“You control them,” he accused.
“No,” I protested. “I gave birth to them,” I conceded softly. He forced me to admit it—to him, to myself—for the first time. “But I don’t control them. Everett—he came up with the demons. He made me create them. He tricked me! He told me they had escaped from my wall. And once they were loose, I had no control over them. Everett had all the control. It was all him. He controlled me. Manipulated me. You even said yourself you thought he was evil. But not me. I’m not evil.”
“You’re right. He used you. He used you to fulfill his own demented idea of fun. Because of you, he found hidden money, flew spaceships, dropped both of you in whatever fucked-up situation he helped invent. But it wasn’t his power to manipulate. That comes from you. I’ve seen it. I didn’t believe Everett all those years ago. But tonight, after seeing what you’re capable of, I do now. Those flying metal things. These wicked monsters. They’re you. You never really needed Everett at all. You could’ve removed him from the equation at any time. You asked me not to bring Everett’s myth back to life. I didn’t. But tonight, you did. You even invented your own version of him to go along with the demons you both loved so much.
“I searched you out to find Ginger. God knows that was the only reason. The only reason. And now I know for certain—you orchestrated it all. I wanted her back, so I played your game. I’ve played along with your—sickness—all this time, fighting off your monsters, witnessing the slaughter of innocent people—all so you would lead me to Ginger. Now I’m begging you. You’ve got to give me this one thing. You’ve got to spare Ginger. For me.”
“But, Phillip—” I fell to my knees. “I don’t control them.”
He grabbed my throat with fury in his eyes. And as if placing his hands around my neck was the signal they had been waiting for, the first row of demons plunged into the pit. “Give her back to me,” he begged. “I’ve done everything you’ve wanted. I’ve made it to the end.”
I gripped his forearms. “I. Don’t. Control. I. Only—”
“I am not Everett! I never was! I never wanted to protect you from your own creations. I don’t care about you. Just give me Ginger back!”
The first group of monsters crawled out from the pit with blood dripping down their chins. The greedy ones that refused to leave were bashed and clawed at by the second group rushing the pit.
“I. Only. Give. Birth.”
While channeling his rage at me, Phillip spared himself the horrific sight of waves of demons piling into the pit. They climbed in and out like swarms of excited ants, each returning to the surface having had a quick taste or stolen a small trophy.
“Have you ever loved someone? Or is this—perversion—all you are?”
“Don’t. Control. They. Just. Are.”
By the time he relaxed his grip on my throat, Ginger was gone. They had taken her. Every morsel. Her flesh. Her bones. Even her clothes. All that was left were trails of blood leading away from the edge of the pit. Phillip slumped his shoulders forward and trembled. I gasped for air. When my throat opened up again, I managed to whisper, “Phillip, I’m sorry.”
But her death wasn’t the end of our terrorizing night. Having finished Ginger, the cadre of still-hungry demons gathered to stare at us with their cold, unblinking eyes. Phillip grabbed a stick and climbed the nearby ridge. Curious, excited, the demons gathered at its foot. He raised the stick over his head. “Come for me!” he bellowed. The monsters, happy to grant his request, rushed the hill. I imagined he didn’t expect to last long, maybe a moment or two. But it was clear he no longer cared. It was what he wanted after coming so far only to lose. It broke my heart to learn that with Ginger gone, Phillip felt there was nothing left for him.
The demons first to reach Phillip clashed horns in a twisted display of bravado. They circled him, allowing the juices of fear to percolate until his meat was properly tenderized. I watched through my fingers. I couldn’t bear the thought of Phillip removed from the world. Even if he hated me, even if he was to never speak to me again, I wanted to know that somewhere on the planet, his heart was still beating. I wanted it possible for him to one day heal, to once again become the Phillip I knew. So when one of the demons had worked itself into a frenzy, when it could stand it no longer and swiped at Phillip with the intent of clawing out the contents of his abdomen, I found myself shouting, “Stop!”
