The Demon Conspiracy (43 page)

Granny stopped before the great creature,
clearly unsure what to do about it. But Parrish was quicker. He
looked from his tiny hammer to the gigantic demon and back at the
hammer. I heard his next thought clearly.

Size
does
matter!
Parrish tossed the hammer and sprinted full speed back to his
own house. Granny never noticed he was gone until he’d already
disappeared inside.

“Mark?” Granny spun about searching for Dr.
Parrish. She raised her voice. “Mark, no! They need us!” Granny
took a deep breath and drew the heavy sledgehammer over her head.
“Crikey. I never did have sense enough to back out of a fight. Put
down my granddaughter!”

Granny slammed the sledgehammer as hard as
she could onto the lobster demon’s foot. The business end of the
hammer crushed through the flesh. The demon’s eyes bulged. It
reared back its ugly head and let loose a wicked, ailing howl. My
flesh went cold. I’d never heard anything so tortured and
frightening in my life.

The demon staggered in pain. It stumbled
against the house and smashed an elbow through the second story
window in Travis’ bedroom.

“Ya gots ‘em, Klawfinger!” said Lipsludge.
“Good work! Now gets to the tunnel!” The small demon squirmed over
the edge of the roof and slid down the downspout. He dropped onto
the pile of rubble that used to be the front porch.

Tunnel? What tunnel? I looked to the end of
the cul-de-sac. The only thing that resembled a tunnel was a
drainage pipe that went under the road. It certainly didn’t have
enough headroom for a twenty-foot tall lobster demon to pass
through. Did they have another tunnel?

The lobster demon didn’t head for any
tunnel. Instead of following orders Klawfinger went after Granny.
The big demon wanted revenge. Granny ran for her life.

Klawfinger raised its right claw, the one
that held Melissa. The roller coaster look on Melissa’s face told
it all—she was frightened half to death. The claw swept across the
lawn straight at Granny. Granny hit the ground, face-first. The
claw whisked by her, just missing.

But the demon was quick. Before Granny could
get up it brought the lethal claw straight down at her. Granny
barely saw it coming. She dropped the sledgehammer and rolled out
of the way.

WHUMP!

The blow missed Granny by inches. The claw
pounded a shallow hole in the front lawn.

“Ooof!” It was Melissa. I looked up in
alarm. The fear was gone from Melissa’s face. In fact she appeared
to be unconscious, or worse. Her eyelids were slack. Her body
flopped limply in Klawfinger’s grip.

“Don’t move, Matilda!”

I heard the familiar voice and looked up.
Parrish. He’d come back! I saw him running across the lawn with a
five-gallon can on one shoulder. What was in the can?

“Kerosene!” cried Parrish, as if he’d heard
my thoughts. He caught up with the tall demon and began pouring
kerosene all over its feet and legs as high as he could reach. The
demon didn’t appear to even notice him at first.

“I…don’t know what’s going…to happen…girls,”
said Parrish, about to drop from exhaustion. “But be…ready!”

Soon enough he’d soaked the demon and much
of the ground around it. He tossed the can in the direction of the
cul-de-sac to get it clear of the house. I saw a ribbon of fuel
leak out of the can as it bounced across the yard. Next Parrish
took out a book of matches. He lit a match and dropped it onto one
of Klawfinger’s soaked feet. Flames shot up in an instant. A trail
of fire swept across the yard. It raced toward the empty kerosene
can.

Parrish ducked when he saw it. A second
later the can exploded in a fireball. The giant demon stopped
trying to squash Granny and looked down. Its legs and the ground
around it were completely enveloped in flames.

Tentacles and the two-faced demon leaped out
of a broken window and met Lipsludge near the front door. The demon
with seven eyes appeared from a dark shadow and joined them. The
demons all stared at the fire like it was something they’d never
seen before.

Scorching flames raced up the lobster
demon’s legs above the knees. Dr. Parrish jumped back and shook his
fist at the demon.

“Ha!” he said triumphantly.

Granny joined him, again holding the
sledgehammer. She smiled at the sight. “Be ready to run, girls!”
she said.

“It’s fire!” cried Lipsludge,
mesmerized.

