Most of Me (12 page)

I thrust out for the bag.

The Pacemaker took a step forward, crushing the leafy ground beneath him with a heavy thud.

Jack shot the demon a glance and it halted as if waiting for further instructions. He pulled the bag away. “Careful! You don’t want to break it,” he mocked.

“You give it back,” I reached out. “Or I swear that you’ll know about it!”

“I’ll know about it?” he laughed heartily. “And refresh me on how I would know about it? The way I see it, Dan, I have what I came for. I don’t need to get my hands dirty in your blood. Although, speak to me like that again, and I will see that your neck is snapped from your spine!”

I stepped back, frowning, and kicked a rock with the back of my heel. I looked down at it, hesitated a little because of the demon standing behind me.
Could Jack snap my neck?
Eventually, I squatted to pick up the rock. I said to Jack, “I wonder if Carl ever told you?”

“Ha! I stopped listening to Carl a long time ago!”

“Are you sure you stopped listening? Or do you think that he just didn’t want to tell you?” I said. I tossed the rock from hand to hand. “But its clear by your confidence towards me that he didn’t reveal anything to you.” The Pacemaker was several metres behind me, but it wouldn’t take it long to pounce upon me. I could feel the warmth from its stale breath hitting the back of my head with a burning sensation.

“I have the mirror, not to mention that great old beast standing over you.” The Pacemaker grunted its presence, which there was no doubt about. But I couldn’t tell if this was a grunt of disapproval for calling him a beast, or just primitive intellect. “I have certain gifts at my disposal. I can cause as much suffering as I wish. Oh, and I have you! That, I suppose is the main prize.”

“But you don’t,” I reminded him.

“But eventually, I will. If the hourglass doesn’t get you, you will creep through the walls of the house with your Grandad, looking for an escape. Entrapment will be your hell!”

I grinned, shaking my head in amusement. “You haven’t changed, Jack. You were full of yourself then, and you still are. Clearly, you don’t know.”

“Amuse me,” he said. “What do you know that I don’t?”

I looked around at the trees, and raised my one free palm to the dark, yet star stuck, sky. “Where are we?”

“We’re here,” Jack told me, and took at step forward.

“We’re here! And where is here; what does that mean to you?” I stepped backwards in the direction of the demon.

Jack was contemplating the possibility. He knew that I
did
know something, and this angered him. He looked uneasy. “Enough games!” His tone was low and serious. He slipped the rucksack over his arm. “What you have makes no difference to me, to this situation we have here.”

“Oh, but it does,” I cajoled. “Because we are not in the house.”

Jack shrugged as if by saying,
so?

“Carl told me that once that when you leave the house, you still have your powers, but theres just one other thing.”

And in that instance, I knew that Jack had seen into my head and had discovered what I was thinking. His blue eyes became dilated and darker, and I realised that I must act now.

I lifted the rock and pulled my arm back. “Your protection! Out here, you
can
die!” I let the rock go with all the anger and hatred I had for Jack. It ripped through the smoke of the fire, and towards his head, striking him across the right temple. I didn’t think it was possible, but I heard a crack. Jack gently lowered the rucksack to the ground. He stared at me, and it was as though I was seeing a glimmer of the Jack I used to know. He gave me a weak smile, blinked very slowly and nodded as if he had accepted his fate. I saw blood flood out from his hair and fall down his cheek. He fell against the tree truck and sank to the ground. He was still staring at me, then he glanced over at the demon. He breathed with all the vengeance his dying body could throw, “
Kill Him!! Kill Him!! Kill Him!! Ki
…”

The ground cracked from behind and the heavy breathing of the demon became louder and warmer. It smelt unclean, like dried stale urine, and it was getting unbearably stronger. I reached for the rucksack, never removing my eyes from Jack, wondering to myself if he
was
dead. But he was, and I had to unwrap Jacks arm from around the bag and put it over by back.

