Demon Core
By Red Letter Day
Jennifer Simmons was widely regarded as one of, if not the hottest girl at Robert E. Lee High School. Her dark breasts bounced down the busy hallway toward Seth poking out of a skintight halter. He swore there was a halo shining through her subtle thigh gap. Seth couldn’t help stare, and maybe drool a little. As she passed, he attempted to side-eye over his shoulder in order to get a good view of her tight behind, but school fatty Benjamin Moore obstructed his view as he waddled slowly along.
“Dude,” interjected Adam in his characteristic California-derived intonation and subtle speech impediment. “Try not to be so obvious!”
“What are you talking about?” Seth denied. Seth was nearly the most average person to ever live. He had long, wavy, blonde hair, blue eyes, was of medium height and build, and spent approximately five minutes each day flexing in front of a mirror in spite of the fact that he had never lifted a weight in his life. “I didn’t– I wasn’t–…”
“You’re just going to watch her walk down the hall? What the hell. Just ask her out, man,” Adam pressed.
Seth scoffed. “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, not a chance. Isn’t she dating Todd?” Todd Hertz was a deep fellow: varsity football player, son of one of the city aldermen, inheritor of Herz Gravel Company, and in a few years would do a short stint in lockup for a DUI in which rohypnol and his dad’s handgun were also found in his car.
“Nah man, they broke up after that… thing.” Adam always seemed to know these things. Somehow his unbuttoned floral shirts and khaki shorts seemed effortlessly cool enough to connect to both a more well-traveled popular crowd, and the super nerd company with whom he currently kept.
“Wait, what thing?” Seth asked.
“Nevermind.”
As previously mentioned, Seth was not popular. In times past, he would have been the victim of nigh-constant bullying. Luckily for Seth, being an uber computer nerd had slowly become more socially acceptable; his comprehensive collection of argyle and black jeans actually endeared him somewhat.
In the midst of Adam’s cryptic answer, time froze. A fly’s beating wings slowed to a halt in China, a rabbit stopped mid-hop in Texas, and the uninteresting lives of accountants across America continued along unchanged.
And in that moment, something came over Seth. Maybe it was an intangible magic that lingered after Todd had tried and horribly failed at penetration after last weekend’s party. Or maybe it was the confidence Seth derived from his newest, blackest jeans. Whatever it was, it welled up inside him. Adam’s eyes widened as time resumed and Seth spun abruptly.
Some research has shown that each of us has a relativistic sensation of time. For some, in some circumstances, it can slow down. This is especially true of experts doing highly specialized tasks that require multiple coordinated actions, such as athletes throwing a freethrow. Nobody should confuse Seth for an expert at anything. In times of stress, time can go quickly; Seth was as cool as a cucumber. For still others, time disappears entirely in a mental flow state called ‘beta.’ It was this pure, concentrated beta state Seth found himself in. The next few moments were an interdimensional pocket of the universe where time had no value.
He juked through the crowded hallway to find Jennifer. He asked her if she wanted to attend the volleyball game that evening in his company. She said, “sure.” And Seth gained temporary godlike powers.
And Jennifer was thinking about sending Todd a selfie of her blowing one of the biggest losers in school.
Adam lived in beta state. He jumped in his Miata after school, stopped at Quickie-Stop for a smoothie, and spent the evening playing Quake, oblivious to the events that followed.
The events of the evening passed like most would expect. Seth made awkward jokes and nervously brushed arms and elbows with Jennifer. Jennifer wore her special necklace and cheered for her friends on the team while Seth obviously shoveled popcorn into his craw, occasionally searching the folds of his shirt for crumbs.
At the end of the night, they hopped in Seth’s… minivan. That’s right, Seth drove a minivan. He was proud of it. He had found it all but abandoned in a used lot, paint falling off the top and most of the inner electronics had long since passed from this world. Except, of course, the auto-opening side door. Seth affectionately named the van the Reverend Al Sharpton because it audibly rasped at a very specific rpm range that made it sound like the legendary minister.
his cassette adapter piping in some admittedly great neo-80’s music. Jennifer guided him to the local elementary school parking lot, adjacent to a cute miniature playground. Seth was mostly oblivious, thinking quite literally that they would be playing on the playground. Instead, they got out and sat on the swings, talking a little bit, having a conversation surprisingly deep for their respective frontal lobe developmental states. Still, there was a job to do. After some awkward kissing and fondling, Seth was given the best minute of his life hitherto that point.
