Demonspawn (13 page)

I stomped on the gas.

I tried to keep calm. Everything was working
against me. I was about twenty minutes away from Cindy, and that
was with good traffic. She had a cell phone, but I didn't. I knew
at that moment, she was starting her jog through the city that she
sometimes did when she got tired of jogging near home. I also knew
someone was following her. Why, I didn't know. But somehow, I knew
my best friend was in trouble. It was no different than knowing
when an unseen ghost was watching me.

I weaved in and out of the streets near my
work till I hit the parkway. Then I sped at ninety miles an hour
toward the city. As I drove I was assaulted with more visions. Each
one took me out of the truck for just a few seconds. If I didn't
crash, it would be a miracle.

I could see Cindy jogging down the city
sidewalk. I was in a vehicle following her slowly. It felt higher
up, so I guessed it was a van. I wanted to look around, see who was
driving. But these visions I was having, they weren't under my
control. I couldn't look around or see anything besides Cindy
jogging.

My very last vision though, at the bottom of
my field of vision, I could see a pair of hands holding a rope.

I had to slam the brakes to keep from hitting
the car in front of me. Traffic suddenly stopped. Three lanes of
traffic funneled into two, and no one could move. I was just on the
edge of the city.

I turned my truck off and climbed out. I got
a few looks and shouts from the drivers around me, but I didn't
care. I ran to the first car in front of me and leaned into the
open window. The driver was a middle-aged man fiddling with his
radio.

“Sir, please!” I said. “I need your cell
phone!”

I surprised him. He jumped and leaned away
from me. “I don't have a cell phone. You have an accident?”

I didn't answer. I ran to the next car. This
driver was a woman dressed in a power suit in her mid thirties.

“Miss! Please, I need to borrow your cell
phone! I need to call the police!”

She didn't even respond. She leaned away and
pushed a button to raise the windows. I put my hands on them to try
to hold them down, but that didn't work. I got my fingers out just
in time to avoid some pain.

I was actually tempted to smash the glass and
steal whatever phone she had, but knew that wouldn't help.

I started running as fast as I could. The
city was huge, but I knew exactly where Cindy was. She was running
near the Eighth Street Park. I knocked a few people over rounding a
few corners, slowing me down even more. I had to leap over a dog
that someone was walking.

I took a shortcut down an alley that I knew
ran into Eighth Street. When I hit the sidewalk I stopped to study
the street. I could see Cindy ahead of me on the other side. She
jogged at a steady pace. I kept losing sight of her cause of all
the traffic going back and forth.

“Cindy!”

She stopped and turned around. She looked
confused at first, then smiled and waved.

A white van pulled up next to her, the brakes
squealing. I couldn't see what was going on. I started running one
more time. The van sped away five seconds later, and Cindy was
gone.

I didn't bother looking out for traffic, and
almost paid for it. As I ran across the street I could hear tires
screeching and a horn. The Jeep Wrangler actually didn't miss me. I
vanished just in time to let it slide right through me. I didn't
miss a step. I ran after the van. I could see it making a left at
the next light. So I made a left as well. Although I decided the
sidewalk wasn't going to work.

I ran directly into the building next to
me.

I ran through brick, drywall, desks, a board
meeting, anything that was in my way. As I passed through an office
with a window I could see the white van on the street. I had the
angle to it. I just had to keep running.

Strangely, I wasn't getting tired.

I passed through the last wall and made it
onto the street. I was fifteen yards away from the van. I could
make out the driver, an older man probably in his fifties, very
grizzled.

I took a breath and dove into the side of the
van. As soon as I felt my feet clear the side I reappeared. I
collapsed inside the van and bumped my head into the other
side.

I looked up to see the back of a large man. I
could tell what was going on. He was trying to tie Cindy's hands,
and she was fighting back.

“This bitch won't sit still,” he said. “Ah!
She fuckin' bit me!”

