Demonic, page 4
“You should stay clear-headed,” Darla told me.
Nothing about this was going to be easy, was it?
“Then I need a cold glass of water,” I said.
Darla didn’t protest as I went into the kitchen. I walked over to the counter and realized how well I’d been holding it together for the past few minutes, because I suddenly wanted to completely freak the hell out. It would’ve been bad enough just to have had that tense conversation where I thought things might turn violent. Stabbing a man in the throat, no matter how much of a piece of shit he was, was going to fuel a lot of poor mental health moments. But the fact that Vic had lived through all of that? It made me want to drop to my knees, tear out my hair, and start incoherently screaming.
That said, I wasn’t yet willing to go with “powers beyond those of mortal men” as the explanation. I could simply have witnessed a marvel of human endurance; man’s desire to survive at all costs. But it was incomprehensibly freaky.
And now I had to cut off Vic’s head.
That was never part of the plan. I mean, yes, I’d considered the idea that there might end up being some dismemberment involved. Yet that was for body disposal, not to make sure the dude with the mutilated throat was actually dead!
I had no idea if Quinn owned an axe. I didn’t have one, but I lived in an apartment. Maybe she had a shovel. If a very quick search of the kitchen didn’t turn up a knife big enough to cut off a human head, I’d look in the garage.
I opened the drawer closest to the refrigerator. I hit the jackpot on the first try. There was a great big butcher knife and an even longer knife that I assumed was to slice bread. I grabbed both of them.
The gunshot startled me so badly that I dropped the butcher knife. Not on my foot, fortunately. I scooped it back up and ran out of the kitchen.
I think Darla had shot Vic in the chest. His shirt was almost entirely red, so it was hard to tell, but there was a gout of blood spurting from a spot near his heart. Now he had his hand on Darla’s neck, and he slammed her head against the wall.
When I did that earlier, I just wanted her to drop the gun, and was consciously trying not to hurt her. Vic, presumably, also wanted her to drop the gun, but didn’t care if he shattered her skull in the process. He slammed her so hard against the wall that I thought I heard her neck snap. Her body dropped to the floor.
Vic turned toward me.
In that moment, I hoped that one of the neighbors had called the police.
Vic touched what I assumed was the bullet hole in his chest and winced. “How are we gonna work this out, Corey?” he asked.
I had no answer.
He glanced down at Darla. “Does she look dead to you? She looks pretty dead to me. Better make sure, though.” He raised his foot and slammed it down upon her neck.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
“I’m making things easier for you.” He slammed his foot on her neck again. Her head was now twisted at an angle where, had the past few minutes not happened, I would’ve been certain that she was dead.
Vic tapped her head a couple of times with the toe of his shoe. She didn’t respond. “Yeah, she’s gone. That’s a bummer. I actually liked talking to that one.”
I reached down and picked up the butcher knife.
Vic seemed amused by that. “Not gonna ask me if she’ll get back up?”
“Will she?”
“Nah.” He touched the bullet wound again. “Can’t keep my finger out of it. Kind of like when a filling comes out of your tooth and you can’t keep your tongue out of there.”
I had nothing to add to that.
Vic sighed. “You really fucked things up for me, Corey. I had a good thing going. Stability. I know how it looks, but I love Quinn. I never would’ve left her.”
“So what happens next?” I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation with this blood-drenched...creature. I should be doing nothing but shrieking in fear.
“That’s what I asked you. I’m the one who’s in all the pain. What is your solution? How do you propose we resolve this?”
“Let me go.”
Blood trickled out of the wounds in his throat as he laughed. “Try again,” he said.
Though I was terrified, I was also numb, as if this was happening to somebody else, or I was playing a character in a movie. And in this movie, I realized that the hero—if I could call myself the hero—was holding two knives.
I didn’t know what was going on with Vic. Maybe he couldn’t die.
But maybe I could fuck him up enough that it wouldn’t matter.
I rushed at him.
Chapter Five
Vic wasn’t expecting that. The sight of me—looking, I assume, less than mentally stable—running at him holding two large knives seemed to startle him.
Instead of throwing a punch or trying to grab me, he put his arm in front of his face in a defensive gesture.
I went absolutely berserk, slashing and stabbing at him with the knives like I was trying to carve him right down to the bone. He was bigger and stronger, but I was a lot more crazed. And I hadn’t just been stabbed in the neck and shot in the head and chest.
Most of my knife strikes had little impact—they bounced off his arm, barely jabbed into him, or missed entirely. But I was attacking him so frantically that they weren’t all duds. The bread knife sunk deep into his belly, and a slash with the butcher knife removed a large chunk of flesh from the side of his neck.
Vic looked furious, but he also looked kind of worried.
That was my plan. Whittle this son of a bitch down until he couldn’t move.
I tried to drag the long knife horizontally through his guts. Unfortunately, the knife was meant for slicing bread and not intestines, and it didn’t really work. I yanked it out and stabbed him again.
