THREE
Bev dreamed of heat, of boiling lava flowing around his buried knees. He waded through the molten asphalt; it spit at him, glowing red beneath a shifting layer of black crust. Around him, hundreds of poor souls were being taken down by the brutal tide. He approached a small barren beach where he saw Kristin and Jake. The two stood naked on the rocky shore, holding hands, shouting “Come here! To the shore!” He traipsed forward, the tide of lava against him, holding him back. Skeletal arms wrapped in liquid flesh reached out from the depths of the flow, grasping his waist, his chest, his arms. His head swelled, and from deep within he heard the scratching, persistent fingers burrowing beyond the surface of his skull into the tender matter of his brain where they uniformly settled amidst the firing synapses and organic secretions. The melting hands rooted into his skin, blood pooling out from his chest, ripping his beating heart free from its cavity. He stopped, only feet from the safe haven of the rock shore where Kristin and Jake waited in glistening nudity, outstretched arms falling to their sides in defeat. They turned and padded away into the darkness, leaving Bev alone to die, to die, to die...
~ * ~
He awoke, eyes darting open, leaping heart striking his ribcage. Jesus, what a nightmare! For a time he lay still, breathing heavily, nerve endings squirting and keeping him from drifting back into a sleeping state. He shifted his legs and felt a moist sheen on his body; not a cold sweat, rather one dipped in heat, as if he’d just emerged from a sauna. He kicked the covers off with one leg. Opened his eyes. Raindrops met his tired gaze, clinging to the bay window like ornaments, gray light filtering through them in dull slivers.
His cell phone rang.
Startled, he crawled from the bed, stomach heavy and knotted. He followed the toll. Somewhere on the floor. His jeans. Still clipped to his belt, the soft green light from the display signaled him. He reached down and grabbed the phone, pulling the jeans up with it. A few coins jingled to the floor.
From the back pocket, the envelope slipped free and landed next to the coins. He pressed the send button on the phone, eyes pinned to his name scrawled on the folded beige square. “This is Bev.”
“Wake you up?” Jake.
“Uh, yeah. I guess.”
“You guess? C’mon, douchebag, either I did or I didn’t.”
“I’m awake now. What time is it?”
“Almost noon. How you feeling?”
“Well, considering that I just woke up, spent. You?”
“I didn’t puke, so I guess I’m ahead of the game.”
He laughed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“We’ve got dinner at six. My place. Gonna discuss your future. Then, party at eight.”
“Jake...”
“Don’t ‘Jake’ me. Epic is very serious about keeping you on board for the next few years.”
“It’s my first day back in nine months. Make them wait a week.”
“Douchebag! Listen to me, don’t let them sit on it. They might change their minds, I’m telling you—”
“If they want me, then they can wait a week. I’m officially on vacation.”
“Bev, this is serious shit, and I—”
“I’m serious too, Jake. I need to spend some time with my daughter. No distractions. No ongoing negotiations. Got it? I’m freakin’ tired and I need a break. Make an appointment for next week sometime.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re fucking mad,” he rasped. “Success has mushed your brain.”
What a pain in the ass, Bev thought, then remembered his dream and changed the subject. “You see Kristin leave last night?”
“Kristin? Kristin? Oh...you mean that hot little piece of ass at the party?”
“Watch it Jake...you know, I could fire your fat ass.”
“Eat shit and die.”
“We’re even now.”
“Fine,” he murmured. “No, I didn’t see her leave. Frankly, I don’t remember much of anything from last night, other than Epic’s proposal, and that I didn’t puke.”
“You’re such a charmer.”
“Why thank you, mon douchebag.”
“Listen, I gotta go.”
“Well...what about Epic?”
“Next week.”
“Jesus, you’re mad.”
“I’m a rock star. I have to be.”
Jake laughed, defeated. “Fuck. You make my job so damn hard.”
“Gotta work hard to earn the big bucks, my man.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Forget about dinner, then. Just try to make the party. Okay? Douchebag?”
