The Demon Senders (7 page)

The intervention didn’t go as well as planned. In fact, when he arrived at the bar Henry’s mom had told him the intervention was to take place, Phillip was the only person that showed up. Even Henry’s mother found something else more important to attend to.

“This is some intervention,” Henry joked. “About what I’d expect from my mom. And as far as friends go, let me tell you, people I hang with don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves. But you came, Phil. You’re the only one who understands.”

“Henry,” Phillip said, “you need to get your life back on track. It’s not too late and I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Too late? Phil, you have no idea how late it is for me to get things back on track. It’s just a matter of time before they send me to the chair. I got into a little hot water down in Baltimore. Some hot assed DA is trying to pin a double murder on me and it’s just a matter of time before some fucking cop comes up with a good enough lie for her to charge me.”

Phillip said, “Double murder? Henry, what the hell did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, Phil. Wrong place, wrong time is all. But the people I ran with down in Baltimore, they turned out to be real bad dudes. I don’t have any proof but I know they did the deed and are more than happy to set me up for the fall. I need your help, Phil. You’re the only friend I got. You do this favor for me and I’ll promise you’ll get rewards you can’t possibly imagine.”

Henry killed the entire family then was shot dead a few days later as he was walked out of a motel room . The shooter, it turned out, was one of the “bad dudes” Henry associated with when he was in the Baltimore area. That vigilante owed Henry a favor.

The wrenching was constant. It sought to squeeze out from him what was evacuated centuries before. Yet still the wrenching continued. His form, not just a horrible and very distant memory, was reduced to liquid mush so long ago. He could not move, for his bones and muscles were nothing but a gelatinous, oozing substance that could never find a known structure again.

He screamed in terrorized horror and pain, his voice the only recognizable reminder of who he once was. He dared not wonder if the wrenching would ever cease. He surrendered that hope so long ago, knowing even the slightest, most impotent wish for the pain to end, would result in greater pain.

The wrenching pressed on, day after day, year after year, century after century. Yes, he knew it was not without its value, for the decision he had made granted him some dominion. But he never realized the power he lustfully desired and then obtained, would come at such a terminal and eternal price.

There was one thing, however, that remained in him. Something the wrenching could not extract from him. It was a wedge that forced a gap between that which was left and that which needed to still be destroyed.

What remained now served only to give life to his torture. To give it purpose. Though he guarded against thoughts of what remained, he knew it was still there and that his torment would always focus on bridging the wedged gap, burning out the remains of his life and ending it at last.

And he knew the gap would never be bridged.

He screamed.

I don’t know how much time I have to spend with you so I hope you don’t mind if I skip over some details and get to what brought me to this place.
 

Rachel and I must have talked right through that first night and into the next morning. The more she said, the more I knew what I was.

I was officially a sender.

I wasn’t happy about it, mind you, nor was I convinced of everything.

Later that day, I made my way back to my apartment. It must have been ten times during my trip home I was convinced I was being followed. Probably was, for all I know, but nothing happened. I got home, climbed the stairs and was immediately ignored by Al. By all accounts my life seemed to be exactly how I left it just a day before.

I picked up my guitar, a beautiful black Takemine acoustic-electric, and played like nothing had changed. But the music I played and the songs I sang seemed shallow to me.
 

Like they meant nothing.
 

The more songs I played, the more they felt like songs you hear at a funeral.
 

They were songs for my funeral, I guess.

My old life was over and my life as a sender, and whatever the hell that would mean, had begun.

It took about three days after Rachel and I had our little chat before she showed up at my door. She held a look on her near perfect face that told me two things the second I opened my front door and saw her: One, she wasn’t here to get better acquainted, and two, she was pretty much filled up on the nervous meter.

“We have to go,” was all she said. “Grab an overnight bag and something to eat on the way. We need to move, now.”

“Where are we headed?” I asked, the reality of the moment causing mental paralysis.

“Not sure yet,” she said as the nervous expression she had been wearing was evicted by the unmistakable look of impatience. “Just grab some clothes, some cash if you have any, a box of granola bars and let’s go.”

My mental paralysis eased up long enough for me to do what she told me to.

I climbed into the passenger’s seat of her car, tossed my stuff in the back seat and then, without any further discussion, she slammed the car into gear and headed out. I think we went east but I really wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter.

We drove for at least two hours before she said anything. “We’re going to a small town south of Erie. We have some work to do.”

I remember exactly what I was thinking as she said those words: That this trip was either going to remove any remaining doubts I had about being a sender (and trust me, there were still a ton of those), or that I would find out someone was pulling a very elaborate prank on me and I was about to find out who the mastermind behind the whole prank was. As we drove towards Erie, I started running through the list of people I knew who had the imagination and resources to pull off a prank like this. There was my brother, Keith. While he and I were pretty tight growing up, we took different paths after college. He stayed working with our dad in the construction industry and I set off to be a full-time musician, part-time substitute teacher. Keith was a few years older than me and was always pulling pranks on me when we were kids. He was a definite suspect.

Next there was a good friend of mine named Mark. Mark and I were tight since the second grade. His mom used to say he and I were as “thick as thieves” back then. Don’t misunderstand, Mark and I never got into any trouble with the law or did too much to cause our parents any heartache. We were just always palling around doing something. Whatever.

Mark was pretty smart, smart enough, I figured, to have arranged this whole thing with Rachel. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked him for this prank. Mark had gotten married a year or two before and his life was flooded with the sudden responsibilities that come along with being married and raising the kids his wife had from her previous marriage.

Mark was just too damn busy to be the mastermind behind this whole thing. I mentally crossed him off my list.

