Personal Demons

by David Morrison

  Then again, I was fairly sure no martial art had any moves for the creature facing me.

  The thing tore towards me and leapt into the air. It was more panic and luck that caused me to slip backwards as I lashed out with the only move I could think of: slapping it across its huge wet snout. I was thinking of sharks, for some reason. The thing flew past me, yelping like a startled puppy. It skidded to a halt, its claws tearing at the linoleum floor. It glared at me, huffing and snorting.

  If it hadn’t been after me before, it was now.

  Suddenly my decision to face the thing by myself felt beyond stupid.

  I turned and ran, fast. Like Usain Bolt fast. My souped-up leg muscles pounded the floor back towards the hall. I swerved left as the thing leapt at me from behind, intending to bring me to ground. It missed me by a few inches, span back round and continued its pursuit. It chased me back into the empty assembly hall across the room as my heart pounded and legs pumped. The cape I’d borrowed from Mum was flapping around my arms. I ripped it off and threw it behind me, straight into the monster’s face. It smacked the cloak away with one of its paws, carried on after me.

  Thirty metres down the next corridor was a side door into a small, tarmacked playground. I decided I’d have a better chance of getting away from the thing in the open air.

  Climb a tree! My panicked mind screamed, or jump into a lake or something!

  I pelted down the corridor, reached the door and turned the handle.

  The door was locked. Only the main entrance had been opened for the party, which was the other side of the rapidly approaching, snarling monstrosity.

  I stepped back and launched myself at the door, shoulder barging it with everything I had.

  The door flew off its hinges, and I barrelled down the small set of steps - running straight into two men dressed in military-style grey camouflage uniforms, complete with night vision goggles and oversized guns. The men, who’d been advancing up the steps, leapt aside as I charged between them. The creature was hot on my heels and ignored the two soldiers.

  I glanced around wildly to see a dozen more soldiers spread out around the playground. They all turned, pointing their strange guns in my direction. A blonde woman in a smart, dark blue suit stood in the middle. To my left, on the playing field, two large military helicopters had landed.

  There was no time for me to wonder who they were or why they were here. The momentum from charging through the door kept me moving forwards and within three quick steps I’d almost reached the suited woman. She froze as I ran towards her – it all happened too fast for anyone to react.

  The woman had a mixture of curiosity and bemusement on her face as she regarded me. There was no fear in her expression. I glanced back to see the creature at the bottom of the steps and realised it was about to launch itself at me. I was already going full pelt and couldn’t change direction. I did the only thing I could: I pushed the blonde woman out of the way and to safety as the monster came crashing down on top of me.

  And that was the first time I met Victoria Pryce.

  I’m not saying I saved her life exactly, but it was pretty damn close.

  Chapter Five: Victoria Pryce

  The creature smacked me to the cold pavement, one of its meaty paws catching me on my shoulder. It felt like I’d been hit with a slab of frozen beef. I twisted round as I fell, pushing my arms up to block the thing. It pounced on me, spitting and snarling, its full weight of around two-fifty kilograms pressing down on me. A razor-sharp claw raked across my chest, scratching three deep cuts. I screamed as blood flowed.

  “Help!” I shouted, desperately trying to fend the thing off. The creature had me pinned down and kept batting my arms away as I tried to land a blow. I struggled as it snarled on top of me. It was all I could do to stop it cutting me again.

  The soldiers pointed their oversized guns at the pair of us, but no-one knew what to do. The thing opened its mouth, intending to take a solid bite out of my face. I felt its hot breath on my cheek. Its sharp teeth glistened with saliva. I scrabbled around and realised I was still clutching the door handle from the classroom I’d locked Kate, Dee and Forrest in. As the beast bore down on me, I rammed the handle into its wide open mouth.

  The thing let out a startled, strangled noise as the elongated U- shaped piece of metal lodged between the ridged roof and soft floor of its mouth. It reared up, pawing at its jaws ineffectually. I saw my chance, got my legs beneath its chest and kicked as hard as I could.

  The thing smashed into a wall fifteen metres away. It got to its feet, dazed and limping. It pawed at its mouth and shook its head, trying to dislodge the handle. The woman pulled me to one side as the soldiers surrounded the beast. Three of them fired from their oversized guns, and I realised why they looked so odd. The guns fired steel nets with heavy weights around the edges.

  Within seconds they’d trapped the creature under three nets. It tried to twist its way out but just became more tangled.

  “Stop!” the blonde woman said, “No tranquillisers! You could kill it.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “And that’s a problem why, exactly?”

  The woman smiled at my quick aside. Her smile was like a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day.

  “Restrain the creature, don’t injure it,” she instructed her men.

  The soldiers set about tying the thing up, watching out for its lashing claws. Within a minute they had it trussed up like a Christmas Turkey.

  “You’re hurt,” the woman said. Blood was dripping from the three cuts across my chest. Dripping, not pouring. My wounds were already closing up. That aside, I was cold, hungry and suddenly exhausted. My powers had a downside, I discovered that night. Once they were gone, I was left shaken and drained.

