The Devil's Demeanor Read online

  But there was still the beach house, and he would just ignore anyone who gave him a hard time. That’s what his mom always told him to do.

  It was nearly nightfall when they finally reached Destin. The house his dad grew up in was in the woods, and they had to follow a trail to get there. Don always thought this kind of cool, because it felt like the house was hidden from the rest of the world.

  He looked to the left of the path and saw a huge opening in the woods where large electrical towers lined up one after the other. Huge wires coursed between them. On the right of the path was a hill, and at the top of the hill was a small house—his grandparents’ house.

  Don had only seen it a few times at this point and never really cared for it. It was small, with only three bedrooms and one bathroom. That wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been for the fact this place had been home to eleven children.

  Don’s dad was the second of five boys and six girls. The first-born, Uncle Billy, was a heavy drinker, and though Don loved him, he was also afraid of him. Whenever Uncle Billy drank a lot, he couldn’t walk very well and could barely talk. He seemed like a movie-monster.

  “Donovan Scott,” his dad said to him from the driver’s seat Don was leaning against, “I want you to behave yourself this year. I want you to give your uncle a hug and tell him you love him.”

  Dad must’ve been reading his mind. Either that or he was remembering what happened last year: They had been leaving the beach house to go back to Georgia, and when Don had gone to give Uncle Billy a hug, he accidentally pulled Don down, hitting the boy’s head on the edge of a table. It had hurt so bad Don cried like crazy, which caused him to scream “I hate you!” over and over.

  The path curved right up ahead to go up the hill where the house rested. When they got to the top, they all piled out of the van. Dad’s van was a cool copper with blue stripes, and was shadowed by the canopy of trees.

  The whole area was dark and creepy. Don looked to the house, which was dirty white with cinder blocks for steps that led up to the front door. There was another house on the other side of the yard. He couldn’t remember who lived there.

  And just beyond that house, he could’ve sworn he’d just seen something in the shadows of the trees. It was gone almost as soon as he noticed it had been there.

  Uncle James and Aunt Lydia pulled up behind the van and met with the others in front of the house. It was getting dark so fast and Don was getting scared. He grabbed Dad’s leg, and Dad patted him on the back. They went up the cinder-block steps and Dad knocked on the front door.

  “Is that my baby?” a female voice asked from inside, and Don knew it was Grandma’s. A moment later, the front door opened and he saw her standing there in a white nightgown. Her dark gray hair was pulled back into a tiny bun. Her skin was tanned and wrinkled.

  She smiled as Dad hugged and kissed her on the cheek. She stepped aside as the family piled into the tiny kitchen. Don could feel the floor wobble under their weight as Grandpa walked in from the living room, wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt with gray pants and suspenders.

  “Patrick,” Grandpa greeted his son as he hugged him. They looked exactly alike. All Don’s aunts and uncles shared a strong resemblance to Grandpa more than Grandma.

  “It’s so good to see my babies,” Grandma gushed as she hugged and kissed all of them. They made themselves comfortable in the cozy living room. Don sat on the floor with his cousins while all the adults sat on the yellow chairs and couch.

  Don played with the fluffy carpet while his parents and grandparents talked. He heard Grandpa ask when the baby was due, and Mom said July. Nina and Candice were sitting at the coffee table in front of the couch. Don scooted up next to them and they had finger races, pretending their fingers were little people.

  The adults talked for what felt like forever. It was completely dark outside. The kids tired of the finger races and Don got up to use the bathroom. As he walked through the hallway, he saw a roach crawling on the wall. It wasn’t a big one, but he stayed as far away from it as he could and made it to the bathroom.

  While he peed, he heard voices coming from the open window over the bathtub. Everyone had gone outside to talk some more. Don didn’t know if he wanted to go out there again, but he did know he didn’t want to stay in this house by himself.

  He weighed his options: Did he want to go outside into the dark, wooded area with his family and possible scary animals, or stay in this old, brightly lit but empty house?

