Demons

he weren’t much ta look at. i swear if you were ta pass him on the street, you wouldn’t give him a second glance. he had brown hair, a kinda light dusty brown that was a shade or two this side of light brown and a shade or two that side of dark brown. he had these big watery brown eyes that if they made me think at all, made me think of a basset hound that was used ta gettin kicked…kinda sad but always lookin for a boot. his gangly type build weren’t nothin to remark on exceptin he was exceptionally unexceptional.

he came into town on saturday when i saw him passin by the ice cream parlor; i remember because that was the day that old maude comeston passed on. the doc said it was a heart attack, but when i drove up ta the comeston ‘stead ta bring maude’s body down ta sammy at the funeral parlor, one look at her face strait convinced me that it weren’t no damned heart attack that sent maude ta her maker. i been drivin the town eemergencee rescue wagon for near twenty years, and though i seen all colors and shapes of the reapers handywork, i ain’t never seen no one what looked like that after havin no heart attack.

ya see, her eyes were poppin out of her sockets and her jaw was clenched up something fierce—so much so that three of her teeth were clean shattered right down ta the roots—and her hands had gotten hold of her dressin gown by the hips. hell, me and elmer, the sheriff, tried for near five minutes ta get em loose. i remember talking to sammy about her…

“Shit, sammy. I swear t’God i aint never seen anythin like that in my life!”

“I can’t say as i have neither.” sammy was still workin on old maude’s hands. he wasn’t havin much luck neither. “I surely can’t. I may have to break some of her fingers here.”

“You know,” i said, “she looks scared witless. Yeah, that’s it! Sammy, you ever hear of someone gettin scared t’death?” there was a crack as sammy got her thumb loose and looked up at me.

“Well, i ain’t never heard of no one dyin from a frightenin. Mind you, that don’t mean it’s not possible. I ain’t no expert.”he nodded a couple of times like he was provin his point, then went back to makin maude look presentable for the funeral. if sammy wasn’t an expert, then who the hell in this little town was?

i spent a little while longer tryin ta convince sammy that old maude didn’t die of just no heart attack, and sammy just kept on tellin me the same thing—he wasn’t sure one way nor the other.

so the stranger came into town on a saturday. that was the day maude died. but it wasn’t the reason i remember him commin to town. oh good god no. the next day, that would be sunday, i get this call from elmer at somethin like five in the mornin. i guess that would make it monday mornin, but i usually go fer switchen days when the sun comes up. when elmer called me, i could tell he was agitated somethin fierce. he starts screamin in my ear about sissy mabe and cottonwood road and some other such nonsense.

“Elmer!” i says ta him, “calm down for just a second! I can’t undrstand a goddamn thing you’re sayin!”

“I’m sorry, Pete.” i could hear him take a deep breath then let it out slow and stoppy like he was countin. “Pete, you need to get the truck and get up to cottonwood road right now. There’s been a terrible accident…or no accident…or something is goin on…hell, pete, i think sissy mabe has been murdered!”

well i’ll tell ya, that got me up and movin in a hurry. i told him i would throw on some clothes and be down there directly. he sounded near grateful as i was hangin up the phone; like he was needin someone—anyone else just to be there with him. it didn’t take me long ta figure out why when i got out ta cottonwood road. the entire police force (that’s elmer, and, on the weekends, derek and floyd), doc abrassart and sammy were all out there standin next ta elmer’s squad car like it was a fire and they was tryin ta keep warm. sammy come over ta meet me just as soon as i pulled up.

sammy didn’t say much at all, just kind of directed me with a nod of his head over ta the ditch on the other side of the road. i wondered if i should grab the box out of the back of the truck, but when i caught sight of the body, i realized there was no use in any of that.

it was sissy, all right.

she was naked and had been tore open from her chin all the way to her navel. the cut was more or less in a line, so it was obvious it weren’t no animal or by any accident. but if you can believe it, that wasn’t the most upsettin thing about the poor girl. i didn’t want to see it, but as sammy came over ta stand next to me, it seemed to be pretty obvious.

