Chapter 20 #2
The scream wasn’t just for protest—or at least, it didn’t end there. All the lights in this area and a little beyond shattered, glass spraying everywhere. I ducked, automatically throwing both hands over my head to protect my face. In that second, more than just the lights went out.
The speakers shredded as well. All sound abruptly ceased, and the night fell creepily silent.
Even my breath sounded too loud. Shadows and silence pressed against me, a nightmarish sensation that crawled along my skin.
I shuddered, a reflexive move, because yeah…
this was like being in a haunted house. Only it was actually haunted.
And the demon wanted to eat my face off.
Only emergency lighting gave me any sort of illumination. Being in near darkness with this thing, with my ears still ringing from the screaming, that was…not my first choice for how to spend the night. Let’s say that.
Annabelle turned and gave me this sinister grin, one I could barely detect in the sallow lighting, which scared me even more.
Then, with a rip of stitches, the mouth opened wider until you could shove a whole basketball inside, and Annabelle headed toward me like it intended to eat me.
That was going to be a hell fucking no from me, dawg.
I lifted the blessed gun on my hip and fired in quick succession right into its mouth. “By the power of Glock, piss off!”
The doll jerked with each bullet, and while it didn’t bleed, it did look worse—shaking, the head attached by stubbornness more than anything, and maybe a wee bit smaller? Hard to tell in this bad lighting.
But the bullets were enough to force a temporary retreat. Something about firing into its mouth was enough to reach the demon inside.
Annabelle turned and sprinted toward the end of a main aisle, right where the Baby section began, but abruptly stopped, jerking like a puppet with its string cut. Swiveled toward Dairy, like it had found prey. I expected it to throw black ribbons around again.
It didn’t.
The demon did something much worse.
Annabelle crooned, looking down an aisle I couldn’t see into from this angle.
If a koala with a throat cold tried to make kissy noises to a baby, it might sound similar.
I’d been terrified a few times in my life, but that noise spoke to something primal in me.
Something that remembered caves and fires and monsters lurking in the shadows.
Hearing that sound coming from its mouth, I had only one thought.
Run.
Even as my momentum faltered, I saw a flash of hands as a bottle of holy oil was thrown right at the doll. It flinched, swiveling its head to the side to avoid the brunt of the attack.
Shit, if someone was throwing holy oil, then it was probably either Kelly or Reed.
Unfortunately for my survival instincts, I was used to ignoring them if someone was in trouble.
I launched myself forward and sprinted the rest of the distance, switching out gun for sword.
I didn’t want to risk friendly fire. I was maybe ten feet away when I realized it had snared Reed with its eyes, singing that distorted demonic siren’s song as it crept closer.
Reed clearly fought against the call, his head jerking in micro movements as he waged an internal battle, standing frozen before the song.
But he was also clearly losing, even with Kelly throwing holy oil like cheap confetti.
I didn’t hesitate, didn’t plan, just raised my sword and aimed my strike right for the demon’s gaping maw.
I slit it open like the Joker’s and the noise abruptly stopped.
The head fell back for a second, the material of its cheeks no longer keeping the head steady, but it was just as quickly mending, the head coming up slowly back into position.
Fuuuuuck me. Yeah, that visual was going to haunt my dreams for a while, for sure.
Two dark ribbons shot toward me, and my hands automatically came up, using the sword like a shield. Despite me getting my guard up, I slid several feet upon impact, but strong arms steadied me from behind: Morgan. He’d caught up just when I needed support.
Annabelle turned, sprinting out of Dairy toward Baby and Electronics—and thankfully Gramps—clearly wanting away from us and out of this building.
Morgan let go and shouted into his walkie-talkie, reporting Annabelle’s direction. I lunged for Reed, who still stood in a dazed state.
“Pour the holy oil into his mouth!” I directed Kelly.
She grabbed Reed’s face, opening his mouth with a thumb and finger, and did just that, her expression of pure worry. “Another?”
“Gimme a sec.” I activated what little magic I had and slammed a palm against his third eye. “VOID!”
Not something I did often, to friends especially, but I could clear energy in an emergency like now. Hopefully my magic was strong enough to overpower whatever the demon had sunk into him.
He shuddered a breath, brown eyes clearing. “Holy shit.”
