The trip to the wooded areas around their property was more than the couple hoped for. Gina, to their surprise, proved to be a competent enough teacher that Jean’s attention was focused to a degree that she rarely spoke to her parents. She listened carefully to her older sister and Gina always answered as best she could. Matt thanked Emmy for her foresight. The stroll around their property, and even outside their property line, took longer than he forecasted. The snacks and the late lunch with the light meal Emmy had prepared took care of their hunger. The children were given freedom to go wherever they fancied, so long as they remained within sight. The walk back to the house worked up everybody’s appetite. Matt could not stop himself from sneaking a taste from the dishes he and Emmy cooked. Gina and Jean were still at it, talking about insects and animals. There was still light out but as soon as the last dish was off the stove, the family devoured it. There were no leftovers. The
Without regard for anything else, Matt bolted and ran upstairs as fast as his feet would take him. It took less than a quarter of a minute for him to get to where his family were. Emmy’s and Jean’s screams was deafening. The question that was forming in his head was immediately answered when he reached the door. Aside from Emmy and Jean being petrified, the image of Gina floating in midair, moving towards Emmy sent him to panic. For a split second, Matt thought about running away. He trembled, his breathing became rapid, his knees threatened to buckle, his hands shook, and cold sweat began to pour in torrents from every pore. “Matt! Do something!” Emmy yelled. The call was enough to rouse him from his trance. Terror remained. His ears picked up the creaking the bed gave off and his eyes instinctively followed. He squinted and had to wait a few moments but once he was able to make out what it was, all doubts left his mind. Something was on the bed. Emmy started calling out to her da
There were days he was thankful for his habits, then there were days he absolutely hated them. Today was such a day. He only had roughly four hours of sleep, but his body already woke him up at seven. He knew it was pointless to try and go back to sleep so he got up. Thankfully, he had another habit – coffee. He yawned as he waited for the coffeemaker to finish, thoughts scattered. As if on command, his thoughts started to gather as he got a whiff of the strong aroma. With his trusty mug on hand and filled to the brim, Cain Delamain entered his to study to make good on his promise to the goodly priest. Today, he was going to finish his report on the outcome of the last venture the church sent him to investigate. A four by six meter room is by no means small, but in his case, it felt like so. He had a desk flanked by stacks of folders tied off with ribbons or elastic bands. The desk itself hosted a six year old computer. The walls on two sides were lined with shelves of books on a myr
Emmy was first to wake up. She immediately regretted moving. She groaned with every move. Every inch of her body complained. Once she was able to sit herself up, the first thing she noticed were the splinters, fine splinters. A quick look told her why. The chairs in Gina’s bedroom appeared to have been ripped apart. Chunks of the wood on the side of Gina’s bed were missing. Half of a cabinet door lay in pieces on the floor. It looked like it was hacked by a blunt axe. The rest of the doors to Gina’s cabinets hung by the hinges. Another thing that caught her attention and caused her to gasp was that everyone was in different states of undress. Matt was lying on his stomach. His shirt was torn all the way down, the only thing holding it was the stitching on the neckline. His shorts were cut to ribbons. Emmy could see the inside of his thighs. She too, was missing parts of her clothes. The pajama she had on looked like it had been ripped in different parts. The top element was torn fro
Matt, after finding Jean peacefully asleep in her room, remembered his phone. He went back to Gina’s room to find Emmy slowly trying to clean off the debris on the bed in order to make her daughter more comfortable. “She’s in her room. Asleep.” “Is she okay? Is she hurt?” “No, I don’t think so. She has some scratches on her arm. Nothing serious.” “Oh, thank god!” Emmy exclaimed. Matt looked around the thrashed room for his phone. He found it facedown, further back on the top of the cabinet he placed it in. He immediately noticed the cracks. The screen had the most of it, both thick and thin. The plastic on the sides had crack too. It was off. Matt pressed the power button on top to see if it would work. He was glad when the screen came on, only for it to die while booting. He tried again. This time the screen just flickered. Matt pocketed the phone and helped Emmy clean up the bed. He carried his daughter while Emmy removed the bedsheet and gently placed her back. His muscles sc
While Emmy was cleaning up upstairs, Matt busied himself downstairs. He planned to clean up as well but his thoughts kept going back to the phone. Matt kept checking on it but it was drained. His constant attempt at turning it on wasn’t helping. He finally gave up on any pretense about cleaning up and sat in front of the laptop to review the feeds from the cameras instead. He jumped the last time he remembered which was shortly after dinner and started looking at all the video feeds, both normal and enhanced. Half an hour later, Matt had found nothing. He tried the phone again. It had charged enough this time that it was able to at least power on and make it to the home screen. He was a mixture of dread and curiosity as the device sluggishly loaded up. Matt immediately tapped the gallery app and played the first video. The sluggishness of the phone and the cracks on the screen were enough to make him frustrated. Thinking that the phone might die again, Matt went ahead and copied the
