Damned for Eternity (5 page)

“Dear God!” Hunt said to
Caruso.

They ran back out.

“Kid what happened?” Hunt
asked.

“I don’t know,” Phillip cried, shaking
his head, tears of fear streaking his face.

“Did you do it?” Caruso
asked.

“No,” Phillip managed, strong and
bold.

“Well, how in the hell…..it was just
you two?”

“I think but something had shut the
door.”

“You mean someone?” Caruso
corrected.

“More like something.” Phillip
said.

“I don’t follow what you’re saying,”
Caruso replied.

“Look,” Hunt then pointed out. “The
bathroom window’s raised up too.”

Caruso studied it. It was only cracked,
yet large enough for someone to get in, and the apartment was on
the first floor, more reason to believe they could’ve broke
in.

“Alright,” sighed Hunt. “This is what
we do. I need to take him into custody. Caruso here is gonna call
it in. I’ll gather the evidence to keep him freed.”

“Custody?” the governor
said.

“Yeah, to run prints and a polygraph
test. We can also detain him till morning time.”

“Hell no!” he cried,
perturbed.

“Listen,” Hunt said to him. “This is
what you need to understand. In less than an hour, this shit hits
fan. The media eats up stuff like this. If we don’t gather evidence
quick, whether he was here or not, they can pin it on
him.”

“I wanna go dad,” Phillip
said.

“Alright,” he sighed. “But he’s not
staying.”

“Actually, Dad. I wanna stay there. I
don’t feel safe on the streets right now.”

He looked at Phillip like he was crazy,
then tried to understand what his son was saying.

“You might be right. If a killer’s out
there, he knows that you’re a witness to his crime. I guess it’d be
hard to break into jail.”

He gave Hunt a serious
stare.

“Take care of my boy.”

“I promise I will.”

Hunt helped Phil up to his feet and
guided him towards his unmarked car.

Caruso looked at the crime scene
shaking his head.

“What?” asked the governor.

“Just seems ironic. Two electrocutions
in one week?”

“Two?”

“That’s right. The guy on death
row?”

As the governor thought back, a wave
came over him. He grew dizzy for a moment, but Caruso caught
him.

“Hey!” he called. “You alright there,
governor?”

He nodded. “The smell is probably
getting to me.”

“Well go on ahead and vacate the
premises. I’m about to make a call to bring in folks.”

“Don’t worry,” Hunt said as he dipped
Phillip’s fingers into the ink to fingerprint him. “You’re not
being booked, we just need your prints.”

Phillip glanced at him curiously. “But
the radio was thrown in some water right?”

Hunt nodded.

“Well won’t that wash off the
prints?”

“Not if we use the laser
scan.”

As he stamped each finger, he continued
to talk.

“So this girl you were with, did you
love her at all?”

Phillip got misty eyed
again.

“I did, but I was cheating on
her.”

Hunt stopped and stared.

“She found out about it?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“And you were staying at her
place?”

He nodded again.

“Is it possible then she was messing
around too and was offed by her lover? A crime of passion’s not
hard to believe. Neither is the fact that she killed
herself.”

“I don’t know,” said Phil.

“Just think about it. Also think of who
else could've done it.”

“If I had an idea,” Phil almost
whispered. “You just might think I was crazy to say.”

He stopped again. “Kid in my business,
I’ve heard more crazy stories than most.”

“Well….” he began.

“Hold that thought!” He held up his
hand. “When we finish here, polygraph time.”

Twenty minutes later, various pads to
measure his pressure were strapped around Phil.

“Relax,” said Hunt. “We start off easy.
If there’s any spike we can tell that you’re lying.”

He looked at Phil.

“You ready, my friend.”

Phillip nodded. “Yeah, let’s do
this.”

“Okay,” he said. “State your
name.”

He took a deep breath. “Phillip
White.”

“Phillip, are you the governor’s
son?”

“Yes.”

“Okay great. And how old are
you?”

“I’m twenty two.”

“Alright, good deal. Don’t get
emotional or it’s gonna spike. Now did you kill your girlfriend
Kate?”

Phillip exhaled. “No, I
didn’t.”

“Do you have an idea of who may
have?”

“Yes.”

“Who did it?”

“It was a demon.”

Hunt then cut off the
machine.

“Demon?” he asked.

Phil nodded again.

He read the results.

“They’re all steady. Phillip it says
you’re not lying at all. However, I don’t know if it proves
anything.”

“What?”

“Think about your last answer. Church
and state are two different things. Nobody will believe a demon
killed Kate. When you make certain statements like that, it just
makes you look like a calm liar.”

Before Phillip could speak again, the
machine came on all by itself.

“What the hell?!” Hunt yelled, pressing
the off button repeatedly.

When that didn’t work, he went straight
for the cord. He unplugged it from the socket, but it continued to
run. He stared amazed at the glowing screen.

The lines began to form the shape of an
ugly demon with two spiked horns atop its head.

After that, the equipment sparked. He
pulled Phillip to the floor and covered him.

A brief explosion then occurred with
the monitor completely shattering.

The needle that wrote spun off the
machine and barely grazed past Hunt’s left ear.

“Shit,” he said, when it was over. “I
don’t really know what happened there. But they’re gonna have to
fix this thing.”

He slowly reverted to logical
thinking.

