Wrestling with Demons

Wrestling With Demons

by Tammy and Matt
Dec 29th - 31st, 2006

Susan knew that she only had a few seconds to catch her breath before he'd round the corner and be upon her. She shuddered at the thought of his appearance: his face was sickly pale, his shoulders broad and square above her head, and his hands twitched constantly as if they already held her neck between them. His lumbering footsteps grew louder now, and unformed words issued from his dead mouth. Determined not to waste any more time, Susan turned and fled towards the crumbling flight of stone stairs that would take her out of the depths of the castle.

But her flight was shortly impeded by another equally menacing figure.

"Figures..." she muttered as she stopped in her tracks, "you can't have a castle dungeon without Dracula showing up!"

The infamous vampire flashed his fangs and leapt toward her, his black cape billowing out behind him. Not a stranger to these sorts of happenings, Susan was not as scared as the situation should have entailed. Without a sound, she ducked quickly under his lunge and proceeded up the steps to the top.

Running into the darkened library, the vampire hot upon her heels, Susan spied the ingredient that her plan called for. Just narrowly avoiding another leaping attack from behind her, she dashed forward and grabbed the golden tassle that shone like a holy grail in her eyes. As if she didn't have enough on her plate, she could once again hear the footsteps of the monster she'd left below. Luckily for her, he wasn't a fast mover, that one!

Dracula sneered with the satisfaction of victory as his prey stood before him, apparently helpless and cornered. He licked his fangs in anticipation.

"While I do love what you've done with the place," she said, as her muscles tensed, "this ugly curtain has just got to go!" With that she gave the golden tassle a firm pull, throwing wide the heavy drapery and releasing waves of bright sunlight into the dark room.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" screamed Dracula, as his washed out skin burst aflame. He turned to escape the band of light, but in doing so ran smack into the hulking creature who had followed them up the stairs. This caused both villains to burn a slow, painful death.

Sighing to herself as she stepped over her vanquished foes' ashes, Susan exited the library and made her way into an adjacent bedroom. Not three steps had she taken, though, before the floor beneath her feet gave way and she toppled into the chamber below.

Thankfully, something soft had cushioned her fall. However, her relief was shortlived, as she appeared to be in the jaws of a giant venus fly trap! Just as the leafy mouth began to close around her, she did a nimble backflip into the air and onto safer ground.

"Geez, there really is no end to what some people can come up with."

Standing a safe distance from the mammoth plant, she took stock of her situation once more. Her surroundings seemed familiar, but then again all dungeons start to look the same after awhile. What she knew was that she had to find her way up again.

Moving from room to room, Susan tried to get her bearings. Like Hansel and Gretel of fairy tale lore, Susan looked for signs of her handiwork to find her previous trail. Before long, she was sidestepping fresh corpses that she'd left behind not long ago.

At that moment, a low growl behind her reminded her that she hadn't finished her work just yet. And unlike the patchwork man who'd lumbered after her earlier, this beast was built for speed. Susan broke into a run, heading toward and then up the staircase once more, with one precise destination in mind. Emerging into the library with her pursuer only a few loping strides behind, she noticed that it was inexplicably dark outside, with the exception of a full, glowing moon.

"Well, that... at least... explains the werewolf!" she got out, between pants.

This time, however, she didn't stop to admire the view within the libarry but instead headed straight for the adjacent bedroom. Running at full speed toward the gaping hole, she leapt adeptly at the last possible moment to avoid her previous pitfall. Landing lightly onto a bed, she turned to watch her hairy opponent disappear into the floor. Susan crawled forward and leaned over the edge of the bed to see what transpired below. In this case, a silver bullet was unnecessary - the killer flower had done the job just fine, thank you very much. It seemed that the werewolf must have had quite a nasty aftertaste, though, because the venus fly trap withered quickly and died.

"Wow, it's not every day that I kill two birds with one stone ... twice!"

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Susan headed toward the castle doors. Stepping out into the fickle sunlight once more, she fully believed her job was done. The giant beetle that raced up to her, however, had other ideas. Not even breaking her stride, she squished this latest threat beneath her boot.

"God, who dreams these things up?!"

In the last moments before she faded from the unreality around her, Susan wondered where she'd end up next. In the years since the accident, the only thrills she'd had were these trips into the minds of others. Even twenty-first century medical science couldn't explain why a 34-year-old quadraplegic could enter the dreams of the mentally ill, and yet Susan did it whenever asked. These poor souls were in such rough shape when Susan was wheeled in beside them, that their very nightmares were slowly killing them from the inside out. Her job, time after time, was to exorcise those demons and give the dreamers some peace. And it allowed Susan to do all the things she'd long since been denied, trapped as she was within an uncooperative body. It wasn't the greatest of lives; but it was a living!