by Paul Rice
Unbelievably, the old woman then proceeded to laugh. “Ah, my Michael, he always was such a handful!” She then told them that Jeremiah had been running from the Police for months, he had been involved in a brawl in some bar along the way, a man had been killed and Jeremiah had fled to the next county. In panic, he had pawned his pistol and then purchased a hunting knife. The one, which at that precise moment in time, Melias was expertly removing from Red’s huge chest, eventually the Demon within had called him and he began to make his way back home, he kept to the back roads and small hamlets. Keeping a low profile and living off the land and his wits, he had slowly made his way back towards them. His bad timing, or that of fate, was immaculate and it had given them enough breathing space to allow the trio to have their way with Red. The portion of putrid hatred and anger that had begun to flower within the young man was effortlessly swept away by the intervention of his new friends.
Maggie informed them that Red’s father had actually been on the farm for three days now, sneaking up to the house at night and watching them, he had probably decided there were too many people there and so had hung back and waited until finally the opportunity presented itself.
It was an opportunity that was not to be long in arriving…
Maggie told them of how Tori had decided to hitch a ride out to the farm, she, Maggie, had been too busy and Tori had always liked the adventure of hitchhiking anyway. She knew one of the neighbours would be along shortly and so, after waving goodbye to her grandmother, Tori had taken a long-legged stride along the road out of town. Maggie told them that she had said farewell to Tori and had planned to be on the farm herself before sundown. “I told her to be careful, we all knew the time was coming, we knew Michael was going to have to give of himself, but we just didn’t expect it to be so soon, so soon or so violent?” Looking at them, the old woman seemed to suddenly age. “I hope to the heavens that she is all right, she is so young, and he is so powerful…” She walked across to her chair and sat back down. After rearranging her gingham dress, she looked up and said, “Well, let’s just cross our fingers, shall we?” As she sat and smiled quaintly at them, Maggie was the epitome of the typical, much loved, grandmother.
It was hard to imagine her being involved in any of this.
Ken thought about that for a while, that and a few other things, too, however, foremost in his mind lay the desire to get some of his bigger guns and go and help Tori.
It was not to be.
Chapter 31 - An Eye for an Eye
With the throttle held wide open, Mike’s sister roared from the barn and headed towards the back gate. With her black hair flying and those blue eyes blazing, the young temptress, Tori, raced towards the Demon. She grinned in the dusk and used her left hand to make sure that Ken’s pistol was tucked tightly into the waistband of her jeans. The stains of Mike’s blood, which lay spattered on her shoes and legs, filled her soul with a fire, it was a fearsome blaze and it burned so green that its colour would have been almost unwatchable.
Tori flew through the dusk, the motorcycle beneath her throbbing with its sympathetic urgency. Michael was with her, she could feel his arms around her waist. His magic rode with her and together they fearlessly plunged towards the Dragon. She and her family had been through this scenario many times before, had endured it repeatedly, and had fought it again and again. On more than one occasion they had lost the battle. Many times they had left a broken carcass behind as they fled a particular world with the Demon’s giggling laugher following them. It wasn’t always about blood and death, no, on many an occasion it had been more about simply stopping the childish games the Demon liked to play. Red and the Rip were just the latest toys that it had been amusing itself with. Well, this was one game she wasn’t going to lose. Michael had given himself to the cause, his was the ultimate Gift and Tori had no idea when or where she would see him again? She had lost him once more but she would find him again, one day soon she would find him. But for now she had two things on her mind: The Demon and Red, she would deal with them in that order and deal with each of them differently, her emotions for both men were also different, entirely different feelings altogether.
“Love and hate,” her grandfather had told her. “Are very similar emotions – the trick is learning how to use them, my dear?” His words came back to her and Tori realised what he had meant. She smiled to herself as she saw the apple tree silhouetted against the night sky. She knew how to use hate all right, yes, even if it was something she had only recently began to understand fully, Tori intended to use it to its full extent in the very near future. She drew to a halt about thirty yards away from the mound, kicking the stand down, Tori killed the engine, dismounted, and then stood silently watching as the man before her went about his work. He was digging frantically beneath the apple tree and was so engrossed in his work that he seemed not to have heard the noise, which the Harley must have made as Tori raced towards him.
