“My old ways? Is that what you think? Never mind what it took for me to get you set up in the position you’re now enjoying. Think that was easy? Pain free? You’re a blob, Henry. A lifeless, unappreciative blob.”

“And yet, here I stand and there you lay. Strange the way things turn out sometimes, isn’t it?”

Phillip strained to command a fixed gaze into Henry’s eyes but the thick, rolling murkiness thwarted his attempts. “Does this damn fog or whatever the hell it is ever go away?” he said, frustrated by his inability to capture any feeling of control.

“There are times,” Henry said as he moved, as best as Phillip could tell, a bit further away. “Mostly though, the fog is denser than this. You got to be nervous when the fog thins out. You may not understand that yet but you will. Trust me, you will soon.”

“Can’t even see where the hell I am.”

“Trust me, Phillip, you don’t want to see where the hell you are.”

<<<<>>>>

Henry Winchester was never one for pity. To Henry, you do what you need to do, regardless of the pain or hassles involved. Do it, then shut the fuck up about it.

Done and over with.

There was a small part of him, however, that despite the burning process, remained. Not in the ashes like the rest of him, but almost protected. Set aside by someone else. Sealed.

He knew it was still there and he would, on occasion, visit in his mind to see if it had moved on yet. But there it was, sitting untouched, unmarked and, thankfully, unopened. It didn’t need to be opened for Henry to know what was inside. It oozed out like the heat from a boiler. Invisible. Untouchable, but very much “there.”

“When you’re done crying and carrying on, come see me. You have a hell of a lot to learn on this side and all your brilliance over there ain’t worth a shit here. You know where to find me.”

Henry left his old friend and now potential member of his team behind. Phillip was still recovering from the volley of violence he had endured and was in no position to share ideas. His mind wasn’t ready for decision making and planning and if Henry told him he still had at least another round of initiation to complete, Phillip would be a useless part of any conversation.

“Not sure if I know where to find you,” Phillip called through the thickening denseness. “Don’t know shit about things on this side.”

“Trust me,” Henry said without turning to face Phillip, “you’ll know how to find me. Have fun with round two.” Henry could make out the sobbing sounds of his newest recruit echoing off the crowding walls of the cave as he walked towards a destination he had grown all too familiar with. He had made the walk countless times. Despite his experience, each trek was filled with stumbles and falls. His bare feet slamming into sharp rocks, getting tangled in the exposed, twisted roots of trees centuries removed. “Round two will be a bit worse than one but for fuck’s sake, don’t complain or round three will really rip you apart.”

As he moved farther away from Phillip and the muffled, muted sounds of his tortured screams, Henry allowed the briefest of smiles to invade his face. He had learned to quell eruptions of positive emotions very early after his transition, but there were still times when some random thought snuck through and spawned an emotion. But this smile, he felt, was not fathered by hope, love, or any positive emotion. His flashed smile was as corrupt and misanthropic as was his core.

As Henry reached the area he had grown familiar with, and therefore, the area he claimed as being “his,” he noticed the smile he had allowed was still alive. Still twisting his face into an almost imperceptible expression that seemed so alien. So foreign to this realm. He checked the smile’s genesis, making sure it created no exposure. All it took for Henry’s smile to evaporate was him becoming aware of the sounds around him. Though muffled and soaked with distortion, he could hear the screams both distant and nearby.

The screams of those new to this realm were easily recognizable. They were more intense, laden with inexplicable pain, fear and a dying hope for the rounds of “cleansing” torture to end. Those screams could always be heard for there were always those new to the realm. Those who made the same choice he himself had made while living in the other realm. It was the regret of that choice and the realization of what their choosing separated them from that the cleansing rounds were burning away. The cleansing rounds and the forces that inflicted the terror, rooted out hope and awareness of that which was ignored in every last cell of those newly arrived. The rounds continued until either the soul was clean or the soul bearer was reduced to a pile of indistinguishable sediment, then forever scattered by the relentless currents.

Henry had grown accustomed to those screams, to the point he seldom noticed them. Even if the initiate was just feet away, their body twisting with wracking pain, Henry only heard their screams when he chose to.

It was the other scream he always heard.

The ancient scream.

If not for the known creator of that scream, the tortured scream could be comforting, like white noise pushing away and diminishing other sounds. But Henry knew who the screams belonged to and why they would never see an ending.