The stench was even stronger, but the demon was moving slowly, as though it was taking its time in my inevitable fate; inevitable to him at least, but not for me. I still had fight inside of me.

Run…

Carl had warned me to do this. And I’d wondered what he had meant when I needed Jack to find me. But I think it was for what came next where that advice was more apt.

Run…

I stood just as the footsteps ceased, and prepared for my escape. I knew where I needed to go; it was just a case of getting there before
it
did. I had to find a safe haven, safe if only for a few seconds. But hopefully a few seconds would be long enough.

I could sense the demon reaching out with it’s abnormally long arms; I knew of its presence. The smell was putrid. I could feel vomit rising deep from the bowels of my stomach and into my throat, an acidic taste that stung as it rose. But before it could reach my mouth, I swallowed it back…and ran.

I ran through the gaps in the trees, around them, weaving in and out; I thought that perhaps I would confuse the demon. But when I had the opportunity to look behind me, the demon wasn’t following my path. It had created a route of its own, a passage where I couldn’t take. It was trudging though the trees, as if they were ghosts. Then I remembered the church. I remembered when it ploughed through the stone walls as though it was swimming through water. But then the thought of Father Thomas came to me, and the mess it made dragging him through the stone.

The demon was nearly on top of me. I had imagined the beast crashing through the trees, splintering chunks of wood piercing the ground like arrows and spears. But the only crashing it emitted was its own thudding footsteps.

I chose this spot for one reason. It was safe up ahead, just in case I needed to hide. It was a cave with an entrance barely three feet high, and once inside, it had a six feet drop into a tunnel which had no end. So once I was in there, I would be trapped. And given the fact that the demon could pass through stone, I was judging that the sudden descent into the ground would confuse it enough to purchase ample time.

I could see the small cave under the moon light; the entrance looked like a black hole into the abyss.
Would I have gone down there if I hadn’t seen the cave in the daylight first?
Probably not. I would have kept on running through the forest, dodging trees and leafy branches, eventually surrendering to the demon.

I could feel the energy of the demon from behind, pulsing through the air like static. But now I was only a few seconds away from the cave. It reached out for me, catching my shoulder with its long arm and throwing me off balance. But I didn’t fall.

Feet first or head?
If I went into the cave feet first, my head would be vulnerable; it could be ripped away from my neck. But if I managed it, I would land on my feet. I went for instinct, so I dived through the entrance. The demon growled as I disappeared and fell head first down the six feet hole into nowhere. I heard the demon strike the stone walls with its fists, grunting and growling, shuffling. Then there was an eerie silence.

In the darkness I released the rucksack and removed the relic. I was blind. I unwrapped the cloth from around the mirror and placed it on the ground.

There was a scratching noise from outside, then scraping. Soon the noises were muffled as if I was hearing them from behind a wall, or within the stone. I could feel its energy again and the hairs on my arms twitched and stood to attention. It was moving, searching for me through the stone. I suppose I wouldn’t know it was here until it was too late to do anything about it.

I ran my hand over the coldness of the frame and then the smooth glass of the mirror. I crawled to my knees and looked down onto the relic as though I was looking into nothing.

“What now?” I pleaded. “I’m here; take me in. I want to see something, be the guardian. What do I need to do?”
It was dark. I could see nothing, so why should this work?

The grunting was on top of me now. The demon was in the cave and directly above. It shuffled as though it was baffled. I continued to gaze into the mirror, not knowing what to expect or what I should be seeing, but desperate for this to work. The demon shook the ground above and I was covered in a blanket of dirt.
Did it know where I was? Was this how I was going to die? Buried alive!
More dirt rained down. I tried not to scream out, although I’m sure it heard me when I eventually did.

“Take me now, I beg of you.
Please!
” I yelled at the mirror. The ground above trembled once again, then stopped, and I was experiencing a silence where expectation was my enemy.

