A Short Story

I was only nine when Momma let a devil move in. Not the Devil, but a devil... a demon. Not that there's much difference to a nine year old. Now don't get me wrong, she didn't do it a purpose on account she didn't know he was a devil. But then, she was a grown up and everyone knows grown ups can't tell about these here things.

Children and dogs, on the other hand, can sense a devil or a demon as easy as they can tell when you have a batch of cookies hot from the oven. The only problem being that nobody really understands a dog, regardless of what Lassie ever did. And nobody ever pays no attention to kids, especially when something scares them. You know I'm right, don't you? How many times your own kids tell you there's a monster in the closet or maybe one under the bed and you never once believed.

I guess she really didn't have much of a choice, taking in a boarder that is. We needed the money and a boarder was a pretty easy way of getting it. Daddy went off fighting in that war they was having over there in Vietnam, so money was always real tight. He wrote and said boarders was a good idea, but Momma was supposed to check them out top to bottom and not let no deadbeats or no big city folk move in. And no farm help and no mill workers either; we was supposed to keep shy of them. Shoot, after all those people we couldn't rent to, they wasn't anybody left.

Momma put it off as long as she could, just trying to live off what Daddy could send. He wrote every day and sent every dollar he made but it was never enough. Momma used to walk down to the mailbox and wait for that dust cloud to rise up, letting her know the mailman was on his way down the gravel road that ran in front of our house. He'd come rolling up in that big old Rambler station wagon, sitting on the right side with his left foot stretched way over to work the gas and the brake, and he'd give Momma a smile and hand her the daily letter from Daddy along with a passel of bills. Then off he'd go, raising another cloud of dust we'd just have to sweep off the porch that evening. As always, she would sigh and rub her forehead, knowing the money was never going to cover the bills.

The day the electric company said they was going to shut us down finally got her off the dime. She spent a lot more time than normal sighing and rubbing her forehead.

"I guess it's time we got us some boarders, Bobby," she said with a tired smile. That night, she painted a sign that read 'Rooms to Let' and nailed it to the big live oak in the front yard.

The next morning, I didn't even have breakfast all the way down before there was a knock on the door. It was a man, and a big one at that. He said he wanted a room 'cause he just got him a good job up at the mill and needed a place to stay till he got back on his feet. Momma looked at me, full well knowing he was a mill worker and what Daddy said. I shrugged.

"Can you afford ten dollars a week for the room and another ten for your meals?"

"That sounds right fair, ma'am," he said with a toothy grin. "Name's Bransen, Tom Bransen."

No sooner had he moved his belongings into the spare room, then there came another knock.

Momma opened the door to a tall thin man with deep set eyes and slicked back hair. On his upper lip he wore a pencil thin mustache he was always smoothing back with his knuckle like it was gonna crawl away if he didn't keep it plastered in place.

"Pardon me, I have come to inquire about the available room," he said in a nasal Yankee accent.

"Well, my oh my," said Momma, fanning herself. "Ain't this just our lucky day, uh, Mr..."

"Cyrus. Mr. Cyrus." He was talking to Momma, but he was looking right at me. And it was then I knew he was a devil. He was looking at me 'cause he knew I could tell.

I'm not sure what clued me in, maybe it was that smell of burned out matches that followed him around, I just don't know. But in the days that followed, I saw things that would curl the hair on a Pentecostal during Sunday School, in case I ever needed any confirmation.

Mr. Cyrus explained he was some sort of teacher from out east, someplace called Heliopolis. We never heard of it and I had to ask him how to spell it, but it didn't matter. "It wasn't a big city," he assured Momma, "in fact, hardly anybody lived there anymore." He winked when he told me the whole town had about died off. And since he paid for a whole month up front, he sure wasn't no deadbeat.

Momma fussed over Mr. Cyrus as she showed him upstairs to his room, the big one at the end of the hall. Glancing about, there was no way he could've missed noticing the beat up bureau, the frayed bedspread draped over that rickety old four-poster Momma had inherited, and the spot on the ceiling where the roof had leaked a while ago. But all he did was smooth back that mustache and compliment her on the room, and how nice she kept the house, and he raved about the window with the beautiful view he would have of the morning sun. But when her back was turned he stared at me with eyes deader than those in a week old road kill.

