Redemption
The Taking
A dark shadow hovered above the road, sensing its prey long before it came into sight.
The prison bus tore through the night, headlights slicing white tunnels into the blackness. As it passed beneath, the shadow dropped soundlessly onto the roof and drew itself into a man-shaped silhouette. One hand tore open the ceiling hatch. Seconds later, the dark figure was inside, grinning down at the lone inmate crouched within the narrow cell.
The nearest guard swung his shotgun up and fired. The creature moved faster than thought. It seized the man and hurled him through the side window, spraying the aisle with blood and glass. The shot went wide, slamming into a metal pole and screaming over the heads of the shackled prisoners, who could only stare, helpless and wide-eyed.
The second guard raised his weapon. Red eyes burned back at him.
He fired.
The round struck the creature’s chest and fell harmlessly to the floor, dented, smoldering, dead. The guard froze, fingers locked around a jammed shotgun. Ignoring him, the dark man tore the reinforced cell door from its hinges with a single pull.
Inside, the woman had not moved. She sat on the bare floor, knees drawn tight, face buried in her arms. Gunfire and screaming metal barely reached her drug-soaked mind, already crowded with violent thoughts of its own. The creature lifted her effortlessly and slung her over his shoulder, that same cruel grin carved into his face.
She came alive then — fists pounding, curses spilling from her mouth. The dark man answered with a low, rasping whisper.
"Veni mecum."
The driver never saw him coming. An iron grip closed around his throat and, a heartbeat later, hurled him forward through the bus doors. Bone and glass exploded together as his body vanished into the night.
The shadow drifted out through the wreckage, the woman still fighting in its arms. Behind them, the bus swerved, tires screaming, tipping toward the cliff’s edge — its passengers chained and doomed.
Unconcerned, the dark figure rose higher, carrying its prize toward a looming, abandoned house on the horizon, cold and waiting beneath the moon.
The Feast
The demon slipped through an open first-floor window and into the rotting house. Dust stirred where its feet did not touch the ground. In the corners and along the ceiling drifted pale, malformed shapes — the things humans called ghosts, though few living eyes could ever see them.
The dark man turned slowly, savoring their silent terror. With a thought, it compelled them closer, forcing them to linger and witness. There was pleasure in that. Lost souls made excellent spectators.
In the center of the living room, it began the possession.
The prison bus reached the mountain curve at full speed.
Steel screamed as the vehicle punched through the guardrails. The beams bent, snapped, and peeled away under its weight. For a brief, floating moment, the bus hung above the ravine — and then gravity claimed it.
Men were torn from their seats, chains biting into ankles and wrists as bodies slammed into metal and glass. Bones cracked. Teeth shattered. Prayers were screamed into the dark and swallowed whole as the bus cartwheeled downward.
Not far away, something listened and savored every detail.
The demon tore the woman’s uniform apart, fabric ripping like skin. She clawed at him, spat curses, screamed until her voice broke. It meant nothing. Her resistance was noise, irrelevant and brief.
He forced himself inside her.
Not gently.
Her body convulsed as the thing flooded her veins, poured into her lungs, her nerves, her marrow. He tasted her — the bitterness of cruelty, the rot of violence, the long, cherished list of sins she had carried like trophies. She was not innocent flesh. She was ripe.
The bus struck rock.
The engine block ruptured. Fuel sprayed, ignited, and the front of the vehicle bloomed into flame. Heat rolled through the cabin, cooking flesh and melting plastic. Men screamed as fire chewed through skin. Others choked, clawing at their throats as smoke filled their lungs, their chains keeping them upright, alive, and burning.
Death came slowly.
The demon fed.
He tore at the woman’s soul as though it were meat, ripping pieces away, devouring them while she screamed — not with her mouth, but with everything she was. Her eyes bled tears she could no longer feel. Her mind shattered, thoughts dissolving into raw, animal terror.
The ghosts were forced to watch.
One by one, the prisoners died.
Some burned until their screams collapsed into wet gurgles. Others suffocated, eyes bulging, lungs filling with poison. Their final moments spilled outward, leaking through the world like heat, like static — and the demon drank them in from a mile away, his power swelling.
It ended quietly.
The woman went slack. Her eyes stared forward, empty, glassy, no longer reflecting anything human. The demon’s eyes flared red, brighter now, brimming with energy.
