Nightmare

by Robin Parrish

  I took special note of what it had said. Why would the demon need Derek to come closer to it, in order to harm him?

  Did the symbols around and throughout the building affect more than just the apparitions inside it?

  Derek stood his ground, the picture of restrained strength. "You are nothing but a servant to a pathetic poser with delusions of superiority. I serve He who is greater. And in His name ... I command you to leave this place."

  The demon bared its black opal teeth. "Where should you like me to go?" it asked.

  "Crawl back in the hole you came out ofl" Derek shouted.

  "No," replied the demon, and its simple refusal was like a punch to Derek's stomach. "I have no desire to leave."

  Derek took a small step backward, saying nothing.

  "You and your God have no control over me," gloated the demon. "Not here, where you cowardly mortals live in your precious flesh. Durham thought he could control me, too. He had such vision, such intellect. But his mistake was believing he could contain me."

  I looked behind the creature at the boxlike object behind it, and saw now that it was some kind of large, complicated cage.

  "You don't belong here, demon," Derek said again, glaring at the monster with stern disgust. His eyes never blinked or wavered as he stared it down. "I command you to tell me: how did you get here?"

  "Save your commands," the demon replied. "I seek answers myself. It was three ofyour years ago. Something punched a hole in the veil, the fabric that separates our realities. It's a very rare occurrence, and it was only for an instant. The tear started to collapse almost as soon as it appeared. So I went through it."

  Jordin and I moved closer, slowly, carefully, watching the creature.

  Derek appeared skeptical, and I saw him take a quick glance at the rubble from the shaking building at his feet. Was he looking for something?

  "What could possibly punch through the veil?" Derek asked. "Who but the one true God, Jehovah, has that kind of power?"

  The demon flinched when Derek said the name Jehovah.

  "Who, indeed?" the demon said. "It is the greatest of mysteries. Minuscule tears have punctured the veil a handful of times in recent times, and will likely do so again in the future. We know only that some profound event happened that has created a slight instability in the veil.

  "Almost as soon as I emerged into this world, I could feel my side trying to pull me back. The sensation grew in strength over time, the tugging becoming stronger and stronger, and I knew I wouldn't be able to resist it for long. So I used certain ... elements ... from this side to fashion a way to keep myself anchored to this reality." The demon reached back inside its broken holding cell and pulled out a small metal cube, less than six inches across, and held it in the palm of its beefy, charred hand. It looked like a child's toy block in his enormous hand.

  I broke away from Jordin, who continued on her careful path toward Derek. I moved closer to get a good look at the demon and this cube it had produced. I wondered now if I was wrong before about the creature's ability to sense me. It was still a supernatural being, regardless of where it was currently located. Did it already know I was there? Would it turn on me any second?

  The cube it held in its hand was a solid, thick thing. It had been sloppily hammered together, or maybe it had been poured into a mold as a liquid and cooled. I couldn't tell, but it was crude and imperfect. There was a raised mark on just one ofits six sides. A small, roundish but highly detailed symbol ...

  Derek had taken in everything about the cube, just as I had. "That's how you do it? You mark these people with that? Or DHI does?" Derek gestured at the bodies throughout the chamber.

  "I did not construct the cube for their benefit," the creature replied. "Not at first. As I said, I made it to tether myself to this reality. To keep the other side from pulling me back."

  The demon bared its barrel-like chest, and for the first time I noticed-as I'm sure Derek did-that right in the center, where a human's breast-bone would be, was the same glyph thatJordin and I bore on the back of our necks. Or rather, our physical bodies did.

  Seeing it there, I had the best idea ever.

  But Derek was revolted. "But you have no soul to bind, demon," he seethed.

  The creature bared its teeth again. "No, He did not see fit to imbue us, His first creations, with souls. Nonetheless, I required something to keep me from being pulled back to the other side. Howell Durham was the one to see the potential for a different use for my little trinket."

