YOU, TOO, CAN DEFEAT YOUR DEMONS IN TWELVE EASY STEPS

Step One

First, you have to admit there are demons, and some of those demons are yours.

Step Two

Believe you have power to defeat those demons. Because, without belief, you might as well hand over your lunch money. Keep in mind, demons don’t believe in anything… it's their job to destroy you, so make it your job to destroy them first.

Step Three

Get to it. Your demons will be totally taken off guard when you fight back. They'll be like "Whoa! What? What's happening?" They've had it easy all these years and they've put on a few pounds, so their reaction time will be slow. It's best to strike when they least suspect it.

Step Four

Do your research. Take an inventory of how many demons you need to defeat, which ones can be defeated easily, and which ones will require special weapons and/or charms to subdue/maim/eliminate.

Step Five

Confront your demons. Make a pair of demon tongs and start with the little ones (i.e. the ones hiding behind the bathroom mirror, the ones lurking in the kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator, and don't forget the ones nesting in your dresser drawer behind the socks and underwear). Grab them by the neck/tail/ballsack, whatever you can get a hold of, and place them in a wide-mouth jar. Make sure the lid is screwed on tight. Then sit back and enjoy the show. The angry demon will use up all of its air protesting its capture. Its face will turn a most unpleasant color (more unpleasant than the color it already is). Its eyes will bug. It might even shit itself. Then, blam! the diminutive demon will self-destruct in an explosion of ghastly goo. Repeat this process, building confidence as you go.

Step Six

You're now ready to defeat your bigger, most bothersome demons, the ones responsible for every insecurity, every doubt, every "anything I've every wanted but felt unworthy to have" feeling that seems to creep up when opportunity presents itself. Its time to defeat those fuckers with extreme prejudice. But you need to bulk up first.

Step Seven

Get a membership at a local gym. Trim that body fat, increase that muscle mass, build stamina. Real demon fighting requires a lot of strength and quickness. Plot your escape routes. Plan your attack.

Step Eight

Make a list of all the demons who ever harmed you, and find out where they live/work/shop. They may look human but, believe me, they're demons. Demons masquerading as moms, dads, cub scout leaders, grade school teachers, pediatricians, high school guidance counselors, track coaches, prom dates, next door neighbors, priests, policemen, and politicians. It's time to make amends and take back what was stolen.

Step Nine

His name is Joe. He's the one who humiliated you in front of the whole class, grabbed you by neck and brought you into his office. He made you cry, made you feel less, made you embarrassed for being you. He's a town selectman now. He's having an extramarital affair. Late one night, you wait for him outside of a bar and confront him in the parking lot. You bring your demon-killing weapon. He swears he doesn’t know who you are or what he's done to you. "Take my wallet. Take my car." He holds out his keys. "Just don't hurt me." It's ironic, I know. But demons are experts at irony. He wears his demon mask well. You flash your weapon and his demon mask separates from his body. Behind it you can see the rot, smell the sulfurous ooze. This is just an example. Your own personal Joe may be a Trevor or a Kent. Either way, this is how it's done.

Step Ten

Another example. We'll call her Sherry. She was all you ever wanted, and she knew it, and she used it against you. For years you tried to please her, but nothing was ever good enough. You thought the problem was you. If only you could only bend this way or that way, you could become the person she wanted. But it didn't matter which way you twisted and turned, you were screwed from the very beginning. You had no idea that she was a demon the whole time, until you said you were leaving, and, in that moment, she revealed herself. That's when you ran scrambling for the door and never looked back. She's haunted you ever since. But not anymore. You've tracked her down to a seedy motel on the outskirts of town, where she was feeding off poor, hapless, middle-aged men whose bloodless bodies were being found scattered in dumpsters across the city. You took great pleasure in bursting into her motel room, while she was in the middle of sucking the life from her latest john, and exsanguinating her. Again, let me make this clear, this is just an example.

Step Eleven

It's time to finish the work. You're almost there. Kudos to you. Finding that ultimate demon (the Nemesis Demon, I call it) is actually a lot easier than you'd think. It's not a matter of where to find them, it's coming to terms with who it is that will keep you from completing the task at hand. I'll keep you in suspense no longer. It's Mom or Dad. I know, take your pick. You know which one it is. You've always known, but have always managed to overlook the obvious. It's the one like Joe or the one like Sherry, those surrogates you managed to dispatch with extreme prejudice. So, why is this one so hard? Because it's you. Joe and Sherry were strangers before you met them. Mom and Dad created you. They were there from the beginning. They nurtured who you are today: a once scared, stuttering, spineless boy that is now a demon-killing machine! Usually, by the time you reach this level, the demon parent is old, infirm, either one pat of butter away from a heart attack or riddled with cancer. If you're lucky, they're already dead and all you have to do is dig up their grave and dismember their body (remembering to put it all back together again, neat and tidy, dirt and turf included, so no one will know). But you must do it. Even if their dementia-addled brain cannot comprehend what they did to you. Speak your peace and kablam! The final kill.

