The Demon Senders (9 page)

Rachel saw me walking towards her. She jumped out of the car. “What the hell took you so long?” she demanded. Then her beautiful face contorted. “You spoke with him. I told you not to talk with him. His smell is all over you. My god, Trevor, his stench is on you.”

It was pretty bad, the stench that is. I knew it and based on Rachel’s reaction, she agreed. “Any suggestions on how to get this stink off me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “but it isn’t fun.”

“Neither was doing what I just did,” I said before collapsing to the ground. It was lights out for me.

I came to after a good long spell of unconsciousness. I can’t say I was asleep because it didn’t feel like that at all. I passed out like an old lady in church who had too many nips of the church wine. The whole thing with the demon must have overwhelmed me and caused my brain to reboot. Last thing I remembered was asking about how I could get rid of the stink that was all over me, then I woke up a few hours later in the woods.
 

One thing I picked up on right away after waking up was that my clothes were all off. I was laying naked as a newborn on a bunch of pine needles and dirt.

“Where are my clothes?” I asked Rachel, who was several feet away from me throwing sticks and a few good sized branches into a fire she had apparently whipped up while I was in la la land.

“In the fire. Probably nothing but ashes at this point.”

“I take it you had a reason to burn them?”

“The stench the demon released wasn’t something you could wash away. I could have either buried them or burned them. Burying them is too risky, burning is the safest way.”

I was not quite back to full reality yet, but I was pretty uncomfortable lying around naked in front of Rachel. “Any chance you have a blanket in the car I could use?”

“You’re using it as a pillow,” she said. She smiled which made me feel wonderful. Since she picked me up at my apartment, her wonderful face was marred by worry and fear. Seeing her smile told me that things were okay now.

I reached under my head, pulled out the blanket and wrapped it around my body. “Thanks,” I said. “I still smell pretty horrible. You took care of my clothes, can you take care of my body?”

“Like I told you, it isn’t all that fun.” She smiled again. “You need to take a smoke bath. A long, uncomfortable smoke bath.”

“Doesn’t sound all that bad,” I said as I stood up and walked closer to the fire.

“Well,” she chuckled, “you’ll need to stand in the smoke for a good hour or two. And I’ll need that blanket back.”

“Any good bath should require the bather to be naked,” I said as I dropped the blanket to the ground.

I stood in front of the fire, smoke pouring over my body, for well over an hour. My lungs were burning and I was sure my eyes would never be the same by the time she told me to step away from the fire. Rachel said that while my smoke bath was over, I had one more step to take to get the stench completely off my body. A step she hadn’t mentioned before. She handed me a bottle of liquid and told me to pour it over my body. “Start with your head and let the liquid work its way down. Keep your eyes and mouth closed. This stuff isn’t anything you want to breathe in or get in your eyes.”

I grabbed the bottle, popped it open and poured the stinging, foul smelling liquid over my head. I wanted to scream when the liquid started to burn my scalp, but before I could even open my mouth in protest, she called out “Keep your mouth closed.”

I stood there, naked, for a few minutes till the burning subsided.

“You can open your eyes now,” I heard Rachel say. “But do it slowly.”

“Any chance that when I open them that you and I will be dressed the same?”

“Not a chance in the world, cowboy.”

Despite everything I just went through and despite now knowing everything Rachel had told me was true, I felt wonderful standing there in the woods with her by my side. I felt alive and centered with a purpose. I had a direction, though I had no certainty where that direction was leading me. She was laughing softly as I opened my eyes and teased me by holding out the blanket in front of her, asking me if I wanted to borrow it again. Her smile was like a silent melody that only my ears could hear. There was the physical attraction, at least on my end, but something about the way she held herself drew me to her. Like something desired that is beyond your reach that suddenly, unexpectedly moves within reach. Rachel wasn’t a goal or an objective of mine, she was something more. Something foreign that held an allure so powerful and awakening that I knew, as I saw her standing there, holding the blanket with one gentle arm, the other resting playfully on her hips, my life as I once knew it was over and a new life had begun.

