* * *
Emily and Will stood looking puzzled outside of Emily's old office. The building she used to clean before they got their current job. It was empty, being Saturday, and nothing normal or paranormal seemed to be going on anywhere near it.
"Huh," Emily said. "Maybe they left the back door open again. They do that a lot. We could go inside."
Will shrugged. "Okay."
They trudged around to the back of the building. Both wore jeans and tennis shoes and T-shirts. Em had a hooded red zipper sweatshirt on, partly zipped up. Will wore a similar one in dark blue. As they turned the corner of the building, suddenly a deer leaped in front of them. A doe. They were startled and jumped back, hearts racing. "On edge much?" Will asked as he stopped to let his heart calm down. The deer trotted away into a nearby field.
The sun was still bright, though it was about 7 at night. They kept walking around to the back door. Emily went up to it and pulled the handle. The door swung open.
"Pfft! Sure enough," Emily said, sounding disgusted. Smokers left the door propped open with a little rock, so they could get back into the building after a smoke, but they always forgot to shut the door completely before they went home. Very annoying for a young woman arriving alone hours later to clean it.
They went inside carefully, afraid something else would jump out at them, but this time not be so ordinary. They couldn't see or hear anything yet. Emily quietly kicked the small rock away from the door and shut the door all the way. They began to creep through the building, down each of the small hallways the cubicles made, with nothing but emergency lights and bits of sunlight from far away windows lighting their way. No paranormal activity yet.
"Maybe this thing is broken," Will whispered as he looked at the alarm again. "It still shows the anomaly as being here. Look. Our dot is pretty much on top of it now." Emily stopped to glance at the screen.
"Maybe," she said. Then suddenly she jumped, because a man had just yelled something unintelligible from outside a nearby window. They both spun around, startled.
There stood a man, in his mid-thirties, brown hair, jeans, red and white flannel shirt. He had a gun, and he had just been yelling in some kind of a fit of blind rage. After stopping to take a breath, he did it again. He hadn't seen them yet.
"Holy shit!" Emily whispered. "There's a man with a real gun out there! How is that paranormal?!"
Will shook his head and stared at the man. Suddenly the man turned toward them and saw them. Sort of. He stepped toward the window to get a closer look. Once he saw them for sure, face pressed against the glass, he banged on the window with his hand and yelled with rage again, in their direction.
Emily and Will looked at each other quickly. Will grabbed her by the arm, "Run!"
They ran away from the window, through the building, as far as they could go. To a part of the building with no windows. They stood panting, backs against the wall, trying to think. There was nothing in their rule books about guns!
"Is this the paranormal dot here?" Emily whispered as she took the alarm from Will to see where the dots were now. "This guy?"
"I have no idea," Will said, catching his breath. "How are we supposed to 'contain' this guy?" He was whispering too. "He seems human, just kind of crazy."
Emily was flipping through her pocket guide frantically. They had brought a backpack of gadgets and books with them, not knowing what they would be fighting. "Oh, hey, here's a part about—"
Suddenly a bullet ripped through the wall between them, making a little sunlight hole. They screamed in unison, "Ahhhh!!!!" and bolted away from the wall. They ran for the middle of the building now, and stopped in a little lunch room area. Will flipped on the lights.
"Shit. I'm glad I don't have a heart condition," Will said, panting from the scare and the run. "What were you saying back there?"
Emily was out of breath too, and her hands were shaking. She began looking through the book again, finding her place, "What I was saying, before we were so rudely interrupted, is that this is what might be wrong with this guy." She had found her place in the book again and held it out to Will, pointing. They both stared at the page.
"Ah," Will said. "Demon possession." Emily nodded with a smile, happy to have found the possible solution.
Will took the book and read part of the section on possession. "Okay, less happy now," he said. "It says we have to tackle him and do an exorcism... while he's conscious."
"Oh," Emily sighed. "No gun talk?" He shook his head sadly.
Just then they heard the man yell in rage again. This time far enough away that they weren't too worried he could get at them.
"We'd better see what he's up to," Will said. They grabbed their stuff again and tip toed toward where the yell had last come from. Peeping around a cubicle wall, they saw the man outside another window. Next to the front door. He didn't see them. They crept closer.
"Well, at least he can't get to us in here," Emily whispered. "Maybe we fail this time, and go home and put our feet up?" She looked hopefully at Will, only partly joking.
Will shook his head. Then he realized the obvious, "You don't think he can shoot out a window and come in here, do you?"
But there wasn't really time to ponder this happening, because at that moment the man looked up at them, as if he had known they were there all along. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.