  Derek took another bold step forward, and I pulled up less than ten feet from the demon, waiting to see if it would notice or acknowledge me. I thought I heard something scraping on the ground as Derek shuffled closer, like he was pushing at something with his toe.

  "You were partners in this?" Derek asked. "Why did you kill him?"

  The demon's body language suggested that it desperately wanted to take a step forward, toward Derek, but it couldn't seem to move far beyond what was left of the cage it had broken out of.

  I got the impression that it was freely relating its story to Derek the same way a fisherman lures a fish to his rod. Derek must have thought that by continuing to inch forward, he was demonstrating a lack of fear in the face of this grisly beast. But I was suddenly afraid that the demon was playing him, working him carefully with its truthful words in order to reel him in. It was a seduction, a dance, taking place between the two of them, and the demon was winning.

  "Howell Durham was a world-class game hunter," the demon said, like a storyteller settling in to tell a good yarn. "He was following a game trail in the Amazon valley when he came upon me, wandering across this hard, cold rock you call home, trying to find my way to civilization. He assumed I was some previously undiscovered animal, some leftover from an ancient era, like a rediscovered ape or dinosaur. So he used his fancy equipment to capture me. That's what I let him believe, anyway.

  "He took me in my little cage to Copenhagen, where he was shocked to discover that I was intelligent and could speak to him. And I was no mortal animal. I was from the other side of existence. He sensed an opportunity, so he proceeded to `use' me to his profit. It took years of trial and error on the part of his scientists-working off of metaphysical concepts I gave themto construct the device he wanted. Durham wanted two things: a device that could free a soul from the confines of its pathetic human body, and a means of keeping that body from reaching what you call the afterlife. I already had that second item, in the form of my little cube here. But the extractor device took a great deal of time to perfect, because Durham insisted on being in full control of it every step of the way. Our agreement was that I would maintain control of the cube, while Durham kept his machine. One would be useless without the other.

  "But Durham never understood me well enough to know the depths of his own arrogance. Those of us on my side of the veil are infinitely patient beings. We have existed since before the beginning of what you call time, so I had no difficulty watching as Durham worked, waiting in that accursed cell for my chance to be rid of him and enact a plan of my own. Something far grander than anything even a visionary like Durham could think up."

  " `The nightmare is coming,' " Derek suggested, taking another step forward and glancing at his feet.

  The demon had tendrils of something resembling saliva dripping out of its mouth in nauseating strings, and they flew everywhere when it spoke.

  "I. Am. Coming!" the demon thundered.

  Derek held fast, though a roaring hot wind escaped from the vile creature's mouth and blasted into him like a super-hot furnace.

  "You pathetic humans believe yourselves to be the indigenous species on this planet. But my kind was here first, and we want it back. We are at war against the ones who still follow ... Him ... and the prize is the one thing He treasures most: you. The eternal, undying souls of man, His most precious creations. The other side fights to protect you, we fight to defile you. But there is only one way to life everlasting. Only one. J
ust as there is only one way for a soul's path to end in hell. It's a choice between two possibilities. Believe, or don't believe. Surrender yourself, or live in selfishness. But that time is over. I have finally found a way to cheat the game.

  "I will use the technology in this room to circumvent that human choice, and physically drag every soul on this planet straight to hell. And once there are no souls left for either side to fight over ... we win the war."

  The demon ended his story with a flourish, carefully depositing the cube on a metal table off to one side of its damaged cage.

  It was horrific. The perfect plan, the ultimate act of spite against God. For the first time I was thankful to be without skin or blood, because they would both have been ice cold right now.

  The silence was broken by the sound of desperate whispers. I turned and saw Derek on his knees, his eyes closed and his mouth moving with barely any sound coming out. There were beads of sweat all over his head and hands; he was trembling so hard that he almost lost his balance at one point.

  Derek was praying, and I recognized his words as Scripture. " `In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.'"

  "Get on your feet, boy," the demon taunted. "Believe me ... He's not listening. He has abandoned this place and all who come inside it. It's mine now, and I will grow it to engulf this entire wretched world."

