Chapter #9: Fear Itself

"Take him!!" I hear Sean yell from behind me as he shoves me hard into the hallway, causing me to knock Aina to the side and fall flat on my face.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?! Let go of me!!!" Quinn shouts. I glance back to see the three of them wrestling with him over towards the front door. "LET GO!!"

"Quinn, just come on!! It only wants him!!! And if he's dead, then the curse will finally end, everything will finally go back to normal!!" Rory shouts. Before they can get far, Rowena stops in her tracks, a strange glossy look falling over her eyes as she stares up at the demon. She lets out a terrible scream and drops to her knees, covering her head with her hands.

"What's wrong?" Sean asks, letting go of Quinn to go over and help her up, but she doesn't budge. I try to pick myself up, only to have an immense weight pounce down on my back, causing me to scream out in anguish. I swivel my head around to peek over my shoulder, spotting Barbas perched atop the small of my back, his face mere millimeters from mine. Then his shape begins to morph until it resembles my mother, right before she'd passed.

"What's wrong honey? Did you miss me?" the demon wearing my mother's face questions. "You shouldn't, I sure don't miss you. It's been a blessing since I've been away from you. You were all that was wrong in my life from the moment I popped you out. Nothing but trouble and death follows you, Fay. Everything and everyone you come into contact with is worse off afterward, or they die, just like me. Just like your father and granny, your cousins, even little Caitlyn. And there's nothing you can do to stop it, except die. Even now, your own brother hates you, and your cousins, who claimed to simply want to bury the hatchet, are so eager to sacrifice you so long as it benefits them and their own meaningless lives. You have nothing, and no one, so… why don't you do us all a favor, and kill yourself!!!"

"Kill yourself… kill yourself… kill yourself…" Rowena chants repeatedly, bashing her forehead into the corner of the kitchen table, both Rory and Sean trying to stop her to no avail, Quinn just looks on in horror, not even paying me any attention. This thing is right, honestly… What do I have to live for? I have no family, no friends because my relatives would constantly drive them off, and a shitty job working retail for rich boujie asshole that already make me want to kill myself. What am I holding on for? Maybe they're right… maybe if I do die, it will finally stop torturing the rest of my bloodline.

"He has me!!!" Aina yells, and unleashes a hellish scream, knocking the demon off my back and sending it a few feet into the hall. She grabs my arm and lifts me up, rushing us past the others towards the door. "You have to live, Fay!!! You are the only one here who deserves life anymore!!!"

"Kill yourself… kill yourself… kill…" Rowena's voice stops sounding out, and I glance over at the group to see her face is glazed with thick crimson. In the center of her forehead is a triangular hole gushing out blood, and going so deep that you can see the inside of her skull as her brain hemorrhages and begins to swell from the repeated impact. She opens her mouth and spits out a few teeth that had been knocked loose during the headbanging, wonkily smiling at the rest of us. Then she takes two of her fingers, and jams them into the opening, pulling them back out with chunks of her brain, before falling over on the floor, convulsing wildly.

"Do not look at them Fay! Deirdre is already beginning her assault on this household!" Aina shouts, breaking me out of the trance I was stuck in.

I grab a chair and smash it through the window, only to have it launched back at me with hundreds of tiny shards of glass. I narrowly dodge the chair, but I'm not so lucky when it comes to the glass. As I raise my arms to protect my face I feel the cuts appear on my skin and a few shards stabbing into my arms and hands. When I don't feel any more pain, I chance a glance out the window where the unnatural amount of wind howls through and find Deidre waiting outside. She smiles at me wickedly, her lipless mouth bleeding again from her lifeless tongue and pitch-black gums. 

"You can't leave Fay, this is your party! You're the star! And anyone that leaves, will hear my scream!!!" the witch guffaws, pointing directly at Rowena's now lifeless body. "Just like that ungrateful bitch who tried to leave first!!!"

"What the fuck is that?!?!" Quinn yells in fear, stumbling back into the bloodied table at the sight of the tortured witch.

"You can see her??" I ask, dumbfounded.

"Of course we can see her you fuckin' asshole, what is that?!?!" Rory shouts in a panic.

"It's Deirdre, the banshee. The witch…"

"What does she want?" Quinn asks quietly.

"Isn't that obvious? She wants you to stay here with me Son," the demon responds, now taking the form of our father. "Now tell me Quinn, who said you could become a faggot?"

"H-how…" Quinn stutters, his face ashen and sweaty, his hands trembling.