  “They’re just scratches,” I said. I didn’t want anyone to get a closer look, especially not a strange woman who’d shown up out of nowhere with a bunch of soldiers in tow, equipped to deal with monsters.

  “Medic,” the woman called out, “Over here, I want this young man looked at. You, get that thing loaded onto the helicopter. The goon squad will be here soon and I want to be long gone before they show up.”

  Ignoring my weak protests, one of the soldiers did a quick job of cleaning my injuries and applied bandages around my chest.

  “That was quite something,” the woman said, “What you did there. The way you kicked it off you.”

  “Strong leg muscles. I, uh, play a lot of rugby,” I mumbled, trying to evade the obvious questions, “What is that thing? And who are you?”

  She nodded, “In answer to your first question, frankly I haven’t got a clue. I’ve never seen anything like it before. In answer to your second question, my name is Victoria Pryce. Yourself?”

  “Jason. Jason Storm.”

  “Well, I’m very pleased to meet you, Jason Storm. Why was that thing chasing you?”

  I flexed my right shoulder, wincing. The thing had whacked me pretty hard as it had brought me down.

  “I don’t know. It was chasing my friends and me, so I sort of locked them in a classroom and tried to draw it away. To keep them safe, you know?”

  “My my, how heroic,” Victoria replied. There was a slight tease in her voice. I couldn’t place Victoria’s age - she could have been anything from late twenties to early forties. I later found out she was forty-three, not that you’d have known it.

  “Dumb, really,” I said, “If you hadn’t shown up it would have killed me.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Victoria replied, “You seemed to be holding your own.”

  “Yeah, well I wouldn’t like a rematch. Look, seriously, who are you? How did you get here? Were you tracking that thing?”

  “Yes, we were. It started popping up on social media feeds two hours ago. It had been wandering around the area and then zeroed in on the school – and you, apparently, Mr Storm.”

  There was something in her tone that suggested she wasn’t buying the ‘I don’t k
now why it was chasing me’ line. I mean, I didn’t know why it had been after me, in actual fact. All I had was a strong suspicion that it was somehow connected to my powers.

  “As for where it’s from,” Victoria continued, “Well, isn’t that the mystery? My guess would be it escaped from someone’s private collection. That’s just a guess though. Hopefully we’ll be able to find out more when we study it. There should be some clues.”

  “I didn’t notice a dog collar.”

  Victoria smiled again. Although I was cold, trembling and had just been attacked by who-knew-what, I smiled back.

  “And you do this often? Track down weird...things?”

  “More often than you’d think,” Victoria replied with a bemused smile, “It’s not quite a job but it’s more than a hobby.”

  A soldier who I gathered was the second in command interrupted us. None of the soldiers seemed remotely fazed by the fact that they’d captured something straight out of a horror film. They were all behaving as if everything was business as usual.

  “Ma’am, we’ve had visual confirmation. Section 19 is en route, ETA twelve minutes.”

  Victoria clicked her tongue.

  “And I was having such a lovely evening,” she muttered, irony lacing her voice.

  “Section 19?” I asked.

  “The goon squad,” Victoria replied, “Government. Big on the Official Secrets Act and shooting first, asking questions never.”

  I gave her another quizzical glance. Everything she said just made me want to ask more. I couldn’t decide if it was deliberate or she was just in a hurry.

  She sighed, “There’s no time to explain, I’m afraid. We must be on our way. Jason Storm, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave me a curious look.

  “There’s something about you, Mr Storm. I’ll be in touch. Oh – and please give my regards to the moustache.”

  “The moustache?”

  “You’ll see,” she grimaced.

  And with that Victoria Pryce and her men boarded the helicopters. They took off into the night sky and within a minute they were out of sight and earshot.

  Chapter Six: Guessing Games

  I stood alone, my body weak and my mind dazed. Everything had happened so fast that I was still trying to process it when Kate, Dee and Forrest came running towards me. They raced down the small set of steps and into the playground, their faces a mixture of fear and concern.

  “It’s gone,” I said.

  “Where?” Dee asked.

  “Some military types were here, in helicopters. They caught it and took it away.”

  “Just like that?” Dee asked.

  “Yeah. Just like that.”

  I had no intention of going into my whole ‘powers’ incident or the way I’d fought it off. The other three’s fear was first replaced with relief, but then their concern turned to anger.

  “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do, Jason!” Kate said.

  Dee nodded in agreement, “Seriously dumb, man.”

  “What?”

  I’d been hoping for a hero’s welcome. No such luck.

  “They’re right,” Forrest chimed in, “Going up against that thing alone was dangerous.”

  “I was just trying to...”

  “It could have killed you!” Kate said.

  “Well it didn’t,” I replied, getting annoyed now. I understood they were jittery, but would a ‘thanks for saving our lives’ have hurt?

  Kate was carrying the cloak I’d thrown in the hall and moved to put it around my shoulders. The trembling was slowing down and I could feel the wounds on my chest knitting together. Most of my vampire face paint had run off due to sweat. I wiped the rest off with some tissues that Kate handed me.

  “Are you injured?” Kate asked, seeing the blood on my torn shirt.

  “It only scratched me. It’s nothing.”

