He finally found the edge of the forest and the main road. After wandering like a petrified soul of hell, he found the sign marking the entrance to a town.
"Sherwood, Louisiana." He said to himself.
John hoped he found his way through the forest and didn't backtrack in any way. He fears being identified even though the demon wipes their memories. It is difficult to pinpoint who knows what's going on. However, it seemed Gus and Stan were somehow unaffected. John accidentally wandered the forest until he ended right back in their jurisdiction. He walked in a huge circle and he didn't know it.
He had passed them on the street and neither recognized the other. Gus was busy with his lunch and Stan was grabbing their coffees. Stan sits down starting their shift together. The same time every day. Gus found these things mundane, Stan however appreciated routine.
"I don't like the looks of this. None of this makes sense." Stan says to himself.
"What doesn't?" Gus intervenes in Stan's thoughts.
"First, we get to a scene, we chase down a suspect, they treat your heart attack"
Gus raises his finger to interject…but Stan continues.
"As if it were some sort of trip and fall, then we get back to the station in which the chief figures there was never a call in the first place and supposedly we're off-grid doing nothing. And any redeeming evidence that there was at least one wounded person in that store is gone." Stan stops talking.
"It wasn't a heart attack."
"That's what you got from all that." Stan says in a serious tone. "People could've died, no one gives a shit and that's what you got…the part about you…unbelievable…" Stan gets up and starts marching towards the cruiser.
"That guy did something to me…I haven't felt right since. Like someone is always watching me through the curtains."
"Sure it wasn't all the beer. Not even your wife is peeking at you through the curtains." Stan chuckles.
"Fuck you." Gus sneers unamused and looks down rubbing his forehead.
"You're gonna have to deal with me whether you like it or not. We never went inside, we never saw any bodies. All we heard was static over the radio, while we were in the forest. But something is wrong. When we got back to the car I don't remember really getting back to the station. Almost like we woke up there. Almost like that whole call was a dream." Gus offers his point on events.
"While we were in the woods, was it kinda when it started? More short of breath than usual." Stan questions.
"Yeah. So maybe we should look into the coroner's office to see if any bodies showed up." Gus suggests.
"Not a bad idea. Not like we have anything else to do." Stan smiles. Putting his sunglasses on his face and getting in the car. Gus follows suit and they drive off.
They pass by John once more.
"It's those two guys who are gonna kill you." The demon laughed.
John ignored the demon's rants and moved on. Panting down the sidewalk. John's lungs always hurt as if they were filled with ash. His stomach is always empty, and his lips are always dry. The demon starved him and cramped his stomach. Keeping him weak but alive. He could walk for miles and never stop.
John stopped at a local bar for a drink. Everyone in the bar was a different shade of yellow. Most bleeding from various orifices. Some with car and motor bike parts sticking out of them. Some with rope burns and barbed wire hanging out of them. Drinking their share of poison.
"Hey, what can I get for you?" The bartender asks. With half his face falling off. Exposing the better half to what looked like road rash. Possibly from a motorcycle accident.
"Just Jack and Coke please no ice." John responds unsure if he'd get his drink.
A man in a suit and cane approaches John.
"Hey, what can I get for you?" The bartender says again as if it was the first time he'd seen John.
"Nothing for me, thanks." John responds after realizing the bartender would never remember him.
"A brandy, on the rocks, please. And a jack and coke with no ice please." the man says before sitting down.
"Coming right up!" The bartender exclaimed and returned swiftly with the man's drink.
"Who are you?" John asks.
"Hey, what can I get for you?" The bartender asks. As he keeps forgetting about John's presence.
"We're good thanks." The man responded.
"Let's go have a more quiet drink." The man reveals his arm with a tattoo. The same sigil as the one in the book.
John jumps up and grabs him by the suit, the bartender gasps, and everyone stares.
"Hey, guys take it outside." The bartender says. Then everyone forgets about the altercation altogether.
The man in the white suit and red trim. Wearing sunglasses and a fedora smiles a devilish grin. John noticed the man had paler than white skin, which means his death wasn't necessarily caused by drinking. He wasn't bleeding so no gunshot or stab wounds are the cause. And he seemed much older, with Wrinkles and crow's feet. No charring of the skin so he wasn't burned nor was he a heavy smoker. It's almost as if the man were drained of his blood. And left on a mortuary table. Only to wake up and walk out without a proper release. He seemed so ordinary compared to the other people that John came across. John had a hard time believing this is what the man looked like. Because everyone else looked, by far, more terrifying. He couldn't explain it but they felt more human. While this man did not. He let go and began to walk away. He wanted nothing more than to get away from this man.
