Chapter 9 – Chap 9

The cultists cheered as the puff of smoke took shape, turning into some kind of huge horned head that stared at them with its creepy, hollow eyes. Christine fell to the floor, eyes closed, limp and lifeless.

“NO!” Jack and I shouted, tears streaming through our faces like waterfalls

The smoke creature then entered Chris’s body, and she woke up, well…kinda. The cultists cheered even harder and bowed to her, or rather…to it. With just a hand gesture, green smoke envelopted everyone, including us. We couldn’t see anything, but we could hear the cultists choking and falling to the floor, the smoke didn’t affect us, however…

After all the cultists that were in the room had died, it walked away, completely ignoring us. The smoke that filled the chamber cleared a few seconds later. I wanted to chase behind it, but Jack grabbed my arm before I could do it.

“CHRIS!” I shouted

“Listen,Peter, I know how you feel, but that thing…it may have her body, but that’s not Chris!” Jack said

I calmed down, but only for a very brief moment, as the room began to shake, we’d soon discover it wasn’t just that one room, it was the entire cave.

“What’s happening?” I asked

“Looks like the cave’s collapsing!”

“How?”

“I don’t know, run for your life!”

I could hear the ceiling falling down behind us as we sprinted through the corridors, had Not-Chris caused this?

We narrowly made it to the exit, we turned back to take one last look at the cave, catching a glimpse of what looked to be the Demon Dog, running towards our position, most likely wanting to escape the crumbling caverns, like us. But alas, he did not make it, the entrance collapsed before us, trapping the dog inside…inside its eternal resting place under the rubble.

Trees from the woods fell one by one as the monster inside Chris’s body made its way to the bungalows with a cold, inexpressive stare. A group of cultists got in her way, armed with nightsicks and guns. It pounced at them one by one, like Chris had done before, but ten times as fast, to the point the ones with guns didn’t even have time to fire a single bullet, it killed them all in record time.

All the horned kids screamed and ran away from it, some hid inside the bungalows…big mistake, as they all began to crumble in the monster’s presence, like the cave and the trees before them, taking the lives of the few kids that were inside. It seemed to act netrual towards horned children, mainly targeting cultists, but it didn’t seem to care wether they were caught in the crossfire.

“We have to do something!” I said

“Look, it’s not that I don’t want to, but look at us and look at it, we have no chance!” Jack replied

“Let’s go to the temple! Maybe we’ll find something that’ll help us there…”

As we were about to enter the temple, a horde of cultists equiped with various weapons poured from inside the building, we ran to hide behind a large rock, but no one went after us, despite they had clearly seen us. It turns out we weren’t the only ones that had decided to go to the temple, cultists surrounded the creature inside Chris’s body at the entrance, they pronunced something that sounded similar to what James as well as the cultists at the cave had uttered to kill Chris and summon that thing, but this time…it had no effect. The cultsist stood in shock for a second, the monster attacked and they all fell, same as the temple…good thing we didn’t go inside there!

We could see a few cultists escaping on a pair of small rafts, the monster saw them too. A cold, terrifying stare from the monster was all it took for the cultists on the rafts to collapse, their lifeless bodies fell to the water and their boats sunk.

After that, the creature walked away as if nothing had happened, out to get more escaping cultists.

“I have a plan,pick one” I said to Jack while offering him one of two guns that I got from a pair of dead men.

“You’ve just seen what it’s done to those men, haven’t you? You do realise we’re just a pair of kids, right?” he responded

“A pair of kids with guns!”

“Those cultists also had guns, look at them now!”

“Yeah, but the monster was actively trying to kill them, yet it doesn’t seem to care about us. That may allow us to catch it offguard.”

“Alright…what’s the plan?”

“One of us distracts it, and then the other one shoots . “

“I still think it’s a suicide mision, but what choice do I have at this point?…”

Jack and I followed the monster from behind as it hunted down any cultist it came across.

“Alright, split up. After that you distract it and I shoot.” I said to Jack, he nodded.

“HEY, YOU! OVER HERE, BASTARD!” Jack shouted, hoping to get the monster’s attention, but it completely ignored him.

He threw a rock at it, which resulted in the creature casually cathing it with one of its hand (without looking) and then throwing it at a cultist who was trying to run away.

“That’s it!” I said to myself. That thing wanted to kill cultists, right? So if we wanted its attention, we had to target the cultists, not the monster.

I waited, waited until the monster found one, and just when it was about to pounce at the man, I pulled the trigger…he fell sprawling to the ground, dead.

The creature stared at me, inexpressive, immobile. It was clear, even though that body had once belonged to an Australian girl I had considered a friend, the mind controlling it, its soul( if that thing even had a soul) was not the same. In any case, Chris was gone.

The sound of a bullet echoed through the area as the monster flinched, Jack had shot it in the back. The creature faced him, but its stare wasn’t inexpresive this time, it was cold and menacing. Jack’s whole body trembled in fear, but he did not move, he stood in place and kept pointing his gun at the monster. It took a step forward, towards Jack, and then another, and another…until I’d had enough, I shot it in the leg. It fell to its knees, and before it could process what I had done, Jack shot it in the chest, finally…I fired one final shot to the head. The monster fell, not before letting out a piercing screech as green smoke emanated from it as if its very life force overflowed from its dying body.

After the smoke cleared, only Christine’s corpse remained. Jack and I couldn’t hold back the tears as we dragged it to a cliff, after counting to three and getting mentally ready, we threw it at the ocean, where Chris would rest forever.

“Goodbye…mate”

The next day, a ship arrived comanded by the last few cultists who hadn’t recieved the news, and weren’t aware their cult had been destroyed by the very demon they worshiped and tried so hard to summon. All of us raided the ship, all of us horned kids who had been brought there from all over the globe, at least…those of us who managed to survive. We made quick work of the five men who were inside the vessel and woke up the next batch of kids that they were planning to sacrifice, who were sleeping inside their busses. After a day of sailing adrift, a day of hunger, anarchy and uncertainty, we spotted hope and relief in the form of a cruise ship.

They gave us food and a place to rest while a series of hellicopters arrived to take us to our respective countries and homes.

“Well,it’s finally over…” I said

“At last… Hey, I wanna apologize for having been the coward of the group.” Jack replied

“Oh, don’t apologize for that! I’m gonna miss you!”

“Same, Peter,same.”

“I’m gonna miss her too…”

“I’m sure she isn’t gone, she’s still…somwhere. After all,It doesn’t sound that farfetch’d after having seen literal demons, does it?”

We both laughed

I knocked on the door of my own house at 4 AM, my mother greeted me in her pijamas.

“Peter?”

“Hi…mom…”

“The email said you weren’t supposed to arrive until August, it’s still July! What happened, honey?”

I hugged her and began crying…