Chapter 10

"What the crap?" Burt said, and that summed up how they all felt.

Joe sat on the ratty couch with his head against the cushions, staring up at the ceiling. Lisa crouched in the corner, still in a partial daze from the events of the past two days. Burt paced, on edge, waving his arms around like a lunatic.

"I mean, what the crap?" he repeated, thinking perhaps that his profound point hadn't been expressed succinctly enough the first time. "If there's a demon running around this town, then we should get a cross and some holy water, right? We shouldn't be sitting here in this basement."

"We're not talking about vampires," Lisa said. "This is serious stuff. This is real."

Burt glowered.

"In a way, Burt's right,” Joe said. “If things keep getting worse, like they seem to be, we should get to holy ground. We should go to the church. It’s probably safer there."

"Sure, that'll protect us for a while," Lisa said, "but we can't move in there. What are we supposed to do the next day? And the day after that? And the day after that?"

Joe shrugged. "I don't know."

Burt leaned against the wall. "Screw it all."

Upstairs, the basement door opened. Footsteps approached. Joe's mother poked her head around the corner.

"Joe," she said, "I want you to stay in tonight. No trick-or-treating." She seemed to forget that anyone else was in the room with Joe, speaking only to him and making no small talk. It wasn’t like her. Usually she was chatty with his friends, but when it came to motherly duties, she had no problem shedding the façade and commanding her motherly presence.

"Did you hear me?" she asked.

"Yes, I hear you."

"Good. And I want your friends to go home now, too. This is not a good night for hanging out."

She gave him a look to let him know she was serious, then returned upstairs, stopping in the kitchen by the door.

"She's waiting for you guys to leave," Joe said. "Great."

"This is more serious than how pissy your mom can get." Lisa was perfectly blunt. "We have to do something soon."

"Like what?" Burt asked.

"Like we have to tell somebody," Joe said.

"Like who?" Burt snorted. "We already tried to tell the cops, but they didn't listen. They probably think we're ready for the loony farm."

"That's loony bin," Lisa said, "and we told the police, but we didn't tell them the right things. We told them we thought Stanley Gruber was the killer. But he's not."

"Oh yeah, sure." Burt paced. "We can just go back and say, we're sorry, we were wrong when we told you our school janitor was the killer. What we should have actually told you is there's a demon doing it all. Sorry for the confusion. Yeah, that'll go over big for sure."

"What about our parents?" Joe suggested, but that was greeted with silence. They all knew how ridiculous a suggestion that one was.

"I know someone we can at least talk to," Lisa said.

"Who?"

"Ms. Ascot."

"Ms. Ascot!" Burt blurted. "She's a friggin’ teacher!"

"So what?" Lisa said. "She's better than nobody, isn't she? And she's the only person I can think of that'll keep an open mind to all this."

Joe crossed his arms. "I'm with Lisa. We have to tell someone and it might as well be her."

"Joe," his mother's voice came from upstairs. "Now!"

He rolled his eyes. "I guess it'll have to be right now if we're going to do this."

"I'd rather do it sooner than later," Lisa said, "since who knows if there's going to be a later."

"Do you know where she lives?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. We'll take our bikes. She lives across town."

At the back door, Joe stopped a moment. "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up."

"Okay, but hurry," Lisa said and they left.

Joe headed into the kitchen where his mother waited with a cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry I made them leave," she said, "but there's too much going on around her to be out after dark."

“I know there is.”

His mother paused, sensing something else coming.

"Mom," Joe began, "I have something I have to do. Tonight. I have to leave for a while."

"What?" She rose from her chair, distraught, reaching for him. "You can't leave. I won't let you."

"I have to, Mom. I’m sorry." He held up his hand when she tried to hold him and she drew back. He turned and headed for the back door again. “If anything else weird happens tonight, you should go to the church.”

"You can't leave. Do you hear me?"

Joe turned back to her and shook his head. She sat back down after seeing the urgency in his face.

"What's going on?" Her face grew white.

"There's something going on in Devonshire," he said. "I don't know what else to say. It has to do with the murders, but it's a lot more than that."

"Joe!" Tears spilled down her cheeks.

