Chapter 7
Marcus could hear screaming and then a sudden change to gurgling as he counted three men dead. Marcus ran outside and saw his long time friend, who complained about the inhumanity of a bug zapper and held a distaste for any form of killing, rip a man in two and throw one half of the body across the base while engorging the rest.
Marcus looked at his friend, and tried to look him in the eyes, but he could not succeed. It was not that Dem’s eyes were not visible; it was that Marcus felt such a powerful chill when he saw the blankness in his expression. It was as if Dem was not even there. He was an animal now. Dem was just a massive beast without majesty, wisdom, or language. Marcus walked ahead of the soldiers that cowered behind their cars and tried to speak to Dem.
“Demmy, it’s me, Marcus. What are you doing Dem?”
The beast looked up at him and continued to lick the pool of blood on the ground.
“Dem, listen to me. I know this isn’t you. I know something must be controlling you. Listen to me, you need to fight it. I called you friend before, and I still call you friend now. Stop killing. I beg of you, stop the killing.”
The soldiers around him stopped shooting, their commanders stopped giving orders, and everything went quiet as the humans waited for the massive beast to react. Dem finished licking the blood on the ground and looked directly at Marcus. It growled, but no words came out. Still, Marcus understood the meaning and ran into the church. The order came to fire all weapons, and three howitzer cannons fired at once. The explosions threw Dem over, but it only delayed his attack. Marcus was in the church and felt Dem’s breath as he snapped his jaws. The ground shook as three hundred tons of muscle broke through the buildings hundred year old oak supports.
Marcus reached the broken command center and found his confiscated handgun. He checked the ammo, and the massive barrel only had one bullet. One bullet for one purpose. Dem finally broke the church entrance and charged Marcus. It made to grab Marcus, but instead grabbed the armored car. He threw it into the wall and Marcus could see the supports start to crumble. Marcus saw the mouth come over him and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. Marcus closed his eyes and waited to meet his maker, but it did not come.
He looked up and saw the massive support beams for the church crumble down and trap the beast in a wooden cage. Dem started to stand again, and Marcus took the shot again. This time, the bullet flew true and struck Dem in the skull. Marcus crafted the ammunition himself. It was tipped with a material that couldn’t kill a titanicus, but it could perhaps knock him unconscious. The beast’s head fell forward and Marcus stepped back to avoid his troubled friend’s car-sized skull. He tripped on a wire and luckily, Dem’s head fell short of Marcus’s feet by less than a foot.
Marcus did not move. If something woke Dem, everyone in the base would follow the three dead men. Marcus’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the beast’s eyelids open. His heart leapt when he saw the usual Demmy lick him with a massive, wet tongue. He looked like he was in a good mood, but his expression changed when he saw that Marcus was shaking from head to toe. He looked at the tiny creature before him and saw how it was sobbing. Marcus looked behind him and pointed at a television screen. Dem followed his gaze and watched in horror a video of himself just a few minutes ago.
This time, Dem was the one shaking. Three soldiers ran in and started shooting at him. They yelled vulgar language and threw rocks from the fallen church at him while the guns fired. Marcus felt a raindrop fall on his head and realized that Dem was crying. He smashed another wall into the church and made to escape. Marcus grabbed onto his massive tail as it whooshed by. He was thrown into a sea of gold and a world of pain as his shoulder was pulled a few inches farther than it was supposed to go. Still he held on. Despite the situation, Marcus had to appreciate the beautiful patterns made by the wind blowing his tail hairs around. A hair rapped around his head and Marcus held a crown. Marcus felt a sense of vertigo from the rapidly shifting patterns and the energy being wasted by his grip.
Marcus looked around and saw his house fly by. They were traveling faster than before and made a trip that would have taken hours in thirty minutes. When Dem finally slowed down, Marcus knew where they were. He let go of his friend’s tail and flew upon the roof of a nearby home. He had hoped that the roof would hold his bodyweight, but he didn’t have high hopes. Marcus fell through the roof, and then through the rest of the house. Don’t worry, the three undead and cement floor in the basement broke his fall. Marcus killed the undead and made his way to the exit. Before him was the great monastery castle where Dem was raised. Dem’s parents left him there when he was born, and he never said much more on the subject.