“I’ll try.” Bev disconnected the line. He ran a hand through his hair, rose from bed and staggered into the bathroom. He partook in the three SH’s: shit, shower, and shave. In that order. An hour later he was a new man, no fatigue, no odd finger-probing sensation in his head. His stomach rolled with hunger. Nine months out of the apartment left him with nothing to eat; he hoped Kristin would be available to meet for lunch.
Back in the bedroom, he got a cigarette out from the pack on the nightstand, lit it, then went to the sliding closet. Folded atop the white wicker hamper were three pairs of jeans; his suitcase was still in transit along with the guitars he’d taken on tour. He pulled the bootcut denims from the top of the pile, grabbed them by the waistband, and shook the stiffness out of them.
A beetle the size of a prune fell from the jeans and dropped to the wood floor with a tiny audible clack. It quickly righted itself and skittered away toward the bathroom.
“Jesus!” Bev dropped the jeans in a heap. In a hesitant panic, he reached into the closet for the closest shoe and launched after the fleeing insect. With a quick instinctual swing, he brought the shoe’s heel down on the vacating bug. It made a wet crunching sound. He ground it back and forth, doing his best to finish the job. Once satisfied, he raised the shoe. Yellow custard oozed from the beetle’s shell. Two of its six or eight legs were left behind like storm-blown twigs. Still, amazingly, it wasn’t dead. It continued on in a slow, staggering amble—a last ditch attempt for survival. This is the reason why cockroaches and beetles have been around since the dinosaurs. With a flick of the wrist, he whacked at it again, then took the cigarette from his mouth and put it out on the beetle’s crushed back. This pretty much took care of it. It wasn’t going anywhere now.
He hurried into the bathroom and grabbed a handful of tissues. He used them to clean away the soft carcass from the floor and the shoe. After flushing the tissues, he went back and picked up his strewn jeans. Another beetle fell out and raced across the floor, its sanctuary disturbed. “Son of a bitch!” Bev shouted, throwing the jeans down again. He watched with dismay as the bug quickly sequestered itself into the dense safety of the closet.
Bev’s heart pounded, his breathing quickened. “What’s with the fucking bugs?” He slid the doors to the closet fully open, exposing his entire wardrobe. He leaned down and peered into the dusty darkness beneath his hanging clothes.
Six or seven large beetles like the ones he saw were walking on the back wall of the closet. Antennae flickering. Legs racing. Shells fluttering like wings. Some disappeared behind his clothes; others came back down to replace them.
He shouted out. Staggered back. His skin crawled. At once he felt as though they were on him, and he slapped his hands all over his exposed skin. What the fuck?
The apartment was infested. And he’d slept here last night. Suddenly his skull itched from within, the invisible fingers digging along the space where brain met skull, as though they were creating space there to settle. He quickly grabbed the jeans from the bed, the ones he wore last night, and shook them briskly. No beetles. He jumped into them, then checked his shirt which reeked of smoke and sweat, and put that on too. He peered at his shirts tucked in the closet, considered grabbing one from a hangar, then decided against it.
Compulsively, he got down on his hands and knees again and peered into the closet to reinvestigate. Beetles raced everywhere, on the back wall, on the floor, in his
shoes. They seemed to really like it in there: cool, dark, dusty. Safe.
Jesus...
Suddenly, the room grew hot. Oppressive. A sweat coated his forehead and back. His armpits dripped. He stood, slightly dizzied, those phantom fingers still digging. He walked to the wall and put a hand against the central air vent. Cool. What the fuck? I must be getting sick. And my apartment’s infested. Is this a vacation?
He grabbed his cell phone from the bed. His keys and wallet were still in his pockets. The air suddenly kicked off. The apartment fell into a strange silence. He shivered—suddenly cold despite the sweat on his body.
Then, he eyed the envelope on the floor. His handwritten name hypnotized him: Bev Mathers. It’d been meant for him. But from whom? He bent down, picked it up, then fled the odd infestation that had become of his home.
The door closed behind him. He stood on the cement landing in the gray drizzle of Saturday afternoon, taking in long deep breaths. By the time he reached his car parked in the detached garage a hundred feet away, the scratching in his head had vanished.
