Malevolent

by David Risen

  Dr. Ambrose nods. “And who, may I ask, means you harm?”

  Merissa gives him a stormy look, looks straight forward at Scarecrow lady beyond her footboard and folds her arms.

  The frustrating thing for her is that anything she says now will make her look like a complete lunatic.

  Dr. Ambrose sighs and looks down at his clipboard and scribbles something on the plain sheet of 8 ½ x 11. Then he points his kind eyes at her.

  “Allow me to explain some things to you. Someone dropped you off in emergency three nights ago. You were in the process of dying from a fatal overdose of several drugs. We had to rapid detox you, and while the emergency staff was doing their routine examination, they noticed a few self-inflicted cuts all over your body. Your drug screen was horrendous. Do you mind telling me exactly what all of that is about?”

  Fear flutters through her.

  “Does my husband know about any of this?”

  Dr. Ambrose shrugs. “No one provided us with your real name. The only items in your personal effects suggest that you go by the name Raven, and your husband is a man by the name of Rhett Mueller. Your doctors had to make some quick decisions, and some of them required consent of your next of kin.”

  “Does he know about the drug screen?”

  Dr. Ambrose gapes at her for a moment with raised eyebrows. “I don’t know. I’m guessing that he does considering that he asked that I try to convince you to check yourself into rehab.”

  She shakes her head. “He doesn’t understand. I can’t go to rehab. I can’t spend three nights in your hospital. There’s a real good chance that the people who are after me already know that I’m here. If they get to me, no one will ever hear from me again.”

  Paul nods. “Your husband may not understand, but would you care to try me?”

  She frowns and looks back at scarecrow girl again.

  Then an even more terrifying thought comes to her. She gasps. Her heart pounds.

  She looks at Dr. Ambrose.

  “What about the baby?”

  Dr. Ambrose looks down at his clipboard and shakes his head.

  Merissa sits in her room staring at an episode of House on the TV mounted above scarecrow woman, but she can’t concentrate. Her thoughts are consumed by how Rhett is going to react to the death of their child.

  And the things that run through her mind make her feel like a horrible person. She realized shortly after she discovered her pregnancy that she didn’t want to be a mother – not yet anyway. She even considered aborting the child before Rhett discovered her – condition.

  Rhett is ready to be a father. The prospect of being a Daddy for real this time excites him.

  But two things are wrong with his jubilation. First, a strong possibility exists that the child does not belong to Rhett. Second, because of Merissa’s unique condition, she doesn’t know if she could even keep a child safe – from her. And now she had removed all doubt.

  The door to her room opens and Rhett slips inside almost as though he doesn’t want her to see him.

  “Rhett!” she cries. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Rhett gives her a stern look and sits in a recliner a few feet away from her hospital bed.

  He wears the same Bridgeton Ford hat that he had on the night that she met him at The Minstrel. He wears that hat much more often since his hair began to thin two years ago. A year ago, he shaved his strawberry blond hair off, and opted instead to hoist himself on stage wearing a wig. All that remains of his beautiful, fine hair is the small goatee on his chin minus the mustache.

  Right now, he looks tired and in no mood for confrontation.

  “Say something,” she says.

  Rhett furls his brow and swallows hard. “I don’t know what to say. You had cocaine, meth, marijuana, opioids, barbiturates, and alcohol in your system, and your doctor told me that all levels were consistent with a regular abuser.”

  The same chord of terror pangs in her chest.

  “Can I explain?”

  Rhett remains motionless for a moment with his eyes pointed at her in a hostile stare, and then he turns his palms up and slaps his thighs.

  “Why not?”

  She sighs. “I had the pot thing going back to long before I met you, but I didn’t want to say anything because I knew about your problem with alcoholism, and I didn’t want a lecture.”

  Rhett began nodding dismissively halfway through her sentence. “So you kept it to yourself, and it turned into a really big problem?”

  She looks down and away. “Alex showed up at the cabin one night while the rest of the band was on tour, and offered to take me out.”