Poor Tom Bransen was practically ignored during all this but he didn't seem to mind. He left each morning not too long after sunrise in his beat up old Ford and didn't get back home till suppertime. They wasn't a day he didn't come home he wasn't just plain worn out. I figured they must be working him near to death down there at the mill, but that never stopped him from having a smile for me, or helping Momma with some chores now and then. Shoot, on Saturday mornings he even played a little baseball with me. I think he knew I was missing Daddy. He told me to call him Tom, but Momma said it wasn't right for a youngster to be so familiar, so we settled on Mr. Tom.

On the other hand, Mr. Cyrus remained cool and distant. He wasn't unfriendly, no. He was as smooth and polite as could be to Momma and she was just tickled to death to be having an educated man living with us. Still, he wasn't like us at all and after awhile both Momma and Mr. Tom realized something wasn't quite normal about him but they could never lay a finger on just what it was. He pretty much stayed in his room until mid-morning and never once took breakfast. He would spend the rest of the day with a stack of books, sitting outside just soaking up the sun and staring up at it like it was there just for him. I tried it for just a second or two but my eyes burned and watered like crazy. And them books! How one fella could read so much, I never could figure out. I got brave once and snuck a peak into one of his books and it was full of writing I never seen before, funny little pictures and squiggly lines and the like. But then, I was only nine and I figured they's probably a whole lot of writing I never seen before.

It was right from the get go that the weird stuff started happening. The very next morning after Mr. Cyrus moved in, Momma called me to the back door with a nervous little laugh. There in the back yard sat about two dozen cats, all staring up at the house. Now, we had a cat or two that hung around the house, 'cause you're always getting them when you live out in the sticks, but neither one of us could figure out where all these come from. I didn't say nothing to Momma, 'cause she'd a thought I was off my rocker, but they was actually all looking up at the window in Mr. Cyrus's bedroom.

I went on out to the backyard and watched them for a bit as they all stared at the window. They just sat there like they was waiting for something. Soon enough, Mr. Cyrus walked out the back door with a load of books and the cats all arched their backs and hissed at him, sounding like a basketful of snakes. They startled him so bad, he plumb near dropped everything. He recovered and set the stack of books on the back porch then knuckled back that silly little mustache before turning to the cats and muttered something under his breath. I tried to hear what it was he was saying but it sounded like some language I never heard. And them cats? They all took off like they was on fire, howling and hissing as they scattered.

Mr. Cyrus saw me gawking and he gave a grin that never once reached his eyes. "Cats! Everybody back home seems to think a cat is a good thing. They practically worship those loathsome creatures." His dead road kill eyes--the ones that only I could see--bored right through me. "But I despise them. They're meddlesome and have brought me nothing but trouble and grief with their constant interference."

I puzzled over that one for awhile, not understanding how a cat could cause so much trouble. And that night at supper, they was all laughing about the horde of felines, as Mr. Cyrus called them, and he assured Momma they was here on a fluke and they would never be showing up again. I didn't rightly know what a fluke was, but Mr. Cyrus was exactly right, we never saw a cat around the house again.

A couple of weeks later I woke up real early in the morning, as I sometimes had trouble holding my water the whole night through, and was headed to the toilet when I noticed a glow coming from under Mr. Cyrus's door. My curiosity got the best of me and I crept down the hall toward his room clamping my legs tight together in hopes of holding it in just a few minutes longer. When I heard a low voice chanting words I didn't recognize, I just couldn't resist peeking through the keyhole,

There laying flat on the bed was Mr. Cyrus with a big ornate looking book sitting on his chest like he'd been reading it and had just fallen asleep. Although his mouth hung open, that voice wasn't coming from him and neither was that strange glow. For hovering in mid air above the bed was the demon. It just floated there above him with a human looking body and the head of a giant bird. It had a cruel looking hooked beak and dead black eyes.