A dark aura surrounded the man. His smirk is that of a salesman who thinks he has you right where he wants you. A businessman's smirk that says we're gonna make a deal you can't refuse. Seeing this man looking so normal, really freaked John out.
John exited the bar with the man only a few steps behind him.
"The fact you look the most normal out of everyone I've ever met…and the fact you don't forget about me, proves to me I shouldn't trust you. Cause in some twisted way, you fit into this nonsense. The least I can do is hear you out while I walk." John said coldly.
"What do you want? You want to tell me why you have a sigil tattooed on your arm I've only seen in dreams." John continued walking.
"We both knew that you weren't going to do anything." The man smiles. "We both know that you have a voice in your head you will do anything to get rid of."
"You better start making some sense. Or I'm done listening."
"I was there, John." The man said. "Inside the tomb. I've been looking for you."
"That was a dream!" John yelled and pointed at the insane man's claims.
"Are you sure, John? Read any good books lately? Cause I don't wake up from dreams with voices in my head! My name's Dwight Scranton and I did this to you. I wanna undo it."
"Why should I believe you?" John asks hesitantly.
"Cause I've got voices in my head too. Visions of the end times. I have pulsing headaches so bad, a bullet to my head would be a mercy killing. But it won't let me die. My cult and I tracked you down. We convinced you to join us. And then we made you our sacrifice and then…you didn't die either." Dwight says.
John stops and turns around, he punches the man in the face.
"You know Dwight Scranton sounds like a fake name…huh?" John says not realizing he had knocked the glasses off the man's face.
He turns in horror as he realizes why the man had sunglasses on inside. He had gouged his eyes out. But with John's vision, he can see thousands of maggots infesting his eye sockets. Festering in his eye holes. Falling into his mouth leaving a strange liquid which they left while desperately trying to attach. Most are still falling to the dirt to be crushed as the man scuffles to cover his eyes.
"What the actual living fuck!" John yelled.
"Don't fucking look!" The strange man responded.
"Keep those fucking insects to yourself, that's highly disturbing."
"How the fuck do you think I feel, I can feel them buzzing in my skull." The well-dressed man yelled.
"Can you even fucking see anymore?" John freaks.
"No!…why do you think I need YOUR help?! And that's a really stupid question my fucking eyes are gone!”
"We have a long walk, want to tell me what happened?" John asks.
A black limousine with tinted windows pulls beside them.
"We don't…get in the limo." Dwight says.
John gets in the limo with the rusted front fender, a black car with a red interior. It was an older-looking model. They definitely looked the part of the poor man's limo without it actually being one. The driver didn't talk the entire ride. Never took his eyes off the road. Almost zombified attention span. John would take note of this. He didn't trust the suited man. Makes you wonder how a rich blind man gets anything done.
They pulled up to an old shabby mansion. Strangely the driver just stayed in the vehicle and stared. Like he had been shut off after he completed his task. Or was patiently waiting for a new one.
"Your driver coming?" John points out.
"Aw shit." The old man bellowed, frustrated.
He leaned in the driver's side window and whispered something John couldn't hear into his ear. The man stepped back and his driver got out of the car and this time John got a good look at him. He was a tall, very stiff white man.
The greenery had overtaken the entryway. The mansion had a distortion to it. Like it had a fourth-dimensional shadow looming over it. A shadow with a grudge. John felt this very energy at the hospital, before the hospital was destroyed. If you looked away from it for even a second you'd forget it was there. It felt as if it was in a universe of its own. It looked drastically aged to John. Whether it be from the dark looming over it. Or just a rich man who no longer had the help he once had. The man with no eyes brought this energy here. John was determined to learn all that he could. He finally found someone who didn't forget about him the moment he entered the room.
The easiest way to explain it is for whatever reason if the demon wanted you to forget. You forgot. John did not have a handle on the hows or the whys. He saw it all as a strange way to torment him. As demons do. This man searching for John only means the demon wanted him to find John. Could he trust him? Was he the one that placed John in the sarcophagus? John had nothing. No idea how to stop it. No idea if any of it were real. Should he even humor this man? If he could reach any level of peace, that would be a blessing. John didn't understand his place in the game before him.
"So how do we fix it?" John asked.
"Honestly I don't know." The man said.
"Are you fucking kidding me? How do you know this isn't exactly what the demons want? Us together? How do you know? How can you sit here and tell me, that you cut your fucking eyes out for a higher power that's got a soft side." John yelled mockingly.
"See I think, they just want to go home."
