by Rob Horner
Yes, we had rodeo in Virginia Beach.
Don't hate.
Immediately to our right was the park office, and just behind it was a large, tree-shrouded area, complete with paved pathways leading to several secluded picnic shelters.
We walked to one of the shelters, Crystal following my lead. We stopped at the first one we came to, where my car was still in sight and not too far away, in case danger of one form or another forced us to run again. We sat on one of the benches, neither of us really appreciating the tranquil beauty of the quiet morning. For us, the beauty had already been shattered.
Now that we’d come to a place where we could talk, neither of us wanted to begin. I know it sounds crazy, but there was this idea in my head that if we put what we'd seen into words, it might acquire more power. If we ignored it, pretend it hadn’t happened, then perhaps it would become the truth. Pure foolishness, of course, but knowing and overcoming were two different things. Maybe Crystal felt a little of the same, and maybe she came to the same conclusion, because we both started talking at once.
"Crystal, I—"
"Johnny, I—"
We looked at each other for a moment, then we laughed. That laugh got us through the tough spot, relieving some of the tension binding us like a strangling cord.
"You first," I offered.
"No, you," she replied. "You seem to know more about what's going on than I do."
"Not much more," I said. Truth was, I still hadn't figured out a way to organize the things I'd seen and those which were only speculation into any kind of logical framework. How could I, when none of this seemed even remotely logical? We had to understand it, or at least try to. The key to surviving whatever was happening, the key to surviving any kind of crisis, was to try to understand it. Failing that, you at least needed to try to anticipate what would happen next. It's easier to avoid the boulder if you just stay out of its way.
If only we could be certain that we had all the necessary information. We might be able to plan, with limited knowledge, but we would have to remain flexible, ready to change, as new knowledge presented itself. We could act, but whether those actions would be purely evasive or, dare I hope, aimed at doing something to stop the demons, it was impossible to know for sure.
Staring at the blue sky through the branches above us, I began by telling Crystal what had happened to me the night before, after we parted. Describing how the carnival looked and sounded while it shut down, those jovial sounds, the hunger for the next journey, was easy. It was much more difficult to talk about those happy voices fading into the faint and eerie sounds of chanting reaching out to me as I crossed from the bright midway into the dark-shrouded trailer park. The singular trailer and the weird sing-song ceremony got extra attention as details returned, filling out the mental picture. Those strange forms, cowering and cowled, huddled between the men, looking like nothing more than a form of handmaid, women made subservient by choice, or by religious expectation. Even in their servile posture, they hadn't looked right. So caught up in the singing, then by the appearance of the preacher, I'd looked right over some of the obvious features of those smaller forms, like how their robes didn't seem to fit properly, protrusions poking out of the fabric at angles that didn't correspond to a human form.
Did that mean the demons were already there, already in the trailer? If so, why did they need the box? Was it a summoning thing, or were the demons incapable of spreading their possession to others once they were already in the world?
Shaking my head, banishing these new questions that could have no ready answers, I focused on trying to tell her how the ceremony made me feel, using every analogy that came to mind to aid in my description.
She nodded along, like she understood at least some of it, but kept her silence, allowing me to finish.
Somewhat reluctantly came the part where the red light poured out of the trailer, stopping me in my belated flight, capturing me, threatening to convert me. Out of all that happened and everything I felt, this was perhaps the most difficult part to talk about. A large measure of my confidence, my belief in myself, came out of a strong feeling of self-reliance. No one should have power over me, just as no one person should have power over any other. I am my own master, and no one can pull my strings.
She must have sensed some of my discomfort at relating this part, because she sidled closer to me on the park bench.
For a moment, I paused the story, struck with the romantic perfection of the scene, boy and girl, sitting side by side on a picnic bench, holding hands under a bright Spring morning sky.
Only a short while ago the tables had been turned, and it was me trying to comfort her after her first encounter with the demons.
I described the light to her, and again she gave the impression she either understood it, or at least had a good idea about it. I wanted to hear her theories, but not until after finishing my story.
Next came the nightmare run through the streets, and the weird way those strange things chasing me disappeared when I swung my arm, though all of it still seemed half a dream. The white light must have overridden conscious thought, letting my baser instincts come forth, all doubt and fear, all worry over questions and answers, pushed aside, compelling me to run, guiding me while my higher functions were out to lunch.
Climbing out of bed with those scratches, still in the clothes from the day before, was all the proof I needed that everything was real.
Then came the drive to school, and now I was rambling a little, talking through feelings that hadn't yet been fully vetted, describing thoughts as they occurred to me.
Her smile widened as I talked, until she leaned toward me, silencing further talk with a kiss.
Under other circumstances, we could have sat there all day, just holding hands, sharing the occasional kiss, letting the peace and quiet of the setting surround us with a protective shield.