"How? You think you can hide the fact that you take a dick up your ass every other day? From me of all people? I'm your father Quinn, I know everything there is to know about you, and how much of a disappointment you are. Fay wasn't bad enough, being the curse of the family, you had to go and be a faggot?!?! Even your brother, who is the biggest disappointment of my life, couldn't hurt me as bad as you did, you cocksucker! At least he likes pussy, but you… and of all things, not only are you a homo, but you're the bitch in the relationship??? YOU FUCKING DISGUST ME!!!" the demon seethes as it moves closer to us, Sean still holding his sister's lifeless body while he weeps.

"You shut the fuck up you goddamn demon!!" I shout angrily. "What the fuck does it matter that he's gay? We had a hard enough life growin' up in this family! Why the fuck should he hide who he is?!"

"Fay, hush!! Stop drawing its attention to you. You are the one it wants, not them!" Aina shouts at me and I clam back up as it shifts its attention once more. 

"Don't get me started on you, you fuckin' disappointment. While your brother is over here getting assfucked, you decide to act like a helpless child as your relatives die around you due to the curse you reawakened. YOU are the reason I'm dead. You're the reason Rowena's dead, not just her, all of your relatives, all of 'em died in horrible ways… You are the calamity that will destroy this bloodline."

"I knew it!!! It's all your fault!!!" Sean screams, jumping on me as he begins pummeling me. I knee him in the dick and watch as he rolls over in pain, causing the demon to chuckle.

"You… you really did it… you killed my little girl…" Rory mutters, pulling out a knife from his pocket and walking towards me.

"No daddy, you did it," the demon mutters as Caitlyn, now taking the form of his dead two-year-old daughter. "After all the times you beat mommy, how she would tell you no even though you continued to assault her, all the times you left me there to cry while you were too busy getting drunk and high. Do you know how much it would hurt, to be left sitting in my own shitty, piss filled diapers all day until mommy would come home. The horrible rashes and infections. And when she would yell at you for mistreating me, for leaving me unoccupied for hours on end, instead of admitting you were wrong, you would beat her. You would beat my mommy black and blue, until her eyes were black and her teeth were loose. You even made her miscarry my little sister that was still growing in her belly. 

"Out of everyone here, you are the worst of them, even more than Fay. He's cursed, but he can't help that he's a hopeless piece of shit. YOU, on the other hand, are simply a ghoul in human skin, abusing all those that lend you a hand, taking everything around you for granted. Why do you think mommy left you, after you killed me? After you left me to cry for three hours, before you finally came over and noticed I was bleeding from my ears? How long after that, before you decided to take me to the hospital for help because you didn't want to pay for the bill? Do you remember? It was another two hours. I might have been saved…. The doctor's might have been able to help me, but you wanted to pass the blame to mommy again. Now she's off living the best life she can, fucking every single person who gives her positive attention for how traumatized she is now, finally free from you, and even free from me."

Rory's crying hysterically in the corner now, the truth of his horrendous crimes coming to light. An abusive spouse, both physically and sexually, and a neglector of his only child, as well as making his significant other miscarry, essentially killing his second child. The demon shifts again, now taking the form of my uncle, Sean's father, with his eyes dangling out of their sockets. Sean stares on in disbelief as Quinn scurries over to me, his face wet with tears. 

"What do we do?" he whispers hoarsely in my ear while I try to dig out some of the glass from my hands. I tremble as I shrug.

"Pray… there's nothing we can do. We go outside, Deirdre will make us kill ourselves, we stay in here, the demon will make us kill ourselves," I murmur, Aina crouching next to us. She looks directly into my eyes.

"Fay, you can send Barbas away. Only you. You have sensitivity towards us, so you also have influence over us, just as we do to you, but it is more than just that. You have an ability, a gift. It has been passed down through your bloodline. You can do this!" she tells me, plucking the last few of the shards from my hands for me. I glance up as the demon stops before Sean, smiling in a crazed way.

"How?"

"Barbas is the demon of fear. You must not show it fear. You cannot be afraid of it, no matter how much it tries. When you show that you are not fearful of it, and it understands, you can order it to leave. Then you must close the portal of the Ouija board that the others left open. Only then will you be safe little one. But I cannot help you. I can only hold off Deirdre after you order Barbas away for you to escape. Barbas is too powerful, and even I cannot hold back my fear of that thing," Aina explains, her purple eyes wavering as she glances back at the demon.

