A Guardian of Innocents

by Jeff Orton

  I hit the side of his head and something jagged cut into my knuckles. I knew (feeling sickened) that I’d cut my hand on the shards of his broken skull.

  And why at that moment did the power from the factory’s emergency generator have to kick in? The image of that face still haunts my nightmares, though they are fewer now. Whatever alternating strobe program Louis had the lights set on had now been deactivated, but only dim lights, scattered in a checkered pattern along the ceiling, were now lit.

  The Creeper glowered down at me with his one good eye as he hovered, his feet just inches above the charcoal gray mesh of the catwalk. His white teeth flashed in the weak lighting as he grinned at me.

  “I have to thank you,” he hissed as blood and some kind of yellowish fluid trickled from his vacant eye socket, “Until now, I have always wondered if it were really possible. If I was truly immortal. But now my doubts, those nagging little voices that they are, have been eradicated.”

  “Aaron!” I heard Richard shout.

  “I’m in here!” his son responded from somewhere beneath me.

  I turned my head, about to call for help, when a shiny, slightly curved blade planted itself into my left shoulder and a foot kicked me in the sternum. I fell onto my back, unable to breathe. An invisible hand was choking me.

  Fuck that. It was more like an invisible python.

  “I’ll offer you my gift again, Jeshua. But this is the last and final time. Do you want to die?”

  He yanked the short Japanese sword out of my flesh. My eyes clamped shut with hot pain as blood began to saturate my shirt, making it stick to my skin. He put both of the blades to my neck as he stood over me, holding then in an X like a pair of shears. The constriction of my throat stopped and I inhaled great gulps of air, hyperventilating.

  “So what say you, Jeshua? Die now or live forever?”

  In a desperate, defiant attempt to live, I reached inside my jacket and produced the cross I’d been carrying with me. I shoved it between his arms, up towards his face.

  Godwin stared at it thoughtfully for a moment, then laughed gently, “Did you really think that would have any effect on me? You’re an atheist, Jeshua. You lack the faith to back that thing up. You might as well be pointing an unloaded gun at me!”

  Still chuckling, he placed one of the blades in his teeth, and with his now free hand, snatched the crucifix and chucked it over his shoulder behind him. Still holding the sword in his left hand to my neck, he retrieved its twin back from his mouth and twirled it by the hilt with his fingers once for show then lifted it, point down, high above his head as if ready to impale me.

  But then the corner of his mouth twitched with a distracted sneer of uncertainty. It dawned on me then that I hadn’t heard that cross clang against anything. It should have fallen somewhere, hit something.

  Louis Godwin turned around. And as he stepped aside, there was Tessa standing at the other end of the catwalk. The cross was in her hand. She held it out before her with a straight arm like a shield.

  How’d she get up here? I thought to myself.

  Until this point, I hadn’t paid any real attention to the buzzing noise created by Godwin’s presence because I’d simply gotten used to it. But now I noticed a severe drop in its volume. It had gone from a chainsaw to a kitchen blender in 0.2 seconds.

  He was afraid.

  “Tessa! Darling angel. Throw that thing away and come here. Come over here to me, Tessa.”

  “No,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and dry.

  Louis had his back turned to me and seemed to have all but completely forgotten that I existed. I got to my feet, biting down on my lower lip from the pain in my shoulder. I braced myself with my right hand upon the rail of the catwalk and kicked upward, hard as I could.

  One of the steel toes of my trusty Doc Martens popped one of the sword’s hilts out of Louis’ grip.

  Facing me with his one glaring eye, he growled, “Son of a bitch!” and swung at me with his other sword. I fell backwards, fastball-dodging style, almost losing my nose as the blade sliced the air in front of my face.

  “Get away from him!” Tessa screamed, “In Jesus name, I command it!”

  Godwin fell to his hands and knees as though shoved from behind as I scrambled back up to my own crawling position to get away from him. But he immediately got one foot beneath him and lunged at me a second time. I dodged his attack gracelessly by falling over again towards my right, rolling my way towards Tessa.

