by Hart, Jerry
A sudden thunderclap scared the hell out of him at that moment. A second later, a familiar squeal sounded from the darkness ahead. The demon was there, and it was scared. A storm was brewing.
He took a deep, sour breath and pushed on. As he did, he contemplated what he might see once he found the creature. He still often had nightmares about the grotesque, batlike monster with what looked like lips all over its body. That vision would never leave him for as long as he lived.
It seemed the farther Don went inside the cave, the smaller it got. He was in some kind of tunnel, and the walls were closing in on him. He was by no means claustrophobic, but he did not like having little space in which to move around.
The tunnel sloped ever downward, curving to the right. The gas can in his left hand was starting to wear him out, but he kept going. The air was growing thicker, making it harder to breathe. Don thought of a hundred other places he’d rather be right now: in downtown Destin, partying with his cousins; playing arcade games with Nick at the laundromat in Augusta; at the playground in Connecticut.
Well, those were only three places, but he was sure he could think of ninety-seven more if he tried.
The tunnel started to open up before him. The air got cooler but no less sour as he found himself walking into a vast cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites. It was much brighter here, but he kept the flashlight on nonetheless. He would have never guessed something this large could exist in this area.
Was this the demon’s home? If so, where was it now? Don could hear rain start to fall above him. More thunder, as well.
A squeal of fear sounded off to his left.
He saw nothing, but that didn’t stop him from walking toward the area where he’d heard the sound. He approached a large, ugly pillar, certain something was hiding behind it.
Nothing was there.
He saw something, though. A large hole in the earth. It reminded him of a mouth—the mouth of the world. A strange, windy sound came from that opening. He felt more nauseated the closer he got to it.
When he turned around, however, he saw it. An English bulldog sat on its haunches, staring at him. Its face was pointed downward so its eyes gazed up. It was almost cute.
But then it grinned.
Don shivered. “You know why I’m here,” he said, pointing the gun. He wanted to pull the trigger but couldn’t.
The dog turned its head to the side, keeping its eyes on him. The grin remained. Don’s hand shook as he willed himself to pull the trigger. The dog was only twenty feet away. Don could easily hit it. Why was he so afraid?
Suddenly, he thought of his family: Mom, Dad, and Ethan. They were all dead, because of this fucking demon. Don knew he had to kill it before it infected another person.
The dog kept grinning.
Ethan had said he’d spent the last decade with the demon. All of its attention had been on him. Don’s hand steadied. It was his turn to grin.
He pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck the creature in the chest. The dog flew backward as dark red blood shot from the wound. Don walked closer to the creature as it lay on its side, panting. It looked up at him with surprise in its eyes.
“You didn’t think I could do it, did you?” Don asked the wounded monster. “I’m not as weak as you thought, you little shit.”
He shot it in the head. There was no splattering of brains, just more blood. The dog lay there, looking dead, but Don took no chances. He shoved the gun into the waistband of his pants and began pouring gasoline over the body. He then took out a few bombs from the backpack and started placing them against some pillars. He didn’t know if it would be enough to collapse the cavern, but it would have to do.
He looked back at the dog’s body and wondered how the creature could transform itself into that tiny thing.
His question was soon answered.
Something detached from the ugly pillar he’d passed earlier. It looked like it was made from the same red stone, but the more it came apart, the more it changed in color. Dusty brown fur on its back, lips all over its chest, and a jackal’s face.
The creature had returned to its original body. And it was fucking ugly.
Don quickly splashed gasoline on it and began lighting the wicks of the seven bombs he’d placed about the cavern. He then ran past the demon, toward the cavern’s exit.
The creature immediately sprung up and attached itself to him.
Don screamed as he tried to peel it off. He could feel those disgusting lips kissing his body. He could smell the gasoline, too, and knew it covered his clothes now.
The bombs were about to explode. He had to escape.
He reached between the demon and himself and managed to grab the gun from his pants. He drew it out, pressed the barrel against the monster, and pulled the trigger. The sound was explosive. The demon squealed as it let go of him.
It was on fire.
So was Don.
He immediately dropped the gun and batted at the flames on his chest. That was when the closest bomb exploded, sending Don backward.
He landed on his back just as another bomb exploded. Stalactites rained down from the cavern’s ceiling as two more bombs detonated. Don got to his feet, ignoring the flames on his chest as he ran through the tunnel. It was still raining outside—if he could only get outside....
He heard squealing amongst the explosions of the last three bombs. The demon was right behind him, but he didn’t dare turn around. He just kept running. The tunnel curved to the left, and he could see the exit, the rain. Don was almost entirely on fire now. In his blind panic he thought of ripping the shirt off, but was afraid it would slow him down. Any delay would prove fatal if the creature caught him again.
The demon was right behind him and the tunnel was collapsing. He had to keep moving.
He was only ten feet away from freedom.
But then something latched onto him from behind and bit down into the back of his neck.
Don screamed as the tunnel continued to collapse around him. He tried to shake the monster off of his back but couldn’t. His shirt was still on fire, and he could feel heat coming from behind him as the creature continued to burn.
