Deamons

Chapter 7 Get in the Back Jack/The Hearse part 3

     "Not close. Hold on!" Rejection warns grabbing to each side of the eye he is looking out from. Danny has had enough. He whispers in his protégé Arnold's ear then the pair burst forward taking Starke down quickly and commence pummeling him. The blows land mostly on Starke's back. He wants to laugh but does not. Laughing would require opening his mouth and possibly getting a tooth knocked out. His mother has hit him so many times even from behind. This is no shock. He twists around and with one hand throws the smaller Arnold off. Danny connects with a shot to his mouth. He tastes the blood from his busted lip.

The deamons love this. They lick the walls to taste the essence of the spilled blood. It puts them in a frenzy. Strength is already at the walls hands pressed in when Starke's spirit erupts. He goes berserk. Twisting around on Danny and getting on top. Once there he pins his arms down and starts bashing his face. It happens so quick. Arnold recovers and dives at Starke. Starke supercharged with Strength grabs him in flight turns him around pinning him crisscross underneath with Danny. He keeps hitting the both of them. The other kids some of who were bullied by the pair circle around cheering.

Hope goes to his ear. "Look around. See it in their eyes?" Starke does. He sees the glisten of darkness. He is feeding their deamons. "Is this what you want to be. Do you want to feed this in others?" Hope asks. Starke looks again noticing the same look in their eyes his mother has just before she struck him.

He stops. Gets up picks up his bag and walks on. The other kids cheer him. running up to him and try to talk to him as if he is Babe Ruth and just hit a homerun. The words of Hope which entered his mind as a thought keep reverberating. He does not speak to any of them. After being home for a few hours he goes out front to toss a ball up in the air and catch it. He sees Danny's father pull in his driveway. Within minutes he hears the screams. He cannot make out the exact words but it is mostly cussing. He figures Danny's father is scolded him for losing the fight that day. Starke had given Danny a black eye. His father must have saw it when he got in the door. The screaming and cursing go on for more then and hour. There would be breaks in the noise then it would start again. Starke goes back inside. He did not want this.

The next day is a Saturday. His father did trade work, which meant he did not work as an employee for one funeral home but rather contracted himself out too many to do removals, embalming and funeral directing. They are going over his great aunts. Starke is excited. She treats him well. He does not know though that his father plans on taking his make shift hearse in case he gets a call. His great aunts house is on the other side of town. His father did not see the sense in him running all the way back home to get the hearse with most of the hospitals and funeral homes being closer to his great aunt's.

They walk out the house to go and Starke hops in the middle of the front seat of the converted station wagon. His mother comes to the door and says, "Uh uh. I am not riding all pressed up together like this in all this heat." "But there's air-conditioning dear," his father says. He really does not want to take the other car. "Get out!" she says to Starke. He slides over the the skin on the bare part of his leg below his shorts sticking to the hot vinyl seat as he does. It hurt bad and distracted him from hearing what his parents are saying. Once outside the vehicle he sees his father is not upset anymore. His mother gets in the hearse. He does not understand, is she going to sit in the middle? His father calls him. He is now at the back of the make-shift hearse. Starke walks back to him. His father has the back door open and he can see his father has pushed the used stretcher to one side. "Get in boy," his fathered orders. "Allan its hot in here! Come on! You should have started this damn thing before I got in!" His father now frazzled, "Get in boy. Don't stand there like a punk." He speaks through his teeth like a snarling dog, his voice grizzled and low.

Starke looks at the stretcher static fear shoots down his spine. He does not want to touch it. Oh please, oh please God make them let me ride in the front, he prays within himself. "Get in boy!" his father points in the back. He can hear his mother hissing up front. He knows if he does not get in and get in right now it will get really ugly for him. He fears what might happen if he refuses more than climbing in there.

He closes his eyes and climbs in hugging to the side away from the stretcher. Eyes closed he sees in his mind's eye all the green germs crawling everywhere on the stretcher. His father slams and locks the door. The handle on the inside is broke. He is stuck now. There is no way for him to unlock the vehicle from inside and get out. The horror of where he is creeps in. It seems unreal. Is it real, he wonders? How could his mom do this to him? His father starts driving and with his mother complaining he takes it out on the wheel. The hearse jerks and Starke fights not to be thrown into the stretcher. He opens his eyes looking for something on the sidewall of the vehicle to grab onto. Then he notices out the back-window Danny has been on his front porch and seen the entire episode.