Phillip lie there, still on floor,
shaking his head at Officer Hunt. He knew no one would believe a
word he said. It was better to not even tell the truth.

Officer Hunt led him past several
holding cells.

“There are no singles,” he said. “But,
I’m going to put you in here.”

They stopped in front of a cell where
three old men lay passed out drunk.

“It’s what we call our detox cell. It’s
the safest place for you right now.”

He pointed to the guys.

“I don’t think you’ll be
bothered.”

He opened it up, and Phillip tip toed
in careful not to disturb the snoring men.

He eased his body down on a cot and
gently closed his sleepy eyes.

About an hour later, the drunks awoke
one by one. However, the whites and pupils of their eyes were
shaded a dark black.

Likewise, all of their teeth and nails
had immensely grown with jagged edges.

They rose off their mattress one at a
time and snaked their way over to Phil.

Phil had just started to relax and felt
a scratch against his leg.

His lids flew open and he looked down,
viewing one of the grinning drunks. The drowsiness went
away.

“Help!” he screamed. “Somebody help
me!”

He tried to jump off the bed, but one
of them caught him by the heel.

Nonetheless, he crawled towards the
bars as the other two rapidly approached.

He reached for the cell bars, and held
on tight, as the drunks scraped and nibbled at him.

“What the hell!” cried a guard who’d
finally made it. “Hey! We need some help back here.”

Two of the others flew in to assist.
They hurriedly keyed their way inside.

With their batons, they beat off the
imps. The greedy men then turned on them.

“I’m warning you,” the first guard
said, pulling his gun out of its holster.

The drunks did nothing but laugh at
them. They continued to mock and stalk their prey.

Seconds later, the room lit up and
heavy gun smoke dissipated through. Three black spirits escaped
through bars, laughing sinister all of the way.

“You alright?” the guards asked
Phillip, who suffered from several lacerations and
bites.

He nodded his head, eyes full of
tears.

“Come on, you need emergency
treatment.”

“I told you!” the governor blamed
Officer Hunt. “I said that it was a bad idea. You put him in a cell
with criminals and you don’t expect these guys to
attack?”

“Governor these were stone hard
drunks,” said Hunt.

“Not drunk enough to attack my
son.”

“Listen, he’s doing okay, no injuries
that a man can’t take. Now I really need to speak with you, but not
in a hospital waiting room.”

The governor gave him a look of disgust
but reluctantly, he followed him off.

“We just got back the
fingerprints.”

“So you know he didn’t do
it.”

“Yes, we can say that for
sure.”

“Good, so much for the
media.”

“Hear me out. It’s something strange
‘cause the prints don’t even appear to be human.”

“Well you said yourself something
opened the bathroom window. A raccoon or a squirrel could have
knocked it in.”

“I don’t think…..”

“I don’t care what you think. My son
told the truth that’s all that matters. Trust me, it was probably a
coon, and when you find him, shoot his ass!”

Phillip lay in the hospital bed heavily
bandaged. Earlier, he kept telling the Doctor about hooded men
chasing him. As a courtesy to the Governor, the Doctor decided not
to commit Phillip to an Asylum. He figured the trauma from
witnessing his girlfriend die must've severely stressed him. He
prescribed him medication to help him sleep, but even under heavy
sedation, Phillip’s nightmares haunted him. Phil kept seeing images
of Kate's and Zedbediah's dead bodies in his dream. He heard their
voices.

"
Phillip, Phillip, Phillip...I helped you Philip. My son helped
you
," a combination of both Kate and
Zedbediah voices said.

"Leave me alone," Phillip said groggily
in his sleep.

The images of Kate and Zedbediah’s
bodies kept morphing into each other. The images finally settled on
Kate.

"Why didn't you help me Phillip? I
loved you!"

"I loved you too."

"Why did you have to cheat on me? Was I
not good enough?"

"It wasn't you, it was me," he
cried.

"Why didn't you help me? Where were you
when I needed you most?"

Kate's body rose in his dream and
caressed his face. She sat on his lap and hugged him around his
neck.

"I tried. I tried to break the door
down, but they wouldn't let me!"

"You let me down Phillip.
You weren't there when I needed you most...
I'm dead now, and you're going to die soon too!"

Kate's image changed into Zedbediah's,
and the ghost started strangling him.

"Let me go...I'm sorry. Please... I had
nothing to do with your death!"

"You need to die. You need
to suffer. You need to...
Join
us!!!!"

Mr. White shook Phillip
hard.

"Son, wake up. It's just a
dream!"

Phillip cried in his father's arms. Mr.
White looked at his son. His eyes were swollen from a combination
of crying and a lack of sleep. He had bags under them, and his
heart was beating out of his chest. Mr. White never believed in
supernatural things but with everything that had been happening, it
was starting to eat at him and mess with his sub
conscience.

"Tell me what happened,
son."

He explained about seeing the ghosts of
Kate and Zedbediah, and how they said he needed to die and
suffer.

"I promise you, I will protect you. Do
you hear me Phillip? Nothing is going to harm you. These weirdoes
are not going to intimidate me. I'm the fucking Governor. I've
dealt with bigger shady characters than these assholes. Don't let
them get in your head.”

Then, on cue, as if he needed back up,
Pastor Judd entered the hospital room.