The Demon Senders (23 page)

Actually, since I ended up drowning in the pond because I had too many beers and puked all over Rachel, causing, as I've already detailed, Ron's laughing break, I guess the beer lie was pretty bad after all.

Damn. That Rachel was a bitch.

So that's how I ended up here, with you and all the others. I'm not sure exactly where "here" is but I think it's where incomplete souls end up. Remember, I lost a part of my soul and I guess Rachel was right; I'll never be able to rest until I recover all of my soul.

You? I'm not sure but I don't think you're dead. Actually, I don't think I'm dead yet, either. If I had to guess, your body is still on Earth, maybe in a hospital room or lying in a ditch someplace; I don't know for sure. As for me, I assume that old Hazy Face is still holding me under the water and the last of the bubbles of air are about to pop out of my mouth any second now.

I think we get pulled away from our dying bodies right before we actually die. Maybe to prevent our souls from being trapped inside our bodies. If our soul is complete, we go to whatever and wherever heaven is. If they're not complete, I guess we end up here. For you, I'd say, and this is only a guess, that you have some decisions to make. Namely whether to live or to die. That's your call. I can't help you with that one.

Why don't I choose to keep living? Because there's a two hundred and twenty pound demon strangling me and my head is a foot underwater. I don't think I get to make that choice.

I hope I do. I'd hate to end up roaming around here for all of eternity. That would suck. At least, I think it would.

I'd like to get back somehow. I'd send back Ron if at all possible, then spend the rest of my days gathering back the pieces of my soul. I’d also like to talk with Rachel. I’d like to know if she really is a demon or if, somehow, she was hypnotized or drugged, or… I don’t know. I’d just like to talk with her. But unless a miracle happens or someone happens to show up at the pond, it doesn't look good for me.

But hey, thanks for listening to my story. If I do make it back and if you decide to give life another shot, I'll figure out a way to find you. It would be nice to talk face to face, I think.

Phillip began to understand several things. As long as he searched to find the governor, his direction and speed of travel was set. And he was traveling, moving at a pace that he began to recognize. He could notice when the pull was swift as well as when it seemed to be no stronger than the slightest of draws. He understood he was being led to a higher area, not to the depths he had first thought his target resided. The depths where he believed his target should reside. And where he was going was brighter. The diffused light he could hardly notice when he first arrived was now growing more certain, centered and combined. The light burned and tore at his eyes. It offered no relief but only promises of pain.

He also understood the familiar substance which surrounded and moved him. He became aware of the taste of salt that filled his mouth and the feeling of smooth, liquid motion enveloping his body.

“I’m in the ocean,” he said, the sound of his words muffled, muted, as if he was hearing them only inside of his head.

There were sudden pains as his awareness grew. Contracting, tearing pain that radiated from his core. As he drifted in the current, he doubled over in pain. It was as if something inside of him needed to be pulled away. It needed to be outside of his already distorted, altered, and wracked body.
 

New pains erupted as he was pulled higher, shallower, towards the light. The light burned his eyes and revealed things inside his mind he wished he could burn away. But the light was not there to burn them away, only to remind him of their continued presence.

He screamed.
 

Cardinal O’Keefe couldn’t keep his laughter inside. Though his view of the pond and the skirmish happening a few feet from its shoreline was partially obstructed with tree branches, what he saw would keep him amused for a very long time. He knew laughing was risky business in the demon industry, however, laughing at another demon’s misfortune was certainly acceptable. As the sender’s vomit was dripping off Rachel’s shocked face, O’Keefe stumbled out from his hiding place. Just as he was about to say something that he was certain would piss Rachel off, the sender bum rushed Novak, sending him stumbling backwards into the pond.

Rachel was wiping the vomit from her eyes and spitting out more than just a few drops that found their way into her mouth, while the sender positioned himself behind Novak and had secured, what looked like, a damn good chokehold. O’Keefe moved towards the pond, knowing he had to make sure Novak wasn’t sent back. If Novak couldn’t handle the sender, then O’Keefe was certain that he’d be next and he had no intentions of being sent anywhere.

