The Man in the Car Outside
by Paul McAvoy

   Twenty years of marriage lay shattered on the doorstep, as discarded as the black bags of rubbish that sat nearby, awaiting collection in the morning. Two decades of memories, of love and of happiness and sadness.

   He sat in his car outside the semi, looking up at the house. There were lights on in the front room downstairs and front room upstairs. He had heard her cry out a moment before and he wondered what he was doing to her now. He could picture him sat there in the front living room. He was sat on the furniture they had chosen together, he looked at the walls they had decorated and walked upon the carpet the man in the car outside had laid.

   How had it all come to this? He marvelled at how quickly things had come to pass. Months were mere days to him; years were just weeks. He had driven around in a car a different man, another person, his being swallowed whole by a menacing and over-powering creature.

   It was all hit and miss, a mixture of words hard to put down on paper, sentences that a reader would find hard to understand in just a first reading. As a story it might seem disjointed on first perusal, but was in fact as clear as could be – for it had all become disjointed. Life was like that sometimes. And even though the man in the car outside the house he had once lived in was angry and upset, he did understand… just about.

   She was inside there now; his son was there too, somewhere...

   The door to another world opened up quickly in the middle of the road and it brought him momentarily from his thoughts. Only he saw this happen. It was six foot high and three foot wide, a doorway into which was a black void. This void was strangely relaxing to eyes, almost hypnotic. A group of teenagers walked by, they saw nothing of the door. But it was there, only in another place. We would call this another dimension, but the man knew better than this. He looked over at the door.

   ‘Not yet,’ he said, and the door slowly closed and disappeared. There were things to do before this. ‘Places to go, people to see,’ he murmured.

   How many years had passed? Was there now new furniture in the house and fresh paper on the walls? Had the carpet he had laid be ripped up?

   The blood on her dress.

   ‘Places to go…’ he murmured again.

   He continued to look at the house.

   'Places to go…'

   Guy drove along in his Ford, the winding road ahead of him. He kept his foot down, the speedometer telling him he was going too fast, but that did not matter to him; in fact, little did. He came up behind a Renault, lodged onto its bumper for a mile of so, then overtook it. He looked to his left; he saw the fields of heather. He felt a slight chill race up his back, but smiled anyway. Ghosts always seemed to do that kind of thing to him.

   Sherry lay on her back, looking up at the sky, watching the clouds overhead. She was silent, she was alone. A secret watcher might think she was contemplating something deep or that she was at peace – she looked so serene. A few flies buzzed past, some lingered, but she made no attempt to swot them. She seemed not to care. She remembered…

   Through these fields of heather that ran, Guy chasing after her. She was laughing, he was laughing. That silent watcher would think they were in love. But there are no witnesses; there are no watchers this day, just the small animals in the fields of heather. The mice, the birds… there was traffic in the distance, but that was all. Guy and Sherry, just the two of them. She hoped that they would be married, even though she had only known him a few weeks. He was older than her by several years. He was not particularly good looking, but he was charming. She hardly knew him, in fact, and this was her mistake. She agreed to let him take her there for a ride; it was their third date. One thing she did know about him and that was he drove quickly.

   And quickly he drove, looking over at the fields of heather. He could remember a hot summer’s day, prancing around in the field with a girl. He tried to remember her name, but it was lost to him. Bad – he should at least remember her name. Sharon? Sandra? Running, laughing. His laughter, her laughter.

   She lay there for a long time, until the farmer found her. The farmer was wizened and tired. He had thought she was asleep, but closer inspection told him otherwise. There were several images that he would not forget until the day he dies.

   The blood on her dress.

   The knife in her stomach.

   The strange look on her face. The look of reconciliation…

   Police came and took her body away. But she remained there; her spirit did anyway, as though trapped; or perhaps just waiting? She lay there remembering everything. Laughter turning to shouts. Giggles to rage. Love to hate. Caresses to blows. Then there was a knife glistening in the sun. He stabbed her, several times for no reason. She lay in her death, never knowing why, never understanding.

   She sensed rather than felt the time elapse, and one day she saw a car approaching. She followed its course along the winding road. She took flight from the place she was, looking down on the earth below her. The world seemed to spin for a moment. Then she was heading towards the car. Like a bird, she hovered above it. Then she ducked and fell through the roof and into the back seat. She found herself looking at the back of her killer.

   As she did so, she felt something move within herself, something shifting in the dark corners of her mind: an uninvited guest.

   Guy turned around, sensing her appearance.

