Where My Demons Hide, Ch. 1 "Shattered"

ATC for “Hostage!” original air date December 11, 1972, written by Paul F. Edwards, directed by Gunnar Hellström.  Many, many, many thanks to singerme, who wrote most of the last chapter, the one at Kitty’s bedside.  She had written it as a standalone ficlet, and it fit so perfectly into this story that I asked to borrow it with minor revisions. 

Don’t want to let you down
But I am hell bound
Though this is all for you
Don’t want to hide the truth

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It’s where my demons hide
It’s where my demons hide
Don’t get too close
It’s dark inside
It’s where my demons hide
It’s where my demons hide

“Demons” by Imagine Dragons, Night Visions, c2012

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Murky, violent nightmare images swirl, a rotten, gut-wrenching, hellish dream come true.  Sheer terror in broad open daylight.  Dirty dog soldiers hover like mangy wolves with hunger glinting in their bloodshot eyes.  Filthy, godless men surrounding, crowding, staring...waiting.  Icy-cold water sluicing through her veins, bitterly helpless against so many.  Her skin crawls in horror and fiery anger all at once.  The soulless men close in. 

Sapphire blue eyes whose soft, gleaming gaze always caress him privately even in public, now stream tears of terror and searing pain and hopelessness.  Silky, copper red hair made for winding his hands lovingly through is cruelly jerked and torn by the savage dog soldiers while they ravage her in vengeance for a crime she did not commit.  Flowing skirts and ladylike, silken underthings meant to hide beautiful, long, shapely legs and other, more private and precious womanly flesh is brutally rent from her body.  Smooth, milky skin meant only for his touch--manhandled, brutalized, tainted by their coarse hands and bodies.  Soft, sweet lips intended to whisper tender words of comfort and love and finally seduction in the warmth of their shared bed, instead cry in tortured agony and shame.  Breathless, bleeding, bruised and broken, her voice is weak and helpless and utterly shattered as she reaches out a small white hand.  “Matt, I need you...please...  Matt...where are you?”

Panting and wild-eyed, Matt Dillon wakes in a cold sweat, a guttural cry ripped from his throat as he grabs for his gun.  In the darkness outside the halo of the campfire, there is no one to point it at.  He feels powerless.  Impotent. 

Festus scrambles out of his makeshift bed nearby, mouth agape, expression panicked.  “What is it, Matthew?” he hurriedly asks, although he reckons he knows exactly what troubles his friend once he gets a good look at him in the flickering firelight.  Festus saw that very expression on Matt Dillon’s face the day before when he towered over Jude Bonner, a big rock gripped in his powerful hands, preparing to smash in the unrepentant outlaw’s skull.

Festus wholly understands why Matt would want to do such a thing, and truth be told, he wouldn’t have minded one whit killing the filthy scudder outright with his own two bare hands for the unpardonable wrong he’d done to Miss Kitty.  But Festus knew that, once the heated rage had passed, straight-shooter Matt Dillon, who lived and died by the badge and the honor that went along with it, would never forgive hisself for killing an unarmed man. 

Matt hurriedly wipes away the tears mixed with sweat dripping down his haunted features while Festus pretends not to notice.  The lawman winces as he gingerly touches the black eye Bonner has branded him with.  “A dream...” he breathes raggedly.  “Just...a dream...”  Festus has never seen Matt Dillon so torn up. 

But the irony of his own words hits Matt full force in the gut, because this is no mere nightmare to Kitty Russell, he thinks bitterly.  It is all too real.  She is suffering in Doc’s office right now because of what the dog soldiers have done to her.  Across the clearing in the moonlight he sees the shadowy forms of Jude Bonner and the other men who hurt her, bound in ropes and guarded by the many good citizens of Dodge who’d ridden out to help him.  They’d risked their lives to avenge Kitty, the well-loved local saloon keeper with a heart of gold, a beautiful, welcoming smile that melted even men of stern stuff and an infectious laugh that could rattle the very rafters. 

The lurid nightmare images of his lover’s tender, abused body flood the big lawman’s memory once again and he is overwhelmed with a blinding, murderous, red rage.  He rises to his impressive full height, brushing Festus aside, and begins stalking determinedly across the clearing, his gun itching in the palm of his sweaty hand, the hammer tickling his thumb, as Kitty’s bruised and battered face swims into sharp focus in his mind’s eye.  Jude Bonner does not deserve to live. 

Festus’ hand is on his arm as he walks, plucking at his sleeve, his nasally twang first cajoling, then demanding.  “Now, Matthew, think about whut yer doin’...  Matthew, you know this ain’t the answer...” 

But Matt Dillon feels nothing save the rough hands molesting Kitty’s delicate flesh, hears nothing but her defenseless cries, sees nothing except her pleading blue eyes, begging him for help.  Help that never came, he thinks with an anguished groan that he stifles deep in his throat.  I won’t fail her this time, Matt thinks as he closes in on Jude Bonner, gripping his pistol tightly.

tbc

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