AS SHADOWS SCREAM (BOOK ONE)

Chapter 15: 'Carnival of Chaos'

 *Dedicated to Alex_Rezdan a great writer! check out 'Deadweight'*

*Image above done by a *

James and the detective stood outside leaning up against the car looking up at the clouds in the sky. They stood in silence for awhile, both of them just staring at the clouds deep in thought. After awhile the detective cleared his throat and said, 'just thinking, you know since we were in a church and all..... just thinking about religion and God and stuff. You believe in any of it?'

James answered calmly, 'No, I don't think so. I'm not sure. I don't know what to believe any more.'
'So we hunting a demon that wants to unleash hell on earth and we just got a knife from your girlfriend that was made by angels or whatever and you don't believe there is a God or heaven and hell?'
James looked back up at the sky and replied, 'I believe in hell and I believe we are in it. As to the demon and the knife I think it's more of a light and dark thing.'
Detective Monroe sighed and said, 'What if it was true? What if there is a God, angels and demons are real and there is a heaven and hell? You know what it is like to find out everything you believed was wrong? How many religions are there out there? What if one of the religions was true and all the others were lies and there was proof behind any doubt that that religion was real... right now it's all faith and speculation but how would the world react if something like that were true?'
James put his hand to his head as he began to feel uneasy. Sweat formed at his brow as he answered uneasily, 'Ignorance is bliss I suppose. People need religion because it gives them hope and without hope we have nothing to make us feel secure. We need to believe that things will get better and someone is looking out for us... we...I...'

'AAAAAAAARRGHHHH!' James screamed and fell to the floor on his knees. He gripped his head with his hands and screamed out in pain. Detective Monroe ran up to James worryingly. He put his hand on James shoulder but pulled away fast.
James' skin was searing hot, his whole body burning up. The detective swore loudly and said, 'I'm going for help. I'll get Casey. Please don't die.'
He turned towards the Gardens but James reached out and grabbed him by the ankle.
James looked up at the detective with a pained grimace and said through gritted teeth,
'Don't. It will pass. Get me water.'
Detective Monroe ran to the trunk of the car fumbling with the keys. He dropped them and swore loudly as he looked at James writhing in pain on the floor. He quickly picked up the keys, found the right key and quickly got two bottles of water out of the trunk.
The detective opened the first bottle and poured it on James. He then opened the second bottle and handed it to James who gulped it down. James lifted himself to a seated position and rested his back against the side of the detective's car. James closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. Deep breaths, in and out. He looked up at the detective and held his hands out saying, 'Help me up please.'
The detective gripped James' hands and was about to pull him up when suddenly James started screaming once again. His eyes rolled back in his head and his whole body started to convulse. Then he went quiet as darkness took over his mind. James slumped to the floor as did the detective. Both of them saw a blinding white light and then pitch black darkness.
Shadows shifted and their minds were full with powerful memories and strong emotion.
Two minds connected in a nexus of chaos. Dark and light infused with shadows and dreams.
Two minds connected witnessing powerful memories and feeling strong emotions.
They gasped and screamed silently as their minds were thrown into a carnival of chaos and they were forced to see through the demented eyes of the dark beast they were trying to destroy.

The detective and James felt the cold as the shadow beast slithered through the darkness of the night. They felt its insatiable hunger and its uncontrollable urge to kill.
They felt darkness and the felt anger. The anger and rage was not theirs though nor was it the beasts. The anger, the rage, the sin and the darkness all emanated around them.
The shadow beast sensed it all as if it were a scent or sound. The beast navigated its way through the darkness sensing the sins and sorting through them looking for a worthy host.
Through layers of deception, shame and greed, it slithered through hungrily looking for more. Everyone had anger in them. Everybody's souls were tainted but it was looking for something special. The beasts head reared as it sensed what it was looking for and slithered hungrily towards the source of darkness. James and the detective felt the darkness and the abundance of sin. It was powerful and strong but there was something stronger that shadow beast hungered for. Not the misguided rage and dark heart of an old man but the righteous pure seething rage of the beaten son. They felt his burning anger resounding like a beacon calling to the shadow beast.

The young boy was riddled with bruises and cuts from beatings sustained at the hands of his drunken sociopathic father. The boy's hands were curled into fists as he looked into the mirror and stared at his broken body. The beast felt his rage and sensed his hatred for his father. The boy looked in the mirror and they heard his thoughts as his imagination plotted all sorts of elaborate scenarios in which he would dispose of his hated father.
The shadow beast slithered closer, poised itself to strike then entered the boy, wrapping itself around the young child's soul.

Detective Monroe and James Crowley felt intense pain as the thoughts and emotions of young Roy Smith flooded into their nexus of consciousness. They witnessed flashbacks of painful memories and felt all the pain of every beating he had ever received at the hands of his father. Darkness gripped at the boy and his subconscious seemed to fall into a deep slumber as the shadow beast took control of his body. They now saw through the eyes of Roy Smith as the beast did. It fed off the boys rage as it urged his body forward down the stairs in clumsy robotic movements. The beast fed off every dark thought, every painful memory and every ounce of rage within young Roy Smith.

Roy Smith stood in front of his father. The shadow beast felt all the rage Roy had ever felt.
There was no more anger in the boy, he was empty as the beast had taken it all.
The shadow beast looked at Roy's father and the detective and James felt the beast's anger.
It hated this man with a hate stronger than any they had ever felt. They heard the father's heartbeat and felt the beast curl Roy's lips into a smile before ripping out the beating heart of the man that had caused Roy pain. The shadow beast looked at the heart in the bloody hand of the body he was possessing and drank in the delicious death.

Detective Monroe and James Crowley both opened their eyes screaming. James rolled on the ground gripping his head in agony and the detective jumped to his feet looking around bewildered and unsure if he was in reality or still in the dark nightmare he was in.
Monroe closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing and decrease his heart rate.
James sat up, leant back against the car and did the same.
The detective ran his fingers threw his hair and spluttered out frantically, 'What the fuck was that?'
James groaned and answered, 'we were in a nexus of consciousness. When you grabbed my hand as I lapsed into the darkness and for some reason so did you. You saw what I saw.'
'This is what happens to you when you have your weird blackout visions all the time?'
James smiled weakly and replied, 'more or less. The beast is stronger. It has gained control over the darkness and shifting the balance in the world. It is creating all sorts of ripple effects and what we felt was one of those effects.  We saw the shadow beasts first kill after it was unleashed upon the earth. We saw through its eyes and felt all that it felt.'
The detective rubbed his temples and sighed heavily. He looked up at the skies and swore loudly. He seemed to curse more than he blinked lately. He paced back and forth trying to make sense of anything at all but even the evil he was fighting made no sense at all.
The shadow beast found victims and took their anger and made it its own.
Then once it felt nothing but rage it violently killed the cause of the anger. It then left it's host a hollow empty shadow of their former selves. For what purpose?
Why not just kill and be done with it, why take and feel the anger of its host?

Detective Monroe's train of thought was brought to an abrupt end as James screamed in pain and held his head again. James looked up at the detective and Monroe gasped and stumbled back in shock. James eyes were completely black. The entire eye pitch black like a demon from hell. James screamed again and his eyes reverted back to normal.
He looked up at the detective and said through quick hoarse breaths, 'we need to go now.
Help me in the car and then drive as fast as you can. Cain has a new victim, an innocent.
The darkness is at a breaking point. If Cain kills this girl the shadow beast will have  the strength to unleash all of hell on earth. This is detective, this is where it all ends.'

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