  Rhett bunches his lips and nods again. “And you knew better. I warned you about him. You realize, of course, that Alex spilled the beans, right? I know all about your seedy little side thing, and I also know that you’ve....”

  Rhett shudders. “Hurt people?”

  Merissa’s shoulders slump. “There’s a few things you don’t know about me.”

  Rhett laughs assertively. “There’s a newsflash! So tell me, was that baby even mine?”

  She gives him a pale smile and shrugs.

  Rhett shakes his head and looks down at his lap.

  “Are we okay?” she says in a thin, small voice.

  Rhett pushes his cap back on his head and stands, and then he regards her with a look that appears to be completely dispassionate.

  “You knew about my ex-wife Janie and how she led me to believe that Timmy was my son for almost ten years. You knew how bad that hurt me, and I didn’t even love her as much as I love you. And I don’t even know what to do with the cheating and drug abuse. I quit the band after kicking the shit out of Alex, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing here.”

  He turns and leaves.

  She calls after him, but he doesn’t return.

  Merissa can’t sleep. She alternated between crying, and throwing things. Right now, the clock on the wall reads 2:41 and she can’t turn it off. She thought more than once about imploding Scarecrow girl’s head until her replacement finally took over at eight. A burly looking, running back sized orderly who looks as though he isn’t in the mood to take any shit.

  An episode of Robot Chicken plays to itself on the television as a light tap sounds from the doorframe. A very young-looking woman who may have only graduated from high school last year wearing pink scrubs with white and pink new balance sneakers pokes her head inside.

  She has shoulder length brown hair and an heir of cold intelligence.

  “Raven?” she says.

  Merissa gives her a mistrustful look.

  “My name is Claire Jacobs. I’m your new charge nurse. Your orderly tells me you’re having a little trouble sleeping?”

  “What the fuck do you think?” Merissa bursts into tears. “I lost my baby. My husband just walked out on me. I’ve got to spend three days in a mental hospital, and I don’t even know where I’m going when I get out.”

  Claire gives her a look of sympathy. “Well, I know Dr. Ambrose. He’s a good man, and a terrific psychologist. If you give him a chance, I’m sure he’ll help you through this. As for your husband, BMHI will work with you on setting up a family session so you can talk all of this stuff through.”

  She shakes her head and folds her arms. “He won’t listen. He’s made up his mind.”

  Claire gives her a stern look of professorial scrutiny. “Well, you’re not going to feel any better at all if you don’t get any sleep. I can give you something for that if you want.”

  Hope pokes its way up through the dark pool of turbulent emotions in her chest.

  “Can you?”

  Claire nods. “Your doctor prescribed an as needed dose of Valium. It will help you sleep. Do you want me to get that for you?”

  Merissa nods. “Yes, please.”

  Claire Jacobs gives her a Mona Lisa smile and turns out of the room. In a few moments, she returns with a syringe of clear liquid.

  She places the syri
nge on the table beside her, reaches in the pocket of her pink scrub pants and produces an alcohol wipe.

  She points her dark eyes at Merissa. “You don’t have a problem with needles, do you?”

  Merissa responds with a brittle, sarcastic laugh.

  Claire wipes her arm in the crook between her upper arm and forearm, removes the plastic cap from the syringe and sticks her.

  The needle is only slightly uncomfortable.

  Once she’s finished, Claire removes the syringe and deposits it in a red sharps container, and then she places a piece of gauze over the wound and tapes it in place with a bandage.

  The Valium hits her almost instantly. The tension releases from her chest, and a feeling of gratefulness sweeps over her.

  Claire brushes a straight lock of raven hair away from her face and smiles.

  “It’s okay, honey. When you wake up, you’ll be in a much better place.”

  Merissa doesn’t even have time to say anything in response before she slips off to sleep.

  And when she wakes up, she finds herself in Skitts Mountain, Tennessee running for her life.

