The Devil's Demeanor Read online

  “Of course, Master.”

  Something sat down on the throne, nudging it against Stephen’s back. He almost yelped in surprise but managed to keep himself under control. Though he could leave whenever he wanted, he chose to stay and listen.

  “You are not like your siblings,” Master said. “You are much more ambitious than any of them, which is why, when I leave this realm, I want you to take my place.”

  “I am greatly honored, Master, but are you sure you want me? I don’t doubt your great wisdom, but sure Carutha would be a better fit.”

  “Carutha is a fool I wouldn’t trust to wipe my ass. You are the only one who is aware of our potential. The others are too comfortable living in the bowels of the earth. I confess that I too have grown accustomed to our living arrangement over the millenia.

  “But you, Machiska, were brave enough to venture out and make contact with the Above Dwellers. What have you learned?”

  “Sometimes, I can see through the boy’s eyes,” Machiska said. “Lately I have seen nothing. Some great force is blocking my perception. I believe it’s his father. He communes with a god. At first I thought it was the ones that keep us below ground, but I have found it to be another altogether.”

  “Try to regain your connection with the boy. If he is who I believe he is, then he will be very useful to us. After what you told me about him appearing here, there is little doubt.”

  “A link to the gods?” Machiska asked.

  “Indeed.” Master coughed violently, rocking the throne. Stephen didn’t move. “If he is the link, we can use him to destroy the gods. Then we can walk the heavens and the earth without fear of death.”

  “But, Master, if he is a link to them, could he possibly be a link to us?”

  “I feared as much, too. A god was sent to earth to act as this link. He was sent to destroy us.”

  “I remember the story, Master.”

  “Yes, but I have never told you all of this story, and I trust you will keep it to yourself. This god was like the Trojan Horse from the humans’ history. He was to penetrate our lair and blow us all up.”

  “Wouldn’t that have killed him, Master? His human host, I mean.”

  “Yes, which is precisely why he didn’t go through with it. He and his host would have perished. Instead, he ran away from the gods and lived among the humans. He mated with them, passing along this dangerous link to different bloodlines, throughout generations.”

  “My boy may be the decendant of this runaway god?” Machiska asked.

  “Yes. There may be others, as well, depending on how robust the bloodline is. This boy and his father may be.”

  “Lucky I managed to find him, then.”

  “Lucky indeed.” Master coughed again. “I fear my time is drawing near. Share this information with no one. Let none of them find out what you are doing until you are sure you can succeed.”

  “I promise, Master.”

  “Hide the book. I don’t want that boy coming along again.”

  That was Stephen’s cue to leave. He willed himself awake, once again without the book. He didn’t care; he learned all he needed to know.

  * * *

  When Stephen saw his dad again, he gave him a hug. He even promised to go to church with him. Dad was, of course, shocked by this, but not unpleasantly so. The two went to church the following Sunday without incident.

  Over the next few weeks, things seemed to be getting better for father and son. Until the nightmares started up again.

  These weren’t about rape and murder. Instead they were about light and pain. He had been struck by lightning and the pain had lasted for only a moment. Then he felt nothing but warmth. He could see nothing but light and didn’t know where he was. He heard voices surrounding him, though.

  And then he was driving his father’s car down a highway. At least, he was behind the wheel. He didn’t feel like he was in control of himself. He tried to look around but couldn’t. He could feel his foot press harder on the gas pedal but hadn’t told the foot to do so.

  Someone was in control of his body.

  But this was a dream. Dreams were supposed to be weird.

  Stephen saw a blue car ahead, one that looked very familiar. His car sped up even more until it was right behind the other. They were coming up on a bridge—

  Stephen woke with a start, muffling his scream. It had become a reflex by this point. He waited for his dad to come running, but he didn’t. He hadn’t heard his son, then. Good.

  Stephen sat in his bed, covered in sweat, trying to remember what he’d dreamt about this time. For some reason, he couldn’t remember. It was clearly a bad dream, though, if he woke up like this.

  A few weeks after Lucy’s death, Stephen finally returned to school. He spent four years there, making new friends and just barely passing his classes. After losing Lucy, he hadn’t cared about anything else, but the creatures helped him realize he couldn’t dwell on the bad his whole life. He had to keep himself distracted. School and friends were the best distractions of all.

  In school he met a girl named Hilda. She was a cute brunette who reminded him so much of Lucy, but he never allowed himself to fall in love with her. They stayed friends all throughout school. When they graduated in 1970, she moved to Georgia to take care of her father.

  Stephen returned to his father’s house until he could find a job with his shiny new degree. He stayed there for five years, saving as much money as he could before moving out for good.

  A year later, in 1976, Dad told him about his cancer.

  Dad refused Stephen’s offer to move back. He claimed he didn’t need taking care of, but Stephen visited often anyway. Willem White successfully battled his cancer for years, never complaining or showing his pain.

  In all this time, Stephen never dreamed of the creatures or returned to their world. He never forgot about them, either.

  In 1981, he got a call from Hilda asking him to visit. They had been in touch ever since graduation, but hadn’t seen each other much. They kept each other up-to-date about their ailing fathers, Stephen’s doing much better than Hilda’s.

