The Demon Conspiracy (40 page)

“
What is it?” said Mathew.
“What happened?”

“
I dunno.” Travis scanned
the area and saw the damage. “Omigosh!” His mouth dropped wide open
when he realized what had happened to his home. The roof of the
front porch was totally caved in and debris had been scattered all
across the yard. It looked like a bomb had gone off near the house.
Something moved beyond the porch behind the great oak tree. He
pointed. “What’s that?”

An obscure figure rose suddenly from the
darkest shadows around the tree. It stood up on two legs, manlike,
and was easily as tall as the second story windows. It appeared to
have great lobster claws instead of hands.

“
It’s some kinda animal!”
said Mathew. “It’s big!”

“
What’s going on up
there?” said Granny from downstairs. “Are you boys
okay?”

Travis heard the heavy, fast moving
footsteps of Granny and Dr. Parrish on the stairs. A moment later
they burst into the room.

“
What happened?” said
Parrish. “What broke?”

“
Next door!” said Travis,
looking back at Granny. “There’s a big animal in the
yard.”

“
Woh!” Mathew spun his
head suddenly, his expression full of disbelief. “It moved around
the side of the garage. Then it
disappeared
!” Sure enough, when
Travis looked outside again nothing was there. His throat tightened
with panic. Where were Kelly, Melissa and Angie?

Parrish and Granny came up behind them.
Granny spoke. “Show me.”

“
Right there.” Mathew
pointed. “It went into those shadows. I can’t see it anymore, but
it was
huge
!”

“
What happened to the
roof?” said Granny. “What’s that on the ground by the tree? Is that
a door?”

“
It’s the storm door,”
said Parrish. “There’s curtains and some torn up window blinds. Is
that the porch rail over by the road? We’d better get down there.
Travis, you and Mathew stay in the house and call the police. Give
‘em my name if you have to, but get somebody here as fast as you
can.”

“
Got it!” Mathew took out
his cell phone and made the call to the police. Travis listened to
Granny and Parrish talk on their way downstairs.

“
Where’s the ten pound
sledgehammer?” said Granny.

“
In the dining room by the
ladder,” said Parrish. “What are you going to do? Bash somebody’s
head in?”

“
Crikey, Mark, I can’t
shoot ‘em. I don’t have my gun.”

Travis heard the rattle of Parrish’s tools
from the first floor. The aluminum extension ladder flopped onto
the hardwood with a metallic clang. He heard more footsteps until
finally the front door slammed shut. The house became eerily
silent.

Mathew ended the call. “The police are on
the way!”

Travis kept his gaze glued to the house next
door. Whatever was going on there sounded bad.

Mathew stood with him, holding the phone up
to the glass. “If we see that thing again, I’ll get a video of
it.”

Travis stared at his home in total
disbelief. How could this be happening? Why would somebody tear
their house apart? What was that thing they saw in the front
yard?

Like a slap in the face it all came back to
him. Travis remembered that horrible day in the cave when those
creatures had chased them. He grabbed Mathew by the shoulder.

“
It’s not an animal! It’s
demons! They’ve come to get us just like they said they
would!”

33

WE WANTS THE KELLY
BISHOP

KELLY

I was trapped on the porch. The giant claw
came at me too fast to get away. I closed my eyes and screamed.

Suddenly,
thunk!
I heard the
noise, but what? No pain? I opened my eyes. The creature’s claw was
caught on a wooden column that held up the porch roof. This was my
only chance to escape.

“Kelly!”

I snapped my head to the right. Melissa
reached for me from the doorway. She and Angie had gotten inside
the house! I stretched one hand toward Melissa. Then something made
me take a quick look back. The lobster demon seemed confused by
what had happened. But it squeezed its claw shut. The post broke
like a dry twig. Out of anger and frustration the demon tore away
the post and much of the rail. It tossed everything across the
yard. Then it pounded both claws on the porch roof. I looked up as
the roof came crashing down.

At that instant Melissa grabbed my
outstretched hand. She dragged me into the foyer on my belly. With
everyone inside, Angie slammed the front door and locked it. A
split second later the porch roof collapsed with a clamor that
shook the entire house. The terrible demon abruptly stopped its
rampage. The house became still. Moonlight flooded in through
broken windows and shredded blinds.

Melissa collapsed on the stairs in front of
me, exhausted by terror. But Angie was too wound up and afraid to
keep still. She repeatedly glanced toward the door as if she
expected it to be ripped off its hinges at any moment.

“Action beats fear,” she muttered to
herself. “Action beats fear.” She grabbed Melissa’s hand and pulled
her to her feet. “We gotta get outta here!”

Melissa was nearly out of breath. “It…won’t
come after us…in the house.” She shifted the pipe to her other
hand. “It didn’t the first time.”

“
What
won’t come after us in the
house?” cried Angie. “What
was
that thing?” An unstable wildness gleamed in her
eyes. She was scared half to death.

I lay on the floor amidst fragments of glass
from the broken chandelier. I was too upset to speak. I wanted to
explain to Angie as much as I knew, but everything outside had
happened so fast it still seemed like a blur. I could hardly
believe I was alive. It took massive concentration for me to rise
to my feet.

Thanks,
Melissa
, I thought to my friend. Melissa
looked me in the eye and nodded ever so slightly. Sadly, there was
no reason to celebrate. We weren’t free of the demon menace. As far
as I could tell the house was still crawling with the evil, hideous
creatures. I scanned the dimness, searching for their
glow-in-the-dark eyes. So far nothing.

“Well?” Angie’s voice shook badly. She was
on the verge of tears. “I want the truth this time.”

“It’s the same thing we told you before,” I
said. “That thing outside is a demon from Pandora’s Cave. If you
don’t believe me now, then there’s no hope for you.”