I thrust the butcher knife at his face, trying to jam it right into his eye. I missed, getting him a couple of inches under his left eye instead. I pulled the knife out and tried again. This time he turned his head, and the blade struck the side of his skull, not going in very far.
“Enough!” he shouted.
As far as I was concerned, it wouldn’t be enough until Vic was a skeleton. But before I could stab him with either of the knives again, he finally got in a really good punch, right in the stomach. I doubled over and dropped to my knees.
Then he punched me in the face. I fell onto my side, landing on Darla’s corpse.
Vic, who was now so covered with blood that I’m not certain Quinn would have recognized him, raised his foot as if he was about to do his signature neck-stomping move. As he brought his foot down, I stabbed up with both knives.
They both hit. Sadly, Vic was wearing shoes, so neither of the knives hurt him very much, but they did keep him from stomping on my throat. And it put him off balance. Enough that I was able to let go of the butcher knife, grab him by the ankle, and yank his foot toward me.
The butcher knife landed on me first, followed by Vic. Neither felt good, but since the knife didn’t actually strike me blade-first, it could have been far worse. I still had the bread knife, and I ran its serrated edge across the back of Vic’s neck.
I frantically drew the blade back and forth, somehow believing that I might be able to saw off Vic’s head before he did anything to stop me. I was only able to dig in about half an inch before Vic scooted away from me.
Without hesitation, I scrambled toward him, and slammed the knife into his chest.
Then I did it again.
And again.
I may have said, “Die, you motherfucker!” or may have imagined myself saying it. I’m not completely sure.
After a lot of stabs—I’m talking a couple dozen at least—Vic stopped struggling.
I switched to his neck, vigorously sawing away at what remained of it.
It worked up to a point. But this knife was not designed to saw through bone. I needed...well, an actual saw.
I stood up, had a dizzy spell, almost collapsed, yet maintained my balance. There had to be something around here that I could use to decapitate the bastard.
I crouched back and tried to roll Vic onto his stomach but couldn’t quite manage it. So instead I lifted his left foot and sawed through his Achilles tendon. Then I did the same thing with his right foot. He wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Then I hurried into the kitchen. From looking at the house when I pulled into the driveway, I was pretty sure that the kitchen was connected to the garage.
It was. I opened the door, fumbled for a moment trying to find the light switch, and then went into the garage. Junk was piled everywhere, and there was barely even room for a motorcycle, much less a car. I looked around for a convenient rack of sawing instruments mounted on the wall, but didn’t see anything.
They owned a saw, right? Everybody who lived in a house had a saw.
I did see a metal garden rake, and maybe I could get his head off with the tines, given enough time, but that wasn’t ideal. There had to be something more effective.
I didn’t think a snow shovel would do the trick.
There! Resting against the far wall. A small hatchet.
I ran over, grabbed it, and rushed back into the kitchen.
I heard a door slam shut.
Oh, shit, was that the police? I hadn’t heard any sirens. Was it Quinn?
No, I’d heard the door close, not open. That meant it was...
Darla’s dead body was still on the floor. Vic was gone. I wouldn’t have thought he could run off after I slashed up his tendons, but apparently that was not the case.
I should go after him.
Or, as an alternative plan, I could not go after him.
It was one thing to be hacking him up in the privacy of his and Quinn’s home. It was a very different thing to chase after him outdoors, even if it was, apparently, the kind of neighborhood where nobody could be bothered to call 911 to report some gunshots.
I almost opened the front door. But that could be a trap. He might be waiting.
Instead, I went into the living room and peeked out the window.
I could see blood in the light dusting of snow in the driveway, but not Vic. Though it was obvious which direction he’d gone, from the vantage point of this window I couldn’t see the psychopath himself.
Fine. It was no longer my problem.
Except...my mind played a little movie where a friendly neighbor saw the blood-covered man running down the sidewalk and offered to drive him to the emergency room. This movie did not end well for the neighbor.
I couldn’t just let Vic run loose. Somebody else would die. Maybe he’d kill a whole family.
I cursed and ran out the front door, hatchet in hand.
He’d turned right when he reached the sidewalk. I couldn’t see him, but I could see the blood. I ran as fast as I could after him, hoping that nobody would peek out their window and see the bloody guy running down the sidewalk with a hatchet.
I ran to the end of the block. How the hell was he able to make such good time after what I’d done to his feet?
“Hey!” somebody shouted. It wasn’t Vic.
An old man stood in his garage. The hood of his automobile was up; apparently he’d been working on his car, only to turn around and see a bloody dude running past his home with a hatchet.
There was no time to explain, and it was a safe assumption that he wouldn’t believe my tale of terror, so I ignored him. Honestly, if I’d taken a moment to take a deep breath and calmly analyze the situation, I might have decided that there was absolutely no reason to avoid the cops. They certainly weren’t going to charge me with murder. But I hadn’t quite gotten out of the mindset of “I’m here to murder somebody, and I don’t want to get caught.”
