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Adam Shend was coming home from his boring day job at the cubicals working as tech support. He was a plain ol' joe. Nothing special about him, never really was. Adam loathed his job with all he had in him. Now he was driving home in the pouring rain at about eleven o'clock. He had an old friend who had a saying. S.S.D.D. Same s**t Different Day. That's how he felt right now in fact. The day was always going to be the same. Adam sped up and the slush from the winter of last and dirtied his black rubber tires. Adam could be described as almost a skeleton, he had long brown hair, dark brown eyes that had mesmerized more then one woman in his life, and wore black rimmed glasses. The night descended quickly today, spring was looming over the horizon and winter was nearing it's desired end. Adam leaned his face closer up the windshield and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He was eager to get home at night, grab a pillow, and fall asleep so he could restart this dreaded cycle once again. His job was painful and he thought about suicide more then just once, hell, he even had a six-shooter in his glove compartment. He bought it last sunday when he was determined to run himself through. He "pussied" out at the last second. And even though that last second was what saved his life, he would always think about it. Even now, Adam was thinking about it all. He could kill himself right here and now. Just a reach into the compartment, pull back the hammer, and let it ride. The clouds overhead let loose the rain which spotted his windshield. Up ahead, two girls were skipping rope and singing to some child's rhyme. He couldn't make out the words. Adam wondered why they were skipping rope on a day like this, with the gray clouds looming overhead. He was watching them skip rope when they turned to him and tilted their heads sideways. They opened their mouths and said something. The rain drowned out their words but he read their lips.
Little Devil
He cast his gaze away from them and drove onword to his apartment on Central Ave. where his roomate sat playing video games or watching movies. He let his mind wander in the night, thinking about those words spoken by the little girls. He couldn't remember what they looked like, but the word gray struck him the closest (and easiest.) Driving in the night, that was horror right there. So he kept his focus on the road once more.
He arrived maybe a quarter to twelve, the drive from his office building deep in the city was a long drive, forcing him to leave late and wake up early. Adam drove his old hand-me-down car into the parking lot and entered his apartment building. The aged red brick stuck out in the darkness. He heard chimes in the back of his head. Quiet. A low hum at first. Then, unexpectedly, it exploded into a symphony. He fell forward and clutched his head, the chimes receeded like a dull memory.
Thuds were easily heard from beyond the door of C19. A scream burned through the walls and Adam knew what was going on before he lay his hand on the door handle. His roomate had invited someone over and now they were doing it on the brown carpet floor. Adam wasted no time, he pulled the door open and walked past Jeff Groven and his woman. He set his cell phone on the kitchen counter. Since Jeff did this often it didn't make Adam the least bit uncomfortable. Once a woman invited him for a threesome. He'd felt his face glow orange embers. Of course he declined and ran to his dark room to begin writing. He wrote for a pornographic company and managed to pay the rent, just barely. Now he heard random french sayings coming from her mouth, most of which he understood and didn't want to hear more. The whore of the week was a french girl with brunette hair and large breasts. She wore a corset which was currently located in the corner of the room, she had heavy red lipstick on her full lips, and her eyes were deep black.
Jeff stopped his rhythemic thrusting and craned his head toward Adam and opened his mouth for an explanation, but his roomate beat him to the punch.
"French whore?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow. "Good taste, what's this ones name?"
"Her name is... Cherry." Jeff pulled out of the whore (much to her displeasure) and pulled his pants on. Jeff had short brown hair swooped over one eye, and was an average height. Unlike Adam, Jeff worked out often and in highschool he was a star football player. Even now Jeff was a ladies man who got laid often.
"Well," Adam said, "I think I'm going to go for a walk while you finish up."
"Alright, so half an hour?"
"Ten minutes tops." Adam turned his back on Jeff and Cherry. (Obviously a hooker name.) He stepped out the door and pulled a case of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit it with a match and left the apartment smoking it. He thought it best to put some distance between the moaning and creaking of bed springs, so Adam left the building entirely. He was freeing himself from the parking lot, smoking the last of his cigarette. He kept his eyes on the moon, it's glow lighting everything a somber blue. His mind rushed back to the little girls and their words. Little Devil. Whatever the hell that meant. Maybe they were ******** with me were his most hopeful thoughts he could think of. Although the day was boring and average on all but one account, that single account is all it took to get him thinking. What was this little devil and why were two little girls saying it? He took a drag from his cigarette. He'd been addicted to them for as long as he could remember. He first started smoking in seventh grade and from there, it all took off. He liked to call it his hobby but that just hid what it really was. A bad habit. He's known it for years and he still kept smoking. Once he tried stopping, but that led to him biting his nails to get anything he could from his "Habit" out. Eventually he just came back to them and it all started up again.
