The Demon Conspiracy (48 page)

One other thing bothered
me, too, something that probably had a lot to do with the
nightmares. The demons had come all the way from Pandora’s Cave
that night just for
the Kelly
Bishop
. But they left
without
me. Didn’t that mean they’d
be back?

I removed the last of the clothes from the
backpack and put them in the drawer. That was when I noticed
something bulging in both side pockets. I opened the first side
zipper and was amazed at what I saw.

A moldy, green and white peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.

“Yuck!” I tossed the sandwich in the
trashcan. Angie had made the sandwich weeks ago when we’d gone into
the cave. I screwed up my face as I unzipped the other side pocket.
No telling what slimy thing was in there.

Whatever it was had been tightly wrapped
inside a black trash bag. I had no recollection of putting it
there. Maybe Travis had found some rocks he wanted to keep.

I unwrapped the trash bag and dropped the
item on the bed. My eyes got wide as saucers when I saw what it
was. My heart began to pound. Brandon’s camcorder! It had been in
my old Barbie backpack the whole time!

“Oh-my-gosh!” I said aloud. “Jon must have
put it in there!” This was incredible. The FBI didn’t have to send
anybody into the cave after all. They just needed to look at the
tape.

I took up the camcorder
and switched it on. Nothing happened at all, and I soon saw why.
The lens was cracked and so was the chamber that housed the tape. I
pushed the eject button several times, but again nothing happened.
Either the camcorder was broken or the battery was dead. It didn’t
matter. I’d found it and the tape was still inside. I was
absolutely certain Agent Smith would want to see it. And when he
did
somebody
would do
something
about those demons!

I looked up at my reflection in the mirror.
“Oh, no. What if Dr. Parrish already told Agent Smith about the
camcorder? What if they’re going to the cave right now? I gotta
stop them!”

I dialed Parrish’s number on my cell phone.
He answered. “Dr. Parrish?” I almost shouted.

“Kelly,” said Parrish a little surprised.
“How are you? Listen, I know why you’re calling and I’ll be honest
with you, I haven’t contacted Agent Smith yet, no excuses. But I
promise I’ll do it tonight, okay?”

“No!
Don’t
call him! Not yet, anyway! I
found the camcorder, Dr. Parrish. It was in my old backpack all the
time!”

“And the tape?”

“Still inside! But the camcorder’s broken.
We gotta find somebody who can fix it or at least get the tape
out.”

“It’s a mini-DV camcorder, right? I can get
the tape out. I can also record the entire video on my computer and
put it on a DVD or flash drive so anybody can watch it. It might
take time if the tape is damaged, but I’ve got some great software
for that kind of thing.”

“How soon can you do it?”

“Let me speak to Angie and we’ll figure it
out.”

“She’s not here. She’s shopping.”

“Okay, when she gets back, tell her to call
me. We’ll find out once and for all what’s on the tape!”

“Yes! Thank you!”

As I hung up I suddenly
realized there could be only one reason the demons had come
after
me
and
nobody else. Besides Travis, only one person connected
me
to the demon
world.
Mr. Deel
.
He knew I was telepathic, just like him. He’d been inside my mind
like I’d been in his. When he wasn’t driving around in his limo he
was giving speeches to demons. It had to be Deel!

But why would Mr. Deel want me to be demon
food? Was it just because I was telepathic? Or was it something
much darker? I lay back on the bed, holding the camcorder close
against me. Now more than ever I needed to know what was on that
tape. Everyone in the world needed to know.

While I waited for Angie and Travis to
return I got drowsy again. But this time it didn’t matter. I knew
when the police saw the tape they’d probably send a whole army down
into the cave to deal with the demons. I’d be safe and my family
would be safe. Finally I wasn’t afraid anymore. At last somebody
would do something and I could close my eyes again at night.

Then for the first time in
three days I fell into a wonderful, deep sleep that lasted nearly
twelve hours. Holding the camcorder close, like a Teddy-cam, I
dreamed nice dreams about
somebody
doing
something
about the demon conspiracy.

The End? Not even close…

The Demon Conspiracy
Series continues
with
Book #2:
The Doomsday
Shroud

1

DEMONS DON’T
DIE

KELLY

When the demon alarm went
off in our house at three in the morning (on a school night no
less!) it felt like spikes were being pounded into my eardrums. It
was
so
loud!
I
hated
that
thing! But there wasn’t time to worry about the noise. I had to be
quick or I’d be demon fast food before dawn. Let’s face it, there’s
only one reason for the demon alarm to go off.
Demons!
They were after me again. I
put on shoes, grabbed a metal baseball bat and got ready to
rumble.

In the hallway I met Travis, who was loading
up a slingshot with an egg-sized steel marble. His snow-white hair
stuck up worse than usual and he was barefoot, but he was ready for
battle. I was scared, but he looked like he wanted a good fight. I
don’t think he realized what kind of danger we were in.

I gotchur
back
, said Travis inside my head.
Go to the panic room.

Not yet
, I thought back to him.
I want to
see the demon
.

You sure?

I nodded. Our mental connection was loud and
clear in spite of the blaring alarm.

All at once Granny flew
out of her bedroom still dressed in work clothes. She had on blue
jeans, a white blouse and her black leather jacket with the logo
and name of her motorcycle club printed
on
the back.
Satan’s
Sidekicks
. Granny shouted over the
irritating alarm.

“Where’s Angie?” She
hefted a ten-pound sledgehammer, though in my opinion she really
didn’t need a weapon. That woman is
strong
. She’s fearless, too. She’d
risk her life to protect Travis and me. She already had.