  Godwin staggered towards me in pursuit, but his speed was diminished, almost sluggish. He managed to stand upright again and was almost on me when Tessa shouted, “In Jesus name, get BACK!!!”

  Louis flew back about five yards or more as though he’d been sucker punched by a wrecking ball.

  “You little bitch!” he howled. He stood up again, now a safe distance away from us.

  “Come over here, Jeshua! Get behind me!” Tessa ordered.

  I got to my feet and walked over to her like a hunchback; the pain in my shoulder was so excruciating. She came the rest of the way over to me when I tripped and fell onto my left side, which shot a fresh lightning bolt of pain through my upper body. I knew I hadn’t tripped of my own clumsiness. Godwin smiled at me like Dr. Lecter from his jail cell.

  Tessa knelt beside me, laying her free hand upon my shoulder. It went numb, as though shot with a local anesthetic. I could feel the wound still there, still bleeding, but she had reduced the pain to a dull ache.

  “Tessa!” Richard’s frantic voice called out below, “Tessa, where are you?”

  “She’s up here with me, sir!” Louis shouted, “But don’t worry. I’m taking good care of her!”

  “Son of a whore!” Collins yelped, the fear in his voice more present than his anger or shock. I understood his feelings perfectly.

  “Yes, I’ll take good care of you, Tessa,” Godwin said, “Just like all the men I’ve sent you to over the years. They all took good care of you, didn’t they? And you enjoyed them. You enjoyed all those hundreds of cocks inside you, my little prize cunt. I know you did!”

  I felt anger, shame and humiliation welling up within her. She hated him more passionately than I thought I could have ever hated Jack.

  In that instant, I realized Godwin wasn’t simply taunting out of cruelty. It was tactical. He was slowly walking towards us. The angrier she became, the more her power over him weakened.

  “Tessa, don’t listen to him!” I told her, “Block it out! Don’t let him win!”

  I pulled the Beretta out of my jacket pocket and blasted two rounds at him, which he dodged effortlessly. With one foot after another, he continued his approach.

  But the gunfire seemed to clear Tessa’s head. “In Jesus name get away from us!”

  Godwin stayed his ground, leaning forward as though he was being upheld by an updraft of air. A grimace of pain passed over his face.

  “You have no idea how powerful my Lord Salyssi is, little girl,” he hissed.

  “I’m sick of listening to you!” she whispered, then clamping her eyes shut, she lowered her voice and proclaimed, “In the name of the Son of God Jesus Christ who died on the cross for the sins all who live, have lived or ever will live, I command you to LEAVE NOW!!!”

  Godwin slid backwards as he continued to lean forward, as though driven back by a fierce gale of wind. His face contorted and twisted with pain.

  “You’ll never be rid of me, little girl!” Godwin snarled, “I’ll see you in your fucking grave!”

  Tessa stood with my cross out before her with a proverbial fire in her eyes, an explicit vision of heroism. She closed her eyes again and softly prayed, “Lord, in Jesus name I come to you today in prayer...”

  Louis cocked his head to one side, listening carefully as he stood upright again, now thirty or more feet away.

  “...I ask you, Lord, that you help this man who threatens me...”

  I looked over at her like she was insane.

  “Please release this miser
able wretch of his demons. Take his demons away. Now, Lord, in Jesus name I pr—“

  Godwin’s jaw dropped in absolute horror.

  “Nooo!!!” he squealed, “You bitch! I won’t letchoo!!!”

  He wrapped his arms around his abdomen as he doubled over and turned the other way, hacking violently as though from a bad case of dry heaves. He began to jog down the catwalk, still hunched over, at first taking long painful strides, then picking up his pace.

  “IN CHRIST’S HOLY NAME!!!” Tessa shouted, continuing her intercessional assault upon him.

  Godwin froze, arms bound to his sides, the fingers of his hands splayed. His body rotated 180 degrees to face us. “It won’t work, won’t work, woanwork,” he chanted, shaking his head.

