RUNNING WITH THE DEMON by Terry Brooks

Now it was the cause that drove him, that fed him, that gave him his purpose in life. The cause was everything, and the Void defined the cause as need required. For now, for this brief moment in time, the cause was the destruction of this town and its inhabitants. It was the release of the feeders that lurked in the caves beneath Sinnissippi Park. It was the subversion of Deny Howe. It was the infusion of chaos and madness into the sheltered world of Hopewell.

And it was one thing more, the thing that mattered most.

Deny Howe returned to the sofa and seated himself with a grunt, sipping at his beer. He looked at the demon, seeing him clearly for the first time because the demon was ready now to talk.

“We got to do something, bud,” Deny Howe intoned solemnly, nodding to emphasize the importance of his pronouncement. “We got to stop those suckers before they break us.”

The demon nodded in response. “If union men cross the picket line and return to work, the strike is finished.”

“Can’t let them do that.” Howe worked his big hands around the beer bottle, twisting slowly. “Damn traitors, anyway! What the hell they think they’re doing, selling out the rest of us!”

“What to do?” mused the demon.

“Shoot a few, by God! That’ll show them we mean business!”

The demon considered the prospect. “But “that might not stop the others from going back to work. And you would go to jail. You wouldn’t be of any use then, would you?”

Deny Howe frowned. He took a long drink out of the bottle. “So what’s the answer, bud? We have to do something.”

“Think about it like this,” suggested the demon, having already done so long ago. “The company plans to reopen the fourteen-inch using company men to fill the skill jobs and scabs to fill the gaps. If they can open one plant and bring back a few of the union men, they can work at opening the others as well. It will snowball on you, if they can just get one mill up and running.”

Howe nodded, his face flushed and intense. “Yeah, so?”

The demon smiled, drawing him in. “So, what happens if the company can’t open the number-three plant? What happens if they can’t get the fourteen-inch up and running?”

Deny Howe stared at him wordlessly, thinking it through.

The demon gave him a hand. “What happens if it becomes clear to everyone that it’s dangerous to cross the picket line and work in the mills? What happens, Deny?”

“Yeah, right.” A light came on somewhere behind Deny Howe’s flat eyes. “No one crosses the line and the strike continues and the company has to give in. Yeah, I get it. But why wouldn’t they start up the fourteen-inch? All they need’s the workers. Unless …”

The demon spoke the words for him, in his own voice, almost as if in his own mind. “Unless there is an accident.”

“An accident,” breathed Deny Howe. Excitement lit his rawboned features. “A really bad accident.”

“It happens sometimes,” said the demon.

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? An accident. Maybe someone even gets killed. Yeah.”

“Think about it,” said the demon. “Something will come to you.”

Derry Howe was smiling, his mind racing. He drank his beer and mulled over the possibilities the demon’s words had suggested to him. It would take little effort from here. A few more nudges. One good push in the right direction. Howe had been a demolitions man in Vietnam. It wouldn’t take much for him to figure out how to use that knowledge here. It wouldn’t even take courage. It required stupidity and blind conviction, and Derry Howe had plenty of both. That was why the demon had picked him.

The demon leaned back in the rocker and looked away, suddenly bored. What happened with Derry Howe was of such little importance. He was just another match waiting to be struck. Perhaps he would catch fire. You never knew. The demon had learned a long time ago that an explosion resulted most often from an accumulation of sparks. It was a lesson that had served him well. Derry Howe was one of several sparks the demon would strike over the next three days. Some were bound to catch fire; some might even explode. But, in the final analysis, they were all just diversions intended to draw attention away from the demon’s real purpose in coming to this tiny, insignificant Midwestern town. If things went the way he intended-and he had every reason to think they would-he would be gone before anyone had any idea at all of his interest in the girl.

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