33"Quotes"
Drew Creeves tried desperately to wiggle his hands from the ropes binding him to the chair. He was in his mirror, as strange as it sounded. He looked out of the mirror and saw himself standing before him smirking. The clone waved, "have fun!"
He turned and began to walk out of the room.
Blue, red, blue, red. The color of the lights on the siding of the Creeves's house continued to change. The police were escorting a wildly delusional man from his bedroom. "I said I didn't murder anybody! I saw someone who looked just like me leave my house after tying me down. When he returned he had blood on him and he untied me!" He continued to shout, but with no response from the police officers.
"It's right here ready to sign!" Josie flashed a grin holding up a contract of sorts. "This document will here by bind us to fight for Earth against the paranormal creatures of the other world."
Josie reached down and signed first. She was a lefty, something she was very proud of. She said it always made her unique. Ben followed, then Sam.
Josie's emotion instantly shifted as she continued to speak, "This also has one more catch. We have to keep this life of ours secret. Since we will be traveling all over the country, it will be hard to cover it up. The only option is for us to die."
Sam twitched, "What? What do you mean?"
"We need to fake our own death," Josie sighed. "It's the only way."
"What are you talking about? No way. Since when was this a part of the deal?"
"Sam, calm down. Josie and I decided on this," Ben began. "It really is the only way to keep the secret."
"FUCK NO! I'm not faking my own death!" Sam screamed defiantly.
"Sammy please," Josie begged.
"Oh this is so easy for you two. Ben your parents are dead and Josie your parents don't love you. But I have a real family! I have a brother and parents who love me!" Sam exclaimed instantly realizing what he had done. Ever since Josie was a child, her father and mother had been too busy and too rich to pay attention to her. They paid for her to go to boarding school and never visited. Now she was in college and the only connection with her family was the money paying for her college. As for her brother, the only thing she had done with him in the last ten years of her life was stealing one of his shotguns. They hadn't talked since he left the family, never looking back.
Tears formed in Josie's eyes as she glared at Sam. She couldn't believe what she had heard. "How dare you! You vile thing!"
She threw the contract on the floor of Sam's dorm and walked out.
"Not cool!" Ben said forcefully following out after her, "Josie, wait up!"
Sam fell backwards onto his bed. He was still in shock from what he had said. He decided he had to apologize. He ran out of his room heading towards Josie's.
The rain outside fell hard. Sam hadn't bothered to bring his umbrella. He ran at full speed towards the dorms that he assumed Ben and Josie had headed to.
He rapped hard on Josie's door, "Josie open up! I'm sorry!" He could hear Josie crying and Ben attempting to calm her. "Josie, please. Please, Josie, I'm sorry. Open up."
One of the girls from the other dorm passed by, "Hey are you the bad boyfriend that's making her cry?"
"No, I'm not her boyfriend, were just friends."
"Not any more, you really devastated her you bastard. What did you do?"
"You know, this doesn't concern you!" With that Sam shifted his attention back to Josie's door, "Please Josie, open up. I didn't mean it."
The girl shrugged and continued to walk down the narrow corridor.
Sam let out a pain-filled sigh. He hit his head against her door causing it to make a thump sound. He turned around and sat down resting his back against her door. He would just wait here till she opened her door. She had to leave sometime.
Sam was on the verge of tears. This was his best friend. She had saved his life and how did he repay her? He closed his eyes, and in a few minutes he fell into a pained sleep.
Josie sat on her bed looking up at Ben, "Is he gone?"
"He must be, it's been four hours," Ben replied.
Josie stood and walked to her door. She turned the handle and swung the door open. Sam's head flew backwards as his support left him. He awoke from his sleep just before his head smacked the floor with a sickening thud.
Sam inhaled suddenly his hand flying to his head, "ahh, God…" He held in the curses that were dancing on the edge of his tongue.
Josie rolled her eyes, "Get out!"
"Josie please. Let's work this out," Sam begged.
"Out!"
"Josie…"
"I said out!"
