A Girl And Her Uzi: Five Years Ago, part 2

The flashback saga is almost over!




Victor looked down for a second, trying to figure out how to put into words how he had felt since that day. “It’s like…”, he sighed. “Like I’m not me anymore. Somebody new. Somebody different.” Pastor Tim looked closely into Victor’s eyes. “Someone different, all right…” Victor gulped. “At the name of our Savior, I… I felt incredible pain and whited out.” Pastor Tim walked over to the door of the room. “Brother Rosenkruez, from what I’ve been told thus far, it seems that this demon may have mixed its blood with yours when it wounded you.” Victor sat down hard in a nearby chair. “How did you hear about the battle? I haven’t talked to anybody about it quite yet…” The young man who had punched the demon into submission opened the door of the room and stepped forward. “It was me.”, he said as he approached Victor and sat next to him, “I decided to come forward and talk to the cops. This pastor showed up on the scene, too. All the evidence pointed to my friends and I being implicated in your murder, so I felt I had no choice.”

Pastor Tim cleared his throat. “I spoke up for the young men and asked that they be pardoned, and the chief of police listened. That out of the way, I started asking my own questions about everything that happened, and it sounded to me like the demon was on its last legs and decided that it wanted to use somebody to carry itself on after death. Brother Rosenkruez, that was you.” Aaron stood up. “Right,” he grunted, “If sacrificial blood could invite the protection of God in the Exodus, it seems pretty natural that demon blood could invite demonic possession and act as a conduit. Copper, I’ve never been religious until today, but you need Jesus.” Victor’s head throbbed at the mention of Jesus and he fought to retain consciousness. He slumped forward in his chair, and Aaron caught him. “Maybe we should get him into a bed…”, he muttered. “I’m fine, I’m fine…”, Victor scowled as he got to his feet. “I have to overcome this with the Lord’s help.”

A burst of flame erupted in the center of the room as if somebody had lit a match and thrown it into a bucket of gasoline. Everybody scrambled backwards to avoid it except Victor, who hunched over in pain. Aaron lunged forward to grab Victor and pull him away from the leaping flames. The demon that had killed Victor stood among the flames. Aaron glared at it defiantly, while Victor swayed to and fro on his feet, fighting back vomit. The demon looked around the room and eventually settled its gaze on Victor. “You are mine now. Our blood is one and the same.”, it said calmly as it walked toward him on its hundreds of terrifyingly out of place appendages. “Oh no you fucking don’t, Satanspawn!”, Aaron yelled as he leapt forward, fist cocked back. His savage punch met what passed for the demon’s head, but it barely flinched. “Fool!”, it bellowed. Flames shot up around it and singed Aaron as he leapt away in the nick of time. “Now that I have a living vessel, I am more powerful than you could begin to fathom!” The demon grimaced and screamed when a small amount of water splashed on its back. “The power of Christ compels you! In the name of Jesus, I command you to leave this child of the Most High at once!”, Pastor Tim stepped toward the stunned demon, holding up a crucifix. The demon began to cry bloody tears as its appendages melted. “NO!”, it screeched, and leapt on top of Victor with its body ablaze. Aaron tried to pry it off, but found that he lacked the strength in the face of the magnetism between the demon and his victim. He reluctantly let go of the demon and settled for punching and kicking it ruthlessly, each blow burning a patch of skin badly.

Not seeming to mind the flurry of vicious attacks and the holy man closing in on it, the demon pried Victor’s jaw open with two claws until it unhinged with a sickening crack. Victor’s scream filled the room, then died down into a series of muffled whimpers as the demon tore his victim’s face wider and wider until there was room to begin pushing its head inside. Victor’s blood pooled on the floor as his head, neck and chest split wide open to accommodate the demon. Finally, it slipped inside completely and Victor’s twitching body began to heal at an alarming rate. Everybody watched in horror, clueless as to what to do, until Victor finally got to his feet. “Brother Rosenkruez, are you okay? Is it gone?”, Pastor Tim asked. Victor snatched the crucifix from the preacher and took a bite out of it. Pastor Tim’s eyes widened in shock and fear as Victor closed in on him, laughing in the demon’s voice. “Victor Rosenkruez will be lucky to still be self-aware once I’m through with him. I am Victor now, and the world will fear me.” In one swift motion, a spinning kick thrown with vicious force separate the pastor’s head from his body, and it crumpled to the floor. Aaron rushed forward and punched with all his might, but a single finger was all it took to stop his onslaught cold. He recoiled and tried a powerful dropkick, but Victor caught him by the ankle and threw him at the hard wall. Aaron’s ears rang as his vision blurred and faded.

