In Sickness and in Hell: A Collection of Unusual Stories Page 7

  Tom wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Why talk here?” he said, “Grab his arms and help me get him outside. You can talk and carry, can't you?”

  Andy made a show of getting up and grabbing the Doc's arms. They heaved and got him an inch off the ground, but he was a fat motherfuker so in the end they slid him out on the floor instead and rolled him down the back steps.

  The whole time they was arguing, 'cause I guess Tom disagreed with Andy about using the name “Satan” at all. He said it conjured up all the wrong Sunday school ideas. Then they remembered that I was there and talked at me about how the words “good” and “evil” don’t really apply, how words like “food chain” and “prey” are a better fit. They got into philosophy a little: dualities, and how “good” and “evil” could only exist as opposite meanings of the other, so if there’s no “good God” then there just can’t be a “evil Satan,” can there? “Antonyms,” Andy said at one point, but I think he was just trying to sound smart. It was all beyond me, anyhow, and I think they was both talking more to reassure themselves that they knew all about it than to get it across to me.

  It was sunny outside still, with just a coupla clouds floating overhead and a slight breeze rustling some leaves. Real fucking beautiful, you know? I wasn't worried about anyone seeing us; I don't got a fence, but all the neighbors do so it's like the same thing. Spiky wood slats on one side, tall dark planks on the other, and chain-link behind. That way's the Roberts though, and they're never home.

  “What are you gonna do with him?” I asked, looking around at the patchy yellow grass that was my yard. Actually, I shouldn't call what's behind Dawn and my's house a yard. We got a tree, a shed, and a patio—well, a cracked slab with chairs on it anyway. We don't go back there much.

  Tom gave me this look like I was some kind a idiot. “He may have been possessed, but he was still a man. We're going to bury him, Carpenter, like a man deserves. Got any shovels?”

  “Yeah, in the shed.”

  “Get them. We don't have that much time; we're going to have to get going soon.”

  I went into the shed to get the shovels. It was damp inside, and when I dug out the shovels I had to scrape the moss off their handles. The shed's one of those crappy pre-fab jobs on sleds. The wood's warping and the roof is worn out so everything gets moldy and rusty after it rains. We didn't even buy it; the Roberts had it for years but they was gonna throw it out when they got the fence put in, so Dawn and me pushed it onto our property instead.

  Through the gaps in the wall, I could see them two outside. They was arguing about the best spot to bury the Doc. Andy was standing by the back of the house, but Tom was pointing to under the tree in the corner.

  I leaned back against the far wall and took a second for myself, just trying to absorb it all.

  So far, I got this much: there’s a whole spiritual or whatever level of reality that we’re only dimly aware of and that our science hasn’t been able to investigate yet. And there are things, “demons” or “devils” or whatever you wanna call them, that live on that level against us sentient creatures. Feeding on us maybe, or just doing what we’re doing, trying to survive. But the trick is that humankind grew up with them, so we have evolved some defenses. That’s where our God comes in. “God” is just the name mankind has given to what is essentially an immune system we don’t understand. It’s a species-spanning belief, a defender that exists because all of us, even the atheists—who was right, by the way—believe in it.

  But it’s when that faith starts to fade that this parasite gets its chance. “The movies have it all wrong,” Andy had told me when we was inside. “You know how possessed people get all sick, vomiting, fever, freaking out? That’s not the demon controlling them, that’s their body trying to fight off the infection.”

  I stepped out of the shed only to find them dragging the body over to me. I asked them what was going on.

  “Tom saw that your shed is up on sleds. We figure we can push it a couple feet, dig a hole, and cover it up again. Sound good to you?”

  “Uh, yeah, whatever.” I hadn't really listened to him, I was still stuck on something else. They started digging. Andy looked up at me after a minute and musta realized how this all looked to me 'cause he got this real compassionate softness to his voice and told me to ask them anything I wanted to so it'd make sense to me. “Alright, then let me see if I've got this straight,” I said. “Dawn lost faith, and one of the…demons…was trying to get in her and use her as a host?”

