Dark Exodus

  The demon sucked her life energies inward, feeling the precious essence pooling in the pit of its belly. The nurse’s body began to wither, to collapse inward, her once-supple flesh clinging loosely to atrophied muscle.

  The demon dislodged its mouth, gazing down at its handiwork, contemplating the mission it had been assigned those ninety years before.

  The demon left the room, being sure to close the door behind it, just in case, and started to prowl the corridors once again. There were far fewer residents here than there had been when Caroline Rayland had first arrived, but the number was still sufficient to begin the process that it had been entrusted with by the Lords of the Abyss.

  As it headed toward a door near the end of a corridor, the ceiling fluorescent flickered and hummed as it struggled to stay alight. It reminded the demon of humanity and how it tried so hard to live lives that mattered, but in the end, it was all for naught.

  The demon reached the door but stopped, a nagging memory not its own drawing attention to itself.

  Turning slowly, it looked upon a door across the hall and felt something strange in the center of its being. The demon approached that door instead, letting the foreign feelings wash over it. There was some sort of connection here, and it was eager to determine what that might be.

  Opening the door, the demon skulked inside the semidarkened room. The sun was gradually coming up, the shadows of night gradually being driven away.

  But it would return. The darkness always returned.

  There was a figure lying on the bed, and the demon walked closer for a look. It decided to rummage through what remained of Caroline’s memories, finding what it was looking for at the forefront of her thoughts.

  This one, the demon thought with a lascivious grin, this one was special to her.

  The demon had made it its life’s purpose to take from its host body anything that might have brought happiness to her, so how was it possible that this person—this man—had somehow escaped its notice?

  Moving through the departing shadow, it stepped closer to look upon the sleeping man’s face.

  “Who are you?” it asked, loud enough to cause the man to stir.

  His eyes flickered open, adjusting to the light in the room, and he looked at the woman standing there before him.

  “Caroline?” he asked, his voice craggy from sleep. He pushed himself up in the bed, his back resting against the headboard. “What are you doing here? I thought that . . .”

  The demon found what it had been looking for as the old man spoke. This man . . . this Benjamin Freeling . . . he’d taken a liking to the woman, but fearing what fate might befall him, she had refused his love.

  The demon began to laugh, a loathsome chuckle at first, but then a full-blown cackle. How delicious this was. It could feel her residual feelings for the man, how she had wanted his companionship, his love.

  But she had turned him away, spurned his advances, convincing herself that she didn’t truly care. And what a job she had done, for the demon had not noticed.

  Until now.

  “I love you,” it said, doing everything that it could not to laugh.

  The man’s eyes widened in the dimness of the room. The demon could see the confusion, the sudden emotion.

  “I . . . I don’t understand,” the old man stammered. “Is . . . is this some kind of joke? And how could you be here like this? Yesterday, you were . . .”

  “It was your love, Benjamin,” the demon said in its most passionate-sounding voice. “It brought me back . . . it healed me and made me realize . . .”

  The demon sat down on the edge of the bed, doing its best imitation of looking longingly into the man’s eyes.

  There was genuine love there, and it made the denizen of Hell’s stomach gurgle eagerly.

  “I thought you would be gone,” he said, lifting a withered hand from beneath the sheets to stroke her cheek.

  It reached up and grabbed the man’s hand as gently as it was able, holding it close to its face.

  “I couldn’t leave without showing you how much I truly care,” the demon said as he watched tears fill the old man’s eyes, just as it gripped the man’s hand even tighter, bending it savagely to one side with a terrible snapping sound.

  Benjamin opened his mouth to scream, and the demon leaned forward, giving him what was likely his heart’s fondest desire.

  A kiss from the woman he longed for.

  The demon gazed into the old man’s eye as his life energy was sucked away, the look there going from one of surprise, to horror, to absolute disappointment as he realized his fate.

  His fate at the lips of the woman he loved.

  The old man’s skin grew slack, and the demon broke the kiss, a lingering wisp of smoke trailing between their lips like a tiny serpent.

  Benjamin had been the tastiest of them all, for there was nothing finer than love tainted by betrayal.

  Delicious.

  The demon rose from the bed and left the room, the strange feeling that it had eventually recognized as the woman’s love of this man suddenly gone.

  Like smoke upon the breeze.

  • • •

  The T. rex was the most fearsome dinosaur to exist during the late Cretaceous Period, and Tommy Stanley hoped that his second-grade class would be as enthralled by his Show and Tell presentation as he wanted them to be.

  The little boy, sitting in the backseat of the SUV, in the parking lot of the Little Peach convenient store, waiting for his mother to get her first cup of coffee of the morning—they were running a little late today—held up the plastic dinosaur that he’d brought to show, admiring its many teeth.

  It was a good representation of the tyrant lizard, he thought, admiring the shape of the extinct monster from multiple angles.

  The barking dog captured Tommy’s attention, and he lowered his dinosaur model and gazed out the back, passenger-seat window. There was a dog, tied to a bike rack, barking crazily at a man standing just outside the Little Peach door. He was sipping a coffee and looking off into space like he didn’t even hear the animal.