Her body slumped to the floor, peaceful in appearance, as though asleep. The violence she had carried was gone — not redeemed, not punished — simply consumed.
Satisfied, the shadow rose and drifted out through the broken window, melting into the night.
The Greed
From a narrow alley near the city center, a man in a dark jacket stepped into the open.
He walked slowly, unhurried, eyes drifting over faces as foot traffic thickened — a trickle becoming a stream, a stream becoming a crowd. Laughter, arguments, engines, music. All of it washed past him, meaningless.
A tall man with corpse-pale skin intercepted him near a corner. They spoke briefly. A nod. A glance down a less crowded street. Moments later, both disappeared between shuttered storefronts and flickering streetlights.
The exchange was quick.
The man in the dark jacket accepted the small plastic bag and slipped it into his pocket. He smiled — wide, eager — and told the dealer he had no intention of paying.
The pale man snarled and flicked open a switchblade, its metal snapping into place inches from the other man’s face. He threatened to carve out an eye.
The smile never faded.
The man stepped forward and grabbed him.
Bone gave way with a wet crack. Fingers folded backward at impossible angles as the knife clattered to the pavement. The dealer tried to scream, but iron fingers crushed his throat, sealing the sound inside his skull.
Lifted off the ground, he kicked uselessly as his windpipe collapsed under slow, deliberate pressure. His eyes bulged, face purpling, lips trembling as pain bloomed and spread. The demon leaned close, breathing him in, tasting the echoes of addiction, violence, desperation — all the harm this man had sown and reaped.
It was exquisite.
When the body finally went limp, the demon let it drop into the shadows and walked away, already bored.
NEWS BROADCAST:
"Authorities are still investigating a bizarre and tragic accident involving a prison transport earlier tonight. The bus, which was carrying multiple inmates to a state facility, plunged down a steep ravine under unclear circumstances.
The driver and one guard were discovered dead several yards up the road, their bodies severely mutilated, leading investigators to speculate they may have attempted to escape the vehicle before the crash.
The body of convicted serial killer Belle Gunness remains unaccounted for. The sole survivor, another guard, was found in a catatonic state, repeating the same phrase over and over: 'The devil came for us.'"
The Shelter
Sated for now, the demon rose above the city, nearly invisible to human sight.
Below him, streets gave way to silence. The noise thinned, the crowds vanished, and the landscape softened into manicured lawns and gated driveways. Wealth slid beneath him in neat rows of stone and glass. He drifted without urgency, searching not for prey, but for shelter — a place to endure the coming daylight in dormancy.
One estate caught his attention.
Behind the main house stood a smaller structure, separate, modest by comparison. An outhouse. A faint warmth pulsed inside it. Human. Asleep.
The shadow descended.
He lingered beside the closed window, motionless, listening to the slow rhythm of breathing within. After a moment, he passed through the glass and emerged inside the room.
A young woman lay in the bed, turned slightly on her side, unaware. Her dreams were shallow, harmless — fragments of routine, of comfort, of trivial fears. There was no rot in her. No cruelty to savor. Killing her would be effortless, but empty. A clean soul offered no nourishment.
Yet something stirred deep within him.
Not hunger — something quieter. A pressure beneath his awareness, faint and unwelcome. The residue of the man whose flesh he wore. A memory without shape. A name without sound.
Resisting the kill became the challenge.
He drifted upward and folded himself into the corner near the ceiling, dissolving into the shadows where the light could not reach. From there, he watched her sleep, every breath hers to lose should he choose.
For now, he did not.
Daylight crept closer, and the demon waited, perfectly still, wrapped in darkness that did not belong to the room.
The Fasting
The demon remained dormant for days.
Each hour leeched strength from him. The stolen energy burned away in slow, invisible currents until the familiar ache returned — subtle at first, then insistent. Hunger crept back into his thoughts, gnawing, whispering, reminding him of what he was and what he required.
Still, he did not leave.
At night, he hovered unseen above the young woman as she slept. Her presence brought an unfamiliar calm. Her breathing, her warmth, the quiet innocence of her dreams dulled the edge of his craving. There was no nourishment in her purity, but there was relief — a soft, anesthetizing serenity.
So he stayed.
He let himself weaken.