Will grabbed her and pulled her back behind the cubicle wall. "He must work here!" he whispered.
"Uh-oh," Emily added. They peeked around the wall again. "Maybe it isn't a key to here. He is crazy after all?"
They watched in horror as the man walked out of their sight and to the door. They heard the key being inserted into a lock. It seemed to go all the way in.
"Damn!" Will yelled as they took off running again, this time toward the back door. They heard the man open the door behind them and begin running through the building after them. At one point he shot at them again. Emily screamed as the bullet crashed through a potted plant near them, shattering ceramic blue chunks everywhere. Will grabbed her hand and pulled her through the back door with him.
They ran toward their small old car, but the man was outside the building now too, getting closer. Emily started to fumble for her keys. "No time! No time!" Will shouted as they continued to run right past the car. A bullet ricocheted off a dumpster as they ran past it. They ran around a neighboring building and briefly stopped to breathe. Emily began digging through the backpack, and pulled out the tranquilizer gun.
"No!" Will said in a loud whisper, "He has to be conscious for us to do the exorcism."
"But we have to get that gun away from him," Emily whispered. The man made a far away yell of rage again. "And maybe tie him up," she added. But he was getting closer. They could now hear his footsteps on the pavement. How would she ever get close enough to shoot him with the pellet gun anyway?
They held their breath, hoping he might run by. She snuck up to the edge of the building, hoping to have a good close shot at him. But he was closer than she thought and swung around the corner so suddenly, it made her scream again. He pointed the gun at her, but she was close enough to punch his arm away. Then he fired at Will, but Will jumped aside just in time, and dirt scattered behind him where the bullet hit the ground. Then Will jumped toward the man and grabbed the arm with the gun. He tried to wrestle it away from the man, but either adrenaline or demon possession was making the man super strong. He was having no luck. Emily tried to fire the tranquilizer at him, but he pushed her away and the pellet flew past him in the air, barely visible it was so small. Emily fell to the ground hard and dropped the pellet gun. Realizing he wouldn't be able to hold him off much longer, Will kicked the man in the groin, let go of his arm, pulled his wife up off the ground as she scrambled to collect their supples, and started to run again.
The man must have been in "feel no pain" mode as well because he was barely slowed by the groin kick. As it was the
y seemed to be running around and around this one same building. After a few rounds of that Will suddenly pulled them in a new direction. Down the road further, toward a parking lot with cars. A bar. They dove between two parked cars, and stopped to catch their breath. Too hot for sweatshirts, they both took theirs off and tied them around their waists.
"Why do we not have weapons?" Will whispered.
"We can't shoot a guy for being pissy," Em whispered back.
"But he's homicidally pissy!" Will hissed.
Emily shrugged, annoyed and out of breath.
"Okay, bullet proof vests, then," Will said. Emily nodded agreement.
They peeked out from between the cars then to see where the man was. He had done a few more rounds of the building, thinking he was still chasing them. He even shot at imaginary them a few times, chipping stucco and plaster off the corners of the building.
"He's got to run out of bullets soon," Emily whispered. "Then we can tackle him."
"Sure if we have any strength left," Will whispered back. "And hopefully he can't crush us with his bare hands or something."
Emily nodded.
The possessed man was now standing in front of the building looking around to see where they had gone. Then like a homing beacon, he turned and looked right at them. Like he had some kind of super power to sense where they were when he wanted to. He started stalking toward them with long strides, ignoring the traffic between here and there. Cars swerved and honked and he fired the gun right at Will and Emily. It ricocheted off the car and smacked the ground next to them.
"Okay, too close for comfort," Will said and grabbed Emily's arm and started to run again.
They ducked down and wove in between parked cars as he shot and bullets bounced off the metal all around them. They each occasionally screamed as the bullets got too close. Then they ran back to the building where this had all started. Then past it. He kept firing, and ripped a hole through the backpack swinging from Will's shoulder, but never managed to so much as scratch the two of them. Then they heard a clicking noise behind them. They stopped, out of breath, to turn around and look. The man had stopped too.
He stood trying to fire the gun at them, but all the bullets were gone. He was acting almost like a wild animal, not able to understand why the gun wouldn't fire anymore.
Carefully and methodically Will and Emily were going through the backpack and gathering supplies for the exorcism they would have to do. The man—or the demons in him—had just realized the tables had turned. He dropped the gun as he turned away and ran.
"Dammit," Emily said. "I thought we were done with that part."
They gathered up their stuff and ran after the man. He ran away from the town, through fields and trees. Then he started to run toward some grassy hills. The alarm let out a little beep. Will and Em stopped to look at it.
