The Demon Conspiracy (38 page)

I heard something from the top of the
stairs. They were coming. I gripped the bat tightly, and moved into
position by the doorway. Across the foyer, Melissa stood ready with
her cell phone aimed, and recording. The pipe was leaning against
the wall next to her. We exchanged a brief nod, and waited.

Suddenly, everything went black. I blinked,
straining to see. Except for whiskers of moonlight passing through
the blinds on the front windows, the house was as dark as a cave.
It must have been part of Kurt’s escape plan. But how had he done
it? He and Donnivee were upstairs, and the breaker box was in the
garage. Who turned off the power? Was it Manson? Did she come back?
Did she even know how to do something like that? I mentally
searched the garage. Nothing. Nobody was there.

I heard a metallic sound
behind me in the den. It was like the blade of a knife being
scraped across some jagged edge. I spun around. Somebody—or
something—was there: the noise had been deliberate. Whoever it
was
wanted
to be
noticed. I made another scan in search of nearby thoughts. Nothing.
But the feeling of being watched was strong.

I turned back to Melissa. I could just make
out her silhouette in the dark, holding the cell phone. I
whispered. “What’s going on?”

“
Did Kurt turn off the
power?”

“
There’s no way he
could’ve.”

“
Then how did it—” Melissa
stopped cold. She brought the iPhone up, directing the shot
straight at me. “Uh, Kelly. Behind you.”

I turned. A pair of rheumy, green eyes
stared back at me from across the room. The eyes seemed to have no
pupils, and they put out a strange glow, like dim flashlights in
need of new batteries. I froze. Every muscle in my body turned to
mush. My heart pounded like a jackhammer. Those eyes looked
familiar. As if to confirm my thoughts, the thing with the eyes
spoke in a whispering, raspy voice.

“
Pretty
girl
….”

31

A PLACE TO HIDE

KURT

Kurt Lazarus was having the time of his
life. For Kurt, nothing was cooler than breaking into someone’s
house and having his way with pretty much everything in there. And
this time he had a girl with him. If things went according to plan
he’d tear up the place, steal something valuable and maybe talk
Donnivee out of her clothes. He already got the feeling she’d do
anything to please him, and he had a pretty good idea what that
meant. This bedroom was as good a place as any for it to
happen.

He set his mask on the bed and took hers
off. Then he pulled Donnivee close and kissed her hard on the
mouth. She pressed against him, which got him aroused almost more
than he could stand. Kurt didn’t care if she was only thirteen. Age
didn’t matter as long as he got what he wanted. But she saw
something behind him and pushed him away.

“Look at that picture,” she said, crossing
the room to the desk. “I’ll bet that’s her real family, you know?
Her dead parents. I’ll bet it’s the only photo she’s got, too.”

“So?” Kurt was peeved. He wanted some sex
action and he’d better get it soon. He should have known not to
hang out with a stupid eighth grader. She had the attention span of
a slug and didn’t really know what she was doing when it came to
love. He preferred girls who had experience. Of course, he didn’t
mind breaking ‘em in, either.

“So it’s the
only
picture she’s got
with her parents in it. I’m gonna burn it and mail the ashes to her
later.”

Her cruel ingenuity surprised him. Kurt
nodded his approval. “I like the way you think.”

She took the photograph from the wall and
pulled the backing off the frame. She tossed the frame on the bed
but kept the photo as she scanned the room. Kurt knew she was
looking for something else to destroy or steal. He wrapped his arms
around her from the back and pulled her close.

“How ‘bout you an’ me doin’ it right here?”
he whispered into her ear. “Right now.”

Donnivee looked back at him and kissed him.
“No.” She broke away again and started going through Kelly’s
dresser drawers. She took out a pair of panties and held them up.
“Oh, man look at these boring panties.”

Kurt looked. Whenever he saw a girl’s
panties he found nothing boring about them. He shrugged, trying to
act like they didn’t have an effect on him. “What’s wrong with
‘em?”