“Yeah,” said Klawfinger in his deep voice
without emotion. “I’m burning.”

My eyes were wide as saucers as the flames
rose toward us. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. What would
happen next? Would the huge demon use me and Melissa to beat out
the fire? Or would we simply burn up while trapped in its
claws?

All at once the demons began to howl. It
sounded like a tainted mix of hungry wolves, colicky babies, and
long fingernails dragged over a chalkboard. The hair stood up on
the back of my neck. A moment later Klawfinger tossed both of us
aside like potato sacks. Melissa plopped onto the large boxwood at
the end of the house.

She moaned and looked up in a daze. “What
happened?”

“Tell you later!” Parrish quickly lifted her
into his arms and hauled her away.

I landed on my hands and knees in the grass
at the edge of the fire. I was so surprised to be free I couldn’t
believe it. I started to get to my feet when Granny tucked me under
one arm like a football and followed Parrish to the garage end of
the house. We ducked around the corner and nearly bumped into Angie
and the boys.

“Do you believe in demons now, Dr. Parrish?”
asked Travis.

“Travis, you’ve got my full attention,” said
Parrish, as he set Melissa down. “I never should have doubted you
and Kelly. I never will again.”

Granny kept a close eye on what was
happening out front. “I guess demons don’t like fire,” she said.
Her expression abruptly changed. “Well, I’ll be stonkered!
Look!”

“What?” We crowded behind her at the corner.
Everyone wanted to see.

That stupid Klawfinger had sat down in the
middle of the flames. He rubbed burning kerosene over himself with
those great claw hands. Patches of fire burned all over his body.
Instead of suffering and burning, according to plan, he giggled at
the feel of the scorching heat. The other demons dove headfirst
into the flames. It quickly became a regular demon pool party, but
with fire instead of water.

The four-armed demon, Grund, rounded the far
corner of the house in a panic. He carried what looked like a much
smaller, wriggling demon over his shoulder. His excitement showed
when he saw the fire, until sirens sounded in the distance.

“Police!” cried Travis. “Now we’ll get
‘em!”

When Grund heard the sirens he seemed to
sober up on the spot. He pointed in the direction of the sound with
his free hand. “Don’tcha see who’s comin’? We gotta move out!”

It took a while for
Lipsludge to regain his composure. Apparently, the fire felt
just
too
good. He
looked up slowly. “Yeah! Gets movin’ you blokes! Moves it, moves
it, moves it! Klawfinger, ya droppsd the girls!”

Klawfinger looked around for Melissa and me,
but didn’t see either of us. The giant demon shrugged, looking
embarrassed.

“Don’t worry about ‘em!” said Grund. “I got
the real Kelly Bishop right here! She confessed…after I tortured
her of course!”

The hairy demon gave Grund a high five. “I
like torturing humans. I like to stick pins through ‘em an watch
‘em wriggle, ya know?”

“Shuddsup, ya morons!” said Lipsludge. “Runs
fer the tunnel!”

The demons set off at a fantastic pace. From
behind the house another demon appeared, one I hadn’t seen yet. It
had a thin, human looking body with a huge head and long, skinny
fingers. The skinny demon waved a pole with a flag on it as it
chased after the others.

“Come back here!” cried the skinny demon.
“Bring her back! She’s mine!”

By the time two police
squad cars skidded to a halt in front of the house, the demons had
vanished into darkness beyond the cul-de-sac. The cops searched the
entire area, but all they found were footprints and splotches of
oily black goo. They never found any other trace of the demons or
the mystery tunnel, either. I wasn’t surprised. After all, the
night belonged to
them
.

37

DEMON PROOFING

KELLY

“Demon infestation? We get that sort of
thing all the time in the mountain states. Not so much in your part
of the country, though.” The male voice that came through the
speaker on Angie’s cell phone had a pleasant Midwest twang and
sounded sincere.

I was dumbfounded. No way! The insurance
company actually had a name for it? I tried to read the man’s
thoughts to be sure he wasn’t kidding, but my telepathy didn’t work
over the phone.