Days passed. His outline thinned. The darkness that cloaked him began to fray, leaking into the room in subtle ways — a pressure in the air, a cold that lingered too long. He could no longer fully conceal himself within the corners of the ceiling.
One night, stripped of the strength to remain unseen, he slipped outside. He dragged himself onto the roof and lay among the hedges and decorative fencing, pressing what remained of his form into the shallow cover they offered. There, exposed to the open sky, he endured the hours until dawn.
NEWS BROADCAST:
"Police are investigating the death of a known drug dealer whose body was discovered late last night in a downtown alleyway. Initial reports list suffocation as the cause of death.
However, the coroner noted extensive trauma to the neck and right hand, stating that the bones appeared to have been crushed 'as if by a massive industrial tool' Authorities have ruled out an accident and are treating the incident as a targeted killing, possibly linked to rival criminal activity."
The Closure
Blind with hunger, the demon slid down from the roof and into the yard, unable to sense if humans were near by.
Famine clawed at him from within, raw and urgent, drowning out caution.
"Who goes there?"
The voice cut through the darkness, sharp and angry. From between the trees stepped a security guard, broad-shouldered, weapon raised, stance firm and practiced. The gun never wavered.
The demon smiled.
He reached for the man’s will, attempting to press down, to bend, to compel. Nothing answered. His power slipped away like smoke through fingers. Irritated, he stepped forward, trying instead to force possession — but the guard’s life was clean of malice, his soul dense and resistant. Even if it hadn’t been, the demon was far too weak to breach it.
The guard adjusted his aim, centering the sight on the demon’s chest.
"Move again and you’re dead."
The demon did not understand fear — but he understood consequence. A bullet would not kill him, but it would shatter the human shell he wore. Without a host, without strength, dissolution waited close and hungry.
He searched for escape and found nothing.
He raised his hands.
Two thunderous cracks split the night. The impact slammed the demon backward. The body collapsed into the grass, breath expelled in a wet gasp. Pain meant nothing — but time did. The vessel was already failing, blood pouring warmth into the soil.
A sound tore from the demon’s throat — a howl twisted beyond human hearing, something older and deeper. Dogs across the neighborhood answered, barking and whining in panic.
The demon abandoned the body.
He tore free from the dying flesh and rose, shapeless and unraveling, the world fading at the edges. Seconds remained. Moments, at best. Without a host, without sustenance, he would scatter and be lost.
Desperation flared.
He reached outward blindly, casting himself into the night, hunting for something — anything — before the darkness claimed him completely.
The Beyond
Nearby, a man crouched atop the stone wall bordering the property, hidden among tall trees and shadow.
He had studied the house for days. Learned the rhythms of its inhabitants, the timing of lights, the moments when no one watched. Preparation had never failed him before. It hadn’t failed his last five victims, scattered across the past year like unfinished shrines. The police hunted him now — he knew that — but they were always too late, always following ghosts.
From his vantage point, he saw the man in dark clothes descend from the roof. Saw the confrontation. Heard the gunshots crack through the night and watched confusion ripple outward.
He smiled.
His fingers brushed the blade concealed inside his coat — thin, sharp, familiar. He imagined the woman in the outhouse, her throat opening beneath it, the warmth spilling freely as life fled her eyes. The small building would be perfect. Private. Intimate. A place where no one would interrupt him.
Then the shudder came.
It seized him without warning, freezing him in place. Not fear. Not cold. Something else — something invasive. His breath hitched. For several seconds he could not move, his body trembling as if another rhythm had briefly overtaken his own.
Then it passed.
He slipped down from the wall in a single, fluid motion and melted into the road beyond the property. Sirens began to wail in the distance, swelling as he walked away, unhurried.
The noise faded behind him.
With each step, strength returned. Slowly. Gloriously.
A wicked grin spread across his face, as awareness sharpened, senses blooming open to the night. Somewhere behind his eyes, something ancient stirred, stretching itself awake.
NEWS BROADCAST:
"A man was shot and killed late last night by a security guard at an undisclosed suburban property. According to authorities, what began as a routine trespassing incident escalated rapidly when the intruder refused to comply and behaved aggressively, prompting the guard to open fire in self-defense.
The deceased was later identified as a former romantic partner of the estate’s housekeeper, who resides in a detached outhouse near the scene. The man had been reported missing several weeks ago. Police have stated there is no ongoing threat to the public."
