The Genre Demon

A tale written years ago on a boring night in Boston

Fog had rolled in off the harbor, shrouding Boston’s gleaming towers in grey. Some days, she resembled London, mock gaslights peering through the dark and murky night, pedestrians strolling through her version of Hyde Park, nimble nascent nocturne nomads on Newbury, suburban Trojans in SUV’s sailing down her narrow streets. Talons sunk deep, it sat perched on the Hancock admiring gothic churches laid out below it. The thing was seething, it’s ancient Europe left behind for this New England, this modern metropolis. Bat like leathery wings, twenty feet wide, spread as it sailed unseen in the misty night. Hatred of colonial puritanical idiots with cellphones drove it down, to swoop up a yuppie on Boylston. The man screamed, but the demon stuffed his mouth and was high above before anyone took note. It perched atop the library, eyeing its quarry. Terror was deep in the bulging eyes of his victim, the demon’s green-yellow eyes looked inquisitively, almost pitying the man in the Brooks Brother suit. The demon opened its mouth, every tooth pointed to a fine edge, brown saliva dripping, it spoke.

“Where is Edgar?”

“D-d-d-don’t k-k-kill me.”

Anger, frustration, “Who is Edgar?”

“Ed-d-d-g-g-ar?”

“That is what I asked you, is it not?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“Well?”

“I-I-I d-d-don’t kn-n-now Ed-d-dgar.”

“Pity. ‘Prophet! Said I, thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil!-Whether Tempter sent, or tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-On this home by Horror haunted, tell me truly, I implore.” With this, the demon rendered his victim, as blood and gore ran down its chin, it looked to the sky, “Oh, woe, woe, where is Poe? Has he forever left the city of his birth?”

Wings flapping in the strong Autumn wind, the demon flew out over the Charles, dumping the remains of another in the thousands of souls it had harvested. Daylight would be coming, so it flew toward the crypt it had claimed as its own, below the cemetery in the Common, but not before picking up a copy of The Boston Globe. It did not need to sleep, but it did need to read, to devour information, and to…