For a split second, Don considered staying where he was, killing himself as well as the monster. If he ran outside, the rain would extinguish them both. Don didn’t want that—the creature had to die.
But Don didn’t want to die. He felt he deserved to after killing his brother, but he couldn’t fight his survival instincts. He charged toward the cave’s mouth once more, bringing the monster with him. The moment he stopped outside, a white-blue streak of lightning shot from the sky and struck him.
Don didn’t feel the impact. He didn’t even feel himself land on the wet ground after flying several feet away from the cave. He did feel the rain on his face, and his hearing, which had been an annoying ringing after the strike, was returning. So was his vision.
He was on his back, and he lifted his head to look at his chest. The fire was out, and his shirt was burned. He could see bits of red naked flesh beneath, but couldn’t tell how bad his injuries were. He slowly sat upward, his head swimming and his stomach turning, and saw a large dark husk just in front of the cave. It wasn’t moving.
Don got to his feet, spitting rainwater from his mouth, and walked over to the smoking husk. It looked like a large, dead spider, with its arms and legs curled upward. It was revolting. He kicked it and was relieved when it didn’t respond.
Don wasn’t sure what had happened. This was the second time lightning had struck something related to the curse. Maybe the demon attracted bad weather.
Or maybe God had intervened.
Don didn’t truly believe in God, but he thanked Him anyway as he made his weary way back to his truck.
* * *
When he got to his hotel room, he went straight to the bathroom to check on his wounds. His chest and back were a little raw, and there were tiny white blisters from the burns, but they weren’
t disfiguring; they would heal.
As for the bite on the back of his neck...there were six punctures directly at the base of his skull, but the creature hadn’t taken any flesh along with the bite. It was as if it simply wanted to bite—
Don’s heart suddenly raced. He’d been bitten by the demon, just like Mom had been twenty-one years ago. But Mom had bitten Uncle Johnny, and he wasn’t cursed. Don thought hard to that night. Mom had been under the demon’s control, but she was still human. Maybe animals worked differently? After all, the demon had been able to infect the dog immediately, if Don’s dream was to be believed.
But the demon was dead now; it couldn’t influence Don’s actions.
He looked closely at himself in the mirror. Had his eyes always been so glossy? He left the bathroom and sat down on the stiff bed. Something fell out of his burned backpack, something he didn’t even know was in there.
His hit list. The one Clark had convinced him to make a decade ago. There were five names on it.
Something stirred inside of Don, a terrible, burning desire. He tried to fight it as it rose to the surface.
He lost.
Chapter 20
Harvey Littleman was old, tired and angry. He sat behind the steering wheel of an Augusta High School bus, dozens of loud, annoying football players behind him. God, why wouldn’t they shut up? Well, because they’d just won a game, that’s why.
Harvey pulled the bus up to the parking lot to unload the aggravating little bastards. The sun had set, making Harvey even more tired. His fingers hurt as he gripped the steering wheel. His right knee pained him as he pressed down on the brake. His ears hurt as the loud athletes mobbed past him and out of the bus.
Finally, he could go home.
Harvey had been driving school buses for forty of his seventy years on Earth, and he’d hated every minute. He hadn’t started out as grumpy as he was now, though. Despite the fact he’d never liked his job, he’d never always hated his charges either. He used to like kids. He even had a daughter and grandbabies.
But then his daughter grew to loathe him, keeping him from seeing her two sons. That had been twenty years ago, just before his wife died. Sometimes Harvey thought the rift between him and their daughter had been what really killed his poor Henrietta. Broken hearts and heart attacks were one and the same, right?
The sad truth was Harvey couldn’t even remember what had come between him and his daughter in the first place. It had to have been that no-good husband of hers. Yeah, that was it. Or was it? Harvey’s memory was very poor, but sometimes that proved a blessing—it was nice to forget some things. He especially liked forgetting about some of those goddammed kids.
A noise from the back of the bus startled him. Harvey turned around but saw nothing. The lights scattered around the parking lot lit the inside of the bus pretty well, and as far as he could tell, he was the only one still on board. What had that noise been? It had sounded like someone shuffling around.
“Hello?” he called. “Is someone still here?”
No response. Not surprising. Harvey was getting paranoid in his old age. He needed to get home and get some sleep. He faced forward again.
But then he saw something he hadn’t planned on when he looked at the large rearview mirror.
There was something resting over the top of one of the seats in the back. It looked like a hand. A face appeared a second later, with white, glossy eyes and an unnaturally wide grin. A jackal’s grin. For a split second, Harvey thought he recognized the person, a kid from the past he’d yelled at once for holding him up at a bus stop. Harvey wasn’t sure how he remembered that one kid out of thousands he’d had to deal with, but he did.
The smiling boy was down the aisle and on top of Harvey before the bus driver could even scream.
* * *
Robbie Patterson was not old, but he was tired and angry—at his girlfriend.
He ran his fingers through his slick blond hair, which was in a style unchanged since elementary school, as he held his cell phone to his ear. He sighed as he listened to his girlfriend complain endlessly.
