In the beginning, the humans called the elders 'Demons,' the Demons called the humans 'Food', and for the most part the relationship was about what one would expect. Over the generations, with a slight amount of give and take from both sides, it could be noted that both connotations have proven to be very nearly correct. The Demon Registration Act of 2024 was an attempt by the Humans to put into place and enforce some much needed regulations on the Elders, and for the past 94 years it has held both sides in check. Now, in 2117, with the Elders having faded away until they are mostly the stuff of fairy tales and nightmares, the DRA allows the Demons to live in the human world, where they still provide their much-needed services.

The Demon Collection of Shorts is available for the Kindle Reader at Amazon.


H
A
R
P
E

2. REST: THE POEM

There were demons inside him that gave him his power, Demons that he tried his best to control
But sometimes they escaped from his head and ran screaming, Through the jagged edged windows of his troubled soul.

3. REST: VOICES

It was a busy summer for Eddie Danforth and his gleaming silver blade. Hardly a night passed that he did not find demons in need of purging. Every night he found frantic people with frantic eyes that implored him to bestow upon them the rest they so desperately needed. Sunset turned to dawn, dawn to sunset. May turned to June and June to July, and the damp Savannah heat lay heavy on his shoulders each night as he made his rounds, searching for those who would never know true peace if he did not bring it to them. By August the count had climbed to forty-seven, and Eddie smiled as he thought of the service he was performing for his fellow outcasts, those dregs of society that haunted the waterfront and lived on filled needles and empty dreams. He spent more and more time reading the Bible that he had removed from the church of his first victim, and was soon convinced that he had been called to be their protector, their rescuer, their salvation. Perhaps even their Messiah!

4 REST: PERSPECTIVE

When Eddie Danforth heard the voices telling him to let his gleaming silver blade bring rest to the lost souls of Savannah's back streets, his mission in life became clear. He walked among the homeless and hopeless multitudes, offering them a way out of the wasteland they had made of their lives. When the first victim was discovered draped across the altar in a waterfront mission, Detective Rhonda Tucker was assigned the case. Beset with personal troubles, Rhonda took the case, not knowing that before it was solved her very foundation would be shaken to the core. Not understanding that sometimes rest comes only to the soul of a true believer.

5. WHAT GOES AROUND

Michael Wilson finds a hundred year old tear-stained photograph in a trunk in the attic, and it soon takes him outside his comfort zone and drops him squarely in the middle of the unknown. Familiar, everyday things turn into objects of unreasoning terror, and Michael finds he is no longer secure in his belief that the supernatural doesn't exist, or that what he doesn't know can't hurt him.