The Devil's Demeanor (22 page)

“You didn’t think I could do it, did you?”
Don asked the wounded monster. “I’m not as weak as you thought, you little
shit.”

He shot it in the head. There was no
splattering of brains, just more blood. The dog lay there, looking dead, but
Don took no chances. He shoved the gun into the waistband of his pants and
began pouring gasoline over the body. He then took out a few bombs from the
backpack and started placing them against some pillars. He didn’t know if it
would be enough to collapse the cavern, but it would have to do.

He looked back at the dog’s body and
wondered how the creature could transform itself into that tiny thing.

His question was soon answered.

Something detached from the ugly pillar he’d
passed earlier. It looked like it was made from the same red stone, but the
more it came apart, the more it changed in color. Dusty brown fur on its back,
lips all over its chest, and a jackal’s face.

The creature had returned to its original
body. And it was fucking ugly.

Don quickly splashed gasoline on it and
began lighting the wicks of the seven bombs he’d placed about the cavern. He
then ran past the demon, toward the cavern’s exit.

The creature immediately sprung up and
attached itself to him.

Don screamed as he tried to peel it off. He
could feel those disgusting lips kissing his body. He could smell the gasoline,
too, and knew it covered his clothes now.

The bombs were about to explode. He had to
escape.

He reached between the demon and himself and
managed to grab the gun from his pants. He drew it out, pressed the barrel
against the monster, and pulled the trigger. The sound was explosive. The demon
squealed as it let go of him.

It was on fire.

So was Don.

He immediately dropped the gun and batted at
the flames on his chest. That was when the closest bomb exploded, sending Don
backward.

He landed on his back just as another bomb
exploded. Stalactites rained down from the cavern’s ceiling as two more bombs
detonated. Don got to his feet, ignoring the flames on his chest as he ran
through the tunnel. It was still raining outside—if he could only get
outside....

He heard squealing amongst the explosions of
the last three bombs. The demon was right behind him, but he didn’t dare turn
around. He just kept running. The tunnel curved to the left, and he could see
the exit, the rain. Don was almost entirely on fire now. In his blind panic he
thought of ripping the shirt off, but was afraid it would slow him down. Any
delay would prove fatal if the creature caught him again.

The demon was right behind him and the
tunnel was collapsing. He had to keep moving.

He was only ten feet away from freedom.

But then something latched onto him from
behind and bit down into the back of his neck.

Don screamed as the tunnel continued to
collapse around him. He tried to shake the monster off of his back but
couldn’t. His shirt was still on fire, and he could feel heat coming from
behind him as the creature continued to burn.

For a split second, Don considered staying
where he was, killing himself as well as the monster. If he ran outside, the
rain would extinguish them both. Don didn’t want that—the creature had to die.

But Don didn’t want to die. He felt he
deserved to after killing his brother, but he couldn’t fight his survival
instincts. He charged toward the cave’s mouth once more, bringing the monster
with him. The moment he stopped outside, a white-blue streak of lightning shot
from the sky and struck him.

Don didn’t feel the impact. He didn’t even
feel himself land on the wet ground after flying several feet away from the
cave. He did feel the rain on his face, and his hearing, which had been an annoying
ringing after the strike, was returning. So was his vision.

He was on his back, and he lifted his head
to look at his chest. The fire was out, and his shirt was burned.
 
He could see bits of red naked flesh
beneath, but couldn’t tell how bad his injuries were. He slowly sat upward, his
head swimming and his stomach turning, and saw a large dark husk just in front
of the cave. It wasn’t moving.

Don got to his feet, spitting rainwater from
his mouth, and walked over to the smoking husk. It looked like a large, dead
spider, with its arms and legs curled upward. It was revolting. He kicked it
and was relieved when it didn’t respond.

Don wasn’t sure what had happened. This was
the second time lightning had struck something related to the curse. Maybe the
demon attracted bad weather.

Or maybe God had intervened.

Don didn’t truly believe in God, but he
thanked Him anyway as he made his weary way back to his truck.