"I'll do it! I'll fake my death," Sam said shakily not fully realizing what he was saying.
"What? You will?" Josie asked skeptically.
"Yes."
"You're sure about this."
Sam inhaled deeply, "Yep."
"Okay, let's figure out how to do this," Ben interrupted.
Sam held the phone to his ear, "Sean?"
His sixteen year-old brother on the other line responded, "Yeah Sam?"
"I need to talk to mom and dad."
"Sure just a sec."
"And Sean?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you, remember that. No matter what. Always."
"I love you too, Sam," Sean responded shakily.
"Goodbye Sean."
"Talk to you later Sam."
Sam sighed heavily. Tears were already streaming down his face already. He didn't want to leave his brother. He heard the phone being handed to someone else. His mother came on the line, "Sam?"
"Hey mom. Just calling to say hi," Sam chocked trying not to sound like he was crying.
"Oh, thank you Sam. How are you doing?" His mother's worry could be heard in her voice.
"Good, thanks. I also wanted to say that I love you."
"I love you too, honey. Oh, here's your father."
"Goodbye mom," Sam attempted to say as the phone changed hands again.
"Hey son," his father began.
"Hey dad." Sam was crying. His voice wavering.
"Son what's wrong?"
"Nothing dad, nothing."
"Sam, while you are on the phone, I just wanted to tell you, you are at the point in your life when you will have to make some of the biggest choices in your life. Responsibility begins to build up and it may be hard to handle sometimes, but just push through and you will prevail."
His father's words burned into Sam's mind. His father was speaking more truth than he knew. These words would never leave him.
"Thanks dad. I love you. I got to go. Goodbye."
"Goodbye son. I love you. Come home soon."
"Goodbye," and with that Sam slammed the phone on the receiver. He began to sob uncontrollably. He buried his face in his arms. He was sitting at his desk in his dorm alone with every light off except for the shining beam of solid yellow light from his desk lamp. He continued to cry. He had just spoken to his family for the last time before his death. His tears created a puddle on his desk. His sobbing increased the more he thought about his future without them. Fear grew in him. More fear than his encounter with the ghost of James Canyon.
"Oh God!" Sam continued to sob. God, what am I doing? Is this the right thing? Is this good? How could you possibly force me to do this? WHAT KIND OF GOD ARE YOU? Sam thought painfully the tears coming down harder than ever. He felt cold. He was leaving his mother, his father, and his brother. The thought seemed impossible.
The three friends decided on how they were going to disappear. They each wrote suicide letters and posted them in their dorms. They said they were jumping into the Potomac River.
Once the police found this they had left the area in Sam's truck already. Never to look back. The truck was heading south towards Salem, Virginia.
The police combed the bottom of the river. They ruled that the bodies had been carried to sea by the current.
Ben had read online that in Salem there had been a series of murders in which the murderers claimed to have been tied up at the time of the killing. Ben was the only one to realize that this was probably the work of a demon. The car ride would take a few hours, so the trio had time to form all the facts.
So far they knew that every time the police found a suspect, the murderer claimed to be tied up. Some even said that they saw themselves kill the people, but it wasn't actually them. One even said that he had been trapped in his mirror, "Sounds like a loon." Sam commented casually looking straight forward at the barren road stretching out before them.
"Sounds like something we should deal with," Josie shrugged, "Let's check it out."
The sixteen-year-old Sarah Parsons peered out from a crack in the closet of her father's room. She could see him tied down in his mirror. She thought possibly her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she didn't want to leave her hiding spot because of the figure standing in front of the mirror.
Her father, a priest of fifty years, appeared to be standing in front of the mirror, which contained the reflection of her father tied to a chair. She was afraid of what he would think if he knew she was in his room stealing money from his wallet, so she continued to hide in his closet until he left. She began to pray for him to leave.
Her father turned and left the room, but the image of her father tied down stayed. She walked curiously up to the mirror. She held her hand up preparing to touch the glass. Her father seemed to be begging her to help him. She touched the mirror lightly and to her surprise her fingers penetrated the glass like the surface of still water. She pulled her fingers out.
