Running with the Demon (7 page)

Derry Howe looked over at Junior, smiling. “You know what they say? Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Well, I’ve got me a will that won’t quit. I just need me a way. I’m gonna find it, too, and you can take that to the bank! Old Bob and those others can go shove their patience where the sun don’t shine.”

They crossed Avenue G past the tire center, gas station, and west-end grocery and rode farther toward the cornfields. The buildings of the mill were still visible down the cross streets and between the old homes, plant three giving way to plant four, plant five still out ahead, back of the old speedway, the whole of MidCon spread out along the north bank of the Rock River. The demon studied the residences and the people they sped past, his for the taking, his to own, dismissing them almost as quickly as they were considered. This was a breeding ground for him and nothing more. On July fourth, all of it and all of them would pass into the hands of the feeders, and he would be on his way to another place. It was his world, too, but he felt no attachment to it. His work was what drove him, what gave him purpose, and his servitude to the dark, chaotic vision of the Void would allow for nothing else. There were in his life only need and compulsion, those to be satisfied through a venting of his madness, and nothing of his physical surroundings or of the creatures that inhabited them had any meaning for him.

The Jeep passed a junkyard of rusting automobile carcasses piled high behind a chain-link fence bordering a trailer park that looked to be the last stop of transients on their way to homelessness or the grave, and from behind the fence a pair of lean, black-faced Dobermans peered out with savage eyes. Bred to attack anything that intruded, the demon thought. Bred to destroy. He liked that.

His mind drifted in the haze of the midday summer heat, the voices of Derry and Junior a comfortable buzz that did not intrude. He had come to Hopewell afoot, walking out of the swelter of the cornfields and the blacktop roadways with the
inexorable certainty of nightfall. He had chosen to appear in that manner, wanting to smell and taste the town, wanting it to give something of itself to him, something it could not give if he arrived by car or bus, if he were to be closed away. He had materialized in the manner of a mirage, given shape and form out of delusion and desperation, given life out of false hope. He had walked into a poor neighborhood on the fringe of the town, into a collection of dilapidated homes patched with tar paper and oilcloth, their painted wooden sides peeling, their shingled roofs cracked and blistered, their yards rutted and littered with ruined toys, discarded appliances, and rusting vehicles. Within the close, airless confines of the homes huddled the leavings of despair and endless disappointment. Children played beneath the shade of the trees, dust-covered, desultory, and joyless. Already they knew what the future would bring. Already their childhood was ending. The demon passed them with a smile.

At the corner of Avenue J and Twelfth Street, at a confluence of crumbling sheds, pastureland, and a few scattered residences, a boy had stood at the edge of the roadway with a massive dog. At well over a hundred pounds, all bristling hair and wicked dark markings, the dog was neither one identifiable breed nor another, but some freakish combination. It stood next to the boy, hooked on one end of a chain, the other end of which the boy held. Its eyes were deep-set and baleful, and its stance suggested a barely restrained fury. It disliked the demon instinctively, as all animals did, but it was frightened of him, too. The boy was in his early teens, wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and high-top tennis shoes, all of them worn and stained with dirt. The boy’s stance, like the dog’s, was at once strained and cocky. He was tall and heavyset, and there was no mistaking the bully in him. Most of what he had gotten in life he had acquired through intimidation or theft. When he smiled, as he did now, there was no warmth.

“Hey, you,” the boy said.

The demon’s bland face showed nothing. Just another stupid, worthless creature, the demon thought as he approached. Just another failed effort in somebody’s failed life. He would
leave his mark here, with this boy, to signal his coming, to lay claim to what was now his. He would do so in blood.

“You want to go through here, you got to pay me a dollar,” the boy called out to the demon.

The demon stopped where he was, right in the middle of the road, the sun beating down on him. “A dollar?”

“Yeah, that’s the toll. Else you got to go around the other way.”

The demon looked up the street the way he had come, then back at the boy. “This is a public street.”

“Not in front of my house it ain’t. In front of my house, it’s a toll road and it costs a dollar to pass.”

