Demonic

by Karl Morgan

  Bill swallowed hard and looked down at his hands, but they were no longer his hands. They were huge with long talons on each finger. He bent his head to look into the rearview mirror and saw the face of a monster, with fangs, pointed ears and blood-red eyes. The old man touched his shoulder, and Bill was normal again. “I don’t understand.”

  “All things in time, my son. There is no hurry.” The old man faded away as the cruiser pulled into the station and parked.

  Chapter 4

  After filling out paperwork at the Highway Patrol station, Bill was reunited with Mary and J.C. at a local eatery. He sat at their booth and shook their hands. They both looked at him with horrified faces, seeing his clothes in shreds. “I feel a lot better now,” he opened. “The army has taken the nuke by now so we don’t have to worry about that particular device. And J.C., I’m sorry about your friend’s truck.”

  “We heard that another group of terrorists attacked you. What happened? Were you hurt? It looks like you went through a paper shredder,” Mary asked.

  Bill pulled the cell phone from his pocket and showed it to them as well. “There were a lot of bullets, but somehow I didn’t get hit.”

  “Thank God for that!” J.C. exclaimed. “The truck was just a truck, but I’m still in shock about Ted and Rob. I had to let the troopers call their wives; I just couldn’t. It was too soon and I just didn’t know what to say.”

  “Bill, I hope it’s okay, but I told J.C. we’d give him a ride home. He lives in Henderson, Nevada which is next to Las Vegas,” Mary noted.

  “Sure, that’s no problem, Mary. Can I have my car keys? I want to get some different clothes; I don’t think these can be saved.”

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon when they climbed back into Bill’s car and headed north toward Las Vegas. Mary was sitting in back with the two dogs and J.C. sat on the front seat watching the desert pass by. Bill was consumed with the images of the terrorist attack. He could not understand how a bullet could have torn through his trousers and smashed through his cell phone without harming him. The cab of the truck had looked like Swiss cheese and yet he had no pain and no recollection of escaping other than the brief feeling of floating above the truck and watching the terrorists run for their lives. He also had no idea how the roof of the cab had been ripped off. In his mind, he could see the torn steel edges which were not cut by bullets. The highway patrol officer had said the terrorists appeared to have been ripped to pieces. That was another quandary. Then he remembered looking at the monster claw hands he had seen in the mirror as the cruiser pulled into Needles. It was too confusing, so he decided to stop thinking about it altogether.

  “Bill, do you think you could drop me off at the Bellagio on the strip?” J.C. asked.

  “Sure, but I thought you were from Henderson?”

  “Yea, but my dad has a suite of offices at the hotel and I’d like you to meet him, if that’s okay?”

  “No problem for me. What do you think Mary?”

  She had looked up from the magazine she was reading and said, “I’m not really in the mood, if that’s okay. You two just leave me in the car with the dogs and I’ll be okay. Please don’t take offense, J.C.” He frowned at her but then turned back to look out the window.

  Bill was surprised by her attitude. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, but then decided she was just in a bad mood and would likely come out of it before they made it to Vegas. “So, J.C., what do you do for a living?”

  “I work in the family business. I suppose you could say I am in human resources. We’re always looking for people who are a good fit with our business, so that keeps me moving around.”

  Bill noticed that Mary was watching J.C. intently. He wondered if she had feelings for J.C., and perhaps that was why she was upset that J.C. wanted to introduce him to his father and had not mentioned her. “What kind of a business is it?”

  J.C. chuckled and replied, “I suppose you could call it a conglomerate. We are into all sorts of things.” In the mirror, Bill could see that Mary was scowling at the other man. She caught Bill’s eye in the mirror and smiled sweetly. Something about J.C. was making her very uncomfortable and he wondered what it could be, after all, she had been the one to offer the ride in the first place. “What do you do, Bill?”

  “I’m a controller for a small company; at least I was before the nuclear attack on San Diego. I don’t know if there’s anything left now. And Mary had just started with us yesterday.”

