The Damned

Chapter 6: The Showdown

The Showdown

Nathan stood there with the stake in his hands staring into the eyes of the demon who had hunted him for so long. It’s crimson eyes flashed to purple for an instant, then went back to their usual blood-red color. The demon stood about 6 and a half feet tall. It’s body was red as it’s eyes and seemed to lack actual skin because Nathan could see the organs underneath. It’s heart was black as midnight, as were the two horns sprouting out from its forehead. Its fangs glistened, though the sun was below the horizon and gave off little light.

Despite the demons horrible appearance and inhuman size, Nathan was unafraid. This was it. This was going to decide who the winner was. He wasn’t going to run away anymore.

Nathan began walking down the street toward it, holding the stake up warily. The demon, as if on some unspoken cue, began to walk towards him as well, not hurrying but walking casually, almost mockingly. Their footsteps rang on the street, a menacing sound in all this silence.

When they were about 5 feet from each other, they both stopped at the same time and just looked at each other silently. Nathan raised up the stake and held it in both hands in front of him, like a sword or something. The demon looked at it, then grinned. It slowly reached around behind its back, still grinning, and when it drew its hand forth again, there was a knife held in it. Nathan knew that knife; hell, how could he possibly forget it?

It was the knife that killed Auburn.

The anger from seeing this blade again gave him strength, and Nathan swung as hard as he could at the demons head, tears running down his face. The demon stepped back, and the stake whistled harmlessly by. Then, the demon came in and stabbed forward with the knife in its hand. Nathan barely had time to move out of its way before it was right where his heart had been a moment before, and even though the demon didn’t manage to stab him with it he did manage to give Nathan a cut on his right arm near the shoulder.

Nathan leaped back, then jumped forward again, swinging the stake up over his head. The demon didn’t have enough time to get out of the way, so it raised its arm up above its head and took the blow with that. When the stake hit, Nathan heard a sickening –crack- as the bone broke. The demon, however, didn’t even flinch from the pain. Its other arm had the knife in it, and it cut a horizontal slash across Nathans chest with it. Blood immediately began to well from it, but Nathan ignored that. Instead of backing off, he swung again, hard and fast, at the demons head.

This time, there was no way the demon could effectively block at this range. It had just enough time to register a look of anger before the stake smashed into its face with a brittle crunching sound. Nathan backed off and looked to see if the demon would fall. Its face was a mess, and a greenish-black blood was dripping from both its mouth and its nostrils. But, it was still grinning, and suddenly it stabbed forward and plunged the knife deep into Nathans gut.

This time, the pain was too much and he staggered a little away, clutching his stomach with one hand. The demon walked forward, its grin widening. It licked its blood soaked fangs in anticipation. It knew that Nathan wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of this last stab.

It raised the knife slowly above its head. Nathan knew that it meant to kill him now, that the demon was about to finish what it had started.

The knife paused in the air for a moment, then plunged down at his neck.

The look of triumph on the demon's face changed to shock, and the knife tip stopped less than inch from Nathan's neck and stayed there, trembling.

Nathan crouched there with the stake in his hands, the other end sticking out of the demons belly. Nathan had seen the demon's hand coming down with the knife in it and had stuck the sharp end of the stake up in front of him and the demon and landed right on it.

Nathan pushed the demon off to the side and stood up. Then, he yanked the stake out of the demons torso. He looked at it for a moment then back down at the demon. It had dropped the knife and was looking at him with hate filled eyes. Blood was flowing like water out of the wound in its belly, making a large puddle on the ground.

Nathan looked down at it and then shouted, "This is for my mom!" as he brought the stake down to smash into the side of the demons face with the sound of lots of bones crunching.

"This is for Auburn!" He screamed as he brought it down again, crushing the other side of its face in. The demon continued to glare up at him with its one remaining eye. Blood soaked Nathan's feet, but he didn't care.

"And this..." He said. "This is for ME!" And he brought it down one more time, point first.

The demon screamed, but that ended abruptly as the stake struck home, ramming down into its skull and out the other side into the dirt, pinning it to the ground. The blood coming from its head was also littered with bits of skin, skull, and a mushy tan stuff that Nathan thought must be its brain.

The light in its remaining eye was dead, as it would be for the rest of eternity.

Nathan walked a few steps away, tears trickling down his face. He dropped to his knees weeping, raised his hands up into the air and cried, "I'M FREE!". And, for the first time since this had all started, he knew he was safe.