Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

“It never did dawn on you, did it, Al? A beautiful woman, with an interest in mystery novels, and gaming, and comics … a beautiful woman who voted the same way you did, who couldn’t wait to leave the theater and go to that new Vietnamese restaurant … how vain are you?”

Harper turned in his seat.

“Do you think I’m going to believe anything you tell me?”

“Baby,” the form of his wife said sweetly, lifting a hand to point a single finger at him, “do you think I care?”

An arc of blue-white flame erupted from her hand, cascading over Albert, roasting his skin, boiling his eyes. Remembering himself whole, inside his shower, he drenched himself, regenerating his body as he screamed:

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you care about, what you think, or what you have to say. Just get out of my daughter’s head!”

“Al, sweetie,” the familiar thing smiled. “What makes you think I’m in her head anymore?”

The Linda-like thing waved its hand and boils flooded forth from every pore of Harper’s body. Hundreds, thousands of them, they burst open, pus and blood bubbling up from each of them. Harper endured the torment for a moment, then rejected the plague, throwing it off as he had the earlier torments. As he did, the ever-changing landscape settled once more into the red and purple wasteland he first encountered. As Harper steadied himself, the Linda thing strode purposely into his field of vision.

“Very slow, sweetheart,” it told him. Hands on its knees, body bent to show all its parts off to their best advantage, the thing told him, “Too slow, really. I mean, seriously, what do you think can really come of all this?”

Before Albert could answer, the ground opened and swallowed him. He tried to leap away, but he could not compensate for the slam of crushing gravity sent to shovel him into the latest torment. As he fell below the surface of the dreamplane, the ground rushed in, sand and gravel and choking dust, not just piling atop him, but grinding against him, digging its way into his skin — tearing it from his body, shredding it. First one layer, then the second, hair torn away, scalp bloody, nails being etched, eye brows and lashes ripped out by the roots—

“ No !”

Albert clawed his way to the surface, breaking the ground open with his back and shoulders. His head felt cracked; blood sluiced over his ears, down his forehead. His hands ached from clawing his way free. The Linda thing cackled as he gasped for air.

“You can’t do it, you know.”

“Do what?” Albert’s voice was a ragged, panting thing, weak and feeble.

“Beat me. Can’t be done.”

“Bullshit,” Harper said weakly. “Human beings been … kicking the ass of your, your kind for centuries.”

“True, perhaps.” Sitting on a large violet rock seemingly carved to resemble a great, rolling tongue, the Linda thing added, “But that takes actual faith.”

With a snap of its fingers, the thing unleashed a ravenous horde of insects to devour Albert. As quickly as he could shield himself, regenerate his flesh, the overwhelming waves of chittering creatures would find their way to him once more, begin chewing again, ripping again, tearing, slicing, stinging, gnawing—

“The moment Linda first sat down behind you,” the thing snickered, “you had no faith in your chances with her.”

Albert cleared his mind enough to summon a great wind to carry the horde away from him. He had nearly a full second’s respite before the Linda thing turned his body to glass and began tossing shards of rock at him.

“When she started to talk,” the thing laughed, shattering Albert’s left arm at the elbow, “you wanted her so badly. But you never believed you could actually have her.”

Concentrating, Albert was able to reform his body, but only for as long as his opponent allowed it. While he wiped at the sweat running down his forehead, half of it water, half of it tiny glass beads, the Linda thing took the moment to finish its thought.

“You don’t have the belief in you to get rid of me, sweetheart, and that’s what’s going to make this so much fun.”

“Fun?” asked Albert, confused. “What’s going to be so much fun?”

“Why, us — darling.”

Before he could react, the thing was behind him, its all-too familiar arms encircling his chest. The touch jarred too many memories, splitting him, rending him — making him ache for his ex-wife the way a starving man yearns for food. The feel of her was fire; crisping skin, sweat that tasted like bacon — alluring, forbidden, salty — delicious. Her breasts came against his back in exactly the way he remembered; the heat of her breath curled across his neck, into his ear. He had been so long without female contact — any female contact — let alone hers, that his body surrendered to the touch involuntarily. Craving it; luxuriating against it — simply, pitifully, longing for it to never end.

“You’re my dog, Albert,” the thing whispered. “You may fight against me, but I’ve got you.” The young man struggled against the all-too-pleasant hold binding him. The arms held him securely while their owner whispered; “Poor boy — you just don’t understand yet, do you? You can’t resist me. No matter how many pains you endure, how many trials you turn back, I can always think up more. You don’t have any way to resist me. You don’t have any faith in anything, sweetheart. And, without faith, I can’t be driven away.”

Chuckling, its voice a mad titter swirling the dust about his head in never-ending spirals, the creature shifted its grip and suddenly drove its hands into Albert’s sides. Pulling organs free from his body, it tossed them casually over its shoulder, saying;

“And, even if you could ever drive me out of your head, what would it gain you? You sad, stupid man…”

Albert sagged, tiring from the pain, the endlessness of it — the futility of it — hurt too much, so terribly much he simply had to rest. As he gasped, struggling desperately to marshal his thoughts, the red-handed thing above him sighed, dribbling spittle into Albert’s face as it said;

“After all, if you ever get me to run from you, where do you think I’ll go?” The demon let him go then did a little dance, spinning itself madly as it screeched, “I’ll just go back into Debbie.”

The taunting voice grew louder as Albert pushed himself toward his scattered bits. Beside itself with laughter, the Linda thing watched with amusement as its victim labored to reconstitute himself. Stretching its body out to its fullest, the creature cooed;

“Face it, sweetie, you’ve got no chance. Not you or your little bitch.”

Albert glowered, summoning every bit of resentment he had ever felt toward his ex-wife. Every hurt, every scorn, every bit of meanness that festered within him. If his enemy wanted to play those rules, he told himself — okay, fine — he could accommodate it.

“You whore…”

He muttered the words, staring for a moment, taking in once more the face that haunted him. Then he spun away and used the image to focus, shielding himself in familiar armor. Without warning, Albert threw himself upward, flashing backward across the dusty plane at the Linda thing. The creature dodged his efforts, but he turned in mid-air and followed its path. His life over, shattered by despair, he approached the monster’s taunts with all he had.

Wrapping all the hurt he had within him around his fists, Albert burst with a dark brilliance which collapsed its way through all barriers and knocked the demon onto its back. His eyes wild with the flash of a thousand moments in time racing forward to a single instance, he slammed the laughing monstrosity across the jaw repeatedly; split open its mouth, broke its nose — closed one eye. The creature tittered as it said, “I bet you’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”