  Tommy saw that the man was dangerously close to the angry dog; one step to the left would have taken him into biting range.

  Tommy was hoping for that one step to the left as he leaned closer to the window to watch.

  The man seemed to suddenly notice the dog, looking down as the golden retriever strained upon the leash to get to him.

  Tommy was tempted to roll down the window, to warn the man that he might not want to get too close. That would be the Christian thing to do, which is what his grandmother would say. He touched the button on the panel of the SUV’s door, and the window slid down.

  The man was now kneeling, coffee cup in one hand while extending the other toward the agitated dog.

  “Hey, mister!” Tommy yelled.

  Still kneeling, the man turned and looked at him.

  “I think that dog bites!” he called from inside the vehicle.

  The man smiled at this, extending his hand even farther and stroking the golden fur atop the dog’s head before the animal could strike.

  It was the strangest thing to see, Tommy thought, watching with rapt attention. The dog wasn’t barking anymore, wasn’t angry.

  Funny. The dog suddenly looked very tired.

  The man continued to pat the dog’s head, rubbing it vigorously. The dog began to sway, its head lolling farther and farther toward the ground. Its four legs then gave out, and the dog dropped.

  If he still couldn’t see it breathing, Tommy would have thought that the dog had died.

  The man then turned and looked at him. “What was that you said about the dog?” the man asked, smiling as he brought his coffee up to his mouth for a sip.

  Tommy suddenly felt weird in his stomach, like when he’d had too much ice cream and suddenly had
to crap really, really bad. His finger went to the button on the door, to close up the window for some reason, when the man held up his coffee mug.

  “Wait up, sport!” he called as he proceeded toward the SUV.

  Tommy got the window up halfway before it stopped. Why did it stop?

  Tommy looked to the store, hoping that his mother would be there, but she wasn’t.

  For some reason, he didn’t close the window, and the man was suddenly standing there looking into the backseat, smiling. It reminded him of his T. rex for some reason.

  “Hey, want to thank you for warning me about the dog,” he said, taking another sip from his coffee cup.

  “Okay,” Tommy said, holding on to his T. rex tightly, really not sure why this man scared him the way he did.

  “But as you can see, I was fine,” the man said, looking back to the dog. It lay there at the side of the door, legs splayed out on either side, its tongue hanging limply from its mouth. “More bark than bite, methinks,” the man said with a chuckle as he looked back into the car.

  Tommy really had to crap. Bad.

  “That’s a mighty fine-looking Tyrannosaurus you’ve got there,” the man said, eyeing the figure that Tommy clutched.

  “Thanks,” Tommy said, trying to sound tough, but the word came out as a little squeak.

  Tommy wasn’t sure why the man scared him so much, he didn’t look bad. There was just something about the man that gave him the creeps. There was a part of him prepared for the guy’s ripping open the door of the SUV and attempting to drag him to a van parked somewhere in the parking lot.

  “Do you like dinosaurs, Tommy?” the man asked, peering over the edge of the glass in the window.

  Tommy flinched, staring wide-eyed at the man standing there. “How do you know my name?”

  The man just smiled for a bit before . . .

  “It’s on your notebook there on the seat beside you,” the man said, tapping his index finger on the glass to point.

  “Oh,” Tommy said, his stomach gurgling.

  “Well, do you?” the man asked him.

  “Do I what?” Tommy asked, the man’s previous question already driven out of his thoughts from fear.

  “Like dinosaurs?”

  Tommy just stared, the question just kind of floating there.

  “Yes,” he finally said.

  “Thought so,” the man said, smiling. He reached into the pocket of his jeans jacket and began to fish around.

  Tommy almost panicked, part of him thinking that maybe the creepy guy had a gun, or maybe even a knife.

  The man’s eyes shifted from left to right as he pulled something from his pocket. “I wouldn’t even think of giving this to anybody else,” he said. “But since you did me a favor with the dog . . .”

  Tommy’s eyes went to the dog again. It was still lying there, unmoving, barely breathing.

  “What is it?” Tommy asked, his curiosity winning out over the fear. He could see that it was something green, and shimmering in the spaces between the creepy guy’s fingers.

  “You have to tell me you want it,” the man said.

  Tommy looked at him then, staring into his eyes as the man waited for him to answer.

  The man wiggled his hand at the wrist, and Tommy saw a little bit more of what was concealed in his grip, and was fascinated.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Yes, what?” the creepy man urged.

  “Yes, I want it.”

  The man’s smile became huge as he opened his hand to reveal the prize it held.

  Tommy gasped at the beauty of the thing. At first he thought it was some sort of stone, but the way it seemed to glow, it was almost as if . . . it was alive. “What is it?” he asked again, unable to take his eyes from the object.

  “It’s an egg,” the man replied.

  “An egg?” Tommy asked. “What kind of egg?”

  “Whatever kind you’d like it to be.”

  “Dinosaur,” the boy said dreamily, unable to stop looking at the object as it pulsed with an eerie, inner light. “No, a dragon!”