Emmy went straight to the master’s bedroom and fished a suitcase and several bags from their destroyed cabinet. She stuffed half of the suitcase with Matt’s and her clothes then went to Jean’s room. The relative tidiness of the child’s room compared to anywhere else in the house only served to make her more anxious. Emmy stuffed Jean’s clothes in the suitcase too. She almost wanted to lie down on her daughter’s bed. Everything was where it should be, nothing was out of place. She shook herself out of it and looked around to find the child’s toys and coloring books. These, she stuffed into one of the bags. Lastly, she found Jean a set of clothes to change to then called her. “Jean honey? Can you come over here please?” She called again when Jean did not answer. Seconds later, she heard her approaching footsteps. “Jean, let’s get you changed, we’re going out.” “Where?” Jean asked, standing in the doorway. “Oh, nowhere, and everywhere. We’re having a day out!” Emmy said, making st
He did not want to spend any more time than needed. Matt honked again. Hearing Emmy call out, he stuck his head out of the window and looked back towards the house. Jean came bounding out the door, swinging her rag doll and wearing a small, colorful backpack. Emmy was beside Gina, encumbered. Matt stepped out of the vehicle to help. “There’s still a suitcase upstairs.” Emmy said when Matt held out his hands to take the bags from her. “Where?” “Just at the top of the stairs.” Matt put the bags down and retrieved the suitcase. Gina and Emmy were barely out the door when he came down with the suitcase. When there was enough space for him to pass, Matt squeezed through and dumped the bags and suitcase in the back of the truck. “Jean honey, why don’t you help your sister on the other side huh?” “Mommy’s already helping.” “Yeah, but she needs it.” Matt explained, smiling at the little girl. “Plus, she helps you when you need it.” When Jean turned around to help her sister, Matt opene
He was getting impatient. It was the last leg and he had nothing better else to do. The onboard entertainment’s picks did not hold anything interesting. Then again, most things called entertainment nowadays didn’t hold his interest. He found them almost always superficial and a little on the pandering side.But this was the last leg and he was going to land soon. Unlike most countries, he visited this one regularly. He did not have a choice, he had to come back every time. This time however, he was early. There were so many things he needed to know. So many things he needed to ask. This time, he hoped he would get answers.There was not a need to ask before. If he was being honest, there wasn’t even such a question before. There was just him, his abilities, and the man who trained him. The man he called Tata, or uncle. The man who helped him get revenge all those decades ago. The man who, at times, almost seemed like his personal warden. The only one he knew who was more powerful than
“Here’s why I think that’s what happened. If, there was only one demon, or even a group of them with one purpose, just like we usually see, the chances are it would only possess one. Meaning, it-”“It would only harass one, and all the rest will be collateral.” The bishop finished.Father Anton nodded and paused to give the bishop time to connect things.“That means, there were at least two groups of demons there. My gut tells me the other one was a lone demon, and the on the other side, the one that possessed the children, were the other group.That explains why the parents needed to die, and Cain had to die. And his friend would have also died had he not run away, though, God bless his soul, I think it would have been better if he just died.”“I get most of it but not about the part where everyone, well, almost everyone needed to die.” The bishop admitted.“Let’s take the testimonies of those who knew them. Nobody will say that the father was capable of such abuse. But there was abu
It was not the waiting that he hated. Bob was the bishop after all. He had many things to attend to. It was the things going through his head as he sat outside the bishop’s office that he did not like. It was all too sudden and the person directly responsible for Cain, the situation wasn’t looking good.“Tony?” He heard the bishop call, peeking out his door.Father Anton Ramirez got up and walked towards the door of the bishop’s office. Finding that the bishop had already taken his place behind his desk, he closed the door behind him and locked it.“It’s a mess Tony, I was not expecting this.”“I’m sorry Your Excellency. I was… this is a first.”“Drop the formalities. I know it’s not your fault. Well, maybe a little bit. A little bit our faults. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”Father Anton sat first then opened the satchel he had with him and began taking out folders and placing them on the bishop’s desk.“Let’s deal with those later. Just tell me what you saw and what you th