Step Twelve

Now that you've reached a state of demon-free nirvana, nothing else will seem to matter, except killing more demons. How can you possibly stop when your skill at recognizing demons has never been so acute? Demon-killer for hire? Demon-hunting Detective Agency? No way. You'll never be taken seriously. You'll just have to go it alone, whether your help is wanted or not. Best friends, co-workers, random people on the street—you know what's best for them, even if they can't see it. Maybe you'll find others like yourself, like-minded individuals with a penchant toward demon eradication? Maybe you'll create a demon-killer network on the dark web? Maybe one already exists (try eeny369meeny936miny396moe639catcha666demon666bythe666toe.onion). Who knows, maybe that's what the world needs: an army of demon hunters determined to rid the planet of demon infestation. Only time will tell. Stay safe, my friends.

CAR RIDE WITH GRAM

If Gram had known where she was going, she wouldn't have gotten into the car.

I pretended we were going out for ice cream. A special treat from her favorite granddaughter. Her only granddaughter. It was a less than five-minute ride to the Icebox, Gram's preferred spot. But I decided to try a different place. The ride was a little longer and the scenery prettier. The Icebox was downtown. Where we were going was along nothing but back country roads.

Gram didn't like the thumpy music I listened to, so I kept the radio silent. Gram stared out the window like a puppy dog, watching the scenery go by. The woods and the cornfields, the farm houses and the cow pastures—all of it a blur, no doubt, as seen through those large thick lenses she wore. The innocent child in the wrinkled suit. Sometimes her face looked like one of those sad Shar Pei dogs that were once so popular.

"This isn't the way to the Icebox," she finally said.

"We're going to try a different ice cream place, Gram. It just opened up. They say it's really good."

"How far is it?"

"Not far."

"Good. Because I might have to go to the bathroom. I hope I don't have an accident in your car."

"We're almost there, Gram."

"Do they have a bathroom?"

"I don't think so. We'll be back home in no time. Look how beautiful it is outside."

It was beautiful. The bright sunshine lit up the banks of tall trees and glittered on the open swaths of green that were hemmed in by stonewalls and barbed wire.

The road narrowed and we hit a bump. Gram gasped and clutched her chest. The road pitched forward and we picked up speed. "Rollercoaster!" Gram chuckled. She could be such a child sometimes.

But she wasn't a child. She was eighty-two years old. She had more prescriptions than you could count on one hand. She was nearly deaf, as far as I could tell. Nearly blind without her glasses. But she could still get around. We lived together in the house my mom and dad built. I worked nights, while she slept. It was an arrangement due to finances. I had to keep an eye on her every waking hour. It was a constant worry.

"Are we there yet?"

"No, Gram, not yet. We're close. Just a few more minutes."

"I know what you're doing," she said.

"What am I doing, Gram?"

"You're taking me to visit one of those places, again, aren't you? One of those nursing homes?"

"Nope, just ice cream. Besides, we can't afford it."

"You can't afford the ice cream?"

"What? No. I mean, yes, I can afford the ice cream. We can't afford to... never mind."

Gram reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple crumpled dollars. "Here, take this."

"Gram, I got it. I can afford to take you out for ice cream. Don't worry about it."

"Okay. But I told you before, I don't want to be put in a home for old people. I don't need a nurse. I've got you, dear."

"Yes, you do."

"I don't want to die alone." She said it softly but loud enough for me to hear.

"What was that, Gram?"

Gram fidgeted. She was good at playing the pity card. "Never mind."

"No, I heard you. I'll tell you what. Let's do a little Q&A."

"I don't understand, dear."

"You will. You were the one who brought up the subject of dying. So, let me ask you this one more time. Why did Mom kill herself, again?"

Gram stared at me in the rearview mirror. A calm had come over her, the way the air goes still before a tornado hits. "I don't know, dear. I told you, I found her in the garage while you were at school. She was so sad about your father. I assume she couldn't live without him."

"That's right, Dad fell off the roof because you kept making him go up there to clean the gutters or fix your antenna or—what was it? —'go see what that scratching noise is.' The one that supposedly kept you awake at night?"

"I don't like your tone. Remember, I'm you grandmother."

"Well, it's time to come clean, Gram. Just why did you kill my parents? Your own son?"

No response.

I kept one eye on the road, the other on Gram. "In case you're wondering how I know… I found the notebook Mom kept. She hid it where you'd never look for it: in my room. She was on to you, wasn't she? She was looking into your past. And you know what? She couldn't find anything?"