Adam came to the end of a sidewalk and checked both ways, no need in getting hit by a truck because his roomate got laid. A red truck drove by him and the driver looked as old as time itself. When it was gone, Adam jumped across the street and onto a new street. Once again he gazed at the moon and saw something perculier. The moon had a face on it, a great grinning face. Adam stopped in his tracks and let his cigarette drop to the ground. The moon was grinning at him. It's jaws were open and the teeth seemed to drip crimson blood against his pale white face.
Come here, the face seemed to say, I'm hungry and haven't eaten in years!
Adam shook his head and looked back at the moon, it was gone. The evil, grinning, satanic, face was gone. Instead, it was replaced by the ol' man on the moon. Friendly and back to the moon that listened to all the childrens secrets.
But you aren't listening, Adam thought grimly. You're plotting and scheming and you aren't friendly, no. You're evil. Adam continued down the sidewalk, leaving his smoking cigarette in his wake. The road ahead stretched forever, leading to new roads and new places to explore. The road itself was a portal to all new roads, which, in turn, led to new portals. It was like an unending system of portals. This thought often came to Adam Shend's mind. Almost stuck there like a fly on fly paper, buzz-buzz-buzzing to be freed and explore. But no matter how much it hit him, Adam stayed in this shabby old town. The same of it was Canterview. It overlooked a clear lake, where old men and their sons fished. Trees lined the outskirts before exploding into a lush forest. Almost everyone in the town was friends, the children loved school, it was almost perfect.
Almost.
A strange thing about this place, Canterview, was the amount of murders happened each month. It was never more then three, always. The murder scenes were gruesome and so gory the policemen who saw it carried bins around to puke into. The murders were going on for fifty years. Some people say the town is haunted by a ghost seeking revenge. Still others say it's a family of murderers who pass down the traditional killings. Adam didn't think much of these murders, it never affected him or his friends, nobody close to him has died so why should he care? All he knew was that the killings were unsolvable. It almost always involved horrible mutilation and almost always held no prints nor clues. Adam reached into his pocket for a cigarette and found none. He sighed, the walk was getting tiresome already.
Adam checked his watch, a gift from his drunk father, and saw it'd been an hour. If he were lucky -and he wasn't- he could arrive in time for Cherry's leaving. And if he wasn't the two would be going at it again. He knew if she left she'd offer him something for extra money. A b*****b maybe, which he'd decline politely. Adam decided to keep walking for another fifteen minutes, maybe then the two would have finished up their dirty deed. He kept walking absent mindedly, not paying attention to the things around himm just drifting into what he called his "Zone." In his "Zone" Adam would be able to see into his mind, to open up memories, shut them away, or get rid of them completely. He felt he was in complete control of this world. When he was seven his mother and father had gotten into a fight.
They were attacking each other and yelling and doing other horrible things. Adam ran into his closet and held himself for an hour muttering to himself: it'll be alright, it'll be alright, it'll be alright. Tears streamed down his young face and he entered his "zone." He got lost in his zone and floated about, tossing bad memories away and keeping only the good ones. Eventually his parents calmed down and started searching for him. That's when they found him in the closet still weeping. No matter how many times he tried he couldn't get rid of the memory of them fighting and arguing.
The honking of a car horn thrust him out of the Zone and into the World. A red truck had driven up a hill and swerved to avoid him. It ran into a pine tree, knocking it over halfway and denting the cars hood. A branch impaled itself in the windshield and, much to Adams horror, blood was splattered on the window where the branch impaled itself.
"Holy ********!" Adam rushed to the wreck of the red truck and pulled on the door handle. It didn't open. He pulled harder, trying to rip the door off it' hinges, but to no avail. He rapped on the window five times. "Unlock it! Hey, unlock it so I can help you!" The windows were fogged over before but started to clear. He saw the driver was impaled in the shoulder by the tree branch and blood was leaking out of the wound. Adam rammed his elbow against the window, only to fall to his knees holding it in his arm. Then, Adam checked his pockets, looking for his cellphone. He checkeed them all when he realized he must have left it at home. He made up his mind to race home and grab Jeff to help him get the driver out.
The moon overhead regained it's evil nature. The Devil Moon had returned for this moment, to watch Adam and his efforts. The Devil Moon glowed a faint red, the white glow painted everything rose red. Adam noticed, but everyone around him didn't. Nobody walked outside of their cozy homes to see what was going on. Adam thought he was going crazy for a moment. The red glowed faded away and everything was bathed in faint blue once again. He didn't trust the moon, it was working against him in some way. Maybe it always has been. The face of the Devil Moon remained. Grinning at him, the teeth sharpened to a razor point, crimson dripping from it's mouth, the Devil Moon watched. Adam never noticed the face.
