Spade 10:2

I try to run but the wind picks up with a fury that matches my desperation.

Damn, even the elements are against me.

I feel the wind clawing at me trying to get a grip, like thousands of ghostly hands frantically pulling me away from my shelter. And then it does. Like a rag doll I am lifted off my feet and pushed by the sheer power of Mother Nature some thirty feet through the air into the side of an abandoned car.

Pain shoots through my body and I hear his snake-like voice slithering its way through, "I can make it stop. Just release me and you can walk out of here. You don't have to do this alone."

I shove his goading aside and through the howling wind I can hear the faint sound of wood splintering and the cry of steel bending as I watch a massive billboard sign that says "Jesus Saves" come crashing down on the very spot that I was standing at only a moment before the wind decided to relocate me.

I look at the billboard. Where were you the last time I needed you? I think to myself.

"Where, indeed?"

His mocking tone makes my stomach turn.

CRACK!
Lightning flashes and lights up the entire area and I can see one of them standing between me and the collapsed billboard. His leathery cloak looking almost untouched by the gusting winds.

There were two of them. There are always two of them, they travel in pairs. I look around in a panic. Where is the other one? Then, I feel a clawed hand come from behind me, tighten around my throat and squeeze the breath from it.

Now I know! It lifts me off the ground and turns me to face it. The nails of its leathery hand dig into my neck and I can feel a searing pain spread outward from them. Poison? It must be seeping into my skin from its grip.

Some things different, I can no longer feel the wind or hear the raging storm like I could only moments ago. I know it's still there though, the trees are still whipping around and the street lights are swinging violently. Tons of lose debris swirls around us as it lifts me closer, to a face so distorted and grotesque I suppress the urge to wretch.

My spine straightens with small cracks and pops that reverberate through my body as my full weight is lifted from the ground. Should I tell it how much I needed to have my back popped?

It speaks with a voice that sounds like someone continuously crumpling paper. Its breath carries on it the stench of decay and molded dirt.

"You will come back with us to finish what was started"

"I am finished", I proclaim as defiantly as I can muster but, with its hand around my throat I sounded rather pathetic.

But still. He didn't like that, I laugh to myself as my body slams down on the pavement and once again I can hear and feel the full force of the storm. Ow, pain... when... I breathe. I must have cracked a rib when I landed.

I look up to see the creature step down from the hood of the car is was perched on, the same one that the wind had thrown me into only minutes before. It's massive body blocking out the maelstrom behind it.

Moving quicker than I could imagine for its size, it steps forward and kicks me in the chest. I go flailing into the air only to be caught by the wind and slammed back down on the asphalt.

My ribs are defiantly broken now. Pain spreads out from almost every nerve ending in my body at once. I feel my mental antagonist recoil to the back of my mind, he must have felt it too…

I can taste that familiar coppery flavor flooding my mouth as I cough up too much blood for there not to be something seriously wrong with my insides. I've got to get up, they can't take me back. They'll just use me, or rather you, like a weapon again if they put that suppression collar back around my neck.

“Good times again!”

I press myself up on all fours and see that my hands are in a pool of my own blood.

Not again. Not like last time, I think as my concentration starts slipping. My vision blurs.

“You have no choice. You’ll have to fight them if you want to live. Why don’t you loosen my bonds or just set me free. There’s no need to burden yourself with all this worry and guilt, Its not your fault what happened back then, you had no control over your situation. I can make the pain go away. ”

Spade 10:1

Lightning streaked across the sky like skeletal hands reaching out for anything they could wrap their electrifying grip around. The rain came down hard in transparent sheets that resembled curtains blowing in a light breeze. The wind, however, was a different story. A hurricane rolled in off the Gulf and took both them and me by surprise. It just might have saved my life though. Assuming it doesn't decide to kill me now after all.

They have been following me for days, some sort of demonic bloodhounds. If they catch up to me they’ll drag me back so I've got to keep moving, even in this mess. I'm too tired and worn out to fight them right now and if they catch me it will all happen again. And I will never let any of it happen again.

"Yes. You will ."

I push the voice to the back of my mind and lock it up as best I can.

"So Weak…"

Was that my thought or his?

I'm slowly going mad and he knows it, I can feel him relish every little slip of my psyche as I gradually fall prey to his will.

Another bolt snakes across the sky and I can vaguely see one of them slip behind a building a couple hundred yards away. They are closer than I thought. I've got to move. I'll wait till the next lightning strike, hopefully the bright flash of light will blind them long enough for me to make a break for that building down the street. So I cover my eyes with my hands and wait.

CRACK! Run. 

Staying low I move from car to car trying to stay out of site. I'm almost there. My legs buckle as I make it to the door. I'm so tired. 

Shit! The doors locked and the wind is picking up again. I look back, through the hundreds of mostly abandoned cars, some still with there passengers starring lifelessly out the shattered windows. Burned shells that now litter the streets in every direction.

FLASH!

I shielded my eyes almost to late from the lightning but I can still see them. Two massive cloaked figures that remind me of wraiths in some old horror movie. They're just standing there in the rain; still a couple hundred yards away.

Have they seen me?

"Yes…"

No, not yet I've still got time. I've got to hurry, I dive around the corner of the building and I hear their gut wrenching wail, my skin crawls. They did see me.

"Of Course they did...," He laughs at me.

I feel my right hand instinctively grope at my upper right thigh for my revolver and instantly remember that I hadn’t had time to get it when my chance to escape came. I only had time to run.

“How Pathetic…”

His banter is slowly making me crazy and really angry.

Shut up, I mentally scream at him, just shut up!

"You will have to fight. You will have to kill them if you don't want to go back and be used again. I'm… more than willing to go back but, I’m stuck with you. Trapped in you till I can find a way out, and when I do you’ll wish you never made that deal with me."

I wish all the time I never made that deal with you. After seeing what you used me to do while I was trapped only able to watch, kinda like you are now. I’ll never let you out as long as I still breathe.

“Well that might be a long hard road boy; cause, as long as I’m a part of you… You’ll never die!”

A Little Rewrite

Well, I kinda wasn't happy with a few things I had written so far so I figured with the new blog I'd do a little rewriting before I re-posted everything. I tweaked a few things here and there and added a little more description to some parts, over all I just tried to tighten the story up a little. So here are chapters 1 through 3 as I have them right now. Four will be up some time tomorrow, I hope, and a new chapter by the end of next week. Anyway hope you like'em.