  Something hard and heavy slams into Rider’s stomach.

  He grunts, clutches his abdomen, and his eyes pop open.

  The hulking shadow of a man hovers over him. The man cocks a sword over his head.

  Rider’s eyes bulge.

  He rolls out of the way just as the sword plows into the concrete floor of the basement throwing sparks.

  Rider scrambles to his feet, and now he remembers where he is.

  Cain laughs at him.

  “Know how I knew you was still alive?”

  Rider gapes back at him dumbly and glances at the nude body of the rock star’s wife almost glowing in the darkness.

  “She ain’t gonna help you. She’s weaker than a newborn baby.”

  Rider furls his brow. “What’s your fucking problem?”

  Cain assumes a fighter’s stance. “I knew you was still alive the same way I can hold the physical version of your sword. I ain’t a spirit like th’ rest of these assholes. I’m a spirit in a body.”

  “I’m not a threat to you. I know who Cassandra is. I just want to take the girl and leave.”

  Cain laughs. “You think I’m threatened by you?” He shakes his head. “Nah. I just don’t like your pussy ass. Runnin’ all over the world doin whatever to whoever you want without giving any thought to the suffering you cause.”

  Rider glances at Merissa again.

  Cain shakes his head. “Awe, I wouldn’t worry about her. Soon as I take care of you, I’m gonna fix that problem, too. Lilith thinks she can use you two to gain enough power to get herself out of here. She’s got every idiot who don’t know no better out lookin’ for your body. Guess she don’t realize that I’m the only one who can see it.”

  “I didn’t come here to kill every bad guy in the Bible,” Rider snaps. “I came here to expose the Sisters of Divinity for what they are.”

  Cain chuckles. “Just one problem with that. You ain’t gettin out of here ‘till you break the seals that hold us all in here, and that ain’t happenin.”

  Rider glares. “And what are you so afraid of?”

  Cain sighs. “You ain’t got no idea what it’s like for me out there. I don’t want to hurt no more innocent people. In here, at least the people I take care of are rotten to the core.”

  “So stop.”

  Cain sneers. “I cain’t stop. That’s part of th’ curse the likes of you placed on me.”

  Rider’s eyes narrow to slits. “I’m the same thing you are.”

  Cain laughs again. “No you ain’t. You’re not even th’ same thing as that bed-wetting angel Lilith’s been sulkin’ about since th’ beginnin’. I cain’t kill God, but I c’n at least get th’ next best thing.”

  Blake Rider sinks inside himself. A ghost of a memory flashes through his mind.

  Rider was a small six-year old. One afternoon on the playground during recess, as the teachers looked the other way three third graders surrounded him.

  The abysmal spike snakes around his arm and glows in the darkness.

  Rider feels electricity surging through his entire body.

  And the oldest and most dangerous part of his being rises.

  “I’m much older than you, Cain,” he growls. “It’s not for me to break a curse put upon you by God, but I don’t have to. There’s a soul in the spirit world who’s been itchin to meet you again for a very long time.”

  Rider slashes his spike through the air tearing a hole in the vale.

  A short man wearing animal hides steps through and the hole closes behind him.

  “Hello, brother,” Abel says.

  Cain’s eyes bulge. He opens his mouth to reply but before he can make a sound, Abel roars and charges him with a wooden staff that looks as though it was made from a tree branch.

  Forgetting his sword, Cain retreats.

  Abel swings the staff like a slugger. The staff connects with the left side of Cain’s face with a fleshy thwack.

  Cain backpedals, and then blindly swings the abysmal spike after his brother.

  Abel leaps backwards and cocks the staff over his right shoulder like a major league baseball player.

  Cain eyes his brother and laughs. “Really, you brought a stick to a swordfight?”

  Father Fury smirks, and then he points that the physical abysmal spike.

  The Roman-era sword flies from Cain’s hands, soars through the air, and merges with the spiritual spike in Father Fury’s right hand.

