DEMON SMACKDOWN – Adult Fiction

FIC009000 FICTION / Fantasy / General; FIC009080 FICTION / Fantasy / Humorous; FIC009060 FICTION / Fantasy / Urban

83,000 words – approx. 300 pages

Inspired by my experiences as a Census Enumerator in 2010, DEMON SMACKDOWN began, unsurprisingly, as a screenplay. And not a very good one, either. So I tried it as a novel and was getting nowhere until I realized the whole thing needed to be told from the building’s POV. And finally the story came to life. Here are the first two chapters:

MEMO

FROM: INK

TO: The Reader

Ah, there you are! The building at 666 Sulphur Avenue has a great desire for its story to be told. Do make yourself comfortable. Ready? Good. Now please pay attention.

CHAPTER 1

No doubt you are eager to read about Gertie the Giant Killer, as well as “Mad Dog” Raleigh and Wilson Botts, known as The Gouger, not to mention those perennial stars of the ring, The Chessman, “Queen Cleo” Baker, and Federico “The Spaniard” Herrera. And, of course, you cannot wait for the big six-man, three-demon, one-woman Battle Royale. But first, before we get to “the show,” I feel I should lay a little groundwork for you, a foundation, if you will.

“What am I?” That was my very first thought in my very first moment of sentience. You will notice that I did not wonder who I was, but what. And you might think that would be the tip off right away that I was not a human being. But, in my personal observation of human beings, I have found that their very first thought upon waking up from a long absence of consciousness is, more often than not, “Where am I?” So, take from that what you will.

From what I have been able to learn in the pursuit of my identity, I am fairly certain that I began my existence—as a structure, that is—here in the City of St. Louis, Missouri in the year 1850. I was built on a road named—with a sense of aspiration or pretentiousness, take your pick—Grand Avenue.

My foundation was built with locally quarried white limestone. My exterior walls were constructed of locally manufactured, pale-yellow brick. The wood used to divide my interior space into floors and rooms, to build my staircases, and frame my windows and doors, in fact to make up the very beams themselves that support my roof, was also locally sourced. The lead in my paint and in my panes of glass came from a nearby mine. So, the next time some snooty food vendor crows that the tomatoes in the handmade ketchup that you are sloshing onto your artisanal fried potatoes came from a farm within a day’s driving distance—the potatoes, too, of course—I hope you will remember that I was a locavore long before such a thing even had a name. And every part of me was handmade, hand hewn, and artisanal as hell.

Forgive me. I truly did not mean to sound off like that. But some things really chap my lath.

To continue:

Some of the clay in my bricks was mined from one of the numerous mounds that were once a prominent feature of the area. The mounds were left behind by a native civilization that died out thousands of years ago. There were so many of these mounds that the fledgling metropolis forming along the western bank of the Mississippi River in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries was given the nickname Mound City. And whenever one of those mounds got in the way of modern civilization, it was torn down and its material was used to build the City of St. Louis. There is still some debate as to whether the mounds were originally put up for burials or other ceremonial uses or were merely a way for those bygone humans to pass the time while waiting for the end. I prefer to think of such primitive structures as my ancestors, prehistoric buildings of a sort meant to show off some of the engineering feats of which human beings are capable. Ultimately, their demise served to show that human beings, when it comes to the achievements of those who came before, are capable of willfully destroying the past in order to shape the present with little regard for the future. But please, don’t get me started on that.

When completed, I stood as a rather nice, though modest, three-story establishment called The Hotel Trois Six. The name served as a nod to the city’s French beginnings, and a reminder of my address: 666 Grand Avenue.

My first floor held kitchen, pantry, and laundry facilities. It also held the hotel’s servants’ quarters. Wood—and later, coal, when it became cheaper and more abundant—was stored in my windowless cellar. Also, on that subterranean level was a holding cell for slaves. Now mind you, the man who built me had no slaves of his own. And there were no such poor souls ‘employed’ in the running of the enterprise within my walls. That holding cell was there purely for the convenience of any of the hotel’s guests who wished to use it for the safekeeping of their so-called ‘merchandise’ on their way to or from market. I will speak more about such things later.