He arrived in ten minutes at his apartment building. The low light at the doorway blinked on and off without any rhythem. He pushed the door open and sprinted up the staircase. Running, running, running. He didn't stop to breath, he was only concerned with getting his friend to save the driver. Adam sped up on floor B and reached C in record time. He rushed down the hall and rounded the corner to C19. the moaning and loud creaking was gone. He turned the rusty brown handle.
He was blasted by the smell of pure sex. Jeff was sitting on the couch drinking a beer and Cherry was gone. Jeff heard the door open and turned to face Adam. He raised his hands in a welcoming gesture.
"Hey, Adam I-"
"Cut the s**t, Jeff I need your help."
"Girl problems, bro?"
"Guy in a truck impaled by a branch, grab your crap and let's go."
"Woah wha-"
Adam broke his cool and shouted at Jeff. "Grab your s**t and let's go!" Adam bolted out the door and down the stairs. Jeff pulled his cloud white sneakers on and rushed out the door after Adam.

They arrived at the scene in the same time it took Adam to get to the apartment, even though Jeff was slower getting out the door, he arrived at the scene first. Adam got there a few seconds later. When Adam left the driver was trapped in the door, impaled and unconcious with blood splattered on the windshield. Adam expected him to be in the car, maybe moving and trying to get out. When they got there the blood was still there, the doors were still closed and locked. But the branch was broken off, the windows were shattered, and there was a trail of blood leading into the woods. Adam looked around the truck, under the truck, and a few feet from the it. He had trouble accepting that the trail of blood was the drivers, maybe some animal or something. But once he checked all around the truck, he made up his mind.
He had to go into the forest. At night. Looking for, possibly, a dead body. This did not bode well with Adam. Jeff on the other hand, thought it was all a big joke.
"Okay, Adam, nice one." Jeff said. "Now cut the joke and let's go home." Jeff turned around and started heading back when Adam grabbed his shoulder.
"Let's at least check it out. I don't like this at all, and if that guy is hurt or dead, it's all my fault."
"Fine, I'll lead us since I am the strongest." Jeff pushed Adam aside and started walking into the forest. Above them, the Devil Moon shined it's red glow for a split second and when Adam turned his gaze back to it, it had changed once again. Adam shuddered, felt something was wrong, but kept going. Slowly, a low fog swept over the forest floor, hiding his and Jeff's feet from them. Together, they ventured deeper and deeper into the forest. Adam checked his watch halfway in. The time was twelve-thirty. He kept walking and checked the time again. This time, it was one o'clock. Adam thought his watch was broken, and was slipping it off of his wrist, until Jeff said his time was the same. "It's one o'clock already." Adam tightened his watch.
The two friends and roomates came to a clearing in the path. The trees stretched high into the night sky, seeming to touch the stars, and their branches swayed with the wind. Adam and Jeff stopped in the clearing at the end of the path, and looked around. The trail of blood stopped in the dead center. Not ending ith a puddle of blood, but a single drop. After following a trail of, what seemed like, miles of blood, they came to a single crimson drop in the middle of a dirt path. Jeff looked at the glistening drop and crouched down. He looked at the drop, at the forest before him, and at the drop again. Adam stayed back,a bad feeling tracing itself up his spine. Jeff brought his hand toward the blood, eyeing it curiously. As his hand crept closer and closer to it, a loud crunching noise erupted through the forest scaring the birds and the two roomates.
"What the ******** was that?" Adam backed up against a tree. "We should get out of here, Jeff."
"Come on, let's see what it was!"
"Are you insane? We should run!"
"Adam, what if it was that guy and he broke a branch walking on it. Come on, it couldn't hurt to check it out."
Adam stayed silent for a moment, thinking about it. Now that he thought about it, it did seem possible that it was the driver. Who else would it be? What else could it be?
"Fine." Adam said. "Let's go, but fifteen minutes and we turn back. If he can walk, he'll live." The two walked farther into the forest, the trees ceased being grey and were now dark black. The fog hid their entire legs now and Adam was starting to wonder if they should be afraid of whats in the forest, or the forest itself. At first, the crunching was low and echoed through to them. The trees, although completely black, did not seem sinister in any way, shape, or form. Then they got deeper. The branches looked like spikes and the trees were ebony. The moon was still visable, but the face of the Devil replaced the Man o' th' moon. Adam was the only one to notice this. Jeff kept walking at a brisk pace, not seeming to notice all the changes around them, but Adam saw his face and it was sweating. He seemed to be muttering to himself. They went deeper and the crunching sound was almost as loud as thunder. Adam and Jeff stood behind two trees and saw what was making the sound.