“Only if you’re traveling on foot, I guess. Not if you’re in a car. I don’t suppose that even a dog as mean as yours could stop a car.” The boy stared at him, uncomprehending. The demon shrugged. “So, does the dog collect the dollar for you?”

“The dog collects a piece of your ass if you don’t pay!” the boy snapped irritably. “You want to see what that feels like?”

The demon studied the boy silently for a moment. “What’s the dog’s name?”

“It don’t matter what his name is! Just pay me the dollar!” The boy’s face was flushed and angry.

“Well, if I don’t know his name,” said the demon softly, “how can I call him off if he attacks someone?”

The dog sensed the boy’s anger, and his hackles rose along the back of his neck and he bared his teeth with a low growl. “You just better give me the dollar, buddy,” said the boy, a thin smile twisting his lips as he looked down at the dog and jiggled the chain meaningfully.

“Oh, I don’t think I could do that,” said the demon. “I don’t carry any money. I don’t have any need for it. People just give me what I want. I don’t even need a dog like this one to make them do it.” He smiled, his bland features crinkling warmly, his strange eyes fixing the boy. “That’s not very good news for you, is it?”

The boy was staring at him. “You better pay me fast, butt-head, or I might just let go of this chain!”

The demon shook his head reprovingly. “I wouldn’t do that,
if I were you. I’d keep a tight hold on that chain until I’m well down the road from here.” He slipped his hands in his pockets and cocked his head at the boy. “Tell you what. I’m a fair man. You just made a big mistake, but I’m willing to let it pass. I’ll forget all about it if you apologize. Just say you’re sorry and that will be the end of it.”

The boy’s mouth dropped. “What? What did you say?”

The demon smiled some more. “You heard me.”

For an instant the boy froze, the disbelief on his face apparent. Then he mouthed a string of obscenities, dropped to his knee, and released the chain on the dog’s collar. “Oops!” he snarled at the demon, flinging the chain away disdainfully, eyes hot and furious.

But the demon had already invoked his skill, a small, spare movement of one hand that looked something like the blessing of a minister at the close of a service. Outwardly, nothing seemed to change. The demon still stood there in the sweltering heat, head cocked in seeming contemplation, bland face expressionless. The boy lurched to his feet as he released the dog, urging him to the attack with an angry shout. But something profound had changed in the boy. His look and smell and movement had become those of a frightened rabbit, flushed from cover and desperately trying to scurry to safety. The dog reacted on instinct. It wheeled on the boy instantly, lunging for his throat. The boy gave a cry of shock and fear as the dog slammed into him, knocking him from his feet. The boy’s hands came up as he tumbled into the dirt of his yard, and he tried desperately to shield his face. The dog tore at the boy, and the boy’s cries turned to screams. Drops of blood flew through the air. Scarlet threads laced the dusty earth.

The demon stood watching for several moments more before turning away to continue down the road. He read later that if the boy’s body hadn’t been found in front of his house, the authorities would have needed dental records to identify him. His family couldn’t recognize him from what was left of his face. The dog, which one of the neighbors described as the boy’s best friend, was quarantined for the mandatory ten days to determine if it had rabies and then put down.

Junior Elway pulled the Jeep Cherokee against the curb in front of the dilapidated apartment complex situated on Avenue L and West Third where Derry Howe rented a small, one-bedroom unit. They talked for a moment while the demon listened, agreeing to meet at Scrubby’s for pizza and beer that evening. Both were divorced, on the downside of forty, and convinced that a lot of women were missing a good bet. Derry Howe climbed out of the Jeep, and the demon climbed out with him. Together they went up the walk as Junior Elway drove off.

Inside the apartment, the window fan was rattling and buzzing as it fought to withstand the heat. It was not adequate to the task, and the air in the apartment was close and warm. Derry Howe walked to the refrigerator, pulled out a can of Bud, walked back to the living room, and flopped down on the sofa. He was supposed to be on picket duty at the number-three plant, but he had begged off the night before by claiming that his back was acting up. His union supervisor had probably known he was lying, but had chosen to let it slide. Derry was encouraged. Already he was wondering if he could pull the same scam for Sunday’s shift.