As he opened the door, he said, "I have to talk to somebody about this. I'll be back soon. I love you."

“Don’t you dare!”

“I have to. Mom, I saw Dad.”

That pummeled her into silence.

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “I promise. Don’t leave the house. Please.” And he left her there.

Lisa and Burt waited at the end of the alley on their bikes.

"Let's go and see what Ms. Ascot has to say about all this,” Joe said and they headed toward the other side of town.

##

Susan munched on a bag of pretzels because she knew she had to eat something, even though her stomach wanted only to reject whatever she put in it. She trembled with fear, still. She wanted to leave the house but knew it wouldn't do any good so she sat on the couch and tried to calm herself down.

The trick-or-treaters had finally stopped ringing her doorbell. She passed out two bags of candy and cracked into a third. She bought too much, like every year. She welcomed their distraction.

About now she was ready to bail, not just out of town, but the rest of her life. Of course, she thought, this is the stuff of poetry. Sylvia Plath would have had a field day with this crap.

It was late, past eight. The moon grew fat into the night. It was way too much October. She half expected a group of young pranksters to come barreling out of her closet and scream “Happy Halloween!” all the while dousing her with fake pig’s blood. This was utter madness. There could be no other word for it. Madness.

She went to the kitchen and pulled out her hefty coffee machine, the stainless steel one that made cups of deep, black, caffeine-infested java and threw in extra grounds. Then, she threw in some more. Her nerves already danced at every opportunity they had, but she needed coffee. That was about as certain as her body needed air. She had to have coffee.

Not long after the spirit of her mother went away, Mr. Palsgrove called and it took everything Susan had to sound normal on the phone, and even then she wasn’t sure she succeeded. He asked her how things were going and how she felt. She told him she was just getting ready to go to bed and planned to sleep in late. “I’m sure it was nothing,” she told him. “I was just up too late last night, so I must have been a little overtired. It’s nothing.”

He “mm hmmd” his way through the conversation, listening but saying nothing, then let her go, his official duties finished. He was a nice enough man, but a bit strange at times.

But now there was no way she would sleep. Her body needed it, but she feared what dreams might bring if she gave into it. Would she then have no control over mother’s appearance? No way would she risk that happening. She couldn’t handle it. At least now, awake and mostly coherent, she could control her urges to panic, could rationalize the impending feeling of evil that overtook her.

No, not evil.

It’s not evil, she told herself, but heartburn. That had to be it. It was that damned toast I had yesterday. Nothing like seared bread to get the mind working overtime.

But asleep, she couldn’t lie to herself like this, and right now, she needed to lie.

When the coffee pot hissed at her, done, she dripped a cupful into her favorite mug. It came out like syrup, thick and swirly, and she suspected if she were to leave the cup sitting for more than an hour it would jellify and eventually become useful for a hockey puck or a paperweight.

As she raised the cup to take her first sip, the doorbell rang, startling her. Panic rose. Who could it be? Trick-or-treating was supposed to stop at seven, except for the annoying teenagers who didn’t abide by the rules. Maybe it was one of her neighbors coming to check up on her. Sure, they had heard what had happened this morning and were coming to see how she was feeling. Or it could even be Mr. Palsgrove, coming to see for himself that she was feeling all right.

But this was not reality anymore, was it? This was some other version of reality, some odd subcategory where ghosts appear in the middle of the street and manifest themselves in your living room. She didn’t want to answer the door.

It rang again and she set the cup down. What could she do? She froze in silence, listening for who it might be, and she heard a voice, though an indiscernible one.

Finally, she cracked open the curtain just enough to take a look at her front porch and saw them. There were no spirits this time. Only students, none of them dresses for Halloween.

She passed from the kitchen with relief to the front door and opened it to find Joe Madsen, Lisa Grant, and Burt Smith, one of the most unlikely groups she could have expected to see. Although she found it strange to see them here, she sensed their urgency, as if a cloud of worry surrounded them.

Instead of asking what they wanted, she invited them in right away, mainly to keep them safe from the outside world which were growing increasingly more dangerous as the days passed

The three of them stood there at the front of her living room, fidgeting, looking a heck of a lot like Susan felt. She went back to the kitchen to retrieve her cup of killer coffee then returned to them. They hadn’t moved an inch.

