Two Steps From Hell

Chapter 9: The Man Who Has Everything

"No. No. No. No. Detective, can you hear me?!" David begged, kneeling next to where he laid unresponsive with the creature still firmly wrapped around his body. "Somebody help us!" He continued, sinking his fingers in his scalp.

"Identify yourself," a hand-trembling, automatic rifle-wielding Ezra demanded after stepping out of his secret elevator. 

"Where did you come from?" David frightenedly asked, scurrying backwards on his hands and bottom.

"Is that Detective Essen? What did you do to him?!"

"Me? No, it wasn't me. This thing, it appeared out of nowhere and attacked us. Please, you got to help him." 

"Okay, give me a hand with him," Ezra said throwing his rifle across his back and grabbing Essen's shoulders. "We need to get out of the alley. It's not safe." 

David quickly then grabbed his feet and helped Ezra carry him into the elevator, which later transported them down into the Bunker. They subsequently brought him into the Med Bay and placed his body on a cold metal table. Immediately Ezra went ahead to check his eyes with his small flashlight and felt for his pulse in his wrist. 

"Is he still alive?" David worried.

"Barely. His pupils are beyond dilated and his pulse is considerably low," Ezra afterwards pulled an oxygen mask over his face and made a tiny incision at the base of his hand for intravenous access. He shortly after pushed in an IV tube and connected him to an ECG machine. 

"You know what you're doing?"

"I have to start him on a dose of atropine right away," Ezra replied while opening the valve for the d**g to run into his IV tube. "Hopefully it will bring his heart rate back up."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then I fear he may suffer from permanent cardiac damage."

"I pray it doesn't come to that."

"This creature, I've never seen anything like it before. It...it almost resembles..."

"A hand?"

"Yeah."

"That's because it is a hand; a rotting, stinking hand."

"Where did it come from?" 

"Not from out of space for sure."

"What do you mean?"

"It transformed from a simple doorknob at my Cathedral. How is that possible? I keep asking myself the same thing. The Detective says it's demonic in origin. Maybe he was right, but in any event, it followed us here...into the alley. It wanted to kill me. That is when he saved me. He took the bullet for me. No one has ever done that for me."

"Anyone else followed you here...ah?" Ezra asked, trying to guess his name. 

"David, and no I don't think so."

"Well David, whatever it is, it looks like we will have to remove it."

"What makes you say that?"

"The atropine is not working and his pulse is going way below the threshold. We don't have much time." 

"Are you sure it is a good idea to do that now with his declining health? And if we do remove the creature, won't it attack us?"

"Either way it can't stay on him forever. This thing is the only elephant sitting in the room or more precisely, on top of Essen's chest. If we remove it, his health is guaranteed to return to normal. I'm sure of it"

"Okay do it," David then responded with his hands interlocked on the top of his head. 

Ezra after this hurried to put on a pair of surgical gloves. He steadily then used a very sharp scalpel to cut through one of the creature's fingers. Almost instantly the creature reacted violently by squeezing Essen's body tighter. The ECG machine then started to make a barrage of beeping sounds.

"Stop, you're killing him!" David cried out.

Ezra quickly pulled away from the creature with his chest rapidly moving up and down in shock. The beeping shortly stopped as the creature became relaxed again.

"What did you do to him?" David demanded. 

"I don't know, but it would seem that Essen and the creature now share some kind of symbiotic relationship..."

"I don't understand...speak English."

"It means if I try to remove the creature, it will kill him. If I do not remove the creature, it will kill him. I hope you see the paradox we're faced with here," Ezra intelligently theorized, putting down the scalpel and removing his gloves in defeat. 

"You can't give up. If he didn't push me out of the way in time, it would be me lying on this table right here or worst. He jeopardized his life to save mines. We must save him. There must be some other way...something that hasn't crossed your mind yet."

"There is no other way. With my very limited knowledge in medicine, I can't think of a procedure that I can use to save his life without killing him in the process." 

"Then let's bring him to a real doctor!"

"We can't! He's a wanted man and there are people who would like to see him dead," Ezra said as they both looked upon the slimy creature that proudly sat comfortably on Essen's chest. 

Yet as they dabbled in unsurety and discourse, Essen was running out of time. His skin had worrisomely begun to turn pale. His brown cold eyes fixed to the ceiling. He didn't blink once or moved his eyes. He was in fact lost in his own mind; living out his dreams in an alternate world where his daughter didn't die and he was still married to his loving wife, Olivia. In this make-believe world, it was about six in the evening. Essen had not too long parked up at his garage door. Rubbing the back of his neck he then walked up to his front door with his house keys out in his hand. 