When Aaron awoke, everybody around him was lying dead. He resolved to defeat the demon and save the officer that had sacrificed himself so bravely for he and his friends, if he could, and simply got up and left the scene, covered in blood, ignoring stares on his way to a convenience store. He bought a simple t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants, then changed into them in the bathroom. The store owner was paid an extra $50 not to make a fuss about the fact that Aaron looked as though he had just bathed in blood. He walked away unassumingly as police cars sped up and down Ulmerton Road. He kept walking until he reached Largo Mall, already closed down for the night. Out of energy, he staggered to the dumpsters between Target and the other half of the plaza’s front quadrant, then hunkered down in the shadows and slept.

The sun woke Aaron just before his cell phone rang. It was Biggs. A quick flick of the wrist opened the phone, and Aaron pressed it to his ear with one hand while prying himself from the ground with the other. “Talk to me, man.” Biggs cleared his throat on the other end. “I think I got some information about that demon and the cop he possessed, and you’re not going to like it.” Aaron began to walk toward the other end of Largo Mall to grab some Burger King for breakfast. “Spit it out, Biggs.” “It may be easier if I send you the link. Your phone got web?” Aaron subconsciously nodded. “Yeah, just WAP, but it should do unless you’re sending me a Flash video.” “All right, I’m gonna text you the link. Stay sharp, bud.” The hangup tone sounded in Aaron’s ear. A few seconds later, his phone vibrated. The text from Biggs included a link to an underground news website. A frantically typed report accompanied by a few shaky pictures showed what seemed to be the inside of the Fort Harrison. The officer was there, and from the series of pictures, he seemed to be slaughtering Scientologists wholesale. The report offered little explanation. “Scientologists may be new in town and a bit creepy, but there’s no reason to go killing them off…”, Aaron muttered under his breath, “Just what is this demon after?” He relegated his monologue to thoughts alone as he strode into the Burger King, ordered, and sat down to his meal. Five minutes were spent in deep, silent thought punctuated by chewing and sipping. After he finished his food, he cleared his tray and left in a rush. A quick bite gave Aaron the energy he needed to haul himself back up Seminole Boulevard to his apartment in Brittany Bay. ‘I have some work to do’, he thought to himself.

Victor staggered through the back alleys of Clearwater Beach to find his hideout, knocking over garbage cans and depositing bile and bits of the people he had eaten along the way. He was determined not to let the demon gain full control, but couldn’t seem to gain any ground. While he fought, he prayed. ‘God, please, if you will not help me to expel this demon, then send an angel to end me.’, he thought to Heaven. He felt his mouth move, and the demon’s voice poured forth. “Let me tell you what I have planned for you, choir boy.” Victor fought his hardest, but the demon retained full speaking rights and continued to use them. “First, we are going to topple this city by toppling the Church of Scientology. Then, we are going to kill all of the Japanese nationals in the city. It will be a mystery. Mayor Hibbard will shit himself trying to figure out what to tell Nagano, and it will spell war. Amid the chaos, you and me, we’re going to have a blast. This city will burn to the ground, and all of Pinellas County with it. From there, the entire state of Florida, and from there, the entire South. I will show my power and rule with an iron fist, killing until nobody in the United States opposes me. Once we rule this miserable country, we will use its bloated military might to conquer this world for Satan, and open portals to Hell all over the world!” Victor couldn’t say anything. At this point, he was along for the ride, and wished only that he could kill himself and take away this power-mad demon’s flesh vessel. The pair scuttled into a back-alley manhole, and down to a crude shelter within the sewers. Though Victor’s body no longer required sustenance, the demon ate rats and drank sewer water to torture his victim.

Once he was inside his apartment, Aaron locked the door behind him and snatched up his Bluetooth headset. He switched it on, told his phone to call Todd, and he laid prone and began doing pushups. “Aaron! Dude, you wouldn’t believe-” Aaron cut Todd off. “Not only do I know, I’m involved. I need your help.” “Involved?! Fuck the what, now?!”, Todd spat. “The demon cop. He saved me and my boys from some cultists and died against the demon they summoned. It posessed him, Todd. It fucking ripped his head open and climbed inside, then the dude got up, threw me against the wall and killed everybody. I figure I have a couple of days at most to go dark before cops come knocking. I. Need. Your. Help.” “Not to worry, buddy.”, Todd said cooly, “I can get you a new ID, a free place out on Clearwater Beach, and citywide surveillance. You’ll know what the demon is doing before Bay News 9 does.” “Then start to make the arrangements and let me know what to do next. I owe you one.” “Not a problem. I’ll be in touch.” Todd hung up. Aaron’s bones ached as he neared 50 pushups, but he pressed on. He knew deep down that being a mediocre street punk wouldn’t cut it in the shit he was going to get himself into in the near future.