Fredrico claimed he’d seen demons dripping from the night sky. He said it like that too: ‘That they were dripping . . .’ Fredrico had always been a little strange, but I was never too certain that he actually believed in the things he talked about. Besides, I was one of the only people he told these things to.

Fredrico’s daddy had beat him a lot when he was small. Luckily, Fredrico’s daddy was killed when he was six; otherwise, I don’t if he would have made it as long as he has. Certainly, he’d been a meek boy . . . he was a meek man too. But nobody deserved getting beatings for no good reason. Kids in high school used to beat up on Fredrico too. He never could defend himself, and, just like a bunch of sharks, they could smell it. I know I’ve taken my share of beatings from getting in the middle. No matter how big they were, I just couldn’t let them do it. For as long as I can remember Fredrico has been my friend, and that meant something. Still, I couldn’t catch them every time, just like I couldn’t count all the times Fredrico’s come up to me with blood dripping out of his face. Just like those demons, I suppose . . . just like the night sky Fredrico liked to talk about.

- - - - - - -

I always humored Fredrico cause he was my friend and all, but I never truly believed in the things he told me. He would sit skeleton-like in an over stuffed chair, his eyes huge and exhausted (I’m not sure if her ever slept), and his brown skin stretched over his bones like parchment. But the words . . . the words tumbled from his lips in a daisy chain of clearness.

It was after such a discussion (Fredrico tried to convince me that the moon landing had been faked), when heading back to my place on the outskirts of town, that I discovered something curious . . .

Here were these bones that looked like concentrated light widdled down to resemble something that might of breathed at one time or another. Right away I could tell they weren’t animal, but I wasn’t quite sure if they were human bones either. The body part was very small, but looked human as far as I could tell. Could have been a child, but the skull of the thing had eye holes carved into it as big around as my fist; and the top of the head was stretched to a slender point. I may not have been the archeology type, but I was pretty sure what I was looking at wasn’t human.

Now, I knew the trail well, but I hadn’t been on it in a couple weeks. There were several routes back to my place, but I guess that makes no difference. The skeleton was what I planned to worry about first hand.

I turned around and headed back to Fredrico’s.

- - - - - - -

"Take me there." Fredrico’s voice trembled like he was scared or something. And when he said it he wasn’t asking.

"Okay," I said. It was really no big deal to me. Sure, I thought it was pretty strange. I’ve lived around these woods my whole life and I didn’t do too good in school, but I was sure there was a logical explanation for what I’d seen and if anyone were to point that out I thought it’d be Fredrico.

Fredrico squinted eyes against the summer sun and I knew he hadn’t been out in it much these days. He was afraid to go outside because of what people might say. He spent most of his time with his face buried in some old book filled with words I could never understand: Books on conspiracies, u.f.o.’s, the occult.

We weren’t even half a mile before Fredrico started complaining about how tired he was getting.

"How much further?"

"Not much," I said.

- - - - - - -

Fredrico had been talking about demons for a very long time. He said that all this talk about u.f.o.’s and alien abduction was nonsense; or, in the very least, a trailer trash hybrid of what he’d been trying to say all along. ‘If people are being abducted like they say,’ he explained, ‘than it’s only in their minds.’ Which was a conspiracy all its own. But one thing he wanted to make clear was that these things people were seeing in the skies, these u.f.o.'s, were actually demons. ‘It goes way back,’ he said, dragging out bits of information (or proof?) from a variety of sources. Hell, Fredrico even claimed that they talked about it in The Bible. All these things were paving the way for the Anti-Christ, or Gog and Magog, or The Pig-Headed Man . . . whoever. They were really one in the same. ‘They’re going to persuade you to follow them,’ he assured me. ‘My advice . . .’ He looked a little smug when he said it: ‘Don’t go.’

- - - - - - -

I pointed out the bones to Fredrico and I thought I could here him crying, but when I turned around he wasn’t.

"The heads funny," I said. "Just like in some of those alien sketches."

