by Michael Dean
It was time for me to go and we kissed before I watched her go inside. I remained on her porch in the dark for a few extra minutes, not wanting the night to end, but eventually I took flight and headed back to Scruffy’s house…my home.
A few days later it was time for the last day of school and graduation. I watched as, one by one, every senior crossed the stage. I laughed my butt off when it was Scruffy’s turn to snag his diploma. He was wearing a huge afro wig, which caused people to burst out in laughter as he walked across the stage. He flashed a peace sign to everyone as he did so and the laughing continued.
Shade looked graceful and beautiful as ever in her cap and gown. When it was her turn to get her diploma, you could hear Anne cheering over the top of the crowd. Shade looked in the stands with embarrassment as her mother stood and screamed.
Once everyone received their diplomas, the entire class gathered in the center of the football field where the ceremony was held and tossed up their caps. It was funny because after the caps hit the ground, everyone scattered to find their own cap again.
All the friends and families gathered in the field with their graduates and took pictures. Benjamin and Amanda took pictures with Scruffy and I together as well as by ourselves. It took an act of congress to get Scruffy to pull off that damn afro for the pictures, but he eventually did it to satisfy his nagging parents.
I loved every moment of the family picture time. There wasn’t the always lingering feeling like I didn’t belong, it was quite the contrary. It was as if they couldn’t take the pictures and enjoy the ceremonies without me being a part of it.
Unlike the prom, the graduation party was something that Shade absolutely wasn’t going to miss. Before we took off, Scruffy, me, Shade, and Sandra all stood with our families and had a fellow classmate snap a picture of us all together. I’ve never felt closer to being human than that moment.
The party was going to be at the house of a classmate of ours. Before we left, I was pulled aside by all of our parents, including Sheriff Taylor, who was in attendance as well, and asked to keep watch over the kids. Given what happened last time there was a big get together like this, I couldn’t blame them for taking extra precautions this time. They couldn’t have asked for a better guardian, because unlike previous occasions, I would be on high alert and more prepared for anything out of the ordinary. Not to mention I couldn’t get drunk if I tried. Another side affect, good or bad, take your pick, of being a demon. I promised them I would do my best to keep everyone in line.
“If I get called out to the Gresham house,” he already knew where the graduation party was going to be which was a little scary, “about even the slightest noise complaint—I don’t care if it’s a dog barking loud, I’m going to bust everyone. Not only that, me and my deputy will be sitting at the end of the road near that house and if even one of you try to leave under the influence, I will have no mercy on any of you. Designate a driver…got it? Pass it around and get the word out that we will be watching. This is the one night where we’ll overlook some things for the sake of celebration. Do. Not. Abuse. My. Leniency,” Sheriff Taylor warned.
“No drinking, you clowns,” Shade’s father chimed in.
Although the trio said they wouldn’t be drinking, we all knew that wasn’t going to be the case, as I’m positive the parents knew those statements were bullcrap, too. We parted ways and took off for the party. Tonight would be the last event of our high school lives. It was crazy to think that neither I, nor Shade, was supposed to even be here to experience it.
Every teenager in town seemed to be at the party. It was huge. I watched over everything that went on with a vigilant eye. I never left the sides of my three friends. To be honest, I think they were a little leery to leave me too because it seemed as if they made every attempt to stay as close to me as possible. Naturally Shade and I were inseparable the entire time, but the overly social Scruffy always seemed to be looking back to find me whenever he got pulled away by other friends.
Something I noticed about this gathering was that the people there went out of their way to talk to me. I was still very uncomfortable about socializing too much with humans, especially since most of them were still giving me gratitude about saving some of the kids from town. Even some that I saved came up to hug me and thank me. If only they knew I was also the one responsible for those horrible events—they probably wouldn’t have a single thing to do with me. Shade, Scruffy, and Sandra seemed to detect that I was uncomfortable and interjected themselves into those conversations when they happened, for which I was grateful.
For the most part, we remained together seated side by side on this small wall that outlined the edge of the backyard. We were simply four friends sharing a bond that not even one other human on earth in our age range could relate to. It was as if the party and the people at it didn’t matter, only the four of us being together did. I think knowing that our lives, all of our lives, were on the line made us cherish special nights like this all the more. That’s pretty much all we talked about anyway, making sure that we were all together in the future after I defeated Christian. Of course we were being optimistic, but it was nice that we continued to talk about uplifting stuff instead of the doom and gloom.
“You know, bro, sometime next week we’re finalizing your adoption. You didn’t waste time pulling your undercover demon act to get the job done.” Scruffy reached across Sandra and backhanded me gently in the chest.
“What can I say…I’m a demon, that’s what I do. I flew to where I needed to go, turned into smoke, slithered into the high security databases and hacked away. Next thing you know…bang…history of Leo Cutler has been established. Guess I’ve been here all along. Not to mention I had a little help from some friends.” I winked at him and pointed up which caused everyone to giggle.
“Knowing you, I’m surprised you didn’t set yourself up with all kinds of accolades.” Shade nudged me.