  “Free him, Lord,” Tessa whispered, barely audible.

  “THEY’RE MINE!!!” he screeched as he arched back on his tiptoes and roared and bellowed with rage.

  And though I saw nothing with my own eyes, I was able to glimpse the exiting demons through Tessa’s eyes. In her mind I saw them. Black amorphous amoebas. Floating, undulating, pulsating.

  Sensing their vast rage and hatred was frightening enough, but what scared me ten times worse was that I could sense their age... their timelessness.

  I looked at Godwin and our eyes met.

  Suddenly, I was in another time and place. All I knew was I was frantic, seeking some form of escape from the fire... the fumes. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. There was no way to get to the elevators. The emergency stairway was clogged with throngs of fellow co-workers. Some were crawling, trying to stay below the monstrous tendrils of black smoke.

  “You motherfucker,” I gasped. Not only did I realize where I was, but more importantly, who I was.

  I heard a deafening roar from above; ten thousand trains colliding into each other at once. And then nothing.

  She really didn’t suffer that much, Jeshua, Godwin thought at me. An insinuated feeling of cold, cruel laughter followed those words, though Godwin’s actual face was frozen in a snarl of pain as one demon after another was torn loose from him.

  “YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!” I howled, a bloodcry of rage and loss so intense it gave me momentary tunnel vision. I took out my gun and fired blindly at him, emptying my clip.

  “Jeshua! No!” Tessa cried.

  Louis sprang back into life. Every shot I’d fired had missed. The demons were pulled back into him as though he were the vortex of a whirlpool. He jumped into the air and hovered there, considering his next move. The bottom half of his black trench coat dangled limply in the still air around his legs, which were bent slightly at the knees.

  His one eye scowled at me first, but then he smiled.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I owe ya one.”

  The Creeper took flight and hurled himself through one of the large windows, out into the rumbling gray of the thunderstorm.

  I screamed in frustration as the chilled pre-winter winds from the storm spilled into the plant.

  “We have to get down to Aaron!” I said to Tessa, “He’ll go after him and your father.”

  “He’s not coming back,” Tessa replied calmly, “He wouldn’t dare. Now be still.”

  She placed both hands on my shoulder and began praying over me in the same fashion as she had her father. A warmth ran through my arm, up my neck and into my chest. The wound itched as it closed itself. Something popped in or around the joint and the gentle warmth dissipated. Tessa stood over me, smiling.

  “C’mon. I’ll help you down the stairs.”

  “What stairs?” I asked her, but saw there was another set at the end of the catwalk behind her.

  She took my hand, lifting me to my feet. I realized now as we stood together, that she was no longer a child as I had so pictured her these past few years. She looked to be about fifteen years old now. She led me towards the staircase, her hands on my arm in case I fell.

  “Wait,” I said, stopping, “There’s something I need.”

  I walked over to where Louis had previously been standing and retrieved the twin Japanese swords he had dropped during the melee.

  “Why do you want those?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered, “But they’re important. I know that."

  As we went down the stairs, Tessa reclaimed my arm and said, “Thank you for saving my friends.”

  “I—“, I began to say but was interrupted.

  “I know you tried to save me too. Don’t worry, I know. Louis never would have allowed that to happen. It’s not your fault.”

  We arrived on the ground floor to discover Richard had found a crowbar and was busy helping Aaron out of his mangled metal cage. His son looked knocked around, but otherwise okay.

  “Where’s Godwin?” Richard asked, frantic, “Tessa! There you are! God, I was scared for you.”

  “Dad, listen to me,” Tessa said, “We need to get out of here now. And I mean right now.”

  “I thought you said he’s not coming back!” I exclaimed, perhaps a little too accusatory. But I could only see the general direction of where her thoughts were headed.

  “He isn’t,” she insisted, “But that’s not going to stop him from sending others.”

  Aaron nodded his head in agreement as he brushed himself off and checked his gun, “He’s probably on his cell right now, telling them where to find us.”