She inhaled deeply gathering strength. She attempted again, this time sliding both her arms through the forces. She could feel her father's hand as if he was just in front of her. She began to furiously untie his arms. Just as she was going to untie his feet, he began to scream through the gag in his mouth. Sarah whirled around to see him standing in front with a malicious crease across his face.
He attempted to grab her, but she reacted sprinting out of her father's room and into the hall. She turned so fast towards the stairs that it caused her to fall, rolling and smashing against each step. When she hit the bottom she didn't waste time. She grab the doorknob of her home as her father came running down the stairs after her.
She broke free of the bondage of her home, and began to scream for help. People in her neighborhood were scattered among the cul-de-sac. They all peered up curiously. They saw her father follow her out, brandishing a large knife. One of the neighbors saw him and screamed, "Sarah, look out!"
She turned in time to react. She dodged falling backwards away from her father. He looked up shocked at the crowd that had gathered in the circle of asphalt surrounded by houses. The mob began to run to help Sarah. He sprinted back into the house.
The police escorted Daniel Parsons from his home while both he and his daughter screamed about it not actually being him who committed the crime. The officers shrugged and continued to lead the priest to the patrol car.
The Truck pulled up to a parking lot in the beautiful campus of Roanoke College at three in the afternoon. The sun created a picturesque vision of the quad, which stretched across the center of the college. The redbrick village of dorms, buildings, and classes made the image even more beautiful.
"Wow, this place beats the crap out of George Mason!" Josie exclaimed smiling.
"Yeah," Sam mumbled.
"Guys, we need to go check out a certain Sarah Parsons. She is the latest victim and she survived," Ben said not looking up from his laptop. "Let me look her up and see if we can get to her."
Knock, knock, knock. Sam rapped on the door. Ben stood next to him, but to avoid suspicion, or if something went wrong, Josie was waiting in the Truck.
A young, teenage girl opened the door, "Hello, is your mother home?" Sam asked. To his shock he received an elbow in his side. His breath left him momentarily. He slowly turned his head towards Ben with a look on his face reading, What did you do that for? Ben just smirked and looked at the girl.
"Hi Sarah," Ben seemed to put the emphasis on her name just to prove that he should be doing the talking, "My name is Ben, and this is Sam. We are from the newspaper, we wanted to ask you some questions about the incident."
"My father was not trying to hurt me!" She screamed sternly and slammed the door.
"We know, we believe you!" Sam yelled back.
The door cracked open, "You do?"
"Yes, we do. We are not… normal reporters," Ben said trying to censor himself from saying too much.
"Okay then, come on in," Sarah said ushering the two into her home. "My mom is with my dad at the station, she'll be there for a few more hours."
"Oh, okay," Sam replied.
"So tell us, what happened? Just start from the beginning," Ben began while taking a seat next to Sam on the blood red leather couch placed in her living room.
She told them the entire story. Everything about her father being trapped in the mirror, and his clone (this was the word she used to describe him) attacking her.
"Can we see the mirror?" Ben inquired.
"Sure," Sarah said leading them to her father's room.
Ben observed the mirror closely. He grazed his fingers over the glass. It was hard as diamond. This didn't match her story, but he had no doubts that she was telling the truth.
"Thank you Sarah. We promise we will help you get to the bottom of this," Sam promised. "Oh," Sam whirled around pulling a thin white sheet of paper from his back pocket, "This is my cell phone number, call it if you need me." The cell phone was brand new. Dead people don't make phone calls.
"Thank you," Sarah replied, she was beginning to tear up as she ushered them out of the home.
"I know what it is!" Ben exclaimed suddenly causing Sam to swerve the car.
"Holy shit! You scared the crap out of me!" Sam began to yell.
"It is using mirrors to transport itself between the worlds. It takes the form of the reflection and they become trapped in the mirror! It's so obvious!" Ben explained.
