Hillary_Retribution

by Angel Gelique

  The boy looked skeptically at Miss Billie. He stopped believing in monsters when he was ten. By then, he had already started smoking marijuana with his drug-dealing older brother. At fifteen, he had graduated to more advanced drugs. Monsters, to him, were people who stood in the way of his next hit.

  Miss Billie had started out as a monster in his eyes. She had enticed him into her home with the promise of a nice shower and a home-cooked meal. She kept her promises, but she also rambled on incessantly about evil and demons, preaching on and on about how the wicked ones serve as the gateways of hell, bringing forth a host of fiends to walk the earth.

  He knew she was trying to do a good thing...trying to save him. She had a reputation for helping the neighborhood kids, no matter what trouble they were into—drugs, gangs, prostitution, complicated family issues...sometimes just poverty. She would welcome them into her home and kill them with kindness. She had made a difference in so many lives.

  Lately, there seemed to be a lot less delinquent kids around. Fewer druggies. Fewer gangsters. Her intervention had truly rid the streets of some of society’s worst undesirables.

  “You lis’ning ta me, James?” Miss Billie scolded. “I just told ya, she was an innocent little girl. Her daddy hurt her, hurt her badly and made her feel that hopeless despair. Her heart blackened. Them demons, they can smell a blackened heart from miles away. Sometimes don’t even take no blackened heart, they’s can take a hold o’ good, righteous hearts too. It ain’t easy, but them demons can do it, ‘specially when the po’ soul is hurtin’ or grieving. But Hillary, that po’ girl was an easy target. Didn’t take no time before one o’ ‘em devils was payin’ her a visit. She let it in, ya see...she didn’t know what she was doin,’ but she let it right in ta nest and grow and fester in that blackened heart. Them things they say she did, wasn’t her at all, child...was the demon in her.”

  Miss Billie knew all about the difficult struggle to keep evil at bay once a demon enters a new inhabitant. At first the demon stays relatively dormant, rearing its ugly head from time to time, mostly in the form of raspy whispers plaguing the host’s consciousness. The demon is far stronger when its host is unconscious and semi-conscious. During these times, it can force the unknowing host to commit unspeakable acts. The person is often aware of the atrocities, but only within fleeting moments and even during those twilight times, it doesn’t seem real to them. Rather, it feels like one of those long, detailed, convoluted nightmares. It’s as if the host is barely alive, existing only within a vacuum. Then as the demon gets its fill of the host’s negative energy, it becomes dormant again, leaving its unlucky inhabitant to resurface more confused, devastated and troubled than ever. The demon may be asleep, but it’s never too tired to strike when presented with an ideal situation. And it takes very little to wake that sleeping demon….

  James shook his head in disbelief.

  “I disagree,” he argued. “I think some people are just bad people who do bad things.”

  He disagreeseeessss, the voice hissed.

  Miss Billie laughed resonantly. The boy cocked his head.

  She crazy! He thought and stood up.

  “Thanks, Miss Billie, the chicken was delicious. I’m gonna get going now,” he said softly.

  Miss Billie stood and approached him.

  “Don’t go yet, James, I still gots to get dessert.”

  “Oh, uh...thanks, but I’m stuffed now. That’s the best meal I’ve had in weeks,” he said with a smile.

  “What’s wrong? Rushin’ off ta get yo’ next hit?”

  James frowned. The woman had started out so nice and sweet. Now she was being downright nasty. Without saying a word, he began walking toward the front door. Miss Billie walked in front of him and blocked his way.

  “I ain’t done yet, boy,” she said bluntly. “They’s some things ya need to know first.”

  “I know, I know. Evil and demons everywhere, I heard you loud and clear. You tellin’ me that I is bad ‘cause I do drugs...I get it,” he replied, growing angry.

  “No, boy, that ain’t ‘xactly what I’s sayin’ here.”

  “Look, Miss Billie, I appreciate what you tryin’ to do but I needs to go now.”

  “Okay, child, lemme just give ya a coupla dollars ta hold ya over.”

  That’s more like it, the boy thought

  “You see, boy, evil don’t just die, it moves from vessel to vessel...body to body,” Miss Billie said as she walked over to her purse.

  James shook his head in agitation and rolled his eyes. He actually thought about grabbing the woman’s purse and running off. But there was still a scrap of decency within his drug-polluted body. He would listen to the woman’s final ranting, take the money she offered and be on his way.

  “When I left the girl’s scrawny body, I found me a good home in this here woman’s ample one....”

  James didn’t have a clue what the woman was rambling about. He huffed aloud as he grew impatient.

  “You see, boy, that demon didn’t die with the girl....”

  The woman’s eyes grew dark and demented.

  “Miss...Billie?” The boy asked hesitantly.

  “Not anymore, child, not anymore,” she said as saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth.

  She growled, low and menacingly. As the boy processed what he was hearing, his jaw dropped. He now understood what Miss Billie was telling him. He now understood why many of his street friends had disappeared without a trace. He now understood that he, too, was going to die. What he didn’t quite understand, just yet, was that it wasn’t going to be a quick, painless death.

  James attempted to run, but Miss Billie’s hand emerged from her purse with a long, sharp carving knife. Before the boy could get away, she plunged it deep into his side. It pierced the space between his lower ribs, just above his kidney. James screamed in pain and fear as he fell to the floor. He stared at the knife in the woman’s hand, dripping blood—his blood—all over the floor. Then he looked up at Miss Billie. His desperate eyes begged for mercy. But her savage eyes instantly denied their request. She grinned widely as sickening, taunting laughter escaped her lips.

  “We gonna have some fun, boy...yessirreeeee, lots o’ fuuunnnn....”

  Table of Contents

  www.AngelGelique.com