“She looks like she saw the same thing as maude, “sammy choked out. “I ain’t never seen nothin like this all up close, pete. Not in all my years a fixin up dead floks, i ain’t never seen nothin like this.” i had to brace a hand on sammy’s shoulder to fight off a spell of dizziness. sissy’s face did look just the same as maude’s, only this time, we knew good and well it weren’t fear that done her.

all of a sudden, elmer was hollerin for me and sammy ta come over ta his car. glenda, the receptionist at the police station, had just got a call from skip jenkins on his cb. he was out doin his rounds with the garbage truck when he said he had spotted someone draggin someone down the road by the hair over next ta the old comeston house. he figured that was mighty peculiar, so he stopped the truck and was waitin for elmer out at the house. me and sammy dashed for the e-truck, while derek and elmer took his car. we left doc and floyd with sissy.

it was a quick drive. the police cruiser got out in front of my rig, but the dust hadn’t even settled when we pulled up ta skip’s truck. i did notice my heart poundin like a triphammer. me and sammy got out and joined up with elmer and derek at skip’s truck…only ta find that skip wasn’t around.

that’s about the time we heard the screamin.

we’ve all heard little kids screamin when they don’t get their way, but ta hear a grown man makin those noises turns your stomach and sends a chill up your back. elmer had his pistol out and was runnin up the drive with derek right on his heels. i’m no great specimen of athletic ability, but that wasn’t the reason i was kind of slow on following them boys. i wasn’t really sure i wanted ta see what was goin on up behind that house. by the time i got up ta the barn out back the comeston house, elmer and derek were just pushin open the doors.

sometimes in the middle of the night, i still see what i saw then just as if i was standin there all over again.

it was gettin to be moring and the pre-dawn light was comin in through the windows of the barn. there was a girl on the floor of the barn. she was dead. i had seen her before around town and could see her folks in my mind, but, for the life of me, i couldn’t remember her name. still can’t. her head was pointing this real funny direction on account of her neck had been chewed near through. as i pulled my eyes away from that, i noticed that one of her arms was gone. then i saw that stranger. i’ll tell you though; he wasn’t unremarkable just then. he wasn’t even human any more. those big watery eyes had rolled all the way back up in his head, but i swear ta god, he was still lookin right at me. his shoulders were all hunched up and his mouth was a hand’s breadth too open—this gave me a glance at the bloody rows of nasty sharp-lookin teeth. as i watched, a blue tounge switched out across those teeth like a cat’s tail. he was holdin what ended up being skip’s body in one hand…we figured this after we found his head some distance away from the barn.

elmer’s first shot hit the monster in the arm, makin it drop skip’s decapitated corpse. the second hit it square in the chest as it turned to hiss at elmer. a black hole appeared where the bullet went in, but the thing didn’t seem to notice. instead, it made this gurglein growl, turned and jumped an easy thirty odd feet through one of the open barn windows. we all just sort of stood there lookin at the window for what seemed like an hour. i think elmer was the first one of us ta move. he went out the doors of the barn ta go after the thing. this woke derek up, and he was right behind elmer.

the sun was just startin ta clear the hills. me and sammy just stood there, lookin after elmer and derek. neither of us wanted to look back into the barn. after a while, derek and elmer came walkin back. derek didn’t look well at all, and elmer’s face was a blank. they didn’t say a word, but i could tell they didn’t find the stranger. he had disappeared…

well, that was a few years ago. the four of us really never talked about what we seen that night and i think the official explanation was a mountain lion had come down out of the hills. i had to move out of that little town where i had grown up. i moved out to salt lake city and took a job with the post office sortin mail. i guess i’m happy and the head shrinker lady i visit once a month says i’m doin a lot better. something about post-stress or somethin like that. every once in a while these days i can sleep the whole night through without usin any drugs, but i really don’t like to. most nights, my demons wake me up two or three times with that familiar old cold sweat, but i guess that can’t be helped. mostly i just try not ta think too much.