"So is it a ghost?" Josie asked curiously.
"No, it is a demon. I have actually seen him before. He told other vampires about this plan, but they didn't believe that it would work. Well, I guess it worked! There is a problem though, he is big. Like bigger than you, Sam. Like pro-wrestler big. And powerful on top of that. Real high class. We have to watch out. If we are successful, we will be noticed, by the good and the bad. His name is Quotes."
"Do you know how to kill him?" This time Sam asked.
"That's the other problem," Ben said grimacing.
"You don't."
"No I do, you have to stab him with a knife, stained with his victim's blood. So we would have to put the blood of someone who was tied up by him on a knife, then stab him with it."
"Where are we going to get the knife?" Josie chimed in.
"Oh, I didn't show you, hand me that big black toolbox under the seat."
Josie, who was sitting in the back, reached down and felt under the passenger-side seat to find the box. It was large, cold, and metallic. And heavy, very heavy.
She lifted it up an opened it. Knives, bullets, two pistols, and other odd assortments of weaponry glistened causing the light's reflection to dance across her face.
"Holy shit!" Sam exclaimed taking his eyes off the road to peer into the box too.
"I put this together last night. Pretty cool, right?"
"Wow, and we have the shotgun, we are like a portable armory!" Josie said smiling.
"That's the point!" Ben replied.
The three checked in at a Holiday Inn they had passed on their way into town. Sarah had commented that it was particularly nice. It was located right next to a shopping center, which seemed to be home to some very nice restaurants.
"Let's go get some grub! I'm starving!" Sam said rubbing his stomach.
"Alright, I'll come," Ben said looking at Josie for her response.
"I think I'll stay here. I'm tired, and not hungry," She said making herself comfortable on one of the two beds.
"Okay, whatever you say, we'll be back in an hour," Sam shrugged.
"Cool." And with that Ben and Sam left the room.
Josie stood up and walked into the bathroom to take a nice, long, hot bath.
Sitting at the bar at the local tavern, Ben and Sam had a few drinks. No one bothered to check Ben's age, no one seemed to care. Sam's pocket began to emit a singable jingle. He reached in pulling out his new cell phone and flipping it open, "Hello?"
"Sam?" Sarah's voice wavered. It was full of fear, "He was here, and he made me tell him about you two."
"Oh God! What exactly did you tell him?" Sam said sobering up completely.
"Everything. Who you were, what you wanted, and where you were going."
"SHIT! All right, it's okay. We'll take care of it. You're not hurt are you?"
"No, I'm fine."
"Okay, stay where you are, we'll come get you."
"Okay."
There was a click and followed by silence.
Ben knew instantly what was going on and followed Sam out of the bar. They had walked from the hotel, so they had to run back to the room to get Josie.
They barged into the room to find Josie sitting up watching the TV.
"Hey guys! What's up?" Josie said cheerfully.
Sam hesitated, wasn't she tired just thirty minutes ago, "Not much, did you order the pizza like we asked you to?"
Ben watched the scene unfold dumbfounded, he had absolutely no idea what was going on, but Sam had a plan.
"Oh, they said they were closed for the night!" Josie replied.
"Here, catch my keys, you're driving, we need to go to Sarah's house, apparently she is in trouble!" Sam said tossing the keys to Josie.
Josie's right hand rose in the air and snatched the keys confidently. As she was momentarily distracted, Sam, with his hands behind his back, opened the arsenal of weapons and felt around for a knife. His fingers touched a cold, sharp blade. He wrapped his hand around the handle and lifted it from it's place holder.
Ben finally caught on and devised a plan of his own. He snuck out of the room, and into the bathroom. This was the most likely place for a mirror. He looked at the mirror and saw Josie tied to a chair in the large, bathroom mirror. He reached his hands into the now liquid surface and began to untie her hastily. Once her hands were free she ripped her gag off.
"Just so you know Josie," Sam began, "I always thought that you were proud of being a lefty."
Shock flashed across the Josie sitting on the bed. They had found him out.