   She was filled with utter fury and anger. Her unexpected visitor was forgotten, it did not seem to matter. She wanted to reach out and touch him, claw at him, rip him apart. She wanted to do these things so badly, but knew there was no way; there was no actual physical part of her left, simply the after image of a life. The soul, perhaps.

   He turned around. He looked at her. He smiled.

   ‘I was expecting you,’ he told her.

   She could not speak, the whole process of talking was beyond her, but she did feel surprise and shock.

   ‘I know,’ he said. ‘They all feel the same way, all the chosen ones. For you were a chosen one, Sherry – now I remember your name – you were one of the special ones, taken to the darkness before your time. I chose you, my darling. I know you did not want to die, at least you did not think you wanted to die, but it had to be so. Fate has to run its course, you know. And it was fate, just fate that chose you as well as I did.’ As he spoke to her, his eyes did not leave her face. He drove on, seeming not to actually need to look at the road, as though he was on autopilot. He overtook a Mini, swerving into the oncoming traffic lane, without having to look at the road once. ‘Who am I? I am Guy. I was your guy for a while, too. Sorry, that is a well worn pun – one I have been using for a good few years now, but some women seem to like it. Some women understand more quickly and I see you are not one of them.’

   Sherry stared at him from the back of the car. She was not actually seated, for she had no form. A spirit, she was dead and yet not quite born. She was in a vortex, a no way area. She existed in a no mans land and from here there appeared no escape. She listened to him, for she needed to know. The anger and the fury was still evident, but was hushed now – as though she had come to terms with things in just a short time. Then, of course, there was the silent guest, somewhere in her mind, a visitant she wondered if real.

   ‘I am a demon,’ said Guy. ‘No fancy demon, of course. I am not in the same league as Beelzebub, but I am one of Satan’s little minions, out to cause pain and hurt whenever I can do so. I have roamed the earth for millennia, killing, maiming, hurting in all ways I can think of. I use bodies and I discard them.

   ‘I am currently in the process of killing those who fall for me – just like you did, dearest. I know not of any other’s like myself. I have not seen a fellow demon in many years, and nor have I seen Lucifer for a long time. Other demons might be dead, of course, as might Satan himself. But killing and causing pain his my duty – or perhaps it is more of a curse, I have to live with. Still, enough of that. Thought it best you should know. You have not suffered just any old death, of course. You have died at the hands of an actual demon. The demon now known as Guy, but I have had other names. Ripper, The Green Man… oh, lots - I don't want to bore you...’

   Sherry watched him as he spoke. She was now expressionless and all the anger was gone. Replaced by something else altogether.

   ‘It amazes me how people choose not to believe in such a thing as myself nowadays. Too much TV, I guess. Hell, why not blame TV – it gets blamed for everything else, doesn’t it? Think I will change my killing habits again. Nothing too big, of course – don’t want to wipe out the entire human race… don’t want to get elected as president again. Never had an inkling to press that orange button that says ‘Boom Boom Switch’. No, just the small stuff for me. It’s still good to be bad.’

   The thing in the back seat, that which was once Sherry looked on as he spoke. ‘Killing is your business?’ She did not ask the question, merely thought it.

   ‘And business is… etcetera…’ Guy beamed. ‘You know, you are quite good company. Quite a strong presence there. Sherry baby.’ He looked down at his hand on the steering wheel suddenly, feeling a sharp pain in his fingers. He raised a hand to his face and looked at her. ‘Pain,’ he said, more to himself.

   ‘I am no longer Sherry,’ the thing in the back seat announced. ‘Oh, I have been searching for you for such a long time!’

   He looked at her, a frown on his face. ‘What do you mean…?' He broke off, looking down at his hand. ‘Shit, that hurts.’

   ‘Good, it is meant to hurt,' she said simply. 'It is the start of your death.'

   ‘What…?’

   ‘Sorry, it is my turn to talk. I have looked for you for a long, long time. Throughout the years, coming so close some times, but never close enough. You are one of the last, you see. I am here to stop your crimes so that mankind can live in peace.’

   ‘Who are you?’

   ‘Like you I have had many names, but I will not go into that. I am an angel, your nemesis. I entered the body of Sherry; I hid in the darkness, so that you could not sense my presence. Now it is time I became real, like you…’

   Guy looked on in amazement as flesh started to grow over the spirit that was once Sherry, and the angel took a form. Bloodied flesh grew over sinews and bone, and this flesh was sealed with a skin. A naked form now sat in the back seat of Guy’s car, a form not unlike that of Sherry’s.