She stood in the darkness and watched him.
Jeremiah Tolder held the shovel in one hand and was smashing it’s blade in the soft earth beneath him. He wasn’t making good progress as he was only using one arm. Red had broken the other one at the shoulder and now the injured limb hung uselessly by the man’s side. He was enraged and swung the shovel viciously, it clanged off the tree that stood in silent observation above his frenzied actions. The tool bounced back harmlessly, the vibration of its strike making the last few red apples release their weary grip, whereupon they fell to the earth and landed with little thuds. Tori recognised their falling and watched to see if they would burst in to green light as they had in the dream, all they did was to roll down the slope and come to a rest when their momentum had exhausted itself.
She looked back up the slope to where the man stood.
He howled at the ground, the sound was a deep, guttural screech, and Tori heard him gurgle afterwards. He dug the shovel into the ground and she watched as the black crucifix from her dream presented itself. She stared at it for a while and then looked at the man again – he was couching and sounded as though he was struggling to breathe. He made a choking sound and then reached for his throat. Rubbing it furiously, he tried to speak again but his strangled rage only exited his mouth in a gasping stream of soggy gibberish: “Fuk! I was erghh, arrggh mutha… so help me I… get, urrghhle… Fukshhukgh…” Jeremiah sounded as if he was trying to scream, scream whilst somebody else was busy pouring a glass of warm water, or something much worse, down his throat. He stumbled to his knees and then spat a mouthful of the fluid to one side. Tori couldn’t quite see what it was he expelled from his rasping mouth, but she hoped it was blood. Mike had hit him so hard in the throat that she’d heard things snapping in there; the blow had stopped him in his tracks, at least for a while. Mike had turned from the pole axed giant and bent down to help Red, the young man was just in the process getting to his own feet after having been knocked to the floor by his enormous father. And it was around that time when the knife had come out…
Forgetting the past for a moment, Tori began to walk towards the kneeling tyrant. She never made a sound as her tennis shoes touched lightly on the soft grass below. She felt as though she may be able to sneak right up on him. She was wrong. Suddenly, he raised his head and sniffed deeply in her direction. He turned to her and glowered into the darkness as his eyes searched for the source of the smell. It took him about five seconds before he managed to focus on her tall figure. Seeing her standing there in the half light, he growled, like a dog, and then staggered upright. “Oh, its yoo is it – I see yoooo, cunt bitch! Ahh, right… Garrghh, I geddit, yoo fuks think it’s my time, huh? This time we’ll fuggin see yoo cu…” He choked once more and Tori saw his legs momentarily buckle. In rage, he braced himself and stood his ground, cursing her with his insanity: “Shrgaghh… bastarddd – bitch, fuk all yoo geshh pricks, I killyaa!” He spoke almost pure gibberish, and once again, Tori could hear him drowning. By now she was close enough to see that it was blood coming from his mouth, and the
re was plenty of it. The fluid looked like oil as it dripped from his lips under the darkening sky. Tori very nearly laughed at the sight – it was as though some kids had put makeup on him for Halloween night.
The irony of that crazy thought amused her intensely. She actually giggled. Giggled and then pulled the pistol out of her jeans. The action made her find the situation ever funnier – she laughed out loud and started to walk up the slope towards him. The weight of the gun made her hands feel heavy and she glanced down at them. The reality of the dream once again sneaking up behind her and exposing the truth – everything was planned, everything was linked, and this was just one part in a long chain of correlated events. She laughed loudly at the realisation, in a wonderful liberating rush, all of her darkest fears left her. “I have no fear, everything is planned.” She thought, and quickened her pace, striding purposefully up the hill.