Her exertions soon reached its peak and Emmy stopped and plopped onto her dead husband’s carcass. Her knuckles were covered in blood, his and hers. She laughed as she felt the last of his blood spurt out of his neck, grazing hers. Her screaming had made her voice hoarse but that did not matter anymore.She pushed herself up and regarded her handiwork. She burst out laughing hysterically. Her madness had taken over completely that she did not even dare question what that shadow was, that shadow that was tall and thick and wide that stood before her. A shadow that went against the light.“The children are ours! OURS!” The demons hissed.The shadow reached out a massive arm for her to grab on. She took it, still laughing. As she stood up, the shadow started to come into view. She was intrigued at how majestic and powerful it looked with its thick arms and legs that were muscled and huge as tree trunks. She laughed and laughed. A laughing that was interrupted by the demons declaring owner
Emmy felt a burst of anger fill her, a fury of such strength it made her forget pain. Her eyes smoldered with hate. Just moments ago, she felt like dirt but that didn’t matter now. She would have ignored what the demons were saying. It might have been true for her, or not. But, the expression on her husband’s face said it all.“Tell me I’m wrong Matt. TELL ME!” She demanded as she crawled on the debris, hands feeling, looking for something.Matt did not reply. He did not even look at her. She could see it in his eyes. How he struggled, how he could not hide it, how ashamed he was. It didn’t matter that his cheeks glistened with the torrent of tears streaming down his face. He was guilty. Her hands found something pointy. She got up as he screamed.“You… YOU FUCKED YOUR DAUGHTER?”She could tell. The demon’s words were not just insinuations. This was more unforgivable than coupling with an entity she could not even put a face to. Her mind raced, trying to give him the benefit of the do
His skin was a literal field of goosebumps. The creatures seemed to have already delivered and still wasn’t done yet. While he heard the otherworldly voices above everyone else’s, it wasn’t the demonic voices that drew his attention but the emotions that flooded the whole house.Confusion was the overwhelming feeling that he got but that was just the surface. Underneath was denial, disgust, and fear. It flared off in varying degrees on all the humans present. And he was harvesting it all.Despite the large number of anchors he had, the ring which glowed in many different colors, now felt cooler in his finger. He chuckled to himself, forgetting the real threat that the hulking creature, or the ones who sought his help, posed.True to their agreement, he let go of the young child. There was not much to her anyway. She was afraid, and disoriented, but not in levels that the adults were giving off.The one he labeled as a priest of some kind had been trying to get up but could only manage
It was not the voice, or how they came to him. It was not even how they knew to do something only one has been able to do until days ago. It was the request.“What… what do you mean?” He asked.It’s too strong. For me. For us. He’s too strong.He paced back and forth, not taking his eyes of the figures that stood before him, touching his anchors. The large creature did not need to touch his anchors to tell him to leave, then again, it was just standing there, like a ghost, among all the anchors.How the fuck do these things know about things I didn’t even know I had?“I don’t understand,” he finally spoke, “but what I understand is, that motherfucker is too strong. I don’t-” He paused, he sensed amusement when he said the last phrase. “You find that funny? At a time like this?”Yes. But still, help.“Like I was saying, that one is strong. And you’re obviously many and stronger than I am. If you can’t stop it, what the hell do you think I can do against it?”We know what you want. You
Matt was getting frustrated with everything. Every bone in his body ached, every uncovered part of his skin was either bruised or scratched, or both. While the words came out automatically in prayer, he found himself drifting. They were not getting anywhere. Cain was not getting anywhere. When the demons answered his wife, he was quite relieved.A start! An opening!Intending to hear more, Matt focused on the exchange not noticing that he had already dropped his prayers in exchange for the tidbits he was hearing.“I did not fail my Gina!” Emmy answered, defending against the insinuation.“OH! SHE DIDN’T, SHE SAYS.”Cain, being the closest to the possessed child, had to cover his ears in fear of rupturing his eardrums.“But you did. You allowed your child to be defiled! IN YOUR OWN HOME!”It could not have been clearer that the demons wanted to emphasize the last phrase. The many voices sounded like they were about to go berserk. More debris rose from the ground, this time mainly from
“Holy fucking shit!” He remarked aloud as his anchors completely swarmed the entire first floor of the house.With Vein Sight, he clearly saw the full picture. There were other unseen figures moving about in the space. He counted a little over two dozen, the bulk of them standing by the child that everybody seemed to be facing.That unnerved him. One entity was powerful enough to have made him run away. Over two dozen was a disaster.This doesn’t make any fucking sense!The other demons who were mostly clustered around the child, whom he thought was the one who was possessed, were of a different build. While the one that had confronted him twice was tall, muscular, and impossibly wide, the other creatures were tall and wiry. Based on the power and hostility he was getting, he assumed that the creature who confronted him twice now, was the reason everything was as it was in that house.I’m out of my fucking depth here, he admitted to himself.He could not hear everything, but based on