"You're fucking crazy!"
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"If you're so damn smart, why haven't you gotten rid of yours? What do you think it wants?" the old man asked.
John sits down with his face in his hands.
"I don't know. It's just been playing games. Killing. I can't hold on to a single day long enough to even cope. And now I've lost yet another day! Driving around and going to some old ass house I'm not even sure you own"
"Not like you had anything better to do, at least you didn't have to walk. You should walk next time if you feel so inclined to deny my generosity and good heart." Dwight said.
"Do you even have a heart, old man?"
"We called them here! We ripped them from their dimension and brought them here!"
"You brought fucking who here?! John shouts.
"The voice in your head! The demon is plaguing your soul. Driving you mad."
"I'M ALREADY FUCKING LOONEY TUNES ASSHOLE! YOU DID THAT!"
"Oh, how little you know."
"Then fucking teach me. What am I missing?"
"Well, are you ready to go to school? Help me to the library, up the stairs, second door to the left."
John helped the old blind man out of his leather office chair and led the way. They passed by the driver, who must've been his butler because he was in the kitchen. In a more well-dressed attire. Oddly wiping the counter in a circular motion. Not moving from the spot he was in. Staring straight ahead, looking at a cupboard door. Grey skinned with rope marks around his neck.
"I've been there…we met years ago…you were lost and broke, you were looking for direction. I see you found your book."
Mr. Stanton drew John's attention from the odd butler. A woman rushed past them, bringing clothes to the laundry room, not paying any attention to either of them.
"Oh, I'm sure praising interdimensional demons was exactly what I was missing in my life."
"You know damn well I'm what you were missing. what's life without a little torture and bloodshed?" John's shadow said.
"You've been quiet." John said allowed.
"He's talking about me isn't he?" The old man said.
"Not everything is about you." John snapped back.
"Humans…you always believe you're so important." The demon bellowed in John's mind.
They get to the library and stand in the middle of the room. They open this book with an ouroboros circling a pentagram on the cover. A dark leather cover, leather laces, and bounds. The book didn't look old or damaged. Which was strange on its own since it was pulled from a wooden coffin. Another odd thing to John, was everything always looked decrepit and old. So why didn't the book.
"The Deceivers Portal."
"Deceive is in the name…" John stated.
"We were a group trying to bring about the end of the world."
"And you somehow thought that if you were the one to open that doorway, you wouldn't be the first ones to experience its destruction but excused entirely. That makes total sense in imagination land!"
"You were the doorway…" The old man continues ignoring John.
"Hold on…make some fucking sense or I'm gonna punch you in the face. You're really testing my patience. And what the actual fuck is wrong with your butler."
"I'm trying to explain! You won't shut up long enough! You didn't allow those doctors to help you at all, did you!? Always talking over them! Like you went to med school!" The old man snaps.
"How do you know about the hospital?!" John yelled and wagged his finger in the old man's face.
"Stop fucking yelling!"
"No I'm done, I'm leaving, I'm out!" John finished and he stormed off.
"Bart, may you please bring our guest back to me!"
John made it out the door. The butler Bart was hot on his trail. He was a tall lanky white man. With a very dead look in his eye. He was pale but nowhere near as pale as Mr. Scranton. Dwight looked like he was completely deprived of oxygen and had a nasty case of frostbite Bart however just looked like a walking corpse. He chased down John, and out the door, they both went.
"Don't you fucking touch me." John shouted at the butler.
The butler just silently walked toward John. Just as John tried to run, the butler lifted him by his jacket. The butler was much stronger than John anticipated, inhumanly strong. If he gets hurt he's liable to black out and slaughter the butler. But John holds on. The butler grabs him and drags him back. And throws him into the library, In front of Mr. Scranton. The butler closes the door and leaves.
John looks up at Mr. Scranton.
"Welcome Back!"
"Look I'm gonna explain everything, you need to trust me. I'm running out of time, you're running out of time. So you're gonna get off the floor and sit in that chair." The old man said.
He stands there with his arms crossed, waiting for John to get off the floor. John almost lay there in the fetal position. Feeling emasculated. After all his progress, he felt weak and powerless. The beast inside was stronger than him and so was this zombie-like butler.
"You may leave us!" Dwight Scranton ordered.
It backed away and closed the door. John only heard a couple of receding footsteps. Possibly some fake ones. John didn't want to necessarily point it out. But this butler seemed to have the intelligence of Frankenstein's monster. Maybe a little more loyal and a lot less talkative. This butler had a dim look on his face. All the lights on and no one home in that man. He only ever replied to Dwight Scranton. There was a good indication that the butler was waiting outside of the door if John tried to leave again.
