A Hanging Madness
By Jacob Malewitz
Patlabor Second Kingdom
F Scott Fitzgerald In Manhattan, 100
Mars Jacket, 200
Wordpress, 200 Blogger Blog
EscaflowneHush.Blogspot.com, a new blog for Escaflowne, 200
He began typing wildly until these thoughts escaped him, then went back to the books. There were several mentions of demon-like possessions, or claims of possessions, throughout the early years of Michigan history. Some read too many horror novels or simply had vivid imaginations, but some people, who never claimed to be possessed, said things they shouldn’t have. One man predicted Hitler, in 1921, another predicted a massacre at a Jewish ward in Moscow, another predicted man would touch the moon, another explained hell had several dimensions---
It was too much too comprehend, a simple madness Paul couldn’t relate to.
So he didn’t try to. It couldn’t have been all Hittites, or possessions, but the details were too much.
He walked away from it. Had to.
Downstairs. “She will know,” he whispered, looking at the bag of golf clubs setting where no one had put them. The demon had a smile on its face.
2
“Alice Amy, hello?” She looked up, a doctor standing over her; she was on the ground. “Alice, what happened? You were tied to the bed. Gabe was knocked out, the guard is missing, as are half our patients. What happened? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nohur came, and the chair, and nurse tried to rape me, tied me to the bed.”
That seemed to be enough for the doctor, the young man with green eyes, and he went back, on the verge of striking Gabe. “What the hell has happened in this hospital?”
“I got no clue? What? I was knocked out! The bitch probably did it. She killed someone, and you believe her over me? She’s a damn crazy bitch!”
“She has no reason to lie.”
“Oh, and I do?”
The doctor didn’t answer, walking away.
“Don’t you fucking walk away—“ and Gabe continued, but Alice focused on the bulge in his neck. She noticed her sharpened nail, how it became that didn’t matter, and charged Gabe when his back turned. She realized the nail was fake when she dug it into his neck, pulling out the creature about the same time he decked her with a sweeping blow.
“Do not strike the patients!”
She heard a struggle as blackness came.
She woke up to the sound of music mixing with madness, screams in a mad ward and blood flowing from bodies. The momentary blackness had only told her Gabe was still quite insane, still driven by the beast. Something else had happened, but she couldn’t put a finger on exactly what. Then she noticed the body laying on the ground, a pool of blackish blood surrounding it. The doctor, a needle in his eye and his neck bent the wrong way. She could have screamed, until the cops stormed into the area with shotguns and pistols drawn, like some premeditated special forces team tracking terrorists. They stormed through the ward, each man stopping with one patient, the others moving forward .The body next to her was dead, the unnamed, green eyed young doctor. Chandra, where was the Indian man Doctor Chandra who’d always been so nice to her?
Then she saw him, standing with Gabe, talking with Gabe, shaking his head at the mess.
“He did it for god’s sake. He killed him!” And tears hit her eyes.
No, I won’t cry.
She pulled the needle from the eye, the cop hovering over her following the mad eyes to the nurse.
“What did you say? Where was the guy? Girl, you gotta tell us how he got up here. Thought we killed the damn devil bastard. But we gonna get him,” said the cop, “sure as hell gonna get the man.”
She ignored this ignorant cop, charged down the hallways screaming with a needle grasped in her right hand, only to be decked by another cop with the end of a shotgun. “Doctor.” He said, and she went black again.
For those first moments of dreams—actually nightmares—she saw good angels in hell and bad angels in heaven. There was a setting sun above, but almost future like, red, as though it was cooling; the skies were barren; there were no people around, living people at least. All that could really be said, in this game, was the demons had won.
She dreamed for hours, in fact minutes, and opened her eyes tied to the bed again, no straitjacket this time, with Doctor Chandra hovering over her with several cops and a nurse with a needle. There, too, at the doorway was Gabe, smiling at her.
“You gonna be okay, girl. Something bad happened to your doctor, and they gonna help.”
“Gabe …”
“Sorry, boss,” and Gabe walked away from the door, to his escape route no less.
“He killed him,” and the needle went in her arm, “killed him like an animal. He hit me.”
“You were prescribed pain medicines, were you just dreaming?” Chandra looked at the mark on her face, but not saying anything about the red blemish.
“I had a nightmare.”
“You are awake now, Alice, you are in the real world.”
“Is a doctor dead?”
“Yes, but—“
“And you don’t know who? And you want me to tell you?”
“We already know who did it, Alice. It wasn’t you, we won’t blame you for anything. And it definitely wasn’t Gabriel. Guy hasn’t had a shift that early in two years.”