“You okay, man?”
“No. I need vodka,” he rasped out.
“That’s entirely fair. Later, okay? Let’s get smashing drunk after we take this bitch out.”
He nodded fervently, still looking dazed and breathing like he’d just run the Spartan Race.
Reed was probably fine for the time being. I’d get Gramps to properly check him out after this shitshow ended.
Kris spoke via walkie-talkie: “I do not have visual. Anyone see her?”
Fuck, had we lost her?
Please, someone say no, I did not like losing my target in a haunted Walmart near a ley line.
So many parts of this could go straight to shit with literally no warning.
I could hear products hitting the floor, the groan of metal, but wasn’t sure if it came from the efforts to unbury the twins or Annabelle wreaking havoc somewhere.
I was once again stuck clearing aisles. Since the whole left of the store was now open considering half our people were at the front, Kelly and Reed rushed to backtrack, cutting through Clothes to try and get ahead of Annabelle.
The walkie-talkie crackled with River growling out, “We can’t get the twins out easily, but they’re safe. Bailey and I are headed up toward you via Home Goods.”
At least they weren’t dying under an avalanche of Christmas decor. There were worse fates.
No one was resting easy, all of us split up. Morgan swept the right side as I swept the left of the main back aisle, waiting for Annabelle to scare me out of my skin.
Maybe the demon was heading toward Gramps? There was a back door there for service and delivery, after all. Plus the side door for the tire center. If it was trying to get out, it would have gone deeper into the store.
If. If it was trying to get out. Honestly, I just couldn’t picture anything getting past Gramps. He was like a wall. The Tankiest of Tanks. If there was a final boss, it was Gramps.
My father had a traditional Golden Cage set up back here, the top part looming into view as we made our way past bathrooms and break rooms to Electronics. There wasn’t a ton of room to maneuver between the aisles of merchandise, but hopefully enough.
I heard check-ins from all over the store; no one had sight on the demon, so it had to be back here somewhere.
And lo and behold, there it was, standing there in ragged glory.
The doll stood in the wider area between cash registers and an aisle of gaming consoles, almost in a guard position? Body language said wary, which was interesting.
It was also brighter back here. Gramps had not been idle.
He’d set up a small altar with a cross, prayer candles lit.
Ah, now I understood Annabelle’s wariness.
The demon could probably sense the raw power from this little old man, and all of a sudden, the back door didn’t seem like such an easy target.
Gramps emerged from the Golden Cage, advancing on the demon slowly. “Everyone, get into formation!”
Right, star formation. Kelly and Reed appeared from Clothing, and River and Bailey managed to catch up just in time to take up that last position. We had just enough people back here to pull it off.
I poured holy water down the length of my sword, because shit was about to get real. If we had this thing cornered, let’s take it down. I was tired of chasing it and having my nice bullets treated like toothpicks.
Now, was it my imagination, or did the doll actually shrink a little?
The demon hissed at Gramps, mitten hand pointed as if in accusation. “You.”
I startled, not expecting it to speak. The voice sounded awful, like a multitude of people speaking around a chain, deep and grainy. It grated upon my ears.
“Your divine power is not of this world,” it noted like the information was interesting but not relevant. “Come to me, become me.” And then it crooned.
Shit. It was that sound again, the one the demon had used against Reed. This motherfucker—
Gramps threw his head back on a belly chuckle. “That trick does not work on me. I invoke the name and power of Elohim.”
A howl of denial erupted from the doll’s mouth.
You know what, time to back Gramps up. I spread my free hand and spoke as well. “I invoke the four corners and the guardians thereof.”
Every single person around me invoked deities, guardians, gods, whatever they believed in.
Annabelle whirled my direction, charging, and I held my silver sword up in guard position.
Dark tendrils lashed out once again. I dodged the first, then sliced through the second.
I had to hop to avoid the ones it sent at my feet, but I didn’t retreat.
The time for chasing this thing all over the store was well past. I had to stand my ground.
From inside the Golden Cage, Dad whipped out his phone and started playing the Oxyrhynchus hymn again. It was the right call. Annabelle screamed a protest, shrinking a little. Something about that hymn was deadly—a pro tip I’d pass along to the Catholic priests.