“I wear thongs,” said Donnivee. “This
stuff’s for little kids. Come on, I got what I came for.” She
tossed the panties aside, put on her mask and left the room.

When Kurt heard her say thong he had to wipe
the drool off his chin. Maybe this chick was more experienced than
he’d first thought. He grabbed his mask and went with her. At the
top of the stairs he made Donnivee wait while he listened. The
house was quiet and seemed empty, but with the lights on they still
needed to be careful. It wasn’t like they had the cover of darkness
to hide in. He was about to start down the stairs when suddenly he
froze.

Something didn’t feel right. Kurt tilted his
head toward what might have been a tiny sound. What was it? He held
his breath and listened.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Kurt let out a huge sigh of relief. A damn
clock ticking in some other room! He almost broke out laughing. He
glanced at Donnivee and saw her wide-eyed fear. He smiled and shook
his head.

“It’s nothin’,” he said, starting down the
stairs.

Suddenly the lights went out. The entire
house was pitch black. Donnivee gripped Kurt’s arm just above the
elbow. Her grip was so strong it shut off the blood to his hand. He
yanked his arm free but she grabbed him again. He waited and
listened. He still heard nothing but the clock ticking, which
appeared to be downstairs some place. So who turned off the
lights?

Somebody in the house must have seen them.
Now they were playing a game. Dammit, if he got caught again he’d
do time in jail, and it wouldn’t be juvie this time. But if he
escaped and Donnivee got caught she’d turn him in to save her own
butt. Even if she didn’t want to turn him in, the cops would talk
her into it. Cops could make you say all kinds of stuff whether you
wanted to or not.

Kurt returned to the hallway and looked for
a place to hide. He opened the first door on the right, somebody’s
bedroom. In the moonlight he could just make out a jacket hanging
over a chair. There were words on the jacket, like a logo, or
something. He inched into the room with Donnivee still holding onto
his arm. He took a tiny penlight from his pocket and clicked it on.
Normally he didn’t like using flashlights in dark houses. They were
like beacons if somebody was outside looking in. But he needed to
know whose room this was before he tried to hide in it. He aimed
the beam at the jacket.

“Satan’s Sidekicks.” He read it in a
whisper. “That’s a motorcycle gang. Hell, this is the old lady’s
room. We don’t wanna be in here.” Donnivee shook her head in
agreement and followed him back into the hall.

The next door was narrower
than the others, more like a closet than a bedroom. Kurt opened it
slowly in case it squeaked. But the door was utterly silent.
These dopes must oil their
hinges
, thought Kurt.
Good for me
. He shined the light
inside the closet.

The closet was tiny with four shelves,
starting about hip-high and rising nearly to the ceiling. The
shelves held stacks of clean linen along with bath towels and
washrags. Kurt nearly dismissed any possibility of hiding in there
until he noticed the mound of dirty clothes on the floor. It was a
laundry closet. He estimated the amount of space in there and
looked at Donnivee. It would be a tight squeeze for sure. But
nobody who was searching for intruders would make more than a
glance into a space that small.

“Get in,” he said, pulling off her mask
again and giving her a nudge. He pointed the beam of light at the
floor of the closet.

Donnivee looked confused. “In there? No! I’m
not leaving you!”

“I’m not leaving you either. Get under the
clothes on the floor. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Can we fit?” As she spoke she crawled into
the closet and sat in the laundry pile. After some scrunching and
adjusting she managed to move the clothes around her until she had
a small space to hide. She looked up at Kurt. Kurt tossed some of
the clothes over her head and made certain she was completely
hidden. He reluctantly squeezed his much taller frame into the tiny
area beside her. It took some doing, and he had to sit with his
knees in his chin as he ducked under the lowest shelf, but he
finally made himself fit. He covered himself with clothes and sat
pressed against her shoulder.

“Don’t move and don’t make a sound,” said
Kurt in a whisper. He smiled at Donnivee to keep her calm until he
realized she couldn’t see him in the dark under the clothes.
“Nobody’ll find us in this little closet. Nobody’ll even look in
here. Nobody.”