FOUR
In a room laden with darkness, a man prayed. In his heart, a great ache loomed. In his head, a profound beat was heard, that of the blood in his veins. He searched the gloom for a guiding light, found only desolation. Loneliness. Somewhere above, evil flourished. He set his will—his predestination—to oppose it. For now, it languished, a hitherto standoff between an ancient enemy, and its opposition.
Behind him, a quiet clearing of a throat. He turned. Bathed in the flickering gold of a candle’s flame, a teenaged boy. Used. Forlorn. Searching. The front of the boy’s pants were stained with urine; he seemed not to notice nor care. The boy walked over, placed a four-fingered hand out. “It is time,” he muttered, his breath reeking of putrification, of many things charred.
The man shuddered under the weight of the boy’s message, closed his eyes in search of salvation, for himself, for the boy. He’d found a God, one that weighed him down with foul intent: a savior who accepted a host of menstrual blood and bile, who drank from a chalice formed of excrement. Within proximity, a vibration commenced. A calling of souls. The man rose to his feet. With blind fury, he seized the boy by the collar and dragged him to a chair across the compact room.
“Who is your God?” the man rasped, eyes burning.
The boy cowered. Perspiring. Sour stench. Through clenched teeth, he replied, “Allieb.”
The man released his hold, eyes boring holes into the poor young soul. “Go and pray.” The boy fled the room, fear waiting at all ends.
The man wiped his brow with an unclean handkerchief, then exited the room. He roamed the dark, quiet hallways of In Domo, gingerly passing unoccupied rooms, peering in with ill regard as if they were open wounds. A tremendous weariness beset him. He prayed for strength, and moved on. The vibration in the walls grew stronger. In its wake, a chanting began. He carried himself up a flight of stairs, into an antechamber where nearly fifty people prayed in icy, bitter unison. In his heart, he kissed his God, and moved off to feign prayer to another.
~ * ~
Two hours later, the man was alone in his room. Expended. He carried his burdenous weight into the bathroom, stared at the mold in the sink. He lodged a finger down his throat and vomited blood.
On the floor by his bare feet lay a towel reeking of mildew. He grabbed it and wiped his mouth of the taint. He stood unmoving, catching his breath. His wits. He rubbed his weary eyes. Waited for the world to stop moving. Pink saliva pooled from his mouth to the broken tiled floor.
Back in his room, he re-evaluated his mission. Again second-guessed his strength to complete it. He doubted himself, and his ability to perform what seemed an impossible task.
Faith alone could not defeat true power, he knew. There needed to be a worthy antithesis of strength, a spirited adversary.
And he knew just where to find it.
Getting it would prove to be a daunting task.
FIVE
A few minutes after leaving his house, Bev Mathers called information and got the number for an exterminator in Torrance.
“What’s the problem?” the woman, a receptionist, asked.
“Beetles. Big ones. In my closet,” he explained.
“Beetles? Not cockroaches?”
“No. Definitely beetles. Hard shells. Roundish. Lots of legs.”
“Probably water bugs. You got a leak?”
“No...Jesus, what the hell difference does it make? Just get someone over there to take care of the problem.” He gave the woman the address. He’d left the door unlocked (a would-be burglar wouldn’t be too smitten with the occupants, he figured), in hope of an exterminator’s quick arrival. He was not let down; she said someone would be there within the hour.
“Bugs’ll be dead and gone by the time you get home, Mr. Mathers. There’ll be a strong odor from the chemicals, so I suggest sleeping someplace else, just for one night.”
“Thank you.”
After hanging up, he dialed Kristin’s cell phone. While on tour, Bev would call his daughter regularly, sometimes twice a day. Just hearing her voice for a few seconds would give him the strength to carry on when the grind of touring seemed an impossible task. At times, when he called late at night and he lay in his dark hotel room with his ears still ringing, her voice sounded much like Julianne’s used to, soft, pleasant, loving, triggering welcoming memories of his youthful past.
“Hello...”