  Derek slowly, weakly stood back up. "If that's true," he said, his voice low, "then why haven't you killed me already?"

  The demon's red eyes narrowed into slits, but it had no reply.

  Derek had something in his hand-the thing he had been kicking across the floor-and he raised it before him, with his arm outstretched fully in the direction of the monster.

  It was two intersecting pieces of rebar, welded together in the middle. Together, the two metal rods formed a crude but unmistakable cross.

  "You can't touch me," Derek said, hefting the cross high. His voice gained strength with every word. "You can't harm me. You have no power over me. I do not fear you!"

  With a move so fast it seemed impossible, the demon spun, grabbed its metal cage with its gigantic, gnarled hands, and tore the thing apart with a howl of rage.

  Then it spun again, and two things happened at once.

  The demon hurled a large crisscrossing section of the metal rods from the cage in Derek's direction.

  And just before the flying metal made contact, Derek was flung violently onto the ground.

  jordin. I'd lost track of her in all this. Her spirit now stood in the exact spot Derek had been occupying a second ago, her arms thrown straight out. She'd somehow worked up the strength of will to make physical contact with Derek and push him out of harm's way. And it didn't escape my notice that the demon wasn't able to see her apparition standing there glaring at it.

  The demon was furious, and grabbed more pieces of the broken cage to hurl at Derek, though Derek was now on the ground. I saw his fingers still clutching the rudimentary cross, and his lips were moving again. I was about to call out to Jordin when she started moving away, out into the middle of the chamber, on a mission.

  I couldn't see if Derek was hurt or not, but I didn't spend a long time staring from my vantage point behind the demon. As it threw metal rods and other bits in a hot fury, I drew closer, as fast as I dared, still afraid that some unsuspecting interaction of mine with the mortal world might tip the demon off to my presence.

  I moved around behind its enormous legs, noting the horrendous stench and incredible heat it was giving off-though neither had any effect on me-and with all of the concentration I could muster, I reached out my indefinable hand and grabbed the object of my desire.

  The demon was still flinging things toward Derek when it stopped short at the sight in front of it. Thanks to yours truly, the metal cube bearing the glyph was floating right in front of its charcoal body.

  I lunged, and the cube was shoved forward toward the demon's chest, but its reflexes were too fast. It stopped the cube with a single hand and snatched it away from me.

  "A ghostly rebellion, eh?" it muttered, straining to see me but unable to.

  But while it was speaking, I was already in motion. My strength of will was fully maxed out as one of the metal rods from the creature's cage flew into the air. Its sharp broken-off end scratched a deep cut into the demon's chest, and in that instant, the entire room shuddered.

  The demon dropped the cube and the metal bar was torn free from my hands, but it didn't matter. I stood slowly in triumph, gazing at the gash I had made across the demon's chest-carving straight through the glyph that was branded there.

  The demon's eyes swelled in horror when it saw that the symbol had been broken, and it scrambled about, searching the floor beneath it for the cube.

  But I already had the cube in my hands once more, and I tossed it toward the center of the room, where the extractor lay, my body still resting inside it.

  The brightest glow I ever saw burst into being all across the ceiling above us, and an entire legion of beings of light flew into the Body Chamber at breakneck speed. I couldn't get a good look at them because of how fast they moved, but they were more dazzling than the sun. A thousand suns.

  They grabbed the demon, kicking and screaming, and the vile thing turned inside out until it vanished from sight. The angels, likewise, faded in a single powerful instant that was punctuated by a clap of thunder.

  Amid the silence that followed, I made my way to the center of the chamber and directly through the extractor's clear tube to slide into my physical body. The mortal world came flooding back, my dull but familiar human senses taking over as I opened my eyes and took a long, deep breath.

  Jordin was already back. She was supporting Derek's weight as they stood side by side just outside the machine, watching and waiting for me to emerge. Derek looked terrible, bleeding from a gash on his head and ready to pass out. He had a broken wrist from where Jordin had shoved him to the ground. And Jordin was pale and looking rather weak herself.