Sam tossed the knife into the bathroom. Josie caught it from the air with her left hand. She took her right and sliced it slightly, just enough to draw blood. She smeared the knife with her blood and ran out of the bathroom with Ben. Quotes was on his feet.
Josie stared into the eyes of the Josie in front of her. Quotes kicked at her. The kick landed straight into her stomach. She was momentarily surprised by the fact that she was just kicked by herself. The knife slipped from her hand and bounced on the floor. Quotes pulled Josie with her out the door, and shut it behind them.
When Sam opened the door he saw two Josies standing in front of him.
"Sam, it's me Josie, kill him," Josie number one said, pointing at Josie number two.
"No Sam, that's Quotes," Josie number two quickly added.
"Wait! Stop! Both of you just shut up! I'm going to ask a question only the real Josie would know," Sam began, but he knew he wouldn't need that. A pool of blood had formed from Josie number two's right hand.
Sam threw the knife at Josie number one, but he instantly dodged it. He ran to the end of the hallway and disappeared behind around the corner. Ben took off after him.
Sam reached down and picked up the knife, and Josie and him followed Ben. When they turned the corner, Quotes was nowhere to be seen.
Ben and Sam looked quickly at each other and said at the same time, "Sarah!"
Sam ran back to the room to recover his car keys, and raced out of the parking lot in the Truck with Josie and Ben.
They arrived at Sarah's house only five minutes later to find that some windows were cracked, and while others were completely shattered. Inside it appeared that there had been a struggle.
Sam grasped the knife safely tucked away in his back pocket. It was still stained with Josie's blood. Josie was one of his victims, and here blood was now sacred to the heroes.
They opened the door and quietly walked into the house. Trying their best not to let their shoes crunch on the broken glass littered all over the hardwood floors covering the ground underneath their feet.
Hello friends! Are you here to play? A voice filled their heads, it was inside them.
"What the hell?" Sam began looking questioningly at Ben.
"Watch out!" Ben yelled, but too late. A large, wooden bat swung at the back of Sam's head. It hit him so hard, he was knocked off his feet. He landed face down hard on the floor.
"Fuck!" He yelled in pain.
Standing over Sam's body was the real Quotes. His skin was a dark blue. The dark color made him appear invisible in the unlit home. His mouth was more of a crease. He had no lips and no nose. In place of the nose were two holes which must act as nostrils. His eyes were large and an ominous black. The crease of his mouth grinned as he lifted the bat and shoved it down again onto Sam's back. Sam was ready this time. He grabbed it, stopping it just before it hit him. The force of the blow on his hand was powerful, and piercing pain seared from where the bat was touching.
This gave Josie the chance to land a kick into Quotes's stomach as he did to her earlier. He was much larger than her, but her kick was powerful enough to knock him back. This gave Sam the time he needed to slide the knife from his back pocket. He lunged at the dark character with an unwieldy amount of force. His whole body seemed to fly in the air as he plunged the dagger into Quote's chest.
He looked down at the weapon protruding from his chest dumbfounded. How? He began to split apart. His innards were the same dark blue as his skin. He seemed to have large organs, which were full of a blood-like substance which began to spill onto the floor. He gasped for air as he drowned in the blue blood which was spilling out of his mouth.
His body fell limply to the ground. It began to shrivel up like a raisin. After about a minute of this grotesque circus act, the demon vanished, leaving behind only the stain of his blue insides.
Sarah stood like a statue, peering in from the room next to the room where the battle had taken place. She was shocked at the vision she had just seen.
The sun glared on the beautiful, warm summer day. Sarah hugged Sam passionately. "Thank you so much!"
"Your welcome Sarah," Sam replied as he walked towards the Truck. He turned and looked at her for a final glance. She flashed him a pained smile. A tear rolled down her cheek. She had fallen in love with him. She was the damsel in distress, and he was her knight. But he had to save others. He had places to be. People to help. The Truck drove out of the town with Sam in it. There are so many damsels in distress out there.