“Just wake up?”
“About a yawn ago.”
“You sound awful,” he said.
“Probably look awful too.”
“How was the rest of your night?” he asked, looking at his watch. Almost one. Rock star kid.
”Great. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I looked but couldn’t find you, it was so crowded. I ended up leaving with the Rock Hard publicist.”
“Yeah? You hit it off with her, huh?”
“Uh...yeah, I guess.”
“Where’d you go afterwards?”
“Her place.”
“Her place...”
“She had a small party there.”
“Uh...I don’t think I want to know.”
Silence. “Dad...”
“Kristin, you’re only twenty-one.”
“And of legal age to make pornos. But I don’t.”
Stomach turning, he decided to change the subject. “We on for lunch?”
“Sure. Can you give me half an hour?”
“Yeah, of course. Meet you at Danfords?”
“Danfords in thirty.”
“Great. See you then. Ciao babe.”
While speaking to Kristin, the drizzle had stopped. The gray clouds above were thinning. Soon, Bev figured, the sun would begin to spread its temperate rays upon Los Angeles and fill the beaches and parks with people. Bev drove west toward the beach, then north on the San Diego Freeway. Kristin lived in Manhattan Beach, just north of Torrance, where Danfords was located. It had become a ritualistic meeting spot for the two, where they could sit outside on the pier in wooden booths and enjoy seafood while gazing out at the Pacific’s soothing waves crashing upon the shore.
While turning onto the freeway, Bev felt the ghostly fingers in his head again.
They’d returned with a vengeance, it’d seemed. Purposefully, too. The scratching sensation turned to digging, those fingers nestling themselves into the thin space between his skull and brain. His chest tightened. He labored to draw in a breath. His hands were tight on the steering wheel.
And then, the voice.
Bevant...
The same voice he’d heard last night. Deep. Soft, yet intense. Driven.
With an accent.
I know that accent, he thought.
At first the voice had alarmed him. Now, he felt anger. Unexplainably furious. Instantly he wanted to fight. He wanted to quarrel, his usual, light-tempered disposition veining into something rotten. He felt an overwhelming desire to scream, to punch, t
o hit, to attack. He slammed his fists against the steering wheel, once, twice, three times, until the pain became evident to his adrenalized system. Then, the anger segued into a loss-of-control feeling. Immediately he became overpowered by a premonition of free-falling, as though the road beneath the car had fallen away, leaving him to plunge infinitely into a bottomless pit. He pressed down on the gas. The car sped.
Digging, digging, digging.
Crumbling.
An odd odor rose into his nostrils. Burning. Charcoal. In his sights he saw red embers glowing, flitting across his vision like flies on a television screen. His body began to tremble. He noticed his car closing in behind a black BMW. His mind told him to decelerate, but his body remained frozen in position, feet unable to shift from gas to brake. He could see the driver in the BMW glancing irritably in his rearview mirror, hands raised in inquisitive anger. Nausea twirled in his gut. His head spun. He spoke aloud, please don’t faint, don’t faint, his voice sounding distant, as if coming from the seat next to him.
In the next moment, the mind-fingers stopped their scratching. Soon thereafter, the burning odor vanished. At once he regained control of his body and was able to slow the car, the speedometer’s needle diving from eighty to forty in ten seconds. Ahead, the BMW sped off in the distance.
Now, of course, the drivers behind him grew pissed. Horns sounded and tires screeched as cars and SUVs sped by him. More hateful glances came his way. Carefully, he crossed the lanes and exited the freeway. He pulled into a gas station on the off ramp corner, one exit away from the restaurant; he could take Redondo Beach Boulevard from here, no problem.
The car idled. He squeezed his fists. Sweat. Anxiety. “What the fuck is happening to me?” he said aloud, wiping his brow. A chill ran through his body. He wondered, Am I sick? Am I crazy? Jesus, am I having a heart attack? He picked up his cell phone, called information and got the number for his internist. Haven’t been to the doctor in a few years, anyway.
“It’s a...a mild emergency,” he told the receptionist.
Demonologist Page 3