"What the fuck is his problem." John sneered.
"His problem is he's dead." Dwight responded.
"What the fuck do you mean? Like dead, dead?"
"Yes, dead, dead dumbass. We are pretty close to it ourselves. He didn't just work for me and my family, he was a dear friend of mine! I knew him better than the majority of my family. After I had been possessed, I came home, to him hanging from the chandelier by the entryway. I didn't know whether it was from the curse I put on you, myself, and others. Or if he was just depressed and angry. To believe it was because I left is so egocentric. I paraded around, on a drunken binge for months, that he had been murdered and I was gonna solve his case..." Dwight paused while pouring himself another drink.
"I couldn't accept that my dearest friend would leave me here. I blamed everything on myself. And yet, I couldn't accept it not being my fault. So I hunted for his killer. That was until I brought myself to go through his personal effects. Months after his passing. Long after I cut him down. He left a letter addressed to his wife."
To My Dearest Wife,
The master has left on an expedition and I fear the worst. After I had received the news of our child. I haven't slept. I haven't eaten, and I feel helpless. The whole point of this job was to make sure she was taken care of. To make sure she lived a full life. And I couldn't manage that. Our efforts weren't enough. My efforts weren't enough… Now she is dead…and I want to join her. I remember her birth so vividly, it is my favorite day. And that is why her death has hurt me this much. If time mends a broken heart…I refuse to find out…
I don't know who will find this but please get in contact with my wife. Pass on my final words of suffering. I don't want to talk myself out of it, I only want to see my daughter again.
"It was stamped with his family sigil. He lost a son already to pneumonia. After the birth of his daughter, she started to fall ill from stomach cancer. He worked for me while I paid all his fees. His poor little girl, even my wealth wasn't enough to help them."
"You still haven't explained the part about him being a corpse. You haven't explained anything!" John said.
The man glares at John, sips his drink, and continues.
"I didn't bring Bart back from the dead… My demon did, to torment me. Wear down my sanity. They're interdimensional beings. They kill without mercy. They have no interest in your self actualizations, or humanity's petty squabbles, you're merely a vehicle. We opened a portal, John. They have an agenda and we don’t have a choice!”
"I don't care what it is, Dwight! I want it gone! I don't care what happened to you! I don't care about your zombie best friend with the dead wife!" John yells.
"I thought you of all people would understand!" Dwight began to gurgle and twitch.
He hunched over in pain, and a twisted grin formed under his blue lips. The maggots started to crawl beneath his skin. They began to increase in number falling rapidly off his face. The old man began to hum. He turns around and dashes at John lifting him off his feet! He removes his glasses and smiles as the bugs crawl all over the Dwight and John.
"Hello, Johnny boy!" The thing behind the twisted grin gargled and croaked underneath all the maggots.
John was unsure really what to do and just hung there in fear. He could feel the insects crawling onto him. The man's forearm felt rubbery and almost soap-like. The frustration John felt. Unable to move. Unable to react. Then suddenly John hangs his head.
"Well, this is interesting. Figured I was the only one here. Didn't care too much to look either" The demon says in a low growl.
"Ah well, it does seem there are others" the thing hissed.
The man with maggots in his eyes spoke with a much raspier voice, almost sickly. Like he was rolling a ball of phlegm in his throat. John could see the hell his demon was putting him through, he shuddered in fear. It was by far the most disgusting thing he has ever seen. He realized first that the body of the man known as Dwight Scranton was dead. The entire inside of his husk was a colony of maggots. Shifting and moving beneath his skin. While buzzing and consuming his body. All working in unison as if Dwight's body was a flesh puppet. It shook John to his core; as he fell further and further asleep. The shadows of the maggoty thing loomed over them. As did the carnal demon of slaughter. Still not revealing their true forms. Only talking behind the faces of the possessed.
"Now that we put the kiddies to bed we can speak freely." John heard his demon say as he drifted further and further from consciousness.
In the depths of John's consciousness, he was falling. A never-ending feeling of falling. He couldn't open his eyes but it was like he was on a constant drop of a rollercoaster that didn't end. And each time John gets a conscious awareness of his internal surroundings he's met with death. Caused by the victims of his other half. They practically line up. Time passes oddly in John's mind. John experiences it how you or I would in regular time. While trapped in his subconscious mind, however, time in the real world is much slower. What is hours in the outside world is like days or months to John in his mind. John switches so often that he could never keep track of the time he lost.