And Jennifer got her selfie, surreptitiously sending it to her meat-headed ex while Seth panted quietly in his swing.
Message failed to send.
She tried to send it again. Seth whispered something in his ear. Did he just say ‘I love you’?, thought Jennifer. Jesus fucking Christ.
Message failed to send.
“Wait, what is that?” Seth asked, looking over her shoulder. Oh, shit, here we go.
Before the situation had a chance to escalate, there was a red flash just above the slide of the swingset, only feet away. It illuminated the whole area, bathing the playground in shadows and crimson. Accompanying the flash was a horrible tone, an open fifth followed by a low drone. What the fuck? It was bright enough that Jennifer could not stare straight at it. Beams of red plasma jumped from the glowing region to the poles and stairs and swings, causing their shadows to dance.
The two screamed in unison, the instinct for flight taking over. Seth and Jennifer tripped over their swings, tripped on the playground barrier, tripped on rocks, and tripped on each other, the twenty or so feet back to the parking lot. Jennifer barely registered as her knees became raw and bloody and her dress torn. They clamored into the car amidst the maroon light that now enveloped everything within eyeshot.
Jennifer’s heart beat through her chest as she tried to calm down. She looked down to see blood dripping down her shins. But, she trained for this. She knew what to do. “Seth, start the car. Start the fucking car.”
Seth’s junk was still hanging out of his pants. He fumbled through his pockets for the keys to his barely functional 1997 Dodge Silhouette. Unlike Todd, he quickly found his mark, just in time for the light to begin growing. Jennifer peered at it as best she could. It was almost as if she could see into it. And she didn’t like what she saw. What appeared to be two eyes peered back at her.
“Seth. We need to get out of here,” she yelled. “NOW.”
Seth rifled through his pockets and under his ass. “I dropped.. I can’t find the keys,” Seth stuttered.
Jennifer couldn’t believe her ears. She thought to herself, you really need to have an intervention about your standards, Jennifer. “Jesus fucking Christ, Seth.” She took a breath, then calmly asked, “did you look under the seat?”
“YES!” he screamed. They both searched frantically, their heads circling outward. Then Jennifer saw them. On the ground. By the slide. Underneath the terrible red orb, which had now doubled in size.
Part of Jennifer’s cover was that she served on the track team. In that capacity, she was one of the best sprinters in the state. Not many knew it, but she possessed an innate confidence in her physical abilities, pounded into her by endless hours training. In fact, there was a lot about her that not many people knew. For instance, she was familiar with six forms of mixed martial arts and could fluently speak four languages.
Another aspect of her training was learning to trust her gut, and it told her that they needed to get away from here as fast as possible. She gaged the distance, the route, even the turnaround.
“Seth, stay here,” Jennifer commanded. Seth was more than happy to comply.
She took a big breath, opened the door, and ran as fast as her high-top Vans would let her. Suddenly, she began to feel in control again. She was a woman of action, and action meant control. She slid, stuck the turnaround, and grabbed the keys, just in time to get a better view of the imposing red blob above her. It was mesmerizing. She paused for the briefest of moments. It had… a shape. It was almost translucent, like she could see through it to the other side, except what she saw was not what was behind it. It was something else. Another sky, another ground. And, other things… beings. Eyes stared back at her.
And one massive pair.
It was the size of an elephant, and it hurdled through the gateway on two backwards-jointed legs, like a tyrannosaurus rex. As it stepped through, it destroyed the playground like it was made of toothpicks, spewing debris in all directions. Not enough time to A piece of splintered wood like half of a pool cue struck Jennifer in the shoulder, sending pain shooting through her body. Don’t pull it out, she could hear her trainer say in her head.
As… whatever it was… came through the red opening, the light vanished. The safety lights all went out, and their universe was plunged into the absolute darkness of a moonless night. All Jennifer could now see of it were two soft-glowing yellow eyes and the faint outline of a massive silhouette, barely an arm’s reach away from her patch of grass.