It only took the briefest of moments to slam back his awareness to those ancient sounds for Henry to eradicate his smile and any potential positive thought which may have played a role in his smile’s birth. He turned his thoughts back to his planning and to the team that, if Phillip proved to be the one capable of playing his role, was now complete a completed team.

He had known Phillip for most of his life: The two had grown up on the same street, in the same small town on Long Island. Though they were separated by two years in age—Henry being the elder—Henry and Phillip were “thick as thieves,” as Phillip’s mother described them. Whenever a schoolyard bully felt the compelling need to prove his salt and chose Phillip as his proving grounds, it was Henry who intervened. He would intentionally punish whatever bully chose Phillip as his victim, often landing a few extra punches and kicks to drive home a point: Any of his friends, especially Phillip, should be considered off-limits for any and all bullies. As they grew older and as Henry’s abusive and alcoholic father’s rages turned more dangerous, it was Phillip who came to Henry’s rescue on a particular night when Henry’s father seemed set on delivering on a threat he had made countless times.

It was near the end of the summer of 1986. School aged kids everywhere were desperate to squeeze out as much as they could from what remained of their summer vacations before the inevitable “back to school” sales proved to be correct in their imminent timing predictions. Phillip and Henry spent the entire day cruising the mall in the nearby city of Melville, only occasionally summoning up enough courage to approach a girl they recognized from their school. They each had $20 to spend and were more than eager to spend every last cent of their cache on a girl willing to join them for a matinee, some popcorn and, if all went well, some serious petting and necking in the back of the theatre. It was well after six in the evening before both decided wasting twenty bucks on some stupid movie, stale popcorn and a probable case of blue balls wasn’t worth the effort.

“Your mom and dad going to be pissed with you getting home so late?” Phillip asked as the two jumped off the city bus and started the half mile walk back to their street.

“Nah,” Henry said, distantly. “Mom’s busy with her transcription job and my dad is probably still at the bar. He likes to have a few after his shift. I figure I’ll be home at least an hour before he strolls on home.”

As the two turned the final corner, Henry paused when his father’s dark blue Ford F-150 became clearly visible in his driveway.

“Shit,” he mumbled.

“I’ll go in with you,” Phillip said. “He won’t say nothing to you about you being out too late if I’m with you.”

“You don’t need to, Phil.” Henry continued walking towards his father’s truck, craning his neck in hopes his mom’s car would be parked in front of his dad’s pickup. “
Why else
,” he thought to himself, “
would dad park so far down the driveway?”

He stopped at the end of the driveway, seeing an empty parking spot where his mother’s car should have been. As he inched towards the front door of his home, he noticed shards of broken red glass, apparently from whatever car had backed into the front of his dad’s Ford, laying on the driveway. The damage to the Ford’s front end was minor, but Henry knew what had caused it and he knew why it was caused.

“You better just go home, Phil,” Henry said. “I think my mom and dad got into another one of their brawls and she hightailed it out of here.”

“You think she smashed into your dad’s truck trying to get away from him? Like he was chasing her out of the house?”

“Nah. She probably just wanted to get away from him before he got to hitting her inside. My dad, he don’t like the nosy neighbors to know anything about his family. He wouldn’t have chased her out of the house. It will be okay. If he’s home already, he probably ain’t too drunk. Go home, Phil. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” Phillip asked, his concern growing for his best friend.

“Yeah,” Henry said, smiling and puffing his chest out. “Besides, won’t look good having a fifteen year old protecting me.”

Phillip backed away, turned and headed up the street to his house as Henry reached for the front door’s knob. He tried to turn it, but found it was locked.

“Damn,” he whispered, knowing he either had to wait outside for his mom to come home (which could be any second or a day or two if history was to be trusted) or to ring the bell and have his dad let him in. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Phillip was still shuffling slowly up the street. He waited till his friend’s view of his front door was hindered by the four-year old pine trees Henry’s father had planted before ringing the doorbell.

The door swung open before Henry had removed his finger from the ringer.

“Where the fuck you been?” his father slurred.

“Out with Phillip. At the mall. Mom knows. I told her so.”

“Well, your mom ain’t home. Get your ass in here.”

History being the efficient teacher it was, suggested to Henry his father was deeply drunk: Much drunker than what a couple of hours in the bar near his job could accomplish.

“You out spending my money?” his father stammered.

“It was my money and I only spent a few dollars.”

“Your money? You think you would have a fucking penny if I didn’t give it to you?”

His father moved closer, the smell of alcohol, much stronger than beer, soaking every breath-laden word.

BOOK: The Demon Senders

12.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads