Chapter Twenty One

The house was blissfully quiet and, apart from Hep, empty. Scroat and Sarah (and Killer, of course) had gone to do what ever the fuck it is that Scroat and Sarah did when they weren’t having sex, and they’d brought Killer with them.

Hep had slept in that morning. He’d been disappointed to miss out on waking Scroat up, but then, he didn’t really like waking Scroat in the traditional way when his girlfriend was in the room. He wasn’t sure she’d see the humor in it. That, and if she was in there, Scroat was decidedly not sleeping.

Eventually Scroat was going to sleep by himself though, and Hep would be ready when that time came.

After sleeping ridiculously late, Hep noticed the house was delightfully quiet, and so he got up and made a gigantic breakfast with eggs, bacon, hash browns, more bacon, orange juice, some more bacon and coffee. Then he sat at the table, spread his bacon-heavy breakfast out, and ready the paper.

Most of the news, as always, did not pertain to Hep in any way, but he nearly spit out his coffee when he read about a preacher out in the deep south who had been haunted, for want of a better word, by a demon until his congregation had laid their hands on the demon and made him vanish. Presumably, the demon was sent back to Hell. The crazy part about this was there were thousands of people, not just a handful, who swore they’d seen the demon in person at this preacher’s revival.

There was a photograph of the preacher next to the article. Hep nearly spit out his coffee again.

“Holy shit! We met that guy!” he said to the empty house. The house, if you were wondering, did not respond, but did wonder who exactly Hep was talking to.

Hep had met a couple of Hell’s demons when he was in Jerusalem a long time ago. He’d thought they were dicks. And from what he remembered of the scuffle they’d had (Incidentally, drinking with Hell’s Angels - the demons, not the bikers - is just asking for trouble. Come to think of it, drinking with the bikers can get you in a lot of trouble too.), a few sweaty parishioners praying on a demon would not send it back to Hell. In fact, it would probably end messily for the parishioners.

“They got lucky,” Hep said. The demon was either distracted, or up to something else. And there was no way the demon was gone.

Hep remembered telling some young punk named Cyrus to get into the religion business to end his money problems. He thought he probably should have been careful to explain that it would mean paying attention to that religion’s particular rules if he wanted things to end well, though. Well, he and Scroat had been drinking for hours, so it was an easy oversight.

All the same, he felt a little bit responsible. At least, responsible enough that he should probably go and try to help this guy get rid of his demon. After all, what are godly friends for?

Hep heard Scroat’s motorcycle rumbling in the driveway. A few moments after it stopped, Scroat, Sarah and Killer all came in the house.

“Hey Hep,” Scroat said.

“Hey Hep,” Sarah said.

“JOIN US!” Killer said.

“Hey,” Hep said. He folded the newspaper back, and handed the section with the article about Reverend Milton to Scroat.

“You remember that guy?” Hep asked him.

Scroat looked at the photo, and scanned the article.

“Hey, yeah. Fuck, yeah! He was the guy who almost kept up with us in that shitty bar. He was all right. Looks like he got himself stuck neck deep in a pig’s asshole,” Scroat said. He tossed the newspaper on the table.

“Yeah,” Hep said. “So you know we’re going to have to go try to help him, right?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Scroat said. “It’s not our fault he got himself a demon chasing him around. Let him figure that shit out on his own.”

“He’s not going to be able to figure out a solution on his own, and we sorta set him on the road, didn’t we,” Hep said.

“Well, no, we didn’t. You did, shithead.” Scroat said. “Man, I don’t want to leave, I want to stay here. I’ve got a good thing going here, for once, and you’re trying to drag me off to go save the day again.”

Sarah watched this conversation not knowing what, exactly, they were discussing. She picked up the paper off the table and read the article. Something about the guy in the photo seemed familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She wondered if anyone she’d gone to school with had moved south after graduating.

“Scroat, we have to help this guy out. Bring Sarah along if you want,” Hep said.

Scroat had taken a breath to argue, then realized Hep had just told him it was OK to bring Sarah. If it was OK to bring Sarah, Hep must be completely serious about going. Hep had yet to approve of Sarah in any way (at least that Scroat had noticed). As far as he could tell, Hep tolerated her as “the girlfriend” and that was it.

“Uh, OK,” Scroat said. “When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as you’re ready,” Hep said.

Scroat, Sarah and Killer went back to Scroat’s room.

“Uh, so do you want to come with us while we try to save some preacher we met a long time ago from a demon he picked up some place?” Scroat asked Sarah.

“Sure, why not?” She said.

“Do you need to get anything from your apartment? When Hep says as soon as I’m ready, he means we’ll leave within five minutes of me being ready.” Scroat said.

“Nope, I’ve got everything I need right here,” Sarah said, and patted the army surplus bag she had slung over one shoulder.

“Really?” Scroat said.

“Really. Be prepared, that’s Killer’s motto. It works for me too,” Sara said.

“OK, if you say so,” Scroat said. He grabbed a couple of essential items like clean underwear and a couple cans of baked beans and stuffed them into his own bad. Scroat, Sarah and Killer went back into the kitchen where Hep was just finishing washing the dishes he’d used for breakfast.

“We’re ready when you are,” Scroat said.

“Great, let’s go,” Hep said. He dried his hands, and walked to the back door of the house, where he had a small bag packed with the few essentials he carried with him when traveling. He usually brought clean underwear, socks, a pen, his favorite hammer, and a couple t-shirts.

He let Scroat, Sarah and Killer out, and then stepped outside. He locked the door behind him, and went to the garage where he had his motorcycle park. While Scroat stashed his and Sarah’s belongings on his bike, Hep stuffed his bag into the sidecar, opened the garage door and rolled his motorcycle out on to the driveway. He shut the garage again, and fired up his bike. The motor leapt to life as though it had been waiting for him (which it had).

Scroat fired up his own bike, and Sarah got on behind him. Killer climbed down Sarah’s back and hopped on to the perch Hep had made for him.

“Let’s go,” Hep said, and pulled out on to the road.