“The doctor tried to stop him, the doctor tried and I went black.”
“So you saw the doctor alive?” The cop leaned in. “And girl, you can tell my a crazy story, I just might believe it, but you are in a asylum, on enough medicines to be a rock band, and more than a few deaths to your name.”
Dad, she killed her dad. So long ago.
“I didn’t kill anyone. Why won’t you believe me?”
They didn’t answer, instead leaving the room, leaving Alice to her shackles. She immediately tightened one around her wrist: the pain felt good, the broken nail even better. She quietly ripped into it, but of course this was the same story it had been for ten years. Escaping, getting messed up or hurting someone, maybe both, and given a clean bill of health as clearly insane.
“Let me go,” she whispered, and the whisper came silently next.
“Will you join us, Alice? Will you fuck the boys and girls for us, rape their dead bodies, dig holes and bury them?“The voice seemed to echo; could they hear this too? “Would you like to see me? Do call me by name, Alice, call me—“
“A name in hell is important.”
“Will you join us, Alice Amy?”
“No,” And she released one arm from the strap, only to put it back in. Obviously, she saw how that game tape would end. They’d catch her.
“Will you ever be free?”
“… Why is evil so bad …”
“… Sucking blood is good for you, protein …”
“…Let me fuck you, Alice …”
And she let out a light squeal, only to see an angel hovering over her. Good or bad, it seemed interested. Nohur, Bezeel, those were the bad names. She cried for a moment, wishing for once a good angel would, would--
“Alice?” A figure stepped forward, black wings. “Alice, do you remember dad? We use to have such fun! I could touch you all over, and we’d take you to grandpa’s and he’d touch you. Then you slit my throat, Alice. I loved you and you slit my throat.”
“No, no, no—“
“Why did you slit my throat! You fucking bitch, you hore, you sucked cock for $10 but you couldn’t touch me down there? Couldn’t ride old daddy—“
She jumped out of the bed, her strength beyond human, and grabbed nothing, only to go back, tighten the scraps, and try to stay awake as long as she could.
Chapter 24
Paul Light looked at the 100 typed pages, printed out from the computer, on what came to be known to him more than anything a middle finger at everything in his life before. These pages would save him, and it wasn’t one of dad’s odd occult books or mom’s taboo bible with sketches. This was his, his way of seeing the world, his way of saying something is right or wrong.
“Phenomena In Asylums,” he let out, the new title working on him. It could have been coy, some play on psychology, but that would deter less formal readers. It could have been dark and cool, like some mad horror tale gone wrong, but then the non-fiction, if somewhat narrative, would turn to mush and be on the front page of cheap magazines.
Nope. He wanted to finish a book with a simple title that pretty much summed up the most complex of titles one could have.
“And who am I kidding,” he thought out loud, racing back and forth in his mind for all the madness that had enveloped him, the things he no longer wanted to face, ever, ever again. There were times in his life Paul could look upon with joy, but always hanging over him were mom and dad. And dad, who could keep his liquor down, had far more to worry about. Mom’s spirit, gone to heaven or hell, possessed in some way so long ago. Maybe she was the one whispering to him at night, who are you slipping from her lips. Really, it mattered not. He put the pages down, pulled out a red pen, and began to think his way through the madness. Only the heavy breathing snapped him out of it, and he realized he’d left the front door wide open and he was still living in a house cursed.
So he kept writing.
And the breathing turned to coughing, then an insane laughing, ending with a thud as the door opened and someone stumbled inside. He went to the hallway, looking down at his partner in crime Joe, who seemed quite drunk and definitely an aimless soul spirited away from the booze.
“You actually writing on a night like tonight! You, see—“ he spit something out, coughed and lit a cigarette. “You, you ever see the moon like tonight? Makes me want to go all werewolf like we used to. Remember when we roared?”
“Roared like lions on the hunt.”
“No, Paul, we didn’t roar like lions on the hunt, we roared like god damn bastards with nothing to lose, screw food and drink.” Joe stumbled one foot into the enclose between the doorway and the stairs, and Paul watched his eyes fall toward the table. A “huh” came from his lips, he drew, almost fired before Paul could get to him..
“I am writing you drunk bastard.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly,” and Paul pulled him toward the creature, dragged him foot by foot before Joe caught wind of what the plan was. He silently pulled his gun again, but Paul didn’t stop him this time; he let the gun sight on the creature. “You gonna blow the brains up of a ghost.”
“Fucking everything up, Paul, it’s fucking everything up. Can’t sleep or dream anymore. Got this prescription from the doctor for high blood pressure and coughing. Feel like a damn piece of plastic with all this crap in me.”