  “Pretty much,” Tom said over a shovelful of dirt. “And make no mistake, it was in her. But she never gave up hope. She never gave in to despair.” He stuck the shovel in the dirt and put his hands on top of the handle, leaning towards me, staring into my eyes. “And we think that’s the key, Sam, that’s humanity’s one hope at surviving: “evil” has to be invited in. It can stalk us and batter the gates and do everything you saw it do to Dawn, it can scare you, but it can’t break through on its own. Our immune system is too well developed.”

  “Like Job, man,” Andy said, stopping for a second to rub the stubble on his neck, “in the Bible.” Tom nodded his head in agreement. I nodded to, ‘cause I didn’t want to look stupid even though I didn’t really remember the story.

  Tom went on. “You have to be the one to let it into your heart. But once you do,” he glanced at Andy and then held my gaze with that same burning stare I’d seen earlier. “You’re terminal.” They went back to digging.

  It was a good sermon. I could tell, ‘cause I was fucking scared as piss at everything they had told me even if I only kinda understood what they was getting at with regards to me.

  “How long did you say Dawn was sick like this?” Andy asked me after they'd gotten about two or three feet down. The two of them was working fast, making a real big hole for just this one dude, fat as he was.

  I said, “Almost two weeks.” He whistled, and I saw Tom’s eyebrows go up.

  “She’s lucky, man. She’s strong.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I know. Hey, I got another question though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What was Doc Mayline’s part in all of this?” I asked. “I mean, I get that he was a host, but what I don’t get is if the demon takes over, what happens to the person? What led him here?”

  Tom said, “The person is still there, usually only barely aware that anything has happened, at first. It’s not like a puppet. They control you the way a drug addiction does. You ever been addicted to anything, Carpenter?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t tell them that I never kicked it. I knew exactly what they was talking about: the human mind is fuckin’ crafty. It doesn’t need step-by-step instructions, justa driving motivation. For the last coupla years mine had been a special blend of chemicals they call D’lilah. If you’d asked me to describe all the ways to get that shit, I couldn’ta done it. Thinking about it now, I don’t know how I did. But every single time, no matter how tight money was or how much we owed, I’ve never not been able to find enough money or to call the right people to get a coupla tubes. That’s how they were telling me these things worked into you, by giving you that need. It doesn’t have to make sense and it doesn’t have to be spelled out; as long as that need is there, burning in your head, you’ll find a way to get it.

  “That’s how it starts, anyway,” Tom went on. “And it can go on that way for months or years—depends on the host—and little by little you’re making the world a worse place for us and a better place for them. But then you get used to hearing those suggestions, you start forgetting that they’re not your own. The demon figures out how to get to you, figures out what’s most important to you, what you’d do anything for, and uses that. Then it’s not long before you’re in some poor bastard’s house to help another demon convince Dawn’s soul—or, you know, whatever—to give up, stop resisting, and let it in. That’s what happened to your Doctor Mayline; somehow, his mind found a way to make all of that sound perfectly reasonable to him.
”

  “You couldn’t save him?” I asked. Now that they'd let me ask questions, I couldn't stop myself. I had to figure out what they wanted from me.

  “We told you, once the host lets them in, there’s no getting them out. We did all we could for him.”

  I pointed at the face of the corpse slumped against the shed. “Is that why you cut up his shit like that?”

  “No,” Tom said. “We did that because even though the host is dead, the demon could still be inside for a while, watching and listening. Learning about us; the ones that are fighting back. They have too many advantages on us already. We cut them up so they don’t find out too much. So that maybe we’ll still have a chance.”

  “Do they talk to each other? Are they following orders or what?”

  “We don’t think so. If that were the case, they’d be much better organized. Hunts like ours keep surprising them though, so they must operate the same way we do: team up as they find each other on earth, work alone if they have to.”

