The Waiting Demon

By Nickel Crow

Forty years ago, a demon visited the small town of Devonshire, Illinois. And it never left. It waited, hidden amongst them all, pretending to be one of them, allowing its hunger for them to fester and grow. But now the demon will wait no longer. Its hunger can no longer be contained. It is up to high schooler, Joe Madsen and his friends to stop the creature before it can completely consume the town in flames.

But how do you stop a demon?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quist Interactive, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310158117

Nickel Crow

Hello, my name is Nick Crow and I am a screenwriter and novelist with an eye toward the darkness. I am a drinker of life and just a bit crazy sometimes, and you will understand once you read some of my tales. I do hope you enjoy my work.http://nickelcrow.wordpress.comhttp://www.facebook.com/NickelCrow - Please stop byThank you for reading my work.

Book preview

The Waiting Demon

NICKEL CROW

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 Nickel Crow

All rights reserved.

Published by Red Chimera Publishing

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

….Charlene, Charlene

Girl, open your door…

You finally got

What you been askin’ for…

October, Forty Years Ago

Chapter 1

October. Five years ago.

Benny Hartwig was about to die.

He settled in for the night in front of the tube with a fat bowl of cheddar-cheese popcorn and a tall glass of ice-cold Coors. It was Tuesday, his favorite night of the week, when he said screw the diet, heaped on the melted butter and dove head first into the fat calorie river. Weekends were tough, Mondays excruciating, but Tuesdays? Forget about it. He loved food, and beer and popcorn were his favorites. He preferred Pilsner glasses with his suds over ruining the experience with cans or bottles. Beer went down more smoothly out of a glass and it brought him back to his college days when he and his buddies would crowd the bar tables and chin wag.

After stuffing a handful of over-cheesed popcorn and downing a few gulps of beer, all without a twinge of guilt, he tapped play on the remote. Movies, popcorn and beer; all of Benny's guilty pleasures rolled up into one perfect evening.

He settled back into his worn-out couch, molded to the perfect shape of his rounding butt, and kicked his feet up onto the solid oak coffee table Brenda insisted on purchasing just before her cancer diagnosis. He took one more sip of beer and propped the bowl of popcorn onto his chest, held steady by his hefty belly. He flicked off the lights and readied himself for an eyeful of Goldie Hawn. He adored his Goldie Hawn. Overboard was his favorite movie of all time.

A noise cracked outside his window, the yipping of a small dog or a squirrel twittering along the ledge of the windowsill. He waited for it to go away, but it didn’t, continuing on from a short popping sound to a constant droning hum. Insect-like.

It disturbed him. It hummed along with the television, rising and falling with the digital flickers, and if he didn’t know better he would have thought it was a person out there, peeking through the curtains, playing a fool game.

He thumbed the pause button, freezing Goldie as she sauntered on her yacht. The picture flicked and jumped, full of static. He cocked his ear toward the window. It was still there, droning.

Probably just one of the boys from next door daring the others to play a goofball prank, he thought, maybe lighting a bag of dog turds on his front porch or tossing firecrackers in his mailbox. Oh, how Brenda flipped her lid when they did that one four years ago! As a precaution, he took the screwdriver from beneath the end table and carried it with him. You never knew, right? That was his wife talking, one of her favorite expressions. You never know what’s going to happen, right? So you might as well be prepared for everything.

Benny Hartwig would never be prepared for this.

He slid the curtain aside a crack, just enough to peek through with one eye. A jagged azalea branch bounced in the wind, but nothing else.

Get a hold of yerself, Ben. He turned back to the room, the tip of his screwdriver dipping toward the floor.

And then he saw it.

Some part of his mind prayed it wasn’t real, that this grotesque thing was only his twisted, moon drawn shadow. But it was no illusion, no trickery of light. His heart railed.

Someone, no, some thing, stood before him in his living room.

Benny’s mouth filled with muck. He strained to cry out but could only manage a muddled stammer.

Hello, Benjamin, the thing said. Benny stumbled back. His calf scraped the edge of the couch, leaving a friction burn. It wasn’t a person, no way, but the likeness of one, the shadow of a being. Its form bled into the darkness of Benny’s living room. Its voice was low and raspy, rumbling like an old jalopy engine. Its skin was coal black and flaked, like the skin of a burn victim. And it was small, its head reaching just over Benny's protruding gut.

What are you? he asked, trembling. The screwdriver came up toward the thing but his grip was weak and sweaty.

The creature laughed, the sound of a stone rolling around in its throat. Do you really want to know?

