The Demon Conspiracy

The Demon
Conspiracy

R.L. Gemmill

Cottingham-McMasters
Publishing House

Copyright © 2015 R. L.
Gemmill

All rights
reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-0692448830

ISBN-10: 0692448837

This book is a work of
fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the
author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is
fictionalized or coincidental. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without
written permission by the author.

Printed in the USA by
Cottingham-McMasters Publishing House

“For you, Mom…FINALLY! I hope they have
bookstores where you are.”

WARNING!

The American Security
Administration has determined that THE DEMON CONSPIRACY book series
can cause nightmares and unexplainable feelings of being watched.
The conspiratorial thinking and utter terror within these pages may
be hazardous to your psychological health. READ WITH
CAUTION.

Marcus Conn

Deputy Director

American Security
Administration

Author’s Note

This novel is meant to be
a fun and exciting read. Much of the general research in
THE DEMON CONSPIRACY
SERIES
I did myself, but a lot of
the scientific and conspiracy information was originally collected
by Stephanie Matzgannis, a former student of mine and good friend,
who has an uncanny knack at finding strange facts and uncovering
the science related weird. Thank you, Stephanie!

I would also like to thank
award-winning author, Mark Spencer, for his editing expertise and
constructive comments. Fiction readers should check out his books,
they are excellent! Any author who needs professional editing
should visit Mark’s website at:
http://authormarkspencer.com/Writing_Services.html
.

Also, a huge thanks to
Laima Klavina for her original design and art work on the book
cover, as well as the website design and Demon-of-the-Month demons.
Every time I look at the cover I’m mesmerized because there is so
much going on. Laima’s art is also worth checking out at:
www.amunalaima.com

Contents

Warning iv

Author’s Note v

1 The Accident 9

2 The Bully—Seven Years Later 22

3 The Haunting of Pandora’s Cave 37

4 The Earthquake 45

5 Trapped 62

6 The Salesman 72

7 Flying Demons 87

8 Capture 96

9 Battle to the Death 103

10 Escape 106

11 Rescue 117

12 Much Work to Do 135

13 Memory Loss 148

14 Magic 170

15 Satan’s Sidekicks 178

16 The Fight 191

17 Fang II 210

18 Saturday Morning Manners 216

19 The Tournament 225

20 Spies 231

21 Pain 244

22 Attack of the Bully 252

23 Majik Juice 261

24 Jon Disappears 272

25 Chris Goes Insane 284

26 Return of the Salesman 306

27 A Very Nasty Plan 317

28 Ouija Boards and S’mores 328

29 Monsters in the Night 332

30 Breaking and Entering 336

31 A Place to Hide 344

32 Demons Everywhere 349

33 We Wants the Kelly Bishop 360

34 Someone Else’s Name 370

35 Ladder Trouble 377

36 Klawfinger 382

37 Demon Proofing 390

38 Padded Cell 401

39 Do You Believe in Monsters? 406

40 Demon Fight 414

41 Sleeplessness 423

The Demon Conspiracy
Series continues
with
Book #2:

The Doomsday
Shroud

1 Demons Don’t Die 430

1

THE ACCIDENT

KELLY

The car windows were smashed. Pieces of
glass were everywhere.

My tummy hurt real bad, but I was stuck. I
couldn’t get out. I wanted Mommy.

I tried to unsnap the seatbelt, but it
wouldn’t open. I pushed the button hard as I could. The seatbelt
made my tummy hurt and I wanted to get out. I pulled hard on the
belt. I was stuck. I needed somebody to help me. Mommy?

Where was Mommy? I couldn’t see her, but in
my mind I could tell she was hurt.

“Mommy?” It sounded like there was cotton in
my mouth. I couldn’t talk right.

Something smelled like gas in Daddy’s
lawnmower. I looked up, which was sideways because we were all
sideways. Daddy was hanging sideways too. His face had blood all
over it. I closed my eyes. I hated blood. I started to cry. I
didn’t want Daddy to die. But he had blood on his face. Lots of
blood! I couldn’t hear him.

I pushed on the seatbelt button again. It
wouldn’t let go. I cried harder.

“Poor…Daddy. I love you, Daddy.” I kicked
and wiggled. It hurt my tummy even worse, so I stopped.

Travis was in his car seat in front of me.
He was blurry because my eyes were full of tears. Then I heard him
sucking on his thumb. He was still asleep. And alive.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. I sniffled and
hiccupped. “Help me!”

JON

Ten-year-old Jon Bishop woke up in a blur.
His forehead ached and burned. He felt like he’d been baptized with
a hammer. Where was he? Why did his stomach feel like somebody had
tried to peel the skin off with a weed eater?

Jon blinked. He rolled his head and sort of
looked up. He saw Kelly hanging above him, arms and legs
dangling.

“Jon…h-h-help…me!”

“Kelly? What happened? Were we in a
wreck?”

“No, we…w-w-were in a accident. Help
m-me…Jon.” She began to sob. “M-m-my seatbelt is stuck! And my
tummy…hu-hu-hurts real bad. I can’t get…out and Mommy doesn’t hear
me anymore!”