“A piece of plastic?”
“The world is strange,” and he fell over. Paul quickly unarmed Joe, then dragged him to the couch, angling him so if he threw up he wouldn’t suffocate. Paul looked at the TV, almost seeing something, then quietly walked back to the stairs. For some reason, he noted the creature evolving, its lips now more pronounced, its skin a deeper hue of brown than red, but the redness of the eyes and the death in them still spooked him. He sat down at the table.
“Where is she?”
“Call it red.”
Paul drew the weapon, pointed it at his head, and stared the creature down. “Is my mom’s spirit somewhere?”
“Call it—“
He tensed on the trigger, doing all of this without really realizing it. He then shot himself in the leg, then in the arm, and then pointed it at his head with no real reason not to just end it. For a moment, a smile hit the creature’s face.
“Bring food.”
Paul put the gun down, noting the clean shots on his leg and arm. He was bleeding real bad, had went from writing to near suicide. But the shots were precise.
“Fucking crystal mess you up—you under arrest—“ Joe mumbled in the background. Paul went to the kitchen, wrapping the bullet wounds. Before he passed out, before the pain took over, and when adrenaline flowed, he grabbed a loaf of bread, some cookies, and a diet Sprite. Upon reaching the table again, after setting the food down, he fell to the ground, his eyes wide. He felt the blood, the pain in his thigh, the graze just above the wrist to his left arm, the feeling of euphoria and approaching blackness. While he did this, the creature began to eat the food.
“Call it red. Call it madness. Call it finding a reason to live. Humanity has never played itself right. I fought in Europe 500 years ago, 400 years ago, 300 years ago, 150 years ago, 50 years ago, and I could go over there and fight again. I could create little Hitlers and Stalins, but nothing, nothing would harness the true evil of the true hell, the one where the Jewish Kings sit madly as people are not burned or cooled, but played against each other on a fabric.” He inhaled a piece of bread, Paul’s eyes rising to its more formed face. “I fought in most wars you ever had. Wars attract us, for war is a cruel beast, a great invention.”
“Mom.”
“I served in the court of Prince William, a Norman who would empty cities the old fashioned way. But I also fought alongside jarheads in the Great War, the one at the dawn of your technology. I’ve gone through space, I’ve gone to the tops of mountains. Found nothing truly worthwhile, until a young woman with a husband and son begins noticing me more and more, seeing me under this frail skin. Your mom, Paul, had the gift of seeing into many hells, of seeing angels and demons walking the earth, so I took it upon myself to help her. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who noticed she could see horns.” It ate more bread, opened the Sprite and downed it like a shot.
“No, your mom had always had the appearance of darkness, of seeing the wrong things at the wrong times. Hell is changing, Paul, and shooting yourself isn’t going to save what’s left of her soul.”
“Where is she? Did it really happen? Did it?”
“Paul, it all happened. Every dream you have has basis in fact.”
“That doesn’t answer my questions.”
“Think about it. She’s mentally challenged. I used to walk in there with ice cream, dressed in the skin of a nurse who’s throat I slashed. So I’d go in there, open up the ice cream, and she would just stare at me, see through me. And she saw the others too. The possessions are not from normal hell, but you know that already, no? You see they are from a hell older than the spoken name of God.”
“What does—“
“I am getting there, Paul.” The demon chewed on some cookies, spitting out pieces and gulping the rest. “May I have another diet Sprite. Do you have any warm cans? I like pop warm” Paul obliged, then closed his eyes, the pain becoming overwhelming. In the living room, a cigarette was lit and a few moments later the smoke detector came on.
“Got HBO in here, bro?” Joe said through a cough.
“Where is she?”
“With the priest, of course.”
“Did he rape her?”
“What would you do to right the evil?”
“I would rip out his eyes and bury them.”
“Wow, Paul, si si.” The demon continued to eat. “There are good angels and bad angels, good spirits and bad ones. I never wanted you mom: had other plans. But it’s so rare for someone to see a demon under his skin. It doesn’t happen, well it does, but rarely. Most people you put in those institutions saw too much of the real world, but a select few glimpsed the world no one speaks about. Priests mention it in sermons, Rabbi’s discuss it in temple, Pastors mention it while reading King James. But mental patients? They see more of our world than anyone should, and it makes them crazy. They cut themselves open, jump from buildings, get raped and try to get murdered by beat cops looking to make it home alive.”
“She died in that hospital,” Paul said.
“She died long before that. The priest raped her. Kill him.”
