The Demon Senders by T Patrick Phelps

thinking demons should be a hell of a lot stronger than this guy was. After all, they’re the spawn of Satan. You’d think the old devil would at least give his spawns enough strength to handle a guy my size.
    I landed a few more blows just to make certain I had the old guy dazed enough. My punches didn’t seem to be doing all that much damage which, at that point, kind of concerned me. My percentage meter climbed up over ninety-five percent certainty when I saw there wasn’t a mark on his face, even though I had landed at least five good, solid punches. To get my meter up to a hundred percent, I reached over and dug up the rock I had brought to the party and slammed it down onto his forehead.
    It shocked him, that I can tell you, but it didn’t cause any damage and didn’t knock him out.
    It hit me right then and there: I was kneeling on top of a demon.
    I quickly pulled him up towards me, wrapped my arm around his neck and swung my body behind his. I crouched to my feet and started to drag him to the water. He clawed up my arm pretty good and did his best to worm his way out of my grasp, but, again, he was lacking in the strength department.
    I got a few feet into the freezing cold pond when I stopped. He was making some grunting noises and was still twisting his body and digging into my arm. I let up my grip, just for a second, and asked him, again, what he did to make my nightmares go away.
    “I took them from you,” he said in a snarl so evil my stomach immediately twisted in a fit of nausea. “I took a part of your soul in exchange for ending the nightmares.”
    That pissed me off. I didn’t know how much soul I had but I was none too pleased this son of a bitch had taken some of it. “Give it back or, by God, I’ll kill you right here and now.”
    “Too late.” His voice had morphed into more of a growl, deep, dripping with hatred. More animal than human. Then I noticed the stench. A fetid, foul smell of decay. It filled my nostrils and burned my eyes. My stomach had enough and vaulted everything I had eaten that day out of my mouth and into the pond.  
    “You’ve been spread all over the fucking world now, Mac. We all know about you.” His voice was horrible and getting worse with every syllable and the horrible smell seemed to have grown stronger. Like the old man’s breath in my Astro Van, this stench was hot. Oily. I could feel it covering my skin, lining my nostrils and coating the inside of my mouth. “You’ll never be left alone.”
    I plunged his head under the water.
    He kicked his legs and flailed his arms as I held him trapped beneath the water.
    He ripped at my arm again, still, I held him pinned beneath the water.
    He released several bubbles of air, each releasing another dose of that horrible odor when they reached the surface and I kept him submerged beneath the water.
    His body grew calmer, then still. I vomited again, the smell not dissipating and I kept the man restrained beneath the water. I felt his body go completely flaccid and then I felt it slowly melt away.
    He was gone.
    I stayed in the pond for several minutes, feeling around the bottom for his body. I found no trace of him. I knew I hadn’t let him go; he was taken from me.

    It took me a full ten minutes to collect myself before I started to walk back to the car. That smell wouldn’t leave me and my short walk back to Rachel was interrupted a few times by rounds of stomach wrenches. My system was empty so the heaving produced nothing more than a few ounces of bile and perhaps an ounce or two of pond water I must have swallowed.  
    Rachel saw me walking towards her. She jumped out of the car. “What the hell took you so long?” she demanded. Then her beautiful face contorted. “You spoke with him. I told you not to talk with him. His smell is all over you. My god, Trevor, his stench is on you.”
    It was pretty bad, the stench that is. I knew it and based on Rachel’s reaction, she agreed. “Any suggestions on