Marcus walked up the front steps and found himself at a large gate. He couldn’t open it and he didn’t even bother trying to climb over it. There was a smaller doorway to his right, which he found open. It was too fortunate that the small, dark passage was more accessible than the larger, better light one. Marcus moved through with caution, as there was thirty feet of darkness ahead of him. Marcus just entered the darkness when the door behind him sealed shut. He saw the trap before it was sprung and leapt to the side. He heard the rustling of feet move past him and a loud bang as something large and hard made contact with the door. The door was opened and the light revealed a priest with a sharpened crucifix in his hand. Marcus took out his gun and placed another round in the single shot chamber. He decided against wasting the ammo and snuck up behind the priest, the resulting impact crater in his skull was the quick result of the struggle.
“Father, in the short time we knew each other, you taught me more about religion than the big J-man himself. Rest in piece,” Marcus said as he searched the old man’s robes. Marcus found a large, rusty key with a rosary on one end. He took it to the gate and stopped when he heard a rustle behind him. Like an old friend the refuses to go away, the undead made their way to him. Marcus pressed the key in and prayed that the ancient oak and steel doors would hold against the undead. Marcus opened the gate and let himself slide in. Around him were stone walls curving around the church and making their way to a central courtyard, where Marcus hoped Dem was sitting.
Marcus could hear whimpering at one end of the alleyway. When he reached the end of the alley, a wide courtyard expanded before him. Every tree, every blade of grass, and every wall glistened with a gold shine that directed Marcus around the beautiful scenery to where he found a wall of gold hair. Marcus approached it, but before he was close enough to speak, a giant mouthful of teeth lunged out of the hairs and nearly ripped Marcus in half. The head withdrew when Dem realized who it was that approached him. He wailed out, “I’m so sorry! So, so sorry, Marcus! You should just go away. I’m not anyone’s friend anymore.”
Marcus did not respond, but simply sat there and allowed Dem to continue sobbing. When nearly an hour passed, he tried to approach again. This time, there was no large tooth to greet him, only more crying. When Marcus tried to climb over Dem’s tail, Dem threw him off. He tried again and succeeded to reach the top, where Dem covered his head with one of his wings. Marcus looked at his friend and shed a tear, for Dem was never one to admit any kind of weakness, any kind of sadness; and now he ran away from the world into his childhood. Marcus wondered if it was a good idea to kill the priest; it seemed like the logical choice at the time.
He climbed down from the tail and slowly walked across the thirty foot expanse between him and Dem’s fangs. Marcus was reluctant to approach, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. Dem must have seen Marcus’s shadow, because his wings tightened when Marcus was only a few feet away. Every time Marcus found an opening, Dem closed it, but each time opened another. Soon, Dem was in a shell of gold silk feathers. Marcus climbed onto his back and tried to go between his shoulders. There was no opening, but Marcus remembered how Dem’s design was not completely finished.
He climbed between the shoulder blades and climbed to the back of Dem’s head, where his hair was the only thing in Marcus’s way. He made his way through the high, stiff hairs and felt himself gaining weight when Dem lifted his head to try and shake him back. Marcus eventually made it through, and he slid down Dem’s head like a Fred Flintstone cartoon. He stopped it short before Dem could close his wings around him and lay down with his back on Dem’s muzzle. Marcus let his legs spread out on either side, both so Dem could see him and because Marcus found the position to be comfortable.
He spoke in a soft voice so Dem would have to stop crying to hear him. Marcus said, “Look, everyone knows you have issues. Christ sake I know that more than anyone else. I have no clue what was going through that pea sized brain of yours when you killed those men, but it couldn’t be anything good. Now, I would rather climb into your damned head and look for the answers myself than hear you lie to me. By all means, tell me; what the hell motivated you to do such a thing.”
“I don’t know, Marcus. I just don’t know.”
“The military won’t accept ‘I don’t know’ as an answer. Three men are dead; you’ll need to do better than that.”
“Marcus, after I placed you in the care of the military, I ran around and started to do some tasks that would help them: supply collecting, taking out undead, anything to make them trust me enough to let me see you. After a day and a half of constant runs, I set down to rest my head for a minute. I blacked out and woke up in a pile of rubble in the church with you below me. I don’t know who or what controlled me, but I guess the military wont accept a story like that.”