“What are you doing out so late?” she asked.

Burt stood behind them, brooding. Joe and Lisa exchanged curious glances, searching the other for the right words.

Susan had always liked both Joe and Lisa. Burt was a bit obnoxious and he could be quite loud and annoying, but the other two were good students. Lisa was a bit more of a hard worker, but Joe had an imagination that shone through in his essays. She admired that.

Joe spoke up first. “We have some trouble we want to tell you about, but you have to promise that you’ll listen to the whole thing before you kick us out of here.”

Well that’s an interesting beginning, she thought. She crossed her arms, preparing herself. She had the feeling something bizarre was coming, but it couldn’t be half as bizarre as what went on earlier.

Or could it?

“What have you got to say?”

Joe cleared his throat and stuck his hands in his pockets. “We think we know what’s going on with the murders in town.”

Susan lost balance and bumped into the wall. With one gulp, she finished off her coffee and held up a finger.

“Hold on a minute,” she said. “This requires another cup of coffee. Why don’t you all go ahead and have a seat and I’ll be there in a minute.”

##

Coffee firmly in hand, Susan dragged up a kitchen chair and faced them. The three students had squashed themselves into the crux of her tiny loveseat, squirming with discomfort.

“So you know something about the murders in town?” She didn’t want to prompt any more than that.

Lisa leaned forward. “We didn’t know who else to talk to. You were the only person we could think of that might actually listen to us, that might actually believe…”

“I’m not saying I’m going to believe anything yet,” Susan said, trying her best to sound authoritative yet open at the same time. As a teacher, she found it best to present that air, despite how you truly felt. “I think I’ll reserve judgment until you’ve finished.”

Joe spoke up next. “Okay, we thought Stanley Gruber was the one going around killing people…”

“You thought,” Burt interrupted sourly.

“Well, I thought,” Joe said, “so we…well, we broke into his house to see if we could find anything.”

Each of them searched Susan’s face for any hint of disapproval, and she felt it though she didn’t let it show. She promised to reserve judgment, and she meant it.

“Anyway,” Joe continued, “we didn’t find anything there so this morning we went into the boiler room in the school’s basement.”

“It’s where he hangs out,” Lisa added. “He’s the janitor, you know.”

“I know who Mr. Gruber is.” Susan knew enough about the man to stay away from him, and like everyone else felt about him, he gave her the creeps. She wanted to scream at these three for even daring to sojourn into the school basement, but they were here and safe, so again she waited.

Joe went on. “Anyway, we found him down there and got him talking, and he basically said that, uh, he said that…” He side-glanced the others now, but they gave no support. “He said there’s a demon in town doing all the killing.”

Susan did not react. Ghosts or not, it was hard to believe, but then again, it would explain quite a lot. She waited for more, but they only sat there with blank expressions.

“Are you finished?” Susan’s reflex reaction was to believe that, even though there might be something to their story, it was more than likely their youthful imaginations had taken advantage of them. But then Lisa spoke and Susan couldn’t ignore the truth.

“Tell her about talking to your father,” Lisa said, nudging him with her elbow.

Joe wrung his hands together. “Well, it’s sort of eerie,” he said, cheeks turning a shade of red, “but my father said it was a demon too.”

“Your father told you there was demon killing people in Devonshire?” Susan struggled to recall the details surrounding Joe’s father. Then it clicked. “Your father died a long time ago, Joe.”

Joe nodded. “He did. That’s what’s eerie about it.”

Susan understood. And she believed. She took another large gulp of coffee and considered her mother’s voice on the telephone.

“Let’s think seriously about this, okay?” She surveyed their faces. The possibility still existed that this was some sort of fool prank, some manufactured joke prepared to shock the hell out of their teacher, but the odds at this point were slim considering. “You say that you’ve seen your father? How did you see him?”

“He was a ghost.”

The bluntness stung. Susan reeled. She must have looked sick to them.

“A ghost? Did either of you two see him?”

The others shook their heads.

Susan grew anxious. She wanted to believe them, but could she? If they were telling the truth, it would mean she wasn’t as crazy as she thought she was, but then it would also mean that something very serious was happening to them all, and it wasn’t the most palatable alternative.

