Demons

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. In the rainy abyss of summer night, cloistered in deep woods it flickered, the only frail pin-prick of light in oppressive darkness.

John stared at the match he used to light it and followed the curling wisps of smoke rising into the dusty air. He smelled the sulfur in the smoke and almost forgot the stench of the cabin - mildew, animal droppings, rotting wood, and a couple of dead mice in the corner. Pain. Childhood.

“You ok, dad?” asked Collin.

His dad twitched and threw the match into a small metal can. “Yeah,” he said. “Did you bring in the cooler like I asked?”

“Yep.”

“And the rifle?”

“Uh-huh. I put ‘em next to the door,” Collin said.

“Good.” John sluggishly slung the rifle over his shoulder and lifted the cooler. The pine green plastic shimmered in the candlelight.

Collin felt his stomach turn. “Dad, you said the cooler’s got bait in it?” he asked.

“Yeah, for… for hunting bobcats, remember? It’s to draw them out of the woods,” John said. He set the cooler on a dusty table against the far wall. “You thirsty?”

“A bit,” Collin said.

John nodded. “You know Collin,” he said, “I was fourteen, just a couple of years younger than you, when my dad brought me out here for the first time. Gave me my first beer.”

Collin heard the cooler lid open and close, then the sound of tops popping off of glass bottles. His dad turned around with two black-labeled amber bottles.

“I think it’s good to continue the tradition,” John said. “The taste is a little strong, but you’ll learn to enjoy it. This is the good stuff - local brewery.” He handed one to his son.

Collin nervously sipped from the bottle, then gagged. “That’s awful,” he said. “And it was in there with the bait?”

His dad laughed. “Figured you wouldn’t like it. Keep going. Like I said, it’ll grow on you. And don’t worry about the bait. It’s in freezer bags, won’t hurt anything.” He paused, then raised his eyebrows and motioned to his son’s bottle. “Drink up. It won’t kill you.”

Collin grimaced and tried taking a larger swig. It burned his stomach.

The two of them settled against the walls of the cabin, their legs stretched across the rough wooden floor. Minutes passed in silence, accompanied by the slow patter of rain and twigs against the metal roof.

“You know, my grandpa used to tell me stories out here. About a witch that lived in the woods around the cabin. Said he met her once when he was a young man. He-”

“Dad, stop,” said Collin. “I don’t want to hear a ghost story right now.” The young man huffed. “You won’t tell me what’s going on, but I saw the papers from the bank.” He was staring at the floor, unsure why he was speaking this way. The alcohol was probably getting to him. “I know they’re taking the house.”

His dad sighed and sipped his beer. Silence.

Collin’s face grew warm, and he stood up on wobbly legs. “I knew things were tight when mom got sick, then even worse when we had to pay for the… funeral… .” His voice trailed off.

Everything went numb.

He slumped to the ground and heard glass break as the bottle in his hand crashed into the floor.

He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t move his arms.

He heard heavy, booted footsteps approach his limp form. Strong hands rolled him onto his side. Through drooping eyelids he watched his father walk across the room and open the cooler.

“It’s alright Collin,” John said. “I’m going to fix it. We’ll both be free soon.”

As his sight faded, the son saw his father reach inside the cooler and pull out a bone-handled bowie knife… then what looked like a human heart.

The first thing he was aware of was the rumble of thunder. Then came the smell of incense and the sound of someone muttering. He tried to move, but willing his body to action was like pounding against a brick wall. He knew he was sitting cross-legged, slumped over his feet. His hands rested on the rotting wood. Something small crawled over his fingers.

A sudden crack of metal splitting wood, combined with a sickening squelch. His stomach turned violently, and he forced his tongue to twitch.

The muttering stopped. Slow, thudding footsteps crossed the cabin. Collin’s eyes opened. He saw his father’s back hunched over the dusty table and heard the familiar clinks that meant his dad was loading a gun.

The heart was impaled with the bowie knife, which stuck straight out of the cabin floor. Petrified, paralyzed, he gazed around th eroom. A trail of salt, a circle of candles, and symbols written across the cabin floor in dark, oozing liquid.

Finally, through dry lips, he found broken words. “Dad… what’s… .”

John glanced over his shoulder. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be awake for this. Didn’t want you to suffer.”

“Dad… no… I… .”

“Shh… shh… .” John strode across the cabin and knelt in front of his son. “It’ll be over soon. Sorry it has to be like this, but there isn’t another way.”

Collin drowsily lifted his eyes to meet his dad’s. “Way… to do… .”

John sighed. “To lift the curse,” he said. “To get rid of the demon that took your mother, that stole my home, I had to pass it to the youngest member of the family. They’d become a vessel for the spirit, where it’d be vulnerable in human form.” He grinned at his son with malice. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“Wait, what… are you… ,” Collin mumbled. He realized he could move his fingers.

