Hungry Independents (Book 2) (2 page)

Hunter pushed up to his feet and sprinted for
the kid, but something wasn’t right. He skidded to a stop on the
wet roof and wiped water from his eye. The boy’s clothes were
drenched and his exposed skin rippled like ever-changing waves on a
pond. He stared at Hunter with clouded eyes the color of milk.

“You!” the boy-thing hissed. “How did you get
here? You won’t stop my master.”

Hunter wiped his eye again. Sure enough, he’d
been shot by some kind of gun-toting demon-kid. If little girls
could heal people back from the dead and some kid could unleash a
plague that killed every adult around the world, then demons—why
not? Hunter searched the sky for a guardian angel and was rewarded
with a fat drop of water in the eye.

“You just shot me. Twice!” He poked his
belly, then his shoulder, and frowned at the holes in his jacket.
“Look what you did to my brand new jacket!”

“That is nothing compared to what my master
will do. He will rend your flesh and eat because he hungers. He
always hungers.”

“It sounds like your boy needs a pizza. I
don’t deliver. Now, drop the gun.”

The creature rushed for Hunter, wielding the
rifle like a club. Hunter ducked as the swing cut through the rain
above his head. He tore the rifle from the little demon’s hands,
hurling it over the edge to the ground below. He lifted the
creature up and plowed it against the building, imprinting a nice
demon shape in the sheet metal.

The demon sank its teeth into Hunter’s
shoulder and tore away a bloody chunk of skin. Hunter screamed,
more from horror than the quickly subsiding pain. Again his body
healed, but now he had an even bigger hole in his jacket.

He gripped the thing by the throat and bashed
it in the face repeatedly before releasing it with a final punch.
The demon scrambled away from Hunter’s fury.

“You’ve ruined my brand new jacket my
girlfriend made me. Now I’m going to hear all kinds of crap about
how I never appreciate anything she does for me.”

Hunter grabbed the back of the demon’s shirt
and dragged it across the roof with every intention of throwing it
after its rifle. The pounding rain washed away some of the madness,
and Hunter hesitated. The creature jumped with inhuman speed,
flipped behind Hunter, and shoved him from the roof. Hunter caught
the edge and his shoulder popped.

Dangling by his fingertips, he watched the
demon pace in quick, tight circles. It smiled and its forked tongue
lashed out, flicking blood at him.

“You don’t have your wings. The fall won’t
kill you, but it will hurt.”

The demon lifted its bare foot, clawed
toenails sharp and threatening. Hunter strained to pull himself up,
but his bad shoulder wouldn’t allow it.

Thunder roared as a bolt of lightning
streaked across the dark clouds and blasted into the demon kid’s
chest.

The air smelled of ozone and burnt toast.
Hunter strained harder, his boots finding traction and his bad
shoulder holding. The other arm hauled the rest of him over the
edge. He flopped onto the rooftop and rested a cheek on the cool,
wet surface. The rain lessened, with giant drops splashing in
puddles. A grasshopper twitched three feet away and then flittered
into the open air. Hunter closed his good eye and considered taking
a nap.

“What are you doing, silly?”

He opened his eye. “Catherine?”

“Huh? Not even.”

Hunter flipped onto his back and sat up. A
teenage girl in a white T-shirt and blue jeans dropped the demon
kid’s limp body onto the roof. Behind them, a large smoking hole
had been blown into the grain elevator. He gagged from the
overwhelming stench of rot.

“Stinks, don’t it? Try living down there.
I’ll never get that smell out of my hair.”

“Who are you?” Hunter asked.

“I’m Barbie,” the brunette girl said,
flashing a bright smile. “Thank you for finding me.”

Hunter fell back in a puddle and watched the
clearing storm shake the last raindrops from the clouds. “You’ve
got to be kidding me.”

“What the fuck is this thing?” Hunter prodded
the inert body of the gunman with his foot. “And why doesn’t he
have a big hole in his chest from the lightning?”

Barbie looked up from her examination of the
creature. “Watch the potty mouth, mister. You’re in the presence of
a lady.”

Hunter crossed his arms and his bad shoulder
offered a twinge in protest.

Barbie rested on her knees and continued
checking the thing’s pulse and temperature. She brushed its wet
bangs away from its closed eyelids.

