Chapter Eight:
Faith was running, as she had been since early this morning, but she showed no signs of fatigue. Her footsteps fell heavily along the pavement of the narrow country road, and the knife glistened in the fading light as she held it firmly in her grip. This was probably not the safest thing to do, running full speed with the knife's blade exposed, but neither was chasing a killer demon that had been growing stronger with each victim.
Even though the shadows cast by the surrounding trees were growing, Faith continued forward after the creature, knowing it would not descend into the woods, but keep searching for lives to take.
Since turning onto Old Salem Pike, the number of pedestrians and passing cars had trickled to nothing...which was good.
But Faith also knew the sun was starting to set...which was bad. Once night fell, the demon would be able to move faster and easier; Faith knew then it would be nearly impossible to catch before it attacked somewhere with a large amount of people.
She thought back quickly on signs she had passed today, for a grocery store, for a mall, for anywhere the demon might find to satisfy its appetite. But from the look of this area, she doubted there was even a gas station with five miles.
Suddenly, she jerked to a halt as Old Salem Pike split into two directions. She glanced left and right, letting instinct tell her which way to go, when she noticed the soft glow of neon lights not far from the fork in the road.
It's a bar, she said to herself, And it's just about happy hour...
A feeling came to her, a sense of the demon, and she knew the creature had noticed the lights as well. She ran down the bend leading toward the bar, and a blinking sign came into view that simply read, Rusty's.
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"In other news, more violence broke out today between anti-mutant and pro-mutant demonstrators in Washington D.C..," an anchor woman said from the snowy television set hanging behind the bar, "Each group had arrived in response to new legislation proposed last week to Congress about health care rights for mutant families. It is not clear who initiated the fighting but as many as fifteen people were injured when..."
The television picture disappeared for a moment and Rusty gave the machine a couple rough taps with his broom.
"Turn that shit off, Rusty," one patron complained from the bar, "I come here to get away from all that mutant crap. That's all that's on TV anymore."
Rusty gave the television one final knock and then stepped back, "Don't know if we'll be gettin' much of anything tonight. Damn machine's been acting funny all day."
"The race is gonna be on in twenty minutes," another patron said, "See if you can get that channel."
"Alright, hang on," Rusty said, smacking the old remote control against his palm a few times before it would work. Finally, he found a fairly clear station playing sports and he heard his customers grumble with approval.
Rusty walked to the opposite end of the bar and sighed heavily. So much for trying to get the barflies some education. He really had nothing against mutants, didn't really have anything against anybody who paid their tab on time. But he knew someday no one was going to be able to ignore the growing amount of violence in the world centering around the 'mutant problem', at least not by just flipping a switch or changing a channel. He reached under the bar, pulled a nearly full trash bag out, tied it shut and headed toward the back door.
Behind the bar was a green metallic dumpster. Rusty stepped outside and walked toward it. The light over the bar's rear entrance flickered on, even though there still was enough daylight out to see clearly. The back of the building faced east and was the first to be covered in shadows at dusk.
Rusty lifted one of the plastic panels that made up the dumpster's top cover and hoisted the garbage inside. His mind lingered on the troubling 'mutant issues' in the world, and he did not hear the soft swish of the demon as is slithered along the darkened back wall.
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Faith spotted the demon just as it began crossing the parking lot. It skirted around the last few rays of light breaking through the trees and used the shadows of parked cars to move closer to the small building.
She ran directly at the creature, as its semi-misty form shifted around the front entrance. It hesitated for a moment, perhaps deciding if it should wait for someone to exit or move on to the next location. Then, the noise of a slamming door echoed from the back of the bar, and the demon shot around with terrifying speed to snatch its victim.
Faith followed the creature's path and then walked cautiously against the side wall as she approached the corner. She peered around, and through a haze of black smoke, she saw the form of a man. He was facing away from her, as he lifted garbage into the dumpster and Faith resisted the urge to cry out in warning to him.
The demon had its back to her, too, so it must not have sensed her immediate presence. It was getting bolder in its actions, considering she had been unable to stop it the first five times it killed today.
Faith examined the demon closely before she made a move. Her face melted into a vicious grin when she saw that its head and neck were both clearly defined against its wraith-like body. She flexed her fingers over the knife's hilt and her mind switched into full on Slayer mode as she prepared for the fight.
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As he headed back to the door, Rusty sighed again, and wondered sadly why so many people did not realize there were worse things to worry about in the world besides mutants.
Before his fingers could touch the handle, Rusty was shoved away from the bar and rolled painfully across the gravelly pavement. He coughed, the wind knocked out of his lungs, then he tilted his head and stared in horror at the figure before him.
The demon rose into the air and hovered over Rusty, glaring down at him with hungry yellow eyes. Using what seemed to be only black smoke, the demon grabbed Rusty by the throat and lifted him from the ground. He tried to scream as he felt the cold mist wrap around his body, but he could not draw in a breath.
The demon's eyes began to glow, when an angry voice roared from behind. It turned its disembodied head around and spotted the Slayer just as she stabbed a blade at its neck. Her blow missed its mark as the creature shifted its head down within its cold misty smoke, but it howled in pain from the wound. The mist holding its victim faded away and Rusty fell to the ground. With one last enraged shriek, the demon seemed to dissipate and disappeared into the shadows around them.
Rusty gasped for air as he recovered from the demon's attack. After a few moments, he felt a pair of hand helping him to a sitting position on the ground. He glanced up and saw a beautiful young woman staring down at him with angry, but satisfied eyes.
"You okay, old-timer?" she asked, her voice sound much harder and older than her physical years.
Rusty stared at her with disbelief and then nodded, wincing at the lingering pain in his neck, as she helped him to his feet.
"Yeah..." he managed in a shaky voice, "Christ, knows how, but I think I'm still alive..."
The young woman grinned at him, "Glad to hear it. Another second or two and you'd've been cracked open like a demon cola."
Rusty gaped at her, "What the hell was it?"
The young woman stood up and looked at the blade of her knife bitterly.
"You really don't want to know," she replied and then seemed to search the area with her eyes for a moment before she continued, "You know any place else nearby that would have more than a few early bird drunks on hand?"
Rusty glared at her, but decided since she did just save his life, he would let her comment pass.
"There's a Getty Gas station about a mile down this way," he said, pointing down to the left, "And there's a private school about three miles the other way. Why?"
"You were an appetizer, buddy," she said, a touch of condescension in her voice, "That thing's looking for the main course. That school? It still in session?"
Rusty nodded, not liking her tone, but not about to criticize a determined woman with a big knife.
"Thanks," she replied and then ran off in the direction of the school.
"That's what I was going to say," he muttered, and watched the strange young lady until she had disappeared down the road.