That kind of pluckiness simply doesn’t exist in adult humans. It makes me think someone should put kids in charge of global affairs. The world would likely be a far safer place than it is.
I glanced at Charlotte through the corner of my eye. What the hell was I looking at? By all appearances, she seemed to be an average eight-year-old kid. But the complex mathematical formula and weird symbols on her bedroom wall; the epic nature of what I saw when I glimpsed inside her mind … how could she even be alive? One thing I was certain of — whatever strange powers she carried inside could probably burn my host to a cinder. She might even possess the capacity to destroy my elemental nature itself. Let’s just say it was a little unsettling. And why the hell had Abraxas tried to kill her? How could this innocent little kid be a threat to scum bag hellspawn?
But she wasn’t an innocent child at all.
The man who butchered her mother was going to be the child’s new daddy. The poor bastard made the mistake of skin-on-skin contact with the child lost his shit and stabbed her mother to death. Then the girl simply made him disappear. POOF! Gone.
Would she make me disappear too if I made the same mistake? What if she threw a tantrum and decided to send me packing?
All I knew was the little girl sitting beside me in the front seat of Sparks’ Crown Victoria possessed knowledge and power that was some threat to the citizens of hell itself, and that meant it would only be a matter of time until we faced another attack. I had to get her off the grid and away from civilians because supernatural bad guys have zero shits to give when it comes to killing or maiming innocent bystanders. That meant a return to my safe house near Three Fathom Harbour. The place where my previous host burned up. The place where I lost Amy. I knew that whoever was going to come at us would find us hidden there, but at least it was away from civilians.
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was quarter past three in the morning. My stomach rumbled, and I spotted a 24-Hour McDonald’s ahead. Unfortunately, we needed to head out of town, so I wasn’t going to hit any drive-thru windows until we cleared the city limits.
“Listen, kid,” I said as I glanced at the rear-view mirror to see if we were being followed. “You know who I am because of all the stuff that’s in your head. A crazy social worker tried to kill you, and both of us know that she wasn’t exactly like you and me.”
“There is nothing about you that can be compared to me,” Charlotte said in her guidance counsellor voice. Then she quickly reverted to sounding like an eight-year-old girl. “I made my mommy’s boyfriend kill her. It’s my fault. I made him disappear after he hurt her and now Mommy has gone to heaven.”
“It’s not your fault, kid. You got some weird shi … stuff going on inside your brain. Did you notice how your voice just changed a second ago?”
She sniffed and wiped her nose with her nighty again. “Yes. I have two voices.”
“Care to explain how that all works?” I asked as I signalled right and guided the cruiser to an off-ramp. Within seconds we were on the highway headed out of town.
She blinked and quickly channelled her inner guidance counsellor. “There is nothing to explain because to explain it would be a waste of time. It would be like trying to teach the alphabet to a large boulder. You are the boulder, Richter.”
“You know my name,” I said insistently, again checking the rear-view mirror to make sure we weren’t being followed. “You scribbled the word Richter all over your bedroom wall. How do you know my name?”
The girl nodded once and said, “Because I know all things that have been or must be. Increase your speed by thirty kilometres an hour. There are three police cars behind you. That will give us enough distance.”
I spun my head around to look out the rear window and saw nothing but blackness. “What are you talking about, kid? There are no cops around here for miles. And why the hell are we running? If you’re talking from some other place in your timeline that would imply that you survive whatever the hell is going on right now.”
She shook her head. “Number one, the police are a few kilometres back. This car has been reported missing from my dwelling. If you do not increase your speed, they will catch up with us, and you will be taken into custody. I will become a ward of the Province, and that which must be will not happen as it should. Number two, what is happening here right now at this very moment is somehow hidden from me. I have no memory of the events of this evening. None. I have no view as to what will happen in the days ahead. My life is now a blank slate and I cannot understand the reasons why.”
I looked at the girl and opened my mouth to say something but thought better of it because I believed her when she said there were cops on my tail. I pressed my foot on the accelerator, and the car roared up the dark highway.
“Okay Charlotte, I’ve increased speed. We’ve got about an hour of driving ahead of us before we reach the road to my safe house. So, what you’re saying is that while I am talking to your future self, what is happening right now hasn’t happened to you yet? How the hell does that work?”
She closed her eyes for a moment and then said, “Time, space and infinite destiny are not on anyone’s cards tonight. Something is coming. Something very big. When it is ready to announce its presence, I might have a better understanding about the future. For now, we are living in the moment.”
“This is nuts,” I groaned.
Charlotte reverted to her eight-year-old self. “Okay, mister. Now that I looked behind, I have to look at what’s in front of us.”
I cocked an eyebrow and flipped on the police radio to listen in on what might be going on at Victoria Road. I believed the girl when she said we’d make it to the safe house, but my thoughts were with Sparks and the shit show of three dead police officers not to mention a dead social worker. My gut told me that she was going to suffer the backlash from the higher-ups in the Halifax Police Service because of the sheer butchery of what happened at Charlotte’s house.