  J.C. turned toward Mary and said, “Wow, that’s a real coincidence, isn’t it? I guess it was fate that brought you two together and led you to save me too. Amazing!” She flashed a quick smile and went back to her reading. “Bill, our meeting might have been precipitous after all. We can always use good people. I’ll mention that to my dad.”

  “Thanks, but let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet. All I want to do is find my wife and family and make certain they are safe.”

  “I understand completely.”

  Just after four o’clock, Bill pulled his Avalon into the front drive at the Bellagio Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Valets opened the doors and one immediately recognized J.C. “Welcome back, sir,” he smiled.

  “Steve, I think the lady will stay with the car if that’s okay,” J.C. replied.

  “Sure, we’ll pull it to the curb and leave the key with the lady.”

  Bill and J.C. walked through the front doors and headed toward a bank of elevators. “Does your family own this hotel, J.C.?”

  He chuckled and said, “No, but that would be nice. It’s just a suite of offices, but I’m sure we can get you a complimentary suite for the night if you like. You and Mary both look really tired.”

  Bill yawned and replied, “We’ll think about it. We left home at three o’clock this morning, so it’s been a really long day. We’re both a little scared of staying in a big city with all the craziness going on right now.”

  “Okay, it’s up to you, but I think Las Vegas is probably safe.”

  “Why? This place is a real den of iniquity. That would be a perfect target, don’t you think? Hey, didn’t we just walk past the elevators?” Bill felt a hand grab his arm and turn him around. Mary stood in front of him and threw her arms around his neck and nuzzled her face against his neck. “Are you okay?”

  She kissed his cheek and whispered into his ear, “Don’t believe everything you see, Bill.”

  “I don’t understand, Mary.”

  She pressed her lips to his, smiled sweetly and replied, “Just don’t believe everything you see or hear, okay?” Bill nodded. She let go of him, turned and headed back toward the front doors.

  Bill did not understand her actions or words. He shook his head and turned to see J.C. unlocking a large wooden door. There was a single elevator car behind the door. “Wow!”

  “Yeah, private elevator, isn’t that cool? We don’t want to interfere with the hotel’s staff and guests.” The metal door slid open and the two men stepped inside. Bill turned to face the door and could see Mary fifty feet away frowning at them. J.C. closed the wooden door, and then the elevator door closed and the car began to rise. “Our floor is pretty high, so it will take a while.”

  Three minutes later, the car was still rising. Bill turned to look at J.C. and said, “This must be the slowest elevator on earth, J.C. The hotel isn’t that tall, is it?” The other man just smiled. The car stopped and the door opened. Bill turned around to exit and stopped in his tracks with his mouth open.

  Now he knew what Mary had meant. Rather than a hallway in the hotel, outside the door was a glass hallway leading both left and right. Through the glass, he could see Earth sitting below them. They had to be hundreds of miles above the surface. “J.C., what’s going on? This isn’t real. Is this some kind of illusion or what?”

  J.C. walked out of the car into the hallway and turned to the other man. “Bill, think what you want. If you want to believe this is a wraparound painting, that’s okay with me, but what you are se
eing is reality.” He motioned with his arm and said, “Come on, dad’s waiting.” He began to move to the left down the hallway.

  Bill closed his eyes and looked again. He was still in space. He looked for the button to go back to the ground floor, but there was no control panel at all. “Bill, come on, stop wasting time!” He inched forward until he could look out of the car and down the hallway in both directions. It seemed to be made of glass and stretched in both directions as far as he could see. “Come on!” J.C. exclaimed. Bill took a tentative stop onto the glass floor and it seemed strong enough to support his weight. He stepped out of the car and looked down on the planet beneath him.

  “This is quite the illusion, J.C. How much did this cost?” He heard the elevator door close and looked toward it. There was no door, only the endless pane of glass. “Mary was right, this isn’t real. I don’t believe it.”

  “Fine, don’t believe it, I don’t care. Just come along.”