Marcus ignored the last comment and said, “Well, that settles it. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Now I don’t want to hear any more apologies, all I want to hear come out of your howling screamer is either heavy breathing or the identity of what controlled you.”
Marcus could feel the ground tremble beneath him as Dem’s lower jaw started to shake. He stood and leapt off of Dem’s muzzle. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Dem curled into a tighter ball than before. Marcus ran inward before his tail could close around Dem and he walked around his head, where one side was pressed against his chest. Marcus climbed up and let himself fall into the crack between Dem’s head and chest. His head was right next to Dem’s eye. Dem closed it when Marcus looked into it and he spent a good deal of his time trying to open it. He hollered, “Open up! You may be some all powerful titan to everyone else, but you’re still the same little brat we took in. I still remember the day Karen took you out of the rain.”
Dem was only sixteen when they took him into the lab; he was smart enough, but he lacked any real experience. Like clockwork, it started to rain and Dem used his wings to create a shelter just large enough to fit his entire body. There was a large opening at the front of the gold cave, and the room lit up when lightning struck. Marcus could feel a leak and looked up at Dem.
“Are you still crying?”
Dem pulled his head a few feet away from his chest and let Marcus fall to the ground, where he landed on a grass lawn. Marcus used Dem’s paw as a pillow and would have fallen asleep had Dem stopped crying. He asked, “What if I change again?”
“Please do! With our current situation, I would give anything to go and meet my maker; and beat his face in with the Holly Grail.”
Dem laughed. It was a half-assed laugh, but he stopped crying. The constant pattern of Dem’s breathing hypnotized Marcus into a deep sleep. It was the best sleep he had in the past three years.
The child approached the great ivory gates of the castle and, with a single fist, blew the gates to oblivion. He marched alone into the castle; this was his task, and only his task. As he marched the dark hallways, memories of his childhood flowed through his head like a warm summer breeze. Playing with friends, running away from teachers, such a wonderful life ending in such a terrible manner. And now, it was time to end it. He found the door to his queen’s bedchamber and blew aside the doors.
Marcus looked at his friend, and tried to look him in the eyes, but he could not succeed. It was not that Dem’s eyes were not visible; it was that Marcus felt such a powerful chill when he saw the blankness in his expression. It was as if Dem was not even there. He was an animal now. Dem was just a massive beast without majesty, wisdom, or language. Marcus walked ahead of the soldiers that cowered behind their cars and tried to speak to Dem.
“Demmy, it’s me, Marcus. What are you doing Dem?”
The beast looked up at him and continued to lick the pool of blood on the ground.
“Dem, listen to me. I know this isn’t you. I know something must be controlling you. Listen to me, you need to fight it. I called you friend before, and I still call you friend now. Stop killing. I beg of you, stop the killing.”
The soldiers around him stopped shooting, their commanders stopped giving orders, and everything went quiet as the humans waited for the massive beast to react. Dem finished licking the blood on the ground and looked directly at Marcus. It growled, but no words came out. Still, Marcus understood the meaning and ran into the church. The order came to fire all weapons, and three howitzer cannons fired at once. The explosions threw Dem over, but it only delayed his attack. Marcus was in the church and felt Dem’s breath as he snapped his jaws. The ground shook as three hundred tons of muscle broke through the buildings hundred year old oak supports.
Marcus reached the broken command center and found his confiscated handgun. He checked the ammo, and the massive barrel only had one bullet. One bullet for one purpose. Dem finally broke the church entrance and charged Marcus. It made to grab Marcus, but instead grabbed the armored car. He threw it into the wall and Marcus could see the supports start to crumble. Marcus saw the mouth come over him and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. Marcus closed his eyes and waited to meet his maker, but it did not come.
He looked up and saw the massive support beams for the church crumble down and trap the beast in a wooden cage. Dem started to stand again, and Marcus took the shot again. This time, the bullet flew true and struck Dem in the skull. Marcus crafted the ammunition himself. It was tipped with a material that couldn’t kill a titanicus, but it could perhaps knock him unconscious. The beast’s head fell forward and Marcus stepped back to avoid his troubled friend’s car-sized skull. He tripped on a wire and luckily, Dem’s head fell short of Marcus’s feet by less than a foot.