Unfortunately, the worries of the world were far from normal, and our romantic mood evaporated like mist under a burning sun as I went through what happened after taking her to her first class. She listened intently while I reconstructed the news reports on the radio, and the witnessed transformation in the boys' bathroom. She'd never taken a class taught by Mr. Cland, but she had friends who knew him, who'd impressed upon her his singular kindness and humor. Judging from the look of sympathy she gave me, she shared my doubt and worry there might not be any easy salvation for him, maybe not for any of the others possessed by demons.
And the rest she'd lived through with me. My arrival at her classroom was literally in the nick of time. She told me that, though the statue had been physically repulsive, it still had an attraction for her. The description she gave, and the way she said it, reminded me of all the times someone smells something bad, and shouts so everyone can hear, "Whoa, this smells disgusting!" Of course, though you tell yourself you don't want to, you simply must smell the thing to see just how bad it is.
The statue was horrifying, but that wouldn't have stopped her from examining it anyway, if only to confirm for herself how truly horrifying it really was.
I stopped talking then, letting the silence take control, waiting to hear any suggestions or speculations she might have.
"Perhaps it's war," Crystal suggested.
"War?" I asked, not grasping her meaning.
"Between God and the devil," she answered. "I mean, you mentioned a ceremony that was probably Satanic in origin. At least, it sounded that way."
"Maybe," I pointed out, not wanting her to convince herself without more concrete evidence. Something along the lines of one of those demons literally announcing We're here in the name of the great Satan or something like that. I wasn't exactly a religious man, and to me the thought of an absolute god stood in contrast to my desire to be in control of my own destiny.
"Well, think about it," she said, without the slightest hint of sarcasm. "Darkly-clad carnies. Candles. Chanting. Demons rising out of hell to claim their thousand-year reign on Earth. It all
screams of the biblical Apocalypse. What else could the ceremony have been?"
"All right, but how does God figure into this?"
She warmed to her subject. "It was he who sent out the white light that saved you, the light that gave you your powers to fight them."
"You can't know that," I whispered. Amazingly, rather than being persuaded by her argument, I felt myself resisting the idea more and more. I didn't consider myself an atheist. Agnostic, maybe, unsure of my place in the world, unsure of what I believed, unsure there was some higher power up there, watching me, judging. But perhaps that's what I’d become after years of trying to find a religion or version of Christianity that provided answers to my questions, that could give me a reason why my parents had to die.
She didn't look hurt or offended by my outburst.
"Calm down," she said. "I'm not particularly religious either, just open-minded enough to see there has to be some form of higher being helping us, helping you. What were your words? Do you remember them? 'The white light felt peaceful, benevolent?' Have you totally missed the point here? This isn't about you versus the demons from the carnival. That might make a great Stephen King novel, but it could never happen in real life. It wouldn't work.
"This is about the oldest war in history. Capital G Good against capital E Evil. Maybe the time has come for the devil's prophesied thousand-year reign, and we've been given a chance to prevent it, through the intervening hand of God, or of something that may as well be God."
Her logic sounded good, but like everything else, it was based on incomplete information, so it wasn't infallible. That's what I seized upon. Until we knew more, we couldn't rely on any theory. I hadn't entirely ruled out the existence of a god, though it seemed science held more answers. The desire to know and be known by a higher power was a dream of a younger me, someone lost and searching for answers in the aftermath of my parents' death. It wasn't so much for why they died--that answer was front and center in the newspapers: a dark, wet night, a boozer who couldn't hand over his keys after having a dozen too many, and a chance encounter between two cars, one which left my parents dead, while he drove home and slept like a baby, not even aware of what he'd done. That realization would come later, though it was two or three days before he was sober enough to even understand the charges against him.
No, I knew what killed them, but not why it had to be them.
All I'd ever wanted was some reassurance that it wasn't for nothing, maybe a promise we'd see each other again. All I got were half-truths and quoted scripture. If they were good, if they were saved, and if I followed a righteous path, then maybe we'd be together again. Imagine being twelve years old, wanting nothing more than to be comforted, only to find that some of the most respected people in numerous churches of differing denominations seemed more interested in adding your name to their list of parishioners than in providing any real answers.
So the desire to believe in a higher power also meant accepting this being with the potential for so much good was also responsible for not alleviating every evil in the world, for allowing the psychotic serial killer to rampage unabated, for allowing cancer to claim the lives of loved ones, for letting a drunk man get behind the wheel of a car and claiming the lives of my parents. In short, though I'd spent a good bit of time roaming the various churches in my city looking for something that felt right, I'd also fallen further into the proofs of science, something substantial, backed by evidence, provable, repeatable--no fruitless faith required.
And yet there was this lingering doubt. The white light bathed me, easing my mind and caressing my soul. What could have accounted for that?
