Fun and Games

The thing I hate worst about hunting demons is the hours. It sure as hell ain’t nine to five. I’m not saying its always midnight, but it is very rarely earlier.

I’d been waiting on this one for a few days. The Strauss family had given me the key to their house and rushed out in obvious relief on Tuesday. As I had requested, they had tidied up, but did not move too many things. I had come in with my gear and set up in the garage. A military style cot, dried food, two changes of clothes, some basic toiletries, and my box.

I carved my box from an oak beam salvaged from my burnt down church. Yeah, I was a parish priest before I became a demon hunter. This seemed like the obvious next step in my career.

After the fire, I had salvaged several things from that old place. The firemen had let me come back in as soon as they had completely extinguished the flames. Some of the metal objects had been quite warm, making it hard to sift through the husk of my church, but I figured I owed the congregation my best efforts. They deserved it. 

I was still exhaustedly pawing through the wreckage when about fifty parishioners showed up with tools and trucks. They had food and drinks with them. Two of the men had gently but firmly, removed me from the charred remains and sat me down on a tailgate with a cup of coffee and the best damn egg sandwich I have ever eaten.

That was the night my eyes had been opened and my calling made perfectly clear. The night a demon burned down my fucking church. Right before I killed the little hellspawn, of course. But that is a whole other story.

These days, I don’t get surprised. Some of the tactics the demons use varies, but my approach is pretty set-in stone. As one of my childhood heroes, Bruce Lee, puts it: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

My kick is my box.

Of course, I realize it seems a little weird as a weapon. It’s not so much a weapon exactly, instead it’s as a trap, or perhaps a coffin. The box is very important, and the nature of its making is also important, and hugely complicated. But, in the end it makes the work so much easier. 

You can do this job without one, I had killed my first demon without one, but the box makes it possible to do so without burning down the structure you currently occupy. I realize now how important that fact is to the overall quality of the experience.

I won’t bore you with all the symbols carved into the box. They carry much of the aforementioned importance, but the symbols are mostly related to me. If you made a box it would be very similar to mine in many ways. I could use yours and you could use mine, though not as well. Assuming, of course that you are also a thaumaturge, blessed by heaven. A thaumaturge is what they used to call a wonder worker or miracle worker, which makes me one as well.

This isn't the first time I’ve told this story, and I swear I’m not making this shit up. Lots of Catholic saints, godmen in India and various other chosen people around the globe have done this throughout history. I can do it, but I have no freaking idea how it works. I am just satisfied knowing that it does, and I can help people with it.

Sitting in the Strauss’ garage over the past few days I have really caught up on my reading. Mostly on my phone but also on my tablet, I devour series and single novels voraciously. If I could just make a living doing this I would be set. I eat a healthy, if Spartan, diet. I have all day to read, exercise and nap. Most nights are quiet and when they aren’t, I have the grim satisfaction of knocking another invader off the wall between us and Hell.

Have you ever looked at your watch, then someone asks you what time it is, and you have to look again to answer them? That is similar to the feeling I get when some demon shenanigans are about to begin. Like I did something stupid and I will likely do it again. I guess the evil of the demon has a range and the outer perimeter feels more like exposed stupidity than actual evil. 

Chagrin rather than malice, maybe, I don’t know.

I set down my tablet when I got that feeling. I flexed my feet in my boots to make sure they were tightly fastened. Standing slowly, I checked the function of my joints and did a quick little stretch. I didn’t want to pull a muscle for crying out loud. Some of these whoresons could get kind of rough.

I snagged the box from where it lay on my pack, rolled my neck out one more time, walked to the door and opened it.

As I stepped through, I caught a whiff. Butt funk and honey, Eu d’ Demon, my least favorite smell in the universe. The Strauss’s had told me that the disturbances seemed to begin in the kitchen and then move through the living room on they way upstairs to the kids’ rooms. I decided to meet it in the living room instead of the kitchen. Too much sharp shit and glass in there.