"Surprise!" He heard a choir of people shouting after he had opened the door. He nearly pulled out his licensed firearm at them, but he quickly learnt what it was for.

"Happy birthday, honey," his beautiful wife revealed, greeting him in a sleek burgundy dress. Her skin was glowing a bright golden brown. 

It was his forty-first birthday as indicated by a long colourful birthday banner which hanged across the living room. A good amount of his family, friends and co-workers had turned up to surprise him, which admittedly, they did a little too much. 

"Wow. Olivia, I don't know what to say?" He nervously humoured while covertly strapping back his g*n in its strap, which was on his hip. 

"How about thank you? How about, I have the most amazing wife in the world," she replied, playing with his collar. 

Essen then swiftly took her intimately into his arms and gave her a passionate kiss on her lips. "How 'bout that?"

"That will do for now," she replied in temporary satisfaction. 

"Do you two need a room?" A strong male voice asked from behind them.

"Commissioner Briggs," Essen greeted on turning around. It would seem that in this world he was alive and had moved up from the ranks of police captain to the commissioner of the department. 

"May I borrow him from you?" The now Commissioner Briggs asked Olivia.

"Sure, just as long as you promise to bring him back," she replied finally closing the front door. 

"You have the word of a Commissioner."

Many people in the background were busy socializing, drinking and eating food. The commissioner and Essen slowly walked over to the wine cooler where they could get a little privacy.

"I see life has been good to you my friend. You're blessed to have a wife like her," the Commissioner complimented. 

"I know," Essen answered delightfully while he and Commissioner Briggs watched her in the distance as she took a selfie with some guests by his birthday cake. 

"Look, I've spoken to the council regarding your application."

"And?" Essen eagerly asked. 

"You got the promotion, Essen. You're our new captain." 

"Thank you so much, Commissioner. You don't know how much this means to me."

"No, you deserve this, Essen. You're the best man I know for the job. Of course, I trust you'll still have the same zeal and ferocity as you did working as a detective?" 

"Of course."

"Good. Ah, just on time. As promised. I return your husband back to you," Commissioner Briggs said when he saw Olivia coming over to them. "Essen, I will see you bright and early come Monday morning. Enjoy the rest of your night," the Commissioner then walked away. 

"What was that about?"

"Olivia, I got the promotion."

"Really!?"

"Yes! That is what he wanted to talk to me about in private."

"See I told you it would happen, baby. Didn't I tell you? Oh, I'm so proud of you, Joel," she said, hugging him.

"Where is she? I want to see her?"

"She's waiting for you in her room," Olivia then took his hand and led him up the stairs away from the party. "I had to hand in my deposition early this morning, but I managed to juggle both getting this party on the road and helping her pick out a dress for her ball tonight." 

"Well, you did an excellent job, my future DA wife. City Hall will be glad to have you." 

"I'm glad you think so."

"I do think so. This had always been our dream, Olivia. I round up the criminals and you make sure that they stay behind bars. A kick-a*s crime-fighting family we will be."

They then arrive at a pink door on which Essen excitedly knocked.

"It's open," a young lady answered. 

"Knock, knock." Essen cheerfully greeted as he entered the pink-coloured room.

"Happy birthday, daddy. I'm sorry I'm not downstairs to aid in the celebration," his daughter, Jody, replied. She had grown up to be eighteen years old in this reality. She was in a stunning pink sparkling sequins prom dress. 

"You look like a princess. You look beautiful, honey."

"Daddy, you're making me blush," Jody replied with a contagious smile that caused her mother to smile too in appreciation of her family. 

"Honestly, I've watched you grown up into the beautiful, intelligent woman I see standing before me right now. And we couldn't be more proud," Essen commended, hugging her tightly.

Then when things were becoming too perfect, a bad feeling took Essen by storm. He started to have a series of flashes where he glimpsed the nine-year-old version of Jody standing in front of him instead of the grown-up version. This then intensified further and resulted in a back and forth swapping of the two versions of his daughter. Essen shook his head and closed his eyes multiple times, but the glitches kept on happening. His memory of this fabricated world and the real world were colliding with each other. That is what was happening to him. Now he couldn't distinguish between what was real from what was fabricated. So he began to look at them strangely like if he did not recognize his family anymore. 

"Daddy, are you okay?" Jody asked, but still, he kept on looking on them strangely. "Mom, what's wrong with him?"

"Maybe it's all the excitement getting to him. Honey, maybe you need to sit down," his wife recommended. 

But Essen couldn't focus on what they were saying because the lights in the room were becoming increasingly brighter than usual, to the point of blindness. Yet out of the white light came the hands of his dead nine-year-old daughter's spirit. Essen immediately fell to his knee out of his overwhelming confusion. 

