may wake up but she immediately dismissed the idea. This wasn’t some fairy tale she reminded herself. She called his name again, louder and when he didn’t respond she slapped him hard across the cheek.
His eyes snapped open wide, wider than was normal and he started right through her. His pupils were dilated and what little remained of the whites of his eyes now appeared crimson. The red and black orbs wouldn’t have looked quite as frightening if it wasn’t for the other terrifying events; because in that moment he looked possessed. This wasn’t her Connor staring back at her, it was something else altogether.
Connor made a sound, like a supressed scream. It was the kind of low throaty grown that Tinkerbell makes when she is challenged by another cat.
“I…” he croaked. His voice was taught from concentration. “I can’t close it. I need to keep it open so they can get back out”. Sweat was running down his face. The t-shirt he’d been sleeping in was soaked.
At that moment there was a monstrous roar from upstairs.
“Connor, wake up” Laura demanded as a trickle of blood began to dribble from his nose.
The sound of crashing, stomping footsteps pounded along the landing and then Laura saw it: The dark nightmare figure at the top of the stairs. What little light there was permeating the gloomy house was suddenly sucked away as the intruder began its decent.
“Connor its coming” Laura screamed. “Wake up, it’s coming down the stairs” her voice shrieked hysterically.
Connor cried out, a low cry of anguish and regret as he he shook his head, struggling to stand up straight.
Laura’s panicked words carried over to Connor as he struggled to keep the doorway open while trying to maintain a grip on his own sanity. He’d held it open for this long but so far none of the dead had returned. He knew if he closed it they would be lost forever. Whatever happened they would be doomed, condemned to remain within Abiku forever. Laura screamed again and he had to close his doorway. With an emotional as well as psychic pain his senses returned to the real world, to the present, to the hallway.
Abiku’s towering form was flowing down the stairs. Connor turned to face her and as he did so he noticed she stumbled. The demon was moving slower than she had done earlier and then she almost stumbled again. It was as if her limbs were losing some of their coordination. Whatever the lost revenants were doing to her mind it was having some kind of effect and Connor didn’t hesitate. He pressed his momentary advantage and took up his demon blade. Reaching between the banister rails, driving it upwards Connor thrust the point of the weapon up into the tough hide of the demon. Abiku cried out in pain and anger: Pain from the wound and anger that a mortal human had damaged her in this way.
She reached down to swipe at Connor but he easily ducked the blow. Instead Abiku began to change shape. She began to grow. Just as she had done on his first encounter with her when she had taken his grandmother, she grew again now. Only this time it was different. This time only one side of her appeared to be swelling larger. The side of her that had been pierced by the alien blade remained its original size as if it were staked to the ground. Abiku looked down to see the blade protruding from her flank but before she can pull it free there is a movement above her.
From the top of the stairs the final handful of lost souls had regrouped and as one then fell upon her. Ghostly blades and even pieces of broken furniture from Connor’s bedroom were driven into the demon. Abiku’s frustrated screams twisted high in pitch as the dead pieced both of glowing red eyes with their swords, driving them deep into her corrupted head. Blinded but even more ferocious, Abiku reached behind her and plucked one of the ghosts from the stairs. His blade fell from his hand as he was stuffed into half-expanded side of Abiku’s great androgynous mouth. Connor spun around the banister and rushed up the stairs toward the demon. He jumped up onto Abiku, grabbing the blade from the fallen ghost where it had landed and stabbed it into Abiku’s exposed throat. He drove it down, hard. Then two more blades joined his. The additional attackers, more skilled in the use of the weapons than Connor, began hacking chunks of vile screaming demon flesh until finally Abiku’s screams were silenced as her head was severed from the body.
Everything went quiet. Connor stumbled away, madly pushing himself away from the fallen demon in case she suddenly grabbed him in the tradition of most horror films he had seen, but she remained motionless on the stairs.
Laura was huddled in the corner by the door and he fell into her arms. They pressed themselves back into the wall while he watched the ghosts gathering themselves together.
