A Monster Escapes

by Lewis Wolfe

  Caleb’s smile was dry and cynical.

  “You don’t believe me? Just wait. The moment will come when she asks something from you. Something you may not want to give her. Watch what happens. Watch what she will do to you when you finally tell her no.”

  Caleb answered, “You’re worried about national security? Fuck man, you know why they made her a girl, right? If they had given this power to a man… if they had given it to me or you, this country would have burned years ago.”

  Jane lifted her tired hand and forced her voice to break through her bruised throat.

  “You should… stop talking about it…. We’re in a diner….”

  The young woman was the voice of reason then. She guarded the public interest better than the special agent officially tasked with it, and immediately cooled down the argument between the two men.

  It was no coincidence that she’d said it when she did because not a minute later the friendly waitress returned with their drinks.

  “Hope you feel better soon, sweetheart,” she said, gently patting Jane on her shoulder.

  4

  Caleb sat with Jane in the privacy of her hotel room. He had taken a seat on a chair in the corner of the room and watched how she threw herself on the bed.

  “I need an hour or two,” she said as she curled up into a ball. Jane’s voice was rusty but functional again.

  Caleb hesitated. Agent Bradford’s words had somehow entered his mind and refused to leave him alone. Plagued by doubts and confusion, he wondered if he had the right to interrupt his client’s much-needed rest.

  Even though her voice had somewhat returned, Jane still looked deathly pale. As if she suffered from extreme blood loss and could pass out any minute now. Still, she unfolded her body and sat up straight.

  Caleb analyzed her smile and realized it was polite, yet very tired. Her dark gaze looked at him with a vague anticipation.

  “If you have things you need to ask me, you should do it now,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Jane. I don’t mean to interrupt your rest. Maybe I should leave.”

  “No. Stay and ask your questions.”

  Again Caleb hesitated, finding himself torn between his duty as a bodyguard and the obligation he felt toward himself. She needed to rest, but he needed to know.

  “You said yesterday that you’d tell me about what you found at that tree. You said you figured out what’s attacking these people.”

  Jane nodded carefully and a strand of her blonde hair fell in front of her tired eyes. She didn’t bother removing it.

  “Would you believe me if I told you it was a demon that’s hunting in Brettville?”

  Caleb thought no, said yes, realized that he had lied, and then realized that Jane knew that he had lied to her. This was exhausting.

  Jane’s tired lips drew into a wide grin, almost reaching from ear to ear.

  “Well, it’s true all the same. It’s a demon, its name is Baal, and it wants only to consume.”

  “Baal? That sounds like it’s from the Bible or something.”

  “Well… you know… the Bible is a fairly new document in the grand scheme of things. The name Baal is much older than that. You find it in almost every religion starting in the ancient Middle East. It means—”

  Caleb raised his hand. He wasn’t interested in a history lesson, or any kind of lesson for that matter. He wanted things as simple as possible, and a great many things were bothering him.

  “That’s alright. Whatever it is, or what it’s called, that doesn’t matter to me. I just want to know what happens next. Do we kill it somehow?”

  Jane shook her head, almost violently. “That’s an arrogant thought, don’t you agree? To think that two tiny human beings could somehow kill an entity this ancient?”

  Caleb shrugged. This stuff was beginning to annoy him. “So then what? Do nothing? Evacuate the town because a psychic detective says a demon is hunting people?”

  “Ouch. Rough, Caleb!”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, that’s alright. I told you before I want you to speak your mind.”

  Caleb said nothing.

  “Spending the night with Ellie yesterday gave me a better understanding of how Baal operates. I wasn’t entirely sure until this morning after meeting with Agent Bradford.”

  “You mean the report? Did he send it already?” he asked.

  “He didn’t have to. While the two of you were arguing I took a moment to scan his mind for what he knew about Roger Wheeley. It was all I needed.”

  It was Caleb’s turn to shake his head. Had he, in his ignorance, gone along with plans he didn’t even know existed? Or was it just a coincidence?

  Again Agent Bradford’s words haunted Caleb and though he tried to check himself, he couldn’t help but be afraid of his client then. Coincidences probably didn’t exist when dealing with Jane Elring.

  Jane said nothing but Caleb saw a shift in her eyes. Was she saddened by his paranoia, or just upset that she’d been caught?

  Jane continued. “So what Baal does is it takes your deepest feelings of guilt and force-feeds them to you over and over again. It distorts your mind, showing you what you fear in the most horrible ways.

  “Ethan Walker saw a zombified friend, Billy, eat his face and bite through his skull. Billy was the naïve boy that followed him around when he lived on the streets, getting in trouble with him. During a burglary gone wrong Billy got shot. There was guilt in Ethan’s mind that he couldn’t let go of and Baal exploited it.

  “Ellie was the victim of child abuse and was told repeatedly that it was all her own fault. Her abuser, Roger Wheeley, got killed by Ellie’s mother. I’m not exactly sure what happened after that because Ellie’s mind was a mess last night, but I think she blames herself for that too.”

  Caleb listened quietly to what Jane told him. He too had been attacked by this entity and he could relate to the pattern his client laid out.