Two lights started glowing red on either side of it, revealing what appeared to be some kind of weapon system where its arms and hands would have been. Time to go. She fought with one arm to her feet and grabbed the keys, and ran. Jennifer’s legs had never carried her so fast, and she jetted toward the car just in time for a beam of energy to blast a neat crater where she had been only moments before.
The explosion lit up the night, and Jennifer could see the terror in Seth’s wide eyes. She turned and ran at a record sprint, jumping in the Reverend’s ajar door and slamming it shut behind her. She all but smacked Seth in the face with the keys, who was screaming and flailing madly.
“Seth!”
He stopped. “What?!”
“Fucking drive.”
Seth started the car and engaged the transmission, flooring the gas pedal. Al’s tires spun as he fishtailed across the parking lot. In the midst of the screeching of tires, they heard a deafening unearthly roar coming from whatever ungodly monster was behind them. But it wasn’t a roar exactly– it didn’t have the characteristic sound of a traditional animal, which consisted of flesh, vocal chords, and lungs. Instead, it almost sounded mechanical, like a huge rusty spring being pulled and then compressed. It shook the air, vibrated teeth, and made blood run cold.
Whatever it was, its hands started to light up again, and beams of energy jolted from its arm cannons. The beams struck the van’s trunk, taking the entire back panel clear off, and jumped the vehicle several feet into the air. It landed with a smack, and several tires exploded. Jennifer and Seth screamed as Seth’s homework billowed out of the back of the van. They half-donuted around the parking lot, bringing them face-to-face with the beast, which began careening toward them.
Jennifer squinted and grabbed the wheel. She had never been a victim in her life. “Floor it, Seth.”
“Wait, what?!” he cracked.
“I said, floor it.” She pressed Seth’s leg with her hand, fully engaging the gas pedal. She pointed Al Sharpton at the monster. There’s nothing fast about a Dodge Caravan, because nobody who drives a Caravan is in a hurry to get to one more soccer game. But the Reverend revved what was probably going to be his last revs. Forward he went, as fast as his sad four-cylinder front-wheel-drive could take it, like an old, tired, recommissioned warrior charging to his final battle.
The beast began powering up for another blast of its energy beam. This would be it, the end. But, Jennifer was taught that victory was always possible. Just as the monster fired, she joked the wheel hard to one side. The blast sheared off a chunk of the passenger side from the mirror to the automatic sliding door, but onward they went, once more unto the breach. The van clipped the monster’s leg hard, knocking it down. Green goop splashed everywhere as the van opened a deep gash in the monster and completely tore off one of its cannon-arms. Dark, metallic bones broke through its artificial skin and the monster went to the ground as the van tore past it, roaring in apparent agony.
The two made as quick an exit as possible. As they pulled onto the dark road, Seth wept and his pried his soft hands from the steering wheel. As he let up on the gas, the Reverend clinked and clattered to its final resting place, small fires burning here and there on its frame. “What the FUCK was that?” Seth’s voice cracked.
Jennifer didn’t know. But she knew she needed to check in with her organization. They were no doubt watching through her necklace camera. They would have questions. Maybe even answers. She knew– they knew –much more than most. She was undercover, and her assignment had been to identify and take down blockchain-infected humans at the high school without being discovered. They were everywhere. She knew Adam, Seth’s best friend, was one. This was supposed to be his last night on earth. She also knew there were other, possibly more sinister actors at work.
But this monster, whatever it was, whoever sent it, was completely new. Jennifer recalled the beings she had seen on the other side of the red light doorway. They saw her. She saw them. They recognized her. This new mission gave her purpose, empowered her. She didn’t have a protocol, just a thirst.
“First, zip up your pants, Seth,” she answered. “Second, grab anything left that you need because we need to move.”
They got out of the van and Seth gathered his backpack, some ratty clothes, and a bag of Doritos. While he was rifling through his back seat, he mumbled to Jennifer, “do you think we would need this?” He pulled out a crowbar.
“Seth, what the fu–” Jennifer started to answer. But, before she could finish, the black of night around them began to glow red again, the same red as before. Another blob of red light, another doorway. They stared as several distinct, smaller monsters came through. Seth began crying again.
“Seth, give me the crowbar.”