Hands gripped tightly around the relic, I lowered my face until I could feel my own warm breath deflecting back. I was feeling light headed and nauseous. It may have been a combination of the dark confinement of the cave paired with disorientation, or it might have begun.

My head throbbed. There was a stench of rotten meat. I could taste blood and hear the screams like something or someone was in so much pain they would prefer to die than suffer another second. It was a tortured cry for help. I heard the sound pleasure; the climatic moaning of sex. I could smell it, too.

I closed my eyes; my senses absorbed the smell and I felt aroused. In my mind, I could see another dark place, a women in the distance with her wrists and ankled chain to something that I couldn’t see. She was naked. I walked closer to her. She screamed out in pain, her head falling forward in exhaustion, long blonde hair hiding her face. And then she would moan with pleasure, her head lifting and falling back, flinging her hair back like whips.

Pain came, pleasure came, then pain.

I was close enough to touch her. And within the nudity, I saw bruises, lacerations to the breasts, infected wounds that hadn’t healed and still trickled blood. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to release her from the pain, cut her free, snap the chains. That much I did sympathise. But there was another part of me that was aroused by what I saw. The pleasure came and she knocked her head back again. I saw her face, sweating, dirty skin; she cried blood. But she was beautiful. And I wanted her. I had to have her. She slowly looked up, peering through her wet greasy hair. She licked her lips and parted her legs wider. I could hear her heavy breathing, and saw that her breasts oozed a crimson discharge with ever breath. She buckled with pain momentarily before surrendering to pleasure.

She grinned, gyrating her hips and lifting herself with the chains. She moaned, “You going to put that thing inside of me?”

My hand drifted and I loosened my jeans, dropping them to the ground.
What was I doing?
I took a step closer, my hand caressing her arms and waist, wet with sweat and sticky with her blood. She was feverishly hot.

She moaned again, “I want you, baby. I want you right now!”

I placed my hand on her breasts and squeezed until she whimpered. Blood flowed from the cuts. I moved closer. I lowered my hand, covered in her blood, to vagina and forced her lips apart.

She groaned through gritted teeth, and spat at my face. “
You bastard!!!
” she screamed, veins sticking out from her neck. And she squirmed again, throwing back her head. “Take me now! Take me now!” she moaned.

But then I stopped. I removed myself from her warm passage and stepped back. I looked around into the darkness. Someone else was here. I could feel them watching. It was neither something natural nor human. And that something that I could sense began to laugh.

The women, exhausted, looked at me through strands of her hair. She said, “Mmm, spoil sport!” And began giggling the words, “We have you now, Daniel.”

I swallowed hard. It hurt like I was gulping back a hand full of needles. I started to cough and couldn’t stop myself, until eventually I spat out blood. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “This is the mirror doing this! It’s not real!”

“Oh, its real,” a deep voice from the shadows cut through the darkness. “As real as I make it. This is what you
really
want; this is
your
deepest of desires.” It laughed; this laughter made me feel terrible inside, vulnerable, weak, helpless…guilty. “And now you are one of us, your desires are as real as you or I make them.”

The woman was still moaning and giggling, her legs crossing and then opening. But her head was down and I saw her face no more. I searched for where the voice was coming from, but it echoed like it was bouncing off the walls of a big hall or huge cave. It was impossible to pin point where the voice was. Everything went quiet and the woman was absorbed into the darkness until there was nothing.

I couldn’t breath. There was something squeezing my chest so tight it felt like it would crumble under the pressure. And then I realised what it was. The demon was here. The Pacemaker had reached through the ground above and had hold of me. I expected to be ripped through the walls, but there was nothing. It did nothing. It just held onto me, its stale warm breath burning the back of my neck. But it did nothing. It could’ve crushed me, dragged me through the walls like the tragic ending that was gifted to Father Thomas. I tried to break away from the demon, but it was locked onto me and it wasn’t doing a
damn
thing.

I realised that the mirror must have worked. And if it had, then I had total control of the demon.