On my second floor, there were twenty rooms, three communal baths, and the hotel desk. Unlike most buildings with which you are, no doubt, familiar, entering my front door did not give a visitor direct access to my first floor. Instead, a wide staircase led from my front entrance directly up to the second floor. The servants came and went through a first-floor portal that opened onto the alley behind me. That is also where the guest’s slaves entered and exited. In this manner, my guests never had need to encounter a servant until they required one. And when that need arose, the servant would ascend by way of a staircase tucked back in a corner that led from first floor to third floor.

That third floor of mine consisted of twelve luxurious suites, each with its very own bathtub. In my center, a set of staircases allowed access from the second floor to my rooftop. Up there, the stairs ended at the door to what I think is my most charming feature. At least it was, at one time. Behind that door lay a small combination greenhouse and tea room, a tiny retreat topped by a skylight of zinc-framed, leaded glass panes. The hotel owner’s wife, Abigail, personally dropped in every day to tend the plants, and often would entertain friends and relations, even select hotel guests.

Abigail Simon, nee Wallis, was a kind and gentle soul who married business-minded Gardner Simon when she was already at the advanced age of 18. Simon had hoped for a clutch of children to fill their Lafayette Square home. Unfortunately, every one of Abigail’s pregnancies in their first few years of marriage ended in miscarriage. When the family physician warned Gardner Simon that Abigail’s life would be forfeit should further attempts be made to produce an heir, he reluctantly agreed to let the matter drop. Henceforward, he poured his substantial energy into business. She, in turn, focused her energy on charity and good works. Even though their passion was held in check by these activities, it is evident they still loved one another, for each carried a cameo of the other, and on social occasions, they were always seen together, arm in arm.

Much like Gardner Simon’s other businesses, the Hotel Trois Six did well, from what I understand. But that was before I woke up. You see, I first became conscious of my existence in 1853, shortly after Gardner Simon discovered his wife, and what appeared to be her young lover, in the rooftop sanctuary. It is a sad story. I hope you are not one of those overly sensitive souls who are easily upset.

CHAPTER 2

The fatal encounter took place on a briskly cold Sunday night in October when the only clouds in the sky were the product of the city’s smokestacks. The night manager, a Mr. Randall Hewitt, had observed that Mrs. Abigail Simon had been entertaining a young man in the greenhouse tea room at the Trois Six for three nights running. She had been doing so unchaperoned, and Hewitt later claimed to have seen the two lovers kissing on each occasion. He also said that whenever he approached the tea room’s door, the two sinners would drop their voices to a whisper, gasping audibly when Hewitt would try the door only to find it locked.

Out of respect for his employer—so he claimed—and outrage at the indecency exhibited by the harlot and her young satyr—so he averred—Hewitt sent a bellhop to fetch Gardner Simon from his Chouteau Avenue office, where he was working late. The bellhop had instructions to spare the jealousy-prone Simon no detail of the adulterous rooftop orgy as related to him by Hewitt.

When Gardner Simon arrived, red-faced and puffing with rage, Hewitt had merely to point the way. Simon pounded on the greenhouse door with his gold-headed walking stick. His terrified wife unlocked the door and admitted him. Upon seeing the ferocity in his eyes, she stammered to explain and pleaded with him to listen. The young man she had been entertaining stood back and trembled with fear. When Gardner Simon produced a loaded Navy Colt revolver, his wife nearly fainted and the youngster caught her in his arms. They were in this embrace when Simon shot them both. The youth died instantly when the leaden pill sought his heart and shattered it irreparably. Abigail Simon was not so fortunate. Mortally wounded, the stricken woman struggled through her pain to speak a few last words.

Immediately overtaken with remorse, the jealous husband knelt to take his dying love in his arms. Ears open for listening now, he heard all his wife had to say as tears streamed from her forgiving eyes. He cried out in horror when he understood the truth. And he screamed in anguish when his loving wife died. Unable to face his own guilt, his demon, if you will, Gardner Simon, the man who put me together and gave me a purpose, turned the revolver on himself. Sadly, he proved a better shot when someone else was the target. He had to shoot himself twice to get the job done. I will always contend that anyone seeking to take the life of another should first try their chosen method of doing so on themselves, if only to make certain it works.