And I was happy.

I can’t say for sure, but I think that’s when I started to fall in love with Rachel. And that, my friend, turned out to be my second mistake.

<<<<>>>>

After I dried off, we sat on a log, side-by-side close to the fire. I told her what happened with the demon by the pond and how I faltered.

“I don’t blame you at all,” she said, patting my back and then rubbing my shoulders. “It took a lot for you to even believe me enough to come with me, let alone to do what you needed to do.”

That felt good, knowing that she understood how I was feeling. Her rubbing my shoulders felt even better.

Despite what I had just done, sitting next to Rachel made me feel calm. Like that was where I was supposed to be and what I was doing (at that point just sitting on a log next to a fire) was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Some questions started to bubble up through my calmness that, though they weren’t powerful enough to disrupt the serenity, were demanding my attention.
 

“Why drowning?” I asked. “I mean, to me it looked like whatever that thing was back there was pretty comfortable in the pond.”

“Water is where they manifest and where they go to recharge. Like I told you before, they need water. Why, I’m not absolutely sure, but I do know that they need it. But when a sender enters the water with them, it kind of spoils the water for them. The water turns, I guess, and it turns into normal water. Doesn’t revive them and, as you well know, they lose their ability to stay under the water without drowning in it. ”

“Does the water stay ‘turned?’” I asked.

“Don’t think so,” Rachel said as she tossed another handful of branches on the fire. “I’d bet that when that demon you just sent back makes another transition sometime soon, it will use that exact pond as its transition point.”

What Rachel said about the demon I just sent back, probably already planning on making his triumphant return, didn’t sit well with me. “This whole ‘good versus evil’ thing,” I said, “it’s never going to end, is it?”

“One side will win, eventually.”

“But the demons keep coming back and stealing more souls, which means that even more demons will be coming back and stealing more souls. There won’t be any souls left to steal after a while.”

“That’s why your gift is so important,” she said, looking me dead straight in the eyes.

“Important? It’s only important if I can send them back and make it so they can never return. All I’m doing is causing a delay.”

Rachel said nothing. After a few seconds of her silence, I figured my last statement hit too close to home. Hell, if I figured out that I was more of a “delayer” than a “sender,” she certainly must have known all along.
 

Her being so quiet didn’t sit right with me. It’s not that I wasn’t comfortable with silence or was one of those types of people who feels compelled to fill every second they spend with someone in conversation. It was just that she knew a hell of a lot more about my new life, and her being so quiet wasn’t making me feel all warm inside. I felt either she had a ton more to say but felt I wasn’t ready to hear it or, even worse, she had told me all that she knew already. If that was the case, I figured there were way too many ways for me to screw up.

Just when the quiet was starting to eat me up inside, Rachel broke the silence. “There’s another battle going on, Mac. A battle that you and I can’t see. There has to be.” She paused and rubbed my arm, partially to keep warming me up and, I think, partially because the very act of touching someone makes people feel better. Both the one touching and the one being touched. “This whole ‘good versus evil’ thing has been going on a very long time. The good side must have their warriors as well.”

“You talking the whole ‘angels versus demon’ thing?”

“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “But there has to be something. You’re right, if this whole thing is just senders and demons, the whole world will be filled with demons eventually. The good side, I guess you’d call it ‘God’s side,’ has to be doing something to keep balance. I’m not a religious person—which makes being in this position even harder to understand—but what I’ve read in the Bible is God has His angels fighting demons all the time.”

“I also think, if my memory serves, that the dark side ends up winning before God wipes the Earth clean. You think we’re fighting a losing battle here?”

“It can’t be,” she said, her voice sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “If that were the case, why would you and I even be needed? Why would God create humanity, only to know that we’d all be wiped out eventually? I can’t believe that.”

“Maybe we’re doing what we’re doing to prove that there’s still something worth saving on Earth?” That scared me. The thought that all of humanity was banking on me put a whole other load of responsibility onto my already weary shoulders.