  She pushed a button on the extractor's controls and the clear pod slid down away from me. I realized how weak I was myself as I tried to stand on my own and my knees buckled. My trusty heart began beating faster and harder, and for the first time, I was oddly happy to feel the sensation.

  As Jordin and Derek helped me to stand, the three of us heard murmuring from throughout the vast room. Other souls trapped here in the building had found their bodies and were returning to the land of the living.

  The three of us never spoke, never charted a course or laid out a plan.

  We stepped up to the extractor as one. In our respectively weary states, we worked methodically and tirelessly, prying free keypads and monitors from the extractor. I reached inside and tore out the needle that had punctured the back of my neck during the procedure.

  As others awoke and exited their cubicles, our feeble efforts grew into a movement as dozens of us worked in silence to dismantle the extractor down to its circuits and wires, never uttering a single word between us. Pierre eventually returned and whispered to me that the authorities were on the way, and though I knew he had to be thinking about how the extractor should be preserved as evidence, he finally chose to join the group in tearing it apart.

  I left them to continue the work, and went off in search of two things. I returned to the center of the room when I had them both.

  Derek and Jordin looked up to see me holding the demon's cube in one hand and the rebar cross Derek had held aloft in the other. They watched silently as I placed the cube on the ground and then reared back and jammed the rebar cross straight through it.

  Again and again I did this, and when I was done, the cube was crushed beyond recognition. And the glyph it bore, with it.

  ONE WEEK LATER

  The Boston Herald was proudly on display, covering a large portion of our dining table. Pierre Ravenwood's expose of the astounding, horrifying work of Durham Holdings International took up the entire front page, and
continued onto a second. The Herald exclusive had been picked up by all the major news networks and outlets, making its way all around the globe.

  Pierre was being called "a bold new voice in investigative reporting" by some, and he had appeared on half a dozen news broadcasts-with eight more already scheduled-to tell our incredible story. Derek, Jordin, and I turned down all offers for interviews, referring everyone to Pierre instead.

  Tonight, the four of us enjoyed a nice dinner out at Pierre's expense. He said it was the least he could do for the three of us helping to fast-track his career. I sat next to him-which was a bit awkward but also kinda nice-while Jordin and Derek leaned against each other and frequently looked at one another with longing, maybe just to make sure they were both really there and together again.

  While we waited for our food to arrive, Jordin spoke up. "There's one thing I still can't figure out," she said, looking to me. "When you and I were investigating ... why was the paranormal activity so unusually high? Am I really some kind of paranormal focal point? Or do you think it could have been-"

  "The demon's presence in the mortal realm? Or maybe DHI tailing you while it tried to lure you in to take part in its experiments?" I sighed, but not in a tired way. "I don't know. Everything we experienced was in keeping with what I've observed about the paranormal in the past. My feeling is that it was all real, though I'm sure at least one person at this table would disagree about that."

  Derek smiled a rueful smile but said nothing.

  "It was just the frequency of it-the tremendous amount of activity everywhere we turned-that was odd," I concluded. "Ultimately, it's something you'll have to decide for yourself. I know what I think."

  "Fair enough," Jordin replied with a thoughtful, unworried smile.

  Now it was my turn. I had a question of my own I'd been waiting for the right moment to ask. "Will you tell me something?" I said. "Why did you go to that church in New Jersey when you knew a demon would probably be there?"

  "Demons are more powerful than humans," she explained, not trying to hide how foolish she felt now. She shrugged a useless shrug and shook her head sadly. "I hoped to barter something with the demon if it would open the veil and let me in. I know how ridiculous that sounds now. I was ... obsessed. Now it feels like it's lifted. I had a lot of time to think after they abducted me, and the question that kept echoing in my head was what the angel said to the women at the tomb on Easter morning: `Why do you look for the living among the dead?'"