by Rob Horner
She looked up at me as the door opened, and the wicked smile twisting her features spoke to the truth of what she'd become. My aunt only smiled for two reasons. She was either pleased with something, or she was happy about something about to happen. She wasn't one of those people who smiled to take the sting out of a punishment, and she never turned her lips up at the misfortunes of another, even if it might benefit her.
This smile promised pain. The malice was visible in the eyes that never moved and didn't reflect the smile.
"I knew I'd find you here," she said, and her voice was so full of malevolence that I nearly faltered. "Little Johnny just couldn't stay away. Not enough to steal from us when you live here. You gotta get your walking stuff, too?"
I'd never heard such hatred in any voice. Having it come from her, someone I loved and respected, only made it worse.
"Does this have to happen, Aunt Pam?" I asked, hoping something of her true self remained, something I could reason with, some part of who she was that could resist the temptations of the demon and let me go free.
"You know what I am," she accused me. "We cannot allow that."
"I know who you're not," I said, "but not what you are, or who you are. Or why you're here."
Instead of offering any answers, she said, "You won't be allowed to escape. I can't allow it." Her voice was degenerating, a sure precursor to her demon-self coming out.
"Why don't you join us?" she asked, and her voice returned almost to normal. "Don't make us kill you." Maybe there was some of the real Pamela still in her. She took a step closer, coming within striking range, and still I didn't act. There was a war going on inside of me, self-preservation fighting a battle with conscience, neither side giving ground.
Then she hit me. Her open hand came around faster than anything I've ever encountered. The slap rocketed through my head, knocking me sideways into the driveway, throwing all doubts and arguments from my mind.
I staggered but caught my balance before I could fall against the Colt. My ears rang and my vision blurred for a moment, but I was able to raise my arms, prepared for her next assault. She didn't waste any time, turning and charging after me. Already she was changing, her human features sloughing away like a snake shedding its skin, her bone structure popping and reforming, clothing shredding from bony protrusions it was never meant to cover.
She raised her hand to strike again, and my arm shot out, intending to catch her swing, stop it and use her own force against her. It was my training, reflex honed by hundreds of hours of practice. But the moment before I caught her arm, my mind screamed a realization at me.
My thoughts raced back to the bathroom at the high school, when I punched at the downed demon only to find it had disappeared. Then again at the park, my bare fist suddenly flying up into thin air. Bare fist, bare skin, that was the key my subconscious had struggled over for the past hour. Bare skin. My bare skin had contacted the demons' skin both times. It touched their bare skin, and they disappeared in a flash of light.
Like they'd been banished.
Without thinking, I altered my swing, closing my open hand into a fist and bending my elbow inward. It was a sorry and awkward excuse for a blocking attempt, and though it absorbed the brunt of her swing, she still had enough momentum to push my arm out of the way, once again connecting on the side of my face.
Thinking fast, trying to curb reactions before they could result in the permanent disappearance of my aunt, I brought my right leg up, shifting my left sideways, so that the heel pointed toward her, and launched my right out in a side kick. This twisting motion brought a new burst of pain from my left ankle, which I'd almost forgotten about, but I retained my balance, squinting against the flash of light, unable to close my ears to her shriek as she flew backward. Even as my leg came down and I reset my balance, she twisted in midair like a cat, landed in a roll, and came up, already turning around, preparing to charge again.
I watched her come, timing her speed, hating what I would have to do, hating the very thought of fighting her, but she was so strong. I couldn't fight on the defensive forever. Sooner rather than later, she would do real damage, possibly breaking my arm, or gouging me with those claws. As she came within range, I jumped up, turning a half-circle, and launched my left leg out behind me.
There was a dull thud, but no contact, no flash of white light. I pulled my leg back in, landing badly, fresh waves of pain rolling up through my calf and into my thigh.
Pam was lying on the ground, with Crystal standing over her, holding the hardwood baseball bat from the hall closet--my uncle's nod to home security--in her hands. She looked at me, gave a weak smile, then turned her eyes back to the demon. She gave a small gasp.
The demon form was gone, and my aunt looked normal again. Apparently unconscious, she'd reverted to her human form.
As if reading my thoughts, Crystal said, "She's not cured. She's still a demon, still glowing red."
"I know how to cure her," I said, realizing the truth of my words. All that was needed was to touch her, skin to skin, and she would be cured. Of course, she'd be gone as well, banished. But would that really be so bad? Could it be worse than having to be a demon's host forever?
You don't know she'll disappear. The thought gave me pause, because it was true. What did I really know about any of this? Every time a demon disappeared had been after making skin to skin contact, but that had also been when it was in a demon form.
What would happen if I touched her while she appeared human? Would the distinction even matter?
Kneeling beside her, I searched her face. She looked peaceful, relaxed. Slowly, I reached out to touch her, and Crystal made a noise, almost a sob, turning away. Maybe she'd already known, or had already figured out, what I could do. Gently, I touched her face.
Nothing happened.
For a moment I sat in shocked silence, wondering if I'd misinterpreted what had happened earlier.
Then one other aspect occurred to me. It wasn't just the skin to skin contact; it was the intent to strike. The caress on her cheek simply hadn't counted.