I watched as Angie groped for a means to
understand what was happening. But instead of understanding, she
returned to logic, which, for her was a good thing.

She rushed to the phone
table in the foyer and picked up the receiver. “It’s dead. My cell
phone’s in the van. Look, girls, we need to call the police, before
that
beast
rips
my house apart. Who’s got a cell phone?”

“Mine’s at school,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Mine’s on the floor around here, some
place.” Melissa and I renewed the search for the iPhone. Now that
the curtains and blinds had been ripped out of the den window, we
could see better. But the phone simply wasn’t there. Melissa was
angry. “Those stupid demons had better not use up all my
minutes.”

“Listen, Angie,” I said, scanning the rooms.
“There are more demons in the house. And they can hide in places
you wouldn’t believe.”

“
In
the house?” Angie jumped. She
spun all about. “Like where?”

At first I couldn’t answer her. Melissa
pointed to an area of darkness in the den. “Like there.”

I looked. Sure enough three yellow eyes
stared back at us. I recognized the four-armed demon, Grund.

“Give up, you worthless human trash!” said
Grund. “We’re the demon death squad! You can’t win, so give us the
Kelly Bishop!”

“Yeah!” Another demon approached from the
kitchen. With its seven red and gooey eyes this creature was
different from the ones I’d already seen. I couldn’t make out many
extra details in the dark, but I could tell it was man-sized and
covered with long fur. “We want the Kelly Bishop!”

My blood ran cold. The demons only wanted
one thing—me!

I had suspected it all along, but hearing it
from their own mouths made it official. My fear became
overpowering. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. My legs were so
heavy I doubted I’d be able to run, even if it meant my life.

In spite of my own situation I became
intensely worried for Travis. Did they realize he was staying next
door? Had they already taken him away? My spirits fell. The demons
had us surrounded. The situation was hopeless. Reluctantly, I knew
what I needed to do. I had to surrender and go with them. If I
didn’t, they’d kill Angie and Melissa and anyone else who got in
the way.

I was about to give up, when Angie winked at
me. If I’d scanned Angie’s thoughts and known what she had planned,
I would have stopped her immediately. But the wink caught me off
guard. It brought back a brief and pleasant memory of my father
winking at me, and me unable to wink back because I couldn’t close
just one eye. I nearly said that aloud when Angie stepped up to
Grund, face to face.

“If you want the Kelly
Bishop, you’ve come to the right place.
I’m
Kelly Bishop.” Angie pretended
to be brave, though her voice shook.

Grund smiled, his cold, white teeth glowing
in the night. “Of course you are.”

I was shocked. Angie was
willing to sacrifice herself for a foster daughter she’d only known
a few months? How dare her! “What are you doing? They came here
for
me
!” I faced
Grund in a panic. “She’s lying.
I’m
Kelly Bishop!”

Grund’s yellow gaze darted
back and forth between us. A look of confusion washed over his
demon face. “Yer both lying scum! An’
you’ve
changed yer name!” He pointed
at me.

“You’re right!” said
Melissa, catching on. “They
are
lying scum.
My
name is Kelly Bishop!”

Are you crazy?
I shouted it inside Melissa’s
mind
. You’re my best friend but this
is
my
problem!

It’s
our
problem now
, thought Melissa right back at me.

I looked at Melissa and
Angie. Were they insane? Didn’t they understand? These creatures
weren’t playing games. The yellow demon already said it, they were
a demon death squad! They intended to take us, or me, to the caves.
They were going to
eat
us!

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something
move in the living room. I scanned the filtered darkness,
searching. There, by the coffee table! It had two arms and two
legs. That was good. Then I saw four red eyes. Not good. Whatever
it was had two distinctly different faces, one on either side of
its head and each face had two eyes. It stood so tall it had to
hunker down to keep from bumping into the nine-foot ceiling. Good
God! How many of those nasty things had come here?

All at once I felt
incredibly foolish. I had very nearly given up and turned myself
over to the demons. Was I insane? Since when had the word
failure
become part of
my vocabulary? Jon would have a few things to say about that, if he
were here. He would never consider surrender. No, the only thing
Jon would worry about was how many demons he could destroy before
they got away. Where was he right now?

My feelings of
hopelessness scattered like smoke in a breeze. There had to be
another way out of this. There simply
had
to be! There was
always
an
alternative.

My gaze went to the top of
the stairs, which was the only path of escape the demons had
allowed us. So why was that? What was their plan once they herded
the
humans
upstairs?

I felt my shoe bump against something on the
floor. I looked down and saw the box of canned sodas. I got an
idea.

“Which girl is it, eh?” The bulky demon in
the living room spoke with a ridiculously high-pitched voice. “How
do we know who ta grab?”

“Les takem all,” said Grund, rubbing his
scaly chin with one of his four hands.

“
We got strict orders,”
said the demon with seven red eyes. “We only take the Kelly
Bishop.”

“But they already seen us! They’ll
tell!”

“Who’d believe ‘em?” said Seven-eyes. “And
who cares? We’re Demon Nation!”

“Demon Nation,” said the others in
unison.

They spoke among themselves, discussing
which of us to take to the caves. I reached down and opened the box
of sodas. I removed two cans and passed them over to Angie and
Melissa. I got one more for myself and left the box on the
floor.

“Follow my lead.” I whispered just loud
enough for Melissa and Angie to hear. I suddenly laughed out loud.
Melissa laughed along with me, but Angie could only force a
smile.

“Demons are so
dumb
!” I said, pointing
directly at Grund. Grund frowned back. I heard his teeth grinding
in anger. “I can’t believe they fell for our plan, but here they
are,
trapped
in
our house. Good plan,
Kelly
.”