“Well, if you consider a fully paid scholarship to Harvard all set up and good to go, not being an accolade, then yeah. Of course I would play the game fair.” I winked at them all again.
“Please tell me you didn’t do that.” Shade glared at me to make sure I was kidding.
“But if you did…can you go back and do that for the rest of us?” Scruffy chimed in.
For a brief second there was silence as it appeared they were processing a very good upside to having a friend like me.
“Of course I didn’t do that,” I finally broke the brief silence, “…maybe.”
They chuckled again before Scruffy made one more point. “If you ever do something like that though, you know…” he held his hands up and made quotations with them “…break the rules…you have to include us in it, too.”
Sandra elbowed him in the ribs.
“What? If he’s gonna set himself up, we might as well get in on it, too. Besides, if you do that and don’t hook us up, I’m so gonna rat you out.” He laughed.
“I’m sure you would, ya frickin’ lush.” I chuckled hard.
While we continued to kid around with one another, Scruffy’s cell phone went off and he stood up, placing a finger in the ear that didn’t have the phone to it and strolled a couple steps away from us to talk. I watched him as he chatted to whoever and he looked as if he was hearing something odd. Not only that, it appeared that it might involve me because he kept glancing at me as he talked.
When he hung up, he came back over to us and confirmed my suspicions.
“Hey, bro…that was Sheriff Taylor. Mom and Dad gave him my number.”
“Is everything okay?” Sandra asked.
“Yeah, but apparently he wants you to leave the party and walk down the road to meet up with him real quick.” Scruff pointed at me.
“Just me?”
“Yup…just you.”
“Wow. I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he’d be down the road watching us,” Shade added.
“All right, let me go see what’s up.” I stood up from the wall and lean
ed over to give Shade a kiss. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
They said goodbye to me for the time being and I walked down the road. When I thought it was safe to do so, I used a bit of my demon speed to hurry up the process. I wanted to get back to the party and my friends.
I found the Sheriff, without his deputy, sitting in a secluded and well-hidden spot just off the side of the road among some trees in his SUV. When I approached, he shined his spotlight on me to get a better look.
“Is that you, Leo?”
“Yes, sir.” I put my hand in front of my face to block the light.
“Sorry about that.” He turned it off and got out of the vehicle.
“What can I do for ya tonight, Sheriff?”
“I apologize for taking you away from the Gresham get together, but I have a matter that just came to my attention that I felt I needed to discuss with you.” He approached me.
“What’s going on?”
“I received a call from a high ranking official in our state government. Seems we have a situation happening in a town called Middleton. It’s about two hours from here.”
“Is everything okay?” I could tell that he was a little stressed.
“Well, I hope so, but it doesn’t look good. Apparently, Middleton has broken out in pure anarchy. People are looting homes and businesses, lighting places on fire, committing horrible acts that I don’t care to bring up, basically running amuck in the streets. It’s as if…”
“All Hell’s breaking loose?”
“Yeah…exactly. Their three person police force, much like ours here in Mountainside, isn’t able to handle this unrest by themselves. We’ve been asked to drive up to Middleton and help out, along with some other agencies from around the state. We need to get control of the situation and make a perimeter around the town and try to contain this civil disobedience. I’ve sent my deputy there already and my other patrolman is going to man our station while we’re gone. I was hoping to get your thoughts on this and see if you’d like to come along. Someone with your…abilities could be of great help. Can you tag along, son?”
“Of course. What do you want me to do once we get there?”
“Well, no one is allowed to go into the town yet until we get more bodies and a plan put together. I was thinking maybe you could sneak into the town and slow down the madness a little in order to make it a little easier for us?”
“I’ll do what I can. When do we get going?”
“Right now, it’s a two hour drive, so we better get hustling. I’ll call the Spears and let them know that you’re going to be with me for awhile.” He turned back to his vehicle and opened the door. I stood in place and just stared at him. He gestured at me to hurry up and get in. I could tell he was annoyed that I was just standing there and not getting in the SUV.
“You have something else to do first, son?” he spoke sarcastically.
“No. Did you forget that I’m a demon, Sheriff?” I dished out a little sarcasm of my own.
He just shrugged and said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Get in your truck and I’ll show you. It’s not going to take us two hours to get to Middleton, sir. Can you also call Mark and let him know that I won’t be coming back to the party?” I smiled.
“Sure.” He plopped into his police truck and sat there. I calmly slid underneath the vehicle and then stood up underneath it with ease. The automobile rested on my back as I slung out my wings in order to take to the sky.
“Whoooah.” I heard him yell nervously as the squad unit wobbled around on my back.
“Fasten your safety belt…captain’s orders,” I joked.
“Don’t you drop me, son.”
With a couple of flaps from my wings, we took off into the air. Sheriff Taylor shouted down the directions and we were off. With all the flying I’d done around Colorado, I knew exactly where to go anyway. I shouted up to him to hang on and bolted for the town. During the ride we could see police vehicles with their sirens and lights driving on the roads below us. Within twenty minutes we were in the vicinity. As we approached I could see tons of smoke coming from buildings that were on fire in this small area in between a couple of mountains. Flames were roaring all over the place. I could see a handful of the police lights swirling around the vicinity of the city itself, but there were none going off inside of the town.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Sheriff Taylor called down to me.