  He whispered, “John C. Reilly….”

  “Right. Your personal demon. Caleb… you need to start talking about him. I can help you.”

  Jane’s words brought Caleb to his next issue. She had said that there would come a time when she would need him. She had a plan for him and Caleb was beginning to think that it was somehow violent. Why else take him on as a bodyguard?

  He asked, “You want to help me because you need me. Is that correct?”

  “I do need you. Or I will, pretty soon now. I do need you sharp for that, I won’t lie.”

  “You’ve been inside my head for days now. You’ve even whispered things to me when your voice gave out. I’ve been good about all of this, even though this stuff has been scaring the shit out of me.”

  Jane agreed. “You have.”

  “I want to know now. What do you want from me? What do you have planned for me?”

  Caleb found Jane’s dark gaze and locked eyes with her. They sat silently for a little while as they looked into each other’s souls. Of course, only Jane could hear what was being said underneath the silence.

  “I want to escape, Caleb. I need to get out because one of these days I’m going to fuck up and they’re going to kill me. They’re going to push that damn button and they’ll take my brain and they’ll throw my body in the trash.

  “I need to escape, because I can’t live like this. I don’t want to be a tool for the rest of my life. Always afraid and always exhausted. I want more for myself.”

  Caleb saw tears welling up in the young woman’s tired eyes and realized that he couldn’t know if they were genuine. It didn’t matter to him. He understood what she wanted for herself and could sympathize with that. To exist in a state without freedom or relief was torture, and no person deserved that.

  Was she dangerous? Yes, Caleb believed that she could be very dangerous. As Agent Bradford had said, her mere existence was a threat to national security.

  She had been inside his head and he had heard her whisper things to him. The power that suggested that w
as truly terrifying. What if she ever whispered the wrong things? What if she ever started screaming? What could she make people do if she really set her mind to it?

  Was it about trust, then? Did Caleb believe that this young woman in front of him, beautiful and innocent with her childlike face, would never use her powers for evil? Was she a good girl?

  No, Caleb didn’t believe that. He knew people were shitty, even the pretty ones.

  So why, he wondered, was he so inclined to go along with her? It had first happened to him when he saw her in front of the giant oak. Her eyes had been shut and her face had been tense. Her small shoulders had trembled underneath the weight of her reality and she had collapsed. He had caught her and carried her away from the evil field.

  Caleb knew he wanted to protect her. To help her. He couldn’t understand why. Perhaps, he thought, he was already under her spell.

  Or was it what he had seen her do? Had she not insisted on seeing Ethan Walker off to the other side with tears in her eyes? Had she not spent the night fighting off the demons inside Ellie Aulding’s head, choking on her own blood in the aftermath?

  Again he looked into her tired, dark eyes. He didn’t see evil or danger then. He saw a young woman who had been dealt a really shitty hand by powers that didn’t mind playing with lives. Powers that could genuinely be considered evil. Horrible and vicious bullies that cared about nothing but advancing their own egos.

  Caleb would save her from that. He wouldn’t let the bullies win. Not this time. He promised himself that he would help her and, with that, he made the promise to Jane too.

  “You rest now. When you wake up, you will tell me the plan,” he said.

  Jane didn’t say a word. She simply wiped the tears from her cheeks and lay down on the bed.

  Together they spent the next few hours in the hotel room. To Caleb’s ears everything was quiet.

  5

  Jane closed her teary eyes. She was so tired and felt intimidated by all the things she knew still had to be done.

  Jane was touched by Caleb’s conviction even if, in the end, she realized it didn’t have that much to do with her. Unconsciously Caleb was trying to overcome his own trauma and realized he could use her for it. It benefited Jane, however, and she would help him heal from the emotional injuries he sustained in Iraq. She owed him that much, at least.

  The next few days would be crucial and required no small degree of prep time. Her mind had to be focused to the extreme.

  First was Ellie, the young girl that she knew she could help. She couldn’t beat the demon that was currently feeding on Ellie, but she could take away the substance it fed on. Later today she would help release the poor girl from her guilt, leaving nothing for Baal to cling to.

  Then came Arthur. She had seen things in his mind that he had repressed for years and she knew that they were vital. Jane hoped that she could help the old man too. At any rate, he needed to become her friend because she needed his maze of a mansion. Helping Ellie heal was going to put her in his good graces.

  As soon as she antagonized Agent Bradford an elite group would come to the special agent’s aid. They’d get her too and there was nothing she could do about that. But if you had a place like the Toaves mansion , , , a place where Caleb could memorize all the little rooms and corridors… well, a retired black ops soldier might just be able to pick off the members of that elite group one by one.

  It was her only chance. This was it and she couldn’t squander it.

  With that, Jane forced herself to fall asleep. There were things she had to prepare in her mental house, too.

  Five… four… three… two… one…. Goodnight….

  When she opened her eyes she found herself in the darkness of her own mind. The house was pleasantly cool and its shadowy corners greeted her kindly. The shadows, Jane knew, hid familiarities that were uncomfortable to her.