I looked back at my aunt and I... I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to strike this woman, even knowing what she was, especially not while she lay there, unconscious. If she had to be banished, why couldn't it be done gently?
Her eyes opened then, and she focused on me. Through a haze of tears, I saw recognition in her eyes. Somehow, maybe only for that one moment, she was herself again. But there was also pain, like she knew what waited inside of her. She begged for my help with her eyes.
I touched her cheek again, and perhaps she smiled. All I wanted to do was help her.
Light flashed, surprising me, intense and blinding. There was a strange tingling in my fingertips, almost numbing. I couldn't feel her face anymore
Though I hadn't struck her, she was still gone. She'd been banished. She was gone, and a darkness filled me, a sense of loss. Was the fight worth all of this? Despair hadn't been able to find a hold in me before, perhaps because we'd been too busy just running from one crisis to another, but now it threatened to overwhelm me. Was any fight worth it if you had to sacrifice everything you believed in? Was any victory worth a cost this high?
"Johnny," Crystal called to me, and I thought of telling her to leave, to find someone else to fight for her, because it shouldn't be me. "You did it!" she said, and the joy in her voice sounded perverse compared to the pain in my heart. "She's not glowing anymore."
"What?" The words were clear, but the meaning took a few seconds longer to sink in. She wasn't glowing anymore meant she was still there. I opened my eyes and yes, there she was, unconscious again, but still there! I hadn't banished her, just the demon inside of her!
"We have to go," Crystal said, breaking me from my reflective thoughts.
"Yeah," I said, my voice hoarse. "Help me get her inside."
Though trim and fit, my Aunt Pam out-weighed Crystal, so most of the lifting fell to me, hoisting her under her armpits, while
Crystal held her legs behind the knees. It certainly wasn't anything like in the superhero movies of today, where the strapping leading man can carry a full-grown woman while running, but we somehow got her into the living room, settling her onto the couch.
My bag was already sitting outside, placed there by Crystal. Another bag soon joined it, procured from Pam's room. Since they were about the same size, it made sense for Crystal to borrow some of my Aunt's clothes. We certainly couldn't go to her house for the same reasons we shouldn't have come to mine.
We could also no longer take my car. There was no way for us to know how well the demons were running the police, or if they even knew what they were doing, but they'd surely be on the lookout for my Colt. We placed our bags in the trunk of Pam's Sentra, then swapped her keys for mine, placing the keychain in her purse where she was sure to see it.
"I'm sorry," I told her unconscious form before turning away. Crystal waited patiently while I adjusted the driver's seat, then we pulled away from my home.
It would be a very long time before I visited this place again.
Chapter 12
Monologue time
Pulling away from my home, the only plans going through my mind were to get out of Virginia Beach, and find a place to stay, in that order. Though only sixteen, I'd been working part time since before I turned fifteen and had been something of a saver for long before that. Earnings from a paper route, car washes, and a neighborhood of yards mown paid for a Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, about a year after it came out. This was before my parents died and though I still had the game console, it hadn't made it out of the box I'd packed it in. Real life and tragedy have a powerful ability to rob many things of their joy.
Things are vastly different today, I know. Kids don't get paper routes anymore or sign up to make a few dollars an hour cleaning up after special events, like concerts and--cough--carnivals. The fast food restaurants and national chain grocery stores, where cashiers earn minimum wage, are now staffed by twenty-somethings who never got a college degree, or who got one with no guidance, taking classes willy-nilly with never a thought to focusing on a field which would earn a decent wage after graduation. Of course, that leads to political battles, as one side argues for a "livable wage" from these jobs. It's a scam to minimize the value of a college education. Rather than working to lift and improve the marketability of those who aren't qualified for higher-paying jobs, these politicians would rather force an equalization in outcome. It's not a sustainable system, because those jobs were meant for teenagers, a place to start learning how to be responsible, sticking to a schedule, and just practicing how to be an employee, so you're ready when it's time to put on your big boy pants after college. It would be better if the politicians worked on assuring equality of opportunity. Then outcome would be dependent only upon how hard a person was willing to work to achieve it.
That's the difference between then and now. Back then, though only a few months past my sixteenth birthday, I had a bank account with almost four thousand dollars in it. If we needed to go to a hotel, we could, though even at 1991 prices, that would quickly eat through my funds. Just thinking about staying at a hotel with Crystal brought on other, less helpful, thoughts and emotions. I shook my head and cleared my throat and tried to banish such things, concentrating on my driving.
While thinking about money, about funding our hiding out, it occurred to me that my mind was focused on the short term, as though this was just a temporary thing. Someone, some mystical, all-powerful authority would surely come along and set things to right, and we'd be back at home and back in school before too long, all crimes forgiven. Despite all that I'd been through in the past few years, losing my parents, being uprooted from Norfolk and transplanted to a new city, new school, and new household dynamic, I was still just a teenager. I might have a few more bruises than your typical sixteen-year old, but there was still this feeling nothing could be that bad or be bad that long. My natural tendency was not to look at the long-term ramifications of this invasion, but rather to think in terms of keeping us safe until it blew over, until it was made right again.
