CHAPTER 1: POSSESSED BY A DEMON

Waking up to This is a story of a homicide detective who is called to a crime scene and upon examination of a victim recognizes the signature as that of a serial killer that has just popped up on his radar. As he inspects the gruesome scene he finds a clue that sends him spiraling into a world of insanity.

Possessed by a demon, his unbelief in the spiritual world calls into question his reality. urgent phone call from his homicide unit captain at 3:00 a.m Raymond Boyett, otherwise known as Ray-B, scrambled for his phone before the damn thing rang again. He could visualize his wife rolling her eyes at him even in the dark.

Grabbing his badge and gun, he laughed to himself as the forgotten screen door banged loudly against the frame eliciting a roar of curse words from his soon-to-be ex.

The scene looked like something out of a Stephen King novel, with puddles of blood wandering outside the crudely drawn chalk lines, like a preschool coloring book with only a red crayon to color with.

Ray-B shook his head vigorously as if by doing this he could dislodge the full moon from the sky and all the crazy shit that came along with it. They say death comes in threes.

Looking down he wondered to himself what could cause the unnatural contortioned state of three bodies now so void of life that just an hour earlier was so full of personality.

Turning to leave, Ray-B noticed a glint of what looked like a small crucifix sticking out of one of the bloody puddles.

He carefully reached for an evidence bag and realized that in his haste he had forgotten them. "Oh what the hell." He murmured, scooping it up and shaking the stubborn blood from it. As soon as his fingers encircled it he heard a crackling sound and felt a lightning bolt course through his body.

As he regained consciousness he no longer felt in control. It was as though his thoughts of movement didn't line up with how his body responded.

"Who turned the damn lights out!" Ray-B yelled. He realized he couldn't even get a lungful of air because of the constriction in what seemed to be a coffin.

It was weird, he could hear his voice, hell weirder than that was his hearing his wife answer and laugh.

A voice that only he could hear interrupted his Godless mind...

"Don't worry your simple self, Ray-B, I'm only borrowing your body for a timeless minute!" "It looks like your pretty little wife has been lacking attention, and it's been so long since I've been with a human!"

Ray-B struggled futilely against the invisible bonds that now held his spirit. Even as he did so a realization began pulling at his most innermost memories he and his wife shared. He could hear his marriage vows as they echoed. Echoing throughout his mind and silently tugging at his heart.

Ray-B realized that if this evil existed so then did God. With each minute that fell he begged God for forgiveness, and just one more chance. The demon inside him fought his spirit over the power of his body. The demon told him that It, and it alone killed the people who lay strewn about. Ray-B was powerless as he watched a playback of what had taken place.

The Demon told him that in no uncertain terms by the time he was done with him he would be the one blamed for these murders and the ones to come.

Ray-B quickly sobered to his newfound reality as the demon released his mind. Gathering his senses and haunted by the memory of the oath swore by the demon, Ray-B looked around for any evidence that would place him at the scene. Scanning the room he noticed that his flip phone had fallen from his pocket and lodged itself in the crook of one of the bloody victims' lifeless bodies.

"How crazy, I investigate murders, and this demon, unseen by anyone else commits them." Ray-B thought to himself. He felt his soul being crudely jammed back into the coffin-like container.

Every time Ray-B had the chance to pray, he prayed. He reached deep from within himself for the right words.

Suddenly a booming voice broke the invisible bonds holding him, falling away from him like half-popped balloons.

"Demon be gone!" In the holy name of Jesus Christ, I command you!"

And just like that, Ray-B awoke, finding himself vomiting the darkness of unbelief onto the thirsty pavement.

All the pieces of his spiritual puzzle suddenly began to fit together, to finally make sense.

The highs and lows Ray-B had experienced throughout his existence, hell, even the feelings of intuition, it's all spiritual! It has to be, he thought.

Picking up the crucifix, Ray-B scanned the gruesome scene that the demon had left in its wake. The carnage and the unrealistic poses of death the bodies ended up in painted a macabre memory for him. This whole day, a day of spiritual awakening, and a day which Detective Ray-B could not easily file in a dusty drawer, sitting them right on top of the long-forgotten job applicants of the year before.

Ray-B stepped out of his squad car with a pile of half-empty to-go cups and greasy sandwich wrappers trailing on behind him. With a curse word tickling his self-conscious tongue, Ray-B hurriedly closed the car door trapping the garbage from emptying onto the street. Little Ricky, as everyone who was anyone knew, stood behind the 7/11 counter with a starched collar and smartly creased pants.

"How are you doing Mr. Ray-B sir?" said Little Ricky as he smartly saluted him. Disregarding little Ricky's greeting completely, detective Ray-B grumpily countered with a retort, "how old is the coffee?"

Little Ricky nervously answered as the self-help audiobook he had playing in the background belied the slowness of the supermarket during the never-ending graveyard hours.

"Just made it!" And spurred on by his coffee readiness, little Ricky asked Ray-B, "So, any idea if you guys are hiring?"

Ray-B smiled as he remembered throwing his application on top of the rest of the non-hireable.

"I know that there was the question of whether or not I was the required 100 yards from the schoolyard, but I swear it, I really, really was!"

"See you tomorrow." Answered Ray-B, as he threw a wrinkled five-dollar bill towards little Ricky.

"Same bat-station, same bat-channel!" Yelled Little Ricky as he pretended to catch it like a winning Superbowl pass.