“You’re not joking.” She searched their faces but found nothing but sincerity.

“I wish we were.” Joe’s poor tired little face said it all, the epitome of soberness. “I hate my father.”

“I want to tell you something also,” Susan said, “but you have to promise you won’t say anything about this to anyone, you got me?”

They nodded. Susan’s chest was ready to cave in, as if the air had been sucked from the room. She felt claustrophobic, but she had to get this out and she knew it.

“First of all, I don’t think you’re crazy.” She took a deep breath and held up her hand. “Second of all, I’ve had…a similar experience recently.”

Their mouths rounded with shock. “You mean, you’ve seen the demon?” Lisa asked.

“No,” Susan said, “but I’ve seen my mother, and she died when I was in college.”

“Did she say anything to you?” Joe asked.

“No. She tried to but I wouldn’t let her. I couldn’t handle seeing her and I think she knew it.”

“Why is this happening to us?” Joe said, his voice growing more distressed.

The poor kid, she thought. This has taken a toll on the boy and she saw it. She let him go on.

“Why are ghosts popping out of nowhere and…everything else? Isn’t this crazy? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know,” Susan said, “but it has to be tied together somehow. Don’t you think?”

Lisa leaned forward, pensive as always. “Let’s think about this. I mean, Joe said his father told him there was a ‘waiting demon’ that was killing all those people, that killed Mr. Tucker too, and that it wasn’t waiting anymore. Don’t you think if there was something that powerful, that evil in this town, that it might upset the balance of nature?”

Susan considered. “I follow you. Suppose it’s all true. Suppose there is a demon or some other supernatural creature preying on the people of Devonshire. That could be enough to bring the dead back to us, to warn us maybe. Or maybe their eternal sleep has just been unnaturally disturbed…”

“Like the movie Ghostbusters”, Burt added. “You know how the ghosts came out of the walls and all that just because that spirit-chick was coming.”

Susan almost chuckled. “Sort of like that, sure, only this is a bit more real. I suppose it’s a possibility.”

“It has to be it,” Joe said. “There’s no other explanation, right? Why else would my father be able to come back and say all this?”

“We have to stay rational.” Susan took another breath. “If we lose our heads, we’re dead for sure, because if we let this whole thing get to us, we’ll all go crazy.”

They all tried to lean back into the sofa, squirming.

“We’ve all had deaths in our families.” Susan looked at Joe. “From grandparents to parents or friends. There has to be a reason why these spirits have appeared to the two of us and not to the others?”

“Maybe it’s because of the relationship you had with them?” Lisa speculated. “Maybe it was how you felt about them?”

“That makes sense,” Susan agreed. “I think you could be right.”

“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “I hated my father. He killed himself and I was the one that found him dead.”

A twang of pity struck Susan. She’d heard stories about Joe among the faculty, but never asked questions, never confirmed any of it. But still, that did not change her opinion. “Your relationship with your father may not have been a good one, Joe, but it was still a strong one, and the fact that you found him proves it. He’s obviously had a profound effect on you.”

Joe considered. “I see.”

They sat quietly, letting silence fill them. The weight of it crushed down on them. Joe whispered something in Lisa’s ear.

“What did you just say?” Susan asked.

Joe cleared his throat. “What if we’re not the only ones?”

Susan’s mind reeled. Of course! It was perfectly logical if two of the four people here were seeing the ghosts, other people in town might experience the same thing.

“My God,” she said, “we have to find out if you’re right.”

“How?”

“We have to ask people. If we have to go door to door, we have to find out!”

“People are going to think we’re nuts!” Joe said.

“I don’t think so,” Susan said, “and at this point, I don’t care if they do.”

“We could always go to the church,” Burt mumbled.

For once, Burt had the right idea. Imagine an entire town having collective visitations from ghosts. Where else might some, if not most, of them go?

Susan agreed. “I think that’s the best place to be right now. We’ll talk to Father Kowalski and see what he has to say.”

They piled into Susan’s car and off they went. Susan prayed this was all a wild goose chase, but deep down, she knew that is wasn’t.