A spike of anguish rose through Connor as he thought of those souls lost in the demon’s mind. A part of him wanted to open the door to search for them but he knew he couldn’t. They were gone, like so many others.
“We’ve got to finish this” Captain Blake said from Connor’s sided. It took a moment for Connor to recognise and process the words. He felt strange. it was probably just the exhaustion form the fight but he was aware of a sense of… absence in his mind. The cold shock was still flooding his system and he couldn’t reply to the Captain but nodded instead and led Laura outside so he could finish what needed to be done.
In order to ensure Abiku didn’t rise again they had to burn the body, Captain Blake had explained. Connor had a spare petrol container in his garage. He’d kept one for emergencies in here ever since the last fuel strikes. Connor retrieved the can and returned to the house. He had suggested Laura waited outside but she refused to leave him. She watched him douse the remains of the demon in petrol before lighting it. The fire burned quickly spreading up the walls and singeing the carpet but in that Connor didn’t care. There was a void - a nothingness pressing in on his consciousness and he knew he had to make sure the fire burned the demon before… Before…
Something wasn’t right! As he turned to Laura the world seemed melt around him, dissolving into grey static. An overwhelming urge to sleep swept over him and then everything went black. The last thing he heard was Laura’s shrill voice urgently calling to him.
The hustle and bustle of the ICU ward clattered on around her. A phone had been ringing for some time but Betty Price the Ward Clerk was away from her station. Two healthcare assistants were trying to help an elderly gentleman have a wash but he was very resistant and shouting very colourful profanities at them. One of the doctors, a tall thin man with John Lennon style glasses and long hair was lounging at the side of the nurse’s station phoning someone to ask about some bloods.
Laura had worked here for some time and she was able to tune out all the distractions in order to waltz into her own little world. She absent-mindedly tapped the side of her mouth with her Micky Mouse pen as she finished writing up the last of her notes from this morning’s ward round. She paused to take a moment to reflect on recent events at home. A week had passed and but it still felt unreal and she still wondered if she would wake up sometime and realise that night had just been a terrible dream.
Connor had recovered in hospital and was diagnosed as having a form of epilepsy. Connor let his family believe it was a delayed result of his assault but both he and Laura knew it was caused by the damage he had sustained while peering into the mind of the demon. He would be on medication now for the rest of his life.
Connor and Laura moved into Connor’s Mum’s house. It was just a temporary measure until the fire damage to Connor’s house was repaired but his Mum was so welcoming, as always and his younger sisters were just as thrilled to have their big brother and his girlfriend staying with them.
Alicia hadn’t really spoken to Connor since they moved in and she rarely even acknowledged Laura. Laura had tried to be friendly but Connor’s sister didn’t like her and blamed her for everything that had happed so Laura was happy to have nothing to do with her. Laura’s prince was safe and well and that’s all that mattered to her.
Laura felt rather than saw someone standing next to her but when she turned to look there was no one where. She smiled in the directi
on she thought she’d seen the figure and thought about what Connor had said.
He’d taken the remaining spirits who had ‘survived’ the battle with Abiku to wherever they wanted to be left. Some, he said, went to their family homes to watch over loved ones, others went to beautiful scenic locations that had meant a lot to them in life. While others returned to their places of work to continue their passions and interests. One in particular, Connor had explained had just qualified as a doctor when he was killed in a road traffic accident. He worked here at the Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Accident and Emergency. People used to joke with him saying he looked too young to be a doctor. But ever since Connor had told Laura about the ghost him she had become more aware of quiet noises or movements in the corner of her eye. She liked to think there were friendly ghosts in the hospital, looking over the living and helping the newly deceased.
As for his psychic gift Connor’s doorway wasn’t sealed but he no longer feared it. At night as he slept he would still dream and he would still cry out in the dead of night. Only his nocturnal screams were no longer cries of fear but shouts of triumph against the horrors that await us in the Afterlife.
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