And just as its razor-tipped fingers were to meet Phillip, its form began to change. Its green arm turned a smoky gray and folded into itself. It then unfolded into small sections, each moving independently. And when these individual pieces turned themselves over, the monster’s arm was no longer. In its place were tiny undulating wings of the most vibrant shade of yellow. Each wing held a pattern of a black arc over a cluster of black dots. When the wings fully separated from each other, they carried the graceful insects fluttering above Phillip’s head. As the frustrated demon continued its attack, the rest of its body was replaced by the births of the yellow, black-speckled butterflies.
This startling occurrence only made the other demons want to rip into Phillip even more ferociously. They slashed at him. Charged him with their horns. Opened their mouths as wide as they could and snapped at his legs. They climbed upon his body to chomp his neck. Yet any demon that dared harm Phillip was instantly transformed into a swell of harmless, fluttering butterflies. The demons, motivated purely by their desires of bloodlust, were slow to realize that attacking Phillip only meant their demise. By the time it was over, more than half of the monsters had been transformed.
Hundreds of butterflies populated the woods. They clung to trees. Rested on logs. Some fluttered along, seeming to enjoy the miracle of flight. Their dazzling wings gave an entirely different feel to the forest. They lit the distant trees, threatening to bring forth the dawn. I couldn’t revel in their beauty, however—because I knew what they meant. Like Phillip, I began to tremble. Stunned. Phillip stood with his back to me, a butterfly atop his head and another perched on his shoulder. He knew what they meant too. “Phillip,” I pleaded, but he wouldn’t face me.
“It might be strange for you to hear that Everett was afraid of you. But he was.” Phillip spoke to the woods, to the butterflies that explored the forest, to the remaining demons at the base of the hill. “You’re why he left for Texas. He wanted to get away from you after he realized how out of hand things had gotten, after he saw the way you chose to use your creations. Like me, he didn’t want to believe it at first—that you had murdered Ian and Todd. I certainly didn’t believe a word of it. I was convinced it was his pathetic way to place the blame on you for what he had done. After all, his hands were covered in blood—not yours. I wasn’t about to believe his story that he was actually trying to save Todd as ‘child-size green monsters with horns—that Ayden somehow controls—tore him apart.’” He looked over his shoulder to the bloody pit. “Their deaths, he was willing to cover up, take the blame for if he had to. But I will not let anyone else take the blame for this—but you.”
I wanted so badly to grab him by the shoulders, to spin him around and deny his accusations. But I couldn’t. The proof fluttered all around us.
“Why?” he asked simply.
I didn’t know why. The only thing that came to me was a conversation I had with Dr. Griffin. He asked me how I coped with stressful or hostile situations. I admitted that I often simply fled such situations by allowing my mind to wander through daydreaming. “When your mind wanders, where do you go? What do you daydream about?” he asked.
I replied, “Being chased by demons and barely escaping.”
“But when you use daydreaming to escape reality, why not go someplace serene? Why go someplace so dark?”
I finally answered, “Because first you have to go someplace dark in order to feel comforted. To be saved.”
It started with Everett. He was the one who first took me to the dark places. He instigated it. Encouraged it. Loved it. Yes, I was the one who created it. Controlled it
. But I believed in it so fully that I was able to suppress the fact that it was I who pulled the strings. Immersed in the fantasies we created, all I knew was that Everett would be there to protect me. I was the happiest then, with Everett, during our most terrifying adventures. But when he fled to Texas, I was left only with the evil I produced, the demons I manufactured. Without his strength and protection, the equation was set out of balance. And I craved those missing pieces so badly.