  “Shit!” Richard cursed, teeth clenched, “All his damn thugs! We’ll have to get out of town. Tonight.”

  We made our way out of the factory in a steady jog. If the ghosts tried to beseech Aaron again, I didn’t feel it.

  As we approached the BMW, Richard held his arms up, signaling everyone to stay back, “Nobody touch the car yet.”

  He dove underneath the front end and hung out for a few seconds, inspecting the undercarriage with a flashlight.

  “Okay, we’re good to go,” he announced as he rose from the pavement. I didn’t have to ask. The image of wires and plastique in the back of his mind told me what it was he’d been looking for.

  “What about the brakes?” Aaron asked as he thumbed the unlock button on his car alarm remote.

  Richard shrugged, “There’s no fluid on the ground.”

  Aaron jumped into the driver’s seat, passing the AK to his father, who rode shotgun. Tessa and I shared the small backseat area.

  “Okay you guys,” Richard said, “I need you two to keep those invisible antennas stickin’ straight up. Alright? If you feel sumpthin’s not right, lemme know.”

  “You still got the nine?” Aaron asked, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah, but I’m out of ammo.”

  “Lift up the headrest there,” Aaron instructed, tilting his head towards his father.

  But before I even raised my hand to do so, Richard reached back and yanked it up. The upholstery at the bottom of the headrest had a two inch gash in it. I slid two fingers inside and extracted a new fully loaded clip that fit my weapon.

  No sooner had I reloaded, than Tessa gasped, “They’re coming. Jeshua, they’re the same two guys that took me out of that mansion.”

  A primer gray van turned from an intersecting side street and raced past us, heading in the opposite direction.

  “Shit, it’s them,” I said.

  Clearly seeing they had just passed their intended targets, the van’s tires screeched and smoked as the driver locked up the brakes and brought the large, lumbering vehicle around as fast as he could without flipping it. A lone motorist barely missed clipping its right front corner, and instead chose to careen into the base of a pole that supported a set of traffic signal lights which trembled violently with the impact.

  “Aaron, sunroof,” Richard ordered.

  His son hit the button, which was among the many controls embedded in the center of the steering wheel. The tiny motor in the roof hummed as the black glass slid back, and as the van accelerated rapidly towards our rear. I lowered my own window, just in case my assistance should be ne
eded.

  “Don’t shoot unless I run out of ammo or get hit!” Richard barked, “Both of you get DOWN!”

  He kept one foot in his seat and planted his right knee on the center console and emerged through the sunroof, bringing the AK-47 to bear on the approaching van. Disobeying his order, I watched through the rear glass as he sprayed the guy in the passenger seat first. He had already been leaning out of his window, sitting on the edge of his door with his own wicked looking machine gun—which went flying out of his arms when he got hit in the chest with a three-round burst.

  The driver slammed on the brakes, but he was too late Agent Collins immediately shifted his aim to the right and took out the driver. The windshield shattered into an opaque white spider web as the van swerved to its left erratically and flipped. It bounced end over end into the large display glass of a retail store.

  I quickly scanned the area for any witnesses as Richard lowered himself back into his seat. There was one, but I wasn’t concerned about him. He was just a wino, sitting in an empty alley with a bottle of Jack. He couldn’t see clearly enough to get our plate number, not that he was really trying.

  We ended up alone on the road on a peaceful Monday night. Tessa opened her eyes as if snapping awake from a bad dream.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “I am now. He put up a strong fight.”

  “Your dad?”

  She shook her head, “He was trying to throw off my dad’s aim.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said, fumbling to pop the clip back out of my gun, reliving my fight with the Remington.

  “Don’t worry,” she said gently, laying a hand on mine, “He can’t hurt us now. I won’t let him.”

  Chapter 16

  Though bittersweet for myself, the drive home was nothing short of joyous for my three companions. I wished I could have stayed in town long enough to say what’s up to Bo, but Richard insisted that Aaron keep driving, sending us on a night journey north on Interstate 35 until we were well past the Red River in the bumfuck town of Ardmore, Oklahoma.