Deamons

Chapter 10 Interlude before Falling part 2

     Somehow Rejection formed an unholy alliance with the gifts backed up by Anger. He could eat the boy now given power from him romancing Death the way he does, but the instant he moves to take him, BAM! The unholy trinity will move in. They have come so close to expelling him from the host completely a time or two. It just is not right for a deamon to against another deamon, and allying with a gift? "Fuck that!" he mumbles. "When I do drag this boy back to hell and report to the dark lord Rejection will rue it alright. I will have a bite of Rejections misery then. Slap him on a bun and eat chunks of misery sandwich out of his ass for thousands of years in between assignments from the most low. He chuckles then darts a glance around again."

Then Death has his I do not give a fuck moment and pulls his veil back revealing himself as he is to Starke's inner self. Ashy spotty craggily skin that looks as if it is dripping off the skull within. Sunken up face like an ancient prune. His entire being lived to devour another completely.

Starke does not see Death that way though. As soon as Starke was big enough and he was a big boy so it came early. His parents took him out to the Sears store and they bought him a suit. His mother said, "This will do Allan. Yes, this will work just fine." Starke asked, "For what?" They did not answer. Not even to tell him it was none of his business or to just shut up. That was odd. Maybe it was for church he thought. Then one night at midnight, on a school night matter of fact his father got him up and told him to put on his suit. He did not know a hospice program took root in the area. They sent nurses to tend people to die at home. Good for them but for Starke it meant he needed to take hold of their wet feet. You see most people have urine and feces in them when they expire and once the muscle lose life that hold back those processes then the urine is free to run down their leg and all over. The feces stinks but is usually trapped in some sort of clothing. Allan does not let Starke waste gloves for just pee. His father acts as if it is not there. He never touches it. He is always at the head end. He would just give Starke the scary look and say, "Hurry up! We got to get this body out of here." When the boy hesitated.

Starke's stomach grew strong. On these calls he gets to ride up front. He holds his hands so they do not touch anything and is successful most nights. Then as soon as he helps his father get the body on the table he rushes down to the staff room. Washes his hands and finds a chair to sit in a wait. Sometimes he dozes others times he cannot. If there is a television he tries to find something that might help him forget his plight.

This went on so many nights. Allan does not care if there is a test the next day or if Starke gets any sleep at all before school. Some mornings his father would drop him off late to school in the hearse. If they went home first to pick up his mother to be driven to the doctor's office or something then Starke rides in the back to school whether there is still a body in there or not. He lives with the fear that the wrong person may see him get out the back at school and that could mean instant untouchable status. Like the lowest caste in India. He has a beeper when only drug dealers and doctors do. He hides it as best he can. Guarding himself as to who he may be around in case it goes off. There were minor saints that knew his secret and kept it. The secret that when that thing goes beep, beep, beep, he was going to touch a dead body.

So now he is older. Every time his father needs him for a call he listens for which funeral home it is. If its up the road he does not care. If it is in his school district he listens for the name. Franticly he worries if it is a relative of someone he knows, especially fearful of the girls that give him butterflies in his stomach or the ones that tease him for having the wrong clothes and wearing high water pants. Sometimes Allan divulges the information like he is a colleague. Most times he tells him to shut up and it doesn't matter.