32

DEMONS
EVERYWHERE

KELLY

I nearly fainted dead away. I’d heard those
words before. The voice was familiar enough to be somebody from my
own family. But this wasn’t family. Not even close.

I screamed, or thought I did. But nothing
came out. My mouth hadn’t even opened. I tried to run for the front
door, only a few feet away. But my legs didn’t move. My entire body
was leaden, and stiff, as if I was paralyzed. It was like one of
those nightmares, I used to have as a young child. The monsters
chased me and I couldn’t run. Only, this was no dream. This was
real. The monsters were coming, and I was frozen like a corpse.

Something grabbed my arm. I jumped. I didn’t
want to see what it was, but I looked anyway. A hand gripped me
firmly. It looked human.

“Can we get out of here?” Without waiting
for an answer, Melissa yanked me out of the den. At the same time,
she lost her grip on the cell phone. I heard it bounce toward the
kitchen. We looked at each other.

“We’ll get it, later,” she said. She opened
the front door. Before we went outside, we glanced over our
shoulders. The sickly glowing eyes moved toward us, slowly,
confidently. The horrible voice spoke again.

“
Pretty girl!
”

Somehow I found my legs. I also found some
courage, though this didn’t seem like the time to stand and fight.
I willingly followed Melissa out the door to the front porch. Just
being in the moonlight made it feel somewhat safer. But the feeling
was short-lived. As soon as we hit the porch, a massive shadow
passed over us, and blocked the light. From behind the great oak
tree, something huge and hideous stepped out of the gloom. We
stopped cold.

“What the…?” This time it was Melissa, who
froze in terror. She gawked at the creature, clearly unable to
comprehend what was happening.

I saw two massive legs
beside the tree. My gaze followed the line of the creature’s body
ever upward, from the ground to the treetop. Whatever blocked our
way was big—
real
big—close to seven meters tall! It stood over us menacingly,
with huge lobster claws snapping. I thought I saw a reddish tint to
it in the moonlight. But how could anything that large have been so
impossibly hidden behind the tree? Where had it come from? What was
it?

Suddenly, the evil words came back to me, as
clearly as if I’d heard them only minutes ago.

We know where you live, Kelly and Travis.
We’ll grab you in the dark, when the night comes. The dark belongs
to usss!

“Pandora’s Cave,” I said with a shudder.
“Demons! Go back inside!”

“What about the one in there!” Melissa was
freaking out.

“It’s smaller. Go!”

Melissa obeyed. She rushed into the house
again. I followed closely, one hand on my friend’s shoulder, the
other holding the bat. The outside demon let us go, as if it wanted
us to return to the house. I made a mental note of that, as we
entered the foyer and slammed the door.

Melissa turned the bolt lock, breathing
hard. “If that thing really wants in, the door isn’t gonna stop
it!”

“Nope. I have a feeling we’re right where
they want us to be.”

As soon as I spoke, the smaller demon came
at us, teeth bared. Its knife-like claws were long and sharp. I saw
it first. I reared back and swung the bat, high to low. On the way
down the bat struck the small chandelier. Pieces of glass flew
everywhere. Glass bounced off the walls, and scattered across the
floor and stairs. But I never stopped the swing. The bat smashed
into the head of the small demon, splitting open its skull. I felt
a warm, greasy fluid splash over my face, and hands. I couldn’t see
it, but I knew it was demon blood. The demon collapsed to the
floor, unconscious or dead. Either way it stayed down, and kept
quiet.

“Come on!” I hit the stairs, crunching over
broken glass.

Melissa took a step toward the kitchen, to
look for her cell phone. But, apparently, a flash of good sense
changed her mind. She took up the pipe, and followed me.

At the top of the stairs, Melissa turned.
She thrust her steel pipe in the direction of anything that might
have followed us. The stairs were empty. I ran into my bedroom to
look for my cell phone, but it wasn’t there. Where was it? I heard
Melissa challenge the demons in the hallway.

“Come on! I dare you! Come up the
stairs!”