Almost immediately, those eyes knew I was peeking and the demon swooped through the air over to the keyhole for a closer look at who was spying on it. It scared me so bad I stumbled backwards, tripping over the rug that ran the length of the hall and nearly falling flat on my behind. Turning and racing back down the hall, I slammed shut my door and leaned against it with my heart wanting to leap out of my chest and my breath coming all raggedy. My flannel pajama bottoms were soaked and I realized I must have lost it right in front of Mr. Cyrus's door.

I heard his door open and footsteps approach my room. I was shaking so bad, you'd a thought I had a palsy or something. I watched over my shoulder thinking I was about to be torn apart by that nasty beak, when the door knob slowly turned. I pushed back against the door for all I was worth and could feel pressure from the other side. I thought for sure I was gonna chuck all over the floor, I was so scared.

The pushing stopped and I heard a quiet chuckle. I was tempted to get down on my hands and knees and peek under the door, but the thought of coming eye to eye with that bird's head kept me from it. I ended up spending the rest of the night slumped against the door and dreaming of bird headed demons who plucked out my eyes like fat grapes.

"Bobby, wake up." I heard Momma's voice. "Are you alright? Mr. Cyrus says you was walkin' in your sleep last night."

She paused, waiting for a reply.

"Are you feelin' okay Bobby?"

I mumbled something about being fine and I'd be down later. Wadding my flannels into a ball 'cause they was still soaking wet, I slipped into some jeans and snuck down the hall to the bathroom where I could rinse them out. I looked around trying to decide where to hang them, worried that Momma would find out about my accident. Then I'd have to explain about peeking into Mr. Cyrus's keyhole and the whole story about what I saw might come out. I was already trying to put all that behind me, for it was a thing of the night and I was safe now, here in the daylight. I didn't want to do anything to bring up that scary bird head thing again.

I flipped off the switch to the bathroom and shut the door behind me only to run face first into Mr. Cyrus. He snatched the flannels from my hand and an evil grin spread across his face.

"Well, well. We've had a little problem in the night, haven't we?" He fairly hissed these words and for a moment I thought I was gonna wet myself all over again.

"The middle of the night is when little boys should be safely tucked in their beds, not roaming the halls. You do know that, don't you Bobby?" Black eyes hung above a mustache being smoothed.

I nodded, just wanting to get away. The odor of burnt matches was overpowering.

"You do want to be safe in bed, don't you? For bad things might happen to little boys who see things they shouldn't."

With that, he thrust the flannels back in my hands, spun on his heals and headed back to his room. I didn't see him till suppertime.

From that night on, I started having a hard time sleeping. That glow appeared nightly in the hallway under my door and kept me quivering and hiding under my blanket even on the hottest of nights. I was so scared of facing Mr. Cyrus that I pretty much spent every minute hiding out in my bedroom. I ended up swiping a big knife from the kitchen, not that it would do any good against a demon, but it sure made me feel better. I hid it in my secret place under the loose floor board beneath my bed where I knew no one would ever find it.

Momma started to get worried about me and was constantly holding the back of her hand to my forehead and askin' if I felt alright. It was tempting to tell her about what I had seen, but I didn't want to worry her anymore than she already was. For somehow, the letters from Daddy had stopped coming and she was on pins and needles thinkin' something bad had happened to him.

I guess that's how Mr. Tom came to talk to me during our Saturday morning catch. I could tell Momma had told him to try and find out what was bothering me, 'cause he shuffled his feet in the dust and hemmed and hawed a bunch.

"You worried 'bout your Pa?" he finally asked.

I was still young enough at that age to think Daddy was invincible. "No, Daddy can take care of hisself." I paused, wondering if I should take him into my confidence.

Mr. Tom knelt down, pounding his fist into his glove. "Well, something's eatin' you, it's plain to see."

My eyes started to swell up and I rushed into his arms. Before I knew it, the whole story poured out faster than the hot tears running down my cheeks could burn clean little paths in my dusty face. I don't think he believed a word I told him, but he was a good hearted man. He just held me tight and told me everything was gonna be alright.