As she neared him, Tori whispered: “Yeah, you cocksucker, have a good look at me laughing, I’m the laughing teenager that’s going to blow your big, festering head right off your shoulders! Look at me laughing, Mister Demon, look at me laugh!” And with that comment, Tori raised the pistol and shot Jeremiah in the throat.
Suddenly, just like in the dream, she was flying towards him again, Tori felt herself being pulled into the man. As she tore forwards, racing across time, she began firing at him once more – time after time she pulled the trigger, and time after time she watched as the bullets smashed into his head. She saw them, everyone single one of them, watching as the chunks of flesh and bone flew into the air. The man fell to his knees and then collapsed onto his back. Tori saw his head ballooning grotesquely and then watched in mesmerised terror as the man’s eyes began to change colour. Jeremiahs face, which the Demon wore like a mask, seemed to crinkle; it bulged obscenely and then seemed to collapse inwards, its eyes turning a deep, fluorescent yellow. Blood, and something else, something black and terrible, erupted from his lips in a fine spray. It lifted above him into an awful mist, a horrible black vapour that seemed to take on a shape of its own. Tori knew the transformation was impossible, but she also knew that her eyes weren’t lying to her – the blackness was alive! As she stood and watched, the feeling of being witness to something new, something overwhelming, filled Tori’s head. In a sudden rush of truth, she realised that for the first time she had actually come face to face with the Darkness, for the first time she could actually see it! As it hung above his mouth like some insane liquid kite, the awful fluid looked as though it had grown wings.
Tori stopped her rush to find that she had come to a halt right above Jeremiah’s crumpled form. She had no idea how many bullets were in Ken’s gun, but without hesitation she fired the rest of them into the Dragon’s spewing mouth. The bright flash leapt from the muzzle of the weapon, its searing light illuminating the leering face below her. Lumps of flesh and teeth smashed into the back of its blood filled throat, the horrible tongue disappearing in a gobbet of pink mincemeat. The impact of the bullets caused the black mist that hung above his head, to suddenly lose its force and, like a burst water balloon, it splashed back onto that dreadful, shattered face. With one last gurgling curse, which seemed to emanate from the very air around her, those terrible yellow eyes blinked out.
Tori stood there and kept pulling the trigger, not hearing the pistol’s hammer as it fell repeatedly onto an empty chamber: ‘Click, click, click…’ She stood looking down at the remains of her assault for a while, standing there and shuddering with fear and anger. Then, with a start, she dropped the empty weapon onto the dead man’s face; the gun made a wet thudding noise before slipping over the side of the mess into the gore-covered grass next to the grotesque remains of his head. In the same instant, she turned and ran back to the bike.
The darkness seemed to have doubled and she sensed a wind coming from the east, it moaned as it filtered through the woods to her left. She shivered and climbed on board the old Harley and heeled back the kick-starter, praying for it to start as she did so. Someone was definitely on her side tonight – the old engine fired on the very first time of asking. With a snarl of the exhaust, Tori turned and headed for home. She didn’t look back.
The part of the Demon she had slain… smashed… and then left behind within the useless husk of Jeremiah Tolder’s broken body, didn’t feel so lucky. In fact, it didn’t feel much of anything at all. And it sure as hell wouldn’t be doing any giggling for a while, either. It was dead. At least for now it was…
Chapter 32 - Saying Goodbye
It was the next day when they buried Mike. There was only a small ceremony, there only needed to be as there were just the four of them in attendance. They had made the decision the night before – after Tori had returned. Sitting on the porch and staring at the sky they’d remained in silence whilst they waited for her to get back from her task. When she did finally return, Tori had coasted the bike to a stop, leaned it against the steps and then run into the house without a word. As the others watched, they saw her heading into Mike’s room and closing the door behind her. Maggie rose to her feet and suggested that perhaps they should clean the place up a little. It was a distraction that suited Jane just fine. Ken looked as though he too would be pleased with something to do and had set about making a hasty repair to the broken window, and the severed banister rails. Jane fetched endless buckets of hot water onto the porch, and together they had sloshed and scrubbed the awful memories away from its wooden surface.
