Illusion of Freedom

As the fading clop of the last horse-drawn carriage echoed across Carson Park, Cliff Randall eased out of the bushes. A lone swing squeaked on the playground. Too close.

“Go home, people.”

Something needed to happen now, not in minutes, or even a few moments.

He scurried across the trail, squatted beside a thick water oak, then slid down a rise in the creek bank. From a hidden gunny sack, he removed a Smith & Wesson and a coiled piano wire. The pistol went beneath his belt; firearms stirred a black place in his memory, making him jumpy without an explanation. Next, he removed a layer of Scotch tape to free the beaded music line before tugging the lead along the meat of his left palm. A moment later, he passed the metal across his tongue.

Nobody’s showing up. It’s too cold.

“Hush!” Cliff peered at his watch. Already ten-thirty, and the park closed at eleven. Fear triggered a circuit breaker in his thoughts. The throbbing between his legs sizzled out. “No! There’s always some chick pushing tricks. They never learn.”

Short gusts of cool air brushed his ears, and from the creek bed came the overwhelming reek of dead rats, accompanied by a thick yellow fog.

Let’s go home.

“Quiet, fiend.”

For an instant, the fog surged in swirls and embers, but the colors paled, and the thing in the haze whispered when it spoke.

Ok, Cliff. Here’s a party of two in your honor.

Voices echoed up the paved path. Cliff scrambled to the edge of the shadows and watched them walking beneath the trees—a boy and girl, careless of their surroundings.

We won’t have time for deep pleasure.

Cliff’s mind jerked from thought to thought. Messy complications. Late-nighters lingering in the park. A guy in the mix. Still, he couldn’t delay much longer. There might not be another chance.

Enjoy the wait, Cliff. Taste the hunger.

The mist embraced him, and a rank odor pressed against the inner walls of his lungs. Cliff spat into the dark, and barely flinched when the choke-wire snagged and ripped skin from his palms. Not deep cuts, nor even throbbing pain, but a warmth in the trickle that reached his fingertips.

“Why, fiend? Why?”

We’re pals, Cliff. But I have to have blood, even if it’s yours.

Cliff stood, folded the wire into his back pocket, then let his palm slide over the butt of the pistol. The couple walked straight toward him, unaware. They were high school kids, seventeen at most—ambling and touching, whispering and laughing, content in being together. A damp breeze carried the scent of cheap perfume.

Cliff scrambled out of the bushes, straightened himself, and calmed himself into a walk. The girl glanced up and smiled. Seconds passed. Moving closer.

Perhaps more alert, the boy noticed not only Cliff but also the pistol. “Back off, mister.” He lifted his left arm, palm up and out like a shield.

Cliff hesitated, staggered back a step. The boy pressed closer. Cliff grabbed the lad’s wrist, thumbed it into a backbend that pressed him to his knees. A face-kick followed. An instant later, he snatched the girl’s left , but she jerked backwards and away. He lunged in and slammed the pistol barrel against her mouth. Blood sprayed from her lips. Bone cracked, teeth splintered. Her head snapped up and back before she collapsed to her knees.

What a nasty mess you’ve made.

Cliff stared at his shaking hands. Blood dripped from the pistol onto his fingers. The girl twitched on the ground.

Wide-eyed, he turned on the boy. “This is your fault.”

The lad moaned, but started to rise. “No sound,” Cliff said, landing another kick against the lad’s jaw, then another in his side, and once again. “Roll over, eyes looking down.”

Wide-eyed, the boy stared without moving, an odd whimpering bubbling from deep in his throat. A moment later, he submitted, turning face down. He wore a yellow windbreaker, muddied green on the back from streaks of dirt and grass.

Cliff advanced on the girl, grinning. The boy’s right leg lashed out and up. Cliff stumbled, but caught his balance. By the time he turned, the lad was almost in his face.

BAM! One in the kid’s upper shoulder, knocking him into the underbrush.

BAM! Another as the boy fell from sight.

The girl’s high-pitched scream followed. She lunged upright, running, screeching.

BAM! Her right thigh burst open. She collapsed, whimpering, gore oozing from beneath her leg.

The leaves rustled.

Got to hurry, Cliff. Use the wire. Feel her blood.

#

On the grass beside the girl’s dead husk lay a small red purse, the strap still tangled around her arm. The latch hung open.

No time for this, Cliff.

Ignoring the entity, he lifted the bag, turned it over, and emptied the contents onto the dirt: a tube of strawberry red lipstick, some sky-colored mascara, a paperback romance novel, and a fiber nail file.

No time!

“Hush, demon.” A scent of oriental spices over Johnson’s baby powder triggered an urge to sneeze, but Cliff restrained the impulse, smiling at his self-control.

Although he didn’t want to keep digging, and often attempted to break the habit, he pressed forward, tossing items aside until coming upon the girl’s driver’s license and other cards. Susan Harris, it read, seventeen years old and out of South Carolina. He grinned. This elevated his conquests to thirteen states.

The plastic-coated ID went into his shirt pocket, then he removed a folded envelope from his back pocket and slipped it inside the girl’s purse. His lips pressed against her cheek. “I’m sorry, kid. I’m as much a victim as you.” Sirens sounded, yet he took an extra moment to rearrange her dress. No need to shame her parents.

Cold and sweat-soaked, he pushed to his feet and staggered to the east side water fountain. “No more,” he choked out while washing bile from his throat.

The entity didn’t speak but answered with action. From the lake came the hiss of the wind, then an empty candy wrapper fluttered against Cliff’s right leg. A tin can chattered on the gravel to his left, ringing and cracking and sounding like ghost-laughter.

Shuddering, Cliff leaned on a dogwood branch. “Leave me be. Just go away!”

Something moved near the lake’s edge. A swirl of gray lifted above the water, then expanded. Wings flapped, followed by a rush of wallowing.

“More ducks,” Cliff grunted. “Always some nasty bird-things.”

The sense of relief lasted only a moment. The Tempter would return. Within a month, two at most. It always demanded another offering.

Sirens grew louder by the second. Drawn by the thunder of gunshots alerting the random few still walking in the park, the blue and red lights flashed across bridges, trails and trees. Tires thumped along the cobblestones, then screeched to a stop. From south of the swings, a female voice shouted. “Over there, near the water oaks. This boy’s injured. Bullet shot, I think.”

Cliff gathered his courage, then backed into the underbrush, amid the spiny-legged spider vines, to where a washout dumped into a thirty-yard-long concrete tube that extended beneath the cobblestones. The entity wanted him to believe the noise and length of the battle left only one chance for evading capture: crawl through that clammy, critter-filled tunnel.

“No!” You won’t let the cops catch me.

Rather than facing spiders, rats, and snakes, Cliff climbed the hill and crossed the road, walking past police cars, then into the gathering crowd. On the people’s bridge, he stared into the calm waters of the lake. No one noticed his presence, even with his busted nose, dirty clothes and the stink of dried blood.

“I’m no slave, Beelzebub. You need Clifford Randall as a focal point, and I’m done being tricked or controlled.”

A middle-aged woman to his left stopped, looked at him, frowned, then walked away. Cliff crossed the waterway, smiling at his newfound freedom.

In the lake, a rush of waves splashed against the lower concrete.

—