“I wish I knew all the answers, Mac. I really do. And if I did, I’d tell you everything. All I know is what I’ve seen or heard from the other senders. You may not know it yet, but you know way more than I do about this whole thing. You just don’t know what you know yet. But you will.”

“Rachel,” I said as I started to put my arm around her, thought better of it, then turned my arm reach into an awkward stretch, “everything I know, I learned from you.”

She shifted her position on the log to face me more directly. “Wait a minute. When I was with my last sender, we played a game.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said.

“Not that type of game, you pervert. No, it was what he called a ‘mind streaming’ game.”

“I think I like the type of game I was thinking about more. Mine sounds more interesting.”

“Get over yourself, Mac.”

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me how to play.”

“I start by asking you questions and you just let whatever thoughts flow into your head come out of your mouth. No matter how weird it may sound in your head, your thoughts may make sense when you say them. Want to try it?” Rachel was smiling the way a child smiles after asking a friend to play an imagination game.
 

How could I refuse?

“Okay. Shoot.”

Rachel dropped her hands onto her lap in a slapping motion. She collected her thoughts for a second, then said, “How many senders do you think there are?”

I just let my thoughts flow. I didn’t filter anything. If I was going to play this game, I was going to win, if winning was even possible. “Not as many as you’d think,” I said, with a confidence that gave me pause. “Maybe a dozen or so. Maybe fewer. One for every demon that is able to make the transition.” That sounded right. It felt right.

“So there aren’t that many demons crossing over?” she asked.

“I think that most of them have no idea that they can cross back over. I get the feeling that they’re lost in whatever realm they live in and that it takes….I don’t know…a super demon to make them aware of what they can do.” The thought of a super demon wasn’t very comforting.

“Okay,” she said. “So, this ‘super demon’ is able to send the demons back. Why would it do it?”

“Maybe its like a pyramid scheme,” I said. “Like, if a super demon gets agents to cross over, cause Hell on Earth and steal some souls, it gets rewarded.”

“Where is the devil in this whole thing?”

That question started nothing in my brain. No ideas streamed, no thoughts popped up and no feelings were sparked. “I don’t know. Maybe the devil doesn’t matter in this whole thing. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that I’m not getting any ideas sent to me, means that the devil doesn’t really exist.”

“Or maybe,” she said, “that it doesn’t have the power we were taught it has in Sunday school.”

“Maybe,” I finished, “the devil is dead. Or maybe Satan was sent back and can never return and is now relying on demons to do his dirty work. Maybe God was the first sender and sent Satan back. Or maybe,” I said in a whisper of a voice, “Satan has no idea where he is, what he is or what he can do. Maybe the demons that follow him, only follow him because they think they have to.”

<<<<>>>>

We stopped playing the game after my last statement. To this day, I can’t explain where those ideas came from, but I can tell you that they weren’t just laying around in my brain, waiting for the chance to come out.

No. Those thoughts were not mine. They were disjointed and fragmented, which I assumed was the result of those thoughts getting filtered through my little brain.
 

I could tell that the game and my thoughts had an affect on Rachel and I didn’t want to get her upset, so I quickly allowed some other bubbling up questions some space in my brain.
 

“Honestly, I figured the demons would be stronger. That old man demon was about as strong as an ordinary old man.”

“That’s how it works,” she said. “The demons have to possess a body in order to transition. They either use the bodies they were in when they first died and lost their soul or one of their stashes.”

“You’re telling me that demons have bodies stashed all over the place?”

“They keep them in the water. In ponds, lakes, the ocean. They keep the bodies of those whose soul they steal at their transition spot.”

“Freaking lakes must be jammed packed with dead bodies,” I said.

“Not really,” Rachel said. “The demons don’t keep all the bodies. There’s no way they could. They keep just what they need.” She paused a few seconds, poking the fire with a thick stick. “I can tell you have some other questions. Go ahead, shoot.”