“I sure am. It looks like Hell,” I added.
“Let’s land somewhere before we get there so no one sees us.”
Doing as he requested, I lowered us down upon a road that was a few miles away from Middleton when I knew the coast was clear. Once on the ground, I approached his door.
“I’m going to head up there and find out where I’m needed. Why don’t you fly into the town and see what you can do? I heard on dispatch that helicopters are en route as well. Stay clear of them the best you can.” He started his truck.
“Will do.”
“Leo, do whatever it is within your power to help the situation. I know you know this already, but do your best to not be seen…and if you get caught, mum’s the word on knowing me, huh?”
“I’m a master at that. That won’t be a problem, Sheriff. I won’t get caught.”
“Leo…one more thing…do you think what’s happening in Middleton is a direct result of what you and the Angels were talking about the other day? I mean, do you think that has something to do with the whole Heaven and Hell thing?” He looked as if he didn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth.
“I think so, sir. I think so. Hell is starting to open for business and more creatures than usual are being let out to play as a prelude to War’s arrival. It doesn’t happen often that Hell is so loose about letting beings out, but when it does, this is usually the calling card. Humans going mad, acting in ways they normally wouldn’t. When so much hate leaks out into the world, it’s hard for humans to resist it because you’re such sensitive beings. I’m afraid that in no time it will be like this…”
“Everywhere…all over the world?” Sheriff Taylor finished the sentence for me.
“Exactly.”
“Hell on earth?”
“Hell on earth,” I confirmed.
“What can we do to stop such reckless hatred?”
“Nothing you can do. I must defeat War when he comes out and send him back to Hell where he belongs. That will send the hounds of Hell back to the underworld in fear, at least for a short time I’m guessing, but as long as the gates stay open for War to leave when he’s ready, the gatekeepers will keep turning a blind eye to whatever spills out,” I warned.
“Damn. Well, then, beat this… War, person… thing.”
I grinned at his stammer.
“For now, go help the people of Middleton restore their sanity. Here, take this.” Sheriff Taylor handed me a police walkie-talkie. “It will help you out. I’ll keep you informed on what we’re up to out here and when the police forces are ready to go inside the town to regain order.”
I grabbed the device and nodded at him.
“Okay, I’m going to take off and await my deputy as I find out what I need to do here. I’ll meet up with you somewhere when it’s over. I’ll contact you through the walkie-talkie afterwards.”
Again, I non-verbally gestured to him in confirmation.
“Leo…be careful, son.” He smiled.
“You too.”
Sheriff Taylor drove off and I wasted no time getting airborne. When I reached the air above, I could see about three helicopters with bright spotlights slashing in spots all over the town. I changed into smoke and searched for a dark place in Middleton to creep into. I found a few black sections of the town where it seemed no lights were present, so I landed in one of them.
When I hit the ground I materialized. I stared up to the choppers that were darting their spotlights all over the place. Middleton was actually foggy due to all the smoke from the burn
ing structures. I could hear yelling and screaming.
I jogged out of the small wooded area that I landed in and approached a road in a neighborhood filled with middle class homes. I jogged down the street, unsure about what I should do first. It didn’t take long to get an idea. As I ran, I saw four teenagers, three guys and a girl, terrorizing a family hiding inside a house. They were throwing bricks and rocks through the windows and laughing as the family hiding inside urged them to stop.
“Let’s go in and steal everything they have. Then we can beat them all up,” I heard one of them say.
I approached the front yard of the home as they began to enter through a busted window.
“Hey…morons, don’t go in there,” I called to them.
This stopped the first kid from hopping through the window. All four of them turned to see who just insulted them.
“Excuse me?” the girl asked.
“I said…morons…don’t go in there. You know…you idiots? You have no right to go into that place,” I taunted.
They all looked at one another and started laughing. The one guy that was halfway through the window leaped back out.
“What’s up with this fool?” He looked at his buddies.
“I guess he thinks he’s hard,” another guy answered him.
“Let’s kick his ass for being stupid enough to mess with us, then we can go back into that house and take whatever we want.”
I didn’t say a word and flashed them a half smirk. All four of them approached me from the front as cocky as they could be. It didn’t take but a second for one of them to throw a punch at me. I let it hit me in the face. When it did, I actually heard the bones break in his hand.
He writhed in pain as his other friends watched him for a second and then came at me with a series of punches and kicks. I just stood in place and let them do it. When they realized that striking me was only causing them pain, they stopped. The one guy that broke his hand pulled out a switchblade with his other hand.
“Forget this fool, I’m gonna take him out my way.”
Again, I remained perfectly still and he lunged at me with the knife and tried to stick it through my chest. When it made contact with me, it bent and broke. All of them looked at me in complete shock. I decided to quit fooling around with this guy, grabbed him by his wrist, and squeezed. He yelled as I broke his other hand within my grip.