After a while, Tori had joined them. Taking a seat next to Mike’s rocking chair, she had looked at them and whispered: “It’s done.” They left it at that for now; Jane knew they would hear the rest when Tori decided that she was ready. It was then when Maggie had calmly suggested that they should bury Mike themselves. “We don’t want anyone knowing what has happened. I mean, what should we tell them about this – the Police and the doctor will be here, and then…” She let the unspoken words point them in the direction of the only real solution.
“What about the other… thing?” Jane shuddered as she struggled to say its, his, name. “Jeremiah – what do we do about him?” Tori looked at her without a hint of remorse or pity, without a hint of anything. She was stonily cold and talked as if it was an old boot, or something even less important, which they were worrying about.
“He will be gone in the morning, they always are. I would be surprised if his body is still there even now?” She stopped herself and then apologised. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this must be incredibly difficult, it’s just that, well, I’m thinking about Red and Michael and…” She grimaced and turned away.
“Would you like me to make a…” Ken choked. “Make a coffin, I have enough wood, I mean it won’t be brilliant, tomorrow is…” Maggie smiled, then stood and walked across to him. Walking around until she reached the back of his chair, the old lady put her hands on his shoulders and then, with eyes shining, she spoke to her anguished friends once more.
“Oh my dears, what have we done to you, I’m so terribly sorry. Even in this our darkest hour, you still have the capacity to give. Jane: I can hear you thinking about rescuing some of your poor flowers for Michael!” She motioned with her head towards the scattered plants, which they had never had the heart to clear away. Jane looked at her and nodded. Maggie said, “Thank you, Kenneth, for the kind offer, and thank you, Jane, for your gentle thoughts. You are so nice. Everything my father has said is true, many times over it is true!” She placed her hand on the top of Ken’s head, as she did so he felt her sincerity flood into him and continued to listen to her caring words.
“There is no need to do anything at all except have pleasant memories about my grandson, he is sleeping at the moment and tomorrow he will wake up. That is all you need to remember – I will take care of the rest… We will try to sleep, and then tomorrow we shall say our goodbyes to dear Michael. Don’t get all fancied up, there is no need, it’s not the way he was?”
They did trust her, and after an utterly sleepless night they
found themselves trundling down towards the apple tree in the old truck.
When Ken and Jane had gone into the bedroom to see if they could help with Mike’s body, the pair had received yet another gentle reminder of the fact that there were things happening over which they had no control and little, or no, understanding of. Mike’s body was lying on the bed and he was covered in a material of the purest blue. It looked like metallic paper and shone with a deep glow. It was wrapped very tightly around him and looked almost rigid. Ken thought: “It sure beats the shit out of the poxy bits of two-by-four I would have used… sorry mate!” He smiled as he thought about what Mike would have said back to him, his friend’s sarcasm crackling through his mind. Maggie had told them to take one corner each and, once they were in position, she had ordered them to lift the body. Jane and Ken both tried too hard, Mike was a big guy and it was going to be a major effort. But, as they set their muscles for the big lift, they were totally taken off guard by the way in which the corpse almost floated into their hands. It was though the cloth had been draped around some polystyrene cut-out of their friend’s body. Ken only just stopped himself from uttering a surprised curse. “What the f…” Jane looked across Mike’s body at him and smiled. Ken shook his head. “Sorry…” He said, and shut his mouth. Mind racing, he helped the other three ‘float’ Mike outside into the waiting truck. As they placed him gently into the rear of the vehicle, Ken had an overwhelming desire to put something heavy on top of the gleaming blue cloth. He felt sure Mike would simply rise up and drift away before they reached the apple tree…
It was consequently they found themselves coming gently to a halt at the base of the mound where the apple tree grew. They all got out of the truck and Tori jumped down from the back where she had been riding with her brother. “Let’s go and find him a good spot!” She said, and then trotted lightly up the slope. Jane and Maggie held hands whilst Ken brought up the rear. As they wandered up the small slope, stopping and looking backwards every now and then to find the best view, Ken suddenly had a terrible thought.