*
 
*
 
*

When he got to his hotel room, he went
straight to the bathroom to check on his wounds. His chest and back were a
little raw, and there were tiny white blisters from the burns, but they weren’t
disfiguring; they would heal.

As for the bite on the back of his
neck...there were six punctures directly at the base of his skull, but the
creature hadn’t taken any flesh along with the bite. It was as if it simply
wanted to bite—

Don’s heart suddenly raced. He’d been bitten
by the demon, just like Mom had been twenty-one years ago. But Mom had bitten
Uncle Johnny, and he wasn’t cursed. Don thought hard to that night. Mom had
been under the demon’s control, but she was still human. Maybe animals worked
differently? After all, the demon had been able to infect the dog immediately,
if Don’s dream was to be believed.

But the demon was dead now; it couldn’t
influence Don’s actions.

He looked closely at himself in the mirror.
Had his eyes always been so glossy? He left the bathroom and sat down on the
stiff bed. Something fell out of his burned backpack, something he didn’t even
know was in there.

His hit list. The one Clark had convinced
him to make a decade ago. There were five names on it.

Something stirred inside of Don, a terrible,
burning desire. He tried to fight it as it rose to the surface.

He lost.

Harvey Littleman was old, tired and angry.
He sat behind the steering wheel of an Augusta High School bus, dozens of loud,
annoying football players behind him. God, why wouldn’t they shut up? Well,
because they’d just won a game, that’s why.

Harvey pulled the bus up to the parking lot
to unload the aggravating little bastards. The sun had set, making Harvey even
more tired. His fingers hurt as he gripped the steering wheel. His right knee
pained him as he pressed down on the brake. His ears hurt as the loud athletes
mobbed past him and out of the bus.

Finally, he could go home.

Harvey had been driving school buses for
forty of his seventy years on Earth, and he’d hated every minute. He hadn’t
started out as grumpy as he was now, though. Despite the fact he’d never liked
his job, he’d never always hated his charges either. He used to like kids. He
even had a daughter and grandbabies.

But then his daughter grew to loathe him,
keeping him from seeing her two sons. That had been twenty years ago, just
before his wife died. Sometimes Harvey thought the rift between him and their
daughter had been what really killed his poor Henrietta. Broken hearts and
heart attacks were one and the same, right?

The sad truth was Harvey couldn’t even
remember what had come between him and his daughter in the first place. It had
to have been that no-good husband of hers. Yeah, that was it. Or was it?
Harvey’s memory was very poor, but sometimes that proved a blessing—it was nice
to forget some things. He especially liked forgetting about some of those
goddammed kids.

A noise from the back of the bus startled
him. Harvey turned around but saw nothing. The lights scattered around the
parking lot lit the inside of the bus pretty well, and as far as he could tell,
he was the only one still on board. What had that noise been? It had sounded
like someone shuffling around.

“Hello?” he called. “Is someone still here?”

No response. Not surprising. Harvey was
getting paranoid in his old age. He needed to get home and get some sleep. He
faced forward again.

But then he saw something he hadn’t planned
on when he looked at the large rearview mirror.

There was something resting over the top of
one of the seats in the back. It looked like a hand. A face appeared a second
later, with white, glossy eyes and an unnaturally wide grin. A jackal’s grin.
For a split second, Harvey thought he recognized the person, a kid from the
past he’d yelled at once for holding him up at a bus stop. Harvey wasn’t sure
how he remembered that one kid out of thousands he’d had to deal with, but he
did.

The smiling boy was down the aisle and on
top of Harvey before the bus driver could even scream.

*
 
*
 
*

Robbie Patterson was not old, but he was
tired and angry—at his girlfriend.

He ran his fingers through his slick blond
hair, which was in a style unchanged since elementary school, as he held his
cell phone to his ear. He sighed as he listened to his girlfriend complain
endlessly.

“Do you want me to get fat?” he said into
the phone the second he got a chance. He was sitting at a bench press in
Augusta Fitness, the gym nearly empty. “Because that’s what’s going to happen
if I don’t work out.”

That wasn’t true—Robbie had an excellent
metabolism—but he wanted her to feel bad for complaining about him being at the
gym now instead of with her. She whined often about similar things, and it was
starting to get on his last nerves. He hung up on her right in the middle of
her tirades and tossed the phone in his gym bag.