“Give me a hand, you stupid bitch,” O’Keefe yelled at Rachel. “We can’t let that sender win.”

Rachel was fuming. “Gladly,” she said as she started charging towards the pond.

Rachel was much quicker than he and probably a bit stronger as well, so O’Keefe watched the pond struggle from the dry and much more comfortable shore. As Novak and Rachel turned the tables and got position on the sender, O’Keefe relaxed enough to recall that Flannigan was due to arrive any second. He glanced around the area and was relieved no one was yet in sight.
 

“Hurry up and kill him,” O’Keefe said to Rachel and Novak. “Flannigan will be here any second.” Novak and Rachel ignored O’Keefe and simply continued holding the still struggling sender beneath the water. “I’m heading back to my ambush spot. Hurry the fuck up.”

As the sender’s struggling defense weakened, Rachel felt comfortable enough to employ her hands in the much needed act of splashing water onto her face to wash away the vomit, then to flash a one-fingered message to O’Keefe.
 

He was still climbing the hill that led to his hiding spot when he saw them: Two women, one pointing a gun directly at his face and the other standing stiff as a board, a look of shock and terror blanketing her face.

“Freeze,” Lisa screamed, “and get that man out of the water, now!”

O’Keefe raised both arms, glanced over his shoulder and saw Novak and Rachel, who had obviously heard the gun holder’s command, staring at each other. Around them, the pond was still. “You should put that gun away before someone gets hurt,” O’Keefe said to Lisa. “You have no idea what you’ve just walked into but, trust me, that gun is not going to help you here.”

“I said,” Lisa yelled back, “get that man out of the pond, then step away from him. I need all three of you on your knees, hands above your head. I need that now!”

Novak figured Mac the sender was dead enough. He winked at Rachel, pulled Mac’s lifeless body above the pond’s surface, then called to the uninvited guests. “Okay, you got us,” he said as he dragged the lifeless body out of the pond then dropped Mac, face first, onto the snow covered ground. “But you don’t understand what’s happening here.”

Lisa screamed, “On your knees, hands above your head.” Then she turned to Jen and said, much quieter, “Call the police.”

Jen ripped off her mittens, dug into her pocket and pulled out her iPhone. “Shit,” Jen said. “No signal.”

“Run back towards the parking lot till you get a signal.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” Jen said.

Lisa said, “And I can’t…”

Lisa fell forward, dropping the gun next to Jen’s feet. Jen heard the thud but had no idea what had made her friend stop talking mid-sentence—something Lisa seldom did—then fall to the ground in a sudden heap.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice was familiar but the tone and timbre were unplaceable. “How did you find this place?”

“Flanngan,” O’Keefe called out, “how nice of you to join us.”

Jen turned and saw Stacy Flannigan staring at her. Flannigan was holding a pretty thick stick, which, suddenly obvious to Jen, was used to render Lisa unconscious. “Please don’t make me use this on you,” Flannigan said. “Just get on your knees and don’t move. They’re in charge around here.” Flannigan nodded her head towards the three people at the bottom of the hill. “Do what they tell you and please don’t make me use this. Get on your knees.” Her voice was rapid but kept low. Jen understood that Flannigan didn’t want the three others to hear what she was saying. “Knees, now,” Flannigan said again.
 

Jen slowly kneeled down, arms raised defenselessly above her head. She removed her gaze from Flannigan and looked at Lisa’s too-still body. Blood was spilling from her head onto the snow, creating a sickening crimson halo around Lisa’s head. “If you killed her…”

“Shut up or they will kill both of you,” Flannigan muttered.

“Having a private conversation up there are you Flannigan?” O’Keefe said.

“She’s on her knees,” Flannigan replied. “I just told her to get on her knees and not to move.”

“Looks like she’s in the perfect position for you,” Rachel said to Novak as the two of them moved closer to the bottom of the hill.

Flannigan shot a glance at Jen, widened her eyes quickly, then shot a quick back and forth glance towards the ground beside Jen’s right leg and Jen’s face. “Get the gun,” she said through gritted teeth. “Gun.”