“This thing is a little boy who got into some
trouble, but we can fix that. He’s possessed by a demon and
apparently it’s impervious to lightning strikes.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you that already.”

“Yeah, Barbie, I know. But where did you come
from?”

“You may be cute with the eye patch and
smoldering good looks, but you come off a little thick.” She
pointed back to the hole in the grain elevator where the stench
still emanated, and wisps of smoke climbed into the night sky.
“What else?”

“Excuse me?”

“What else do you want to know, or can I go
ahead and exorcise this demon before he wakes up and we have to go
through it all over again?”

“Are you related to a little girl named
Catherine?”

“I used to wheel around with a Catherine,”
Barbie said, followed by a girly giggle.

Hunter rubbed his forehead, anticipating a
future migraine. “I think we’re talking about the same person.”

“I’m sure we are, Michael.” She smiled,
pulling her long dark hair back. She produced a hair band from her
pocket and wrapped the length into a ponytail. The front of her wet
T-shirt stretched.

Distracted, Hunter watched. When he returned
his gaze to her face, she winked at him.

“Wicked thoughts?” she asked.

Hunter burned with embarrassment. He shook
his hands out, rotated his bad shoulder, and tried to rid himself
of impure ideas. “How did you know my name?”

Barbie flashed a fascinating, lip curling,
gleaming teeth in the darkness smile at him. She tapped a finger
against the side of her head.

Hunter sighed. “Yeah, we’re definitely
talking about the same person.”

The possessed boy moved his legs and shifted
his body. His skin rippled again as his eyelids began to flutter.
He opened his mouth wide and his pointy teeth glistened with bands
of saliva stretching between his lips.

Barbie snapped her fingers twice at Hunter.
“Hurry, hold him down!”

Hunter dropped to his knees, straddled the
boy’s stomach, and clamped his hands over the demon’s arms. Milky
eyes popped open and a rush of wind hammered the top of the grain
elevator. The demon screeched when it saw Barbie.

She rubbed her hands together like she was
about to perform a neat trick. “Yes, yes, it will all be over soon.
Lie back, relax and Aunt Barbie will make all the badness go away.”
She patted Hunter on the shoulder. “You got him, right?”

Hunter winced. “Yeah, just don’t tap me on
that
shoulder. It hurts like hell.”

“I thought you knew Catherine?”

The demon boy bucked and Hunter added more
pressure to keep him down. Sharp teeth snapped at him and the
forked tongue flicked at his good eye.

“Less talk. More action.”

“Yes, master.” Barbie rested her hands on the
demon boy’s head. The contact sizzled and popped like an electrical
current. White sparkling light encompassed her arms and hands. Her
ponytail fanned out, standing on end, and her eyes glowed.

The wind pounded them again, swirling up
puddles and spraying water in their faces. Where the water touched
Barbie, sparks flew and water transformed into steam.

A shock raced through Hunter, leaving his
body tingling and constricting his muscles. He shifted his arms
slightly, afraid of electrocution from Barbie and all the water.
The demon bucked harder.

“Hold him down!” Barbie’s voice clapped like
thunder.

Hunter fought through the panic and shoved
the thrashing demon back down.

Barbie flickered like an old fluorescent
bulb, back before the worldwide electrical system winked out. Then
she powered up and shined like a newborn star.

Hunter focused on the boy’s face, not wanting
to go blind, but also not willing to close his eye and allow the
creature an opportunity to try something. Barbie murmured a chant
in a language Hunter didn’t understand. Skin on the demon’s
forehead smoked. The crackling hum illuminating Barbie continued to
make Hunter nervous.

The demon boy’s features rippled and then
something separated. A translucent mask of the demon lifted like a
smoky apparition, rising above the anguished face of a young boy. A
pulse ran through the image as Barbie’s light snapped up a notch
and the apparition expanded. The demon’s teeth gnashed together,
eyes wide in what appeared to be fear, and the struggle ended with
a final gust of wind stripping away the demon and leaving only the
sleeping boy.

Barbie removed her hand from the child’s
head, revealing his smooth, unmarred skin. She touched Hunter, who
still held the boy’s arms tight. He flinched, afraid of being
electrocuted, but her hands were freezing and she shivered all
over.