"Of course she couldn't. Birth records were spotty in my day. Names changed. Women disappeared once they got married."

"No, Mom couldn't find proof that you ever existed. I'm sure Dad had his questions, too. Maybe he got too close to the answer first?" I looked over my shoulder and asked her directly. "So, who the hell are you?"

"We're not going out for ice cream, are we, dear?"

Before I had chance to answer with a sarcastic remark, she had me around the neck. It all happened so fast. She must have unlatched her safety belt and lunged at the same time with a quickness I wasn't expecting. But how dumb was I to let my guard down, thinking she'd go quietly?

We were on a narrow back road and hadn't passed a house in a while. Somehow, she had the strength to reach for the steering wheel and yank it hard. It didn't take much to drive us over the shoulder and down toward the woods. The car hit a slight berm and came to an abrupt stop. I hit my head on the windshield. It wasn't enough to crack the glass, but enough to daze me. By the time I realized what had happened, Gram was out the car door and hobbling toward the woods. "Oh, no you don't," I said, and scrambled after her.

The crash must have injured her because she was clutching her side as she ran—or tried to run. I caught up with her at the edge of the woods and took her down. I heard her collar bone snap as she hit the ground beneath me. But it didn't stop her from flailing and trying to get away. Again, her strength was surprising considering she was Gram, the old woman who could barely see where she was going and fell as easily as a toddler.

"Get off of me you little bitch!" she growled into the dirt.

"No! Not till you tell me why," I said. I rolled her over onto her back, her arms pinned beneath her, an old trick I picked up on the playground when you wanted another kid at your mercy. She tried to buck me off but I had her shoulders pinned and my knees on her legs.

She started laughing then. It was more like a cackle. There was blood on her teeth from a split lip. She stared at me with those cold gray eyes of hers. "I should have snapped your little neck while I had the chance."

"Why, Gram? Just tell me why?" I realized then tears were running down my cheeks. "What did they ever do to you except care for you?"

"Your father was a good boy. Just a little too inquisitive for his own good. He should have let sleeping dogs lie. And your mother was a whore, just like you. She thought she was better than everyone else. She thought she was so smart."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It didn't make any sense. "But why? Why did you have to kill them?"

Once again, she grew still, like that moment in the car, right before she lunged at me, only this time it was contrition. She knew she was beat. Then her face changed. Maybe it was the tears in my eyes, or a patch of clouds momentarily covering the sun, but I could swear, for an instant, she turned into something else, something I can't explain. And that voice. I'll never forget it.

"Because I could," she said, and she laughed again, only it wasn't Gram's laugh, it was someone else, some thing else. And I was so scared in that moment, I could only think of one thing to do.

I wrapped my hands around her frail, papery-skinned throat and squeezed. I squeezed until it felt like every bone in her neck would break. I wish I could say she died quickly, but the thing inside of her taunted me till the end, hissing and flicking its tongue across Gram's bloodied teeth—all with a knowing, unapologetic look in its eyes. Eyes that continued to stare at me even though I knew the life behind them—the life I once knew as Gram—was gone.

That's when the realization of what I had done hit me like a gut punch. I doubled over and felt like vomiting. But I kept it together. I dragged her body into the woods and left her there.

The car had a slight bend in the fender, but no damage to the underbody. I was able to get it back up onto the road and drive it home. I waited two days before calling the police. An elderly woman wandering away from home while her granddaughter was at work? It happened all the time. Dementia has a cruel way of taking the ones we love away from us. The only comfort is knowing that those afflicted hardly know what's going on.

A search was conducted. There are a lot of wooded acres around where I live. It is unusual, however, that a body isn't found. But this one was the exception.

There was an outpouring of sympathy from the community. Invitations to grief groups. I'm even dating one of the cops that helped with the search. He was taken by my family's tragic history and my apparent resilience in the face of death.

People are so gullible. So easily fooled. They want to believe so badly there's good in everyone, even when all the signs are there that they're not.

He's sleeping now, beside me in my bed. My handsome protector. His gun and holster are on the nightstand. I just hope he doesn't try and dig any deeper. If he does, I suspect something tragic might happen.

I lean over and whisper into his cute little ear. Best to let sleeping dogs lie, I tell him.

Inside my head I hear cackling.

Kurt Newton’s stories have also appeared in Tower Magazine, The Dark, The Fabulist, Café Irreal, and Mouthfeel. His latest collection, Bruises, was published in 2023 by Lycan Valley Press. Kurt lives in what they call "The Quiet Corner" of Connecticut where silence grows like wheat fields in which imaginations are allowed to run free.

X - @KurtDNewton