He lay back down, preparing to press the
weight. He had always been in shape, taking karate in his youth and kickboxing
later on. At six-foot-one, he was tall and lean, preferring not to become bulky
like a bodybuilder. Having too much muscle slowed you down; Robbie was always
on the go.

It was nearing ten o’clock in the evening
and the gym was practically empty save for the night manager. Robbie figured
he’d do this last set and then head home for a shower. Then, maybe, he’d spend
some quality time with Melanie.

Melanie was not his girlfriend.

The sound of weights being racked caught his
attention. He looked to his right and saw a skinny brown-haired guy standing
before a dumbbell rack, running his fingers along the weights. His back was to
Robbie, obscuring his face. Robbie stared at him for a moment, not really
understanding why the presence commanded his attention. There was nothing too
odd about the guy. Maybe it was the fact Robbie couldn’t see his face.

Ever since seeing
The Blair Witch Project
, he never felt comfortable seeing someone
standing in a corner like that.

As if reading Robbie’s mind, the guy stopped
caressing the weights and simply stood there, motionless. Robbie shivered and
stood up. There was something else about this guy, something familiar. He
started to walk over to the man.

“Hey,” Robbie said to his back. He got no
reply. “Hey, do you mind spotting me on the bench?” Robbie didn’t really need a
spotter; he just wanted to see this guy’s face. He
needed
to.

Finally, the man turned around. Robbie
screamed.

*
 
*
 
*

Nick Platt sat at his computer, reading the
story about the death of Robert Patterson. He had been murdered the night
before, a pencil through his neck and his face crushed by a dumbbell at Augusta
Fitness. No one had witnessed the crime. Nick vaguely remembered Robbie from
their high-school days. Didn’t Robbie and Don used to be friends?

Nick tried to think of something else. He
hadn’t talked to Don in five months, ever since Don paid that unexpected—but
not unwelcome—visit that night. Nick had tried calling him a few times, but
never managed to get a hold of him. He wondered if Don knew about this news....

Flipping to another news site, he re-read
the story about the murder of the bus driver at Augusta High that occurred the
same night as Robbie’s. That man’s head had been twisted all the way around,
from what Nick had read. He wasn’t sure, but he could swear the victim used to
be his and Don’s bus driver from their school days—

Nick paused as he realized both victims,
Robbie and the bus driver Harvey Littleman, had something in common: Don.
Robbie had stolen Don’s pencil once, and Mr. Littleman had yelled at Don for
holding up the bus. Nick remembered these things with perfect clarity. And then
there was Ethan Scott, Don’s brother, who’d been murdered the very same night
of Don’s visit.

Just then, Nick got the distinct impression
he was being watched.

He spun around in his chair and looked at
his window. It was closed, but the blinds were open. It was dark outside, and
Nick couldn’t see anything beyond the window. Someone could easily be standing
just outside, staring back at him.

Suddenly, his cell phone rang. Nick jumped
in fear and grabbed it. He groaned when he looked at the caller ID.

“What, Clark?”

“Dude, did you hear about the murders?”

Nick looked at his monitor, at Harvey’s
smiling, pre-murdered photo that was part of the story. “Yes. What about them?”

“You remember Don Scott?”

Nick’s heart sped up. “Of course I do. What
about him?”

“A long time ago, I convinced him to make a
hit list of all the people who had wronged him, in case he ever decided to get
revenge later on in life.” A significant pause. “Robbie and Mr. Littleman were
on that list.”

Nick felt like he was going to vomit. “So?
It could just be a coincidence.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Clark, whom Nick hadn’t
seen in years, sounded deflated. “But, just in case.... I thought you should
know.
 
You were on that list.”

Nick’s eyes widened as he quickly spun back
to the window.

It was open now, the blinds pulled all the
way up. But there was no one there.

Nick was paralyzed with fear. His eyes
darted to the left and right. His bed was just before the window, though there
was space between it and the wall. Someone could easily fit in that space.