  Abel roars again and charges Cain.

  Cain stumbles backwards just as Abel’s staff crashes into the side of his left arm.

  Cain falls to the cold, concrete floor as Abel deals blow after blow.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” the commanding voice of a woman snaps.

  Father Fury’s head follows the sound just in time to see Lilith step through the door with her eyes glowing red.

  She nods at Able.

  Able bursts into flames and disappears.

  Cain scrambles backwards audibly crying and thrusts himself in the corner of the basement curled in a fetal position.

  Lilith nods at Father Fury.

  Flames surround him.

  He hears himself scream.

  He falls to the floor, and the flames extinguish.

  He sits for a moment breathlessly, every cell of skin on his body blazing.

  He looks down at his hands to find them scorched to a crisp and shivering. He feels terribly cold.

  He raises his head but he sees only the corner of the table that the disabled form of the rock star’s wife lays upon, and the tips of the fingers on her right hand curled slightly and protruding over the ledge.

  “Come out, Father Fury. Pick on someone your own size,” Lilith says.

  “On my own, I’d have no chance to best you, but with the power of your bitch....”

  Rider reaches up and touches Merissa’s hand.

  Every cell in his body shrieks with agony. He flies backwards and crashes into a wall.

  Father Fury looks at his hands again.

  Perfectly healthy.

  Rider stands.

  Lilith nods at him.

  Rider assumes a swordsman’s stance.

  Flames shoot toward him. Rider thrusts the abysmal spike out before him.

  The fire pushes him backwards as it connects with his sword. Rider muscles it out before him grunting with exertion. A film of sweat breaks out on his forehead.

  Merissa Irons opens her eyes to a strange sight.

  A plume of flames with black smoke billowing from it sails through the air above her.

  She looks down and left to find the source.

  Cassandra.

  Hate fills her as she looks upon the woman who played her for a fool.

  Cassandra took her under her wing and kept her safe.

  Told her that Hayden was only keeping her in his little fiefdom because he wanted to
isolate her and then eat her soul, and she was correct.

  But all along, that’s what Cassandra planned to do, too.

  Something very old and very cruel uncoils in Merissa’s chest. She feels as though thousands of volts of electricity surge through her entire body.

  Hate swells and boils in her chest.

  She snaps the metal cuffs binding her hands to the table and rises.

  Cassandra gasps at the sight of her.

  Merissa opens her mouth and sucks in deeply. The pillar of flames emanating from Cassandra bend in mid-air and billow into her mouth, and then all the powers the wife of Lucifer stole from her follow the flames screaming through the air like a thousand years of rage.

  Cassandra gives her a look of pleading, thrusts her hands out before her and steps backwards.

  Mother Chaos looks down to find both of her hands encircled with an aura of flames.

  She looks back at the woman who deceptively called herself Cassandra and offers her a hateful grimace.

  Mother Chaos points at her.

  Cassandra – Lilith turns to bolt back the way she came, but she doesn’t take two steps before her entire spirit is engulfed in flames.

  She shrieks and skitters – burning – back through the basement.

  “Raven?” a man’s voice says behind her.

  Mother Chaos turns slowly and eyes the source of the voice.

  His eyes glow red.

  He holds a sword in his right hand with a red aura of flames billowing off it wrapped all the way up his arm.

  She finds that she’s exhausted suddenly.

  She lists to the left and then falls to a heap in the floor unconscious.

  Rider stares after the girl on the floor.

  He wonders if that is how he looks when he’s about to attack – terrifying. Like a flaming demon.

  The whimpering from the corner draws his attention.

  Cain remains crouched in the corner of the basement curled in a fetal position bawling.

  Rider steps over Merissa and makes his way toward Cain.

  Cain recoils as Rider reaches out for him.

  Rider slaps him across the face hard and then rips the scabbard for his sword from Cain’s belt. Then he sheaths his sword in the scabbard and tucks the scabbard under the belt holding his jeans and covers it with his leather coat.