“The sleeping medicine I gave you should have knocked out a horse,” John said. He stood and returned to the table. “Whatever you are, you’re awake. And that means my son is gone.”

“Dad… please!”

“Don’t call me dad! You’re no son of mine!” John shouted. “And if you don’t shut up I might just decide to let you feel all the pain you’ve caused me before I put you out of your misery.”

Collin’s heart pounded, and the fog in his mind cleared. Feeling returned to parts of his legs as adrenaline coursed through his body.

Everything happened at once. The rifle barrel to his head, his dad’s hateful eyes, the desperate lunge upward. A gunshot. Fire, smoke filling the cabin. Pain in his shoulder as he burst through the front door.

The boy stumbled through mud and sheets of rain, tripping over branches and stumps in the dark. A blazing light filled the clearing behind him as the old cabin burned to the ground.

He traveled deep into the shadows, burned and bruised in sweltering summer heat tinged with flame. Cold chills roiled his body. All he saw was the anguish in his father’s eyes, all he could hear were the words, “my son is gone.”

His legs gave out, and he lay limply on the forest floor.

Visions swam across the dark canopy of leaves.

A young man bartering with a strange woman in the woods. An argument.

The flash of a knife. The woman’s blood pooling in the dirt. Fear. Pain. Dark birds with glowing eyes, enormous wings gliding through the branches.

A car accident.

An MRI machine.

A screaming heart monitor.

Bodies, husks with lifeless stares.

He screamed as death and fire filled his soul.

He couldn’t escape.

It would come for him one day.

Then one of the apparitions leaned over him with its cold gaze. “Sweetie, it’s ok,” it said. “Come on, wake up hun.”

The monstrosities faded away. He was in the woods again, and by the dim light of a lantern a woman knelt over him with furrowed brow. The rain was falling gently now.

“You ok, honey? You were screaming,” she said. Her voice was warm, motherly, silken.

“I’m… who are… .”

“I live down the road,” she said. “Heard someone fire a gun out of hunting season, went outside, smelled smoke. I called the police and decided to come out to see if somebody needed help.”

“He tried to-he’s-oh god!” Collin curled into himself, sobbing.

The woman lifted him to his knees and embraced him, his tears flowing into her shoulder. “Shh… shh... ,” she said. “It’s going to be alright, you hear me? It’s going to be-”

Something crashed through the trees, drawn to the light.

“Where the hell are you, you bastard?” a deranged voice called. The words were filled with bristling wrath and twisted glee.

Collin heard the woman undo a clasp and felt her pull something from her hip.

She let one knee touch the ground. “Keep your head down and your eye’s closed, you hear me?” she said.

Collin sank and covered his head with his arms. Hiding from the storm. A sharp click broke through the slow patter of rain.

The crashing and shouting grew louder, closer. Then suddenly stopped.

“Who the hell are you?” Collin’s dad said.

“I live down the road,” the woman said. Her knee dug into the ground. Her breathing was slow, paced.

“I’d appreciate it if you stopped pointing that at me.”

“Put the rifle down and we’ll talk.”

“I’m his father. I’m here to take him home.”

“I don’t care if you’re God in the flesh, we’re staying put until the police get here. Do you understand?”

“Please. I just want to make sure he’s ok.” John said. His voice faltered.

Collin lifted his head, hopefully meeting his dad with stinging eyes. “Dad, I’m scared.”

But the man he saw glared back with disgust. “I told you to stop playing games with me you monster!” he screamed. He glanced at the stranger, then stared at Collin and set his jaw. "You'll get what's coming to you soon enough."

“You take one step toward us or so much as think about lifting that little rifle of yours and I will shoot you.”

“You’re protecting that-that-thing?” snarled John. “You really have no idea what it is?”

“I know he’s a scared kid, and you’re a big man with a .22,” she said. “And I know I’m a grown woman with a .45. You breathe wrong and I’ll put a hole in your chest.”

John chuckled. “No… ,” he said. “No, I don’t think you will.”

“Look away, kid,” she said.

Collin slammed his eyes shut.

Twigs snapped under a heavy boot.

A gunshot crashed through the night air and shattered Collin’s ears. It was thunder, an earthquake, the gods splitting open the sky. The plucking of Rama’s bow.

His head ringing, the boy collapsed to the ground. He saw the empty shell that had been his father. Moments later, he was blinded by approaching headlights.

The woman cradled him in her arms, turning his face away from the body. She smiled down at him mournfully, her face illuminated in brilliant, dancing light, blue and red. “It’s alright.” she said. “You can rest now. You’re safe.”