“Do you want me to get fat?” he said into the phone the second he got a chance. He was sitting at a bench press in Augusta Fitness, the gym nearly empty. “Because that’s what’s going to happen if I don’t work out.”
That wasn’t true—Robbie had an excellent metabolism—but he wanted her to feel bad for complaining about him being at the gym now instead of with her. She whined often about similar things, and it was starting to get on his last nerves. He hung up on her right in the middle of her tirades and tossed the phone in his gym bag.
He lay back down, preparing to press the weight. He had always been in shape, taking karate in his youth and kickboxing later on. At six-foot-one, he was tall and lean, preferring not to become bulky like a bodybuilder. Having too much muscle slowed you down; Robbie was always on the go.
It was nearing ten o’clock in the evening and the gym was practically empty save for the night manager. Robbie figured he’d do this last set and then head home for a shower. Then, maybe, he’d spend some quality time with Melanie.
Melanie was not his girlfriend.
The sound of weights being racked caught his attention. He looked to his right and saw a skinny brown-haired guy standing before a dumbbell rack, running his fingers along the weights. His back was to Robbie, obscuring his face. Robbie stared at him for a moment, not really understanding why the presence commanded his attention. There was nothing too odd about the guy. Maybe it was the fact Robbie couldn’t see his face.
Ever since seeing The Blair Witch Project, he never felt comfortable seeing someone standing in a corner like that.
As if reading Robbie’s mind, the guy stopped caressing the weights and simply stood there, motionless. Robbie shivered and stood up. There was something else about this guy, something familiar. He started to walk over to the man.
“Hey,” Robbie said to his back. He got no reply. “Hey, do you mind spotting me on the bench?” Robbie didn’t really need a spotter; he just wanted to see this guy’s face. He needed to.
Finally, the man turned around. Robbie screamed.
* * *
Nick Platt sat at his computer, reading the story about the death of Robert Patterson. He had been murdered the night before, a pencil through his neck and his face crushed by a dumbbell at Augusta Fitness. No one had witnessed the crime. Nick vaguely remembered Robbie from their high-school days. Didn’t Robbie and Don used to be friends?
Nick tried to think of something else. He hadn’t talked to Don in five months, ever since Don paid that unexpected—but not unwelcome—visit that night. Nick had tried calling him a few times, but never managed to get a hold of him. He wondered if Don knew about this news....
Flipping to another news site, he re-read the story about the murder of the bus driver at Augusta High that occurred the same night as Robbie’s. That man’s head had been twisted all the way around, from what Nick had read. He wasn’t sure, but he could swear the victim used to be his and Don’s bus driver from their school days—
Nick paused as he realized both victims, Robbie and the bus driver Harvey Littleman, had something in common: Don. Robbie had stolen Don’s pencil once, and Mr. Littleman had yelled at Don for holding up the bus. Nick remembered these things with perfect clarity. And then there was Ethan Scott, Don’s brother, who’d been murdered the very same night of Don’s visit.
Just then, Nick got the distinct impression he was being watched.
He spun around in his chair and looked at his window. It was closed, but the blinds were open. It was dark outside, and Nick couldn’t see anything beyond the window. Someone could easily be standing just outside, staring back at him.
Suddenly, his cell phone rang. Nick jumped in fear and grabbed it. He groaned when he looked at the caller ID.
“What, Clark?”
“Dude, did you hear about the murders?”
Nick looked at his monitor, at Harvey�
��s smiling, pre-murdered photo that was part of the story. “Yes. What about them?”
“You remember Don Scott?”
Nick’s heart sped up. “Of course I do. What about him?”
“A long time ago, I convinced him to make a hit list of all the people who had wronged him, in case he ever decided to get revenge later on in life.” A significant pause. “Robbie and Mr. Littleman were on that list.”
Nick felt like he was going to vomit. “So? It could just be a coincidence.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Clark, whom Nick hadn’t seen in years, sounded deflated. “But, just in case.... I thought you should know. You were on that list.”
Nick’s eyes widened as he quickly spun back to the window.
It was open now, the blinds pulled all the way up. But there was no one there.
Nick was paralyzed with fear. His eyes darted to the left and right. His bed was just before the window, though there was space between it and the wall. Someone could easily fit in that space.
Somehow, Nick managed to get his feet to work. Instead of walking toward his door, however, he went toward the bed. Clark was going on about how Don had put Nick on the list because of the whole thing with Monica, but Nick could barely hear due to his racing heart.
When he got to the bed, he just stood there. He was afraid he was close enough for someone to reach out from under it and grab him. He slowly got to his knees, setting the phone down on the floor.
He looked under the bed.
No one was there.
That only meant whoever had snuck in was now on top of the bed, waiting for Nick to stand up. He didn’t want to stand up. If someone was there, Nick hoped to never see him.
He slowly sat back up, preparing to come face to face with the intruder.
He saw no one. There was no one in his room. Nick picked up the phone again. “Clark, who else is on the list?”
“Don’s stepmom and...Monica Harris.”