“Flannigan?” O’Keefe called. “It appears that you know that lovely woman kneeling beside you. You haven’t schemed something up, have you?”

“I have no idea who this is. I did you all a favor. I knocked out the girl that was holding a gun on you.”

“And for that,” Rachel said, “we are eternally grateful. Now kill the other one and make sure that they’re both really, really dead.”

Jen had never fired a gun before in her life.
 

“Gun!” Flannigan gritted again.

She had held one before and had even taken aim at a gun range, but she was too nervous to pull the trigger.

“Get. It. Now.”

Jen had no problem with people carrying a handgun for their personal protection and had even applied for her own pistol permit a few years back. But something about guns didn’t sit right with her. They were fine for others (the right others, that is) but she couldn’t see how a gun fit into her life.

“Jen!”

Jen looked at Lisa’s hand and saw that the gun was gone. She looked up at Flannigan who again was darting her eyes between hers and the ground beside her. She slowly reached her hand down, into the foot-deep snow and felt the blistering cold steel of Lisa’s gun.
 

Jen could see a flash of relief and could hear a staggered pull of breath coming from Flannigan. The gun was in her hand but still hidden beneath the snow. Jen’s mind raced back to that time on the range. As her freezing hand grasped the gun, she recalled what the shooting instructor had told her.
 

“Two types of guns. Revolvers and semi’s. Revolvers are simple: Point, pull and shoot. Semi’s need to be racked first to put a round in the chamber.” She remembered holding both types of guns and could tell that the type in her freezing hand was a semi.

“Hurry!”

Her mind raced back to the brilliantly sunny day at the shooting range. “To rack a semi, pull back quickly on the top slide then release. Some semi’s have a safety and some don’t. If there’s a safety, switch it off. Bring the gun up to your shooting position with both hands gipping firmly, but not so firm that you lose mobility. Aim, then squeeze the trigger.”

She raced her thumb across the cold steel, feeling blindly for anything that felt like a safety switch. She felt nothing.

“Flannigan,” O’Keefe snarled, “you know her. Who is that? Is that the sender Henry said was working for you?” Jen sensed excitement in the old man’s voice.

Flannigan raised the thick branch over her head, then screamed at Jen, “Now.” Jen whipped the gun out from the snow, then, ignoring her shooting instructor, fired the gun with only one hand gripping the gun pointed directly at Stacy Flannigan. Flannigan was knocked backwards before falling to the ground. Jen stood and pointed the gun at O’Keefe.
 

“Stop right there,” Jen yelled through a shaking voice. “I will shoot you.”

It was the laughing that scared her the most. A horrible, gruff, demented laugh was pouring out of the other man at the bottom of the hill. He was the man Jen saw drowning some other man in the pond and now, despite her pointing a gun in his direction, he was laughing at her. He started walking towards Jen.

“Stop right there,” she yelled. “I will shoot you.”

“You said that already, bitch,” the man said and kept moving closer to Jen. “Put the gun down or shoot it. Don’t matter to me. You’re so fucking nervous you wouldn’t hit me if you took a hundred shots.”

“I swear, if you take another step…”

“If I take another step you’ll shoot and hit nothing but air. You killed my reward but I think you’ll make a decent enough consolation prize.”

The man was no more than fifteen feet away from Jen and showed no signs of stopping. His eyes, lifeless and almost pure black, were fixed on hers. She pulled the trigger but the man kept coming.

“Ooh, you little tasty bitch. You almost got lucky with that shot. Only missed me by thirty feet or so.” He laughed again then he launched into a sprint directly at Jen.

She pulled the trigger again when the man was ten feet away. Again, when he was five feet from her. And again, when he was so close that Jen could see the man’s gray, stained teeth.

He fell beside her, blood pumping out from the ripped opening her bullet had torn through his neck. Something inside her told her to turn towards the other two. The old man, his face awash with shock, was quickly backing away from Jen. She watched as he moved closer to the pond then he turned, and dove head first into the icy pond. Shocked, Jen turned the gun at the woman, who also was backing away. Jen’s eyes started to burn from the sweat falling from her forehead. She blinked the pain away and as she blinked, the image of her Kindle flashed.