A figure cloaked in darkness was feasting on a pile of gore. Adam thought it looked like some deer, but knew it wasn't. The trail of blood ended at that body. Shredded clothing surrounded it and the being in black sat hunched over it, ripping free flesh and swallowing it in gulps. Adam knew what the crunching sound was, it was the sound of bones being broken. Jeff stared at the scene while Adam turned his head and fit his thumb and index finger over his nostils, trying to close off the smel, he stepped away and his foot landed on a bad twig, snapping it loudly. Jeff looked at Adam and Adam saw he was nearly crying. The snap turned the being's head to their direction. It stared at the trees for a moment before returning to it's bloody meal.
Jeff was near hysterical. "Dude," His voice was higher pitched than his normal, baritone, voice. "We have to kill that thing."
"What? Are you insane?"
"What if it kills more people? We have to kill it."
Adam shook his head. "You have to kill it, I'm going home."
"No wait, Adam-"
He felt hot air down his neck. Between the two trees, stood the Being. On it's bald head sat a single ivory horn. It was spiraled to the tip and gleamed without any light. It's skin was black and a very, very, faint red. Blood dripped down it's chin and onto Jeff's face. But it's eyes were the most disturbing.Instead of sockets, the eyes were vertical slits, the eyes themselves were the purest red with tiny yellow pupils in the center. Adam stared at it, his jaw dropped and eyes wide with fear.
The being grinned, it's horrid set of wicked teeth gleamed in the gloomy dark. The Being plunged it's set of claws into the tree next to Adam and pulled itself toward him. The Being's mouth moved, chanting something slowly. It got closer until it was but a kisses length away. Adam stood still, bewildered. He thought of a few hours ago, how he had seen the little girls and read their dead lips.
"Little Devil." Adam knew now. This thing in front of him, this evil creature who looked like it had crawled out of the depths of hell -maybe because it HAD climbed out of the depths of Hell- was the Little Devil.
Little Devil lunged at him it's claws going for his throat. Adam fell back, narrowly avoiding the kiss of death. Jeff screamed and ran, making it only a few feet away from the Little Devil, who looked at him when he screamed. He trippped over a log and hit his face on the dirt floor. The Little Devil got on all fours and sprinted over the Jeff, who sat motionless on the dirt ground. Adam pulled himself up off of the ground and, upon seeing the Devil racing to Jeff, looked for a weapon to fight it off with. He spied a stick the size of a baseball and tested the weight. Devil was bearing down on Jeff, Adam made his mind up to take the baseball-sized stick, it would have to do. Adam sprinted to the Devil and Jeff, raising the stick over his head like a club. The Devil stood up on it's hind legs over Jeff's body. It roared before plunging itself into Jeff, teeth bared and claws already holding his legs still. Jeff awoke and started kicking, trying to push the Devil off of him. It forced it's claws into his leg, drawing blood. Jeff wailed in pain, punching the Devil's face. It leaned slowly, savoring the moment and ignoring the tiny fists that punded on it's hide. It's teeth sunk themselves through Jeff's shirt.
Adam saw the Devil leaning closer to Adam, intending to dig it's teeth into his body and begin shredding him apart. He sprinted faster and swung the stick into the side of the Devils head, knocking it aside and on it's stomach. It roared in pain and stood up. Adam noticed it was swaying slightly. It lunged toward him and Adam ducked. He stuck the stick out in front of him and felt it break it half upon meeting the Devils hide. The stick snapped instantly, sending splinters into the air like shrapnel from a grenade. One splinter drove itself into the Devils hide, staggering and blinding it. The Devil fell to one knee and grabbed at it's eye, clawing it and trying to dig the splinter out.
Adam grabbed Jeff by the arm and picked him up. "Come on, let's go!" Jeff didn't argue, he sprinted ahead of Adam, running as fast as his legs would take him. Blood was dripping down his leg and making a trail of his own blood. Adam felt a sudden wave of Deja Vu hit him. He'd have to clean that blood off before they headed home tonight.
Adam and Jeff arrived home safely an hour and a half later. They had sprinted the whole way, stopping at the truck to clean up Jeff's bleeding leg. Adam was afraid the Devil would follow the trail and kill them in their sleep. For all he knew the Devil had already marked them as victims. They arrived at their apartment and Adam looked, one last time, at the moon. It was back to the Man and the Devil Moon had gone. That whole week, the evil side of the moon didn't show itself.