Chapter Twenty-Seven

Darwin hunkered down in a gully for hours waiting for the imp to appear without success. The small creek ran black with a foul smelling fluid that stung Darwin’s eyes. The place was gray and dead and nothing much changed from minute to minute.

Several hours into the watch, a ripple cracked over head that reminded Darwin of thunder, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the gray sky. A moment later, the monotony resumed and Darwin returned his attention to the dribbling fluid.

The imp would be conniving. That was what he had been told on the long walk out to the good hunting grounds. It wasn’t uncommon for the imp to sleek its way onto your boot before you knew it was there. If not for the intense odor, catching them would be an impossible task.

Darwin scanned the area with his nose looking for a change, yet could still only detect the stream of concentrated underarm odor lined with vomit. At ten feet away from the stench, Darwin still found himself gasping for air and shutting down his nose, opting to inhale with only his mouth. It helped, but after awhile there was a building taste of a thousand unwashed teenage armpits. It was vile and pungent.

Darwin was the bait. All he had to do was draw in the imp and Shawn would take care of the rest. All he knew was the smell would be undeniable, and when he smelt it, to get on-guard.

For the first time ever Darwin sat contentedly doing something only for someone else. He was putting his life on the line to buy Steve time and nothing pleased him more. He was prepared to die. He would do anything, if it came down to it. For the first time in his life he started to identify the feeling inside of him. He had always wondered what it would feel like, and now it was there, flourishing inside of him. He had fought against feelings his whole life and suddenly it was happening to him.

He smiled to himself as he grew to accept what was happening. His outlook on life seemed less important. Finally allowing himself to care for another person, openly, was the most healing thing he could have done. In a small way, it sickened him to feel as good as he did.

He contemplated the next move. Darwin couldn’t let go of the idea of bringing Steve home. All risks aside, how could he live with himself if they didn’t try? Steve was dead but the evidence was there; he had come home once.

If we wait until the gate is at its weakest, then we might be able to break free. They’re opening the gate so they can escape; that should work both ways. Once we’re out we seal the barrier and lock Se Venire and Marta in forever; as long as Teddy does what he needs to do.

Pure rancid garlic and rotten milk coated Darwin’s tongue, snapping him from his plot. He stood up and howled to alert Shawn that it was time, even though Darwin still hadn’t seen the imp.

He inspected the rocks on the edge of the babbling sludge, everything seeming to be as it had before, yet the odor continued to grow causing a sting in his orbs. Compelled to shut his eyes as though he had been exposed to an onion, Darwin pushed his lids open with his fingers only to find his vision was like looking through wax paper.

He let out another long howl to exemplify the urgency. Now effectively blind, Darwin couldn’t even move without stumbling on the uneven ground. The imp was close but still Darwin could hear nothing to suggest a creature was moving closer.

“Darwin!” Shawn hollered from the ridge above. “Don’t move!”

“I can’t see anything Shawn!”

“Stay very still! I’m going to set the trap. I might hit you, but don’t worry, it won’t kill you.” Shawn readied his chain netting.

“Kill me, what the hell?” Darwin shouted as he panicked, lost his balance and slipped on the rocks. Darwin hit hard and screamed as his tail bone took the brunt of the impact.

“Fuck!” Shawn yelled. “Okay, this is going to hurt! Don’t move!” he commanded.

Darwin said nothing only waiting for his pain to subside and his new pain to begin—whatever that was. Remaining still and his eyes glued shut, Darwin could only smell the repellent that he now felt immersed in.

Like a bed sheet being thrown on him, a burst of wind quickly preceded the impact of the chain netting. The weight of the mesh was unpleasant but Darwin didn’t find it to be more painful than his bruised tail bone. As the web settled, Darwin began to relax.

“Did you get it?” Darwin hollered.

“Hang tight,” Shawn instructed. “This part will hurt.”

“What?” Darwin asked as he heard something hurdling through the air.

The smashing of the glass container was quickly followed by immediate and sharp electric charges pulsating through every inch of his body. He seized, tasting the energy in his teeth unable to move or yell. Finally the smell of sourness subsided making way for a simple, burning smell.

After a minute the electricity died away and the air again cleared. Darwin opened his eyes to a slight fog clear enough for him to make out the bulbous head of Shawn.

“That was close!” Shawn laughed.

“You missed!” Darwin complained. “You got me instead, you ass!”

Shawn belted out another belly full of stale air. “My friend, I said you didn’t want them on you! You had at least three on you!”

Darwin sat up with the chain sliding down his front. As true as it could be said, Darwin could see what looked like shit on him. The black snake was dead, as well. After Darwin managed to get up, they discovered he actually had five imps on him, all successfully neutralized.

“The snake is like an eel, the energy they emit stuns imps and other creatures from here. What we must do now is compress the imp, draining them of their essence. That will kill them completely. I can’t believe we got five! That’s the mother lode! I got two once, but never this many!” Shawn was barely able to keep his deep voice under control.

“Does that mean the masters are near?” Darwin asked.

“Probably, maybe even more than one. They might be looking for Steve if there’s more than one. Once we get back to him with this, the heat should die down.”

“How long do they remain stunned?”

“Not long, so we’ll have to work quickly. I’d do this by myself, but I’m going to need your help if we’re to harvest all five, and I really want all of them. Good to have extra!” Shawn smiled as his eyes filled with delight like he’d won the jackpot lottery.