"Oh, look," Will said, "he's out of our jurisdiction now."
The man stopped running and turned around, wondering why he wasn't being chased anymore. Then he tilted his head and looked at the couple, as if he were sizing them up or something. He seemed to decide he could take them because he started running again, this time right toward them. As he did the alarm let out a little beep again. He was back in their jurisdiction.
"Bastard," Will said under his breath. Tired of running, Will came up with a quick plan and told Emily his idea.
"Okay," Emily said, not quite sure it would work, but tired of running.
The possessed man let out a scream of rage as he got closer to them. Emily and Will stood perfectly still, but ready to move at a moment's notice. The man got within six feet of them, and Will screamed out, "Now!"
Suddenly they both dove toward the ground, toward the man's legs. They each grabbed one and he toppled over them to the ground. They scrambled around then and got on top of him, on his back. He bucked around like a bull at a rodeo, but they held on and held him down.
In a fit of bravado, Emily yelled, "Hog tie him, babe!"
"I don't actually know how to do that, my love!" Will yelled back. "Get the script!"
Emily was closest to the man's head, Will behind her. She reached for the book in the backpack and managed to pull it out and turn to the proper page as the man bucked around.
"Okay," she said, then she began to read the script loudly, to make sure the demon or demons inside the man could hear her, "By the power of all good forces of nature and creation I command you, evil spirits, to vacate this man! By all the gods that represent goodness and love, I insist that you exit the body you have taken over against the will of its owner! May the energy of the great creator or creators of this universe take your evil energy and dissipate it into the heavens and the earth! I command you leave this human and be here no more!" She looked back at Will then. "Very non-denominational," she said, as the man continued to buck them around.
Then she looked back at the book to see why the man was still bucking around. Had it not worked? "Oh," she said out loud, and fished around in the bag some more while bouncing around, 'til she found it. A little injector gun, it was kind of like a really big ring. She put it on her middle finger, read the book a little more, then pressed the injector gun to the back of the man's neck and pressed a button on the injector with her thumb. That was the last step in the exorcism. It seemed to make the man even more enraged than before and he violently bucked them off of him. They flew into the air, then hit the ground. They looked wide-eyed at the man, expecting worse violence now. But he had passed out.
"Oh, thank God," Will said and laid back in the dead grass. Emily let out a sigh of relief and relaxed as well. She laid back in the grass and stared up at the still blue sky. Then she pulled herself up off the grass with a groan.
"There are other steps, I think," she said, staring once more into the book. "Yup. We have to erase his memory now." She pointed at the backpack a few feet away. "Do we have that gadget?"
He crawled over to the bag and looked inside. He reached in and pulled out the little silvery box thing that erased memories. He flipped it on with a switch and it hummed to life. He had studied this one a bit in the training class. "How far back do we go?" He asked.
She read the book again, "It says the machine can tell which memories are from when he was possessed. I don't know, there's a menu..."
"Ah, I see," he said, finding it. He held the device near the man's head, and pointed the back of it at him. It didn't actually need to touch the person whose memory was being erased. He started pushing buttons on the screen, selecting options. He nodded at the screen as if he agreed with it. He watched the progress as a growing line across the screen. A few minutes later, it was done. "Well, that was easy," he said, satisfied.
"Pfft," Emily answered. He looked up at her. She looked how he felt. Exhausted, sweaty, and hungry. Okay, maybe she didn't look hungry, but he was hungry, and figured she must be too.
"Let's go eat," he said, getting up and grabbing the backpack.
He held out his hand to her, but she said, "Wait, don't we even want to know who this guy is?" Will shrugged. Emily crawled back over to the man and carefully began searching his pockets for ID. "A-ha!" she said as she pulled out a wallet. "Henry Fillstone," she read, "Thirty... four," she said, doing the math.
"What's his sign?" Will said. "Does he like puppies and long walks on the beach?"
"William," Emily said firmly. She put the wallet back in his pocket and let Will help her up. They began to walk away and then she thought of something. "Do you think he needs some sunscreen?"
"What?" Will said exasperated.
"Well, he's just laying here out in the sun."
"No, he's fine," Will said. "The sun's about to go down."
She nodded. They walked away again. But then Emily stopped and reached into the backpack quickly and then ran back to Henry. She quickly spritzed his face with sunscreen from a little travel size bottle.
"Emily!" Will snapped.
"Sorry," she sai
d, then put the bottle away and kept walking.
"Sun Fresh Skincare," he recited from memory. "I thought you didn't carry that stuff around with you anymore," he said walking after her.
"Well, I don't sell it anymore, geez." She kept walking.