The man called “Hey!” after me again. I turned right to follow the blood trail. I could see Vic running, only half a block away. His feet weren’t even flopping around.
I raised the hatchet as I picked up my pace.
I was quickly gaining on him. Hopefully he wouldn’t hear my footsteps.
He turned around at the sound of my footsteps.
He held up his hand, palm-out, as if trying to ward off my approach.
Good. I’d chop it right off.
“Stay back,” he warned me.
I kept running.
“Stay back!” he shouted.
It was not the tone of his voice that made me stop. It was the fact that his fucking eyes were glowing red. I’m sure it would’ve been more impressive at night, but even in broad daylight it was scary as shit.
“Get out of here, Corey,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like a human being could make it without demonic assistance.
Suddenly, I no longer wanted to get close enough to Vic to chop off his head.
I almost flung the hatchet at him. But even if it was the most amazing throw imaginable—even if it struck him right between his red eyes—it probably wouldn’t slow him down. It was best to let him go.
I turned and ran.
I don’t think this counted as chickening out. I’d fought bravely, and there’s no shame in deciding that glowing eyes and a demonic voice are more than you want to deal with at the present time.
I rounded the corner, going back the way I’d come, hoping that the guy working on his car wouldn’t be waiting for me.
He wasn’t waiting in the center of the sidewalk, but he’d stepped out of his garage.
“Sorry,” I said. “We’re shooting a movie.” I pointed to the sky. “There’s the drone.” Then I resumed running.
I returned to Quinn’s home. As I went through the front door, I was surprised to see Darla’s body where I’d left it, as if I believed that the world was now a place where all dead people got up and ran away.
I counted to ten, giving myself time to calm down.
Then I counted to twenty.
Okay, I wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon. But I wasn’t comatose in the fetal position, so that was something to be proud of.
I locked the front door in case Vic decided to make a return appearance. If he wanted to come after me, he was welcome to slash himself up even more by crashing through the living room window.
Though I really wanted to get some of this blood off me, I needed to make a call first. I dug my cell phone out of my pocket. I’d never actually called or texted Quinn, but I had her number in my contacts. She’d be in her cubicle, and this would not be a conversation that our co-workers should overhear, so I decided to text her.
Hi, it’s Corey. Can you give me a call? Someplace private.
I stared at my phone for a few moments until it showed that she’d read my text. The three dots appeared, indicating that she was typing something back, and they stayed on my screen for an excruciatingly long time. Finally, her reply appeared.
Is something wrong?
Yes! Why the hell would I ask her to call me from someplace private? I wasn’t calling her at work to engage in phone sex!
Please just call me.
I paced around her home, avoiding the gore-splashed hallway, until my phone finally rang. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi. What’s going on?”
Where to start? Where to start? My mind abruptly went blank. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to explain this to her.
“Corey...?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you okay? I got worried when I heard you’d called in sick.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I mean, I’m not fine. Any chance you could take the rest of the day off?”
“Jasper will freak, but yes. What’s wrong? What did you do?”
“What makes you think I did anything?”
“Corey, please, just tell me what’s going on.”
“Vic was cheating on you.”
There was a long silence.
“I’m not sure why I started there,” I admitted. “It’s not relevant. I mean, it’s kind of relevant, but it’s a minor element. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
“I’ll ask for the rest of the day off. Where do you want me to meet you?”
“Your place?”
There was another long silence.
“Are you at my house?” Quinn finally asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is Vic there?”
“He was.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Chapter Six
It was a very, very long fifteen minutes.
The police never showed up. This meant that Quinn lived in the kind of neighborhood where four gunshots could go off in the middle of the day, and a neighbor could witness a blood-covered hatchet-wielding man running down the sidewalk, without anybody feeling the need to contact the authorities. I mean, yeah, I’d told the guy we were shooting a movie, but really?
I stripped out of my clothes, rinsed myself off, and stole a shirt and pair of jeans out of Vic’s closet. It obviously didn’t fit well, but it was better than greeting Quinn covered in blood.
I hated to leave Darla’s corpse just lying there. But Vic had killed her, not me, and I wanted a forensics team to be able to prove it.
When I heard Quinn’s car pull into the driveway, I stepped outside to meet her. She shut off the engine, got out of the vehicle, and frowned.
“Why are you wearing Vic’s clothes?” she asked.
“There’s a lot to explain,” I said.
She looked down at the blood on the snow and hurried over to me. “Is Vic inside?”
“No.”
“His car’s still here.”
“He ran off.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Corey.”
“I will. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Should we go inside?”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
“Give me a very high-level summary. Super quick. Tell me in one sentence.”
“I tried to kill your husband, and he wouldn’t die.”
Quinn looked absolutely horrified. Frantic. Queasy. What she did not look was surprised.
“Let’s go inside,” she said.
“It’s awful in there.”
“My husband is the Toledo Trasher. He made me take bites out of his victims. Is what’s inside there worse than that?”