Jon’s mind cleared somewhat. Things became
familiar. They were in the family minivan, but the van lay on its
side with the windshield smashed out. The driver’s side door was
crushed inward and pressed against his father. Mr. Bishop was
utterly motionless, still held in place by the seatbelt. His right
arm hung limp, like the deflated front airbag beside him. Blood
drained from a gash in the side of his head.

Jon had never seen so much blood. A coppery
taste rose in the back of his throat. He couldn’t hold back the
sudden spew of vomit that sprayed over the back of the van.

Jon couldn’t see his mom in the other seat.
What had happened? Where were they? He worked hard to remember.

They’d been driving on
winding back roads in the middle of nowhere when all at once
everything had vanished. Jon sat up on full alert. The highway, the
trees, even the stars disappeared. One minute it was all there, a
second later—
gone
! Jon looked right, then left, then up.
Nothing
. Was it fog? A moment later
he caught the smell of rotting plant matter.

“That stinks!” he said, pinching his
nostrils. “What is it, dad?”

“A fire in the Dismal Swamp,” said his
father in the driver’s seat, pointing to the right. “About sixty
miles that way. Been burning for weeks.” He slowed the car to a
safer speed, but speed had nothing to do with visibility.

“How can you see where you’re going?”

“I can’t, but there’s no shoulder to pull
off to. If we stop, or slow down too much, and somebody comes up
behind us…well, it’s better if we keep moving.”

Jon got the message. He kept a nervous eye
out the rear window. The only thing he could see was the reddish
glow of their taillights reflected in the noxious gray smoke. A
split second later the air cleared. Jon blinked, startled. He
watched the wall of smoke shrink away behind them.

“There,” said Mr. Bishop. “Much better.”

“Thank, God,” said Mrs. Bishop, riding
shotgun. “I don’t know how you drove through that.”

“Me either,” admitted her husband.

Mrs. Bishop let out a long sigh of relief,
like she’d been holding her breath the whole time. The road was
clear now, but Jon knew she was too much of a worrier to relax.

On the other hand, his dad
didn’t seem rattled at all. If he’d been even a
little
afraid he didn’t show it.
How’d he do that? How’d he stay so calm? Jon made a mental note to
himself:
look brave no matter what.
Dad could pull it off, why couldn’t he? After
all, everyone said they were practically clones. They had the same
sandy blond hair, intense blue eyes and easy-going manner. Mr.
Bishop often joked that someday one of them would have to grow a
mustache so people could tell them apart. It made sense. If dad
could do something, Jon could too—with a little
practice.

“Are we there yet?” Kelly Bishop popped up
in the captain’s seat behind their father, still half asleep. Kelly
was a miniature version of Mrs. Bishop with the same warm, brown
eyes and matching curly hair. She was six now and would finish the
first grade in another month, but she could already read on a
fifth-grade level. That kid read just about anything. Jon didn’t
see the point. He didn’t care about books unless they had something
to do with karate, swords, or computers.

“Kelly, honey,” said Mrs. Bishop. “Why don’t
you go back to sleep? It’ll be hours before we get home.”

Jon laughed softly. Suggesting something
like that to Kelly was a bad idea, if that’s what you really wanted
her to do. Kelly hated to go to sleep at night almost as much as
she despised getting up in the mornings. Right away she perked up a
little and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. “I don’t want to
miss anything.”

“All you’re going to miss is a whole lot of
nothing,” said her dad, winking at her in the rear view mirror. Jon
got a kick out of that. Kelly tried to wink back, but she couldn’t
shut just one eye, so she blinked them both. As usual it made them
laugh. Minutes later Kelly closed her eyes and nodded off
again.

“Travis has the right idea,” said Mr.
Bishop. “He’s been asleep since we left.”

Three-year-old Travis Bishop sat in his car
seat with his curly blond head tilted to one side. Travis had dad’s
blue eyes and mom’s smile, but other than that he hardly looked
like part of the family.

“That kid could sleep
through an earthquake,” said Jon, laughing. He slouched in the seat
and stretched his long legs into the space beside Travis. There was
a cardboard box on the seat beside him that contained two trophies.
Jon took up the trophies and studied them in the dim light. The
first trophy had a small karate figure on top that was forever
frozen in the middle of a big kick. The second showed a samurai
sword surrounded by some leafy patterns. Jon put them back in the
box while he dwelled on the single word engraved at the bottom of
each trophy.
Champion
. Oh, yeah.

He’d competed in two
events, kumite, or fighting, and weapons—both in his age group. But
as he watched other kids in the tournament he realized he could
have beaten most of them, even kids that were years older than him.
The strange thing was he didn’t just
think
he could’ve beaten them,
he
knew
it. Maybe
next time Sensei would let him move up. That’d be sweet, he loved
tough competition.

Jon got the feeling he was being watched and
looked up. His mom was studying him with her mouth kind of
scrunched over to one side, like she was biting the inside of her
jaw. She usually had that look when she was thinking.

“What?” he said.

“I wish your grandparents were alive,” said
Mrs. Bishop with a sad smile. “They’d be so proud of you!”

Jon grinned and hung his
head modestly. This was the most awesome day ever! He was
absolutely sure nothing could ruin it for him.
Nothing
.