  “Uh-uh,” Kate said, “We need to get you to the hospital. No telling what diseases that thing could have been carrying. I mean what was it? Some kind of genetic mutation?”

  I shrugged.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. It looked, maybe alien to me? Maybe there’s a flying saucer around here or something.”

  “Rogue government experiment,” Forrest said, “This is exactly the sort of thing they’re cooking up in their war labs.”

  “Demon hound from another dimension,” Dee said, “That makes much more sense.”

  Kate looked at Dee as if he’d said the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.

  “Demon hound from another dimension makes more sense than a genetic mutation, government experiment or aliens?”

  Dee scowled, “It’s just a theory.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. It’s gone. It’s over.”

  I couldn’t have been more wrong about that as it turned out. All of this was only the beginning of one of the longest, most terrifying nights of my life.

  “Hospital,” Kate said firmly.

  “I’m fine, honestly.”

  Kate looked at me with her unimpressed face. I waved her off, not wanting to fight with her but also not wanting a doctor anywhere near me. By the time I got looked at the wounds would have healed and I couldn’t risk my secret getting out. I’d seen enough television shows about kids with powers being experimented on by shifty government scientists to know that keeping quiet was the smartest thing to do.

  I tried to change the topic of conversation. Something else had been bothering me, anyway. Forrest, unlike everyone else, was dressed in a sharp suit and tie and carrying a briefcase. He looked like he was about to head to Wall Street.

  “Forrest, where’s your costume?”

  “This is it,” Forrest said, “I went as the most terrifying thing I could think of.”

  “What?”

  “An investment banker.”

  “Oh good grief,” Dee said. Kate facepalmed. I actually thought it was quite funny, in a Forrest kind of way.

  I shook my head and tried to make sense of what had happened.

  I was convinced that the thing was connected to my powers. That moment in the hall when it had been sniffing the air, trying to catch a scent and then had come for me – that hadn’t been my imagination. It had been tracking me.

  So: A genetic experiment, an alien creature, or a thing from another dimension? If it was any of those things, what did it have to do with me? And what did that make me?

  On the one hand I wasn’t in a rush to dig any deeper into this - I had just nearly died, after all. On the other hand, the need for answers was overwhelming. The mysterious woman, Victoria Pryce, she’d known a lot more than she’d had time to explain. I cursed the fact that I had no way of getting in contact with her. Would it have been too much to get a phone number in between my weak quips?

  I hoped that she’d be true to her word and would ‘be in touch.’

  Another thought hit me and I felt a sudden stab of panic.

  What if that creature wasn’t the only one? What if there are more of them, and they’re all tracking me?

  “Are you kids alright?” a voice called out. It was Mr Andrews, the headmaster.

  “We’re fine,” I said, “It’s gone.”

  Mr Andrews looked relieved. I pulled the oversized cape around me, hiding my bloodied shirt to avoid another conversation about going to the hospital.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr Andrews said, “What was it?”

  He was as stunned as the rest of us and didn’t know what to say. The ‘How to Run a School’ handbook clearly didn’t cover stuff like this.

  “Genetic mutation,” Kate said.

  “Alien from another planet?”

  “Aliens are from other planets by definition, Jason. No, it was a government military experiment.”

  “Oh, shut up Forrest. I’m telling you, demon hound from another dimension.”

  “Well those are all theories, I suppose,” Mr Andrews said, “I was thinking perhaps a ro
bot gone rogue? Maybe a special effect for a film that got out of control?”

  “Sure,” Dee snarked, “Because Bridge End is such a hub for films. I even heard they’re making the next Star Wars here...”

  Mr Andrews ignored Dee, “Well, either way it looked a bit fake, didn’t it? I thought so, at any rate. It couldn’t have been real. Have you seen anyone else?”

  “Everyone else ran,” Kate said.

  “Right, well. No-one seems to be injured, so that’s something at least.”

  I shot Kate a warning look. She pursed her lips and kept quiet.

  “I’d like to go home now,” I said, “And sleep for three or four days.”

  “You’re sure it’s gone?” Mr Andrews asked again.

  “Yeah,” I repeated, “It’s gone. It’s over.”

  Right on cue, we heard the screech of tyres on tarmac.

  Three black Ford Transit vans, their windows kitted out with riot shields, raced towards us and skidded to a halt. Their full-beam headlights blinded us. In the middle of the vans was a black Jeep, also fitted with riot shields and topped with loudspeakers.

  “Do not move,” a voice called out, “This school is under military jurisdiction.”

  Oh, terrific.

  The goon squad had arrived.

  Chapter Seven: The Goon Squad

  As soon as the vehicles had screeched to a halt, soldiers spilled out. Unlike Victoria’s crew, these were dressed in all black and were carrying a range of assault rifles, pistols and sniper rifles.

  From the Jeep’s loudspeakers, the man’s voice spoke again. He had a slight Scottish accent and spoke in clipped, no-nonsense military tones.

  “You five civilians, stay right there. This is a matter of national security. I want this school cordoned off, and those five detained. Teams of three and snipers on the roof. Co-ordinate through the operations van.”