   ‘I have won,’ she said simply. There was a sense of pride in the statement. ‘It’s time for your end. It will be nice to see, I must admit.’

   Steam was rising from Guy’s hand and his face showed that he was in deep pain. ‘You bitch,’ he said. ‘Sly fucker!’ Then he smiled. ‘So you have been chasing me for a long time?’

   ‘You and your kind,’ was Sherry’s reply.

   His other hand was starting to smoke now. ‘How are you doing this? I have never felt pain before. How can you do this to me?’

   ‘I am good, and good always defeats evil. And that is what’s going to happen today. My very essence is beating you.’

   ‘Amazing!’ he said, but the angel was not sure if she heard sarcasm in his tone. ‘You do sound just a tiny bit like a bible basher, though… You will be asking me to say ten Hail Mary's soon.'

   ‘Don’t mock me…’

   He laughed then, stopping her dead. Guy looked around to face the road. He turned the steering wheel and sent the car off the tarmac. It hit a fence, and smashed headlong into the fields of heather. The car drove for a moment, both the angel and the demon rocking from side to side, bracing themselves for impact. When impact came it came suddenly and the demon was sent crashing through the windscreen, face first into the heather. The angel and Sherry amalgam rocked from side to side, watching the scene, face expressionless. Then when the car stopped moving, the angel got out and walked to the front.

   Guy was face down in the heather. His body was twitching. She continued to look as he began to lay still. She reached down and pulled him up with strength the real Sherry could not possibly possess. She held him before her face with one hand, his body was limp. Smoke was still rising from him. Both hands were gone and the left arm was starting to disintegrate. She felt a slight pang of sadness for the real Guy, who had to be a sacrifice in aid to kill the demon within.

   Suddenly, Guy’s eyes sprung open and he looked at her.

   ‘Evil doesn’t die, my divine one,’ he smiled. ‘It just keeps on being reborn.’

   ‘Until it sleeps,’ she said. ‘For good.’ She held him tight then…

   He went limp again. She threw his body to the ground. She inhaled a deep breath. The taste of air was nice. She savoured it for a moment. It was something she rarely had the privilege of doing. A taste of air, a taste of actual life. But soon this body would grumble again and fall to ashes. She would be a spirit once more. In fact both the inhabitants would be spirits: Sherry would be free, but the angel would go on, a never-ending quest. Then she reached down and touched Guy’s forehead. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Gone.’

   She stood up, still looking at the body.

   ‘Owner of this shell,’ she began. ‘Take yourself to where you ought to go. Many years have passed since you were taken by this devil.’ She paused, thinking. ‘I see many changes in your life. Changes you can see before you pass on to the next place. Go see them and wait for the door…’

   Then the angel’s face suddenly changed. It grew stern and a sly grin fell on the soft lips. ‘Told you, my divine one,’ she said in a deeper than normal tone. ‘I am here, intimate with you in this lady’s shell. I cannot die. You will chase me forever. Now, I must leave you, but I just wanted to let you know this before I did go. The battle is not over… goodbye…’

   The angels resumed her normal expression. Then a look of anger shot across her face. The angel, it would appear, had failed this time. The devil had been too cunning. Had she been chasing this one too long? Had she become complacent?’

   She reached out to kick the body that lay on the floor, nearly concealed by the heather. But she stopped herself.

   She had learned a valuable lesson this day. She looked down at the man. She would have to put the jigsaw that was his body back into the structure of things. He was one of many missing links, that was true, but at least he was one part she could rectify.

   ‘Let it be so,’ she said. She waved a hand before her in a sweeping motion. ‘Wait for the door… and for what it is worth… I am sorry…’

   The man in the car outside, Guy, turned to the door of his house. In his hand he held a newspaper. It was dated two years before. It told the tale of a how a man missing for many years was now considered dead. How his wife had remarried. How his child looked upon a stranger as his father…

   ‘For what it is worth,’ the angel had said. ‘I am sorry.’

   Guy climbed out of his car and headed to the centre of the road. He waited for the door… When it arrived, he was gone. He heard echoes at first, then his vision darkened before he heard his wife’s voice. She screamed and cried out. She put the phone down.

   ‘Len - they have found Guy’s body…’

   Guy then saw Len holding his wife tightly. There were no words. Guy felt happy for the first time in what seemed forever.

   And now he was ready to go…

 ©2004 Paul McAvoy

www.geocities.com/paulmcavoy