As an adult now, a father with children of my own, I can see why those were my natural tendencies. We do everything in our power to keep hardship from our children, so they are not subject to the same daily dose of worry and insecurity we deal with. The worst thing I want my little girl to have to suffer is a fever which might prevent her from going to a birthday party. There are those who take this sheltering philosophy to ridiculous heights, of course, forcing participation trophies on every team in a baseball tournament, or grading a child's schoolwork on the effort involved rather than the accuracy of the answers. We've robbed our children of the smallest modicum of preparation for the disappointments of real life.
Even on my worst day, sitting at home finishing up a book report and having the police show up rather than seeing my Dad's car pull into the driveway, I never had far to fall. My mother's sister was there for me, just a phone call away. I didn't have to stay in a foster home or sleep in a shelter. It's no wonder I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that this running might be a fixture of my life for quite a while. No way to know how long. No end in sight.
We took the quickest route out of town, driving west on State Route 44 until it met Interstate 64. At that point, SR-44 became Interstate 264, which continued west through Norfolk and into Portsmouth, but we merged onto I-64 West, heading out of Norfolk by a more northerly route, crossing the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel into Hampton, Virginia.
Four years before, during a friendly competition between Tae Kwon Do studios, I hit it off with a girl from Hampton named Tonya Fields. She was my age, though a little taller than me, at least until I hit my growth spurt a year later. We had a lot in common, from types of books we enjoyed, to movies we wanted to see. We became friends, though we never had many opportunities to do much together since neither of us was old enough to drive. Still, we talked on the phone and wrote letters back and forth.
It all seems so innocent and slow, considering the technology we have available today, email and Snapchat, Facebook and texting. It's not just the programs but their availability on everything from watches to phones that can move a child's crush to an adult relationship before you can learn what her favorite color is, or before she knows your favorite sports team.
For the first six months of our friendship, my parents and Tanya's mother were our chauffeurs, taking us back and forth, encouraging our relationship. When my mom and dad died, my aunt and uncle weren't interested in holding up my end of the commute. I learned about bus rates and transfer passes and thought about finding a convincing argument to get Mrs. Fields to become my guardian. In the end, I didn't push it. Something was growing between us and I didn't want to ruin it. Turned out, we were getting too close.
When I finally got my driver's license, and the distance between us no longer mattered as much, we tried dating, but it was a disaster. We'd spent so long being friends and had grown so comfortable in our relationship, that we didn't seem able to go beyond that. The first time we kissed, well, it wasn't good. Like you kissed your sister not good.
That was four months ago. We've remained friends, with maybe a little hope in the background, a faint shadow of a glimmer of a promise that maybe, with time, things could change.
The reason Tonya popped into my head was simple. The longer Crystal and I could avoid paying for a hotel, the longer we'd be able to hide. After corresponding with her for so long and after visiting so often, I'd become almost a second child to Tonya's mother. They had a large home in Hampton, with a couple of spare bedrooms. Though I hadn't thought of running away to live with them for over a year, they were still a refuge. And whenever my situation with my aunt and uncle became especially frustrating, the Fields' home was a welcome fantasy where I could escape from a family to whom I was a burden.
Of course, being only sixteen, my thoughts never quite made it to the logistics of such a set-u
p. Things just work themselves out, right, even if we don't understand how.
Like now. Though it went against polite courtesy, I was hoping for an offer of hospitality, a place to crash for a couple of nights, and delay the need to begin drawing from my savings account. I had no idea how I would explain showing up on the woman's doorstep, holding hands with a teenage girl who was not her daughter, begging for a place to stay. That I might need to have a story worked out didn't even occur to me until later.
I guess the point of this long-winded monologue is to try to establish, as firmly as possible, that this was me at sixteen. There are a lot of books out there featuring teenagers, told from a teenager's point of view. But they're dealing with adult themes and disasters and, along the way, you forget the characters are young and either write it off as suspension of disbelief, or you just don't care, because the story is that good. I may never be able to lay claim to writing chops like that, so I want to make sure you know when I did something wrong, or misjudged a situation, or made assumptions about the world that a typical adult wouldn't make, it's not to step outside the story and write around your skepticism. It's because I was young, prone to many of the same mistakes all sixteen-year-olds make, and not fully wise to the ways of the world. It's an adult writing about how he acted as a kid, as honestly as possible.
As an example, not only had I not worked out what to say to Tonya's mom, it still hadn't occurred to me to explain to Crystal why we were driving to another girl's house. I wasn't hiding it, not consciously. I just hadn't considered it yet, not from her point of view. I was running to a friend's house. Would she see it the same way? Or would she consider Tanya as competition?
The traffic at eleven a.m. was light, and would remain that way until shortly after three, when the military bases changed shifts, starting a four-hour rush period that never cleared until after seven. The Bridge-Tunnel was almost deserted, allowing me to command the left land at sixty-five miles per hour. The weather had remained clear so far, the blue sky and bright sun calling, wanting me to exult in being free from school, no matter the reason. Enjoy this day, because it was made for driving. We could drive all the way to Maine, if we really wanted to.