A moment later Angie burst from her room
carrying an i-Pad and a container of Mace the size of a large bug
spray can.

“One demon!” she shouted.
“Behind the Christmas tree! This one’s got
two
heads.” She held up the iPad,
which contained an App that ran our security system. On the screen
I saw a digital thermal image of a two-headed
something
waiting for us in the den
downstairs.

Granny squared her broad shoulders. “Crikey,
how’d it get in?”

“We’ll figure that out later.”

“Should we wait for the police?” I only
asked because some demons can be tough to fight. Plus the alarm
system was hooked into the local police department, so a squad car
would be at the house any moment.

Angie shook her head and pointed to the
stairs. “It took them twenty minutes to get here last time. I’ll
take lead.”

Granny raised her hammer.
“I got rear.” It actually sounded more like
I got reah.
I loved her Australian
accent.

This was the third time in a month demons
had tried to grab me in the night. The first time had been right
after Thanksgiving, when my family saved us, but not before the
demons made a wreck of our house.

It took two weeks to get the place fixed the
way Angie wanted. The same night we moved back in another demon
came after me. It was like they’d been watching, waiting for their
next chance to get me. But that time we were ready.

Motion detectors had
caught the creature’s image and security lights lit up the outside
like a football field. The demon had run off. Video surveillance
cameras got some great shots of it, so we knew it wasn’t a deer or
some other large animal that set off the alarm. That particular
demon had bright yellow skin, four arms and his name was Grund.
We’d met before. But unlike Grund, the two-headed demon downstairs
had somehow gotten past the security system and
inside
the house.

So why were demons
after
me
, little
ol’ Kelly Bishop? It could be because I knew about their secret
plan to take over the surface of the earth in the next five years.
Or maybe it was my telepathy, though I couldn’t read a demon’s mind
at all, so technically I wasn’t a threat to them. But demons have
human friends and one of them had a
serious
problem with me being
telepathic.

Until a few weeks ago I
figured I was the only telepath in the world, and I’ll admit I got
a little cocky. But then I ran into a man named Mogen Deel, who’s
got the same ability, only he’s
way
stronger and dangerous, too. He nearly killed me
with his mind! It’s like Granny once said, it doesn’t matter how
good you are at something, there’s always going to be someone else
who’s better. When it came to demons, Mr. Deel called the shots and
they did mostly what he said. For some reason he wanted me on the
demon menu.

I wish Jon and Chris were
here
, I thought to Travis.
We could use the manpower
.

Travis nodded. Jon Bishop, our
sixteen-year-old brother, was pretty much an expert with swords and
martial arts in general. But Jon couldn’t help us now; he’d gone
off to New York City to become the greatest magician in the world,
though, honestly, we almost felt safer that he wasn’t around. I
think he might be demonically possessed.

Chris McCormick was our foster dad who’d
invented a fruit drink a few months ago that made the family rich.
He went crazy and they locked him away in a psycho ward. I figure
he’s probably possessed too.

Travis and I followed Angie down the
stairway. The foyer was shadowy, but the den was so black I
couldn’t even see the sofa in front of us. Angie slowly reached
into the room for the light switch. We tensed, ready for action.
She flipped the switch.

Nothing happened. Demons
had cut off the power again! So now we had to enter a pitch-black
room to fight a two-headed monster that could see in the dark. And
the monster wanted to kill
me
.
Nice
.

Angie touched the screen on the monitor and
the annoying alarm stopped. OMG! The silence surprised me so much I
stumbled into Travis.

“Computer, backup lights!” Angie shouted it,
probably because her ears were still ringing from the alarm. Her
voice triggered the security computer system to use a different
power source and just like that auxiliary lights came on.

I saw the husky demon crouched in the corner
of the den behind the Christmas tree. Sure enough, it had two ugly
heads, both covered with scab-like discolored skin with four green
eyes on the front each head. Most of the demons I’d seen before
were brightly colored, but this one was drab olive green with thin,
orange tiger stripes all down its body. The demon’s eight eyes
bulged in surprise when it realized we could see it. It quickly
gathered its wits.

“You-ah!” It pointed right
at me with a meaty arm. “Da Kelly Bishop-ah. Yer
mine
-ah!”

One thing about demons is they all have a
different way of speaking. Some pronounce words perfectly, while
others use accents from all over the world. A few talk kind of
weird, like this one. All the ones I’d heard so far spoke
English.

The demon blinked its eight glow-in-the-dark
eyes, then swatted our Christmas tree out of the way with webbed
hands. Glass shattered as lights and decorations flew everywhere.
The creature lumbered straight at me, crushing presents on the
floor in its haste.

Since I was the one-and-only person in the
house that demons ever came for, my job was to get to the panic
room that Angie had built in the basement. The rest of my family
would do the fighting. Sounds kind of wimpy, but I’m definitely not
one of those super girls who beats up all the bad guys. I gripped
the bat firmly and started toward the kitchen.

The demon charged. Angie stepped in its way.
She sprayed a long blast of Mace straight into the eyes on its left
head. The demon yelped and covered the burning eyes with one hand.
But it could still see just fine with the four eyes on its right
head. It stiff-armed Angie. She flipped over the recliner chair and
fell out of sight. A second later her head popped over the
chair.

“Mom!”

“Got it, Angie!” Granny took the
sledgehammer and popped the demon under its right chin. The demon
straightened up with the blow. It back-peddled a few steps. Granny
popped it again. And again. Each time the hammer struck, the demon
stumbled in reverse. But this beast was tough, and strong, too. It
yanked the sledgehammer out of Granny’s hands and let it fly across
the room. I heard it crash into something. So what else in our
house had been destroyed?