"What do you want from me?" He asked, gripping his fists.

"You have to remember," the little girl's voice echoed. She had disappeared saying this.

Immediately after this, everyone from the party that was downstairs, out of the blues all appeared in the room with him. They were all standing at attention with their hands at their sides, looking fixedly at him without blinking. His wife and eighteen years old daughter were also apart of this crowd.

"You have to remember," the little girl's voice said again.

"Remember what?" Essen desperately asked out loud, scanning the crowd to see where the voice was coming from. 

Then his wife without moving her lip said, "Don't listen to her. Stay with us, Joel."

"Your future is with your family, Captain Essen," Commissioner Briggs added, also not moving his lips.

"Daddy, I'm scared. Please don't leave us again," his daughter begged, sounding like she was crying. But when he looked at her he saw that her face and expression was as stiff as a board.

"I don't understand," he said with a twitching eyebrow.

Then all together everyone began to annoyingly chant, "Join us, Joel. Join us, Joel. Join us, Joel. Join us, Joel..."

"No. I don't understand!" He fell onto his knees. 

Then right at that moment the little girl came out from nowhere and took a firm hold of both sides of his face. "Remember!" She shouted at the top of her lungs. 

Then in a flash, the room became pitch black and everyone and everything vanished except for Essen himself. He was now in this endless void where he could only see blackness. 

"Hello?! Anyone?! Hello!?" He pleaded, dying for a response.

Then as he'd hoped, he got a response. But it wasn't the type of response he was expecting. It was the sound of a weeping woman coming from behind him. So he cautiously turned around. To his disbelief, he realized that it was his wife that was weeping. Yet that wasn't the only thing he had noticed. Olivia was weeping and holding in her lap the lifeless body of their nine years old daughter, who had received a fatal gunshot wound in her stomach. Even more shockingly to him, he just now realized that he had the perpetrator by his collar in his grip. This man's face had been beaten beyond recognition. Three other unknown bodies lied dead on the floor in this room which slowly became more and more familiar to him in the void. Then with his jaw hanging low and tears filling up his eyes, Essen let go of the man's collar and dropped himself to the floor where his wife was holding their daughter in her lap.

"How could've you let this happened? You promised you'd keep us safe. Now, look at our baby. She's dead!" His wife announced with complete hatred in her eyes. The blood of her daughter was all over her white nightgown and face.

But Essen was so shocked that he couldn't speak or utter a word of comfort or an apology to her. He then saw his daughter's spirit standing behind Olivia, looking unemotional about her own death.

"Why are you doing this to me?" He pleaded with the phantom. 

"As we speak your life essence is being sucked out of your body by the parasite that attached itself to you. It created this utopia where everything seemed to be working out in your favour. It is a lie from hell and will only result in your ultimate destruction. To break this stronghold the succubus had over you I had to bring you back to your greatest tragedy...her...my death," the little girl told him unwaveringly.

"It was me they wanted that night. I caused this to happen to you," Essen declared, coming to a soul-crushing conclusion. 

"To fully defeat the succubus you need to move on from this night. You need to forgive yourself."

"I can't. I won't," He broke down in pitiful tears. 

"For years you've let my death govern your life...losing mom, getting into fights and trouble where ever you go. No peace. No rest. Too long dad you've been angry with yourself...miserable and alone...mean and cruel...a foaming sea without rest. You need to move on!"

"It hurts so badly," he admitted, starting to allow tears to run down on his face. "I was supposed to protect you. To keep you safe. But I failed. I let you and your mother down." 

"It's okay, Dad," the little girl reaffirmed, holding onto his balled fist. She surprisingly started to cry with him, but in joy, she did cry.

"Are you happy where you're at, Jody?" He began wiping away his tears. 

"Yes. It is beautiful there and all the people are nice to me. You will come there one day. But that is not today." 

At the same time in the real world, the succubus abruptly burst into ashes. The ashes thereafter ran down on the table and off Essen's chest. 

"What is happening?" David wondered after seeing what had happened to the creature.

"I don't know, but his vitals are returning to normal," Ezra joyfully replied, looking on the ECG machine.

"So shouldn't he be waking up by now?" David worried as he watched Essen's unresponsive eyes still looking straight up into the empty ceiling. 

Ezra at this point couldn't find a proper answer to give to him, because unknowingly to them both, Essen was trapped in another world.  

At this time Essen found himself atop a highland overlooking a mighty city down below. His daughter was by his side.

"Am I dead?" He asked.

"No. Not yet."

"Where are we?"

"I've been in the present with you. Just now you've reconciled with your past. It's time I showed you the real reason why I came back. It's time I showed you what is to come. The future."