  Bill caught up to J.C. and they continued down the corridor for several minutes. Bill was finally satisfied that he was looking at a video projection on the glass and not reality. J.C. stopped abruptly and turned to Bill and said, “Okay, we’re here.”

  Bill looked at both walls and saw only the unbroken glass. “Where?” J.C. reached out toward the wall to his right and a doorknob formed in front of his hand. By the time he grasped it, a wooden door stood piercing the glass. “That’s pretty cool.” J.C. opened the door, revealing a large office. Several large picture windows were covered by heavy drapes. There was a massive wooden desk, credenza, and chairs to his left, and a large seating area with a table, two couches, and two chairs to his right. Behind the furthest couch was a wall of bookcases pierced by a bar with two stools.

  A man was standing at the bar pouring liquor into three glasses. He turned and smiled at his visitors. “Please come in and have a drink,” he said. The man appeared to be around sixty years old with gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He picked up the three glasses and set them on the table and approached them. He extended his hand and shook Bill’s. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Mr. Watson. My name is Dom Emmanuel. I heard you’ve had a busy day.”

  “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Emmanuel.”

  Dom pointed to one of the couches and said, “Please just call me Dom and have a seat.” As Bill moved away, Dom hugged his son and whispered something in his ear. Then the two came over and sat on the opposite couch. He picked up one of the glasses and extended his arm for a toast. “Here’s to our health!” They tapped glasses and sipped the whisky.

  “Dom, J.C. said you wanted to meet me. Why?”

  The old man chuckled and smiled at him. “You’ve had quite a day, son. Can you explain all the things that have happened to you today?”

  “What do you think happened to me?”

  J.C. and Dom exchanged a knowing smile. “Let’s see, first you were startled out of bed by the evacuation order. Then you stopped your car at the precise moment to keep from having it knocked out by an EMP. Then you twice attacked groups of terrorists like a madman, killing and then beheading them all. Finally, you hid in a truck from terrorists which was then riddled with bullets without any injury to you. Then you morphed into a monster and ruthlessly slaughtered them all.” He turned to his son and said, “Am I leaving anything out, J.C.?” The other man shook his head.

  “Hey, I didn’t behead any of them the second time. That isn’t true!”

  “Okay, to be honest, your sister did that,” Dom agreed. “Did I get anything else wrong?”

  Bill sat rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. “This isn’t possible. How can you know any of that? I don’t even remember a lot of it.” He felt a hand on his back and jumped. He looked and saw that Dom had moved over to sit next to him.

  “It’s okay, Bill. We are your friends; at least we want to be. Tell us about the man who has been helping you.”

  “You know about that too?” Bill asked and Dom just smiled back at him. “He said his name was Lou and that he was my biological father. Is that true?”

  “I suppose in a way it is true, but in another it is not.”

  “Is that supposed to be an answer, Dom?”

  “Bill, you and the rest of humanity view reality through a narrow lens based on knowledge passed down from generation to generation along with your own framework of the current state of science. From our perspective, reality is not so cut and dried.” He stood and looked down on him. “What did you think of the hallway?”

  The sudden change of topic shocked Bill out of his confusion. “That’s quite a video system you have out there.” The other men began to laugh. “Now you’re going to tell me it’s all real, isn’t that right? Well, I don’t believe it!”

  Dom grunted and walked over to the door and pulled it open. Instead of the hallway, there was now a sandy beach just outside the door. Low waves lapped up on the sand and he could hear seagulls calling in the distance. “Is this more video?”

  “Of course it is,” Bill scoffed.

  “Then come over here and prove it by stepping outside for a minute.”

  Bill looked at J.C.’s expression but could not tell what he was thinking. He rose and walked over to the door. The scent of the sea was intoxicating and he moved his foot as if to take a step outside. Dom’s hand was in his back, shoving him out and causing him to fall face-first into the sand. He heard the door slam shut behind him. The sand was real, but that would not be hard to do. He stood and turned to where the door had been, but there was nothing there. He reached out with his hands, certain the door or wall would be there, but it was just air.