  Jane called out, “Girls! Where you are you? Can you come over for a minute?”

  It only took a few seconds before playful giggles echoed through the house. The girls drew toward her from all corridors and encircled her.

  Jane took out her flashlight and looked at the seven girls one by one. She had long since forgotten how to see the cancerous lumps that tore at their skin, stretching out their faces into ghastly caricatures of what little girls were supposed to look like.

  “I need you girls to come with me,” she said patiently. “And I need you to pay very close attention.”

  Jane walked to the front door and stepped out into the absolute blackness that surrounded her mental house. The girls tiptoed along behind her, hurrying to support each other so none would tumble over. The blackness scared them because they knew that they could get lost there and never find their way back.

  Jane walked over to the spot where Baal had stood on the night that they met. She had looked at him from the window and promised him that it would all end before the month was up. He had answered her oath with a mocking smile that was stunning in its beauty.

  “You girls get behind me now, please.”

  The girls all held hands as they walked behind Jane’s back. Some of them crawled up against her legs, clinging to her pants or standing slightly on her bare feet.

  Jane took a deep breath and raised her hands into the air. She closed her eyes and forced her mind to stretch in new ways. Forced it to grow with nothing more than her very own willpower. She had to develop; she had to become more than she was. She needed the size; she needed the room. Her mind had to extend itself.

  The mental house groaned and squealed underneath the pressure tearing it apart. It had to adapt, evolve, or it would get destroyed. The walls broke open and the insides of the house began to expand, reaching farther and farther into the darkness that had previously been left untouched.

  Jane panted as she watched her mind grow, ever bigger and ever stronger. It had to be the strongest it had ever been because everything depended on this. If she failed now, she would die. None of her plans would matter and she would lose herself to the void she had seen through Baal’s blue door. That horrible place where Ethan Walker had been consumed and lost his identity.

  When her house had grown large enough, Jane forced new walls around it and, with a loud rumble, closed them up.

  One of the girls exclaimed, “House so big now!”

  Another asked, “Why… new… room?”

  The girl had seen correctly, Jane thought. She had added an enormous room to her mental house. One that she hoped would be big enough.

  She knelt down next to the girls and together they huddled up in a warm embrace.

  “Listen very carefully now. We will have a guest soon. He is very beautiful but he is very dangerous.”

  One of the girls asked, “Mean man?”

  “Like doctor,” another girl said with a small, sad voice.

  Jane said, “Much worse than Dr. Greer. Listen! Listen very carefully! When he comes, you have to stay away. Stay out of his way and let me handle it. Don’t talk to him, don’t play with him! Do you understand?”

  The girls all nodded.

  Satisfied, Jane stood up and took another look at the new room she had just built. Her head felt a little funny, now that her mind had expanded in this unusual way.

  The room would be big enough, she assured herself. It had to be.

  6

  Arthur sat in his uncomfortable plastic chair, looking down at Ellie. He knew he had other obligations and responsibilities but he just couldn’t pull himself away from her.

  Ever since the early morning, slightly after Jane Elring’s departure, the girl had been struggling against the straps holding her down. It had lasted for several hours until Arthur couldn’t look at it anymore and asked Dr. Stewart for help.

  Now, drugged with an even heavier sedation, only the girl’s pale blue eyes continued to scream. Her body was perfectly still and no longer had the strength to struggle. It was Ethan Walker all over again.

  The door opened and the young
investigator and her bodyguard stepped inside.

  “Hello, Mr. Toaves,” Jane said as she raised her hand. “How is the patient?”

  Arthur was about to respond when he noticed Ellie’s eyes had changed. She seemed calmer somehow and, for the first time since the early morning, she dared to close her eyes for more than a second.

  “She has been struggling. I asked Dr. Stewart to give her more medication. To calm her, I mean,” he replied.

  Jane nodded and took the chair she had sat on earlier that morning. She pulled it closer to the bed before sitting down. Then she looked at Caleb and pointed to the chair slightly behind her.

  “Come on, Caleb. Sit down,” she instructed.

  Arthur watched as the bodyguard obeyed silently before returning his attention to Jane Elring. The old man said nothing as her gaze studied his tired face.

  “You look exhausted, Mr. Toaves.”

  “I am indeed quite tired. It’s been a long night and an even longer morning.”

  Arthur saw how Jane shifted her attention toward the young girl. Her dark eyes lingered over Ellie’s face rather than his own. Somehow not being watched by her anymore felt like a relief. Her eyes had been strangely demanding.

  It seemed now as if the young investigator was going through things inside her head that others could not possibly be privy to. Checking everything one more time, dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s. Looking for that one thing she had forgotten. That one thing that could ruin everything.

  Then Jane looked up at him again with her piercing stare and spoke words Arthur never could have expected from her.

  “Are you ready to help save Ellie, Mr. Toaves?”

  He was a tired old man. Arthur knew he probably looked like it too. Yet she took no pity on him. Jane Elring wanted something from him and wasted no more time.

  Arthur was an experienced man of business and knew a negotiation when he saw one. A deal about to be made. A transaction about to occur.