Marcus did not move. If something woke Dem, everyone in the base would follow the three dead men. Marcus’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the beast’s eyelids open. His heart leapt when he saw the usual Demmy lick him with a massive, wet tongue. He looked like he was in a good mood, but his expression changed when he saw that Marcus was shaking from head to toe. He looked at the tiny creature before him and saw how it was sobbing. Marcus looked behind him and pointed at a television screen. Dem followed his gaze and watched in horror a video of himself just a few minutes ago.
This time, Dem was the one shaking. Three soldiers ran in and started shooting at him. They yelled vulgar language and threw rocks from the fallen church at him while the guns fired. Marcus felt a raindrop fall on his head and realized that Dem was crying. He smashed another wall into the church and made to escape. Marcus grabbed onto his massive tail as it whooshed by. He was thrown into a sea of gold and a world of pain as his shoulder was pulled a few inches farther than it was supposed to go. Still he held on. Despite the situation, Marcus had to appreciate the beautiful patterns made by the wind blowing his tail hairs around. A hair rapped around his head and Marcus held a crown. Marcus felt a sense of vertigo from the rapidly shifting patterns and the energy being wasted by his grip.
Marcus looked around and saw his house fly by. They were traveling faster than before and made a trip that would have taken hours in thirty minutes. When Dem finally slowed down, Marcus knew where they were. He let go of his friend’s tail and flew upon the roof of a nearby home. He had hoped that the roof would hold his bodyweight, but he didn’t have high hopes. Marcus fell through the roof, and then through the rest of the house. Don’t worry, the three undead and cement floor in the basement broke his fall. Marcus killed the undead and made his way to the exit. Before him was the great monastery castle where Dem was raised. Dem’s parents left him there when he was born, and he never said much more on the subject.
Marcus walked up the front steps and found himself at a large gate. He couldn’t open it and he didn’t even bother trying to climb over it. There was a smaller doorway to his right, which he found open. It was too fortunate that the small, dark passage was more accessible than the larger, better light one. Marcus moved through with caution, as there was thirty feet of darkness ahead of him. Marcus just entered the darkness when the door behind him sealed shut. He saw the trap before it was sprung and leapt to the side. He heard the rustling of feet move past him and a loud bang as something large and hard made contact with the door. The door was opened and the light revealed a priest with a sharpened crucifix in his hand. Marcus took out his gun and placed another round in the single shot chamber. He decided against wasting the ammo and snuck up behind the priest, the resulting impact crater in his skull was the quick result of the struggle.
“Father, in the short time we knew each other, you taught me more about religion than the big J-man himself. Rest in piece,” Marcus said as he searched the old man’s robes. Marcus found a large, rusty key with a rosary on one end. He took it to the gate and stopped when he heard a rustle behind him. Like an old friend the refuses to go away, the undead made their way to him. Marcus pressed the key in and prayed that the ancient oak and steel doors would hold against the undead. Marcus opened the gate and let himself slide in. Around him were stone walls curving around the church and making their way to a central courtyard, where Marcus hoped Dem was sitting.
Marcus could hear whimpering at one end of the alleyway. When he reached the end of the alley, a wide courtyard expanded before him. Every tree, every blade of grass, and every wall glistened with a gold shine that directed Marcus around the beautiful scenery to where he found a wall of gold hair. Marcus approached it, but before he was close enough to speak, a giant mouthful of teeth lunged out of the hairs and nearly ripped Marcus in half. The head withdrew when Dem realized who it was that approached him. He wailed out, “I’m so sorry! So, so sorry, Marcus! You should just go away. I’m not anyone’s friend anymore.”
Marcus did not respond, but simply sat there and allowed Dem to continue sobbing. When nearly an hour passed, he tried to approach again. This time, there was no large tooth to greet him, only more crying. When Marcus tried to climb over Dem’s tail, Dem threw him off. He tried again and succeeded to reach the top, where Dem covered his head with one of his wings. Marcus looked at his friend and shed a tear, for Dem was never one to admit any kind of weakness, any kind of sadness; and now he ran away from the world into his childhood. Marcus wondered if it was a good idea to kill the priest; it seemed like the logical choice at the time.