He raised his first overhead. I was on top of
him before he could bring it down. I wrapped an arm around his neck
and squeezed as hard as I could. I heard him gasp for breath and
start to fight me. He stood up quickly and threw my head into the
roof. I almost lost my grip for a second, but then Cindy was
helping. She punched the man right in the balls. He was done after
that. He fell into a heap.

Cindy's hands were halfway tied. I saw the
driver struggle to drive the van while reaching for a gun at his
side.

I seemed to be getting new abilities all the
time. But I didn't think any of them involved bullets.

I threw the side door open. I grabbed Cindy's
shoulders, and we both jumped.

If the van had been moving any faster, the
landing would have been deadly. A stroke of luck there, as we
weren't moving too fast. We both fell forward between two parked
cars. Luckily I hit the ground first, and Cindy landed on top of
me. I got scraped up, but nothing serious.

“Alex!”

She recovered faster than me. She was pulling
me to my feet. I helped her undo the rope around her wrists, then
held her face in my hands. She grabbed my wrists. She started to
shake, but held in whatever emotions she was feeling.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “You?”

I smiled and hugged her. If I ever lost her,
I don't know what I'd do. I cared about her so much that apparently
I could sense when she was in trouble. I needed her in my life,
plain and smile.

And those two men tried to take her away.

I watched the van drive down the street. Up
till then, I was worried, terrified. Now I was angry.

I looked at Cindy. “Listen, get to the police
station, and stay there. Okay? I'll be there soon.”

I tried to leave. She held onto my arm.
“Where are you going?”

“To follow them.”

She shook her head. “No. Alex, don't be
stupid.”

I gently pulled free from her grasp and
grabbed her shoulders. “I'll be fine.”

I turned and ran. I vanished once again.
Hopefully Cindy wasn't freaking out behind me, as I know she was
watching me. She knew what I could do, but never seen me do it out
in the open.

As soon as I saw the van making a left, I cut
across the street. I ran through a few cars and even a person on
the way over. It was a very strange feeling to know that nothing
could stop me. I couldn't outrun a van. But I didn't need to follow
the road.

And I also didn't seem to get tired when I
was vanished.

Running felt weird. I could feel myself
breathing, feel the muscles working. But they didn't tire. No pain,
no fatigue. I ran full speed, and just didn't need to slow
down.

I ran through a McDonald's and a laundromat
to get to them. I knew I couldn't jump inside the van again. I
couldn't fight two guys with guns. I needed to follow them. But I
knew if they headed toward the beltway, I'd lose them
completely.

I followed them for twenty minutes as they
drove through the city. Sometimes I didn't have a problem keeping
up and could run next to the van. But then they'd take a sudden
turn and I'd have to run through cars and buildings to keep up.

They finally pulled into the driveway of a
beat-up house. Shingles were falling off the side. There was trash
all over the yard. The two men didn't speak to each other as they
got out of the van and headed toward the front door. They stepped
inside with me right behind them. One of them kicked a coffee table
out of frustration in the messy living room.

They went right to the basement. I floated
down through the living room floor just in time to see one of the
men turn on a light and the other sit down in a chair. The one who
turned on the light started pacing.

Finally, they spoke to one another.

“Marcus, you fuckin' idiot.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“I told you to grab the woman. That's it.
That's not so fuckin' hard. You grab her, you pull her in the van.
Why'd you pull that guy in?”

“Look. I don't know where that fucker came
from. He was just there, Tony.”

“Oh yeah. Like a ghost, right?”

I smiled as I stood in the corner.

Like a ghost. Exactly.

“Fuck you. Anyway, we trying again?”

“Eh, the bitch will go to the cops. They'll
watch her a while. Nah, not for a few weeks. We'll go to her
apartment.”

I finally had the chance to study Marcus and
Tony. They looked to be around the same age. Early fifties, maybe.
They both looked like they'd seen better days. Both white men,
didn't look to be in too bad a shape. Both desperately needed a
shave. I could tell by the way Tony paced and Marcus sat and stared
at his partner that Tony was the leader of their little duo.

“Fuck. Our one solid shot at getting the
bitch, and we fuck it up,” Tony said.

“Are you sure she's even the right one?”