  “A dragon egg,” the man said. “Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

  Tommy simply nodded.

  “Do you want it?” the man asked, holding it closer to the window.

  “To keep?” Tommy asked.

  The man nodded. “To keep.”

  Tommy nodded enthusiastically. “How much does it cost?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” the man said. “You helped me out, and this is my way of saying thanks.”

  “Really?”

  The man nodded. “Yep.”

  “So, you’re just goin’ to give it to me?”

  “I am,” the man said. “Roll the window down a bit more, so I can hand it to you.”

  Tommy thought about that for a moment, but then he looked at the stone—the dragon’s egg—and he knew that he had to have it. To hell with a plastic Tyrannosaurus rex for Show and Tell.

  A dragon’s egg was far cooler.

  Tommy fingered the switch, lowering the glass with a mechanical whine.

  “Here ya go,” the man said, reaching in and presenting the boy with his prize.

  Tommy hesitated, and the inner light of the egg seemed to pulse and flash all the brighter.

  “Go on,” the man urged.

  The boy’s hand hovered near the egg. He could feel something radiating from the object, tickling his palm ever so gently. Finally, he wrapped his fingers around the egg, taking it as his own.

  It felt warm to the touch, almost as if he were holding something with a heartbeat in his hand. Maybe it was some kind of dragon egg, he thought, staring at it lovingly.

  “So there you go,” the man said, withdrawing his hand and arm from inside the SUV.

  Tommy found himself smiling at the man now, no longer thinking that he was all that creepy.

  “And what are the magick words?” the man asked, waiting for a proper response.

  “Thank you,” Tommy said happily, holding the object all the tighter, practically bursting at the seams he was so excited to get to school to show everybody.

  “Thank you, Fritz,” the man said, taking another sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup.

  “Thank you, Fritz,” Tommy said, his smile growing all the wider.

  “That’s it,” Fritz said, glancing toward the door of the Little Peach. Tommy’s mother was coming out with her coffee and what looked to be a bag of pastries, and there was a man behind her holding a jug of water.

  “Enjoy your dragon’s egg,” Fritz said, turning to walk across the parking lot. He held his finger up to his mouth so that Tommy could see. “Our little secret,” he mouthed as he continued on his way.

  His mother climbed into the SUV.

  “I can’t believe how slow they are in there this morning,” she said, getting herself situated, but Tommy was distracted by another sight.

  The man with the water was kneeling beside the dog, beginning to panic as he attempted to revive his pet. Tommy was almost brought to tears by the sight but turned his gaze quickly to the object in his hands.

  And everything was all right again, and all he could think about was how this was going to be the best Show and Tell day at school.

  Ever.

  • • •

  John Fogg hadn’t slept well. A hot shower had relieved the pain of the injuries he’d sustained during his encounter with the taxidermy animals in the garage, but his brain was abuzz with questions about the mysterious man called Fritz.

  Who was he really? What part was he playing in the recent, malignant growth of evil that seemed intent on infecting the planet? Something in his gut told him that it was all connected, which made finding the man imperative.

  He was packing up his suitcase and carefully retrieved the rune-scratche
d glass jar containing the lesser demon. John held the jar up, noticing that the thing now looked less than healthy. He hoped that it would survive the journey back home, not sure how useful it would be dead.

  Carefully, he wrapped a T-shirt around the jar and placed it gently amongst the dirty laundry in his carry-on.

  He was zipping up the small suitcase, getting ready to call his wife, when the room phone rang. Retrieving it from the desk, he answered. It was the front desk informing him that the car was there to take him and his daughter to the airport.

  “My daughter?” he asked, momentarily confused.

  “Yes, she’s already down here in the lobby, sir.”

  “Thank you,” John said, deciding to leave it at that. “Please tell her I’ll be right along.” He hung up the phone, zipped up his carry-on, and headed for the door, turning back once to survey the room for any items he might have missed before heading out to the lobby.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fogg,” the concierge greeted him as he stepped off the elevator. “May I be of any assistance?”

  “My daughter?” John asked, looking around the lobby.

  The young man pointed toward the dining room. “She’s gone in for breakfast,” he said. “Should I let your driver know that you’ll . . .”

  “I’ll only be a moment,” John said, heading toward the dining room. “Thanks.”

  It was as he suspected.

  She was standing over at the pastry table, filling her plate.

  “Be sure to leave some for the other guests,” he said.

  Nicole turned around, her mouth filled with something that had been covered in powered sugar.

  “Hey,” she said, pushing some ragged pieces sticking out back into her mouth. “You gonna have some of this stuff? They have a pretty rad selection.”

  “I think I’m good,” he said, moving toward the silver urn on the table beside the one holding the pastries. “Coffee should do it for me.”

  “Yeah, already did coffee, now the belly is in need of sustenance.” She started to fill her plate again.

  “So,” John said. “My daughter?”

  She smiled. “You like that?”

  “Not really,” he answered, filling the coffee cup to the brim. “So, did you just come for the free breakfast or . . .”