Fredrico bent down to get a closer look. His eyes moved queerly over the skeleton. Then his right hand moved shakily from his side and he touched the skull. Now, not only did her cry; he wept . . . and trembled. His fragile body shook all over and his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Fredrico?"

And then he held up his left hand to ward me off.

Finally, he removed his gaze from the skeleton and returned from that contemplative state I knew so well.

"What is it?"

"Evil," he explained. "Pure hatred. A sign."

"What kind?"

Fredrico closed his eyes and opened them again. "The end . . . It’ll be here soon. Unless . . ."

"What?"

"Help me get these bones back to my house."

- - - - - - -

For months after I had nightmares; horrible-terrible, the sky opening up and raining blood. I’ve told Fredrico about them and he assured me that this is healthy-normal . . . But what is healthy-normal to someone like Fredrico? I also asked him about the bones I’d found . . . a couple times actually. The first time he got right of the subject. The second time, because he knew I wouldn’t let up, Fredrico told me he’d buried them deep in the ground and they were never to be dug up.

All I knew was that ever since finding them bones my head hasn’t been screwed on too tight.

"As long as those bones are in the ground," he said, "we’ll be okay." And he showed me where he’d planted them.

There was no marker.

"That way," he said. "No one else can abuse their power. Besides, most of them wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway. "Idiots," he sneered, and I knew he would always be angry about the way people treated him his whole life.

"I don’t understand."

"What?"

"How those bones in the ground will do anything."

"Because they hold power beyond your comprehension. That thing, that demon, was sent here as a cautionary gesture and it remains the most concrete evidence I’ve come across, therefore the core of my entire belief system.

"And the nightmares?"

"You touched them too . . . when we carried them back to my house."

He was right. I did.

- - - - - - -

The month went by quickly. It was a year since I’d found those bones and another summer blazed through the woods around my house. I was sitting out on the front porch carving an apple when I decided that it was a good idea to go down and see what my friend Fredrico was doing these days.

It had been a while. The last time he seemed stranger than ever, and more thin than I’d ever seen him; like the skeleton itself. He still talked about demons dripping out of the night sky and the coming of the Anti-Christ. I, on the other end, was tickled to say that the nightmares were less than a trickle in my mind. Fredrico acted like this was a bad thing. "Don’t go," he reminded me.

In many ways I felt sorry for Fredrico; and it was the last time I would see him . . . alive anyway.

- - - - - - -

The earthquake came in August, summer’s hottest month. I was working on someone’s car. I’ve been a mechanic by trade since dropping out of high school. I’m just glad I wasn’t lying underneath it.

The earth shook hard, but only for a short time . . . twelve seconds to be exact. Nothing really came of it. A few stores in town lost a trifle bit of merchandise, but that was about it.

Well, that and Fredrico.

I went down to check on him cause I knew how meek he was. The quake probably scared the hell out of him. Better make sure he’s getting on okay.

As I approached Fredrico’s house I felt that something has gone wrong. I don’t know why . . . I just could. Maybe it was feelings from the old nightmares returning (by then my mind was completely washed of them).

- - - - - - -

The quake had not dug that hole, I thought; and as I neared it my heart did a little quaking of its own. Sweat covered my face by now and I was scared. I imagined all the things that might be down there. I knew the bones were down there, but what else.

It was horrible, no doubt, but there was no gate to hell as I loosely imagined. Instead, there were two bodies entwined, one gleaming white and the other beginning to decay. The white skeleton lied flat, it’s large oval eyes pointed at the sky. The brown one (might as well call it a skeleton too) was on it’s side, thus embracing the other, its legs jackknifed over the others pale bones.

- - - - - - -

I guess Fredrico knew something I didn’t. He never called me ignorant, but I’m sure he thought it just the same. I guess he didn’t want to lose his only friend. I just don’t know why he was down in the ground with them bones being evil and all. Maybe Fredrico’s curiosity got the best of him.

I’ll be an sure to the ask the Anti-Christ when he comes . . . if he comes.