This time John ends up appearing at his childhood home. John had quite the anger management issue as a young man. Holes in the wall throughout each of his mother's homes. Being evicted on numerous occasions. In this particular home, John spent most of his childhood.
Everything around him had an almost ribbon effect, opening up a door would lead you to another random portion of the house. Walking outside could place you in the bathroom. Walking up the stairs could place you in the basement and that's what happened to John. He went searching for signs of life. He ran straight to the kitchen and as soon as he passed the archway, he disappeared and reappeared running in the same direction, running towards the kitchen again. He slid and stopped himself. He turned and tried to go upstairs as soon as he turned the corner to go up the stairs. The basement door was closed behind him. He made his way into the basement. The door behind him wasn't budging.
He heard sobbing, as he slowly lurched through the basement. Trying to stay quiet. It was dark and there was a singular light in the corner of the main room. The ceiling was low. And the smell was all too familiar. As he ventured further into the basement the sobbing grew louder. The fear in the pit of his stomach grew stronger as he approached the light.
He saw a woman crouched over sobbing into her hands. John's feelings of familiarity grew stronger, as did his fear. He knew the woman crouched over.
"Mom?" John whispered.
John hadn't seen his mom since he was a young man. She died… So he and his brother had to fend for themselves when John was only 15. Luckily his brother, who was 19 at the time, could claim guardianship over John and kept him out of the foster system. Unfortunately, his brother had to give up his diploma, on his second attempt in his senior year. His brother needed to work and John needed to finish school. John was filled with shame, he couldn't remember their names. But he did know how he felt about them, and that alone reminded him of the relationship he had with them.
As he was about to touch her shoulder. She shoots around screaming in John's face. Eyes carved out. Blood orifices circled her eyes. Maggots by the thousands nesting in her eye sockets and toothless mouth. John falls to the ground terrified. She gargles and vomits, what looks like billions of maggots onto John. As his mother's corpse falls on top of him; John closes his eyes shut in fear. Praying she wouldn't land on him. As John opened his eyes he realized he was on the floor of the study in Dwight's house, and among the waking world.
"The maggots trap you in a trance created by your guilt. Most people don't escape the trance." The old man says standing over John.
"Is that what you did to him? That's messed up. I should fucking kill you!" John says looking at the butler who never seems to leave Dwight's side.
"Like I said I couldn't bear losing my friend…He's back with his daughter, I saw it for myself." Dwight responded.
"I thought you said they had a funeral? That he was buried for months?" John said.
"Well I did, and he was. He dug himself out. He was buried on the property. The maggots found their way into the coffin and they repaired his brain, he dug himself out and wandered back inside and started making me coffee. What is so hard to understand! He's dedicated to his craft!" Dwight yelled.
"You honestly believe he wants to be here. Waiting on you? Even more so, you think HE wants to be there?! After he hung himself…to get away from you, hell I'd hang myself if I thought it'd get me away from you too. I don't think I can die." John laughed as he started to realize how fucked he truly was.
"Good. Why don't you try it, I'll even help you. You haven't once complimented my nice suit!"
"Maybe that's because you're a pile of maggots pretending to be a guy." John replied sarcastically and started to laugh harder.
"I am not! I'm a person possessed by a 4th-dimensional force, whose mental representation happens to look like a lot of maggots… that devoured my body and now holds my consciousness prisoner. You need to understand John, they came here by accident…"
"You called them here!" John yelled. "You, me, and who knows how many others are possessed by demonic figures, you purposely drove us crazy! Opened a doorway to a realm you had no understanding of! For what?! Riches?! Immortality?! Influence?! Power?! Fucking wishes?!" John protests angrily, he wasn't laughing anymore.
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."
John grabs him by the jacket.
"Glad someone got what they wanted." He released the man.
"I can teach you to control it! You won't black out anymore! You will be able to control your god's ability." He says, dusting himself off.
"THEY ARE NOT GODS!" John shouted.
"Why don't you understand these things are horrible monsters?! They and you ruined my life! They ruined your life?! You're broke and alone Dwight! Your butler is a damn zombie. His soul is forever in agony because of you. Why don't you understand that I want it gone." John tried to reason with Dwight.
"They have unimaginable power, John."
"There's nothing that thing has that I want. You said you had a room here. I'd like to rest." John ends the conversation abruptly.
"Down the hall to the left, a bed has already been made. Some extra clothes. You have your own bathroom. We both know you won't be sleeping though. Get out of my sight." The old man sneered.
John went upstairs and paced around his room most of the night. It wasn’t like he was going to sleep anyway.