##

Other people had the same idea. Many others. The church was jammed. Susan expected to find it empty. She expected to have to knock on the rectory door to rouse Father Kowalski from an evening book, but he was already at the front of the church speaking with a group of visitors in exaggerated tones. At least three dozen other townsfolk speckled the pews, some of them crying, some hysterical, some praying or gazing up at the oversized statue of Jesus on the wall.

Father Kowalski waved his hands emphatically as he spoke. Among the small crowd gathered to him stood Mrs. Lanham, bellowing something unintelligible.

As they approached, their words became clearer.

“…I wish I knew what to tell you all,” Father Kowalski was saying. “I’ve never heard anything like this before, so please, let’s all keep calm and concentrate on the real issue at hand. I think we’re all feeling the pressure of these murders in town, and that can make us see and feel things we normally might not.”

So they were right. All of these people were seeing ghosts. Susan surveyed the group. It consisted of mostly older folk, which made sense in a way. The elderly have more death in their lives, and are more likely to know someone who recently died.

“Father, it’s not in our minds, I tell you,” Mrs. Lanham said, her jowls quivering. “I swear to you on the blood of Jesus that the Devil’s come to us. It’s Armageddon! I feel it in my bones! I will hold my tongue on this no more!”

“Please, Rose.” The father tried to console her, but his voice strained as his patience wore thin. “Why don’t you go and have a seat and calm yourself. Please.”

As Susan and the kids approached, Father Kowalski sighed with relief. A hush fell over the group.

“Father, may we speak with you?” Susan asked.

“Will you all please excuse me a moment.” Father Kowalski led them to a silent corner.

“Thank God you’re here, Susan. I don’t understand any of this.” He checked to ensure they were alone. “Something unusual is going on, but I have no idea how to explain it. It’s like mass hysteria. Mrs. Lanham is driving me batty! She says she’s seen her dead husband and the Devil creeping around her yard. Mr. Shikaski says his Vietnam buddies are brawling in his basement. Mrs. Henstein says she’s had several conversations with her dead sister. What is all this? Has the whole world gone mad?”

Susan waited for him to finish. She felt sorry for him. He thought he’d found someone rational to commiserate with, to make sense of the lunacy. He was wrong.

She held up a hand to stop him from speaking further. “Father, step back and think about all this. Suddenly, on a Monday evening, dozens of people in your parish come to you with similar stories?”

The priest threw up his hands. “Maybe something has been released into the water!”

“I’ve seen ghosts as well,” Susan said. The priest stared at her with disbelief.

“Me too,” Joe spoke up.

Father Kowalski deflated and stared at them with disbelief. “This is plain crazy. There’s no better word for it. What are we supposed to do?”

“Pray,” Lisa said, and the priest almost smiled.

“Thank you for that at least.” He set his hand on her shoulder, bewildered. “I’m going to speak to everyone here, so if you’d like, why don’t you have a seat.”

As he headed for the podium, the front door of the church opened again and another figure entered, this time a smaller woman, very old, carrying a flower-print handbag and clad in a long brown overcoat. Susan felt relieved when she saw who it was, someone she recognized and respected, someone who might offer a better explanation than they currently had.

It was Mrs. Whitley.

Susan excused herself and approached the elderly English teacher. Joe, Lisa, and Burt followed her up the aisle but left enough distance between them to remain respectful. Mrs. Whitley’s affable smile grew when she saw Susan. She offered a congenial wave.

“Hello, Susan,” she said. “It’s a wonderful night to be out, isn’t it?”

“Oh…yes,” Susan said, not sure what to say. Did Mrs. Whitley know? Had she seen her own ghosts?

“It’s busy tonight. Unusual for a Monday, I’d say. What do you think has brought everyone out this late?”

Susan’s stomach lurched. Maybe Mrs. Whitley wasn’t here for the same reasons at the others. Did she always come to church on Monday evenings? That wouldn’t be so unbelievable. Susan thought she might be sick but held it in check. She took Mrs. Whitley’s hand.

“There’s something happening in Devonshire, Mrs. Whitley,” Susan began, her sickness growing worse by the moment. “Something bad.”