It had to be Phillip. He was the closest thing I had to Everett. After Everett’s death, he unwittingly kept my monsters at bay. When he too fled from me to begin his life with Ginger, I was OK for a while, alone, convinced my past was built on hallucinations Everett had forced me to see. But I was empty. Something was missing. And eventually, I sought my addiction once more: that feeling of danger tempered with comfort. Phillip wouldn’t have come back to me on his own. No, I had to give him a reason to seek me out. And this time, for the equation to become fully balanced, it needed to be just the two of us, Phillip and me against evil. Just like it had been with Everett, I would provide the darkness, and he would be my protector. It was all I ever wanted.
This would’ve been my explanation had I offered one to Phillip. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. My reason wouldn’t have been reason enough for what I had done to Ginger.
Then something happened that I could not control: tears began streaming down my face. I took off through the woods. I tore my way through the mesh of wild grapevines that hung over the outside of the forest like a thick curtain. Outside, the skeletons no longer guarded the perimeter. I ran free through the field behind my parents’ house, weaving mechanically through its uneven terrain filled with hills, holes, and overgrown weeds.
As I ran from Phillip as a coward, the thought that stuck with me most was that if I gave birth to evil and controlled evil, then it meant I was evil. I was the entities I created. I was the cloaked demons. The skeleton beasts. The horned monsters. It was I who killed Ian by placing the metal daggers at the bottom of the pit. It was I who devoured Todd while distracting Phillip with the naked tree woman. I was the naked tree woman. I was the voice of Thomas Gouldman, conjured to draw attention away from Ginger. I was the metal tornados that killed the officers who dared interrupt my time with Phillip. I was even the spaceship Everett and I flew in over the cornfield. And it was I who abducted Ginger and tortured her in the woods.
I could’ve argued that I was none of these things—that I did not perform these deeds because, physically, it was not I. But Phillip would know the truth. It was me just the same. I wondered if I even had a soul. When I finally peeled off my mask and looked in the mirror, what was underneath was not human. I was a monster.
42
Unnatural Nature
Compelled to retreat to the place where it all began, I trudged past the garden and yanked open the sliding glass door. The house was dark and empty. Perhaps the police had evacuated the neighborhood on account of the mayhem surrounding the woods. I locked the door behind me before racing up the stairs.
I sat on the end of the bed in my old room. The faces hidden in the wall peered at me in the dim moonlight. They were just as menacing as they had been when I was the frightened child who lined his stuffed animals between himself and the wall. It had been so long since I studied the simplistic faces to which I had gifted perverted flesh and bone and then unleashed upon the world. They were a part of me, controlled by the dark parts of my mind. They came from an evil place I couldn’t trust. Even I, the creator, wasn’t safe from them. I searched my thoughts. What did my own subconscious will for me?
My question was quickly answered as the darkened corners of the room began to swell. I rushed to the hallway and shut the door behind me in an attempt to keep the mushrooming black portal contained. I gently placed my hand on Everett’s door. It creaked open slightly before I pulled away. Of course he wasn’t in there. How could he have been?
The tapping that began with a slow persistence could’ve just been the wind causing the surrounding pines to strike the windows. But I knew better. The night was still. Clearly, it was the horned demons. They had followed me from the woods and were calling me downstairs—just as they had when they were eager to coax Everett and me into battle. As I headed down the stairway, their tapping overlapped with their low growls.
I entered the sunroom and stood before the glass door willingly, though not without tremendous dread. Yes, I had willed them to come. But the revelation that I controlled their actions did little to diminish my fear. In fact, I was more afraid than ever, knowing unequivocally what they had planned for me. With nothing but blackness behind the glass, I looked upon my own trembling reflection. At first, they were polite. Tap! Tap! Tap! Yet as their excitement grew, they pressed with increased vigor. I watched the reflection of my face twist as the glass bowed from the pressure.
My instinct told me to hide. But how could I hide from what was a part of me? My only wish was that Everett could’ve been there when it happened. Sure, I could’ve conjured him. But it wouldn’t have been Everett. Not really. It would’ve just been another perversion. Without Everett—or Phillip—there was no one to ease my fear. No one to remind me of the cats. The cats—it seemed so long ago that I had petted their shimmering coats and enjoyed their circle dance at my feet. They too had come from me. How was it then that they were so innocent? So playful as they followed me through the weeds?