The demon sat in the rocker that had belonged to Derry Howe’s grandmother before she died, the one his mother had inherited and in turn passed on to him when he was married and she still had hopes for him. Now no one had any hopes for Derry Howe. Two tours in Vietnam followed by his failed marriage to a girl some thought would change him, a dozen arrests on various charges, some jail time served at the county lockup, and twenty years at MidCon with only one promotion and a jacket full of reprimands had pretty much settled the matter. The road that marked the course of his life had straightened and narrowed, and all that remained to be determined was how far it would run and how many more breakdowns he would suffer along the way.

It had not proved difficult for the demon to find Derry Howe. Really, there were so many like him that it scarcely took any effort at all. The demon had found him on the second day of his arrival in Hopewell, just by visiting the coffee shops and bars, just by listening to what the people of the town had to say. He
had moved in with Howe right away, making himself an indispensable presence in the other’s life, insinuating himself into the other’s thoughts, twisting Derry’s mind until he had begun to think and talk in the ways that were necessary. Hardly a challenge, but definitely a requirement if the demon’s plans were to succeed. He was Derry Howe’s shadow now, his conscience, his sounding board, his devil’s advocate. His own, personal demon. And Derry Howe, in turn, was his creature.

The demon watched Howe finish his beer, struggle up in the stale air of the apartment, walk to the kitchen, and fish through the cluttered refrigerator for another. The demon waited patiently. The demon’s life was wedded to his cause, and his cause required great patience. He had sacrificed everything to become what he was, but he knew from his transformation at the hands of the Void that sacrifice was required. After he had embraced the Void he had concealed himself until his conscience had rotted and fallen away and left him free. His name had been lost. His history had faded. His humanity had dissipated and turned to dust. All that he had been had disappeared with the change, so that now he was reborn into his present life and made over into his higher form. It had been hard in the beginning, and once, in a moment of great weakness and despair, he had even thought to reject what he had so readily embraced. But in the end reason had prevailed, and he had forsaken all.

Now it was the cause that drove him, that fed him, that gave him his purpose in life. The cause was everything, and the Void defined the cause as need required. For now, for this brief moment in time, the cause was the destruction of this town and its inhabitants. It was the release of the feeders that lurked in the caves beneath Sinnissippi Park. It was the subversion of Derry Howe. It was the infusion of chaos and madness into the sheltered world of Hopewell.

And it was one thing more, the thing that mattered most.

Derry Howe returned to the sofa and seated himself with a grunt, sipping at his beer. He looked at the demon, seeing him clearly for the first time because the demon was ready now to talk.

“We got to do something, bud,” Derry Howe intoned solemnly, nodding to emphasize the importance of his pronouncement. “We got to stop those suckers before they break us.”

The demon nodded in response. “If union men cross the picket line and return to work, the strike is finished.”

“Can’t let them do that.” Howe worked his big hands around the beer bottle, twisting slowly. “Damn traitors, anyway! What the hell they think they’re doing, selling out the rest of us!”

“What to do?” mused the demon.

“Shoot a few, by God! That’ll show them we mean business!”

The demon considered the prospect. “But that might not stop the others from going back to work. And you would go to jail. You wouldn’t be of any use then, would you?”

Derry Howe frowned. He took a long drink out of the bottle. “So what’s the answer, bud? We have to do something.”

“Think about it like this,” suggested the demon, having already done so long ago. “The company plans to reopen the fourteen-inch using company men to fill the skill jobs and scabs to fill the gaps. If they can open one plant and bring back a few of the union men, they can work at opening the others as well. It will snowball on you, if they can just get one mill up and running.”

Howe nodded, his face flushed and intense. “Yeah, so?”

The demon smiled, drawing him in. “So, what happens if the company can’t open the number-three plant? What happens if they can’t get the fourteen-inch up and running?”

Derry Howe stared at him wordlessly, thinking it through.

The demon gave him a hand. “What happens if it becomes clear to everyone that it’s dangerous to cross the picket line and work in the mills? What happens, Derry?”