The Devil's Demeanor Read Online Free PDF Page A

pain.
    In all this time, Stephen never dreamed of the
creatures or returned to their world. He never forgot about them, either.
    In 1981, he got a call from Hilda asking him
to visit. They had been in touch ever since graduation, but hadn’t seen each
other much. They kept each other up-to-date about their ailing fathers,
Stephen’s doing much better than Hilda’s.
    Tragedy struck shortly after he arrived.
Hilda’s father passed in his sleep. Hilda was so distraught she cried for days.
Stephen, along with her brother Roland and sister Cynthia, never left her side.
    When he returned to Pensacola, he found his
dad wasn’t fairing too well either. His cancer had taken a turn for the worse.
Stephen knew he was on his deathbed. He refused to be taken to a hospital, and
wanted to die in his home.
    “How have you been, son?” he asked through the
pain.
    “Good, Dad. Really good.”
    “No more nightmares?”
    “No. My dreams have been really nice.”
    “That’s good. Mine have been really bad
lately.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Sometimes, I see this...monster. I don’t know
what else to call it. I don’t know if it’s real, but it told me that once I
died, it would come after you. I could swear it was in the room with me, right
where you are now.”
    Stephen looked down and saw a putrid stain directly
beneath him. Something had been here.
    He couldn’t stop the tears at that moment. He
told his father about the dreams, that the “monster” was real and that he’d
been bitten by it in Destin. Willem cried as well.
    “Oh, son, why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I didn’t know how. They weren’t hurting me. I
just tried to ignore them.” He also told his father what he’d heard about being
the descendant of a runaway god sent to destroy the monsters. He wasn’t sure if
his dad would believe him, but he’d been holding in all these secrets for so
long and knew he had little time left to let them out.
    “I wish I could take away this link you have
with these monsters,” Dad said. “I want to take it away from you. If that gods
stuff is true, I would sacrifice myself so you would never have to. I don’t
want those things controlling you.”
    “They can’t control me, Dad.”
    “Yes they can, son. Not for long, but they
can.”
    “What, Dad? What are you talking about?”
    Dad looked at him through the tears. “It said
it made you kill Lucy, so that her child couldn’t be born. I thought it was
just a dream....”
    Stephen stopped listening. He could no longer
hear over his racing heart. He suddenly saw himself driving Dad’s car behind a
familiar blue one. He didn’t remember actually doing this, but this vision felt
real, like a memory.
    “Oh, god,” he whispered. “I killed Lucy.”
    “No, son. It wasn’t you. It was that creature.
It claimed I was the only thing protecting you from it now, but I won’t be here
for much longer. After I’m gone, you’ll be vulnerable to it again. I can only
think of one way to protect you.” He took Stephen’s hands in his weak ones. “I
take on your curse, son.”
    “Dad....” He could say nothing more. He felt
something happening to him, like a weight lifting from his body. Had that weight
always been there? He almost felt like he would float to the ceiling.
    “Oh!” Dad moaned. He was looking up at the
ceiling, at something Stephen couldn’t see. He kept moaning in pain and terror.
“They’re all around me. Oh, god, I can’t take it. Get away from me!”
    He struggled against invisible enemies.
Stephen cried as he tried to comfort his father. The struggling lasted only a
moment before Dad lay still. His eyes saw no more. He was gone.
    *   *   *
    After his father’s funeral, Stephen returned
to Augusta to visit Hilda. She was dating a man named Patrick and were
expecting a child. Stephen was happy for her, but declined to meet Patrick. It
would have been too awkward after the night he and Hilda had spent together.
    With his father, girlfriend