He climbed down from the tail and slowly walked across the thirty foot expanse between him and Dem’s fangs. Marcus was reluctant to approach, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. Dem must have seen Marcus’s shadow, because his wings tightened when Marcus was only a few feet away. Every time Marcus found an opening, Dem closed it, but each time opened another. Soon, Dem was in a shell of gold silk feathers. Marcus climbed onto his back and tried to go between his shoulders. There was no opening, but Marcus remembered how Dem’s design was not completely finished.
He climbed between the shoulder blades and climbed to the back of Dem’s head, where his hair was the only thing in Marcus’s way. He made his way through the high, stiff hairs and felt himself gaining weight when Dem lifted his head to try and shake him back. Marcus eventually made it through, and he slid down Dem’s head like a Fred Flintstone cartoon. He stopped it short before Dem could close his wings around him and lay down with his back on Dem’s muzzle. Marcus let his legs spread out on either side, both so Dem could see him and because Marcus found the position to be comfortable.
He spoke in a soft voice so Dem would have to stop crying to hear him. Marcus said, “Look, everyone knows you have issues. Christ sake I know that more than anyone else. I have no clue what was going through that pea sized brain of yours when you killed those men, but it couldn’t be anything good. Now, I would rather climb into your damned head and look for the answers myself than hear you lie to me. By all means, tell me; what the hell motivated you to do such a thing.”
“I don’t know, Marcus. I just don’t know.”
“The military won’t accept ‘I don’t know’ as an answer. Three men are dead; you’ll need to do better than that.”
“Marcus, after I placed you in the care of the military, I ran around and started to do some tasks that would help them: supply collecting, taking out undead, anything to make them trust me enough to let me see you. After a day and a half of constant runs, I set down to rest my head for a minute. I blacked out and woke up in a pile of rubble in the church with you below me. I don’t know who or what controlled me, but I guess the military wont accept a story like that.”
Marcus ignored the last comment and said, “Well, that settles it. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Now I don’t want to hear any more apologies, all I want to hear come out of your howling screamer is either heavy breathing or the identity of what controlled you.”
Marcus could feel the ground tremble beneath him as Dem’s lower jaw started to shake. He stood and leapt off of Dem’s muzzle. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Dem curled into a tighter ball than before. Marcus ran inward before his tail could close around Dem and he walked around his head, where one side was pressed against his chest. Marcus climbed up and let himself fall into the crack between Dem’s head and chest. His head was right next to Dem’s eye. Dem closed it when Marcus looked into it and he spent a good deal of his time trying to open it. He hollered, “Open up! You may be some all powerful titan to everyone else, but you’re still the same little brat we took in. I still remember the day Karen took you out of the rain.”
Dem was only sixteen when they took him into the lab; he was smart enough, but he lacked any real experience. Like clockwork, it started to rain and Dem used his wings to create a shelter just large enough to fit his entire body. There was a large opening at the front of the gold cave, and the room lit up when lightning struck. Marcus could feel a leak and looked up at Dem.
“Are you still crying?”
Dem pulled his head a few feet away from his chest and let Marcus fall to the ground, where he landed on a grass lawn. Marcus used Dem’s paw as a pillow and would have fallen asleep had Dem stopped crying. He asked, “What if I change again?”
“Please do! With our current situation, I would give anything to go and meet my maker; and beat his face in with the Holly Grail.”
Dem laughed. It was a half-assed laugh, but he stopped crying. The constant pattern of Dem’s breathing hypnotized Marcus into a deep sleep. It was the best sleep he had in the past three years.
The child approached the great ivory gates of the castle and, with a single fist, blew the gates to oblivion. He marched alone into the castle; this was his task, and only his task. As he marched the dark hallways, memories of his childhood flowed through his head like a warm summer breeze. Playing with friends, running away from teachers, such a wonderful life ending in such a terrible manner. And now, it was time to end it. He found the door to his queen’s bedchamber and blew aside the doors.