The radio crackled and hissed every few seconds as the dispatcher sent more units to Charlotte’s house. Oh, and of course there was the big “be on the lookout” for a red Ford Crown Victoria – the one I was driving. A few kilometres ahead I could see a pair of headlights cutting through the blackness of the highway. It was a tractor trailer, and it seemed to be ploughing through the night well over the speed limit. I’d have paid little attention if the truck hadn’t suddenly lurched to its left and bounced across the grass dividing the highway, smashing through the guardrail.
“Mister, we have to—”
“Hang on, kid; we’ve got company!” I said as I gripped the steering wheel and tromped on the gas pedal.
The eighteen-wheeler flipped on its high beams and fog lights, and I shielded my eyes with my left arm against the glare. Charlotte quickly grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it toward herself. The Crown Victoria lurched to the right, and I grabbed the wheel, straightening the cruiser before we crashed into the ditch. The semi moved sharply to its left, and we’d be smashed to atoms in a head-on collision if I didn’t think fast.
“Can you drive a car?” I asked, immediately regretting the words the moment they flew out of my mouth. The kid was eight. Of course, she couldn’t drive. She wouldn’t even be able to reach the pedals.
“I can steer if that’s what you mean,” she acknowledged in her guidance counsellor voice.
“Rats … no time. We’re going into the ditch. Hang on tight!”
I put the gas pedal to the floor. The powerful police cruiser roared ahead, and the tractor trailer’s lights filled the interior of the car with a near-blinding white glow. In less than a second, we tumbled down the shoulder right into a gulley, and the semi flew over the shoulder bouncing violently into the ditch and smashing into a stand of trees. I was just about to head out of the car and put a few rounds into the driver’s head when the door of the trailer flew open and out poured a dozen or more creatures. Each had a pig snout face like Abraxas, each carried a sword that lit abla
ze and cut into the darkness like a dozen welder’s torches.
“They’re coming!” Charlotte cried out.
“We’re leaving,” I piped sharply. “Hang on again!”
I stepped on the gas, and I saw a spray of rocks and dirt flying out from the rear of the car as the tires spun madly. We weren’t moving forward, so I slipped the cruiser in reverse, and the car shot back into the group of monsters. A trio of the demons wound up underneath the rear wheels, and I kept my foot on the gas as I put the car into drive. We bolted forward just as another pair of demons climbed over the trunk and onto the roof. One of the creatures jumped on the hood and proceeded to use its head as a battering ram on the windshield. The cruiser lurched forward, and the nose pitched up as I struggled to get the car up sharply inclined shoulder and back onto the highway.
“Another one is climbing the back of the car!” Charlotte shrieked.
“Can you fire a shotgun?” I bellowed.
“I’m eight, mister—are you crazy?”
“Unbuckle your seatbelt, get on the floor of the car and plug your ears, kid!” I ordered as I pulled the standard issue shotgun out of its cradle attached to the dashboard. With one hand on the wheel and the other on the shotgun, I managed to cock the weapon. I caught a glimpse of the demon on the trunk and placed the shotgun on my shoulder. I fired a single deafening shot that blasted through the rear window and hit the demon square in the chest, throwing it off the back of the car. The demon on the hood continued to smash its head against the windshield. A greasy black streak of ichor ran across the glass as I floored the cruiser and within seconds we were roaring down the highway with the needle buried. I cocked the shotgun again and fired at the monster. My ears rang like Big Ben as the windshield exploded into thousands of tiny glass cubes and the demon dove into the front seat and straight at the little girl. A pair of flaming daggers penetrated the roof of the car and burned through the headliner as I readied the shotgun to fire straight into the demon that was now on top of Charlotte. What happened next confirmed to me that whatever the hell Charlotte was carrying inside, it was more powerful than anything I’d ever encountered in my near century living among humans.
“OFF!” the child bellowed in a thunderous voice that blew the creature straight into the headliner with the force of an artillery barrage. A fraction of a second later the roof creaked and groaned as I struggled to keep the car straight and then it happened: the entire roof of the cruiser tore off the pillars as easily as someone tearing sheet of paper. Cold night air buffeted my hair and face. I quickly looked over my right shoulder to see three demons tumbling along the pavement, and the roof of the cruiser rolled away amid a shower of bright orange sparks.
“Drive faster now, Mister,” she ordered.
My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my temples. I threw the girl an uneasy look, the kind of look you give the dentist just as he’s about to jab your mouth with an enormous needle.
“H-How did you do that?” I shouted through the wind. “What the hell are you?”
Charlotte remained on the floor underneath the dashboard. She looked up at me and shrugged.
“I’m just me,” she answered, shivering.
I reached over and opened the glove box. Inside I found an emergency blanket in a plastic wrapper, and I tossed it to her. “Tear that open and wrap yourself up. It will keep you warm. If we don’t have any more visitors on this highway, we should be at my safe house within thirty minutes. Are you going to be okay, kid?”
She tore open the package with her teeth and wrapped the crinkly silver blanket around her body. The girl looked like she’d been wrapped in tin foil, but at least she’d be warm.
“I’m okay—those things. What were they?”
“Minions from the dark place … from hell,” I noted as I kept my eyes on the road ahead for traffic or any other unnatural surprises. “Whatever you are, kid, the bad guys from downstairs know about it, and they’re coming after you.”