Witnesses from a nearby factory, completely unaware of the unfolding tragedy taking place on my rooftop, later said they had noticed what looked like flashes of lightning in my darkened greenhouse that night.

In due time, I learned that Randall Hewitt had been nothing more than insanely jealous of the young man. It seems Abigail Simon had been repeatedly rebuffing Mr. Hewitt’s advances for months before the young man arrived. Upon seeing the obvious passion she and the youth held for one another, Hewitt’s imagination took flight. He convinced himself that what was happening up on my rooftop was exactly what he had hoped would have happened when he himself had tried to corner his employer’s wife in that very room so many times. Of course, he had no idea that the young man was, in fact, Mrs. Simon’s son, Isaac, born in New Albany, Indiana when Abigail, the victim of the attentions of an overly-affectionate clergyman, was barely fourteen years of age. It was the experience of Isaac’s birth, it turns out, that rendered Abigail unable to ever bear another child. The baby had been taken into the care of the young lady’s Aunt Gloria and Uncle Frederick, who raised him as their own. Of course, Abigail had never told Gardner Simon anything of her child, and lived unaware of her inability to give her husband an heir.

Furthermore, Hewitt could not have known that Mrs. Simon’s son was about to embark on what could have been a promising medical career. Isaac had sought out his mother so that he might ease her conscience by forgiving her abandonment of his infant self. And he was in the process of convincing her that since he would never have need of her husband’s money, she could finally reveal her secret. If the good man Gardner Simon wished it, the promising young physician would gladly call him Father. I warned you this was going to be sad.

But here is the most interesting part, where I am concerned. For an initially indeterminate period prior to this tragic event, I had been experiencing a vague sort of awakening, a growing consciousness of my being. I now believe this awakening occurred during the first three nights of the hopeful reunion of Mother and Son in my greenhouse. It was their heady tears of joy mixed with their potent tears of sorrow and anxiety that were stirring my soul each night as they splashed from those innocent, loving eyes, and soaked into my oaken floorboards.

As the Simon tragedy unfolded, I felt myself growing more and more aware of my existence and my surroundings, more aware that I was a being in a world. The world. The first real painful jolt of my birth came when the first draught of Abigail’s blood flowed onto my boards. The second jolt came when her dying tears splashed to the floor and mingled with the blood of her perished son, both substances soaking into the fibers of my being. The third jolt came when Gardner Simon’s bitter tears of understanding and remorse mixed with the flowing blood of the woman he loved. And when his blood joined that of the others, I awoke fully and had that first—very selfish, it seems to me now—thought.

With each drop of life’s memory received from these three—Mother, Son, Husband—I learned more and more of who they were, who they had been, who and what they had seen, done, and heard. And, particularly from Abigail and Gardner, I learned much about what I was, what sort of building I was meant to be, and how I had been constructed.

After the lifeless bodies of their employer and his victims had been removed from the greenhouse, the servants found that there was very little to clean up. Nearly all the victims’ blood and tears had seeped into the wooden floor, leaving dark, rust-colored stains impervious to scrubbing.

For several days, I held my breath, as it were, while I processed my newfound knowledge, processed myself. Watching Randall Hewitt assume the position of master of the hotel—me, that is—did not sit well on my foundations. I knew he had sent word to Gardner Simon on that fateful night, but I was not yet aware of his full intentions. Vague pictures came to me whenever he touched parts of my structure—a banister, a door—but the story remained maddeningly incomplete. Then, one day, Randall Hewitt tripped on a conveniently loose piece of carpet and fell down the wide front staircase. On the way down, he broke his neck. When he reached the stone doorway, his skull cracked and his scalp split open. Head wounds, as you know, bleed profusely. A few minutes later, I knew all there was to know about Randall Hewitt. The salient points of his story I have already related to you.

