MY DREAMS ARE getting worse. Nightmares I should say. No. Not nightmares. I don’t know what to call them. They don’t terrify me. They’re just unnerving, more like an annoyance. I should have said, a mixture of both. Doesn’t matter though. I need to do something about it. It’s affecting my life. I can barely sleep. Exhaustion is taking its toll on my mind and body. I’m constantly nauseated. I’ve been seeing things, and hearing voices. I don’t know what to do about it.

My stomach growls as the fog of sleep starts to lift, reminding me that I haven’t eaten in a couple of days. I sit up in bed, put my feet on the floor, and stand too quickly. The world spins and I nearly fall but catch myself on the dresser next to the bed. A noise outside the window startles me. It sounds like a crow.

Fuck off, you bastard.

These dreams or whatever they may be, are ingrained into my brain now, mostly the same. Every night for the last six months. A murder of crows in a cornfield, calling to me. They want me to come to them, but where are they? I know now. This dream was different. I saw a building. A barn. The cornfield. I know where it is now. I get dressed, grab my wallet and keys, and leave my apartment. Maybe it’s a premonition. Nah, I don’t believe in that shit. All I know is I need to go there and put this shit to rest so I can sleep.

The farm is only three miles down the highway. I turn right, onto a dirt road. I drive until I see it. The barn. Its wood is old and faded with age. One of the giant doors at the front is a pile of rotten lumber. I pull up near it and park. I look around at the building and the surrounding fields. Corn on one side, wheat on the other. Someone must be working the land. I wonder who. Didn’t know anyone lived out here. There is no house, just the barn and a storage building. No vehicles.

I get out of the car. It’s an old piece of shit Honda my dad gave me after high school. Beat up. Barely runs. It gets me where I need to go though. I’ll drive it until it falls apart.

Now that I have a starting point, I know where I need to go. I walk into the rows of corn. The corn is half-rotted. Worms crawling in and out. Flies buzzing around. Maggots. So many maggots. I continue. I’m almost there. I know it. I hear the crows caw and the field opens up like in the dream.

A scarecrow hangs upside down on a cross. No, not a scarecrow. A corpse, with one bird sitting on top of the cross, pecking at exposed toes. The body is held up by railroad spikes through the eye sockets, the ankles are stuck together with a single spike through both, and the arms are free, dangling in the slight breeze. The ends of the spikes are etched with pentagrams. I can tell the body has been here a while. It is bloated and stinks. Flies all over, drinking a strange black sludge dripping from the wounds the railroad spikes had made. It looks like tar but flows like blood. I move closer and nearly trip over something on the ground. I look down. Another body. It looks like he has been sucked dry. Muscles shriveled, sunken cheeks. Skin stretched tight over the bones.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I hear my heartbeat in my ears. The sludge drips down the corpse, under the skin. It has melted the muscle and bone and fused it with the wood. It looks like a half-human half-wood body, sunk down into the cross, like a mold. I look closer. The black sludge is not dripping. It is crawling, like it’s trying to surround the body. I think about calling the police when a beautiful voice in my head begs me to release it from its prison. Either that, or I am going insane. Fuck my life. I don’t know what’s real anymore.

A vision flashes in my mind: I am peeling the skin off the corpse. A feeling of despair washes over me. Whoever or whatever it is needs my help. Another image of me peeling the skin, only this time I help it get off the cross. The vision repeats. It does need help, and it’s desperate. I am nervous, frightened, and thinking about fleeing, but a new vision comes. This time when I help it down it thanks me for releasing it. It does little to calm my apprehension, but I decide to help. It feels right. The creature needs me.

I reach up to the wounds in the ankles and start there. I push a finger under the skin and pull down. An image of danger. I do my best not to touch the sludge. I peel the skin away from the face the best I can and pull down. I work slowly, and the skin comes off easily. The black sludge underneath makes the job quick. I pull until all that’s left is the top of the head. One last tug and it’s free. I drop it and continue.

I need to help it down from the cross if that is even possible. I forget about the danger of touching the sludge and begin by ripping the spikes free from the hands and ankles. I start at the bottom and attempt to detach the head from the wood. It is slow going, but I manage. I pull the head away and some of the timber comes with it. Like the head is now half human and half wood. I work on the torso, and then the legs, one by one, slowly twisting and turning. As I finish, and carefully lower the creature to the ground, another image flashes in my mind of me eating the black sludge. The urge to do so is too great. I scoop some off the arm. Swallowing it, I immediately vomit black bile. My whole body tingles and energy surges through me. Power. I smile. I feel good, better than I have ever felt. I feel like a different person. This creature had embraced me as its servant. I want nothing more than to do its bidding.

In my mind, I hear voices. His voice. His name is Agorth, and the body on the cross is his prison. He is a fallen angel, he explains, and he wants to be free. A priest wrongly imprisoned him. Agorth says he has one more job for me. He needs to absorb my body.

I frown.

I feel a jerk, and his arms wrap around my torso and squeeze. Tighter and tighter. He lifts me and moves us away from the cross. The farther we get from it the stronger Agorth becomes. I feel needles shooting through my midsection, and I hear a crack. I look up into his eyes. The pain in my torso grows. It feels like my body is being ripped in half. I look down. Our bodies are molding together. Like siamese twins. I scream. As he absorbs me into him he begins to change. His skin is growing back to normal. His eyes return. His lips. He smiles.

Then, nothing.

***

Hours later, a man wearing a cassock stands before the cross pursing his lips. He pulls a cell phone from a pocket inside the garment and dials a number.

“Father Vasquez, I’ve been delayed, but I’m on the way there,” the voice says.

“Don’t bother. It’s gone, and Father Blackwell is dead,” Vasquez says.

“What do you mean it’s gone?”

“You heard me. The demon is gone.”

“What about the body it was inhabiting?”

“Yeah, that too.”

“And Blackwell, what happened there?”

---

---