3
Paul sat across from cop Joe who had a cigarette butt hanging from his mouth and a little madness in his eyes. The TV was still on, but muted. There was some form of music playing on the radio, a small setup hooked to the TV speakers, and it belted out Jim Morrison, oddly. Paul wanted a drink really bad. So he woke up Joe, hoping to find the courage not to.
“Ah, eh, uh, why you wake me up bro?”
“Why do we wake up at all?”
“Oh, getting all philosophical.”
“I want a drink.”
“Sure.” Joe pulled Jack Daniels from his back pocket. “Got your name on it.”
Surprised, Paul could only stare for the next few seconds. A minute passed, he reached his hand out, another second passed before Joe put it in his hand.
“And why do you need liquid courage?” Joe asked, while pulling the bottle back and waiting. “Why not just light up a joint? I’ll look the other way.”
“Alcohol leads to weed and weed leads to cocaine.”
“So?”
“I went to, um, 12 step meetings.”
“So did I.” Joe laughed, putting the bottle to his mouth. “It either work or it don’t, and it worked for you, and likely won’t ever work for me, brother.” He took another drag on the cigarette and coughed. “What did the demon say to you? I should blast that mother fucker, or exorcise his ass.”
“He wants me to kill the priest.”
“And why would you do that?” Joe laughed. “He too goody-two shoes for the demon?”
“He raped my mom. She had a child. I am writing a book about phenomena in asylums, and the worst things I’m finding are far from magical. He killed her.”
“What do you mean he ‘killed her’?”
“She was never the same. She lost her spirit. He put the demon in her head. She went nuts.”
“She tried stopping it,” said Joe.
“What?”
“She didn’t want it to touch you or your dad. She didn’t want you to know.” Joe sat up on the golden brown cough. “It makes sense. I believe in ghosts, but I’m not supposed to. You believe in them because you have to.”
“Just give me the bottle,” and he reached out to grab it. Joe downed it, setting back on the couch, coughing up bits of alcohol. “You are fucked.”
“As always,” and his eyes closed.
Paul sat there for a few moments staring at the bottle. He had faced this demon before, but something in his mind told him that killing a real living breathing person would be tough. And if he couldn’t even stop a demon, how could he kill one priest who was likely possessed when the demon left him and went into mom? Really, what kind of rationale did he have but the dreams and demon explaining how it happened? And why had it?
Why did one demon decide what was going to happen in East Lansing? “Transylvanian Demon,” he let out, staring at the gun on Joe’s belt.
Chapter 25
Bezeel opened his eyes in a cops body, armed with a shotgun. It had been a long and eventful night, first with the butterfly at the mental institution, then noticing some other demon was working in this area, this realm, and last finding a cop standing outside the ward scratching his head over a dead guard. Good enough. The butterfly had made a path like a bullet into the man’s ear, shoving itself in. He’d screamed, lightly, and then fell over like a drunk on a stool.
“Yes!” And Bezeel pulled out his weapon. He could, if he wanted, go ahead and put a bullet in Alice Amy’s head. But he had other plans, other ways to make sure Paul Light and Alice Amy would never visit anything close to a heaven ever again.
He even knew where the little monster lived, the man writing the book. Yes, he could see him playing the musical tunes of a poet and staying away from the drugs and remembering. He remembered all these things and more, jumping back and forth. Why had they not agreed to his proposal? He could have easily ended this boy’s life with a quick possession, maybe even make it hell for a few days on the body, and jump off a building. Yet they thought that too dangerous, mentioning this over a few grunts with their eyes rolled back. The human monsters: they never understood how true spirits worked this plane. He’d been beaten to death before and survived. You couldn’t quite kill a demon, more like slow a demon down. The druids, Romans, Greeks, Persians, even the Shang had developed ways of physically bringing out the demons. Then these ideas evolved into the western use of exorcisms. The only thing he really didn’t want was some shaman coming in and dancing around a fire, bringing out the spirits of the dead. Bezeel didn’t like good spirits, and there were many.
He sat in the car, turned the ignition, and rolled for ten minutes toward the Light home. Only a skip away, and it seemed to go faster with his lights going. He even took turns hard and almost ran down college students lazily crossing streets without looking. He didn’t want to blow his cover yet, so the man in blue merely turned the flashers and lights off, quietly approaching the Light home. It didn’t matter what could happen now was infinite, that this reality may not be the real one and some other reality had the good guys winning, but to Bezeel it seemed like a game, matching a hungry monster against a skinny boy.
The monster didn’t always win even then, so Bezeel grabbed a shotgun sitting between the seats and approached the doorway. He set the shotgun behind him, knocking on the door.