The trustees of Mr. Simon’s will, finding there were no heirs, sold me at auction. My new owner, Mr. Padgett Kohl, did not care much for such quaint amenities as greenhouses or tea rooms, especially those with permanent blood stains. He decided it best to close the door and lock it until further arrangements could be made. The key was subsequently lost. Between you and me, it was a surprisingly simple matter to make the man stumble and drop the key into a convenient gap between floorboard and wall. It was only a small shudder that made him falter. Mind you, I had no thirst for his blood. But neither did I want him holding the key to the cradle of my consciousness.

Padgett Kohl turned out to be a shrewd businessman, and I observed him closely. He put me through my first remodel—a makeover you’d call it now, I suppose. It quickly became apparent that Mr. Kohl expected the Trois Six clientele to decline in quality, while it increased in quantity. He turned the twelve luxurious suites on my third floor into twenty-four ordinary rooms with two common baths and sold the surplus bathtubs to help defray costs. The cellar wood bins were converted into more slave holding cells, and the first-floor servants’ quarters were converted into coal bins. The servants themselves, those who were kept on, were forced to find lodgings elsewhere. And pay for them while getting no increase in salary. In this way, Mr. Kohl was able to minimize his overhead by transferring some of his costs to the workers in his employ. Mr. Kohl was a man ahead of his time.

Unfortunately, though Kohl had a knack for gain, he had little sense of consequence. By the Autumn of 1857, I, the Hotel Trois Six, had acquired a reputation for vice, corruption, and violence. I had also acquired a nickname: Hell’s Hotel. Over the span of four years, the blood of no less than forty-seven victims had soaked into the floors and walls of my rooms and hallways. Half of those victims were suicides. The innocent blood and bitter tears of at least as many victims in the holding cells fed my foundations. I took in their life stories at such a rate that I felt as though I could almost float on the blood of the slain. Padgett Kohl himself was the final victim. He had fallen into a newly-filled washtub in the first-floor laundry after receiving a nasty clout on the head from a flat iron. He drowned. The laundress who assisted him in this activity disappeared without further notice and I wished her safe passage on her road to freedom.

The next man to buy me was the highest bidder in another auction. His name was—and is, I might add, without giving too much away—Acheson Hoedel. Mr. Hoedel had made his fortune in slave trading and river transport. His first act upon taking title to my structure was to remodel again. He demolished the servants’ stairs and extended my central staircase down to the first floor. Next, he turned my existing forty-four rooms into sixty for maximum use of space and maximum profit. Each floor was reduced to having one common bath. The first-floor kitchen and laundry were converted into yet more holding cells, and that floor’s windows and rear portal were bricked shut. Furthermore, under Hoedel, the only hotel staff would be the desk clerks, each working a twelve-hour shift. Padgett Kohl, it turned out, had been an amateur at squeezing a nickel.

I was shuttered for this extensive remodeling, as it was Hoedel’s intention to complete the work swiftly, and that, therefore, no one would be in residence pending the grand re-opening. There had been so much activity since I had become conscious, so much hustle and bustle within my walls and outside in the neighborhood surrounding me that I had, before my shuttering, never truly experienced peace and solitude. Yes, the workers doing the remodeling hammered and sawed all day, but at night, I was left dark and vacant. It was during those night time hours that, for the first time since my awakening, I was left quite alone with my thoughts. And I did think, something that I found to be remarkably relaxing. I soon discovered that I had a desire for, oh, what is it I’ve heard people say in recent years. Ah! A spa day! No one in 1858 St. Louis spoke of it in quite that way, of course, but the sentiment was much the same.

You see, I had learned to hone my listening skills since receiving those vague pictures from the living mind of Randall Hewitt. Through practice and concentration, I developed the ability to look into a human being’s thoughts, to ‘hear’ them as though they were spoken aloud. This proved particularly effective when the person in question happened to touch my woodwork, but simply having that person within my walls grew increasingly sufficient as I progressed.

It was through using these skills that I learned about an area perhaps a mile or so west of my current location, where a sulphur spring burbled out on the banks of the River des Peres. Hearing—or ‘thought reading’—of the pleasures of these waters, gave me a desire to visit such a place, a place where I could quietly settle down and contemplate my past, my present, and my future, without the infernal noise and distraction of the growing city.

