Daemon Walker: Chapter One (Revised)

Dangling from this decrepit wire I hang; for the sins of my father I must pay. Dangling here in the darkness I weep; weeping for the light that I seek. The scars burn from the blood of the past. Dangling over the wretched fire, suspended in this endless night. I have suffered nothing this be true; for tomorrow he will rip me anew.

           

In the cool, windy summer of 1954, little 16 year old, Catherine Grey sat under the big oak tree in the yard of her grandfather's little, white picket fence home. As the wind blew, the grass rippled, the leaves shook, and a single acorn fell and landed at her feet.

She waved at her neighbor Jason Walker as he rode his bike down the street.

The Walkers had always been a quiet bunch. Not many people heard from them. They kept to themselves the majority of the time. And for good reason to. The Walkers, they, well, let’s just say they weren't like other families. They didn't go to church like everyone else. They wore a lot of strange dark clothes.

See, Waterburn was a very religious town. Everyone went to church on Sunday. Everyone knew the Bible like the back of their hand. Everyone except the Walkers. 

Catherine was walking home from school one evening, she decided that she wanted to get home a little early and surprise her little brother David. She cut through one of the alleyways behind the shopping center, but halfway down the long alley, she had a strange feeling. She turned around to see a man not from Waterburn following her. 

Catherine started to run away but the strange man was faster. He cornered her and stared her with lust in his eyes. Too scared to scream, Catherine closed her eyes as tight as she could and covered her ears. About 45 seconds went by but nothing happened. Uneasily, she lowered her hands and opened her eyes to see the stranger laying on the ground unconscious, at the foot of another man. But wait, this is no man. He's just a teenager. 

"Jason... Is that you..?"

“I’m sorry about this Catherine…” He looked down at her with regret in his eyes and a brown bag in hand. “Please don’t fight.” He said right before trying to put the bag over her head. She screamed and called out for help but her scream was cut short by a swift hit to the head.

Waking up strung from a beam by her hands with her feet barely touching the floor, just enough to support her weight. Catherine’s eyes fluttered across the floor of the small, dimly lit room until they locked on a body. It was the same body that she saw in the ally earlier, but there were no clothes on him this time. The chains that suspended her rattled slightly as she tried to turn around to examine the rest of the room.

The back wall was embellished with a plethora of old and rusted tools you would expect to find in the shed of an 80’s horror movie. Still too dazed to understand the full depth of how dire the situation was, Catherine allowed her eyes to drift around the room again. Her eyes soon fell upon herself and discovered that her clothes were gone as well. Large welts and cuts stretched down and across her abdomen and chest; dried blood matted her hair and skin; and a handful of rusted nails were hammered into her thigh.

Suddenly the deafening silence of the dark room was shattered by indiscernible yelling emitting from the other side of the only door to the room. Another voice yelled back, softer and familiar but also indiscernible, which was silenced by a sharp slapping sound. Shortly after a small, decrepit man entered the room. He reached up and pulled on a cord that turned on a pathetically lit bulb. More alert now but still groggy, Catherine cringed at the grotesque sight of the man.

“How are you feelin’ darlin’?” His voice was rough from decades of chain smoking and drinking. “Does yer leg hurt?”

“Don’t touch me…” Catherine protested weakly as he reached down towards the nails.

“What did you just say to me girl?” The man’s face grew dark as he spoke these words.

“I said don’t touch me!” She replied defiantly. The man remained silent and his face still dark. He stepped to the side of Catherine and pulled down on the other end of her chain, raising her completely off the cold, hard, unforgiving ground. The agony caused to her arms was so great that Catherine let out a cry, begging to return to the ground. “This is nothin’ child. The real pain starts in the mornin’.” He turned off the light and walked out of the room without another word, locking the door behind him.