Moving quickly, I set the box down on the spot I had picked out when I first arrived. The lid opened silently, and I got a whiff of the oil that I rub into the wood after each use. The pleasant and wholesome smell covers up the demon stink very well.

I moved silently and crouched behind the couch. I controlled my breathing and began focusing on one of the small thaumaturgical miracles I can do. It essentially freezes any hellspawn in place for a few vital moments. I’m not one hundred percent sure why this is but it has something to do with how our brain functions versus demons.

Our amygdala is the part of the brain that processes our emotional reactions. Our amygdala loves a surprise. We like scary movies, surprise birthday parties and unexpected events. Even those people who say they hate them, enjoy them. Well at least their amygdala has a positive reaction, their outward reactions on the other hand, varies.

I could sense the demon entering the room. The smell didn't change, but the malevolence was palpable. It was time to make my move. My thaumaturgy was ready, and I jumped up from behind the couch, screaming.          

“Peek-a-boo!”

The reaction was instantaneous. The ugly, blue-green, clown-faced, thing, went rigid, stiff as a board. I dashed in and grabbed it with both hands and threw it as hard as I could towards the box.

I have never had the phobia, but I do understand why people fear clowns. Something that closely resembles a human face but is slightly wrong in its features and movement makes us horrified. Deep down we know that the smile is wrong, hiding something sinister. Every demon I have ever killed had a clown’s face. Horrifying.

 I was already fixing in my mind the next piece of thaumaturgy as I spun around putting my back to the demon. Placing my hands over my eyes, I began to count.

“1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi...”

I concentrated on the intense anticipation and fear of the prey animal. I sent it out in waves. Sending out the sure and certain knowledge that I was about to hunt, and all things should run and hide.

When I got to ten, I spun around and said, “Ready or not, here I come.”

The box sat there; the lid was closed. I walked to the box and lifted it onto the coffee table. I sat down on the couch, staring at the box for a moment. Then, reaching out my fist, I tapped on the lid. The old rhythm. Tap tap tatap tap, Shave and a Haircut...a short silence. Then from inside the box came the answering taps. Tap tap, Two bits.

Got the bastard.

Now came the coup de grace. I focused all my attention on my left hand. I made it a weapon of the light and good in this world. I focused the wrath of God on my hand so that it began to glow. I held that power ready.

My right hand reached for the little handle on the side of my box. It is the crank for a tinkling music box. As I began to turn, the tinny sound of the music box floated in the room. I mouthed the words to the song as I slowly cranked the handle:

Round and round the mulberry bush

The monkey chased the weasel

I thought of all the little children in the world who go to sleep at night with a tiny touch of fear. They don’t know if they are the monkey or the weasel. 

Do they pursue their goals like monkeys? Scampering and trying to catch the things and people in their life that make them happy. 

Or are they the weasel? Do they scamper along in fear and panic with a secret unfounded guilt? Stressed by the world and its pressure, always fearful of failure.

The monkey thought twas all in fun

I know they are both. I can’t save them from their own thoughts and choices, but I can give them one less thing to fear.

Pop!

The lid popped open and the demon sprang up. It was hideous and ridiculous all at the same time. It slavered and snotted through its horrid clown face. Its blue hair bounced in ridiculous shoots at the sides of its head. Its hands, in fat white gloves, reached toward me.

I reached out my left hand and slammed it against the sickly soft fabric of its costume.

“You’re it, motherfucker,” I said in a low growl.

The clown screamed. It laid its head back and howled. The hands came up straight in the sky and the entire clown body slumped all at once back into the box. One more scream came from the box, but it trailed off. Like the old Roadrunner cartoons when Wiley E. Coyote fell off a cliff, the sound faded and died. 

I looked in the box just to be sure. It smelled like unwashed ass and honey but otherwise it was empty.

My right hand still on the crank handle, I played the last notes.

Goes the weasel.