  Tragedy struck shortly after he arrived. Hilda’s father passed in his sleep. Hilda was so distraught she cried for days. Stephen, along with her brother Roland and sister Cynthia, never left her side.

  When he returned to Pensacola, he found his dad wasn’t fairing too well either. His cancer had taken a turn for the worse. Stephen knew he was on his deathbed. He refused to be taken to a hospital, and wanted to die in his home.

  “How have you been, son?” he asked through the pain.

  “Good, Dad. Really good.”

  “No more nightmares?”

  “No. My dreams have been really nice.”

  “That’s good. Mine have been really bad lately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes, I see this...monster. I don’t know what else to call it. I don’t know if it’s real, but it told me that once I died, it would come after you. I could swear it was in the room with me, right where you are now.”

  Stephen looked down and saw a putrid stain directly beneath him. Something had been here.

  He couldn’t stop the tears at that moment. He told his father about the dreams, that the “monster” was real and that he’d been bitten by it in Destin. Willem cried as well.

  “Oh, son, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know how. They weren’t hurting me. I just tried to ignore them.” He also told his father what he’d heard about being the descendant of a runaway god sent to destroy the monsters. He wasn’t sure if his dad would believe him, but he’d been holding in all these secrets for so long and knew he had little time left to let them out.

  “I wish I could take away this link you have with these monsters,” Dad said. “I want to take it away from you. If that gods stuff is true, I would sacrifice myself so you would never have to. I don’t want those things controlling you.”

  “They can’t contro
l me, Dad.”

  “Yes they can, son. Not for long, but they can.”

  “What, Dad? What are you talking about?”

  Dad looked at him through the tears. “It said it made you kill Lucy, so that her child couldn’t be born. I thought it was just a dream....”

  Stephen stopped listening. He could no longer hear over his racing heart. He suddenly saw himself driving Dad’s car behind a familiar blue one. He didn’t remember actually doing this, but this vision felt real, like a memory.

  “Oh, god,” he whispered. “I killed Lucy.”

  “No, son. It wasn’t you. It was that creature. It claimed I was the only thing protecting you from it now, but I won’t be here for much longer. After I’m gone, you’ll be vulnerable to it again. I can only think of one way to protect you.” He took Stephen’s hands in his weak ones. “I take on your curse, son.”

  “Dad....” He could say nothing more. He felt something happening to him, like a weight lifting from his body. Had that weight always been there? He almost felt like he would float to the ceiling.

  “Oh!” Dad moaned. He was looking up at the ceiling, at something Stephen couldn’t see. He kept moaning in pain and terror. “They’re all around me. Oh, god, I can’t take it. Get away from me!”

  He struggled against invisible enemies. Stephen cried as he tried to comfort his father. The struggling lasted only a moment before Dad lay still. His eyes saw no more. He was gone.

  * * *

  After his father’s funeral, Stephen returned to Augusta to visit Hilda. She was dating a man named Patrick and were expecting a child. Stephen was happy for her, but declined to meet Patrick. It would have been too awkward after the night he and Hilda had spent together.

  With his father, girlfriend and baby gone, Stephen felt alone in the world. He had a huge life-insurance policy to live off of, but no one to share his money and life with. He wasn’t sure if Dad had actually take away the link to the creatures, but he never dreamed of them again.

  After saying goodbye to his friends, he drove off the bridge where Lucy met her death.

  * * *

  Larry Brigman wasn’t sure if he would attend his ten-year high school reunion in 1985. What was the point, really? His best friend, Stephen White, was dead, and none of the other students had seemed to like him. Seriously, why bother?

  He found himself outside that awful school anyway. He had a lot going on and wanted to rub it in everyone’s faces. For one, he didn’t smell as bad as he did back then. For another, he had a great job and made lots of money.

  He stepped into the gymnasium, grabbed his badge from the table and wandered to the punch bowl. No one approached him. After thirty minutes, he regretted ever showing up.

  He went outside and lit a cigarette. He’d only taken up the dirty habit a year ago, when his wife left him. He hadn’t gone through half the cigarette when a woman approached him.

  “Larry Brigman?”

  It took him a moment but he recognized her. “Anna?” He stomped out the cigarette and stood up straight. “I haven’t seen you for a long time. How are you?”

  “I’m wonderful. How are you?”

  “Also wonderful. I don’t know why I came here, but other than that....”

  She laughed. “Same here. Lucy was the only friend I had at this school.”

  “Same here, with Stephen, I mean. This school brings back too many memories of him.” As soon as he said that, he noticed a blond man standing beside a car a few feet away, watching them.

  “Stephen was so nice, and he loved Lucy so much,” Anna went on. “Though tragic, it’s also kind of romantic that they died the same way.”

  “Stephen was always a romantic,” Larry confessed, looking at the man again. He didn’t recognize him, but the stranger seemed to smile at that last comment. “His friends didn’t take his death well. I tried to contact as many as I could. He told me about a girl named Hilda that he met in college. I had business in Augusta, so I tried to tell her while I was there, but she seemed to have a lot going on already.”

  “What do you mean?” Anna asked.

  The stranger seemed to find this interesting too.