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that if even you can't Aina? You're the strongest person I know! Even Deirdre, who terrifies me, is usually nothing more than a fly on your shoulder that you brush off!!" I reply, the fear already rising in my voice. 

"Sean! How could you let your sister get hurt like that?! What were you doing? WHAT WERE YOU DOING?!" Barbas shouts, still wearing my uncle's skin as he smacks Sean across the face. He continues his rant as he beats my cousin. "Do I need to hit you like when you were a boy? You were always so bad! I hate you! I always hated you, just like your mother hated you!!! You never listen, and never do anything but lie!! This is why I used to hit you! Why I still have to hit you, even now!! Your sister was a fuckin' angel compared to you, you piece of shit, and you let her hurt herself like that?! Why didn't you try harder?!! Die! Just fuckin' Die!!"

"I'm sorry pa, I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" Sean cries as Barbas beats the living shit out of him.

"Do not think of it as a demon. Think of it as a human you do not want here anymore. And remember, I am still here with you," Aina instructs me.

"Barbas, get out!" I shout angrily, a small tremble still detectable in my voice. It looks over at me, and sneers. 

"Do you honestly think that shit is going to work on me, Fay? Even you shouldn't be that naïve. I won't leave here until I wish to leave. You can't make me do a damn thing," Barbas growls. I stand my ground, but it doesn't do much good. I can still feel myself shaking.

"GET OUT!!!" I yell louder.

"YOU DO NOT SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT, HUMAN!! I WILL DRAG YOU TO HELL MYSELF SO YOU CAN BURN IN A POT OF BOILING OIL FOR EONS!!!"

I glance over at the wall farthest from us, eyeing the altar Sean and Rowena had set up for their parents. I notice that there's a small bottle with a cross painted on it, what I can only hope to be holy water. I get up quick and sprint over to it, only for Barbas to intercept and flick me aside with a wave of his hand, like merely swatting a gnat. It sends me flying into the kitchen where I slam against the refrigerator. I gasp out, and struggle to suck air back into my lungs. My chest hurts, a few ribs definitely broken, and my head is spinning wildly.

"Fay…" Barbas says with my mother's face. "Don't you wanna be with me again, away from everyone else, and all their hatred?"

"Don't you dare… use her face… you bastard… I'll kill you!!!" I growl between gasps, pulling myself off of the floor.

"Oh? And how do you think you can do that? I'm not some bug you can squish under the palm of your hand, like how you are to me. Do you think you're all powerful? Do you believe you're God?" 

"No, I'm not an asshole like God. I wouldn't let rape or slavery exist in this world. God is just as much of a piece of shit as you, or worse, because he actually made things like you…" I tell him as I stand up before dashing for the altar, snatching up the bottle, surprised that it doesn't come after me like before. But I'm not even able to uncork it when I hear screaming from across the room. I look over and see Quinn is writhing on the floor in pain, almost as if he's being choked. I rush over to him only for him to stop his writhing abruptly, and lay flat on the floor. "What's wrong?! Quinn?! QUINN?!!"

"Get away from him Fay!!! You have to run!!! Get out of here NOW!" Aina yells.

"What do you mean? I can't just leave him here!" I scream back, when suddenly Quinn's eyes pop open and he glares around the room angrily. "You're awake! Are you okay?! Come on, we have to go, before the demon comes back!"

Before Aina can successfully pull me away, Quinn reaches up and wraps his fingers around my throat with a choking grip. I try to pull his hand away, but it refuses to budge, even though Quinn isn't much stronger than me anymore. I glance down in distress and see a wicked grin plastered on my brother's face, one he would never make, especially at me, no matter how much he despises me. I punch his chest and face a few times, trying to make him release me, but he just tightens his fingers, his nails digging into the skin of my throat.

"You should've listened to your pretty friend Fay… It was your last chance to make it out of here alive. Now you're gonna die here with the rest of them!" Quinn smirks as Barbas' voice slips from his mouth. He stands up from the floor and raises me off of my feet so that I'm kicking wildly, all with just one hand. 

"You're gonna die at the hands of your own brother, and there's nothing either of you can do but watch, and suffer. And when I extinguish the life from your pitiful body, I want you to know that your brother is still in here, screaming out bloody murder because I'm using his body to kill you…"

"Get… out… of… my… brother…"

"This body is mine now, Fay. And while I wear this flesh, I am Cain!!!" Quinn roars before glaring at me, all the malice in the world shouldered behind his eyes. "Now, get ready for your punishment, Abel!"