  Before he could answer himself, he heard a scream from the window. It was a woman. Don buttoned his pants and stood there against the bathroom door, staring wide-eyed at the window. He couldn’t see anything outside but pure blackness because of the bathroom light overhead.

  He couldn’t tell for sure who had screamed, but his five-year-old brain told him it had been his mom. His heart was beating wildly—the scream had been one of terror and pain. After a few seconds, Don noticed other voices.

  “What happened?” he heard Uncle Johnny ask.

  “Something bit Hilda,” Dad said.

  “Mommy, I’m scared!” Nina or Candice said.

  Now Don knew he didn’t want to go outside. He couldn’t. What had happened to his mom? Something bit her? What had it been?

  Don continued staring up at the window, afraid whatever had bitten his mom would come leaping through the tiny window any second. He thought of closing it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach it.

  Just then, something pounded on the bathroom door he was still leaning against and he screamed until his throat was sore. It had to be the monster.

  Of course it was. Don was the only one left. It killed everyone else, and it was still hungry. Don’s heart beat too wildly in his ears to hear if anyone still spoke outside.

  “Open the door, son,” his dad said from outside the bathroom.

  Don did so and tried to hug Dad as he barreled in, but Dad pushed him back and went straight to the medicine cabinet. Don started crying, scared by what was happening. Dad looked down at him quickly, and then went back to whatever he was looking for.

  “Stop crying, damn it. Your mom’s hurt!” he shouted, and then left Don alone in the bathroom with his tears.

  After a few minutes, he finally stopped crying and worked up the courage to leave the bathroom. He heard other voices coming from the kitchen as he slowly walked toward it. Don could see into the living room where Nina and Candice were standing. They looked like they had seen a ghost. Don wanted to go in there and stay with them but he had to see what happened to his mom.

  He walked past the living room and peeked into the kitchen across the hall. All the adults were standing over his mom, who was sitting at the dining table. Dad was doing something to her leg.

  Don stepped closer and saw Mom’s pale leg covered in dark red blood. It ran past her ankle and dripped on the floor. Dad was bandaging it.

  “Did you see what bit her?” Aunt Lydia asked.

  “It looked like a dog,” Mom said, “but...I don’t know.”

  A dog? She was crying and Don’s heart was breaking. He hated to see his mom cry. The last time he saw that was when her bronchitis had made her cough herself hoarse last year. He had hugged her that time, and he wanted to hug her now, but at the same time he was afraid to go near her. He knew what had bitten her.

  It had been a werewolf.

  * * *

  At least Don thought it had been a werewolf. That’s what his child-brain told him at the time. He had seen them in the monster movies he shouldn’t have been watching at that age, but his mom never seemed to care what he saw back then.

  Mom was taken to the hospital to get what Dad called an anti-werewolf shot (what Don now knew to be a rabies shot). “We got it just in time,” he assured Don. It was late by the time they got to Uncle Nate’s house, which was only a few minutes away from Don’s grandparents’.

  Grandma and Grandpa had tagged along, though they were tired after that day’s excitement. Don w
as afraid for them, afraid the werewolf would get them if they returned to their home.

  Dad pulled into the driveway and Don saw Uncle Nate standing in his front yard, waiting for them. He had on a gray T-shirt, green shorts and flip-flops. He was holding a glass of what Don thought was soda.

  “So what happened?” Don heard him ask Dad as they piled out of the van. Nina and Candice had ridden with their parents.

  “Hilda was bitten by a dog,” Dad told his brother as he walked up to him to shake his hand.

  “That’s what I thought you said on the phone, but I wasn’t sure,” said Uncle Nate. “Mom, Dad.”

  Grandpa and Grandma came shuffling from the van and hugged their youngest son. Uncles Nate and Billy were the only Scott children to stay in Destin; the others scattered about the country after graduating high school.

  “You drinkin’ whiskey, boy?” Grandma asked him with a scowl.

  “No,” said Uncle Nate. “This is—this is diet soda, Ma.”

  She headed for the one-story house, its windows lit up. “I don’t want no damn diet soda, I want whiskey.”