Over time, I developed a plan to move west along the River des Peres, out to the Cheltenham District. Initially, my plan called for no more than a few hours’ dip in those life-sustaining waters. But as time passed without opportunity for such a brief visit, especially during the height of my Hell’s Hotel notoriety, I found myself desiring no less than a long, soothing, rejuvenating soak. But still more time passed. Much like myself, the River des Peres had become little more than an open sewer, and the springs had lost much of their popularity. There finally came the time when I found that I was determined to move myself permanently and settle on the newly-named Sulphur Avenue, at a spot where—I had heard it said—the last vestige of the old sulphur springs was most potent.

When Acheson Hoedel closed me for remodeling, I knew that the opportunity to execute my plan had, at last, presented itself.

Please understand that I was very careful to pick the right conditions for such a move. The operation was to take place at night. During a raging thunderstorm. And with no moon to illuminate the spectacle. I assumed no one would give my disappearance from this site or my presence elsewhere a second thought. St. Louis was a booming city, after all. Of course new buildings were springing up overnight, often on top of older ones.

What I did not foresee was that, on the very night I had chosen for my move, Hoedel and his secretary would decide to pay me a visit. It was a blustery—and chilly—Sunday night in March of 1858. Hoedel and his secretary entered through my front door to inspect the work that had been done in the previous week. I noticed their unwelcome presence immediately, but felt it was too late for me to change my well-laid plans.

Now, moving was something I had never done before, of course, and I had to concentrate very hard. What did I want to do? Move. Where? The sulphur springs. Why? Well, like I said, I wanted to soak my foundations in the rejuvenating warmth of those waters. But why, really, why?

Misery and death. That’s it. I was tired of them. They made me feel . . . They make me feel . . .

To be honest, I didn’t much like myself. Blood and tears had given me life. And I had fed, during my brief existence, on the sweat and emotions of human violence and misery. But was that any reason for them to call me Hell’s Hotel? Please. Names have the power to hurt, you know.

I needed a change in diet, as well a change of venue. I thought perhaps it would even be nice to taste a little joy. But first I needed to—what is it some of you go on about as if it’s some revelatory new religion? Detox! I needed to detox. And so, I would.

My new owner was, of course, completely unaware of my intentions. Hoedel wasn’t the type to believe anything like a building could have a soul anyway—and still doesn’t believe it—so he would have been unlikely to believe my intentions even if he had been warned. When he and his secretary reached the steps leading up to my closed and abandoned greenhouse, Hoedel raised his silver-headed walking stick and asked his man, “What the hell is behind that door?”

Hoedel’s secretary, Martin—we just call him Marty now—was, and is, a rather tall, heavy, baldheaded brute for whom personal hygiene has never been a top priority. Here he was attending his employer and he obviously hadn’t shaved for days. I understand Hoedel kept him on, despite his age—youth was something the man had long left behind him—because Martin also served as errand boy and, um, ‘fixer’ is the word I believe they use now. It was a job Martin did clumsily but effectively, and if he did not remember exactly where the bodies were buried, he did know how they got there.

When faced with his master’s question regarding the door at the top of the stairs, Martin set down the kerosene lamp he was holding and fumbled through his set of building plans. Those particular stairs and that particular door were nowhere to be found. This was due to my previous owner’s not giving a damn, pardon me, about the little greenhouse and therefore leaving it off any records he left behind.

“Sorry, sir. I can’t find them anywhere on these plans,” Martin whined.

“Bull,” Hoedel grumped. He grasped the banister firmly and took the six steps up to the top landing. When he reached that point, the wooden door, locked for over four years, swung open noiselessly on its blood-oiled hinges. It seems that the key had worked its way through my walls over the years and had slipped into the door’s lock that was its home. My activities this night had agitated the little metal skeleton, and it had subsequently performed one of the functions for which it was made: unlocking that door. Hoedel peered into the greenhouse interior, which was sporadically lit by flashes of lightning generated by the storm outside. “There’s something in there. Come up here and bring that lamp with you,” he ordered.