  “Well, if you guys aren’t angels, what are you? Exorcists? Demon hunters? What?” I asked.

  They stopped digging and leaned on their shovels again. “Fair question,” Tom said. “Andy, you want to answer this one?”

  Andy smiled. “This is where it gets a bit more complicated, Sam, so stay with us on this: Tom and I are already possessed.”

  If I was a smarter man, or if I’d had a goddamn minute to think about it, I would’ve figured that out already. As it was, I was caught with my dick out. I looked at Andy. “Last year,” I guessed. “You tried to kill yourself.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, and not long after is when I got taken.”

  I looked at Tom.

  “Six months ago,” he said. He smiled like he was embarrassed. “Lost my job. Took it pretty hard.”

  I felt panic bubbling up inside me but I shoved it back down. “But you’re not under their control,” I said carefully.

  “Not yet,” Andy corrected me. “You can get good at suppressing their influence, hold them off for a while. But you can’t get rid of them, not without taking yourself out of the equation. Sooner or later, we’re lost souls. That’s why demon hunting is a transitive position, Sam. To hunt them, you have to be one of them, and that means you’ve got an expiration date.”

  I said, “I don’t follow, why do you have to be possessed?”

  “Oh, there are plenty of reasons: It’s easier to track them, easier to identify them. But mostly it’s because you can’t hunt them if you don’t believe in them, and if you do believe in them, then you also know the truth: you know that God doesn’t exist.”

  It was finally starting to come together for me. “And if you know that,” I said, “then you’ve lost your protection. If they find you, they take you.”

  They was both staring at me now, waiting for me to get it. Then I really began to put it together. The hair on my neck stood on end. I said, “If that’s so, then how come you’re telling me all this?”

  Andy sighed. “Sam, that’s just the thing...”

  “You been sick recently, Carpenter?” Tom interrupted. I became suddenly aware of that undersized elephant gun he was packing.

  I answered him slowly. “Coupla weeks ago.”

  “And how long were you sick?”

  “Seven days,” I said. It had been two, but I was embarrassed about that since they had been impressed by Dawn’s two weeks. And fuck them anyway, I hadn’t had any way of knowing what was going on.

  Honestly, I was surprised at how calmly I was able to accept what they was telling me. Maybe it’s because it explained the last coupla weeks so well. Maybe it was because I was just too goddamn tired to be anything but numb any more.

  “Not bad,” said Tom.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Andy said quietly, “I wish we could have helped you. We only got on the trail of these three about a week ago. I didn’t know one of them was you until you answered the door.”

  Three, he’d said. Franks. “Did you get Franks already?” I asked. They looked confused. “The guy at the lumber yard,” I explained.

  “Oh. Yeah, we got him last night.”

  “Shit,” I said. I walked away from ‘em then, back towards the house.

  “Carpenter, where you going?” I heard Tom call from behind me.

  “Gettin' a drink,” I told them. Andy said something to Tom, but I didn't hear what.

  I got inside and out of sight of them before collapsing into a chair at the kitchen table. My hands was shaking where they gripped the chrome edge of the table and I needed to take a hit off something, but I didn't have anything in the house.

  I took some long, slow breaths. It helped.

  Almost an hour had passed since Tom put the first bullet through Doc Mayline. No cops yet, which meant by now that nobody was coming. Maybe no one had heard, but more likely my neighbors just didn't want the cops sniffing around. It wasn’t the first time there'd been gunshots ‘round here without local law getting involved.

  Pushing up, I went over to the bedroom and looked in on my baby. She was still sleeping like they'd said she would, recovering. But there was life in her face now and the barest smile on her lips. She was lying right in a sunbeam and she looked goddamn gorgeous; innocent and clean even with the guts on the walls and the splintered wood sticking outta the door frame.

  I felt bad that she'd never know what happened to me, but I didn't see any way around it, not if I wanted to keep her safe. I was possessed; I couldn't stay with her.