Somehow, the voice sounded familiar. Could it be? Benny leaned forward, peering into the shadow of the intruder. His face flushed with recognition.

My God, he whispered. Is it…really you?

No, Benny. The shadow thing perched atop the tip of its toes. People are never what they seem. Why should I be any different?

At Benny’s final moment of life, he tried his best to scream, but couldn’t.

##

Joe Madsen couldn’t stand the brooding silence that sucked the life out of the air after his parents fought. It felt murky, ominous, an invisible fog. He lay in bed wishing it were eleven o’clock instead of only seven thirty so he could fall asleep and pretend it didn’t happen. But he couldn’t. It was early and soon he would have to go down there and do what he had to do...no matter how much he dreaded it.

His parents fought a lot. Ever since he was a kid they had these terrible throw downs, but it got worse after he turned 11. His father, Stephen, was unstable. Joe’s mother, Connie, said he suffered from emotional problems. She urged him to see a counselor, but he refused and the problems grew worse. He worked construction but most times work was slow and he wound up drinking in Doyle’s Tavern or the Fair Lanes Bowling Alley. It didn’t matter what time of day it was. Sometimes you’d find him at eight in the morning slugging down a few shots of Wild Turkey to give him a kick-start.

Joe’s mother said his drinking started when he was young and that it was her fault as much as his for letting it get so out of hand. Joe disagreed. He saw the way she stood up to him, no matter how much he drank or how loud and angry he shouted. It wasn’t her fault.

Tonight was one of those bad nights. His father pulled up drunk at five thirty and bent his fender against the telephone pole next to his usual parking space. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, but it only happened when he was drunker than usual. Joe had grown accustomed to his father’s drunkenness, but nights like these scared the hell out of him. The man was either raging or exuberant, both of which were unbearable. When he was angry he liked to break things. Over the last year, he'd struck Joe’s mother several times, first a shove, then a slap, then a kick. Stephen never struck Joe, but one day it would come to that. He knew. Each day after, he would beg for forgiveness, promising to never do it again, and his mother always took him back.

When his father was exuberant, though, it was like some weird madness took hold of him. He would force Joe into the living room and go on and on about how wonderful things were going to be for them all, how sugary and happy they would be soon, so very soon. After a while he would break down in tears, apologize for all the drinking, then pass out on the couch.

Tonight, when Joe heard the smack of the fender on the telephone pole, he slipped from his chair and headed toward the stairs. If his father shoved the door open hard, that was Joe’s signal to hide in his room until he felt safe to come out, which was usually the next morning. Joe’s mother was stirring the dinner stew when he turned the door handle. She eyed the door with an expression mixed with defiance and fear. She let Joe leave without comment.

Joe hoped for the happy Dad tonight, not the hateful one, but no. They wouldn’t be so lucky. The front door slammed against the wall and his father grumbled in, slammed it back closed. The entire wall vibrated. Their single family picture fell at his feet. Joe’s father looked down at it, spat, then reeled back and kicked it across the room.

Goddam pictures! His words slurred. Joe felt the inevitable, a dark storm menacing from the horizon.

Connie turned off the stove, made him a quick plate of stew, set it down on the table, and started out of the kitchen when the yelling began.

Where the hell you going?

I’m going to let you eat your dinner in peace, she said.

Screw you, then. He shoved the plate onto the floor. Stew splattered along the linoleum and flecked the refrigerator. I didn’t want your damn company anyway.

Joe lay on the bedroom floor with his ear against the heater grating. He heard better that way, though he didn’t want to. He only wanted to make sure his father wasn’t going to hit his mother again.

The last time was over a month ago. His father gave his mother a jab that left a purple shiner on her cheek. When they went to bed, Joe broke into his father’s tool shed and stole an old carpenter’s hammer, the one with the busted claw prong. He planned to use it if he had to. He’d bury it in the back of his father’s head without a second thought if he went after his mother again. At least that’s what he told himself.

What happened tonight, though, was worse than Joe could have imagined.

His parents fought, as expected, and his father flew into an uncontrollable rage. His mother shouted back at him, her voice quivering with fright. He admired her, the way she stood up to him.

There came a momentary pause, a break between the yelling. Joe tensed up. This was when the hitting would come, but this time it didn’t. Instead, his father growled through drunken tears.

I hate this family, Connie. And I hate my whole stupid life. I think it’s time I did something about it.

