text: Brian fumbled with the pull-string on the bag he was carrying. He couldn't maintain his grasp on the silk cords as they kept falling from his trembling fingers. The problem only worsening as he stumbled blindly in the dark, the trees overhead blotting out any light from the stars above. The only illumination coming from the crescent moon overhead. It peaked sheepishly between branches, casting threatening shadows on the ground that appeared like webs for some sickening, oversized spider. Brian let out a sob that he tried to mask. "Don't get all teary-eyed now," called a voice behind him, "you had your chance back at that burger joint and you fucked up." The frigid air around them rippled in the silence that followed. Fall had definitely come and the chill in the air was harsh against the face, even though no wind was blowing. Brian felt the barrel of the man's rifle press into the small of his back. He gasped in shock, he didn't realize the man had closed the distance so quickly. Almost as if the gunman had glided over the rocks and roots that jutted out from the ground. Any progress he had made on opening the bag was undone as he clutched the bag to his chest. "I don't even see the point," he said, "it's all coming to an end, right? Why waste the time on you?" "Then why are you here?" Brian croaked. "Just let me go..?" His voice faltering on the last syllable, as they continued forward, the leaves crackling under their feet. The man laughed dryly, "After what you did to me back there?" Brian heard him touch his face, right where he took a broken piece of glass and slashed him, "I don't think so. I don't know why they came for you so late, but you're done now." Brian pried at the knot in the cord of the bag. The thing inside jostled back and forth, alive, with the feverish dream to get out. It pounded against Brians palm as he held it. "There really is no stopping it, is there?" The man asked, as if they had been making small talk for the last thirty minutes they had been walking, as if there wasn't a gun pointed into his captives back. "Can't put Pandora back in the box?" Brian didn't answer. "I used to be a teacher." The man continued. Brian looked up from the knot that was starting to come loose and tilted his head to the side. He could hear him grasp the rifle tighter. His hands moving back and forth, wringing it like it was a damp washcloth. "So was I." "Yeah and people like you fucked it up for everyone, didn't you? Any sense of normalcy, its all gone." Brian neglected to answer the accusation. The knot came undone and his heart skipped a beat. He pinched the top close between his fingers. Confidence in turning the situation in his favor was restored. The thing inside was now practically throwing itself in a panic, begging to be let out. "I'm glad actually," Brian responded, placing the bag in the opening of his coat, still clenching it shut, "so many lies across so many centuries. Heaven and Hell are fake. Its always been us, we set the price too high for our salvation. Everyones deaths weren't for-" The bullet from the rifle cut through Brians knee and he fell forward with a scream, landing face first against a trunk from a fallen tree. The bag pumping against his own heart, Brian unsure which was which. Before he could turn, the hot barrel of the rifle was placed against the back of his neck. "Go ahead. Justify why my wife and boys are dead." the man said, barely in a whisper. The seconds that followed felt like minutes while Brian whimpered on the ground, wishing to clutch his knee but unable to move. The rifle dug deeper, "TELL ME WHY!" The man shouted. "Fuck you!" Brian yelled back, dirt and leaves sticking to his face. "I hope they fucking died slowly and you had to watch their souls leave their body while the archangels tore the vessels apart!" The burning muzzle left his neck. Brian reached his hand back inside his coat and grabbed the bag as it bounced maniacally, the smell of the fresh blood exciting it no doubt. He grimaced as he turned over, holding the bag steady and out of sight. His already rapid breathing increasing as he looked at his mangled knee, covered in blood that oozed through his jeans. The dirt that clung to it made it look infected. Perhaps he already was. The man with the gun had reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out another bullet. It glinted in the light shining through the trees. He loaded it into the chamber and raised the stock to his shoulder, glaring down the iron sights. "Wait!" Brian yelled, and yanked his arm out of his coat, holding the squirming bag. "Its opened! Shoot me and I drop it. Shoot me and you're dead." The man lowered his rifle, fear replaced the rage that had stained his face before. The cut across his left cheek was smeared with dried blood. "No," the man said, "we just killed it. I saw it die." "Lower your weapon and go back the way you came and I won't release it." The man didn't hesitate, he immediately bent down and placed the gun on the leaf-strewn ground, raising his arms as he did so. "Good, now turn around and start walking," Brian commanded breathlessly. Wordless, the man turned on the spot and began darting through the trees, the way they just came back towards his pickup truck. Brian tried to pull himself up by one hand on the log, wincing as he came to lean on the roots sticking horizontally into the open air. One hand clutching the toppled tree, the other hand still holding the bag. He glanced down at his leg, hanging almost lifeless as the patch of blood spread down towards his shoe. That was enough of a head start, Brian thought. And with that he dropped the bag. The explosion of unearthly noises that ripped through the night air was such that the man tripped over a fallen tree branch. The leaves of the trees around him swayed as if moved by a sudden gust of wind. Not bothering to turn and see, he picked himself up and continued running. He knew he must have been a hundred feet away by that point but the screech echoed in his ear as if it was right behind him. He pelted towards his truck. His footsteps thundering on the earth below him. The straps of his leather jacket belted against his forearms almost in tune with his stride. "Derek." Between the fight at the restaurant earlier in the night, watching his partners be slaughtered before him, and the dreaded walk out in the wilderness, nothing had scared the man more than hearing his dead wife whisper his name in his ear. He collided with a tree, knocking the breath out of him. Derek lay on the forest floor grabbing at his chest as he tried to reclaim his oxygen. His breathing coming in gasps. This was it and he knew it. Any chance of outrunning the demon was laughable in the first place. He sat up. His wife, in all her beauty, stood twenty feet away. Her short, brown hair pinned up, just like the day he met her at the university they attended. She looked him up and down, in an almost flirtatious way and took a step forward. The right side of her body phased through a tree. "Derek, its time we were together again," she said in almost trance, sing-song voice. How he missed the sound of it. She continued moving forward, ethereal in her movement over the uneven ground. She stopped ten feet away when Derek spoke. "Just... just do it," he whispered. The world was ending, his family was gone, how much more can a person fight. Dereks wife straightened her stance, her eyes dimmed into blackness as the outline of her body shifted, almost like it was static. The living corpse dropped and the creature controlling it stood in its wake. As black as oil with no discernable features, the demon only stood out because it was far darker than the night around it. A second passed and suddenly it was on top of Derek who had no time to scream. The shock of the moment suspended as it reached into his head, drawing no blood and pulled out something that pulsed different colors, on every possible part of the spectrum. The demon devoured the soul it held. As it entered the blackness that held it, the lights flickered and shut off. For a moment, the ghost of Derek flashed across the area where the demons face once held his deceased wifes. Derek's shell lay on the ground, vacant and unknowing. As good as dead, the demon picked it up and slit his throat to drink from. Drained, it was tossed to the side where it fell out of sight over the nearby brush. A fly caught in the webs of a spider. Killed, emptied, and disposed of.