  Back in the kitchen, I filled some plastic cups with water to take to Tom and Andy. Looking down, I saw the long smears of the Doc's blood stretching from the hallway to the back door. I had to laugh a little; the blood was still wet, and the color matched Dawn's 50's accents fucking perfectly.

  I went back out into the sunlight, squinting.

  Ignoring the gut feelings I was beginning to recognize as the opinion of my own demon, I felt okay with my death. At least I wouldn’t hurt anyone else. They were right, I’d already almost damned my girlfriend without even knowing I was doing it. Like they said, they'd needed me to save her because even though I was already taken, Dawn still loved me. It was being reminded of that love that brought her back, that kept her from giving in to the despair the Doc had been surrounding her with, and to give her the strength to reject the parasite clawing its way into her. But now that she was safe, I wasn’t needed any more. And I was strangely okay with that.

  I handed them their cups and took a look down from the edge of the pit. The hole was deep enough and plenty big. They was almost done. The Doc's body was six feet down, bloody eye sockets staring at the sun. In the heat, he was already startin' to stink. All that was left was for them to shoot me, dump me in on top of him, and cover us up. Dawn'd never know what happened, but she'd be safe.

  I took one last look at the house where my girl was sleeping, then back to what was gonna be my grave. Shitty place to be buried, I thought. Rotting on top of a fat guy. Fuck it, so long as Dawn's safe, I can deal with it. I looked at Tom and Andy. “Alright,” I said, “I'm ready.”

  They looked at each other confused.

  “For what, man?” Andy asked.

  All my fake confidence went down the shitter. “Isn't it, uh, my turn or whatever?” Them two laughed in my face. I backed away from the hole.

  “No, dumbass,” Andy said, “it’s mine.”

  “What?”

  “We gave ourselves six months. You should have about five left yourself, if it took them a week to crack you. Sometimes it takes longer than that, sometimes a whole lot less, but it’s safer not to push it. My times up. You’re my replacement, if you want it. Thomas here’ll be your guiding hand of justice, until he reaches his time. That’s how we learn this stuff, that’s how we fight back. I look at it this way: once it’s over, that’s it, man. So why not do as much good as you can, while you can?”

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed, a thin smile smeared across his face. He put one hand on my shoulder,
trying to be brotherly or something. It wasn't working. “If the demon’s only had you for a month, you’ve got some time before someone will have to put you down. That is, unless you’re a real pussy or something. You see, this way you can take a few of the bastards with you on your way out, send them back to wherever the hell they came from.”

  So that was their offer. I’d been wrong earlier; they was proslatizing after all. It was kinda funny, really.

  They kept talking, but I was starting to see that Andy was talking just to cover up how upset he was. I'd been so concerned with my own shit that I didn't even register what he'd just said: it was his turn to die.

  That's why they'd dug the hole so big; room for two. Maybe three, if I didn't go along with their plan.

  The more they talked, the less interested I became. They was missing the whole goddamn point. If there was no God, if the whole universe was out to get us and this is all there is, then what the hell do I care about saving anyone else? Save them from what? We’re all fucked, either way.

  Andy and Tom didn't want to risk another gunshot, 'specially not outside. In the end they decided that Tom would just choke out Andy, and we'd off him then. Crush his windpipe or something, I don't know. Whatever we did it was gonna be brutal, and we didn't have a ton of quiet options.

  Tom grabbed Andy before he could have second thoughts. It went fine, I guess. I didn't feel anything as I watched Andy die. He'd tried to off himself a year ago, so what difference did it make that it happened now?

  But something did click in my head as I stood in the shadow of the shed and watched Tom dump Andy's body on top of the Doc's. I knew that Dawn wasn't safe yet. I knew I needed to protect her. I couldn't do that if I wasn't with her, could I?

  It's like I was thinking before: we're all fucked, either way.

  So what does that mean, then?

  That means it’s all about me and the ones I love, which is Dawn. That means if I leave her behind so I can go with Tom, I still fucking lose.