So utterly, unbearably alone, I stepped forward and flipped on the floodlights. Incensed by the light burning down upon them, the group of horned monsters that hadn’t been transformed into fluttering butterflies crowded the window. Wet from traveling through the dewy field, their green, moldy fingers slipped and squeaked across the glass. Several began butting their heads against the door. It shook and began to splinter. They licked the cracked glass, letting it cut their tongues. Their mouths oozed green blood. Their eyes glowed red. Soon they’d be inside.
In a final infusion of panic and fear, I deliriously rushed to the dining room table. Despite my quaking arms, I managed to topple it over. The vase in the center of the table, which held freshly cut lilac blooms, rolled to the floor. I dragged the table into the sunroom, crushing the blooms. Their powerful fragrance filled the air. As soon as I propped the table in position against the door, the glass shattered. I stumbled back to the dining room as the demons clawed and chewed their way through the oak.
There, I lay on the floor in surrender, with the water that had spilled from the vase soaking into my back. With the moment imminent, a strange peace came over me. I accepted it. It was the perfect solution. Fitting, really. My life had become more manufactured than natural. More metallic forest than organic forest. The monsters that had crept into the house, had crowded around me, and were about to masticate my body were once removed from nature. They didn’t create or control their energy; I did. And with the energy I possessed, I chose to create a dark world. But if I was to be devoured by my own creations, be reabsorbed back into nature, I’d create balance. Zero out the equation. Realizing that, I found pleasure in the thought of being consumed by the demons. Pleasure from finally submitting and being released from their torture.
I closed my eyes. I felt their fingers all over my body. Sliding under my shirt and across my chest. Cramming into my mouth. I felt their tongues licking my flesh, my neck, my stomach. They liked my stomach most. They went for it first. It didn’t hurt so bad. In fact, when they tore into it, it just felt like being tickled too hard. After a while, I couldn’t feel anything at all. Even their hot and vile breath dissolved. The only sense I experienced was the smell of the powerful lilacs. I used it. Focused on it. Allowed it to transfer me to another world.
When it was over, I was afraid to open my eyes. I wasn’t sure where I was or what form I had taken. Was I a speck of dirt? Or a seed? Was I a leaf? A tadpole? Or was I a free-flowing spirit about to ride the wind?
Strangely, I didn’t feel all that different. Slowly, I opened my eyes and was dumbfo
unded upon realizing I was still inside my same body. I brought my hands to my stomach and then to my face. I hadn’t changed forms at all. Hadn’t been devoured. In fact, I hadn’t even moved from the dining room floor.
Above me, Phillip stepped into view. The morning light coming through the windows struck his golden hair. He towered over me like some sort of god. Illuminated. Larger than life. I swallowed and asked, “Where are the monsters?” He pointed to the shattered glass. I lifted my head to see a multitude of yellow butterflies escaping into the approaching morning. With his touch, Phillip had transformed the remaining horned demons into harmless butterflies.
He helped me stand. Together in silence, we watched the sunrise through the broken window. The rays made the fields glow. They cleansed the dark shadows in the forest. I did not question Phillip on why he had followed me to the house. At that moment, I didn’t understand what compelled him to stop the demons from devouring me. But for me, I knew what it meant. If I was to keep the form I was in, I knew what I must become.
About the Author
Stephen Stromp is also the author of In the Graveyard Antemortem and Cracking Grace.
Books primarily rely on word of mouth to find their way to readers. The best way to help spread the word about books like Where the Cats Will Not Follow is to leave a brief review on Amazon.
Connect with Stephen Stromp
Join Email List: eepurl.com/caHNZT
Website: stephenstromp.com
Facebook: facebook.com/StephenStromp
Where the Cats Will Not Follow Page 26