“Are you serious?” said Angie to the man. I
scanned her mind. Angie wasn’t as concerned about getting repair
money for the house, as she was timidly hopeful that somebody else
in the world had encountered demons, too. It was important for her
to know that we weren’t alone. “You’ve heard about this kind of
thing before?”

The agent’s friendly
attitude instantly changed. “Lady, do you think I’m an idiot? I
mean you’re trying to make a claim based on demonic destruction!
That’s the lamest
scam
I’ve ever heard. Even if it were true we don’t cover demon
damage. Read your policy! You’re lucky I don’t report you to the
police.” He hung up.

Angie put away her cell phone. “Jerk. Guess
I should have lied and said it was vandals.”

It was the morning after the attack. Angie
and I were on our way back home after spending what was left of the
previous night at the Thrifty-Nifty Motel. We’d gone to the motel
because I’d absolutely refused to stay anywhere near the house,
even after police had arrived. My reasoning was simple—what if the
demons came back?

“I won’t argue with that kind of logic,”
said Angie with an understanding nod. “We’ll pack a few things and
take Melissa home on the way.” Angie had insisted that everyone go
with them, especially Travis and Mathew. But the boys had begged
her to let them finish out the night with Parrish and Granny at Dr.
Parrish’s house. They weren’t afraid at all!

What’s wrong with
them?
I wondered.
Don’t they realize what everyone has just gone
through?

“You said it yourself, Angie,” said Travis
convincingly. “The demons weren’t lookin’ for boys.”

“That’s right,” said Mathew, backing him up.
“They only wanted Kelly.”

“But if anything happened to you,” said
Angie. “Well, I just think you should come with us. Mom?”

I gasped. It was the only time I’d ever
heard Angie use the M-word with Granny. But Granny didn’t view
danger the way most people did and she completely missed or ignored
Angie’s subtle hint for support.

“The cops’ll be here all night,” said Granny
matter-of-factly. “You go ahead and get some sleep. We’ll keep the
lads safe.”

With what had just happened nobody could
doubt Granny’s courage and devotion to “keeping the lads safe.” Not
after she’d single-handedly taken on a giant lobster demon with a
sledgehammer. So Angie let them stay. She’d packed an overnight bag
for two, then rushed off in the Mustang with us before another
demon attack could occur. I breathed a sigh of relief in the back
seat with Melissa. For a change it was good to be away from
home.

Before searching for a motel, we dropped
Melissa off at her house. Angie told her parents we’d lost power,
which was certainly true enough, and it was a good enough reason to
bring her home. They didn’t suspect anything unusual had happened
and we didn’t drop any hints.

By the time we left the motel the next
morning, Angie had already been on the phone with contractors,
cleanup crews and home security companies. Some of them were
supposed to meet us at the house. Calling the insurance company had
been a long shot.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, hanging my head. The
wave of guilt that flowed through my bones made me feel just
terrible. “If I hadn’t come to live with you nothing would have
happened to your house.”

“If you
hadn’t
come to live with
us those creatures would have followed you some place else. Another
family couldn’t have protected you as well as we did. None of this
is your fault, young lady. Those
demons
did it all on their
own.”

“But how can you pay to get everything
fixed? There’s so much damage.”

“Did you forget how much money we got when
Chris sold the Majik Juice recipe? Kelly, that stuff is already
selling like crazy and we get paid for every single bottle. There’s
enough money in the bank right now to fix the house ten times over
and more comes in every day. The only reason I haven’t spent any of
it is because Chris and I always discuss big expenditures like this
before we do anything. But he’s in the hospital and Dr. Sanderlyn
won’t let me see him and our house is full of holes, so I’m getting
it all fixed. But this time I’m going to do it right. This time
it’s going to be demon proof!”

“Demon proof? Is there such thing?”

“We’ll find out. Of course, demons are
probably like cockroaches. They can always find a way in. But we’re
going to make it really hard for them.”

“Even the big one? The lobster demon? I had
nightmares about that one last night.”

“Let me put it this way.
Chris and I put a lot of time and a lot of love into this house.
It’s
our
house
and no frickin’ demons are going to make me leave! If they come
back they’re going to be in for a big surprise. We’ll be
ready.”