Crystal remained silent while I hunted for answers. She didn't try to push me, like some people might once they sensed a crack in your defenses. She respected my doubt, and the confusion it bred within me. Perhaps she felt the same yet was simply more accommodating to an unavoidable conclusion. For her sake, then, I would go along with it, at least until another solution presented itself.
"Does this mean we're going to have to follow orders, do as we're told?" I said softly.
"No, I think we'll still have free will in everything we do. We could always just pack our things and go to another state. But I'll bet this...invasion...is on a much larger scale than just Virginia Beach. In the end, no matter what we do, I think we're going to have to fight, just to survive." She fell silent for a moment, lost in the implications.
At that moment, the door to the park office cracked open--the day was quiet enough the click of the latch was clearly audible--and a head poked out. It seemed to regard my car for a moment, then it receded, and the door closed.
I didn't like it.
"Let's go," I said to Crystal, and she didn't argue. She'd seen the head too.
We rose from the picnic bench, hands clasped, and started walking for my car, acting as nonchalant as we could.
The path back to the parking lot was short, the park office no more than fifteen feet away. Just past it, no more than another twenty feet, was my Colt. Unless we wanted to look suspicious and traipse off the path, we'd have to pass within ten feet of the office's front door in order to reach the car. Though nothing seemed amiss, and though there really wasn't anything wrong in a park employee looking outside his building, something didn't feel right. Maybe they'd received a call to be on the lookout for a stolen vehicle, and the employee checked outside to verify it wasn't in their parking lot. Maybe they were checking for truants. Perhaps the reason was even simpler.
Just as we reached the sidewalk and turned, about to cross in front of the building, the door opened again. Only this time it wasn't just a head that came out. Three men emerged from the building, quickly moving to intercept us. Of course, that could have been a misinterpretation, easily justified paranoia after the morning we'd had. There didn't appear to be anything unusual about them. Maybe they were just heading out to make their regular rounds about the park.
As the trio passed under the large oak tree shading the front of the building, Crystal gasped. She made a weak, mewling sound and grabbed my arm. Anxious and suddenly fearful, I leaned toward her.
"John," she whispered into my ear, "those men—"
"Don't worry," I tried to console her, but she shook her head violently, silencing me.
"Those men," she repeated more urgently, "they're glowing!"
Chapter 8
I'm not the only one
For just a second, as Crystal's words rang in my ears--They're glowing! --I honestly had no idea what she meant. I looked at the three men as they passed through the shade of the oak tree, and could see nothing whatsoever wrong with them, except for the conspicuous way they blocked us from reaching my car. All three were dressed similarly in buttoned-up, short sleeved shirts and khaki cargo pants. Two were about my height, though considerably bigger in the chest, while the third was taller, with skinnier arms but a belly that more than made up the difference. All three were white guys with brown hair cut in three different styles that all managed to look tousled and messy. None of them looked like male-model material, but who was I to judge?
We probably looked suspicious to them, too: two teenagers hiding out in a park on a school day. We were truant, which used to be enough to set most city officials to doing their civic duty. And perhaps the events of the day made us look suspect in other ways, depending upon what reports, if any, had gone out about our escape from the school. Maybe they thought we were engaged in other illegal activities.
"What do you mean, glowing?" I whispered back.
"All three of them," she began, and her voice was a little stronger now, as if she'd recovered from her initial shock. "They're all, like, surrounded by a red light."
That didn't tell me anything, but it filled me with all sorts of speculations.
Abruptly the three men turned toward us and started walking in our direction. Though I couldn't see what Crystal did--not yet, that comes later--they gave off a distinct impression of malice.
I got
an idea.
"Faint!" I whispered to her. She started to ask why, I'm sure of it. And if she had, it would’ve ruined the beautiful idea that sprang into my mind.
But she didn't.
She went completely limp, almost catching me by surprise. She sank toward the ground, not exactly dropping like a stone, but still fast enough that it required me to lunge in order to catch her and ease her down. How embarrassing would it have been if I'd dropped her, considering it was my idea?
Now I needed to play my part.
I knelt as she went down, letting her weight guide me to my knees. I cast a quick glance at the three men, trying to put an anxious, worried look on my face. The worry and anxiety were genuine, but I couldn't let them see they were the reason for it. "Help me!" I yelled at them. "She's sick, I think."
They stopped their slow advance, looking at each other, suddenly on the alert. I caught a glimpse of...something, maybe just a trick of the sunlight and shadow on the foremost man's face, but I could have sworn his features...rippled. As if, just for an instant, in the initial confusion, he lost control of his human guise, revealing his true nature. There was no way to be certain of what I'd seen, and it could’ve been just a trick of the light, but it fueled my paranoia.
They started toward us again, moving with greater purpose, greater confidence. They probably thought we were harmless, and we hadn't noted their suspicious behavior when they first emerged from the building. They couldn’t know I’d seen the brief glimpse into their true nature.