Shawn reached down and picked up the first small imp that looked to be nothing more than a slimy fecal log. He raised the imp to his mouth and quickly bit down and spat out a small morsel. With his mouth again clear, he shoved the remaining body into his mouth and began to chew. Over and over again he chewed the imp to Darwin’s horror.

After more than a minute, Shawn grabbed an empty vial and began to expel fluid from between his teeth, filling a small glass container. With no more juice to get out, Shawn scrapped his tongue off with his fingers eliminating the shit from his mouth.

“That’s all there is to it!” he announced.

“You want me to chew on that shit?” Darwin asked, testing his love limitations.

Shawn said as a matter of fact, “Yeah, you’ve gotta bite the head off first. The poison satchels are there. So, what you want to do is chomp off the head below the eyes, which is what looks like two corn bits and spit it out! Then you chew the shit out of it until it’s good and gooey. When you can’t hold anymore fluid in your mouth, it’s ready.”

“There’s no other way?” Darwin asked, already accepting his fate.

“Things are different here!” Shawn laughed. “It’s what works. You want to save your friend, then this is what we have to do.”

“How come we can touch them now?” Darwin asked, needing some clarity on the rules.

“As long as they are stunned, they’re okay to touch. Remember below the eyes, and fill your mouth. If we take too long and they dry out, the essence is no good. So, hop to it!” Shawn handed a nice long imp to the novice which slipped right out of his hand and landed in Darwin’s lap.

Darwin reached down and picked up the imp, raising it to his mouth. He could see the kernel sized eyes and he knew where he had to bite down. It was still disgusting and he could feel his stomach make a turn.

“The things we do for love,” Darwin mumbled as chomped of the head with some vigor. He spat the small piece of shit as far as he could as though the distance would help to clean him. With the head easily out of sight came the big show. He closed his eyes and began the arduous task of chewing on the soft leavings which he imagined to be egg salad.

Inside his mouth Darwin could feel the imp changing from a solid mass into a murky liquid. He slogged onwards feeling his mouth nearing capacity. With eggs on his mind, Darwin sunk back to his youth when he would be forced to eat food he detested. When he was a kid he could shut down his nose to avoid the smell which also helped with the flavor. There was nothing he could do about the texture or the soft oily sides of the excrement, which made chewing a very difficult task. It was easier to believe he was chewing on egg salad, food he still hated, but was at least relatively harmless.

Darwin eagerly grabbed an empty vial and filtered the juice through his teeth as he had been shown. The liquid was enough to fill the entire vial which Darwin happily sealed and placed back into the travel case that Shawn had brought along. With his tongue as clean as it would be, Darwin grabbed the second specimen and repeated the process.

A short time later Shawn and Darwin were scrapping the last of the imps from their mouths and packing up for the trip back to the cave. There was no water for them to clean their mouths with, but Shawn had brought along a bottle of homemade hooch which he insisted would kill anything. The green liquid was a phosphorescent that reminded Darwin of the formula that a mad scientist would drink to change into something else.

“It’s a bit like Absinthe,” Shawn said. “This will fuck you up better though.”

With the bottle passed to Darwin he quickly took a long swig, happy to be free from the shitty after taste of the imp. He swallowed the concoction and could feel the warming effect of the alcohol as it ran through his insides. It pleasured him to have a drink and Darwin quickly took another long gulp from the bottle.

“Whoa, there!” Shawn said grabbing the bottle from his mouth. “I don’t want to be carrying you back, let up on the stuff and see how you handle it first.”

“Shawn, I’ve been a drunk since I was thirteen,” Darwin said truthfully.

“Just the same, give it a minute before you have more. If you can handle it, you’re welcome to as much as you like,” Shawn assured.

“How did you die?” Darwin asked as his face began to burn with the green formula in his veins.

Shawn was quiet for a few minutes as they continued down the trail. After a short time, Darwin began to think he had offended Shawn and was about to apologize for his intrusion into his personal life, but Shawn beat him to the punch.

“I think if I had never known that I had killed an innocent man’s family, I could have lived with it. It felt good. It wasn’t important that the people I killed were innocent; it was about making the cop pay. After I knew what had happened, I had a hard time coming to terms with what I was. I was a monster and I had little control over when and where I’d change. What I did see was it was happening faster and more frequently, part of me didn’t want to stop.”

“You took your own life, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly,” Shawn confessed. “I would have, I just didn’t know how. I tried, but nothing worked. So, I was…”

Shawn stopped in mid trail and looked at the woods behind them. Everything was still and yet even Darwin began to feel as though something was watching them. Shawn slid his backpack off and passed it to Darwin.

“You must move now,” Shawn instructed. “Whatever happens, you keep running until you get to Steve.”

“What about you?”

“I have to fight them here. If they follow us then we all lose,” Shawn said sullenly.

“I won’t leave you here,” Darwin surprised himself by what he said.

“Thank you. This is my last gift. Save Steve and move on. The cave won’t be safe if they get me. If I survive, I’ll find you!” Shawn insisted, extending his hand to say his final good bye.

Darwin grabbed the large hand and gave it a rough and sloppy shake. On Shawn’s arm the tattoo changed and the two watched as the story unfolded.

“That could work.” He smiled.

“Here, take a vial of the essence. Maybe it will help you,” Darwin insisted as he quickly stuffed the glass container in Shawn’s coat pocket.

With nothing more to be said, Darwin ran with the essence towards the cave leaving Shawn behind. He ran flat out, never hearing a sound or seeing a soul. Alone with his thoughts Darwin couldn’t help but dwell on what was to come next. How to get home? How to close the gate? He was now certain he would bring Steve back; or die trying.