By the time I had added three more names and crossed off six suspects, Rachel pulled the car off the main road and onto a dirt road. Normally, a dirt road in the winter would be impassable, but this particular dirt road must have kept cleaned off by either the town or whoever owned the road. There was snow covering the road, but no more than an inch or two. She pulled over to the side of the road after a hundred yards or so.
 

“Okay,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on some distant point down the road, “this is it. He’s up ahead. He’s weak and old and shouldn’t be much of a challenge for you. Which is good, considering this is your first.”

I can’t tell you what I was thinking or feeling at that point. I can say my mind was flipping between absolute terror and excitement faster than it had ever waffled between thoughts and emotions before. As Rachel put the car back into gear and slowly headed back down the dirt road, I felt every fiber of my being tense up. Something was going to happen soon, I could feel it. Something either horrible or hilarious, I couldn’t tell, but I was leaning towards the horrible thing.

As the car made its way towards our destination, I noticed the trees began to thin out and I was able to see farther ahead of us. When we first made the turn on to the dirt road, all I could see past the trees was more trees. But as we inched farther, it became obvious that there was a clearing in the trees up ahead, maybe only another hundred yards or so.

“There’s a pond up ahead,” Rachel said, her voice dripping with nerves. “I’ll stay in the car. You walk up behind him and shove him into the water. You may want to grab a rock or something hard and hit him in the head if you can. That will daze him for a moment. And Trevor?” she asked.

“What?” was all I could manage.

“Moments count. Every last one of them. Hit him in the head, shove him into the pond, then hold him under till his body goes slack. Keep holding him under for an extra minute or two, just to be sure.”

She pulled the car off the road and into a small clearing in the woods. The clearing was just big enough for her car to fit and offered plenty of cover in case whomever I was about to come across at the pond decided to glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was headed his way.

“Grab a rock,” she said as she shut off the engine. “Move up as quietly as you can. Get as close to him as you can, then, with everything you’ve got, crack him in the head with the rock. If he sees or hears you before you get close enough to hit him, throw the rock as hard as you can at him, then charge him. Don’t talk to him. Don’t let him say a word to you. When he sees you, he’ll know who you are and what you’re there to do.

“If you let him talk to you, he’ll twist your mind up so fast he’ll have the jump on you and you won’t have a clue what happened till you wake up in Hell.”

I looked at Rachel, who was still glaring ahead, though now she was only looking at trees. I reached over, and pulled her face towards mine. “You have to tell me this isn’t some fucking joke and that, whomever it is you’re saying I’m going to see at the pond, is really a demon and not some innocent guy trying to catch a few fish for his dinner. Tell me!”
 

“Trevor,” she said, a sudden compassion flooding over her face, “this is real. It’s not a joke and the guy you’re about to confront is dangerous. He is a demon, do you understand that? A demon that, if it senses any doubts in you or sees you hesitate, will kill you. You have to do this. You’re a sender. This is your destiny.”

I opened the car door then shut it as quietly as I could. I didn’t look back at Rachel as I started walking towards the pond. As I walked, my heart thumping so hard I was convinced its beating was loud enough to reveal my position, I searched the ground for a good sized rock. Finding one, I picked it up and held it firmly in my right hand.

I was sweating like I was twenty miles deep into a marathon that I hadn’t trained for. My head was pounding and I could feel my heart pumping in every joint of my body.
“This is happening,”
I thought to myself.

I walked up another fifty yards or so till I could see the pond. I slowed my pace, making sure my steps were quiet and would not reveal my approach. I moved closer, keeping my body low and making sure to keep some cover between me and the pond. My breathing turned staccato and my jaw began to quiver.

Ten more feet and then I saw him.

I crouched down behind a bush, wishing it still held its leaves, and just watched him for a few minutes.

He was older, I’d say maybe in his mid-sixties but couldn’t be sure. He was sitting on the ground, most of his legs in the dirty looking pond. I imagined that if my visit was during the summer months, the pond’s water would be green with algae. Though the one acre pond was, as it should have been, frozen over solid, the area around where this old man was sitting wasn’t frozen over at all. Either the man had broken through the ice (which was certainly very thin where he was sitting, being so close to the shore) or something else was at work. Something I wasn’t ready to explain quite yet.

The thawed out area formed a near perfect half circle around him, stretching out no more than four or five feet from him. His body was swaying rhythmically from side to side. Slowly as if he was listening to an old slow jazz tune. His arms hung slack by his side, his fingers, curled back in on themselves, dangled in the dark, frigid water. I didn’t believe that I recognized him, though I still hadn’t seen a clear view of his face. I needed to be sure. I needed, at least some part of me needed, to know my whole “prank” idea was nothing more than wishful thinking. I needed to see this man’s face before I could even think about doing what Rachel told me I needed to do.

Now, you know where you found me and the position I’m in. I’m sure you’d agree I’m not in a good spot by any stretch of the imagination. And since you’re standing here listening to me, you’re probably not all that thrilled with your situation, either. I don’t know your story and how you ended up here beside me, but I do want to tell you how I ended up here. It was the result of three mistakes I made. I’ll tell you about the last two of those mistakes later, but first, I need to tell you about my first mistake.

Once I decided I needed to see that man’s face before I hit him in the head with a rock and tried to drown him. I started to move up behind him, as quietly as I could. My plan was to get right behind him, say something so he’d turn around, then, after a split second, decide whether I knew the guy or not. If I didn’t recognize him, I would set my mind to doing what I believed I needed to do.

He was still sitting, half in, half out of the pond. Arms still slack by his side and his torso continuing its rocking from left to right, right to left. I figure I was ten feet behind him when I started inching towards him. After I removed about five feet of the distance between him and me, I saw him start to move his arms a little. Then, a few seconds later, he started splashing the dark greenish water onto his face and body. I thought that was either an award winning demonstration of method acting or that this guy really was someone that needed to be sent back. To where, I wasn’t sure.