“Are you all right, dear?” Mrs. Whitley asked. “Are you still feeling ill from that little fall you took this morning?”

“No, I…” Her stomach cramped. “I feel fine, it’s just my stomach all of a sudden…”

“You look like the devil’s gotten into you,” Mrs. Whitley said and Susan gripped her stomach. “Or maybe it’s going to get into you.”

The pain intensified and culminated in a sharp stabbing sensation. Susan doubled over. She looked up at the old teacher. “What did you say?”

Mrs. Whitley mouth stretched into a cruel grin, filled with jagged teeth blackened at the roots. “You heard me, you little bitch. I said maybe the devil’s going to get into you, just like it did to Mr. Tucker.”

Susan backed away.

“What’s wrong with you?” Susan straightened with immense effort, struggling through the pain. She stared into Mrs. Whitley’s eyes, searching for any explanation. Her horror magnified a thousand fold.

Mrs. Whitley’s eyes had become as dark as pitch.

Joe, Lisa, and Burt rushed to Susan. She looked like she would fall over at any moment.

At the front of the church, Father Kowalski took the microphone from the podium and turned it on. A squeaky feedback pulse screeched through the sound system.

“May I have everyone’s attention, please?”

“This is the way it always begins,” Mrs. Whitley said, her voice no longer the voice of a respected elderly teacher, but ragged, bitter, nasty. “They gather at the church like cattle because they can’t make heads or tails over what’s happening to them. They think God can save them from the inevitable, but you can’t stop it. God can’t help you mewling animals do anything. He never could.”

A wave of nausea traveled through the church now. Everyone reeled with sickness as queasiness slipped from person to person.

“You’ll all beg for your ridiculous God and he won’t do a damned thing to save you.” Mrs. Whitley’s voice rose so everyone could hear her. “God will do nothing to save you!”

An older woman vomited all over the front pew and several other people laid down where they sat, gripping their guts.

Susan leaned against a pew and the kids stepped back in horror, regarding Mrs. Whitley.

The old English teacher with the dark eyes turned them onto Joe. “Ahh, young Joe Shreiber.” She grinned, and when she did, the fetid stench of her breath cut them. “How is your dead father? You think I don’t know about him, that suicidal idiot that hanged himself in your basement? You think I don’t know he’s been here, talking to you? I can torment him as well as I can torment you, you know. Death does not save you.”

“What are you?” Joe asked, but he already the answer.

Mrs. Whitley cackled, her eyes swirling until they turned completely black. “Just another creature who feeds on fear and anguish. There is so much of it in this town, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve been here so long, digging in the roots, letting the place rot from within. They taste so much better that way, when they’ve rotted to the core with hopelessness, you know, trying to convince themselves how happy they are, how content they are. I love these fat, gluttonous beasts, all bloated with contentment, praying to God for even more of it. When they scream and burn at the end, oh, how delicious they taste.”

Susan and the others backed away, up the aisle and toward the front door. Father Kowalski stood at the podium, fighting the urge to retch.

“Ahem, excuse me…” he was saying. “I’m sorry, please excuse me…”

Mrs. Whitley released a guttural, cruel laugh. “Don’t go too far, friends,” she shouted. “Perhaps I’ll pay you a visit soon enough. Or better yet, tell your hopeless friends it’s time to die. Tell them all I’ve come to feed on their cattle corpses!”

Almost at the door, Joe spun back to the creature, it’s yellow and black teeth protruding like stalactites in a dim cave.

“What’s your name, freak?” he yelled. “What’s your real name?”

Mrs. Whitley laughed out loud, arrogance ringing. “You want to know my name, boy? You think it will help you? My name is Azasel. Revel in it.”

Joe turned and ran off with the others. Outside the church, they hurried into Susan’s car and screeched out of the parking lot, not one of them knowing where they were going. When the car finally stopped, they found themselves at the edge of town.

“What are you doing?” Burt asked Susan. “Why did you stop?”

Susan gripped the wheel, her fingers turning white. “We can’t leave like this, not after knowing what we know.”

“Are you kidding me?” Burt cried. “Sure we can. Let’s get the hell out of here!”

