Chapter 4: Detrick’s Demon

Detrick was jostled awake by the rough movement of something hard beneath him. Disoriented and confused, he had no idea where he was. Hot sunlight beat upon his face.

He tried to sit up and move his arms. Again, he felt a smothering weight holding him down. Flashbacks of mud and being unable to breathe suddenly filled his mind.

He became frantic. His breathing labored as he whipped his head back and forth futilely trying to free himself. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse groan.

And then he saw the red eyes again. They peered at him from off to his left. Detrick’s yells slowed as he tried to bring the creature into focus.

“Whoa! Whoa! Stop. Stop.” He heard a voice from above him suddenly say. Detrick felt the motion beneath him slow and heard what sounded like the stomping hooves of horses.

The creature continued to stare at Detrick, unmoving.

The cart came to a complete stop and Detrick was jostled again as he heard a heavy weight thump to the ground.

That’s when the demon ran at Detrick’s face. Detrick was pinned down. He couldn’t pull his arms free to defend himself.

The horrible creature screamed. And then it bit into the side of Detrick’s face. It shook its head back and forth violently attempting to tear it off. Detrick began to scream again.

“So, you’re still alive, are ya?” Detrick distantly heard a gravelly voice say. “Sorry about that. It’s been a looong day.”

Detrick tried to focus his eyes on where the voice was coming from above him. All he could see was the glaring light of the sun. All the while, the demon growled and tore at his face.

A grizzled old face covered in dirt suddenly appeared over Detrick. The gray stubbled face of this new voice was missing a number of teeth. Dark eyes bulged from the man’s head.

“Juss one sec’nd, and I’ll git ya out,” the man said. The grimy man lifted his head and yelled out. “Darin, com-ere an gimme a ‘and, will ya?”

He watched as the man leapt up on the back of the cart Detrick lay in. The demon stopped attacking Detrick’s face momentarily to look at the man. But the man took no notice of the hideous creature glaring up at him.

Can you not see what’s happening? Detrick thought as he hyperventilated. Why was the man not doing anything to help him? Why wasn’t he running away?

Then the old man began to pull at something on top of Detrick. And that was when it dawned on Detrick that his face didn’t actually hurt. It should have felt like pure red hot agony. His left eye should have been gone. But it wasn’t. He could clearly see the demon. And only with his left eye.

With all the clawing and biting the demon had done—for that is what Detrick had come to think of the creature, as a demon—to his face, the pain should have been unbearable.

Detrick’s vision was coming in much clearer now. He shook his head one last time as everything came into focus. He saw then what lay on top of him, what the smothering weight was.

Dead soldiers. A massive pile of dead bodies. He was trapped at the bottom of the caisson. His panic came flooding back instantly. He struggled to free himself from beneath the bodies. The demon peered back at Detrick. Was that a smile on its face, Detrick wondered.

Another man joined in removing the bodies off the top of Detrick. And soon Detrick was free. He pushed himself back with his arms to sit up next to the cart railing. The demon sat back on its haunches and just glared at Detrick. Hatred filled its face.

Detrick looked down at his leg. A shattered shaft of wood jutted from the front of his thigh. His trembling hands reached forward to check the wound. His leg was numb, but he still felt an odd sensation where the spear penetrated his thigh.

He shoved his leg over to inspect the injury more closely, all the while keeping an eye on the demon. He heard metal on wood as he moved the leg. He turned his leg out a little, and sure enough, the metal tip of the spear stuck out the back of his thigh. It clicked against the wood again as he released his leg, shock washing through him.

Detrick looked up at the Demon. It appeared to be silently laughing at him. It pointed at the metal spearhead jutting from the back of Detrick’s leg, and began to laugh even harder.

“Alrigh, now listen,” the grimy old caisson driver said climbing off the back of the cart. His voice made Detrick jump. He walked around and rested a filthy hand on Detrick’s right shoulder comfortingly. “You’ve been through a lot, son. I know. But we’re almos back to the castle. You can just stay back ere and I’ll take ya the rest of the way. Okay? Okay.”

With a tap of his hand on the cart railing, the man walked back to the front of the cart without waiting for a response from Detrick. He climbed up to his seat, and Detrick heard the old man snap the reins. Again, Detrick was bouncing down the road.

Looking back over at the demon, it peered up the road they were traveling. It seemed curious as to where they were going.

Detrick closed his left eye. The demon disappeared. He closed his right eye, and opened the left. The demon appeared again. It stared at him again hatefully.

Detrick forced himself to keep breathing as the cart rolled roughly down the road. He and the demon continued to stare at one another the entire time.

After a short while, Detrick could hear voices and noticed they were approaching the castle portcullis. They entered Shaw Castle's courtyard and the cart came to a stop once again.

Waving to someone, the driver climbed down from his seat and jogged away. “Hey, hey,” Detrick heard the man yell from afar. “We gotta man ‘ere that needs some help.”

Detrick watched as a woman in a dark blue dress came out to meet the driver. The woman listened and then nodded in agreement to the driver. She then ran back inside and the driver hurried back to the cart.

“They’re gonna git ya fixed right up. Don’t ya worry,” the old man called to him before climbing back into the driver’s seat. A moment later the cart came to a stop just outside of a long building.

Detrick’s mind had begun to clear, his delirious state fading. He started to recall more of where he was. And with that clarity, came the surge of pain. It welled up in his thigh and spread through his torso to his head. It was overwhelming. Detrick saw the woman in blue reemerge then.

The demon’s disgusting face was the last thing Detrick saw before he fell over on his side, passing out once again.