he had somehow flipped a switch and now time was allowed to move forward again after being halted for a brief moment.
There was the shrill scream of a woman from behind him, he smiled to himself. Police and ambulance sirens now filled the air as a dozen vehicles came screeching to a halt in front of the pharmacy. Two blocks away, walks a man in a priest uniform. As he walks; there is the sound of small metallic objects dropping to the ground as he steps over them. One by one, all the bullets were being purged from his chest. The wounds closing as if never there, his clothes no longer blood stained and full of holes. As they hit the ground, they gave off a small plume of smoke, rising into the cool night air. There was a sizzling sound from the sidewalk, each bullet lay on the ground glowing red hot. Almost as if each one of them had just been taken out of a furnace or kiln. They began melting into the sidewalk and disappearing forever in a little puff of smoke. In the distance, the sirens filled the night.
Captain John Williams burst through the door to the pharmacy. "OK, just what the hell was so important as to force me to leave my beautiful wife alone in a restaurant in front of our dinner. And on my god-damned wedding anniversary" Anger clearly etched on the captains face. "There better be a good answer, or so help me somebody's going to be pushing a beat right up until retirement. I can promise you sons-a-bitches that much." Calming down enough to catch sight of the bloodbath that lies before him, the captain stops short and whispers, "What in the name of all that's holy happened in this place." Spotting one of his detectives in the middle of the mayhem, he shouts over to the man, "Shriver, over here...NOW!" Detective Shriver looks over and nods his head. He quickly walks over to his captain, notepad open in his one hand and a pen in his other. He wore a badge displaying detective, in plain sight on his belt. "What the hell happened here Bill. It looks like a massacre went on right under our very noses, and we couldn't hear it. With a patrol car not more than a hundred yards down the street, both officers with their arms crossed, talking to some woman who is complaining about egg throwing boys. Nobody hears any shots. Nobody hears any screams. Nobody hears all this glass smashing?" The detective shakes his head, beats the hell out of me sir. Both officers swear that they didn't hear a sound. As a matter of fact, all the people that were on the street at the time, said exactly the same thing when questioned. The night was quiet, except for the sounds of trick-or-treater's." The captain studies Shriver's face intently, then brushes one of his hands through his blonde hair. "It just does not make any sense. I believe what you're telling me Bill. However, it just defies all logic, all reality. OK, fill me in on what you have so far and let's move on."
"Your not gonna like it sir, it gets worse, much worse." Detective Shriver points over to two other detectives working among the small army of uniformed and plain clothed cops, police lab men, and a slew of paramedics who were standing off to the side in case needed. Detectives Palmer and Peterson over there, they pulled the video from the store security camera. "Good, good... we should be able to get something from that." The captain notices the look of disappointment on Shriver's face. "What is it Bill, what now? Are you gonna tell me there's no videotape on top of nobody in town hearing a thing while a massacre is taking place half a block away?" Detective Shriver shakes his head in disgust, " The video shows two gunmen, both holding a gun on the pharmacist. Then out of nowhere they seem to l
ose their minds and start pointing their guns back and forth between the pharmacist and thin air behind them." The captain looks down at the mutilated bodies. "Are you trying to tell me that a god-damned ghost turned all these men into a bloody mess and then vanished?" Looking at the detective as if questioning the mans sanity. "No sir, I'm just giving you the facts as we have them sir. It seems the gunfire came into play after the pharmacist pulled out his own gun and started firing at the holdup men. The only problem there is...I knew Pete Wells. You did too, and he didn't like guns. He told me on more than one occasion that he would not have one, even after I had suggested he got one with drug abuse on the rise." The captain walked over to where the dead pharmacists body lie in the glass case. There was the pistol that he was shown firing from the videotape, still lying there between his legs.
"I did more than just know Pete Wells. We went to school together. We graduated the same class. And we remained friends all through life. He was a good man, husband and