Tony grabbed a newspaper from the corner and
tossed it angrily at Marcus. “Read it yourself.”

I was confused. I crossed the basement and
looked at the paper over Marcus' shoulder. It was the same
newspaper article that Cindy had showed me. The one about Cindy
finding money and donating it through her firm.

“You getting it now, asshole? She found that
money. And she's got the rest of it.”

“It just says she found it near the
woods.”

“How many people you think bury money around
the woods near rich douche-bag's houses? I'm telling you, she found
the old man's stash. Or she knows who did.”

My jaw dropped. It was all becoming
clear.

“Maybe you shouldn't have killed the whole
family,” Marcus mumbled.

“Hey, enough of that shit, alright? That was
twenty years ago. So I got a little trigger happy. So what?”

I reappeared. I was a step behind Marcus.

“You killed George McEllen and his family for
a hundred grand?”

Marcus jumped from the chair and stood by
Tony. Both their eyes grew wide. Marcus pointed.

“That's him!” he said. “He was in the
van!”

Tony fumbled grabbing his gun from the inside
of his coat. By the time he had it out and raised, I was already
gone.

I shook my head as I circled around them.
They didn't even know I was five feet away. They were in their
thirties when they killed George and his family. All just for
money. Or maybe not. As I looked at Tony, I thought he probably did
it for pleasure.

He waved his gun around aimlessly. Marcus
stared at each corner with a look of panic on his face, like he'd
seen a ghost. I had to be careful. One small mistake by me could
end badly.

There was a toilet in the far corner. I took
my time getting in good position near Tony. Then I reappeared,
grabbed his gun, and tossed it in the toilet. By the time he could
react, I was gone again. The whole trick took me two seconds.

They didn't even go for the gun again. I had
a huge advantage over them.

Fear.

Marcus grabbed a pipe from the corner and
tossed a loose two-by-four to Tony. They stood close together in
the center of the basement.

“What the fuck are you!?” Tony shouted.

I smiled. Somehow, some way, I hoped George
was watching. I would make sure they never hurt anyone again.

I stood in front of Tony and reappeared
again.

“Boo!”

Marcus swung as hard as he could, but he was
too slow. He swung through me and nailed Tony hard on the side of
the head. Tony cried out in pain and fell to one knee.

Marcus had seen enough. He dropped his pipe
and ran for the basement door. I let him go. Tony was a few steps
behind, but he wasn't fast enough. I kicked the door shut, then
vanished again. Tony ran full force into it and fell to the ground.
The side of his face and nose were bleeding. Marcus never came back
to help him. I heard him leave through the front door upstairs.
Guess there's no honor among thieves, or killers.

Tony was pushing himself backwards along the
ground. He looked desperate to get away from me. I let him see me
now. There wasn't anything he could do to me.

I did see him angle toward the toilet. I
grabbed the pipe that Marcus dropped and slowly stalked Tony. When
he put his hand in the toilet to go for the gun, I stomped the lid
down on his hand. I heard some bones break.

Tony looked up at me, terrified. As I stared
down at him I noticed there was a red glow on his face. Weird. Was
something on me glowing red?

“Please don't kill me!” he shouted.

Again, odd. Did I look like a killer?

“You're gonna go to the police and tell them
what you did.”

“What?!”

I nodded. “The police.”

“Fuck you!”

I leaned on my knee, putting more pressure on
his hand. He winced.

“I know who you are.” I noticed my own voice
sounded different. “I can go myself. But it'd be easier for us both
if
you
did.”

Tony gave me one last defiant look. “I can
run forever.”

“And I can
haunt
you forever.” My
voice was deep and gravely. It scared even me. “Every time you open
your eyes, I'll be there. Go. And when they ask you about Marcus,
you turn him in. Understand?”

The glow on his face grew brighter. He closed
his eyes. “Yes! I will! Just get the fuck away from me!”

Marcus wasn't anywhere to be seen, but that
didn't matter. Tony was scared to death. He almost ran the three
miles to the station, with me right behind him.