Somehow, Nick managed to get his feet to
work. Instead of walking toward his door, however, he went toward the bed.
Clark was going on about how Don had put Nick on the list because of the whole
thing with Monica, but Nick could barely hear due to his racing heart.

When he got to the bed, he just stood there.
He was afraid he was close enough for someone to reach out from under it and
grab him. He slowly got to his knees, setting the phone down on the floor.

He looked under the bed.

No one was there.

That only meant whoever had snuck in was now
on top
of the bed, waiting for Nick to stand up. He didn’t want to stand up.
If someone was there, Nick hoped to never see him.

He slowly sat back up, preparing to come
face to face with the intruder.

He saw no one. There was no one in his room.
Nick picked up the phone again. “Clark, who else is on the list?”

“Don’s stepmom and...Monica Harris.”

Nick immediately hung up and called Monica.

*
 
*
 
*

A dark figure raced through the woods of
Augusta on all fours like an animal, but it was not an animal. It was a man who
had once dreamt of doing this very same thing. He remembered the feeling of
freedom and speed.

He also remembered
greeting
Harvey Littleman and Robbie Patterson. It had felt so right, doing so.
It was like saying hello. Greeting Robbie had been a little messy and a tad
unpleasant, but that didn’t bother the runner too much. Greeting Harvey, however,
had been very fun. The runner had hoped greeting Nick would be just as fun.

So why didn’t he greet Nick? He’d had the
chance when he’d opened his window, but something had kept him from entering
the room. After seeing the list with the names, the runner knew he had to greet
these people. He’d spent months tracking them down. He’d known where Nick,
Yvonne and Monica were but decided to greet Robbie and Harvey first.

Greeting them had been fun.

So why couldn’t he greet Nick just now? The
runner almost turned around so he could greet him properly, but the thought of
that almost made him sick. Perhaps greeting Monica would be better.

He kept running, picking up speed.

*
 
*
 
*

Pepper kept on barking as she scratched the
front door. Monica groaned as she pulled her hands from the soapy sink and
said, “I’m coming, bitch. You just couldn’t wait for me to finish the dishes,
could you?”

The tiny Chihuahua stared at Monica for a
moment before taking up her barking again. Monica wiped her hands on a dish
towel, rubbed her belly gently and then attached a leash to Pepper’s collar.
The two (or three, technically) went out to the front yard. Monica stood
patiently as the dog did its business. Monica wished she had a fence so she
could just let Pepper out into the backyard instead.

As she waited, her thoughts drifted to
Donovan Scott. It saddened her greatly she couldn’t get in touch with him.
Every call she had placed went unanswered. How would he react if he heard the
news? She and Don had only slept together once, and she figured she had been
his first, but once was all it took.

The phone started ringing in the house.
She’d left her cell in her room, and no one ever called the house phone.

“Come on, heifer,” she said to Pepper, but
the dog wasn’t paying attention to her.

Instead, the Chihuahua was barking at some
bushes at the end of the driveway. Monica looked, almost certain she saw
something crouched there. She had only the light of the moon to see by.

Suddenly, she saw white, glossy eyes.

The phone continued to ring, but Monica
barely noticed. Something was definitely crouched behind the bushes, and it was
staring at her. It looked like it was made entirely of shadow, all black with
white eyes.

It slowly came from around the bushes on all
fours, like an animal. Pepper was barking up a storm now, and Monica kept a
tight hold on her leash. The figure took a few steps forward just as Monica
took a few back. The closer it got, the more details she saw.

The first thing she noticed was it wasn’t an
animal but a man. The second thing she noticed was it wasn’t just any man—it
was Don.

“Oh, my god,” she whispered.

Her fear slowly vanished, only to be
replaced by confusion. It was Don, but at the same time, it wasn’t. He looked
wild, with his skin too tight on his face and arms. His hair was shaggy and
littered with dirt and grass. He was leaner than she’d ever seen him. She
briefly remembered when he’d been a chunky kid.

“Don?” she said uncertainly.

Pepper had stopped barking, but the dog was
all but forgotten now. Don was still on all fours, and he wasn’t looking into
Monica’s eyes as she was at his.