“You’re my dog, Albert,” the thing whispered. “You may fight against me, but I’ve got you.” The young man struggled against the all-too-pleasant hold binding him. The arms held him securely while their owner whispered; “Poor boy — you just don’t understand yet, do you? You can’t resist me. No matter how many pains you endure, how many trials you turn back, I can always think up more. You don’t have any way to resist me. You don’t have any faith in anything, sweetheart. And, without faith, I can’t be driven away.”
Chuckling, its voice a mad titter swirling the dust about his head in never-ending spirals, the creature shifted its grip and suddenly drove its hands into Albert’s sides. Pulling organs free from his body, it tossed them casually over its shoulder, saying;
“And, even if you could ever drive me out of your head, what would it gain you? You sad, stupid man…”
Albert sagged, tiring from the pain, the endlessness of it — the futility of it — hurt too much, so terribly much he simply had to rest. As he gasped, struggling desperately to marshal his thoughts, the red-handed thing above him sighed, dribbling spittle into Albert’s face as it said;
“After all, if you ever get me to run from you, where do you think I’ll go?” The demon let him go then did a little dance, spinning itself madly as it screeched, “I’ll just go back into Debbie.”
The taunting voice grew louder as Albert pushed himself toward his scattered bits. Beside itself with laughter, the Linda thing watched with amusement as its victim labored to reconstitute himself. Stretching its body out to its fullest, the creature cooed;
“Face it, sweetie, you’ve got no chance. Not you or your little bitch.”
Albert glowered, summoning every bit of resentment he had ever felt toward his ex-wife. Every hurt, every scorn, every bit of meanness that festered within him. If his enemy wanted to play those rules, he told himself — okay, fine — he could accommodate it.
“You whore…”
He muttered the words, staring for a moment, taking in once more the face that haunted him. Then he spun away and used the image to focus, shielding himself in familiar armor. Without warning, Albert threw himself upward, flashing backward across the dusty plane at the Linda thing. The creature dodged his efforts, but he turned in mid-air and followed its path. His life over, shattered by despair, he approached the monster’s taunts with all he had.
Wrapping all the hurt he had within him around his fists, Albert burst with a dark brilliance which collapsed its way through all barriers and knocked the demon onto its back. His eyes wild with the flash of a thousand moments in time racing forward to a single instance, he slammed the laughing monstrosity across the jaw repeatedly; split open its mouth, broke its nose — closed one eye. The creature tittered as it said, “I bet you’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”
“Not as much as I do…”
Both Albert and the Linda thing turned toward the new voice. Hands made of lightning and fire grabbed up the creature, squeezing its insides into jelly.
“You made my mommy leave me!”
The shape of Linda Harper disappeared, replaced by a noxious form, a repulsive creature comprised of a squat, flaccid body animated by long, angular hind legs. Its eyes were a frightened yellow hue, bulbous sacs filled with a red liquid which sloshed freely inside them. As the monstrous thing bellowed, its voice echoing raggedly across the dreamplane, the blazing hands tore it into smaller and smaller shreds, finally incinerating the bits when they were too tiny to grasp.
Albert Harper watched as his daughter dispatched the last scraps of their foe. Smiling, he attempted to rise to his feet. Finding he could not, he tried to speak. No words came forth, however, and he collapsed in a broken heap, all the fight gone from him.
Silent, but content.
“Well, look who’s awake.”
Albert blinked. The room was only dimly lit, but even the single, shaded bulb was more than he could take. Feebly placing a hand over his eyes, he croaked:
“Wha — what, what happened?”
“Shhhhhhhhh,” answered Knight. “Don’t try to talk. You rest. I’ll explain.” Albert nodded weakly. He could just make out the figure of Madame Raniella somewhere in the background behind the professor. His body hurt so fiercely, he felt that the only thing keeping him from screaming was the simple fact his voice could barely work.
“If you’re thinking you were sent into something all the facts, it’s true,” Knight said. “Why this thing chose to bring you suffering, as I said before, there’s no way for us to know. But, once you stepped onto the dreamplane, I was certain it would leave Debbie’s mind to get at you.”
“So … what’d that accomplish?”
“After Raniella led you to it, she abandoned you to face the demon alone. While you held it off, we repeated the same procedure with Debbie.”
“I, I don’t…”
“Albert, please, don’t try to talk. You’ll only injure yourself further. Anyway, the rest is simple. Remember, with the demon no longer blocking Debbie’s higher functions, she could think as clearly as anyone else.”
“Your Debbie,” Madame Raniella said, “once that horror left your mind for hers, she could think as clearly as anyone. It took me but a few minutes to inform her as to what was happening. She knows who you are, Albert Harper, and all that you have done for her.”
“You have to understand, Al,” Knight said softly. “She’s always known what you were doing for her, or at least, half her mind has. The demon sat at the juncture between those sections of the mind where knowledge’s stored and where it’s utilized. The block removed, she could suddenly make sense of all she’s learned over the years.”
Albert blinked, the pain from the effort nearly unbearable. Although his encounter had left him with no actual physical damage, his nerve endings were afire, all his muscles bruised. As he pieced together what Knight had told him, he whispered.
“You mean…”
“I mean, there’s someone here who wants to say ‘hello.’”
And then, the professor and his companion stepped away from each other to allow Debbie access to the room. Heading for her father’s bed at a run, she threw herself through the air, arms outstretched, hair flying wildly, eyes ablaze with happiness as she screamed:
“Daddy!”
With some 60 books under his belt, author C. J. Henderson, creator of supernatural detective Teddy London and, now occult investigator Piers Knight, welcomes all to come to www.cjhenderson.com, to comment on his story here, and to read others which he posts for the enjoyment of all.
Museum curator Piers Knight is a quiet fellow who likes good food, quiet evenings with a pot of tea and a good book, and being left alone by all the world. While usually well fed and well read, he rarely gets more that a week or two to himself before Fate, Destiny, or some other joker comes knocking at his door, bringing him all manner of bothers.
Running Wild: An Outcast Season Story
by Rachel Caine
As mountains go, Albuquerque’s Sandia Peak was not especially tall; the great mountain ranges of the world were not much intimidated by it, I would imagine. Still, it had a certain austere, ragged beauty. Time and friction hadn’t yet smoothed the jagged edges of its peaks and ridges, although the desert had clothed them in green, tough scrub brush to blur the raw cutting surfaces. It had been a long, difficult climb to the summit, even for someone as agile, strong and long-limbed as me, and with as little fear of death or injury.