“We can’t!” Susan said. “Don’t you think she’ll find us, no matter where we go? Why do you think she revealed herself to us, so we could just run away? No, she wants everyone to know, so the killing is that much better.”

“We have to kill it,” Joe said.

They all turned to him, as if the obvious truth had poured forth and they knew it immediately.

“What did you say?” Veins bulged from Burt’s neck. “This isn’t a game anymore, man. This is serious.”

“We have to kill it.”

“What did you say to it back there?” Lisa asked him. “When you stopped at the door?”

“I asked for its name,” he said. “Its name is Azasel.”

“What the hell good is that going to do us?” Burt asked.

“It’s going to do us good because that’s how it is with demons,” Joe told them. “You can’t kill a demon unless you know its name.”

“How do you know that?” Burt asked again.

“I read it.”

“Don’t you think it knows that?” Burt said. “If you can just kill it because you know its name, don’t you think it wouldn’t tell you what its name was?”

“Do you think it really believes we can kill it?” Joe asked. “This thing is arrogant. We’re like...cattle, it said. We’re just here for food, or whatever it wants to use us for. People can be killed with guns, but do you think you’d be afraid if a cow or a chicken got hold of a gun?”

“Come on,” Burt said. “We’re not cows and chickens. We’re people, and we have brains.”

Joe clenched his fists. “I’m not saying we’re animals. All I’m saying is this is how it probably thinks. We’re like ants to it, and it’s like some sadistic kid with a magnifying glass, torching our heads off.”

“I don’t know if I can handle this.” It was Lisa. She gripped her seatbelt in her hands, twisting and turning. If it hadn’t been tear-proof nylon, it would surely have ripped.

“We have to handle this,” Joe said. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

“That’s a crock,” Burt said. “We could get out of here. Just go. Come on, Ms. Ascot, just put your foot on the pedal and let’s leave. Now.”

Susan’s tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She leaned back in silence as the kids bickered, but she knew what had to be done. Still, how absurd it all was. Was she actually thinking of going back? Straight into the face of a demon? Any rational person would certainly have kept on driving, all the way to the Canadian border and beyond, but here she was, stopping.

“Joe is right,” she heard herself say, expecting her own hand to fly up and give her a good hard smack in the face. It didn’t happen.

“You’re kidding, right?” Burt said. His voice grew weak with disbelief.

“I’m not.” She glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “If we leave, a lot of people are going to die in this town. Including your families.”

Burt shook his head violently. “A lot of people are going to die in this town anyway! What are we supposed to do about it? Did you see that thing? We can’t kill it. It walked right into a church. If a demon can walk into a church like that, there’s nothing we can do!”

“I don’t think it’s a demon in the normal sense of the word,” Joe said. “I’ve read a lot about this stuff, and every culture has different definitions for their demons and devils. They all have different powers and vices, and just because they belong in Hell doesn’t mean they can’t step foot inside a church.”

“I don’t get it,” Burt said. “It’s a demon, but not a demon?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Joe weighed his words. “It’s just not the kind of demon that our popular culture believes in, like the hoofed beast with big horns and red skin. There’s something definitely supernatural about this thing, but it’s physical, like a vampire or something like that. It has physical needs.”

“How do you know that?”

“Look at what it’s doing,” he continued. “It’s physically burning these people when it kills them. It isn’t just getting into their heads and making them do evil. It’s physical, it’s in a body. If it’s in a body, we can kill it.”

“So you think this thing possessed Mrs. Whitley?” Susan asked, more to herself. “It didn’t just become her and move to town?”

Joe nodded. “I think so. My father said it was a waiting demon, and that it’s been waiting a long time. I think it probably possessed her body a long time ago and has been waiting ever since to come out and do what it’s doing now. Kill.”

This made sense to Susan. It would certainly explain the feeling of slow rot that had been seeping into the town for so long.

Burt, skeptical as ever, interrupted. “Sure, it’s in some old lady’s body, but it still killed all those people. They couldn’t fight it. How are we supposed to?”

Joe shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They remained in the car a moment or more, wondering what to do next.

Finally then, Joe broke the silence. “One thing is for sure, though,” he said. “At least one of us will probably die tonight. If not all of us.”