There followed another slam, then another. A car pulled away from the house. Joe ran to the window, expecting to catch his father peeling away, but it wasn’t him. It was his mother. She cruised straight up the street without her lights on. Now Joe was alone.

For an hour, Joe absorbed the weight of the house, the airy whistle through the heating grate like an eerie moan. He wondered where his mother had gone. He wondered what his father was doing.

He waited. He tried to read one of his books, so many horror novels his mother disapproved of, but he couldn’t concentrate. The distraction was too intense.

Joe gathered the courage to head downstairs. He gripped the carpenter’s hammer behind his back. At the bottom of the stairwell, he poked his head around to get a look at the living room. He thought maybe he would find his father there, passed out with his mouth wide open on the couch, catching flies, but the room was empty.

Joe continued into the hallway and pressed his ear against the wall, listening. He found only silence. Through the kitchen loomed a door that led into the basement. It was the only place his father could be.

I hate this family, Connie. And I hate my whole stupid life. I think it’s time I did something about it.

The words rang though Joe’s mind. What did that mean? It sounded terrible. But wouldn’t it be so much better? It sickened him to think that way about his own father, but it wasn’t his fault what he’d become. Problems or not, it justified nothing. Everyone had problems. It didn’t mean he could make everyone else miserable.

Joe listened at the basement door, seeking any sound, a curse, a snore. Nothing.

He clenched the doorknob and wiped the sweat forming on his forehead with his sleeve. The cold steel of the hammer brushed his neck, chilling the skin. What if he had to use it? What if he didn’t? He wished he could be anywhere else but here.

He swung the door out and stepped onto the first stair. Three sets of stairs led downward, the first with four steps, then a short landing, then two steps to the right leading to another landing, then twelve more down to the basement. Joe closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He didn’t turn on the light for fear of waking his father should the man be sleeping. Most likely he would be passed out on the floor, clutching a bottle of cheap whisky, snoring in a puddle of drool or vomit. It wouldn’t be the first time for that either.

He gripped the handle of the hammer until his fingers turned white. He hated this. At least a dozen other times he had made the long sojourn into the basement to check on his father after nights like these. His mother did not know this. She had always accepted the fact that he would simply crash near his precious model trains, but Joe felt the need to know. Despite all the drinking and abuse, he had to make sure his father was okay, that he hadn’t slipped and bumped his head on the floor, or that he didn’t pass out with a drink in his mouth and drown, or do something more intentional.

So again he made the trip into the basement to check on his father, but this time it was different.

I hate this family, Connie. And I hate my whole stupid life. I think it’s time I did something about it.

Please be okay, Dad, he whispered to himself. He didn’t know if he truly meant it.

At the bottom of the stairs he paused and leaned on the washing machine. A dull light flickered in the back, around the corner. Still no noise. From where he stood, he glimpsed the edge of his father’s train set they had built together two years before. For reasons Joe never understood, his father liked to fall asleep underneath his trains, under the table they sat on. Maybe it looked comfortable to him, who knew? Or maybe he only wanted to cover himself with good memories, what few there were anymore. Joe perked his ears. A faint squeaking noise, short and steady, churned the air.

He breathed with relief. He’s passed out and whistling through his nose, Joe thought, making those pre-snore sounds that must have ticked his mother off for years.

But when Joe rounded the corner and peered into the heart of the basement, he found out he was too wrong. His father’s words shouted through his head.

I hate this family, Connie. And I hate my whole stupid life. I think it’s time I did something about it.

Joe found his father, Mr. Stephen Madsen, hanging from the ceiling, dead at the age of thirty three. He had taken his belt and looped it around one of the beams then tied it around his neck and shoved off a chair. It was a woven leather belt and cracked around the edges, the belt Joe had given to him his last birthday. In shock, Joe found it strange that his father used his leather belt to hang himself with, considering there was a twenty-foot line of nylon rope in the corner. Isn’t that what people used when they hanged themselves?

He stayed with his dead father for the longest time, uncertain what to do. His father’s eyes bulged from their sockets like light bulbs ready to pop. His tongue peeked out the side of his mouth, and to Joe, it didn’t look like his father at all but a meat dummy made to look like his father, a sideshow freak pretending to be somebody else.

After an eternity, Joe trudged back up the stairs to the kitchen where he sat and waited for his mother to come home, wondering what to feel, how to feel, considering that he might be permanently broken inside.

When she strode through the door, tired and worn, he did the best he could, which is all anybody can ever expect from anyone.

Joe Madsen was only 11, and it would take five years before his visions began. After they moved to Devonshire.

Chapter 2