  Everyone laughed as they followed Grandma inside. Mom was limping but laughing as well. Don could smell fried fish cooking in the kitchen. In the living room were his Aunt Mimi and cousins Jabari and Quinton, watching TV. His other aunts and uncles were all packed in the kitchen, laughing loudly about something. There was definitely excitement in the air. Don guessed it was just having family together for the summer. He was slowly starting to feel better, the fear about what happened to Mom deflating.

  “Hey!” Aunt Mimi screamed as the family walked through the door. She was wearing a floral shirt and black skirt with a pearl necklace Don never saw her without. She jumped up off the couch and hugged his dad. “Hey, Big Brother. It’s been so long.”

  After she hugged Don, he sat down on the couch next to his cousins. They waved halfheartedly at him. Don stared at the TV while the adults caught up and laughed and drank their liquor.

  “We could head to the beach house tonight,” Aunt Mimi said. “We might as well; there’s not enough room here for all of us to sleep. Oh, Patrick, you should see this place. It’s nicer than last year’s.”

  Don had trouble believing that. Last year’s was awesome. The beach houses weren’t too far from where they were now. The family could easily go there tonight. Don hoped they would.

  He could see from the couch all the adults sitting at the dining table in the kitchen. He was hungry but wasn’t sure he wanted to eat the fried fish—he always wound up accidentally swallowing the bones.

  Aunt Mimi was still gushing over the beach house they were able to get, and everyone was looking at her. Everyone except Don’s mom. She was looking straight at him, her eyes glazed and wide. He stared at her for a whole minute, and in that minute, she never blinked. Then she suddenly snapped out of her trance.

  “What happened to Auntie Hilda?” Jabari suddenly asked Don.

  He looked over to him. Jabari was also five, with round cheeks and curly black hair. “She got bit,” Don told him.

  “What did she get bit by?”

  “A...dog.”

  Jabari’s eyes grew wide in terror. He wasn’t fond of dogs, and Don knew at that moment his cousin would have nightmares that night. He hoped he wouldn’t have to share a bed with Jabari at the beach house—he was always wetting himself.

  As Don sat there, his excitement for the beach house grew. He wanted to go now, but everyone was still sitting around and talking loudly. His hunger was also growing, so he got up from the couch and headed to the tiny kitchen. As soon as he did, he saw Uncle Billy near the refrigerator.

  Don could practically smell the alcohol on him as he stood there, glass in hand. He stared at Don, and the boy could tell his uncle was remembering what he did to him last year. Drinking and hugging didn’t mix. Don was only five years old and even he knew that. He’d seen his dad drink enough times to know there were a lot of things you couldn’t do while drunk.

  “Sorry about last year, little man,” Uncle Billy said to him as he bowed his head. If Don had known his uncle would be dead twenty years from that moment, he would have accepted the apology.

  Instead Don turned around in the cramped kitchen and looked at Mom. She was still sitting in the chair by the wall, staring at him again. She’d probably been watching him the whole time, seeing how he’d react around Uncle Billy.

  “Are you okay, Mommy?” Don asked, looking at her bandaged leg.

  “I’m okay, baby.” She reached out her arms to him and he let her pick him up and place him on her lap.

  Grandpa was sitting right next to them, and he smiled at Don. “Your mom is tough, boy. She ain’t gonna let a little old dog get the best of her.”

  “It wasn’t that little,” Mom said.

  “I suppose not. I didn’t get a good look at it.”

  “Was it a werewolf?” Don asked.

  Grandpa didn’t answer right away. He only stared at the boy. Then he laughed. “No, grandson, I don’t think it was a werewolf. Though I don’t think it was a regular dog, either.”

  “What kind of dog was it?” Don asked.

  “A demon dog.”

  Mom drew the boy closer. “Bill, that’s enough. You’re going to scare him.”

  “He’d be right to be scared. It’s an old legend, but that don’t make it untrue.” Grandpa looked at Don. “There’s an old cave out in the woods near our house that’s said to be a place of evil. In that cave lies a spirit that can infect anything that enters.”