Martin lifted his lamp and ascended the stairs. He held the light before him and approached the open door. The two men peered into the greenhouse. And, oh yes, there was indeed something moving: something on the floor and along the walls, crawling along the cracked panes of leaded glass overhead. You see, my exertions in trying to move were such that things inside me began to seep out of the woodwork: manifestations of my efforts. In your parlance, I believe the phrase is, ‘I really worked up a sweat.’

I have since named these manifestations Stains. I was, after all, concentrating fiercely at this point, and these were all the human blood, sweat, and tear stains I had accumulated over the years boiling forth with a purpose. Martin stepped closer to the small room and bent to get a better look at the floor.

“What the devil is it!” Hoedel exclaimed.

Before the secretary could answer, I shook with great violence. Call it my first contraction, if you will. Martin lurched forward into the greenhouse, banging his knee on the floor. He yelped in pain and dropped his lamp. The light extinguished itself and the door slammed shut. The key then performed its other intended function and locked the door securely.

Hoedel fell backward and tumbled down the steps, flight after flight. He landed at the very bottom of the stairs, on the floor of his brand-new holding cells.

Hoedel was amazed to find himself still alive. Frankly, so was I. There were no broken bones, only a few scrapes, and a nasty cut on his forehead. Blood dripped from his head wound onto the floor’s new planking. This was wood he had salvaged from an old river boat once used to ferry slaves and other ‘freight’ up and down the river. The reaction of this wood to Hoedel’s blood was nothing less than uplifting. I could feel the planks straining their bonds of gravity and iron nails, and they astonished me with a vibrating energy that flowed throughout my structure.

I shook violently again and Hoedel found himself once more sprawled on the floor. With the holding cell planks as my booster, I heaved and lifted, rising on the backs of the spirits of the damned. They were slave owners, cutthroats, defilers of women, wild-eyed preachers, crooked politicians, and greedy businessmen—forty-eight of them in all. And they were driven by the howls of the spirits of as many perished slaves. Down the course of the rain-swollen River des Peres we flew, the jagged bars of my cellar holding cells occasionally clipping the mud-brown water.

Despite the cover of wind and storm, my journey did not go entirely unnoticed. At one point, a drunken collier fell into the river and drowned. Soon after, a badly frightened railroad switchman ran babbling into the night, leaving a six-car freight train to bash itself to splinters against a bank of steaming brick kilns. Otherwise, the relocation was a success. And, in fact, the switchman later became one of my long-term tenants. Of Martin, the secretary, and his employer, Hoedel, more will be said later. For now, it will suffice to say that they were never heard from outside my walls again. Okay, Marty has been seen briefly, but that comes later—much, much later.

Once I arrived at my destination, I found a cozy spot above the springs, next to a tavern, and across the tracks from the railway station. With the exposed metal bars of my cellar holding cells, I excavated a space sufficient for settling my foundation. And I experienced an exceedingly delicious happiness when the sulphureous waters bubbled up to embrace me. But I quickly found my self-congratulatory euphoria to be somewhat premature.

My new home, it turned out, was substantially farther south than my Grand Avenue location. I had settled onto a lot in the 1600 block of Sulphur Avenue and found myself in a predicament. The street number set into the masonry beside my front door in numerals of brass was 666. I would need a fourth digit, a numeral ‘1,’ if I was to fit in. To my surprise, then delight, then later, chagrin, the greenhouse key volunteered its services and made a great effort to look the part. It was not altogether successful, but the key made up with enthusiasm for what it lacked in everything else.

I gave the key strict orders to hide itself whenever anyone of interest approached closely, that is, anyone searching specifically for the Hotel Trois Six. After all, branding was something I understood as a marketing concept long before it became a feeble explanation for the rise of the vulgar and untalented in the world of media celebrity. From ‘49-40 or Bust,’ to ‘23 Skidoo,’ to fifth columnists, to the fourth estate, I know numbers and the power they hold.

Finally, with that last detail attended to, I settled comfortably into the sulphur springs. My well-earned euphoria washed over me, followed by a wave of great exhaustion. I had exerted myself to perform feats beyond anything I could have imagined myself capable. Therefore, I first checked to make sure that my foundation was plumb and that every one of my bricks sat securely in place. Then, feeling that all was as it should be with me, I closed my mind to the world. And I slept.