It was then I made what was probably the biggest mistake of my life: I made him promise to stay awake and see the demon for himself. He smiled gently and promised he would.

That night, with eyes wide open, I waited for the glow under my door. I fought to stay awake, partially driven by the guilt gnawing at me for getting Mr. Tom involved and partially because I was so scared I was sweatin' bullets. Still, my eyes began to burn with the effort and as the night wore on my lids drooped shut.

I woke with a start. Something had made a noise and I'm not sure what, but it jolted me awake.

I didn't see no glow out in the hall but surely enough time had passed that the demon was loose. I slipped to the floor and fished around under my bed to find the loose floor board. I popped it up so's that I could grab the knife, taking care not to cut myself. Easing across the floor to my door and holding my ear up against it, I listened for any sounds but was unable to hear a thing over the racket my own heart was making.

My hand trembled as I reached for the knob, which slipped in my sweaty palm when I tried to turn it. I wiped my free hand on my flannels and tried it again only to hear a tiny click that reverberated through the thick silence like a gunshot. I very nearly peed my pants and vomited in fear simultaneously. I was sure the demon was just outside and had been hiding... waiting. I forced myself to pull the door open to the dark hallway and the blood pounded in my ears sounding like Daddy's old Nash after it threw a rod.

To put one foot into the hall meant leaving the sanctuary of my bedroom, but I was starting to get concerned about Mr. Tom. He had made me a promise that I didn't think he was likely to break and if he was going to go ahead and get involved with this demon, I hated to be the one who put him on to it.

My flannels had built in feet with soft rubber soles so I was able to move down the hall with no more noise than a caterpillar crawling across the back of your arm. The trembling had spread from my hand to my whole body by this time but I still managed to creep down to Mr. Tom's door without making a sound.

There! The door stood slightly ajar and an eerie glow rimmed the opening.

I peeked through. I didn't want to, believe me. But it was as though something was forcing me to look. And when I saw the sight on Mr. Tom's bed, I wished to goodness I'd a kept my mouth shut and never said a word to him.

Mr. Tom was alive, for he heard me push open the door. His head turned to the sound and his mouth silently formed the words 'Help Me', but he was unable to move any more than that.

The demon hovered above him.

The black eyes lifted and its head turned to gaze at the intruder. Seeing it was only me, it went back to feeding. Strings of flesh and gut torn from the belly of Mr. Tom dangled from its beak while the human looking hands held a nasty curved blade covered in blood. A faint squawk, sounding almost joyous, emerged from the gore covered head just as it dove deep into Mr. Tom continuing to tear him apart.

I was paralyzed. I had never seen anything so horrific and gruesome and it froze me solid.

The demon lifted its head and again turned those dead eyes on me. Somehow, the beak curved in an odd way and I knew it was grinning at me. Like it was telling me I was next, or maybe Momma.

I looked down at the knife in my hand and it hit me with a sudden awareness that I was armed. I rushed forward, stabbing with the knife but the demon swooped away, little bits of gore trailing across me as it flew. It hovered near the ceiling passing the sharp hooked blade from hand to hand, watching and waiting.

Without warning it dove, swinging the blade in a wide arc and causing me to leap back and out of the room. The door slammed shut with a resounding clank and I heard a laugh; the very same chuckle I had heard the first night I saw it.

Mr. Tom was dead. The realization hit hard and there was nothing I could do about it. But the thought of the demon diving its cruel beak into Momma and tearing her apart forced me to action.

I raced down to the room of Mr. Cyrus and flung open the door. There, in the pale glow of the moonlight streaming in from the wide open window, he lay with that big ornate book open on his chest. I came to an abrupt halt before him, suddenly terrified of what I had in mind.