“You can let go now. He’ll be fine.”

Slowly, Hunter relaxed the pressure and held
Barbie’s hand as he lifted himself off the boy. He stood and helped
her off the ground. She wobbled and fell against him, pressing her
icy cheek against his neck.

“I’m so cold, Michael.”

“It’s Hunter. My parents called me Michael,
but they’re gone.”

She gazed up at him with sad, confused eyes.
Her lips parted, but she remained silent. Hunter fought an impulse
to kiss her, and then looked over the dark horizon instead.

She sighed. “Whatever. I’m so cold.”

Hunter copied her sigh, opened his brand new
jacket that his girlfriend had made, and allowed Barbie inside. She
was cold and wet and felt very, very nice.

Whenever Molly’s dad went out of town on
business, her mom would let Molly sleep in their bed, saying the
bed was too big without him. That was a long time ago, but lying in
bed in the middle of the night worrying about Hunter, Molly now
knew exactly how her mom had felt.

Finding sleep impossible, she rolled out from
under the sheets. She pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt and left
her lonely bedroom to shake the nagging feeling that something was
wrong. She lit a candle in the living room and looked over her
bookshelf containing twenty-seven books ranging from self-help to
anger management. Molly had read them all twice and wanted more. It
was nice to be passionate about something that benefited
Independents.

Unfortunately she wasn’t in the reading mood.
Nervous energy had her up and going, so she tied on her tennis
shoes and headed out the door of her apartment, down to the cobbled
pavement of Main Street, Independents. Grasshoppers jumped about as
she disturbed their slumber. Moonlight reflected in the potholes
that had yet to be repaired. A rainstorm had passed through,
filling them up like little ponds.

Curfew began at eight unless something
special at Brittany’s kept kids out later. As one of the older kids
and a member of the town council, Molly didn’t worry about getting
busted. Especially since her brother Mark was the sheriff and
enforcer of the curfew. Plus, she knew Mark’s new job wiped him
out—watching his son all day while his wife, Vanessa, taught the
young ones at school. Still, Molly decided to go the opposite way
of their house, just in case.

The scent of wet grass brought a refreshing
bounce to her steps. She found herself following old paths that led
her to the rubble of a house where she used to live. She had
created the rubble in a blaze of rage, longing and sorrow. Hunter’s
old house was a reminder of all the terrible things Molly had been
responsible for ten months ago and the strides she’d made since
Catherine had healed her troubled mind.

She left one house for another. This house
had different memories. It stood on the edge of town overlooking
the fields where all the vegetable and fruit crops grew for the
kids of Independents. Molly used to come to this house a lot too,
but she’d never gone inside. This had been Jimmy’s house, Hunter’s
older brother. Jimmy died so Hunter could live. Hunter carried the
weight of that event on troubled shoulders, refusing to share the
load with anyone, not even Molly. Someday she would break through
and convince her boyfriend that what happened wasn’t his fault, but
until then she’d keep researching ways to help until something
clicked.

The front door opened and she considered
running like a child caught doing something naughty. Samuel was
just as startled.

“Holy crap!” Samuel jumped when the screen
door slammed behind him. “Why are you creeping around out here? You
scared the hell out of me.”

Molly laughed at the older boy in the tie-dye
shirt. “I’m sorry, Sammy. I couldn’t sleep.”

Samuel stooped over and collected his work
boots by the door. Molly noticed the other pair left behind. Samuel
sat on the porch steps, slipped his feet inside the boots, and
laced up. He stomped on a grasshopper and kicked it off his
concrete step.

“You couldn’t sleep, so you came out here to
visit old Sammy.” His mouth stretched into a giant smile, and Molly
could almost read his mind. “Hunter isn’t back yet, is he?”

“No, he’s supposed to get back tomorrow.”

“Uh huh, good luck with that. Jimmy never
learned either.”

“Never learned what?”

Samuel leaned back like he was hoarding all
the good information. He sucked on a tooth; a real unattractive
habit. “So, I get it now. Hunter’s gone and you’re feeling lonely,
but before you get all hot and bothered, I must warn you that
Hunter is one of my best friends and I will not allow you to cheat
on him with me more than once… maybe twice. After that you’ll just
have to tell him that it’s over and that you’ve found a real
man.”