  “Like dogs?” Don asked.

  “Exactly. Though I hear it has infected people from time to time. No one knows for sure.”

  “And this was on the news?” Mom asked sarcastically.

  “There was some rumblings of a boy that got attacked by something from that cave and then had an episode when he tried to step into a church in Pensacola. Nothin’ newsworthy, but it caused a ruckus.”

  “Does it make you evil, too?” Don asked.

  Grandpa drew closer and said, “Now there’s the strange thing. I hear it doesn’t make you evil. It may give you evil thoughts but it doesn’t make you do evil things. Instead, it waits.”

  Grandpa paused. Mom sighed and said, “For what?”

  He looked directly into her eyes and said, “It waits for you to do something evil on your own. Then your soul belongs to it completely.”

  They stared at each other for a long time while the smell of food burned Don’s nose and made his belly rumble.

  “So what does that mean for me?” Mom asked Grandpa. “Am I going to turn evil because I was bitten by this demon dog?”

  “Not unless you do evil first, honey.”

  Mom laughed. Grandpa laughed, too. Mom got up and Don took her seat. “I’m going to get you a plate, baby,” she said to him.

  “Hope I didn’t scare you with my story,” Grandpa said to Don. “Your mom will be all right. She’s good people.”

  “So the story’s not real?” Don asked.

  “I didn’t say that,” Grandpa Bill replied.

  * * *

  After dinner, everyone piled into a couple of cars and drove to the beach house. Don couldn’t see anything out the windows of the van but the occasional restaurants and hotels, and “For the Longest Time” played on the radio. He hadn’t heard the song before then, and would scarcely hear it much in the future, but whenever he did he would think of this ride to the beach house in 1987.

  He fell asleep on the floor after a few minutes on the road, but when Dad woke him to tell him they were there, Don jumped out of the van to get a better look. Though he couldn’t get a good view of the place in the night, it was still the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. He could hear the ocean waves roaring from across the street behind him, but he didn’t care about that.

  If anything, he dreaded going there because it meant he would have to take off his shirt.

  Aunt Mimi unlocked the front door and everyone rushed
into the house at once. The first thing Don noticed was the hardwood floor. He wasn’t used to houses without carpets, so he just stood there for a moment.

  Then he noticed his cousins running up the stairs around the corner, so he joined them. The top floor had four bedrooms, each huge. The walls were almost nothing but large windows with light-yellow curtains.

  In one room there were two beds lined right next to each other, like a hotel. Jabari and Quinton began jumping on one bed while Nina and Candice sat down on the other. As for Don, he went straight to the floor and stared at a white vent sticking up from it. The air conditioner was on and was blowing cold air into his face. It felt so good, he stayed there for a while.

  Eventually his cousins noticed. Jabari and Quinton joined Don on the floor and hogged his vent. He stayed close to it, though, and got some of the freezing air.

  He was exhausted and wanted to sleep there, on the floor, by his vent, but his mom came in and told him to get away from it before he got sick.

  “You know,” she said to him, “that wasn’t very nice of you not accepting your uncle Billy’s apology. You hurt his feelings.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She lightly swatted his bottom and said, “Don’t talk like that. These are your family, the only family you have. One day you will care, but it will be too late.”

  Don had no idea what she was talking about, so he didn’t argue. Instead he worked up enough energy to explore the rest of the beach house with his cousins. It was the nicest house he remembered ever being in at the time. The walls were white, and where there were no walls there were large windows. A vase filled with yellow and white flowers sat on a table behind the couch.

  “Anybody want to rent some movies?” Uncle Billy asked, drink in hand.

  “It’s too late,” said Aunt Mimi. “Besides, we should get to bed so we can get up early and hit that beach.”

  Don sulked in misery while his cousins jumped for joy. Eventually he and his cousins went to their rooms upstairs. He shared the “vent room” with Jabari and Quinton while Candice and Nina took one of the other rooms.