The Edge Of The Cemetery Read Free Page B

the death.
    I hated having to physically hurt these poor possessed souls, but at that point, it was me or him—his demon was so adept at keeping the man between us that I hadn't had a single opportunity to vanquish him with my trusty yellow friend. I was even willing to risk the ultimate shock and jab him bare-fingered, but I just couldn't get close enough. This was an incredibly powerful demon, and he was making his already strong victim that much stronger.
    They'd been backing me down the lawn toward a four-foot wall, which bordered a seaside cliff. The wall was the only barrier between me and a thirty foot drop into the frigid Pacific Ocean. I thought I could survive a dunk in the water, but not if I hit the jagged rocks that made up the shoreline instead.
    I decided to charge him, if only to get some distance from that wall. I held my pencil out in front of me and crouched into a run, and so did the man. He was so much bigger than me, and when our tired and battered bodies met, he caught me off guard by grabbing a hold of my shoulder with one huge hand and my thigh with the other, essentially lifting me up off the ground. His momentum kept us going all the way to the wall, and suddenly I was flying through the air.
    When I hit the water, all of the fogginess from my recent beating evaporated. I was terrified, and survival was my only concern. Fortunately, I landed about fifteen feet out from the rocky beach, but the waves were pushing me toward the rough shoreline at an alarming pace, and if I didn't get control, I'd end up pulverized by the rugged rocks.
    On the drive up from San Francisco, I'd used my phone to look up the property on Google Earth, and recalled seeing a small pier at the base of the cliff. If my internal compass was working—and I had doubts due to the recent blows my head had taken—the dock should be close by. I turned in the direction I thought it was, took a sea swell to the face that felt like a sharp slap, and went under for a minute. When I surfaced, choking out salt water, I saw white safety lights and realized it was the dock. Before another wave rushed me closer to the shore—and what would surely be my death, or at least extreme disfigurement—I swam like my life depended on it…and of course, it did. I hit the pier piling with my forehead, causing a bright flash across my vision, but still managed to grab at the barnacle and oyster encrusted wood and hold tight. Although they were sharp and cutting into my hands, the sea life attached to the piling was keeping me from slipping on the otherwise slimy surface and back into the rushing ocean waters. I pulled myself along the wooden cross supports until I reached a ladder that descended into the water, and climbed to relative safety.
    I needed to catch my breath, but more importantly, I knew Billy was in trouble back up at the hotel that sat near the cliff. The sound of Billy's voice yelling down at me spurred me into action, and I scrambled up the cliff-side staircase. I was halfway to the top when I realized that she wasn't yelling in distress—at least not her own distress—but yelling at me to, and I quote, “Stop screwing around, George, and get your ass up here!”
    I laughed. It hurt like hell, but I couldn't help it. The earlier pounding I'd taken had included several upper-cuts to the lip and chin, and even more body blows to my ribs and stomach. Not only that, but my hands were chopped liver from the sharp barnacles and oysters that I'd recently clung to. I was a mess…but still, I kept going.
    When I reached the top, Billy was fending off a tall, athletically built woman in a lovely silver evening dress. The woman had a large carving knife in her hand and a nasty demon at her back. The women lunged, knife aimed directly at Billy's chest. Fortunately, Billy was damn fast and quickly leapt to the side, then darted back with lightning speed and stabbed the woman's demon with her chopstick, vanquishing it into a swirling grey