“I don’t even know what I am,” she shouted. “Mommy always kept me safe. She said that someday I would know the truth about what I am, but there’s one thing I do know, Mister.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“I’m human, and you are not. You look like a person, but there’s something inside you too.”
“Long story for another day,” I shouted back as I wiped at my watering eyes with the sleeve of my coat. I hadn’t planned on driving a car with the roof ripped off. At least it was a city-owned vehicle that had been wrecked instead of my piece of crap Ford Tempo which was sitting dormant a few houses down from the crime scene.
“Are we safe now?” she asked.
If ever there was a loaded question, she’d just asked it. Given that supernatural craziness follows me like sharks to a bucket of chum the short answer was no. But I couldn’t tell an eight-year-old child that she wasn’t safe. And besides, it wasn’t me that minions from hell wanted dead, it was the girl. If I was going to protect her, I needed to find out why she was on their hit list about a thousand kinds of fast.
“I’m not going to lie to you kid,” I said grimly. “You’re not safe, and it seems to me that you haven’t been safe for a long time. Where we’re going, at least it’s better than driving down the highway in a borrowed police car with the roof torn off. You close your eyes and try to rest, got it? I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise.”
She threw me a slight nod and her thin lips arched up into a tiny smile as she snuggled down under the dashboard. I cranked up the heat hoping it would keep her warm until we got to my safe house and I reached for my cigarettes but stopped at the last second because it’s hard to light up a smoke in a car with no windshield or roof.
Charlotte cried softly to herself and said through a series of sniffles, “Mommy has gone to heaven, and I’m all alone.”
I felt a twinge of sadness as I gazed down at a little girl who’d lost everything she ever loved in a matter of hours. She was alone in a world that even without supernatural threats, tends to grind people into grease beneath the weight of crime and drugs and about a million other bad things that destroy lives every single day. Charlotte was just starting out in life. She had a target on her back, and even though the girl had blasted a demon through the roof of the car with a single word, there was an unlimited supply of hellspawn down in the dark place. They’d be coming for her, and for a second my mind flashed to that sorry scene at Lawrencetown Beach where an angelically possessed Amy Curtis’s life ended in the demonic clutches of Jael. I couldn’t protect Amy because I let her out of my sight. That wasn’t going to happen with Charlotte. If demons intended to drag her straight into the fiery pits of hell, they would have to get through me first.
“Charlotte,” I said as tenderly as a man can sound when he’s shouting into a headwind. “You are never going to be alone as long as there is breath in my lungs. Got it?”
She looked up at me from her little tin foil nest underneath the dashboard of a late model Ford Crown Victoria and flashed me a tiny smile.
“Got it, Mister Richter,” she said as she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I scanned the highway ahead for any threats.
“Sleep well, little girl,” I whispered.
4
We made it to my safe house at Three Fathom Harbour without incident. I parked the police cruiser next to my classic old Jeep Wagoneer which had been sitting dormant for six months beneath a military camouflage net. I was sure the old girl would start, and even if it didn’t, I had jumper cables in the back so it wouldn’t be too hard to get the engine to turn over. My safe house is an old coastal defensive position from the Second World War. It was just one of dozens that dotted the east coast of Canada with the goal of blasting the crap out of enemy ships that might venture into Canadian waters. None of them saw any action and the site was decommissioned in 1946. Seventy years of vegetation had grown over top of the concrete structure, and unle
ss you knew where to look, you could be standing right in front and not see it because of the natural camouflage offered by the thick overgrowth of trees and shrubs.
There is a tunnel dug into the earth that you must walk through before you get to the giant steel blast doors. I’d imported a bunch of rattlesnakes from the US, illegally, I might add, and set them free in the tunnel. Most of them made it their home away from home, and those reptiles constituted my first line of defence against any intruders.
As I carried the sleeping child in my arms, I noticed the tunnel floor wasn’t crawling with snakes. Maybe the psychotic angel Jael had set them free when she had taken possession of Amy’s soul a few months back. So much for my first line of defence, maybe if I’d imported scorpions they’d have been more loyal.
The blast door opened with a loud groan that woke up the little girl as I stepped inside the cold concrete former gun emplacement.
“Welcome to Das Bunker, kid,” I said as I let her down on the floor and flashing my mini mag light around until I found a Coleman lantern. I opened the fuel tank and sniffed. It was filled with naphtha, so I pumped the plunger a few times and lit the mantle. A soft white glow filled the room, and I scanned the area to see the blood stain on the wall from where Amy had bumped her head. There was a thick black scorch mark on the floor from where my former host burned up. We’d spend the day doing some basic house cleaning; maybe it would take Charlotte’s mind off the loss of her mother and my mind off the loss of Amy. Maybe the little girl and I would become friends because of our shared grief. Outside of Detective Sergeant Carol Sparks, I didn’t have any close friends, and I wondered for a short moment if it was creepy for a grown man to have an eight-year-old friend.
Probably, I decided.
She gazed around the room and shivered. “It’s real cold here, Mister Richter. It feels like I’m inside a big cave.”
The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 4