There was no sign of life from Mr. Cyrus. He looked deader than those fish on display in the supermarket and his hand felt just as cold. I lifted the book off his chest and carried it over to the bureau, thinking there might be some sort of connection between the book, the demon, and Mr. Cyrus. I had some vague notion that if I destroyed the book, I would be able to destroy the demon. I had gone as far as to raise the knife to stab it into the book when it occurred to me that I might oughta hide it instead. Maybe it could be useful to prove all that had happened. I don't really know how or why I changed my mind, it just now seemed a better idea to save it rather than destroy it. Sneaking a glance over my shoulder to assure Mr. Cyrus hadn't stirred, I carried the book to my hiding place under the floorboard.

I was still shaking with fear and disgust at the thought of that bird-headed demon devouring Mr. Tom when I remembered that shaving kit sitting in the moonlight. Before I realized what I was doing, I had again abandoned the sanctuary of my bedroom and was creeping down the hall. Mr. Cyrus was exactly as I had left him, still as a statue and cold as death.

There on the bureau and bathed in the light of the moon was the kit. Bright gold letters were embossed on the leather cover and seemed to glow, drawing me in like a moth to a candle. I turned the kit toward me and read his name: O. Cyrus.

O. Cyrus? It sounded familiar. I said it out loud, wondering if I mighta heard something like that in school.

What kind of a name starts with that letter anyway? Orville? Oliver? No wonder he kept it under wraps. He never did say what his first name was, but now there was proof that there really was one.

Down the hall, I heard the door to Mr. Tom's room open and the hall filled with the glow of the demon. He was coming!

I swallowed and steadied myself, gripping the knife and moving over to the side of Mr. Cyrus. That demon was not gonna get Momma. Not while I had anything to say about it.

The glow filled the room and I could tell without turning the demon hovered at the door. Without hesitation, I lifted the knife and with all my strength plunged it down into the chest of Mr. Cyrus. I heard the bird headed demon behind me shriek in a mixture of pain and panic, and I stabbed again and again, satisfied I was killing it. The two were linked, Mr. Cyrus and the demon. I only hoped that by killing him, the demon would die too.

The glow grew closer, surrounding me, and the cries of agony increased until I gave one final thrust of the knife right into the heart of Mr. Cyrus. A bright light exploded in my vision and instantly, the cries and the glow vanished but left me all warm and a-tingle inside.

I hung my head, still shaking with exertion and fear.

****************

That's my story, or most of it anyhow. I reckon the demon disappeared that night, but they believed it was me that done butchered both Mr. Tom and Mr. Cyrus. They never did listen to a word I said. Remember what I told you at the beginning: nobody ever pays any attention to what kids say. They just sent me away and locked me up. Institutional style.

Since then I've been a pincushion for all the latest drugs and had more shock treatments than you can shake a stick at. But they's all supposed to be helpin' me. Well, that's what these here doctors keep saying anyway. What I really think would help would be for them to let me see my Momma. Its been almost thirty years now and I s'pect she's getting on up there. They just smile and tell me it's for the best, and oh, do bite down on this here piece of leather just one more time if you please.

I think back on that night now and again. I keep going back to that big book of Mr. Cyrus's. I sure would like to see it again one day and I find myself thinking about it more and more. Maybe it's a good thing I finally figured out a way to get away from this institution. I guess they figured they broke me, 'cause security finally eased up a bit, and wouldn't you know it, a way to escape just popped into my mind one night.

Sure, I'd like to see Momma. I'd like to give her a big hug and tell her I love her and how much I missed her. Locked up in a cell makes for some lonely times, I'm here to tell you.

But I got another itch I need to scratch first. Right after I break free, I'm gonna dig out that book I hid under the floorboard in my room the night I killed Mr. Cyrus. I know it still be there, I can feel it. I can feel it just like you can feel the breeze blowing through your hair on a windy day.

I look at the reflection of my thirty-nine year old face in the mirror of my cell. Oh sure, they call it a dormitory, but it really is a cell. Dormitories don't have bars on the windows. And the mirror isn't real glass, just highly polished stainless steel bolted to the cinderblock wall.

I hardly recognize myself anymore being all growed up, but I do believe my new pencil thin mustache looks mighty fine. I reach up and smooth it down with the back of my knuckle until it feels just right. It is always out of control and after all, I want to look good for Momma.

And I really want to get my hands on that book.