  “Are you okay, buddy?” said a voice to his right. He turned and saw a small bar with a thatched roof only ten feet away. A young man with long blonde hair stood behind the counter. Bill looked around again, but was still on the beach. Past the first few palm trees, a line of tall hotels hugged the beach. Bill walked over and sat on a tall stool. “What’ll it be?”

  “What’s good around here?”

  “Man, on Maui, it’s got to be a Mai Tai.”

  “Okay, I’ll have one of those. By the way, what time is it?”

  “Two-thirty in the afternoon, but it’s never too early to party here.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Can I ask you a question, buddy?” the bartender asked. Bill nodded. “Is there something wrong, pal? I saw you a minute ago. You looked lost.”

  “I felt lost, but I’m okay now.” The barman moved away and started to prepare his drink. Bill sat quietly, wondering what had happened. This had to be a dream. He was in the Bellagio Hotel, then in outer space and now on the beach in Hawaii. He hoped he would wake up soon, but then again, this dream was pleasant enough. The barman brought over his drink and set it down. Bill took a sip and said, “Thanks. That’s perfect.” He had decided to go along with the dream and let his body wake up when it chose. After a few minutes, a tall redhead in a tiny ice-blue bikini began to approach up the beach. She caught him staring at her and smiled and he blushed slightly and turned away. A minute later, she sat on the stool next to his.

  “Hi, Bill, it’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Can I buy you another drink?”

  He turned and gazed into her brilliant green eyes. “How do you know my name?”

  She turned to the barman and said, “Troy, another drink for my friend and champagne for me.”

  “Sure thing, Faith,” he replied.

  “Bill, Dom Emmanuel is my father. My name is Faith. I came to take you back when you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready now. I’ve had enough of this silly dream.”

  “This is no dream, Bill Watson, no more than when you destroyed the terrorists and saved countless lives today. You’re just confused.”

  “Well, there is no arguing that! I have no clue what’s going on. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Very well, if that’s what you want? Troy, hold those drinks, we’ll be right back.” She grabbed Bill’s hands
and they disappeared.

  Faith and Bill stood on the edge of a tall cliff, surrounded by dozens of waterfalls. The sound of the water crashing into the base of the falls was deafening. They were at the top of a U-shaped valley, where the cascades fell down into a deep ravine. He could feel the spray of water on his face and the stifling heat and humidity of the air. “Wow! This place is amazing! How did you get the effects in this simulation?”

  Faith laughed. “So you think this is an illusion too?”

  “What else could it be, Faith? Where would you have me believe I am now?”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and said, “I would say this is Iguazu Falls in South America, but calling it an illusion is true as well.”

  “Listen, all of this mumbo-jumbo is starting to get on my nerves. Is this some real waterfall or just a game you are playing on me?”

  She frowned and replied, “First of all, this is not a game. Those terrorists were doing their best to kill you. This is most definitely a waterfall, as real as any you’ve ever seen, but both of the situations were illusions as well.”

  “Huh?”

  “It seems I have to demonstrate this again!” she exclaimed as she pushed him into the torrent of water. Almost instantly he went over the edge and plummeted toward the river at the base of the cliff. He screamed and flailed with his arms and legs and then slammed into the water. He fought to find the surface and discovered the water was only three feet deep and tasted salty. He stood up and looked at the Maui beach a few yards away. Faith was sitting at the bar again chatting to the barman. Bill’s clothes had changed into swimming trunks. He trudged through the water and up onto the beach where she handed him a large towel. “Did you have a nice swim?”

  After drying himself, he sat on the other barstool just as Troy set a fresh Mai Tai down in front of him. He put his hand on Faith’s knee and she smiled sweetly at him. “Everything is an illusion, right?”

  She threw her arms around him and squeezed and then whispered in his ear, “I’m so proud of you, Bill.” She kissed his cheek. “Enjoy your drink.”