  “She looked sick and tired. I couldn’t even get out more than a ‘how are you?’ She told me she had a son and husband, but she just seemed so out of it. After telling her I was friends with Stephen, she perked up and asked how he was doing. I just said I hadn’t heard from him in a while, which was technically true. I’m guessing she doesn’t sleep well, and I didn’t want to make it any worse.”

  “That was kind of you,” Anna said, patting his shoulder. “I’m going back inside. Join me?”

  “Okay.” Larry looked back at the stranger only to see him walking away quickly.

  Part 2: 1987-1998

  Chapter 4

  The English bulldog sniffed the warm night air as it ran through the woods. It hadn’t eaten in days and at this point would feast on anything. It could find nothing, however. If the dog were human, it would note the awkward silence of these woods. For now, though, all it wanted was food.

  Suddenly it smelled something in the air. A human would have been repulsed by it, but the dog found it enticing.

  It was the smell of rotten meat.

  The dog followed it, up a hill, and then down. At the bottom of the hill was a cave. The animal was wary, for though the smell was to its liking, the horrible feeling in its gut was not. The feeling had nothing to do with hunger.

  Almost the moment the dog felt the feeling in its gut, the pain vanished.

  The dog continued forward, into the cave.

  Uncounted minutes later the dog emerged. It saw a rabbit on top of the hill, the first other animal in the entire woods. The dog trotted up to it, and the rabbit didn’t run away. It sniffed the air and seemed unable to move. The dog licked the rabbit’s head.

  And then it bit the head clean off.

  Thunder rumbled overhead, with clouds appearing that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Lightning cascaded across the sky, but none struck the animal.

  The dog looked up to the sky...and smiled.

  * * *

  Don stared out the window of his dad’s van as they cruised down the highway. The sun was shining through the heavily tinted window, so it wasn’t completely blinding him.

  He was on the soft floor, looking up. He could see the treetops of the woods on either side of the highway. His cousin Candice was sitting in the seat on his right as he faced the rear of the van. She had a book of Mad Libs in her hand and was chewing on a pencil as she studied the page in front of her.

  “Give me a noun,” she said to him.

  Don thought for a second, then said, “Spiders.”

  She wrote it down, then chewed on the pencil again. He hated when she did that. What was so hard about Mad Libs? It was like her brain had to process how his responses fit into the scheme of things, even though they were already laid out before her.

  Don looked at his other cousin, Nina, who was sitting to his left. They both rolled their eyes and laughed quietly. Nina and Candice, who were twins, were the same five years of age as Don. Nina and Candice had the same-length black hair, but Candice’s skin was darker.

  It was June of 1987, the year Don’s life changed.

  Only a few people really know if the things that happened were real or just psychological, but Don knew, even as he sat thinking of his childhood in his later years. If it was the latter, it would make more sense, but then that would mean he and his family were crazy.

  The Scotts were driving to Florida for a family reunion. The van they were riding in was the “popular” car. Candice and Nina’s parents were following them in another car. They were all coming from Augusta, Georgia, and up to this point, had been on the road for six hours.

  Don’s uncle Johnny was lying on the couch-bed in the back of the van, his mom was in the passenger seat, rubbing her pregnant belly and staring out the window, and his dad was driving.

  He stared at Mo
m, wondering what kind of name Hilda was. One time, a friend asked what his mom’s name was, and when Don told him, the friend laughed and said it sounded like a witch’s name.

  Mom looked back at him and smiled. “Before this trip is over, I’m going to cut those toenails.”

  He sighed and looked at his feet. His shoes were on, but he saw, as if with x-ray vision, his long toenails. His fingernails were also too long. He just hated getting them cut. Absolutely hated it.

  “Only girls can have long nails,” Mom added. Don nodded absently and turned his attention back to Candice, who was no longer chewing on the pencil. She was looking at him expectantly.

  “Are you ready?” she snapped at him. It took him a second to realize she was referring to the Mad Libs. He nodded.

  It had something to do with raining spiders. He laughed so hard he thought he was going to die. He saw his uncle stir on the couch in the back and stifled his laughter.

  At some point, the family stopped at some little shack on the side of the road and bought a few bags of boiled peanuts (something they always did on road trips). Don loved boiled peanuts so much as a kid and regretted in his later years not treating himself to them again.

  When they stopped for the peanuts, Uncle Johnny finally woke up to join. “I sure love me some boiled peanuts,” he said to his nieces and nephew.

  Uncle James and Aunt Lydia had pulled in behind them on the side of the road. They were Candice and Nina’s parents. Uncle James had a little Afro and mustache and Aunt Lydia always had a smile on her face.

  They all enjoyed their peanuts for a while, talked and stretched their legs before hitting the road again. They were almost to Destin, where Grandma and Grandpa lived. Don couldn’t wait to see everyone at the family reunion.

  And the best part was they were going to get a beach house and go swimming in the ocean. Well, that was good and bad for Don. The best part was the beach house, which they had also gotten last summer.

  The bad part was: He was a fat boy. He hated taking his shirt off. Don was probably the fattest kid in his family. All his cousins were skin and bone, and they would usually make fun of him whenever they played together.